– The Da Vinci Code has sold so many copies—that would be at least 80 million—that it's bound to turn up in book donation piles. But at one charity shop in the UK, it's been donated so heavily that the shop has posted a sign propped up on a tower of Da Vinci Code copies that reads: "You could give us another Da Vinci Code... but we would rather have your vinyl!" The manager of the Oxfam shop in Swansea tells the Telegraph that people are laughing and taking pictures of the sizable display: "I would say that we get one copy of the book every day." He says people buy them "occasionally," but with vinyl sales up 25% in the past year, they'd rather take records. Dan Brown's book isn't the only one that shops like Oxfam struggle to re-sell. Last year, Oxfam was hit with a large and steady supply of Fifty Shades of Grey, and it similarly begged donors: "Please—no more." But Brown has a particular kind of staying power. The Da Vinci Code was published in 2003, and within six years Brown had booted John Grisham from the No. 1 slot on the list of writers whose books were most often donated to Oxfam's 700 shops, reported the Guardian at the time. The Independent in 2012 reported Brown's best-seller was the most-donated book for the fourth year running. (See why Dan Brown took heat from the Philippines.)
– A major snafu has hit benefit payments to student veterans under the GI Bill—and congressional aides tells NBC that they have been told the veterans are never going to be paid back. The aides say they were told by the Department of Veterans Affairs that the VA will not be making retroactive payments to veterans who were underpaid for their housing allowance because it would mean reviewing around 2 millions claims, further delaying implementation of a new system, which has already been pushed back to Dec. 2019. Under the Forever GI Bill signed into law by President Trump last year, students are supposed to be paid housing allowance based on where they take the most classes, not on where the school's main campus is located. Tanya Ang, vice president of Veterans Education Success, tells the Military Times that the VA's excuse of retroactive payments creating too much work isn't good enough. "That could be hundreds of dollars for some students—per month," she says. "If this was a disability benefit, this would never fly." The issue, which is the result of new legislation being introduced before the VA's outdated computer system could handle it, has contributed to a backlog of claims that has forced some veterans facing financial hardship to abandon their studies, the Tennessean reports. The agency is still working to process more than 58,000 claims, reports the Star Tribune. The paper's editorial board calls the delays a "national disgrace." "Those courageous enough to go into battle should face zero delays in getting the education benefits they’ve earned," they write.
– Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has claimed responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo attack in an online video called "Vengeance for the Prophet: A Message Regarding the Blessed Battle of Paris," the New York Times reports. The group says it "chose the target, laid the plan, and financed the operation" in "a vengeance for the messenger of Allah"—a likely reference to Charlie Hebdo's parodies of the Prophet Muhammad. But while AQAP called the Kouachi brothers "two heroes of Islam," it suggests it wasn't behind the attacks that followed, including on a kosher supermarket. Gunman Amedy Coulibaly's actions were a coincidence, the statement says, calling him simply a "mujahid brother." The Charlie Hebdo attackers claimed to be working for AQAP, while Coulibaly has pledged support for ISIS, the BBC notes. The statement, made by AQAP leader Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, says the attack was an "implementation" of orders from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of the larger al-Qaeda group, Reuters reports. The video also featured an image of the Eiffel Tower dissolving, the Times reports. Meanwhile, today's issue of Charlie Hebdo sold out in minutes.
– Cambridge Analytica is calling it quits. The data firm that worked for now-President Trump's 2016 campaign became embroiled in controversy following revelations that it misused the Facebook data of millions of people, and Nigel Oakes, the founder of its British affiliate SCL, tells the Wall Street Journal both companies are shutting down. A source says the company was losing clients in the wake of the data harvesting scandal and also faced significant legal fees due to the Facebook investigation. Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix had also been suspended in March after video was released showing him bragging about allegedly influencing elections, among other things. The firm is closing effective Wednesday. Gizmodo has an inside look at the lead-up to the conference call announcing its closure, down to the bleak jokes employees made in anticipation of it.
– A lengthy report in the New York Times, based on thousands of documents shared by the Guardian via Edward Snowden, offers an in-depth look at an agency that can "seem omniscient," with eyes everywhere tracking even the smallest matters. The material obtained—whether years of stored text messages, "gigabytes of credit card purchases," or eavesdropped conversations—can be of great value: Scott Shane writes about operations that stopped a terrorist plot against a Swedish illustrator, helped Kennedy International Airport battle Chinese human smugglers, and gave the Colombian Army details of FARC rebel plans. But plenty of collected data is never looked at, despite the effort to obtain it. And some material seems hardly useful; the paper cites the agency's successful grab at UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon's talking points for a meeting with President Obama. Meanwhile, despite the NSA's incredible reach in Afghanistan, it hasn't offered a path to "clear-cut strategic success" in the country, the Times notes. The paper's investigation, while raising a range of key questions, presents a wealth of details on the NSA's functioning; the agency hopes to "utterly master" foreign intelligence and gives great value to "the moral high ground." Click for the full piece.
– Don Juan de Oñate sought a city of gold when he explored what are now the Plains states. It wasn't to be, but according to an interview given by five of his men in 1602, they did find something staggering: a "great settlement" some five miles long that housed at least 20,000 people, an ancestral Wichita Indian town called Etzanoa. But French explorers in the region 100 years later found no sign of those people, sowing confusion among latter-day historians. Donald Blakeslee, an archaeologist with Wichita State University, says he's cleared it all up: Etzanoa did exist, he claims, once thriving where the Walnut and Arkansas Rivers meet in Arkansas City, Kansas. Per a university press release, things got off the ground with a new and more correct transcription of centuries-old Spanish documents by the University of California, Berkeley's Cibola Project. Prior translation errors caused "many archaeological discoveries in the area [to be] misinterpreted," per the release. In 2015, Blakeslee noted that a geographic description of a 1601 ambush described in a Spanish account had to have occurred where the rivers joined. And, indeed, a search there turned up small iron cannon balls, reported the Kansas City Star at the time. If Blakeslee is right, the "long-lost city" would be second only to Cahokia on the list of biggest prehistoric Native American sites, reports the Wichita Eagle. That would be a boon for Arkansas City and its 12,000 residents; some 400,000 flock to the remains of Cahokia, in Illinois, each year. The Kansas House of Representatives thinks Blakeslee is onto something; earlier this month it approved a resolution that formally recognizes Etzanoa based on "the evidence," reports the Courier Traveler. (This man followed a hunch, says he uncovered a lost city.)
– Another bad day for Anthony Weiner: Nancy Pelosi and other top House Democrats told him to resign today, reports Politico. Weiner has insisted he would not do so, but the shift from Pelosi, Steve Israel, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz will ratchet up the pressure significantly. They released statements within minutes of each other. “Congressman Weiner has the love of his family, the confidence of his constituents, and the recognition that he needs help,” said Pelosi. “I urge Congressman Weiner to seek that help without the pressures of being a Member of Congress.” In a metaphor-heavy stroll earlier, Weiner carried his dirty laundry to the laundromat and got quizzed by media along the way in Queens, notes the Daily News. "I'm going to try to redeem myself," said Weiner, who got shouts of support from several people along the way. It came before Pelosi's statement, and Weiner reiterated he had no plans to resign. As for reports of his tweets to a 17-year-old: "She has spoken. I think the record is pretty clear—nothing explicit, nothing indecent, nothing inappropriate."
– An augmented reality startup is being sued for sex discrimination by the very female executive it hired to make it less of a "boy's club," the Guardian reports. When Tannen Campbell was hired by Magic Leap in 2015, the Florida company had no women in leadership roles and its only idea to make its product female-friendly was to release a pink version, according to Forbes. The lawsuit filed by Campbell following her firing in December describes a "macho bullying atmosphere," Business Insider reports. That allegedly includes tolerating sexist and offensive behavior, such as telling new hires to stay away from "Orientals, Old People, and Ovaries" and having the only female character in a centerpiece app "on her knees grovelling at the heroes." Furthermore, Campbell alleges her efforts to change the culture at Magic Leap were consistently thwarted. The lawsuit states Campbell was asked to put together a presentation on the lack of gender diversity at the company, but it took seven months for Magic Leap's chief executive to show up for the presentation, and he left in the middle of it. Campbell says she and other female employees were ignored when giving input on the design of the product and its marketing. The lawsuit, which also alleges a hostile work environment and retaliation, claims the sexist culture at Magic Leap created a "dysfunctional" workplace and is part of the reason the company has yet to actually release a product despite being valued at billions of dollars.
– The length of a man's index and ring fingers have recently been linked from everything to promiscuity and how nice he is to women. The idea is that finger lengths change depending on exposure to testosterone in utero, and it's known as the "2D:4D" ratio. A lower ratio—where the second digit is shorter than the fourth—indicates "greater androgen exposure." In the journal Clinical Anatomy, researchers write that others have previously suggested a link between androgen exposure in the womb and schizophrenia; they take that one step further, hypothesizing the ratio could be predictive of schizophrenia in males. Then they set out to test that hypothesis: In their small study, researchers analyzed the finger lengths of 103 Turkish male patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and 100 healthy male controls. They found "significant differences between schizophrenia and control groups concerning the ratio ... in both hands," the researchers report in a press release. The findings occupy opposite ends of the spectrum: The right-hand 2D:4D ratio was "significantly higher" among the schizophrenia group and the left-hand ratio was "significantly lower"—suggesting the two are opposites, perhaps because testosterone "affects finger ratios differently as it acts in different ways on the left and right hemispheres of the brain," per the study. As for those ratios, the researchers found the size of the ratio in the left hand could indicate the severity of negative symptoms in patients. (A recent study found that schizophrenia isn't actually one disease.)
– A 71-year-old lawyer is suing United Airlines for more than $1 million after an employee knocked him down during an argument two years ago, the Southeast Texas Record reports. According to the Washington Post, the July 21, 2015, incident started when the TSA at Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport wouldn't let Ronald Tigner through due to an illegible boarding pass. According to the lawsuit Tigner filed June 7, he returned to the ticketing area. He says two United employees—Alejandro Anastasia and Ianthe Phillips-Allred—refused to help him there, instead laughing and cursing at him. Tigner's attorney, William Hoke, tells KPRC that when Tigner told Anastasia to "wipe that smile off his face," Anastasia threatened violence. Hoke says surveillance video of what happened next is "one of the most inhumane things I've ever seen." Video shows Anastasia shove Tigner to the ground, where he lies motionless and splayed out for minutes. Hoke says Tigner hit his head on the ground and was knocked unconscious and that United employees stood around looking at Tigner until a passerby finally stopped to help him. "They literally left him there like a piece of garbage," Hoke says. Tigner is suing United, Anastasia, and Phillips-Allred for negligence. The lawsuit claims he was left with "physical disfigurement" and "mental anguish." United says Anastasia's behavior was "unacceptable" and "does not reflect our values." Anastasia was charged with felony injury to an elderly individual and punished with a fine and anger-management classes. He no longer works for United. (United's new flight is a doozy.)
– According to two University of Mississippi researchers, we shouldn't really call chicken nuggets "chicken." That's because the word "chicken" implies meat, and when the researchers dissected two nuggets (from unnamed fast-food chains, but the Atlantic says one was likely a McDonald's McNugget) and analyzed what they actually contained, well... One was 50% muscle (the actual meat) and the other half was mostly fat, along with some blood vessels, some nerves, and "generous quantities of epithelium [from skin of visceral organs] and associated supportive tissue." Totals: 56% fat, 25% carbs, 19% protein. (The breading was not analyzed in either sample.) The other was 40% muscle, plus "generous quantities of fat and other tissue, including connective tissue and bone." Totals: 58% fat, 24% carbs, 18% protein. "Chicken nuggets are mostly fat," the researchers conclude. Adds one, "We've taken a very healthy product—lean, white meat—and processed it, goo-ed it up with fat, sugar, and salt [in the breading]. Kids love that combination." He says he was "astounded" at what he saw, and compares the mix of ingredients to "super glue." Of course, the National Chicken Council begs to differ, with a VP insisting to Reuters that "chicken nuggets are an excellent source of protein, especially for kids who might be picky eaters." And one researcher concedes that some fast-food chains are better than others at using real meat; KFC and Chick-fil-A both claim their nuggets are 100% breast meat.
– Former Colorado Sheriff Patrick Sullivan may not be the only person who has a jail named after him, but he may be the only person to get thrown into a jail named after him. The 68-year-old is suspected of offering meth to a male in exchange for sex, reports AP. He was arrested after a sting at his home, and a judge just doubled his bail to $500,000, according to the Denver Post. Sullivan was sheriff of Arapahoe County from 1984 until he retired in 2002, and he was named Sheriff of the Year by the National Sheriff's Association in 2001. Before his arrest, he was best known for being a bit of an action hero: In 1989, Sullivan crashed his truck through a fence to rescue two deputies being held hostage by a gun-toting man, notes the New York Times.
– The day before vital Democratic primary votes, Bernie Sanders found himself defending his status as a recently added card-carrying member of the Democratic Party. At an MSNBC town hall in Ohio, Sanders, who has served as an independent in Congress for decades, explained that he decided to run for president as a Democrat to gain more media coverage. He said financial reasons were also behind his decision not to launch a presidential bid as an independent, the Hill reports. "If you're a billionaire, you can do that. I'm not a billionaire. So the structure of American politics today is such that I thought the right ethic was to run within the Democratic Party," said Sanders, who stressed that he has caucused with Democrats for 25 years and always opposed right-wing Republicans. At a town hall in Illinois, meanwhile, Hillary Clinton denounced Donald Trump for "inciting mob violence" and dealt with tough questions on trade deals and her vote in favor of invading Iraq. She said George W. Bush claimed that the vote for military authorization wouldn't really lead to war. "I believed George W. Bush when he said we're going to let the inspectors finish the job. 'This vote will give me the leverage,' he claimed, 'to make sure that happens,'" she said. The Washington Post reports that during a commercial break, microphones picked up her chat with host Chris Matthews about the race. She called Donald Trump "candy" that news networks can't stay away from and wondered about Chris Christie's support for the tycoon, asking "Did he have a debt?"
– If Democrats had opposed President George W. Bush’s efforts to protect airplanes, the former president likely would have accused them of not caring about national security, and “Republicans would no doubt be running ads juxtaposing Democrats with Osama bin Laden,” writes Dana Milbank in the Washington Post. But here we are nine years out from 9/11, and it’s the Republicans objecting—“loudly”—to the new TSA procedures. "National security is no longer a higher priority than their interest in undermining President Obama,” he writes in a column that also discusses their opposition to the new arms-control treaty with Russia. Last week on Slate, David Weigel made a similar point: “Before 9/11, the prevailing conservative/libertarian/Republican opinion of the national-security state—of any government effort to protect Americans at the point of a gun and the touch of a rubber glove—was mistrust.” But we’re now in, Milbank writes, “the post-post-9/11 era ,” and “for Democrats, the opposition's gamesmanship with the security should present an opportunity. There's no need to resort to the demagoguery once used against Democrats, but neither would it hurt the White House and congressional Democrats to point out that their opponents are trying to weaken Americans' security.”
– If you're trying to lose weight on a low-fat diet and it's not working, here's why. Refined carbohydrates—found in processed foods like white breads, white rice, and pastas—tend to be loaded with sugar, which messes with our metabolisms, making it harder to burn calories. Eating nearly half your calories via healthy fats, on the other hand—think salmon, avocados, nuts, and vegetable oils—has been shown in a recent study to result in twice as much weight loss as seen in those assigned to low-fat diets. "It's a double-whammy for weight gain," one researcher tells NPR. "We've been told for decades that if you don't want fat on your body, don't put fat into your body. It's a very appealing notion, but the problem is it's wrong." What's more, the researchers say there was no increase in total or bad cholesterol between the groups, which has been feared would be the case in higher-fat diets, reports Reuters. It remains unclear precisely why people on lower-carb diets not only lost more weight but had lower heart disease risk factors. It's something the researchers say will need to be studied more and for longer than the one-year period of this investigation. (Welcome back, butter—even saturated fats might not be as bad as once thought.)
– The iPhone 5 will be available on Sprint's network as well as Verizon's and AT&T's when the new phone is launched, insiders tell the Wall Street Journal. The device will hit the market in mid-October, not next month as many had expected, the sources say. The iPhone 5 deal will provide a major boost for the nation's third-largest carrier, whose bottom line had suffered without the ability to sell iPhones, analysts say. The deal, however, could end up backfiring on Sprint if it improves AT&T's chances of getting the green light from regulators to buy T-Mobile USA. Verizon ditched its unlimited plans not long after it launched its version of the iPhone 4 earlier this year, notes Roger Cheng at CNET, who recommends that Sprint users hop on unlimited data plans now to get "grandfathered in" before the Sprint iPhone arrives.
– The reviews are in for last night's Emmy Awards, and they are not good. (Catch up on what happened here.) One big problem: The In Memoriam segments that seemed to arrive every 20 minutes or so. A sampling of the reactions: The "steady stream of in-memoriam segments ... stopped just long enough for a series of less relevant downers including, but not limited to, a Beatles cover performed by Carrie Underwood, a US-history lesson from Don Cheadle, and a tribute to Liberace by Elton John," writes Julie Miller in Vanity Fair, calling the proceedings "torturous" and "relentlessly depressing." The CBS telecast "was, in a word, a bummer," writes Curt Wagner in the Chicago Tribune. Host Neil Patrick Harris "tried to bring up the energy ... but nothing seemed to help. Every time the show got moving, a tribute cast a pall over the proceedings." The opening sketch was "dreary," the first onstage piece "tiresome," and the whole thing "anemic and often awkward," writes Hank Stuever in the Washington Post. All the jokes seemed to be about the show itself, and then there were the bits that were included because ... why? No one seems to know (think the aforementioned Carrie Underwood performance). "So, to sum up: An awards show filled with skits about how bad awards shows are gave awards to people who talked about how bad the show turned out, while everyone on Twitter had decided that hours earlier." There were lots of unexpected wins, but even so, the whole thing was "a bloated bore," writes David Rooney in the Hollywood Reporter. The "overload of solemnity" and "self-important sobriety" was part of the problem, but the "labored filler segments" were also pretty bad—especially considering they were the reason the "award recipients were played off virtually as soon as they began speaking." Even a long-overdue best drama win for Breaking Bad couldn't save this "plodding, lifeless, and just plain glum" show. Everyone agrees, however, Merritt Wever's acceptance speech was a total highlight.
– A one-of-a-kind dime minted in 1873 sold for $1.6 million at a Philadelphia auction last night, reports AP. The coin depicts a seated Lady Liberty, and it is thought to be the lone survivor from a one-day minting of dimes at the renowned (in coin circles, anyway) mint in Carson City, Nevada. Another 110 coins also went up for auction, one of each coin minted in Carson City before its facility closed in 1893. Total haul: $10 million. Total face value of the coins: About $600, according to USA Today, which has more explanation on why collectors were so bowled over.
– Feel like monogamy is keeping you from an exciting sex life? Take note: An open relationship, with the potential for more sexual partners, does not necessarily mean you'll be more sexually satisfied. That's according to a survey of more than 11,000 people from 28 European countries, aged 18 to 65. In the survey conducted by German research company Dalia in March, 82% of monogamous couples and 80% of married couples reported that they were sexually satisfied, compared to 71% of couples in an open or polyamorous relationship and fewer than half of singles, reports Quartz. Other than singles who are "looking," those in open relationships were actually the most likely to be unsatisfied sexually. Some 22% said they weren't sexually satisfied, compared to 12% of married participants and 11% of monogamous respondents. Interestingly, a University of Michigan survey of some 2,000 people over 25, published in March, found heterosexuals in open relationships were significantly less satisfied with their relationship overall than those in monogamous relationships, reported Michigan Live. On the flip side, though, those in polyamorous relationships reported having higher levels of trust and lower levels of jealousy than their monogamous counterparts. That left researchers to conclude that there is "no net benefit of one relationship style over another." (Americans appear to be having trouble in the bedroom.)
– A member of the anti-government sovereign-citizen movement staged what amounted to a one-man assault today on the courthouse in Forsyth County, Georgia, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But Dennis Marx never made it inside. After opening fire from his pickup, he was shot to death by deputies in a shootout that lasted about 90 seconds, reports CNN. One deputy got shot in the leg but will survive. Marx threw some kind of grenades during his assault, along with "spike strips" apparently intended to keep other vehicles from responding. He also had an assault rifle, a gas mask, a bullet-proof vest, and chillingly, flex ties and water. Those last two suggest he intended to take hostages inside the building. “He came for the purpose of occupying the courthouse,” says Forsyth Sheriff Duane Piper. The sheriff says Marx might have been successful if not for a deputy—the one who got shot—who spotted the gunman as soon as he drove up and engaged him. The situation "was solved (with) that deputy's actions," he says. Marx had been due in court this morning on marijuana and weapons charges, reports WSB-TV. Piper says Marx's home is a "bomb" rigged with booby traps, and it will take some time to clear it.
– "They gutted the stomach. And then they sliced it sideways and up and down." The victim was an inflatable Santa Claus, but more than just a balloon was harmed. A Cincinnati-area neighborhood has been troubled for days over vandals who had been stabbing Christmas decorations put up to bring cheer to a dying 2-year-old. Police say they've now arrested two teens who have admitted to damaging the decorations on Adair Court in the Colerain Township neighborhood, reports the Cincinnati Enquirer. The 16- and 17-year-olds were apprehended early Thursday morning after a resident allegedly saw them in action. WKRC reports the boys have been charged with curfew violations and criminal damaging; one was hit with a charge of fleeing police. No motive was given. The New York Times reports the neighborhood had rallied around Brody Allen after the toddler's parents were told brain cancer would take his life within two months. Shilo and Todd Allen decided to decorate their home for Christmas, a holiday he loves, and neighboring houses did the same. They rallied again when the outdoor inflatables began to be stabbed, patching holes so they could once again come to life.
– Nicole Oulson spoke out yesterday about the shooting death of her husband, Chad, over the small matter of texting in a movie theater. The couple had been on a rare "date night" away from their 22-month-old daughter, "so I was just so excited and looking forward to spending the day with the love of my life," she said at a news conference, per ABC News. During previews at a showing of Lone Survivor, her husband sent one last text to the babysitter, before an argument broke out with Curtis Reeves—who now faces a second-degree murder charge. "And just to think that in the blink of an eye, my whole world just got shattered into a million pieces," she said. "And now I'm left trying to pick them all up and putting them back together." Reeves' lawyers say they'll invoke Florida's Stand Your Ground law—a move that shocked Nicole. "She doesn't understand what he was defending himself over," one of her attorneys told the Tampa Bay Times. While Oulson hasn't ruled out suing the theater where the shooting took place, experts say it would mean proving the shooting was "foreseeable and preventable." But one notes that if a report of Reeves previously threatening other movie-goers checks out, "then I think the movie theater likely had some kind of a higher duty than just to let this guy keep coming back in." Some $20,000 has so far been donated to the Oulson family. "It's hard and it's so unbearable," Nicole said. "But I want to thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers."
– And now the cast of characters in the David Petraeus scandal is a bit more complete: The FBI agent whose investigation into emails sent to his pal Jill Kelley eventually exposed the whole sordid mess has been identified by the New York Times as 47-year-old Frederick Humphries. Career highlight: He helped foil the 1999 millennium bombing plot. (An old Seattle Times story has details, along with photos of him.) Quote that explains a lot: “Fred is a passionate kind of guy," says an ex-colleague. "He’s kind of an obsessive type. If he locked his teeth onto something, he’d be a bulldog.” About that shirtless photo: Yes, he sent such a photo to Kelley years ago, but it was harmless fun, says his lawyer. “It was sent as part of a larger context of what I would call social relations in which the families would exchange numerous photos of each other." Meanwhile, CNN reports that Paula Broadwell has lost the security clearance she had before the scandal broke. The development comes after the Pentagon revoked a special ID held by Kelley that enabled her to visit MacDill Air Force Base without a military escort, notes the Tampa Bay Times.
– An Afghanistan vet sentenced to a night in jail for a probation violation found himself with an unusual cellmate for the night: the judge who sentenced him. District Court Judge Lou Olivera, who runs a special treatment court for troubled veterans in North Carolina, tells ABC 11 that while former Green Beret Sgt Joe Serna had to be held accountable for lying about a urine test, he worried about what effect a night alone in a cell might have on the vet, who served three tours of duty in Afghanistan and suffers from PTSD. "When Joe first came to turn himself in, he was trembling," Olivera, a fellow vet who served in the Gulf War, tells the Fayetteville Observer. "I decided that I'd spend the night serving with him." The jailer brought in extra mats so that the judge could sleep on the floor of the one-bunk cell. Serna, who ended up in the treatment court after struggles with alcohol and a DWI charge, says he was amazed when he realized the judge was going to stay the night. They spent the night talking about their families and their military service. "It was more of a father-son conversation as opposed to a judge talking to someone and sentencing them," Serna tells WRAL. "It was personal." Olivera says his court is like a "family" and he would do the same to help other vets in the program. "They have worn the uniform and we know they can be contributing members of society," he says. "We just want to get them back there." (This group of wounded vets is helping law enforcement hunt child predators.)
– The Vatican is taking steps toward fixing its long-troubled history with the Jewish faith with the Thursday release of a 10,000-word document that instructs Catholics to help Jews fight anti-Semitism instead of trying to convert them, Reuters reports. The Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews explained that Catholicism and Judaism shared the same origins and that "the Church is therefore obliged to view evangelization ... to Jews … in a different manner from that to people of other religions and world views." The document continues that "while affirming salvation through an explicit or even implicit faith in Christ, the Church does not question the continued love of God for the chosen people of Israel," NPR notes. The report also broaches the Holocaust, noting Catholics should be more sensitive to perceptions that the Vatican looked the other way, as well as help combat anti-Semitism. "A Christian can never be an anti-Semite, especially because of the Jewish roots of Christianity," it reads. The new mandate falls in line with Pope Francis' other progressive policies, including steps on homosexuality and divorce. The Jewish director of Cambridge's Woolf Institute, which conducts interfaith research, emphasized that Catholic youth shouldn't be taught Christianity had "replaced and substituted" Judaism, Reuters notes. Both sides need to "ensure the transformation in relations is not limited to the elite, but extends from the citadels of the Vatican to the pews of the Church, as well as from the offices of the chief rabbis to the floors of our synagogues," he adds. (Francis had big things to say about fossil fuel emissions on Thanksgiving Day.)
– Examples of bad judgment abound in some of the public apologies making headlines this week: Out of bounds: "It was a mistake to use an old joke about Joe Biden during his time of grief, and I sincerely apologize."—Ted Cruz, after publicly mocking the VP just days after his son died. Dangerous soda? "Ms. Ahmad was our customer and we apologize to her for what occurred on the flight."—United Airlines, after a flight attendant refused to give a Muslim passenger a can of Diet Coke for fear it would be used "as a weapon." (She says her non-Muslim seatmate got a can of beer without any trouble.) Casting call: “Thank you so much for all the impassioned comments regarding the casting of the wonderful Emma Stone in the part of Allison Ng. I have heard your words and your disappointment, and I offer you a heart-felt apology to all who felt this was an odd or misguided casting choice."—Cameron Crowe, for casting Stone to play an Asian-American character in Aloha. That's harassment? "And while we have apologized to the student directly, we also want to publicly apologize for her behavior, which is not representative of KSU’s student-centered culture.” —Kennesaw State University, after one of its advisers was captured in a viral video accusing a student of harassment and calling campus police, all because he was waiting around for an adviser to become available. The adviser has to undergo training. Oh, George: "To Heidi, I personally apologize. You are a sweetheart. ... She was generous and gracious and I am so mad at myself for retelling this story in any way that would diminish her."—Jason Alexander, after the Seinfeld alum said the cast didn't like the character of Susan, played by Heidi Swedberg, and that's the reason she was killed off.
– Celebs are excellent at promoting themselves, so why not move into other products? Here are 10 stars who were bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, courtesy of the Street. Jessica Alba: The actress's company The Honest Co. sells health-oriented and environmentally conscious baby products such as diapers, shampoo, and household cleaners. Ashton Kutcher: He's a creative director for Ooma, a VoIP service, and has contributed seed money to an array of tech start-ups. Sammy Hagar: The former Van Halen singer launched a successful chain of mountain bike stores, bought a night club, and earned $80 million after selling a stake in his tequila company. Clint Eastwood: Dirty Harry owns a ranch resort and golf club in California. Check out the rest of the list here.
– Cedric Anderson had threatened his estranged wife before, but nobody realized how dangerous he really was until he opened fire in her San Bernardino classroom on Monday, police say. San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said Tuesday that Anderson, 53, who killed Karen Smith and an 8-year-old special-needs student before shooting himself, was allowed to go to Smith's classroom at North Park Elementary School because staff members recognized him, the San Bernardino Sun reports. Burguan says Smith, who separated from Anderson in March after less than three months of marriage, only told close family members that he had threatened her. "She effectively kept her private life private," the chief says. The chief adds that Smith, who had moved back in with her adult children, believed Anderson's threats were only a cry for attention. The 8-year-old boy killed as he stood behind Smith has been identified as Jonathan Martinez, who had the genetic condition Williams syndrome, which causes developmental delays, the Desert Sun reports. School district Superintendent Dale Marsden says Jonathan's parents, who described him as a happy boy, want his death to spread awareness of the disease. A GoFundMe campaign to help the boy's family raised nearly $100,000 by the end of Tuesday. Marsden says a 9-year-old boy hit in the upper body by a bullet who was hospitalized in critical condition is "up and watching cartoons" and is expected to make a full recovery.
– Tom Brokaw revealed today that he has cancer—but doctors are optimistic about his recovery, reports CNN. The 74-year-old "was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer affecting blood cells in the bone marrow," back in August at the Mayo Clinic, says NBC. Brokaw has continued to work on network projects since then while undergoing treatment. “With the exceptional support of my family, medical team, and friends, I am very optimistic about the future and look forward to continuing my life, my work, and adventures still to come," he said in a statement. “I remain the luckiest guy I know.” He also asked for privacy. A memo from the network's bosses to staffers echoed the positive assessment, notes the Hollywood Reporter. "We all love Tom dearly and so we are pleased to let you know that he and his physicians are very encouraged with the progress he is making. We are also fortunate he will be able to continue the outstanding work that he does for NBC News." Click to read the American Cancer Society's primer on multiple myeloma.
– In a sort of odd pot-meets-kettle situation, a Guardian investigations editor who was on the team that helped blow the lid on the News of the World scandal himself admitted to hacking ... in 2006. Following NotW royal editor Clive Goodman’s guilty plea, David Leigh wrote that he had hacked phones on the job, though his goal was to catch out "bribery and corruption," not "tittle tattle." "I’ve used some of those questionable methods myself over the years," he wrote. "I, too, once listened to the mobile phone messages of a corrupt arms company executive—the crime similar to that for which Goodman now faces the prospect of jail." “There is certainly a voyeuristic thrill in hearing another person’s private messages,” he continued, saying the man he was investigating had left his PIN on a document. Yesterday, a rep for the paper said that “the Guardian does not and has not authorized phone hacking," the Metro reports. Meanwhile, the scandal continues to spread: A number of alleged hacking victims are preparing to sue another newspaper group, Trinity Mirror PLC, where Piers Morgan used to work, the AP reports. Click through for more on Leigh's admission.
– Some observers believe Stonehenge was once a full circle of enormous stones—and now there seems to be proof there are even more Neolithic monuments underneath it. A lot of them: Radar mapping that's peeked as far as 2 miles beneath the surface has uncovered an elaborate subterranean network of 17 monuments, plus evidence of more than 50 big stones that are around the same age as the above-ground versions, Gizmodo reports. The stones, which are being called a "super henge," are part of the already-excavated Durrington Walls dirt bank and are "a big prehistoric monument which we never knew anything about," one of the project's archaeologists tells Nature. The discovery was made by researchers with the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project, which has been using geophysical info to "create a highly detailed archaeological map of the 'invisible' landscape." This includes the "Cursus," a 2-mile-long pit with sections that line up with the summer solstice sunrise and sunset, and the 1-mile-round "super henge," riddled with holes where 10-foot-long stones once sat—some are still there. Researchers still don't know what the place was, with Smithsonian Magazine suggesting everything from a temple or parliament to a graveyard. (Read about a Stonehenge mystery that may have finally been solved.)
– Investigators are still trying to identify 28 "savagely slaughtered" bodies found in mass graves outside the Mexican city of Iguala—but they fear they have found evidence of an atrocity carried out by local police with ties to organized crime. Six students were killed when a group of students clashed with police in the city in Guerrero state late last month, and DNA tests will be carried out on the badly burned bodies that have been recovered to discover whether they are among the 43 students, mostly men in their early 20s, who went missing after the incident, reports the Los Angeles Times. The state's chief prosecutor says it could take up to two weeks to identify the bodies found in the graves, which were found after an anonymous tip. Some 22 local police officers are among more than 30 people who have been arrested over the incident, and the city's mayor and police chief are now fugitives, the BBC reports. The teachers' college the students attended is known for militant protests, and the discovery of the graves sparked a huge protest in the state capital from parents and around 2,000 supporters, who put a huge banner saying, "You took them alive, we want them returned alive" over the highway linking Mexico City and Acapulco, reports the AP.
– In what Angelika Graswald's lawyer considers a suspiciously frank confession, prosecutors testified yesterday that she told investigators she tampered with her fiance's kayak and it "felt good knowing he was going to die." Assistant District Attorney Julie Mohl told a bail hearing that Graswald felt trapped in her relationship with Vincent Viafore and stood to gain $250,000 from life insurance policies, the AP reports. According to Mohl, Viafore managed to cling to his boat for up to 10 minutes after it capsized on their April 19 voyage on the Hudson River, but Graswald didn't place a call to 911 until 20 minutes after the capsizing—and witnesses saw her deliberately capsize her own kayak. Bail was set at $3 million, the New York Daily News reports. After the hearing, Graswald's lawyer said there seemed to be "a really big difference" between the "inconsistencies" police spoke of when she was charged with murder earlier this month and the outright confession Mohl spoke of at the hearing, which he thinks may have been coerced, the New York Times reports. Graswald is from Latvia and her lawyer tells the Poughkeepsie Journal there was a "very clear language barrier" when she spoke to investigators. Before the hearing, the lawyer defended some suspicious social media posts and diary entries from his client. Police in Poughkeepsie say a body was pulled from the Hudson River yesterday, but they haven't confirmed it's Viafore, the Times reports.
– President Trump will want to avoid Stephen Colbert's show more than ever this week. The CBS host launched "Russia Week" on Monday night following his visit to the country, per the Hollywood Reporter. Colbert will be airing pieces from his trip all week, and his first was on his visit to a Colbert-like figure in Russia, TV host Ivan Urgant. Colbert appeared on Urgant's Russian show, where he mocked Trump, drank vodka, and announced his own supposed bid for the White House in 2020. "I thought it would just be better to cut out the middle man and just tell the Russians myself: If anyone would like to work on my campaign in an unofficial capacity, please, just let me know," he said, per Entertainment Weekly. (See the video here.) His monologue, meanwhile, focused on the travails of Donald Trump Jr. At one point, he made reference to reports of how the number of people in attendance at last year's now-famous meeting continues to grow. "This is the first time a Trump has lied about having a smaller crowd size," he said. (See that here.)
– Google CEO Sundar Pichai planned to address the controversy over an anti-diversity memo at an all-employee town hall meeting—but he called it off after workers said they were worried about online harassment. Pichai said questions from employees had been leaked and their identities had been published on alt-right websites, exposing them to online harassment, CNN reports. "Googlers are writing in, concerned about their safety and worried they may be 'outed' publicly for asking a question in the Town Hall," the CEO said in a letter to employees seen by Recode. He promised to "create a better set of conditions for us to have the discussion" at some point in the near future. The controversy exploded after memo author James Damore was fired for arguing that biological differences make women unsuited to some tech jobs. After canceling Thursday's meeting, Pichai spoke at an event for girls on the Google campus, addressing teams of young coders from around the world, the Verge reports. It's important that "more women and girls have the opportunity ... to learn how to code, create, and innovate," he said. "I want you to know that there's a place for you in this industry, there's a place for you at Google," he added. "Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. You belong here and we need you." (Damore says he was "punished" and "shamed" for trying to "improve" the company.)
– Herman Cain is being dishonest in touting his “9-9-9” plan, positioning it as some kind of tax cut, when “in reality tens of millions of lower income Americans would face tax increases,” Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler has concluded, giving Cain three out of four Pinocchios. The plan would replace the tax code with a 9% corporate tax, 9% income tax and 9% federal sales tax, which would amount to a big tax cut for the wealthy, who spend little of their income, but a big tax increase for most other families, since it eliminates the deductions they rely on. “Just like it would be wrong to claim pizza is a low-calorie meal, Cain’s description of the plan’s impact on working Americans is highly misleading,” Kessler concludes. The plan was dealt another blow yesterday when one of Cain’s own consultants told Politico that, contrary to Cain’s assertions in the debate, the plan was not practical, because it’s “so alien to the current system that it would be a great shock,” and that while it was a fine plan economically, it “wouldn’t be the one I picked."
– Almost two weeks after she was rushed to the hospital following an apparent overdose, Demi Lovato broke her silence with an emotional Instagram post Sunday. "I have always been transparent about my journey with addiction," she wrote. "What I've learned is that this illness is not something that disappears or fades with time. It is something I must continue to overcome and have not done yet." Lovato, who has spoken openly in the past about her struggles with mental illness and drug and alcohol abuse, has been hospitalized since July 24, when she was reportedly treated with medication to reverse an opioid overdose. The 25-year-old singer thanked her fans, her family, and the staff at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, People notes. "Without them, I wouldn't be here writing this letter to all of you," she wrote. "I now need time to heal and focus on my sobriety and road to recovery. The love you have all shown me will never be forgotten and I look forward to the day where I can say I came out on the other side," she wrote. "I will keep fighting." Sources tell E! News that Lovato, "scared but grateful to be alive," will be leaving the hospital in the near future and going straight to a rehab facility.
– Two men accused of finding a Washington woman's body when they burglarized her home, then hiding the body and assuming her identity, have been arrested, a Pierce County sheriff's spokesman says. "It's a bizarre story with a lot of moving pieces," Ed Troyer said yesterday. The two men, 57 and 46, were arrested on multiple counts of theft and identity theft, KOMO-TV of Seattle reported. They're expected in court on Monday. Investigators think the 63-year-old Graham woman died recently of natural causes while unloading horse feed from her truck, the News Tribune reported. Her horse was found dead on the property Wednesday, apparently of starvation and exposure. The two men are accused of going to the home to burglarize it sometime after the woman died, finding her body and removing it. "Instead of running away or making an anonymous phone call, they took the body away and wrapped it up and hid it on their property under a bale of hay," Troyer told the newspaper. The woman's co-workers reported her missing June 20. A few days later, one man is accused of using the woman's identity and credit cards. Her credit union alerted officials to the activity. Troyer said that information led officers to the two men. Officers searched the men's home with cadaver dogs and found the woman's body. Detectives think the burglary happened before the missing person report was filed, and that the house was a random target and the men were not involved in her death. "We were able to backtrack that these guys were actually burglars and thieves and not murderers," Troyer said. "But still, pretty creepy... the whole thing's totally bizarre."
– And now for something frothy on the campaign trail: President Obama is pretty certain he's "eye candy," at least when it comes to the women on The View. But forget anything serious, ladies. He spent part of his appearance, scheduled to air today, holding hands with the First Lady, notes Politico. Obama shrugged off possible criticisms that he should be attending to international diplomacy with world leaders gathered for the annual opening of the UN General Assembly in New York instead of showing up on The View. "I told folks I'm just supposed to be eye candy here for you guys," Obama quipped to the five female co-hosts. As the show was being taped, Hillary Clinton was in the city meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, notes the Times. But Obama, for the time being, was sticking to family issues, and talked about how Michelle can make him mad "when she's being thoroughly unreasonable," he joked. Someone no doubt making him mad for real was Mitt Romney, who hammered Obama yesterday on the Mideast, particularly on his handling of the lethal attack on the US consulate in Libya earlier this month. "These are not bumps in the road; these are human lives,” Romney said yesterday in Colorado, referring to the president's own words concerning problems in the region. “This is time for a president who will shape events in the Middle East." White House press secretary Jay Carney called the attacks “desperate” and “offensive” attempts by Romney in a race he's losing. Carney might dismiss criticism over Libya, but questions linger.
– A historic victory for the separatist Parti Quebecois was marred by an attack on a victory rally for premier-elect Pauline Marois. A man opened fire during her victory speech, killing one person and critically wounding another, reports CTV. The suspect, a man in his 50s, then started a fire and ran away. He was pursued by firefighters and held until police arrived. Witnesses reported hearing the man say—in French—"That's enough" and "The Anglos are waking up," the Globe and Mail reports. After nine years in opposition, the Parti Quebecois won a minority mandate in the Canadian province's election. Leaders have promised to confront the federal government and win more powers for the province. Another pro-independence referendum is a possibility, although polls show support for independence is much lower than in 1995, when the pro-independence side lost a referendum by a margin of just 1%. "I have convictions and I am going to defend them," Marois said during her victory speech. "There will be a referendum when the Quebec population wants a referendum."
– What car should you buy if you're hoping to avoid tickets? Apparently not the Nissan 350Z. OK, to be fair, it's probably not the car's fault—but people who buy that car are more prone to traffic violations, a new survey from Insurance.com finds. The five cars with the "highest percentage of recently-ticketed drivers" between February 2014 and February 2016: Nissan 350Z: 33% Lexus ES 300: 33% Dodge Charger SE/SXT: 32% Volkswagen Jetta GL: 31% Chevrolet Monte Carlo LS/LT: 31% And the five cars with the lowest percentage of ticketed drivers during that period: Buick Encore: 3% Lexus IS350: 3% Acura ILX: 6% Cadillac ATS: 6% Chevrolet Express: 8% See Insurance.com for the full list in each category, or read about 8 celebs who lived in their cars before their big breaks.
– Russian investigators promise to find the gunmen who murdered Boris Nemtsov within sight of the Kremlin, and the president of Ukraine thinks they won't have far to look. Petro Poroshenko says Nemtsov was poised to release evidence proving that Russia was playing a big role in the Ukraine conflict despite Vladimir Putin's assertions to the contrary, reports Reuters. "He said he would reveal persuasive evidence of the involvement of Russian armed forces in Ukraine," says Poroshenko. "Someone was very afraid of this. ... They killed him." Russian investigators, meanwhile, said they were looking at a range of motives, including the idea that enemies of Putin killed Nemtsov "as a provocation to destabilize the political situation in the country," reports the New York Times. They also made a point to say they would look into his personal life, and state TV emphasized that the 55-year-old was walking with a much younger model when he was shot to death, reports AP. Putin himself sent a message to Nemtsov's mother promising that "everything will be done so that the organizers and perpetrators of a vile and cynical murder get the punishment they deserve.” It did not mention that in a recent interview, Nemtsov talked about how his mother was "truly scared" that Putin would have him killed because of his unrelenting criticism of the Kremlin. Nemtsov supporters plan a march in Moscow tomorrow.
– Scientists studying fossilized bones originally discovered in Tanzania in the 1930s may have revealed Earth's oldest known dinosaur, LiveScience reports. Nyasasaurus parringtoni lived between 240 million and 245 million years ago, some 10 million to 15 million years earlier than any other dinosaurs previously discovered. Researchers stopped short of calling the Nyasasaurus the earliest dinosaur, because just six vertebrae and an upper arm bone are available to study, but numerous clues indicate the beast is, in fact, a dinosaur. "There was this big gap in the fossil record where dinosaurs should've been present and this fossil neatly fills that gap," the study co-author tells the BBC. Paleontologists have long believed dinosaurs existed in the Middle Triassic period, the era from which this fossil dates. If it is indeed a dinosaur, this fossil shows that dinosaurs started out "as a very insignificant group of reptiles" before exploding into the dominant life form on Earth millions of years later, the co-author says. Nyasasaurus probably stood upright and was seven to 10 feet long.
– A Nazi-era art hoarder who died yesterday has left his entire $1.3 billion collection to the Bern Art Museum—which now has the unenviable task of deciding who owns which paintings, the BBC reports. Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of Adolf Hitler's art dealer, had no close relatives and named the museum his "unrestricted and unfettered sole heir." The museum said the news struck "like a bolt from the blue"—especially since it had no relationship with Gurlitt—but the "magnificent bequest" comes with "a considerable burden and a wealth of questions." Gurlitt had already agreed that paintings known to be looted must go to the victims' present-day heirs; other works, acquired before the Nazis took power, can stay with the museum. "But in between the two categories are hundreds of paintings which may be disputed," writes Stephen Evans in a BBC analysis. A website has been created for claimants to see the art collection, NBC News reports, and an art recovery expert representing claimants in the case says he likes Gurlitt's will—because, he tells the Guardian, "the museum is bound by international codes of ethics regarding looted artworks as well as the Washington principles on Nazi-confiscated art."
– Dave Brockie—or Oderus Urungus, as he was known onstage as frontman for heavy metal band Gwar—was found dead in his home last night. He was 50. The cause of death has not yet been determined, but foul play is not suspected, Style Weekly reports. Police were called to the residence in Richmond, Va., for a report of a dead person; Pitchfork reports that a bandmate found him. "Dave was one of the funniest, smartest, most creative and energetic persons I've known," former Gwar bassist Mike Bishop tells Style. "He was brash sometimes, always crass, irreverent, he was hilarious in every way. But he was also deeply intelligent and interested in life, history, politics, and art." Brockie founded Gwar, known for its vulgar lyrics and over-the-top costumes, 30 years ago. The band's lead guitarist died on its tour bus in 2011, adds People.
– President Obama will "pardon" a pair of turkeys today and send them to live at Mount Vernon, and if that gives you a case of the warm fuzzies, you should know that both "Caramel" and "Popcorn" will probably be dead within the year. Every turkey the president has ever pardoned is dead, including the two pardoned last year, CNN points out, with one only lasting until February. In the two previous years, three of the four died in less than five months (the other held out an impressive 16 months). The reason: The birds are bred for food, not longevity. Their normal-sized internal organs can only hold up to their carefully engineered bulk for so long. A spokesman for the National Turkey Federation, the lobbying group that provides the birds, says they have "a life expectancy of about 18 weeks. They are not raised as pets." It's one reason Brad Plumer at the Washington Post wants to end the pardon—the others being that it mocks real presidential pardons, and isn't nearly the historic tradition it pretends to be. Of course, at this point columns decrying the pardon are becoming a tradition of their own.
– It's been an eventful first two days for the Rio Olympics, but probably not in the way organizers were hoping. Brazilian police say an officer shot and killed a 22-year-old man who was attacking people as they left Maracana stadium Friday following the opening ceremony, USA Today reports. According to AFP, the man was mugging people. But reporters at the scene say it happened completely differently. They say people ducked for cover when gunshots rang out as thousands of people left the stadium. They then saw the shooter running into a nearby car and driving off. On Saturday, the Brazilian military executed a controlled explosion near the finish line of the men's road cycling race. They were blowing up a suspicious bag that had been left unattended, the Guardian reports. Officials say the bag may have belonged to a homeless man, but they had to take precautions. The racers were 60 miles away at the time, but the explosion "stunned" people hoping to watch the end of the race, according to AFP. The Sydney Morning Herald reports a bullet came ripping through the media room at the Deodora equestrian center and landed near a photographer Saturday. No one was hurt, but the bullet left a hole in the tent's roof. The venue is near a military base, and it's possible the bullet was accidentally fired toward the venue by someone on the base.
– Feel like you're working too much? Consider moving to Europe: Europeans work 19% fewer hours than US workers, or about one hour less per weekday, a new paper finds. Researchers looked at three labor-force surveys from the US and Europe to find out how many hours a person works, on average, in various countries. They found that Americans work an average of 1,353 hours per year, the highest number of the 19 countries studied, Fortune reports. Compare that to Italy, where each person only works an average of 960 hours per year, the lowest number of hours of any country studied. Americans are also retiring later, taking less vacation time, and, as Quartz reports, are more likely to work odd hours, such as the middle of the night or weekends. As recently as the early 1970s, US and Western European workers actually clocked about the same number of hours, Bloomberg reports. It's not clear what's changed or how to account for the discrepancy, but some economists point to the fact that there's more incentive to work harder for a promotion in the US, because people earn a wider range of incomes there than in Europe, so it's more likely they'll get a significant raise. There's also the fact that taxes are significantly higher in Europe, meaning that there's less of an incentive to work more hours and earn more money that will be taxed. Finally, there's the fact that labor unions and worker protections are stronger in Europe, and pensions are more generous there.
– Residents of a Syrian town trapped in the nation's civil war are finally getting some desperately needed relief: UN convoys with food and medicine headed to Madaya on Monday, reports the BBC. Shocking stories have emerged about the plight of the estimated 40,000 people there. Doctors Without Borders says 28 people—including six babies—have starved to death since December 1, with another 250 people currently suffering from "acute malnutrition." The situation has become so dire that residents have resorted to eating cats, reports NBC News. The convoys also will deliver supplies to two other villages in northern Syria, reports the AP, and the New York Times has a more in-depth piece explaining what's happening. Madaya is controlled by anti-government forces but encircled by government troops, and the UN struck a deal last week to allow the aid. The bigger problem is that about 400,000 Syrians are believed to be trapped in similar situations elsewhere. "Using hunger as a weapon flies in the face of international law," notes the analysis. "Yet global and regional powers—like Russia, Iran, the United States and Saudi Arabia—are unable or unwilling to pressure their battlefield allies."
– A computer found at Adam Lanza's home had been smashed and the hard drive damaged with a hammer or screwdriver, and investigators now say they have been unable to recover data from it that could shed light on the motive for the Connecticut school shooting, reports the New York Times. The computer was among large amounts of evidence seized from the home Lanza shared with his mother as part of a painstaking investigation that is expected to take months, ABC reports. Experts had earlier told ComputerWorld that the recovery effort would depend on whether Lanza knew enough to break, scratch, or puncture the drive platters. "If the drive's platters aren't smashed they can put them into another drive and read them," the CEO of forensics data recovery firm Kessler International says. "But if he broke the platters, the likelihood of data recovery is slim to none." "It looked like he took steps to damage it—he smashed it," confirmed an official to the Times.
– The planet now has more than 1,000 UNESCO World Heritage Sites: places "of outstanding value to humanity" that UNESCO helps to safeguard and preserve. The World Heritage Committee wrapped up its 38th session on Wednesday by adding 26 sites to its list and expanding four more; that list now clocks in at 1,007 sites, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Number 1,000, the Guardian reports, is Botswana's Okavango Delta, a wetland that's home to elephants and white and black rhinoceroses. Other highlights among the new selections: Four archaeological sites that date to between 500 AD and 1500 AD in the Diquis Delta, Costa Rica, and feature stone spheres whose origins are a mystery, LiveScience reports. France's Grotte Chauvet, site of the world's oldest figurative drawings. The pictures, found in 1994, date back some 30,000 to 32,000 years. The vineyards of Piedmont, Italy, where wine has been made since the fifth century BC. The white cliffs known as Stevns Klint, Denmark. A layer of ash in the cliffs is believed to be tied to a meteorite that made impact off the coast of Mexico and is thought to have killed the dinosaurs. Louisiana's monumental earthworks of Poverty Point, which include five mounds made of earth between 3700 and 3100 BC and mark the 22nd US World Heritage site; their "earthen construction … was not surpassed for at least 2,000 years" in North America, UNESCO said. See the full list here, which also now includes a remarkable road.
– The wife of actor Nick Stahl, who starred as John Connor in Terminator 3, has reported him missing. Stahl’s wife filed the police report Monday and says she last saw her husband, 32, on May 9, TMZ reports. Sources say Stahl had been spending time in downtown LA’s Skid Row, raising fears he may have gotten caught up in a bad situation, and his wife is also concerned drugs are involved in some way. People notes the couple has been separated since January. A glance at a couple of TMZ’s related stories on Stahl indicates he’s had a troubled past: "Terminator 3 Star's Wife: I'm Worried My Hubby Will Be On Drugs Around Our Kid" "Terminator 3 Star Nick Stahl—Arrested for Stiffing Cabbie"
– Charlie Gard's death seems inevitable, but what is yet to be decided is how it will occur, with the infant's parents and London's Great Ormond Street Hospital still at odds. A lawyer says Connie Yates and Chris Gard, who on Monday ended their legal battle to move their 11-month-old son to the US for experimental treatment of mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, want to take Charlie home where he can die in "tranquility" after "a short period of time," report the Telegraph and Reuters. In court on Tuesday, however, the lawyer cited "difficulties the hospital has placed in the way of the parents' wish," per the Guardian, which notes Charlie had been expected to be taken off life support at the hospital within a few days. A rep countered that the hospital would be willing to grant the parents' request if "practical, possible, and safe, and in Charlie's interests so that he comes to no harm." However, she says Charlie's parents have proposed no plan and the hospital is unable to provide a medical team to care for Charlie for the amount of time requested at home; the exact time requested isn't known, but Charlie's parents previously said the boy wasn't expected to live to see his first birthday on Aug. 4. The hospital rep also says Charlie's parents have refused mediation offers "for reasons Great Ormond Street will never know." After hearing from both sides in High Court on Tuesday, the presiding judge suggested a settlement would be appropriate.
– Louis CK went to all the trouble of making his web show, Horace and Pete, and then not as many people purchased it as he'd expected ... leaving the comedian several million dollars in debt, Vulture reports. Louis CK explained to Howard Stern Monday that he spent $2 million to make the first four episodes, and he figured enough people would buy those that the rest of the season would then be funded. That didn't happen, so "I had to take out a line of credit" to finish the 10-episode season, Louis CK said. "I'm millions of dollars in debt right now." "I didn't promote the show, I didn't tell anybody about it, because here's the thing," Louis CK said. "I got so excited by the idea of having a show appear from nothing." He said his plan now is to massively promote the show, which is why he was on Stern's show, in the hopes that he'll sell a bunch of episodes. If you want to help, you can buy them here, at $5 for the first episode, $2 for the second, and $3 each for the rest. Louis CK thinks they're worth it—"I think it's the best thing I ever did," he says of the show. (Here are 23 things you probably didn't know about Louis CK's other show, Louie.)
– Herman Cain has an Independence Day gift for America: his own web TV network. Chock-full of "real American" political videos, CainTV.com's programming ranges from animated features to documentaries, Reuters reports. "They think we are stupid," the former candidate says in one clip, "Give a Lamb a Gun," about gun control and the Fast and Furious scandal (watch here). "We are not stupid," a banner declares. Adds Cain: "We the people are coming, and we want our power back." The press coverage in the lead-up to today's big debut has been as, well, quirky as the one-time candidate himself. ("Herman Cain's New TV Network Is Blowing Our Minds" headlines a HuffingtonPost article). Writing for Yahoo, Mike Krumboltz notes that he's not really sure if CainTV is supposed to be a network or a website ... or "some video that a kid made on iMovie." But based on the teaser, Cain is definitely after a big audience, writes Krumboltz. "There are cartoons that rip President Obama. There's a documentary on border dangers. And there is a man named Kivi dancing across the stage with an odd accent." Now how can you pass that up?
– The Emmys helped Sean Spicer "rebrand," according to CNN—but apparently not enough. The five major news networks have passed on the opportunity to have the former White House press secretary as an exclusive paid contributor, reports NBC News. Spicer's representatives had brought the proposal to CBS News, CNN, Fox News, ABC News, and NBC News, but none were receptive, NBC reports, citing insiders who referred to Spicer's "lack of credibility." That doesn't mean Spicer won't be gracing your TV screens shortly. Insiders tell NBC that major networks may be willing to host him, just not exclusively. There might also be a Spicer reality show in the works, one source says. Spicer has already signed with Worldwide Speakers Group to manage his paid speaking engagements. He also has a gig as a visiting fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School, the New York Times previously reported. But even Harvard is taking flak. "I know people who were offered opportunities to lie for Donald Trump and quietly declined. Harvard & The Emmys calling the wrong folks," Tim Miller, a former Jeb Bush spokesman, tweeted, per CNN. President Trump, meanwhile, took to Twitter late Tuesday to bash the Emmy ratings, which he called "the worst ever," reports Politico. The show drew 11.4 million viewers, slightly more than the all-time low of 11.3 million in 2016.
– Micheal Brown heard back from the first college in December. The Houston 12th-grader was accepted to Stanford, a school he'd imagined attending for years; his mom filmed his joyful reaction. Since then, he's been accepted to every single one of the 20 universities to which he applied—some of the country's best, from four Ivy League schools to small and "highly selective" schools, per the New York Times. And not only that: The 17-year-old, who plans on majoring in political science, has been offered a full scholarship at each and every one, CNN reports. He's narrowed it down to his top seven (Harvard, Princeton, Northwestern, Yale, Penn, Stanford, Georgetown) and will spend the next month touring schools before making a decision on May 1. "It's something I'm proud of because I see my hard work paying off, determination paying off, sacrifices paying off," he says. Brown credits his mom, Berthinia Rutledge-Brown. "After she got divorced, she decided she needed to get a better job," he tells the Houston Chronicle, so she got a college degree and now works two jobs as a licensed chemical dependency counselor. "The best lesson she taught me was through her actions and her working hard and dedicating herself." Brown has a 4.68 GPA; is active with Mirabeau B. Lamar High School's debate team and student government; has worked with political campaigns; and has been involved with initiatives that match kids from low-income communities with higher-ed opportunities. In addition to the full rides he's been offered, he's secured $260,000 in additional scholarship money.
– PBS supporters are planning a "Million Muppet March" at Washington DC's National Mall on Nov. 3 to defend government funding for the network, Reuters reports. Organizers aren't sure yet how many will actually attend, but "it does seem like we might get close to the biggest ever assemblage of puppets in one place, and probably the most ever puppets marching on Washington," says one. The title, which was dreamed up by two men separately after Mitt Romney's comments about PBS and Big Bird at the first presidential debate, is a play off 1995's "Million Man March" for civil rights, also held at the National Mall. Los Angeles animation executive Michael Bellavia, 43, bought www.millionmuppetmarch.com while watching the debate, then later discovered that Idaho university student Chris Mecham, 46, had launched a Facebook page with the same name. Shortly after the debate ended, they were already on the phone planning the protest. "Romney was using Muppets as a rhetorical device to talk about getting rid of public broadcasting, which is really so much bigger than Sesame Street," Mecham says. "While he was still talking I was thinking of ways I could express my frustration at that argument."
– When Caltech biologist Michael Abrams cut two arms off a young jellyfish in 2013, he figured it would do what many marine invertebrates do—grow new ones. But no. "[Abrams] started yelling... 'You won't believe this, you've got to come here and see what's happening,'" his PhD adviser Lea Goentoro tells National Geographic. Reporting this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Abrams says he watched the jellyfish, which relies on being symmetrical to move about, not regenerate the missing arms but rather rearrange its remaining six limbs so that they were symmetrical again. The phenomenon, dubbed symmetrization, has never before been observed in nature, and Abrams was floored. The jellyfish was using its own muscles to push and pull on its remaining six arms to space them out evenly again. (They confirmed this by observing that muscle relaxants made the jellies unable to rearrange their arms, while increasing muscular pulses allowed them to rearrange their arms faster.) And the discovery was accidental; Abrams and his team had only been cutting into the common moon jellyfish to practice for their future study on what are called immortal jellyfish, which had yet to arrive in the lab. They've since observed symmetrization in moon jellies many times, and it takes anywhere from 12 hours to four days to complete. (Scientists recently made another staggering observation, this one in Norway.)
– Last summer, hoping to strike a plea deal with the US, Edward Snowden lawyered up: The former NSA contractor had leading espionage lawyer Plato Cacheris on retainer, insiders tell the New York Times. "Snowden is interested in returning home," says another of his lawyers, Ben Wizner of the ACLU. "He would cooperate in extraordinary ways in the right circumstances." Cacheris has represented big names like Robert Hanssen, an FBI agent and spy for the Soviet Union who avoided the death penalty in a plea deal, the Wire notes. For Snowden, there hasn't been much progress on a bargain with prosecutors, the Times notes; he could still face 30 or more years in jail.
– Refusing to accept bribes from Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez is dangerous business, according to Tony Bosch. The man who allegedly supplied Rodriguez with PEDs and cooperated with a Major League Baseball investigation into the matter tells 60 Minutes that he received death threats after Rodriguez associates failed to bribe him, reports CBS News and Yahoo Sports. Among his other allegations: Bosch would sometimes administer the drugs to Rodriguez: "Alex is scared of needles, so at times, he would ask me to inject." The drugs included human growth hormone and testosterone, which Bosch delivered to A-Rod personally at least a dozen times. Bosch's payment: $12,000 monthly, in cash. A-Rod's goal was to hit 800 home runs and surpass what the New York Daily News calls "the game's most hallowed statistic," Barry Bonds' 762 home runs. Bosch turned to MLB for protection after receiving the death threats. A-Rod's lawsuit against MLB says Bosch's protection program is basically a $5 million bribe, which league COO Rob Manfred calls "absolutely untrue." The 60 Minutes segment looks closely at damning text messages exchanged between Bosch and the slugger. But it leaves two questions unanswered, notes Yahoo Sports: How is it that multi-millionaire Rodriguez was unable to bribe Bosch? And does Bosch think MLB can protect him in US courts, where it has basically no influence?
– Officials in Montgomery County, Md., have put up fences and attempted to rearrange habitats, but the goose problem in parks there is so bad that they're now resorting to a last-ditch remedy: killing them and donating what's edible to feed the hungry, NBC News reports. Per a press release, up to 300 geese are to be "humanely euthanized" at both Martin Luther King Jr. Recreational Park and Rock Creek Regional Park, "processed for human consumption," and the meat given to the Maryland Food Bank, though a Montgomery Parks rep tells Bethesda Magazine the number will probably be more like 100 to 150. "These geese are year-round residents and create multiple issues for park users and staff," David Petersen says. "The excessive feces they leave, up to one pound daily, is not only unsightly but causes unsanitary conditions." He also tells WTOP that geese protective of their offspring have been known to attack people, and that their grazing damages turf and grass. Petersen says that the gathering of the geese, which will run the parks department about $20 per bird, will take place through the end of June and into mid-July and stresses that it wasn't an easy decision to put the geese down, especially after criticism from the Humane Society. "These roundup and killing programs for geese are not effective because they simply leave open empty attractable habitat, and that habitat will be refilled by geese coming in from nearby areas," a Humane Society director tells Bethesda Magazine. Petersen rebuts that, noting to WTOP that the parks department has been tapping into other, nonlethal methods "for a number of years" and that "all these things have been marginally effective." He also points out it's not an unusual method to get rid of pesky fowl, noting everyone from homeowners associations to federal agencies have gone this route. (PETA claims that live geese are being plucked for their feathers.)
– A California family's grief deepened Saturday after divers called off the search for 2-year-old Noah Abbott, who has been missing since Thursday when the car his mother was driving crashed into an aqueduct, the Mercury News reports. The bodies of Christina Estrada, 31, and another son, Jeremiah, 3, were previously recovered, but Noah remains missing and presumed dead. The family's attention now turns to the lone survivor, Elijah Estrada, 10, who was released from a hospital over the weekend. He had been ejected from the red Volkswagen convertible, and witnesses say they helped pull him from the water, where he had been holding on to flotation buoys. Elijah's uncle, Steven Abbott, tells the Victorville Daily Press that the boy is doing well and appears to be in good health. Relatives kept a vigil at the aqueduct in Hesperia amid a makeshift memorial of candles, flowers, and stuffed animals as police searched for Noah in the water and by air. Authorities ended the search because of unsafe conditions from a strong current and poor visibility. Two GoFundMe accounts (here and here) have been set up to help Kevin Abbott, the husband and father, pay funeral expenses. Abbott, an Iraq War veteran who was not in the car, is "having a hard time right now," says a cousin. "He's been put in a position where he's now a single father, so we're looking for any support we can get." The car crashed through a fence and into water about 6:40pm Thursday, and the cause is under investigation. It was fully submerged when found.
– The UN's climate change panel for the first time charted the upper limit of acceptable global carbon emissions today—and we're already halfway to it. Based on an internationally agreed upon goal of keeping temperatures within 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit of their pre-industrial levels, humanity can only allow gas from 1 trillion tons of burned carbon to enter the atmosphere, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in its report, according to the New York Times. We're on pace to hit that ceiling in 2040. The much-anticipated report was released this morning following a furious night of editing, but the substance of it hasn't changed much since a draft was released in August. The report also presents what, according to the BBC, is considered the most comprehensive statement on how climate change works, concluding with 95% certainty that human activity "has been the dominant cause" of the warming trend. That, the AP points out, is as certain as scientists are that cigarettes kill you, and more certain than they are that vitamins improve your health.
– With torrential rains causing flooding and extensive damage to North Korea, the South Korean Red Cross has offered $4.7 million in aid, reports Yonhap News. Record storms that overwhelmed South Korea last week and killed scores of people also hit the North, killing dozens, destroying 2,900 homes, and washing away more than 148,000 acres of farmland. North Korea has yet to respond to the offer. It's been a hard year for North Korea, with a harsh winter leaving millions in danger of starvation. This new round of emergency relief may ease tensions between the Koreas, which have been high for months following several provocations from the North. Despite the flooding and food shortages, the annual Arirang Games in Pyongyang are proceeding as usual. Hundreds of thousands of people took part in choreographed dances at Monday night's opening ceremony, marking the 63rd anniversary of the country's founding, Reuters reports.,
– Pre-eclampsia forced Amy Hanson to have an emergency C-section at just over 27 weeks gestation. Her daughter, Adalyn "Addie" Rose, measured just 12 inches long. "Her diaper was the size of a Splenda packet, so small," Hanson tells the Chicago Tribune. In the first days of Addie's life, Amy was only able to see her via FaceTime. Still, she began pumping, "the rhythm of the machine and flow of breast milk, connecting mom and baby when no other connection was possible," the Tribune writes. Addie died after 160 days in the NICU; a few weeks later, Hanson pumped for the last time, then gave away all her excess milk: 5,000 frozen ounces—that's nearly 40 gallons—or enough to feed about 22 preemies for a month, nurses say. And it's the perfect food for them, per BabyCenter, which explains the mother's body in these cases produces milk with "extra calories, vitamins, and protein." The executive director of the newly opened Mothers' Milk Bank of the Western Great Lakes tells the Tribune that nine bereaved mothers have given since January. "They just absolutely can't bear the thought of throwing the milk away," she says. Elizabeth Peszat's 7-week-old son, Phil, died in 2013 after being delivered at 23 weeks gestation. She donated the milk she had pumped, telling the Tribune in 2014 that it was "comforting" that other babies could use what her son couldn't. One of those babies was Levi John Limmo, who, born at about 23 weeks, went on to survive. PhillyVoice has the story of another mother who pumped for eight months after her son's death at 20 weeks; she donated 92 gallons.
– Across the world, someone has been illegally producing an ozone-destroying gas banned more than 30 years ago. Now, investigators and the New York Times may have pinpointed the culprit behind the CFC-11 chlorofluorocarbon: factories making foam insulation in remote parts of China. Putting CFC-11 in the insulation, which is used in buildings and refrigerators, isn't as costly as legal alternatives, and some factory owners were surprisingly frank with the Times about their usage. "Of course, we chose the cheaper foam agent," one factory owner, whose plant has since been shut down, says. "That's how we survived." The Environmental Investigation Agency, an independent watchdog, says it found at least eight factories in China using CFC-11 to make foam. The EIA estimates up to 70% of foam production there uses the chemical, per Climate Home News. An expert tells the Times that factories using CFC-11, a violation of 1987's Montreal Protocol, are often smaller operations (some don't even have names) that move around rural outposts to avoid detection; if they do get caught, they simply shrug and pay any fines, if they're not shut down. A study published in Nature in May stressed the issues that this unexpected jump in CFC-11 emissions could pose, namely pushing back the full recovery of the ozone layer by at least 10 years (the target date was originally for the middle of this century). The head of the UN's Environment Program tells the Times that the renewed CFC-11 production is "an environment crime" that requires immediate action. "We have to dig deeper," Erik Solheim says in a statement. "Based on the scale of detected emissions, there is good reason to believe the problem extends beyond these uncovered cases." (In other news, researchers see a controversial way to help the planet.)
– Roughly 252 million years ago, an extreme animal die-off occurred: 70% of land animals and 96% of marine life were obliterated, in what's known as the Permian mass extinction. What scientists still don't exactly know is why (an asteroid? volcanic eruptions?), but they now know how long it took. And the answer is ... really, really fast. MIT researchers say the extinction period's duration clocked in at 60,000 years, plus or minus 48,000 years. As Phys.org puts it, that's "practically instantaneous, from a geological perspective." To get your geological periods and catastrophic disasters straight: The die-off signified the end of the Permian period and launched the start of the Triassic; the mass die-off of the dinosaurs happened much later, 66 million years ago at the Cretaceous period's close, when LiveScience reports 85% of life was wiped out. The researchers came to their conclusion by using cutting-edge dating techniques on tiny minerals known as zircons found in rocks in Meishan, China, that date to the period. But the rocks also held carbon dioxide data; from there, the researchers determined that a surge of the gas occurred 10,000 to 20,000 years before the die-off: Ocean acidification may have have occurred, and sea temps could have jumped as much as 50 degrees. But what was the source of the increased carbon dioxide that marked the beginning of the end? MIT researchers are now dating rocks from the Siberian Traps to determine if volcanic eruptions there could have been the culprit.
– Pee-wee Herman is back in his first movie since 1988's Big Top Pee-wee—and this time he's coming to us via Netflix. Bestowed an invite to a birthday party, Pee-wee leaves his comfortable Fairville and confronts reptiles, bank robbers, and some ladies looking to get hitched in Pee-wee's Big Holiday. Here's what critics are saying: Audiences are in for "a shaggier, less rigorously paced adventure" than they might be used to with Pee-wee, but they'll find "frequent and long-lasting laughs along the way," writes Erik Adams at AV Club. Even at 63, Paul Ruebens hasn't lost his "undeniable energy" and the film as a whole is "a testament to the lasting power of Reubens' signature character. Like Fairville, he exists outside of time." Jason Guerrasio agrees that "Reubens' strange brand of humor … works as well today as it did in the '80s." Some of the finest moments come via gadgets or a scene involving a balloon, he writes at Business Insider. "Yet the secret weapon of the movie, its modern touch, is (Joe) Manganiello. He is extremely funny and has a chemistry with Reubens that you'd never think would work until you see it on the screen for yourself." "The odd-couple bromance … is something to behold," but Pee-wee's "antics haven't aged well," writes Brian Truitt at USA Today. Whether he finds a receptive audience among a new generation "depends on their capacity for old-fashioned humor," he adds. There's nothing close to as memorable as what can be found in Pee-wee's Big Adventure, he says. "Holiday can't be considered a big adventure or even a worthwhile nostalgia trip." Brian Lowry felt "an initial rush of nostalgia and enthusiasm, which by the end had given way to silliness fatigue, and the question, 'When will this be over?'" which might simply be "a reminder that some things are best consumed in smaller doses," he writes at Variety. "Reubens remains as deft at bringing his man-sized child to life as he ever was," but "the biggest surprise, frankly, might be that the funniest person here is frequently Manganiello."
– Martin Shkreli "loves to talk," notes the New York Times, but the ex-Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO has taken the Fifth as a Senate committee looks into drug-pricing practices—and his refusal to hand over subpoenaed documents could impede the probe, NBC News reports. "Absent a valid justification for the grounds for invoking the Fifth Amendment, Mr. Shkreli's assertion could hinder our investigation," Maine Sen. Susan Collins, chair of the Senate's Special Committee on Aging, tweeted Wednesday. To which Shkreli responded later Wednesday night: "@SenatorCollins I have valid justification. Are you serious? I have constitutional rights. No wonder trust in the US Government is at a low." This development comes just days before Shkreli's subpoena-mandated appearance Tuesday at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is looking into several companies accused of excessively hiking prices, the AP reports. "I have been trying for the better part of a year to get information from Martin Shkreli about his outrageous price increases, and he has obstructed our investigation at every turn," Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings said in a statement Wednesday, per CNNMoney. Shkreli dished about the upcoming hearing on Twitter Wednesday, posting a pic of what appeared to be the House subpoena and striking back at Cummings. "House busy whining to healthcare reporters about me appearing for their chit chat next week. Haven't decided yet. Should I? @RepCummings," he tweeted. "He claims publicly that he wants to explain to Congress how drug pricing works. On Tuesday, he will get his chance," Cummings said in his statement. When asked by the Times if he would be at Tuesday's hearing, Shkreli emailed, "I made it clear that you are not to contact me ever again." In related news, Shkreli's lawyers put in paperwork Tuesday indicating that he wants to replace them, NBC notes. (More to the point: What's it like to date Martin Shkreli?)
– A vehicle vs. pedestrian accident in Watertown, Mass., left a woman dead on Wednesday. The violent aftermath of the crash left the driver of the flatbed tow truck that hit her in critical condition and another man in police custody. Authorities say that after the woman was struck, a man with her "engaged in an altercation with the tow truck driver, stabbing him multiple times in the abdomen," FOX reports. While police have not confirmed the relationship between the woman, said to be in her 60s or 70s, and the man, who is younger, the man yelled, "You killed my mom," while allegedly attacking the tow truck driver, the Boston Globe reports. The accident happened around 11:20am as the woman and man crossed Route 16 at Galen Street, according to reports. One witness tells the Globe, "The son went crazy" after the accident, adding that the man chased the driver around the truck while stabbing him. "I didn't see her. I didn't see her," the driver reportedly said during the alleged attack. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver was taken to a hospital in critical condition. And the man was arrested. An investigation is ongoing.
– Jenna Jameson's boyfriend has been arrested and slapped with a restraining order for allegedly beating up the porn queen. Ultimate Fighting Championship star Tito Ortiz was taken in handcuffs from the home the two share and charged with felony domestic violence, the New York Daily News reports. Jameson—her arm in a medical brace—told reporters she was "completely shocked" that the mixed martial arts fighter would assault her. "Tito is a loving, sweet man. I've always supported him," she said. "For him to lash out at me is shocking." Ortiz's lawyer insists that his client never touched Jameson and blames the retired porn star's Oxycontin addiction for the incident, according to TMZ.
– A church van returning from a trip to Fort Myers, Fla., crashed in Glades County this morning around 12:30am, killing eight people. The van was apparently traveling on State Road 78 when it ran a stop sign at Highway 27, crossed all four lanes of the highway and a concrete median, then hit a steep ditch on the shoulder with water in it. The other 10 passengers were injured, CNN reports; all of those in the van were adults except a 4-year-old, who is in stable condition. The driver was among those killed, and two of the injured are in critical condition. An investigation is underway, USA Today reports.
– The man authorities say killed three people near a Christmas market in Strasbourg died Thursday in a shootout with police at the end of two-day manhunt, French authorities said. Paris prosecutor's office, which handles terror cases in France, formally identified the man killed in the eastern French city as 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt, a Strasbourg-born man with a long history of convictions for various crimes, including robberies. Chekatt also had been on a watch list of potential extremists, the AP reports. The news came a couple of hours after Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said a man believed to be Chekatt had been gunned down during a police operation in the city's Neudorf neighborhood. Castaner said the suspect opened fire on police Thursday night when officials tried to arrest him. Strasbourg mayor Roland Ries said police acted on a tip from a woman. Chekatt is accused of killing three people and wounding 13 on Tuesday night. Castaner said earlier Thursday that three of the injured had been released from the hospital and three others were fighting for their lives. More than 700 officers were deployed to find Chekatt, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux told CNews television. French authorities said Chekatt had 27 criminal convictions, receiving the first at age 13. The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity online, said the Islamic State group's Amaq news agency was claiming the gunman as a "soldier" of the group, although ISIS' claims of responsibility have often been considered opportunistic in the past. (Click for more on the five people arrested in connection with the attack investigation.)
– You might think twice about heading to Twitter or Facebook to read about vaccinations. "A significant portion of the online discourse about vaccines may be generated by malicious actors with a range of hidden agendas," says George Washington University's David Broniatowski, author of a new study calling out Russian trolls for seeking to polarize Americans on the issue during 2016 election meddling. Already known to have stirred up issues relating to guns and race, Russia-linked Twitter accounts sent more than 250 tweets offering a pro- or anti-vaccine stance between 2014 and 2017, the BBC reports, citing the study published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health. Those identified as trolls tweeted about vaccines 22 times more often than regular Twitter users, according to the study, which notes that #VaccinateUS was "uniquely identified with Russian troll accounts associated with the [Kremlin's] Internet Research Agency," per the Guardian and New York Times. "You can't fix stupidity. Let them die from measles, and I'm for #vaccination!" one such tweet read. "Don’t get #vaccines. Illuminati are behind it," read another. "By playing both sides, they erode public trust in vaccination, exposing us all to the risk of infectious diseases," says researcher Mark Dredze. But the tweets are really about sowing discord, says Broniatowski, noting that many IRA-linked tweets about vaccines also mentioned, race, class, and the US government. (Expect something similar as the midterms approach.)
– Mel Gibson seemed to be begging for it, and now it's come: his Beaver fallout begins. The actor's bid to resurrect his career playing a depressed dad who cures himself by talking to his beaver hand puppet has taken a hilarious turn on YouTube. Altered trailers for Gibson's new film no longer feature a kindly beaver puppet who expresses concern in a British accent. Now the animal screams at Mel's character in Gibson's own deranged voice spliced in from angry phone calls to ex-lover Oksana Grigorieva. "You should just smile and blow me," and "You look like a b**** in heat!" the puppet shouts obscenely as Gibson looks baleful in his actorly best. Different videos are choosing different quotes to stuff in the beaver's mouth. The stunt was picked up by Jimmy Kimmel on Jimmy Kimmel Live this week. There's been no word so far from Mel or his pal and co-star, film producer/director Jodie Foster.
– The CIA is owning up to involvement in a spying operation that threatens to rankle US-German relations yet again, two US officials tell Reuters. The CIA apparently recruited the German intelligence staffer who was caught last week, and CIA director John Brennan plans to tell key US congress members about the details. Two other new factoids from the Telegraph: The suspected spy is "severely disabled," and he allegedly used an encrypted communication program on his computer disguised as a weather app. Sources say he activated the program by opening the app and searching for New York's weather forecast.
– The US will reach its target this week of taking in 10,000 Syrian war refugees in a year-old resettlement program as several hundred Syrians depart from Jordan over 24 hours, the US ambassador to Jordan said Sunday, after meeting families headed to California and Virginia. The resettlement program has emerged as an issue in the US presidential campaign, with Republican nominee Donald Trump alleging displaced Syrians pose a potential security threat. Alice Wells, the US ambassador to Jordan, said Sunday that keeping Americans safe and taking in some of the world's most vulnerable people are not mutually exclusive, the AP reports. "Refugees are the most thoroughly screened category of travelers to the United States, and Syrian refugees are subject to even greater scrutiny," she said. The resettlement program focuses on the most vulnerable refugees, including those who were subjected to violence or torture or are sick. Close to 5 million Syrians have fled civil war since 2011. Most struggle to survive in tough conditions in neighboring countries, including Jordan, which hosts close to 660,000 Syrian refugees. Only a small percentage of Syrian refugees have been resettled to third countries. Instead, donor countries are trying to invest more in job creation and education for refugees in regional host countries to encourage them to stay there instead of moving onward, including to Europe. Wells said the US has taken in more refugees from around the world over the years than all other nations combined. "[I feel] fear and joy, fear of the unknown and our new lives, but great joy for our children's lives and future," says Nadim Fawzi Jouriyeh, 49, from the war-ravaged Syrian city of Homs. ("Anne Frank today is a Syrian girl," Nicholas Kristof writes for the New York Times.)
– St. Louis County police haven't released audio regarding the shooting of black teenager Michael Brown, but the hacker collective Anonymous took care of that today, reports Mashable. The lengthy file released on YouTube shows the progression of events after an officer shot the unarmed teen in the suburb of Ferguson. As Mother Jones notes, the first hint of trouble comes more than nine minutes into the recording, with the dispatcher making a request for crowd control. But the circumstances were still unclear as to why at that point. Some excerpts, with the bold referring to the time of the audio recording: 9:35: "Ferguson is asking for assistance with crowd control ..." 10:58: "Now they have a large group gathering there, she doesn't know any further ..." 11:20: "We just got another call stating it was an officer-involved shooting. ... Be advised, this information came from the news ,,, 21:55: "They are requesting more cars. Do you want me to send more of your cars?" 43:55: "Attention all cars, be advised that in reference to the call 2947 Canfield Drive, we are switching over to the riot channel at this time ..." Police say they are aware of the audio and are investigating how it became public. Anonymous is also trying to identify the officer involved, reports the New York Daily News. Ferguson's police chief has balked at doing that so far because the six-year veteran has gotten death threats. (The FBI has launched an investigation into the shooting.)
– In all of Israeli history, only one man has been sentenced to death by a civilian court and then executed: Adolf Eichmann. On Wednesday, the country released the Nazi's handwritten plea for clemency, penned two days before he was hanged. The AFP reports the release coincides with International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and quotes, along with the BBC and Ynetnews, from the May 29, 1962, letter, in which Eichmann tries to make the case that he was merely following orders when he implemented the "Final Solution": "[The judges] made a fundamental mistake in that they are not able to empathize with the time and situation in which I found myself during the war years. There is a need to draw a line between the leaders responsible and the people like me forced to serve as mere instruments in the hands of the leaders. Had I been, as the judges assume, the fanatical driving force in the persecution of the Jews, this should have been reflected in a promotion and other rewards, but I was never granted any benefit. I am not able to recognize the court’s ruling as just, and I ask, Your Honor Mr. President, to exercise your right to grant pardons, and order that the death penalty not be carried out." The Times of Israel reports that Eichmann—who fled a POW camp after the war, made his way to Argentina, and was kidnapped by Israeli intelligence agents in 1960—was cremated hours after his May 31 hanging; his ashes were spread in the Mediterranean Sea. Wednesday's release includes related documents, including President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi's rejection of the request; the letter Eichmann’s wife, Vera, wrote to Ben-Zvi; and chief prosecutor Gideon Hausner's moving handwritten opening statement that referenced the "six million accusers" with him who "are now only ashes." (The dark details of France's WWII Vichy regime were exposed last month.)
– Archaeologists have uncovered another parking lot find, only this time it's in Scotland, and what they discovered is best described as a "Thing." Yep, that's the technical term for a Viking parliamentary gathering site, one of which has been unearthed in the town of Dingwall. That name had long clued archaeologists into the potential for such a find: Dingwall is likely derived from the word thingvellir, or "the field of the assembly," LiveScience reports. But finding a "Thing" site is no small task, in part because the gatherings usually occurred in open fields, and the temporary nature of them meant only modest traces of human life were left behind. Indeed, this is only the second "Thing" found in the UK, the Scotsman reports. It was uncovered after the team used historical records to identify a mound that had once been called the "assembly mound"; a parking lot now covers it. Excavations "indicated that the mound was man-made," likely in the 11th century, says site director Oliver JT O'Grady, and "radio-carbon datings provide strong scientific evidence to support the interpretation that the mound was created during the period of late Norwegian political influence in Ross-shire and wider." He and his team aren't exactly sure who built the site, but based on its size, that creator would have needed both "political power and resources," explains LiveScience. One guess: Thorfinn the Mighty, who fought a battle in the area around that time. (In less positive Viking news, ancient jewels were stolen this week.)
– Forget everything you've heard about Paul Ryan's good looks: He is officially not that handsome, according to a Harvard study. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is quite the looker, the National Journal reports. In the study, undergraduates were flashed images of politicians for a single second each. Romney ended up in the 99th percentile, Washington Monthly reports—and the students made their judgment in 2007, when Romney wasn't so well-known, thus removing political bias, the researchers say. The study rated just how hot the 728 candidates running for Senate or governor between 1994 and 2006 were, which means stats are available on a few other big names: Romney's score bests that of Sarah Palin, who scored in the also-very-high 95th percentile. Biden trailed well behind, in the 62nd percentile. (Obama was considered too big a name in 2007, so he wasn't included.) And while the study used a different scale for the House, Paul Ryan was ranked: He scored in the 67th percentile among 2004 House candidates. The best-looking politician? Sen. John Thune of South Dakota.
– Peggy Noonan is among those scratching their heads over the US decision to flex its muscle in Libya, and she'd like help figuring it out ... from President Obama himself. "I cannot for the life of me see how an American president can launch a serious military action without a full and formal national address in which he explains to the American people why he is doing what he is doing, why it is right, and why it is very much in the national interest," she writes in the Wall Street Journal. Noonan spends most of the column raising question and after question about the intervention and sounds very skeptical about its chances of ending well. All the more reason for Obama to personally make his case. "He has to sit at that big desk and explain his thinking, put forward the facts as he sees them, and try to garner public support," she writes. "It's what presidents do!" (Politico says Obama is purposely avoiding such a big speech because he doesn't want to equate the Libya action with larger wars. Click for the latest developments in the fighting.)
– South Carolina wants to have the option of seceding from the US—again—if it feels the government does anything that goes against the Second Amendment. The Hill reports three Republican legislators in South Carolina introduced a bill Thursday that would let the state debate secession specifically "if the federal government confiscates legally purchased firearms." It is extremely unlikely the bill passes out of the House by the April 10 deadline, according to the AP. Rep. Mike Pitts says the bill is meant to draw attention to gun rights. “I see a lot of stuff where people even talk about totally repealing the Second Amendment, which separates us from the entire rest of the world,” he says. In 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede ahead of the Civil War.
– In 1992, a 9,000-word diary was found in the floorboards of a home in England containing a detailed confession to murders tied to Jack the Ripper, the serial killer who terrorized London for 10 weeks in 1888. It ended thusly: "I give my name that all know of me, so history do tell, what love can do to a gentleman born. Yours Truly, Jack The Ripper." It appears to belong to wealthy Liverpool cotton Merchant James Maybrick, who died a year later, but many experts dismissed the tell-all tome as a sophisticated forgery. Now, the Telegraph reports, a team led by writer and film director Bruce Robinson has unearthed timecards that show which electricians were working on Maybrick's home, Battlecrease House, on March 9, 1992, the morning the book was said to have been found. The man who came up with the diary, scrap metal dealer Mike Barrett, claimed to have gotten it through a family friend who died soon thereafter, leading many to believe it was a fake. But Barrett was a colorful character who frequented the Saddle Inn public house in Anfield, where one of the electricians working on Battlecrease House was also a regular. Because Barrett fancied himself a writer, it is believed that the electricians who found the book passed it onto Barrett, who then famously contacted a London literary agent that very day in March claiming he had Jack the Ripper's diary, adds the Sun. Mental Floss notes that many suspects have been proposed over the decades, including a former royal obstetrician. (The Ripper's last known victim remains mysterious.)
– The sewage being treated by your city could be a veritable gold mine. That's because all kinds of metals end up in sewage sludge, which is the leftovers from treated sewage, Science reports. Researchers in Arizona recently found that a city of a million people could generate up to $13 million a year in such metals, with $2.6 million of that coming in the form of gold and silver. They studied the samples, which came from 32 states, with a mass spectrometer, Discover reports; the tool uses extreme heat to reveal elements. On a global scale, they found, sludge probably contains about 360 tons of gold each year. "While we expected that the metals were present at low concentration, the fact that the small amounts represent such a significant economic value was definitely surprising," a study co-author tells Time. Getting at those metals might sound like a pipe dream, quite literally, but a city in Japan was able to get about four pounds of gold from every metric ton of ash from burned sludge. That's better than what some mines can offer, Science notes. "We need to make this push where we stop thinking about (sewage sludge) as a liability and instead we think about it as a resource," says an outside researcher. Unfortunately, there's not currently any technology to extract metals from sludge on a large scale, but if we could someday find a way to do so, there could be environmental benefits, too: The metals in sludge, which is often used as fertilizer, may not be great for the environment, so removing them could be a good thing. As for how metals get into wastewater? Industries like electronics, jewelry manufacturing, mining, and the like. (If searching through sludge is too much for you, you could always look for gold directly in the toilet.)
– Another day, another indication that Gwyneth Paltrow just does not understand how the common person lives. She shared her essential spring fashion items via Goop yesterday ... and they include really reasonable items like $970 glitter ankle boots, $980 Valentino shorts, and a $1,350 green leather jacket, among other big-ticket pieces. It almost makes her $90 white T-shirt look cheap. For more on Paltrow's recent pursuits, check out her new cookbook, which appears to include recipes for meals free of anything except air and kale.
– If organizers of the music-festival-turned-disaster known as the Fyre Festival had hoped to make a quick buck, their strategy may be backfiring in a big way. Rolling Stone reports that an attendee/survivor has filed a $100 million class-action lawsuit against festival creators Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule, aka Jeffrey Atkins. The complaint ticks off a by-now familiar litany of complaints about the supposedly luxurious getaway in the Bahamas that saw everything that could go wrong do so in spectacular fashion. And one big problem for McFarland and Ja Rule is that their well-heeled clientele can afford big-name lawyers. "The festival's lack of adequate food, water, shelter, and medical care created a dangerous and panicked situation among attendees—suddenly finding themselves stranded on a remote island without basic provisions—that was closer to The Hunger Games or Lord of the Flies than Coachella," the lawsuit states. Celeb attorney Mark Geragos filed the suit on behalf of attendee Daniel Jung, who wants $5 million for alleged fraud and breach of contract, reports Variety. Geragos anticipates about 150 others will join the suit. McFarland and Ja Rule have apologized, promised refunds, and vowed to be back better than ever in 2018.
– A 50-year-old teacher was caught on security cameras at a Walmart in Oklahoma two days after he allegedly kidnapped a 15-year-old girl in Tennessee, the Oklahoman reports. Tad Cummins and Elizabeth Thomas are seen in the video—taken March 15 but not confirmed or released until Friday—using cash to buy food at the Walmart. According to the Tennessean, the video represents the first images of Cummins and Thomas since the alleged kidnapping on March 13. Cummins appears to have darkened his hair, and Thomas now appears to have red hair, WIAT reports. The video was made public after the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation received a tip Thursday. Cummins was fired from his teaching job following alleged inappropriate contact with Thomas, a student at his school, earlier this year. The two reportedly exchanged potentially romantic emails, though Thomas' family says she once hid from Cummins. There was a possible sighting of Cummins' car in Texas, and there have also been reports Cummins and Thomas are now in Mexico. Investigators have received more than 1,200 tips regarding Cummins and Thomas so far.
– While you were sleeping, a truly massive undertaking got under way, one that the BBC terms "one of the most ambitious space missions in history." Europe's Gaia satellite—which has been two decades in the making—launched at 4:12am EST today, setting it on a course to essentially inventory the Milky Way and create a 3D map of it, reports Space.com. The satellite will be tasked with logging the positions and distances to some 1 billion stars—that's 1% of the stars in the galaxy—but it's expected to turn up much more. Its sophisticated instruments (among them, a 1 billion-pixel camera) should facilitate the discovery of unknown asteroids, comets, dead stars, and even planets, reports the BBC. The end result: The most realistic understanding yet of how the Milky Way was assembled. The European Space Agency describes the process: Each star will be reviewed an average 70 times over a five-year period, with Gaia measuring the distance of the star from the sun (along with properties like brightness, temperature, and chemical composition) as it moves around the sun. The repeat measurements will allow Gaia to map the brightest stars' coordinates to within seven micro-arcseconds, which an ESA official describes as an angle "equivalent to the size of a euro coin on the Moon as seen from Earth." Space.com notes that the ESA launched a previous star-mapping mission in 1989; that satellite, Hipparcos, could measure the distances of bright stars within 3,250 light-years with a modest margin of error. Gaia will be able to measure up to 32,500 light-years away.
– A Massachusetts coffee shop owner says he received a cease-and-desist letter from Dunkin' Donuts claiming trademark infringement for riffing on the chain's catchphrase, the AP reports. Steve Copoulos tells the Sun Chronicle he added window art reading "North now runs on Mike's" on his Mike's Coffee shop in North Attleborough. While he expected a few laughs from customers, Copoulos says he was surprised to find the letter from the Canton, Massachusetts-based coffee shop chain claiming he was infringing on their "America Runs on Dunkin'" slogan and Copoulos' variation implied an affiliation. Copoulos says he wants to be the "exact opposite" of a corporate coffee chain and has since erased the sign. Dunkin' Donuts, in a statement, said it wrote the letter "in support of our legal rights under trademark law and in support of our franchisees."
– This probably isn't the top priority for law enforcement, but it's got to be at least No. 2. CBS Denver reports a female jogger has been terrorizing a Colorado Springs neighborhood with random acts of pooping for nearly two months. "'Are you really taking a poop right here in front of my kids?'" Cathy Budde says she asked the woman. "She’s like, ‘Yeah, sorry.'” Budde says she and her family have caught the woman in the act three times and have dubbed her the "Mad Pooper." (This is a reference to Bob's Burgers, and it's highly suggested you listen to this while reading the rest of this story.) KMGH reports the mystery jogger has pooped in multiple yards, and KKTV states she's also been seen pooping in an area Walgreens. Witnesses say she brings her own toilet paper. Budde says she put up a sign asking the woman to please stop pooping in public. "She ran by it like 15 times yesterday, and she still pooped," says Budde, who believes the woman is doing it on purpose since there are public restrooms nearby. Now the police are getting involved, asking for help identifying the Mad Pooper, who could be charged with indecent exposure and public defecation. "It's abnormal," Sgt. Johnathan Sharketti tells CBS. "For someone to repeatedly do such a thing … it’s uncharted territory for me.” The story has left Deadspin with a few questions: "Is she a world-class crapper, who can shit dozens of times a day and therefore needs the variety? Is she motivated by some animal instinct to befoul as much of the city as physiologically possible? ... Is this revenge?" (There's something off-putting about this Denny's mascot.)
– After more than three months on the run, the Washington man accused of killing his former neighbors has been arrested. John B. Reed was captured in Mexico on Friday and kicked out of that country for violating its immigration laws, the Seattle Times reports. US Marshals arrested him when he crossed the border in Arizona, where he is now in jail. Reed was captured on the same day a memorial was held for Patrick Shunn, 45, and his wife, 46-year-old Monique Patenaude. “It was a blessing for their family and friends to get some closure,” neighbor Jana Hecla tells the Marysville Globe. The US Marshals had been working with Mexican authorities in Sonora to locate Reed. “We didn’t think he’d be taken alive,” Hecla says. According to reports, Reed allegedly shot and killed Patenaude on the morning of April 11, and then shot and killed Shunn later in the day. Reed's brother, Tony Reed, allegedly helped dispose of the bodies and the couple's vehicles. Tony Reed, who turned himself in last month after also fleeing to Mexico, has pleaded guilty to rendering criminal assistance, according to the AP. The brothers' elderly parents also face charges connected to allegedly helping their sons flee the country. According to the AP, Shunn and Patenaude lived on a 21-acre property near the rural community of Oso, where a landslide destroyed dozens of houses and killed 43 people in 2014. They shared a driveway with Reed, who at one time threatened to shoot the couple, per an earlier Seattle Times report. In the weeks before the killings, Patenaude reportedly complained to the county that Reed was squatting on the land he had recently sold to the county.
– If you aspire to attend a party at Justin Bieber's house, first you'll have to score an invitation ... and then you'll have to sign a Liability Waiver and Release. TMZ got a copy of the fairly insane document, which says that if you tweet, blog, text message, or otherwise talk about the party in any way, shape, or form, you owe the Biebs $5 million. Not only can you not discuss the party; you're also not allowed to discuss the other guests' health or philosophical and/or spiritual views. Yep, it specifically says that. By signing the form, you also acknowledge that some of the party activities are "potentially hazardous and you should not participate unless you are medically able and properly trained," because you risk "minor injuries to catastrophic injuries, including death." (Oh, and you agree not to sue Bieber, should you be catastrophically injured during a crazy game of beer pong.) TMZ notes that other stars make partygoers sign similar waivers, but notes that Bieber's is nonetheless "hilarious." (Click to find out which fellow singer thinks Bieber is an "a--hole.")
– A Georgia woman was assaulted early Monday, and the alleged attacker told her to call her boyfriend to make him listen—but instead, the woman called 911. Deonte Smith, the dispatcher who answered, noticed that the woman was pretending to be talking to her boyfriend, so he played along. It was "the most extreme call of my career," Smith tells WSB-TV. "She explained to him what the perpetrator had told her; that he was wanting him to listen while she was being raped," a Clayton County police officer tells the station. Smith got her location and sent police while trying to talk the attacker out of assaulting the woman; police arrived while it was still going on. "It was quick thinking on his behalf. In fact, (it) might have saved her life," the officer says of Smith's actions, though Smith credits the woman's own quick thinking and says he was just doing his job. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution points out that Smith was the only male dispatcher working at the time. "Honestly, I'd say divine intervention," he says. Suspect Robert Giles, 27, faces charges of rape, false imprisonment, and obstruction. Kidnapping charges could also be forthcoming because police say Giles took the victim from Hapeville to a closed adult entertainment store to carry out the attack. (This 911 dispatcher ended up saving her own father.)
– One of the hacking community's biggest names has died in San Francisco, reports Reuters. Barnaby Jack, thought to be in his mid-30s, was known as a "white hat hacker" because he focused on exposing security flaws in banking and medical devices that needed fixing, notes CRN. And he was about to demonstrate his biggest discovery yet—that he could hack into implanted heart devices from afar. "I'm sure there could be lethal consequences," he told Reuters in advance of this weekend's Black Hat convention in Vegas. It's not clear how Jack died. He had previously shown that insulin pumps were vulnerable to hacks, but his most attention-getting stunt occurred at the Vegas convention of 2010 when he caused two ATM machines on stage to spit out cash. He called it "Jackpotting," notes the Chicago Tribune. He worked for Internet security firm IOActive, which tweeted, "Lost but never forgotten our beloved pirate, Barnaby Jack has passed."
– The 1997 Kyoto climate treaty he helped negotiate didn't end up controlling climate change, but Al Gore says this month's conference in Paris will be different. "We're going to win this," he tells the AP. "We need to win it faster because a lot of damage is being done day by day. We continue to put 110 million tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere every 24 hours as if it's an open sewer." Though he says "every night on the television news is like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation," he adds "increasingly people are connecting those dots" and "more and more people are feeling that this is going to have to be addressed." It's a real change of tune for a man the AP notes has been framed as a "preacher of doom and gloom" by some. Indeed, in their 35 minutes together, Gore "uses versions of the words 'optimistic' or 'hopeful' or 'positive' at least 16 times," writes the AP. Their talk comes in advance of a 24-hour-telethon he'll host Friday at the foot of the Eiffel Tower to raise awareness about global warming. Though initially scheduled as a global Live Earth event to be broadcast to 2 billion people across 193 television networks, Gore now says 24 Hours of Reality and Live Earth will be streamed online and is "about mobilizing people around the world ... and making our voices heard in national capitals and at the negotiating table in Paris," per the Guardian. (The UN Conference on Climate Change kicks off Nov. 30.) French President Francois Hollande, Pharrell Williams, Elton John, Duran Duran, Bon Jovi, Neil Young, Fall Out Boy, Hozier, Ryan Reynolds, and Jared Leto will also take the stage, per People.
– It was a bad day for rebel forces in Libya, but in the streets of Tripoli people were celebrating—in part because they believed the news state-run television was broadcasting. David Green of NPR talked to people in a crowd of a few hundred Moammar Gadhafi supporters, who said they believed that al-Qaeda was responsible for the uprising, a message the state-run media has been heavily propagating. The regime also used state television to attempt to undermine rebel morale today, as ministers announced that they’d give amnesty to anyone who gave up their weapons, the New York Times reports. At the same time, loyalist forces gained ground militarily, pushing rebels out of the coastal oil town of Brega, according to the Wall Street Journal. There were also a series of mysterious explosions in Benghazi, along with some robberies and the murder of an al-Jazeera journalist, prompting rebel authorities to round up Gadhafi supporters.
– Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is pushing back against a report that she told colleagues she was close to resigning after President Donald Trump scolded her at a Wednesday cabinet meeting, the AP reports. Nielsen says in a statement that Trump "is rightly frustrated" that his administration has been prevented "from fully securing the border and protecting the American people." She says she shares Trump's frustration. The New York Times reports that the president has grown increasingly angry with Nielsen over what he feels is the country's inability to adequately secure its border. Trump told reporters before the Wednesday meeting about his frustration with immigration, suggesting the anger yet to come. "We’ve very much toughened up the border, but the laws are horrible," he said. "The laws in this country for immigration and illegal immigration are absolutely horrible. And we have to do something about it—not only the wall, which we’re building sections of wall right now." Nielsen later drafted a resignation letter but did not submit it, according to officials who knew about the episode. Homeland Security spokesman Tyler Houlton tweeted that the Times report is "false" and Nielsen was not close to resigning.
– Eight-track tapes, dial-up modems, and ... checkout lines? Walmart is working on turning the latter into another remnant of the past with a mobile phone-based scan-and-pay system, reports the Wall Street Journal. Called "Scan and Go," the new system would allow shoppers to scan their own purchases with their mobile phones, then pay at self-service kiosks. The system is being tried by employees with iPhones at one store in Arkansas, and there's no word yet when it might be ready for prime time. Walmart has been working for some time to reduce cashier costs. Already 1,600 of Walmart's 4,500 US stores have self-checkout lines. If this new wrinkle works at the chain, "it has the potential to change the way people shop and pay, making the process more personal and potentially faster," notes Reuters. Walmart is hoping Scan and Go might allow real-time options for analyzing customer data and pushing other deals and options. "This is a fairly new technology for retailers and there's potential for all kinds of fraud and theft," says one technology analyst.
– President Obama might be getting good reviews for his plan to shore up the US economy, but investors are far more worried about Europe, reports MarketWatch. The Dow was down more than 300 points at midday to below 11,000, and both Nasdaq and the S&P 500 were each down more than 2.6%. A Bloomberg report that Germany is preparing a contingency plan to protect its banks from a Greece default is contributing to the malaise.
– Northwestern football players aren't just student-athletes—they're employees of the university who have the right to form a union, a federal official ruled today. How big of a deal is today's ruling by a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board? "The stunning decision has the potential to alter dramatically the world of big-time college sports," writes Alejandra Cancino in the Chicago Tribune. The AP's Michael Tarm uses similar language, calling it a "stunning ruling that could revolutionize college sports." But first things first: The school plans to appeal to the NLRB in Washington, and nothing is expected to change until that decision comes down. Even then, the case could wind up in the Supreme Court. Northwestern's team is the first to seek permission to unionize, and it''s getting help from a players' rights group called the College Athletes Players Association. CAPA, in turn, is getting support from the United Steelworkers union. CAPA's attorneys say that players generate so much money for schools that they are clearly employees, and that they're already getting paid, though not enough, in the form of scholarships. Northwestern's attorneys argued that there's a big distinction between college players and, say, truck drivers, and it called those scholarships not pay but "grants," reports the LA Times. If the NLRB sanctions such unions, expect teams all over to follow suit. Among other things, the unions would likely demand better coverage of medical expenses for current and former players, along with the right to pursue commercial sponsorships.
– A man fatally shot himself outside the White House on Saturday, the Washington Post reports. The Secret Service says no one else was injured. According to the Los Angeles Times, about two hours after it was reported the man was receiving medical attention police announced he had been declared dead. The incident happened along the White House's north fence line while President Trump was in Florida for the weekend. Police sealed off traffic on nearby streets, and reporters inside the White House were told to shelter in place, USA Today reports. A White House spokesperson says they are "aware of the incident" and "the president has been briefed." (A woman drove a vehicle into a White House barrier—apparently on purpose—late last month.)
– Netflix has scored a major coup by landing one of the top producers in television. Shonda Rhimes, the force behind such hit series as Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away With Murder, will jump ship from ABC Studios, reports the Wall Street Journal. Under the multi-year deal, Rhimes' production company, ShondaLand, will produce original content for Netflix, though Rhimes will continue to shepherd her ABC series still in production. The deal follows another in which Netflix lured filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen and is another sign that the streaming company thinks its future is in original content, notes Variety. The financial terms weren't disclosed, but Rhimes is believed to have gotten a healthy bump from her current salary of about $10 million a year from ABC.
– For 24 years, Jean-Noël Frydman owned a tres formidable web domain: France.com. Now he's suing to get it back. The French-born American shares his saga with Ars Technica, which reports that after buying the domain in 1994, Frydman built a site catering to US-based French speakers. In the process, he worked with French agencies, among them the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to the federal suit he filed in Virginia, around 2015 the ministry began warming to the idea of having the domain for itself, but didn't offer to buy Frydman out. Instead, it seized the domain through what Frydman alleges was a "[misuse of] the French judicial system" revolving around "the erroneous theory that Defendants were inherently entitled to take the domain because it included the word 'France.'" As for those judicial maneuverings, Ars Technica explains the Paris Court of Appeals last September ruled a violation of trademark law had occurred, and the country's lawyers then reached out to Web.com—Frydman says he's probably one of its oldest customers—requesting a transfer of the domain, which was granted March 12. Frydman says he was neither notified about the move nor paid anything for the domain. The Local reports that France.com currently redirects to the country's official France.fr site. As for Frydman, he's not wholly without a website, notes the BBC: He's currently running unfairfrance.com, which catalogs "the 20+ years of constant partnership between France.com and various entities and branches of the French government who ... consistently encouraged and supported its initiatives and activities." (A minister from this country claimed it has had the internet for 5,000 years.)
– Debris has washed up on an island in the Indian Ocean and is raising hopes that the fate of the Malaysian passenger jet that vanished last year might finally be known—though it wouldn't be the first false alarm. A French aviation expert tells the Telegraph that plane wreckage washed ashore on Reunion Island. "I've been studying hundreds of photos and speaking to colleagues," says Xavier Tytelman. "And we all think it is likely that the wing is that of a Boeing 777—the same plane as MH370." He says authorities from Australia in charge of the search are investigating. This French-language blog has photos. A member of the French Air Force tells CNN that the piece appears to be wing flap, but "it is way too soon to say whether or not it is MH370—we just found the debris this morning." The island is about 380 nautical miles from the Madagascar coast. MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, after taking off from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia with 239 people aboard. It was bound for Beijing, and its disappearance has baffled aviation officials.
– From a month-old copy of Physical Review Letters, NPR stumbled on an article bearing the somewhat impenetrable title, "Viscoelastic Suppression of Gravity-Driven Counterflow Instability." Behind the mouthful was an interesting premise: That the calamitous BP well could have been plugged using oobleck. The combination of two parts cornstarch to one part water, which takes its name from Dr. Seuss's Bartholomew and the Oobleck, is a bizarre substance that flows like a liquid at slow speeds, and turns solid at fast. The idea is the brainchild of physics professor Jonathan Katz, who noted that in the failed top-kill approach, the oil and gas rocketing up the well broke the drilling mud into fine particles. That made him wonder whether there was a fluid that wouldn't share the same fate—and then he thought of oobleck. Katz, who was on the energy secretary's advisory panel, sent out his idea; but he was cut from the panel a short time later due to some controversial social opinions on his website. The report in Physical Review Letters notes that when Katz experimented with the mixture and mineral oil under highly idealized circumstances, it did indeed work. A BP spokeswoman told NPR its engineers decided the idea wouldn't fly, and one professor of fluid dynamics points out another issue: Because oobleck turns into a solid at fast speeds, he calculated that you'd have to pump it so slowly that you couldn't get it down the hole faster than the oil was coming up.
– Ghoncheh Ghavami may be the world's only volleyball-related political prisoner. The 25-year-old, who was arrested when she tried to attend a men's volleyball game in Iran earlier this year, has been "locked up simply for peacefully having her say about how women are discriminated against in Iran," an Amnesty International director says. She was first arrested in June and has now been sentenced to a year in prison for allegedly spreading propaganda against the ruling system, reports the AP. She tried to enter the stadium with other women to protest Iran's ban on women attending male-only matches, and her brother believes she was singled out for harsh treatment because she holds both Iranian and British citizenship. Iran extended a long-standing ban on women attending men's soccer matches to volleyball in 2012, arguing that women needed protection from unruly fans. Amnesty says Ghavami was beaten after her arrest and put in solitary confinement in a Tehran prison, where she spent two weeks on hunger strike last month. Her lawyer tells the Los Angeles Times that he has never been given the chance to meet with his client outside of court and that authorities have threatened to put her on trial again over unspecified additional charges. The BBC reports that British authorities have raised objections to Ghavami's treatment, and a petition to free her has received more than 700,000 signatures. (Last month, despite international outcry, Iran hanged a woman convicted of killing her would-be rapist.)
– The latest adventure in hot mics involves Sen. Mark Kirk, who got caught joking to a colleague that fellow Republican senator Lindsey Graham is a "bro with no ho," reports the Huffington Post. "That's what we'd say on the South Side," said the Illinois lawmaker of his friend. He was referring to the focus on Graham running for president as a bachelor. “Senator Kirk was joking with his colleague and immediately apologized to anyone offended by his remark," says his press secretary. Democrats were trying to make hay, with the campaign manager for Rep. Tammy Duckworth—who hopes to take Kirk's seat in 2016—calling the joke "as offensive as it is unfunny," reports the Chicago Tribune. In an interview with Politico, meanwhile, Graham sounds a little annoyed with all the fuss over his singlehood. "At the end of the day, there’s nothing wrong about not being married," he says. "Having a marriage and a good family and children is a blessing. But I don’t think I’m a defective person by any means." He tells the website that he was close to being married when he was much younger, in the days when he was the legal guardian of his younger sister after their parents died within 15 months of each other. “It’s something I really don’t know the answer to, other than I think it’s OK."
– James Cameron's sci-fi epic Avatar has been hailed as the future of filmmaking and the stunning fantasy world he has created more than lives up to the hype, say impressed critics. "Avatar delivers," writes Steven Rea at the Philadelphia Inquirer. "Combining beyond-state-of-the-art moviemaking with a tried-and-true storyline and a gamer-geek sensibility—not to mention a love angle, an otherworldly bestiary, and an arsenal of 22nd-century weaponry—the movie quite simply rocks." Calling the world Cameron has created in Avatar " an Eden in three dimensions," Manhola Dargis credits him with returning awe to the movie experience. "Created to conquer hearts, minds, history books and box-office records, the movie is glorious and goofy and blissfully deranged," she writes in the New York Times. "This is the most technically amazing motion picture to have arrived on screens in many years" and easily the best movie of 2009, raves James Berardinelli at Reelviews. Cameron has created "the most vivid and convincing creation of a fantasy world ever seen in the history of moving pictures" writes Richard Corliss at Time. Avatar should be embraced "as a total sensory, sensuous, sensual experience."
– "Think before you jerk.” “Jerking isn’t a joke." Such slogans, as reported in the Washington Post and elsewhere, garnered national attention when used to remind drivers in South Dakota not to over-correct their steering on slick roads. Indeed, the standard theory behind the way we steer our cars dates back to the 1940s but has left us with a longstanding mystery: data shows that we have a habit of jerking the wheel from time to time, puzzling researchers. Now, experts in Sweden are explaining the phenomenon, and their findings could lead to better safety systems in cars, according to a release at Eureka Alert. The jerkiness is tied to the way humans reach for things: When something is close by, we move our arms more slowly to grab it than we do when it's further away. The result is that both movements take the same amount of time. "We immediately recognized this pattern" as similar to steering behaviors, a researcher says. "It was a bit of a eureka moment. Was it possible that this basic human behavior also controlled how we steer a car?" A study of more than 1,000 hours of drivers' movements suggests that it certainly was. The team developed a mathematical model addressing the behavior; now, "it is possible to predict how far the driver is going to turn the wheel, right when the person starts a wheel-turning movement. It's like looking into the future," the researcher says. That could improve safety: For instance, if a sleepy driver is edging off the road, his car's support system could predict how much he's going to jerk the wheel to try to correct things, often disastrously, and intervene to prevent it. (South Dakota eventually decided to drop the "don't jerk and drive" campaign.)
– As the New York Daily News notes, the show Mythbusters once devoted an episode to proving that both Jack and Rose could have survived on that floating door near the end of Titanic. So why did Leo DiCaprio's character have to die? "The answer is very simple because it says on page 147 [of the script] that Jack dies," James Cameron tells Vanity Fair in a wide-ranging Q&A. "Very simple." The director think it's "silly" the topic still comes up 20 years after the film's release. It was an "artistic choice," says Cameron. "Had he lived, the ending of the film would have been meaningless," he explains. "The film is about death and separation; he had to die." Cameron adds that he thinks the door was, in fact, big enough only for Kate Winslet's character. But if even that weren't the case, Jack was still going to die. "It’s called art, things happen for artistic reasons, not for physics reasons." (Cameron's recent criticism of the Wonder Woman movie didn't go over well.)
– Foreign policy is widely seen as Herman Cain's weak spot, and the candidate didn't do himself any favors in Miami yesterday. After biting into a croqueta at a campaign stop in Little Havana, Cain asked: "How do you say 'delicious' in Cuban?" He did not appear to be joking, Raw Story notes. "Delicioso," a man told Cain. That's the Spanish word, which is the language Cubans speak. Unlike most candidates who visit Little Havana, Cain didn't denounce the Castro regime or even mention foreign policy, Reuters reports. "I'm often criticized about the fact that I don't know this and I don't know that, and I don't know that and I don't know this," he told the crowd. "A leader doesn't have to know everything."
– Longtime Washington Post political columnist David Broder is dead at age 81 from complications of diabetes. The Post offers a lengthy obit for him here and his final column here. Broder covered every presidential election since 1956 and won a Pulitzer in 1973 for his Watergate coverage. The newspaper's Ben Bradlee called him "the best political correspondent in America" because he knew the system "from the back room up" and not just at the highest levels in DC.
– In naming KT McFarland his deputy national security adviser Friday, Donald Trump is adding another person with "hard-line views on the fight against terrorism" to his team, the New York Times reports. According to Bloomberg, McFarland served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affair under Ronald Reagan. She also worked for the Nixon and Ford administrations, spent time as a national security analyst and adviser to Henry Kissinger, and is a frequent guest on Fox News. She also unsuccessfully ran for Hillary Clinton's senate seat in 2006. In her new position, McFarland will work with Trump's new national security adviser, former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. McFarland has been a frequent critic of President Obama's approach to terrorism and says the threat of global Islamism needs to be addressed. "She has tremendous experience and innate talent that will complement the fantastic team we are assembling, which is crucial because nothing is more important than keeping our people safe," CNN quotes Trump as saying in a statement. In a statement of her own, McFarland says: "Nobody has called foreign policy right more than President-elect Trump, and he gets no credit for it." Flynn added in a tweet that McFarland "will help us #MAGA." Her appointment doesn't require senate confirmation.
– Two pictures have been released documenting the early days of Britain's newest prince—and one shows Prince Louis being cuddled by three-year-old big sister Princess Charlotte. One of the photos was snapped when Louis was just three days old, reports the AP. He was born April 23 and went home the same day. The two snapshots were released by Prince William and his wife Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, and were taken by Kate at their home in Kensington Palace. Big brother Prince George, 4, is not in the photos. A palace statement said that William and the duchess are "very pleased" to share the photos. "Their Royal Highnesses would like to thank members of the public for all of the kind messages they have received following the birth of Prince Louis, and for Princess Charlotte’s third birthday," per the statement. Normally royal parents wait about a month to release photos, so the move comes as something of a surprise to People.
– The Paiute tribe is really getting fed up with the militia occupying federal land in Oregon. The latest straw came Wednesday when an occupier posted a video showing him rummaging through Paiute artifacts and documents. LaVoy Finicum apparently had good intentions. "We want to make sure these things are returned to their rightful owner … so we're reaching out to the Paiute people in the sincerest manner," he said, inviting leaders to pick up the relics he said were "rotting" in cardboard boxes, per Mashable. "Let's make sure that we take care of the heritage of the Native American people." However, Paiute leaders—who say they have a positive relationship with refuge officials—argue the militia is trying to seize land that's part of their ancestral territory, per the Guardian. "I feel disrespected that they're even out there. It's like me going through their drawers at their house," says Jarvis Kennedy, the tribal council's sergeant-at-arms. "How would they feel if I drove over their grave and went through their heirlooms?" he adds. Though he fears some artifacts will be stolen, Kennedy gave no indication that he would go pick them up. "All the stuff they are doing out there, it's like a crime scene," he says. "Once this is done, we'll see what's missing." Last week, the tribe asked federal agencies to prosecute occupiers who "disturb, damage, remove, alter, or deface any archaeological resource on the refuge property," per Indian Country Today Media Network.
– SpaceShipTwo's most recent test flight turned into a more extensive test than the private spacecraft's makers had bargained for. A malfunction sent the Virgin Galactic spacecraft briefly hurtling out of control—but then its three-person crew stabilized it for a safe landing, MSNBC reports. The glitch allowed Virgin to showcase the SpaceShipTwo's safety features, including the “feathered" tail's ability to slow the spacecraft down. "It dropped like a rock and went straight down," said one observer. "Typically, it takes 11 minutes to land, but this time it was only seven minutes before they were on the ground. It was a nail-biter—but that's how you learn." The vehicle, designed to take tourists on short jaunts into space, was lifted to high altitude by carrier vehicle WhiteKnightTwo, which will also be used to lift a NASA-backed space taxi for testing next year. Virgin Galatic, meanwhile, hit a major new milestone in its space travel plans yesterday by moving into a $209 million New Mexico "Spaceport America" hangar and terminal in Las Cruces, reports the Los Angeles Times.
– Michael Bloomberg was today busily putting his mouth where his money will be tomorrow, Politico reports, when he kicks off a $12 million ad blitz targeting 13 senators considered vulnerable on gun control. Appearing on Meet the Press, the New York City mayor said "we are going to win" measures supporting heightened background checks, and dismissed Harry Reid's abandonment of an assault weapons ban, saying, "I don't think we should give up on" it. He did, however, concede that "people have different views about assault weapons than they do about background checks." Bloomberg's rhetoric, meanwhile, has the NRA's Wayne LaPierre seeing red, calling his comments "reckless," "ridiculous," and "insane." Americans "don't want him in their restaurants, (and) they sure don't want him telling them what self-defense firearms to own. And he can't buy America," LaPierre fumed. Elsewhere on the Sunday dial, as per Politico: More LaPierre: "We're looking to get better enforcement [of] the federal gun laws. We're looking at laws that beef up the penalties on straw purchases and illegal trafficking, which we want prosecuted." Karl Rove: "Let's be clear about this. This is prompted by the Sandy Hook murders. Those guns were legally purchased with a background check. Let's be very careful before trampling on the rights of people. If you want to get something done, then stop scaring people." California AG Kamala Harris: "The folks in DC have to reject a false choice that suggests that you're either in favor of the Second Amendment or that you're in favor of reasonable and common sense gun laws. You can be both. I as a career prosecutor have personally seen cases of both police officers and innocent babies being killed by assault weapons. There is no reasonable basis for having those on our streets." Mike Rogers on Syria's chemical weapons: It's "abundantly clear that red line has been crossed. Now is the time." Yet, "if Assad goes next week, this is mass chaos." Bloomberg on President Obama's Israel trip: "I think this is going to go down in history as one of the few trips that an American president has made to Israel where there really were deliverables. He got Israel and Turkey talking to each other and restoring diplomatic relations. And I think that's crucial for the security of that whole area." Rand Paul on 2016: "The country is suffering, 12 million people out of work. So I want to be part of the answers to it. Whether or not that actually is me specifically running for president, I don't know that yet."
– Beware of fake fancy footwear. US customs agents seized about 20,000 pairs of counterfeit Christian Louboutin shoes at the Los Angeles/Long Beach seaport. The shoes came in on a cargo ship from China, and they could have fetched upward of $18 million on the black market, reports ABC News. A pair of the real-deal designer shoes can go for thousands of dollars, notes AP. These fakes will probably be burned. “The original [Christian Louboutin] shoe is made in Italy,” says a customs agent. “Once we saw it was coming in from China, we knew there was a problem with the shipment.”
– President Trump has railed against Amazon repeatedly in recent weeks, accusing Jeff Bezos' company of getting a sweetheart deal from the Postal Service on delivery. On Thursday night, the president took what could be his first tangible step toward changing that: He issued an executive order calling for a review of the agency's finances, reports Bloomberg. The order, which does not mention Amazon, notes the USPS has lost more than $65 billion over the last decade. "The USPS is on an unsustainable financial path and must be restructured to prevent a taxpayer-funded bailout," the order reads. An analysis at Politifact disputes Trump's previous assertions that the delivery deal with Amazon, whose terms are confidential, is costing the USPS money. ("I am right about Amazon costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy," Trump wrote on April 3.) Instead, it chalks up most of the agency's red ink to a 2006 law requiring USPS to prefund the health benefits of retirees. (One other way Trump could change policy at USPS: Start filling numerous vacancies on its board of governors.)
– For 42 years, Starbucks has been exporting coffee beans from Colombia; now, it's finally planning to sell the resulting product in the country. Next year, the coffee chain will open its first Colombian store in Bogota, and it intends to have 50 stores in the country—the biggest producer of washed arabica beans on the planet, and Starbucks' No. 1 or No. 2 supplier during the chain's entire history—within five years, Bloomberg reports. "We've had great success in Latin America and it's well overdue for us to open up in Colombia," says CEO Howard Schultz. Starbucks says it won't undercut Juan Valdez, a Colombian chain owned by farmers, and will instead likely have slightly higher prices, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, the company is also working with USAID: Together, the organizations will contribute $3 million to help the country's small-plot coffee farmers. The program hopes to fight "extreme poverty, which is still a reality for almost all of these small-scale coffee growers that have barely (2.5 acres) of land," says the head of the agency. In other Starbucks-is-everywhere news, the Wall Street Journal reports that, beginning today, Whole Foods will stock Starbucks' Evolution Fresh juices and Evolution Harvest snack bars. (Fact that may surprise: Starbucks is far from the No. 1 coffee brand in America.)
– Shanna Vandewege had suffered a trio of miscarriages, which made the birth of son Diederik all the more incredible. Vandewege had just three joyful months with her boy: The 36-year-old and her baby were found dead by way of "incised wounds" to the neck in their Fort Worth home on Dec. 15, reports WFAA. Husband Craig Vandewege called 911 after discovering their bodies—and has now been arrested for their murders. Craig Vandewege initially told police he found them in the master bedroom upon coming home from work. "To the best I understand, he walked in, the house was all in disorder," Shanna Vandewege's father initially said. The deaths sparked fears in the Texas neighborhood they had moved to earlier this year from Colorado. The latter state is where Craig Vandewege was ultimately arrested, initially for speeding and not providing proof of insurance while in Glenwood Springs. He was in the state for his family's funerals. A capital murder warrant was obtained Thursday, reports the Star-Telegram, but no information regarding evidence or motive has been revealed. One detail from the arrest report: "I did not observe a wedding band on Craig’s left ring finger, but he stated a wedding ring was in his pocket along with numerous condoms." Police found two pistols, an AR-15-style rifle, a .22-caliber revolver, camouflage clothing, and ammunition on his person and in the car. Shanna Vandewege was a nurse who was on maternity leave; her husband worked at Costco. (In another case, police say a man killed his wife, his son, and himself, but a surviving daughter isn't so sure.)
– At 3,500 years old, researchers may have deciphered the world's most ancient "yo mama" joke. Using images of a tablet discovered in 1976 but since lost, the pair dissected a series of jokes carved by a Babylonian student thousands of years ago, and their conclusions, originally published in the journal Iraq, have been getting some attention. The tablet contains six riddles that the researchers call "wisdom literature," but the Huffington Post notes that the aphorisms aren't too different from today's frat party jokes. One refers to alcohol: "In your mouth and your teeth, constantly stared at you, the measuring vessel of your lord. -What is it? Beer." And while it may not be that funny to you, the researchers note that "your teeth" could also be interpreted as "your urine." The aforementioned "yo mama" joke is, unfortunately, a piecemeal translation: "...of your mother is by the one who has intercourse with her. What/who is it? [No answer]." Writing for io9, Alasdair Wilkins notes, with appreciation, the researchers' decision to leave "it ambiguous whether the word is 'who' or 'what' the mother is having sex with—even in ancient Babylon, you just can't rule anything out when talking about one's mother."
– Alex Rodriguez used performance-enhancing drugs in 2007, the year he hit 54 home runs, won his second MVP award, and then opted out of his contract, leading to the biggest pay-day in baseball history—and he did it with the league's blessing. An excerpt from the upcoming book, Blood Sport, published in Sports Illustrated yesterday reveals that Rodriguez applied for a "therapeutic use exemption" to baseball's drug policy, which allows players to take banned substances if they have a medical reason. Rodriguez got an exemption to use testosterone, the league revealed in Rodriguez's 2013 grievance hearing. In the hearing, MLB's COO called testosterone "the mother of all anabolics," and noted that the most common reason a healthy young man would be low on it would be "prior steroid abuse." Only one other player that year got an exemption for a drug that would boost testosterone. The next year, A-Rod got another exemption, this time for a female fertility drug that bodybuilders often use to boost testosterone. "For a guy with low testosterone, he sure has some set of onions," quips Wallace Matthews in a scathing piece at ESPN; he calls the story "not only comically ironic, but deeply embarrassing to baseball." For the full excerpt, which also explains how A-Rod fell in with Biogenesis, click here.
– The Senate Intelligence Committee has formally requested a classified internal CIA study on its torture program, which lawmakers believe is deeply unflattering, the New York Times reports. Mark Udall revealed the existence of the report yesterday during a prickly hearing with Caroline Krass, President Obama's nominee for CIA general counsel. The Senate is fighting to declassify its own 6,300-page report on torture, which reportedly castigates the program. The CIA has blocked and vigorously rebutted that report, but lawmakers think its secret internal report backs it up. Krass didn't respond directly to Udall's questions about the report yesterday, and Udall says he won't support her nomination until the CIA opens up about torture. He might not be her only detractor, either. The real drama in yesterday's hearings came when Dianne Feinstein pressed Krass on whether she'd release the Justice Department legal memos used to justify practices like torture and drone strikes. Krass was evasive at first, but ultimately replied, "I do not think so, as a general matter," arguing that the memos were "confidential legal advice," the Guardian and Politico report. "You are going to encounter some heat in that regard," Feinstein warned.
– An accused rapist in Canada is defending himself with the argument that he is physically incapable of the crime. Specifically, says the lawyer for Jacques Rouschop, "his stomach is too large and his penis is way, way too small," reports the Ottawa Citizen. The 44-year-old is accused of raping and choking two sex workers in 2013 in his pickup truck. But his first defense witness was a registered nurse who took the suspect's measurements in jail and testified that Rouschop's penis was about 2 inches when erect. The 5-foot-6 Rouschop also weighed about 400 pounds at the time of the alleged attacks and has an umbilical hernia about the size of a baseball, reports the National Post. To buttress his case, jurors were shown photographs of his naked body. “Due to his weight and his appearance, he will be the first to tell you that he has had a lot of trouble attracting members of the opposite sex, and that getting a woman’s attention, let alone having sex, was not something that happened very often for him," says his lawyer. She acknowledges that Rouschop, a career thief, did indeed visit sex workers, but she maintains that he could not have raped a woman from behind, as one of the sex workers testified. The allegations stem from a police investigation into the 2013 murder of another sex worker, and while police have publicly linked Rouschop to that crime, they have not charged him, reports the Ottawa Sun. “He believes he is the subject of a witch hunt,” says his attorney. (This study defined "normal" penis length.)
– Nobody wants to bring home bedbugs after being on the road, and now scientists have some practical advice on how to avoid that fate. A new study in Scientific Reports shows that the little critters are drawn to the scent of dirty laundry, and the lead author translates that into traveling tips. For starters, put your luggage up on metal racks in a hotel room because bedbugs won't be able to climb up the smooth surface, says entomologist William Hentley of the UK's University of Sheffield, per Gizmodo. You might also store your dirty clothes in a separate airtight bag. If the hotel has no metal racks, consider storing your entire suitcase in a plastic bag, which may seem like a pain, but nothing compared to the chore of ridding your home of bedbugs. "Soiled clothing left in an open suitcase, or left on the floor, of an infested room is more likely to attract bed bugs," the authors write. "When packed into a suitcase, they will accompany their host back home." They figured this out by unleashing bedbugs in a room and leaving them be for 96 hours. Roughly twice as many bugs ended up in a cotton bag filled with dirty laundry as opposed to a bag of clean clothes. A Rutgers entomologist who wasn't involved with the study tells Science it's legit and offers some advice of his own. "The biggest thing is not keeping your luggage on the bed," he says. Travelers also should wash and then dry clothes at the highest temperature upon returning home, he adds, because "heat is the Achilles heel of the bedbug." (Another study suggests the bugs prefer certain colors.)
– Hillary Clinton's campaign logo has its share of critics, but one graphic designer was inspired enough to create a whole font based on the "H" design. "Now you too can announce," tweeted Rick Wolff as he unveiled the font he calls "Hillary Bold" or "Hillvetica," Politico reports. He plans to make it downloadable and compatible with Microsoft Word, though "there is no word on whether Comic Rands or Times New Rubio are in development," quips Tricia Gilbride at Mashable. The Washington Post has used the font to create a tool people can use to make their own campaign slogan—or, as some users have done, write out "BENGHAZI."
– Police in New Hampshire say that Malachi Grant, an 18-month-old boy reportedly kidnapped by a father investigators describe as mentally unstable, has been found safe and sound, NECN reports. Authorities say 33-year-old Jeremiah Grant was arrested following a pursuit in Franklin County, Maine, around 1:30 this morning; Malachi was found unharmed in the vehicle his father was driving and will be brought back to his mother today. Police say Malachi was at his mother's home in Somersworth when 33-year-old Jeremiah Grant took off with him in a gray 1991 Honda Accord while she was distracted, WMUR reports. An Amber Alert had been issued, and police correctly thought Grant may have gone to Maine, where he's a registered sex offender, CBS Boston reports. Police had believed Grant—who is 6 feet tall, weighs 275 pounds, and has tattoos including the words "Alpha Male" on his neck and "INSANE" on his left forearm—to be a danger both to himself and the boy. "There were comments made during the course of the day that lead us to believe that the child is in danger," a police spokesman initially told WMUR. Grant was charged as a fugitive from justice, eluding police, reckless conduct, and endangering the welfare of a child, per WCSH. He'll be extradited back to New Hampshire, NECN reports.
– Dear Newt, Ron Paul would like to warmly welcome you to your new role as frontrunner, or at least almost-frontrunner, with this blistering new ad. It's called "Serial Hypocrisy," notes the Daily Caller, and it weaves together various clips (Gingrich talking health care with Nancy Pelosi, the "social engineering" comment about Paul Ryan, his Freddie Mac riches, Rush Limbaugh blasting him, etc.) into a two-and-a-half-minute assault. Business Insider: Calls it "scathing," with a clear aim to "remind conservatives why they didn't like Newt Gingrich the first time around." Politico: "The hardest blow yet against Newt Gingrich ..." Mediaite: It's "absolutely brutal" ... Salon: Joan Walsh is "awestruck" by it, and not because she's in it.
– Herman Cain might just be a wee bit misinformed about China. In a quick exchange from his PBS News Hour interview last night, spotted by Raw Story, Cain was asked if China was a military threat. “Yes, they’re a military threat,” he replied. "They’ve indicated that they're trying to develop nuclear capability … So yes, we have to consider them a military threat." There’s just one little inaccuracy there: China has had nuclear weapons since 1964. Cain has never claimed to be a foreign policy guru—he once boasted that he didn’t know who the president of "Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan" was, a remark that greatly amused Hillary Clinton. In last night’s interview, he also said he wouldn’t send troops into Syria, saying the situation was “sad” but that the US couldn’t get involved. “I want to first make sure that we stop giving money to our enemies,” he said. The US does not send aid to Syria, but Cain may have been making a more general point.
– The daughter of a well-known Bahraini human rights activist was sentenced Wednesday to a year in jail for delivering the ultimate insult to her country's king: ripping up a picture of him, Reuters reports. Zainab al-Khawaja, 32, lost her appeal on a conviction for tearing up a photo of King Hamad during an October 2014 court appearance, Amnesty International USA notes. "It is ludicrous that Zainab Al-Khawaja is facing a year in prison simply for tearing up a photo of the head of state," an Amnesty International director says in the release. "She should not be punished in any way for peacefully exercising her right to freedom of expression." The mother of two, who Reuters notes also has to pay an almost $8,000 fine or face an additional year and a half behind bars, intends to bring her infant son into prison with her if she's made to go, her family informs Amnesty. Khawaja is the daughter of Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who's serving a life sentence for taking part in pro-democracy protests in 2011.
– Eight female TV hosts in Egypt have been suspended, and they've been given one month to win their jobs back—if they come back a few pounds lighter. Via the BBC, the Al-Yawm al-Sabi website reports the state-run Egyptian Radio and Television Union issued the slim-down mandate, though the women are being paid and receiving benefits during their monthlong moratorium. Women's rights activists, as well as the presenters themselves, are livid: An Egyptian women's rights NGO is calling the edict a form of violence against women, and host Khadija Khattab is imploring viewers to watch her newscasts to determine a) if she's "fat," and b) whether her weight should affect her job status. "I believe I am an ordinary Egyptian woman who looks normal," she says, per the New York Times. Critics are also calling the move sexist, as only female presenters were suspended, the Independent notes. The ERTU is headed by Safaa Hegazy, a former female news anchor herself who the Telegraph notes was brought in in April to make the broadcaster more competitive, since ratings for state-run channels tanked after the 2011 Egyptian uprising. Some who approve of the suspension are women: Per the Times, a female commentator for the government-run Al-Ahram website says she's "sickened" by the suspended hosts' "disgusting and repulsive" appearance, while a female colleague asks: "Is a ban for eight enough?" The chair of Cairo's Association for the Development and Enhancement of Women, however, tells the Independent that "judging anybody on the basis of his or her body weight is not the right criterion," adding weight shouldn't be an issue "as long as he or she does not use nasty words on the air and knows well how to deal with guests." Her model example: Oprah Winfrey. (An eighth-grader refused to give her BMI for a school assignment.)
– Disaster for Samsung: The company is recalling its hot (and occasionally explosive) new phone worldwide because of a battery problem that can cause it to catch fire when charging, CNNMoney reports. Sales of the Galaxy Note7 have been halted. Samsung says it's aware of at least 35 cases of faulty batteries and will replace all 2.5 million Galaxy Note7 phones that have been sold. TechCrunch notes that the timing is very painful for Samsung, since Apple is releasing its latest iPhone next week. "We are currently conducting a thorough inspection with our suppliers to identify possible affected batteries in the market. However, because our customers' safety is an absolute priority at Samsung, we have stopped sales of the Galaxy Note7," Samsung said in a statement. "For customers who already have Galaxy Note7 devices, we will voluntarily replace their current device with a new one over the coming weeks." (After its release less than a month ago, reviewers called the device "the most impressive smartphone ever created.")
– Pirates of yore plundered, but they also read books, apparently. While cleaning sludge out of a cannon recovered from Blackbeard's flagship, scientists discovered bits of paper and were able to figure out the name of a book kept on board. The 16 fragments, each no bigger than a quarter, were lumped together inside the chamber of one of 27 known cannons aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge, which ran aground off North Carolina in 1718 and was discovered by divers in 1996, per a release. A few printed words on seven of the fragments helped with the sleuthing, reports National Geographic. After months studying the pieces—one of which reads "three or" and "Hilo, to"—researchers at North Carolina's Queen Anne's Revenge Conservation Lab identified the book from which the paper came. Deciding Hilo likely referred to the Spanish settlement of Ilo in Peru, researchers scoured early accounts of voyages mentioning the place until they came across the right one. It was a first edition of Edward Cooke's A Voyage to the South Sea, and Round the World, which describes a British naval officer's seafaring adventures from 1708 to 1711. Published in 1712, the book would act as inspiration for Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe. According to Gizmodo, such "voyage narratives" also inspired real-life expeditions and might've given Blackbeard "fresh ideas about new places to plunder." Whatever its purpose, the book was apparently considered dispensable when pages 177, 178, and 183-188 were applied to the cannon, possibly as a seal for its wooden plug. (Blackbeard's flagship also carried some unusual medical artifacts.)
– Highway robbery in North Carolina: Police and the FBI are probing a heist on Interstate 95 Sunday night in which around $4 million in gold was allegedly stolen from a truck. Two armed security guards who were transporting the gold from Miami to Massachusetts say that after they pulled over at mile 114 when the truck had mechanical problems, they were approached by three armed men in a van who tied their hands behind their backs and ordered them to walk into the woods, WRAL reports. While the TransValue guards were in the woods, the bandits made off with 275 pounds of gold bars, according to the Wilson Times. Interstate 95 is a busy road, but the heist took place along a lonely, isolated stretch of it surrounded by woods and farms, reports the AP, which notes that it isn't clear how the robbers were able to get the truck open. TransValue, which is based in Miami, says its guards were not injured in the heist and is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the robbers. The FBI is investigating to determine whether a federal crime occurred, WRAL reports. (In another gold heist earlier this year, thieves made off with gold nuggets from the Wells Fargo History Museum.)
– China's Qinghai province may be remote, but it's a heck of a lot less remote than Mars. So for those looking to experience the latter but willing to travel to the former, good news: China in July announced that it intends to build a Mars replica on what the Guardian describes as "a spectacular, sandswept corner of the Tibetan plateau." The South China Morning Post has the latest on the so-called "Mars Village," which it reports will cost about $60 million, following recent meetings between government officials and scientists. The desert locale has been described as Mars-like, thanks in part to the oddly shaped wind-eroded rocks, called yardang, found there, reported the Morning Post. The vision to cater to two types of voyagers: The 36,000-square-mile high-altitude camp will serve as a training ground for Chinese astronauts and tourists looking to experience a "high-end," glamping-like version of life on Mars. The Guardian tried to talk to project head Liu Xiaoqun about the plans, but got the cold shoulder from a rep for the Chinese Academy of Sciences: "Liu ... isn't in Beijing and he doesn't want to take any interviews." (America's version of Mars is on Hawaii.)
– An ominous "face" spotted in an infrared satellite image of Hurricane Matthew isn't likely to calm fears as the storm heads toward the US. Noticed by a Weather Channel meteorologist, the gray shape, sort of like a skull—though others say it resembles the Grinch—appeared to be grinning as the storm moved over western Haiti on Tuesday. Those battered by the storm probably weren't smiling: The storm has killed at least 11 people, per the Weather Channel: five in Haiti, four in the Dominican Republic, one in Colombia, and one in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
– The Manhattan hotel maid accusing IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault picked him out of a police lineup yesterday, reports the New York Times. Strauss-Kahn was taken to the Manhattan Special Victims Unit in East Harlem where DNA evidence was collected from his skin and beneath his fingernails, authorities said. Strauss-Kahn is due to be arraigned later today, where he is expected to be allowed to post bail. Due to worries that he may attempt to flee the country, however, bail is expected to be in the millions of dollars. Strauss-Kahn had been widely considered the leading candidate in this year's French presidential race, reports AP. Supporters wear T-shirts that read "Yes we Kahn," a play on Barack Obama's famous "Yes we can" slogan of 2008. Strauss-Kahn has been dubbed "the great seducer" for his love life by the French media, but reports of his affairs had not hurt his presidential bid. But now, his stunned Socialist party has been thrown into chaos. "It's totally hallucinating," said one of Strauss-Kahn's rivals. "If true, this would be a historic moment in the negative sense for French political life." For more on the crime, check here.
– Australia on Saturday arrested one of its own citizens and charged him with acting as an economic agent on behalf of North Korea in attempting to sell the Hermit Kingdom's missile technology, reports the New York Times. South Korean-born Chan Han Choi, 59, was "discussing the supply of weapons of mass destruction" with unnamed "international entities," said an official with the Australian Federal Police. Among missile components he was allegedly trying to sell on behalf of Pyongyang was guiding software for ballistic missiles, as well as what the Times calls "unspecified North Korean military expertise." Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull called the arrest a "very, very serious matter" on behalf of a "dangerous, reckless, criminal regime," reports the AP, and said that for anyone with similar intentions, "the AFP will find you." Choi's alleged actions are in violation of Australian and United Nations sanctions against North Korea; he faces six charges that also include trying to sell coal to parties in Indonesia and Vietnam. He's the first person charged under Australia's Weapons of Mass Destruction Act, and could face 10 years in prison, notes the AP. Police say the charges relate to activities over the past year, but that Choi has been active dating back to 2008. Two unsuccessful transactions Choi attempted would have been worth "tens of millions of dollars" for North Korea, says the AFP official. Adds Turnbull, "it is vitally important that all nations work relentlessly to enforce those sanctions because the more economic pressure that can be brought on North Korea, the sooner that regime will be brought to its senses."
– Three teenage suspects are dead and their alleged getaway driver is in custody after what police in Broken Arrow, Okla., are calling an apparent home invasion. Police say that after the three suspects broke in through a glass door at the back of the home Monday afternoon, there was a "short exchange of words" with the homeowner's 23-year-old son before he opened fire with an AR-15 assault rifle, KTUL reports. Two suspects died in the home's kitchen. A third fled before collapsing and dying in the home's driveway. Police say that hours after the shooting, Elizabeth Marie Rodriguez, 21, turned herself in. She was arrested and is expected to face three charges of first-degree murder and three charges of burglary. (In Oklahoma, those suspected in a felony that results in a death can face charges of murder.) Wagoner County Deputy Nick Mahoney says the three teenagers were wearing black clothing, masks, and gloves when they broke into the home, the AP reports. Two of the suspects were 17 years old and the third was 18, reports FOX23. One suspect had brass knuckles and another had a knife, according to police, who say the homeowners called authorities and voluntarily provided statements. Police say there's no indication that the suspects knew the homeowner or his son. They say that, for now, the shooting is being treated as self-defense. "This may be a case of 'stand-your-ground'; however, it's still too early to say for sure, and we're still looking into all aspects of this," Mahoney says, per the Tulsa World.
– For the second time this month, a man has been killed after being shoved onto New York City subway tracks. Last night's victim hasn't been identified, but several witnesses saw the incident, the New York Daily News reports: A young woman was mumbling as she wandered along a subway platform in Queens. After sitting on a bench, she "waited until the train came into the station and approached this individual from behind and pushed him in front of the train," a police spokesman says. "We haven’t determined whether it was random or if there was some connection" between the woman and man, the spokesman adds, but witnesses saw no evidence that they knew each other. The man seemed not to have noticed the woman, witnesses say. Police have released surveillance footage of the woman fleeing the scene, the AP reports. They describe her as a heavyset, 5-foot-5 Hispanic woman in her 20s. The New York Times adds that police were able to obtain images of her from a local restaurant's cameras, which were directed toward the subway stairs. "She jumps from the stairs and she just runs," the owner says.
– Quitting smoking, keeping blood pressure and cholesterol levels down, and popping the odd aspirin could stop hundreds of thousands of Americans from dying unnecessarily every year. That's according to a new report by the CDC, which says 200,000 heart disease and stroke deaths each year are preventable, the LA Times reports. "These findings are really striking. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of deaths that don't have to happen," says the CDC's director. "It's possible for us to make rapid and substantial progress in reducing these deaths." The good news from the report is that the number of these preventable deaths decreased by 29% between 2001 and 2010. The bad news is that was mostly for people aged 65-74—the percentage remains virtually unchanged for people under 65, who accounted for more than half of these deaths last year. Men were twice as likely to die of these causes as women, blacks almost twice as likely as whites, and victims are disproportionately likely to live in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Oklahoma (the CDC has an informative but depressing map on this).
– The euro took a nose dive today, and so did the bonds of weak eurozone nations, as investors panicked over fresh speculation that Greece will have to restructure its debt in the near future, and the election of an anti-Euro party in Finland. German government sources tell Reuters that they doubt Greece will be able to get through the summer without restructuring. Greece, however, has repeatedly denied that it would do so. "It would have catastrophic consequences," the Bank of Greece's governor said. Speculation was also rampant that the new Finnish government would throw a monkey wrench in Portugal’s bailout negotiations. EU negotiators issued a statement today insisting that wouldn’t happen. “There are no changes in plans,” a spokesman said. “We're fully confident that member states will honor their commitments.” Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, meanwhile, reassured observers that Ireland intended to pay its debt. “The Greek government will obviously deal with this problem in the best way it can,” he told Bloomberg. “We have no intention of defaulting.”
– A Long Island teenager was stunned when school officials suspended her for creating an anti-bullying video that featured a fictional character who commits suicide. Jessica Barba, 15, wrote, filmed, and acted in the six-minute video for a class project. In the video, she plays a character who's bullied by classmates. The film ends with a caption that the character has committed suicide. When she was called into the principal's office, she expected to be praised for her work; instead she was suspended for five days, reports the New York Daily News. "I started hysterically crying. I couldn’t believe I was getting in trouble for something I had worked so hard on. And the only intent of it was good," Jessica told WNBC-TV. Her film is clearly marked as "fiction." Jessica also created a Facebook page featuring her character, which was also labeled as fictional. But an alarmed parent contacted the school, which took down the page (after Jessica said she was pressured to turn over her password) and suspended Jessica. The superintendent of the Longwood school district said the video "created a substantial disruption to the school." Jessica's dad, Michael Barba, said he's proud of his daughter and is fighting the suspension at a hearing today, reports Newsday.
– Thomas van Linge has become one of the most respected cartographers around when it comes to tracking global conflicts, including the advances of ISIS, Boko Haram, and separatists in Ukraine. His highly detailed, color-coded maps have been picked up by CNN, the New York Times, and the Huffington Post, among other media—and the 19-year-old creates them all from his childhood bedroom in Amsterdam, reports der Spiegel. Yes, 19. And the young activist has never even been to any of the war-torn regions he documents and taught himself Arabic on YouTube. "I want to inform people mostly and show people the rebel dynamics in the country," he told Newsweek in June. "I also want to inform journalists who want to go to the region which regions are definitely no-go zones, which regions are the most dangerous, and also to show strategic developments through time." How did a Dutch teen get to become one of the foremost armchair cartographers in the world? He tells Newsweek his interest was sparked while watching 2011's Arab Spring uprising, which spurred him to start following what was going on in Syria. He released a map in 2014 of that region on his Twitter account, which now boasts more than 15,000 followers who retweet his creations. Each map, which he colors in using Microsoft Paint, takes van Linge a few weeks to finish, using social media, YouTube, and any of his 1,000-plus sources on the front lines to gather and corroborate information, he tells the magazine. What's next for van Linge? He's contemplating heading to one of the far-off lands he's been mapping out to help the people suffering there in person, Spiegel notes. Check out a Syria territory progression video using van Linge's maps here. (Or click to read about a much-mapped island that doesn't actually exist.)
– Investors sent bank stocks plunging yesterday, as they finally started to worry about the mortgage robo-signing scandal. Up until now, investors have mostly assumed the crisis would blow over. But on Wednesday, 50 states announced investigations into mortgage servicing practices, and yesterday a San Francisco hedge fund circulated a report predicting that the crisis would wind up costing Bank of America a whopping $70 billion, the New York Times reports. As a result, Bank of America fell 5.2%, its biggest drop since mid-July, Wells Fargo fell 4% and JP Morgan fell 2.8%, despite a relatively flat stock market, according to the Wall Street Journal. “I don’t see how it can be cleared up in a short period of time,” said one analyst. “The moratorium won’t last that long, but the problem will last four or five years, maybe a decade.”
– The mysteries of the Shroud of Turin are proving to be very stubborn in the face of modern technology. An Italian team analyzed DNA from the relic some believe is the burial cloth of Jesus but failed to find conclusive proof of its origins, the Independent reports. The testing revealed traces of people and pollen from many parts of the world, meaning it that could be a medieval forgery—or that its journey to Europe could indeed have begun in Jerusalem around 30 or 33AD. The results show that over the centuries, the shroud came in contact with many "different types of natural and anthropological environments," according to the researchers, whose study is published in the journal Nature. One find that will surprise skeptics: One of the most common snippets of mitochondrial DNA was from the Middle East. The type is "rare in western Europe, and it is typical of the Druze community, an ethnic group that has some origin in Egypt and that lives mainly in restricted areas between Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine," lead researcher Gianni Barcaccia tells LiveScience, which notes that other experts consider some of the methods used unreliable. Another find: Barcaccia says some of the oldest DNA on the cloth was from India, meaning the shroud may have been made there. (An earlier study suggested the shroud is real—and was created by a huge earthquake.)
– Google's fleet of 23 self-driving Lexuses has been involved in 11 accidents over the past six years of testing in California—but the company says not one of those incidents was the fault of a Google car, the AP reports. Chris Urmson, director of Google's self-driving initiative, writes in a Medium blog post that its vehicles—which have logged 1.7 million miles—had accidents that involved "light damage, no injuries"; seven of the cars were rear-ended (usually at traffic lights) and most of the accidents took place on city streets, not highways, Reuters notes. Urmson also lists other reasons why cars may get into accidents other than not having a driver: tricky intersections and turns, people not paying attention (he even cites one driver spotted playing the trumpet). The accidents are being labeled as minor and somewhat typical—Urmson notes "if you spend enough time on the road, accidents will happen whether you're in a car or a self-driving car"— and advocates for driverless cars say they actually improve safety because the cars are constantly scanning the environment for accident-causing factors and may react more quickly, the Washington Post notes. A nonprofit watchdog is trying to get both Google and the California DMV to release full reports for these accidents and any future incidents, but that doesn't seem to be happening: The DMV is citing confidentiality laws and won't give access, while Google (for now) is declining comment, per the Wall Street Journal. (A Google Street View car that got into an accident had a human driver.)
– The GOP race may be all but over after Tuesday's Donald Trump victory in Indiana, but Bernie Sanders made it clear that the Democratic primaries still matter—and he intends to win them. "I sense some great victories coming, and I think while the path is narrow—and I do not deny that for a moment—I think we can pull off one of the great political upsets in the history of the United States and in fact become the nominee for the Democratic Party," he told supporters at a rally in Kentucky after his surprise win in Indiana, per the Hill. "And once we secure that position, I have absolute confidence that we are gonna defeat Donald Trump in the general election." Sanders won Indiana with 52.5% of the vote to 47.5% for Clinton, according to the Washington Post, but although the win gives him momentum and another reason to stay in the race, the delegates are awarded proportionately, meaning he has only cut Clinton's lead by six. The AP reports that Clinton now has 1,682 pledged delegates to 1,361 for Sanders—but when superdelegates are counted, she has 2,202 delegates on her side, just 181 away from the 2,383 needed to win. Sanders told supporters that he plans to make his case to superdelegates in states that he won, and "what is most important is that we do not allow someone like a Donald Trump to become president of the United States." (John Kasich's campaign says he is now the best hope of stopping Trump.)
– Authorities believe a teen couple murdered last month in Pakistan was killed by electrocution—an extremely rare method of death in so-called honor killings, the BBC reports. The bodies of a 15-year-old girl and 17-year-old boy were exhumed from a grave site in Karachi, and a postmortem examination was conducted Wednesday, according to Dawn. Authorities say marks on the victims' arms, chests, and legs indicate they were killed by electrocution. Four people—the fathers and uncles of the victims—have been arrested in connection with the murders. Authorities say the four have confessed to killing the teens and claim they were pressured by tribal elders to do so in order to protect the honor of the tribe. Authorities say the couple, who sought to marry, ran away from home Aug. 14 but were informed on by a relative. The News reports the two families tried to settle the matter themselves, with the girl's family agreeing to an offer of two girls for marriage and a cow from the boy's family in exchange for the victims' marriage. But one tribal elder reportedly quashed the deal, telling the families they must kill their children to prevent such behavior in the future. Police are currently looking for the tribal elder. Authorities say the girl was electrocuted Aug. 15 and the boy Aug. 16. The bodies were buried in the middle of the night. The family members were arrested Aug. 21. Advocacy groups say honor killings are increasing in Pakistan with women being the most frequent victims. (Five teens in Pakistan were allegedly killed for the crime of clapping and dancing.)
– Thanks to new FCC rules put out this year to ensure net neutrality and keep all online data equal, major Internet service providers (think Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner) aren't supposed to hold our Internet speeds hostage. But that's exactly what's happening, per a study by an Internet activist group, causing a hefty slowdown to 75% of wireline businesses and residences, the Guardian reports. Battle for the Net's study, which checked out results from 300,000 Internet users, found what the paper calls "significant degradations" on the networks of the five largest ISPs, which means we're paying for traffic speed we're just not getting. "There is widespread and systemic abuse across the network," says a rep from one of the groups that comprises Battle for the Net. The ISPs are already being forced to react to these net neutrality rules: AT&T was hit with a $100 million fine last week for slowing down Internet speeds of customers with supposedly unlimited data plans, per the Washington Post, while Sprint cut out its "data-throttling" procedure of slowing down speeds of customers also believed to be using an excessive amount of data, CNET notes. But the ISPs don't think they should be regulated as public utilities are, which is effectively what the FCC decided back in February, and AT&T in particular is fighting back against the "unprecedented" and "unjustified" rules it says is damaging its business, CBS Washington reports. ("Radical" changes are needed to fix our antiquated Internet, a Gizmodo writer says.)
– Thousands of Phoenix residents lost power when a huge dust storm rolled in yesterday evening, reports NBC News. The storm arrived in time to mess up the rush-hour commute and also temporarily forced a halt to incoming flights at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, reports the Arizona Republic. A storm like this is called a haboob, which NPR explains is from the Arabic word for a summer dust storm. See ABC15 for a collection of photos.
– ObamaCare's technical difficulties are well-documented—the House is dragging four contractors in to talk about them today—but it has one problem no web developer can solve: It's pretty lousy in rural areas. The theory behind the Affordable Care Act's health insurance marketplace is that forcing insurers to compete will keep prices low. But in many rural areas, that competition simply isn't materializing, the New York Times reports. In 21% of the 2,500 counties serviced by the federal exchanges, consumers have only one carrier to choose from. Among the reasons why new insurers aren't stepping in: "dominant" insurers hold tightly to their territory, and "powerful" hospital systems fiercely oppose any moves that would trim their rates. Most under-served areas are poor, and many are in the South; there's only one option in almost all of Mississippi and Alabama. That lack of competition can have a huge effect on prices. A 50-year-old in rural Georgia, for instance, would pay twice as much for a silver-level plan as one in Atlanta. The cheapest silver plan in Wyoming, which has two insurers, costs as much as the most expensive in Montana, which has three (including one new co-op). "The Affordable Care Act was designed for … big cities," Wyoming's insurance commissioner says. "You've got to have some bargaining chips, and we don't have that much."
– TLC reality show My 600-lb Life profiles the efforts of the obese to lose weight, but viewers were given heartbreaking news in this week's episode: Robert Buchel, a New Jersey man who weighed 842 pounds at the start of the episode, did not survive filming. The 41-year-old, who went on a strict diet for months and lost more than 200 pounds before surgery to lose more weight, died suddenly of a heart attack on Nov. 15 last year, People reports. Buchel, who moved from New Jersey to Texas with fiancee Kathryn Lemanski for the treatment, was addicted to painkillers and he became depressed after the surgery, at one point tearing out his stitches in a bid to be given more drugs, the New York Daily News reports. "Robert battled an addiction and lost but he never gave up," said his surgeon, Dr. Younan Nowzaraden. Buchel is the first person to have died during filming for the TLC show, which is now in its sixth season. In a Facebook post, Lemanski called the death a "robbery beyond words," saying that after a hard life, Buchel had finally started having hope for the future. "The night before he passed he told me 'If I don't wake up tomorrow please know that I have always loved you,'" she said. TLC was "deeply saddened" by the death and is "grateful to his family who were gracious enough to let us continue to share his brave story with our viewers," the network said in a statement to Fox.
– After 10 years at the helm of CBS' Late Late Show, Craig Ferguson has decided it's time to move on. The network "and I are not getting divorced, we are 'consciously uncoupling,' but we will still spend holidays together and share custody of the fake horse and robot skeleton, both of whom we love very much," he quipped in a statement. The Scottish-born host, who became a US citizen in 2008, has been with the show since January 2005 and plans to step down in December, reports the New York Times. Ferguson's Late Late Show retirement comes as no surprise after CBS' decision to hire Stephen Colbert to replace David Letterman, the AP notes. Ferguson had once been considered a contender to replace Letterman, but his ratings dived after Seth Meyers arrived as competition in the same time slot in February. Neil Patrick Harris is believed to be interested in the Late Late Show gig, while Ferguson will become the host of game show Celebrity Name Game, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
– Not again: Another American has been accused of illegally hunting wildlife in Zimbabwe. Officials there say in a press release that Jan Casmir Sieski of Murrysville, Pa., joined a hunt in April near Hwange National Park, where an American dentist recently coaxed out and killed a famous lion. The New York Times finds no Jan Casmir Sieski on record, but spotted a Jan Casimir Seski running a gynecological oncologist practice in Pittsburgh. The AP knocked on his door in a wooded area near Pittsburgh, and called his practice, but hasn't heard back. Meanwhile, pictures on social media (now removed) show the 68-year-old posing with wildlife he apparently killed in Africa, including antelope and elephants. The AP says he's specifically accused of illegal lion-hunting. Seski's neighbors describe him as mostly a loner. One says he's "quirky" and carries a low-slung handgun "like a gunslinger," but adds that "I've never seen him done anything illegal or unsportsmanlike at all." Turns out Seski pleaded guilty to allowing $973,795 in unapproved, foreign oncology drugs into the US between 2008 and 2011, the Daily News reports. According to an official document, he was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine. He's also seen as a trailblazer in bloodless surgery. Now Zimbabwe officials have arrested the farm owner who allegedly conducted the April hunt, and stopped all hunting of elephants, leopards, and lions outside Hwange National Park.
– Thousands of people who got new Xboxes or PlayStations for Christmas were left frustrated yesterday as both networks suffered major disruptions. The problems began Christmas Eve and persisted through the next day, with Microsoft and Sony telling users they were aware of the issues and were doing their best to get them fixed, the BBC reports. Some suspected the problems may have been linked to Sony's release of The Interview, but a hacking group calling itself the Lizard Squad has claimed responsibility, reports TechCrunch. The same group said it took down gaming networks in August following tweets denouncing the bombing of ISIS targets. The group, which also took responsibility for bringing Xbox and PlayStation networks down earlier this month, asked for retweets of its messages yesterday in return for ending the problem, CNN reports. The problems may have been made worse by the number of people with new devices or games trying to hook up to networks, or possibly even by Sony's decision to release The Interview on Xbox Video as well as other sources, the Guardian reports.
– Conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly, best known for her successful campaign to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment, has died at her home in St. Louis. She was 92. The author and activist attended scores of hearings in the 1970s to testify against the amendment, arguing that equal rights would disadvantage housewives. She threw a party when it expired in 1982, having been passed by both houses of Congress but only ratified by 35 of the necessary 38 states, reports Reuters. Schlafly—who worked at a munitions factory in World War II—earned a master's degree in political science and a law degree, unsuccessfully ran for Congress three times and founded the Eagle Forum conservative group while raising six children and presenting herself as a traditional housewife, the New York Times reports. When she spoke at gatherings nationwide, Schlafly loved to mock what she called "women's libbers" by saying: "I'd like to thank my husband, Fred, for letting me be here today." Historians say the ERA might have passed if it wasn't for Schlafly, who mobilized anti-feminist volunteers across the country and warned that the amendment could lead to gay marriage, women in combat, and unisex restrooms, the Los Angeles Times notes. She remained active in her later years and endorsed Donald Trump in March this year, saying: "We've been following the losers for so long," but "now we've got a guy who will lead us to victory." After her death, Trump issued a statement calling Schlafly "a patriot, a champion for women, and a symbol of strength." (In 2012, she warned men not to date feminists.)
– Danny Boyle's tenure as a Bond director ended up being short-lived. The 007 Twitter account on Tuesday announced that "Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli, and Daniel Craig today announced that due to creative differences, Danny Boyle has decided to no longer direct Bond 25." Wilson and Broccoli are the film's producers. Variety reports MGM had long wanted Boyle to helm a Bond flick; he was selected to fill the shoes emptied by Sam Mendes, who directed 2012's Skyfall and Spectre, which was out three years later. Variety's sources say Eon Productions and Boyle had been in the process of casting the Bond girl and villain for the film, which has been referred to as Bond 25. Production was to start in December with an Oct. 25, 2019, release date in the UK; wider release was to follow two weeks later. No word on whether those dates will shift. The Hollywood Reporter's take: "Boyle was seen as a natural choice thanks to his Oscar pedigree as the filmmaker behind Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours. It was also viewed as a surprise that the filmmaker, who had avoided franchises in the past, would board the Bond machine."
– Before Regina King won an Emmy Monday night, there were an awful lot of white winners, which could be why James Corden declared upon taking the stage before King's win, "Let's get it trending: #EmmysSoWhite." Or it could be because Corden took the stage after Betty White was honored. Either way, the New Yorker's Emily Nussbaum tweeted that the joke was met with "nervous laughter." "James Corden's #EmmysSoWhite joke was funny and unfunny at the same time," tweeted Black Girl Nerds after his joke, but many on Twitter had already started tweeting the hashtag and pointing out the proliferation of white winners before Corden's comment. (For more Emmys coverage: Read about the opener, the night's winners, a buzzworthy red carpet sweatshirt, host Michael Che's "Reparation Emmys," or a winner who used his acceptance speech time in an unusual way.)
– Polaroid thinks there's money to be made in all those photos stored on people's smartphones. It plans to open its first bricks-and-mortar "Fotobar" store next month in Florida—a place where people can transfer images to a work-station, tweak them to their heart's desire, print them out on a fancy material (bamboo, for one), then pick a frame, reports the Next Web. The company plans to have 10 such stores in place around the country this year. "The idea is to make the digital and often forgettable images stored on your smartphone feel like works of art again," writes Nick Summers. "Something which you would want to share with friends or hang in your house or office." The rise of apps such as Instagram and the "analogue aesthetic" is helping bring Polaroid back into vogue again, he adds. "But with online competitors and a fairly niche product, it's a somewhat risky endeavor," writes Adi Robertson at the Verge.
– When last week’s flood hit upstate New York, the Johnson City Petco failed to evacuate its animals—and 100 drowned. The news made its way across the blogosphere (see here for one example), and now the village mayor has called for a police investigation to see whether the deaths could have been prevented, noting that he believes the store had enough warning to react. “If someone was aware that those animals were in danger and didn't take the appropriate action to remove them to safety then that is a crime under New York State Law” and charges could be filed against management, he said, adding that some employees may have asked to take the animals home and been told they could not. On its company blog, Petco called it a “tragedy” and says the company accepts responsibility and will “take timely and appropriate steps to ensure that nothing like this can happen again.” Leaders from the company will meet with city officials later this week, WSYR reports, and PETA is looking to get involved. Click for another flood-related animal tragedy.
– It's another solid jobs report: The US economy added 209,000 new jobs in July as the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3%, per the AP. That ties a 16-year low reached in May. The job gains exceeded expectations of about 180,000, but the Wall Street Journal notes that the news isn't all rosy: It still seems that nobody is getting raises. Average hourly pay was up 2.5% over this time last year, a sluggish pace that has been consistent all year. When the jobless rate is as low as it is, wage growth is typically closer to 4%. Still, the July report comes with a positive milestone: The gains mean the US has now erased the massive job losses caused by the recession, reports the Washington Post. The newspaper cites research by the Brookings Institution showing that, factoring in for population shifts, the nation's employment level is now back to what it was in November 2007. "It does not mean there's no slack in the economy, [or] that we're at full employment," says report co-author Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach. "But it does mean the job losses from the great recession are behind us."
– President Trump has made good on his threat to hit Turkey with sanctions if American pastor Andrew Brunson wasn't freed. The country's justice minister and interior minister, Abdulhamit Gul and Suleyman Soylu, have been sanctioned over what White House press secretary Sarah Sanders describes as the "unfair and unjust detention" of the North Carolina pastor and longtime Turkey resident, who was jailed for around two years before being shifted to house arrest last month, the BBC reports. Brunson was charged with espionage and aiding terrorist groups in the 2016 crackdown that followed a failed coup and faces up to 35 years if convicted on all counts. Sanders said that the sanctions on the NATO ally came after Trump discussed the matter with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan "many times." Turkish officials vowed that the sanctions, which ban American companies and individuals from doing business with the men, would not go unanswered, NPR reports. Turkey's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the move "disrespectfully intervenes with our judicial system, stands in contrast to the essence of our relations, and will seriously damage the constructive efforts made in order to resolve problems between the two countries." The ministry said Turkey would deliver "an equivalent response" if the US didn't walk back its "wrong decision."
– Noela Rukundo had been with her husband, Balenga Kalala, for 11 years when, last year, she flew from their home in Melbourne, Australia, to her native Burundi for her stepmother's funeral. While there, Kalala ordered gang members to have her killed. They abducted her and told her what they had been hired to do; Rukundo even heard her husband's voice on speakerphone telling them to kill her, the Australian Broadcasting Company reports. The gang members decided not to murder her because they knew her brother and they didn't believe in killing women, but they kept Kalala's money and told him the job was done. She was able to get back home, where, on Feb. 22, 2015, she walked up to Kalala after her own funeral; he'd told everyone she died while in Burundi. "Is it a ghost?" the scared man, who has since been sentenced to nine years for incitement to murder, per the ABC, asked. Rukundo tells the BBC her husband touched her shoulder to make sure she was real, then began screaming. He apologized, but she called police—and, though Kalala first denied he'd had anything to do with Rukundo's ordeal, she ultimately got him to confess while police secretly recorded one of their phone calls, the Age reports. His explanation to her? He thought she was going to leave him for someone else. "Sometimes Devil can come into someone, to do something, but after they do it they start thinking, ‘Why I did that thing?’ later," he reportedly said. The couple has three children together, and Rukundo also has five from a previous relationship. Since her ordeal, she says, some members of Melbourne's Congolese community have threatened her for reporting Kalala, who is originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
– A terrorist attack on one or more churches in Paris may only have been thwarted because the suspect couldn't handle a gun, according to French authorities. The country's interior minister says a 24-year-old Algerian national was arrested on Sunday after he apparently shot himself and called for an ambulance, the BBC reports. Police say they followed a blood trail to a car containing attack plans and loaded guns, the AP reports. A search of the suspect's apartment found more weapons and evidence of links to Islamic extremism. The minister says the documents that police found leave no doubt that an attack was imminent, according to Reuters. The man is also a suspect in the murder of a 32-year-old woman who was found dead in her car on Sunday, the BBC reports.
– Seven people died across four states as a winter storm continued to tear through the Midwest, dumping more than a foot of snow on sections of Iowa and Wisconsin. A 25-car pileup in Iowa killed two people, and nearly 100 accidents were reported in the state by late last night. Kansas, Wisconsin, and Nebraska also suffered deaths, the AP reports. Weather warnings are in effect in 17 states spanning the lower 48, from Washington to Maine. But the National Weather Service says the Midwest storm should "finally begin to wind down" today; it's headed over the Great Lakes and into Canada. Meanwhile, some 1,000 flights have been canceled—actually a lower number than in previous storms, USA Today notes. About 600 of those were at Chicago's two airports, which could affect travelers elsewhere. Some 20,000 people have lost power in Iowa, particularly around Des Moines, CNN reports. The storm did bring some good news for students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, which saw 19 inches of snow: Yesterday's final exams were cancelled.
– In a 1946 speech, Albert Einstein described racism as a "disease of white people." He apparently had it, as revealed in the genius's travel diaries, published entirely in English for the first time, per Quartz. Describing travels through China, Singapore, Japan, Palestine, and Spain between 1922 and 1923, per Newsweek, Einstein's writing shows an apparent obsession with the word "obtuse" and an overall unfavorable attitude toward Chinese people. He describes them as "industrious, filthy, obtuse people" with an "abundance" of "obtuse" offspring, reports the Guardian. Commenting on "little difference" between Chinese men and women, he goes on to wonder "what kind of fatal attraction" females possess that "enthrals the corresponding men." "It would be a pity if these Chinese supplant all other races," Einstein continues. "For the likes of us, the mere thought is unspeakably dreary." His opinions "are definitely not understated and can be viewed as racist," editor and translator Ze'ev Rosenkranz tells the Guardian. "In these instances, other peoples are portrayed as being biologically inferior, a clear hallmark of racism." This is especially apparent as Einstein describes Japanese people as "altogether very appealing" and "pure souls as nowhere else among people." As more tolerant views were held during his lifetime, "it seems that even Einstein sometimes had a very hard time recognizing himself in the face of the other," writes Rosenkranz in the introduction to The Travel Diaries of Albert Einstein. He adds that a discussion of Einstein's views, contrasting with his public image as a humanitarian icon, "seems very relevant in today's world, in which the hatred of the other is so rampant." (A scrap of paper Einstein scribbled on recently sold at auction for a record price.)
– The White House may cancel a visit by Hamid Karzai if the Afghan president continues to make volatile statements. Karzai is supposed to come in May, but press secretary Robert Gibbs said his erratic behavior has the administration thinking twice, reports CNN. Karzai's recent bombshells include blaming foreigners for electoral fraud and stating he would join the Taliban if he keeps being pressured by the West. Relations with Karzai have become so strained that Gibbs was unwilling to state that the Afghan president is an "ally" of the US. Prodded by a reporter from ABC News, Gibbs gave a long-winded answer explaining that Obama's relationship with Karzai was based on the merit of his day-to-day actions, not unequivocal trust. He called Karzai's recent statements "troubling" and "confusing."
– A Hawaii woman went in for routine dental work on Monday but ... didn't wake up. Kristen Tavares, 23, was to have four wisdom teeth removed; during the procedure "she went into cardiac arrest and they had to use a defibrillator and shocked her, stunned her heart," her boyfriend tells Hawaii News Now. The mother of a three-month-old baby and a son, 4, is now in a coma, and a CT scan shows some swelling in the brain, a separate Hawaii News Now story notes. What went wrong still remains a mystery. "Statistically it's usually an airway issue," a doctor not related to Tavares' care explains. "Perhaps a foreign body drops into the airway like a tooth, or a piece of gauze or perhaps the patient might vomit and get fluid up their airway and then down into their lungs. That's why we have them don't eat or drink before a general anesthetic or any anesthetic." Cosmetic surgeon John Stover treated Tavares; he has both medical and dental licenses. While he's in currently good standing, Civil Beat dug up state records that show Stover has had three medical complaints against him; two are pending, one from 2012 related to professional conduct was dropped due to lack of sufficient evidence. (Last month, a Maine teen mysteriously died three days after having his wisdom teeth removed; a month prior to that, a 3-year-old died after a dental procedure in Hawaii.)
– What a difference a year makes. In 2014, activist Loujain al-Hathloul was arrested for purposefully violating Saudi Arabia's law against women driving, the Washington Post reports. This weekend, Saudis will be able to cast a vote for her. Al-Hathloul received international fame when she live-streamed herself behind the wheel. After her arrest, she was forced to wait in her car overnight before being sentenced in a Saudi terrorism court, according to the Independent. She spent 73 days in jail. Saturday marks the first time women will be able to vote and run for office in Saudi Arabia, the Post reports. Al-Hathloul threw her hat into the ring for municipal council, but Saudi officials banned her from running. No explanation was given. Those same officials reversed that decision Wednesday—again no explanation was given—and al-Hathloul will appear on the ballot, the Independent reports. According to the Post, al-Hathloul credits her constant interviews and lobbying for the government's turnaround. "Basically, I annoyed them," she says. "I guess it worked." Al-Hathloul says she was originally running just to boost the number of female candidates—more than 900 of the nearly 7,000 candidates on Saturday's ballot are women—but then the government tried to stop her. "The goal has changed," she says. "I want to make a point. It's a personal thing now." While not under the purview of a municipal council member, al-Hathloul is still dedicated to repealing Saudi Arabia's ban on female drivers, the Independent reports.
– Outlaw motorcycle gangs are in the spotlight after Sunday's slaughter in Waco, though law enforcement officials say they've been thriving for many years out of the public eye. "These guys have never gone away. I'm shocked that people are shocked that this happened," the ATF's Los Angeles chief tells the Wall Street Journal. He was part of a team that infiltrated the Hells Angels more than a decade ago. The Hells Angels, along with the Bandidos, are among the biggest outlaw groups in the US, but the Justice Department says there are more than 300 active ones, the Journal reports. The Waco shootout is believed to have stemmed from a Bandidos-Cossacks feud over the latter club's wearing of a "Texas" patch. Police in Waco have called for a truce between biker factions, the Waco Tribune-Herald reports. A police spokesman says the fighting on Sunday appears to have started after a biker's foot was run over outside the Twin Peaks restaurant, though he adds that investigators are finding witnesses and suspects deceptive. Around 170 bikers charged with engaging in organized crime are still in custody, though the wife of one of them tells the AP plenty of innocent bikers were rounded up. She says her husband—a member of the Vise Grip club—had just arrived when the shooting started. He took off and was arrested when he came back for his bike, she says. Police arrested all sorts of "nonviolent, noncriminal people," she says. "I mean, they got the Bikers for Christ guys in there."
– Potheads in Colorado aren't letting a little thing like the fact that The Man says it's OK deter them from lighting up a 4/20 weekend that's suddenly gone mainstream: As CNN reports, the Mile High City is throwing itself a party that by some estimates has attracted 80,000 visitors. The two-day event, which apparently culminates with a wave of pot smoke as partygoers light up at 4:20pm local time, features a "4/20 Rally," a High Times Cannabis Cup, and a concert headlined by—you guessed it—Snoop Dogg. "It's like his Super Bowl," says Kate, who oddly wouldn't give her last name, of her boyfriend. "He's been giddy about it for weeks. ... Super stoked is an understatement." Others were less enamored: "It's a lot mellower this year," 29-year-old Cody Andrews tells the AP. "It's more of a venue now. More vendor-y." And it's definitely not all peace and love, man: Security is pretty tight, reports the Denver Post, complete with patdowns and beefy guards. "It's presidential-style security," says the event organizer.
– Wondering what's behind recent outbreaks of measles and whooping cough in the US? Perhaps not surprisingly, a new study published in JAMA finds that people who don't vaccinate—for non-medical reasons—contribute to the problem, Reuters reports. Since measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000, there have been 1,416 cases of the disease reported, and the study finds that more than half of those cases were in people who hadn't been vaccinated for measles. Detailed vaccination data was available for 970 of the measles cases, and 405 of them involved people who skipped vaccinations without a medical reason to do so. Researchers also looked at more than 10,000 cases of whooping cough in patients with known vaccination status and found similar, though somewhat less dramatic, results. In the pertussis cases, when looking at the five biggest statewide epidemics since 1977, 24% to 45% of the people affected were completely or partially unvaccinated. And in looking at the pertussis cases for which detailed vaccine data was available, 59% to 93% of cases were in people who were intentionally unvaccinated (as opposed to unvaccinated for medical reasons.) “If there are a high number of susceptible or unvaccinated individuals in the community the risk of getting infected—even for vaccinated children—goes up," says the study's senior author, because most vaccines are not 100% effective. Up to 2% of people who are fully vaccinated for pertussis and 3% of people who are fully vaccinated for measles are still at risk of getting the disease. Non-medical vaccine exemptions don't fully explain the resurgence of measles and whooping cough (researchers also found evidence of waning immunity against pertussis, for example), but another researcher says the study finds that "individuals who refuse vaccines not only put themselves at risk for disease," but others too.
– The 17-year-old girl shot in the head in Friday's Colorado school shooting is in a coma and fighting for her life, her family says. Claire Davis "remains in critical condition. She is stable, but is in a coma," the family said in a statement. "The first responders got Claire to the right place, at the right time, and the doctors and hospital staff are doing a wonderful job taking care of her." The county sheriff says Claire was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time when gunman Karl Pierson walked into Arapahoe High School seeking to attack the debate coach who benched him, reports NBC. Police don't believe Pierson even knew Claire. Investigators are still trying to determine what went on between the debate coach and Pierson, who took his own life seconds after shooting Claire, the Denver Post reports. Classes at the high school, where more than a thousand people gathered for a vigil yesterday, have been cancelled today. Friends and family members describe her as an outgoing, athletic girl who loved horses. "She was just a very sweet girl. She's really smart," a classmate tells CNN. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who has asked the nation to pray for Claire, credits security measures put in place after the nearby Columbine High School shooting in 1999 with preventing the shooting from having been much worse, reports the AP.
– Kristen Wiig went on the Tonight Show last night dressed as Daenerys Targaryen, the Khaleesi from Game of Thrones, though the resemblance pretty much stopped after Wiig's blond wig, Khaleesi-like outfit, dragon prop, and hugely inconsistent accent. "Remind me again, what is your real name?" asked a laughing Jimmy Fallon. "Karen," Wiig responded, before telling Fallon she lives "in the forest on a mountain ... in a dome that I made out of dirt and sticks. ... My dragons helped me build it." The dragon she had with her, she noted, was named Carl. Watch more of the randomness below, or click to see more of Wiig's funniest moments.
– Despite President Mohamed Morsi declaring a state of emergency yesterday, protests are raging in Cairo and other parts of Egypt for a fifth consecutive day today, the New York Times reports. Marchers in Port Said, one of three provinces where Morsi declared a curfew, said they no longer recognize his authority and called on everyone to ignore the curfew. Opposition groups have called for more protests throughout Egypt today to mark the two-year anniversary of the "Day of Rage," a brutal day of clashes during the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak. Protests began last week to mark the two-year anniversary of the uprising, then grew over the weekend after 21 people involved in a soccer riot were sentenced to death. In addition to the state of emergency, one of the most hated Mubarak-era laws still in effect, al-Jazeera reports that Egypt's Cabinet has given the army the right to arrest civilians and act alongside police; the upper house of parliament must still ratify the draft law. Morsi has invited opposition leaders to a "national dialogue" tonight, and initial reports indicated they would participate. But now the Guardian reports that the National Salvation Front, the country's opposition coalition, has rejected the plan. Leading member Mohamed ElBaradei called Morsi's offer "cosmetic and not substantive," Reuters reports. The coalition has given a list of conditions Morsi must meet before they will enter into talks.
– "Something has happened to the baby," says Meriam Ibrahim, in her first recounting of giving birth to her daughter on the floor of a Sudanese prison cell. "I don't know in the future whether she'll need support to walk or not." Ibrahim is now in limbo at a safe house in Khartoum, worried that the child may suffer permanent physical disability, the Guardian reports. “I gave birth chained. Not cuffs but chains on my legs. I couldn't even open my legs so the women had to lift me off the table.” The 27-year-old—convicted for apostasy while eight months pregnant—was denied access to a hospital when she went into labor in prison last month. Doctors have told Ibrahim that her treatment in prison—she says guards and inmates harassed and abused her—could have had negative effects on the child, reports the Independent. Ibrahim has been freed once again after being detained at the airport as she and her husband tried to catch a flight to the US after her death sentence for refusing to renounce her Christianity was overturned. Ibrahim insists her travel documents are not forged as Sudanese officials have claimed. “How can my paperwork be wrong? My paperwork came from the embassy. It's 100% correct and it was approved by the South Sudan ambassador and the American ambassador,” she tells CNN. Ibrahim has been charged with falsifying documents; diplomats are working to get Ibrahim and husband Daniel Wani, who is a US and Sudanese citizen, out of Sudan.
– You thought Asian camel crickets were bad. A new report in journal Peer J finds hundreds of bugs likely lurk in your home, including spiders, beetles, ants, and book lice. Scientists got down on their hands and knees and combed 50 houses in the suburbs of Raleigh, NC, picking up any bugs they found, to determine the diversity of arthropods indoors. They "found far more diversity than most people would expect," study leader Matt Bertone tells National Geographic. More specifically, they gathered 10,000 bugs from 579 species. If that doesn't freak you out, this probably will: Each home housed 100 species on average, per New Scientist, though one revealed 211 species. And less than 1% of rooms were bug-free. "That old wives' tale that you're never more than 10 feet away from a spider? If you're in your home, that might be true," Bertone says. Every home contained ants, carpet beetles, cobweb spiders, and gall midges, which "rely on things we produce or have in our homes," says Bertone. About 98% held book lice, which eat mold and mildew, reports Wired. There were even some bugs scientists suspect might be new species. Since scientists searched carpets, floorboards, and shelves, but not behind walls, under heavy furniture, or in cabinets, they say more bugs are probably hiding nearby. On the plus side, most were harmless. "The residents were really surprised and often horrified that we found so much," says Bertone. But except for the occasional cockroaches, termites, and fleas, the bugs are "not dangerous and you won't see them unless you really look for them." Just think of them as "quiet roommates," adds a co-author. (Your home's dust contains 9,000 species of microbes.)
– Mitt Romney's joke at a rally today that "no one's ever asked to see my birth certificate" is living on. (It was "off the cuff," an aide tells BuzzFeed.) Some reaction: Obama campaign: Romney has long "embraced the most strident voices in his party instead of standing up to them." His "decision to directly enlist himself in the birther movement should give pause to any rational voter across America." Romney himself: "No, no, (it's) not a swipe" at Obama, he tells CBS. "I've said throughout the campaign and before, there's no question about where he was born. He was born in the US. This was fun about us, and coming home. And humor, you know—we've got to have a little humor in a campaign." Greg Sargent, Washington Post: "Maybe this will get chalked up to Romney’s awkwardness and get dismissed, but it looks to me like a major mistake. Coming just after days spent debating Todd Akin’s 'legitimate rape' remark, this is again a reminder of the extreme voices in the GOP, which Romney has at times been slow to denounce." Allahpundit, Hot Air: "In case you’re wondering what it takes to offend a campaign whose allies have accused Romney of tax evasion based on anonymous 'sources' and blamed him for leaving a steelworker’s wife to die from cancer uninsured, here you go." Still, he thinks it was silly of Romney to have handed the media such easy pickings.
– The US doesn't want Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to be another one that got away. The State Department has more than doubled its reward for information leading to the arrest of the ISIS leader, who is rumored to be in Mosul or in ISIS-held territory west of the Iraqi city, Reuters reports. The reward has gone from $10 million to $25 million for al-Baghdadi, who was labeled a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" in 2011, the State Department said in a press release. After the offensive to retake Mosul from the militant group began, al-Baghdadi released his first message in almost a year, telling followers that "holding your ground in honor is a thousand times better than retreating in disgrace."
– President Trump has an important phone call on his docket Tuesday: He'll be speaking with Vladimir Putin at 12:30pm Eastern. The talk comes less than a month after Trump said US-Russian relations "may be at an all-time low," notes the Wall Street Journal. The most recent tension flared when the US accused Moscow of lying about a chemical attack on civilians in Syria, and Reuters expect Syria's civil war to be a topic of discussion. Trump and Putin have spoken twice by phone since Trump took office, notes Radio Free Europe, which adds that the two leaders have not scheduled a face-to-face meeting. Both are expected to attend the G20 summit in Germany in July. Before talking with Trump, Putin will host German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the Black Sea city of Sochi. It's their first meeting in two years, with ties strained in the wake of Russia's military action in Ukraine, reports NPR.
– Men have "Movember," in which they grow mustaches during the month of November to raise awareness for prostate and testicular cancer, but what do women have? Surely bra- and purse-related Facebook status updates are not enough, so feminist website Feministing.com recommends "Decembrow." The idea: Women grow unibrows (or fake the look using an eyebrow pencil) to raise awareness for the cause of their choice, the Daily Caller reports. The CEO of Concerned Women for America notes that it's "curious that feminists would choose to embrace facial hair" and says she wonders "how that is different than any other month of the year." Author Erica Jong, meanwhile, supports the idea of female power, but wishes the method didn't focus on appearance. "But whatthehey," she concludes. "Let’s do it to garner attention and show that we’re still here and still want true equality rather than scraps."
– The FDA advised back in 2005 that non-aspirin nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, could up the risk of heart attack and stroke. But the agency is now boosting that warning, noting that drugs like ibuprofen (often sold under the Motrin IB brand), naproxen (Aleve), and celecoxib (Celebrex) may pose a risk even in small amounts and that these drugs should be used sparingly and for short periods, the New York Times reports. (Aspirin, although an NSAID, doesn't pose the same risk, the FDA notes.) Although an FDA review found that higher doses increased the risk of heart attack or stroke—and the risk may increase with length of use—"there is no period of use shown to be without risk," an FDA deputy director says. And while people with cardiovascular disease are more at risk for being adversely affected by NSAIDs, "everyone may be at risk—even people without an underlying risk for cardiovascular disease," the FDA rep says. NSAIDs decrease production of prostaglandins, chemicals spewed out after an injury that trigger inflammation, WNCN reports. Per the FDA review, over-the-counter NSAIDs could up the risk of heart attack and stroke by about 10%, low-dose prescription meds by 20%, and higher-dose prescription NSAIDs by 50%, with "significant variability" in each estimate, an Emory University medical professor tells the Times. One NSAID, Vioxx, was taken off shelves in 2004 after being linked to 140,000 heart attacks over a five-year period, Bloomberg notes. The director of Northwestern University's Center for Communication and Health says that "one of the underlying messages (is) there are no completely safe pain relievers, period." How to cut down on potential NSAID risks, per the Harvard Health Blog: Take the lowest dose that works, limit how long you take it, and never take more than one NSAID at once. (Meanwhile, Benadryl may up your risk for Alzheimer's.)
– Los Angeles will have to pay up to $30 million to provide gang members with job training, tattoo removal, and more after settling a class-action lawsuit this week, the Los Angeles Times reports. The city was sued in 2011 for enforcing curfews—part of the city's widespread gang injunctions—despite them being declared illegal by a California appeals court in 2007. There are nearly 50 gang injunctions around Los Angeles prohibiting suspected gang members from carrying weapons, wearing certain clothes, or socializing with certain groups; 21 of those injunctions require suspected gang members to be inside by 10pm. Critics say the curfews are too broadly defined and unfairly labeled young people as gang members without proof or a trial, according to the AP. If the settlement agreement is approved by the court, the city will pay between $4.5 million and $30 million into a nonprofit it created to help those victimized by curfews. The amount depends on how many of the approximately 5,700 people covered by the curfews come forward. The Los Angeles city attorney says the nonprofit will allow gang members "to gain the job skills they need to turn their lives around." As part of the agreement, the city will stop enforcing the curfews. “Gang injunctions are a form of psychological abuse on a whole generation of young people of color,” the AP quotes one man arrested for violating curfew. “Because I was wrongly labeled as a gang member, I couldn’t even be outside helping my mom with the groceries at night."
– Children in war-torn Syria are holding pictures of Pokemon in the hopes the rest of the world, currently obsessing over Pokemon Go, will take notice, the Independent reports. According to Vocativ, photos of the children started circulating online Wednesday, the same day airstrikes in the city of Idlib killed more than 50 people. In addition to pictures of Pokemon, the children's signs bear messages like "I am here, come save me" along with their location. Most of the children appear to be near Idlib and another city, Hama, the Guardian reports. Those cities have seen years of fighting between the Syrian government and opposition forces. “I never imagined we would like to become a game in order to gain the world’s attention,” Vocativ quotes a Twitter account called Children of Syria. The photos originally appeared on a Facebook page belonging to the Revolutionary Forces of Syria, and they bear that opposition group's logo. They have also been circulated by other groups connected to the opposition against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. It's possible they are simply meant as propaganda. If that's the case, they are effective attention-getters. “The world is buzzing with this game,” Vocativ quotes a Syrian artist who is also using Pokemon Go to draw attention to Syria. “They are looking for the Pokemon, but the Syrian people are looking for how to live right now.” Syria's children are in a desperate situation. UNICEF says 35,000 children are trapped in the city of Manbij alone and dozens more have been killed there in recent weeks.
– America's top labor and business groups reached an agreement last night over the final sticking point in overhauling the country's immigration laws, the Washington Post reports. Talking to Sen. Charles Schumer on a conference call, the AFL-CIO's boss and the president of the US Chamber of Commerce agreed in principle on a visa program for foreign workers. All eight senators involved in drafting the bill have not yet signed off, but may soon because they were briefed as negotiations developed, a source tells the Post. Businesses had wanted 400,000 new visas in the program, but labor wanted a much lower number to protect the benefits and wages of US workers. The Senate had proposed allowing 20,000 low-skilled guest workers in the first year, 75,000 by 2020, and 200,000 after several more years, according to insiders. Capital and labor have also agreed on a pay scale for low-skilled immigrant workers, pegging it at the prevailing industry wage used in the last foreign worker program, reports the New York Times.
– The Amazon rainforest's "arc of deforestation" could soon have 73 million new trees. In an effort to reseed 74,000 acres of the Amazon—20% of which has been destroyed in the last 40 years—Conservation International, the World Bank, Brazil's environmental ministry, and several other groups are working together to spread seeds in the Amazonas, Acre, Pará, Rondonia, and Xingu areas of Brazil, reports Fast Company. Reforestation normally involves saplings, which must be grown and planted. But Conservation International CEO M. Sanjayan hopes dropping seeds from 200 native species per square meter of land, in what is known as the muvuca strategy, will "drive the costs down dramatically" and produce a greater diversity and density of plants. "If you're really thinking about getting carbon dioxide out of [the] atmosphere, then tropical forests are the ones that end up mattering the most," says Sanjayan, noting the move will help Brazil reach its Paris Accord target of reforesting an area the size of Pennsylvania by 2030, per Smithsonian. A release notes it's the "largest tropical forest restoration in the world." Up to 2,000 locals will work together to seed each hectare, with families receiving $700 per hectare. Additional seeds will also be distributed in existing forested areas. Some 90% of seeds are expected to germinate, though only the strongest will survive. A leader of the program predicts there will be 2,500 trees per hectare after six years and up to 5,000 after 10 years. (Deforestation has revealed millennia-old "geoglyphs" in Brazil.)
– Things continue to deteriorate in Yemen as the conflict between Houthi rebels and pro-government forces grinds on. But now there's a new problem in the mix: a possible famine, created by what Ertharin Cousin, the executive director of the UN's World Food Programme, calls a "perfect storm" of "lack of staple food, access to clean water, and a diminished fuel supply." In a press release, WFP estimates there are nearly 13 million of what it calls "food insecure" people in the war-torn country, with almost half in especially dire straits. That includes 1.2 million kids who suffer from "moderate" malnourishment and half a million who are severely affected. "The damage to Yemen's next generation may become irreversible if we don't reach children quickly with the right food at the right time," Cousin says. "We must act now before it is too late." Cousin saw the crisis firsthand during a recent three-day trip around the country, where she met with displaced families, moms and malnourished kids in hospitals, and people gathered at food-distribution centers. The UN's humanitarian chief also recently returned from Yemen and told the UN Security Council yesterday that "the scale of human suffering is almost incomprehensible," per the BBC. Semantics means the WFP can't call the situation a full-fledged famine just yet: Per the UN, a food crisis is only considered as such if one-fifth of households have limited ability to deal with "extreme" food shortages; acute malnutrition rates surpass 30%; and the daily death rate is more than two per every 10,000 people. Continued conflict in Yemeni ports has exacerbated the problem, the BBC notes, with a WFP ship hammered by airstrikes Tuesday night in Hodeida. (Per UNICEF, 398 children have been killed in Yemen since March, Al Jazeera reports.)
– SNL may have opened Saturday's show with a spoof of the latest presidential debate, but it saved its best skit for later. A black host, two black contestants, a white guy named Doug wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat, get together for an episode of Black Jeopardy. But as Doug (Tom Hanks) answers various clues, the contestants (Sasheer Zamata and Leslie Jones) learn he isn't so different from them: He, too, has suspicions about the iPhone's thumbprint key and elections, as well as a love of curvy women, Tyler Perry, and lottery tickets. All goes well until the final category: "Lives That Matter." "It was good while it lasted," the host (Kenan Thompson) declares. What people are saying: Paul Schrodt at Business Insider credits Michael Che and Bryan Tucker for writing the show's "best sketch in recent memory" and "the best comedic take on the current presidential election we've seen on TV this year." Dan Zak at the Washington Post calls it the "best political sketch of the year." In previous shows, Black Jeopardy has "embellished black stereotypes and mocked white people's political correctness," he writes. "This time around, it found common ground between African Americans and rural white conservatives." "Portraying the many subtleties of the American electorate in a sharp, hilarious, and different way this far into the campaign cycle is hard—and like Doug on Black Jeopardy, SNL crushed it," writes Caroline Framke at Vox. Yes, the sketch "is as good as everyone says it is," writes blogger Jason Kottke. "And it's not just funny either… it's the rare SNL skit that works brilliantly as cultural commentary. Kudos to the writers on this one." But Crystal Wright has a very different take. "If you like blacks being mocked for every stereotype under the sun, I guess you'll find the 6 minutes a real howl worth gittin' down wit," she writes at Mediaite.
– A Smithfield Foods employee has been suspended and 50,000 pounds of meat have been tossed in the garbage after surveillance video appeared to show the worker urinating on the production line at the Smithfield, Va., packaging plant. The employee can be seen removing his gloves, apparently peeing while leaning up against the counter, then putting the gloves back on and going back to work, WAVY reports. The incident happened over the weekend, and on Tuesday Smithfield released a statement saying an internal investigation "revealed an employee had urinated at his station" but assuring customers that "the facility immediately halted production, fully cleaned the processing line, and sanitized all equipment multiple times before resuming operations." The employee's fate will be decided after a company investigation is complete, the Virginian-Pilot reports. (Smithfield has been involved in other gross headlines.)
– President Obama intends to swoop to the rescue of the ailing US Postal Service—or at least try, reports the New York Times. The White House yesterday announced that it would push for legislation giving the USPS a three-month reprieve on the $5.5 billion it’s supposed to pay on Sept. 30 for future retiree health benefits, saving it at least temporarily from a humiliating default. Even that won’t save the service for long, however—the postmaster general recently testified that, even with the reprieve, they’d run out of money by next July or August. So Obama will also unveil a longer-term plan to save the post office as part of his deficit reduction plan, the Hill reports. He has not yet, however, supported the service’s call to be refunded $50 billion it says it has overpaid into a federal pension plan. The administration says it’s still reviewing that proposal.
– The man "unmasked" as the founder of bitcoin by Newsweek says he'd never even heard of the virtual currency until reporters tracked his son down a couple of weeks ago. In an exclusive interview with the AP, Dorian Nakamoto—also known as Satoshi Nakamoto—says many of the details in the Newsweek report about him are correct, but he strongly denies having anything to do with bitcoin, which he repeatedly referred to as "Bitcom." Newsweek's reporter stands by her story, but Nakamoto—who says he came to the US from Japan when he was 10 but his English isn't flawless—believes a key quote was misinterpreted. "It sounded like I was involved before with bitcoin and looked like I'm not involved now. That's not what I meant. I want to clarify that," he says, explaining that he worked on missile systems for years and many aspects of his career are confidential. While Nakamoto was speaking to the AP, reporters from outlets including the Los Angeles Times and Reuters followed their car in a farcical chase that ended at the AP's offices in downtown Los Angeles. (Click for more on Leah McGrath Goodman's Newsweek profile.)
– The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum gives out its prestigious Elie Wiesel Award to just one person a year, selecting "an internationally prominent individual whose actions have advanced the Museum's vision of a world where people confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity." Now, the second person to ever receive the honor (Wiesel himself was the first, in 2011) has seen it rescinded. In what the New York Times calls "perhaps the strongest rebuke yet," the museum on Tuesday informed Aung San Suu Kyi in a letter that it was stripping her of the award due to her response—or non-response, as she has yet to publicly say the word "Rohingya"—to Myanmar's ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya. The letter explains the museum has been "closely monitoring the military's campaign against the Rohingya and your response to it," and that it began publicly airing its concerns about what was happening to the Rohingya in 2013; subsequent visits to Myanmar and Bangladesh have followed. "We had hoped that you—as someone we and many others have celebrated for your commitment to human dignity and universal human rights—would have done something to condemn and stop the military's brutal campaign and to express solidarity with the targeted Rohingya population," the letter continues. The museum implores her to "use your moral authority to address this situation" and ends with words from Wiesel himself: "Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."
– If you dye your hair and plan on committing a crime, be warned: A new procedure allows scientists to determine if a single microscopic hair has been dyed, if that dye was permanent or temporary, and even what brand of dye was used. Scientists used surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, or SERS, to gauge how light reflects off a hair. Essentially, molecules on the hair's surface begin to vibrate and "change the energy of the reflected photons," Science reports. In other words, the light reads differently depending on the dye on a sample. Not only does the technique register hair dye, scientists say it also finds small amounts of body fluids like blood, drugs, explosives, and gunshot residue, according to a study in Analytical Chemistry. Why all the fuss if scientists can perform DNA testing? For one thing, an intact bulb or root must be present in the hair sample in order for it to be analyzed for DNA, a press release notes. For another, DNA testing can be a lengthy process and the cases quickly pile up. In many cases, scientists resort to comparing a sample hair with that of a suspect under a microscope, a method that can prove both impractical and inconclusive. The SERS method is quick, easy, doesn't damage the sample, "and can be performed directly at the crime scene" using a portable Raman spectrometer, the study authors write. Another bonus: SERS' gentle approach means a key piece of hair can still be examined for DNA afterward. (Pubic hairs could help identify criminals, too.)
– Google is looking to reenter the Chinese market it exited in protest over government censorship in a move critics say is nothing short of hypocritical. According to the Information and Intercept, Google has presented to Chinese officials two mobile apps—one for internet searches, one focusing on news aggregation—that would block content blacklisted by the government. It's a savvy business move in a lucrative market of over 750 million users, dominated by search engine Baidu. Yet it recalls Google's 2010 exit from China over the same government censorship its latest efforts would reportedly support. Co-founder Sergey Brin specifically cited totalitarian governments when pulling the Chinese service, though the company had said in 2006 that "removing search results" was better than "providing no information," per CNN. Google, which already has translation and file management apps available in China, had notified Chinese users that their search results were being censored. It's unclear if the apps now in development would do the same, as Google refused to comment "on speculation about future plans." (The state-owned China Securities Daily denies the report, per the Guardian.) But "in putting profits before human rights, Google would be setting a chilling precedent" with what Amnesty International sees as "a gross attack on freedom of information and internet freedom," reports the Guardian. "We don't need a second Baidu," a Chinese data researcher adds, per the New York Times, which adds that Google's own employees have quit or refused to work on the apps, which they apparently think flouts the company's own motto: "Do the right thing."
– It's a phrase synonymous with "the dog ate my homework." But for years, Michael Chamberlain tried to convince the world that it was true, that in the reported words of his former wife, "the dingo took my baby." He died Monday at age 72 of complications from leukemia decades after finally establishing the truth. He and his then-wife Lindy had been camping with their 9-week-old daughter Azaria during a trip to Uluru in the Australian Outback in 1980 when the infant disappeared, per the AP. The couple claimed wild dogs took her, but authorities accused Lindy Chamberlain of slitting Azaria's throat and burying her body, which was never found, based on forensic evidence suggesting Azaria's blood was in the family's car, per the BBC. Lindy Chamberlain was sentenced to life in prison for murder in 1982, while Michael Chamberlain was found to be an accessory after the fact and given an 18-month suspended sentence. However, both convictions were overturned when Azaria's jacket was found near dingo dens in 1984; the forensic evidence was eventually discredited. "You can get justice even when you think that all is lost," Michael Chamberlain, who split from his wife in 1991 and went on to write several books on the case, said in 2012 after a coroner ruled Azaria had been snatched by a dingo, reports the AAP. On Twitter, actor Sam Neill, who portrayed Chamberlain in the 1988 film A Cry in the Dark opposite Meryl Streep's Lindy, described him as "an impressive man" with a "quiet unassuming dignity," who was "terribly, cruelly wronged."
– Whitney Houston's funeral tomorrow will be full of Hollywood VIPs, from Oprah to Beyoncé to Elton John. The New Jersey Star-Ledger runs down others expected to attend (Bill Cosby, David Bowie, Jay-Z, Elton John), speak (Dionne Warwick, Tyler Perry, Clive Davis) and even perform (Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Alicia Keys, R. Kelly). The invitation-only funeral will take place at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, where Houston was nicknamed "Nippy" in her childhood, and will be streamed live. One particularly poignant participant: Kevin Costner, who hand-picked Houston as his Bodyguard co-star, will pay tribute to her at the funeral, a source tells the New York Daily News. Another rumored invitee: Houston's ex-husband Bobby Brown. Sources tell People the rumors that he had been "banned" were not true and that he will in fact attend, and E! points out that he can still easily make it to a scheduled concert appearance with New Edition that evening in nearby Connecticut. (Controversy alert: Westboro Baptist Church plans to picket the funeral.)
– A Texas man was sentenced to two life sentences Wednesday for drunk driving. If that seems harsh, consider that Bobby Gene Martin, 64, racked up 10 DWI charges between 1981 and 2014, reports the Montgomery County Police Reporter. In the latest incident, Martin crashed his mom's pickup truck on Aug. 2, then reportedly asked a wrecker driver for a ride home so he wouldn't get "another DWI." The driver refused, and responding officers found Martin in water up to his waist in a nearby drainage ditch, the Courier reports. His blood alcohol level was 0.217. Martin then threatened to "kill not only the deputy that arrested him, but also his wife, his children, his mom," Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Kyle Crowl said. Once at the local jail, Martin kept up the death threats, hurling them, along with racial slurs, at the jailer, per Crowl. The jury took one hour to convict Martin and spent three hours deliberating his sentence after learning of his earlier crimes. As a habitual offender, he faced 25 years to life. After notching his eighth drunk-driving conviction in 1999, Martin was sentenced to 15 years in prison, the Houston Chronicle reports. After being released, he was jailed once again for a year after a 2009 DWI arrest. "It is amazing he hasn't killed anyone yet," said Crowl, who painted this metaphor for the jury: The latest charges were the "icing on a cake that [Martin] had been baking his whole life." Martin's life sentences will be served concurrently; he'll be eligible for parole at age 80. (A man with nine drunk-driving convictions blamed ... fish.)
– When a New Zealand man felt something odd on his leg while spearfishing, he assumed it was one of his buddies. "I looked behind to see who it was and got a bit of a shock," James Grant, a 24-year-old doctor, tells Radio New Zealand. It was, apparently, a seven-gill shark—which can grow to almost 10 feet, an expert tells Stuff.co.nz. Though he couldn't see it, he guessed its jaw spanned about 8 inches. His next thought: "Bugger, now I have to try and get this thing off my leg." Grant stabbed at it using a knife already in his hand, the Guardian reports. "Put a few nicks in it," he says. After getting out of the water, he discovered bite marks about 2 inches long. Fortunately, he had a first aid kit handy, so he sewed himself up before heading to the pub. There, he got a beer—and a bandage so he didn't bleed all over the floor. He later got "proper" stitches from colleagues, 3 News reports. Yesterday, he was back at work. The biggest downside: "It would have been great if I had killed it because there was a fishing competition on" at the pub, Grant tells Stuff.
– Chuck Hagel finally did meet privately with Afghan President Hamid Karzai yesterday before returning to Washington today, and despite the security concerns that initially canceled the meeting, Hagel told the press he and Karzai discussed key issues, the AP reports. "I think he understands where we are and where we've been, and hopefully where we're going together," Hagel said, without giving any details. Both Hagel and Gen. Joseph Dunford, the top US commander in Afghanistan, rejected comments Karzai made prior to the meeting in which he accused the US and the Taliban of working together to prove the situation in Afghanistan will deteriorate after most US troops withdraw next year. Dunford called the comments "categorically false" and said Karzai has never expressed such charges to him personally, but added that tensions are inevitable as withdrawal looms. He added that there is no "broken relationship" or "lack of trust" between the US and Afghanistan. The security threat, as well as the attacks that rocked Afghanistan during Hagel's visit, were just the latest in a series of recent flare-ups in tension between the US and Afghanistan. Both Hagel and Dunford said Karzai's incendiary comments were likely more political than anything else, citing the pressure Karzai is under. But, US officials tell the Wall Street Journal, Hagel "strongly push[ed] back on [the] wildly inaccurate claims" during his meeting with Karzai.
– Gabrielle Giffords visited Newtown, Conn., on Friday, and though it seems difficult to imagine such an event could stir up controversy, one state legislator managed to do so. On the day of Giffords' visit, State Rep. DebraLee Hovey posted, "Gabby Gifford [sic] stay out of my towns!!" on her public Facebook page. It had been removed by Sunday, the Hartford Courant reports. In a follow-up Facebook comment, Hovey—who represents Newtown, and who was in Florida at the time of Giffords' visit—added: "It was political. The Lt Gov was there, Blumenthall [sic] was there and ALL political types KNOW it is courteous to let sitting Reps know when another political is in their District. So...... There was pure political motives" In other Newtown news, the mayor of nearby Stratford wants to honor the memory of Sandy Hook teacher Victoria Soto, who was killed in the rampage while trying to protect her students. Mayor John Harkins wants to name a planned school after Soto, who lived in Stratford, the AP reports. The town council will discuss on Jan. 14; construction on the school is set to start this summer. (In other Newtown-related news, a neighboring town plans to burn violent video games.)
– Rumor in the tech world has it that Steve Jobs will be bringing out as many tablets as Moses this year. Apple hasn't even admitted that the iPad 2 exists—although plenty of details have been leaked—but the iPad 3 could well be on its way already this fall, according to TechCrunch. Sources say that the iPad 2 will be available within weeks, to be followed by Apple's "fall surprise"—a third version of the tablet, likely incorporating the iPhone 4's retina-like display. Apple is known for sticking fairly rigidly to product development cycles, notes the Huffington Post, so why bring out two iPad models within 6 months? It could be an attempt to outflank HP's upcoming TouchPad tablet, speculates John Gruber at Daring Fireball. "If my theory is right, they're not only going to be months behind the iPad 2, but if they slip until late summer, they might bump up against the release of the iPad 3," he writes.
– The State Department announced Thursday that the US has reached a $1.4 billion arms deal with Taiwan; a source tells CNN it includes the sale of advanced missiles and torpedoes and technical support for early warning radar. Taiwan's Ministry of Defense said Friday it is "sincerely grateful" for the deal, "which will boost our combat capabilities in air and sea." But China is far less pleased. More: It's about protection: A US official tells CNN the deal shows "our support for Taiwan's ability to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability"—something the US is required to do under the Taiwan Relations Act signed in 1979. It's not unusual: The South China Morning Post notes every US president since Jimmy Carter has OKed arms sales to Taiwan. Former President Obama approved a $1.8 billion sale in 2015. Timing: This deal, however, comes at a "delicate time" in US-China relations, with tensions already high over North Korea, reports the AP. One China: A State Department rep says the US remains committed to its "one-China" policy, meaning it will not carry on an official relationship with Taiwan and does not consider it to be its own country. China views Taiwan as part of its territory. But China is peeved: The Chinese Embassy in Washington calls the deal a "wrong move" that "grossly interferes" in China's domestic affairs, per the Morning Post, adding China "reserves every right to take further action." What about Mar-a-Lago? China's ambassador to Washington adds the deal has "damaged the basis and mutual trust between the two countries" and "contradicts the spirit and consensus" of Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago in April, reports CNN. There's more: A rep for China's Foreign Ministry says the country is also "strongly concerned about and firmly opposed to" a new bill allowing US naval vessels to make routine stops at ports in Taiwan. Next up: The arms deal is likely to come up when Trump holds his second meeting with Xi at the G20 summit in Germany next week.
– Can a whip as long as six football fields destroy some of the 500,000 pieces of space junk spinning around Earth at 17,500 miles per hour? Japan's space agency sure hopes so. JAXA launched its Kounotori 6 spacecraft on Friday with tons of supplies bound for the International Space Station, where it's expected to arrive on Wednesday, reports NPR. Also on board is a 2,300-feet electrodynamic tether, or EDT, made of aluminum and steel, in the works for more than a decade. JAXA says it will use an electric current and Earth's magnetic field to slow down debris and shove it out of orbit and toward Earth's atmosphere, where it will burn up. The EDT and the Kounotori, which will also carry waste from the ISS, will then meet the same fate. It's unclear how many pieces of space junk might be destroyed using the EDT, but this is mostly a test. If all goes well, JAXA plans to create a second tether up to six miles in length, reports Bloomberg. The BBC notes this is one of a few efforts underway to tackle space junk, which poses hazards for astronauts and their equipment. In May, for example, a tiny piece of space junk—possibly a speck of paint—chipped a window in the ISS' Cupola observatory, reports Christian Science Monitor. As the ISS wouldn't stand a chance against some debris as large as a bus, it has to be moved to avoid an impact, says project chief Koichi Inoue. Kounotori's EDT "is a promising candidate to deorbit the debris objects at low cost," JAXA says. (You can now adopt space junk.)
– North Korea threatening imminent thermonuclear war? Must be Wednesday. "According to intelligence obtained by our side and the US, the possibility of a missile launch by North Korea is very high," South Korea's foreign minister said today, while CNN reports that a US official says Pyongyang could in fact be planning multiple strikes. South Korea is taking the threats seriously, increasing surveillance and engaging in diplomacy efforts via China and Russia. Japan has already responded by deploying missile interceptors, and the region's US commander has said it is also capable of thwarting a launch, reports CBS. "I believe we have the ability to defend the homeland, Guam, Hawaii, and defend our allies," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Musudan missiles installed by Pyongyang are potentially within range of US military bases in Japan and Guam. But despite the very real probability that North Korea will launch a missile soon, everyday life goes on in Seoul, where citizens have long adjusted to its threats, reports Reuters. Likewise, signs of war are absent from the streets of Pyongyang, where soldiers continue to work on urban renewal projects and there hasn't been an air raid drill in months, the AP reports.
– As far as company owners go, Lynsi Torres has to be among the most intriguing. A Bloomberg article attempts to put a finger on the mysterious In-N-Out Burger president who, at age 30, is one of the youngest female billionaires on the planet. As Seth Lubove reports, she ended up at the helm of the company, estimated by Bloomberg to be valued at $1.1 billion, by way of birth and more than a few tragic deaths: Her father took control after his 41-year-old brother died in a 1993 plane crash; he died after ODing on prescription drugs six years later. Torres' grandmother then grabbed the reins until her death in 2006, which left the company with a single heir: Torres, who gained 50% ownership after turning 30 in 2012; she'll claim the other half upon her 35th birthday. And things get more intriguing from there: She's been married three times and has twins, reports Lubove, but no college degree. She largely chooses not to give interviews, but her name quietly and occasionally pops up in the press: In September, she was reported to have purchased a $17.4 million 16-bathroom mansion in Bradbury, California; she's also a drag racer who competes in two National Hot Rod Association categories; and a 2009 Wall Street Journal article noted her "affinity for joining off-beat Christian sects." Business Insider has an image of the colorful heiress, and Bloomberg has more, including a rundown of a 2006 lawsuit a former VP filed against Torres, which claimed she was trying to wrest control of In-N-Out from her grandmother. Or click for another intriguing burger-chain story.
– Italian writer Erri De Luca had already won the 2013 European Prize for Literature and been hailed as "the writer of the decade," so what else was left to accomplish but win the 2016 Bad Sex in Fiction Award. De Luca took home the 24th annual prize for some less-than-steamy passages from his novel The Day Before Happiness, the Press Association reports. According to the Guardian, those passages include “My prick was a plank stuck to her stomach" and, "[Their] sexes were ready, poised in expectation, barely touching each other: ballet dancers hovering en pointe." De Luca joins prestigious, bad-sex-writing past winners like Morrissey, Norman Mailer, and Tom Wolfe, the AP reports. The Bad Sex in Fiction Award was created by the Literary Review magazine to "draw attention to poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction” to encourage authors to do better. De Luca's competition this year definitely fit that description, with passages like "The act itself was fervent. Like a brisk tennis game or a summer track meet, something performed in daylight between competitors. The cheap mattress bounced" and, "I am pinned like wet washing with his peg. Till now, I thought the sweetest sound I could ever hear was cows chewing grass. But this is better." De Luca declined to accept the award in person.
– "I want justice." That's what a woman is seeking for her 9-year-old granddaughter, who allegedly endured a brutal Easter Sunday attack by four men while her mom got high on meth in a friend's garage, KTSU reports. The men are accused of raping, sodomizing, and threatening the girl, who was with her mom in Vernal, Utah, visiting the home of a friend the mother reportedly met while in jail, per a probable cause statement cited in another KTSU report. Four men are now behind bars and charged with felony first-degree rape and sodomy for the alleged act described as "heinous" by a Uintah County Sheriff's officer, and the girl is currently in state custody. One of the suspects, 36-year-old Larson James RonDeau, was IDed by the child from a photo. Also arrested were 20-year-old Josiah RonDeau, 29-year-old Jerry Flatlip, and 26-year-old Randall Flatlip. Per the Deseret News, the girl said she dozed off on a couch in the home, and cops say her mother told them she headed into the garage with her friend to smoke methamphetamine. When she came back, she told investigators she found her daughter with her dress "pulled up past her waist" and that the child "appeared to be upset" and "only indicated she wished to go home," so she called a cab and the two left, KUTV reports. Either the next day or the day after that (reports conflict), the girl told her mom that four men had taken her into a bedroom, where they took turns raping and sodomizing her, warning her not to breathe a word of it. Cops executed a search warrant at the home and found evidence, including bloody bedding, that backed up the girl's story. "I want hard-core punishment for what they have done to this child," the girl's grandmother tells KTSU. (Two teens in India were charged with raping a toddler.)
– The GOP's replacement plan for ObamaCare isn't getting a universal thumbs-up, but it cleared one of its first hurdles early Thursday, the Hill reports. In a session that lasted more than 16 hours and went past 4am, the House Ways and Means Committee approved the measure in a 23-16 vote, with Republicans shooting down "off-topic" amendments proposed by Democrats, who in turn accused Republicans of trying to push the bill through while people were asleep and without a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the measure. "You're fearful the CBO will provide answers to questions that you don't like," such as bill costs or revealing who'd lose coverage, Michigan Rep. Sandy Levin said. One of the many bones of contention in the bill: a proposal to cut nearly $1 billion in CDC funding, per CNN. Committee Chair Kevin Brady said a "thoughtful, thorough comprehensive score" was expected before the bill ends up with the House Budget Committee, the next step in advancing the bill. Also pushing back on the controversial measure: groups representing retirees, hospitals, and medical professionals, the New York Times reports. The AARP and American Medical Association spurned the bill Tuesday, and on Wednesday, the American Nurses Association and lobbyist groups for hospitals and other health systems joined in, with the latter also mentioning the CBO's absence as an issue. "We are very concerned" the proposal "could lead to tremendous instability for those seeking affordable coverage," read a letter from the American Hospital Association and others. ABC News looks at the numbers needed to pass the legislation.
– A straight woman is auctioning off her right to marry on eBay in response to the New York state senate's rejection of a gay marriage bill. Alas, Jamie Frevele can’t actually auction off the right guaranteed her by way of her heterosexual birth, The Frisky notes. But the money she raises for a group that mentors LGBT youth will be real. “I have no official documentation because this is something I was born with since I was born heterosexual,” Frevele writes in her eBay statement. “Unfortunately, this is only a symbolic gesture…Your bid, on the other hand, is real, and the donation you make to an organization that supports those who have been treated as second-class citizens will be well worth it.” With three days to go on the auction, the current bid is $307.
– At least 276 dogs have been rescued from a single 1,880-square-foot home in what one New Jersey official calls "the worst hoarding case that we've ever experienced," the Asbury Park Press reports. The problem was discovered Thursday by an animal control officer called about a loose dog, and rescuers started removing the pups Friday morning. According to NBC New York, the dogs—pugs, chihuahuas, terriers, and more—were found living under beds and on bookshelves. And a sheriff's deputy describes a contraption "like a hamster cage for dogs." Rescuers equipped with hazmat suits and ventilators used thermal imaging equipment to find dogs living in the house's walls. “We’re not bad people,” Joseph Hendricks tells the Press. Joseph and his wife Charlene say they started with eight dogs, but those eight reproduced. In fact, WPVI reports a fresh litter was born just minutes before rescuers got to the home. Charges against the couple depend on the health of the dogs. And despite "deplorable" conditions—urine and feces on the floor, a stench that could be smelled outside the home—the dogs seemed surprisingly well cared for. A handful required veterinary care or oxygen after being rescued, but no dead dogs were found. Charlene calls the pups "my family." The dogs, most of which had never been outside their house, will be put up for adoption when they're ready.
– Looks like Donald Trump did not sleep well Friday night: He spent Saturday morning firing off a series of tweets claiming that the election is rigged, which the AP calls an "unprecedented assertion in a country with a history of peaceful democratic transition." "Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted and should be in jail," he said in one tweet. "Instead she is running for president in what looks like a rigged election." In another, he slammed the media for "poisoning the minds" of American voters with what he calls "100% fabricated and made-up charges" of sexual misconduct. A round-up of coverage: The Washington Post reports that Trump physically dismantled one teleprompter and knocked another one down after they stopped working during a speech in Charlotte, NC Friday night. He told the audience he preferred it without teleprompters and went on to hopscotch through dozens of topics in front of an enthusiastic crowd. At an earlier rally in Greensboro, he denounced two of the women who have accused him of sexual misbehavior, saying one of them "would not be my first choice." Mashable reports that Trump has threatened to sue the New York Times over its story on two of the accusers, and such a suit could be a bonanza for the NYT. Trump would be the subject of a deposition and the paper's lawyers would be allowed to probe the histories of family members and other Trump associates, opening what "Columbia School of Journalism professor Stuart Karle calls a "rich vein of yuck about Donald Trump." Clinton's campaign has also hit out the media, accusing it of failing to treat leaked campaign emails as a national security issue, the Hill reports. On Friday, the campaign also slammed WikiLeaks, the Russian government, and Trump, who they accuse of encouraging the hackers. Reuters reports that Trump rallies have become more emotional than ever, with the crowds "more protective of their hero." At the Greensboro rally, a man in a "Gays for Trump" shirt punched a protester who was holding an American flag upside down. The Burlington Free Press speaks to ski maker Cyrus Schenck, who has introduced limited edition skis with Trump on the right and Clinton is on the left. The ornate design contains all the references to the "indiscretions, faults, and weaknesses of the candidates" that the artist could squeeze in. The New York Times stopped by Tommy's Diner in Columbus, Ohio and found that voters in the swing state's capital are sick of this election and don't much care for either candidate. Many are considering not voting, which polls say is a statewide trend. (There's an outside chance that a little-known candidate could become president with just six electoral votes.)
– Keeping your drunkenness a secret from your Uber driver might be impossible in a future world, no matter how much silence emanates from the backseat. A patent application shows that Uber may be interested in trying to figure out whether potential passengers are drunk by analyzing everything from typos in the ride request to whether the phone was swaying, reports the Guardian. While it's only theoretical at this point, the idea is that certain behavior would trigger a reaction from Uber if it differs from behavior during past ride requests, reports the Washington Post. For example, a specially trained driver might arrive to transport a drunk passenger and make sure the person is dropped off in a safe spot. The app might also keep a drunk passenger from pooling with other riders. All this "sounds helpful," but "poses questions about the potential for data like this to be abused," writes Arwa Mahdawi in the Guardian. Would drunk passengers have to pay more than others? And given that many of the abuse allegations lodged against Uber drivers have come from passengers who were drunk at the time, the system could theoretically put people at risk. Experts also fear the technology could single out people with disabilities or keep users from hailing a ride when drunk or high, per the Post. But though the patent was filed in December 2016, there's no plan to put the idea into practice yet. "We are always exploring ways that our technology can help improve the Uber experience" and "file patent applications on many ideas, but not all of them actually become products or features," Uber says, per the BBC.
– A University of Hartford student has been expelled and is facing a hate crime charge after allegedly waging a disgusting campaign to force the black roommate she nicknamed "Jamaican Barbie" to move—and bragging about it online. "After one and a half months spitting in her coconut oil, putting moldy clam dip in her lotions, rubbing used tampons on her backpack, putting her toothbrush places where the sun doesn't shine, and so much more, I can finally say goodbye to Jamaican Barbie," Brianna Brochu said in one Instagram post. Brochu was arrested Saturday and admitted licking utensils and smearing bodily fluids on the backpack of Chennel Rowe, though the 18-year-old said she invented other claims to "appear funny," the Hartford Courant reports. Police say they will be seeking a charge of intimidation based on bigotry or bias in addition to a mischief charge already filed, the New York Times reports. The university, which had granted Brochu a $20,000-a-year scholarship, says her behavior was "reprehensible" and she will not be returning. Brochu told police she lashed out because of a "hostile environment" caused by Rowe's "rude behavior." In a video posted on Facebook Monday, Rowe said she requested a room change after being ignored and ostracized by Brochu. Rowe, who blamed health problems early in the school year on the contamination of her belongings, said Brochu made the Instagram post as she was moving out on Oct. 17. She also accused the school of telling her to keep quiet and suggested things would have been different if she was white and Brochu black. (The demands of this college roommate went viral.)
– In another potentially big break in the treatment of AIDS, scientists believe that an HIV-positive man has been cured by a stem cell transplant, the Huffington Post reports. Timothy Ray Brown, often referred to as the "Berlin Patient," underwent both stem-cell therapy alongside conventional chemotherapy for leukemia—not his HIV infection. But three years later, researchers say that test results "strongly suggest that cure of HIV infection has been achieved." The stem cell donor just happened to have a natural resistance to HIV infection, explains AIDSmap.com. "If a cure has been achieved in this patient, it points the way towards attempts to develop a cure for HIV infection through genetically engineered stem cells," writes Keith Alcorn.
– Former Harrisburg Mayor Steve Reed was a man with a bold vision: Building one of the country's finest Wild West museums in Pennsylvania. But while the Democrat spent years searching the West for artifacts and brought about 10,000 of them back, the museum never got built and he now faces trial on more than 100 counts relating to what prosecutors say was his obsession, the AP reports. Reed, who was mayor for 28 years before losing a primary election in 2009, has been charged with 112 counts of receiving stolen property, as well as one count of evidence tampering and one count of dealing in the proceeds of unlawful activities. Hundreds of other charges, including theft, were thrown out last year because of the statute of limitations. Prosecutors say Reed, who successfully created the city's Civil War museum, used millions of dollars from the financially strapped city's bond issues to pay for artifacts like stagecoach equipment, Doc Holliday's dental chair, antique newspapers and guns, as well as a lot of forgeries, Reuters reports. He was known among dealers in the West for always paying top dollar and for sending an armed city cop to collect his many purchases, PennLive reported after he was charged in 2015. The city recovered about $4.4 million from selling thousands of the relics Reed bought, but some 1,800 other Old West artifacts were seized from his home and a warehouse he owns. The 67-year-old Reed's lawyers say he can prove he is the rightful owner of the seized items—and he wants them back.
– A woman who climbed atop a life-size donkey statue at a Mexican restaurant in Florida is suing said restaurant after she says she fell and broke her back. Kimberly Bonn says she mounted the donkey for a photo during a visit to El Jalisco Southwood in Tallahassee on Aug. 31, 2015, per the Tallahassee Democrat. This wasn't such an unusual thing to do, according to Bonn, as restaurant workers encouraged customers to sit atop the statue. The issue, she alleges, was that there were no steps to help customers onto the donkey's saddle-less back, which was "smooth and slick." In a negligence lawsuit filed last week in Leon County Circuit Civil court, Bonn says she fell "hard to the floor" from the donkey and fractured her spine, reports Florida Politics. She's seeking more than $15,000 in damages. Meanwhile, a group in support of the restaurant has received hundreds of likes on Facebook. "Just because you are an a-- doesn't mean you should be treated like one! Join us in standing up for this poor donkey from El Jalisco Restaurant here in Tallahassee as he prepares for the fight of his life," a Tuesday post reads.
– Sounds like Sen. Lindsey Graham is pretty much in for Election 2016, but you'll have to wait until June 1 to find out for sure. The hosts of CBS This Morning noted that the senator, a guest today, has said there's a "99.9% chance" he'll run for president, and Graham said he'll announce June 1 in South Carolina. He was then asked if he's running because he thinks he's bringing foreign policy experience to the table, and he responded: "I'm running because of what you see on television. I'm running because I think the world is falling apart. I've been more right than wrong on foreign policy. It's not the fault of others, or their lack of this or that, that makes me want to run; it's my ability in my own mind to be a good commander in chief and to make Washington work." As for that "99.9%" comment, Graham made it to South Carolina House Republicans last week, the State reported. "And I'm going to run about what I'm going to do, not what I'm against," he told a caucus meeting. The week prior, Graham told BuzzFeed he was "98.6% sure" he would run. And Politico reported earlier this month that Graham was likely to announce a presidential run June 1 from South Carolina, noting that the location "would enable the GOP senator to highlight a compelling personal story not widely known outside his home state." (His parents, who ran a pool hall where he was raised, died young, and he helped bring up his sister while also attending college and serving in the Air Force.) MSNBC notes that Graham emailed supporters yesterday with this line: "As an announcement draws near, I need to know you stand with me," as well as an invitation to donate money.
– Pope Francis had a message for the powerful in an unexpected talk aired at the TED conference Tuesday. "The more powerful you are, the more your actions will have an impact on people, the more responsible you are to act humbly," he said, per Reuters. The 18-minute talk, recorded in Vatican City and broadcast at the Vancouver conference, was in Italian with subtitles available in more than 20 languages, the BBC reports. "You will end up hurting yourself and those around you, if you don't connect your power with humility and tenderness," Francis said. "Through humility and concrete love, on the other hand, power—the highest, the strongest one—becomes a service, a force for good." The pontiff called for an end to a "culture of waste" that considers people as well as goods to be disposable. "How wonderful would it be if the growth of scientific and technological innovation would come along with more equality and social inclusion," he said. Francis said many people seem to believe that "a happy future is something impossible to achieve," but their fears can be overcome "when we do not lock our door to the outside world." TED international curator Bruno Giussani says it took several trips to Rome to make the talk happen—and not many people in the Vatican knew about it. Other speakers this week will include Serena Williams and Elon Musk.
– Guilt has been the prominent emotion dogging Candice Anderson in the past decade since her fiance, Gene Erickson, was killed in a 2004 car crash while she was driving. Yesterday, some of that guilt was alleviated when a Texas judge removed the criminally negligent homicide conviction from her record after determining her Saturn Ion was one of millions of GM vehicles recalled earlier this year for an ignition switch issue, the AP reports. "The crash involving Ms. Anderson is one in which the recall condition may have caused or contributed to the air bag nondeployment in the accident," a GM lawyer wrote in a letter released yesterday in Van Zandt County court. Anderson's lawyer blasted the company: "GM knew this defect caused this death, yet, instead of telling the truth, watched silently as Candice was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter," he tells the Detroit News. "This has not been an easy road," Anderson says in a statement cited by the News. Her parents had to empty retirement accounts to pay for her attorney, and she was forced to pony up at least $10,000 more in fines and restitution—she avoided jail time through a plea deal and served five years' probation, the New York Times reports. She was "denied positions at numerous jobs" due to her record, she tells the News. And she sustained serious injuries herself, though she says most of the toll has been from the guilt she's felt since that day: Until the GM problems were revealed, she anguished over what part she played in her fiance's death, the Times notes. She tells the paper that the ruling will finally enable her to tell her two young daughters, "This is what happened, this horrible thing. And it wasn't mommy’s fault." (Recently uncovered GM emails don't help the company's case.)
– A 70-year-old woman has been charged with the murder of her husband, an 84-year-old University of Connecticut doctor and health professor who may have been dead inside the couple's home for up to eight months. Authorities arrived at the Burlington home to perform a wellness check on Pierluigi Bigazzi on Feb. 5 after university officials couldn't reach him, reports ABC News. The professor had been working remotely to update the School of Medicine's curriculum since last summer and was to present his work this month, says a university rep. Though his wife initially prevented officers from entering the home, they gained access Friday, noticed a foul odor, and found Bigazzi's dead body wrapped up in the basement, reports the Hartford Courant. They believe he died of blunt head trauma as early as June. It was around that time that Linda Kosuda-Bigazzi began helping her husband with his work, the university rep says, calling Bigazzi "an accomplished researcher and teacher in the field of pathology and laboratory medicine." Kosuda-Bigazzi, a former UConn science instructor, surrendered to police Friday and is now charged with murder and tampering with evidence, police say. She has yet to enter a plea but was placed on house arrest during her arraignment Tuesday, per the Courant. Police are now trying to determine when her husband died. Part of that effort involves a plan to review alimony checks sent to Bigazzi's first wife since the summer to see who signed them. Bigazzi's department head says she last received an email from him on July 7. His campus key card was last used on Aug. 23.
– Swastikas and profanity were reportedly scrawled on the property of the Polish embassy in Israel over the weekend in the wake of controversial remarks made by the country's prime minister about the Holocaust. The symbol of hate appeared on the entrance to the property in Tel Aviv on Sunday, one day after Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki publicly suggested that Jews, along with Poles and others, were among those responsible for aiding the Nazi genocide, Reuters reports. An estimated 3 million Jewish people living in Poland are believed to have been murdered by the Nazis prior to World War II. The markings were reportedly written in marker on both the gate and a bulletin board and included both swastikas and anti-Polish profanities. Police released photos of the vandalism and said they will be investigating the incident. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu swiftly condemned Morawiecki's remarks after the Polish leader made them in response to an Israeli reporter's question regarding a new law in Poland that seeks to punish with jail time anyone who says the country was "responsible or complicit in the Nazi crimes committed by the Third German Reich." “The Polish prime minister’s remarks here in Munich are outrageous,” said Netanyahu after Morawiecki referenced "Jewish perpetrators" in his statement in the German city on Saturday, the Times of Israel reports. It is Morawiecki's stance that Poland was a victim of Nazi occupation and that most Polish people attempted to help their friends and neighbors as millions of Jews from across Europe were sent to death camps. (A secret forest birthday party for Hitler caused revulsion in Poland.)
– Jo Seong-jin, a top exec for LG Electronics, has been accused of vandalizing washing machines made by rival company Samsung. He and two other LG executives have been indicted over the incident, an LG spokesperson tells the Wall Street Journal. Before a trade show in Germany last September, Samsung said LG execs had broken the doors of four of its washing machines at Berlin shopping centers. LG said Jo, the head of its home appliance division, and other execs were indeed surveying the competition, but insisted any broken Samsung doors were caused only by subpar hinges. Even so, LG paid for the damaged appliances, but Samsung filed a lawsuit anyway. LG countersued for defamation and evidence tampering, and then South Korean prosecutors got involved. In December, prosecutors raided LG offices and temporarily banned Jo from traveling outside the country. Mediation attempts were unsuccessful, and Jo has now been charged with not just the allegedly deliberate damage but with defamation and obstruction of business, the LG rep says. In response to the indictment, LG has released footage of Jo performing what it calls "standard product tests" on the Samsung machines as Samsung promoters were in the room, CNET reports; the footage also shows other consumers handling the doors in a less than gentle fashion. But Samsung says the footage has been "arbitrarily edited." Says Jo's lawyer: "It is questionable whether there is sufficient evidence to prove that the president of a global company deliberately destroyed the machines where employees of the competing company were present. The truth will be revealed in the courts."
– If, after its firing, any piece of North Korea's rocket appears likely to fall in Japanese territory, Tokyo is ready to shoot it from the sky. Patriot missiles are at the ready in Tokyo, Okinawa, and elsewhere on Japan's north and west coasts, the Telegraph reports. Japan has issued similar orders twice in the past, but they've never been carried out, the Wall Street Journal notes. In the Sea of Japan, three destroyers are at the ready with search-and-destroy systems; the US also has ships in position for the planned launch. Satellite photos suggest Pyongyang's rocket should be ready by Monday.
– Bust out the Big Apple jokes: Steve Jobs and company will open their largest store yet in the fall—inside Grand Central Terminal in New York City, reports Cult of Mac. The store will be called "Apple, Grand Central" and is expected to start doing business in September, insiders tell the website. Rumors of the plan surfaced earlier in the New York Observer. Wired loves the idea: "The move would help alleviate the immense traffic at Apple’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue," writes Sam Gustin. "For years now, it’s been increasingly difficult to do business there in a timely way, except for late at night. On weekends and over holidays, the store is virtually impassible, clogged by throngs of tourists from around the globe."
– After Stormy Daniels shared a forensic sketch of a man she says threatened her in 2011 and warned her not to discuss her alleged affair with now-President Trump, Trump tweeted that it was just "a sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!" Now Daniels is suing the president over that tweet. The adult film star filed a defamation suit against the POTUS Monday in federal court in Manhattan, NBC News reports. "Mr. Trump used his national and international audience of millions of people to make a false factual statement to denigrate and attack Ms. Clifford," the complaint says. Daniels is seeking damages in excess of $75,000, per the Hill. According to the complaint, Trump essentially accused Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, of fabricating the threat against her—and that by doing so, he exposed her to more threats. The lawsuit also claims Trump basically accused Daniels of committing a crime, as it is illegal under New York law to falsely accuse someone of committing a crime against you, Bloomberg reports. "Regardless of who you are or what position you hold, you are not permitted to fabricate statements in an effort to deceive people," says Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti. "There are consequences for doing that." (Meanwhile, a federal judge recently put Daniels' other lawsuit against Trump on hold for 90 days.)
– In what Mediaite says appears to be the first 2020 ad for President Trump's re-election campaign, supporters hear an unusual request. Campaign chief Brad Parscale asks them to call an 800 number and leave a personal message of thanks for the president. "We need to let President Trump know that we appreciate what he's doing for America," Parscale says. "I need you to call the number on your screen and deliver a thank-you to President Trump." You can see the ad via this tweet from journalist Yashar Ali, who spotted it on CNN Monday night. "President Trump has achieved more during his time in office than any president in history," says Parscale. This being a campaign ad, another motive is at play: money. The Washington Post punched in the number and found that callers do indeed get a prompt to record their message. Then comes a plea for a donation, followed by a second one if callers disregard the first. "I understand a contribution is a lot to ask for, but President Trump is asking for your support now, before it's too late," Parscale says. "We must protect the Trump presidency for the American people." (The number of potential Democratic candidates keeps growing.)
– All it takes to convince people you're a US Embassy is an American flag, a picture of President Obama, and a whole lot of visas—at least in Ghana, where a ramshackle building in Accra housed a phony embassy really run by organized crime members from Ghana and Turkey, the Guardian reports. What wasn't fake: the US visas they got their hands on and doled out for the past decade. "The criminals running the operation were able to pay off corrupt officials to look the other way, as well as obtain legitimate blank documents to be doctored," the US State Department said in a Nov. 2 statement (per the Washington Post, the news is only being widely reported now). A visa could be had for $6,000 from "consular officers" who were really Turkish citizens speaking English and Dutch; customers could also get other documents, including phony birth certificates and bank statements. The "embassy," only open three days a week, advertised itself on billboards and in fliers in Ghana and other West African countries. The process of obtaining a visa legally in Ghana is a "dreadful experience," per the Ghana Business News, which is how these con operations flourish. This initiative was discovered after an informant tipped off an investigator involved in a larger trafficking and fraud probe in the area; the fraudulent business was shuttered over the summer. Officials aren't saying how workers acquired the real US visas, or how many people were actually able to enter the US using them or other fake paperwork. "Several suspects" were busted during the raid, per the State Department, with "several" still on the loose. Also unearthed during the investigation: a fake Dutch operation. (Meanwhile, Afghan interpreters who helped US troops were denied visas.)
– Heading out for a weekend climb or scaling the rock wall at the gym may be good therapy for treating depression, new research shows. A University of Arizona study found that a form of rock climbing eased depression symptoms in participants from moderate to mild levels after eight weeks, Inverse reports. The sport, also known as bouldering, which doesn't use ropes or harnesses, combines physicality and self-sufficiency, both of which have been shown to be beneficial in combatting depression, researchers say. "You have to be mindful and focused on the moment," lead author Eva-Maria Stelzer says. The sport "does not leave much room to let your mind wonder on things that may be going on in your life—you have to focus on not falling." Researchers divided more than 100 people in Germany diagnosed with depression, or who received low scores on a depression on a WHO depression scale, into two groups, the first of which immediately began climbing rocks or walls at a moderate height for three hours a week. Most were new to the sport. Over eight weeks, early participants showed a 6.27-point improvement in their score, while those in the second group who didn't climb saw a boost of just 1.4 points. When the sedentary group got the green light to climb in a second trial, their scores increased as well. Some German hospitals are using bouldering to treat depression, Inverse notes. Stelzer says bouldering could be a useful treatment in the US, where some 40 million American adults suffer from anxiety disorders. (An attention-boosting app may help with depression.)
– The US Postal Service had a jaw-droppingly ugly holiday quarter, losing $3.3 billion despite a better-than-expected surge in gift shipments, the agency announced today. That's $3 billion worse than its figure for the same period in 2010, the AP reports, and at this rate the agency expects to run out of dough by October. The problem is that traditional mail delivery continues to plummet—it fell 6% in the first fiscal quarter, which ended Dec. 31. "Technology continues to have a major impact on how our customers use the mail," the postmaster general said, according to Reuters. "While it has helped us grow our Shipping Services businesses, it has had a significant negative impact on some of our much larger sources of revenue." Still, the Post Office would have lost only $200 million if not for payments it had to make toward the $5.5 billion it is required by law to set aside for future retiree health benefits annually, something no other government agency needs to do.
– A 19-year-old woman in Texas lost her life over a dispute about beer pong, a witness tells the Eagle of College Station. The fatal shooting of Lacie LaRose took place last month at a graduation party, when about two dozen people were playing beer pong in a garage about 1am. A witness says a dispute broke out over the rules, and it led to a fight between two groups—the party's host and his friends, and a neighbor and his friends. Police say neighbor Ronald McNeil, 39, left the party, returned with a gun, and opened fire. "We're a bunch of college kids," Landon Duke tells the newspaper. "We didn't think anything was really going to happen. Just to be safe, we closed the garage door." Two other partygoers were injured by the gunshots, and McNeil told police that he meant only to scare the guests, not shoot anyone, reports the Houston Chronicle. He remains jailed on murder charges.
– More than three months after she disappeared from public view, Chinese actress Fan Bingbing has resurfaced. Bingbing, China's most famous and highest-paid actress, is best known internationally for her role as Blink in X-Men: Days of Future Past. She had last been spotted July 1; on Wednesday, she was ordered to pay a $130 million fine for tax evasion and other offenses. For the first time since June, she issued a public statement apologizing for wrongdoing, and now it has been revealed that she was released from a secret detention facility about two weeks ago and returned to Beijing, according to sources cited in the South China Morning Post. Sources say Fan was held at a remote "holiday resort" typically used to investigate Chinese officials who are suspected of corruption. One insider says she was under "residential surveillance at a designated location"—a practice used in China since 2012 that allows anyone suspected of certain crimes to be held for up to six months without access to legal counsel or contact with family. The Post's sources disagree on whether her ordeal is over or whether she will face further questioning, but a senior film executive in Beijing tells the Hollywood Reporter that he and his colleagues have been in touch with Fan since she made her statement and that she is in Beijing. "She has regained her liberty and is in relatively good spirits," according to the executive. It remains unclear whether Fan can afford the penalties; she reportedly has a deadline to pay if she wants to avoid criminal charges and be sent to prison.
– President Obama yesterday used his executive power to designate 500,000 acres of desert along New Mexico's southern border a national monument. It's a move being praised by environmentalists and ... slammed by John Boehner, who called it "a level of audacity that is remarkable even for this administration." What's the big deal? Well, Boehner and others argue the move could undermine security along the US-Mexico border, Politico reports. "Once again, the president has chosen to bypass the legislative branch—and, in this case, do so in a manner that adds yet another challenge in our ongoing efforts to secure our southern border," Boehner said. "At a time of continued cartel violence in Mexico, we should not be putting any additional restraints on efforts to protect our borders." Customs and Border Protection say the move "will in no way limit our ability to perform our important border security mission, and in fact provides important flexibility as we work to meet this ongoing priority." But critics point out there are no terms to allow local police to patrol the area—which includes ancient lava flows, rock outcroppings, hunting areas, and Billy the Kid's Outlaw Rock, the AP reports—which is something that could have been addressed if the motion had passed through Congress. The White House has countered, noting the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument could generate $7.4 million in economic activity through tourism and other revenue.
– A Texas judge filmed in a viral video beating his disabled daughter won't face criminal charges because the five-year statutes of limitations has expired, say police. Though the beating occurred several years ago, daughter Hillary Adams, who suffers from cerebral palsy, said she was afraid to post the film any earlier because she feared retribution by her dad. "I waited seven years because back then I was still a minor and living under his roof, and releasing it then, I don't know what would've happened to me and my mother and my little sister," Adams, now 23, said on the Today Show. "We believe that there was a criminal offense involved and that there was substantial evidence to indicate that and under normal circumstances ... a charge could have been made," notes the police chief. But William Adams is taking a paid leave from his job, and could be hit with serious penalties when he faces a State Commission of Judicial Conduct, reports the New York Daily News. Adams is being replaced by a visiting judge, and some media reports say he has left town because of death threats. "He'll not take the bench for a while," said a court spokesman. Hillary's mom is also seen on the tape whipping her daughter with a belt, but she now says she regrets her actions. "I was completely brainwashed and controlled," Adams said. "I did every single thing that he did. When I leave the room, he’s telling me what to say, what to do." Hillary's dad has insisted he did nothing wrong when he beat his daughter, and issued a statement yesterday saying his daughter posted the clip to get back at him after he told her he was cutting the amount of financial support he gives her and taking away her Mercedes, reports the AP.
– Big changes at Google today: Its founders have a created a parent company for it called Alphabet and will focus on running that. Google itself will still exist, but in a "slimmed down" version that will be run by current Google exec Sundar Pichai, writes Larry Page in a company blog post. Co-founder Sergey Brin will be Alphabet's president. Essentially, Google is separating its "search, YouTube, and other Web companies from its research and investment divisions," explains Bloomberg. Google is, in fact, disappearing in one sense: Alphabet will replace it as the publicly traded entity, reports MarketWatch. Shares were up nearly 6% on news of the restructuring. Part of Page's explanation: "What is Alphabet? Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google. This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main Internet products contained in Alphabet instead. What do we mean by far afield? Good examples are our health efforts: Life Sciences (that works on the glucose-sensing contact lens), and Calico (focused on longevity)." Also included will be the X lab and Wing, the company's drone project, reports the Wall Street Journal. “Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related,” writes Page.
– The Reputation Institute is out with its annual list of the world's most reputable companies, based on a poll of 240,000 people from 15 countries. Volkswagen took a major hit, falling from the 14th spot to 123rd in 2016, per Forbes. The top 10: Rolex Disney Google BMW Daimler Lego Microsoft Canon Sony Apple
– A new excavation of something branded the "No. 2 pit" is a potentially much more remarkable undertaking than it sounds: It could swell the ranks of China's famed terracotta army. Work began March 30 on the pit, which sits adjacent to the tomb mound of Qin Shi Huang, an emperor who conquered much of modern China before his death in 210 BC. That pit has seen previous excavations, between 1994 and 2008, reports the Xinhua News Agency, and gave up statues whose coloring led archaeologists to conclude the clay warriors were originally painted. What they expect a 2,150-square-foot section of the pit to give up now: as many as 1,400 warrior and horse statues, 89 war chariots, and 116 mounted soldiers, the AP reports by way of the Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum. Those warriors would add to the 7,000 that were found at the site—the world's biggest underground mausoleum—since 1974. The No. 2 pit is thought to be a more archaeologically interesting site than the already excavated No. 1, with archaeologist Yuan Zhongyi describing the No. 2 as holding "the true essence of the terracotta army," noting the "colorful paint is also relatively well preserved." National Geographic's file on the terracotta warriors reports there are four pits that have seen some excavation, including one that was found to be empty, "a testament to the original unfinished construction." Qin's tomb mound hasn't been touched, and it's unclear whether China will ever decide to disturb a space that ancient texts describe as one filled with treasures. Last year saw one mystery of the terracotta army solved.
– The iconic reindeer is in peril, according to a new study analyzing population trends in China. While their numbers have been in decline for decades, dropping by at least 28% since the 1970s, the rate of decline has increased dramatically since 1998, reports UPI. The study, published in the Journal for Nature Conservation, puts the number of reindeer in the "Arctic region of China" at 773; the 1970s peak was 1,080. The researchers point to six factors contributing to the sinking numbers there: inbreeding, poaching, natural predators, lack of herders and breeders, climate change, and changes in the tourism industry. Another researcher adds disease to the list. They say the IUCN Red List Data on reindeer is out of date; the animals are still listed under their 2008 classification as being of "least concern." The China population is the southernmost in the world, reports Discovery News, and that designation makes it especially "important to the distribution and conservation of reindeer worldwide," says the lead author. The researchers would like to see China establish nature reserves and parks within the animals' natural habitat as a conservation method. (One way reindeer are better coping with climate change in the Arctic? Castration.)
– Hollywood has had a long love affair...with divorce. It's the topic du jour once again, thanks to Eat, Pray, Love, which paints the aftermath of the big split as "getting down with James Franco and Javier Bardem, copious amounts of gelato and pizza, and finding 'your truth' at the 'center' of your life," writes Jessica Grose for Slate. It's a classic film trope, she explains: Woman gets ditched. Woman is liberated! But it wasn't an a la mode theme until the 1970s: Movies like Why Change Your Wife? (1920) and The Philadelphia Story (1940) followed sassy women who got divorced...then back with their man. But as divorce rates ballooned, divorce-liberation flicks started popping up, and haven't stopped. Hopeful filmmakers, take note: Grose runs down some standard steps that should be followed. No. 1: Destroy your ex's stuff (First Wives Club). No. 2: Smoke pot (It's Complicated). No. 3: Go to another country, meet hunk (Under the Tuscan Sun). Click here for a slideshow of classics.
– The judge in Oscar Pistorius' trial will not find him guilty of murder, but he could still be found guilty of lesser charges, including culpable homicide—the equivalent of manslaughter. As CNN puts it, "Under South African law, Pistorius will not be found guilty of 'murder.'" According to the AP: "The judge ... appeared to be heading for a culpable homicide finding." Judge Thokozile Masipa said the prosecution failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Pistorius is guilty of premeditated murder, then later said she also found that he is not guilty of intentionally killing Reeva Steenkamp, and finally said she did find him "negligent," which, as the AP notes, strengthens the possibility of a culpable homicide conviction. She then adjourned the trial until tomorrow. Masipa found that Pistorius could not have known the person he was shooting at behind the bathroom door would die, and she also said the evidence suggests he truly believed Steenkamp was still in the bedroom at the time and he was shooting at an intruder. She seemed to accept the defense's version of the timeline: First came the shots, then screaming that she said she believed was coming from Pistorius, not Steenkamp. If Pistorius is found guilty of culpable homicide, the judge can decide on sentence length; there is no minimum. He also faces three weapons charges, and Sky News reports that Masipa did say there is "no doubt" he "acted unlawfully" when firing.
– A California couple on safari in Africa bought a souvenir that ended up being far more expensive than they could have imagined. Jon and Linda Grant picked up the souvenir, a 15- to 18-inch giraffe bone onto which a herd of elephants had been carved, at a game reserve in South Africa after being assured by the clerk that it was perfectly legal. That may have been the case in South Africa, but the Grants ran into trouble when the safari took them to Tanzania. They were jailed after being informed at the airport that the giraffe was Tanzania's national animal, reports ABC7. Anti-poaching officials were called to the scene, and the Grants were suddenly facing a 20-year sentence and a $150,000 fine. Eventually, the charges were reduced to failure to have an export permit, which carries a still-hefty $30,000 fine. "They said, 'Are you willing to pay it?'" Jon Grant, a 72-year-old retired dentist, tells KTVU. "We said, 'Absolutely.' Cost us $30,000 for buying [the] souvenir plus another $30,000 in bribes to get out of the country." Local Congresswoman Jackie Speier, who helped get the original charges reduced, thinks this was likely more than a mix-up—that the Grants were targeted as wealthy Americans. "This is pretty egregious," she tells ABC7, adding that US officials should be on the lookout for a pattern and that American tourists should be on alert. The Grants, meanwhile, "never knew" they could "be that afraid." (The UK wants Joan of Arc's ring back over an export licensing issue.)
– How's that for tiger blood? Charlie Sheen settled his wrongful termination lawsuit with Warner Brothers and Two & a Half Men producer Chuck Lorre today for a handy $25 million, TMZ reports. Thanks to the settlement, the actor will also earn around $100 million in syndication profits over the next 7 years for the episodes he's shot. Sheen was canned from show in March for publicly disparaging Lorre and admitting to substance abuse.
– Ben Quayle has become the first freshman House Republican to fall in the primaries. In a fierce race caused by redistricting in Arizona, Quayle was defeated by fellow freshman Rep. David Schweikert. Schweikert attacked his rival, the son of former vice president Dan Quayle, as part of the establishment, and reminded voters that Quayle used to write for the "Dirty Scottsdale" sex site, reports Politico. Quayle was further embarrassed by news that he was among a party of lawmakers who swam in the Sea of Galilee after a night of drinking. In another Arizona race, Rep. Jeff Flake easily won the state's Republican Senate primary, reports the Washington Post. Flake won support from both establishment and Tea Party groups in the race against Wil Cardon, a real estate investor who spent millions of dollars of his own money in the campaign. Flake will face former surgeon general Richard Carmona, who was unopposed in the Democratic primary, in November.
– Among the six Americans killed in Afghanistan yesterday was 25-year-old foreign service officer Anne Smedinghoff, reports CNN, the first US diplomat to be killed since Chris Stevens died in September. John Kerry led the mourning for her today, saluting the "vivacious, smart" up-and-comer who assisted him during a visit just two weeks ago as "a selfless, idealistic woman who woke up yesterday morning and set out to bring textbooks to school children, to bring them knowledge." Smedinghoff died when her convoy was bombed in Zabul province. "I wish everyone in our country could see first-hand the devotion, loyalty, and amazingly hard and hazardous work our diplomats do on the front lines in the world's most dangerous places," said an emotional Kerry. Smedinghoff hailed from the Chicago area, notes the AP, and was a three-year veteran of the foreign service who had previously served in Venezuela. “We are consoled knowing that she was doing what she loved, and that she was serving her country by helping to make a positive difference in the world," her parents told the Washington Post. “The world lost a truly beautiful soul today.”
– That an endangered orca was found dead on the eastern side of Vancouver Island Thursday was itself gloomy news: Named J-32 and nicknamed Rhapsody, it was part of a population that had only 78 members, and thought to be one of only 18 able to reproduce. But the completed necropsy dealt two additional blows: First, the orca was pregnant. "When you have 78 animals and you lose an animal ... that has the potential to contribute for decades—that's a huge loss to this population," says Paul Cottrell of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The fetus was full term, and while results from tests to be performed on tissue samples won't be available for at least a month, KING 5 News reports the leading theory is that the calf may have actually spurred the mother's death. The theory posted to Facebook last night by the Victoria Marine Science Association: that the calf died and caused an infection that ultimately killed, or had a hand in the death of, its mother. KING 5 News notes that a calf birthed by an orca in the J, K, or L pod hasn't survived longer than a year in the last three years. The second blow: Between Friday evening, when the carcass was placed on a boat launch, and Saturday morning, in advance of the scheduled necropsy, a number of its teeth were removed, some sawed off "right to the gum," Cottrell tells the Canadian Press. He notes that Rhapsody's jaw and teeth were otherwise "in great shape and solid." The department is investigating. The Puget Sound orca population was listed as endangered in 2005, notes the AP. (California whale watchers recently saw a group of orcas attack a mother whale and her baby.)
– When Cara Pressman gets seizures, she describes it as "like having a nightmare but while you're awake," giving her the chills and the shakes and causing her to zone out for up to two minutes. So the 15-year-old, who a release says is from New York and has suffered from seizures since she was 9, was elated when she was set in October for a minimally invasive brain surgery called laser ablation that could end her trauma, per CNN. But just days before the procedure, it was canceled, because Aetna, the family's insurance company, denied the coverage, saying the surgery is "experimental" for epilepsy and "the effectiveness of this approach has not been established." Instead, Aetna approved a more expensive temporal lobectomy, despite laser ablation being FDA approved and a Mayo Clinic neurosurgeon saying the procedure is a well-regarded one. "There's a lot of data out there to suggest it's effective for epilepsy," Dr. Jamie Van Gompel says. Plus, patients who have laser ablation recover more quickly than those who undergo traditional brain surgery—in less than two weeks, instead of up to three months—and have less pain and less risk of complications, per Van Gompel. "It's just so frustrating for us to know there's … a way to fix our daughter, and some bureaucratic machine is preventing this from happening," Cara's dad says. Her parents say while they're appealing, they'll consider dipping into their retirement funds and finding other means to pay for the $300,000 out-of-pocket cost. Cara's take to Aetna, six weeks and more than two dozen seizures later: "Considering they're denying me getting surgery and stopping this thing that's wrong with my brain, I would probably just say, 'Screw you.'"
– A low-tech camera installed on a terrace in Tempe, Arizona, is busy taking a photo—that should capture one image over the next thousand years, the Arizona Republic reports. Conceptual artist Jonathon Keats says his device will actually show 10 centuries of change in a single shot: "The photograph not only shows the skyline, but also records how it develops over time," he says in an Arizona State University press release. "For instance, old houses torn down after a couple centuries will show up only faintly, as if they were ghosts haunting the skyscrapers that replace them." So why invent such a camera? Because, he says, he wants us to consider the image and reflect on how our choices will affect the environment. "You can look at the scale of time beyond the human life span," he says in another Arizona Republic piece. That can help you look "reflectively back on yourself from the context of the future, putting what you're doing today in the context of that longer term," he adds. Unlike those words, Keats' camera is simple: made from solid metal, it has a pinhole in a 24-karat-gold plate that lets light hit colored pigment, and slowly create an image with oil paint instead of film. If all goes well, the ASU Art Museum (which houses the camera) plans to display the image in 3015, Discovery reports. Keats has also helped people make simpler, tin-can cameras that capture 100-year images for future generations. Dubbed a "poet of ideas" by the New Yorker, San Francisco-based Keats has done other unusual things—like sell real estate in extra space-time dimensions, copyright his mind, and try to engineer God genetically. (Read about a $6.5 million photo considered the world's priciest.)
– Megyn Kelly's meeting with Donald Trump didn't just serve to iron out a truce. After requesting an interview with the Republican frontrunner, Kelly says Trump has agreed to appear in the special Megyn Kelly Presents, to air on May 17, Fox News reports. Extra segments will be featured afterward on The Kelly File. "I look forward to a fascinating exchange—our first sit-down interview together in nearly a year," says Kelly. The Washington Post calls it "a victory for both sides," allowing Trump to "re-cast his image" and Kelly to showcase her "patience and professionalism." Plus, the special is "certain to be a ratings blockbuster."
– A minor league baseball team in Florida has planned an unusual Father's Day promotion, the AP reports. This week Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp have added a second promotion to the usual Thirsty Thursday celebration. They're calling it the "You Might Be a Father" promotion, which comes with a free pregnancy test. The team's website explains it like this: The test will let men know if they should return to the Father's Day game on Sunday. General Manager Harold Craw tells the Florida Times-Union the idea was pitched as a "tongue-in-cheek" promotion for the Thirsty Thursday crowd, which tends to be young professionals and college students. He says the tests are only handed to someone who wants one. Minor league baseball teams have a long history of unusual promotions.
– In a study ostensibly about whether women care if penises have been surgically repaired to treat distal hypospadias (when the urethra's opening is on the underside of the penis), scientists learned which characteristics of male genitalia matter most to a woman. Reporting in the Journal of Sexual Medicine under the title, "What is a Good Looking Penis?" Swiss researchers find that, at least among the 105 women they surveyed, the position and shape of the urethral opening is the least important of eight characteristics—a potentially reassuring finding for the men affected by what the researchers frame as one of the "most common penile malformations." It's thought to occur in about 0.3% to 0.5% of male births, and while it's generally surgically corrected within the first year of life, "men with an operated hypospadias are reported to be more dissatisfied with their penile appearance." So where do length and girth fall on the importance scale? Near the bottom, at Nos. six and seven, respectively. Here's what matters most to the women, who ranged in age from 16 to 45: the somewhat vague "general cosmetic appearance," followed by, in order, skin, glans shape, scrotum appearance, and pubic hair appearance. And with age comes acceptance: "The multiple regression analyses indicated that the older and the more sexually interested a woman is, the more normal she perceives the appearance of a penis to be." A survey published yesterday by Cosmopolitan of 1,100 readers (most of them women) echoed these findings: 89% said they aren't worried about the size of their partner's penis, even though only 33% characterized said members as "large." (This teen actually had surgery to reduce the size of his penis.)
– Six weeks after a supposed cease-fire, the UN has confirmed that pro-government forces killed at least 90 civilians yesterday, including more than two dozen children, reports the BBC. The violence took place in and around the town of Houla, near Homs, after an anti-government protest. About a dozen people were killed in shelling and the rest when pro-regime groups known as shabiha stormed the neighborhood and raided homes, activists tell AP. UN officials called the attacks "indiscriminate and unforgivable," and a "flagrant violation of international law." British Foreign Secretary William Hague has promised to seek a severe global response to the "appalling crime." But Syrian officials blamed the massacre on "terrorists"—their usual word for opposition forces, the New York Times reports. Grisly images have surfaced in amateur videos, one showing 14 dead children laid out in a room, notes AP.
– Let it never be said that Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan don't dream big. On Wednesday, the Facebook founder and his wife announced a $3 billion plan to wipe out disease by the end of the century, Variety reports. "This is about the future we want for our daughter and children everywhere," Zuckerberg says in a Facebook post. "If there's a chance that we can help cure all diseases in our children's lifetime, then we will do our part." Chan, who teared up while talking about telling parents their child has an incurable disease, says the hope is to "cure, prevent, or manage all disease within our children's lifetime," according to USA Today. It may sound far-fetched, but Zuckerberg says he's "optimistic" it can be done, pointing out that modern medicine has made impressive progress despite only existing for 100 years or so. "Today, just four kinds of diseases cause the majority of deaths," he says on Facebook. "We can make progress on all of them with the right technology." To that end, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative hired neuroscience and genetics expert Dr. Cori Bargmann to spearhead the effort. And $600 million of its $3 billion investment will go toward the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub research facility. The power couple started the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative after the birth of their daughter last year, pledging to give away 99% of their fortune.
– A recent Rasmussen poll found 58% of respondents believe a "war on police" exists. The sentiment is being echoed publicly: After Shannon J. Miles was arrested for killing Sheriff Deputy Darren Goforth at a gas station in Houston, a local DA remarked that "there are a few bad apples in every profession. That does not mean there should be open warfare declared on law enforcement." NPR reports some people are using this stat as evidence of that war: In 2013, 27 US officers were "feloniously killed"; a year later, the number was 51. But Seth Stoughton, a former cop and assistant law professor, says this so-called war is, in fact, imaginary. "It's misleading to compare one year to another year," says Stoughton. "2013 was the safest year for police officers, ever," as in, "the safest year in recorded history." The number of police deaths last year was on par with 2012 and significantly lower than in 2011. We're now on track to have 35 felonious police deaths this year, which would be the second-lowest number in decades after 2013, writes Radley Balko at the Washington Post. The number of officers murdered has dropped by 50% compared to the 1970s, Stoughton says, and while things like improved protective gear play a role in that, assaults on officers are also down. More ambush killings, like the one in Houston, may be occurring, but "the increase from five to eight, or five to 10" over 67 million police-citizen interactions every year, "statistically, it doesn't look significant," Stoughton says.
– Chris Brown may be in trouble with the law again: Police say he punched someone last night in a fight over a parking space, the AP reports. Sources tell TMZ the victim was R&B star Frank Ocean, and Team Breezy says Ocean started it by blocking Brown from leaving a recording studio in LA. "This is my studio, this is my parking spot," Ocean supposedly said; then someone from his crew allegedly attacked Brown as he went to shake Ocean's hand. But on Twitter, Ocean said he was "jumped" by Chris and his friends, and the New York Post's sources say Brown actually threw the first punch. Whatever happened, it turned into an all-out melee involving six men, and the cops were called. Brown was gone by the time they got there, but Ocean was still there. Police are still investigating and want to talk with Brown, but sources tell TMZ no one wants to press charges. It's not the first time Brown has brawled with a fellow musician, having been involved in a bottle-throwing incident with Drake last June.
– One small inventory error has led to a giant payday for Illinois woman Nancy Lee Carlson. A moon dust collection bag that Carlson bought for just $995 in an online government auction in 2015 sold for $1.8 million at a Sotheby's auction in New York Thursday, the BBC reports. The bag, marked "Lunar Sample Bag," was used by Neil Armstrong to collect moon dust during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 and still contains small rocks and traces of lunar dust, the AP reports. The buyer declined to be identified. The bag is believed to be the only artifact from the Apollo 11 mission in private hands. It was among items that the FBI seized from the home of Max Ary, the former director of a Kansas space museum, in 2003. NASA tried to get the bag back when it realized it had been misidentified and sold, but a federal judge ruled in Carlson's favor. She plans to use some of the proceeds to set up a scholarship at Northern Michigan University. The bag was sold among 180 lots Sotheby's auctioned off to mark the 48th anniversary of the first moon landing. Other items included the Apollo 13 flight plan, which sold for $275,000.
– Ah, Qwikster, we hardly knew ye. Probably because ye never launched, and never will. Netflix abruptly changed course today, announcing that it would not be slicing off its DVD-by-mail service into a separate site after all, Reuters reports. “There is a difference between moving quickly—which Netflix has done very well for years—and moving too fast, which is what we did in this case,” CEO Reed Hastings said in a statement. The about-face means that customers “will continue to use one website, one account, and one password,” the company’s statement said. The bad news: The new price structure, which jacked rates for some users by as much as 60%, is staying put. "While the July price change was necessary, we are now done with price changes," wrote Hastings on the Netflix blog. Netflix had faced intense backlash over both moves; its stock is down 60% since July, and the company recently slashed its subscriber forecast by 1 million as cancellations roll in.
– Robert De Niro popped out of Eric Trump's closet in his return as Robert Mueller on Saturday Night Live's Cold Open, but the actor stumbled over his lines in a performance the Guardian calls "all awkward delivery and self-satisfied mugging." Further, "even by the low standards of this season, this cold open felt rushed." Its opinion of the Jason Momoa-hosted episode doesn't improve much from there, moving on to a Khal Drago’s Ghost Dojo sketch that "takes what should have been a layup" and instead "shoots a brick thanks to missed timing, a handful of stilted lines and a bungled Kevin Hart Oscars joke," in an episode that failed to "produce a memorable sketch from a heavy news week." Weekend Update revisited President Trump's troubles, notes NBC News, with co-host Colin Jost joking that John Kelly is leaving "because Kelly requires extensive surgery to remove his palm from his face." Musical guest was Mumford & Sons, appearing for the third time.
– With polls showing the majority of Americans opposed to the Democrats' health care reform bill, a victory for Scott Brown in Massachusetts today could sound the death of the party's yearlong effort at health reform. If Dems try to proceed with the reforms in the wake of a Brown victory, the GOP will have a strong case that a liberal minority is ignoring the will of voters to push its own agenda, the Washington Post reports. Democrats are rehearsing options for salvaging reform in the face of a Brown victory—a quick-fix House-Senate reconciliation bill, for example—but all of these either would spark serious turmoil within the party or have other major deficiencies, Politico reports. Dem leaders are putting on a brave face, but privately they're confronting the difficult-to-fathom possibility that a Senate loss in liberal Massachusetts may be what sinks health reform this time around.
– The colleagues Syed Rizwan Farook failed to massacre say he was a quiet, polite man who appeared to be happily building a life with his wife and their 6-month-old baby. Patrick Baccari, a fellow health inspector who shared a cubicle with the San Bernardino suspect, says the 28-year-old seemed to be "living the American dream" and had returned earlier this year from Saudi Arabia with a wife he met online, report the Los Angeles Times and the AP. That wife was Tashfeen Malik, who was shot dead with Farook after a police chase, hours after the couple allegedly opened fire on the San Bernardino County Public Health Department's holiday party, killing 14 people. (The details on their marriage and that trip to Saudi Arabia are still clarifying—the New York Times reports they were married two years, but other reports say it's been for a shorter time.) Colleagues tell the Times that Farook disappeared from the party just before a group photo was taken. In other developments: Police have not discussed a motive, though terrorism has not been ruled out. The AP notes that at a Wednesday night press conference, a Council on American-Islamic Relations spokesman said: "We don't know the motives. Is it work, race-related, is it mental illness, is it extreme ideology?" The CAIR rep says that according to family members, the couple left their baby girl with Farook's mother on Wednesday morning, saying they had a doctor's appointment, and relatives didn't realize what had really happened until a reporter called. Farook was born in Illinois to parents from Pakistan, reports the New York Times. Colleagues tell the LA Times that he was a devout Muslim, but that he didn't talk about his religion at work. "I haven’t heard anything," Farook's father told the New York Daily News, speaking before his son's name was made public. "He was very religious. He would go to work, come back, go to pray, come back. He’s Muslim." A brother-in-law conveyed the same sentiment: "I have no idea why he would do that, why would he do something like this," said Farhad Kahn at a CAIR news conference. "I have absolutely no idea. I am in shock myself." Early reports suggested three shooters, but Chief Jarrod Burguan of the San Bernardino Police Department says police are now "reasonably confident that we have two shooters and we have two dead suspects." In a CBS News interview, President Obama said the US now has a pattern "of mass shootings in the country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world." He noted that potential terrorists on the no-fly list can still buy guns. "Those same people who we don't allow to fly could go into a store right now in the United States and buy a firearm, and there's nothing that we can do to stop them," he said.
– California is under attack from a giant, big-eating, fast-breeding, road-destroying rodent believed to have been eradicated from the state 40 years ago, KCRA reports. According to the Sacramento Bee, state biologists have found nearly two-dozen nutria in Stanislaus, Merced, and Fresno counties since March. The rodents were introduced to California in 1899 for their fur, but officials thought they got rid of the last of them in 1978. It's unclear where this new population of nutria came from—it's possible one colony escaped eradication only to emerge recently—but officials say their numbers will explode if something isn't done. A single female nutria can give birth to up to 200 offspring a year, and they have no natural predators. Nutria are 2.5-feet-long, weigh around 20 pounds, and can eat up to 25% of their body weight a day. "They burrow in dikes, and levees, and road beds, so they weaken infrastructure, (which is) problematic for flood control systems,” California Fish and Wildlife spokesperson Peter Tira tells KCRA. Wetlands and levees in the areas where the nutria have been found are needed for flood control and providing water to cities and farms in Southern California. "The issue would be the infrastructure because if we get flooding or if we can’t pump water off and can’t maintain those levees then, of course, it’s going to be difficult to farm in those areas,” Tim Pelican, agriculture commissioner of San Joaquin County, tells CBS Sacramento. Officials are setting traps for the rodents and asking residents to report sightings.
– Today's jobs report shook out far better than economists had expected: In April, 288,000 jobs were created, and the unemployment rate dropped to 6.3% from 6.7%. The expectations had been 215,000 and 6.6%, the Wall Street Journal reports. Those 288,000 jobs mark the fastest job growth pace in more than two years—and as for the 6.3% unemployment rate, that's the lowest in five-and-a-half years, the AP reports. But not everyone is celebrating—as Paul Vigna points out, the new jobs number is "the biggest number since we got 360,000 back in January 2012. ... Everybody thought that was a great omen, but where have we gone since then?" And as the AP points out, the sharp drop in the unemployment rate is due to a similarly sharp drop in the number of people seeking work. There was more good news to be had, though, in the revisions for the prior two months: February's new jobs were revised to 222,000 (up from 197,000), and March's were revised to 203,000 (up from 192,000).
– As if the thousands of migrants streaming into Europe haven't already encountered enough roadblocks, another peril looms: poisonous mushrooms known as death caps (Amanita phalloides). They resemble a number of varieties one can safely eat, and those who mistakenly forage for them can experience fatal liver and kidney damage upon consuming them. Some 35 people, most of them Syrian refugees, have been sickened by death caps in Germany in recent days, reports the AP; as of yesterday, three people were in critical condition. They're being treated at the Hannover Medical School, which lays out the dangers: "Since this fungus has no repellent taste and the first symptoms occur only after several hours, the risk of getting sick from its consumption is extremely high." The hospital has gone so far as to distribute posters in Arabic, Kurdish, and other languages that say just that and warn that what looks like "a delicious edible mushroom" is in fact poisonous in Europe, reports the New York Times. The paper notes the invasive species is found in the US, particularly in California, where it sickens a few people—often Southeast Asian immigrants who mistake it for the paddy straw mushroom—annually.
– A Russian fighter jet flying over the Baltic Sea last week flew a little too near a US reconnaissance plane in what the Pentagon calls "an unsafe and unprofessional manner," USA Today reports. Now the US is taking up the matter with Russian authorities, US officials tweeted. "Unprofessional air intercepts have the potential to cause harm to all air crews involved. More importantly, the careless and unprofessional actions of a single pilot have the potential to escalate tensions between countries," says a Pentagon rep. It's a matter of particular concern given the fact that "Russian air activity is expanding west into Europe and becoming more aggressive," the spokesman says, pointing to "the context of … Russia's aggression against Ukraine.'' The Russian plane was moving quickly when it came up behind the US aircraft, passing it twice, US officials say, per the Wall Street Journal. The exact distance between the two planes isn't clear, but it may have been as little as 20 feet, the Journal notes. A Russian military leader said the incident had involved "no emergency situations." A similar incident occurred between a Russian fighter jet and US reconnaissance plane a year ago this month, the AP reports.
– A woman who got hit by a tee shot while watching the Ryder Cup last week has received some awful news: Doctors have told Corine Remande she has lost the use of one eye, reports AFP. "The scan on Friday confirmed a fracture of the right eye-socket and an explosion of the eyeball," says the 49-year-old Remande, who had traveled from Egypt to watch the international golf competition outside Paris. American golfer Brooks Koepka hit Remande with his tee shot on the sixth hole, then checked on Remande as she was tended to on the ground. "It happened so fast, I didn't feel any pain when I was hit," says Remande. She praised Koepka for his concern over her well-being, but says the same doesn't apply to tournament organizers. Nobody from the Ryder Cup checked to see how she was doing afterward, she says, adding that she heard no warning of the errant shot from course officials, reports the BBC. Remande plans legal action. "It's not a good feeling," Koepka said after his round. "You don't want to hit anybody in the face."
– At the nadir of the economic crisis, the Obama White House held a lavish Alice in Wonderland-themed Halloween costume party, organized by Johnny Depp and Tim Burton and full of Star Wars character. But with unemployment at 10%, the Tea Party at its apex, and the economic downturn still rocking the country, officials feared the 2009 party would look terribly decadent, so kept it a secret, reports the New York Post. “White House officials were so nervous about how a splashy, Hollywood-esque party would look to jobless Americans—or their representatives in Congress, who would soon vote on health care—that the event was not discussed publicly, and Burton’s and Depp’s contributions went unacknowledged,” alleges Jodi Kantor in her new book, The Obamas. But was it really a secret? The White House fired back yesterday, saying the party was no secret: Photos were released via the White House's Flickr account and websites and newspapers at the time mentioned Johnny Depp's attendance, reports Politico. "Just goes to show you can't believe everything you read in books these days," said a White House spokesman. You can see plenty of pics (including Chewbacca, but no mention of Depp or Burton) in the New York Times' original coverage of the event.
– A compelling story out of the US South Pole station: Manager Renee-Nicole Douceur says she has suffered a stroke and needs to be evacuated for proper treatment, but the National Science Foundation says it won't be safe enough to send in a plane for at least a few more weeks. The 58-year-old Douceur and her family are now making a public push to pressure the NSF and the company that manages the base, Raytheon Polar Services, to move. The push includes a website and a Facebook page, and Douceur has given interviews to Discovery and the New York Times among other media outlets. A few quotes tell the tale: Douceur: "I'm just hanging in there and I'm looking out my window and it's nice and clear bright and sunny. I'm saying to myself why isn't there a plane here to get me out of here today or even yesterday?" Raytheon spokesman: “During the winter period, extremely cold temperatures and high winds make an extraction dangerous for all involved, passengers as well as crew, and such an extraction is considered only in life-threatening conditions.” Douceur's niece: “My question back to them is, By what standard is a stroke considered a nonemergency?”
– A new Taliban video shows what might be the world's first canine POW. In the video, the militants claim to have captured a military service dog during a battle with American forces in Afghanistan's Laghman province in December, reports the Washington Post. Both ABC and Fox News quote Pentagon sources as saying the dog actually belongs to another nation in the US-led coalition force, perhaps Britain. The dog is seen on a chain, outfitted with the electronic gear it wore during the raid, say the Taliban. “I don’t remember seeing a dog used as a hostage,” says the founder of the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors such propaganda. The dog is believed to be a Belgian Malinois, a breed favored by special ops troops for its prowess in sniffing out explosives during raids. A spokesman for the coalition force confirms that a dog went missing during a December operation.
– Celebrities have been warned not to give out their locations in real time for fear of opportunistic intruders entering their vacant homes. Unfortunately for Rob Gronkowski, just about everyone knew the New England Patriots tight end would be at the Super Bowl in Minneapolis on Sunday. Upon returning home from a 41-33 defeat around 5pm Monday, "Gronk" discovered his residence in Foxborough, Mass., had been broken into and called police, who spent five hours at the home, reports Boston 25. According to police audio reviewed by USA Today, officers stated "multiple safes, possible guns taken." "It's kind of a tough combination. You know, to have suffered this unfortunate loss and then to get home and be a victim of this kind of crime," says Foxborough Police Chief William Baker. A "very active and dynamic criminal investigation" is now underway, police add in a statement, per Deadspin. It's not clear when the break-in occurred—Gronkowski was reportedly last at the home on Jan. 29—but a neighbor says he saw a gate ajar on Sunday. "You never see that gate ajar. So, as a joke, my son and I said, 'Gee, maybe we should just call the police or something.' Now I'm sort of sorry I didn't," he tells Boston 25.
– The Dutch: Making Satire Videos Great Again. A video by comedy show Zondag met Lubach introducing President Donald Trump to the Netherlands racked up more than a million hits in its first day online, the Telegraph reports. Since Trump made it clear in his inaugural speech that he intends to put America first, the narrator of the video—who does a spot-on Trump impression—has one small request: Put the Netherlands second? In order to sell Trump on the idea, he lists some of the country's best attributes. For example, the Afsluitdijk is right up Trump's alley: It's a massive wall that, in the narrator's view, "we built to protect us from all the water from Mexico." "This Dutch video on Trump has gone viral because, well, just watch it," urges Mashable. Another choice line: "We've got Ponypark Slagharen, which has got to be the best ponypark in the world," the narrator says over footage of tourists romping with ponies at an amusement park. "It's true. They're the best ponies, they are. You can ride them, you can date them, you can grab 'em by the pony. It's fantastic." Adweek calls the video "hilarious," noting that the Netherlands itself isn't left unscathed by the satire. The narrator points out, for example, the country's Christmas "Black Pete" tradition, which, as the Washington Post explained last year, sees participants don blackface in order to portray Black Pete, a dark-skinned assistant to Saint Nicholas. "It's the most offensive, the most racist thing you've ever seen," the narrator says. "You'll love it. It's great."
– Lady Gaga’s new single is here (click here to listen), and, shockingly, the Guardian notes, the throngs of people freaking out over it has not yet broken the Internet. Early reactions: It sounds "a lot like Madonna’s 'Express Yourself,'" writes Michael Cragg for the Guardian. “So much so that those two words are currently trending on Twitter.” The spoken-word parts definitely hearken back to the Material Girl, but ultimately Cragg deems the song less a copycat, more “a knowing nod and a cute wink.” And while it might be “ridiculously camp ... one suspects it will probably shift a few copies.” The Sun is slightly less forgiving, concurring with many Twitter users that the song “bears more than a passing resemblance” to Madonna’s 1989 track. The newspaper notes that one Twitter user even claims, “you can literally sing the original over this one.” Nitsuh Abebe went into his first listen of the track completely prepared to analyze its deeper meaning, especially in regards to the gay community, but was soon overwhelmed by the fact that the song is “bonkers mecha-disco,” he writes in New York. “The song’s so disco that the line about people being ‘Orient-made’ barely even registers, because it sounds like something nobody would have thought twice about saying in 1978.” The Huffington Post notes that some believe this will become “a legendary anthem.” One of those people is Elton John, who told Rolling Stone he believes “Born This Way” will “obliterate 'I Will Survive.' I can't think of how huge it's going to be." Click for more on the song, or to listen.
– Seven people have died—and nearly two dozen others have been hospitalized—in California's Sacramento County after overdosing on fentanyl, reports CBS Sacramento. Fentanyl is a painkiller much stronger than morphine and can produce a euphoric high, reports the Los Angeles Times. According to the Sacramento Bee, it's been causing deaths on the East Coast, but this appears to be its first appearance in Northern California. "We hoped it would never come here," one San Francisco-based DEA agent says. "But it was only a matter of time." Fentanyl is often disguised as other drugs, and the California victims likely thought they were taking the prescription painkiller Norco, KCRA reports. The federal government is calling fentanyl a "serious health threat," and the DEA is investigating the overdoses in Sacramento County. "I've never seen a substance like this,” an addiction specialist of 20 years tells KCRA. Fentanyl can be fatal within minutes, and the victims—who were in their 20s through 50s and purchased it on the street—may never have known they were taking it. "It is very worrisome when you hear the stories of people taking one or two pills and suddenly they collapse,” a public health officer tells KCRA. (Heroin laced with fentanyl was believed to be responsible for 74 overdoses in 72 hours last October in Chicago.)
– Yep, this is happening: Charlie Sheen was officially announced as the star of new sitcom Anger Management yesterday. Sheen will have "a significant ownership stake" in the show, loosely based on the 2003 Jack Nicholson-Adam Sandler movie of the same name. "While it might be a big stretch for me to play a guy with serious anger management issues, I think it is a great concept," Sheen says in the press release. Just one problem: The Los Angeles Times reports the show still has not found a network. In other Sheen-related news, ex Brooke Mueller has also found a new project: "extreme rehab," whatever the heck that is.
– "Want my money while you're still young? Then you have to play by my rules." That's pretty much what deceased Manhattan real estate landlord Maurice Laboz has posthumously told his two daughters, the New York Post reports. According to his will, 17-year-old Victoria and 21-year-old Marlena will get $10 million apiece at age 35 but can only touch the dough earlier if they provide trustees with evidence of a rather traditional lifestyle. To wit: Marlena gets $500,000 for getting married, as long as the groom signs an agreement saying he won't touch the cash. She gets $750,000 more for graduating from an "accredited university" and writing up to 100 words on what she'll do with the money. In five years, Marlena and Victoria each receive a yearly check for 300% of their annual income. Uncle Sam will love the date when they get it: April 15. If either becomes a stay-at-home mom with kids, she gets 3% of the trust's value each year, providing the children are "born in wedlock." Their mother, 58-year-old Ewa Laboz, isn't so lucky: Maurice offered her nil, citing a prenuptial agreement. He was divorcing her when he died at age 77 earlier this year. How did Luboz get so loaded? Well, it's New York real estate: Just four years ago, his Regal Real Estate sold nearly $40 million in properties "scattered across Manhattan," reported Rew Online at the time. "These are core investment properties, they just have great rates of return so you can sit there [and] rent and manage them," said a figure involved in the deal.
– Forget about the "alternative" Golden Globes hosting: Ricky Gervais is returning to host the real thing in 2012, despite having offended just about everybody at the last Golden Globes. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has voted to bring Gervais back for a third consecutive year, although the 16 of 62 members who were against having him back were very vocal in their opposition, sources tell the Los Angeles Times. "Gervais was very funny, and we were very enthusiastic to bring him back," says one association member, who admits that the actor "maybe did cross the line a few times" with his barbs. The chances of Gervais toning it down this time around appear very slim, the Hollywood Reporter notes. "Just told Billy Crystal he'd better not use any of my Holocaust or pedophile material at the Oscars. He agreed," Gervais tweeted soon after the decision was announced.
– A missing 22-year-old boater who'd been given up for dead is safe and sound aboard an ocean freighter that spotted his life raft. His mother, however, remains lost at sea. Nathan and Linda Carman went missing on Sept. 18 after setting off from Rhode Island on a fishing trip in their 32-foot boat. The Coast Guard searched more than 60,000 square nautical miles, an area bigger than Georgia, before suspending its hunt on Friday, reports CBS Boston. On Sunday, however, a freighter about 100 miles south of Martha's Vineyard picked up Nathan in a four-person inflatable raft. He's in good condition, so much so that he will remain on the ship until it reaches land on Tuesday. It remains unclear what happened or whether there's a chance 54-year-old Linda Carman is alive. "She was not in the raft," says a Coast Guard spokesperson, per the Hartford Courant. "The whole situation is under investigation." The Carmans regularly went out fishing along the coast, perhaps once a month, says a family friend. Nathan lives in Vermont and Linda in Connecticut. Nathan, who has Asperger's, was the focus of a previous search mission in 2011, reports Fox61. He disappeared at age 17 from Connecticut after the loss of his horse and turned up four days later in Virginia. In fact, Connecticut declared a Missing Person's Day after the incident, a move in honor of Nathan and a woman who went missing in a separate incident. (This boater survived thanks to skills that would have impressed MacGyver.)
– And the state's elections board makes it official: The recall election against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has been ordered, the AP reports. Mick E. Mous, Donald L. Duck, and Adolf Hitler have been scratched, but almost all the other 900,000 signatures on a petition to recall Wisconsin's controversial Republican governor have been declared genuine, clearing the way for a June 5 election. At least three Democrats are running to replace Scott Walker, and a primary will be held May 8, reports the Wisconsin State Journal. The state's lieutenant governor and four Republican state senators also face recall. If Democrats succeed in ousting Walker, he will be only the third governor in US history to be recalled. "This was the greatest petition campaign in American history for a reason: Scott Walker's radical overreach and abuse of power," said a Democratic Party spokesman. A Walker campaign spokeswoman says the governor is ready to defend his record. The recall battle has been such a prominent issue in Wisconsin that even Republican activists say they haven't been paying much attention to the state's April 3 primary, AP notes.
– Woody Allen has announced the cast for his new movie—and it includes Woody Allen. The 75-year-old director, whose new release Midnight In Paris has charmed critics and looks set to attract his biggest audience in years, will have a role in The Bop Decameron, reports the Los Angeles Times. It will be the first time the director has acted since 2006's Scoop. His Bop co-stars will include Alec Baldwin, Roberto Benigni, Penelope Cruz, Judy Davis, Jesse Eisenberg, Greta Gerwig, and Ellen Page, according to the Baltimore Sun. Filming begins in Rome next month.
– The day before Bode and Morgan Miller's daughter died "was a normal day," Morgan Miller recalls in a new interview with Today. Bode took their kids swimming; the family went to a birthday party. Morgan took 19-month-old Emmy to visit friends and grandparents, then returned home to say goodbye to Bode as he took his oldest daughter to a softball game; the couple laughed as Emmy uncharacteristically kissed her father goodbye multiple times. Then Morgan took the other kids next door. "We go over, back and forth, multiple times a week. They're family to us," she says of their neighbors. "And it was just a normal day over there. We sat on the sofa and [Emmy] played in front of us," going back and forth over a span of about 15 feet in the room. Then, mid-conversation, as Morgan sipped her tea, she suddenly realized it was too quiet. As she was asking the other kids where Emmy was, she turned and saw that the door leading to the back yard—which had been closed—"had this tiny sliver of light coming through the side," she says. "And my heart sank and I opened the door and she was floating in the pool. And I ran and I jumped in." Doctors could not save the toddler, and she died the following day. Now, the Millers say they feel obligated to speak out in an effort to spread awareness of drowning dangers and spare other parents the same pain. After learning that drowning is the leading cause of accidental death for children ages 1 to 4, Bode Miller says they wondered why it isn't talked about more: "I've been to all the pediatrician's meetings and check-ups on our kids. And I can't say it's come up one time. Not a single time," he says. "It's the number one way that you could potentially lose your kid. If it's number one for me, I want to know about it."
– Some action from North Korea after weeks of harsh words: Pyongyang has blocked nearly 500 South Korean workers from entering a jointly run factory park just over the heavily armed border in the North today. As Reuters reports, the move to block South Koreans from going to their jobs at the Kaesong Industrial Park, dubbed the "last remaining symbol of detente" between the rivals by the AP, puts a vital source of revenue for the North at risk. As such, some South Korean experts believe the move could be a short-lived one. And signs suggest the factories haven't been shuttered: Though the North has given the OK for the 861 South Koreans working in the zone to travel home, as of today fewer than 40 had done so, reports the New York Times. However, Reuters notes that the South transports all supplies to the complex, so food stocks could begin to dwindle. Entry to the park, which is home to 123 factories, was previously blocked three times in 2009, once for a three-day period. The move comes amid increasing hostility from Pyongyang, include yesterday's threat to restart its sole nuclear reactor.
– Nature giveth, and nature taketh away. In addition to bringing much needed rain to Southern California this winter, El Niño is apparently also a harbinger of something much less desirable: venomous sea snakes. A yellow-bellied sea snake was seen on a beach near Malibu twice this week, Quartz reports. It's the first time since 1980—another El Niño year—the snake has been reported in California. It's also the furthest north the snake has ever been reported along the Pacific Coast, according to the Los Angeles Times. In a Facebook post on the sightings, environmental nonprofit Heal the Bay says the warmer Pacific Ocean waters caused by El Niño—in addition to the rising ocean temperatures brought on by climate change—are likely the reason for the snake's migration. The state wildlife department was called after the second snake sighting—it's unclear if it was the same snake—Friday, KTLA reports. The snake died soon after, and its body was given to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. According to the Times, the yellow-bellied sea snake lives its entire life in the ocean, so if it's spotted on land it's likely sick or hurt. Beach-goers are warned not to touch the snakes, which Heal the Bay points out are "highly venomous" and descended from Asian cobras and Australian tiger snakes. But the nonprofit helpfully advises there's "no need to panic."
– That 18-wheeler Lindsay Lohan smashed into on the Pacific Coast highway this week? She says it cut her off—and what's more, she claims the newly replaced brakes on her rented Porsche failed during the accident, TMZ reports. But the truck driver (TMZ calls him "James") says witnesses saw Lohan "flying" down the highway, and she tried to bribe him after the accident. He also argues that he couldn't have cut her off, because he was already in the right lane when she hit him. As for Lindsay, she's telling people she's lucky to have survived the crash with mere cuts and bruises. Quips TMZ: "Considering her driving history, one of these days ... well, let's just say she needs a driver."
– House Republicans promise to call a vote on their plan to replace ObamaCare on Thursday, but the Hill notes that lawmakers will cast those votes without an official estimate of how much the plan costs or how it will affect coverage for Americans. That is, the Congressional Budget Office hasn't had time to assess the American Health Care Act and score it. "I wish that we had it, all right?" said Rep. Fred Upton, a key figure who switched from no to yes when the White House agreed to add $8 billion for pre-existing conditions. But Upton said any such CBO estimate is probably weeks away, adding that the measure could be changed, perhaps by the Senate, at that point. At Vox, Sarah Kliff writes that the rush to vote is a risky move for the GOP. "The CBO score will come out sooner or later, and Republicans might be faced with defending a bill they don't like much at all." The sticking point over pre-existing conditions had threatened to derail the measure, and critics say the $8 billion amendment still won't do enough to ensure that people with pre-existing conditions will be adequately covered. An analysis by the Fact Checker blog at the Washington Post says the issue is so nuanced that the simplistic talking points coming from both sides on the issue are useless. "If the bill ever became law, much would depend on unknown policy decisions by individual states—and then how those decisions are implemented." Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that even if the vote is successful, it would "face uncertain prospects" in the Senate. Among other things, the House bill would reduce funding for Medicaid, which provides coverage for low-income and disabled Americans.
– Global overfishing might be much worse than previously thought, Discovery reports. A new study finds that UN figures have vastly understated the problem and that yearly fish hauls are declining three times faster than realized. According to the study, the UN—using numbers from the Food and Agriculture Organization—stated that global fishing peaked in 1996 at 86 million metric tons, but the researchers say it was actually closer to 130 million metric tons. Since then, the study claims the total amount of fish caught has declined by 1.2 million metric tons per year—not 0.4 million metric tons as the UN had said, the Guardian reports. “Our results indicate that the decline is very strong and is not due to countries fishing less," study author Daniel Pauly says. "It is due to countries having fished too much and having exhausted one fishery after another.” The study, which was published Tuesday in Nature Communications, is based on a decade of work by 400 researchers around the world. The numbers used by the UN come from the self-reporting of more than 200 countries and territories, and governments might not always be inclined to give accurate fishing counts, notes the Guardian. Researchers undertook a "Herculean task" to get more accurate counts for the years from 1950 to 2010, says one professor not involved with the study. “The world is withdrawing from a joint bank account of fish without knowing what has been withdrawn or the remaining balance,” Pauly tells Discovery. And while the Food and Agriculture Organization disputes the study's new numbers, it does agree with its conclusion that countries need to improve their reporting, according to Science. (One particularly devastating technique: bombing fish out of the water.)
– Whether Marco Rubio's aggressive performance in Thursday's debate translates into success on Super Tuesday remains an open question, but the Upshot blog has some hopeful news for his campaign: Even if Donald Trump sweeps all the states in play—and polls suggest he has a decent chance of doing that—Rubio remains very much alive. The main reason is that Republicans forbid winner-take-all contests prior to March 15, meaning Rubio (and Ted Cruz) can still pile up delegates for second and third place. The blog floats the possibility of Trump winning the day with a 34-25-25 percent split over the other two, in line with his previous victories. That would give him 279 delegates and Rubio 164. "It’s a respectable tally for Mr. Rubio, even though he loses every state," writes Nate Cohn. Ideal? No, but it keeps him afloat until March 15, when big winner-take-all states such as Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, North Carolina, and Rubio's home state of Florida come into play. At this point, Rubio would have to win some of those to have any hope of beating Trump. If not, his "chances of winning a majority of delegates would all but evaporate." Of course, Rubio hopes to pull off some victories on Tuesday, and FiveThirtyEight notes that his campaign is spending heavily in Virginia and Georgia to make that happen. He's also spending big in Texas, which has the most delegates at stake, for a different reason. Because it's Cruz's home turf, Texas is where Rubio is most vulnerable to failing to receive 20% of the vote, the threshold for receiving any delegates at all.
– From the Pirates of the Caribbean to the Ferraris of Florida—one ride at Disney World will get a lot more horsepower in January. The park plans to add "exotic driving" to its repertoire, reports the Orlando Sentinel. Along with two Ferraris (which go from zero to 60 in 3.4 seconds), there will be two Lamborghinis (each worth a not-too-shabby $260,000), a Porsche 911, and an Audi R8 that tourists looking for a spin a little edgier than Mr. Toad's Wild Ride can take out on the Disney World Speedway, with six laps costing from $199 to $389, depending on the car. Those comfortable staying in the passenger's seat can pay just $99. The Disney raceway has hosted the Richard Petty Driving Experience for several years, but a decline in the popularity of stock cars has the amusement park looking for higher octane thrills. "We've got the track, we're here year-round, and we know there are people who would love to drive these cars on a race track, given the opportunity," said a spokesman. You can check out the program or even make a reservation here.
– He still gets points for delivery, but Gary Johnson's well-received joke at last night's debate—"My neighbor's two dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs than this president"—goes back even further than thought, notes Daily Intel. For starters, Rush Limbaugh used it before the debate on his show. "I guess I've become show prep for the GOP debates now, too," he told the Huffington Post when asked about it. But Dave Weigel at Slate points out that the line has been around on Tea Party bumper stickers and signs since 2009. "Subliminally, I wonder if this was one of the reasons the joke hit so well," writes Weigel. "There was familiarity, whether conservatives realized it or not." Johnson certainly isn't claiming credit. He said he got the line from a former Tonight Show writer before the debate. Click for more.
– As Republicans pounced on President Obama's immigration shift, Mitt Romney was surprisingly noncommittal when asked today no fewer than five times whether he'd repeal the policy. Instead, Romney, who needs to make tracks with lukewarm Latino voters, called for a "long-term solution." He further blasted Obama's move as political, saying that he'd had "three and a half years" to find a meaningful solution. "I don't know why he feels that stop-gap measures are the right way to go," Romney said, adding that he'd hoped Marco Rubio's plan would have proven to be a winner. Elsewhere on the Sunday dial, as per Politico: Bill Kristol on Romney and immigration: “This is a big problem for Romney. He needs to take the lead on this, and in my view embrace Marco Rubio’s Dream Act if that’s what he wants and say, ‘Let’s pass this in Congress over the next few months." Rick Santorum on Romney's immigration reaction: He's “trying to walk a line as not to sound like he’s hostile to Latinos." Romney needs to "hammer on the president on this now habitual abuse of power." Santorum on working for Romney: “It’s pretty much a flat 'no.' And it’s not because I don’t want to help Gov. Romney, it’s just for me it’s a matter of my priorities and my time of being a husband and a father. I have to take care of them.” John McCain on Obama's immigration shift: “I don’t recall a time when any president has basically said, ‘we’re not going to enforce a law that’s on the books.' I don’t think a Mitt Romney as president of the United States would say, 'we’re not going to enforce existing laws. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard of a president doing that.” Romney on Europe's financial woes: “We’re not going to bail out the European banks... Europe is capable of dealing with their banking crisis if they choose to do so." Romney on wife Ann's horse making the Olympics: “She’s quite thrilled, and I’m sure she’ll be watching. I have a campaign to attend to so I wont be able to see it perform." Also: "I joke that I’m going to have to send her to Betty Ford for an addiction to horses.”
– Machine guns and explosions were audible as violence overtook a high-security section of Damascus last night, killing at least three and wounding 18 Syrian troops. Locals began hearing gunfire at about midnight and say "intensive gunfire" continued for hours in the Mazzeh district of the Syrian capital, an upscale neighborhood home to several senior regime members. "People came to Mazzeh and they are trying to attack residents. They are calling them names and taking them out of their houses," an opposition activist tells al-Jazeera. "The clashes were the strongest and the closest to security installations in the capital since the outbreak of the revolt a year ago," a watchdog tells AFP. The fighting follows car bombs in Damascus and Syria's second-biggest city of Aleppo this weekend. Damascus hasn't faced the daily clashes reported in other Syrian cities, the AP notes. An activist said last night's violence was sparked by a Free Syrian Army hit-and-run effort, though state TV said it began with a security raid on an "armed terrorist" hideout. The clashes may have been a rebel attempt to damage security forces' morale after a series of effective attacks on the opposition, the AP suggests.
– Hey, do you want to come over, watch some Netflix and chill? For those of you not in the know, "Netflix and chill" is today's euphemism for hooking up, the Guardian reports. (And if you weren't previously in the know, you are not the only one.) Originally (think 2009), the phrase really did mean exactly what it sounds like: People used it to describe their lazy, solo, binge-watching evenings. Somehow, though, those three little words have morphed to the point that Urban Dictionary's definition is: "It means that you are going to go over to your partners house and f--- with Netflix in the background." Netflix is apparently in on the joke, having recently unveiled hilariously complex instructions to create a device it calls "The Switch," which "dims the lights, silences incoming calls, orders takeout, and turns on Netflix" with just one press of a button. (The Internet is calling it "the Netflix and chill button," the Guardian notes.) The company also tweeted a gif this summer that jokingly incorporated the phrase. This summer, Fusion put together a timeline of the phrase's history, from its apparent first use on Twitter in 2009 ("I'm about to log onto Netflix and chill for the rest of the night") to other, similar phrases ("Hulu and chill") to, finally, the phrase's new meaning in 2014 ("Netflix and chill never means Netflix and chill now a days lol") and its current-day "catchphrase" status.
– Harvard University has reopened four buildings on campus after evacuating them this morning due to a bomb scare, the Harvard Crimson reports. Sever Hall, Thayer Hall, and Emerson Hall were all cleared in time for afternoon exams, and Harvard Yard was reopened before 2pm. An email tip prompted the threat, reports the Boston Globe, but a Harvard police spokesman refused to confirm. No explosives have yet been found. The school posted alerts on its emergency page and its Twitter account, clarifying that there were no reports of actual explosions, and that the evacuations were ordered out of an "abundance of caution."
– Hundred of miles from its Wyoming home, "914F" wandered to the rocky North Rim of the Grand Canyon last fall—the first gray wolf spotted there in 70 years, the Arizona Republic notes—before heading into Utah, likely searching for food or a mate. But in December, the wolf's journey came to an end after a hunter there mistook her for a coyote and shot her dead, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Using DNA testing, the US Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed the 3-year-old collared animal was the same one seen at the Grand Canyon, the Republic notes. "It is nothing short of a tragedy that this wolf's journey across the west was cut short," Eva Sargent, a director for Defenders of Wildlife, tells the Chronicle. "This brave and ambitious female gray wolf … had already become a symbol of what gray wolf recovery should look like: animals naturally dispersing to find suitable habitat." Gray wolves weren't always isolated to certain parts of the country: All of North America used to be their home, Defenders of Wildlife notes, but they were killed off throughout much the US in the 1930s. What's worrying some animal advocates is that the federal government is considering removing endangered-species status from gray wolves in all regions: When they were delisted from the Northern Rockies, mass killings of the creatures took place in multiple states, including Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. "Sadly, with the US Fish and Wildlife Service preparing to remove all protections for gray wolves, except for Mexican gray wolves, in the near future, it will become harder and harder for wolves to travel safely, and less … likely that we will hear their howls echo through places like the Grand Canyon," Sargent tells the Chronicle. (Wolves could be hurt by a border fence.)
– President Trump tried to fire the man overseeing the Russia investigation last year but backed off after the chief White House lawyer threatened to quit, the New York Times reports, citing four sources who "spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing a continuing investigation." The sources say that when Trump ordered the firing of Robert Mueller in June, White House Counsel Donald McGahn said he would quit before he asked the Justice Department to fire the special counsel. Trump argued that Mueller had multiple conflicts of interests, including an alleged dispute over fees that caused him to resign his membership at the Trump National Golf Club years earlier and his work at the law firm that represented Jared Kushner, the sources say. The White House has repeatedly denied that Trump tried to fire Mueller after his investigators began looking into whether the president had obstructed justice, the Times notes. (On Friday at Davos, Trump called the new report "fake news.") Sources tell the Washington Post that before the order to McGahn, aides including Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus tried in vain to persuade Trump that firing Mueller could trigger efforts to remove him from the presidency. Republican Rep. Charlie Dent tells the Post that McGahn prevented an "Archibald Cox moment," referring to Richard Nixon's 1973 firing of the special prosecutor investigating Watergate. After the Times report, Democrats renewed their calls for legislation to protect Mueller from being fired by the president. (Trump said Wednesday that he is "looking forward" to being interviewed in the Mueller probe.)
– Scientists are on the brink of turning light into matter—a process first theorized in 1934 but then described by the very men behind the idea as "hopeless to try." The subatomic particles the Imperial College London physicists say they've figured out how to produce will not be visible to the naked eye, but will be "one of the purest demonstrations of E=mc2," Einstein’s famous equation describing the "interchangeable" relationship between mass and energy, the Guardian reports. They think they can attempt the feat in the next 12 months using existing technologies. What'll happen in general: Two particles of light (photons) will be smashed together to create an electron-positron pair, known as a Breit-Wheeler pair in honor of the earlier researchers, Americans Gregory Breit and John Wheeler. The specifics of the process: First a stream of electrons will be fired into a slab of gold, creating a high-energy photon beam; then, a high-energy laser will be fired into a gold can called a hohlraum, creating light akin to what stars emit. The first beam will then be directed into the center of the can, and the two photon sources will collide. What emerges from the can: electrons and positrons. It is "a very clean experiment: pure light goes in, pure matter comes out. This experiment would be the first demonstration of this,” says physicist Oliver Pike. In a letter about their plans published in Nature Photonics, Pike and his colleagues say they are ushering in "the advent of a new type of high-energy physics experiment." (Click to read about another big discovery.)
– America Ferrera endured the creepiest kind of celebrity treatment on the red carpet at Cannes yesterday when a man dove under her dress, reports AP. Security quickly pulled away the offender, identified as a Ukrainian known for such stunts, Vitalii Sediuk. (He's the same self-described "reporter" who planted a kiss on Will Smith on the red carpet in 2012.) At the after-party for her film, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Ferrara didn't make much of the incident. "I'm fine, over it," the 30-year-old former star of Ugly Betty told the Hollywood Reporter. At the Washington Post, Alyssa Rosenberg is not amused by Sediuk, who also once placed his face in Bradley Cooper's crotch. "These are not only totally unrevealing stunts, if that is what they are supposed to be," she writes. "They are assault. Just because they happen to men as well as well as women does not mean they should be treated as examples of puckishness or pranksterism." Agreed, writes Erin Gloria Ryan at Jezebel. A prank is something like this. It "is not looking up someone's skirt." (Earlier this year, a fan rushed the red carpet and groped Modern Family star Sarah Hyland.)
– Perhaps he found inspiration in Willow. Jack the cat escaped his cat carrier at JFK Airport when his family was moving to California, prompting a Facebook campaign, an American Airlines search, and numerous sweeps of the airport and local areas. Finally, two months later, Jack has been found: Turns out he never left the airport, reports the Consumerist. “Jack was found in the customs room and was immediately taken by team members to a local veterinarian. The vet has advised that Jack is doing well at present,” said American Airlines in a statement on Facebook. The airline plans to fly him to California, though he'll require treatment before he can leave. In other happy animal news, a Jack Russell terrier from Tennessee who went missing in July has been found in Michigan—some 500 miles away, the AP reports. Petey was identified by his microchip, but his story remains a mystery.
– Wow. We knew President Obama would be replacing plenty of key people, but not like this: CIA chief David Petraeus is resigning over an extramarital affair, reports NBC News. Details are still scarce, but Petraeus has submitted his letter of resignation, which begins: "Yesterday afternoon, I went to the White House and asked the President to be allowed, for personal reasons, to resign from my position as D/CIA. After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the President graciously accepted my resignation." (Full text here.) Petraeus took over the CIA in 2011 after leading the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Obama praised him today for his "extraordinary service," reports CNN. The president's statement didn't mention the scandal except to say that his “thoughts and prayers are with Dave and Holly Petraeus" at this "difficult time." Deputy CIA director Mike Morrell is expected to step in on an interim basis and may get the job permanently, says NBC. (Update: Slate is reporting that the "other woman" is Petraeus' biographer. Click for that.)
– Nothing seemed amiss when Snow Aubel dropped her two dogs off at a Gilbert, Ariz., kennel last Saturday morning. Just two hours later, however, police swarmed Green Acre, removing numerous dogs thought to have died sometime between Thursday night and Friday morning. In total, 20 of the 28 dogs found at the kennel were dead, and though the sheriff's office initially described the deaths as "tragic accident" (it explained a dog chewed through an air-conditioning unit cord), it later said that designation was premature, the Arizona Republic reports. "How can you be healthy at 11 o'clock and dead at 5:30 in the morning? I think that's the key element," a sheriff said Monday. As for Aubel, she says owner Todd Hughes "never said anything about what was going on." Though her dogs were fine, others weren't so lucky. One owner who lost his dog tells Fox 10 the animal had wounds on his legs and paws. A family has since come forward to say they picked up their dog from the kennel weeks earlier to find he had a cut and swollen paw, was covered in paint, and had fur missing, AZFamily reports. As for the owners' initial story that the dogs ran away, owner Meliesa Hughes is heard on a hidden video acquired by Fox 10 explaining, "my husband panicked and made a bad decision, we did have one that ran off, that is true." The sheriff notes a helicopter has been searching for the missing dog, though there's no proof the dog did indeed escape.
– Think it's not possible to feel like a teenager again when you reach your 80s? It's entirely possible, according to an English couple told to break off their engagement 65 years ago—and who finally got to tie the knot. "Even after all this time, it still feels the same," says Davy Moakes, 86, of new bride Helen Andre, 82. "It's just perfect," he tells the Sun. "It's just how it was." The couple met and fell in love in art school when Moakes was 21 and Andre was 16, but their pairing back then was not to be. They got engaged in 1951, but Andre's mother apparently did not approve of an artist son-in-law and demanded they break it off, reports the BBC. The couple reunited after Andre found a sculpture by Moakes’ 57-year-old son, Adrian, in the small town where they'd first met. Moakes' second wife died 18 months ago, and Andre had recently become widowed for a third time. "I've loved him all my life," the new Mrs. Moakes says. Neither too old to marry nor too old to travel, the newlyweds opted for a two-week honeymoon in Cyprus. (A similar story recently unfolded in New Jersey.)
– Tom Brady who? The all-star NFL quarterback might be a household name in the US, but he doesn't even make the top 20 of ESPN's list of the most famous athletes in the world, reports the Boston Herald. The 10 most well-known athletes, based on social media followers, endorsement money, and internet search popularity: Cristiano Ronaldo LeBron James Lionel Messi Roger Federer Phil Mickelson Neymar Usain Bolt Kevin Durant Rafael Nadal Tiger Woods Click to see the highest-ranking female athlete or the best US cities for football fans.
– Plagiarizing Wikipedia: It's not just for high school students anymore! ePolitix busts John Hayes, Britain's further education minister, for apparently lifting a portion of a recent House of Commons speech from Wikipedia. Hayes was giving a history of bank holidays, and ePolitix offers up a detailed comparison of what he said versus Wikipedia's bank holiday page. One example: Wikipedia: "Sir John was an enthusiastic supporter of cricket and was firmly of the belief that bank employees should have the opportunity to participate in and attend matches when they were scheduled. Included in the dates of bank holidays are therefore dates when cricket games were traditionally played between the villages in the region where Sir John was raised." Hayes: "I understand that Sir John Lubbock was an enthusiastic supporter of national and local cricket, and was firmly of the belief that bank employees should have the opportunity to participate in and attend matches when they were scheduled. Dates of bank holidays are therefore dates when cricket games were traditionally played between villages in the area where Sir John was raised." Click for the full comparison.
– Nancy Pelosi will stay on as House minority leader in the new session of Congress, she announced this morning, after first revealing her decision to her caucus at a private meeting, the AP reports. Pelosi broke the news at a press conference surrounded by her fellow female House reps, which heralded the theme of her remarks. Pelosi said she was "very, very proud" of the number of women Democrats sent to Washington. "Understand that you are looking into the future," she said. "The future of empowerment of women in America." Republicans, predictably, attacked the move. "There is no better person to preside over the most liberal House Democratic caucus in history than the woman who is solely responsible for relegating it to a prolonged minority status," a National Republican Campaign Committee spokesman said. In the Senate meanwhile, Republicans quietly re-elected Mitch McConnell as their minority leader, Reuters reports.
– Catherine Halsey, a character in the video game Halo, is a scientist and atheist who considers herself smarter than her parents. The same can be said of Patricia Dickson, a UCLA associate professor of pediatrics—and she claims that's no coincidence. Dickson, who had a romantically tinged friendship with Halo creator Jason Jones when they were both students at the University of Chicago in the 1990s, tells the Los Angeles Times she's the inspiration behind Halsey and other aspects of the game. Her reasoning: She says she once told Jones she felt like the character Halsey in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, as well as gave him the idea for an alien invasion triggered by religion. Jones denies her claim, but Dickson insists that some similarities are too exact to be accidental. In her college dorm, for example, was a snow globe and a Matterhorn-shaped piggy bank; the Halsey character has a snow globe of the Matterhorn. That leaves Dickson convinced she was Jones' muse, though she says she wants nothing from him. Rather, she says she's speaking out to lend credence to the idea of repressed memories. For 23 years, Dickson says she repressed various conversations with Jones, including one in 1992 in which Jones allegedly told her she inspired two of his video game characters. It was during that conversation that Dickson says she realized Jones was only using her. "I shut down at that point and had a panic attack," she says. She notes the memories only resurfaced through therapy last year.
– Sad news from Erath County, Texas: Sheriff Tommy Bryant, the lead investigator in the 2013 murders of American Sniper author Chris Kyle and another man, was found dead at his home early Tuesday. The Dallas Morning News reports that authorities believe Bryant died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. According to the Stephenville Empire-Tribune, state authorities were investigating Bryant for allegedly cheating on his continuing education training by having a deputy take a course for him. Documents obtained by the paper state that Bryant was one of 190 Texas law enforcement personnel reprimanded earlier this year for failing to complete the 40 hours of training intended to keep them up to date with changes in the law. Bryant, sheriff since 1997, was re-elected this year with around 70% of the vote. The Texas Rangers division of the state's Department of Public Safety say the death is being investigated. Friends and colleagues say Bryant was a good sheriff and he'll be missed. "It's a very sad situation, very tragic when you lose a colleague and a friend like that," Erath County Judge Tab Thompson, who worked alongside Bryant for many years, tells WFAA. "Our thoughts and prayers from the county go out to Sheriff Bryant's family, his wife and son. Very sad time for them and for us as well." (Earlier this year, the Navy revised Kyle's medal count downward.)
– "My hair is pink, my heart is pink, and my toenails are pink." That's the confession Pittsburgh Steelers running back DeAngelo Williams offers in a video he posted to Twitter Sunday, and the reason he did so shows his heart is as large as it is colorful. He explains that he wears it to honor those who are fighting or have fought breast cancer—including his mom, Sandra Hill, who died of breast cancer at the age of 53 in May 2014, as well as four of his aunts who succumbed to the disease, Today reports. It was Williams who led the drive to allow NFL players to wear pink accessories (think pink cleats) during Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, something the league has permitted since 2009, per Fox Sports. He tried to get permission from the NFL to accessorize with pink for the entirety of this season—a request that's been denied due to the league's uniform rules; his hair, dyed pink at the tips, apparently does not violate those rules. "Pink is not a color, it's a culture to me," he says in the video, which is accompanied on Twitter by the hashtag #WeAreInThisTogether. (A promising new study says a gene test can show which breast cancer patients need chemo and which ones don't.)
– Infamous pharma CEO Martin Shkreli is out on $5 million bail after being arrested Thursday on charges of securities fraud, reports the AP, but the 32-year-old is looking at 20 years if he's convicted. (Still, he's "glad to be home.") Some related reading: An innovative music fan filed what Boing Boing calls "the best FOIA ever" over the $2 million Wu-Tang Clan album that Shkreli famously bought. The fan was hoping that the FBI had seized the never-heard album during the arrest, and that he could then make it public through his freedom-of-information request. Sadly, it turns out the FBI didn't seize it. But maybe there's still hope for the album? Vice floats some possibilities. As for the charges Shkreli faces, they don't involve his price-hiking strategies; he's essentially accused of running a "[Ponzi] scheme during his early adventures in the worlds of hedge funds and, eventually, pharma," according to this Slate explainer. His alleged partner in crime, lawyer Evan Greebel, helped the Winklevoss twins start an exchange fund for Bitcoin, notes the Wall Street Journal. Shkreli seems to have been "surprisingly good at fraud," observes this analysis of the SEC case at Bloomberg. But another analysis at the Los Angeles Times thinks the case shows that Shkreli was "an investment hotshot who couldn't get anything right." Thursday's big theme on Twitter after the arrest was "schadenfreude," says this Salon roundup. Catch up with Shkreli's odd interview with high school students before his arrest.
– Jenny Purvis calls her daughter "Miracle Mae," and with good reason: In giving her daughter life, the Georgia woman had her own life saved. Mary Ella "Mae" Purvis was due in September, but a 27-week doctor visit in June revealed that the 29-year-old mom-to-be had elevated blood pressure. Doctors at Savannah's Memorial Health University Medical Center diagnosed her with preeclampsia, and an ultrasound showed the blood flow had been cut off to the placenta. Doctors decided an emergency C-section was needed. Mae was born safely on June 16, weighing 2 pounds 8 ounces—but Purvis' doctor also discovered that the "cysts" that they had been monitoring were something else entirely. Purvis writes that her doctors initially thought the cysts "were of no concern" and were even "getting smaller." Immediately after birth, two sizable tumors and much of Purvis' ovaries were removed, and even then "we were initially assured that it would most likely not be anything to worry about." The prognosis came back four weeks later: ovarian cancer. Though it was a rare form, Purvis learned that the rate of successful treatment is "higher." What followed was chemotherapy—four rounds, with two more to come. She'll then have a hysterectomy, and, hopefully, return to teaching around the new year. As for the baby, who left the hospital Aug. 25, "She came to save her Mama," Purvis tells the Statesboro Herald. "Whenever we call her Miracle Mae, she just grins." A yearlong gun raffle is being held to help with the family's expenses. (Click for the heart-wrenching story of a mother who died so her baby could live.)
– The 2010s, baby. More Americans are opening up to the idea of same-sex experiences—and trying them out, according to a survey of 30,000 adults that's been ongoing since 1972. A year after the survey began, just 11% of participants thought homosexual sex was A-OK. By 1990, that figure had barely risen to 13%. As of 2014, however, 49% said "sexual relations between two adults of the same sex" was "not wrong at all," researchers explain in Archives of Sexual Behavior, per NBC News. Young Americans aged 18 and 19 were much more accepting, with 63% agreeing with the above statement. Though there was "little consistent change in those having sex exclusively with same-sex partners," the change in sentiment is apparently encouraging more Americans to change it up between the sheets, researchers say. Those who reported having at least one same-sex partner as an adult doubled between the early 1990s and early 2010s from 3.6% to 8.7% for women and 4.5% to 8.2% for men. The jump was even larger among whites and those in the South and Midwest. The number of Americans engaging in bisexual behavior rose from 3.1% to 7.7%. "These large shifts in both attitudes and behavior occurred over just 25 years, suggesting rapid cultural change," a study author says, per the Huffington Post. "Americans now feel more free to have sexual experiences they desire." One interesting tidbit: Women—particularly millennials—were most likely to have a same-sex experience at a young age, "suggesting there is some truth to the idea that some women are 'lesbian until graduation,'" a researcher says. No such trend was seen among men. (This study found almost a third of young Americans are bisexual.)
– Walmart has dumped its Confederate flag merchandise, South Carolina pols are pushing to rid the symbol from the Capitol, and now Virginia's governor says he wants to erase the icon he calls "unnecessarily divisive and hurtful" from license plates. Terry McAuliffe announced his intentions this morning in Richmond, the Confederacy's former capital, saying he's already spoken to his state's AG and transportation secretary, the Washington Post reports. Part of the process will be reversing an older decision by the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in 2002, which decided specialty plates designed for the Sons of Confederate Veterans group fell under the free-speech umbrella, per the Roanoke Times. Virginia politicians had been largely silent about Confederate iconography after last week's Charleston church shootings. McAuliffe broke that silence today, saying, "Although the battle flag is not flown here on Capitol Square, it has been the subject of considerable controversy, and it divides many of our people," per the Post. His decision to ditch the plates also comes a week after the Supreme Court decided Texas could get rid of its license plates bearing Confederate symbols because the plates are state owned. Sen. Adam Ebbin tells the Post there are other ways to show your Southern pride: "I know some people think of it as Virginia heritage, but if a huge percentage of Virginia considers it offensive, I don't know if we need to put the state's [seal of approval] on it. That's what a bumper sticker is for." (Here's why it might not be so simple to get rid of Confederate symbols.)
– File another one under Things That Seem Like a Good Idea While You're Drunk: Anthony Derlunas caused a stir Wednesday night in a Baltimore theater when he screamed "Heil Hitler! Heil Trump!" during intermission of a performance of Fiddler on the Roof—apparently inspired by the president's immigration policies and several glasses of wine, reports the Washington Post. "That didn't help my thinking one bit," says Derlunas, who's eating no small amount of crow over what he says was an ill-conceived protest of aforementioned policies. "The thing that I can’t stand is Trump spreading hatred, and what did I do? I spread hatred," the 58-year-old told the Baltimore Sun. Fellow patrons at the Hippodrome weren't only offended (the play deals with the persecution of a Jewish family), they were frightened: "People started running," says an audience member. "I’ll be honest, I was waiting to hear a gunshot." Security escorted Derlunas out and police issued him a stop ticket. The Hippodrome, however, issued him a lifetime ban, which Derlunas doesn't have a problem with. "I would ban me too if I was in their position," he says.
– "Remember the $500 haircut?" quips Gawker's John Cook? That's nothing. Gawker just went all Woodward and Bernstein on Donald Trump's "inscrutable hairdo." A tipster, French patents, multiple lawsuits, an archived website, and more have led the Ashley Feinberg to pen a 3,479-word piece that is "perhaps the first plausible" answer "to the riddle of Donald Trump's hair." That answer is, essentially, a $60,000 weave. The trail starts with a customer (that tipster) of Ivari International telling Gawker that Trump was also a client. Ivari International specializes in "microcylinder intervention." These microcylinders are made of strands of donor hair that "mingle with your own hair" after being attached with thread and small metal clamps. In 2007, the treatment cost $60,000 and required near-monthly maintenance for up to $3,000 a pop. Strengthening the source's claims: In 1997, the Ivari International website listed Trump Tower as its New York City location. What's more, it claimed to be located on the 25th floor, home to Trump's offices and apparently nothing else. While Ivari International continues to exist, its only public location is in Paris, though it appears difficult to impossible to actually get an appointment. Gawker says it's possible the whole enterprise is kept afloat by "mega-client" Trump. Ivari International and its founder, Edward Ivari, have been the subject of multiple lawsuits. In one, a judge called the results of microcylinder intervention "exorbitantly priced hairpieces" and the "functional equivalent of wigs." Another suit alleged Ivari basically held a client's hair hostage while demanding loans between $250,000 and $1 million for "various highly suspicious and illegal operations." Read the entire hair-raising story here. (Trump wondered last year whether Hillary Clinton was wearing a wig.)
– Now Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's fate is up to the jury: either life in prison or the death sentence. Attorneys made their closing arguments today in the sentencing phase of Tsarnaev's trial, with prosecutors focusing on the carnage he helped inflict and defense attorneys on his reported remorse, the Boston Globe reports. They also sparred over whether Dzhokhar, now 21, had fallen under the spell of his older brother, Tamerlan. Among the highlights: "The bombs burned their skin, shattered their bones and ripped their flesh," says prosecutor Steve Mellin, the AP reports. The blasts "disfigured their bodies, twisted their limbs and punched gaping holes into their legs and torsos. Merely killing the person, isn't nearly as terrifying as shredding them apart." "He acted like it was any other day," says Mellin, who notes that Tsarnaev calmly bought milk 20 minutes after the bombing. "He was stress-free and remorse-free. He didn't care because the death and misery was what he sought that day." "The only sentence that will do justice in this case is a sentence of death," adds Mellin. But with a life sentence, Tsarnaev will "have no glory or stature that martyrdom will bring," says defense attorney Judy Clarke, CNN reports. "His name will fade from the headlines. It will fade from the news altogether." "That sounds like growth," says Clarke of Tsarnaev's meeting with a nun, to whom he reportedly showed remorse. "What unrepentant, unchanged, untouched young jihadi is going to meet with a Catholic nun." "I can tell you this," says Clarke. "Jahar Tsarnaev is not the worst of the worst. And that is what the death penalty is reserved for—the worst of the worst."
– The explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine that killed 29 people was caused by safety concerns that owner Massey Energy was well aware of, but hid from federal regulators, according to a new report from the Mine Safety and Health Administration. “This much we already know. The tragedy at the Upper Big Branch mine was preventable,” Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said in a video this morning at a briefing on the findings in West Virginia, according to the Wall Street Journal. Massey actually kept two sets of safety records, the report found—one for federal regulators, and another internal one that detailed all sorts of other problems, some of which are believed to have caused the Upper Big Branch explosion, NPR reports. Other findings include: Massey failed to control the build-up of explosive coal dust, regulators said, and in some places tunnels weren’t even big enough to accommodate the machine that neutralizes such dust There wasn’t enough methane in the mine to support Massey’s claim that an unpredictable, natural surge of gas caused the blast. Faulty water spouts failed to douse the initial spark that started the blast.
– Could ethanol someday essentially be produced out of thin air? A group of scientists has published research in Nature detailing a new method of making ethanol out of carbon monoxide gas, instead of corn or sugarcane, Reuters reports. Researchers saturated water with the gas, then zapped it with a novel device featuring two electrodes, one made of what they're calling "oxide-derived copper," to convert it into fuel. "I emphasize that these are just laboratory experiments today," lead researcher Matthew Kanan says. He expects to have a prototype device ready in two to three years. The environmental implications are profound. Critics of ethanol say it drives up food prices and consumes loads of land and water. It can take more than 800 gallons of water to grow enough corn to make 3 gallons of ethanol, Phys.org points out. What's more, researchers envision a two-step process in which the carbon monoxide is derived from carbon dioxide in the air, providing an "economic incentive" for scrubbing carbon from the atmosphere, the MIT Technology Review reports. The new process could also work on a far smaller scale than biomass methods; the Review envisions rooftop solar panels generating fuel that's kept in water heater-sized tanks. (More on the toll ethanol takes on the environment here.)
– No parents would ever want their child to have heart surgery, but if it's necessary, at least they can go online and check out which hospitals have the best success rates, right? Not exactly, according to a CNN investigation, which finds that of the 109 hospitals countrywide that perform pediatric heart surgery, only 49 of them report such rates. Using data from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons—which encourages hospitals to self-report on its website—CNN figured out that death rates among all 109 hospitals range from 1.4% to a disconcerting 12.1%. "Some surgeons have impeccable records, and some have patterns of complications that are outrageous," says a professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University School. One hospital under the microscope is St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Fla. Using state documents acquired under the Freedom of Information Act, CNN found that six children out of the 48 who had had open-heart surgery there from 2011 to 2013 had died—a 12.5% death rate, three times more than the national average. Parents tell CNN they didn't know that doctors there were relatively inexperienced in regard to such complex procedures. Meanwhile, the oft-heard argument from hospitals choosing not to report: The number of patients undergoing these surgeries is so tiny that just one baby dying significantly, and perhaps misleadingly, increases the death rate.
– Hurricane Irma has made landfall in the Florida Keys, reports the AP. The US National Hurricane Center in Miami said the center of the massive hurricane made landfall on Cudjoe Key in the lower Florida Keys at 9:10am. Its top sustained winds are 130mph. Irma earlier began its assault with the storm's northern eyewall reaching the lower Florida Keys as a powerful Category 4 storm. The US National Hurricane Center said it was expected to remain a powerful storm as it moved through the Florida Keys and near the state's west coast, reports the AP. The storm is moving slowly, about 8mph, so its eye is likely to hit the Tampa region around 2am Monday, but damaging winds, storm, surge, rain, and tornadoes will reach the area long before then. The immense storm has now knocked out power to more than 1 million homes and businesses. As the hurricane's eye approached the Florida Keys early Sunday, 60-year-old Carol Walterson Stroud and her family were huddled in a third floor apartment at a senior center in Key West. "We are good so far," she said in a text just before 5:30am. "It's blowing hard." Stroud was with her husband, Tim Stroud, and granddaughter, Sierra Costello. Their dog Rocky was also riding out the storm. Stroud said she planned to step outside once the eye of the hurricane passed over. She said she has stood in the eye of a hurricane before and it's "total peace and quiet."
– Martin Pistorius was a kid so into electronics his mom had no doubts about his ability to fix a broken plug for her when he wasn't yet 11 (which he did). But shortly after turning 12 in January 1988, things changed. He started sleeping more, barely eating, and ultimately effectively disappeared, unable to move or talk. The Daily Mail reports he was treated for cryptococcal meningitis and tuberculosis, but a final diagnosis was never determined. As NPR's new program Invisibilia reports, his parents were told "he's a vegetable." And for much of the decade-plus he spent in that state, Pistorius was treated like one. He passed his days at a care center, turned toward a television that played hours of Barney and Friends reruns. "I cannot even express to you how much I hated Barney," explains Pistorius—yes, Pistorius, who was fully aware for most of those years, even the moment when his despairing mother said to him "I hope you die." He tells his story to NPR via a keyboard that allows him to select words on a computer that communicates them. He believes he "woke up" sometime between ages 14 and 16, likening the experience to seeing a blurry image that slowly comes into focus. After realizing he couldn't communicate with the world, he was first dogged by a stream of awful thoughts ("alone forever" ... "you will never get out"), then trained himself to be detached from them, taking him to a "dark place [where] you are allowing yourself to vanish." But then those hours of Barney began driving him mad, so he began studying the sun and its shadows in the room in an effort to determine what time of day it was. As NPR host Lulu Miller puts it, "It was his first semblance of control. ... Life began to have purpose." As time passed, his faculties slightly returned: He could sit upright, for instance. At the urging of a worker at the center, he was assessed by a communication center at the University of Pretoria in July 2001. His family became aware he was aware; his mother quit her job and spent hours a day working with him. The Washington Post reports he's now 39, married, and living in Harlow, England. He published a memoir in 2011.
– Two police officers in suburban Minneapolis came under fire within moments of being sworn in last night. Police say that immediately after the ceremony at a council meeting at New Hope City Hall, a man with a "long gun" opened fire on the newly sworn-in officers and others who were at the meeting as they left the council chambers, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Officers immediately returned fire, killing the suspect, whose name has not been released. Two police officers were injured. Video from the meeting shows some council members diving for cover as shots rang out while councilman John Elder—who is also a public information officer for the Minneapolis Police Department—pulls out his handgun and takes aim at the door, yelling for others to get down, reports the New York Daily News. "That went right through the door," another council member says. "Somebody got shot." Police say both injured officers are in good condition and are expected to survive.
– Is your kid having a hard time concentrating on her homework? It might be time to repaint her room, according to a new study out of Australia. Science Network WA reports researchers found that brightly colored rooms—specifically ones that are red or yellow—help students study better. “The vivid color conditions may increase arousal to optimal levels,” study author Aseel Al-Ayash says. Researchers put participants into six differently colored rooms, had them read a passage, then asked them questions about it. The subjects in the bright red and yellow rooms got significantly more correct answers. This despite two-thirds of them thinking red would be a bad color for a study room. They believed pale rooms would be better for concentration because they were calmer. "However, the calmness and relaxation aspects may not help students to be alert and active," Al-Ayash says. Instead, the brighter rooms "stimulated neural activity." The study could have an impact on the way schools and universities paint their facilities. But if you may want to keep red out of the kitchen if you're trying to lose weight: WebMD notes it may have a stimulating effect on appetite. (Another study found concentrating makes you go deaf.)
– When it comes to North Korea's ability to hit the the US with a nuclear warhead, there's good news and bad news. Gen. Paul Selva, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that North Korea "clearly" has missiles that can reach the US, ABC News reports. Selva said the ICBM tested by North Korea on the Fourth of July could reach Alaska. But, according to Reuters, Selva added that North Korea doesn't yet have the missile re-entry and guidance technology to hit a US target with "any degree of accuracy" or to have any "reasonable confidence of success" in the strike. Selva told the Armed Services Committee that while "we have to entertain" the possibility of a preemptive military strike against North Korea, the US also needs "to think seriously about what the consequences of that action might be." The Washington Post reports a poll conducted shortly after North Korea's July 4 missile test found 74% of Americans are concerned about a full-scale war with the country. And only 36% of poll respondents have "a good amount" of confidence in President Trump to handle the situation with North Korea.
– You have until tomorrow to vote on the winner of this year's "America's Best Restroom" contest, but Rick Paulas has news for you—nearly all of the bathrooms in America are complete failures. He runs down his reasoning at Pacific Standard: The toilet: It's actually easier on our bodies to defecate in a squatting position, rather than hunching over, which tends to "kink" up the works, garden-hose-style. (One study found that while it takes squatters an average of just 51 seconds to have a bowel movement, it takes people in the hunched-over posture 2 minutes and 10 seconds.) Rather than creating products you can buy to fix this problem, why not redesign the toilet itself? The sink: Its entire purpose is to clean your hands, yet it quickly and easily becomes dirty itself. In 1976, a Cornell professor named Alexander Kira published a treatise on the bathroom, and he suggests a different sink design that would eliminate this problem. He also calls for higher sinks that we don't have to bend over to use. The toilet paper: It's time, Paulas argues, for the bidet to catch on in the US as it's already done overseas. For one thing, it does a better job of cleaning up; for another, you actually use less water when you use a bidet, because of how much water is required to make TP. The bath or shower: Or, more accurately, the lack thereof in most public restrooms. What with water and money both currently in short supply, "a return to public bathing [is] more an inevitability than a possibility," Paulas writes. Click for his complete column.
– Robert E. Lee and the men of the Army of Northern Virginia aren't the only people Gettysburg was unlucky for. In a recent Gettysburg National Military Park blog post, park ranger Maria Brady describes how the park sometimes receives packages of stones from people who took them from the site of the pivotal Civil War battle—only to have their lives fall apart. "We didn't know how the removal of the stones would affect our lives, and we didn't know they were cursed," wrote one man who sent back three small stones earlier this year. He wrote that soon after he visited Gettysburg with his wife and took the stones, he lost his wife, his son, and his house—and ended up in prison for nine years. Upon his release, he found the stones and remembered reading in prison that they were cursed. Another tale of woe came from a man who returned a stone and small twig, saying he wanted them to be put back "on top of the Devil's Den area" where he found them nine years of "nothing but horrible times" earlier, the Evening Sun reports. Brady says that curses aside, taking rocks from Gettysburg is not only illegal, it's a practice that could destroy the park's historic stone walls, many of which existed before the battle or "were thrown up in haste by soldiers looking for cover." She says the people who took the rocks would have been fined $100 if they were caught, which "they may have preferred" to the misfortunes they experienced. If you have any cursed rocks you want to return, the Gettysburg address you need is: 1195 Baltimore Street, Gettysburg , PA 17325. (Plans to auction a skull found at Gettysburg were quickly canceled.)
– US and Japanese vessels and aircraft are searching for seven American sailors who are missing after their Navy destroyer collided before dawn with a container ship four times its size off the coast of Japan. The USS Fitzgerald was back at its home port in Yokosuka Naval Base south of Tokyo by sunset Saturday, following the crash at 2:20am local time. The USS Fitzgerald's captain, Cmdr. Bryce Benson, was airlifted early Saturday to the US Naval Hospital in Yokosuka and was in stable condition with a head injury; two other crew members suffered cuts and bruises and were evacuated, reports the AP. The US 7th Fleet said in a statement that the crash damaged two berthing spaces, a machinery room, and the radio room, and CNN says its statement suggests the missing could be in the ship's crushed mid-right side. "It remains uncertain how long it will take to gain access to the spaces once the ship is pier side ... to methodically continue the search for the missing," the statement said. Most of the more than 200 sailors aboard would have been asleep in their berths at the time of the pre-dawn crash. The Navy said that the collision occurred 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka, home to the 7th Fleet. The ACX Crystal weighs 29,060 tons, making it much larger than the 8,315-ton Navy destroyer. The container ship's left bow was dented and scraped, but it did not appear to have sustained any major structural damage. The Philippine-flagged container ship was berthed at Tokyo's Oi wharf, where officials began questioning crew members about the cause of the crash and are treating the incident as a case of possible professional negligence.
– It was a "false and unprofessional television attack" full of "lies, misrepresentations, distortions, and omissions." That's how a lawyer for the family of JonBenet Ramsey sums up a "disgusting and revolting" CBS documentary and its panel's conclusion that Burke Ramsey likely killed his sister in a rage that was covered up by his parents, John and Patsy. "I will be filing a lawsuit on behalf of Burke Ramsey," the lawyer tells Reuters. He isn't the only one taking issue with the airing, though CBS says it "stands by the broadcast and will do so in court." Rolling Stone calls it "a witch hunt" and "cruel ratings ploy"; in its view the evidence was "almost entirely subjective, at times dangerously misleading and dependent on a flawed police investigation." The investigators ignored the fact that they reached the same conclusion about Patsy's 911 call—in which they say Burke is heard speaking to his parents—as investigators in 1997, instead presenting their findings as new information. They also focused on what is "appropriate" human behavior and language in examining the Ramsey family's actions after the murder, which is rarely allowed in court. A lawyer not involved in the case calls the re-investigation "a complete travesty," per the New Zealand Herald. Investigators "went into this with an agenda—and that was the killer had to be from the family," he says. "The worldwide audience means it's given [Burke] a worse reputation than if he had actually been tried." (Burke Ramsey says he's innocent.)
– "I've never seen anything like this," Catherine Veerhusen tells the Des Moines Register. "No words, no words." Veerhusen and her husband were driving Sunday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, when they saw a herd of deer—one buck and three does—on a bridge over US Highway 30. Veerhusen says the deer seemed "panicked." Suddenly the buck ran to the opposite side of the bridge and jumped, falling 20 to 30 feet to the highway below. The three does quickly followed, leaping off the bridge to their deaths. "It was pretty quick. I didn't even get to my phone in time. I was more busy watching them," says deer hunter Denny Benyshek, who also saw the incident. "I seen this rack and thought, 'That's a nice buck.'" Veerhusen posted video and photos of the incident to Facebook, calling it "horrifying." Her post has since gone viral, being shared more than 300,000 times, Fox 43 reports. Ron Lane, conservation officer with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, says the deer may have been pushed by hunters into an unfamiliar area and freaked out. "The bridge there is brand new," Lane tells the Register. "I'm guessing the deer aren't used to that, with all of the construction going on." He adds: "It sounds like with they were just trying to run across and didn't know where to go."
– When New Zealand professor Christoph Bartneck received an invitation to submit a paper to the International Conference on Atomic and Nuclear Physics in the US, he was skeptical given he has "practically no knowledge" of nuclear physics. So he decided to use his iPhone's iOS autocomplete function to help him write a paper by feeding it a word like "atomic" or "nuclear" and then randomly tapping one of the suggested next words, he writes in a blog post. (Bartneck demonstrates how on YouTube.) Sample line: "Physics are great but the same as you have been able and the same way to get the rest to your parents." Bartneck then submitted the nonsensical paper under the fake name Iris Pear (think "Siri Apple"). He received a reply three hours later telling him the abstract was approved for presentation at the Nov. 17-18 conference in Atlanta. Registering to attend, however, costs $1,099, reports the Guardian. Bartneck declined to move forward. This isn't the first story of its kind. One paper that simply repeated the phrase "get me off your f---ing mailing list" ad nauseam was accepted by the open-access Journal of Advanced Computer Technology in 2014. In this case, Bartneck may have simply scammed a scam; one commenter on his blog says the conference isn't legit and only exists to "phish larger conference fees." The Christian Science Monitor agrees that, "Between its poorly designed website, open calls for abstracts, and vague location, the conference smacks of a scam." Bartneck says it does indeed smell like "a money-making conference with little to no commitment to science," but he's tempted to ask for the reviewers' comments for a laugh. (One study finds issues with open-access journals.)
– If anyone can answer questions on a standardized test about the poems "The Real Case" and "Midnight," it should be Sara Holbrook—the poet who wrote them. But as the Washington Post reports, Holbrook recently took a stab at a couple of State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exams, and she didn't do so hot. "Such a dunce," was her first self-flagellating reaction to realizing she had no clue how to answer the questions about her own poems, described in a column she penned for the Huffington Post. Her self-doubt quickly turned to irritation, however, toward the test makers who decided to a) include "A Real Case," her "most neurotic poem," on a test designed for seventh-graders, and b) make the kids give a "line-by-line dissection, painful and delivered without anesthetic." Holbrook takes to task not only the "sadistic behemoth Pearson" (the company that administered the test in 2013 and 2014, the years in which her poems were featured), but also poorly trained test scorers. Among the questions she couldn't answer were those about the poet's motivation for stanza breaks and for the capitalization of certain words. Holbrook implores parents, educators, and lawmakers to stop taking these test results so seriously. "Any test that questions the motivations of the author without asking the author is a big baloney sandwich," she writes. "Mostly test makers do this to dead people who can't protest. But I'm not dead. I protest." (An absence note from a Chicago dad took on standardized tests.)
– A satellite originally launched in 1978 is getting a new lease on life after NASA stopped using it. NASA shut down the satellite, called ISEE-3, in 1997, and it's been spinning uselessly around the sun for years. But a crowdfunded team of "citizen scientists" last month got NASA's permission to use it again for research, the Raw Story reports. In May, they were able to communicate with it, the Economist reports, and this week, they relaunched its propulsion systems. Now, it's once again rolling at its intended speed, the Economist notes, and the team plans to alter its trajectory next week, NBC News reports. So what will the experts do with it? For one thing, they're hoping to show off the power of modern technology: Tasks that once required giant infrastructures can now be achieved with software-based radios, the Economist notes. What's more, the experts are hoping to fuel renewed interest in space exploration.
– Prepare to feel self-conscious about your stone-skipping abilities. Professional stone skipper—apparently that's a real title—Kurt Steiner just skipped one across Vermont's Lake Paran in a dozen or so bounces, reports UPI. No estimate on distance, but the feat caught on video looks pretty impressive. However, it's not even close to Steiner's personal best: He holds the world record for 88 skips during a 2013 throw. Need a few tips? Steiner tells Guinness World Records he chooses smooth, flat stones that weigh three to eight ounces and are 1/4 to 5/16th of an inch thick, but not necessarily round.
– President Trump will choose Gary Cohn's replacement as chief economic adviser soon, he promised via Twitter shortly after Cohn announced his departure. "Many people wanting the job - will choose wisely!" Trump wrote. The Washington Post reports that one of the people Trump is considering is media personality Larry Kudlow, one of his 2016 campaign advisers, and Politico reports trade adviser and economic nationalist Peter Navarro and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney are also possibilities. But despite Trump sounding unconcerned, others in the White House are very concerned: "With Gary gone, I just think, from a policy perspective, it means disaster," one official tells Politico. Other aides expressed similar sentiments, explaining that Cohn was one of the few remaining aides who could talk Trump out of bad ideas. Others who spoke to Politico say that Cohn's departure will leave the National Economic Council without a leader, and that others on the NEC who are loyal to Cohn may also head for the door, particularly if Navarro is chosen as his replacement. And then there's the fact that, as Politico puts it, the White House has "struggled to attract top-tier talent," and some high-profile Republicans have privately expressed an unwillingness to take a position there. Meanwhile, Bloomberg has details on the hours before Cohn announced his resignation; sources say Trump demanded Cohn's cooperation on tariffs, Cohn didn't answer, and within hours he had announced his resignation. Politico has more on the backstory of their trade disagreement, and the Washington Post says Dow futures are down and Wall Street is preparing for an "ugly sell-off" over fears of a trade war.
– Pastor Terry Jones' Koran-burning stunt continues to reverberate across the world. At least eight people were killed in a riot in Kandahar today while protesting Jones' actions last month, reports al-Jazeera and CNN. The unrest follows the death of a dozen people yesterday, including seven UN workers, during a riot in the normally peaceful northern town of Mazar-e Sharif. Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Kandahar, clashed with police, and set fire to shops. About 70 were injured. Afghan officials say the Taliban infiltrated otherwise peaceful protests in both cities to incite violence, but the group denies it, notes Reuters. "The Taliban had nothing to do with this, it was a pure act of responsible Muslims," said a spokesman. "The foreigners brought the wrath of the Afghans on themselves by burning the Koran."
– Live long and copyright many things. Thus Paramount Pictures hopes to prosper as it wages a legal battle with the makers of popular Kickstarter crowdfunded Star Trek fan film Prelude to Axanar. Paramount claims the film's use of the fictional language Klingon adds up to copyright infringement; the filmmakers contend that attempting to copyright Klingon is absurd given the language is an "idea or a system." For legal precedent, they cite the system of bookkeeping: "Although copyright protects the author’s expression of the system, it does not prevent others from using the system." But there's doesn't appear to be a quick and easy answer. The US Copyright Office doesn't specifically "deal with the copyrightability of constructed or fictional languages, let alone Klingon," observes Consumerist, which was unable to dig up much in the way of case law on the matter. Paramount, which claims exclusive ownership over many Star Trek features, including characters, themes, plots, dialogue, settings, props, character makeup, costumes, sets, fictional language, and so forth, has responded to the filmmakers' plea by noting that "a language is only useful if it can be used to communicate with people, and there are no Klingons with whom to communicate," reports TorrentFreak. By allowing the characters in Prelude to speak Klingon, they assert, the film is infringing on Paramount's characters because speaking the language "is an aspect of their characters." The jury's still out, but Boing Boing goes so far as to call this Paramount's attempt to "kill" the film, and it frames Paramount's claims as "dubious," in part because it borrows phonemes (from Hindi, Arabic, etc.) as well as grammar (from Japanese, Turkish, etc.)—not to mention it's spoken by many fans around the world. (Here's one wild use of Klingon in the real world.)
– A Florida baby might be the first in the nation to die from ingesting a packet of laundry detergent, reports the Orlando Sentinel. The 7-month-old Kissimmee boy ate the packet after plucking it out of a laundry basket and immediately went into distress. Michael Williams died later at the hospital, though it will take weeks to confirm the cause of death. The child and his mother had been staying at a shelter for battered women. Kids can confuse the laundry pods for candy, and awareness of the danger has been growing for a while now. (Procter & Gamble changed its design last year.) Nearly 6,000 young kids have been sickened this year alone, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, but this would be the first death reported if confirmed. "People are not listening to the warnings," one poison-control official tells AP.
– Johnny Manziel, who in 2012 became the first freshman to earn the Heisman Trophy, didn't want to wait around during the NFL draft. So he texted the Cleveland Browns' quarterbacks coach, Dowell Loggains, asking him to "hurry up and draft me because I want to be there. I want to wreck this league together." Loggains told the story this week on Sports Talk with Bo Mattingly in Arkansas, cleveland.com reports. "When I got that text, I forwarded it to the owner and to the head coach," Loggains said. "I'm like, 'this guy wants to be here.'" That's when owner Jimmy Haslam "said, 'Pull the trigger. We're trading up to go get this guy.''' The team did so, trading up to No. 22 from No. 26. Manziel's new jersey is already the best-selling NFL jersey since April 1, USA Today notes.
– For the moment it appears the woman who had an affair with Bill Clinton will be front-and-center during Monday's debate at Donald Trump's invitation, BuzzFeed reports. It started with the Clinton campaign inviting Bizarro-Trump Mark Cuban to the presidential debate at Hoffstra University. TPM quotes a Clinton aide as saying Cuban "has the best seat we have access to." CNN explains that each candidate gets a few tickets for the debate and can decide who sits where. "Just got a front row seat to watch Hillary Clinton overwhelm Donald Trump at the 'Humbling at Hofstra' on Monday," Cuban, an increasingly vocal critic of Trump, tweeted Thursday. "It is on!" "If dopey Mark Cuban of failed Benefactor fame wants to sit in the front row, perhaps I will put Gennifer Flowers right alongside of him!" Trump tweeted Saturday. In 1998, Bill Clinton admitted to having a sexual relationship with Flowers in the 1980s. The former model quickly accepted the invitation, tweeting, "Hi Donald. You know I'm in your corner and will definitely be at the debate!" and adding a kiss emoji. Flowers' assistant confirms to BuzzFeed that Flowers has accepted the invitation despite turning similar ones down in the past to avoid being a "sideshow." The Trump campaign hasn't said whether Trump's tweet constitutes an official invite. The co-chair of the debate commission tells CNN they "would frown upon" any attempt to use guests to "impact the debate."
– Add this to your file of weird Nicolas Cage stories: While promoting his new movie Trespass, a home invasion thriller, Cage told the Toronto Film Festival quite a story about a home invasion he actually went through. "It was two in the morning. I was living in Orange County at the time and was asleep with my wife. My 2-year-old at the time was in another room. I opened my eyes and there was a naked man wearing my leather jacket eating a Fudgesicle in front of my bed," he said. "I know it sounds funny," he continued (um, yep), "but it was horrifying." He persuaded the intruder to leave, and police came, but Cage did not press charges, KTLA reports. The Reuters version of the story hysterically notes that " A Fudgesicle is a frozen, ice cream-like snack."
– On Tuesday, Donald Trump tweeted a video of himself posing with uniformed police officers as he prepared to board his plane at the San Antonio International Airport—and now at least 14 of those officers are facing disciplinary measures over their attire. They were shown in the video wearing the Trump campaign's red "Make America Great Again" baseball caps, leading city and police officials to quickly decry the move, the Washington Post reports. "I expect them to know better than to give the appearance of endorsing a candidate while on duty and in uniform," says the city's police chief, who adds that the officers who were wearing the caps "will be disciplined appropriately." Trump's tweet read: "Thank you Texas! If you haven't registered to VOTE- today is your last day. Go to: http://VOTE.GOP & get out on 11/8/16 to #MAGA!" His video also ended with the message, "We will make America safe and great again, together!" The city's mayor tweeted that "police must be above politics & serve everyone equally" and that she was "deeply disappointed" by the officers' "lack of judgement." The officers are part of a motorcycle unit that was escorting Trump's motorcade to and from the airport while he was in San Antonio for a fundraising event.
– A British man who killed a baby in 1985 was murdered weeks after moving to a home just 11 miles away from the scene of the crime. David Gaut, 54, was found dead in his home in New Tredegar, Wales, on Saturday afternoon, the Telegraph reports. Three local men— Darren Evesham, 47, Ieuan Harley, 23, and David Osbourne, 51—have been charged with his murder and residents suspect they acted after learning what Gaut had done decades earlier. He was released from prison last November after serving 33 years for the murder of Chi Ming Shek, the 17-month-old son of his then-girlfriend, Jane Pickthall. Prosecutors said Gaut killed the boy while Pickthall had gone for a night out with friends and then placed the body under a chest of drawers to make it look like an accident, the Caerphilly Observer reports. Experts testified that the boy's injuries had been caused by being punched, kicked, or thrown at a hard surface in what was apparently a prolonged attack. "On the jury's finding you not only murdered that child but also tortured him," the sentencing judge said. Neighbors tell the Sun that Gaut said he had been in prison after he moved to the area around six weeks ago, but gave vague and inconsistent details. One resident says they looked him up online after seeing his full name on a letter, and were horrified to discover what he had done.
– More details have emerged in the horrific upstate New York stretch limousine crash that killed 20 people in the nation's deadliest transportation accident since 2009. Friends and relatives say the 17 passengers killed Saturday include Amy Steenburg, who was celebrating her 30th birthday, her husband, Axel, her three sisters, her husband's brother, and at least one of her brothers-in-law, Times Union reports. At least two sets of newlyweds were among the tight-knit group. They were on their way from Amsterdam, NY, where they all lived, to celebrate Amy's birthday at a brewery in Cooperstown when the limo crashed in Schoharie, killing all the passengers as well as the driver and two pedestrians. Witnesses say the limo sped down a steep hill before losing control at the bottom, where two state highways intersect in a spot notorious for accidents, the New York Times reports. The limo crashed into an empty vehicle in the parking lot of the Apple Barrel Country Store. National Transportation Safety Board chairman Robert Sumwalt says the "horrific" number of fatalities makes it the worst US transportation accident since a plane crash near Buffalo killed 50 people in 2009. Valeria Abeling tells the Washington Post that her niece, 34-year-old Erin McGowan, died in the accident, along with Shane, the husband she married in June. She says the group had rented a bus, but it broke down and the company sent the limo instead. Abeling says her daughter received a text from McGowan 20 minutes before the crash saying the vehicle arrived in "terrible condition."
– Indiana State Police are trying to track down a man photographed at the Delphi Historic Trails on Monday around the time two teenage girls were killed there. Liberty German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13, were dropped off at the popular hiking spot by a family member around 1pm Monday. Their bodies were found Tuesday about 50 feet from the shore of Deer Creek on a section of private property only accessible by foot, reports the Indianapolis Star. A man seen in the area at the time was wearing jeans, a dark blue jacket, and a hood. "We are asking help from the public to help identify him so he can be contacted regarding what he might have seen," police say, per Heavy.com. Police are also asking anyone who was in the area on Monday to contact police with possible tips. "There is somebody out there who did this, and we're going to track them down," says an Indiana State Police rep, noting police are already "following up on hundreds of hundreds of leads." Adds a sheriff, per CBS News, "We're going to get to the bottom of this. We feel confident. And we’re going to do everything within our resources to reach justice in this situation." Officials tell Fox 59 that autopsies on both girls have been conducted but the results are not being released at this time.
– It's been almost a year since Al Franken left the Senate after sexual misconduct allegations were lobbed against him by several women, and it's been nearly that long since President Trump last tweeted about the former Minnesota senator. On Thursday night, however, Trump paid a visit to Franken's home state for a rally, and he had some thoughts on the Democrat stepping down from his post. "Boy, did he fold up like a wet rag," Trump said, describing Franken first as "wacky," per Politico. "Man, man, he was gone so fast. It was like, 'Oh, he did something,' 'Oh, I resign. I quit.'" Trump's comments came as his nominee for the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, defiantly stands firm in the wake of sexual assault allegations against him; Kavanaugh even penned an op-ed Thursday in the Wall Street Journal, defending his reputation. The New York Times notes that Trump's remarks in Minnesota, a state he barely lost in 2016, sync with his "long-stated personal mantra of never giving in to any accusation, and considering those who do to be weak." Trump also had words about Democratic Sen. Tina Smith, who was slotted into Franken's spot after he resigned. "I do this stuff for a living, and I'm not sure I ever heard of her," Trump said. "And I need her vote." He also returned to Franken, adding: "Nobody knows who the hell she is. She took a wacky guy's place." Trump also went after Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, specifically on immigration and health care, but he didn't mention sexual misconduct allegations against the DNC deputy chair. The Times observes Trump did play up that Ellison had said before the 2016 election that he thought Trump had a chance to win.
– There's a contentious new issue surrounding Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt, and this one has nothing to do with security. Pruitt on Tuesday suggested a new rule that would allow the EPA to only make use of scientific studies whose data has been made publicly available in full. He called it a way to bring transparency to the EPA's decision-making process; the Washington Post reports it's a change conservatives have been hankering after for some time. To understand why many scientists aren't pleased with the proposal, know these two words: epidemiological studies. A rep for the American Association for the Advancement of Science tells NPR that these studies, which can look at the effects of things like pesticides or pollutants, often don't adhere to Pruitt's standard for good reason. "Those studies involve people like you and me, signing confidentiality agreements that the scientists doing the studies won't reveal my personal health information," Sean Gallagher explains. "It involves private data." The Post reports that a letter sent to Pruitt on Monday in advance of his announcement was signed by 985 scientists who called the move a "restricting" one that would lead to "policies and practices that will ignore significant risks to the health of every American." As far as risks go, others have taken issue with Pruitt's assertion that the move would put an emphasis on science that is "reproducible." As a rep for the Union of Concerned Scientists says to the Los Angeles Times, "You can't ethically go back and redo studies on the impact of lead in drinking water on kids."
– About 150,000 years ago, an individual wandered into a cave, fell into a well, and never came back up. Thanks to that accident, scientists have their hands on the oldest Neanderthal DNA in existence, reports Phys.org. The skeleton known as Altamura Man was found in a cave in Italy in 1993, with only its head and part of a shoulder visible. The rest of the body is kind of fused into the rock, explains Discovery. Only recently did researchers get permission to extract a bone sample from the shoulder, and that sample confirmed that Altamura Man is indeed a Neanderthal who roamed the region between 130,000 and 170,000 years ago, they write in the Journal of Human Evolution. "The Altamura Man represents the most complete skeleton of a single nonmodern human ever found," a study co-author from Rome's Sapienza University tells Live Science. "Almost all the bony elements are preserved and undamaged." The DNA could fill in important gaps about the Neanderthal line, but there's a catch: The sample is so degraded that current technology is unable to sequence its genome. Another researcher, however, thinks improvements in DNA-sequencing techniques coming in the near future will fix that. (Another recent archaeological find reveals the timing of Neanderthal-human sex.)
– A grim surprise may have been enough to make some New Mexico crooks give up stealing: A U-Haul trailer with a body inside was stolen from outside a Residence Inn in Albuquerque late Sunday night or early Monday morning, KOAT reports. Police say the thieves made off with both an SUV and the trailer it was towing, which held the body of a woman's father in a casket. A couple was taking the body from Oklahoma to bury it in Kirtland, NM. The SUV and trailer were found elsewhere in the city a couple of hours later. The thieves apparently fled after opening the trailer and discovering the corpse. Police say they made the case a priority after receiving a phone call from one of the victims. "Clearly, his wife was extremely emotional, as her father's body had just been stolen," a police spokesman tells the Albuquerque Journal. "We immediately started allocating resources to try to find this vehicle, not only because it's just a heart-wrenching story, but also you're going to have the biosafety factors of having an unaccounted-for dead body." No arrests have been made yet, though police suspect three men taken into custody early Monday for driving recklessly and possessing burglary tools were behind the theft.
– UK customers who buy a cup of coffee at Kentucky Fried Chicken soon won't have to throw their cups away—they'll just eat them. The chain will be testing an edible cup in stores sometime this year, reports the Telegraph. As USA Today explains, the Scoff-ee Cup will be "made from a special, wafer-like biscuit, then wrapped in sugar paper and lined with a layer of heat-resistant white chocolate." Cups also will be infused with different scents. So far, the chain hasn't announced plans for a similar rollout in the US, but USA Today sees a potentially big market among millennials looking for greener packaging. Eater notes that the concept of an edible cup isn't new, but KFC is the first big chain restaurant to move ahead with the idea. The cups coincide with the launch of Seattle's Best Coffee in KFC's UK facilities.
– The apparent suicide of fashion designer Kate Spade is a tragedy, but not a huge surprise to older sister Reta Saffo. She tells the Kansas City Star that Spade had been struggling with mental illness for years and the stress and pressure of her famous brand may have "flipped the switch where she eventually became full-on manic depressive." The death, she says, "was not unexpected by me." Spade was found hanged in her New York City apartment on Tuesday. Saffo says that in 2014, her sister was transfixed by news of Robin Williams' suicide by hanging . "She kept watching it and watching it over and over," Saffo says. "I think the plan was already in motion even as far back as then." Spade, whose husband, Andy Spade, was reportedly home at the time of her death, left a note telling 13-year-old daughter Frances it wasn't her fault. More: Meanwhile, Spade's family is "disgusted and saddened that at this time of great sorrow, Kate’s sister who has been estranged from the entire family for more than 10 years would choose to surface with unsubstantiated comments," a family source tells People. "Her statements paint a picture of someone who didn’t know her at all." Saffo, whose husband is a medical doctor, says she tried for years to get her sister the help she needed, but Spade kept backing out of plans to get treatment. "She was definitely worried about what people would say if they found out," says Saffo. Kathy Griffin was among many celebrities paying tribute to Spade, the BBC reports. "I decided to wear head-to-toe Kate Spade to an event tonight to honor her contributions to fashion and women in business," she tweeted. "Rest easy, Kate..and thank you for making so many women feel wonderful." The US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 1-800-273-8255.
– Ajak Deng—whom Vice calls "one of Australia's most successful model exports" since her modeling debut in 2008—abruptly quit Tuesday, likely because of racism. "I am happy to announce that I am officially done with the fashion industry, I will be moving back to Australia In order to live the life that I fully deserved. Which is real life," Deng posted on Instagram. "I can no longer deal with the fakes and the lies. My life is too short for this dramatic life." Her manager, Stephen Bucknell, seemed to imply earlier this week that Deng's decision might stem from racism in the industry. The industry is biased toward white models, Bucknell told the Herald Sun. "They'll book the big Caucasian girls, spend the big dollars, and fly them in from LA, but I'm yet to see them book a dark-skinned girl in that way," he said. Deng, whose family fled Sudan in 2005, has also discussed racism in the industry, tweeting in 2014 that she was "kicked out of Balmain for being black" and noting, "I know a lot of black models would rather kiss someone's a-- than being honest but guessed what? I do not gaged [sic] a damn f---" before deleting her Twitter account. The 26-year-old had just walked in New York's Fashion Week before quitting, People reports.
– The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill was one of the greatest environmental disasters in history, per Time, but what DuPont did to a New Jersey town of 8,000 is "worse," according to a lawsuit. Carneys Point Township says DuPont dumped 100 million pounds of toxic waste at a 1,400-acre chemical manufacturing complex two miles outside of town, near the Delaware River, and must now establish a $1.1 billion remediation trust. DuPont—which used mercury, benzene, and ethyl chloride at the site—has previously settled lawsuits related to contaminated drinking water in the area. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection says it will be 999 years before groundwater is safe to drink, reports Courthouse News. DuPont transferred ownership of the complex—known as the Chambers Works Site—to spinoff company Chemours in 2015, but Carneys Point says that by failing to notify regulators of the change, DuPont side-stepped a law that would have forced it to first clean up hazardous waste at the site. DuPont simply sought "to shed 100 years of accumulated environmental liability to become a more attractive merger partner" for Dow Chemical, the lawsuit states. The town now fears the proposed $130 billion DuPont-Dow merger will force Chemours into bankruptcy, meaning "Chambers Works would be left as a rusting industrial nightmare that the residents of New Jersey will be left to clean up without the funds to do so."
– Wildlife officials in Florida have known for a while that Burmese pythons have been eating their way through the Everglades, but the study of one particular snake has surprised them with the extent of that appetite: The 15-foot female had eaten three white-tailed deer in the 90 days before her capture, reports Live Science. Researchers found the remains of an adult doe and two fawns in the snake's intestines, they report in Bioinvasions Record. (They titled the report "Supersize Me.") That's a relatively short time for a snake to put down three big meals, notes study co-author Scott Boback. "If a python is capable of eating three deer in three months," he marvels, then it clearly raises serious questions about the pythons' impact on the Everglades ecosystem. "We don't even know how many of them are out there." What scientists do know is that ever since the Burmese python first surfaced in the area in the 1980s—the reason is unclear, but careless pet owners are generally blamed—the population numbers of raccoons, rabbits, foxes, and other mammals have plummeted. “All these studies are putting together a story that we just can’t ignore anymore,” Boback tells Vox, which takes a more in-depth look at the implications of the python invasion. As to how a python can take down a deer, this video via Naples News of a Florida hunter rescuing a deer in mid-strangle might provide an idea. And Floridians outside the Everglades will likely be unhappy to hear that the snakes appear to be expanding their territory to the Florida Keys and western Palm Beach County, reports the Orlando Sentinel. (State wildlife officials are fighting back with the "Python Challenge.")
– Another church is poised to change its thinking on gay marriage, this one with Mormon roots. Delegates from the Community of Christ have recommended allowing same-sex marriages in states where they are legal and providing "commitment services" in states where they are not, reports the Kansas City Star. Delegates also backed the ordination of gay people. Both moves need final approval from the church's hierarchy. The church is based in Missouri and has about 250,000 members worldwide, reports Fox4kc.com. It has its roots in the movement started by Joseph Smith Jr., though its membership is dwarfed by that of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which boasts about 14 million followers.
– Following accusations from multiple women that he spanked them when they were reporters in the 1970s, the former publisher of an Alabama newspaper has resigned from his position at the head of the company started by his grandfather, AL.com reports. According to the Washington Post, 82-year-old H. Brandt Ayers on Thursday stepped down as chairman of Consolidated Publishing, which owns the Anniston Star and five other newspapers. "It is of utmost importance to me that this newspaper continue to serve its role of reporting on matters of concern to the Anniston community and that nothing stand in the way of preserving the newspaper as an independently owned publication serving the community," Ayers says in a statement released to the Star. Ayers, who served as publisher of the Star until 2016, admitted earlier this week to spanking a female reporter at her home in the 70s. He claims he was following a doctor's advice to "calm her down" regarding her psychological illness. Another former reporter, Veronica Kennedy, says Ayers spanked her with a metallic ruler after pulling her from her chair in the newsroom. Ayers has said to "let the accusation stand." A third woman has also accused Ayers of spanking her. Kennedy says she's "happy that at least there was some acknowledgement that these incidents occurred." Though she says Ayers' resignation is "just a baby step," as his family will remain in control of Consolidated Publishing. Ayers' wife is replacing him as chairman.
– Drake's "In My Feelings" is catchy enough to make people want to get up out of their seats and dance. But some should be staying in their seats, specifically those who are behind the wheel of a moving vehicle. The Guardian reports many aren't heeding that sage piece of advice, instead taking part in what's now known as the "Kiki Challenge," which involves cranking up the Drake tune, jumping out of a car (while it's slowly moving alongside the dancer), and taping oneself doing so to share on social media. Comedian Shiggy jump-started the craze by posting a video on Instagram of himself, and now others have followed suit—and tripped, crashed, and even gotten hit. More on this odd (and illegal) sensation: Mashable already has at least one story of someone who's come face-to-face with a vehicle. Jaylen Norwood appears to have only suffered a few scratches from his ordeal, but the video showing his close encounter is frightening. Law enforcement officials around the world—including in the US, India, Spain, and the UAE—are warning folks not to partake in this stunt on their watch. In Florida, violators could be hit with a $1,000 fine, per the Guardian; Cairo police have arrested a university student who decided it would be fun to try, Egypt Independent reports.
– Want to make San Francisco Bay's only privately owned island your own? Easy, if you've got $5 million and don't mind a big dome-like rock with trees and grass and not much else, Yahoo reports. Owned by an attorney living in Thailand, Red Rock Island went on the market three years ago for $22 million and was touted for its possible gas reserves. But with San Francisco residents seemingly ready to oppose drilling on the 5.5-acre property, the price fell to $9 million. Now comes the new price, without any promise of natural-gas riches. "It's kind of in strange limbo at this point," the real estate agent in charge of the deal tells ABC News. "It's been dormant for probably three years." Its history is perhaps more exciting: Also known as Treasure Island or Golden Rock, it was once said to house pirates' loot, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. It was also used by Russian hunters in the 19th century to catch otters. Then Frank Lloyd Wright's son, Mendel Glickman, snagged it for just $50,000 in 1964 with the hope of extracting gas and creating a getaway hotel. Now his son David, the attorney in Thailand, owns it and wants to sell. Bureaucratic headaches may await the next owner, but "even if all the new buyer does is plant a flag that says 'mine' on the top-most point of Red Rock Island (172 feet above sea level, incidentally), the bragging rights here are pretty extreme," says the Chronicle.
– The "happiness penalty" between parents and nonparents in the US—that is, in which nonparents report being happier than their counterparts—is wider than in any of the other 21 countries researchers have analyzed. Now those researchers say they've managed to pinpoint exactly why, and it all boils down to family support policies. "As social scientists we rarely completely explain anything, but in this case we completely" do, lead researcher Jennifer Glass tells Quartz. The researchers write that what they found "was astonishing": When there are good family support policies such as parental leave and paid vacation in place, "the parental deficit in happiness was completely eliminated, accomplished by raising parent’s happiness rather than lowering nonparents' happiness." The Chicago Tribune reports a slew of factors were considered: unplanned parenthood, guaranteed paid sick days, the flexibility of work schedules, and a country's GDP, things that allowed researchers to confirm that more unexpected pregnancies, bigger families, or living in a richer country weren't the drivers. "The negative effects of parenthood on happiness were entirely explained by the presence or absence of social policies allowing parents to better combine paid work with family obligations." Further, those countries with the best policy "packages” had no happiness gap between parents and non-parents. Quips the Tribune, "It's almost like trying to raise children and earn a living in a country with zero weeks of guaranteed paid leave and child care that costs as much as college is draining. Who knew?" The peer-reviewed findings will appear in the American Journal of Sociology in September.
– It looks like Mariah Carey will be tying the knot yet again. The singer, who split with Nick Cannon in 2014, has just announced her engagement to Australia's fourth-richest person, billionaire James Packer, after about 10 months of dating, per the BBC. Her rep tells Us Weekly that Packer, 48, graced Carey, 45, with a 35-carat rock on Thursday night in New York City, shortly after the pair returned from a romp on Packer's yacht in St. Barts. If all goes as planned, the wedding will be the third for both Carey and Packer, who runs a number of casinos, reports E!. (Click to see how Cannon feels about his ex's relationship.)
– Maybe you should open up that next "Lucky Winner!" email you get and not automatically dump it in the trash. Because for University of Vermont researcher Charlie C. Nicholson, his spam folder turned out to hold more than the usual dream-job and porn messages. On Tuesday, the National Science Foundation announced its annual divvying-up of graduate research grants worth nearly $140,000 each, and it turns out the 26-year-old doctoral student was one of the recipients—except he had no clue, because the email from the NSF had gone right to spam, the Burlington Free Press reports. "I started getting cryptic texts from friends," Nicholson says, per a UVM press release. "At first, I had no clue what they were talking about. Then a friend who didn't know my middle name texted: 'If your full name is Charles Casey Nicholson, you just won an NSF [grant]." It is, and he had. Nicholson checked his spam folder and there was the cheerful NSF missive announcing his award. The money—about $100,000 to him, $36,000 as an allowance to the school—will go toward three more years of his project studying the pollination of blueberry crops by native bees, the Press notes. He'll also be able to have a real meal now and then. "It's a pay bump. I'll be eating less pizza," he tells the paper. And the good luck keeps on buzzing: While he was on the NSF website, he noticed that his friend and UVM colleague Samantha Alger had won some cash of her own. He was the one who texted her to fill her in, per the Press. (Read another wild email story involving a smuggled cellphone and an "ingenious" scheme.)
– This year's Golden Globes ceremony turned out to be quite the political affair, and Sunday's Oscars will likely be no different, especially with Donald Trump critic Meryl Streep in attendance. Here's what to expect: Will host Jimmy Kimmel mention Trump? It's a safe bet. He tells the New York Times he likes to talk about "what people are talking about," and Trump "is Topic No. 1, 2 and 4" at the dinner table. Stars appearing on stage are likely to reference Trump, too, reports the BBC. It lists Streep as one of several celebrities that might make a political statement. Mahershala Ali and Casey Affleck are two others. Should they use their time on stage to talk politics, they certainly won't be the first. The Verge looks at the historical role of politics at the Oscars, but notes that while a political speech is generally accepted today, it wasn't always that way. The Los Angeles Times likewise identifies the 11 "most notable political moments" at the Oscars, including the time in 1993 that Richard Gere opted to discuss China. The list gives the impression that such moments are becoming more frequent. But no matter what happens at this year's ceremony, there's a good chance Trump won't like what he sees. He tweeted frequently about previous shows, and the New York Daily News rounds up some of his slams, including: "I should host the #Oscars to shake things up—this is not good!" in 2014, when Ellen DeGeneres was hosting.
– A woman plowed her car into a crowded street party in Lima, Ohio, last night and hurt up to 30 people, some of them seriously, LimaOhio reports. No one was killed, but people sustained injuries to heads, necks, and legs, and at least two were admitted to hospital. “It just happened so fast,” said a bystander. “We all fell backwards. It was unreal. There were bodies, and shoes and jewelry." The driver had been parked a few feet away when she suddenly gunned it, driving at full speed until she hit a sculpture in the square, MSNBC reports. Witnesses said men then hoisted up the car to free people pinned underneath. Police have not revealed the driver's name or a possible motive, but a bystander said the woman looked 40-something and had a dog in the back seat, the AP reports. "I remember looking at the woman's face," the bystander said. "She looked disoriented."
– Lenovo's CEO has decided to hand over a hefty chunk of his annual bonus to the workers who helped make the Chinese company the world's biggest personal computer maker, the firm says. For the second year in a row, Yang Yuanqing is sharing more than $3 million with around 10,000 workers, most of them in China, where the $325 or so each worker will receive adds up to almost a month's pay, reports Bloomberg. Yang was paid more than $14 million last year and owns a 7% chunk of the company, so the gesture won't exactly leave him scrambling for change in the couch cushions. But it does look "like a sincere effort to thank the many people who have helped to make Lenovo China's first truly world-class tech firm," writes Doug Young at the South China Morning Post, who's glad for the shift from Yang's "usual bluster" about Lenovo getting ready to overtake Apple and Samsung in smartphones.
– Apple is getting closer to launching an online television subscription service, and MG Siegler relishes the challenge it could pose to cable companies. “Just as Apple transformed the music industry thanks to the iTunes/iPod combination, and the mobile industry thanks to the iPhone, a device that offered all the television content over the Internet could force the cable companies to stop sucking,” he writes at TechCrunch. But that’s if Apple can get the networks on board. So far, CBS and Disney, which owns ABC, have shown interest, reports the Wall Street Journal. A “best of television” package is in the works, with a rumored $30-a-month fee that would grant users access to commercial-free shows. The lack of ads has many balking, and that's only one of a dozen headaches Apple would have to overcome. But there's a chance, and "I, for one, hope they’re able to blow up the cable industry," says Siegler.
– "Does the Winnipeg chopper realize the entire West End can hear their convo about blow jobs right now?" a woman in the Canadian city tweeted Monday night—and the answer, apparently, was no. Large parts of the city were able to listen in on an explicit conversation between two of the three officers in the police helicopter after its PA system was accidentally switched on during a routine patrol, the CBC reports. One West End resident tells the CBC that she was shocked, but her husband cracked up laughing as they heard one officer ask, "Can you give me a blow job?" and another officer reply, "You have too much body hair" as the chopper flew over their home. Before the officers realized the mistake and turned the PA off, residents took to social media to share snippets of the conversation—and complain that they missed the X-rated parts. Police have apologized and say disciplinary measures for the officers involved are being considered, the Winnipeg Free Press reports. "We're sincerely apologetic about it," a spokesman says. "We're going to review the situation, I can assure you, and members of the executive are very much aware of the sensitivity and the nature of what was broadcast, and they will be looking into it and ultimately make a determination from there." (A Southwest Airlines pilot accidentally let dozens of other pilots hear his complaint about failing to score with flight attendants at "one of the ugliest bases.")
– The funeral for 22-month-old Cooper Harris takes place today, and dad Justin Ross Harris won't be allowed to leave prison to attend, reports NBC News. The 33-year-old left his son in a hot car in a case that police in Georgia's Cobb County say wasn't "simple negligence." As more fishy circumstances about the case have surfaced, supporters of Harris have taken down a Change.org petition demanding that police drop murder charges. Authorities say they will lay out the evidence against Harris in more detail eventually, and new details are scarce in the meantime because his family isn't talking to the media and Harris himself is refusing visitors in jail, reports CNN. His employer, Home Depot, has placed him on unpaid leave as those who know him try to make sense of the murder charges. "I've known Ross for over 10 years and he is a selfless man who loved people and loved his family more," reads a typical post on that now-closed petition site. "NOTHING in his life even hints at this behavior." Prior to his job with the online side of Home Depot, Harris worked as a police dispatcher for three years in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, reports Al.com. He also had low-level jobs at his alma mater, the University of Alabama.
– President Trump's latest round of sanctions against Russia is going to hit some billionaires with close ties to Vladimir Putin, officials say. Sources tell Reuters and the Washington Post that the new sanctions, expected to be in place by Friday, will target Russian oligarchs under powers given to Trump by the "Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act." Congress passed the act last year in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea and alleged interference in the 2016 election. The administration, accused by critics of not being tough enough on Russia, imposed sanctions on 19 Russians last month and has joined dozens of other nations in expelling Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning of an ex-spy in Britain. "If they do something tough like this, it may go some distance in reassuring angry members of Congress and the public who are looking at the midterms and wondering if this administration is focused on the Russian threat and taking moves to address it," former Treasury official Liz Rosenberg tells the Post. Sources say the sanctions will target around a half-dozen oligarchs from a list of Russian business and political leaders the administration released earlier this year. CNN reports that the move follows HR McMaster's strong denunciation of Russian aggression in his final remarks as national security adviser. "We have failed to impose sufficient costs," warned McMaster, who has been replaced by John Bolton.
– Backlash followed Casey Affleck's Best Actor win at the Oscars, with numerous people tweeting a reminder that in 2010, Affleck was accused of sexual harassment. Affleck ultimately settled the lawsuits from two women who worked with him on I'm Still Here, one of whom claimed he climbed into bed with her uninvited as she slept in a hotel room and the other of whom said he got violent with her while trying to force her to stay in the hotel room, per Us. The settlement amounts were not made public, and Affleck has called the accusations nothing more than "extortion." In his first interview following the Oscar win, he addressed the issue with the Boston Globe. The Globe notes that Affleck "sighed heavily" before noting that both sides are barred from commenting on the issue, per the settlement agreement. But "I believe that any kind of mistreatment of anyone for any reason is unacceptable and abhorrent, and everyone deserves to be treated with respect in the workplace and anywhere else," he said. "There’s really nothing I can do about it. Other than live my life the way I know I live it and to speak to what my own values are and how I try to live by them all the time."
– Gay couples in Michigan wasted little time taking advantage of yesterday's court ruling that cleared the way for same-sex marriages in the state. The honors for Michigan's first went to Glenna DeJong, 53, and Marsha Caspar, 52, a Lansing couple who were wed just after 8am by the county clerk in Ingham County, reports the Detroit Free Press. County clerks elsewhere in the state also opened their doors on the weekend for the occasion. "To be on the other side of history right now is joyous," DeJong tells the Detroit News. It's possible that all those who get married today will end up in a legal limbo familiar to gay couples in other states. Michigan's attorney general has asked the 6th Circuit Court to stay yesterday's decision by Judge Bernard Friedman that the state's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. If the court agrees, the ban would once again be in effect as the case winds through the appeals process. But for the moment, at least, Michigan is the 18th state to legalize gay weddings.
– The victim death toll from the London terror attack last month is now at five after a woman pulled from the Thames was taken off life support Thursday and died, the New York Times reports. Andreea Cristea, a 31-year-old architect from Romania, had been on the Westminster Bridge on March 22 when Khalid Masood rammed his car into a crowd of pedestrians. The Times says it still hasn't been determined whether the force of Masood's car sent Cristea into the river or if she jumped in to get out of the way, though the BBC quotes the Romanian ambassador to the UK as saying it appears Masood's car hit Cristea's boyfriend, Andrei Burnaz, before slamming into Cristea and sending her over the edge of the bridge. Cristea and Burnaz had been in London to celebrate Burnaz's birthday, and Burnaz, who suffered a broken foot in the attack, had an even bigger surprise planned: He intended to ask Cristea to marry him the same day as the attack. He joined her family in issuing a statement that described the "crushing pain and emptiness" now that Cristea has passed, noting she was "cruelly and brutally ripped away from our lives in the most heartless and spiritless way." They also added any leftover money people had donated to help fund her medical care would now go to charity. London's mayor paid tribute to Cristea on Twitter, saying he was "deeply saddened" to hear she had died. "Londoners hold her & her loved ones in our thoughts today," tweeted Sadiq Khan early Friday.
– The Trump administration got the It treatment on Saturday Night Live, with Kellyanne Conway (Kate McKinnon) appearing in a storm gutter as Kellywise the clown, reports Entertainment Weekly. The sketch featured Alex Moffat as Anderson Cooper, asking Kellywise, "What did you do to your makeup?" McKinnon replies, "I toned it down," before demanding to be allowed back on TV. Alec Baldwin also returned as President Trump, in a far-ranging Cold Open that included a rally for truckers in which Baldwin intoned, "I love truckers. We have so much in common. And not just because all of the blood in our body pools in our legs and our butts." Baldwin then talks "Liddle" Bob Corker, Eminem's "nasty" freestyle, and coaches Beck Bennett's Mike Pence on leaving an NFL game after players kneel. Highlights are in the gallery.
– On Monday, a judge sentenced Chicagoan Timothy Jones, 23, to 90 years in prison for the 2011 death of a pregnant 17-year-old. But other sentences from that day were just as impactful: those of victim Charinez Jefferson's mother, Debbie Jefferson, who lost her life to bone cancer in February and whose deathbed message to Jones was read by a prosecutor, reports the Chicago Tribune. "I watched you during the trial and you showed no remorse," said Jefferson. "So maybe you wouldn't know how I feel. From this day forward, when you open and close your mouth and eyes, and you are still able to walk and talk, stop and take a minute and think about the lives you destroyed." Charinez, who was eight months pregnant, isn't the only one unable to walk and talk in the aftermath of Jones' crime: Her unborn son Kahmani was saved, but he exists in a vegetative state. Jefferson called Charinez as she was walking home from a corner store with a male friend in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood on Aug. 16, 2011. "Here I come, Mama," Jefferson recalled her saying, reports the Tribune. Minutes later, Jones fired two shots at the man, a member of a rival gang. The intended victim ran, so Jones turned to Charinez, shooting her eight times: in the foot, ankle, thigh, buttock, chest, and neck, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. A witness testified that she begged Jones to spare her and her unborn child; instead, he shouted an expletive at her, reports the Tribune. Kahmani's brain was deprived of oxygen, and his skull was fractured as Charinez fell to the ground. Said Jefferson, "All of your sleepless nights and dreary days, I pray you ask God for forgiveness and to have mercy on your soul."
– Fierce clashes continue to erupt in Syria, even as the UN's deadline for a ceasefire looms a week from today. Kofi Annan's peace plan requires Syrian troops to withdraw from towns and cities by April 10, and the UN expects both sides to stop fighting within two days afterward, the AP reports. A UN team will arrive in the country today to discuss the deployment of observers who will monitor the ceasefire plan, the Guardian adds. Even so, activists report fighting in several areas today, Reuters notes, including government troops reportedly staging one of the most violent attacks so far on a Damascus suburb. One activist group says at least 27 have been killed today. But Syrian officials tell Annan, the UN-Arab League envoy, that troops are already beginning to withdraw from Daraa, Idlib, and Zabadani.
– Last night, 14 Republicans running for president joined a forum in Manchester, NH, with two major differences from the upcoming official debate on Fox News on Thursday: no requirement to be in the pollsters' top 10, and no Donald Trump. Instead of debating each other, the candidates took two turns speaking over two hours, and delivered what the New York Times calls "strikingly uneven performances" in which they focused their attacks on President Obama and Hillary Clinton instead of their fellow Republicans. Trump said he didn't have time to attend the event, though Politico reports that he offered to attend if the Union Leader, which sponsored the "Voters First Forum," gave him its endorsement. Sens. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul took part via telecast, having stayed in Washington for the Planned Parenthood vote. Mike Huckabee and Jim Gilmore, the 17th candidate, were absent. Some highlights from the forum: Carly Fiorina insisted she was the Republican best able to take on Clinton, saying the party needs a nominee "who is going to throw every punch." In what Politico sees as a sign of desperation from the candidate at the bottom of the polls, Sen. Lindsey Graham brought up the Lewinsky scandal. "I'm fluent in Clinton-speak," he said. "When Bill says I didn't have sex with that woman—he did." Rick Perry got plenty of laughs when he was asked what federal agencies he would cut, which the Times notes is the same question that probably doomed his 2012 campaign. "I've heard this question before," Perry quipped. Cruz turned in one of the better performances and was his usual "firebrand self," according to the Hill. If the Iran "deal goes through, the Obama administration will become the leading global financier of radical Islamic terrorism," he said. Chris Christie, who may not make the final cut on Thursday, said, "Jack, you saying I'm washed up?" when moderator Jack Heath asked the NJ governor if he would have had a better chance in 2012, per the Times.
– For some, sexual identity isn't about whom you find attractive, but whether you feel much attraction at all. In Wired, Kat McGowan suggests that our expanding understanding of sexuality may still have a long way to go. Asexual people are defined at the Asexual Visibility and Education Network as those "who do not experience sexual attraction." That support network, Wired reports, gave rise to the term "demisexual," which demisexuality.org defines as an "orientation in which someone feels sexual attraction only to people with whom they have an emotional bond." Then there are gray-asexuals, also known as "gray-aces," somewhere in between; their sexual desire level fluctuates, McGowan writes. Among those McGowan interviews, there are also varying degrees of nonsexual romantic feeling. Some are panromantic, with the potential to develop such feelings for anyone; others call themselves heteroromantic or aromantic. Though the labels exist, there's no need to get caught up in them, say those who use them: "Every single asexual I’ve met embraces fluidity—I might be gray or asexual or demisexual," says a 24-year-old. "Us aces are like: whatevs." It's unclear how common the experience is, with surveys putting the figure between 0.6% and 5.5% of the population. Its rarity means grappling with others' assumptions: "People ask, ‘Who hurt you?’" a student tells the Pitt News. "No one hurt me—this is just who I am." (The Internet offers a refuge to those who define themselves as asexual.)
– What Joey Chestnut went into today hoping: That he'd be able to scarf down a record 70 hot dogs in 10 minutes, and that Neslie Ricasa would say yes. Though the seven-time champ did manage to notch win No. 8 at the annual Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island today, he didn't hit his mark. USA Today reports Chestnut ate 61 hot dogs in 10 minutes, down from his previous high of 69. And it was neck-and-neck for much of the way, with Matt Stonie taking the lead about four minutes in. They swapped in and out of the top spot until 1:13 remained, at which point they were tied at 53; Stonie only managed to get three more dogs in, to Chestnut's eight. But 90 minutes before Chestnut's feat, he was down on one knee proposing to his longtime girlfriend, who said yes. AP asks the million-dollar question: Will they serve hot dogs at the wedding? On the women's side, good fortune didn't smile on the Black Widow today. Three-time defending champion Sonya Thomas lost her hot dog-eating title to 28-year-old Miki Sudo of Las Vegas, who wolfed down 34 franks and buns in 10 minutes to Thomas' 27 3/4 hot dogs and buns. It's a big fall from how Thomas performed last year, when she downed a record 45 dogs and buns, reports the AP.
– Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky's wedding playlist has a boomer slant so strong that it suggests the thirtysomethings like the same music as their parents—or that someone's pulling TMZ's leg. Selections include hits by Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Sam Cooke, and Michael Jackson. And they'd better be pretty good renditions—the band's costing $40,000, according to a painfully detailed breakdown by Politics Daily, which puts the total tab in the neighborhood of $2 million. Nice neighborhood! More selections from the playlist: The Turtles, "Happy Together" Dusty Springfield, "Son of a Preacher Man" Michael Jackson, "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" Ike and Tina Turner, "Proud Mary" Diana Ross, "I'm Coming Out" Jackie Wilson,"Higher and Higher"
– The 17-year-old son of an Omaha police detective opened fire at his high school yesterday, shooting the principal and assistant principal, who later died of her injuries. The principal is in serious but stable condition, AP reports. The student, identified as Robert Butler Jr., fled the school and fatally shot himself in his car. Butler—who had transferred to the high school in October—did not shoot any students. In a rambling Facebook post, he blamed Omaha and the high school for changing him, and said he wanted people to remember the person he was before. "He was popular with students and seemed real pleasant," the principal of his previous high school told the Omaha World-Herald, describing Butler as "a fairly normal, average" student. Click for more on Butler's plans to do "evil things."
– A 17-year-old Baltimore high school student was shot today on the first day of school. Police tell the Baltimore Sun that the male Perry Hall High School student, whose condition was not available, was taken to a hospital. The suspect is in custody and the rest of the students have been evacuated. "It's horrifying," says a Baltimore County councilman who lives next to the school. "This is a very peaceful community." Parents tell WJZ-TV there may have been a Facebook threat against the school; there are also unconfirmed reports that the victim was shot in the back in the school cafeteria. The station has video of a shirtless young man in handcuffs, the AP notes.
– Abortion is one of the sins that mandates automatic excommunication in the Roman Catholic Church, but for the Holy Year of Mercy that begins Dec. 8, Pope Francis says priests can, at their discretion, absolve women for terminating pregnancies, Reuters reports. "Many … believe that they have no other option," the pontiff said in a letter released today by the Vatican. "I am well aware of the pressure that has led them to this decision. I know that it is an existential and moral ordeal. I have met so many women who bear in their heart the scar of this agonizing and painful decision." He then instructs priests to offer forgiveness to women who've had one and who have a "contrite heart," and as long as the priests relay "words of genuine welcome combined with a reflection that explains the gravity of the sin committed." The usual excommunication over abortion applies not only to women who receive one, but also for those who take part in providing one or help a woman get one, and usually only a Christian missionary or the "chief confessor of a diocese" can formally forgive a woman who's terminated a pregnancy, Reuters notes. However, when the church calls a holy year, or jubilee year, it's a time for sins to be remitted and pardons welcomed from God, per the National Catholic Reporter; jubilee years have historically taken place every 25 to 50 years since the year 1300, the paper adds. Pope Francis' jubilee year will end Nov. 20, 2016. No word if women who've had abortions will go back to being excommunicated after it's over. (The pope recently made a conciliatory gesture toward remarried Catholics.)
– Michael C. Hall is a newlywed again. A spokesman for Hall says the former Dexter star married writer Morgan Macgregor on Monday morning at New York City Hall, the AP reports. Publicist Craig Bankey released no other details. Hall has been performing onstage in New York stage since wrapping Dexter in 2013. Macgregor is a Los Angeles-based book critic. They first appeared publicly as a couple in 2012. This is the 45-year-old actor's third marriage. He was previously wed to actresses Amy Spanger and his Dexter co-star Jennifer Carpenter. (There were rumors it was another Dexter co-star who broke up the Hall-Carpenter marriage.)
– After he says he was stood up by a moving company, Tituss Burgess did not take a breath and a sip of pinot noir. Rather, the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt actor very publicly lost his cool on Frank's Express with a scathing Yelp review on Wednesday, giving the New York City moving company a single star for its no-show and what he alleges was an attempt to bribe him into a discount if he wrote a good review. Jezebel points out that most of the reviews are "glowing," but another one-star review from June complains of the same no-show and good-review request. "I said when you complete the job i will complete the review," Burgess writes in his review, and adds that they texted for 45 minutes, and the no-show "completely (threw) my entire day." Burgess ends his tantrum with, "You messed with the wrong Queen," followed by a series of hashtags that Mediaite particularly loves. Among them: #Iamgonnamakeavideoaboutyoubecauseofthedeepangerif­eel and #DONOTTHREATENMEIWILLWIN. More than 500 people have rated his review useful and helpful, while the moving company says that the whole episode is a "fatal mistake." "The problem is that we don’t know this guy," a Franks Express manager tells Entertainment Weekly. "I don’t know what company [he] did it with, but it’s definitely not Franks Express." (Burgess tells EW there is no mistake.) Burgess soon took to Twitter to add that a company rep called him a gay slur via text and ends with: "Poor thing doesn't know hell hath no fury like a Tituss scorned." (One company is seeking $1 million for a negative Yelp review.)
– Soccer coach Bob Bradley has been fired after more than four years at the helm of Team USA. Bradley was rehired until 2014 after the US reached the second round of the 2010 World Cup finals, but few people are surprised by the move now to replace him, the Washington Post notes. Insiders say Bradley's fate was probably sealed when the US blew a 2-goal lead last month to lose the Concacaf Gold Cup final to arch-rival Mexico 4-2. The US Soccer Federation says it will make an announcement about Bradley's replacement today. German coach Jurgen Klinsmann—who turned down the job in 2006—is seen as the likeliest candidate. Bradley's firing is "disappointing," Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson tells the New York Times. "I think he’s done a fine job. He’s always been a diligent and honest worker, and I think the achievement of taking his team to the World Cup finals will not be forgotten."
– Just how bad are things for President Obama a year into his second term? So bad that if the American people got a mulligan on the 2012 election, there's a good shot we'd be looking at a President Romney. A Washington Post-ABC News poll reveals that if the election were held today, Obama would lose the popular vote 45% to 49%. While the Post reminds us that the Electoral College, not the popular vote, is the ultimate decider, it notes that spread roughly mirrors the 4 points Obama actually won by, and reflects plummeting support from his key demographics: Obama won women by 11 points; now, his edge is down to one point. He won voters aged 18-39 by 18 points; that's down to two. He won voters earning less than $50,000 by 22 points; it's down to three. He's now nine points in the hole with voters without a college degree, after winning them by four points. While he'd still win 59% of liberals, that's down from 75%—and 20% now say they'd vote for Romney. Obama's approval rating has fallen 13 points this year to 42%, tying its lowest mark ever in the poll. The culprit, as you might suspect, is at least in part the Affordable Care Act rollout, which 63% think has been handled poorly. The public now opposes the law itself 57%-40%, its worst numbers yet, and 71% favor delaying the individual mandate.
– Meat is often the bad guy linked to higher cancer rates: The World Health Organization says bacon is carcinogenic and red meats in general "probably" are, while grilling meats is linked to higher kidney cancer rates. But researchers out of New York University report in ScienceDaily that their latest study suggests it isn't just meat but highly processed "bad" carbohydrates (think sugary soft drinks and pizza) that are linked to higher cancer rates. They've presented their findings at the American Society for Nutrition Scientific Sessions and Annual Meeting, noting that the link is strongest to prostate cancer, which is nearly twice as common among men who eat "bad" carbs over "good" ones such as legumes and whole grains. The longitudinal study follows 3,100 volunteers as far back as the 1970s, with participants regularly reporting detailed food questionnaires starting in 1991. All foods were categorized by glycemic index, which measures carbohydrate quality by looking at its impact on blood sugar compared to a reference food, as well as glycemic load, which measures both the quantity and quality of carbs in each item. Controlling for many variables, they compared these results to the participants' cancer rates. And while Popular Science notes that there are some holes in the study, including that 99% of the participants were Caucasian, the study is a "robust" one and will likely be followed up by additional investigations into the precise mechanism at play between carbs and cancers. (Bad carbs have also been linked to depression.)
– Europe is welcoming the largest US military deployment in the region since the Cold War. Some 87 tanks, 144 armored vehicles, and 4,000 soldiers are expected to reach Poland in the coming days, with many already in place, before they're spread across Poland, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as part of a NATO commitment in response to Russia's actions in Ukraine, reports the Guardian. Denmark, Spain, Norway, Poland, and the UK are also contributing to the force, which will conduct military exercises and rotate every nine months as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, reports the BBC. But with a week before Donald Trump becomes president, the future of the force remains unclear. Trump has suggested he may not stick to NATO guidelines to defend all members. He also desires a warmer relationship with Russia than President Obama allowed, and the Kremlin has called the deployment a threat to its national security. A Russian security official tells Sputnik that "Trump and his new military advisers may well review [these] tactics," which he described as a "PR attack." The subject will likely come up Thursday during a Senate confirmation hearing for Trump's pick for secretary of defense, James Mattis.
– IKEA, the Swedish furniture chain so massive it employs 150,000 people in hundreds of stores in almost 30 countries, now eats up an incredible 1% of the world's entire commercial wood supply, reports Pacific Standard. That was 17.8 million cubic yards in 2012—an amount so unfathomable that for more than 20 years IKEA, which was incorporated in 1943, has managed it all through its own wood sourcing and production company, Swedwood, reports Gizmodo. IKEA does appear to be trying to harvest some of that wood sustainably, with 23% of it certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, meaning it is both sustainably and legally sourced, IKEA reports. Still, there is no sidestepping the company's impact worldwide. With 212 million copies printed every year, its catalog is more than twice as widely distributed as the Bible, and the company distributed a whopping 2.5 billion little wooden dowels in 2011, according to the Telegraph, which adds that an estimated one in five babies in the UK was conceived in an IKEA bed. (Speaking of baby-making, check out how IKEA recently celebrated Valentine's Day.)
– It is hard to get 91% of Americans to agree on anything, but this is nearing unanimous: Congress stinks. Gallup's latest poll pegs Congress' approval rating at 9%, the lowest mark in the 39-year history of Gallup. The number brings 2013's average to 14%, which would be an all-time annual low. It's worth noting that while the number is historically low for Gallup, it's right in line with the other numbers in Real Clear Politics' polling average, and far from the lowest any poll has recorded. An AP-GfK poll from the first week of the government shutdown came in with just a 5% approval rating. As we've noted in the past, this puts Congress somewhere south of torture and Paris Hilton. President Obama's numbers look delightful by comparison—Gallup gives him a 56% approval rating—but he did take some hits in the character departments. For the first time, less than half of Americans believe he's a "strong and decisive leader," with the number dipping from 53% in September to 47% now. He's also dropped five points in the "honest and trustworthy" category, to 55%.
– Shearing sheep is one thing, activists say—and shearing them while shouting or attacking the animals is quite another. That was PETA's argument against Australian sheep shearers last year when the group revealed video shot by an undercover operative, ABC News Australia reports. But the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals disallowed the video for reasons that aren't clear, and the case turned on alleged verbal abuse. "I think it is conceivable that verbal abuse of an extreme nature against an animal, whether it be human, sheep or otherwise, could constitute an act of violence," says Nicolah Donovan, president of Lawyers for Animals. But Ken Turner, head of the sheep-shearing station involved, scoffed at the notion. "I still haven't had a sheep come to me (to complain)—they didn't even look offended to me after they were shorn," says Turner, 9 News reports. "I thought, is this a joke? Is this April Fools?" PETA lost the case, and some media outlets poked fun at the story. But video on PETA's website (WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT) appears to show Australian sheep shearers punching sheep in the face and striking them in the head with a hammer and metal clippers. Sheeps were reportedly left bleeding from their mouths, noses, and eyes. And some graziers recently admitted that livestock work requires "a degree of intimidation," says ABC. "There is no such thing as 'humane' wool," a PETA official told NBC News last year. "The industry is infested with violence and PETA documented cruelty in nearly every shearing shed that we entered."
– President Trump has admitted that he has no proof for his claim that "unknown Middle Easterners" are part of a caravan of migrants making its way to the US border from Central America. He told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he had received "very good information," but no proof, ABC reports. "There's no proof of anything. But there could very well be," Trump said. He said that over the years, "all sorts of people" from the Middle East had been intercepted at America's southern border. "They have intercepted wonderful people from the Middle East," he said. "And they have intercepted bad ones." The caravan was in Huixtla, Mexico, on Tuesday, about 1,000 miles from the US border. When the Washington Post asked Mike Pence earlier Tuesday if he could back up Trump's claims, he said it is "inconceivable that there are not people of Middle Eastern descent in a crowd of more than 7,000 people advancing toward our border." The vice president also claimed that in the last fiscal year, 10 terrorists or suspected terrorists from the Middle East were stopped at the US-Mexico border every day. Pence had his facts mixed up, according to the AP: His own office says US Customs and Border Protection stopped an average of 10 people a day last year trying to enter the US from countries with suspected links to terrorism, but most of them were stopped at airports, not the southern border. (Trump has also claimed that Democrats are behind the caravan.)
– A central Montana rancher shot a wolf-like animal after it was spotted in a pasture with livestock, but a closer look has prompted state wildlife officials to take DNA samples to determine what type of animal it was, reports the AP. Fish, Wildlife, and Parks regional spokesman Bruce Auchly said the animal's front claws and canine teeth are too short and its ears are too tall in proportion to its skull for it to be a purebred wolf. "We have no idea what this was until we get a DNA report back," Auchly tells the Great Falls Tribune. The animal was shot on May 16 near Denton. Wolf management specialist Ty Smucker says the animal could be a wolf-dog hybrid, though DNA tests haven't been returned. Among the colorful possibilities suggested by commenters, per the Tribune: a grizzly cub, a Bigfoot-esque creature called a "dogman," or a prehistoric (and extinct) dire wolf. Whatever it turns out to be, state officials say the rancher was within his rights to kill the animal because it was seen near livestock, domestic dogs, and children.
– An eventful day on the equinox front: We've entered autumn, as of 10:21am EDT, per National Geographic. That means that Sept. 22 will see 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night in the Northern Hemisphere, and our part of the Earth will start to lean further away from the sun as we head into winter. If the arrival of autumn is a depressing signal for you that we're hurtling toward the upcoming cold-weather solstice, the magazine points out it could be worse, a la Game of Thrones: The angle of Uranus' axial tilt is so extreme that its winters last 42 years at a time. Some other tidbits as the leaves start to fall: The Washington Post offers a scientific Q&A for all things autumnal. Don't miss Google's main page, where, per SearchEngineLand.com, its Doodle continues the story of a bunch of rocks who were there with us to witness March's vernal equinox. The Sun does some myth-busting about first-day-of-fall egg balancing. Bustle offers some ideas—some practical, some hedonistic—for celebrating the change of season. Circle back to National Geographic for a list of celestial viewings this week, including a brightly shining Saturn.
– It looks like supporters of gay marriage can celebrate again in Alabama. The state has been stuck between two rulings on same-sex marriage—a federal judge said yes-you-can, and a state judge said oh-no-you-can't—and the confusion caused Mobile County Probate Judge Don Davis to put everything on hold this week and seek legal clarity. This evening, the federal judge provided it—at least in Mobile County, reports the Wall Street Journal. US District Judge Callie Granade ordered Davis to comply with her original ruling, and the county immediately reopened its marriage license office and began issuing licenses to gay couples, reports AP. What remains unclear is whether probate judges elsewhere in the state will follow suit, reports Al.com. Prior to today, 23 of the state's 67 counties were already complying with Granade's order, while 44 were siding with Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore's view that they didn't need to do so. Moore says he's still studying today's ruling, but “I feel just like I felt earlier," he says. "This is a wrongful intrusion into the jurisdiction of the probate courts in Alabama.”
– Looks like a new Today for Savannah Guthrie. She's been tapped by NBC to replace bounced Today co-host Ann Curry, sources tell the Hollywood Reporter. She's already been offered the job, but there's no immediate word on her response—or the deal she may be negotiating, notes the New York Times. The network wants a new co-host in place before the London Olympics. For the last year Guthrie, 40, who was born in Australia and raised in Arizona, has been co-host of Today's 9am hour with Natalie Morales and Al Roker, and the news division's chief legal correspondent. She was previously NBC's White House correspondent and a co-anchor of an MSNBC morning news program. For other things you probably don't know about Guthrie, check here.
– A case of reckless driving last weekend in Beverly Hills involved a $1.4 million Ferrari, false claims of diplomatic immunity, an alleged death threat, a Middle Eastern sheikh, and zero arrests. The whole thing started Sept. 12 when the swanky Los Angeles neighborhood was terrorized by a yellow Ferrari LaFerrari and white Porsche 911 GT3 speeding down streets, blowing through stop signs, and nearly hitting pedestrians, Yahoo reports. “The driving they’re involved in is atrocious,” Beverly Hills police told Jalopnik. “They’re putting everyone’s lives in danger driving like that.” Yahoo reports a video journalist claims he confronted one of the drivers, who said he had diplomatic immunity and could have the video journalist killed. This week, police identified the owner of the cars as Khalid bin Hamad Al Thani—a member of the Qatar royal family and the owner of a drag-racing team—who does not, in fact, have diplomatic immunity, the AP reports. "You can't claim diplomatic immunity if you don't have it, and you can't use that as an excuse to jeopardize the public or commit crimes," police chief Dominick Rivetti says. There's only one problem: the $10 million rental home where Al Thani was staying has been cleaned out, and police don't know where he or his cars are; he reportedly left the country. It likely wouldn't matter anyway, as police can't charge anyone unless they can prove that person was actually behind the wheel, which they haven't been able to in this case. (This driver made headlines for his fast loop around Manhattan.)
– It's a milestone of sorts for conspiracy theorists: The CIA has for the first time declassified documents that detail the existence of Area 51 in Nevada, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The documents, obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request by a national security institute at George Washington University, explain that Area 51 got its start in 1955 because the government needed a place to test U-2 spy planes. Aliens in crashed spaceships are nowhere to be found in the documents. But here's one weird detail that is: The government initially called it "Paradise Ranch" to make the "facility in the middle of nowhere" sound more alluring to workers. The documents include a CIA map of the site, which is pretty much the same one that has long been available in a Google Maps search for "Area 51," notes CNN. So what's the big deal here? It's "clearly a conscious decision to acknowledge the name, the location rather than play pretend about the secrecy,” says the researcher who filed the FOIA request, Jeffrey Richelson. It should pave the way for the release of even more information about the site, he adds. You can dig into the 400 pages of documents here.
– What's known in the business as a "fat finger" trade may have been responsible for yesterday's stock market chaos, analysts say. Multiple sources believe a trader at a major firm—possibly Citigroup—hit a "B" instead of an "M" while trading Procter & Gamble shares, selling a billion shares instead of a million, and sending the Dow Jones on a panicky rollercoaster ride. Major exchanges are also examining possible erroneous trades in multiple stocks that triggered glitches in the trading system, notes the Wall Street Journal. Traders were already nervous and the Greek crisis had been sending prices downward even before the panic, the New York Times notes. The plunge "happened so quickly, it was like a torpedo," said a chief strategic officer at a top hedge fund. "It was mayhem." The lesson from yesterday's chaos should be that "any market can fail temporarily," writes Felix Salmon at Reuters, predicting that the panic that hit markets yesterday will result in "increased volatility and risk aversion."
– It's official: Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona has been criminally charged with federal contempt of court and could face up to six months in jail if convicted. The case stems from December 2011 when a federal judge barred the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office from conducting Arpaio's signature immigration patrols targeting Latinos, solely on suspicion they were in the country illegally, as a racial-profiling case against the Sheriff's Office was playing out. Evidence, however, suggests officers continued with the program for at least another 18 months, reports the Arizona Republic. Lawyers for Arpaio, 84, say he unintentionally violated the judge's order. Arpaio—who may still face a charge of obstruction of justice for allegedly failing to hand in evidence—has previously said a criminal-contempt charge would be nothing more than an effort to prevent his re-election to a seventh term. His Dec. 6 trial date ensures he won't lose any time on the campaign trail, which he apparently needs: Arpaio sits 15 points behind his Democratic challenger, according to a poll released last week, per Reuters. Arpaio's campaign manager, however, says internal polling has Arpaio leading by 7.5 points.
– The latest Republican debate has wrapped up, this one focused mostly on the economy and on the newest darling of the polls, Herman Cain. If Rick Perry was hoping to land a knockout punch on Mitt Romney, it never arrived. In fact, the night was "exceedingly well-mannered," notes Politico. (Click for analysis on who won and lost). Snippets of coverage: "As expected, Mr. Romney has become the focus of the questions from his rivals. But so far, they have had little luck knocking the Massachusetts governor off his stride." Michael D. Shear, New York Times. Laugh line: "I thought it was the price of a pizza when I first heard it," said Jon Huntsman of Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan. Cain fires back: "Nine-nine-nine will pass and it is not the price of a pizza. It starts with, unlike your proposals, throwing out the current tax code." Cain-Romney: "Can you name all 59 points in your 160-page economic plan?" Cain asked him. "Simple answers are often very helpful, but oftentimes inadequate," Romney replied. Perry-Romney: "Surprise, surprise: Perry asks Romney about Romneycare being the founding idea behind Obamacare. Romney defends his plan, saying it didn't affect people who already had health insurance. Then he tries to turn the question around, saying Texas has tons of uninsured kids." Elspeth Reeve, AtlanticWire. Bachmann-Romney: (Romney surprisingly addressed his one allowed question to Michele Bachmann.) He "wants to put Bachmann on the spot about how she would revive the economy. Why didn't he ask Perry? Maybe he doesn't want to give Perry any air time?" Patrick O'Connor, Wall Street Journal. Occupy Wall Street: "Newt Gingrich got visibly worked up in response to a question about the Occupy Wall Street protests. He attacked the idea that Wall Street bankers should go to jail for the economic crisis, calling out D.C. regulators—including former Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank by name." Alexander Burns, Politico. AP's first paragraph: "Presidential challenger Mitt Romney accused President Barack Obama of failing to lead in a time of economic peril but sounded less conservative than his Republican rivals in their debate Tuesday night, defending the 2008-2009 Wall Street bailout and declaring he could work with 'good' Democrats."
– President Trump fired back at Kim Jong Un's claim to have a nuclear button on his desk by telling the North Korean leader that his button is bigger—and more functional. Kim "just stated that the 'Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times,'" Trump tweeted Tuesday. "Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!" Trump, who appears to be stepping up his rhetoric against Pyongyang after months of relatively restrained remarks, also brought back his "Rocket Man" nickname for Kim earlier Tuesday, the Washington Post reports. The reaction on social media ranged from shock that Trump was treating the prospect of nuclear war so blithely to delight that Trump was attacking Kim and upsetting "snowflakes" at the same time, the New York Times reports. Some—including CNN host Brian Stelter—argued that Trump might be having some kind of meltdown, or argued that Twitter should shut down his account for violating its terms of service. Others noted that Trump doesn't actually have a big nuclear button on his desk—to launch a nuclear strike, he would have to use a briefcase known as the "nuclear football." (Relations between North Korea and South Korea, meanwhile, may be improved by the Winter Olympics in the South next month.)
– The year's best magazine articles cover everything from Scientology to conjoined twins to religious slavery in a Louisiana prison. Slate lists 10 favorites via Longform.org, including: "The Apostate," The New Yorker. Famed Hollywood screenwriter Paul Haggis reveals his falling out with the Church of Scientology. "I just went along, to my shame," Haggis says. "I did what was easy ... without asking them, or myself, any hard questions." "The Movie Set That Ate Itself," GQ. "Madman" director Ilya Khrzhanovsky assembled a cast of thousands in a Ukrainian city, built a totalitarian society, and filmed his actors all the time. "He looks completely, utterly delighted." "Could Conjoined Twins Share a Mind?" New York Times Magazine. Twins Krista and Tatiana Hogan are joined at the head, with a unique neural anatomy. "Their brain images reveal what looks like an attenuated line stretching between the two organs. ... One girl drinks, another girl feels it." "Dispatch From Angola," Colorlines. Inmates working hard labor on 18,000 acres of Louisiana farmland are ordered to believe in God. "Choosing not to do what God commands is rebellion, and such disobedience has consequences," says a former prisoner. See the rest of Slate's list here.
– The days are numbered for one of Mars' two moons, and the culprit turns out to be Mars itself. It seems that the two are engaged in what Discovery describes as a gravitational tug-of-war, and Mars is going to win. It will take a while, about 30 million to 50 million years, but eventually Phobos will literally fall apart. For now, Mars is drawing the moon toward it at a rate of about 6 feet per century, though the two won't actually collide. Someday, Phobos will drop low enough to reach what's known as the Roche Limit, explains Universe Today, and it will be "torn apart" by the planet's tidal forces. Researchers came to the conclusion by studying the moon's distinctive grooves, marks that were once thought to be created by asteroid strikes. Now, however, they liken them to "stretch marks" formed by this tug-of-war, the scientists say in a post at Science Daily. "We think that Phobos has already started to fail, and the first sign of this failure is the production of these grooves," says Terry Hurford of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "Eventually, Phobos will be ripped apart before it reaches Mars’ surface." Phobos already holds the distinction of being the moon closest to its planet in our solar system, orbiting at a relatively scant distance of 3,700 miles. While the idea that the moon's grooves were formed by tidal forces, not impacts, was first floated years ago, it was generally rejected because Phobos was thought to be too solid to succumb to such forces. The new thinking is that Phobos' interior is more like a "rubble pile, barely holding together," according to NASA. (Mars may be doing a number on Phobos, but the sun is doing a number on Mars.)
– Roughly three decades ago, California's Proposition 65 came into being, and it's a proposition likely on the minds of many a processed meat producer this week. That's because Prop 65 forces the state to add any item known to up one's cancer risk to a list; products containing a listed item in an amount over a certain threshold must carry a "clear and reasonable warning." Should the state add processed meat to the list in the wake of the WHO report that found such meats can cause colorectal cancer, required labeling could follow. It isn't clear what sort of warnings would be required. The law states a suitable warning can include a note on packaging or a sign where a product is sold, for instance, per the Huffington Post. But even if meat makes the list, "meats will never have to be labeled in the state of California," a consultant with the National Cattlemen's Beef Association tells Reuters. He argues a 2009 court ruling confirmed the federal government has control over labels for meat from plants inspected by the US Department of Agriculture. He adds California could attempt to overturn that ruling, but the North American Meat Institute "would wave the court of appeals decision. It'd be a stupid suit to even try to initiate because it's already been decided." Reuters clarifies that "f ederal law pre-empts warnings on fresh meat." How the law applies to processed meat "is less clear," per the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment . (The meat industry isn't buying the WHO report.)
– A former official in Michele Bachmann's campaign is accusing her of withholding thousands of dollars in pay to Iowa staffers who refuse to sign a non-disclosure agreement, Salon reports. Peter Waldron posted his allegations yesterday on Christian Newswire, saying Bachmann has more than $2 million left over from the campaign but won't pay out a mere $5,000. "It is sobering to think that a Christian member of Congress would betray her testimony to the Lord and the public by withholding earned wages from deserving staff," he wrote. Waldron says it all boils down to an email list the campaign allegedly stole from a home-schooling group. Staffers don't want to sign a non-disclosure agreement because a criminal investigation is pending. "They wanted us to have no further conversation [with police] without first notifying Michele’s attorneys, and we just refused," he says. "We've been lied to at every turn." But Bachmann Finance Chairman James Pollack calls the allegations "false and innacurate," saying the campaign is "in the process of resolving" two "recently submitted" invoices from Iowa consultants.
– Southern England is now on high alert after a series of animal killings across the region—mostly in the form of beheadings—has rendered the original moniker, the Croydon Cat Killer, far too specific. The person is killing well outside the London borough of Croydon and claiming not just felines, but possibly foxes, rabbits, and birds, reports the Guardian. Reports on the number of confirmed mutilated cat corpses conflict somewhat, but the Independent says more than 40 have been found since October, and both it and the Guardian put the overall victim count in excess of 100. "It looks like the killer ... does what he does, then puts the cat back where he finds them. It is often right on people's doorsteps or driveways," says the co-founder of the South Norwood Animal Rescue and Liberty (SNARL) charity. The RSPCA says its own post-mortem exams have determined "blunt force trauma" was the cause of death, with the mutilations—slashed neck or decapitation, slashed belly or organs removed, tail or leg severed—likely happening afterward. SNARL has been pushing the media to call the reaper the M25 Animal Killer, with M25 a reference to the 117-mile highway that nearly encircles London, as the mutilated animals have been found within and outside of it. PETA, for its part, has offered a roughly $7,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the killer, writing, "History shows that past incidents involving cruelty to animals regularly appear in the records of serial rapists and murderers." But the brutality has yet to slow; the Evening Standard reports two more cats may have fallen victim to the killer last week. (This serial bunny killer may have used Google Earth to track down rabbit hutches.)
– A flight attendant who stopped serving passengers alcohol after she converted to Islam says things were going perfectly until a colleague complained. Charee Stanley says that after she found out that her faith didn't allow her to serve booze, her supervisor at ExpressJet suggested that she work out an arrangement with other flight attendants to handle alcohol requests, CNN reports. But after the complaint was received, the airline ditched its religious accommodation, placed Stanley on 12-month unpaid leave, and told her she could be fired when the year was up, according to a lawyer for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The lawyer tells CNN that the arrangement with the airline had worked "beautifully and without incident" until the complaint from another flight attendant was filed. She tells Detroit News that the complaint seemed Islamophobic, with the other attendant also complaining about Stanley's headscarf and the fact that she carried a book with "foreign" writings. Stanley has filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Michigan, the AP reports. ExpressJet says it is "an equal opportunity employer with a long history of diversity," though it won't comment on the particulars of the case. (United Airlines disciplined a flight attendant who refused to serve a Muslim woman an unopened Diet Coke.)
– You know what they say about drastic times. Rhino poaching has gotten so much worse in Namibia in the past year that the government is moving forward with a drastic measure—cutting off the coveted horns before poachers can get to them. Unfortunately, even this may not fully deter poachers, who at least in Zimbabwe have still killed dehorned rhinos to get what they could for the stubs that remained, reports the Smithsonian. Trading rhino horns is banned by the UN, but they're used in Chinese medicine as a treatment for fevers and gout and in Vietnam as a hangover remedy; their consumption is even becoming a status symbol among wealthy men in Vietnam. Roughly a third of the planet's 4,800 black rhinos live in Namibia, and on the surface, the fact that 14 rhinos were killed there this year may not sound alarming, especially when compared to what neighboring South Africa has seen: 769 white rhinos poached this year, per Bloomberg. "It is minor in terms of the total population, but disturbing that more rhinos have been poached in the past year than the past 10 years combined," the managing director of the World Wildlife Fund tells Vice News. The plan is to first anesthetize the rhinos, in some cases from helicopters, and use chainsaws or hacksaws to remove the horns. A new anti-poaching agency of 300 law enforcement officers and surveillance drones will also patrol the national parks. (Last year, poachers killed what may have been the last standing rhino in Mozambique.)
– Kathy Griffin continues to take heat for posing for a photo with what looks like the severed head of President Trump, though Trump himself was late in weighing in. That changed early Wednesday, when Trump fired up his Twitter and—after a tweet referencing "covfefe" and a couple of others—addressed the issue. "Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself," the president tweeted. "My children, especially my 11 year old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick!" Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona did note in his own tweet that it was "nice to see near universal, bipartisan, condemnation" of the imagery, though some on Twitter have wondered where the outrage was when Ted Nugent and others spewed violent sentiment about former President Obama and Hillary Clinton in the past.
– A Massachusetts town has decided it's time to finally lift a ban on arcade games it established when Ms. Pac-Man was new. At a town meeting, the residents of Marshfield voted 203-175 to lift the ban that was introduced in 1982 and went almost all the way to the Supreme Court when business owners challenged it (the court declined to take on the case), reports the Patriot Ledger. The ban was voted in by residents who feared arcade games would bring an undesirable element to the small town and upheld in 1994 and 2011. "This is a progressive step in that it protects life in a small town from an urban-type honky-tonk environment," one resident told the Christian Science Monitor at the time. "The fewer distractions of that type, the easier it is to transfer my ideas and values to my youngster." The ban was successfully challenged by a resident who says he found it unjust even when he was in the fourth grade. "I was sitting thinking, 'Why is this illegal in my town, to have fun with my friends,'" he says, recalling a visit to an arcade in a neighboring town. Six business owners say they are considering installing games, and while it's not clear whether they plan to bring in games from the decades the town missed, Chris Taylor at Mashable would love it "if Marshfield suddenly went hog wild and became a town filled with retro gaming devices." If it "becomes the arcade town that time forgot, well, praise the Pac-Man and pass the quarters," he writes.
– A sixth of all cancers worldwide are the result of potentially treatable or preventable infections caused by bacteria, viruses, and parasites, according to a new study. Researchers found that that almost 2 million new cancer cases in 2008 were caused by the human papilloma virus, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and the stomach bacterium Helicobacter pylori, and that the proportion of cancers caused by infection was three times higher in developing countries, reports the Guardian. A fifth of the 7.5 million cancer deaths worldwide in 2008 were caused by infection-related cancers, the study found. The research shows that vaccines for HPV and hepatitis B should be a priority for health care systems, notes an editorial accompanying the Lancet study. The HPV vaccination program is gaining momentum, but only very slowly, because "it’s hard to get teenagers in for all three doses," and "because HPV is sexually transmitted, it’s evoked a whole bunch of hullaballoo over whether the vaccine promotes promiscuity," the chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center tells ABC. Greater progress has been made with the hepatitis B vaccination program, he says, so the occurrence of liver cancer should be "dropping precipitously" over the next 20 years.
– Ifeoma White-Thorpe is going places. Two years ago, the New Jersey teen won the grand prize in the National Liberty Museum Selma Speech and Essay Contest (watch her recite it on YouTube), she's aced all of her AP classes, she's president of her high school's student government, and now she's been accepted by all eight Ivy League colleges plus Stanford, reports the New York Daily News. Her parents say the decision is hers to make, but the 17-year-old says it'll likely come down to which school offers the most financial aid. Ifeoma says she plans to study biology and pursue a career in public health, but she has a hunch that it is her poetry that got her noticed in her applications. In part of her award-winning essay, which Mic.com reports was among 800 submitted, she talks about being motivated to explore the idea of freedom when her little brother no longer felt safe walking down the street as a black boy. "In order to advance my rights, I will continue to dismiss the stereotypes of the black female," she writes. "I will be outstanding. I will be ravishing in the way that I sew my words together to create a beautiful, unmitigated harmony." CNN reports that Ifeoma joins the ranks of only a handful of students to get into all eight Ivy League schools: Harvard, Yale, Columbia, UPenn, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Princeton. (This valedictorian got into 26 colleges, but didn't sweep the Ivy League.)
– It's a big news day for the Dalai Lama, from the dangerous to the charitable. He will today be awarded $1.5 million for his services to human spirituality, and he's giving away all of the winnings. He'll donate some $1.45 million to India's Save the Children and more than $200,000 to the Minds and Life Institute, which blends scientific investigation and "contemplative tradition." Some of the funds from the Templeton Prize will also support Tibetan monks' scientific education, the BBC reports. The Tibetan spiritual leader received the prize for backing "serious scientific investigative reviews of the power of compassion." "With an increasing reliance on technological advances to solve the world's problems, humanity also seeks the reassurance that only a spiritual quest can answer," said the president of the foundation behind the prize, whose first winner, in 1973, was Mother Teresa. "The Dalai Lama offers a universal voice of compassion underpinned by a love and respect for spiritually relevant scientific research that centers on every single human being."
– Prodigy, one half of iconic rap duo Mobb Deep, died Tuesday in Las Vegas. He was 42. Born Albert Johnson, the rapper was hospitalized after a weekend performance "for complications caused by sickle cell anemia," a disease he'd battled since birth, his publicist says in a statement. An official cause of death is not known, reports NPR. More: The Washington Post looks at how sickle cell anemia influenced Prodigy's rap music, and in particular, what "might be the most paralyzing rap lyric ever written": "I'm only 19, but my mind is old." Variety notes the same lyric ended up in Broadway's Hamilton. At Rolling Stone, Jon Blistein describes how Prodigy and his rap partner Havoc burst onto the rap scene in 1992 and continued making music together, despite solo careers, for more than two decades. Variety mentions Mobb Deep's feuds with Tupac Shakur and Jay-Z. Even Prodigy and Havoc feuded for a time, though they eventually reunited. Havoc has posted a series of photos of the pair on Instagram. Other members of the hip hop community are paying tribute on social media. Carl Lamarre at Billboard rounds up posts from Nas, Lil Wayne, Method Man, Wiz Khalifa, and more. Meanwhile, Billboard compiles seven remixes "that best reinterpret a few of Mobb Deep's most beloved songs."
– The Tennessee Titans have a secret weapon this season: a 1-foot, 2-inch linebacker. At least, that's what players of the just-released Madden NFL 15 video game have found in an apparent glitch, which features the diminutive athlete dodging in between the legs of his relatively gigantic opponents. The identity of the pint-sized player is no secret: It's rookie Christian Kirksey, a linebacker for the Cleveland Browns, reports ABC News. Why he's been shrunk down to AstroTurf level or suited up in a Titans uniform is anyone's guess—Electronic Arts didn't answer ABC News' request for comment. The real-life 6-foot, 2-inch Kirksey doesn't seem to mind the attention. "No matter how small you are, have big dreams, and live big!" he tweeted, followed by the hashtags #reallyLOL, #glitch, and #goodmessagetho. Kirksey also said during an ESPN interview that his first reaction when he found out about the glitch was "Where am I [in] the game? I couldn't even find myself."
– Microsoft got thumped with a $732 million fine issued by the EU antitrust enforcer yesterday for violating the terms of a 2009 deal—thanks to Google and Opera, reports the Financial Times. Microsoft had then promised to offer consumers a choice of Internet browser instead of making Explorer Windows' automatic default. But the "choice screen" displaying users' options disappeared from 15 million computers sold from February 2011 to July 2012, a breach Microsoft called a "technical error," reports the Wall Street Journal. The FT notes that it was Google and Opera who noticed the violation and alerted the watchdog, per sources. The fine is the first time Brussels has punished a company for breaching a settlement, and the EU’s competition authority said the size of the fine was designed to "punish and deter," noting companies "must do what they committed to do or face the consequences." Google had no comment on the decision, but Opera said it was "happy to see that the commission is enforcing compliance with the commitment, which is critical to ensuring a genuine choice among web browsers for consumers." In a look at Google's snitching for the Atlantic Wire, Adam Clark Estes notes that "some would say that Microsoft had it coming to them," pointing out the company has spent months "trolling Google" with its Scroogled campaign.
– In the early 1980s, Byron Preiss buried 12 keys underground in North America that, when found, can be turned in for gems worth $1,000 each. He and a number of collaborators created a book called The Secret: A Treasure Hunt!, published in 1982, that contains a dozen paintings and poems, each of which leads the way to the location of one key—as long as the finder is willing to dig three feet and unearth one of the ceramic casques that holds each key. Preiss was inspired by a wildly popular book with the same idea, Masquerade, that was published in the UK in 1979—but The Secret wasn't nearly so popular, the clues are difficult, and just two keys have been found in the ensuing 32 years. Preiss, the only person who knew exactly where the keys are buried, died in 2005. But thanks to the book's resurgence on the Internet, James Renner is determined to unearth one of the keys, almost 30 years after he first became enchanted with the book as an 8-year-old boy at an Ohio library, he writes in Boing Boing. A Reddit post introduced the book to a new generation of treasure seekers late last year, and it includes links to all sorts of resources, including a comprehensive wiki about the book, high-resolution digital versions of the paintings, a map of the presumed locations of the keys, and much, much more. Or you can do things the hard way, buy the Amazon Kindle version of the book yourself, and try to decode it. As for the two keys found so far, the first was dug up by three kids in Chicago in 1984, and the second was found by two lawyers in Cleveland in 2004. The rest are still up for grabs—and, Preiss' widow confirms to Renner, the gems are, too, so anyone who finds a key will be rewarded. Renner is set to interview the three kids from 1984 and then travel to various locations to search for more keys—all with a documentary crew in tow to film the hunt. (Click to read about seven more lost treasures you can search for.)
– Essena O'Neill became obsessed with social media in high school. By age 16, she had 50,000 followers, and got her first offer to monetize her social media accounts: A bikini company sent her free bikinis if she'd post photos of herself wearing them; soon, the Australian teen was charging companies to post photos of herself wearing their clothes or using their products. She ultimately built up more than 570,000 Instagram followers, 250,000 YouTube subscribers, 250,000 Tumblr subscribers, and got more than 60,000 views on her Snapchat posts on average. Yet O'Neill, who turned 19 Tuesday, has quit it all, as she explains on her new website, Let's Be Game Changers. She posted a nearly 13-minute explanation of her choice here, and writes, "Never again will I let a number define me. IT SUFFOCATED ME." She deleted her Tumblr and Snapchat accounts, Business Insider reports, and she left Instagram up for a week, with the Sunshine Coast Daily reporting that she deleted some 2,000 photos and replaced the original captions of others with more honest ones, like this: "Was paid $400 to post a dress. ... Nothing is wrong with accepting brand deals. I just think it should be known. This photo had no substance, it was not of ethical manufacturing (I was uneducated at the time). SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT REAL is my point." (Her Instagram and YouTube are now kaput, too.) What she'd really like to see (as evidenced by the capital letters): "PLEASE CAN SOMEONE MAKE A SOCIAL SHARING PLATFORM NOT BASED ON VALIDATION IN VIEWS/FOLLOWERS/LIKES BUT SHARED FOR REAL VALUE AND LOVE. THANK YOU. PLEASE HURRY UP." As for how she will make money without paid posts, well, her site is "100% free" but you can give her money anyway.
– An incredibly rare and valuable stamp stolen right out of its exhibition frame at a 1955 convention resurfaced this month in New York and has promptly rocked the philatelic world. "Inverted Jenny" stamps are considered the most famous in America: A printing accident in 1918 produced a single sheet of 100 of the stamps, each featuring an upside-down Curtiss JN-4H biplane, NPR explains. In 1955, someone swiped a block of four from the collection of Ethel Stewart McCoy, whose father was a Dow Jones founder. It is "one of the most notorious crimes in philatelic history," Scott English, administrator of the American Philatelic Research Library, tells the AP. The stamp was submitted this month to New York auction house Spink USA by an unnamed man in his 20s who hails from the UK and says he inherited it from his grandfather; it's unclear if he knew it was stolen. A press release from Spink USA states that the inverted Jenny was "determined to be position 76 in the pane of 100 subjects"—the one in the bottom right of the block of four stolen. Identification took some sleuthing: In a long-ago attempt to disguise it, the stamp "had been reperforated at right and most of the gum was removed, so the pencil position numbers written on the gummed side had been lost." Positions 75 and 65 turned up in 1958 and 1982, respectively, and the new discovery leaves only one of the four stolen stamps unaccounted for. (In 2014, a dealer offered a $50,000 reward for the missing inverted Jennies.) The American Philatelic Research Library at the American Philatelic Society was given rights to the stamps by McCoy, who died in 1980, and is working with the auction house to take possession of the stamp. (By one measure, this stamp is the most expensive thing ever sold.)
– The New York Times reporter who called Melania Trump a hooker during a conversation with a supermodel at New York Fashion Week has come forward. "Speaking at a party in what I thought was a personal conversation, I nevertheless made a stupid remark about the first lady," tweeted Jacob Bernstein on Tuesday. Bernstein (who, USA Today notes, is the son of Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein and Nora Ephron) also called the comment a "mistake" and "not in keeping with the standards of the Times." He said it was "referring to unfounded rumors," and apologized "profusely." Bernstein last made headlines for a moving piece he wrote about his mother's death and a documentary he made about her life. (Here's what the first lady said after the "hooker" remark was publicized.)
– Todd Palin is expected to recover after fracturing eight ribs in a snowmobile crash in Alaska on Sunday, his father tells the AP. Palin, who also suffered a broken shoulder blade and clavicle and a collapsed lung, was undergoing surgery Tuesday at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center in Palmer, wife Sarah Palin writes on Facebook. "Knowing Todd, once he's cognizant, he'll probably ask docs to duct tape him up and he'll call it good. He's tough," she says. Officials tell the Alaska Dispatch News that the single-snowmobile crash occurred around 8pm near Petersville, 70 miles north of the Palins' hometown of Wasilla. It was just "one of those freak accidents," Jim Palin says. News of the crash surfaced after Sarah Palin canceled an appearance at a Trump rally in The Villages, Fla., on Monday, though she actually introduced Trump at a later event in Tampa Bay before flying home to Alaska. Shortly after, the Republican front-runner raised eyebrows when he mentioned Todd Palin in a comment about the San Bernardino shooting, reports the Hill. "If Todd Palin were in that room—frankly, if Sarah Palin were in that room, forget about Todd, especially now—if Sarah Palin were in that room, if somebody were in that room, that had some kind of gun attached to the hip, attached to the ankle … you wouldn't have had this," Trump said. (Sarah and Todd make this list of famous couples who were high school sweethearts.)
– Mary Kennedy didn't get to rest in peace for long: The coffin of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s estranged wife was dug up earlier this month and moved to a new site some 700 feet away, reports the AP, and RFK Jr. apparently requested the move. Mary Kennedy, who killed herself in May, was originally buried near Kennedy family members including Sargent Shriver and Eunice Kennedy Shriver; her new grave site is located on a hill surrounded by empty plots that RFK Jr. is attempting to buy. Mary Kennedy's family lost a court battle with Robert Kennedy Jr. to bury her where they wanted, and they boycotted her May 19 burial at St. Francis Xavier Cemetery, near the Kennedys' compound in Hyannisport, Mass. Meanwhile, Kerry Kennedy, Mary Kennedy's best friend and RFK Jr.'s sister, has been charged with DUI after fleeing the scene of an accident, reports ABC. Kerry Kennedy was found passed out on the side of the highway; she denies she was under the influence, but says she had taken an Ambien.
– Skydiving trailblazer Alexander Polli has died after a wingsuit BASE jumping accident in the French Alps, NBC News reports. The 31-year-old legend slammed into a tree early Monday during a jump in the dangerous Couloir Ensa near Chamonix. He died at the scene, the PGHM mountain rescue unit told NBC. The spot is popular with jumpers but one rescuer said, “It’s a location where there are a lot of accidents.” Polli, who has dual Italian-Norwegian citizenship, is famous for breathtaking stunts that have racked up millions of views on YouTube. His 2013 leap into the narrow Batman Cave in Montserrat Spain from a helicopter speeding at 155mph has been clicked nearly 14 million times. The move had never been attempted before. "In jumping he was fearless—or looked it, at least, doing stunts that took my breath away," Tony Uragallo, Polli’s friend and wingsuit designer, told NBC. Fans posted tributes on Polli's Facebook page and the World Wingsuit League wrote that Polli’s “legacy continues to inspire new generations of jumpers for years to come. Besides jumping, friends from all around the world are going to miss his free-spirit energy and contagious laughter.” Asked about his “absolutely crazy" stunts, Polli told Deutsche Welle he was well-prepared and never sets out to risk his life. He even confided that he was scared of heights. “To be quite honest,” he added, “I am extremely scared of dying." It’s been a deadly month in the French Alps for extreme sports. Accidents have claimed the lives of five people in August: two climbers, a paraglider, a hang glider, and a wingsuit jumper, the Guardian reports.
– According to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, President Obama had to be dragged “kicking and screaming to the table to cut spending,” he said on Fox News Sunday. Cantor says White House senior adviser David Plouffe is being dishonest in his claim that Obama was the one leading that discussion, Politico reports. Elsewhere on the Sunday dial: The president will make a major budget address Wednesday. He will lay out “his approach to long-term deficit reduction,” David Plouffe said on Meet the Press, adding that the president’s 2012 budget includes a plan to reduce the deficit by $1 trillion over the next decade. Meanwhile, Sen. Chuck Schumer said on Face the Nation that details on the spending cuts included in the budget deal will be posted online tomorrow. As Plouffe was charging that not raising the debt ceiling would be a “catastrophic failure,” Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions was on Face the Nation countering that, “The president just can’t waltz in and say we’re going to have a debt crisis if we don’t raise the debt limit … He’s going to have to meet Congress halfway—really the American people halfway.” John Boehner, meanwhile, told donors this weekend that “there will not be an increase in the debt limit without something really, really big attached to it.” The president still wants to raise taxes on the rich, Plouffe said. “He has said he believes taxes on the higher income—people over $250,000—should eventually go up. … I think the president’s goal—and he's been clear about this—is to protect the middle class as we move forward here.”
– New Republic editor Martin Peretz set off a furor earlier this month when he wrote of Muslims: "I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment, which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse." (Read the full blog post here.) Today, he issued an apology, saying the sentence "embarrasses" him. "I wrote that, but I do not believe that. I do not think that any group or class of persons in the United States should be denied the protections of the First Amendment, not now, not ever." He defends another sentence, however, in which he wrote, "Frankly, Muslim life is cheap, especially for Muslims." This one is a "statement of fact, not value," he says. Muslims are killing Muslims all over the world. "The idea that in remarking upon the cheapening of Muslim lives I was calling for the cheapening of Muslim lives, as some have suggested, is preposterous. There is no hatred in my heart; there is deep anxiety about the dangers of Islamism." Read Nicholas Kristof's blistering criticism of the original post here. For more on Islamophobia, click here.
– The vast majority of teens (to the tune of 94% in 2012) are on Facebook, but many of them are gravitating toward Twitter and other social media sites that their parents don't tend to use, according to a new Pew Research Center poll. Researchers found that teenage Facebook users—70% of whom are "friends" with their parents—consider the site a necessary part of socializing, but are losing enthusiasm for it because of overzealous posters, the "drama," and the growing number of adults using Facebook. "They still have their Facebook profiles, but they spend less time on them and move to places like Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr," one of the study's authors tells the AP. And while that aforementioned 94% figure is flat year-over-year, the 26% of teens on Twitter last year is more than double the 12% who used it in 2011. The study also found that teens are sharing a lot more about themselves on social media than in years past, with 90% having posted a picture of themselves, up from 79% in 2006, and 20% making their cell phone number public, up from just 2% in 2006. Only 9% of the teens polled said they were "very concerned" about third parties accessing their data.
– We knew things were not looking good between Jennifer Lopez and Casper Smart, and last week the world discovered they are, in fact, over. But, though rumors have flown that the breakup had something to do with Smart's interest in transsexual models, sources tell Radar the truth is a little more mundane. J.Lo is simply "obsessed with her body," a source explains, and has become a "fitness robot" who reportedly sticks to a regimen of 90-minute workouts. She and Smart "had nothing else to talk about except diet and exercise stuff," the source says. "She has become a health and fitness bore. ... It's 'this cleanse,' 'that workout routine,'" all the time. (Click to read about 7 unusual celebrity workouts.)
– Pro-Russia protesters are bolstering their defenses in eastern Ukraine as Kiev threatens to use force to settle the situation. "A resolution to this crisis will be found within the next 48 hours," Ukraine's interior minister says, per Reuters. "For those who want dialogue, we propose talks and a political solution. For the minority who want conflict, they will get a forceful answer from the Ukrainian authorities." The separatist protesters, meanwhile, have built gasoline bombs and installed barricades of tires and crates around a seized security building in the eastern city of Luhansk. The separatists had been holding 60 people hostage, according to Ukrainian security services; they've now let 56 people leave, though it's not certain if those who have left were part of the reported 60, the AP notes. Protesters are also holding a building in the city of Donetsk; in Kharkiv, Ukrainian forces have retaken another site, they say, via the BBC. John Kerry says Russia is "the catalyst behind the chaos of the last 24 hours," and German leader Angela Merkel says it's "not clear that Russia is contributing to a de-escalation of the situation." For its part, Russia says the US and Ukraine "have no reason to be worried," Reuters notes. Despite a direct appeal from a separatist leader in Luhansk for Vladimir Putin to "have mercy on your fighters," Putin says Russia doesn't plan to invade, but says it has the right to stand up for its interests.
– Crater of Diamonds State Park has lived up to its name once again, in a pretty big way. Park officials yesterday announced that the fifth largest diamond ever found by a visitor to the Murfreesboro, Arkansas, park was found on Wednesday. Bobbie Oskarson of Longmont, Colorado, uncovered an 8.52-carat white diamond that a press release describes as "clear white and icicle shaped" and "about three-quarters of an inch long and as big around as a standard No. 2 pencil." It didn't take her long: She reportedly had taken a few scoops of dirt from a small mound in a tree-shaded area of the 37.5-acre park called the Pig Pen, and the diamond surfaced 20 minutes later. The AP notes the park doesn't give an estimate of the diamond's potential value. That Oskarson was at the park was itself a bit of a chance occurrence, per Park Interpreter Waymon Cox: "Ms. Oskarson and her boyfriend ... saw the Crater of Diamonds State Park on an Arkansas highway map while in the nearby town of Hot Springs and decided to visit." She dubbed the diamond the "Esperanza Diamond"; that's both Spanish for "hope" and her niece's name. The policy at the park is finders-keepers, and Oskarson does indeed plan to keep her find, which is the 227th diamond certified by park staff in 2015. The largest diamond found there was the white 16.37-carat Amarillo Starlight unearthed by a Texan in 1975; the other three diamonds that were larger than the Esperanza were in the 8-carat range. The "Hallelujah" diamond was found there in April.
– Donald Trump may still be smarting from last week's CNBC debate, but the current object of his ire is the head of the DNC, the Hill reports. In a Monday morning interview on "Breitbart News Daily," Trump lit into her with the high energy he says differentiates himself from Ben Carson. "You have this crazy … Wasserman Schultz—Deborah Wasserman Schultz—who is in there, a highly neurotic woman," he complained. "This is a woman that is a terrible person. I watch her on television. She's a terrible person." He also noted Hillary Clinton seemed to get all the easy questions during the CNN Democratic debate, touching on criticism of Wasserman Schultz that she's out to help Clinton become president—an accusation Wasserman Schultz denies, per CNN. "In all fairness, she negotiated a great deal for Hillary because they gave Hillary all softballs," Trump said. "Every ball was a softball." Just a couple of months ago, Trump was caught in a loop ripping into Fox News' Megyn Kelly for the way she moderated the first GOP debate in August—a fact not lost on the DNC. "The Republican front-runner's misogynistic attacks are sadly representative of the GOP's outdated approach to women and the issues that affect them and their families," a committee spokeswoman says in a statement, via the Hill. "Whether it's trying to get between them and their doctor, opposing equal pay for equal work, or using offensive language, the Republican Party is wrong for women." (The GOP candidates are banding together to demand new debate conditions.)
– The home of the Swedish royal family is apparently spook central. But Queen Silvia says not to worry, the "small friends … ghosts" that haunt the 17th-century halls of Drottningholm Palace mean no harm and don't scare her, reports the AFP. "They’re all very friendly but you sometimes feel that you're not completely alone," the 73-year-old queen says in a new documentary by the country's public TV network SVT. Located on Lovon Island off Stockholm, Drottingholm is the principal home of Queen Silvia, Sweden's longest-serving queen, and King Carl XVI Gustaf, her husband of 40 years. Its UNESCO World Heritage listing describes it as "the finest example of an 18th-century north European royal residence inspired by the Palace of Versailles." While the queen doesn't get into specifics about individual spirits, Time cites a 2010 Swedish article that references a "gray man" and a "white lady" said to roam there. As for backup, the king's sister, Princess Christina, agrees the castle is indeed a phantom favorite. "There is much energy in this house. It would be strange if it didn’t take the form of guises," she tells the filmmakers. The Local reports that those who want to seek out the paranormal interlopers can indeed do so: Only the southern wing is off-limits to the public. (This "haunted" photo went viral in April.)
– An Oregon man resisting the sale of his home left booby traps on the property—including one apparently inspired by Raiders of the Lost Ark. Gregory Lee Rodvelt rigged up a hot tub to roll down a hill when a tripwire was triggered, much like the scene where Indiana Jones is "forced to outrun a giant stone boulder," according to court documents. At the property in Williams, southern Oregon, an FBI agent and three bomb squad technicians avoided the hot tub and other hazards, including a minivan booby-trapped with animal snares, but the agent was shot by an empty wheelchair inside the home; it had been rigged to fire shotgun ammunition when it was pushed, the Oregonian reports. The agent was hospitalized with a shotgun pellet lodged in his leg. Rodvelt, 66, faces a felony count of assault on a federal officer over the Sept. 7 incident, the Mail Tribune reports. He had been ordered to sell the home as part of a $2.1 million judgment against him in an elder abuse case involving his 90-year-old mother. He had been in jail in Oregon after an armed standoff with authorities in April last year but was released for two weeks in August to prepare the property to be turned over, according to court documents. Authorities were contacted when the estate's acting receiver saw a sign saying the property was "protected with improvised devices."
– The Army has filed court-martial charges against Alexis Hutchinson, an Army cook who refused to deploy to Afghanistan because she couldn't find anyone to look after her 1-year-old son. Hutchinson, 21, is charged with "missing movement" and absence without leave, among other things, reports the Savannah Morning News. Missing movement, the most serious charge, carries a maximum sentence of up to 2 years in prison and a dishonorable discharge. Hutchinson says she missed her deployment because a superior had told her that her son would have to go into foster care; original plans to have her mom watch her son fell through. Hutchinson's attorney said she still hoped that a trial can be avoided. "There are other routes if they really want to punish her," Rai Sue Sussman tells the AP.
– Dark horse Alaska has come from behind to claim the title of the happiest state in the US, LiveScience reports. Snagging the designation from 2013 winner North Dakota, Alaska—which didn't even make the top 10 in 2013—topped Gallup's Well-Being Index in 2014 for the first time since tracking began in 2008. North Dakota crashed to the 23rd spot, while Hawaii, which has stayed in the top 10 every year, slid into second place. The top score, based on 176,000 interviews about health, finances, relationships, community, and purpose, fell from 70 out of 100 in 2013 to the mid-60s. Here's how other states fared: Alaska: 64.7 Hawaii: 64.5 South Dakota: 64.3 Wyoming: 63.9 Montana: 63.7 The unhappiest states: West Virginia: 59 Kentucky: 59.8 Indiana: 60 Ohio: 60.1 Mississippi: 60.2 Check out the full list or discover the world's happiest language.
– Neighbors describe Anthony Lopez as a mentally disturbed crack addict, which would go some way toward explaining his alleged crime. Police say the 31-year-old strangled his wife to death and pushed her body on a metal dolly down a street in Staten Island Friday morning, reports the New York Daily News. He allegedly dumped the body of Obiamaka Aduba, 26, on the front lawn of a home and took off after an off-duty cop spotted the corpse, which had been partially covered by a sheet, the Staten Island Advance reports. Lopez was arrested in East Harlem on Saturday after officers acting on a tip chased him down. Authorities say Lopez has 52 arrests and a long history of domestic violence involving Aduba, reports the New York Daily News. "It was due to drugs. He's been crazy, he's mentally disturbed," a neighbor tells PIX11. In a court appearance Sunday, Lopez pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and begged for methadone to help him with drug withdrawal. He's being held without bail and will appear in court again on Tuesday. In Sunday's court appearance, Lopez was also charged with criminal mischief for throwing a brick at a car windshield earlier this month.
– It was a daring gambit: Invade another nation's airspace, raid a compound, bag the world's most notorious terrorist, and get your troops out alive—all on the 50% to 80% chance Osama bin Laden was even there to begin with. Once President Obama ordered the raid on the Pakistan compound, all he could do was sit helplessly and literally watch as US soldiers a half a world away tried to carry out his orders. It was a vein-popping 40 minutes as the national security team monitored the mission from the Situation Room. "So when word came that a helicopter had been grounded," Michael Scherer writes in Time, "a sign that the plan was already off course, the tension increased." But minutes later the radio crackled: "We've ID'd Geronimo," bin Laden's code name. Next came "For God and country, Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo," reports MSNBC, confirming bin Laden's death. But "Only when the last helicopter lifted off some minutes later did the president know that his forces had sustained no casualties," writes Scherer. Click through the gallery for official White House photos.
– Just when it seemed like the US and Russia were suspiciously close to seeing eye-to-eye on Syria, things move back to more familiar territory. A Russian government minister has slammed the UN report findings that chemical weapons were used in Syria as "biased and one-sided," while claiming it has "material evidence" that Syrian rebels used chemical weapons, the BBC reports. Russia's not-at-all biased or one-sided source on this? Damascus. The UN report actually didn't accuse either party of using the weapons, though western governments have said it as good as points the finger. "When you look at the details of the evidence they present—it is inconceivable that anybody other than the regime used it," President Obama said yesterday, per Al Jazeera. Experts also tell the New York Times that the details in the report point right back to a powerful Syrian government military base. But Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov says the country wants to examine other alleged incidents of chemical weapons use prior to the August 21 attacks. And so does the UN, it would seem: it will be sending inspectors back for more investigations as early as next week, reports CNN.
– Mitt Romney has taken to carrying around a debt clock, blaming President Obama for the ever-climbing number it shows. But the clock doesn't show how much Obama has actually added to that debt, so Ezra Klein set out to find out. "There are two answers," he writes in the Washington Post. The first, which is "simple and wrong" is $4.7 trillion. That's what you get when you subtract the debt when Obama took office (about $10.5 trillion) from the current debt (about $15.2 trillion). But most of that debt increase wasn't a result of Obama's policies, but of those he inherited. So Klein had the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities calculate a baseline budget based on preexisting policies and trends, and then pinned any deviations from it on Obama. The analysis, carried through the end of a theoretical second Obama term, would have Obama adding about $983 billion to the deficit. For comparison, applying the same calculation to George W. Bush yields a $5 trillion deficit jump. Click for the full column.
– The Des Moines Register reports on a fatal police shooting this week, and a quote high up in the story from the victim's father pretty much tells the tragic tale: "He took off with my truck," recalls James Comstock. "I call the police, and they kill him. It was over a damn pack of cigarettes. I wouldn’t buy him none. And I lose my son for that." Comstock explains that his 19-year-old son, Tyler, took off with the truck after their argument, and he called police to teach him a lesson. Then things went horribly wrong. A police cruiser tried to pull Tyler over, but he refused to stop. At one point, he even rammed the officer's car. The chase led onto the campus of Iowa State University, and dispatch audio reveals that a police staffer twice recommended that officers end the pursuit, reports USA Today. They did not, and KCRG reports that pedestrians had to jump out of the path of the truck, which at one point was going against one-way traffic in the bike lane. Tyler eventually stopped the truck, but he kept revving the engine and refused orders to turn it off. At that point, an officer fired six times into the truck, killing him. The shooting remains under investigation. "He didn’t shut the damn truck off, so let’s fire six rounds at him?" asks Tyler's step-grandfather. "We’re confused, and we don’t understand." Police have said they feared for the public's safety if he took off again.
– The rumors coming out of the Jesse James-Sandra Bullock marriage mess just keep getting worse. Read on for more on Michelle “Bombshell” McGee’s Nazi photo shoot, details on her intimate relations with James, and the real person who might be behind this big mess: TMZ obtained photos of McGee in Nazi-themed poses, wearing a swastika armband, that were taken last year. Apparently it was the photographer’s idea, but McGee was enthusiastic—and she reportedly tells people that the “w” on her left leg and the “p” on her right stand for “white power.” Despite reports that James was texting McGee days ago, the two got sexy for the last time eight months ago, onboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, a friend of McGee’s tells E!. Sources tell Technorati that made nearly $30,000 for her interview with In Touch revealing the affair. But the whole thing might be a lie, sources tell E!. “I guarantee you Jesse's ex wife, Janine Lindemulder, had a hand in this,” says one, adding that James and Lindemulder “hate each other, and remember, there was that horrible custody fight” over their daughter—which James and Bullock won. “Janine got Michele to do this out of revenge, I promise you.” Want to know how Sandra first learned of her hubby’s cheating? Click here—or for even more on the story, click the links at right.
– A 16-year-old California girl who was fatally wounded during an incident with police earlier this week was pregnant, KTVU and KGO report. The teen, IDed as Elena Mondragon, was a passenger in a car that had been reported stolen and was being sought in a bunch of armed robberies. When Fremont cops driving in Hayward spotted the vehicle around 5:20pm Tuesday, they tried to make a traffic stop, but as officers neared the car, the driver allegedly drove his car right into the police vehicle, hurting two detectives. Police started shooting, and Elena was struck by gunfire before the car sped away. The panicked driver crashed the car not far from the scene, however, and fled on foot. Two other passengers besides Mondragon were taken into custody, but although firefighters tried to save the teen, she eventually succumbed to her injuries at a nearby trauma center. The coroner notes the girl, known as "Ebbie" to family and friends, looked to be in her first trimester. A GoFundMe that has already collected more than $3,000 to help defray funeral costs has been set up in her name. Meanwhile, police arrested the man they believe to be the driver Wednesday night in San Francisco, hauling him in on an outstanding warrant for various robbery charges. Those close to Elena tell KGO the suspect is her boyfriend. (A Bakersfield man with dementia was shot dead by cops.)
– Time for that annual rite of fall: People arrested in costume after apparently having a little too much fun at the Halloween party. Two early entrants: Zombie: A 26-year-old woman dressed as a zombie in Gates, NY, got charged with DWI about 2am Saturday after driving without her headlights on, reports the Democrat and Chronicle. A friend picked up Catherine Butler from the station, but three hours later, she was again arrested and charged with DWI. Same road, same costume. Hello Kitty: In Gorham, Maine, a 37-year-old woman got stopped after driving in the wrong lane about 2am Sunday, reports WGME. Carrie Gipson was dressed as Hello Kitty, and police posted a photo of her headware, though it's not clear whether she was actually wearing the contraption while driving. In other Halloween-related arrests, the yellow Teletubby is accused of stealing leftover Chinese food.
– It sounds like something out of a science fiction film, but a very real "space elevator" is being developed by researchers at Japan's Shizuoka University, and the first test is coming this month. A miniature stand-in for the real thing will be attached to a rocket and launched by Japan's space agency next week, reports AFP. Once in space, the motorized 2.4-inch-long box will travel along a 32-foot-long cable held taut between two satellites, while cameras monitor its movement. "It's going to be the world's first experiment to test elevator movement in space," a university spokesperson says. A space elevator, the idea of which was first proposed by a Russian scientist in 1895, would travel to a space station via cables connecting the station to Earth, and could drastically reduce the cost of getting cargo to space, CNET explains. But there are a number of technical obstacles, including the need to develop cables that can resist high-energy cosmic rays, the need to keep space debris and meteorites from colliding with the elevator, and the need to transmit electricity from Earth to space. Japanese construction firm Obayashi, which is acting as the technical advisor for researchers on this project, plans to build its own space elevator to allow tourists to reach space by 2050. (A Canadian company is also working on its own space elevator.)
– Owners of Chevy Volts love their cars, as a new Consumer Reports survey makes clear. It's No. 1 in terms of owner satisfaction for the second straight year, with 92% saying they would buy one again, reports NBC News. "The Volt is indeed an engineering marvel," writes Joann Muller at Forbes, and some common knocks against it—that it was "dictated" by the Obama White House or that GM loses about $50,000 a car—are just flat-out wrong. Still, the Volt has problems, writes Muller: The back seats are cramped because of the battery, the controls are poorly laid out, and it takes way too long (16 hours) to charge on the typical household current. Upgrading to shorten that time is expensive. The big drawback, though, remains the $40,000 price for a compact car. Government tax credits and incentives help, "but it will still take years to break even on the investment." Read her full post here.
– The conservative editorial page of the Wall Street Journal sounds pretty hopeful that the troubles of ObamaCare will translate into solid GOP gains in next year's midterms. But the editors also see signs that Republicans are going to once again blow it with a "stupid, futile budget standoff." This time, it's defense hawks such as Rep. Buck McKeon who might break party ranks, thanks to Pentagon cuts mandated by current law. His intent is honorable, say the editors, but he and fellow hawks need to stand down for the sake of the party. "If 20 or so GOP Members vote with Nancy Pelosi to ditch the budget caps, Republicans can't pass a government funding bill before the current continuing resolution expires early next year," they write. "This could trigger another shutdown and pell-mell political retreat that makes the GOP again look like the gang that couldn't shoot straight." Republicans have to remain united—the lesson they should have learned from the last budget mess—and "Boehner must finally show enough leadership and toughness to keep his Members in line." Click for the full editorial. (Meanwhile, a Politico story suggests that a genuine deal is in the works to avoid a shutdown this time around.)
– Two-year-old Taqwa Dakhlalla was "all [her mother] ever wanted," a little girl who made the lives of her parents "ceaselessly better," according to Facebook posts. Then tragedy struck. On Dec. 11, 2016, Janna Walton and Abdullah Dakhlalla put their daughter to sleep in a room in their Portland, Ore., apartment with the temperature set at 62 degrees. Unbeknownst to the parents, the temperature would only rise as a heater continued to pump hot air into the room—where Taqwa was discovered the next morning, dead of overheating, according to lawsuit filed Monday in Multnomah County Circuit Court. It cites a notice from the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office stating the temperature near Taqwa's crib may have reached higher than 90 degrees, while tests showed air flowing from the heater ranged from 110 to 200 degrees, reports the Oregonian. The lawsuit also notes the DA's office sent a letter to apartment management company Gordon Properties in April 2017 stating all wall heaters in the building should be inspected and, if necessary, replaced. The lawsuit, seeking $8 million, names both Gordon Properties and apartment owner Cathedral Park Investments, though a lawyer for the defendants says there's no evidence of liability. A separate lawsuit filed in Washington state targets Cadet Heaters, which distributed the faulty device, according to a lawyer representing Walton and Dakhlalla. In a feature earlier this year, the Atlantic described Taqwa's death as only the latest tragedy to befall the family. Dakhlalla's mother had died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma only months earlier. Shortly before that death, Dakhlalla's brother pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to ISIS. More on that here.
– Once punished over old toothpaste, Chelsea Manning could spend the next three decades in solitary confinement following her suicide attempt earlier this month. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, Manning has been informed she is under investigation for allegedly "resisting the force cell move team," "prohibited property," and "conduct which threatens" in connection with her July 5 suicide bid. If found guilty, her potential consequences include having to serve the remainder of her 35-year sentence in solitary confinement, being slapped with nine more years in custody, or getting transferred to a maximum security facility. It could also affect her chances of getting parole. Activists say Manning has long been pained by a denial of medical care for her gender dysphoria, "which medical experts have clearly stated is the only course of treatment in which she would no longer be suicidal," according to civil liberties group Fight for the Future. "Now, while Chelsea is suffering the darkest depression she has experienced since her arrest, the government is taking actions to punish her for that pain," says an ACLU rep. "It is unconscionable." Earlier this year, Manning wrote about spending nine months in solitary confinement for the Guardian, noting, "within two weeks, I was already contemplating suicide." The UN has described Manning's treatment in prison as "cruel, inhuman, and degrading," reports the Intercept.
– A social worker worried about the welfare of the Hart family called 911 in Washington state the same day the family's SUV plunged off a cliff in California. The Department of Social and Health Services employee told dispatchers in the March 26 call that she was requesting a welfare check after repeated failed attempts to locate Jennifer and Sarah Hart and their six adopted children, People reports. "I've been to the home Monday and Friday and knocked on the door just this morning, and I can get no response," the worker said. "Different cars have been moving in and out, I noticed, so I feel like someone is there." The worker said she was worried about the family because of "concerns the children aren't being fed," reports KPTV. The couple and at least three of the children—Markis, 19; Jeremiah, 14; and Abigail, 14— died in what investigators believe was an intentional crash. Three other children—Devonte, 15; Hannah, 16; and Sierra, 12—are missing and presumed dead. The Harts were being investigated for alleged child abuse and neglect, which mystifies friends who knew them in the mid-2000s, when they lived in Minnesota, reports the Seattle Times. "They were passionate about trying to help," says Kayla Schmitz, who worked with the couple at Herberger's department store when they first got their foster-care license. "The people I know wouldn't starve their kids and lock them up." (An autopsy is being carried out on an unidentified body found near the crash site.)
– The Beothuk, an Indigenous tribe that lived in Canada, came to an end in 1829 with the death of its last member. Or did it? CBC reports a 55-year-old woman from North Carolina says she and her family are long-lost members of the Beothuk tribe, and she has the DNA test to prove it. Carol Reynolds Boyce says her mom told her when she was young, "You got Indian in you." She tells the Telegram her family is originally from Newfoundland and hid their Beothuk ancestry. Last year, she paid for a DNA test by Accu-Metrics to prove her heritage. "It's a bad feeling when people say you are extinct," says Reynolds Boyce, who says people claiming the Beothuk are gone are committing "political genocide." The Accu-Metrics test did indeed state Reynolds Boyce was Beothuk. The company believes it's the first time a Beothuk match has ever happened. But geneticists say that's impossible, arguing there isn't enough Beothuk DNA on file to confirm a match, and if Accu-Metrics told Boyce Reynolds otherwise, she was "being lied to." After originally standing by its results, Accu-Metrics told CBC it was removing Beothuk from its database. But a followup from the Telegram found it was still there. In the meantime, Reynolds Boyce says her family has voted her chief of Beothuk First Nation. She's sent her DNA test to the Canadian government, is demanding federal land, and is soliciting donations on Facebook to relocate her family to Newfoundland. (Suspected serial killer doomed by genealogy-curious relative.)
– George Conklin was all of 18 when he got killed fighting in the Korean War in 1950. More than six decades later, the Army corporal is finally back home for burial in upstate New York, reports AP. His were among the remains recovered near North Korea's Chosin Reservoir in 2004, and a military lab recently identified Conklin thanks to a DNA sample given years ago by a now-deceased brother. “It’s closure," a niece tells the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. "He's coming home.” Conklin will be buried with full military honors on Saturday in Phelps, next to his parents. The teen enlisted at 17, was reported missing after the Chosin battle, then listed as killed in action when the war ended. Hundreds greeted his casket when it arrived in Phelps yesterday. "It was a phenomenal sight," says the funeral home owner. "It was amazingly silent. It was like a peace come over everybody."
– Pope Francis made a historic appearance before Congress today, and one person especially pleased with his speech was Bernie Sanders. The Vermont senator tells CNN he loved the reference to Dorothy Day, a "radical Catholic activist," per the Washington Post, who founded the Catholic Worker Movement and fought for the rights of the downtrodden. Day "was a very, very progressive … socialist who organized working people and the poor to stand up to the wealthy and the powerful and to fight for social justice," Sanders said to CNN. He added to the Post: "I think it was extraordinary that he cited her as one of the most important people in recent American history. This would be one of the very, very few times that somebody as radical as Dorothy Day was mentioned." Sanders also acknowledged, per CNN, that Francis likely "touched on some very, very important issues that a lot of people would prefer not to talk about," but he adds the pope approached them in a "very dignified, non-partisan type way." Someone from the other side of the political spectrum is gushing about the pontiff's speech, too, but for different reasons. Ted Cruz told reporters after Francis' appearance that the pope offered a "powerful voice for life at a time when life is profoundly threatened in America," reports Bloomberg (Cruz was speaking specifically about religious liberty, traditional marriage, and abortion). "It was striking, and heartbreaking, to see so many congressional Democrats sitting stone-faced, arms crossed, when the pope urged us all to defend human life," he said. (At least none of them threw a shoe at the pope.)
– It's official: The Ukraine has signed a free trade deal with the European Union, the BBC reports—the same free trade deal that sparked the protests that led to the current crisis. President Petro Poroshenko called the deal the most historic moment for Ukraine since it gained independence in 1991, while a none-too-pleased Vladimir Putin warned that Ukraine was being pushed into "an artificial choice between Russia and the EU" and a "painful internal conflict." A senior Kremlin adviser even called Poroshenko a "Nazi." In practical terms the deal, which was also signed by Georgia and Moldova, changes little "except Vladimir Putin's blood pressure," quips the LA Times. Russia will still be a key trading partner for Ukraine, thanks to their deep military-industrial complex ties. But politically Putin hates seeing former Soviet states drawn into closer alliances with the West. There's also some concern, a BBC analyst says, that Russia could be flooded with cheap EU goods. In other Ukraine developments: The current ceasefire is set to expire today. Putin is calling for a long-term ceasefire to replace it, and talks to institute one are planned for today. Poroshenko took his own shot at Putin, telling CNN yesterday that peace depended on the Russian leader's mercurial mood. "Sometimes, the position of Mr. Putin is quite pragmatic, sometimes it is very emotional," he said, adding, "I'm ready to make a peace deal with anybody."
– After years of drug- and alcohol-related incidents, five arrests, and multiple suspensions from football, Chris Henry’s life ended just when those troubles finally seemed to be over. Fianceé Loleini Tonga was the reason behind much of Henry’s recent happiness, Dashiell Bennett writes on Deadspin. Just hours before the accident that cost Henry his life, Tonga wrote on MySpace that the pair had bought their wedding rings, TMZ reports. Bennett points to a “now haunting” Cincinnati Enquirer piece published 2 months ago, lauding Henry’s comeback on and off the field and his newfound commitment to his family. “This last troubling incident is made all the more tragic by the belief of those around him, that there wouldn't be any more,” Bennett writes. “Just like fellow NFL player Sean Taylor, his past did not ‘catch up with him,’ but the saddest stories are those that should have had a happy ending.”
– Looks like LA councilman Dennis Zine wasn't the only one worried about the Biebs' driving yesterday. Turns out 9 other drivers called 911 to complain about Justin Bieber's reckless ways on the Hollywood Freeway before CHP officers pulled him over, TMZ reports. The singer insists he was only doing 80mph, but Zine says it looked like 100mph—and he calls that estimate "conservative." TMZ says paparazzi drivers were hunting Bieber, and Zine acknowledges that celebrity life is no picnic—but "any time you do 90, the paparazzi are going to go 90," he tells the LA Times. Another little tidbit: A source tells TMZ that a member of Bieber's security team was in the car and allowed the 18-year-old to gun it on a busy freeway. Check out the Biebs' silver roadster being pulled over.
– Sen. Tammy Duckworth and daughter Maile have made Senate history, the AP reports. The Illinois Democrat brought her daughter, in a pink hat, onto the Senate floor Thursday under new rules that permitted it. Duckworth already is the only senator to have given birth while serving in the Senate. Maile, born April 9, is the first senator's baby to be allowed on the chamber floor. The history was made under a new rule passed a day earlier that permitted newborns of senators on the floor during votes. The Daily Beast says the vote was to confirm Jim Bridenstine as NASA administrator. Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran and double-amputee, arrived in a wheelchair with Maile on her lap, voted no with a downturned thumb, and laughed. Her colleagues crowded around to see. (The "tea party congressman," a divisive appointee by President Trump, was confirmed narrowly in an unprecedented party-line vote, the AP reports.) Duckworth had previously tweeted a picture of Maile's outfit for the occasion, noting that she chose a jacket for the baby "so she doesn’t violate the Senate floor dress code requiring blazers."
– The Green Bay Packers were having a great season right up to the first quarter of their game Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings. That's when the 4-1 division leaders saw the wheels come off. At the seven-minute mark of the game, Packers superstar quarterback Aaron Rodgers was tackled as he was throwing a pass and landed on his throwing arm, ESPN reports. Though Rodgers was able to walk off the field, upon inspection by medical personnel, it was announced that the two-time NFL Most Valuable Player had broken his right collarbone and could miss the rest of the season. The last time Rodgers spent any significant time on the sidelines was during the 2013 season, when he missed seven games after breaking his left collarbone. The Packers went 2-4-1 during that stretch. After leaving the game Sunday Rodgers was replaced by third-year pro Brett Hundley, whose first pass of the day was intercepted, setting up a Vikings touchdown. Hundley is the only other quarterback on the Packers. Some sports writers have already begun floating the possibility that Packers could sign Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49er whose protests during the national anthem last season led to this season's league-wide demonstrations. Kaepernick grew up in Milwaukee, about 120 miles from Green Bay.
– If you're sick of Earth and have a spacecraft capable of traveling hundreds of light-years, astronomers have spotted the most promising destination yet. Kepler-438b is a newly-confirmed potential "Earth twin" detected by the Kepler Space Telescope, the BBC reports, one of eight confirmed new exoplanets. The planet, about 470 light-years away in the Lyra constellation, is the most Earth-like ever spotted outside our solar system. It's only slightly larger than our planet, sits in the "Goldilocks zone" where the temperature is right for liquid water to flow, and probably has a rocky surface, researchers say. Its dwarf star gives it around 40% more heat than our planet receives from the sun, and its years are just 35 days long. The latest find brings the number of confirmed worlds spotted by Kepler—including Kepler-186f, the previous most Earth-like find—to just over 1,000, with more than 3,000 still to be vetted, reports Scientific American. To search for clues that life may exist on Kepler-438b and other planets, researchers plan to examine Kepler data for signs of moons, which help stabilize orbits and temperatures, and for gas giants in the same solar system, which reduce the odds of catastrophic asteroid hits, the Guardian reports. (Last month, Kepler data revealed a possible water world, or "mini-Neptune," 180 light-years away.)
– California's parole board denied parole for convicted killer Patricia Krenwinkel—a follower of cult leader Charles Manson—Thursday, the AP reports. Krenwinkel, 69, was previously denied parole 13 times for the 1969 slayings of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four other people in Southern California. The next night, she helped kill grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, in what prosecutors say was an attempt by Manson to ignite a race war. Commissioners postponed the latest parole hearing in December while officials investigated whether battered women's syndrome affected her state of mind at the time of the murders. The hearing resumed Thursday at the California Institution for Women east of Los Angeles, the AP reports. Krenwinkel was a 19-year-old secretary living with her older sister when she met the then-33-year-old Manson at a party. She testified that she left everything behind three days later to follow him because she believed they had a budding romantic relationship. She testified in December that her feelings faded when she realized Manson was routinely sleeping with other women, including underage girls, became physically and emotionally abusive, and trafficked Krenwinkel to other men for sex. She said she left him twice only to be brought back, that she was usually under the influence of drugs and rarely left alone. "It started with love, and then turned to fear," she said.
– In the aftermath of the world's worst nuclear disaster in Chernobyl in 1986, which resulted in radiation that ultimately reached as far as Japan and the US, the Soviet Union slapped together a massive sarcophagus of metal and concrete as hastily as possible to contain further fallout at the site of reactor 4. With no welded or bolted joints and a leaky roof that led to corrosion "hastening its demise," it was never seen as a permanent solution, reports Live Science. Construction began on its enormous replacement, the New Safe Confinement, in 2012. Now French consortium Novarka is using 224 hydraulic jacks to slowly slide the steel structure 1,070 feet to cover the ruins in Ukraine. (The site is too dangerous to build over.) "The start of the sliding of the Arch over reactor 4 ... is the beginning of the end of a 30-year-long fight with the consequences of the 1986 accident," says Ukraine's minister of ecology and natural resources, per the BBC. At 354 feet high, 531 feet wide, and 843 feet long, the $1.6 billion arch is taller than the Statue of Liberty and the largest man-made structure to ever move across land. It should last 100 years and withstand a tornado. Next, robotic cranes will take the sarcophagus apart and vacuum cleaners operated by remote workers will remove radioactive dust. The main sponsor of the project, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, plans to complete installation on Nov. 29, reports AFP. (Amid Chernobyl's ruins, one thing of value remains.)
– As the dust settles on Nigeria's devastating plane crash, victims' identities are emerging, and so far, they include at least eight US residents. A Connecticut family was on board, as were two Houston-area sisters. Four Chinese citizens, a Canadian, a French citizen, and a pair of Lebanese nationals have also been identified, but officials have a long way to go as victims' families pour into a Lagos morgue—particularly in the face of heavy winds and rain at the crash site. Officials are also concerned that a three-story apartment building nearby could crumble after having been hit by the plane. "It's going to be messy," says a Nigerian emergency official. Some 150 bodies have been recovered so far, among them a mother holding a baby, the AP reports. Meanwhile, details on the killed Americans are emerging in local papers, via NPR: The Connecticut dad was Nigerian, and the couple's four kids were all younger than four. The Texas sisters were both in their twenties; one was an engineer, the other an accountant, according to the Houston Chronicle. Both families were en route to Nigerian weddings.
– Nobody should need another reason not to smoke while pregnant, but researchers have found one: A study that looked at tens of thousands of grandmothers and grandchildren in Sweden found that children whose maternal grandmothers smoked were up to 22% more likely to have asthma, even if their mothers never took up the habit, Discovery reports. Researchers knew that nicotine exposure caused genetic changes in animals that could be passed down through generations, and the study set out to determine whether the same "epigenetic inheritance" happened with humans who smoke, reports WebMD. "We found that smoking in previous generations can influence the risk of asthma in subsequent generations. This may also be important in the transmission of other exposures and diseases," study co-author Caroline Lodge says in a press release. The researchers say the inheritance of risk could help explain why there has been a steep rise in asthma cases over the last 50 years, even though smoking rates have declined. They now plan to investigate whether the same risk is passed down through the male line by looking at people whose grandmothers smoked when they were pregnant with their fathers. (Canadian researchers found that the stress of women who were pregnant during an ice storm showed up in their children's DNA.)
– It's time again for the Leonids, the meteor shower repeated annually in mid-November. It comes as Earth passes through a trail of debris left by the comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, which orbits the sun once every 33 years. Earth will pass through the thickest part of debris at 7pm EST Saturday, but the best time for viewing begins around 2am local time Sunday, after the waxing gibbous moon has set, per Space.com. NASA, noting viewers should allow up to 30 minutes for their eyes to adjust to the darkness, predicts an average of 15 meteors per hour will be visible and appear to come from the constellation Leo—hence the shower's name. However, "it is actually better to view the Leonids away from the radiant," NASA says, per NPR. "They will appear longer and more spectacular from this perspective." (Check out more astronomy stories.)
– Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian got married Thursday night in a New Orleans wedding ceremony that Page Six reports was "shrouded in secrecy until hours before." Sources say even the guests didn't know where the wedding would be held until cars picked them up from their hotels and they were taken to the venue, the French Quarter's Contemporary Arts Center. Once they arrived, the guests—who included Beyonce, Kim Kardashian, and Anna Wintour—were not allowed to post photos on social media, though People has photos of guests arriving. TMZ reports the nuptials were tennis-themed, with guests' place cards in the form of tennis trophies. Williams, 36, and Reddit co-founder Ohanian, 34, just had a daughter together. (Sister Venus Williams lost a small fortune in a burglary.)
– Three regular people who volunteered to put their idle home computers to work crunching scientific data in off-hours have been credited with making a major discovery in deep space. The "citizen scientists"—two in Iowa and one in Germany—downloaded and processed the data that found a disrupted binary pulsar 17,000 light years away, the BBC reports. The object is a fast-spinning neutron star that sucked matter from an exploding companion star. Around 250,000 volunteers have donated computer time to the Einstein@Home project—altogether, computing power equal to 25% of the capacity of the world's largest supercomputer—and astronomers expect their combined computing power to yield many more discoveries. "The way that we found the pulsar using distributed computing with volunteers is a new paradigm that we’re going to make better use of in astronomy as time goes on,” a Cornell University astronomers tells Wired. “This really has legs.”
– A 17-year-old student was stabbed to death and three others injured during a fight at a Texas high school today. Three "persons of interest" are in custody, KHOU reports. All of the victims are students. One 16-year-old was airlifted to a nearby hospital in critical condition, though his parents and pastor say he will be OK. Unconfirmed Twitter reports indicate that a "gang fight" broke out in or near the cafeteria at Spring High School, which is located in a town of the same name outside Houston. Police say they'll investigate whether gangs were actually involved. Students are being evacuated by bus to a nearby parking lot, parents tell the Houston Chronicle, adding that they're frustrated by the lack of communication about the incident from school officials. More than 100 people gathered to watch the buses arrive to pick up the students. One father tells KHOU that his son described the fight as having taken place in a back hallway, and said that five students were stabbed. "They sent me pictures of all the blood everywhere."
– This may very well be the weirdest thing you’ll read all day: Dallas police are on the hunt for a man who is accused of attacking a woman with a frozen armadillo. The Sept. 29 altercation occurred in the parking lot of an apartment complex, where the 57-year-old was buying the carcass from the suspect so that she could eat it. An argument over the price led to the man allegedly throwing the dead animal at the woman—not once, but twice, MyFox Austin reports. She was reportedly bruised when it struck her in the leg and chest, and the man could face assault charges if located. (Click to read another weird crime, involving ... George Bush?)
– In what one attorney calls a "wake-up call to the so-called cool parents," Maryland adults who provide alcohol to underage kids can be held legally responsible if those kids harm themselves or others, the Washington Post reports. According to the Baltimore Sun, adults in Maryland could already be criminally charged with providing alcohol to minors, but Tuesday's ruling from the state's Court of Appeals adds—in the words of another lawyer—"one more disincentive" to parents thinking about letting their kids and their kids' friends drink at their home. “Underage persons are not solely responsible for drinking alcohol on an adult's property because they are not competent to handle the effects of this potentially dangerous substance," the Christian Science Monitor quotes the court's decision as saying. The ruling stems from two recent cases. In one, an 18-year-old driver hit a woman walking her dog after drinking at a party where an adult was tending bar. In another, a 17-year-old got into a fatal crash after drinking alcohol believed to have been provided by an adult. A MADD executive director praised Tuesday's ruling, saying it's a myth that underage drinking with a parent's supervision is safe; the only safety comes from not letting kids drink at all. In order for an adult to be held legally responsible, they must have "knowingly" and "willfully" provided alcohol to people who are under 21. More than 30 other states have similar laws on the books.
– Negative headlines about a cribbed speech have died down, but now Melania Trump is facing a spate of new ones about the accuracy of a bio on her newly shuttered website. The wife of the GOP nominee said via Twitter on Thursday that www.melaniatrump.com was made in 2012 and "has been removed because it does not currently reflect my current business and professional interests." Visitors are instead redirected to her husband's site, www.trump.com. The public acknowledgement comes after the Huffington Post reported that the site had disappeared amid questions over a college degree. On the site, she claimed to have earned "a degree in design and architecture at University in Slovenia" before embarking on a modeling career. But the New York Times notes that reporters have been pointing out for months now that she actually left the school after her first year. An unauthorized biography echoes the one-year-of-school story, reports CNN. The Trump campaign hasn't addressed the apparent discrepancy.
– The Pew Research Center is out with an interesting stat: More people ages 18 to 34 are living with their parents than with romantic partners—the first time that's happened in more than 130 years, which is when the data starts, notes NPR. At the Washington Post, Catherine Rampell runs through some of the reasons, including high unemployment among the young, student debt, rising home prices and rents, and stagnant wages. Considering all that, it's "rather financially prudent" for millennials to stay with mom and dad longer, a situation that's not all that unusual in the rest of the world, she writes. But her bigger message is for those "crusty" baby boomers complaining about a lack of character in the younger set: "Well, boohoo." "Today’s boomers have benefited for decades from huge public intergenerational transfers of wealth," writes Rampell. "Is it really so much to ask that they make some much smaller private intergenerational transfers to their own children?" They've paid low tuition and too-low taxes for the services they get back, and they'll hand over an enormous public debt. Plus, today's millennials will have to make up for their out-of-whack Medicare benefits. "In this light, the return home of young adults should be seen less as an act of morally bankrupt mooching and more as a step toward balancing the intergenerational ledger." Click for the full column.
– Ten weeks after his debut as host of The Late Show, Stephen Colbert is falling behind in the late night race, Mediaite reports. And the answer why seems obvious: "Old Comedy Central habits die hard." Colbert is alienating conservative viewers with jokes at the expense of such targets as people who oppose gay marriage or the resettlement of Syrian refugees, according to the Washington Post. A new survey of 1,000 late-night viewers from the Hollywood Reporter found only 17% of people tuning into Colbert are Republicans. And 72% of Colbert viewers say they'd vote for Clinton over Trump. Meanwhile the split between Democrat and Republican is pretty much even among viewers of Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel. That could be important for the future of CBS' Late Show because—while it was always getting trounced by NBC and Fallon—it's now being beaten regularly by ABC and Kimmel, Mediaite reports. Colbert is finding a niche in political satire—something both Kimmel and Fallon tend to stay away from—but he's going after Republican targets far more often. While that was expected on Comedy Central, on network TV it has "a result about as predictable as whom and what his political targets will be during each night." According to the Post, Colbert needs to find balance if he's going to succeed on CBS. "Colbert knows how to bring down the house by painting conservatives as a bunch of backward xenophobes," the Post writes. "But huge chunks of the electorate probably won’t be laughing along"
– As Edward Snowden's trove began to leak, President Obama was quick to reassure Americans that Congress and the courts kept the NSA's powers and activities in check. But newly declassified documents from the 2009 probe into the agency's wiretapping show that—in 2009, at least—the NSA's surveillance system had grown so large and unwieldy, no one actually understood it. "There was no single person who had a complete technical understanding," government lawyers told the courts at the time. Because no one else could comprehend it, the surveillance court judges at the time were relying on the NSA itself to explain what it was doing, which resulted in them approving activities that were far more intrusive than they realized, the AP reports. Congress also didn't understand the NSA, so members also didn't know what they were approving, lawyers determined at the time. The documents reveal the full scope of the abuses that led to the 2009 crackdown—of the almost 18,000 phone numbers on the government's watch list, only about 2,000 actually met FISA's standard for "reasonable articulable suspicion" for targeting, reports the Wall Street Journal. Following these findings that the NSA "frequently and systematically violated" its own procedures, the judge ordered an overhaul of the system. The White House says regulations have now been tightened, and software on the NSA's servers stops the agency's analysts from snooping illegally. But, notes the AP, these are the same checks that were supposed to stop someone like Snowden from stealing vast troves of classified documents. And we all know how that turned out.
– Police threatened an ABC News journalist covering the crisis in Egypt with decapitation in one of a mounting series of attacks on reporters. Two vehicles carrying producer Brian Hartman and three other ABC employees were carjacked to an isolated neighborhood yesterday where an angry mob surrounded them and a police officer warned: "So help me God, I am going to cut off your head," Hartman recalled. "One man was yelling, 'Cut their necks now, cut their necks now.' I thought were were absolutely doomed." The men were saved by an ABC Lebanese cameraman who embraced an elder in the crowd and told him: "He is your guest in this country. Egyptian people are better than this," said Hartman. In a tweet, he said there was a Mubarak banner over the scene, "but anger at perceived media bias was genuine." More than 100 journalists, including Anderson Cooper and Katie Couric, have been menaced, beaten, stabbed and held at gunpoint by supporters of Hosni Mubarak. The White House and State Department have condemned the "systematic targeting" of journalists as a "concerted campaign to intimidate."
– California's latest environmental and health crackdown has Monsanto in its crosshairs: Reuters reports that as of July 7, glyphosate, the herbicide serving as the main ingredient in the agrochemical company's Roundup weed killer, will take a spot on the Golden State's list of cancer-causing chemicals, per the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. The new designation falls under the umbrella of Proposition 65 (aka the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986), under which an annually updated list of chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects, or reproductive harm is required. Scott Partridge, the VP of global strategy for Monsanto, which has been battling the designation in trial court, called the decision "improper" and "unwarranted on the basis of science and the law" in an email to Newsweek. It's not just glyphosate's new ranking that has Monsanto fuming: ABC News notes if the company doesn't win an appeal in the case, in a year's time it may have to add onto its Roundup labels that the product is carcinogenic, making California the first state to issue such a mandate. Whether that happens will depend not only on the results of Monsanto's appeal, but also on whether state health officials determine Roundup contains enough of the odorless chemical to pose a health risk. As the company defends the chemical widely used by landscapers, farms, and vineyards, as well as by individual consumers, environmental groups are applauding California's move. "[The state's] decision makes it the national leader in protecting people from cancer-causing pesticides," a senior scientist for the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity says in a statement to Newsweek.
– A grim new milestone at one of the world's most popular suicide spots: Some 46 people jumped to their deaths from the Golden Gate Bridge last year, it was announced yesterday. That's the most recorded since the San Francisco landmark opened in 1937, per the Chronicle. Campaigners say those lives could have been saved by the safety net that the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District approved years ago, but the project is still at least $45 million short on funding. One big complaint from families of suicide victims, per ABC7: The bridge will this year see the installation a $26 million moveable barrier designed to prevent head-on collisions—though only one person has died in such a crash on the bridge in the last 15 years. Some 1,600 people have jumped to their deaths since the bridge opened, and campaigners say many of them would still be alive if they had been prevented from acting on impulse. "If it wasn't for the easy access at the bridge, I still believe my daughter would be alive today," says a man whose 17-year-old was one of 10 people to commit suicide from the bridge in August 2013 alone. Friends and family members of victims held a demonstration outside San Francisco City Hall yesterday, reports the San Francisco Appeal. "The 4-foot railing on the Golden Gate Bridge is the equivalent of a loaded gun in the middle of a mental ward," says one man who survived the fall in 2000. He says that seconds before he hit the water, he changed his mind and decided he wanted to live.
– The mystery that was Omar Mateen is still unraveling more than 10 days after the Orlando nightclub massacre. In a Univision interview that aired Tuesday night, a man who gave his name as Miguel came forward claiming to be Mateen's lover, CBS News reports. He said he met Mateen on the gay dating app Grindr and that they met in an Orlando hotel 15 or 20 times over the course of a two-month relationship. He said Mateen was in an arranged marriage and his wife knew he was gay. Miguel said Mateen carried out the shooting rampage after discovering that a Puerto Rican man he dated was HIV-positive. "He [hates] gay Puerto Ricans for all the stuff he did to him," Miguel told interviewer Maria Elena Salinas. "I believe this crazy horrible thing he did was for revenge." A law enforcement official declined to confirm or deny to CBS that the FBI had spoken to Miguel, but he said Mateen was a frequent user of dating sites and authorities have interviewed both men and women who say they had relationships with him. In another twist, a federal official tells NBC News that two days before the June 12 attack, Mateen bought plane tickets for his family, apparently including himself, to visit California, where his ailing mother-in-law lives, on June 14. Investigators say that on the night of the attack, Mateen first visited the Pulse nightclub around midnight and left soon afterward. They are trying to figure out what he was doing between then and 2am, when he returned to carry out the massacre. (Mateen spent $9,000 on jewelry days before the attack.)
– A new security headache for the estimated 56% of Web users who use Internet Explorer: A major security flaw has surfaced in some versions of the browser, leaving users open to a "remote code execution vulnerability," which "means a bad guy can make a target computer run software after a successful attack," Recode explains. Microsoft says most attacks occur when a user clicks on a link that leads to a malicious website and the bug affects every Explorer version from 6 to 11. Microsoft plans to roll out a security update for current versions of Windows, but it looks like Windows XP users are on their own, the Wall Street Journal reports. Microsoft ended support for the outdated operating system earlier this month, and although it still runs on around 300 million machines, it's not clear whether Microsoft will make an exception and issue a security patch for the latest flaw. "XP users are not safe anymore and this is the first vulnerability that will be not patched for their system," a Symantec researcher warns.
– A stroll on Hollywood's Walk of Fame turned deadly for one woman who was stabbed Tuesday after refusing to give a trio of panhandlers $1 for a photo she took of their cardboard signs, police say. Christine Calderon, 23, was walking with her co-worker when she took a cellphone photo of the signs, which apparently paired requests for money with four-letter obscenities and a smiley face, reports the LA Times. After refusing to hand over a dollar, her co-worker was allegedly pinned to a store's wall by two of the men; the third attacked Calderon, say police. She was stabbed multiple times, including in the torso, according to the AP, and collapsed just feet from the scene; she was pronounced dead three hours later. One witness told the Times that people in the popular tourist area pressed on her stomach in attempt to staunch the bleeding, which turned her white top to red. Meanwhile, her mother said Calderon had signed up for classes at a community college just days before the attack. "Her plan was to become an engineer," she told the Times. "She didn't want to waste years. She wanted to get in there and do it right." Three men have been arrested, according to police.
– "Romanian princess" and "cockfighting" probably aren’t the two terms you were expecting to hear together today, but Irina Walker just made that happen—again. The 61-year-old daughter of the last king of Romania and her husband, John, pleaded guilty yesterday to running an illegal gambling operation from their Oregon ranch. The admission came as part of a government deal in which charges of animal fighting and conspiracy to violate the animal welfare act were dropped, the AP reports. The princess admitted to profiting from what authorities say were at least 10 rooster "derbies" that she and her husband hosted in which the birds fought to the death with sharp knives strapped to their legs. "I provided food and beverage, your honor, and the location," she said in court. Prosecutors alleged the husband-and-wife team made a pretty penny from the operation: They charged 100 or so spectators a $20 cover and kept profits from alcohol sales, according to the Oregonian. Irina also attempted to make food to sell to the crowd, but prosecutors said attendees deemed her offerings “unacceptable”; the Walkers then commissioned a Mexican woman to make tacos (they reportedly let her keep her concession cash after charging her a fee). The Walkers are set to be sentenced in October, with an expected government recommendation for the duo to pony up $200,000 from their cockfighting proceeds and get three years of probation, says the AP.
– It seems HBO isn't sweating the mostly terrible reviews The Newsroom has garnered so far. The network has already renewed Aaron Sorkin's polarizing media drama for another season, the Huffington Post reports. Newsroom had decent ratings for its premiere, drawing 2.1 million viewers, though that figure dropped 19% for the second episode, according to Cinema Blend. If nothing else, the show certainly has people talking, and it has even earned some high-profile admirers.
– During and after Naomi Osaka's high-profile US Open win over Serena Williams on Saturday, the 20-year-old didn't always know what was going on. She told the Ellen Show on Wednesday that as Williams argued with chair umpire Carlos Ramos, she resisted the urge to stray from her training, which dictated that she turn away from an opponent having "an emotional moment on the court," as Yahoo Sports puts it. "In my mind, I just really wanted to know what was going on. I hear a lot of people in the crowd making noises, and I really wanted to turn around. But I didn’t." Osaka was similarly unclear on things after the match, as she was handed the trophy to the crowd's boos. Williams leaned over and clarified: "She said that she was proud of me, and that I should know that the crowd wasn’t booing at me. At the time, I did kind of think they were booing at me. I couldn't tell what was going on because it was just so loud." The remainder of the segment shows Osaka bashfully protesting Ellen DeGeneres' attempts to hook Osaka up with her celebrity crush, Michael B. Jordan. DeGeneres texted him, and he responded.
– A hotel altercation this week has forced an Olympic champion to seek treatment for a longtime problem. TMZ Sports reports swimmer Ryan Lochte found himself in trouble Thursday after he tried to bust through his own hotel room door in the middle of the night in Newport Beach, Calif. He was apparently intoxicated, and therein lies the issue. "Ryan has been battling from alcohol addiction for many years and unfortunately it has become a destructive pattern for him," Lochte's lawyer now tells TMZ. "He has acknowledged that he needs professional assistance to overcome his problem and will be getting help immediately." The 34-year-old has had other brushes with booze-fueled controversy, including the famous 2016 incident in Rio in which he and fellow swimmers there for the Olympics were accused of vandalizing a gas station restroom; Lochte was later charged for filing a false robbery report, and he came clean that he was drunk at the time. Page Six notes he was seen in August throwing back drink after drink in Las Vegas. "Ryan knows that conquering this disease now is a must for him to avoid making future poor decisions, to be the best husband and father he can be, and if he wants to achieve his goal to return to dominance in the pool in his fifth Olympics in Tokyo in 2020," Ostrow tells TMZ.
– Hampton, Fla., needs a new mayor—unless the state decides to dissolve its "most corrupt town." Barry Layne Moore, mayor of the town of 477 residents, has handed in a one-sentence resignation letter from jail, where he is awaiting trial on charges of selling a single oxycodone pill to an undercover informant, reports CNN. "He didn't want to embarrass the city anymore, and if he did, he apologizes," city council member Bill Goodge tells the Gainesville Sun. Gov. Rick Scott suspended Moore after he was arrested in November, barely a month after taking office in a town known mainly for one of the nation's most notorious speed traps; Acting Mayor Myrtice McCullough has been at the helm since. Goodge explains that Moore's move clears the way for a proper election of a new mayor. The police chief, city clerk, maintenance operator, and one of the five city council members have already quit following a state audit that revealed staggering levels of mismanagement and corruption, though Goodge said he believes the town can still go forward. It has a few weeks to prove to the state it can do just that; otherwise, the legislature will very likely dissolve it. Click for more about the town's many woes, which include an odd bag of cash.
– It's over for Amy Schumer and her boyfriend of a year and a half. The 35-year-old actress met Ben Hanisch, 30, on a dating app around November 2015 and first went public with their romance in January 2016, People reports. But they haven't been spotted together—or on each other's social media feeds—very frequently in recent days, though Schumer did tell Howard Stern on May 3 that they were still together, but were not discussing marriage. A Schumer rep tells People the couple "ended their relationship after thoughtful consideration and remain friends." In November 2016, celebrating their one-year anniversary, Hanisch wrote on Instagram that he wanted to spend his life with Schumer, and she in return called him the love of her life. (Watch Schumer play "Never Have I Ever" with Goldie Hawn.)
– Six years after first announcing a possible link between breast implants and a rare form of cancer, the FDA confirmed Tuesday that breast implants are connected to anaplastic large cell lymphoma, NBC News reports. In a statement, the FDA says women with breast implants "have a very low but increased risk" of ALCL. The FDA has received 359 reports of ALCL cases tied to breast implants, including nine people who've died from the cancer. ALCL appears to be more common in women whose implants have a textured—rather than smooth—surface, according to Medscape. Whether the implants are filled with saline or silicone gel doesn't appear to make a difference. ALCL takes an average of a decade to develop after the implant procedure. But it's easily treated if caught early, which typically happens when women start suffering pain and swelling. Most cases of ALCL have been treated by removing the breast implant. Some cases have required chemo and radiation. Breast implants are the second most popular cosmetic procedure for women. More than 300,000 breast implants were performed in 2015.
– The long struggle between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd for leadership of Australia's Labor Party—and subsequently Australia—is finally over, with Rudd defeating Gillard to take the reins once again. Rudd won a party caucus vote 57 to 45, after Gillard—who ousted Rudd as prime minister in 2010 and fought off a leadership challenge earlier this year—called for another leadership vote earlier today, amid growing internal opposition and slumping public support ahead of an election later this year, Reuters reports. "Anybody who enters the ballot tonight should do it on the following conditions: that if you win you're Labor leader, that if you lose you retire from politics," Gillard said before the vote, as per the BBC. But Rudd isn't PM again just yet—the change still has to be approved by the Governor-General (the Queen's Aussie rep), and several independent and minority party members, whose support is needed to keep the Labor Party in power, have said they will support a "no confidence" vote against Rudd, the Age reports. That would leave the country in a sticky and unprecedented political situation, reports the News, one that could see the entire Parliament dissolved or conservative opposition leader Tony Abbott being installed as PM.
– Last month, Serena Williams was mad as hell. Now she's adding a sweet lilt to The Divinyls' classic "I Touch Myself" in a video she produced to increase breast cancer awareness, the Guardian reports. "Yes, this put me out of my comfort zone, but I wanted to do it because it’s an issue that affects all women of all colours, all around the world," she captions the video on Instagram. Christina Joy Amphlett, The Divinyl's lead singer, died of breast cancer in 2013. Oh, and Williams is topless in the video. Not the first time, either: The 23-time Grand Slam singles winner wore her birthday suit for Vanity Fair in 2017 and the Pirelli Calendar in 2016, notes E! Online. She also laid down rap tracks in 2011 and appeared in Beyonce's "Sorry" video five years later.
– The Navy's new $4.4 billion "stealth destroyer" USS Zumwalt stealthily broke down in the Panama Canal this week, bumped into the lock walls, and had to be towed to port. The destroyer, which was on its way from Baltimore to San Diego, will now spend time at ex-Rodman Naval Station for repairs, reports the AP, which notes that the ship is the most expensive destroyer the Navy has ever had. According to the US Naval Institute, the Zumwalt suffered an "engineering casualty" while going through the canal. The ship lost propulsion during the incident and also suffered water intrusion to bearings that connect driveshafts to motors, reports USNI News. Officials say the problem is similar to one that the 610-foot ship suffered in September, when it lost propulsion on the way from Bath Iron Works in Maine, where it was built, to Baltimore, where it was commissioned in October. When it gets moving again, the Zumwalt will continue to Naval Base San Diego, where its futuristic weapon systems will be activated before it enters service in 2018. (The Navy can't afford ammunition for the destroyer's "Advanced Gun System.")
– Few lovers of Tennessee whiskey likely know they owe their favorite drink to a slave named Nearest Green. Jack Daniel's only recently started publicly recognizing Green's vital role in its history, according to a New York Times story that went viral last year. But Green's time as—per a press release—"the best whiskey maker the world never knew" is coming to an end, if one best-selling author who learned about Green in that Times story has her way. The AP reports Green started distilling whiskey for his owner, Dan Call, in the mid-1800s in Lynchburg. It was on Call's farm that Green taught Jack Daniel how to make Tennessee whiskey. Call later gave his distillery to Daniel, and the Green and Daniel families continued to work together for decades. This week, author Fawn Weaver launched the Nearest Green Foundation, the Tennessean reports. Among the projects planned by the foundation: a Tennessee whiskey museum, the Nearest Green Memorial Park, and a scholarship fund for Green's descendants. Weaver even bought the Call farm where Green and Daniel first started distilling whiskey together. She calls Green "the greatest teacher in the fine aft of distilling Tennessee whiskey." In addition to the activities of the foundation, Green is also finally getting his own whiskey. Uncle Nearest 1856 Premium Whiskey launched in Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday. Weaver says Green's descendants told her "putting his name on a bottle, letting people know what he did, would be great."
– The name Stephen Miller has been in the news a great deal since the inauguration, often paired with Steve Bannon as President Trump's top advisers. Over the weekend, however, the 31-year-old Miller got his biggest exposure yet as he appeared on four Sunday talk shows to defend Trump policies, particularly on immigration. The boss was a big fan: "Congratulations Stephen Miller- on representing me this morning on the various Sunday morning shows. Great job!" Trump tweeted. Related coverage about Miller: A Washington Post profile calls him a "key engineer" of Trump's "America First" agenda and notes that Miller first began voicing his conservative views while still in high school, in phone calls to a national radio show. He didn't let up as a college student at Duke. The word "workaholic" comes to mind. As an aide to then Sen. Jeff Sessions, Miller wrote so many emails to Republican colleagues that they were essentially regarded as spam, according to a New York Times profile. A post at Breitbart pushes back against the Times' characterization: "Miller is a tough and determined populist, but he is portrayed merely as a bomb-throwing email spammer in the article." Read the defense of Miller here. On the Sunday talk shows, Miller made several claims about voter fraud being a problem in the US. The Washington Post Fact Checker blog goes through them one by one and gives Miller its worst rating of four Pinocchios, "over and over again." One of Miller's most-quoted lines from Sunday: “The end result of this, though, is that our opponents, the media, and the whole world will soon see as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned." It came during his appearance on Face the Nation. See the clip. The Week compiles highlights from all his appearances in a two-minute clip here. Trump may have been a fan, but Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were not. They panned Miller's appearances during the Morning Joe show Monday. "That was horrendous, an embarrassment," said Scarborough, per Mediaite, which has the clip. Brzezinski even started a #MillerTime2Go hashtag. Sean Hannity of Fox soon came to Miller's defense: "Steve Miller works 18 hour days serving the country and the @POTUS," he tweeted to Scarborough. "What do you do? Basically talk to yourself & @morningmika Nobody watches!"
– Pennsylvania sisters Brigid Bink and Emily Whitaker have a close relationship, so when they found out they had the same due date—today—for their first children, they were thrilled. Due dates aren't always entirely accurate, though, so when the siblings ended up giving birth to their sons just 22 hours apart last week, they were still surprised. "It's ... just so surreal—the whole thing is surreal," Bink tells ABC 13. When Bink told her family she was pregnant at a pizza party last winter, Whitaker confided to her husband she'd been feeling weird lately—so she went home and took four pregnancy tests, confirming she was also expecting, My Fox Philly reports. The sisters went through the last nine months together, joking that if they had girls they'd have to play rock-paper-scissors for rights to the name Grace. Jack Bink came into the world at 7:34am on Wednesday, and Whitaker visited her sister in the hospital with her own hospital bag in tow, only to end up going home ... and then going into labor. Cousin Owen Whitaker made his appearance at 5:39am Thursday—meaning the boys won't share the same birthday—but their moms know they'll always have a bond, doing everything from "going to school together" to "being in each other's weddings," the two tell ABC 13. (In other unusual birth news, a triplet was born 11 years after her own sisters.)
– Slovenia's Tina Maze and Switzerland's Dominique Gisin tied for gold at the Sochi Olympics today—a first in Olympic alpine skiing history, NBC reports. Maze and Gisin finished today's downhill skiing event with identical times; Switzerland's Lara Gut won the bronze. "It’s a great feeling because Dominique and I are pretty good friends," Maze said afterward, according to Bloomberg. "It’s good to see her winning gold, too." There have previously been ties for other Olympic medals in Alpine skiing, but before this, the closest the Games got to a gold-medal tie was 1988, when there was a .01 second difference between Picabo Street and Michaela Dorfmeister.
– If you thought the race for Georgia governor had gotten testy enough, welcome to an even testier Sunday: The office of Secretary of State Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate, announced overnight that it is investigating a "failed attempt to hack the state's voter registration system," specifically, "the Democratic Party of Georgia is under investigation for possible cyber crimes." The party in question, which has accused Kemp of voter suppression and using his office to further his gubernatorial aspirations, dismissed the "scurrilous claims" as "100 percent false" and another "abuse of power," reports CNN. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls the move "explosive," and notes that Kemp's office did not proffer any evidence. Both sides are pounding the pavement for their candidates, with VP Mike Pence stumping for Kemp and President Trump dismissing Democrat Stacey Abrams as "not qualified" for the state's top job. Abrams, appearing Sunday on CNN, scoffed at both Trump and Kemp's investigation. "He's wrong," she said of Trump. "As President (Barack) Obama pointed out, I am the most qualified candidate running." Of Kemp she called it "a desperate attempt ... to distract people from the fact that two different federal judges found him derelict in his duties." The AJC notes that the two are in a dead heat ahead of Tuesday's vote.
– Yet another human foot has washed up in British Columbia—this time with part of a leg attached. The grisly find, which is at least the 13th foot to wash up on the province's coastline since 2007, was made by a man walking his dogs along a beach in Jordan River, Vancouver Island, the Vancouver Sun reports. The man, worried the foot his dog had found might be washed away or taken by a bear or an eagle, took it home before contacting authorities, reports the CBC. The Mounties searched the area before turning the investigation over to the coroner, who will try to identify the deceased and determine a cause of death. The last such find was in early 2016, when two feet from the same person washed up separately. When the feet started to wash up, there were fears that they could belong to victims of a disaster or even a serial killer. Authorities later identified eight of 12 feet as belonging to people who died in accidents or suicides. They believe the feet naturally separated from the bodies after a long period in the water. "It makes sense to me that if a body is in the ocean and decomposes, you end up with a shoe that floats and an ankle where it would disconnect from the tibia and fibula," local cafe owner Joshua Constandinou tells the New York Times. "That is what they are finding on the beaches."
– The killing of Carlos Cruz-Echevarria, a 60-year-old Army veteran, seemed random at first. But authorities now say it was all too deliberate. The body of Cruz-Echevarria was found Nov. 11—Veterans Day—near a disabled, stolen car on the side of a Deltona, Fla., road, the Orlando Sentinel reports. He had been shot in the head multiple times. His own truck was gone, later discovered burned some 30 miles away. This week, authorities arrested three suspects in the killing, which they now believe is connected to a murder-for-hire plot hatched to keep Cruz-Echevarria from testifying in a road rage case. Six months before he was murdered, Cruz-Echevarria honked at a vehicle that didn't move when a traffic signal turned green. The driver of the other car—later identified as Kelsey Terrance McFoley, 28—caught up with Cruz-Echevarria and brandished a gun. Cruz-Echevarria got McFoley's license plate number and later identified him in a police photo lineup. With a record that included 29 felony charges, per the AP, McFoley was facing serious prison time. He discovered Cruz-Echevarria's address on a court document and, authorities say, hired Benjamin Bascom, 24, to kill the man before his Dec. 7 deposition. Driving around the area near Cruz-Echevarria's home, authorities say, Bascom's vehicle got stuck in a ditch. Cruz-Echevarria pulled up to help, and Bascom shot him in the head. The case went unsolved for months, and the road rage charges against McFoley were dropped. Later, though, investigators used DNA evidence and phone records to link McFoley, Bascom, and McFoley's girlfriend, Melissa Rios Roque, to the slaying of Cruz-Echevarria. All three face first-degree murder charges.
– Sorrow, but some closure for the family of Holly Bobo: The remains of the Tennessee nursing student have been found more than three years after she was seen being dragged into the woods near her home by a man in camouflage. A skull was found near a logging road in woods around 11 miles from her home by two men looking for ginseng on Sunday, and forensic evidence confirmed that it belonged to the missing 20-year-old, USA Today reports. The man who owns the land where the remains were found says the property had been searched numerous times before. "I just can't believe it," he tells the Tennessean. "It doesn't make any sense." Two men, Zachary Adams and Jason Autry, were charged with her kidnapping and murder earlier this year, and brothers Mark and Jeffrey Pearcy have been charged with tampering with evidence and being accessories after the fact, WSMV reports. The county sheriff told reporters he had a message for anyone else who might have been involved in the murder: "You can run but you can't hide. We'll figure out who you are and you'll be brought to justice."
– Republican candidates aren't just ticked off about how the debates are being presented, they're planning what Politico refers to as a "revolt" against the networks—and the Republican National Committee. Representatives from most of the campaigns plan to meet Sunday evening to plot strategy on how to gain control of the format. The initiative is spearheaded by the Trump, Carson, Jindal, and Graham campaigns, but representatives from the Rubio, Fiorina, Huckabee, Paul, and Santorum campaigns are on board and plan to attend the meeting, according to Politico. CNN confirms the development, adding that the Bush campaign is a maybe. ‎"We need a change of format," Carson said Thursday. "Debates are supposed to be to get to know the candidates, what is behind them. What it has turned into is a gotcha." In addition to the leading candidates' concerns about format, the Jindal and Graham campaigns are reportedly upset that the networks—with the blessing of the RNC—have been allowed to dictate who gets to share the main stage, relegating them to undercard status. “I think the campaigns have a number of concerns and they have a right to talk about that amongst themselves,” says Graham's campaign manager. The idea is to “find out what works best for us as a group.”
– A missing family was found Thursday after two days trapped in their car, surviving on Halloween candy and rain water, KING reports. According to the AP, authorities had been searching rural Washington state for Jason and Melissa McAlister and their two young children, ages 8 months and 2 years. The McAlisters were reported missing Tuesday night after they failed to pick their older children up from the school bus. Their landlord told authorities that Jason had talked about going for a family drive when he saw him Tuesday morning. "They are just very dependable," Melissa's aunt told KIRO prior to the family's discovery. "That's why we are terrified that something's happened." The McAlisters were spotted Thursday by a hunter, who called 911. Jason says the family was driving along a logging road Tuesday when they tried to go around a fallen tree and got stuck. They slept in the car Tuesday night then tried to walk to safety on Wednesday but got lost and returned to the car for the night, listening to news of search efforts on the radio while eating Halloween candy. The hunter saw them as they tried again to walk to safety on Thursday, called 911, and drove them to meet authorities at a general store. A sheriff says the family "appears to be OK" and is in "good health" despite dehydration and mild hypothermia.
– A new book claims that Sheryl Crow was with then-boyfriend Lance Armstrong during one of his secret blood transfusions—and that she ultimately snitched on him to federal investigators. The New York Daily News got an early look this week at Wheelmen by Wall Street Journal reporters Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O'Connell, and it recounts the Belgium incident. "Rather than try to hide the transfusion from her, Armstrong was completely open about it," the authors write. "He trusted that Crow would have no desire to tell the press or anyone else about the team's doping program. He explained that it was simply part of the sport—that all cyclists were doing the same thing." Five years after the couple broke up, however, the criminal probe against Armstrong was launched, and Crow spoke to investigators in 2011. The book says she was protected from prosecution by cooperating with the investigation.
– A fiery pit has been burning in the middle of a Turkmenistan desert for more than four decades, and little has been done to get rid of it. The Darvaza gas crater, nicknamed the "Gates of Hell" or the "Door to Hell," has been on fire since 1971, when scientists were looking for oil fields in the Karakum Desert, then part of the Soviet Union. The spot where they began drilling turned out to be a haven for natural gas—and the site collapsed under the weight of the drilling gear, Smithsonian magazine reports. Several craters were formed, the biggest of which is 230 feet wide and 65 feet deep, and it was full of methane gas that began killing local animals. So scientists decided to burn the gas away, a common practice when unwanted natural gas is sticking around. They thought it would be gone in a few weeks; now, more than 40 years later, it's still burning, and experts aren't sure how much gas remains. Officials have called for action to stop the flames, to no avail, the Smithsonian notes. The spot, which is visible from miles away, has become a tourist attraction, oilprice.com reports. Visitors can stay in tents and view the site—as well as "huge and largely harmless spiders" that hang out nearby.
– Politics may be coming to the cereal aisle. General Mills jumped into the gay marriage debate Wednesday, as CEO Ken Powell appeared at an LGBT pride event to declare the company's opposition to a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in its home state of Minnesota, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. "We value diversity. We value inclusion," a company VP wrote in a follow-up letter online, saying the ban wouldn't be "in the best interests of our employees or our state economy." The National Organization for Marriage was incensed, and yesterday raised a hue and cry against the cereal maker. "General Mills makes billions marketing cereal to parents of young children. It has now effectively declared a war on marriage with its own customers," its president said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. He predicted the move would go down "as one of the dumbest corporate PR stunts of all time." Marriage equality activists, however, praised the move. "The business case against this amendment is straightforward and powerful," one said.
– Will interest rates finally go up? Federal Reserve officials begin a two-day meeting today, with the financial world waiting with bated breath on Janet Yellen's subsequent announcement. "Anyone who uses money" will ultimately be affected, observes NPR, which offers a primer here. Other highlights in coverage: 'Nail-biter': This one is tough to predict, with some members of the Federal Open Market Committee that is meeting open to a hike and others opposed. "Officials could seek some middle ground, such as holding rates near zero while sending a signal that a rate increase is likely at the Fed’s Oct. 27-28 or Dec. 15-16 policy meetings," notes the Wall Street Journal. "Given the uncertainty, how Ms. Yellen frames what the Fed is doing will be as important as what the Fed actually does." A more important question: Everyone's asking will the Fed raise rates, "but there’s another important consideration that isn’t asked nearly enough: Can the Fed raise interest rates?" writes Matt Phillips at Quartz. Things have gotten far more complicated since the last bump nine years ago, and the Fed's real challenge is to show "it still has the market muscle and technical know-how to get rates up and keep them there." 'Untested tools': "In normal times, the Fed would control rates by adding or subtracting 'reserves' to the banking system," notes Fortune. "If it wanted to raise rates, it would sell Treasury bills to banks in exchange for these reserves. But after years of quantitative easing, the system has been flooded by reserves, and therefore it must use new and untested tools" to get the job done. A firm no: "Monetary policy should seek to avoid major surprises," writes former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers at his blog. "Right now the fed funds futures market is assigning only a 28% chance to a September tightening. In the last 20 years, the Fed has never tightened without guiding the futures market to at least a 70% chance of a tightening. So a move now, given how expectations have been managed, would be an extraordinary shock at a highly uncertain time." A firm yes: It's time to "return to basics," writes Brad Brooks at Bloomberg View. "The Fed should raise rates 0.25% this September and 0.50% thereafter. Already this century, the Fed has helped enable two bubbles that resulted in equity corrections of 40% and 50%. Investors would be wise to remember that if the Fed doesn't raise rates now." Reading the dots: The key to the Fed's move may be found in something called a "dot plot" of interest rate projections. Bloomberg has a primer.
– Democrats aren't in immediate danger of losing Al Franken's Senate seat. Minnesota's governor is a Democrat himself and will choose within the party for his temporary replacement. After that, however, all bets are off. And that's bad news for Democrats, explains the AP: Franken would not have faced re-election until 2020, and he likely would have kept his seat as the incumbent. Now, the seat will be up for grabs next year, and Republicans stand a decent chance of winning it. Franken's resignation may be a "total game-changer in terms of control of the Senate," Republican strategist Alex Conant tells NBC News. That's assuming, however, that Republicans field a strong candidate, and for now, eyes are turning to Tim Pawlenty, a former governor and 2012 presidential candidate. Pawlenty is in the private sector now as CEO of Financial Services Roundtable, and he has said he's done with politics. But that's not stopping supporters from raising his name. The situation is similar to the Republicans' plight in Alabama, where a once-safe seat is in play because of the Roy Moore scandal, notes Chris Cillizza at CNN. After assessing the whole Senate landscape, however, he concludes that it's still possible for Democrats to have control of the chamber by the time 2019 rolls around. As for Minnesota, the Minneapolis Star Tribune looks at the political calculus involved with the interim pick—caretaker or someone who would run again in 2018? For now, the best bet is that Gov. Mark Dayton will select Lt. Gov. Tina Smith, though the newspaper reports that Smith would likely not run in the 2018 election.
– After getting burned badly by Iowa in 2008, Mitt Romney has generally been keeping his distance from the state this time around. But with no other single candidate gathering the support that Mike Huckabee won in the last election, Romney's strategy might be changing, reports the Wall Street Journal. "I'll be here again and again," he said on a visit there yesterday, only his third of the year. The reason: He's favored to win in New Hampshire, and if he combines that with an earlier win in Iowa on Jan. 3, his campaign may have unstoppable momentum. “The opportunity’s still there [for Romney] because, frankly, nobody’s got a ground game,” a former state House speaker tells Politico. Still, Romney has only a skeleton crew in the state, and both Politico and the Journal say it's anything but a slam dunk that he's conservative enough to win over the majority of caucus-goers. And if he expands his presence only to lose again, it could hurt. “I’d love to win Iowa. Any of us would,” said Romney yesterday. “You have an enormous say in who the next president’s gonna be."
– The Food and Drug Administration has nixed corn-refining giants' attempt to give high-fructose corn syrup a sweet-sounding new name on nutrition labels. The agency told the Corn Refiners Association that its product—which has been linked to weight gain and intelligence loss—cannot be renamed "corn sugar" because it defines sugar as "a solid, dried and crystallized food" while syrup is a "liquid food," reports the Wall Street Journal. The request for a name change was denied on "narrow, technical" grounds, complained the Corn Refiners Association. The Sugar Association—which is suing its corny counterpart for calling its product sugar—applauded the ruling, saying it confirms the group's position that sugar and high-fructose corn syrup are different products. "What's going on here is basically a con game to suggest otherwise," a lawyer for the association tells the AP. "What do con men do? They normally try to change their name. The FDA has thankfully stopped that."
– The US won't be sending troops to Crimea anytime soon. President Obama effectively ruled out a military response to Russia's land grab yesterday, USA Today reports. "We do not need to trigger an actual war with Russia," he told KSDK-TV, in an interview ostensibly about raising the minimum wage. "The Ukrainians don't want that, nobody would want that." But Obama said to expect "even more disruptive economic actions that could have a significant impact on the Russian economy." In other Ukraine news: Russian forces freed Ukraine's captured navy commander today, after Ukraine demanded the release of all hostages in Crimea, CNN reports. If they weren't freed by 9pm, acting President Oleksandr Turchynov threatened to take "technical and technological" action—meaning, likely, turning off Crimea's utilities. Russia's defense minister asked Crimea to free the hostages. Even though Ukraine is reportedly pulling troops from the region, its parliament issued a declaration today saying that it still considered Crimea part of the Ukraine, and that "the Ukrainian people will never, under no circumstances, stop fighting for the liberation of Crimea from the occupants." European leaders met today in Sevastopol to discuss further punitive action against Russia, with Angela Merkel saying the EU would issue more travel bans and asset freezes against Russians, the Washington Post reports. But analysts say the measures aren't strong enough to change Russian behavior. Ukraine, too, is taking only restrained steps. Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk yesterday backed off Kiev's threat to impose a visa regime, saying it would likely be ineffective, and would inconvenience many Ukrainians. Russia, meanwhile, pulled out a threat of its own. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia might revise its stance on Iran's nuclear program in response to US and EU sanctions. "We wouldn't like to use these talks as an element of the game of raising the stakes," he said, according to the AP. "But if they force us into that, we will take retaliatory measures."
– There were chaotic scenes outside Miami-Dade County election headquarters yesterday after voting was abruptly shut down as hundreds of people waited in line. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, a Republican, ordered a halt to voting after discovering that his deputy mayor had agreed to the election supervisor's request to allow voters to request and return absentee ballots for four hours, Miami Herald reports. The state's GOP-controlled legislature has eliminated early voting the Sunday before Election Day, but the law allows elections supervisors to accept in-person absentee ballots at their discretion. Voters outside the headquarters banged on the glass and chanted "Let us vote" after the shutdown. After about an hour, Gimenez relented and allowed the angry crowd to vote. "I'm upset at this change, but at the end, when you have 200, 300 voters out there ready to go, you really can’t disenfranchise them," he said. Before the Miami-Dade debacle, Florida's Democratic Party filed a lawsuit seeking to extend early voting after long lines Saturday prevented many people from casting their ballots, the New York Times reports.
– Social media meets Hollywood thriller in online movie project Inside, billed as the first "social film." Star Emmy Rossum wakes up in a locked room with no way to communicate with the outside world except a laptop, which she uses to communicate with her social network—played by real users of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The film's website invites users to audition via YouTube, reports the Guardian. After filming begins on July 25, producers say segments of the movie will be released every couple of days across different social media platforms, with users invited to respond and help create the next installment, CinemaBlend reports. After three weeks, the entire project, including user content, will be edited into a single movie.
– Defeating the sheriff in an election is apparently a fireable offense in the Bon Homme County Sheriff's Office. Mark Maggs, the South Dakota county's 31-year-old deputy sheriff, says he was fired on Tuesday after defeating his boss in the Republican primary for sheriff, the Argus Leader reports. Maggs and current sheriff Lenny Grankow were the only two people running for the role, meaning the victory ensures Maggs will become sheriff in January. Maggs, who received 73% of the vote, says the sheriff called him in for a meeting Tuesday and handed him a letter of termination a minute after polls closed. "As of this moment you are no longer an employee of Bon Homme County," the letter stated, ordering Maggs to turn in county-owned equipment by 5pm the next day. "When I got back to my election party and told my wife, she was very emotional," says Maggs, who has been with the department since 2013. "It hit her hard," he says. "We knew that meant coming at the end of the month we'd be losing health insurance." The couple have four children under 7. Maggs ran for sheriff on a platform of getting tough on drugs, getting more involved with local youth, and delivering better service. He says he was warned he could be fired when he announced his intention to run. Grankow has the power to fire Maggs at will, officials say, but the move has caused a backlash against the sheriff, the Washington Post reports. More than 1,600 people have signed a petition urging commissioners to reinstate Maggs. The former deputy says he's glad people are speaking out, but he would like supporters to stop calling the sheriff's office because "those guys still have a job to do."
– She was the first female founder of a Silicon Valley startup to become a billionaire before it all came crashing down. Now Elizabeth Holmes' personal fortune is gone, and she has just settled with federal regulators who say her company, Theranos, lied to investors about its supposedly revolutionary blood-testing equipment. Holmes, 34, forfeits control of the company, is barred from serving as an officer or director of any public company for a decade, and must pay $500,000, reports the AP. And her troubles may be just beginning. The Wall Street Journal reports that she still faces a criminal investigation being led by the US attorney's office in San Francisco. Details and developments: The biggest lies: BuzzFeed runs down the seven biggest Theranos lies, and they revolve around one central one: claims that its "special machine could run hundreds of blood tests on just a few drops of blood." A stunt involving Walgreens, a former partner, is illustrative. Theranos collected blood samples from Walgreens execs but processed those samples in outside lab equipment. The wowed Walgreens execs, however, were led to believe the blood was processed on the Theranos equipment in the meeting room, per BuzzFeed.
– It's Round 2 for President Obama and Mitt Romney tonight. Romney is riding high from his trouncing of Obama in the Denver debate, but pundits say neither candidate is a natural at the town hall format, making tonight's debate at Long Island's Hofstra University a potential challenge. Here's what people are saying: Political consultants from both sides expect the rivals to attempt to channel Bill Clinton's masterful '92 town hall performance, the Hill reports. "Bill Clinton understood the choreography," physically approaching each questioner, one Democratic strategist said. "He came across better because of the human connection." Obama supporters think he could connect like that, even if he didn't last time out. "He was so interested in our lives," a woman who met him at an Ohio rally tells the Washington Post. "He’s really good with people." Romney, meanwhile, has experience in the format thanks to his Ask Mitt Anything forums, Politico observes. But his campaign is trying to downplay expectations, predicting an Obama-as-comeback-kid media narrative. The debate will be decided largely based on body language and nonverbal communication, the Los Angeles Times predicts. Undecided voters have heard both candidates' policies "and none of that has persuaded them to commit," a political communications expert says. "These individuals focus more on intangibles." Another hot topic: How active will Candy Crowley be? The campaigns want the moderator to keep quiet, but Crowley won't be cowed. "I’m not a fly on the wall," she tells Politico. "We don’t want the candidates to spout talking points. … I’m going to react organically to what’s happening."
– Brace yourself: Another Belieber is claiming to have given birth to Justin Bieber's baby, according to a report in Star picked up by Fox News. Here's where things get really classy: The unnamed fan says she met Bieber at a TGI Friday's in Florida. And here's where things get a little awkward: The woman is 25, Bieber is 19, the alleged encounter took place in February 2010, so ... you do the math. Fox notes that they would have been close enough in age that the tryst would not have been considered statutory rape in Florida. A source says the woman's daughter, born in October 2010, "does look a lot like Justin did at that same age." Jezebel adds that the woman is European, and that the tabloid claims to have text messages from Justin to the woman in question, including this one: "our little secret?"
– Convicted sex offenders are legally required to live far from children, so they often reside in cars, under overpasses, in the woods—or in the City of Refuge. More like a village, Refuge houses 120 offenders in 61 concrete bungalows amid the cane fields of Pahokee, Fla. "Here is exile that is also asylum from the larger, unforgiving world," writes Jay Kirk in GQ. "Here is, weirdly enough, real community." Told that many residents did "the statutory boyfriend-girlfriend thing" rather than child molestation, Kirk finds them warm and welcoming. He also sees the founding nonprofit, Matthew 25 Ministries, carefully vet potential new members. And the residents (mostly men wearing ankle monitors) help each other with life's problems. "If it weren't for City of Refuge, they'd be out there on their own," Kirk writes. Sex-offender support groups like one reported in the Edmonton Journal seem to pale by comparison. Yet there's a dark side: When Ministries moved into this village, once used by migrant cane workers, remaining ex-workers saw their children forced out. "They got to go," says one. "Because of the sex offenders." And when Kirk looks up Refuge's offenders on the National Sex Offender Registry, he sees crimes including minors and forced acts: "My skin grows colder with each click," he writes. This makes their identity as "undeniably over-punished" victims (even comparing themselves to Jews in Nazi Germany) harder for Kirk to accept. Short of conclusions, he visits Refuge's small chapel, where Kirk says the choir sings "as if to expunge their names" from the sex registry. "You are wor-thy!" they sing. "You are wor-thy!" Click for the full article, or read about a couple on trial for having sex on a beach.
– The global rumor mill is swirling around the sudden conspicuous absence of Xi Jinping, who is scheduled to ascend to China's presidency in a matter of weeks. Xi hasn't been seen in public in 10 days, according to the Telegraph, and last week he took the unheard of step of canceling three meetings with top foreign officials, including Hillary Clinton. Yesterday, officials turned journalists away from a planned photo-op between Xi and Denmark's prime minister, denying it had ever been scheduled. Officials tell Reuters Xi hurt his back while swimming, but speculation of worse is rampant. One source tells the New York Times that Xi may have suffered a mild heart attack, and an earlier report, since retracted, alleged that a military official tried to assassinate him, and wound up injuring him in a car accident. Amid the speculation, China has blocked all Internet searches for his name, the Wall Street Journal reports. "Something is amiss," a Brookings Institute member says. "Otherwise, they would have found an opportunity for him to be seen.
– Take a saloon and combine it with a shooting range ... what could possibly go wrong? Deadwood, South Dakota, will soon find out. The City Commission looks poised to allow local businessman Greg Vecchi to open an indoor shooting range with a saloon inside—the appropriately-named Bullets and Beer Saloon, the Black Hills Pioneer reports. Vecchi, an Army vet who is soon retiring from the FBI, needs the commission's permission to change a local ordinance to allow firearms to be discharged within the city limits. The complex will also include a gun store, a pawn shop, and other retail establishments, and will host a gun show four times a year. The commission moved to consider approving Vecchi's request, as long as certain requirements are met—like no more than 50% of the income at the complex can come from alcohol sales. "I want it to be less than 5%," Vecchi says. "Sequence is important. Bullets first, beer second." And, he assured the mayor, he will require anyone who wants to shoot at the range to blow a .000 on a Breathalyzer. He aims to open the facility in June, CBS News reports.
– Did police start the fire that may have consumed the body of fugitive ex-cop Christopher Dorner? In police audio broadcast on KCAL yesterday, officers can be heard apparently yelling, "Burn it down" or "Burn him out." Another YouTube video claims to be a police scanner recording, and it features a voice saying, "We're gonna go forward with the plan, with the burn ... Like we talked about." Later, someone says, "Seven burners deployed and we have a fire." But, the Huffington Post notes, neither recording has been confirmed or explained at this point, and the Daily Caller claims "burner" is actually slang for tear gas. Journalist Max Blumenthal was listening to police scanners at the time and live-tweeting many similar "burner" comments that he heard, the Guardian reports, including: "We have fire in the front and it may come out the back." In other Dorner updates, the New York Post reports that his driver's license was found inside the burned cabin. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told CNN that "there's a reasonable belief" the remains found inside the cabin also belong to Dorner, but the LAPD refuses to "speculate at this point," and protection details are still covering some LAPD officers believed to be targets until the body is identified. Click to see how two maids triggered Dorner's downfall.
– Underscoring how much of the Earth remains mysterious, scientists have located "thousands" of previously unknown underwater mountains, known as "seamounts," reports LiveScience. The discovery, announced in this month's Science journal, was a joint effort between a European Space Agency satellite and one from NASA that used high-tech imagery and gravity mapping to find the peaks, which rise a mile or more off the seafloor, the BBC reports. And because they're still analyzing the data, researchers think there may be even more of the topographical treasures. "We may be able to detect another 25,000 on top of the 5,000 already known," says one of the scientists involved with the project. The ocean's deepest parts remain a mystery—as evidenced by the logistical issues during the search for still-missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, as the BBC notes—but the Jason-1 and CryoSat-2 satellites worked together to bounce radar signals off the Earth to detect topographic "dips and peaks." The discovery is important to conservation scientists—"wildlife tends to congregate" near the mounts' peaks, notes the BBC—as well as to researchers who study seafloor makeup to determine water current and heat-transfer patterns. So how come we've never spotted the mountains before? A release from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography cites "drastically improved remote sensing instruments" and new data combined with old. "You may generally think that the great age of exploration is truly over; we've been to all the remotest corners of continents, and perhaps one might think also of the ocean basins," a University of Sydney professor tells the BBC. "But sadly this is not true—we know much more about the topography of Mars than we know about the seafloor." (Tons of plastic in the ocean seems to have disappeared, and that's probably not a good thing.)
– The Challenger space shuttle exploded after liftoff in 1986, killing all seven crew members on board ... and for some reason Beyonce thought it was appropriate to sample audio from the disaster on a song from her new album. Then-NASA public affairs officer Steve Nesbitt is heard at the beginning of the video for "XO" for six seconds, ABC News reports. As the nation watched the Challenger disaster unfold on live TV, Nesbitt said, "Flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction." Needless to say, astronauts and their families are calling Beyonce out; one former NASA employee wants an apology and the clip removed. Beyonce was quick to respond: "My heart goes out to the families of those lost in the Challenger disaster. The song 'XO' was recorded with the sincerest intention to help heal those who have lost loved ones and to remind us that unexpected things happen, so love and appreciate every minute that you have with those who mean the most to you. The songwriters included the audio in tribute to the unselfish work of the Challenger crew with hope that they will never be forgotten." Meanwhile, in other "stupid moves by singers" news, Ani DiFranco had planned a songwriting retreat at the Nottoway Plantation, "one of the largest former plantations in the South, which now functions as a museum in which the horrors of slavery are totally sanitized and glossed over," writes Callie Beusman at Jezebel. After quite a bit of backlash, DiFranco canceled the workshop, but noted in her statement, "I ask only that as we attempt to continue to confront our country's history together, let us not forget that the history of slavery and exploitation is at the foundation of much of our infrastructure in this country, not just at old plantation sites."
– The news that Bahrain's crown prince was ducking out of his troubled country to attend Prince William's much ballyhooed nuptials raised some eyebrows, and Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa today reversed course, sending Prince Charles his regrets. Saying he was "saddened and troubled" by British media stories, the AP reports that Prince Salman nevertheless sent William and Kate Middleton "all good wishes for Friday and every possible happiness for the future ahead." Prince Salman isn't the only dignitary sitting it out, notes the Telegraph: Former British PMs Tony Blair and Gordon Brown won't be attending, either. The Labour Party pols were apparently snubbed by the palace, which invited Conservative Party PMs Margaret Thatcher and John Major, though Thatcher declined for health reasons. Labour MPs called the snub "surprising" and "odd," though the Telegraph notes a frosty history between Buckingham Palace and Blair in particular.
– If your Netflix account seems to be running slower than usual these days, that's because it very likely is slower. Traffic conflicts between the service and major broadband providers—especially Verizon FiOS—are resulting in a slowdown, Wall Street Journal reports. Netflix says its average primetime speeds for Verizon customers sank 14% in January, though performance has been getting progressively slower via many broadband providers since November, around the time when Netflix made super-HD video available to all users, possibly ramping up the traffic load. Fees are at the heart of the issue: Netflix is pushing top providers to link to its new "Open Connect" distribution system, but Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner, and AT&T want payment before they'll do it. Central to the problem is Netflix's heavy bandwidth usage; at times, it's responsible for a third of peak online traffic in North America, analysts say. According to Verizon's rules, networks should pay if they're putting out more data than they're carrying. As it stands, Netflix uses middlemen like Cogent Communications to carry traffic, and those carriers dish out far more than they take back. Both Netflix and Verizon could take steps to help fix the problem, which will likely play a role in federal regulators' decision on the Comcast-Time Warner merger, the Journal notes. Meanwhile, recent rankings, via Ars Technica, show Time Warner and Verizon in sixth and seventh place, respectively, when it comes to Netflix speed. Google Fiber tops the list.
– Roughly nine in 10 humans are right-handed, an example of "brain lateralization" that's pretty common among vertebrates—and now apparently invertebrates. Researchers in the UK are finding that even ants—which are invertebrates, meaning they have exoskeletons—carry an innate directional bias, in their case almost always turning left when exploring new territory, reports Science Daily. "The ants may be using their left eye to detect predators and their right to navigate," says a researcher. "Also, their world is maze-like, and consistently turning one way is a very good strategy to search and exit mazes." And since everybody is turning the same way, the researcher says there's also "safety in numbers. Perhaps leaning left is more shrewd than sinister." Either way, better understanding these tendencies in invertebrates could help shed light on the behavior in more complex creatures—even including humans, reports Smithsonian. (Check out this ant's secret weapon.)
– Hugo Chavez's state funeral is today, and leaders from around the world have traveled to Caracas for the event—which is set to begin at 10:30am local time but whose details have been, per the AP, "shrouded in astonishing secrecy." At least 50 countries from five continents have sent delegations, including more than 30 heads of state. Among them are such notable Chavez allies as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Raul Castro. "He was a dear friend of all nations worldwide," Ahmadinejad said, according to CNN. "He was the emotional pillar for all revolutionary and freedom-seeking people." Even the US will be represented, with Rep. Gregory Meeks and former Rep. William Delahunt, both Democrats, making the trek. For a partial list of the leaders present, click here. Hordes of Venezuelans came out to get a glimpse of Chavez at his wake yesterday, waiting in lines that started forming as early as Wednesday, the New York Times reports. (Reuters reports 2 million have filed past his body.) The funeral represents a major opportunity for his successors to engage with the public, the AP points out. Vice President Nicolas Maduro will be sworn in today as well, National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello announced last night—even though according to Venezuela's constitution, Cabello himself should become interim president. Maduro is Chavez's chosen successor, and will be his party's presidential candidate.
– Controversy is suddenly swirling around Donald Trump's pick for White House budget director, whose confirmation hearing isn't until next week, after it was revealed he failed to pay more than $15,000 in taxes on a family nanny, the New York Times reports. Rep Mick Mulvaney employed the nanny from 2000 to 2004 after he and his wife had triplets. According to CNN, a Trump transition team spokesperson says Mulvaney didn't know he had to pay taxes on the nanny. The failure to do so was revealed in a questionnaire Mulvaney filled out for the Senate Budget Committee. He says he only realized his mistake during the confirmation process and has since paid the taxes he owes. He also says he will pay any interest or penalties as soon as they're determined. Similar failures to pay taxes derailed President Obama's pick for Health and Human Services and two of Bill Clinton's picks for attorney general, the AP reports. Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer says Mulvaney should withdraw, noting that Republicans have jumped on Democratic cabinet nominees for the same thing. "What's good for the goose is good for the gander," he tells the Times. Supporters of Mulvaney point out that Obama's pick, Tom Daschle, failed to pay nearly 10 times what Mulvaney did. And a Trump administration spokesperson says they stand behind Mulvaney, who "has taken the appropriate follow-up measures."
– US missionary Kenneth Bae has been sent back to the grind of a labor camp in North Korea. The State Department informed his family that the 45-year-old was discharged from the hospital—where he had gone after dropping 50 pounds—and ordered back to a prison work camp, reports AP. "He's back to eight-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week hard labor," says his sister in Washington state. "We can't help but be concerned about that." Bae, who ran tour groups to the country, got sentenced in 2012 to 15 years of hard labor for crimes against the government. His case got two high-profile boosts yesterday: President Obama mentioned him at the National Prayer Breakfast, notes the Seattle Times, and the four remaining members of Congress who served in the Korean War sent a letter to Pyongyang asking for his release, reports Reuters. (The four are Charles Rangel, D-NY; John Conyers Jr., D-Mich.; Sam Johnson, R-Texas; and Howard Coble, R-NC.)
– Just a few days ahead of the South Carolina Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders has gained a noteworthy endorsement, the Hill reports. "Wake up, South Carolina!" director Spike Lee says in a one-minute radio spot that started playing Tuesday across the state, in which Hillary Clinton appears to be leading among black voters, per CNN. "I know that you know this system is rigged. For too long we've given our votes to corporate puppets." He notes that "99 percent of Americans were hurt" during the Great Recession and "that's why I'm officially endorsing my brother Bernie Sanders," who "takes no money from corporations … which means he is not on the take." "And when Bernie gets in the White House he will do the right thing," Lee adds. How can Lee be so sure? He offers Sanders' participation in the 1963 March on Washington with MLK, his arrest in Chicago that same year for protesting segregation, and his fight against "wealth and education equality for his whole career" as proof that with Sanders, there will be "no flipping, no flopping." Listen to the ad here. (Lee has also said that Donald Trump can't be trusted as president and that "I don't want Trump anywhere near" America's nuclear codes.)
– Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has temporarily blocked an appeals court ruling that declared gay marriage legal in Idaho and Nevada. The order came a little more than an hour after Idaho today filed an emergency request for an immediate stay and about 10 minutes before the state said that state and county officials would otherwise have been required to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The order also applies to Nevada, where marriage licenses to same-sex couples were going to start to be issued later today. Kennedy's order requested a response from lawyers for the couples involved in Idaho's gay marriage lawsuit by 5pm EDT tomorrow, at which time the court will determine whether a more permanent stay is called for. In the interim, no gay marriages will take place in the state. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals declared gay marriage legal in Idaho and Nevada yesterday, a day after the Supreme Court let similar rulings from three other appeals courts become final and effectively legalized same-sex marriage in a total of 30 other states. Having allowed those other rulings to take effect without a full review by the Supreme Court, it would be surprising if the justices were to put the 9th Circuit Court ruling on hold for any length of time, observes the AP. Reuters notes that Kennedy is considered the court's swing vote on the topic of gay marriage. (As of yesterday, here was the status of gay marriage in all 50 states.)
– President Obama and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte met informally on Wednesday in a holding room before attending a gala dinner at a regional summit, Philippine officials say. The brief meeting took a little sting out of the soured relations caused by Duterte's intemperate language in referring to Obama earlier this week, which caused Obama to cancel a formal meeting scheduled for Tuesday, the AP reports. Philippine Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay says he is "very happy the leaders met, and it "all springs from the fact the relationship between the Philippines and the United States is firm, very strong." A White House official says the two leaders exchanged "pleasantries" in a brief discussion in the holding room before the dinner, the BBC reports. The Wall Street Journal reports that Duterte was absent from Thursday morning meetings at the Vientiane summit. A spokesman told reporters that the leader had a migraine.
– The first full-service national chain to get rid of tipping is, for the most part, reinstating the practice that its former CEO once called "antiquated." Joe's Crab Shack, which had tried out the gratuity-included model in 18 of its 130 or so restaurants across the country, is going back to the old way of doing things in 14 of those restaurants, CNNMoney reports. The reason for the backtracking was made clear in the company's first-quarter earnings call last week: "Our customers and staff spoke very loudly [about the policy], and a lot of them voted with their feet," said Bob Merritt, the CEO of parent company Ignite Restaurant Group. Test eateries—which had compensated for the lack of gratuities by raising menu prices and giving increased, fixed wages to staff—lost between 8% and 10% of their customer base, per the New York Times. Reuters reports that some workers at the test sites got a $12-an-hour minimum, and that menu prices were boosted less than 20%; advocates of the no-tipping model say it allows servers to count on a fixed income and eliminates patrons' need to do math. But about 60% of the chain's customers didn't take to the new model, company research revealed: Patrons apparently didn't think the waitstaff would be as motivated to provide decent service if they couldn't count on a tip, and they were also wary that management might not share the extra money being pulled in through higher menu prices with staff. So why is Joe's keeping four of the test restaurants on the no-tipping system? Merritt says the model actually worked in those locations, though they're trying to figure out why. (Tipping is un-American, says this no-tipping advocate.)
– When we think about building-leveling earthquakes in California, it can seem like the San Andreas fault is the only game in town. Heck, The Rock even made a movie about it. But a study published last week in Science Advances finds the San Andreas could have an equally dangerous partner in creating the state's next catastrophic quake. The Los Angeles Times reports geophysics professor Julian Lozos, while trying to solve the mystery of the earthquake of 1812, determined that it's possible the San Andreas fault combined with the San Jacinto fault to cause a magnitude-7.5 earthquake—and could do so again. According to a press release, the 1812 earthquake was one of the biggest in California's history and now appears to have been caused when a rupture in the San Jacinto spread to the San Andreas. "People shouldn't just be thinking about the San Andreas fault," Lozos says in the press release. The lesser-known San Jacinto could actually be a more serious "seismic hazard" because it runs directly under a number of population centers east of Los Angeles. If it combined with the San Andreas to create a "Big One"—as evidence shows it has in the past—the resulting earthquake could kill more than 1,000 people while destroying buildings and starting fires, what the Times calls a "grim seismic scenario." Lozos says it's important to understand how one fault rupturing can trigger ruptures in others. A recent report taking similar multi-fault thinking into account raised California's odds for having a magnitude-8 or larger earthquake by 2045 from 4.7% to 7%.
– A University of Houston grad student poking around in the Library of Congress' archives stumbled across a long-lost novel from the mid-19th century—and it's a discovery the editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review tells the Houston Chronicle is "going to change everything we thought we knew" about the American poetry legend his publication is named for. English PhD candidate Zachary Turpin's find: Whitman's Life and Adventures of Jack Engle, originally offered to readers in 1852 as a six-piece series in New York's Sunday Dispatch. The New York Times describes the then-anonymously written 36,000-word piece as a "quasi-Dickensian tale" (which it notes shows hints of Whitman's Leaves of Grass, published in 1855) about an orphan, with a bevy of compelling characters and "more than a few unlikely plot twists and jarring narrative shifts." Turpin, who hit Whitman gold in 2015 when he found a lost Whitman advice series, told the Times last year that his obsession with searching for unattributed Whitman works is "kind of a sickness I have in off-hours." This time around, his quest had him plumbing an archive that contained various Whitman notes, drafts, and other miscellaneous records, per the Guardian. One set of scraps featured a bunch of character names, including "Jack Engle," and when Turpin plugged those names into databases of Victorian-era newspapers, up popped a tiny Times ad for the upcoming Engle serial set to appear in the Dispatch, which Whitman was known to have written for. "I couldn't believe that, for a few minutes, I was the only person on Earth who knew about this book," Turpin says. Read the story at the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review. (A husband-and-wife team identified a Whitman poem in 2014.)
– The family of an Oklahoma man allegedly gunned down by his next-door neighbor is demanding to know why the suspect had been released from jail before the shooting—where he had been awaiting trial in a brutal hit-and-run that nearly killed the victim’s mother, the Washington Post reports. The dead man is Khalid Jabara, 37, and his neighbor is Vernon Majors, 61. The family says Majors had harassed and stalked the Jabara family for years, taunting them with anti-Muslim insults, even though they’re Lebanese Christians. "This suspect had a history of bigotry against our family," the victim’s sister, Victoria Jabara Williams, wrote on Facebook, calling them “Dirty Arabs” and “Filthy Lebanese.” On Friday, Jabara called 911 to report his concern that Majors was home and armed. The police came and went, and minutes later, Majors is accused of shooting Khalid Jabara as he stepped outside the family’s house in Tulsa to get the mail. Police said they found Majors drunk and chugging beer and arrested him after a brief stand-off. There was no cause to detain him earlier in the day, police said, because Majors hadn’t done anything wrong. Majors had been in jail awaiting trial for allegedly plowing into Jabara’s mother with his car, then leaving the scene. The family says he never should have been allowed to post bond for what they deemed a hate crime, reports the Tulsa World. The case "is one of the most devastating and infuriating accounts of systemic failures in the legal system you are likely to read about," writes Jeremy Stahl at Slate.
– Donald Trump's older sister, a widely respected federal appeals court judge, has become the latest Trump to receive a threatening letter. Sources tell CBS Philly and NBC News that Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, who sits on the US Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, received the letter in Philadelphia on Friday. The sources say that unlike the letter received by Trump's son Eric on Thursday, the letter sent to the 78-year-old judge did not contain white powder, though it apparently contained a similar demand for Trump to drop out of the GOP race. The FBI says it is "aware of the incident and is working closely with the United States Secret Service and US Marshals Service," the AP reports. Trump Barry—who was appointed by Ronald Reagan and promoted by Bill Clinton—is a "moderate-conservative Republican centrist," legal blogger Matthew Stiegler told the Washington Post when it profiled her earlier this month. She has not played an active role in the Trump campaign, though Ted Cruz denounced her as a "radical pro-abortion extremist" last month when Trump joked that he would consider appointing her to the Supreme Court.
– Todd Palin is hospitalized in the intensive care unit after a snowmobile accident Sunday night, reports NBC News. His condition is not known, but a source tells NBC that the crash itself was "very serious." The news surfaced after Sarah Palin canceled a campaign event on behalf of Donald Trump on Monday afternoon in Florida. She's "been on the phone with doctors and family all morning" and has booked a flight back to Alaska, reports the Daily Caller. "Governor Palin is returning to Alaska to be with her husband and looks forward to being back on the campaign trail soon," says a Trump campaign statement. "Mr. Trump's thoughts and prayers are with the Palin family at this time."
– A festive Occupy DC camp only days ago is now a barren mud field where cops are picking through the last remaining tents, the AP reports. Officers arrived at McPherson Square near the White House yesterday to enforce a no-camping law, DCist reports, and protesters complied as tents containing equipment or personal artifacts were removed. But when officers approached Occupy DC's library, protesters locked arms and faced off in an aggressive scrum with police. By day's end, eleven protesters were arrested and one officer was hospitalized after an Occupier threw a brick in his face. One protester seemed to be unconscious when handcuffed by police and carted away. Many Occupiers appeared to accept that the 128-day settlement was over, but a lawyer who has represented Occupy DC said he would "be filing some paperwork" in response to the police action, reports DCist. Some protesters said that even empty tents were confiscated. "With respect to taking tents, this is not what the government attorney promised," the attorney said.
– In 2011, Anne Ziegenhorn of Florida began to gain weight inexplicably. Normally healthy, the mother of two soon began suffering from burning pain, vision loss, and cloudy thinking and had sores all over her body. She writes that she was unable to talk for 8 months, instead texting and writing on a dry-erase board. She saw many doctors, certain that their diagnoses of lupus, arthritis, and thyroid problems must be wrong. Then she saw Dr. Susan Kolb, author of The Naked Truth About Breast Implants, who has implants herself and who suggested mold might be an issue. Sure enough, as soon as Ziegenhorn's saline breast implants were removed, her symptoms vanished. Wear TV reports Ziegenhorn keeps a video on her phone that shows what was once in her body: a mold-covered implant. (She believes her implant was leaking "moldy fluid" into her system for years.) She and another woman from Kentucky, Paula Blade, have teamed up to spread the word, reports WPSD Local 6. Blade's tale is a similar one, and she says that when her removed implants were tested, the implants' valve was found to be faulty, the "filling fluid [was] grossly contaminated," and there were signs of mold. Dr. Kolb believes the mold can often be traced to defective valves (saline implants are put into the body deflated, and the saline is then inserted via the valve). While an FDA spokesman tells Wear TV that he's not aware of similar complaints being filed by women with moldy implants, he does note that most women will eventually need theirs replaced. Dr. Kolb, however, says she's treated thousands of patients with "saline biotoxin illness" and feels strongly that patients should have them changed every eight to 15 years. (This celeb had her saline implants removed due in part to health concerns.)
– Donald Trump is the GOP nominee for president and there will be no refunds or exchanges, the Republican National Committee insisted Wednesday amid rumors that Trump's missteps had panicked it so badly it was looking at options for a replacement and planning to pressure him to drop out. "Donald Trump is the nominee of the Republican Party full-stop," RNC strategist Sean Spicer tells the Hill. "That's the reality. The rest is just a media-pundit concoction." A roundup of coverage: Despite talk of internal turmoil—and his running mate's endorsement of Paul Ryan—Trump told a rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., Wednesday that the campaign is "doing really well" and has "never been so well united," the BBC reports. CNN reports that for the first 11 minutes of the Daytona Beach rally, Trump stayed on-message in a way that would have pleased top GOP officials, slamming Hillary Clinton and President Obama over a $400 million payment to Iran. The next 40 minutes, however, were a more familiar mix of attacks on a wide variety of targets, including Megyn Kelly. But despite the public talk of unity, sources tell the Washington Post that RNC chief Reince Priebus is "disturbed" and "frustrated" by Trump's recent behavior, particularly the feud with the Khan family, and is seeking a campaign reboot. The Trump campaign has firmly denied rumors that Priebus and Trump allies, including Newt Gingrich, are planning an "intervention" to get him back on track. Sources tell the AP that Priebus is so concerned by the way Trump is splitting the party that he's trying to enlist Trump's children to help. At a second Florida rally on Wednesday, Trump boasted about huge turnout at his rallies and told the Jacksonville crowd he doubted Clinton could get a crowd of 500, Politico reports. "I hear we're leading Florida by a bit," he said. "I don't know why we're not leading by a lot. Maybe crowds don't make the difference." According to a Fox News poll released Wednesday, Clinton is up 5 points from a month ago and now leads Trump by 10 points nationwide, 49% to 39%. Some 61% of voters consider her untrustworthy, while 62% feel the same way about Trump.
– A bizarre incident on a Greyhound bus in Arizona resulted in injuries to more than 20 people, but police say quick-thinking passengers prevented it from being much, much worse. A 25-year-old man on the bus is accused of attacking the driver just before 2am as they traveled on I-10 near Phoenix, reports CNN. As the two men struggled for control of the wheel, the bus began swerving across the median toward oncoming traffic, say police. At that point, other passengers jumped in and subdued the attacker, reports the Arizona Republic. "This thing traveled about 300 feet in the median, bouncing up and down, and that's where the injuries occurred," says a state safety official. "I think the officer (at the scene) said it was about 6 feet from going into oncoming traffic." Maquel Donyel Morris faces charges of endangerment, assault, and aggravated assault, reports AP. He fled into the desert when the bus stopped but returned about 30 minutes later and was arrested. Passengers say he seemed to be hallucinating on the bus and at one point screamed, "Everybody's going to die!" None of the passenger injuries are life-threatening.
– Facebook shares continue to plummet: They've now dropped more than 20% from their $38 IPO price, falling below $30 today to their lowest point yet, reports Reuters. At about 12:45pm EDT they were trading at $29.44. But among tech stocks, $30 per share still gives it a comparatively "generous" valuation, notes Dan Gallagher at MarketWatch: The site is trading at about 55 times its estimated earnings for this fiscal year. Google, on the other hand, trades at about 14 times its estimated earnings, and Apple, IBM, and Microsoft are in the same ballpark. But he notes that higher valuations seem more common among social sites: Groupon trades at some 64 times its estimated earnings, while LinkedIn is trading at a hefty 145 times its estimated earnings.
– The San Francisco home featured in television's Full House is now available to rent for $13,950 a month, the AP reports. The San Francisco Chronicle reports the 1883 villa was put on the market in May with a $4.15 million price tag, but it didn't sell. The home's exterior, then painted white, was used as the Tanner family's residence in the original show. Inside scenes were filmed on a set in Burbank, California. The shots were used again in the recent Fuller House reboot of the show on Netflix, the newspaper reported. The home is listed at 2,985 square feet, and has three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms.
– Good thing Catholics have a fairly relaxed forgiveness policy. The Los Angeles Times reports a 60-year-old man convicted last February after posing as a priest was arrested earlier this month for slipping back into the vestments. When Erwin Mena was originally arrested, he had been acting as a priest at a Los Angeles church for five months or so. Authorities say he delivered sermons, baptized babies, held funerals, gave confession, and presided over Mass. However what eventually got Mena a year in jail for grand theft was selling fake trips to see the pope during his East Coast visit last fall. According to Fox 11, Mena made more than $15,000 selling nonexistent trips to parishioners for $500 to $1,000 a pop. Mena was released from jail early last July. He was arrested at a different Los Angeles church Nov. 2 while going by the name Father Edwin Lima. On Friday, a judge sentenced Mena to another 265 days in jail, telling him, "You can't go into a church and pretend you're a priest." The judge also barred Mena from coming within 100 feet of any Catholic church in the city. Mena has allegedly been doing his faux priest routine since the 1990s.
– Al-Qaeda has yet to name a successor to Osama bin Laden, but CNN reports that a "caretaker" leader is in place. He is identified as Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian who has been in the group's upper echelon for years. Even al-Qaeda has to worry about politics, apparently: Adel may simply be the equivalent of a test balloon to see how the group's rank-and-file reacts to the idea of someone from Egypt—as opposed to the Arabian Peninsula—taking charge. If it goes well, it could pave the way for bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, also an Egyptian, to take permanent control. In another al-Qaeda development, the Wall Street Journal reports that Pakistani authorities arrested a mid-level operative in Karachi. It's the first such arrest since the raid on bin Laden's compound soured US-Pakistan relations. It comes a day after John Kerry visited Islamabad and promised better cooperation between the two countries, though it's unclear whether US forces took part in the arrest.
– A 26-year-old Ohio woman is heading to drug rehab in the hope of securing custody of her week-old son, born in the toilet of a Burger King bathroom stall. Authorities responding to a report of a man passed out behind the wheel of a running car say they found Zachary Frey, 26, "nodding off" in the parking lot of a Chillicothe Burger King with a bag of what they believed to be heroin in his pocket, reports the Chillicothe Gazette. His girlfriend was of greater concern. Found in a bathroom stall with a ball of suspected heroin beside her, Elizabeth Sanders said she believed she'd had a miscarriage. However, the infant in the toilet was found to be breathing after a movement briefly caused the boy's face to be submerged in water, according to police. Sanders, who admitted to using heroin a few days before going into labor, said she "thought she had to pee and then it happened and she does not remember anything else after that," the police report reads, per McClatchy. Given Narcan at a hospital, Sanders was later arrested on a charge of stealing money from a bartending job, while Frey was charged with drug possession and operating a vehicle while impaired. Released Monday after pleading not guilty, Sanders said she would go to rehab in the hope of getting custody of her son and has since secured a spot with help from officers, reports the Gazette. As of Tuesday, her son remained in the hospital; According to police, Sanders said he was showing signs of withdrawal but "doing well."
– Deciding that, you know what, humans can play God after all, the National Institutes of Health is lifting a year-old moratorium on federal funding for the creation of partially human animal embryos, otherwise known as chimeras. NPR reports the NIH had instituted the moratorium over ethical concerns—like what happens if scientists create an animal that thinks like a human or animals that can give birth to human babies. Meanwhile, Forbes is worried about lizard people, apes blowing up the Statue of Liberty, pigs with the intelligence of toddlers, and some sort of "human-bat-wolf-hybrid." Regardless, NIH has now instituted a number of restrictions and safeguards to allow scientists to use chimeras to find cures for diseases and new sources for organ transplants without risking the creation of a halfsharkalligatorhalfman.
– Webster’s New World Dictionary has named “distracted driving” its Word of the Year, much to the delight of Ray LaHood. The transportation secretary’s crusade to ban distracted driving, which generally refers to talking on the phone or texting while behind the wheel, is part of what brought the word to the forefront last year. “I think its rapid intrusion into our national vocabulary shows what an epidemic distracted driving has become,” he wrote on his blog. Webster editor-in-chief Mike Agnes’ reasons for picking the phrase are a bit more academic, notes the Chicago Tribune. “We’re building up a whole semantic cloud around this,” he says, citing acronyms like DWD or DWT—driving while distracted and texting respectively. It also “has an interesting linguistic turn,” because “if you think about it, the driving isn’t distracted,” making it “what’s known technically as hypallage.” Okay, sure, smart guy, but isn’t it also known technically as “two words”?
– On April 14, 2012, Daniel Athens just couldn't hold it any longer, so he ducked under a chain and relieved himself on the big building behind it. Because that building happened to be the Alamo—as in, the Alamo—the 23-year-old found himself in a San Antonio court yesterday pleading guilty to “felony level criminal mischief of a public monument or place of human burial,” reports MySanAntonio. He faces up to 18 months in state jail and a $4,000 fine, the latter because urine takes a toll on the limestone facade of a 250-year-old church. Coverage of the incident, like this at Reuters, is nearly universal in noting two things: The local DA headlined her press release "Don't Whizz on the Alamo," and Ozzy Osbourne peed there in 1982.
– Alexia Truax married her best friend last spring before giving birth to the couple's son in September. A year later, her world has been turned upside down. "Speechless" is how the 20-year-old Texas resident describes feeling after learning her husband, Marine Corps Sgt. Christopher Truax Jr., was fatally shot in the head in California early Friday, per Fox News. A native of Horseheads, NY, and a food service specialist with the Marine Wing Support Squadron 373 based out of Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, the 21-year-old was found with a gunshot wound to the head in a car parked in the middle of a street in the San Diego suburb of Lemon Grove just after midnight Friday and pronounced dead half an hour later, reports KFMB. No bullet holes or shell casings were found in the car, per NBC San Diego. Offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest, the San Diego County Sheriff's Department has released little other information except to note that a woman in the driver's seat of the blue Chrysler 200 is considered a witness to the homicide; her relationship to the victim wasn't disclosed. Truax says she doesn't know the woman, per ABC News. She adds her husband, who joined the Marine Corps in 2014 and was later deployed, had been taking classes at the station 15 miles from Lemon Grove and dreamed of becoming a drill instructor. "It kills me to know I will never be able to hear [his] voice again," she tells Fox. Of her son, she adds to KGTV, "I don't know how to tell him … that his father isn't here."
– Here's an unexpected theory: that Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in June 1815 was partly caused by the eruption of an volcano in Indonesia. It's a suggestion tacked onto the end of a study by Dr. Matthew Genge of the Imperial College London published Wednesday in Geology. Titled "Electrostatic levitation of volcanic ash into the ionosphere and its abrupt effect on climate," much of the findings focus on the 1883 eruption of the Krakatau volcano in Indonesia. Genge writes that "conventional wisdom suggests" eruptions can't inject volcanic particles into the upper atmosphere "because the temperature inversion of the stratosphere acts as a barrier to convective rise"; ergo, these eruptions wouldn't have a meaningful impact on the upper atmosphere. But as Genge explains in a press release, "My research ... shows that ash can be shot into the upper atmosphere by electrical forces"—and "atmospheric electrical potential moderates cloud formation." His research into that Krakatau eruption and the average air temperature and precipitation records from the time unearthed data "consistent with a sudden effect on climate." And that takes us to Waterloo: The rainy and muddy weather is thought to have played a role in Napoleon's defeat, and Genge notes in a single paragraph that May and June 1815 are known to have been "notably wet in Europe" following the late April eruption of the Tambora volcano, which is also found in Indonesia and erupted at a greater magnitude than Krakatau. As the release notes, the findings "could confirm the suggested link between the eruption and Napoleon's defeat."
– Sure, it's a fixer-upper. But the crumbling façade, failing roof, and seen-better-decades interior aren't the reasons why Berlin has been unable to sell the Haus am Bogensee, a 70-room lakeside villa that the city has been trying to unload for more than 20 years. The real sticking point is the property's Nazi legacy—it once served as a "love nest" for Hitler's propagandist, Joseph Goebbels—and the concern that it "could become a shrine for Nazis," should it fall into the "wrong hands." So now, rather than sell the property located 25 miles north of Berlin, the city's real estate agency, BIM, hopes to lease it, AFP reports. (Though the place has had a whiff of a second life: It featured as a movie set in the upcoming Alone in Berlin with Emma Thompson.) In a 2014 look at Berlin's predicament, the Telegraph reported that villa is thought to be the last that belonged to a Nazi party "bigwig" that's still standing. And what has ended up in Berlin's hands started there: It purchased the land for Goebbels in 1936 to mark his 39th birthday, according to the AFP; construction of Haus am Bogensee was completed in 1939, the Telegraph reports. Goebbels described the area as a "place of idyllic solitude," but it also was, according to reports, an ideal place for the "Randy Goat of Babelsberg" to cheat on his wife with starlets from the film studio he controlled. He and wife Magda ultimately killed themselves in Hitler's bunker after poisoning their six kids. (The Nazi's "ideal" Aryan baby, thought to have been determined by Goebbels himself, was actually Jewish.)
– The number of eviction orders in an apartment complex owned by Sean Hannity rose 400% after the Fox News host purchased the property for $8 million nearly four years ago, reports the Guardian. After Hannity took over the 152-unit Hampton Place apartment complex in Perry, Georgia, property managers received approval to evict 61 residents. The previous owner received approval to evict only 12 tenants in a similar period of time. Through his lawyer, Hannity is denying responsibility: "Mr. Hannity is not involved in the management of these properties. Evictions only occur after a material breach of the lease terms," says Christopher Reeves in an email. But not all of the tenants threatened with eviction were booted out. One, for example, was allowed to stay after ponying up $300 in extra fees and a $725 monthly rent payment. "It seemed kind of harsh," the tenant says. But Georgia state law tends to favor landlords over tenants. "You can be evicted for being a single day late on your rent—regardless of whether you’ve paid on time for the past five years," attorney Lindsey Siegel tells the Guardian. "Georgia is one of the harshest states for tenants." Hannity has amassed a real estate empire with rental property valued at tens of millions in Georgia, Alabama, and South Florida, reports the Los Angeles Times. His holdings came under scrutiny after the Guardian reported recently that Hannity is linked to a group of 20 shell companies that invested an estimated $90 million on hundreds of homes over the last decade.
– Historically, it's been challenging to pinpoint how often people get the flu, in part because most of us can't self diagnose it, thinking we have it when we don't or not knowing we have it when we do. Now researchers say they've found the answer—that kids get the flu on average every two years, adults every five—by studying antibodies in the blood samples of 151 people in southern China to sort out which influenza strains people have become immune to and when. By comparing a person's antibodies against certain strains with the dates those strains circulated, the researchers were able to ascertain when people actually had the flu, the team reports in the journal PLoS Biology. "The exact frequency of infection will vary depending on background levels of flu and vaccination," one researcher tells LiveScience. The researchers, from China, the US, and the UK, say there are several possible reasons why kids get the flu more than twice as frequently as adults, among them being that they are exposed to more germs due to increased interaction with others, and also that they've simply not lived as long and haven't accumulated the same antibodies against influenza strains. Interestingly, though, kids have stronger immune responses to the flu than adults. The findings could help researchers better predict how strains will adapt in the future, as well as how immunity to past strains may influence one's response to new vaccines. (This year's flu vaccine was one of the least effective in the past decade.)
– It is apparently a thing among some male soccer fans to interrupt a female reporter on the air to force a kiss, sometimes a grope. Days after one high-profile incident at the World Cup tournament in Russia comes another, but this time the journalist not only avoids the kiss, she gives her would-be harasser a dressing down for the ages. “Don't do this! Never do this again,” Brazilian reporter Julia Guimarães shouts at the man, now off camera, in English. "I don't allow you to do this, never, OK?" she says, per Newsweek. "This is not polite, this is not right. Never do this to a woman, OK? Respect!” Watch it here.
– President Obama will take to the mic at noon today to share his vision for the next four years with the country, and while guns, immigration, and other big issues loom, those tuning in should expect generalities rather than details. The AP spoke with aides who say there's no new policy in the speech, which is par for the course, a former speechwriter tells CBS. "An inaugural is a specific kind of speech. It's not a stump speech. It's not a partisan speech. It's not a policy speech." The result is akin to a "Hallmark card," quips a historian. "Filled with sentimental, feel-good, uplifting, patriotic language." David Plouffe said yesterday on CNN that Obama's "detailed agenda and blueprint" will come in his Feb. 12 State of the Union address. "We view these speeches as a package," said Plouffe, per Politico. The words he and other insiders are bandying about? "It’s a hopeful speech," Valerie Jarrett told Real Clear Politics, one that emphasizes "those founding values and principles that have always guided our country so well." The other big story line of the speech: It's obviously Obama's second such address, and as author Ronald C. White Jr. writes for the New York Times, "second inaugurals have not fared well in American history." He argues that the only exception to the rule was Abraham Lincoln's March 5, 1865 speech ("With malice toward none, with charity for all..."), which succeeded because he broke three second-inaugural commonalities. He kept it to a slim 701 words (everyone from Jefferson to Clinton to George W. spoke longer during their second go-round); used "I" only once; and wasn't predictable (he didn't address expected topics like how the Confederacy should be treated post-defeat). Click for today's inaugural timeline, or build your own inaugural address.
– From now on, "when a bank opens its doors to terrorists, they're going to be held accountable," a lawyer said after a landmark US verdict against a Middle Eastern bank yesterday. A federal jury in New York found Arab Bank—Jordan's biggest lender—liable for 24 terrorist attacks Hamas carried out in Israel early last decade because it did business with the group's leaders and scores of operatives, reports the New York Times. Lawyers say the case—brought by almost 300 Americans who were injured in the attacks or were relatives of victims—is the first terrorism financing civil case to go to court in the US, Reuters reports. The lawsuit charged that Hamas used the bank for making payments to the families of suicide bombers. "There's a huge sense of relief—it is an amazing verdict," one of the plaintiffs, a Detroit man injured in a 2003 suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, tells Bloomberg. "This is a huge wake-up call, not just for banks, but for all big businesses, to wash their hands of these kinds of clients." The bank, whose lawyers called the evidence "a mile wide and an inch deep" and argued that designating terrorists is a job for governments, not banks, plans to appeal the verdict. Another trial will determine damages for the plaintiffs.
– Doctors have identified a new smartphone hazard, albeit an ultimately benign one. They report in the New England Journal of Medicine on the first known cases of "transient smartphone blindness," temporary vision loss that appears to be harmless. For the two UK women identified as suffering from it, the blindness was brought on by using their smartphones while lying on their sides in the dark in such a way that only one eye was viewing the bright screen while the other was blocked by a pillow. This caused one eye to adjust to the darkness while the other was adapted to the brightness. When the smartphone was turned off, "the symptoms were always in the eye contralateral to the side on which the patient was lying"—that is, the dark-adjusted eye responds fine to the now-dark room, but the light-adjusted eye seemed to suffer blindness for a short period. For both women, who were 22 and 40 at the time, the vision loss lasted up to 15 minutes at a time, with occurrences persisting for months, reports Live Science. The AP reports they were subjected to MRIs and other tests before seeing an eye specialist who was able to diagnose them in minutes. "I simply asked them, 'What exactly were you doing when this happened?'" says Dr. Gordon Plant. One of the women, doubtful of the prognosis, started keeping a record of her blindness incidents, which confirmed the link. A rep for the American Academy of Ophthalmology says the sample size is too small to prove Plant's theory, but the AP comes to a simple conclusion: Always look at your phone with both eyes in the dark. (Regular smartphone use is tied to ADHD-like symptoms.)
– It's Academy Awards weekend, so in anticipation of Sunday's ceremony, Claudia Puig offers up her choices for who should win—and who actually will win—in USA Today: Best Picture: "Despite its superb performances, brilliant direction, sharp writing, and exquisitely complex, if not always likable, lead character," The Social Network will lose out to less-worthy contender The King's Speech—which brings audiences the "happy ending and clear-cut hero" they crave, writes Puig. Best Director: Once again, The Social Network deserves a win because its "brilliant direction" is at the heart of its success as a film—but The King's Speech will probably grab this one as well. Best Actor: Finally, a category that The King's Speech actually deserves to win. Colin Firth is "pitch-perfect" as stammering King George VI, and he'll take home the prize. Best Actress: Based on most of the awards shows so far, we may as well hand this one to Natalie Portman for Black Swan. But Annette Bening, who made it "seem effortless" to portray her high-strung character in The Kids Are All Right, is the right choice. Click for the complete list (or check out a Funny or Die video featuring Mike Tyson's Oscar picks.)
– It hasn't been a good week for drivers in LA leading police on high-speed chases. Early yesterday evening, one suspect led cops on a 100mph pursuit through the streets of Hollywood before unsuccessfully trying to escape on foot, the Los Angeles Times reports. Then three other suspects apparently wanted to get in the game, speeding along in a green Honda Civic that had been reported stolen and outmaneuvering cop cars and a police helicopter until they ended up in probably the last place they wanted: right in front of LAPD headquarters on First Street in downtown LA. That's where it all fell apart for the racing rebels. Police pulled a PIT move—that awesome tactic often witnessed on cop TV shows where the squad car drives parallel to the "target" car until it can bang into it and force it to skid out, as per Wise Geek—and the car came to a halt. A male suspect in his 20s was booked on car theft and felony evasion charges, and two female passengers were brought into custody after the 22-minute chase, though it's not clear if they'll face charges as well, the Los Angeles Daily News reports. "It's almost comical that it happened to end right in front of our office," an LAPD officer tells the Times. "I can see it from our window."
– We're told to get our vitamins—but there's a line when enough is enough, and when kids eat fortified breakfast cereal, they may be crossing that line, USA Today reports. "Millions of children are ingesting potentially unhealthy amounts" of three nutrients: vitamin A, zinc, and niacin, per a new report by the health research- and advocacy-minded Environmental Working Group. It found fortified cereal is the biggest source of excess, and says that's because the nutrients are packed in with adults' needs in mind—and labels list daily values set for adults in 1968. Just "a tiny, tiny percentage" of cereals show kids' daily values, says the group's director of research. Per the report, some 10 million US kids get too much vitamin A; 13 million get too much zinc; and almost 5 million get too much niacin. While the three nutrients are necessary, too much vitamin A can eventually cause liver and skeletal problems, too much zinc can be bad for your immune function, and too much niacin can lead to rashes and vomiting. But a Kellogg's rep counters that kids need fortified cereals to get enough vitamins, and points out that of the 1,556 cereals EWG analyzed, only 23 had nutrient levels considered "much greater" than what kids 8 and under should eat—"and the vast majority of these are adult-oriented cereals not regularly consumed by children." Researchers say kids should only eat foods containing a max of 25% of the adult daily value of the nutrients in question.
– American Catholics are big fans of the new pope, with some 88% approving of the job Pope Francis is doing, a CNN/ORC International poll finds. (Eat your heart out, Congress.) As for the country as a whole, CNN reports that about three in four Americans has a positive view of the pontiff, making him Americans' highest-regarded religious figure today. Joel Osteen, senior pastor of the country's biggest church, Houston's Lakewood Church, is among those giving the pope high marks. "I like the new pope," Osteen told Fox News this weekend, per Politico. Francis, he said, has been building a "more inclusive" Catholic Church. Ahead of his first Christmas at the Vatican, Francis yesterday dropped in on his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Both dressed in white, the two men embraced and went to a nearby chapel to pray together before meeting privately for half an hour, the Telegraph reports. It's only the second time they've met in public. "Merry Christmas, pray for me," Francis said as he left. Replied Benedict, "Always, always, always."
– Some are calling it a Thanksgiving miracle, per People. Police say an 18-wheeler clipped a car on Interstate 30 in Texarkana, Ark., around 7pm Friday, causing the vehicle to flip and an 8-month-old girl to be ejected. Her car seat was found outside the vehicle, but the infant wasn't in it, reports CNN. Firefighters who feared they were on a recovery mission were later searching a patch of hay within the interstate median when a sound directed them to a small storm drain barely visible about 25 feet from the crash site. Inside, the infant "was sitting up and looking up at us waiting for us to pull her out," a firefighter tells KSLA. "She wasn't screaming, she wasn't crying, was just sitting there waiting for us" with a scratch on her forehead, he adds. Firefighters believe the infant rolled down a hill and into the storm drain. Incredibly, she was taken to a hospital and found to have suffered only a minor injury. "There had to be some kind of divine intervention for her to end up being OK," the firefighter says. Authorities say the child wasn't properly secured in her car seat, which itself wasn't properly installed in the car, but police issued no citations over that. None of the four others from the car suffered serious injuries, while the driver of the 18-wheeler has been cited for an improper lane change. (Strangers formed a human chain to save this crash victim.)
– President Obama made waves in his latest interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC, in which he spoke out against Bank of America’s unpopular new $5 fee for debit card users. “This is exactly why we need this Consumer Finance Protection Bureau,” Obama said. Asked directly if he could stop it, he replied, “You can stop it … if you say to the banks, ‘You don’t have some inherent right just to get a certain amount of profit if your customers are being mistreated.'" That drew a rebuke from the American Bankers Association, which called it “disappointing and puzzling that the president would attack a private corporation for responding to government price fixing,” according to Politico. That’s not the only soundbite generating interest: Asked if Americans were better off than they were four years ago—the line Ronald Reagan used to defeat Jimmy Carter—Obama replied, “They’re not better off than they were before Lehman’s collapse, before the financial crisis. ... The unemployment rate is still way too high.”
– Eric Cantor canceled a planned speech today on the gap between America's rich and poor after learning it was going to be open to the public—and that Occupy protesters planned to show up in force. Cantor had been due to speak at the Wharton Business School in Philadelphia but pulled out when "informed last night by Capitol Police that the University of Pennsylvania was unable to ensure that the attendance policy previously agreed to could be met," reports the National Journal. Cantor apparently thought it would be open only to students and people associated with the university. Despite his no-show, the protest was still going on, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. "We want make sure Rep. Cantor knows he can run, but he can't hide," said an organizer. Outside Wharton, chants were going up: "Eric Cantor, can't you see what this movement means to me?" and "Get up, get down, there's a revolution in this town!" The Daily Pennsylvanian has the text of what Cantor was going to say here. Cantor has previously walked back comments referring to OWS protesters as "mobs."
– A reality TV show about police officers is to thank for the recovery of a 9-year-old Texas girl who went missing in 2016. Mariah Martinez and her two younger brothers disappeared with their mother, Amanda Martinez, soon after a court ordered the children removed from Amanda's custody in the fall of that year. Mariah's brother Jeremiah had allegedly told his teacher his mom's boyfriend physically abused him and threatened to kill the whole family, People reports. The Star-Telegram reports Amanda tested positive for meth shortly before taking off with the kids. In January 2017, Amanda was arrested after leaving the boys with a relative, but Mariah was not found and investigators say Amanda wouldn't reveal where she was. Enter LivePD, a series that airs on A&E and often shows police officers doing their jobs. The episode that aired Friday featured Mariah, and someone who was watching it called in a tip to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which then alerted investigators. Mariah was found Monday in New Mexico. No details were released about her recovery, including her condition, and no one has been charged since she was found. Lubbock police said in a statement she was returned home "safely," and NCMEC announced on Facebook that she is "SAFE," expressing gratitude to police and the show. Amanda Martinez's mother was arrested in New Mexico in December in relation to the case, Lubbock Online reports. Amanda Martinez pleaded no contest to a charge of interference with child custody and is prohibited from contact with her children for three years.
– The UN publicly maintains a zero tolerance policy on sexual abuse. Less publicly, it stands by as peacekeepers rape women and children in the Central African Republic, victims and human rights organizations allege. Four years after UN peacekeepers were first accused of rape in the country following a decade of civil war, victims say the crime continues with impunity. Expanding upon 255 alleged incidents worldwide from 2015 to 2017, a woman tells USA Today that peacekeepers raped her 10-year-old son a year ago in Bouar, leaving him "traumatized." A 13-year-old girl says she was raped two years ago near Bangui by two soldiers who lured her with promises of "candies and cookies." A 17-year-old girl says she was raped at gunpoint by two soldiers in June, and knows many women who were raped, impregnated, and later gave birth. The teen said she didn't report the crime because she feared people "would make fun of me." Human rights groups say victims fail to report abuses by peacekeepers for a number of reasons, including fear of reprisals. This—combined with a watchdog report showing the UN needs to better investigate accusations—explains why some dispute the UN's claim that there were 50% fewer worldwide assaults on children by UN peacekeepers in the first 11 months of 2017 compared to the same period in 2016. "The UN is claiming things are getting better, but it is in complete control over the assessments of people coming forward," says the co-director of AIDS-Free World, which tracks such abuses. UN officials say progress is being made, though an investigation into alleged child rape by French soldiers in the Central African Republic was just closed because of insufficient evidence, reports AFP.
– House Republicans don't look ready to fall in behind Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell's plan to end the shutdown, and Democrats are lining up to take a swing at their effort. The House leadership today proposed an alternative plan that would include extra changes to ObamaCare, including a two-year delay on the tax on medical devices, and the elimination of federal subsidies for members of Congress and White House staff, the AP reports. "We think we've enhanced it in a number of ways," Darrell Issa tells the Washington Post, though he refused to say what Republicans would do if Democrats balked. And Democrats balked mightily. The White House quickly rejected the proposal as a "a partisan attempt to appease a small group of Tea Party Republicans," and insisted it would not pay a "ransom," the Hill reports. House Democratic leaders called the plan "irresponsible," and Harry Reid said it was a "waste of time" that "will not pass the Senate. Even before Democrats spoke, Boehner seemed to be distancing himself from the reports, telling reporters that House leadership has made "no decisions about what exactly we will do." He added that "there are a lot of opinions" among his caucus. The New York Times interpreted that as the House plan collapsing, and CNN reports that Boehner is "struggling" to find the votes for the proposal. But Politico's story indicates that there's still fight left in House leadership, with sources saying that they're considering voting on their proposal, then hightailing it out of Washington, leaving the Senate with two choices: Pass the House bill, or let the country default.
– President Obama made his pitch to Congress this evening for what he's calling the American Jobs Act, a wide-ranging proposal whose centerpiece is an expansion of the payroll tax break (he figures it's worth $1,500 a year to the average family), along with more spending on school and road projects. The biggest surprise, says the New York Times, is probably the total cost: about $450 billion. But "everything in this bill will be paid for," insisted Obama. "You should pass this bill right away." (Politico notes that he repeated the "right away" phrase eight times during the speech.) Excerpts, with the full text here: “The question is whether, in the face of an ongoing national crisis, we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy.” The plan "will create more jobs for construction workers, more jobs for teachers, more jobs for veterans, and more jobs for the long-term unemployed. It will provide a tax break for companies who hire new workers, and it will cut payroll taxes in half for every working American and every small business." "There should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation. Everything in here is the kind of proposal that’s been supported by both Democrats and Republicans—including many who sit here tonight." "Ultimately, our recovery will be driven not by Washington, but by our businesses and our workers. But we can help. We can make a difference. There are steps we can take right now to improve people’s lives." Related: Eric Cantor suggested Republicans are open to extending the payroll tax holiday, notes the Los Angeles Times, and John Boehner said Obama's proposals "merit consideration," adds Reuters.
– He had just one job, and that job was to present the Golden Globes award for best supporting actress in a film. But when Michael Keaton mentioned Hidden Figures—a movie starring Octavia Spencer (one of the nominees) and documenting a team of African-American women who helped NASA get its first space missions off the ground—he instead said "Hidden Fences," perhaps mixing it up with the movie called Fences starring Viola Davis (the night's winner) and detailing the story of an African-American working-class father raising his family in the 1950s. That Keaton apparently conflated two movies dealing with African-American storylines wasn't lost on viewers, per the Hollywood Reporter—especially since former first daughter Jenna Bush had made the exact same mistake on the red carpet earlier when talking to singer Pharrell, who scored Hidden Figures, the Washington Post reports. "Wait... #HiddenFences ...again?" tweeted astounded actress Gabrielle Union. The rest of Twitter also jumped right on the gaffe, with memes, a #HiddenFences hashtag, and a Hidden Fences parody account all making an appearance, per Entertainment Weekly.
– Dakota Johnson hosted Saturday Night Live last night, and unlike Fifty Shades, it wasn't so boring: The skit generating the most buzz was a parody of Toyota's Super Bowl ad in which a dad (Taran Killam) drops Johnson off at the airport. Only instead of joining the Army, as in Toyota's version of events, she joins ISIS. "Take care of her," enjoins a tearful Killam. "Death to America," whispers a militant (Kyle Mooney). A Twitter brouhaha ensued, notes Gawker with some examples. "'Depraved' or 'hilarious'?" asks a Daily Mail headline. The New York Post is rather calm, dismissing the whole thing as SNL "doing what they’ve done best for 40 years." Catch the clip, and a couple of other highlights, in the gallery.
– Taunting a bison is not only unwise, it will land you in legal trouble at Yellowstone. The same applies to tempting fate near Old Faithful. An unidentified man has been charged with multiple offenses, including going off-trail in a thermal area, after he appeared to urinate in the famous hot-spring geyser while ignoring orders to move away, reports East Idaho News. "A bunch of the crowd thought he was going to jump," a Michigan woman who witnessed the stunt tells the AP. "We didn't know what was going to happen." A park ranger shouts repeatedly at the man to get back on the boardwalk in a video included with the News story. He eventually does, but not before lying down briefly, and that's where rangers arrested him.
– Today's big immigration news will come straight from the president's mouth. Barack Obama will set out his own immigration reform plan in Las Vegas today, and it will offer more specifics than his 2011 immigration "blueprint" did. But his intention is not to put forth an actual bill—so long as the Senate keeps making progress on its version, Politico reports. But that approach isn't as pitfall-free as it sounds: The Senate group and Obama already disagree on a few points, like linking the granting of citizenship to tougher border enforcement, which Obama believes would establish a state of limbo for the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country. A likely big fight: While the Senate plan made no mention of same-sex bi-national couples, Obama will address this population today, reports Buzzfeed. It spoke with sources who said some of the Senate Democrats involved actually alerted LGBT leaders to the omission on Sunday, which they explained as necessary for securing bipartisan backing. Chuck Schumer reportedly said same-sex couples—who, even when married under state law, cannot obtain green cards for the foreign partner—could be written into the legislation as the process moves forward. Real Clear Politics reports that Obama's overall role will be as "cheerleader," pushing the public to push their members of Congress to act. But he doesn't want a lot of individual measures; rather, he's expected to call for a single bill. And while the Senate's bipartisan deal has won cautious praise from the White House, it will be much tougher to sell it to Republican voters and many GOP lawmakers, the New York Times finds. Conservatives in the House have made it clear they are opposed to anything resembling amnesty, and John Boehner has remained noncommittal on the proposal. "When you legalize those who are in the country illegally, it costs taxpayers millions of dollars, costs American workers thousands of jobs, and encourages more illegal immigration," says Rep. Lamar Smith, a key Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.
– What appeared to be excerpts of Hillary Clinton's speeches to financial firms and corporate gatherings were finally released Friday—though the WikiLeaks release was largely overshadowed by the furore over Donald Trump's crude remarks. The Hill reports that there doesn't appear to be anything too explosive in the excerpts, though Clinton does speak about security concerns about using Blackberries at the State Department, admit that she is now "kind of far removed" for the struggles of the middle class, and, in a discussion about dealing with lobbyists, say that you "need both a public and a private position." The remarks that may be most likely to end up in a Trump attack ad come from a 2013 speech to a Brazilian bank. "My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders," she said. BuzzFeed reports that the speech transcripts were among emails believed to be from a hacked account of Clinton campaign chief John Podesta. A Clinton campaign spokesperson said the campaign won't confirm whether the emails are authentic, and added that the US government has "removed any reasonable doubt that the Kremlin has weaponized WikiLeaks to meddle in our election and benefit Donald Trump's candidacy." (Bernie Sanders made numerous calls for Clinton to release the speeches.)
– Police in Bradford County, Florida, have taken a highly visible step in making sure no sexual predator goes unnoticed: Officials there last week erected bold red signs in front of the homes of 18 registered sexual predators. GTN News reports that the signs are permitted under a Florida statute that gives authorities the power to "inform the community and the public of the presence" of such an offender. They read: "[Name] is a convicted Sexual Predator and lives at this location." (Side note: Florida classifies sex offenders and sexual predators differently; the latter are those convicted of a single first-degree felony or multiple second-degree felonies of a sexual nature.) A captain with the county's police department explains the reasoning to Vice: Though they already post notices to Facebook and go into the community to alert residents, "we realized there was a possible issue with continued notification. If somebody moves in after we've gone around notifying people, then they're not aware that there's a predator there." So how are these now-informed residents reacting? "It just astounded me really," says one who has seen a sign go up near his home. "It's like twenty feet behind our house. That's just scary. Dude could be like watching out his back window looking at us."
– Gay marriage still isn't legal in Illinois, and Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak is making a boldfaced attempt to take advantage of that. Rybak is headed to Chicago today to announce a new ad campaign urging gay Windy City residents to cross the border and get hitched. Rybak will hold the event in Lakeview, the city's most prominent gay neighborhood, the Chicago Tribune reports. In other gay rights news: The Department of Veteran Affairs has announced that it will begin providing benefits to same-sex couples, ignoring a federal law limiting benefits to spouses "of the opposite sex," the New York Times reports. In a letter to Congress, Eric Holder explained that the Obama administration would no longer enforce the law, thanks to the Supreme Court ruling marking such discrimination as unconstitutional. Top Texas Republicans are battling a proposed San Antonio law that would make it illegal to discriminate against gay people in housing and hiring decisions, the Dallas Morning News reports. As "good primary politics in Texas, this is kind of a no-brainer," one GOP consultant said. Gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott, for instance, says the ordinance would "trample" religious freedom. For more on battle over gay rights in Texas, Mississippi, and New Mexico, click here.
– A single-letter screw-up at Fox has Twitter abuzz. An affiliate station in Sacramento announced to viewers: “Obama Bin Laden Dead,” Metro reports. The station shrugged off the gaffe as an easy slip-up, pointing to other stations that have made similar errors—including another of its affiliates, whose anchor announced that “President Obama” was dead, notes Zap2It. And before slamming the Sacramento affiliate's mistake, Keith Olbermann made one of his own, notes Mediaite. The former MSNBC anchor blogged that George W. Bush had “personally de-prioritized the hunt for Obama”; an MSNBC correspondent separately tweeted, “Obama shot and killed," the Daily Caller observes. Fox News is now spelling the terrorist leader’s name “Usama,” and ran a doozy of a typo when the news broke (see it here). Fox News notes a “mixed” reaction to his death among Hollywood's typo-happy elite. “I dont know how I feel about 'celebrating' death” tweeted Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine. “I believe in justice,” tweeted Katy Perry, “but don't u think that an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind?” Other celebs, however, didn’t hesitate to celebrate: “Got Bin Laden AND interuppted Celebrity Apprentice? Win for Obama all around,” tweeted Jimmy Fallon.
– One of the most amazing stories of heroism to emerge from the Las Vegas mass shooting is that of Jesus Campos, an unarmed security guard who was the first to locate gunman Stephen Paddock. Union chief Dave Hickey says Campos arrived at the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel by elevator because Paddock had apparently barricaded the stairwell doors, the Daily Beast reports. He was shot in the leg after trying to open the door of Paddock's hotel room, which had also been barricaded. The injured guard, who was carrying only a baton, radioed dispatch and told them where the shooter was. Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo says that after Campos approached, Paddock stopped shooting at the crowd below and fired more than 200 rounds into the hotel hallway, the Telegraph reports. The guard's "bravery was amazing," Lombardo says. "He gave our officers the key guard for the room and then continued clearing rooms until he was ordered to go seek attention." Campos is scheduled to undergo surgery to remove the bullet in his leg. "I'm fine," he tells ABC. "I was just doing my job." A GoFundMe campaign a co-worker started for Campos has raised almost $6,000. President Trump praised Campos during his visit to Las Vegas Wednesday, saying: "He did a good job, didn't he?"
– Scientists have been amazed to discover that thunderstorms on Earth send bursts of antimatter into space. The phenomenon was spotted by NASA researchers using the Fermi space telescope, the Los Angeles Times reports. Scientists at CERN have only been able to produce antimatter—the mirror image of matter, with the components of its atoms in reverse—in tiny amounts for a fraction of a second. "This is a fundamental new discovery about how our planet works," a lightning researcher tells National Geographic. "The idea that any planet has thunderstorms that can create antimatter and launch it into space is something out of science fiction. The fact that our own planet is doing it is truly amazing."
– How do you tell whether a canvas splattered with paint is the work of Jackson Pollock—or a fake? Collectors have been tricked in the past, but a new computer program could prevent such misfortune, the Smithsonian reports. The software, created by a researcher at Lawrence Technological University, was at first intended to examine medical images, Ars Technica reports. It looks at the paintings from a numerical perspective, making minute examinations that the human eye can't handle, according to a post at Eureka Alert. Once a painting is scanned, the program examines texture, color, shapes, and more. It picks up on 4,024 different numerical attributes of the painting—things like the way dripping paint creates fractals, the press release notes. It's 93% accurate, and anyone can use it: You can download the program right here. What's more, it would seem to prove that even if Pollock's art looks easy to copy, it's actually done in a specialized style, the Smithsonian notes. (Scientific techniques, however, can help to recreate it.)
– A Fort Hood soldier recently returned from fighting the Ebola outbreak in Liberia was found dead on his doorstep yesterday morning, but officials say conclusive tests have ruled the disease out as a cause. The 24-year-old returned to Texas with his unit last week and the tests were ordered as a precaution after his body was found outside his off-base apartment in Killeen, the AP reports. He had been self-monitoring for fever and other symptoms as troops are required to do for 21 days after leaving Ebola zones, the base says. Defense Department sources say Ebola was a major concern because the soldier was found in or near a pool of vomit, USA Today reports. More tests are being conducted to determine the cause of death.
– It's no news flash that consuming caffeine close to bedtime can interfere with sleep. But scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder report in the journal Science Translational Medicine that caffeine has another physiological impact on sleep by delaying the body's natural surge in the production of the sleep hormone melatonin, which in turn pushes back the body's circadian clock. "To our surprise, no one had really tested this question," one of the researchers tells NPR. "What we're seeing here now is another way that caffeine impacts our physiology that we didn't know about before in humans." The problem in this case is that the circadian clock is "present in cells throughout our entire body," says the researcher. "It's in your fat cells; it's in your muscle cells." Messing with it appears to play a role in a wide range of health problems, from obesity to cancer. Many studies have recently suggested that bright light at night, especially the blue light emanating from our screens, impedes melatonin production. Caffeine's effect is about half what scientists found when exposing volunteers to bright light alone; volunteers who drank a double espresso three hours before bedtime experienced a 40-minute delay of the melatonin surge. Now the researchers plan to study whether caffeine consumption five or six hours before bedtime produces a similar effect. (Still want to watch TV at night? Orange glasses should do the trick.)
– GOP hopeful Rick Santorum's latest campaign ad doesn't exactly scream 2012. The video is seemingly inspired by VH1's cult classic TV show Pop Up Video, which was a huge hit after it debuted in 1996 (it was resurrected in October of this year). In the 60-second spot, the former Pennsylvania senator plays backyard sports with his kids as trivia bubbles pop into view containing fascinating tidbits, such as "All the Santorum children were homeschooled." New York's Daily Intel blog notes: "It's the bubble-popping sound effect that really makes it."
– A young Englishwoman has died from overeating and may not have been properly treated for her unusual eating disorder, Fox News reports. Kirsty Derry lived at an assisted living home that had alarms on the fridge and cupboards to stop her from gorging. But the alarms were taken away in January 2013, and seven months later, Derry was dead at the age of 23, the Telegraph reports. "Of course I wanted her to stay at home with me, it's a mother's instinct—but I wanted her to be happy and have what she wanted," her mother, 50-year-old Julie Fallows, said at an inquest into her daughter's death. "I thought she'd be safe and happy in a supported living environment." Doctors diagnosed Derry at age 2 with Prader Willi Syndrome, which gave her a constantly strong appetite. She developed diabetes and was later sent to the facility, Victoria Mews, in 2012. But the fridge and cupboard alarms there were removed for periods after Derry complained about them, according to testimony at the inquest, the Sentinel reports. At Victoria Mews, the 4-foot-8 woman's weight ballooned from 175 pounds to 266 pounds as she gorged on food including ice cream and chocolate. Her official cause of death: pulmonary edema, or lung fluid that stopped her from breathing. "Hopefully appropriate lessons have been learned," says a coroner who concluded her that her condition was not properly addressed. The care facility has since shut down.
– A man has been charged with murder in the road rage shooting death of former New Orleans Saints player Will Smith, but surveillance video from shortly before the shooting raises questions about what actually started the incident. Police say Cardell Hayes' Hummer rear-ended Smith's Mercedes SUV (which in turn rear-ended a third car), sparking an argument between the two men that ended with Hayes shooting Smith and Smith's wife, CBS News reports. But new video obtained by Fox 8 New Orleans and also aired by ABC News appears to show Smith's SUV rear-ending Hayes' Hummer after Hayes came to a sudden stop less than two blocks away from the eventual shooting scene. The video then shows the Hummer pulling over, the SUV driving away from the scene, and the Hummer following. "Prior to the actions that led to Mr. Smith's death, my client was involved in a hit-and-run. Someone hit him, the person failed to pull over, my client trailed behind this person in an effort to get their license plate number. My client also called 911. While he was on the phone with 911, that's when the three-car accident occurs," Hayes' lawyer says. Per ESPN, the attorney has been suggesting there was a second gun at the New Orleans scene Saturday night, and that its existence will help exonerate his client, though he's been vague about where that gun was or who might have been wielding it. "Everybody out there felt threatened," he says, per ABC, "by someone other than Mr. Hayes."
– A comic book artist who has worked on the likes of X-Men and the Avengers has gone missing in the Cayman Islands after swimming near Grand Cayman's east coast. While snorkeling about 250 yards from shore on Thursday morning, Norman Lee and his wife got separated, MyFoxBoston reports. Though his wife made it back to shore, Lee did not. Crews launched a search that has been fruitless, MyFoxBoston notes, and WMUR reports that it's now considered a rescue mission—even as officials doubt they'll find Lee's body. "The currents in that area are strong, and it is unlikely that we will make any recovery at this stage," an official tells WMUR. Lee, 47, has worked at both Marvel and DC comics and has established a strong reputation in the industry, MyFoxBoston reports. He began at Marvel some 20 years ago, contributing to the character Wolverine, the New York Daily News reports. His main job has been as an inker, NECN reports; that means he finalizes the lines that create the characters, the Daily News notes. "He's worked on some of the best stuff in the country, on some of the best artists," a friend tells NECN, which notes that his work can be found at many comic stores. Despite authorities' bleak outlook, a friend is still hopeful, he tells WMUR. "He's a very strong man. If anyone can survive it, it's Norman. So I hold out hope at the moment." (Last year was a big one for Marvel, including the introduction of a female Thor.)
– When it comes to smoking marijuana and driving, many variables affect impairment—the potency of the drug, the tolerance of the toker, when the drug was taken, how the drug was taken—making guidelines difficult to implement. But with some states decriminalizing the possession of weed, the feds are investigating a pot version of the .08 breath alcohol concentration set as the legal driving limit in most of the country. A new study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse finds that drivers with blood concentrations of 13.1 ug/L THC, which is more than twice the 5 ug/L limit in Washington and Colorado, exhibit impairment similar to those with a .08 breath alcohol concentration, reports Time. The small study of 18 occasional pot smokers between 21 and 37 involved a 45-minute driving simulator in a 1996 Malibu sedan at a University of Iowa dome. Not only did researchers test different combinations of high or low concentrations of THC, alcohol, the combination of the two, and placebos, but they also looked at 250 parameters of driving, with a focus on weaving. While alcohol affected both lateral acceleration (weaving speed) and lane departures per minute, marijuana alone did not, reports Reason Magazine, which takes issue with current limits: "The five-nanogram cutoff in practice means that many regular cannabis consumers can never legally drive, even when they're not impaired, which hardly seems sensible or fair." (What happens when mixing alcohol and marijuana?)
– An incredibly disturbing end to an incredibly disturbing crime: Ohio school shooter TJ Lane showed up to his sentencing hearing today wearing a white T-shirt bearing what the AP describes as the apparently handwritten word "killer." Lane had in February pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated murder among other crimes, and was handed three lifetime sentences without the possibility of parole. But gasps rang out following the sentence, as Lane gave the room the middle finger and announced "F--- all of you," reports the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He also made a comment that we find too offensive to run; the Plain Dealer has it. Lane reportedly also wore a shirt that read "Killer" when he opened fire last year in Chardon High School's cafeteria, in a rampage that left three students dead and three others wounded. Investigators have said he admitted to the shooting but said he didn't know why he did it, and the prosecutor emphasized that today: "What we're dealing with is a disgusting human being. ... He still refuses to offer any explanation for why he did this. The only explanation I can offer the court is he is an evil person." CNN notes that Lane opted not to have his attorneys present any evidence at the hearing.
– The powerful nor'easter that transformed into a bomb cyclone and pummeled a 1,000-mile stretch of the East Coast with rain, snow, wind, and flooding Friday and Saturday left at least six people dead, the Washington Post reports. According to CNN, winds hit over 90 miles per hour off the Massachusetts coast, and so far the reported deaths were all caused by falling trees. The victims include a 77-year-old woman in Maryland, an 11-year-old boy in New York, a 44-year-old man in Virginia, a 6-year-old in Virginia, a 72-year-old man in Rhode Island, and two men in Connecticut. A 57-year-old man was also reported dead in Pennsylvania, the AP reports. "It was pretty scary," Alyssa Fitzgerald of Quincy, Massachusetts, tells CNN. She says the storm was "not like anything we've had before." Over 2 million homes and businesses lost power Friday and early Saturday. Officials say it could be days before it's restored to some customers. Meanwhile, Capt. John Dougan of the Quincy Police Department says the flooding is "the worst that we've seen in years." Boston Harbor had a high tide Friday of 14.67 feet—the third highest since 1928. Around 19 million people remained under flood warning Saturday afternoon. "We're seeing homes underwater, their basements were flooded out," says Dougan, whose department performed over 250 rescues from Friday to Saturday morning. One Massachusetts official urged residents to stay in their homes and not go "out sightseeing and gawking." Upstate New York received over 3 feet of snow, leading Syracuse University to declare a snow day for only the third time in its history. More than 3,000 flights were canceled Friday alone.
– Russia and China once again thumbed their nose at international pressure and vetoed a UN Security Council resolution to impose sanctions on Syria today. The move drew instant criticism from Western officials; Britain's UN ambassador accused them of putting "their national interests ahead of the lives of millions of Syrians" and relying on the "broken promises" of Bashar al-Assad's regime," CNN reports. Assad himself hadn't been seen in public since a blast killed his defense minister yesterday, prompting speculation about his whereabouts until he appeared on television, swearing in his new defense minister, reports the BBC. Meanwhile, fighting continues to rage in Damascus. The head of the UN observer mission there issued a dour report today. "It pains me to say, but we are not on the track for peace," he said, according to the Washington Post.
– Now that George Zimmerman has been acquitted, he can have back the pistol he used to kill Trayvon Martin—and he needs it "even more" than before, his lawyer tells ABC. Defense attorney Mark O'Mara says his client has no regrets about carrying a gun the night he killed the unarmed teenager, and he plans to go armed again because "there's even more reason now, isn't there? There are a lot of people out there who really hate him, even though they shouldn't." Zimmerman might not be able to get a concealed carry permit, but he will be able to keep his gun unless he is convicted of a federal felony, a University of Florida law professor tells NBC. Zimmerman faces a potential federal prosecution as well as possible civil lawsuits, though O'Mara says he would "welcome" the latter. The lawyer says Zimmerman might now move out of Florida—though he will probably struggle to find work anywhere in the country. "I don't think he can work. I don't think anyone can hire him," he says of Zimmerman, who had worked as an insurance investigator. "George is a pariah." Reuters adds that O'Mara, along with some of Zimmerman's friends, say Zimmerman is now interested in attending law school in order to "help other people like me."
– Uma Thurman is going back to her roots: The 48-year-old actress is looking into becoming a Swedish citizen and plans to move to the Nordic country, the Local reports. "She wants to buy a house in Sweden and live here in the future," her lawyer, Thomas Bodstrom, told a Swedish radio station this week. "She has a lot of relatives in Skåne so there are a lot of things that make her want to become a Swede; she has felt Swedish her entire life. We hope it will go well but it’s also a long process." Thurman's grandmother, Birgit Holmquist, was a well-known Swedish model. The star's mother, Nena von Schlebrügge, also had Swedish citizenship. Business Insider notes that Thurman has been to Sweden numerous times over the years and has visited Smygehuk, where her grandmother was the model for a statue of a nude woman in the harbor.
– Two years ago yesterday, Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School and fired 154 bullets in less than five minutes, killing 20 small children and six educators. Today, the families of nine of the victims, along with a wounded teacher who survived, have filed suit against the maker of Lanza's "weapon of choice," the Bushmaster AR-15, reports the Daily Beast. "The number of lives lost in those 264 seconds was made possible" by the AR-15, which was "engineered to deliver maximum carnage with extreme efficiency," reads the lawsuit; also named are Remington and Riverview Gun Sales, which sold Lanza's weapon. The suit faults the gunmakers for making such rifles available "to the civilian market" despite knowing that "individuals unfit to operate these weapons gain access to them." Per the suit, Bushmaster's actions caused the plaintiffs "terror; ante-mortem pain and suffering; destruction of the ability to enjoy life’s activities; destruction of earning capacity, and death." The families of 13 victims had in recent weeks created estates for their children, a required step in filing suit, reports the Guardian, which notes not all of those families intended to sue. They are represented by the same lawyer who represented Michael Jackson's family against AEG Live. Despite calls for increased gun control in the wake of the Newtown tragedy, Reuters notes that school shootings remain largely unchecked, with 95 fatal and nonfatal incidents over the last two years. Meanwhile, Nicole Hockley, mother of Dylan Hockley and one of the parents who sued, has written a letter to the mother she used to be.
– President Trump is taking guidance on Syria policy from the president of France, Emmanuel Macron claimed in an interview Sunday. The French leader said he persuaded Trump to limit airstrikes on Syria on Friday to chemical weapons facilities after "things got a little carried away over tweets," the Guardian reports. France and Britain also took part in the airstrikes. Macron also told an interviewer that over several phone calls in the days before the strikes, he talked Trump into keeping American troops in Syria just 10 days after the president said he wanted to bring them home. "We convinced him it was necessary to stay," said Macron. "We convinced him it was necessary to stay for the long term." Macron is believed to have a strong relationship with Trump and will be the guest of honor at the first formal White House state visit of Trump's presidency later this month, the BBC reports. But after his comments, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders denied that there had been a change in American policy. "The US mission has not changed—the president has been clear that he wants US forces to come home as quickly as possible," she said. US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said Sunday that American troops are in Syria to crush ISIS, make sure Iran doesn't take over, and to prevent chemical weapons from being used in a way that harms US interests, and they will stay until those missions are accomplished, the AP reports. (She also announced new sanctions on Russia.)
– Stephen Colbert signs off from Comedy Central next week, and the guest list is raising some eyebrows because of the one who appears last: It will be Grimmy, as in the Grim Reaper, who is described affectionately as Colbert's "colleague and lifelong friend," reports USA Today. So is the real Colbert killing off the fictional Colbert? It kind of looks that way, observes Gawker. It notes that Colbert joked in October about "massive foreshadowing" and panned over to Grimmy sliding a finger across his throat. The last show is Thursday, and Colbert will take over David Letterman's show in September as the real Colbert.
– "It is like a movie—it's crazy," Lt. Carlos Hank tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Early Saturday, at least three people in "dark, nice suits" and animal masks entered the Bellagio in Las Vegas and ripped off a "high-end retail store." One witness describes seeing a man wearing a pig mask and holding a gun standing guard outside a Rolex store while his compatriots used a sledgehammer to break the glass. “He was screaming at people, pointing his gun, making sure that anyone who was close just got away," she tells the New York Daily News. The sound of the breaking glass led to false reports of gunshots and chaos inside the casino. The masked men grabbed items from the store and ran off while ditching their fancy duds. Police detained several people for questioning, but ABC News reports police aren't confirming if those detained are suspects. The Rolex store was closed at the time of the incident, but the Bellagio was placed on lockdown for about half an hour afterward. No injuries were reported. “It's like old wild west stuff," a professional poker player tells the Daily News. "But you know, Vegas; it's all types of stuff that happens here.”
– Mark it down on the chalkboard: Glenn Beck's final day on Fox will be June 30, reports Mediaite. A gleeful Media Matters notes that Beck's ratings in May were among his worst ever. Business Insider, meanwhile, suggests five possible replacements, including Megan Kelly and SE Cupp. Beck, of course, will remain busy online and elsewhere, notes the Daily Caller. See here, here, and here for examples.
– Tablet too small for you? Try an entire table. Lenovo is releasing a 27-inch Windows 8 PC billed as a computer for multiple users, CNET reports. A wheeled stand (which may not reach the US) invites users to gather 'round, while another concept turns the computer into a coffee table. Much of the software demonstrated so far consists of games, with joysticks and air hockey paddles to go with them. So how good is the IdeaCentre Horizon, with versions at $999 and $1,699? A look at some early reactions: It's "very, really, incredibly silly and dumb. But that's not a bad thing!" notes Kyle Wagner at Gizmodo. The all-in-one "seems like the kind of thing that all your friends might not actually want, but would be more than happy to come over to your house and play with." The Verge offers a similar sentiment: The Horizon is "almost as cool as the Microsoft Surface—but much more gimmicky." Still, it's "definitely fun to use and play with." Chris Burns at SlashGear is more complimentary, pointing to "fabulous viewing angles and a rather realistically nice setup—in other words, it felt as though we’d really, actually use it in the real world. Not such a thing can be said about all massive touchscreen devices such as this."
– The Centers for Disease Control has issued official guidelines that boys now receive the HPV vaccine. The vaccine has been recommended for girls since 2006 to protect them from the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus linked to cancers. But because girls get the virus from boys, it "seems appropriate, even fair, for boys to share responsibility for maximizing community immunity," an expert told ABC News recently. The new guidelines follow a health committee vote last year recommending that the CDC modify its policy. The urgency behind HPV vaccines for boys rose last week after a study revealed that that nearly 7% of American teens and adults have oral HPV, a virus which can lead to oral cancer. Men are three times more likely to have oral HPV than women, according to the study. The CDC is recommending the vaccine for all boys, ages 11 and 12—the same age girls receive the vaccine. The agency also recommends older children and young adults gets the three-dose vaccine if they haven't received the vaccination at a younger age. The vaccine has been a hot-button issue for conservatives, some of whom view it as encouragement of sexual promiscuity. Former Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann sparked a furor when she said during a debate that the vaccine carries a risk of causing "retardation." She said later that she simply "passed on" a claim she heard from a stranger on the campaign trail.
– President Trump may feel he's vindicated after James Comey's testimony, but opinion outside the White House is not so clear cut. Here's a sample of editorials on the subject: Washington Post: Comey "painted a picture of a president grossly abusing his executive authority," write the editors. "However Mr. Trump and his allies may spin the testimony, these are serious and disturbing allegations." It also called out Republicans who sought to minimize the "transgressions." That only makes "those senators look small." Wall Street Journal: Comey "is trying to have it both ways," complains the editorial page. "He worked to leave the impression that Mr. Trump had committed a crime or at least an abuse of power, even as he abdicated his own obligations as a senior law-enforcement officer to report and deter such misconduct." That is, if he believed Trump was obstructing justice with his requests, why didn't he do something then? It feels like his motive now is "more revenge than truth-telling." New York Times: Comey "deftly recast his confrontation with the president as a clash between the legal principles at the foundation of American democracy, and a venal, self-interested politician who does not recognize, let alone uphold, them." Specifically, the editorial board faults Trump for being seemingly unconcerned about Russian meddling in the election. Washington Examiner: It focuses on Comey confirming that Trump wasn't personally under investigation. Previously, "the media speculated on an investigation into Trump and laughed off his claim that Comey told him he was no target. But Trump has now been shown to be right. Comey has not shown any good reason for withholding the truth. Trump had good reason to be angry." Chicago Tribune: Let this play out. "Comey's testimony damaged the president's credibility. But complex investigations take twists and turns and don't conclude quickly. In time the country will learn enough to render judgment. Were Trump's actions permissible, inept, or nefarious?"
– Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari might have to get used to the doghouse after claiming his wife belongs in the kitchen. In a BBC interview aired Friday, Aisha Buhari openly criticized her husband, suggesting a few people have taken over the government and convinced him to appoint their allies to top positions. "The president does not know 45 out of 50 of the people he appointed and I don't know them either, despite being his wife of 27 years," she said. "If things continue like this up to 2019, I will not go out and campaign again and ask any woman to vote like I did before." In response, President Buhari told reporters in Berlin, "I don't know which party my wife belongs to, but she belongs to my kitchen and my living room and the other room,” per the AP. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was meeting with Buhari at the time, gave him "a short glare" and then laughed, according to the AP. Citing his three unsuccessful presidential campaigns before his fourth run in 2015, Buhari continued, "I claim superior knowledge over [my wife] and the rest of the opposition, because in the end I have succeeded. It's not easy to satisfy the whole Nigerian opposition parties or to participate in the government." Though Nigeria is struggling with its first recession in a decade and a famine in the northeast of the country, the first lady did commend her husband's government for a decline in attacks by militant group Boko Haram. (The group just released 21 captives.)
– Moneyball is a big hit with critics, even if its premise—a film about baseball statistics—might sound boring at first. Here’s what they say about the film, which stars Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill: Built on a "sharp, sleek script," Moneyball "takes all this seemingly dry, dusty, inside-baseball stuff and turns it into the kind of all-too-rare pleasurable Hollywood diversion that gives you a contact high," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "No jock schmaltzfest, the whip-smart Moneyball is a crowd-pleasing baseball movie for people—like me—who don’t like baseball movies," writes Lou Lumenick in the New York Post. In the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan agrees, calling it "that rare sports movie that doesn't end with a rousing last-second victory or a come-from-behind celebration." Pitt is "in top movie star form," he adds. In short, it’s "one of the best and most viscerally exciting films of the year," asserts Peter Travers in Rolling Stone.
– Six United Nations staffers and six others were killed today when militants armed with automatic weapons, grenades, and suicide vests stormed two guest houses in downtown Kabul where international workers were sleeping. One of the dead was American. The nationalities of the others was not immediately known. Rockets hit another hotel in the capital popular with foreigners, forcing 100 guests into an underground bunker, reports Reuters. "We woke to explosions and shooting, and then heard women screaming and crying," said a neighbor of one of the guest houses. Security guards rebuffed attackers at one guest house, but the militants seized another and took hostages until security forces regained control, reports the Wall Street Journal. The Taliban—which has vowed to attack those working on next month's runoff election—claimed responsibility for the attacks and warned of new assaults.
– Jurors in the Conrad Murray trial today got the depressing privilege of hearing the full audio of a slurred Michael Jackson speaking, a portion of which they heard on the trial's first day. In the call to Murray, a barely comprehensible Jackson talks about his desire to pull off a great concert to help kids, recounts CNN. The recording—audio is in the gallery at left from Mediaite—came about six weeks before he died. "My performances will be up there helping my children and always be my dream," Jackson says. "I love them. I love them because I didn't have a childhood. I had no childhood. I feel their pain. I feel their hurt. I can deal with it. 'Heal the World,' 'We Are the World,' 'Will You Be There,' 'The Lost Children.' These are the songs I've written because I hurt, you know, I hurt." At one point, Jackson went silent, and Murray asked, “You OK?” notes the LA Times. The singer replied, "I am asleep."
– VS Naipaul might be one of the great writers of the 20th century, but he appears also to be a straight-up literary sexist, notes Gawker, which picks up on an interview he gave to the Guardian. In it, Naipaul says that no woman could write as well as he can; that he’s better than Jane Austen because of her “sentimental sense of the world”; and that he can identify a woman’s writing “within a paragraph or two,” because “I think (it is) unequal to me.” “And inevitably for a woman, she is not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too,” Naipaul asserts. What’s more, “my publisher, who was so good as a taster and editor, when she became a writer, lo and behold, it was all this feminine tosh. I don't mean this in any unkind way.”
– A tech-savvy 4-year-old boy saved his mother’s life by unlocking her iPhone with her thumbprint and using Siri to call an ambulance when she became unresponsive. The BBC reports that during the emergency call in south London, the boy identified as Roman thought his mother had already died, saying "she's closing her eyes and she's not breathing." (Listen to the call here.) Emergency responders arrived 13 minutes later, reports Fox News. After forcing their way inside the house to find Roman, his twin, and their younger brother, paramedics revived the woman and brought her to the hospital. "Hearing this call brings home the importance of teaching your young child their home address and how to call police or emergency services in an emergency situation," says a local police official. During the call, Roman provided his address, and the dispatcher asked him to go shake his mother and shout at her to wake up. Cries of "Mummy!" can be heard in the background before the boy reports, "It didn't work." Details on the medical emergency weren't released, but the woman has since been discharged, reports the Washington Post. (In Tennessee, Siri saved a man who was pinned under his own truck.)
– OfficeMax and Office Depot could be close to a merger, the Wall Street Journal reports: They're deep into talks and, while there are no guarantees, they could announce the deal within days. The arrangement would likely be via stock trade. Both companies have struggled over the past few years in the face of competition from Staples and Amazon. Office Depot's shares have dropped some 90% since 2006, and its top shareholder wants the company to take action. A combined firm would mean revenue of about $18 billion, Bloomberg notes; Staples' revenue last year was $25 billion.
– Last year's IRS scandal is back in the headlines. The House Ways and Means panel today formally asked the Justice Department for a criminal investigation into retired IRS official Lois Lerner, reports the Hill. Republicans on the committee pushed the vote through, alleging that emails show Lerner sought to deny tax-exempt status to conservative groups, particularly Crossroads GPS, while letting liberal ones slide. Democrats, meanwhile, accused the panel of political theatrics ahead of the midterms, given that the Justice Department already is conducting an investigation into the matter, reports AP. Some dueling quotes: Republican Dave Camp: "We think there's reason to believe that laws were broken, that constitutional rights were violated," said the committee's chairman. "We have to make sure that the signal goes out that this can't happen again." Democrat Sander Levin: "Making this committee an arm of any campaign committee does a deep disservice to the proud traditions and legacy of this committee. I don’t understand why you are doing this, Mr. Chairman.” Lerner's attorney: “Ms. Lerner has done nothing wrong. She did not violate any law or regulation. She did not mislead Congress. She did not interfere with the rights of any organization to a tax exemption. Those are the facts.” This isn't the only House panel investigating the issue. Tomorrow, Darrell Issa's House Oversight Committee will vote on whether to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions, reports Politico.
– Kate Gosselin and Sarah Palin might have politics and the strong woman thing in common, but they're tundras apart in one area: camping. "We are not camping people. I'll scream it from the mountaintops," sobs Kate on a camping trip in the latest episode of Sarah Palin's reality show. "I don't see hand cleansing materials. I am freezing to the bone. I held it together as long as I could and I'm done now." Later she sits sullenly next to a tent and grumbles at Piper Palin: "This is fun for you?" Piper, like her mom, goes into upbeat face freeze, stunned that no one could enjoy the overcast drizzle of a chilly Alaska campout the way they do. "Are you staying here for real?" asks an incredulous Gosselin to smiling Sarah as she stomps off home after a mere two hours in the "wilderness." Good riddance. Sarah's dad said Kate "bitched from the minute she got off the plane." Click here for the video.
– Fourteen current and former senior US officials tell NBC News that Saudi Arabia's crown prince has been hiding his mother from his father, King Salman, for more than two years. The officials say intelligence shows that Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, initially placed his mother under house arrest at a palace over concerns that she opposed the idea of the king appointing MBS crown prince and might seek to prevent him from doing so. King Salman did indeed appoint his son crown prince in June, stripping his nephew of the title; MBS was quick to consolidate power. (This week, it was reported that MBS had seized executive control of businesses linked to people he recently had arrested.) The officials say that over the past two years, MBS has kept his father from seeing his mother, using various excuses—such as claiming his mother is getting medical treatment. The 32-year-old MBS, who revealed in a recent interview that Saudi Arabia would develop a nuclear bomb if Iran did, will be meeting with the US president next week. As NBC reports, he'll likely be touted as "a reformer who's expanded women's rights" in Saudi Arabia, but the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said his treatment of his mother proves the lengths he'll go to to ensure he is the country's next king. US officials have also told NBC that, based on interactions with King Salman, he may not be "consistently lucid"; they say he has told those around him that he misses his third wife, but he does not appear to know where she is. The Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington denies that she is separated from her husband. See NBC for more.
– A shred of good news for the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula: It had been named the world's most violent city four straight years by the Mexico Citizens Council for Public Security, but it moves to No. 2 behind Caracas in 2015, reports NBC News. Latin America on the whole has little to celebrate, with 41 cities on the top-50 list, based on homicides per 100,000 residents. Brazil alone has 21 entrants, per Business Insider, while the US has four, with St. Louis ranking highest at 15th, followed by Baltimore (19), Detroit (28), and New Orelans (32). The top 10: Caracas, Venezuela San Pedro Sula, Honduras San Salvador, El Salvador Acapulco, Mexico Maturin, Venezuela Distrito Central, Honduras Valencia, Venezuela Palmira, Colombia Cape Town, South Africa Cali, Colombia NBC has the full list here.
– Pat Summitt, whose work ethic (and famous intense stare) was born on her family's farm and propelled her to rack up more wins than any other basketball coach (men's or women's) in NCAA Division I history, died Tuesday at age 64, the AP reports. "It is with tremendous sadness that I announce the passing of my mother, Patricia Sue Head Summitt," her son, 25-year-old Tyler Summitt, announced on the Pat Summitt Foundation website. "She died peacefully [Tuesday morning] at Sherrill [Hills] Senior Living in Knoxville surrounded by those who loved her most." Summitt had to retire at age 59 due to early-onset Alzheimer's, the Washington Post reports, and Tyler Summitt notes that his mom fought the disease with "bravely fierce determination, just as she did with every opponent she ever faced." Pat Summitt was barely in her 20s when she started coaching the Tennessee Lady Vols, and over nearly four decades, she built up an astounding record. Under her direction, the Lady Vols took home eight national championships (only UCLA's John Wooden coached his team to more championship wins), per ESPN, and made it to the Final Four 22 times (18 times as an NCAA team), ABC News notes. She ended her coaching career with 1,098 wins under her belt when she retired in 2012, and she also coached the US women's basketball team to its first gold medal at the 1984 Olympics, NPR notes. "I grew up on a dairy farm," she told NPR in 2009. "Cows … don't take a day off. … [My father] demanded a lot from the five children, but in a good way. I don't think I would have this work ethic or this drive, or probably the stare."
– Reconciliation is in the air tonight for Phil Collins, who says he has quietly gotten back together with third wife Orianne Cevey eight years after their record-breaking divorce. The 64-year-old star tells Billboard that he hit the bottle hard after the 2008 split and almost died, but he has been clean for three years and has been back with Orianne "for a while" with nobody noticing. People notes that the $46.68 million divorce set a new record in Britain. Collins, who announced a few months ago that he was coming out of retirement, tells Billboard that after back surgery and foot injuries, he's not sure if he'll ever play drums again, but his kids want him to do shows "so they can brag to their friends." "I stopped going into the studio because I was sad, but now I'm getting a taste of it again," he says.
– A 26-year-old woman in Tennessee has given birth to a baby girl, but this otherwise everyday event comes with a remarkable twist. The embryo that resulted in the birth was frozen 24 years ago, meaning mom and baby are in one sense nearly the same age. "This embryo and I could have been best friends," Tina Gibson of Clinton tells CNN. The National Embryo Donation Center, which facilitated the procedure, says in a release that last month's birth of Emma Wren Gibson sets the record for the longest-frozen embryo becoming a baby. An anonymous couple had the embryo frozen back in 1992, when Gibson was all of 18 months old, and the NEDC thawed the fertilized egg in March and implanted it in Gibson, reports USA Today. "Emma is such a sweet miracle,” says dad Benjamin Gibson, whose cystic fibrosis made it impossible for the couple to conceive. “I think she looks pretty perfect to have been frozen all those years ago.” She's also healthy, having been born at 6 pounds, 8 ounces, and 20 inches long, per People. The process in which the embryo remained in cool storage all these years is called cryopreservation, and the process by which the Gibsons became parents is known as embryo adoption. The procedure is probably a record, as the NEDC says, but confirmation is tricky. "Identifying the oldest known embryo is simply an impossibility," IVF expert Dr. Zaher Merhi tells CNN, because American companies aren't required to report embryos' ages.
– A North Carolina school board has rescinded its ban on Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, returning it to local high school libraries. The Randolph County Board of Education voted 6-1 this week to reverse the ban it issued 10 days ago. The board voted 5-2 on Sept. 16 to pull the widely acclaimed book from the library shelves. The initial decision came in reaction to a complaint from the mother of a Randleman High School student who said the book was "too much for teenagers." The mother specifically objected to the book's language and sexual content. Invisible Man is a first-person narrative by a black man who considers himself socially invisible. Originally published in 1952, it won the US National Book Award for Fiction in 1953. The Courier-Tribune of Asheboro has more details. (The book series that drew the most complaints nationwide in 2012? The Adventures of Captain Underpants, about a pair of fourth-grade jokesters, reports CNN.)
– Young voters have almost always leaned Democrat, but that trend has intensified drastically since 2006, according to a new Gallup report. From 1993 to 2003, an average of 47% of 18-to-29-year-olds identified as Democrats or independents who leaned Democrat, compared to 42% who identified or leaned Republican; in 1994 and 1995 Republicans even briefly had an edge. But since 2006 that gap has exploded, and is now at 54% to 36%. Partially that lines up with an increase in racial diversity. Today 45% of young people aren't white, up from 29% in 1995, and non-white Americans lean heavily Democratic across all age groups. But even young white people now lean Democratic, where they used to lean Republican. But not all the polls out today are nearly as encouraging for Democrats. Others include: Support for ObamaCare has dropped to 26% in a new AP/Gfk poll, the Washington Times reports. Support for the law has dropped 13 points since 2010, although opposition for the law has also decreased, dropping 7 points. The Washington Post notes that the same poll showed that 59% of Americans now disapprove of Barack Obama, a new high. His approval rating stands at 41%, his second-lowest ever.
– The advantage of an electronic monitoring bracelet is that authorities can track a suspect's whereabouts. The downside: They can have no idea that a suspect might be holding a girl captive in his home while wearing it. That was allegedly the case in Norwood, Ohio: Cody Jackson, described as age 19 or 20, was charged with crimes relating to the abduction of two women last August, paid a $100,000 bond, and was placed on electronic monitoring, reports the Cincinnati Enquirer. While he awaited court action, police say he got in touch with a 14-year-old girl on Facebook and arranged for a taxi to bring her to his apartment roughly every other day for three weeks in February so they could have sex. He soon took control of her social media accounts and gave her a strict set of rules to follow, according to the FBI. Then, after a visit in March, he wouldn't let her leave, police say. For the next several months—including after the girl became pregnant—Jackson verbally and physically abused her; told her not to refuse sex; dictated when she used the bathroom, showered, ate, and contacted family members; and banned her from singing any song performed by a man, reports Deseret News. The 20-year-old mother of Jackson's child also came to live with the pair and was abused, police say. She and the 14-year-old escaped in early August after Jackson pleaded guilty to interference of custody—other charges against him were dropped—was taken off electronic monitoring, and fled the state. But even then, Jackson over Facebook threatened to kill the girl and her family if she didn't send him nude photos, authorities say. It isn't clear when she went to police. Jackson was arrested in Utah on Oct. 8 and will be return to Ohio to face a slew of federal and local charges.
– Washington is embroiled in another of its "oxymoronic showdowns" and everyone is blaming Republicans. But Daniel Henninger at the Wall Street Journal thinks Barack Obama "must bear some responsibility for what has become of politics in the nation's capital. Which is to say, the obliteration of politics." Obama has simply refused to engage in the kind of political horse-trading DC was built on. "But there are consequences to conducting an anti-political presidency, and those consequences are on view now." For politicians, politicking is oxygen. "If they can't do politics, they start to hyperventilate. They do crazy things. Right now, Republicans are starting to look like a lab experiment involving gerbils." Democrats will protest that Obama couldn't "do business with the Barnum & Bailey Republicans." But the country was divided during Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill's legendary partnership, too. "What counterpart has Barack Obama produced? Ted Cruz." Click for the full column.
– Rick Santorum continued his verbal assault on higher education today by accusing California universities of failing to "even teach an American history course." The GOP candidate slammed UC universities during a speech in Wisconsin, Mediaite reports, saying that "I think it's seven or eight" schools that neglect US history: "Just to tell you how bad it’s gotten in this country, where we’re trying to disconnect the American people from the roots of who we are, so they have an understanding of what America should be." But a University of California rep emailed ThinkProgress to say that all UC undergraduate programs require US history credits. According to Mediaite, only the San Francisco campus fails to offer US history courses—because it's a medical school. Perhaps Santorum is on a roll after calling President Obama "a snob" for wanting "everybody in America to go to college." He's not alone among Republicans, however: Mitt Romney has taken a whack at higher education by pooh-poohing the notion of student aid.
– If you're offered a job at any of these companies in the US, you best take it. According to 24/7 Wall St, they're the highest-paying employers. The top 10, all within the consulting or tech industries, along with the median total compensation per year: AT Kearney: $175,000 Strategy&: $172,000 VMware: $167,050 Splunk: $161,010 Cadence Design Systems: $156,702 Google: $155,250 Facebook: $155,000 Nvidia: $154,000 McKinsey & Company: $153,000 Amazon Lab126: $152,800 Click for the full list of 25 or see the top jobs in the US.
– It's time for the annual story that makes you wish you were Spanish. Spain has once again held its famous El Gordo lottery, doling out a total $2.4 billion to its people, reports the AP. Number 79140 was the big winner this year; the Telegraph reports that 160 "whole tickets" were sold for that number, with each being worth about $4.37 million. Per usual, poignant stories are emerging: A 140-person school in the Andalucia region took part in what the Telegraph terms a "lottery-selling scheme" to raise funds for a school trip. It bought and then resold nearly 800 décimos (each is 1/10th of a ticket, so the equivalent of 80 tickets) ... of number 79140, making for a $327 million windfall for the town. "Almost everyone in the village has a décimo, even if they shared it," says Laujar de Andarax's mayor. "They're going mad over at the school!" ... and now plotting a trip to Miami, not Italy. The schoolkids had bought the tickets from the lottery agency in Roquetas de Mar, the southern beach town that happened to have sold all the winning tickets (the AP points out that the winning number is generally sold by more than one lottery agency.) Another big winner in that town, per the Local: A 35-year-old Senagalese migrant who sailed from his homeland in 2007 and was rescued by a Spanish lifeboat. He entered Spain empty-handed, and has largely worked as a seasonal vegetable picker. "This is a souvenir to Antonio, who told ... us to fend for ourselves," he said of his last employer, who had laid him off.
– Sarah Palin rips up John McCain and his campaign team in her new book, but retracts her claws when it comes to her near-son-in-law. In fact, her 413-page tome doesn't include a single reference to the daddy of her born-out-of-wedlock grandson, according to AP. Palin has repeatedly skewered Playgirl model Levi Johnston publicly. But she may have played it safe in the book because Johnston has warned her to back off, claiming he has information that will seriously "hurt her." This could mark a whole new chapter in the Palin-Johnston relationship. Palin even told Oprah Winfrey that Levi's welcome for Thanksgiving. "It's lovely to think that he would ever consider such a thing," Palin said in an interview airing Monday. "He is a part of the family, and you want to bring him in the fold and under your wing. I think he needs to know that he is loved and he has the most beautiful child, and this can all work out for good."
– The Supreme Court hears two landmark gay rights cases this week, starting today. Here's what to expect: What's on the docket for today? The court will consider California's voter-approved Prop 8, which banned same-sex marriage after the state Supreme Court allowed it, the AP reports. A federal district judge struck down Prop 8, but his decision was stayed until the Supreme Court can weigh in, the New York Times reports. What's on deck for tomorrow? The court will consider the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars the federal government from recognizing gay marriages. What outcomes could we see? A decision is not expected until late June. Worst-case scenario for gay rights activists, per Politico: The court upholds both Prop 8 and DOMA. But there are a raft of other possibilities in the Prop 8 case: The justices could make same-sex marriage legal in California, but only California, thus leaving the decision up to states; they could make it legal in California and the eight other states that currently allow civil unions or domestic partnerships for gay couples; or, as activists hope, they could strike down all state bans on gay marriage. There's also the slim possibility the court will decide Prop 8 supporters don't have the right to defend it in court (California's governor and attorney general have refused to defend it). If that happens, legal experts believe same-sex marriages would resume in the state, but ironing things out could involve a lower court. How about the DOMA case? There are only two likely outcomes, SCOTUSblog reports: The court will decide it's unconstitutional or constitutional. We could see a split decision, with DOMA being struck down but Prop 8 being upheld. Why is today historically noteworthy? Exactly 10 years ago, the Supreme Court heard a challenge to Texas' anti-sodomy statute in Lawrence v. Texas. Ultimately, the court prohibited states from criminalizing sex acts between consenting adults. Which justices should we watch? Anthony Kennedy, for one—he wrote the Lawrence decision and is expected to be the swing member of the court; he also championed gay rights in another case, and experts believe he'll at least make a majority, with the four Democrat-appointed justices, in finding DOMA unconstitutional. On the GOP side, Chief Justice John Roberts has given some hints he could swing pro-gay marriage; Samuel Alito may as well. But Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas will almost certainly not. And the court's liberals aren't a sure bet when it comes to the Prop 8 case—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for example, has said the court "moved too far too fast" by making abortion legal in Roe v. Wade, leading to public backlash. How much did a seat to watch the court "cost"? About $6,000, the AP reports. Technically, of course, it's free to get in—but you have to line up, or pay someone else to do so. In this case, people started queuing Thursday, and at $36 to $50 per hour for a professional line-stander, that adds up. And no, you won't be able to catch the arguments on TV. Click to see the latest senators backing gay marriage.
– Two Marines are under investigation after a photo was posted Wednesday to Facebook showing a uniform-clad corporal with his hand on the trigger of a rifle aimed at the camera and the message, "Coming to a gay bar near you!" The image, believed to be from Snapchat, was posted to a private Facebook group for male Marines at California's Camp Pendleton with the caption "Too soon?" The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force has promised "appropriate action," noting the Marine in the photo and the one who posted it have both been identified, reports the Marine Corps Times. A rep says "the command is taking this incident seriously" and "does not tolerate discrimination." "This type of behavior and mindset will not be allowed, and it is not consistent with the core values of honor, courage, and commitment that are demonstrated by the vast majority of Marines on a daily basis," a statement adds. A Marine rep notes military members are banned from promoting discrimination and from wearing the uniform in such a manner that could harm the Marines, per the San Diego Union-Tribune. The co-founder of the "Camp MENdleton Resale" Facebook group says the Marine who posted the "very insensitive and possibly dangerous photo" was banned and the photo removed as soon as it was reported. (A similar threat was found on Craigslist.)
– A Waffle House customer in South Carolina decided to get behind the counter and cook his own meal after he couldn't find any employees who were awake. Alex Bowen says he was "pretty inebriated" when he stopped by the West Columbia restaurant at around 3am Thursday, WIS-TV reports. He says after waiting for around 10 minutes for somebody to take his order, he got behind the counter and took care of it himself. "Got hot on the grill with a double Texas bacon cheesesteak melt with extra pickles," says Bowen, who shared selfies taken in the kitchen on Facebook. "When I was done I cleaned the grill, collected my ill-gotten sandwich, and rolled on out." Bowen says he eventually noticed a worker snoozing in a booth, but decided not to wake him up. He says he went to the restaurant later that day to pay for the meal, ABC reports. "I give all the credit to my old friend vodka," Bowen says. "I wouldn't normally have done that." Waffle House says the worker found sleeping on the job has been suspended for a week. Customers shouldn't get behind the counter, the company said in a statement but "obviously Alex has some cooking skills, and we’d like to talk to him about a job since we may have something for him." (This Waffle House customer fatally shot a would-be robber.)
– An anonymous rape victim has launched a class action lawsuit against Memphis, alleging that it had a policy of disregarding rape kits, either throwing out or simply neglecting some 15,000 of them over a period of decades, Courthouse News reports. Jane Doe says she waited 13 years for police to test the bodily fluids she submitted after a burglar raped her, an experience shared by thousands of other victims. In many cases, the kits spoiled while waiting for testing. The city, the lawsuit alleges, "has a history of discriminating against females," and gave these assaults a lower priority. The suit is asking the court to declare the practice unconstitutional, and to issue an injunction to end it. In November, Memphis publicly admitted that it had 12,113 untested kits in its possession, and said it would cost more than $4.6 million to test them, according to WMCTV. But the lawsuit raises new questions by arguing that this was no accident, Bill Dries at the Memphis Daily News writes. It claims that the city knew about the policy "approved it, condoned it, and/or turned a blind eye to it." The 15,000 estimate is based on the number of sexual assaults reported to third-party agencies over that period. A 2010 report estimated that 180,000 rape kits sat untested nationwide.
– The FBI is still being thwarted by an encrypted phone in the San Bernardino terrorist shooting investigation. "We still have one of those killers' phones that we haven’t been able to open," FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday, per the Los Angeles Times. "It has been two months now and we are still working on it." That's making it difficult for investigators to track communication between Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik before they were killed in a police shootout after the Dec. 2 attack. The FBI said last month it was having trouble cracking encryption on multiple phones and hard drives in the case. It's not clear whose phone is still causing trouble. Comey said law enforcement is sometimes unable to unlock phones even after obtaining warrants ordering the phones be opened, the AP reports. The FBI is trying to retrace the couple's movements before and after the attack—last month, investigators said they couldn't account for an 18-minute stretch after the attack—and determine whether anyone else helped. At this time, the FBI still has no evidence the couple had "outside direction or support," the Times notes, but other questions remain: Investigators don't know whether the couple planned other attacks, whether anyone knew about the plans for the Dec. 2 attack, or why Farook left a bag containing homemade pipe bombs in the conference room they attacked. The FBI's encryption struggle illustrates what law enforcement has been warning about for more than a year—advanced encryption methods on some newer phones often hinder investigations, particularly at the state and local levels.
– A man cleared of murder charges after 23 years in prison rejoined his family, ate a steak dinner, and had a heart attack, the Daily News reports. David Ranta, 58, is in stable condition in a New York hospital after doctors began procedures to clear up his arteries. Ranta was released Thursday, once a review of his case strongly suggested police had framed him in the high-profile murder of a rabbi. "The toll that his years in prison have taken on David is great," his lawyer told the New York Times.
– North Korea is opening its borders to the first foreign band to put on a show, and Slovenian pop group Laibach isn't exactly a predictable choice. The band, known for wearing military uniforms on stage, has a "bad boy reputation," director Morten Traavik, who's arranged several performances in North Korea, tells the BBC, adding that he's told North Korea that "it is a reputation that can very easily be" shed. Yonhap News reports the band's "visual style is suggestive of Nazi-era propaganda," but the band is simply "parodying totalitarianism," says Traavik. "Both the country and the band have been portrayed by some as fascist outcasts. The truth is that both are misunderstood." Laibach is expected to perform its own hits, North Korean folk songs, the popular North Korean hit "We Will Go To Mount Paektu" by Moranbong, and, somewhat improbably, tunes from The Sound of Music in front of 2,000 people on Aug. 19 and 20. Traavik says North Korean authorities are relying on his authority and haven't investigated band members individually. "North Korea is, the way we see it, the utopian experiment," frontman Ivan "Jani" Novak tells the AFP. "We always felt really good in any kind of utopia."
– Can't make heads or tails of your taxes? Well don't feel too bad, because at least one former secretary of defense can't either. Donald Rumsfeld sent his tax returns the IRS along with a cheeky letter informing them that he has "absolutely no idea" whether they're accurate. Rumsfeld posted the letter to Facebook and Twitter, adding that he sends a similar letter every year. "This note is to alert you folks that I know that I do not know whether or not my tax returns are accurate, which is a sad commentary on governance," he wrote. "The tax code is so complex and the forms are so complicated that I know that I cannot have any confidence that I know what is being requested." We'd make a "known unknown" joke here, but the Economist beat us to it.
– All that money the US Postal Service spent to sponsor Lance Armstrong's cycling team? The Justice Department wants it back, and more. It filed a lawsuit against the cyclist and his company last night, just as its deadline to do so was about to expire. Armstrong's doping was, the lawsuit claims, a breach of contract with the USPS, and by lying about it to the USPS, he defrauded the agency and was "unjustly enriched." From 1998 to 2004, the USPS sponsored the team to the tune of about $40 million—and the government is seeking triple damages under the False Claims Act. CNN reports that could translate into a $100 million payout, should the government be able to prove it was both defrauded and damaged. The government's lawsuit is part of a whistleblower lawsuit brought by former Armstrong teammate Floyd Landis, which the government had previously promised to join, the AP reports. The response from Armstrong's lawyer: "The US Postal Service benefited tremendously from its sponsorship of the cycling team. Its own studies repeatedly and conclusively prove this. The USPS was never the victim of fraud. Lance Armstrong rode his heart out for the USPS team, and gave the brand tremendous exposure during the sponsorship years."
– The Hollywood Reporter calls it "uncomfortable footage." And how. The AP yesterday released video shot during a Nov. 6 interview with Bill Cosby and wife Camille about artwork they loaned to the Smithsonian. Historically, and in a recent NPR interview, Cosby has remained silent if the interviewer asks questions about the rape allegations against him; that was not the case here. His comments to the AP reporter, who asked him about the allegations several times: "No, no. We don't answer that. There is no response. There is no comment about that, and I'll tell you why. I think you were told, I don't want to compromise your integrity, but I don't talk about it." As the interview wrapped up, Cosby then asked the reporter to "scuttle" the exchange. "We thought, by the way, because it was AP, that it wouldn't be necessary to go over that [i.e., specifying the topic was off-limits] ... we thought the AP had the integrity to not ask." Cosby then says to someone off-camera, "I think you need to get on the phone with his person immediately," pointing at the reporter. More: TV Land will stop airing reruns of The Cosby Show, immediately and for an indefinite time. The AP notes The Cosby Show had been slated to run as part of a Thanksgiving sitcom marathon. What hasn't been canceled, per the Hollywood Reporter: the comedian's stand-up tour. He's scheduled to appear at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas today. BuzzFeed reported the claims Janice Dickinson made on Tuesday, and got a roughly two-page letter from Martin Singer, Cosby's new attorney, in response. He uses the words "false," "falsity," "fabricated," "fabrication," "lie," and "lying" 19 times to describe Dickinson's allegations, and closes with this: "You proceed at your peril." Raven-Symoné (the Cosby Show's Olivia) is speaking up—and asking to be left out of it all. Her Instagram post: "I was NOT taking advantage of by Mr. Cosby when I was on the Cosby Show! I was practically a baby on that show and this is truly a disgusting rumor that I want no part of! Everyone on that show treated me with nothing but kindness. Now keep me out of this!"
– About the only thing banana peels were good for up to this point were comedy pratfalls and composting. A farm in Japan appears to have changed that, producing a banana with a tasty edible peel thanks to what Quartz labels a "bizarre method of production." The technique used by D&T Farm to create the Mongee banana is called "freeze thaw awakening." The process involves starting banana trees out in an environment that's nearly minus-80 degrees Fahrenheit, then moving the trees with their still-ripening bananas to a more temperate climate of around 80 degrees—an environment banana trees typically grow in the entire time. The extreme temperature variation puts the banana's growth into a sort of hyperspeed mode, so the peel doesn't fully mature, leaving it with a texture like "lettuce," a D&T Farm spokesman says, per the New York Post. Taste-testers for the RocketNews24 site in Japan say the banana fruit itself—which has about 5 more grams of sugar per banana than the regular version—boasts a "very strong tropical flavor" akin to that of a pineapple, but using the descriptor "edible" for the skin may need tweaking. Although it's said not to have a "strange texture" and is "fairly easy to eat," the tasters add there "isn't much flavor"; one experimenter even said it was somewhat bitter, though not as much so as the peels of regular bananas, which he also tasted. Not that most people will get to sample it: The Mongee banana, which comes in batches of 10, is currently being sold in just one regional Japanese outlet, with each banana going for around $6. (These scientists flew across the world on a failed banana quest.)
– The latest Gallup poll suggests that Mitt Romney is still riding the wave from the first debate with a full 7-point lead nationally. Be skeptical, writes poll guru Nate Silver at the New York Times. Almost all other polls have the race roughly even or with Obama ahead. Silver offers a lengthy analysis, arguing that Gallup has a bad track record in similar instances over recent election cycles. Bottom line: "It's much more likely that Gallup is wrong and everyone else is right than the other way around." Ezra Klein at the Washington Post also sounds doubtful. He thinks Gallup's method of surveying likely voters, rather than registered voters, sounds like "a model that would tend to overstate the effects of major events that favored one candidate or the other, as their supporters would grow temporarily more enthusiastic and attentive, while the other side would grow temporarily disillusioned." Conservatives, though, are livid that Romney isn't getting credit for the poll and are going after Silver in particular given his status as a numbers whiz. "Anyone's who's pegging Obama at a 64.8 percent chance of winning the Electoral College at this point's obviously running a couple of quarts low already," writes Donald Douglas at the American Power blog.
– Darren Wilson went into hiding after shooting Michael Brown, and when a Phoenix cop killed an unarmed black man in December, police were afraid protesters would mob his home, NBC News reports. The latter never happened, but Arizona Rep. Steven Smith is sponsoring Senate Bill 1445, which would keep secret for 60 days the names of officers involved in shootings "that [result] in death or serious physical injury." "This is about protecting the welfare of an officer who is not a suspect," the director of the Arizona Police Association tells NBC. But critics say the law would undermine the tenuous relationship between police and community and possibly hide abuse or mistakes. "At a time when the entire country is raising legitimate questions about why so many black men are dying at the hands of police, the state of Arizona is … becoming less transparent," the director of the ACLU of Arizona tells NBC. An officer's name can still be released before the 60-day moratorium is up if the family or department OKs it, or if the officer is charged. And the bill has been amended from its original 90-day freeze—it passed in the House 44-13 last week and now heads back in amended form to the Senate, per the Eastern Arizona Courier. Protesters in the capital Wednesday refuted Smith's assertion that the law would stop a "whimsical mob [from] roaming the streets looking for blood" and noted there are already laws that allow for such secrecy if the officer is in danger, the Phoenix New Times reports. "This is being packaged as a cooling-off period; what many people in the community believe is this could build a covering-up period," Democratic state Rep. Reginald Bolding tells NBC. "The beauty of our Public Records Law is its reliance on common sense, not arbitrary prohibitions," adds David Bodney in an op-ed for the Arizona Republic.
– Starting this week, you can pay with plastic in Canada—without incurring any credit card debt. The Bank of Canada put a new $100 bill made out of polymer into circulation, the Globe and Mail reports, and banks stopped issuing the old paper notes Monday afternoon. Polymer $50 bills are coming in March, followed by $20, $10, and $5 bills in 2013. The notes, made of multiple layers of plastic and almost impossible to tear, will be more difficult to counterfeit and will last longer than paper money. They’re also recyclable, USA Today notes. Despite an increasing number of attempts to make cashless transactions possible, the central bank’s governor said while unveiling the new bills that “reports of the death of cash are greatly exaggerated,” and as such, “Canadians … need a currency that they can trust.” Australia also uses polymer bills, and has since the 1980s; about 30 countries in total have moved away from paper currency.
– The night that Omar Mateen carried out the deadliest mass shooting in US history was far from his first visit to Orlando's Pulse nightclub, surviving customers say. The Orlando Sentinel spoke to at least four customers who recalled seeing Mateen in the LGBT club. Ty Smith says he had seen the 29-year-old there at least a dozen times and remembers him talking about his father and telling him he had a wife and child. "Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent," Smith says. Another customer says Mateen had been coming in for years and was prone to violent outbursts. In other developments: Kevin West, another Pulse regular, tells the Los Angeles Times that he had exchanged occasional messages with Mateen for a year on the gay dating app Jack'd but had never laid eyes on him until an hour before the shooting, when he spotted him while dropping a friend off at the club. "He walked directly past me. I said, 'Hey,' and he turned and said, 'Hey,' and nodded his head," West says. "I could tell by the eyes." Pulse regular Cord Cedeno tells MSNBC that he and his friends had seen Mateen on gay dating apps, including Grindr. "I instantly blocked him because he was very creepy in his messages. I blocked him immediately," Cedeno says. No profiles of Mateen from such apps have surfaced yet, though Cedeno says two friends that encountered Mateen online have turned their phones over to the FBI. Lisa Lane, a performer at Pulse, tells the Advocate that she knows Mateen's face from her shows at the club. "He was one of my fans," she says. "Always when he saw me he would talk to me." In a look at Mateen's past, the AP finds an all-American list of early employers: Publix, Circuit City, Chick-fil-A, Walgreens, and Gold's Gym. He worked at a state prison for six months beginning in 2006 and was hired the following year by security firm G4S. His assignments included guard duty at the St. Lucie County Courthouse in Fort Pierce. Up until the Pulse massacre, he was working as a security guard at a gated retirement community. Former classmates at Florida's Martin County High School tell the Miami Herald that Mateen was a loner who behaved very strangely on the week of the 9/11 attacks—at one point, he claimed Osama bin Laden was his uncle—and was expelled soon afterward. A law enforcement source tells People that Mateen and his wife, Noor Zahi Salman, visited Walt Disney World in April, and Mateen may have been looking for potential targets at the time. NBC Bay Area reports that Salman, Mateen's second wife, grew up near San Francisco and moved to Florida around five years ago, which is apparently when she married Mateen. WSVN reports that she was accompanied by police officers Monday night when she went to the apartment she shared with Mateen and their 3-year-old son to pick up belongings.
– Hector Monsegur might well be the most hated man in the world of hackers these days, but he's also a free man as a result. A judge today let the 30-year-old Monsegur off with 7 months' time served, even though he faced up to 26 years in prison, reports Bloomberg. The reason is that the former leader of the Anonymous offshoot LulzSec immediately turned into an informant upon his arrest three years ago. Prosecutors say he then worked "around the clock" as a mole, collaborating with fellow hackers and turning over the information to the feds. “I assure you I will not be back in this courtroom,” Monsegur, aka Sabu, told the judge today. “I’m not the same person you saw three years ago.” The judge credited his "extraordinary assistance" with helping stop 300 hacks, adding that the threats and public harassment he has faced since becoming an informer played a role in the light sentence, reports Wired. Monsegur helped the feds bust high-profile US hacker Jeremy Hammond, though Hammond made clear at his sentencing that he felt both Monsegur and the government entrapped him. On Twitter today, Anonymous is asking people to show support for Hammond.
– An aide to a Republican lawmaker in Florida was fired Tuesday for spreading a bizarre conspiracy theory about survivors of the Parkland school shooting. Benjamin Kelly, a staffer to state Rep. Shawn Harrison, used a government email account to email the Tampa Bay Times, claiming that two students filmed speaking out against gun violence were "not students here but actors that travel to various crisis when they happen." Asked to back up his claim, Kelly emailed back with a YouTube conspiracy video containing a news clip showing 17-year-old student David Hogg in California last summer. After he was contacted by a reporter, Harrison said Kelly would be suspended because of the "insensitive and inappropriate allegations." Kelly, whose comments were strongly denounced online by Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students, was later fired by House Speaker Richard Corcoran. But the conspiracy theories go far beyond Harrison's office, the New York Times reports. Right-wing media hosts have also accused the student activists of being "crisis actors"—or of being coached by adults to call for gun control and defend the FBI. "Everything they’re doing is right out of the Democrat Party’s various playbooks," Rush Limbaugh said Monday. "It has the same enemies: the NRA and guns." BuzzFeed reports that Donald Trump Jr. liked two tweets Tuesday that claimed Hogg, son of a retired FBI agent, was being coached to denounce Trump and defend the agency. Hogg called Trump Jr.'s attitude "immature, rude, and inhuman."
– "January 8, 2014, is a day I'll never forget," writes Jenny Rodgers on the Texas Children's Hospital blog. That was the day that she and her husband, Philip, found out that their unborn son, Aiden, had only half a heart—a rare condition known as hypoplastic left heart syndrome. The diagnosis made at her 20-week prenatal visit meant that the left side of Aiden's heart would just stop growing, and when he exited the safety of Rodgers' womb, he wouldn't get the oxygen-filled blood he needed in his body, Fox News notes. "Philip and I left the doctor's office in complete shock and in fear for our unborn baby's life and future," she writes. But parental instinct quickly kicked in: The couple began educating themselves on the disorder, talking to medical personnel, and arranging for Jenny to move from their home in Benton, La., to Houston for the duration of the pregnancy and the birth at Texas Children's. "All of this was hard to take in. Not just hard—gut wrenching," she writes. "My tiny precious baby would have his chest cut open in his first week of life. My loving son Noah [19 months at the time] would be away from his mommy a lot. … But we knew it's what had to be done to give Aiden a chance." Aiden, born on May 19, had the first of three necessary surgeries when he was just 4 days old. He recuperated well, and he was able to head to the Houston apartment at 6 weeks old. After a second surgery on Sept. 15, he got to go home to Louisiana in early October—an event Jenny calls an "amazing thing." Aiden is set to have one more critical operation between ages 2 and 3, Fox notes, and while Jenny says that he "will always only have half of a functioning heart … with the advancements in medicine, we pray that he will have a long and wonderful life." Read about their journey in Rodgers' blog post. (A tiny artificial heart kept a baby alive for 13 days until a real one was available.)
– "Depending on the mood and circumstances to be created, we have no reason not to hold the highest-level talks [with South Korea]" was one of the most unexpected statements that came out of Kim Jong Un's New Year's speech from Pyongyang in which he said he'd be open to a summit with his southern counterparts. But that amenable mood to conversing has apparently changed, as the North Korean leader today dismissed a request from South Korea's parliament to resume negotiations on hot-button issues such as human rights and families still separated by the Korean War, Reuters reports. An official from the South's Ministry of Unification says that the North gave no reason for turning down the request. Part of the North's sudden (but not terribly surprising) about-face may be that it's still peeved at South Korea's major ally, the US, for sanctions after the Sony hack, Reuters notes. South Korea's not exactly thrilled with its neighbor lately, either—and that distaste has recently been stirred up by a Korean-American woman (whom the South is now trying to deport) who talked up the great taste of North Korean beer and the country's clean rivers, reports AP. A third, more remote possibility why the Supreme Leader can't find the time to meet: birthday eyebrow wax? (Adding fuel to the fire: South Korea says its northern foe has a 6,000-member cyberarmy.)
– Doctors and protesters in Yemen think the government is using banned nerve gas, not regular tear gas, to quell protests, reports Global Post. Three doctors treating patients say the symptoms are suspiciously severe. “The material in this gas makes people convulse for hours," said one field doctor after soldiers fired bullets and gas into a crowd of protesters outside Sanaa University yesterday. "We are seeing symptoms in the patient’s nerves, not in their respiratory systems," said another. "I’m 90% sure it's nerve gas and not tear gas." If so, it would put Yemen authorities in violation of international law. Either way, the government seems to be taking an increasingly violent approach, notes Global Post. In addition to the gas, soldiers fired live ammunition, killing one protester. Demonstrations continued today, notes AP.
– The GOP candidates were busily piling on Mitt Romney during the Meet the Press debate, and Jon Huntsman took it a step further on State of the Union today, bashing Romney as having "morphed himself" too much for voters to know who he really is. "You run for the Senate as a liberal," Huntsman complained. "You run for governor as a moderate. You run for president as a conservative. Where are you at the end of the day?" Elsewhere on the Sunday talk show dial, as per Politico: Huntsman on voting for Ron Paul over President Obama: "(Paul's) isolationism during a time when Iran is on the ascent, when the world is more in need of America's values of liberty and democracy and human rights and free markets, I would have a very very tough time with." Nancy Pelosi on Obama's attacks on Congress: "It's not me. It's the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. We have missed an opportunity—much of it because they want to obstruct the initiatives of the president. For the good of the country, I think it's really important for the president to make the [case] that he is running against a do-nothing Congress. I completely subscribe to his approach." Pelosi on Newt Gingrich's 'dumbest thing' he's done (a climate change ad with her): "He who has been fined $300,000 by the ethics committee—you think he'd consider that a big mistake." However, "Since you brought up my name in association with him as the dumbest thing he ever did, I think there is plenty of stiff competition for that honor as far as his activities are concerned." John McCain on endorsing Romney: "After the 2008 [primary] campaign was over, no one worked harder on behalf of my campaign than Mitt Romney did." As for his onetime rival, "You can run clips of Reagan and Bush back in 1980—you would get the same thing. These are spirited discussions. You put these things aside just the way Reagan and Bush did. I think by far, he is the best qualified."
– A 31-year-old New Jersey man who killed his "longtime friend" after losing a Super Bowl bet in 2013 was sentenced to life in prison on Friday, the New York Daily News reports. Eddie Roberson bet his friend Talif Crowley $700 that the San Francisco 49ers would beat the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl XLVII. The 49ers and Roberson lost, but Roberson refused to pay up. He was still mad about losing the bet two days later when he shot Crowley six times. According to NJ.com, Roberson and Crowley ran into each other on the street. When the father of five went to shake Roberson's hand, Roberson opened fire. A witness to the shooting recalls hearing Roberson say "they cheated my team" before shooting Crowley. Many blamed the 49ers' narrow loss to the Ravens on the referees missing a holding penalty. The judge who sentenced Roberson on Friday described the crime as "brazen and cold-blooded," noting Roberson "has expressed absolutely no remorse for his actions." In fact, Roberson still denies he shot his friend, despite the testimony of multiple witnesses. Roberson was convicted back in December.
– The Rob Porter saga re-emerged front and center in Washington on Tuesday, as FBI chief Christopher Wray testified before a Senate panel. The upshot is that Wray's account suggests the White House was warned about Porter's background months before it has previously acknowledged, reports USA Today. Porter resigned his White House post last week over allegations that he beat his ex-wives. Details and developments, including an op-ed from Porter's first wife: What the FBI did: Wray says the FBI submitted a partial report on Porter's security clearance to the White House in March and completed its investigation in July. The FBI then got a request for a follow-up, which it provided in November. Wray said the agency considered the Porter file closed in January, reports Politico. The contradictions: One big one is that the White House has maintained that the investigation into Porter was still ongoing, but Wray says it was over. Also, the White House has never mentioned getting even a partial report as early as March, reports the New York Times. White House officials have said they were first contacted by the FBI about Porter in the summer, per the Washington Post.
– Michael Steele today sought to put to rest the recent troubles of himself and the Republican National Committee, reports Fox News. "I'm the first here to admit I've made mistakes, and it's been incumbent upon me to face facts, shoulder that burden, make the necessary changes—and move on," he told the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. If Republicans keep pointing fingers at each other, they're falling for a Democratic "trap." The speech "should at least for now, put this latest episode of self-inflicted injury behind" him, writes Mike Madden at Salon. He also notes that Steele got a standing ovation—"from, oh, at least a few dozen people." The ballroom was half-empty for Steele's speech, the final one of the conference. "Turns out the Republican National Committee chairman wasn't exactly a big draw (though the press rows were full, and cameras were rolling)."
– Today's lesson in the stroking of political egos: Team Romney has dropped newly added debate coach Brett O'Donnell, the man widely credited with engineering Romney's more aggressive (and successful) approach in the last debate, reports Politico. The problem? O'Donnell had been getting too much credit for the debate turnaround, and that was ruffling feathers within the campaign, GOP sources tell the website. Another insider tells much the same to CNN, calling O'Donnell's role "vastly overblown." The next scheduled debate isn't until Feb. 22.
– President Obama wrapped up his Europe trip today with a stop in Poland, where he called the nation's transition to democracy a model for the Arab world. “Poland has navigated that process as well as any country in recent history,” said the president, who added that he wanted "all states undergoing similar experiences to learn from Poland.” While there, he met with leaders of the old Solidarity movement, with one notable exception: Lech Walesa opted out, saying it would be only a "photo opportunity," notes the Christian Science Monitor. Obama had more tangible news for Poland as well: The US plans to roatate F-16 fighters and C-130 Hercules aircraft to a Polish base in 2013 to further cement the nation's military ties, reports AP. And though he had no surprise policy announcement on the issue, he said he backed newly proposed legislation making it easier for Poles to travel in the US. "We very much want you to shop on Fifth Avenue and anywhere else in the United States."
– Two New Hampshire properties finally sold at auction Thursday, despite the fact that they may be booby-trapped. The Christian Science Monitor has the backstory: A 6,000-square-foot house on a 100-acre property, plus a nearby dental office, were owned by Ed and Elaine Brown, who were convicted of tax evasion but managed to fend off federal agents during a nine-month standoff that finally ended with their arrests in 2007. During that standoff, they amassed an arsenal of weapons and explosives and claimed their compound was booby-trapped. There was an auction last year, but federal agents couldn't guarantee the property was booby-trap-free, and no one bought either property. At that time, the compound was listed with a starting bid of $250,000; this time around, the minimum bid was slashed in half. A businessman, James Hollander, ultimately paid $205,000 for it, plus $415,000 for the dental office. Authorities had been worried the properties might once again fail to sell; an IRS liquidation specialist told WMUR last week, "They can't guarantee that they have found everything, but they have done a good-faith search over and over again." The station reports that investigators did actually find explosive devices, and that a warning was included in the notice of sale. But WCVB reported Thursday that "the hilltop house and the grounds up to the tree line have been ... deemed free of improvised explosive devices." The former presence of booby traps isn't the only interesting thing about the compound: There's a turret with a tower that offers a 360-degree view of the property; a hidden door that leads to an underground bunker and an escape route to the outside via manhole; and, as the house was built over an existing house, in one section you can see that a floor was built atop the old house's roof. (A pot farmer's own booby trap led to his demise.)
– What to get for the guy who has everything? If you're Angelina Jolie and the guy is Brad Pitt, the answer is ... a waterfall. That's what Pitt got for Christmas from Jolie, but if it makes you feel any better, it was also a combo gift for his 48th birthday. "Brad has always loved [Frank Lloyd Wright's house] Fallingwater and his first trip there was unforgettable," a friend explains to the Daily Mail. Jolie bought the Los Angeles-area waterfall and its surrounding land so that Pitt can build his own house there, inspired by Wright's design. "Angelina wanted to get him something incredibly special and, because she knows how much he loves architecture, she thought this would be perfect," the source continues. "She hopes this will be a hideaway for the family. Brad has dreamed of a home with the sound of a waterfall cascading under the house." He's also always wanted to design his own home, the friend adds. (According to a People poll, Pitt and Jolie are America's No. 2 favorite would-be celebrity neighbors. Click to find out who Americans most want to live next door to.)
– Mormon style might conjure up images of dark suits, thin ties, and/or Mitt Romney—but for young church members these days, Mormonism and hipsterdom aren’t antithetical, writes Alex Williams in the New York Times. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does call on its members to avoid tight clothes, short skirts, and tattoos, but many young Mormons find ways to uphold the guidelines and still be on fashion’s cutting edge. “There used to be a bias against being ‘cool’ in the Mormon world,” says a stylist who is a Mormon. At Brigham Young University a decade ago, “there was absolutely zero fashion sense, myself included,” she notes. “Now when I go back to visit, the kids there look really cool.” Men, Williams writes, can wear button-down plaid shirts and rolled jeans and stay within the rules; many women opt for the “Zooey Deschanel look.” A set of current ads features an array of trendy church members, including the Killers’ frontman Brandon Flowers. Click through for photos of Mormon style.
– There's never been a better time to buy weed in Oregon, or a worse time to be a small grower or dispensary owner. Across the state, marijuana dispensaries have slashed weed prices in half to $700 per pound, or about $4 or $5 per gram, simply to get the stuff off shelves, and some are still struggling. The problem, reports the Willamette Week, is there are too many recreational cannabis growers—963 as of this month, with another 910 awaiting approval by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission—who are too good at their jobs. Last year, Oregon growers produced 1.1 million pounds of cannabis flower, three times what was consumed. As a result, a man who invested $250,000 in an indoor marijuana farm, dreaming of returns of $1,500 per pound, was forced to sell his bud at an auction. Buyer's price: $100 per pound. "Currently, we're operating at a $15,000-per-month loss," the man says. It's a trend seen across the state, leaving small growers with few options. They can cut their losses (a federal ban on weed means bankruptcy is out of the question), sell to out-of-state investors or large operations, or sell their product illegally across state lines. Two dozen people in the industry told the Week that legalizing such sales would solve everything. Others believe the OLCC should limit grower licenses—it says it doesn't have that authority—or crop size. A third option is to let commercialism do its thing. That's not the choice of Oregon's top federal prosecutor, though. "We have an identifiable and formidable marijuana overproduction and diversion problem" and "we're going to do something about it," US Attorney Billy Williams said earlier this year, per the AP.
– Ben Carson has admitted he used to "go after people with rocks, and bricks, and baseball bats, and hammers" and that he almost stabbed someone when he was a teen. Donald Trump is … well, Donald Trump. And Lindsey Graham is completely baffled how he's not making inroads in the 2016 presidential race against these two. "On our side, you've got the No. 2 guy tried to kill someone at 14, and the No. 1 is high energy and crazy as hell. How am I losing to these people?" he asked Monday in what Salon calls a "frankly bonkers interview" on MSNBC's Morning Joe. Graham's bluntness—the type "you're only allowed when you’re polling at 1% and on Monday morning basic cable"—is an allusion, Salon notes, to a 1988 Saturday Night Live parody that featured a bewildered Michael Dukakis (played by Jon Lovitz) proclaiming, "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy" ("this guy" being George Bush, played by Dana Carvey). Graham also had something to say about the Democratic contenders, per Real Clear Politics: "You've got the two front-runners on the Democratic side, right? The No. 2 guy went to the Soviet Union on his honeymoon, and I don't think he ever came back. The leader thought that she was flat-broke after her husband was president for eight years. And that's maybe why they stole the china." (Graham's really got the hang of zingers.)
– The parents and husband of a South Carolina nurse who died on a flight from Honolulu to Dallas have filed a wrongful death suit against American Airlines, reports ABC News. Brittany Oswell, 25, suffered a pulmonary embolism and cardiac arrest during the April 2016 flight, according to the lawsuit, per USA Today. The suit alleges that an onboard defibrillator and two blood pressure cuffs were faulty and that the plane should have made an emergency landing. About three hours into the trip, Oswell’s husband, Cory, paged flight attendants when Oswell complained of dizziness and then fainted. Flight attendants found a doctor onboard who examined Oswell. The doctor initially believed that Oswell had experienced a panic attack. A few hours later, Oswell’s condition worsened and the doctor recommended that the flight be diverted. But by that time, the flight was 90 minutes away from Dallas and the pilots elected to continue the flight. Later, Oswell stopped breathing and the doctor attempted to resuscitate her, but the plane’s lifesaving equipment was not functioning, the suit says. After landing in Dallas, Oswell was transported to Baylor Medical Center, but never regained consciousness. Three days later, she was taken off life support. "When Brittany got on the plane, she stepped into her coffin," Brad Cranshaw, the family’s lawyer, tells the State. "It's a tragedy." American Airlines, which has not yet answered the lawsuit, issued the following statement: "We take the safety of our passengers very seriously and we are looking into the details of the complaint."
– Forbes has a warning for you: "You may not want to check Facebook at work today." Why? Because, as numerous outlets are reporting, your news feed may have been inundated with porn and disturbing images thanks to a huge spam attack. One tweet sums it up: "I saw a dead dog, Justin Bieber sucking a d***, and a naked grandma. Time to delete Facebook." It appears users are unknowingly posting the images; most likely, the users in question clicked on malicious links. (Forbes offers an example: "Wow, I can’t believe you did this in this video. I LOLed.") There also appears to have been an increase in reports of spammy links like the above. Facebook confirms to ZDnet it is "aware of these reports" and "investigating the issue." So far, no one seems to know who or what is behind the attack, though some have blamed Anonymous.
– What a drag. A new photo has emerged of Rep. Anthony Weiner strutting in a bra and black stockings. "Busted Wearing Women's Lingerie," screams the National Enquirer headline next to the photo slapped on the cover of yesterday's edition. The shot was taken Weiner's sophomore year at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. "It was never quite clear whether one of Anthony's challenges was to become a cross-dresser or if it was just some bizarre stunt he decided to do on his own," a classmate tells the Enquirer. "He was a very odd guy who went out of his way to do things purely for the shock value." The pic comes just as House Democrats plan to get tough with Weiner in a bid to push him out the door, reports Politico. House leaders plan to meet today to decide whether to strip Weiner of his committee assignments, sources say. They had been waiting for Weiner's pregnant wife, Huma Abedin, to return from a trip to Africa with boss Hillary Clinton, hoping Abedin can add her voice to their pleas to Weiner to quit, according to sources.
– He dedicated his life to saving elephants—and might have been killed as a result. Wayne Lotter, a director of anti-poaching NGO the PAMS Foundation, was shot and killed in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Wednesday night during a taxi ride from the airport to his hotel, reports the Guardian. The vehicle was reportedly stopped by two men, who opened Lotter's car door and fatally shot the 51-year-old. His laptop was also stolen, reports Reuters. Who would want to kill a wildlife conservationist? Plenty of people, apparently. Lotter had received numerous death threats since co-founding the PAMS Foundation in 2009; it assisted African communities and governments with anti-poaching efforts and bankrolled Tanzania's elite anti-poaching investigation unit. Since 2012, the National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit has arrested more than 2,000 poachers and ivory traffickers. Police are investigating his death but so far no suspects have been arrested. In a statement, Jane Goodall describes Lotter as one of her heroes, who "worked tirelessly to fight both poachers and corruption" and "faced strong opposition from dealers and many high level government officials." The PAMS Foundation says "Wayne devoted his life to Africa's wildlife" and "died bravely fighting for the cause he was most passionate about." His death could "deeply hit the fight against poaching in Africa," an ecologist tells ITV News. (Poachers have a new target: ancient trees.)
– Drew Barrymore opens up about her troubled childhood in a candid new interview with the Guardian, from her first days as a "party girl" at age eight to her time at age nine at Studio 54 with her mom, doing drugs and dancing with men, to her first stint in rehab at age 12. But she relapsed the following year ("When I was 13, that was probably the lowest" point in her life, she says), leading to 18 more months in a hospital. "[My parents] were pretty out there," Barrymore says. "But I realized, honestly, yeah, my mom locked me up in an institution. Boo hoo! But it did give an amazing discipline. It was like serious recruitment training and boot camp, and it was horrible and dark and very long-lived, a year and a half, but I needed it. I needed that whole insane discipline." She clarifies that, yes, it was an institution for the mentally ill. The 40-year-old Barrymore—while sipping a Corona—notes that at 14, "I was so scared of not knowing where I was going. I really had a fear that I was going to die at 25," but that "no matter how dark shit got, I always had a sense that there should be goodness. I never went all the way into darkness." Her mother "occasionally" visited her at the hospital, she says, but when she got out at 14, she became legally emancipated from her parents, at the institution's suggestion. "It was a very important thing to experience for me," she says of her hospitalization. "It was very humbling, very quieting. Maybe it was necessary, because I came out of there a more respecting person. And my parents didn’t teach me that, and life wasn’t teaching me that. I came out in a very different way ... but I still was me." Click for the full interview. (Barrymore also recently opened up about postpartum depression.)
– Ray and Wilma Yoder's visit Monday to a new Cracker Barrel restaurant in Tualatin, Ore., was a special one. For one thing, they were greeted with applause and flowers. That's because the Cracker Barrel visit marked not only Ray's 81st birthday, but the couple's completion of "something no one had knowingly ever done before," per USA Today. It was a trip that carried them 5 million miles over 40 years. The goal: visit every single Cracker Barrel in the US. With No. 645 now under their belts, the couple from Goshen, Ind., say their mission is now complete. "Everybody does something ... and we thought we'd do this and it would be fun," says Ray. "For little farm kids, it's been very exciting for us," he adds, per People. The visits began accidentally in Nashville decades ago, and Ray, who made a living delivering RVs across the country, "wasn't too impressed quite at first," he says, per USA Today. But "it didn't take long before I knew it was my home away from home." The couple eventually decided to visit every Cracker Barrel across 44 states and had been to 600 by 2015. Their mission was then halted when Wilma suffered a brain aneurysm on the road. But after Wilma recovered, the couple's travels resumed, with Cracker Barrel footing the bill to get the couple to their final unvisited location in Tualatin, per KOIN. "I don't like to call it the last one because I think we'll continue to go to some more," Ray tells People. (This couple has been to every county in the lower 48 states.)
– Who else? Billy Crystal will be the new Oscars host. Crystal himself tweeted the news in joke form, notes the Huffington Post: "Am doing the Oscars so the young woman in the pharmacy will stop asking my name when I pick up my prescriptions," he wrote. "Looking forward to the show." Two sources confirm to the Los Angeles Times that Crystal will indeed be hosting for the ninth time. The move comes after Brett Ratner was ousted as producer, Eddie Murphy stepped down as host, and Brian Grazer replaced Ratner.
– The long wait is over: Arrested Development is back, with the entire fourth season available on Netflix. But does it live up to the hype? Plenty of critics say yes, though not all agree. Still, if you're not enamored with the show's new style, give it time and you just might change your mind. "If you were on Twitter in the early going of Sunday, when it launched, you would have read some discouraging comments ... and perhaps felt the twinge yourself of over-anticipation when jokes seemed to fall flat or scenarios made no sense," writes Tim Goodman at the Hollywood Reporter. "But the series quickly found its pacing, the elaborate Rashomon structure revealed its glorious ambition, and the combination of absurdity and intelligence meshed as well or better than you might have remembered from the original three seasons." "Just as the show's creator rehauled the traditional sitcom in 2003-06 when the original three series aired, he's trying to do the same again seven years on. But change always takes some getting used to," writes Hadley Freeman in the Guardian. "It demands the same kind of patience from the viewer as a show like The Wire, but with more ostrich attacks." "Do the new episodes live up to those of the first three seasons which ended in 2006? Yes, and then some: The new season is not only as smart and absurdly funny as ever, but also reflects the rapid changes in how we watch television," notes David Wiegand in the San Francisco Chronicle. But at Variety, we get a very different opinion from Brian Lowry: The show's return "feels less like a treat than a rather numbing burden," he writes. It's like "a reunion special," and "there’s a sort of awkwardness to it, as if nobody really has much to say."
– Sharbat Gulla, better known as the iconic "Afghan Girl" who stared out of a 1985 National Geographic cover with her haunting green eyes, has been arrested. A Pakistan investigator says that Gulla was arrested during a raid Wednesday at a home in Peshawar, Pakistan, during which she was found to have a fake Pakistani identity card, the AP reports. Gulla, who was an Afghan refugee of about 12 years old when war photographer Steve McCurry photographed her in 1984 in a Pakistan refugee camp, has been the target of a two-year investigation, the investigator says. She could face as many as 14 years in prison. USA Today notes that Peshawar, along the Afghan border, has hosted more than a million Afghan refugees, but Pakistan has been cracking down on forged ID cards. When it emerged last year that Gulla allegedly had a fake card, the investigator says, she went into hiding and a few officials were fired for giving her the card. McCurry had actually tracked Gulla down in 2002, finding her living back in Afghanistan at the time with her husband and three daughters.
– An Arizona State University fraternity that was already on probation has been suspended after a Martin Luther King Jr. Day party rife with racial stereotypes. Students wore basketball jerseys and what the Arizona Republic calls "stereotypical hip-hop clothes"; they posted on social media with hashtags like "blackoutformlk" and "ihaveadream." They drank from cups made of watermelon rinds. The ASU chapter of Tau Kappa Epsilon was on probation following an attack on a black member of a rival frat. Now, local civil-rights leaders want the chapter expelled, the Republic reports. At a press conference, the Rev. Jarrett Maupin called the party "an assault on the black community and our student population at ASU." The university, he said, must "stop pretending it doesn’t have an issue with racism." ASU, which noted that the party was off-campus and not condoned by the school, had this to say, per KPHO: "ASU has one of the most diverse student bodies of any major university in the country, and it is unfortunate that a few misguided individuals held an offensive party." Meanwhile, the national organization of Tau Kappa Epsilon, which calls itself the biggest fraternity in the country, is investigating and offered an apology, notes BuzzFeed, which has pictures: "We apologize for any offensive actions that a few of our members might have participated in. We can assure all other parties that these actions do not represent Tau Kappa Epsilon and the beliefs of love, charity, and esteem that we have stood by for 115 years."
– North Korea has made more of the kind of blood-curdling threats that the world found easier to shrug off before Pyongyang stepped up its nuclear program. The "Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee," North Korea's state agency for dealing with the outside world, issued a statement Thursday calling for the islands of Japan to be "sunken into the sea" with nuclear bombs and for the US mainland to be reduced to "ashes and darkness," the Guardian reports. "Japan is no longer needed to exist near us," said the committee's statement, which also called for the US to be "beaten to death like a rabid dog" and denounced the United Nations Security Council as a "tool of evil." The committee called for the breakup of the Security Council, which imposed its toughest-ever sanctions on North Korea earlier this week. It called the council a "money-bribed" group that does whatever the US asks it to. Before the sanctions vote, which passed the 15-member council unanimously, Pyongyang warned that the US would face the "greatest pain" in its history. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Pyongyang's threat to sink the country is "extremely provocative and outrageous," the AP reports. The statement "significantly escalates tension in the region and is absolutely unacceptable," he said Thursday. (The world may have underestimated Pyongyang's latest nuclear test.)
– Some 300 acres of California's Joshua Tree National Park are closed to visitors thanks to a rare spate of graffiti. First, park rangers closed an area surrounding a historic dam following the discovery of carved graffiti. Then, this week, the popular Rattlesnake Canyon was closed after words—including "nature boy" and "oatmeal cookie"—were found painted onto boulders, the Wall Street Journal reports. The canyon is set to be closed for the rest of the month, while the dam area is closed indefinitely, officials say. "People are appalled and people are wondering how it could happen here, in a national park," says a ranger. Indeed, just 4.8 incidents of vandalism per park occurred last year. One possible reason for the graffiti's spread: social media, which "has appeared to spark numerous individuals' interest in adding to the vandalism," rangers say, per the Los Angeles Times. (The Post notes they didn't specify which social media sites may be involved.) It's not just natural beauty at risk: "The continued malicious desecration of the national park has now impacted archeological sites," officials say. Native American petroglyphs may have been damaged; rangers are trying to figure out how to clean the sites without hurting them further.
– Though he's left his Justice Department post, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe's retirement doesn't technically take effect until Sunday, when he becomes eligible for a full pension. And perhaps it won't at all. Sources say the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility has recommended McCabe be fired over the findings of a still-unreleased inspector general's review of McCabe's actions ahead of the 2016 election, including his decision to allow FBI officials to discuss an investigation of the Clinton Foundation with reporters, the New York Times reports. McCabe was found to have not been forthcoming in the investigation into those actions, reports the Washington Post, citing people familiar with the matter, leading to the recommendation. They say Attorney General Jeff Sessions has yet to make a decision, which McCabe could appeal. Still, DOJ sources expect the 21-year FBI veteran to be fired by Friday, putting his pension at risk. Such a move would be controversial, not just because McCabe would be the first deputy director fired in FBI history, the Times reports. The Post points out that going against the recommendation for termination would be no less controversial, since some might interpret it as the Justice Department "unfairly protecting McCabe." President Trump is no fan of McCabe: In addition to suggesting donations to his wife's unsuccessful campaign for state Senate in Virginia by a political committee run by Terry McAuliffe, an ally of Hillary Clinton, are evidence of bias, per Politico, Trump has previously called for McCabe's ouster and attacked him for "racing the clock to retire with full benefits."
– Lara Logan is out at 60 Minutes, at least temporarily, because of her bogus piece on Benghazi, reports the Hollywood Reporter. CBS News, which has retracted and apologized for the story, says it forced Logan and producer Max McClellan to take a leave of absence of unspecified duration. Logan's report last month featured an interview with former security officer Dylan Davies, who gave a riveting first-hand account of the attack on the US compound. It was only after the report aired that CBS concluded he was lying through his teeth. "This deception got through and it shouldn’t have," wrote CBS News chief Jeff Fager in an email to staff today, reports the New York Times. An internal investigation into the story found that Logan and McClellan failed to properly vet Davies, who had given a much different account previously to the FBI. It also faulted Logan for her on-air conclusion that al-Qaeda played a role in the attack, and it cited a speech she gave on the topic last year in which she accused the US of misrepresenting what happened. "From a CBS News standards perspective, there is a conflict in taking a public position on the government’s handling of Benghazi and al-Qaeda, while continuing to report on the story," says the internal report.
– Justin Bieber is reportedly getting married, and you may have heard of his blushing bride (or at least her family). Per a TMZ scoop, the pop crooner proposed to model and celebrity scion Hailey Baldwin on Saturday at a resort in the Bahamas and she said yes. Baldwin is the daughter of actor Stephen Baldwin and niece to Alec Baldwin. According to the report, 24-year-old Bieber popped the question after the two dated for just one month, though they reportedly had prior romantic ties. As People notes, Bieber's father hinted at the good news Sunday. In an Instagram post featuring a photo of his son, Jeremy Bieber wrote, "Proud is an understatement! Excited for the next chapter!" Bieber's mother appeared to wish her son and his 21-year-old fiancee well on Twitter that same day. "Love Love Love Love Love Love Love," Pattie Mallette tweeted Sunday.
– It's official: A year after retired German postal worker Marianne Winkler discovered a message in a bottle on the German island of Amrun, Guinness World Records has confirmed it's the world’s oldest at 108 years, four months, and 18 days. That beats out the former record holder by more than nine years. George Parker Bidder of the Marine Biological Association dropped 1,020 bottles off the coast of England between 1904 and 1906, each containing a note promising that whoever found it would be awarded a shilling, reports the Guardian. Upon finding hers last April, Winkler spied a note inside: "Break the bottle." She tells the Plymouth Herald her husband tried to avoid that fate, but they ultimately shattered the vessel, removed the enclosed postcard, and followed Bidder's instructions: record when and where the bottle was found and return the card to the MBA in Plymouth. There, the returned postcard left the receptionist "somewhat confused," rep Guy Baker tells the Independent, as Bidder—who ultimately became president of the MBA—had died in 1954. Others, however, recognized the message from Bidder's bottle experiment, which allowed him to establish an east-to-west flow in the North Sea's deep-sea current. Baker says Bidder recorded a 55% return rate on the bottles, with many discovered by fisherman who enjoyed the shilling reward. Winkler received the same. "We found an old shilling, I think we got it on eBay," Baker says. As for the note, "it is one of the earliest examples of a citizen science project and will now go on display somewhere." (A woman received a message in a bottle from her dead daughter.)
– Julius Caesar crumpled to the ground during the Battle of Thapsus in 46BC, and theories for the dizziness and limb weakness said to have caused that fall have ranged from epilepsy to malaria seizures and parasitic infection, the Guardian notes. But now two Imperial College London researchers have proposed his vertigo and subsequent personality changes may have been the result of mini-strokes, the AFP reports. The study in Neurological Sciences posits that even though a series of small cardiovascular failures makes more sense than the prevailing epilepsy theory, the explanation has been widely ignored "on the grounds that until his death he was supposedly otherwise physically well during both private and stately affairs." In addition to Caesar's reported physical symptoms—including the vertigo and headaches, as well as "giddiness and insensibility"—the researchers note a seemingly significant change in the Roman statesman's mental state as the years went on: He apparently suffered from depression, which they believe may have been caused by stroke-induced brain damage. The scientists point out research suggesting both Caesar's father and another relative died suddenly while putting their shoes on, and that "even if Caesar participated in an active lifestyle and may have benefited from a Mediterranean diet, there is the added possibility of genetic predisposition toward cardiovascular disease," per the Guardian. (Caesar was the guy behind leap year.)
– It took some time for the din from March's Bachelor finale—after Arie Luyendyk Jr. dumped the girl he initially chose, Becca Kufrin, and got engaged to runner-up Lauren Burnham—to subside. Now, however, thanks to Kufrin's stint as the current Bachelorette and a new profile on Luyendyk in GQ, "the most hated bachelor in America" is back in the spotlight. Rebecca Nelson spent two days in Scottsdale, Ariz., with the 36-year-old and Burnham, a "reserved" 26-year-old, and Luyendyk insists he was made into a villain by the crew and feels "100%" betrayed. He's especially irked about the supposedly unedited footage of his breakup with Kufrin, which he says was more staged than suggested. Viewers had raged that Luyendyk wouldn't leave after Kufrin told him to. "It was completely edited," he says. "I was told to stay on that couch. I tried to leave, and then production was like, 'You need to go back inside.'" Still, Luyendyk understands the producers' role ("it's their job to make it entertaining for people"), and the rest of Nelson's stay involved tagging along with the couple as they went house hunting, hearing about how Luyendyk ended up on the show in the first place in 2011—he was a fill-in for a last-minute dropout—and learning about Luyendyk's thought process as he struggled to choose between two women. Nelson's visit with the couple didn't end on a great note: After a one-on-one with Burnham in which Nelson revealed to Burnham (who hadn't watched the finale) about a comment Kufrin had made about how she'd "challenge [Luyendyk] a lot more" than Burnham, Nelson got a text from Luyendyk. "I don't know how the conversation went on your end but Lauren is really upset," he wrote. "I think our interview is done." (Read the full story here.)
– A milestone for southern Africa today, by way of Malawi: Joyce Banda was sworn in as president to become the first female leader in the region, reports the BBC. Banda takes over from Bingu wa Mutharika, who died of a heart attack on Thursday but whose death was confirmed by the government only today. Why the delay? The AP and BBC suspect a power struggle over who would succeed him. Banda had been his vice president since 2009, but the two had become fierce political enemies. She apparently won out over the late president's brother, the foreign affairs minister. Banda will serve out Mutharika's term, which ends in 2014.
– I say there, old bean, that's not quite the way it's done. Mitt Romney put his foot in his mouth again across the pond. After irking the Brits with some comments about Olympic preparations yesterday, he also "blabbed" about a meeting with the head of British intelligence agency MI6. "Such conversations are not normally discussed publicly by government leaders," sniffed the Guardian. The meeting with Sir John Sawers was not on Romney's official schedule, and it was supposed to stay hush-hush, notes Politico. “I can only say that I appreciated the insights of the leaders of the government and opposition here, as well as the head of MI6, as we discussed Syria and the hope for a more peaceful future for that country,” Romney told reporters. A spokesman from Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office told CBS News that "Sir John Sawers meets many people, but we don’t give a running commentary on any of these private meetings."
– Democrats have been playing the financial victim lately, bemoaning the cash outside groups are throwing at Republicans. Which is kind of ironic, because the truth is that Democrats are outspending Republicans—even if you take those outside groups into account. Democratic campaign committees and left-leaning outside groups have spent a total of $856 million, compared to $677 million from Republican committees and right-leaning outside groups, Politico reports. The New York Times adds that in the 109 most competitive House races, Democrats have out-raised their opponents by more than 30%. “When you look at the national party committees … the Democrats are whopping the Republicans,” said a Center for Responsive Politics spokesman. But right-leaning outside groups are “effectively obliterating left-leaning groups.” A Democratic National Committee spokesman says the point isn’t how much is spent, but who’s spending it. “Who will these candidates be beholden to in the end?” he asks.
– David Hall would rather lose a job he's held for 14 years than watch a 17-minute video. The 42-year-old Social Security Administration employee is making headlines over his months-long refusal to watch a training video about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender diversity as part of an initiative "in support of an inclusive work environment, as well as exemplary customer service," per an SSA rep for the Chicago region. The Illinois man tells the News-Gazette and WCIA that all SSA employees were informed by email in April that they'd need to individually watch the video and then sign a paper verifying they had done so; Hall, who says the video clashes with his Christian belief that homosexuality is a sin, didn't, even after his supervisor instructed him to do so on June 2 and 24. Hall didn't budge after that either, but he did ask for a religious accommodation. It was denied, and so he ended up with a two-day suspension without pay in August. "My complaint is more with the fact that it was mandatory," he tells WCIA, explaining that he can't recall any previous obligatory videos "for veterans, the disabled, blacks, Hispanics, or anything else." The site notes that his IT job in the Champaign office is one that doesn't involve interaction with Social Security recipients. Hall says he's been told that the consequences will keep coming until he watches the video, and his expectation is that he'll eventually lose his job, though he's enlisted the help of a Chicago attorney. (This worker was fired for smoking pot; then Connecticut's Supreme Court stepped in.)
– Veteran San Diego sportscaster Kyle Kraska is being treated at the hospital for multiple gunshot wounds after being attacked outside his home yesterday afternoon. Kraska, sports director at KFMB-TV News 8 and host of its San Diego Chargers postgame show, was seen facedown in the street after multiple shots were fired into his Mercedes, neighbors tell the station. The 48-year-old was wounded in the leg and stomach, but the prognosis for recovery is good, the station says. Suspect Mike Montana, 54, surrendered to a SWAT team after an hours-long standoff last night, the Los Angeles Times reports. Police say no motive for the shooting has been identified.
– Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen today praised the killing of the US ambassador in Libya and called for more attacks to expel American embassies from Muslim nations. The statement, posted on Islamic militant websites, suggested al-Qaeda was trying to co-opt the wave of angry protests over the anti-Islamic movie whose trailer surfaced this week. The statement said the killing of Ambassador Chris Stevens was "the best example" for protesters. Most cities around the Muslim world reported a calm day, however, after the deadly protests spread to more than 20 countries yesterday. In Egypt, for example, police cleared out protesters who had been clashing with security forces for days near the US embassy, and they also cleared Tahrir Square. One exception to the quiet: Riot police clashed with about 200 protesters at the US consulate in Sydney, Australia. President Obama, meanwhile, said in his weekly radio address that while he respected all faiths and condemned the denigration of Islam, "there is never any justification for violence (and) there is no excuse for attacks on our embassies and consulates."
– Tracy Morgan has settled with Walmart over last year's devastating highway crash, but neither side is offering details, reports MarketWatch. Morgan and two friends were seriously injured and another friend was killed when a Walmart truck plowed into their limo on the New Jersey Turnpike. Previously, Walmart agreed to pay $10 million to the family of comedian James McNair, the man killed. "Walmart did right by me and my family, and for my associates and their families," said Morgan in a statement quoted by USA Today. "I am grateful that the case was resolved amicably." His attorney, Benedict Morelli, said Walmart "took full responsibility for the accident, which we greatly appreciate." In his own statement, Walmart CEO Greg Foran said that "while we know there is nothing that can change what happened, Walmart has been committed to doing what's right." He added that "we are deeply sorry that one of our trucks was involved." Morgan's prognosis remains unclear, but his attorney previously said that he might never be the same because of a severe brain injury.
– Want to be seen as an intellectual? Here's an easy first step: Start using your middle initial in writing. Doing so, a study finds, boosts "positive evaluations of people's intellectual capacities and achievements." The study—run by researchers Wijnand A.P. van Tilburg and Eric R. Igou, who appear to be taking their own advice—focused on writing, Time reports. The investigators reached their conclusions after giving subjects a scientific article attributed to, variously, David Clark, David F. Clark, David F.P. Clark, or David F.P.R. Clark, the New Republic reports. David F.P.R. Clark fared best in subjects' assessments of the author's ability, while David F. Clark still beat David Clark. Also helpful, when it comes to names: ease of pronunciation, another study finds. Subjects were given trivia statements (like "giraffes are the only mammals that cannot jump"), which were associated with various names. The statements linked to names considered easier to pronounce were more trusted by subjects, Scientific American reports. A study on company names had similar results. Firms with easier-to-pronounce names apparently do better in the stock market, the magazine notes. (One name you definitely want to avoid? God.)
– So, after a fleeting moment at the top of the polls, Herman Cain's run for the Oval Office is over. Now comes the political dissection, as analysts ask what his unconventional campaign meant: The root of Cain's popularity was his campaign's "simplicity and unconventionality," says Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post. His tax plan was easy and "seemed to make sense," and reinforced his unique, off-beat approach. "The Republican base, sick of politics-as-usual as practiced by both parties in Washington, loved Cain’s I-am-not-a-politician riff," said Cillizza. Cain's relentless focus on the economy is what fueled his brief success, writes John Hinderaker at Power Line. His fall from grace because of personal improprieties is exactly what Democrats want to do with any Republican candidate because "they know they can’t win a debate on the economy or on President Obama’s record." On the other hand, Jonathan Martin at Politico says that the lesson of Cain is that even the country's deep hatred of Washington is not enough for an outsider to win a party's nomination. "GOP primary voters are indicating that they’d prefer an insider who’s competent than someone from outside the establishment who may not be up to the task of taking on President Obama," writes Martin. As for Cain's supporters, they have a theory, too, about what derailed Cain's campaign—the media, of course. "This is your fault," shouted one supporter at a Politico journalist.
– Israel's chief military spokesman announced that "we have been instructed by the political echelon to hit Hamas hard," and recent developments bear that out: Israel's air and naval strikes against Gaza continued today, as rockets similarly continued to rain down on Israel from Gaza. Israel says it has pursued about 440 targets since the start of Operation Protective Edge, the New York Times reports. At least 29 Palestinians have died since airstrikes started on Monday; some reports say eight children are among the dead, and according to Haaretz, so is an elderly woman. Another 90 have been injured, reports the Guardian, which puts the number of rockets fired by Hamas yesterday at 140. Israel said today it specifically targeted one rocket commander, Abdullah Diyfallah, in an airstrike, and that it hit around 160 targets overnight. Among them: Hamas facilities and military command positions, rocket launching sites, and weapon storage facilities. Last night, it said it had unraveled an attempt by Palestinian militants to enter the country by sea, killing four who came ashore via Zikim beach. Israel has also been moving tanks to the Gaza border, and the government has authorized as many as 40,000 additional reservists to be called up, though no move has reportedly been made to do so yet. Hamas' military wing has said that all Israelis are now targets, the BBC reports.
– Last week, the New York Times published an article claiming the NFL's much-touted concussion research was wildly flawed while simultaneously linking the league's methods to those of the much-reviled tobacco industry. Now, Politico reports the NFL is demanding the Times immediately retract the story, which it calls "false and defamatory," and insinuating it may take legal action against the paper. The NFL claims it gave the Times evidence disproving the story before it ran, according to the Wall Street Journal. “By publishing the story, fully aware of the falsity of the underlying facts, the Times recklessly disregarded the truth and defamed the NFL,” a letter from an NFL attorney states. Monday's letter to the Times' legal team was just the most recent step in the NFL's campaign against the Times' article. The league ran a 2,500-word rebuttal on its website that accused of the Times of "false innuendo and sheer speculation." It also covered the Times' online sports section in ads touting its new player safety measures. However, it appears the Times is standing by its story, with the paper's sports editor saying it has "no reason to retract anything."
– A Tesla driver who said he thought his car was in Autopilot mode crashed into the back of a firetruck in San Jose early Saturday. The California Highway Patrol says the Tesla rear-ended a fire engine that was stopped with its emergency lights activated along US-101 around 1am. The 37-year-old driver, Michael Tran, told officers, "I think I had Autopilot on." The Mercury News reports the Tesla's speed was allegedly about 65mph. Tran was later arrested on suspicion of drunken driving. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the two firefighters in the firetruck were not injured and that Tran and a female passenger in the Tesla were taken to San Jose Regional Medical Center with minor injuries. Tesla's semi-autonomous Autopilot mode has come under scrutiny following other recent crashes. The carmaker says the function is not designed to avoid a collision and warns drivers not to rely on it entirely. It is unclear whether Autopilot was activated in this case. Tesla says in a statement that it "has not yet received any data from the car, but we are working to establish the facts of the incident." Oddly, Electrek reports it's apparently the third time a Tesla "reportedly on Autopilot" has crashed into a fire truck in California this year: The two previous incidents occurred in Culver City and San Jose.
– How rare is the carcass of a beaked whale that washed ashore in Massachusetts on Friday morning? This rare: "New England Aquarium biologists have been conferring to determine the exact species," officials with the aquarium said in a statement released Saturday, per the Boston Globe. The 17-foot-long female that ended up on a beach in Plymouth is thought to be a Sowerby's beaked whale, a species that the nonprofit Whale and Dolphin Conservation reports is seen only infrequently in the wild but is "one of the most commonly stranded beaked whales." The aquarium last handled a beaked whale in 2006, reports the AP. Per NOAA Fisheries, "At sea, [Sowerby's beaked whales] are challenging to observe and identify to the species level due to their cryptic, skittish behavior, a low profile, and a small, inconspicuous blow at the (water's) surface." And when it comes to being "at sea," the Globe reports the whales are typically found hundreds of miles from the coast on the continental shelf, where commercial fisherman occasionally reel one in. A necropsy is being performed; the aquarium notes the nearly one-ton female "did not have any obvious entanglement gear or scars or obvious trauma from a vessel strike." (This beaked whale may be the deepest-diving mammal on the planet.)
– A Dutch priest is in hot water for praying—in vain—that the Netherlands would defeat Spain at a Mass celebrated the day of the World Cup final, reports the BBC. Paul Vlaar decorated his church in the team color, orange; wore orange and white vestments; and played along as a churchgoer kicked a soccer ball down the aisle. He's been suspended so he can observe "a period of reflection," says his bishop. "Everybody supports Pastor Paul and we don't see what was so bad," a parishioner tells the AP.
– A report out Monday in the Wall Street Journal claims Facebook has asked some of America's largest financial institutions to share their customers' private financial data. The social giant reportedly wants data as specific as checking account balances and individual transaction information, which would be used as part of a bid to expand their own services by offering banks ways to access users (and give users access to banking) via Facebook Messenger. Facebook has pitched the idea to JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and US Bancorp, per the report. While reactions on social media to the WSJ were often critical of the report, especially from people already concerned about Facebook's handling of its own private user data, the company was quick to issue a rebuttal. "A recent WSJ story implies incorrectly that we are actively asking financial services companies for financial transaction data—this is not true,” Facebook said in statement. The statement, obtained by Ars Technica, went on to portray it as common practice for all companies with commerce business to "partner with banks and credit card companies to offer services like customer chat or account management."
– Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell have spent a combined 60 years in the Senate, and they've generally had an amicable relationship—but no more. Sticking points include the Democrats' attempt to oust McConnell in 2014; a super PAC led by former Reid aides is working against the minority leader in Kentucky, prompting some snarky comments from McConnell. ("Come on down. I hope you spend it all down there.”) Meanwhile, each party leader thinks his opponent is trampling Senate tradition, write Manu Raju and John Bresnahan at Politico. They say the powerful duo's relationship has degenerated into "name-calling, finger-pointing and mutual distrust." ABC's political blog the Note says the Senate is at a "boiling point." Tomorrow, Reid could turn to the "nuclear option," altering filibuster rules through a simple majority. McConnell said that would make Reid the "worst" majority leader "ever," and his team tweeted a Reid gravestone that says "Killed the Senate." Reid, meanwhile, has been frustrated by what he sees as McConnell's excessive use of the filibuster and delays of Senate affairs. It's all a big shift in an upper chamber that used to be seen as "the chummiest club in America," writes Paul Kane in the Washington Post. "The only way you get something is to become obnoxious," says Democrat Mary Landrieu. "We have turned from a Senate to a theater."
– Not only are the FBI and Justice Dept. investigating Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe—they've been doing so for at least a year without him knowing, CNN reports. The investigation is at least partly trying to determine whether the Democrat received illegal donations during his 2013 gubernatorial campaign, officials say. The donations in question include $120,000 from Chinese businessman Wang Wenliang, a former delegate to China's National People's Congress who gave to McAuliffe's campaign through a US business. A Wang spokeswoman says he's a US permanent resident, which would make his contributions legal. "Neither the Governor nor his former campaign has knowledge of this matter, but as reported, contributions to the campaign from Mr. Wang were completely lawful," says McAuliffe-campaign attorney Marc Elias. Wang has also donated $2 million to the Clinton Global Initiative, where McAuliffe was a board member (the initiative is part of a charitable foundation established by Bill Clinton). In fact McAuliffe and Hillary Clinton are close friends, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports—so close that Politico says there's been talk of McAuliffe as her VP pick. The federal investigation into McAuliffe comes just a year after Virginia's previous governor, Bob McDonnell, was imprisoned on corruption charges.
– "You are in breach of condition 15.4(c) of your agreement with PayPal Credit as we have received notice that you are deceased." That's the very real message a British man received three weeks after informing PayPal of his wife's May 31 death from cancer at age 37. "What empathy-lacking machine sent this?" Howard Durdle, 40, first wrote on Facebook, sharing the letter threatening legal action over Lindsay Durdle's $4,200 debt, which her widower says her estate couldn't cover, per Inc. "As soon as our teams became aware of this mistake, we contacted Mr. Durdle directly to offer our support, cleared the outstanding debt and closed down his wife's account," PayPal tells the New York Times, adding it has "made changes to ensure that an insensitive error of this nature never happens again." Durdle, too, says his goal is to prevent future instances like this—"it can be hugely damaging for people who are trying to recover"—and he thinks speaking out is the best way to accomplish that. "While PayPal's mistake is getting lots of press, the truth is companies send out similar letters all the time," Inc. notes. Speaking to the Times, the president of consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen blames companies' increasing reliance on software and algorithms to communicate with customers. Per the BBC, Durdle was told a software glitch, bad letter template, or human error was likely to blame in his case, but that the exact cause would remain an internal secret. "I just hope more orgs can apply empathy and common sense to avoid hurting the recently bereaved," he wrote in a Tuesday tweet, per CBS News.
– A former Ohio police chief is facing 12 criminal charges for allegedly harboring a woman sought on drug charges—and dating her in his spare time, Raw Story reports. As police chief of Glouster, Ohio (population 1,800), Lucas Mace met 23-year-old Hillary Hooper on the scene of a traffic accident. Despite her outstanding warrants, Mace let her go, slept with her, and helped her flee authorities, according to prosecutor Keller Blackburn. Mace's behavior reveals a "shameful pattern of wrongdoing," said Blackburn. "He was basically using his office as a dating service." Blackburn also accused him of hiding from the mayor while on the job and helping Hooper—an alleged heroin addict—change a car tire while in uniform. What's more, Blackburn said Mace kept a camera running in his office, dated women "inappropriate to his public position," and likely had sex in his patrol car, the Columbus Dispatch reports. An intimate tidbit: Mace described Hooper as a "softie" because "she had the softest skin he'd ever touched," said Blackburn, apparently relying on recorded radio traffic. No word yet from Mace, who's suspended without pay.
– A Christian heavy metal rocker pleaded guilty yesterday to hiring a hit man to murder his estranged wife, NBC San Diego reports. Prosecutors say Tim Lambesis, lead singer of Grammy-nominated California band As I Lay Dying, asked a personal trainer at his gym in April of last year if he could find someone to kill wife Meggan Lambesis, because she had filed for divorce in 2012 and he feared she would be granted a large settlement and would keep their three children from touring with him. Lambesis then gave $1,000 cash and all of his wife's information to an undercover agent who was supposed to carry out the plot, and was subsequently arrested in May. Lambesis was recorded telling the undercover agent he wanted his wife "gone," and when asked by the agent if Lambesis wanted his wife murdered, he said, "Yes, I do," the AP reports. The New York Daily News reports that he was willing to pay the "hit man" $20,000 for the job. In her divorce filing, Meggan Lambesis claimed her husband had become "obsessed with bodybuilding" and tattoos, may have been using steroids, and was inattentive while watching their children to the point that he once fell asleep. Lambesis claimed she started restricting his visits with the children when they separated after eight years of marriage. The 32-year-old will be sentenced May 2; he faces up to nine years in prison on charges of solicitation of murder and conspiracy to commit a crime.
– Alcohol poisoning is to blame in the death of the 19-year-old Rutgers student who was taken to the hospital after attending a "gathering" at a fraternity house last month. Sophomore Caitlyn Kovacs was taken from the frat house to the hospital around 3am on Sept. 21 after she appeared to be in distress, and the county medical examiner's report found her death to be accidental and caused by "acute ethanol toxicity," the Star-Ledger reports. A county prosecutor says the investigation into her death is "active and continuing." Days after Kovacs' death, her mom said friends described Caitlyn as a social drinker, not a heavy one. And, Lorraine Kovacs said, friends also said Caitlyn was intoxicated on the night of her death but was coherent until she suddenly, while talking with a friend, stopped making sense. At that point someone felt her pulse, and it was faint. At the time, Lorraine said she doubted "over-drinking" led to the death and suspected Caitlyn had an underlying medical condition that contributed.
– The new issue of Catwoman features a noteworthy kiss—between Catwoman herself and another woman, notes the Hollywood Reporter. And though it may not come has a huge surprise to longtime fans of the DC Comics character, it's the first real proof that Catwoman, aka Selina Kyle, is bisexual. That's no mere reading between the lines: The comic's author, Genevieve Valentine, writes that the issue does, in fact, establish Selina as a "canon bisexual" on her blog. "She's flirted around it—often quite literally—for years now. For me, this wasn’t a revelation so much as a confirmation.” Valentine also knows that fans might be wondering how a certain caped crusader fits into all this. Not to worry: "Please be assured that Selina’s longstanding connection to Batman has not been forgotten; that is not how bisexuality (or humanity) works." At io9, what blogger Rob Bricken likes most about the revelation is how DC Comics announced it, "which is to say, not at all." No press release, no fanfare. "By not making a big deal about Catwoman's sexuality, they're sending the unspoken message that this is actually a normal thing to be, and that's exactly what they should be doing." (The Green Lantern previously was revealed to be gay.)
– A suburban Minneapolis police department has good news for the person who donated dozens of plastic baggies of marijuana along with their kid's old clothes: It's safe and sound and ready to be picked up at the station, reports the AP. The Maplewood Police Department posted a photo on Facebook of the surprise donation to the Once Upon a Child store, but the Argus Leader reports that it couldn't quite keep a straight face about it. The post: "If you accidentally donated 111 grams of marijuana along with your clothing earlier to a local store please come to the PD so we can reunite you! We know you spent a lot of time dividing them into these perfectly measured baggies & must be missing them." And in its tweet on the subject: "Hey genius, Once Upon A Child thanks you for the clothing donation, but you forgot something in your pant pockets... sucks to be you..." Perhaps unsurprisingly, no one has come forward yet.
– Antonio Bramante doesn't see the "happy" in one of McDonald's most famous offerings. The Canadian dad of three says he's cajoled every couple of weeks to take his little ones to McDonald's, and he figures he's forked over hundreds of dollars on Happy Meals. Now he's suing the fast-food empire, citing a Quebec ban on marketing to kids under the age of 13, the BBC reports. It's not so much the fries and nuggets that are firing up Bramante's beef with the restaurant: Per CTV, it's the fact that each Happy Meal comes with a toy, often tied to film franchises like Transformers or My Little Pony, and his kids are constantly haranguing him to go to McDonald's so they can get all the toys to finish off each set. Bramante also claims the restaurant targets kids by putting the Happy Meal toys right in their sightline inside the restaurant. It's a practice, Bramante says in his class-action suit, that's "to the detriment of vulnerable consumers, their children, and their families." The Quebec marketing law, not seen much elsewhere in the world, has just three exceptions: ads in kids magazines, promos for certain children's events, and ads that appear on a company's packaging and labels, and in their windows and displays. McDonald's says it's poring over the suit, but it adds "we do not believe this class action has merit." Bramante's lawyer says anyone who purchased a Happy Meal in Quebec for a child under 13 from November 2013 onward can join the suit, which is seeking compensatory and punitive damages; it's unclear whether the consumer would need to be a Canadian citizen. (A $5 million McDonald's lawsuit, all over two slices of cheese.)
– Good news for followers of an Indian guru who fought to keep his body on ice: A court on Wednesday ruled that the remains of Ashutosh Maharaj can remain in a freezer, Agence-France Press reports. Punjabi followers of Maharaj dispute the idea that he died of a heart attack in 2014 and instead say he is in a deep meditative state called samadhi. His well-heeled sect—Divya Jyoti Jagriti Sansthan, or Divine Light Awakening—counts millions of followers around the globe. A man claiming to be the Maharaj's son, Dalip Kumar Jha, petitioned the high court three years ago to allow him to cremate the body according to Hindi tradition. The ruling overturns a lower court that sided with Jha, ordering the body removed from the commercial freezer at his heavily guarded Punjabi ashram, per the BBC. Jha’s lawyer tells AFP it was unclear whether the court agreed Maharaj was still alive, but he said they will appeal to the supreme court. Disciples of Maharaj, who say he often meditated in sub-zero Himalayan temperatures, are waiting for him to return to life. But Jha and the guru's driver contend followers are using the body as a cover to keep control of Maharaj's substantial assets. The guru founded the sect in 1983 in a quest for "self-awakening and global peace" and along the way built an empire with properties worth $120 million in India, the US, and several other countries.
– Over a 5-year period, Charles Sweeney has shot two would-be burglars who were breaking in to his Oklahoma property. The most recent shooting was fatal. On Tuesday morning, police say Donald Stovall crawled through a bathroom window into Sweeney's home; during an ensuing confrontation, Sweeney shot and killed Stovall, Fox News reports. "He brought this on himself, I have no sympathy," Sweeney (variously spelled as Sweeny) told Fox 23 after the incident. "He got inside the interior of my house and I didn't know if he had a weapon and I thought my life was in danger. I shot him, and I'll do it again," he added to News on 6. Sweeney found himself in a similar situation back in October 2013, though with less deadly consequences. In that incident, Sweeney returned from a walk to find two intruders inside his home; he shot one of them multiple times, injuring him seriously. Both burglars pleaded guilty to charges in that case, and the man Sweeney shot is currently in prison. "It looks like an elderly ... person lives here that can't defend himself," Sweeney told KJRH at the time. "Well, wrong." In the latest shooting, police questioned Sweeney and released him but the investigation continues, News 9 reports. The Tulsa Police Department says people have the right to defend themselves in their homes. (Another man said he feared for his life in this controversial shooting.)
– A leader of Russia's protest movement has been found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison for financial theft from a state-run timber firm. Alexsei Navalny is known for using the Internet to attack corruption and the "swindlers and thieves" of Vladimir Putin's United Russia party, the New York Times notes. The court said Navalny, while working as a governor's aide, led a group that embezzled some $500,000 from the company, the BBC reports. Tweeting in court, Navalny said prosecutors' evidence was faked, and an earlier probe found no grounds for his charges. Indeed, Russian investigators suggested Navalny's outspokenness was his downfall. "If a person tries with all his strength to attract attention ... then interest in his past grows and the process of exposing him naturally speeds up," said a spokesman for investigators. Navalny, who had recently announced he was running for Moscow mayor, is now poised to be disqualified, the Times notes. He and his wife spent much of the trial on Twitter, even after a judge told everyone to shut off their phones. "Don’t miss me. And most importantly—do not be lazy," Navalny told supporters. "The toad (of the government) will not remove itself from the oil pipeline." Click for more from the court.
– A Saudi police officer is the scourge of many in the Arab world today after a photo of him resting his shoe against a holy site went viral, reports Gulf News. The officer was snapped leaning against the Kaaba, which the BBC describes as "a square building at the center of Islam's most sacred mosque, in Mecca." A hashtag that translates to #SoldierPutsHisFootOnTheKaaba is getting heavy use, along the lines of one tweet that complains, "This is the most holy place on earth, look at how he is undermining it." The governor of Mecca has ordered an investigation and disciplinary action.
– Angry relatives are calling it an "execution." Jeremy McDole, a 28-year-old man paralyzed from the waist down, was shot dead in his wheelchair on a street in Wilmington, Del., the News Journal reports. Police say they received a 911 call Wednesday afternoon about a man who had shot himself with a handgun and McDole was still armed when they arrived, reports CNN. The city's chief of police say McDole was ordered to put his hands up and when he "began to remove the weapon from his waist, the officers engaged him" and fired the fatal shots. The four officers involved have been placed on leave while the shooting is investigated. Video of the encounter posted on YouTube shows officers shouting at McDole to drop his weapon, although the .38 handgun police say they found isn't visible in the video. Relatives, including McDole's mother, say he never had a weapon, the News Journal reports. "This was murder," she told reporters. "He shot my son like he was roadkill." An uncle calls it an "execution" and says he was with McDole 15 minutes earlier and didn't see a gun. McDole—who was paralyzed after being shot in the back in 2005—was black; police have not disclosed the race of the four officers involved. Last night, Wilmington Mayor Dennis Williams and Delaware Gov. Jack Markell visited a vigil outside the home of McDole's mother and promised that the family would get answers, the AP reports.
– The FDA has approved the first use of an artificial retina or "bionic eye" to give the blind limited vision, reports the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Users wear glasses outfitted with a video camera that transmits visual data to electrodes implanted in the eye; the signals bypass damaged parts of the retina and move along to the brain for processing. It is nowhere near full vision—users might be able to make out the contours of a person or the contrast of a curb from the road, for instance—but as one trial user puts it, “When you don’t have nothing, this is something. It’s a lot.” The device, called Argus II and made by Second Sight Medical Products in California, won the FDA's blessing to treat those with retinitis pigmentosa. It had already been approved in Europe, and it's hailed as just the start in similar technology. “We have a lot of exciting things sitting in the wings, multiple approaches being developed now," says a top official at the National Eye Institute. The Argus II should be available later this year in the US, but it's pricey—about $100,000, reports Reuters.
– A decade ago, the city of Fallujah became a not-so-pleasant reference point for Americans following the Iraq war as US forces dug in against insurgents. Today the American troops are gone, an al-Qaeda group has claimed the city as an Islamic state, and fighting between militants and Iraqi forces have claimed at least 60 lives in the last two weeks alone, reports AP. But you don't have to tell any of that to the US vets who fought there, if a Washington Post story is any reflection. They're following today's developments with anger and bitterness. Sample quotes: “Could someone smart convince me that the black flag of al-Qaeda flying over Fallujah isn’t analogous to the fall of Saigon?” a former Army captain wrote on Twitter. “Because. Well.” “It brings back a lot of anger,” says another vet. "I feel like it’s been a big waste of time. It’s kind of like, why the hell did all my buddies die there for? There’s no purpose to it.” But the views aren't entirely negative: “You bounce back and forth between: Was it a complete failure, or did we do the best we could and handed it over to them when things were relatively calm?” says former three-star Gen. Mark Hertling. “Every person who served in Iraq or Afghanistan never loses that part of them when they come home. It becomes part of their soul.”
– The Democrats, the party that Ronald Reagan ditched in 1962, says that even the Gipper would be on their side in today's debt ceiling debate. Dems are telling Republicans they should follow Reagan's lead in fiscal responsibility, circulating a 1987 radio address in which Reagan slammed brinksmanship and stressed that the US had a "special responsibility to itself and the world to meet its obligations," the Huffington Post reports. Reagan—who presided over 11 tax hikes and 18 increases in the debt ceiling—probably wouldn't be welcome in today's GOP, writes Dana Milbank at the Washington Post. While most Republicans continue praising Reagan, he notes that a few have admitted that he wouldn't be able to win the nomination in the current atmosphere. Steve Kornacki at Salon, however, believes that the Democrats are overplaying the Reagan card. If the Gipper were around today, he'd be siding with House Republicans and "finding some way to rationalize away his past statements," he writes.
– After decades spent trapped inside a frozen reindeer carcass, anthrax is back to wreak havoc on Siberia, the Washington Post reports. Siberia hadn't had an anthrax outbreak since 1941. But, according to NBC News, approximately 1,500 reindeer have been killed by the bacterium since Sunday and 13 members of the nomadic Nenet community have been hospitalized. Four of those who have been hospitalized are children. Authorities believe the new outbreak started when the carcass of an infected reindeer, frozen for decades, thawed during the Yamolo-Nenets region's unusually warm summer. Temperatures have risen to highs of 95 degrees this summer—nearly 20 degrees above the average. Authorities in the area ceased vaccinating reindeer against anthrax a decade ago because it had been more than 50 years since an outbreak. But scientists estimate the bacterium can survive being frozen in Siberia's permafrost for more than a century. A state of emergency has been declared in the region. Dozens of people are being relocated, and the Nenet community, which relies on herding reindeer, may be quarantined until September. A mass vaccination of reindeer is underway. "We have taken all measures to isolate the area," the region's governor says, per the AP. "Now the most important thing is the safety and health of our fellow countrymen." (In Finland, reindeer glow in the dark.)
– Mark Lane, "one of the most important experts on the Kennedy assassination," died Tuesday at his his home in Charlottesville, Virginia, at the age of 89, the New York Times reports. Lane came to national prominence with his best-selling 1966 book Rush to Judgment, which questioned the findings of the Warren Commission and concluded a second gunman helped Lee Harvey Oswald assassinate Kennedy. He was the first to use the now well-known phrase "grassy knoll." He went on to publish multiple books—and write a number of films—on the Kennedy assassination. “While I don’t agree with his conspiracy theories about President Kennedy’s assassination, he deserves credit for raising important questions,” the director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics tells the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Lane was also a defense lawyer who represented some high-profile clients, including James Earl Ray and cult leader Jim Jones. Even after Ray was convicted of killing Martin Luther King Jr., Lane maintained his innocence and believed another conspiracy could be at play, the New York Daily News reports. Lane was also a civil-rights activist and served one term in the New York State Assembly. “His life was just an absolute testament to what people can become,” his assistant and friend Sue Herndon tells the Times-Dispatch. “He lived more lives than so many people.” Lane passed away one year before all government records of Kennedy's death are set to be made public.
– Martin Scorsese has crafted a gripping '50s-era thrill ride in Shutter Island, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo as federal marshals probing a disappearance at a hospital for the criminally insane, say critics. The movie is a "nerve-twisting, tension-jammed exercise in pure paranoia—and possibly Scorsese's most commercial film yet," writes Kirk Honeycutt at the Hollywood Reporter. Shutter Island is "basically a potboiler genre film, a B-movie with big talent attached," Bill Goodykoontz writes at the Arizona Republic, but Scorsese's "care, love and astounding skill" give it staying power. DiCaprio turns in his "most haunting and emotionally complex performance yet" as Scorsese "holds us in a vise-like grip," writes Peter Travers in Rolling Stone. The movie has plenty of flaws, including too many meandering flashbacks, but it's "worth seeing for the palpably nightmarish and gothic world conceived by Scorsese," writes Claudia Puig at USA Today.
– SeaWorld in Orlando resumed its whale show today, preceded by an emotional tribute to the female trainer killed three days ago. Spectators, some of whom waited in line two hours before the first show began, gave the trainers a standing ovation when they first emerged, notes the Orlando Sentinel. "It was very moving," one spectator told the AP, adding that trainers seemed "very cautious." The trainers abided by temporary new rules prohibiting them from getting in the water with the whales, and the female trainers wore their hair in buns. Dawn Brancheau apparently got pulled under by her ponytail. The whale that attacked her did not take part in today's shows.
– At 76, Spain's King Juan Carlos is abdicating after four decades, handing the throne to his son, Prince Felipe. "A new generation must be at the forefront," he said in a nationally televised address. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced the move today, calling on the courts to name Felipe king, the Guardian reports. Rajoy called the king "a tireless defender of our interests," citing personal reasons for his departure; he has faced recent health problems. Juan Carlos has long been among the world's most popular monarchs, the BBC notes, but recent years have seen their fair share of controversy. In 2012, the king sparked anger with an extravagant elephant-hunting trip to Botswana as Spain was embroiled in its financial crisis. He has also grappled allegations of corruption faced by his daughter and her husband; that scandal doesn't seem to have affected Felipe's reputation, the BBC reports. Juan Carlos was crowned in 1975 following dictator Francisco Franco's death. Though Franco's supporters called for continued autocratic government, the king led a transition to parliamentary democracy, the BBC notes.
– Since she successfully filibustered the Texas abortion bill, Wendy Davis has been on a bit of a media blitz. Asked about her gubernatorial ambitions on MSNBC last night, the state senator noted, "You know, I would be lying if I told you that I hadn’t had aspirations to run for a statewide office." As for the filibuster, "it really wasn’t just a physical endurance but a mental endurance as well," she said. She admitted to Anderson Cooper on CNN last night that she had "underestimated how difficult it would be both physically and mentally." And she had not-so-nice words for her male colleagues, saying she felt disrespected by them—which is not "atypical." She was a little more cagey on the prospect of running for governor when asked about it on CBS This Morning today, Mediaite reports. "It certainly has" crossed her mind to run for a higher office, and she's "honored" to be considered, she said, "but I don't know if now is the right time for me. We'll see." She also noted that she may not be able to block the bill a second time now that Gov. Rick Perry has called for another special legislative session. "I was able to do the filibuster because this bill came to the floor on the last day of the special session, and it made it possible to kill the bill as a consequence,” she said. “It’s not likely that they'll make that same mistake again."
– Looks like Alec and Hilaria Baldwin will have 4 under 5: They're expecting their fourth child next year. "Our Baldwinitos are getting a new teammate this spring. I’m gonna make them a special cake to tell them if it’s a boy or a girl...I’ll post it tomorrow midday," Hilaria posted on Instagram Friday alongside a picture of herself, Alec, and their existing brood. "We are so excited!" The Baldwins are already parents to Carmen, who turned 4 in August, 2-year-old Rafael, and 14-month-old Leonardo, ETOnline reports.
– And, just as suddenly as it was thrust upon us, the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes divorce is settled—so there go any hopes you may have had for a long, contentious custody battle. "This case has been settled and the agreement has been signed. We are thrilled for Katie and her family and are excited to watch as she embarks on the next chapter of her life," Holmes' lawyer tells TMZ. Holmes will have primary custody of daughter Suri, notes the LA Times, and both will have input on her religious upbringing. Earlier today, the former couple had released a joint statement obtained by People: "We are committed to working together as parents to accomplish what is in our daughter Suri's best interests. We want to keep matters affecting our family private and express our respect for each other's commitment to each of our respective beliefs and support each other's roles as parents." In a similarly "wow-that-was-fast" move, the Huffington Post reports that Holmes has already officially returned to the Catholic Church. Click for the latest, juicier rumors, including one about Tom's fondness for G-strings.
– Bill Cosby will be going to prison at 81. The judge in the case said Tuesday that he will put Cosby behind bars for three to 10 years, per AP, for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman over a decade ago in what led to the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era. Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill said he would not settle for probation or "partial confinement" such as house arrest, reports the New York Post. The judge also labeled Cosby a "sexually violent predator," reports the AP. The classification means that Cosby must undergo lifetime counseling and report quarterly to authorities. His name will appear on a sex-offender registry sent to neighbors, schools, and victims. The once-beloved entertainer dubbed America's Dad for his role as Dr. Cliff Huxtable on the Cosby Show faces up to 10 years in prison for violating Temple University women's basketball administrator Andrea Constand at his estate near Philadelphia in 2004. Prosecutors on Monday asked a judge to give the comedian five to 10 years behind bars, while his lawyers asked for house arrest, saying the legally blind Cosby is too old and helpless to do time in prison, per the AP. In the years since Constand first went to authorities in 2005, more than 60 women have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct, though none of those claims have led to criminal charges.
– A 32-year-old suffering from extreme anorexia was ordered yesterday by a British court to be force-fed in order to save her life, reports the Guardian. Several people who know the woman asked that she be left to die a "dignified death," but the judge ruled that she lacked the capacity to make a proper judgment about her own treatment. While the judge recognized the woman's right to live her own life independently, "it is lawful and in her best interests for her to be fed, forcibly if necessary." The woman, a former medical student, has not eaten any solid food in more than a year, and now has a body-mass index of just 11.3 (normal is about 20, while less than 15 is considered severely underweight), according to the Telegraph. After such an extreme starvation diet, the unnamed woman reportedly has only a 20% chance of living, even if forced to eat, an invasive treatment that could last up to a year. "E is a special person, whose life is of value," wrote the judge. "She does not see it that way now, but she may in future."
– It was decidedly good news when a group of about 80 children was rescued from a Boko Haram camp in northern Cameroon in November—but the repercussions of their abduction remain painfully evident. An aid official who recently visited an orphanage that's helping the kids get reacclimated to a semblance of normal life tells the BBC that they don't speak "English, French, or any local languages" and that they can't even remember their own names. The militant group, which just this week officially pledged its allegiance to ISIS, has moved its campaign to set up an Islamic caliphate beyond Nigeria and started attacking border towns in neighboring Cameroon in recent months, CBS News notes. The children extricated from Boko Haram's grasp late last year are between the ages of 5 and 18, Christopher Fomunyoh, a director for the National Democratic Institute, tells the BBC—and they've sadly succumbed to Boko Haram's brainwashing for all things ideologically extremist, he adds. "They've lost touch with their parents, they've lost touch with people in their villages," he says. "They're not able to articulate, to help trace their relationships. They can't even tell you what their names are." (Recent suicide attacks in Nigeria appear to be Boko Haram assaults.)
– Facebook is sometimes accused of trampling users' privacy, but it soon might have to allow an outsider to go rummaging through its servers. That's the result of a court decision out of the Netherlands today ordering the company to turn over the ID of the person who posted a revenge porn video, reports Reuters. The company maintains that the data no longer exists because it wiped out the fake account from which the video was posted, but the Amsterdam District Court says that if Facebook can't provide the information, it must allow an expert from outside the company verify that it's gone for good. "The offending account was ultimately deleted before we received any request for user data," says a Facebook statement. "We deeply empathize with the victim's experience and share her desire to keep this kind of nonconsensual imagery off of Facebook." A 21-year-old woman identified only as Chantal has sued Facebook over the February sex video, which shows her with her then-boyfriend in 2011, when they were both minors. The ex-boyfriend made the tape but denies posting it online, where it continues to circulate, reports AFP. The woman's lawyer says her life has "turned into hell" since it first went up. (Google is taking steps to crack down on revenge porn in search results.)
– Doug Musson's home has become a spectacle each December for more than three decades, decorated top to bottom in Christmas lights. But this year, visitors aren't just flocking to the home in Ontario, Canada, to take in the sights. They're also paying tribute to the man who made the Christmas season extra colorful, reports the Burlington Post. While up on a ladder tending to his display Monday, the 82-year-old Burlington man fell and was later pronounced dead at a hospital, reports the CBC. Burlington's mayor calls the news "devastating," particularly as Musson had been trying to fix a leak causing water to drip on a sidewalk, for fear a visitor might slip and fall, per the BBC. In the days since, locals have left tributes to how Musson's lights became part of their own Christmas traditions. "You touched the lives of so many," reads one. Musson started out hanging lights on his home in Calgary, Alberta. After the family moved to Ontario in 1976, he started adding bigger and better lights each year, per the Toronto Star. "He worked hard on making all of the displays" which were custom-built, including a motorcycle marked with the name Cam, in honor of Musson's son who died in a motorcycle accident in 1998, his wife writes on the family's website. "I debated even turning on the lights [following his death] but decided he would want them on." His goal was to bring smiles to people's faces, says Musson's son, Scott. He adds he'll keep the display going because it's what his father would've wanted. "We put a Santa Claus that dances out every evening. The kids came to dance with it. That was Dad's favorite part," he tells the CBC. But "there will never be a Christmas the same ever." (Christmas lights can be seen from space.)
– Anyone familiar with the Kickstarter game Cards Against Humanity ("A party game for horrible people") has likely also heard about its previous Black Friday antics, including selling actual bullshit, reports Gizmodo. This year the people behind the game have taken their tongue-in-cheek approach a step further by offering nothing—for a price. "The greatest Black Friday gift of all is buying nothing," the creators write. "We're offering that for the rock-bottom price of $5." All in all, 11,248 people decided to chip in, with 1,199 of them giving more than $5 by filling out the form multiple times. One fan did it 20 times to give them $100. Total windfall? $71,145, they write on the Cards Against Humanity site. Just as interesting is how the employees decided to spend it. The company has donated more than $4 million in recent years, reports the Daily Dot, but this time it decided to do a little personal shopping and then share each employee's purchases on its website. And while there was still some charitable giving (most commonly to Planned Parenthood, right on the heels of the attack on a Colorado Springs clinic), other purchases ranged widely and include a whole lot of cat litter for Alex, a $3,120 vibrator for Karlee, $384 in piano lessons for Tom, and a $1,200 Robin Hood costume for Jenn, reports Mashable. (Last year the game's creators purchased a remote island in Maine.)
– Paula Deen's publicist isn't the only one upset over the celebrity chef's decision to hawk Novo Nordisk’s Victoza diabetes drug: The decision also caused a rift in Deen's family. Sons Jamie and Bobby were so upset they nearly left Artists Agency, which reps all three Deens and engineered the deal with the drugmaker. Jamie and Bobby weren't concerned about Deen's image so much as her health, however: She was doing well on a different drug, and they didn't want her to switch to Victoza. Deen "put them both under a lot of pressure and managed to persuade them to stay on with the family management," a source tells the New York Post. And after all that, apparently Deen is doing just fine on the new drug, which reportedly costs $500 per month. In other Paula news, Deen is currently on her "Paula Deen cruise," and was recently recorded chowing down on a cheeseburger—click to watch the video.
– Dozens of women have accused Charlie Rose of sexual misconduct stretching back decades; there's now a bit of legal closure for a handful of them. A suit in New York state alleging the 76-year-old engaged in "blatant and repeated sexual harassment" of three former junior colleagues has been settled—at least the part that contends CBS News knew about his behavior, per Business Insider. A statement from CBS spokeswoman Christa Robinson notes, "The matter is resolved," though she adds that the amount awarded to Chelsea Wei, Sydney McNeal, and Katherine Brooks Harris has been kept confidential at the women's request, the Washington Post reports. Wei and Brooks Harris worked with Rose at CBS, McNeal at PBS. Among the accusations in the suit: that Rose caressed and touched parts of their bodies like their arms, shoulders, and waist and kissed them on the cheek. There was also verbal denigration, the women contend, with Rose pointing out other women and calling them prostitutes, as well as calling Wei an idiot and a "China doll," the suit alleges. While CBS may now be done with this complaint, Rose isn't yet in the clear: The women's lawyer says the part of the suit that names him directly is still in play. The Post says it has heard from 35 women in total who have accusations of sexual harassment or other inappropriate behavior by Rose.
– A sweeping, seven-year investigation by Britain into its decision to join the US in the Iraq War is out, and "scathing" is beginning to sound like an understatement. The report by Sir John Chilcot faults every aspect of the decision by Tony Blair's government, reports the Telegraph. "It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments," said Chilcot as the report was released. "They were not challenged, and they should have been." He said the UK went to war before exhausting "peaceful options," adding that "military action at that time was not a last resort." After that, Britain bungled the post-war strategy as Blair overestimated his ability to influence George W. Bush, says the report. "I will be with you whatever," he had written to Bush in a 2002 note. The AP points out one key aspect of the report: It will not make a finding on whether the invasion was legally justified. That's likely to disappoint critics of the war, who were hoping Blair would face prosecution on war crimes. The report does accuse Blair and his team of making a case against Saddam "with a certainty that was not justified," specifically in regard to weapons of mass destruction. Blair himself reacted on Wednesday: "Whether people agree or disagree with my decision to take military action against Saddam Hussein, I took it in good faith and in what I believed to be the best interests of the country." A link to the full report can be found here. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post point out that at more than 2 million words, it's much longer than War and Peace.
– Taylor Swift alleges a former radio DJ "lifted her skirt and groped her" during a backstage meet-and-greet and hopes a jury trial will set the record straight. The DJ—variously identified as David or Richard Mueller—sued Swift last month, alleging he lost his $150,000 job at KYGO radio after a member of the singer's security team said he had grabbed Swift's butt while posing for a photo at Denver's Pepsi Center in June 2013, report People and the Washington Post. Mueller argues it was actually "his superior," Eddie Haskell, who did the groping. But in a countersuit filed on Wednesday, Swift's lawyers say that claim is "specious." "Ms. Swift knows exactly who committed the assault—it was Mueller—and she is not confused in the slightest about whether her long-term business acquaintance, Mr. Haskell, was the culprit," per the suit. "Mueller did not merely brush his hand against Ms. Swift while posing for the photograph," the countersuit continues, noting Mueller's girlfriend was also apparently present. He "intentionally reached under her skirt, and groped with his hand an intimate part of her body in an inappropriate manner, against her will, and without her permission," leaving Swift "surprised, upset, offended, and alarmed." Swift's lawyers—who note Mueller had twice been fired from other on-air radio jobs—say any money the singer receives from the suit will be "dedicated to protecting women from similar acts of sexual assault and personal disregard." Last month, a rep said Swift's camp didn't attempt to influence Mueller's firing but said KYGO was "given evidence immediately after the incident" and "made their independent decision." (In happier Taylor-Swift news, here's how much money she makes per day.)
– If you’ve already mastered Klingon, you might want to turn your language learning talents onto Na’vi next. Yes, obsessive Avatar fans are learning the fictional language, most notably at the appropriately named learnnavi.org, where 4,300 people have already contributed to the discussion forums. One commenter, during a discussion with creator of the Na’vi language Paul Frommer, managed to compose an entire—grammatically correct—paragraph in the tongue just 24 hours after Avatar premiered, Slate reports. How is such a thing possible, with no complete lexicon? Frommer developed a system of rules for his language, and simply by paying attention to the film's dialogue, viewers can figure out those rules. Not all films go to such lengths when creating languages…but not all fan bases would go to the lengths the Na’vi learners have, producing their own study guides and word lists—and signing a petition (3,868 signatures strong so far) asking Frommer for a complete dictionary and grammar rules.
– The suspect accused of shooting three people dead at two Kansas City-area Jewish sites has been identified as a former "grand dragon" of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, says 73-year-old Frazier Glenn Cross has a long history of racist and anti-Semitic behavior, NBC reports. He is suspected of shooting dead a 14-year-boy and his grandfather in the parking lot of a Jewish community center before killing a woman at a nearby retirement home. More: Police say Cross, who has been booked on suspicion of first-degree murder, smiled and made an anti-Semitic statement when he was arrested near the community center, reports the Kansas City Star. They declined to confirm reports that he shouted "Heil Hitler." Cross—who also uses the name Frazier Glenn Miller—tried to buy radio ads denouncing Jews and the federal government during a 2010 write-in campaign for the US Senate from Missouri. "We've sat back and allowed the Jews to take over our government, our banks, and our media," one ad said. In a 2010 interview with Howard Stern, Cross accused Jews of "committing genocide against the white race" and said Adolf Hitler was "the greatest man who ever walked the Earth," the New York Times finds. Asked who he hated more, Jewish people or African Americans, Cross responded, "Jews. A thousand times more. Compared to our Jewish problem, all other problems are mere distractions." The Anti-Defamation League described the shootings as a "cowardly, unspeakable and heinous act of violence." While it is too early to call the shootings a hate crime, "the fact that two Jewish institutions were targeted by the same individual just prior to the start of the Passover holiday is deeply troubling and certainly gives us pause," the group's regional director said in a statement. The two victims shot at the community center have been identified as Dr. William Lewis Corporon, who died at the scene, and his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, who died at the hospital, the AP reports. They were both members of a nearby Methodist church and were at the community center for the grandson to try out for a local singing competition.
– The hits just keep coming for Sony Pictures Entertainment: In the wake of threatening legal action against media outlets who publish data from the November hack, the entertainment giant is now being sued itself—by two former employees, for not protecting their data. As the Los Angeles Times reports, the pair filed a class-action lawsuit last night alleging that Sony "failed to secure its computer systems, servers and databases, despite weaknesses that it has known about for years" and "subsequently failed to timely protect confidential information of its current and former employees from law-breaking hackers." The fallout from the hack is likely to cost Sony millions in legal fees and rebuilding its network, to the point where one executive is quoted yesterday as saying, "This won't take us down. You should not be worried about the future of this studio." Of particular issue could be the employees' medical records, which are believed to have been breached. California law places on employers what the Times calls "a strict legal obligation" to protect such records. The lawsuit seeks five years of identity theft protection, credit restoration, bank monitoring, and unspecified damages, notes TMZ. "Put simply, Sony knew about the risks it took with its past and current employees’ data," the lawsuit reads. "Sony gambled, and its employees—past and current—lost."
– Tomi Lahren, the young rising star of the right, has been suspended from her job at Glenn Beck-founded network The Blaze, sources tell the Daily Caller. Though the reason for her suspension, said to be in effect for at least a week, hasn't been confirmed, USA Today reports that the problem seemed to start when Lahren appeared on The View Friday and said she's pro-choice. "I can’t sit here and be a hypocrite and say I’m for limited government but I think the government should decide what women do with their bodies," she explained. "As a Republican ... I can say, you know what, I’m for limited government, so stay out of my guns, and you can stay out of my body as well." Backlash from her fellow Republicans quickly followed. Tension already existed between Lahren and some of her coworkers at The Blaze thanks to Lahren's "inflammatory" style, per the Daily Caller, and after her View appearance, some of those coworkers called her out on Twitter, accusing her of calling Republicans who oppose abortion "hypocrites." Glenn Beck was among those criticizing Lahren, and he even spoke about the issue on his radio show Monday: "I would disagree that you’re a hypocrite if you want limited government and yet you want the government to protect life of the unborn. It’s very, very clear," he said. "But it takes intellectual honesty, and it takes a willingness to actually think these things through and to do more than just read Twitter or Facebook to get your news and your political opinions." The Daily Caller had previously reported that Lahren may leave The Blaze before her contract is up in September.
– Perspective is everything in persuasive speaking, which Ben Bowling found out in a flash while giving a speech as valedictorian at his Kentucky high school graduation. Per the Louisville Courier-Journal, the 18-year-old senior at Bell County High School wanted to impart a nugget of wisdom to the crowd Saturday, and so he offered this quote he said he found during an internet search: "Don't just get involved. Fight for your seat at the table. Better yet, fight for a seat at the head of the table." The source, he told his classmates and others, was Donald J. Trump, which elicited wild applause. "Just kidding," Bowling quickly informed his audience. "That was Barack Obama." Then, suddenly … the applause waned; the New York Times notes there was a "lone boo" (a clip is on Twitter). Bowling lives in a county where the GOP has drawn the majority of ballots in presidential elections over the past 12 years, per the Washington Post—including almost four-fifths of the votes cast in 2016 for Trump. Bowling's switcheroo drew both laughter and "collective groaning," one attendee noted, per the Courier-Journal. The teen, who's heading to the University of Kentucky to study biology and is described by his principal to the Times as "very politically aware," says he "didn't mean anything bad" by his joke and was just trying to lighten the mood with what he thought was "a really good quote." The quote, meanwhile, was taken from a 2012 commencement speech the former president gave at Barnard College. (One valedictorian revealed her undocumented status.)
– Days after he shot and killed a Georgia police officer, suspect Tafahree Maynard was himself shot and killed by police after a three-day manhunt. Gwinnett County Police Department Officer Antwan Toney was called to investigate a suspicious vehicle Saturday afternoon near a middle school and was fatally shot while approaching the car. Police say Maynard, 18, is believed to have fired the shot; he was with Isaiah Pretlow, 19, at the time. Pretlow was arrested late Saturday night and charged with aggravated assault. Maynard was found hiding in a wooden shed Monday morning, about one mile from where Toney was shot, after police received a tip. Police say he was armed with a lawnmower blade and that he was shot and killed by police after he refused to obey their commands, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Toney, a California native, had just turned 30 days before his death, 11 Alive reports; he was just six days away from his third anniversary with the department when he was killed. "The people that worked with him on a daily basis recalled a very jovial person who was dedicated to his job and dedicated to his community," Police Chief Butch Ayers said, per WSB-TV. It's not clear why shots were fired. An anonymous 911 caller reported people inside the vehicle were smoking pot; no words were exchanged before Toney, who was accompanied by another officer, was shot. Pretlow allegedly crashed the vehicle and then fled on foot. (The suspected South Carolina cop killer had boasted of his gun skills.)
– A 19-year-old Cornell University sophomore was arraigned on second-degree murder charges in western New York this morning in the shotgun slaying of his father, the CEO of a local company, reports the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. Police responded to a domestic incident in the sleepy upscale suburb of Pittsford last night to find Charles Tan standing with his mother, Qing Tan, in the driveway of their home. Inside, they found 49-year-old Ling Tan, the CEO of Dynamax Imaging, with multiple gunshots to the chest, face, neck, and arm. In the garage of the home, they found a shotgun. The Monroe County Sheriff's Office says that police had responded several times to domestic calls at the home in the past, notes the Democrat and Chronicle. Charles Tan was arraigned early today and is being held without bail. He is studying in Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, adds the Cornell Daily Sun, and plays sprint football. "Our thoughts are with the family during this difficult time," said a university spokesman.
– JCPenney says it will be closing 130 to 140 stores over the next several months as it aims to improve online sales, reports the AP. Locations will be announced next month. CEO Marvin Ellison says the company also is offering an early retirement program to 6,000 employees, per the Dallas News. The closures represent about 13% of the chain's stores and less than 5% of total annual sales. The news came as the Texas-based chain posted a profit in the fourth-quarter compared to a loss a year ago. But total sales were down slightly, and a key revenue metric declined slightly as well. JCPenney has been recovering from a catastrophic reinvention plan under former CEO Ron Johnson that sent sales and profits into a free-fall in 2012 and 2013. Business stabilized under Mike Ullman, who took the helm in 2013 after Johnson was pushed out. Under Ellison, who has been CEO since 2015, Penney is looking for new ways to increase sales while improving its e-commerce. But while annual sales were down, what's encouraging is JCPenney's profit picture. It was able to pull in a $1 million profit for the full fiscal year, the first time it earned an annual profit since 2010. JCPenney is joining other department stores like Macy's that are shrinking their footprints amid challenges in the industry.
– Three luxury apartment buildings in New York City are having their names changed because residents don't want to be associated with the next president of the United States. The gold letters spelling out "Trump Place" at 140, 160, and 180 Riverside Blvd. in Manhattan will be taken down Wednesday and the buildings will be renamed after their street addresses, Bloomberg reports. The buildings were developed by Donald Trump in the 1990s but are now owned by Equity Residential, which says it never paid Trump for the use of his name and will now "assume a more neutral building identity that will appeal to all current and future renters." The company decided to change the name after more than 600 people signed a "Dump the Trump name" petition, which cited his "appalling treatment of women, his history of racism, his attacks on immigrants, his mockery of the disabled, his tax avoidance, his outright lying." Resident Juliet Herman tells the Guardian that people have thrown eggs at her building in recent weeks and she is "thrilled" about the name change. "I'm looking forward to people not bringing politics into it anymore when they come visit or see where I live," she says. (A company making Trump masks has been flooded with orders.)
– India rape cases may be making headlines, but they're only the tip of the iceberg, according to an "unprecedented and ground-breaking" UN study. The anonymous survey of 10,000 men and 3,000 women in Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Sri Lanka—home to more than half the global population—found 25% of men had raped their partner, while 10% raped another woman at least once, the Guardian reports. (CNN has a breakdown of figures per country.) Some 75% said they felt entitled to do so, while more than half cited entertainment value; 70% said they went unpunished. "This is really the first time we've had data on rape perpetration on this scale, not just in the region but in the world, and I think it probably suggests rape is more widespread than we had thought," said one author, who points to paid sex, physical and sexual abuse as a child, and having many sexual partners, as factors that increase the likelihood a man will rape. And since more than half committed rape as a teenager, it "highlights the need to start working with younger boys and girls to stop the violence," she said. Options include changing social norms, cutting down on childhood violence, and prosecuting rapists. "The fact that there is such variation" by country, she says, "highlights that it isn't inevitable and that there are things we can do to prevent it."
– Walmart's shelves may not be as organized as they usually are, but a friendly "hello" will never be in short supply now that the retailer has started its latest experiment: moving its greeters back to the front entrances to boost "door presence," the Wall Street Journal reports. In efforts to deter theft and improve customer service, management is cutting down on the greeters' multitasking duties in 300 of its 4,500 US locations, returning greeters to the perch from which many had been removed to help out in other areas of the store, the paper notes. Some entrances will also be staffed by members of the APCS (asset protection customer specialist) team, yellow-shirted employees who in addition to greeting customers will check receipts of departing patrons and scan in merch being returned. Three years ago, Walmart started justifying many greeters' paychecks by shuffling them between their welcoming posts and other areas where help was needed, the Journal reports; a company job posting indicates "Walmart greeters may clean store entryways, departments, or even restrooms if assigned such a task." But some stores reported increased merchandise losses—dubbed "shrink" in the industry—as "people started walking out the door with cartloads of stuff," a stock employee tells the Journal. Such losses cost Walmart 0.13 of a percentage point of its US gross profit margin in the three months ending April, per CEO Doug McMillon's May conference call—which may not seem like a lot, but adds up when you consider the whopping $288 billion in US sales the retailer enjoyed last fiscal year. (Another part of Walmart's recent game plan: playing less Celine Dion.)
– Misplaced oddity? David Bowie's very first demo track, made when he was just 16, is set to go on the auction block in September and could fetch as much as $13,000. The Guardian and Independent report that the 1963 recording of Bowie—then known by his given name, David Jones—with his first band, The Konrads, was found by the group's former drummer and manager, David Hadfield, in his grandfather's bread basket while he was cleaning out his garage loft in the 1990s. At the time "I Never Dreamed" was recorded to impress record executives at Decca, Bowie was actually the band's saxophonist, though the group decided for this particular song he'd take the lead vocals. "His heart and mind were focused on becoming a world-class saxophone player," Hadfield says, per the Independent. The demo didn't lead to a signing with Decca, and Bowie left the band shortly after an audition with the record company later that year, which also didn't lead to a deal. The tape, which auctioneer Paul Fairweather calls a "significant … completely unique" recording, will be up for auction along with other memorabilia from Hadfield, including letters, photos, and booking papers from Bowie's earliest days as a performer, per the BBC.
– Movie theaters are outlawed in Saudi Arabia, and women's rights are deeply restricted, so Wadjda, the first feature film shot entirely in the kingdom, and the first directed by a Saudi woman, was always going to be a remarkable film. It's also a very good one, critics overwhelmingly agree—as of this writing, the limited release film is at 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. Here's what people are saying: "Not only is this a deftly crafted and superbly acted film, but Wadjda sheds a powerful light on what women face … in an oppressive regime," writes Claudia Puig at USA Today. Yet it never becomes "a sociological lecture." Director Haifaa al-Mansour "has crafted a vividly multidimensional film that sidesteps predictability." Even once you've gotten over the novelty of the film's creation, you'll find "that the pic transcends mere surprise value and delivers a winning, handsomely crafted story," writes Jay Weissberg at Variety. Its pre-teen lead, Waad Mohammed, "captivates with a palpable confidence: Her T-shirt proudly proclaims, 'I am a Great Catch!,' and she is." "Just seeing life in Riyadh is a revelation," writes Alan Scherstuhl at the Village Voice. Al-Mansour "frames the city's slab-like structures … and then sets the kids loose to dash around and through them." Wadjda is unflinching in its depiction of oppression, but its "appreciation for the hopefulness of children keep[s] all this from becoming too grim to bear." But while the film's depictions of oppression are "thoroughly involving," Kenneth Turan at the LA Times found the plot, which centers around the title character's quest to buy a bicycle, to be "as standard as it sounds," and Wadjda herself to be "a cliché rebel." We're lucky to have the film, he writes, "but it's hard not to wish the result was even better."
– The New York Times, it seems, has fallen prey to fake news about one of the nation's most pressing issues: Kim Kardashian's rear end. In a humorous column reflecting on the dangers of a large backside—difficulty squeezing through tight spaces, for one—Joyce Wadler quoted Kanye West as saying his own butt is far better than his wife's, the Week reports. In fact, it's "like Michelangelo level," the quote said. Thing is, West never actually made that statement; it came from an article in the Onion-esque Daily Currant, which attributed it to an interview on a nonexistent Chicago radio station, WGYN. The Times has added a correction.
– The superheroes are back for round two in Avengers: Age of Ultron, following 2012's well-reviewed original. If you're expecting just another action flick, you may be in for a surprise. Here's what critics are saying: "As he did in the first Avengers, writer-director Joss Whedon avoids the fatal trap of comic-book ­self-seriousness, leavening a baggy, busy, overpopulated story with zippy one-liners, quippy asides, and an overarching tone of jaunty good fun," writes Ann Hornaday at the Washington Post. There are "repetitive, too-long action sequences," but the "flawlessly well-tuned ensemble" of characters are well worth watching. Steven Rea at the Philadelphia Inquirer agrees the best of the movie is showcased in the "quieter moments," when the screenplay's humor comes alive. The theme of the flick is teamwork, but the movie is missing "a sense of spontaneity" because of all the filming in front of green screens and with body doubles, Rea says. "As the franchise thunders on, it's also becoming more and more a bore." "For those more concerned with what the Avengers movies do best—outsize spectacle and wry comedy—Age of Ultron has to be declared a victory," John Anderson writes at the Wall Street Journal. Though its predecessor was often "bogged down by narrative baggage," this flick is more "buoyant" and "pretty amusing." A warning, though: the 3D is nothing special, Anderson notes, adding that a scene of a falling Manhattan skyscraper is "beyond tasteless." None of that seems to bother Colin Covert at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "If future films are as well realized as Ultron, that’s fine by me," he writes. Viewers can laugh along with "a remarkably good series of gags about Thor's magical mallet" as the movie "builds to a bombastic finale, a limitless overstuffed smorgasbord of sky-high battle. It works, where Michael Bay's pointless Transformers films and Zack Snyder's disappointing Man of Steel stumbled."
– Donald Trump is deeply unhappy about this fall's presidential debate schedule—and apparently a little confused about who created it. Two of the three debates clash with NFL games, and Trump tweeted Friday that Hillary Clinton and the Democrats were "trying to rig the debates," though the debates were scheduled by the non-partisan commission that has been organizing presidential debates since 1988, McClatchy reports. The schedule, which also includes one vice presidential debate, was set in September last year, long before the NFL released this season's schedule. The Commission on Presidential Debates, which consulted with officials in both parties before creating the schedule, says it's impossible to avoid all sporting events and it stands by the schedule, the New York Times reports. In an interview with ABC's This Week, Trump accused Clinton of rigging the debate schedule to minimize the audience. "I'll tell you what I don't like. It's against two NFL games," he said. "I got a letter from the NFL saying, 'This is ridiculous.'" An NFL spokesman said they would prefer a different debate schedule but that there was no letter to Trump. "Mr. Trump was made aware of the conflicting dates by a source close to the league," a Trump aide tells CNN. "It's unfortunate that millions of voters will be disenfranchised by these dates." The Republican National Committee has also complained about the debate schedule, which can be seen here. The presidential debates will be on Monday, Sept. 26; Sunday, Oct. 9; and Wednesday, Oct. 19; the VP debate is set for Tuesday, Oct. 4.
– A handful of critics enjoyed Seth Rogen's bumbling reinvention of Green Hornet—but only a handful. The movie's currently at 44% on Rotten Tomatoes, though to be fair, audiences liked it a fair bit more (71%). Here's what they're saying: The first half of the movie has a “genuinely subversive comic verve” painting “heroes and villains alike as emotionally needy little boys playing dress-up with live ammunition,” writes Ty Burr of the Boston Globe. “The second half, sadly, is an ear-splitting train wreck.” Roger Ebert hated it, calling it “almost unendurable” in the Chicago Sun-Times. He blames Seth Rogen, “who co-wrote the screenplay, giving himself way too many words, and then hurls them tirelessly at us at a modified shout.” “The Green Hornet is not terrible, just pointless,” writes AO Scott of the New York Times. “It offers further proof that superheroism is, at least for now, pretty well tapped out” as a movie subject. But Dan Kois of the Washington Post loved it—and wrote his review in the voice of Batman. “This punk, the Green Hornet. His movie's fun. It's light-hearted. It's full of jokes. Jokes! My enemies tell jokes. Riddles, whatnot,” the Dark Knight complains. “Heroes don't tell jokes.”
– A creative jury duty excuse made—successfully—earlier this month is making the rounds this week: Jonathan D. Lovitz, who just so happens to have a reality show in the works, got out of jury duty by explaining that he couldn't be impartial because he's a gay man living in New York. His reasoning, as first reported by the blog Justin + 1: "Since I can't get married or adopt a child in the state of New York, I can't possibly be an impartial judge of a citizen when I am considered a second-class one in the eyes of this justice system." It worked, and now Lovitz is semi-famous. (The Advocate is just one of the sites that has since picked up the story.)
– Fears that the Meals on Wheels program would be gutted under President Trump's first budget has translated into a significant boost in donations to the group. The national umbrella organization said it received $50,000 in online donations Thursday after Trump released his prelminary budget, reports Reuters. The typical daily total? More like $1,000. As USA Today and the Washington Post explain, however, it's a little early to suggest that the program will be decimated by the White House. For one thing, Meals on Wheels is not a federal program and does not receive money directly from the federal government. Instead, it ends up with a mixture of federal, state, and city funds. While Trump has proposed an overall 17.9% cut for the Department of Health and Human Services, the specific impact on the group is unclear. “Some of the stories are just either grossly wrong or nearly grossly wrong, all the stories about how we cut Meals on Wheels,” White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney said on NBC’s Meet the Press. Still, Trump did propose elminating HUD's community development block grants, from which Meals on Wheels gets about 3% of its funding. And the program would almost certainly feel the pinch if the HHS cuts hold up, given that it gets most of its federal money through one of its agencies, the Administration for Community Living. It's just too early to tell how bad it would be. In the meantime, a spokeswoman for the group says that while the extra donations are welcome, they probably wouldn't cover the shortfall. "While Meals on Wheels America and local Meals on Wheels programs are seeing an uptick in giving, it does not replace federal funding."
– On Wednesday Vice President Mike Pence will officially welcome Doug Jones into the U.S. Senate, bringing to an end one of the strangest and most controversial elections in recent memory, the Hill reports. And while Jones' former opponent, Roy Moore, is still refusing to concede the race, Alabama state election officials have released information about the more than 22,000 write-in votes that helped to dash his hopes. The man Moore beat in the Republican primary, Luther Strange, got some small revenge, beating all other write-in candidates with 7500 votes, the Guardian reports. Meanwhile, Lee Busby, a former aide to current White House Chief of Staff John Kelly who was running as an independent, won the write-in battle in at least 10 counties. Other fantasy candidates, such as Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whose seat Jones and Moore were vying to fill, and University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban won votes, as did Leigh Corfman, one of the women who accused Moore of trying to instigate an sexual relationship with her when she was just a teenager. And so did Sassy, the horse Moore rode to the polls on Election Day. Some voters vented their frustration with the race by writing in "Neither" and "Any Other Republican," NBC News reports, while others threw their support behind celebrities, both human and animated, like Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, SpongeBob Square Pants, Ronald Reagan, and even Jesus. Unfortunately, Alabama election law requires candidates to be living persons in order for write-in ballots to count.
– A 32-year-old father of two is dead after a "sucker punch" to the head ruptured a blood clot on his brain that no one was aware of, his family tells WHO. Fiancée Lindsey Engquist calls it a "freak accident." According to the New York Daily News, Engquist and Scott Thompson were outside their home in Des Moines, Iowa, on Monday afternoon when a man drove up in a sedan. He got out of his car, said something about Thompson owing him money, and punched Thompson in the face. Engquist tells the Des Moines Register she had no idea who the man was. Thompson seemed OK at first, but started showing signs of a stroke a few minutes later. He was taken to the hospital, where doctors were unable to stop the bleeding from the blood clot. Thompson died Tuesday. “There's not enough I can say about him," Engquist tells WHO. "He was wonderful. He was just a wonderful guy.” Thompson's ex-wife agreed, telling the Register: "He was in love with his children. They hold him on a pedestal that no one can touch." Police have a suspect—a 10-year-old witness saw a white man in his 40s with long dark hair—and possible motive in the attack but aren't releasing that information at this time. It could take up to 10 weeks for the Polk County Medical Examiner to produce an official cause of death. (A passenger says a 10-hour flight caused blood clots that nearly killed him.)
– A clearer picture is emerging from Wednesday's assault on police officers at a home in an upscale neighborhood in Florence, South Carolina. Seven officers were shot, one of them fatally, before police arrested 74-year-old Frederick Hopkins after a two-hour standoff. Police had gone to the home to serve a warrant, though not to Hopkins. Details and developments: The start: Police went to Hopkins' home about 4pm with a search warrant related to an unidentified 27-year-old man living in the home. The younger man, who is accused of sexual assault of a minor on a foster child in the residence, ended up being shot and wounded during the gunfire, reports WMBF. The shooting: Authorities say Hopkins set up with a high-powered rifle by a second-story window, a vantage point that gave him a clear shot at officers on the scene, reports the State. In fact, police had to use an armored vehicle to collect the wounded during the siege.
– What exactly transpired in Moammar Gadhafi's last moments remains unclear. A video from Al Jazeera shows a badly injured Gadhafi captured alive and being loaded by anti-Gadhafi fighters into an ambulance in Sirte. (The grisly video along with photos are in the gallery.) He was dead soon after: New York Times: "Conflicting accounts quickly emerged about whether (Gadhafi) was executed by his captors, died from gunshot wounds sustained in a firefight, was killed in a NATO bomb blast or bled to death in an ambulance." Reuters: It quotes a source in Libya's National Transitional Council: "They captured him alive and while he was being taken away, they beat him and then they killed. He might have been resisting." Wall Street Journal: "Gadhafi was shot and wounded in Sirte and died in an ambulance en route to Misrata, said Misrata Military Council spokesman Fathi Bashagha." Associated Press: "Abdel-Jalil Abdel-Aziz, a doctor who was part of the medical team that accompanied the body in the ambulance and examined it, said Gadhafi died from two bullet wounds, to the head and chest."
– We all know Donald Trump isn't a fan of political correctness. That's why he's also not a fan of Harriet Tubman replacing Andrew Jackson on the new $20 bill. "I don't like seeing it. Yes, I think it's pure political correctness," Trump tells Today, per Politico. Jackson—who many condemn for owning slaves and removing Native Americans from their lands—"had a history of tremendous success for the country" and should stay put on the bill, Trump continues. (Jackson is to be moved to the back of the bill.) Tubman was "fantastic," but would be "more appropriate" on the $2 bill or some other denomination, Trump adds. He was actually repeating an idea of Ben Carson's. "I love Harriet Tubman. I love what she did, but we can find another way to honor her. Maybe a $2 bill," he said Wednesday on Fox Business, per Politico. He added Jackson was "a tremendous president" and "the last president who actually balanced the federal budget, where we had no national debt." Hillary Clinton had a different take. "A woman, a leader, and a freedom fighter. I can't think of a better choice for the $20 bill than Harriet Tubman," she tweeted Wednesday. "I cannot think of an American hero more deserving of this honor," added rival Bernie Sanders.
– Are Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez getting back together? TMZ's sources spotted the erstwhile pair on what sounds like an epically romantic outing: They were riding around Justin's Calabasas, California, neighborhood together on Segways. Their 12mph activity apparently caused a traffic jam, according to tweets and tweeted pictures rounded up by E!: "Shoutout to @justinbieber for holding up all the traffic in the Oaks. Grow up ... his bodyguards blocked the road," one user posted. Last month, Bieber told an LA radio station he still loves Gomez, but that the two were "not talking" at the moment. Meanwhile, another possible celebrity reunion: Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones celebrated the new year together in Quebec, People reports. Douglas posted a picture of the family in ski gear, and he and Zeta-Jones were spotted together (and wearing their wedding rings) a few other times right before Christmas.
– Andrew Sullivan is often an ally to America's left, but he's definitely not cheering over the ouster of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich over his opposition to gay marriage. "This is McCarthyism applied by civil actors. This is the definition of intolerance," The Dish maestro writes in one of several posts decrying the ouster. "It’s staggering to me that a minority long persecuted for holding unpopular views can now turn around and persecute others for the exact same reason," he writes. These people are trumpeting the "illiberal" view that morality trumps freedom, and dissenters must be ostracized. But Will Oremus at Slate has a much different take. Yes, he says, your political beliefs shouldn't affect your employment. "But this is different. Opposing gay marriage in America today is not akin to opposing tax hikes," he argues. "It's more akin to opposing interracial marriage." That makes Eich unfit to be CEO in a tech industry competing hard for employees. "If you know your boss rated you undeserving of the same rights as everyone else based solely on your sexual orientation, would you feel good about going to work?"
– There are sure to be a few people buying tickets to Cinderella this weekend simply to see Frozen Fever, which precedes it. If they stick around after the short, though, they might just witness a little magic courtesy of Cate Blanchett, Lily James, and Richard Madden. Here's what critics are saying: "The world didn't need yet another Cinderella story, but the one we got is one of the best versions ever put on film," writes Richard Roeper at the Chicago Sun-Times. Cinderella is "an enchanting, exhilarating romantic adventure with gorgeous scenery, terrific sets, stellar cinematography, and Oscar-worthy costumes," plus "a first-rate cast." In particular, James "sparkles," while Blanchett is "deliciously terrifying." Betsy Sharkey says the flick is "as pure of heart as its heroine" and "floats across the screen like a gossamer confection, full of elegant beauty and quiet grace." Helena Bonham Carter, who plays the fairy godmother, is one of the best actors in the film, which "follows the well-known classic fairy tale chapter and verse," she writes at the Los Angeles Times. There's "a good deal of CGI magic" to boot. Joe Neumaier at the New York Daily News says Cinderella is "a ball for all." It's "an often sparkling movie that never disrespects the kid audience even as it wins over the parents." It has also been updated for the new generation. James' Cinderella is "often staunchly independent" and "doesn't wait for her prince; he realizes he can’t live without her." Mick LaSalle, however, doesn't quite fall under Cinderella's spell. "Every old and familiar element is done beautifully," but the additional elements and back story "don't add to the experience," he writes at the San Francisco Chronicle. "Director Kenneth Branagh and his cast have done their best ... but ultimately they are toiling in irrelevancy." The one update he did like: that Cinderella is "more than just a doormat." Speaking of Frozen, here's some good news for fans...
– Might Republicans have to blackball Fox from the GOP presidential debates, too? The New York Times adds an interesting twist to the controversy over a Hillary Clinton miniseries in the works—while the production is planned to air on NBC, it might be produced by Fox Television Studios. As reported earlier, the Republican National Committee is livid over the proposed miniseries, which it thinks will amount to free advertising for Clinton. If NBC airs it, the RNC has threatened to keep the debates off the network. (Ditto for CNN, which is working on a Clinton documentary.) NBC News has argued that it is a separate entity from the entertainment division of the network and thus shouldn't be penalized. (In fact, Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd have spoken out against the miniseries.) Now Fox News might have to make the same argument about Fox Television Studios, notes Mediaite.
– President Trump's brief but chilly comments to the New York Post about Steve Bannon had the media scrambling to find sources willing to weigh in on one big question: Is Bannon in or out? The Washington Post spoke with 21 of the president's "aides, confidants, and allies" in a quest to answer that question. Here's what it and other media outlets are learning and speculating: First, know that Trump added more fuel to the fire later Wednesday with a second set of brief comments about Bannon, this time during a wide-ranging Wall Street Journal interview. An excerpt: "I'm my own strategist. ... I’m just saying that [Mr. Bannon] is a guy who works for me, he's a good guy. But, I make my own decision." Though it calls him a "marked man," the Post hesitates to establish a firm position, allowing that "for now, at least, Bannon may survive the turmoil." But it has two quotes that suggest otherwise: In one, an unnamed friend uses the metaphor of a dying relative being transitioned to hospice in describing Bannon. And there's this from Newt Gingrich: "Bannon is a brilliant pirate ... but White Houses, in the end, are like the US Navy ... very hard on pirates." The Post also suggests the Bannon-Jared Kushner friction may extend beyond Kushner. It calls out Ivanka, Eric, and Donald Trump Jr. as being bothered by what they see as an appearance of turmoil that could prove detrimental to their legacy and quest to expand Trump-brand hotels. Though the New York Times reports that Bannon allies (who are major Trump donors) have been holing up in recent days and imagining a path forward for Bannon should he exit, it cites a well-placed source as saying no change is imminent. And Bannon does have allies: One of them, Jeff Sessions, went to bat for him Wednesday in an interview with Laura Ingraham, per the Hill: "I'm an admirer of Steve Bannon," he said. At FiveThirtyEight, Perry Bacon Jr. advises us to "watch not for the decline of Bannon, but for the decline of Bannonism," which Bacon names as one of the four ideological styles espoused by those near Trump. He writes that knowing who might replace Bannon would be the biggest clue, and explains the difference between Gary Cohn or Stephen Miller stepping up. At CNN, Gregory Krieg offers up a sort of answer to Bacon's question, writing the "emerging wisdom" is that Cohn and Kushner will be in and Miller will be out. Krieg largely waves off fears that losing Bannon would mean losing his core supporters, writing Bannon "does not represent the 'silent majority' that turned the 2016 election ... [with] its uniform disdain for the political and cultural establishment. Trump does."
– Eric Schmidt, the man who turned Google into a juggernaut during his decade as CEO, is stepping down as executive chairman of Alphabet, its parent company. The company announced Thursday that the 62-year-old will be leaving the role, but will stay on as technical adviser and will continue to serve on the company's board, CNBC reports. Google did not comment on the reason for the departure, though Schmidt said he plans to spend time focusing "on science and technology issues, and philanthropy." Sources tell the Wall Street Journal that Schmidt and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have been discussing the transition for around a year. "Since 2001, Eric has provided us with business and engineering expertise and a clear vision about the future of technology," Page, who is CEO of Alphabet, said in a statement, per Recode. "Continuing his 17 years of service to the company, he’ll now be helping us as a technical adviser on science and technology issues." Bloomberg, which sees the change as a generational shift, notes that when Brin and Page were asked in 2001 why they were bringing Schmidt, an experienced software exec in as CEO, Brin quipped: "Parental supervision, to be honest." When Schmidt stepped down from the Google CEO role in 2011, he said: "Day-to-day adult supervision no longer needed!"
– The Dow Jones Industrial Average started the day off with a major new milestone, reports the AP, crossing the 25,000 mark for the first time. Should it close above 25,000 on Thursday, it will mark the quickest 1,000-point gain in the index's history, reports the Wall Street Journal; it hit 24,000 just five weeks ago. The Dow saw five such milestones last year. It is trading at 25,036 as of this writing.
– It's like "flying through the universe way faster than the speed of light and watching galaxies as they are assembling," says one of the researchers who has created a stunning visual simulation of how the universe formed. The "Illlustris" model created by an international team of researchers using supercomputers is so complex that it would take a normal laptop 2,000 years to run it, and it is believed to be the most accurate simulation of universe formation ever created, reports the Los Angeles Times. Previous simulations have resulted in universes that don't bear more than a passing resemblance to our own, but Illustris researchers say the inclusion of mysterious "dark matter" resulted in a more accurate universe—and helped confirm some current theories in cosmology. "Many of the simulated galaxies agree very well with the galaxies in the real universe. It tells us that the basic understanding of how the universe works must be correct and complete," the lead researcher tells the BBC. "If you don't include dark matter, it will not look like the real universe."
– With fire racing through a third-story apartment in Braintree, England, and no firefighters in sight, death or serious injury appeared to be inevitable for a man trapped by the flames. Enter Andy Waterman, bus driver. Waterman was driving an out-of-service double-decker bus back to the depot when he was flagged down by a group of people seeking help, the BBC reports. Waterman drove up to the burning building to allow the man to jump onto the roof of his bus. "He had no other exit," Waterman tells the BBC. "The poor guy was in the shower—he was completely naked. It was freezing cold." Waterman slowly drove a short distance away with the man still on the roof of the bus. Firefighters arrived with a ladder—and clothes—a few minutes later. "If the bus hadn't been there, I don't know how he would have escaped, the fall could easily have killed him. The bus driver's actions saved this man's life," a fire department spokesman said in a statement. "It's an unusual rescue, but it was extremely effective." Waterman, who will receive a commendation for his actions, says that in his eight years of driving buses, "nothing like this has happened before. I am just pleased the man is alive." The rescued man was treated for smoke inhalation, and the fire is being investigated as arson, reports the Telegraph.
– If people hadn't heard of the celebrity chef Salt Bae before now—he is Internet famous for his distinctive way of salting meat—a series of slams from Marco Rubio is helping change that. The Florida senator went after the Turkish chef, real name Nusret Gokce, because Salt Bae hosted Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro at his restaurant in Istanbul and then boasted about it in a since-deleted video, reports the Observer. In Rubio's first tweet, he calls Salt Bae a "weirdo" and lodges his big complaint: Maduro is "the overweight dictator of a nation where 30% of the people eat only once a day & infants are suffering from malnutrition." Then Rubio makes the Florida connection. Noting that Salt Bae has a restaurant in Miami, Rubio posted the steakhouse's address and phone number and suggested that people call. He also added a critical tweet in Spanish. The senator took some flak for posting the restaurant's number, with some accusing him of "doxxing" Salt Bae and violating Twitter's harassment policies. The Washington Post, however, notes that Twitter has no restrictions about posting the phone number of public facilities such as a restaurant. Rubio also pushed back against the critics, saying Salt Bae deserved it for trying to score PR off "a criminal that is systematically starving the people of Venezuela." (Rubio is referring to conditions like this.) The Miami Herald notes that this isn't Salt Bae's first brush with controversy: The chef dressed up as another dictator reviled by many, Fidel Castro, soon after opening his restaurant in Miami. Rubio's parents were born in Cuba.
– New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie tried out for a new role in sports radio Monday—and got an earful from more than one person unhappy with the way he's doing his current job. Christie, who was filling in for New York radio legend Mike Francesa, was slammed by a caller identified as "Mike from Montclair" over his infamous beach visit earlier this month, NPR reports. "Next time you want to sit on a beach that is closed to the entire world except you, you put your fat a-- in a car and go to one that's open to all your constituents," Mike said. "I love getting calls from Communists in Montclair," Christie said of the left-leaning town. After Mike called him a "bully," Christie told the caller he was a "bum" for swearing on the air. Another caller from Montclair told Christie he was doing a "horrible job" as governor, NJ.com reports. Later in the four-hour show on WFAN 660 AM, Christie joked about President Trump when co-host Evan Roberts told the governor his Twitter feed was boring compared to Trump's. "Is that what you really want to be my role model?" Christie asked. There was also plenty of sports talk, but although Christie definitely knows his sports, he was clearly at his most animated when talking about politics, notes Ben Strauss at Politico. Strauss gives Christie 6.5 out of 10 for the audition and predicts that his next job will be as a political talking head, not a sports radio host.
– Texas authorities have removed 11 children, some bound and injured, from a group home where at least one known sex offender was living. Eight children were kept in a single bedroom with plywood covering the only window; authorities found two 2-year-old children and a 5-year-old girl tied to filthy mattresses, a welfare worker has testified. The little girl is legally blind, and "appeared to be in a daze," said the worker. Some ten adults were also living in the crowded home. The children ranged in age from five months to 11, two of the youngest appeared to be suffering from pneumonia, and another had a black eye and a knocked-out tooth, reports AP. Adults in the house said the children were tied at night or during naps for their "safety," but one child reported being kept in the room for days at a time, said the welfare worker. All of the children have been placed in foster care, and a criminal investigation is continuing. “Our primary concern was to make sure that the children were stable and safe,” said an official. The crowded home is owned by the mother of Mark E. Marsh III, who was convicted in Michigan of criminal sexual conduct with a 15-year-old girl, reports CBS. He has listed the Dayton home as his residence on the state's online sex offender registry. His mother was investigated in 2009 after authorities received a report that she had punched a child in the house, which includes a number of curtained outbuildings in the backyard. Police haven't revealed the identities of the parents of all the children. The address was also home to two 16-year-old runaway boys who had heard the house "was fun," according to court testimony.
– His name is Robin Gunningham. That's the finding of British scientists who think they've confirmed the identity of Banksy using geographic profiling, the BBC reports. In the study published in the Journal of Spatial Science (one that was temporarily delayed by the artist's lawyers because he apparently didn't like the way the study was originally being promoted), scientists from Queen Mary University of London applied the statistical technique to map the locations of the mysterious artist's alleged works throughout London and Bristol, then matched them up to places where a short list of suspects live, work, and congregate. The Economist notes the researchers pinpointed 140 locations where artwork believed to be Banksy's appeared—including a pub, playing fields, and four different residential addresses—and those locations all matched up with Gunningham. "What I thought I would do is pull out the 10 most likely suspects, evaluate all of them, and not name any," co-author Steven Le Comber tells the BBC. "But it rapidly became apparent that there is only one serious suspect, and everyone knows who it is." Gunningham has long been named as that "serious suspect": The Daily Mail IDed him as such back in 2008. "If you Google 'Banksy' and 'Gunningham,' you get something like 43,500 hits," Le Comber tells the BBC. Geographic profiling is most often used in criminology—tagging minor incidents that could be terrorist-based (e.g., graffiti) to stop more-severe attacks is one example—but the BBC notes it's also increasingly being used for other purposes, such as tracking infectious disease outbreaks. (Banksy's latest supposed artwork takes on the topic of refugees.)
– Looking for Kanye West's Twitter and Instagram accounts? Sorry, they no longer exist—again. In the wake of his pro-Trump speech on SNL and a tweet suggesting "we abolish the 13th amendment" (which outlawed slavery), West received sharp responses from the likes of Chris Evans and Lana Del Rey and apparently decided to pull the plug, per the Hollywood Reporter. The 41-year-old had already quit Twitter for almost a year, returning in April, and recently returned to Instagram after a break. Vulture wonders if he left Twitter to finally wrap up an album he had said would drop last weekend.
– The harassment accusations set off by the Harvey Weinstein scandal continue to reverberate in Hollywood and beyond. A rep for one of the big new targets, Kevin Spacey, announced he was seeking "evaluation and treatment," but Spacey's was far from the only name making headlines. Here's a look at the latest: Death threats: Renowned film critic Janet Maslin tells the Daily Beast that she's positive director James Toback is the man who called her home with "a badly disguised voice" in 1978 and threatened to kill her after she'd written an unflattering review about his first film, Fingers. She got about 10 calls in all, at home and at the office, resulting in the one and only time in her career she filed a police report. Literally hundreds of women have accused Toback of sexual misconduct. Another for Hoffman: "Wendy, have you ever been intimate with a man over 40?" Producer Wendy Riss Gatsiounis recounts to Variety a pitch meeting with Dustin Hoffman in 1991 when she was a young playwright in her 20s and he a 53-year-old Hollywood star. She declined his request during the meeting to go shopping at a nearby hotel, and his suggestion that his "would be a whole new body to explore." Her play was declined. She's the second woman to come forward about Hoffman.
– To learn more about the genetics behind autism, researchers are planning to sequence the genomes of thousands of people—and they've enlisted a partner who knows a thing or two about sifting through scads of data. Using its Genomics tool, Google will host on its servers and index the huge volumes of data involved; a human genome can fill up 100 gigabytes of space, and researchers will investigate those of 10,000 individuals on the autism spectrum as well as their relatives, Wired reports. "We realized that some of our biggest biology problems were really big data problems," says a top scientist with advocacy group Autism Speaks. "We believe that the clues to understanding autism lie in that genome," he continues. "We’d like to leverage the same kind of technology and approach to searching the Internet every day to search into the genome for these missing answers." The technology will allow researchers to track down particular genome sections that interest them, looking closely at areas where subjects have common variations, Wired notes. The partnership between Google and Autism Speaks will offer "an open resource for scientists worldwide to access and share autism research," the group says on its site. (A chemical found in broccoli may help cut down on symptoms in people with autism.)
– WikiLeaks has released a second batch of emails allegedly from Hillary Clinton's campaign chief John Podesta. Unlike the first group of leaked emails—which included excerpts from Hillary Clinton's sought-after Wall Street speeches— no showstopping info has yet surfaced from this batch of some 2,000 emails (though one of them does feature a long-time Bill Clinton aide calling Chelsea Clinton a "spoiled brat" who lacked focus in 2011). The emails were mostly sent during 2015, when the Clinton campaign was gearing up and struggling to find ways to compete with primary challenger Bernie Sanders, CNN reports. One of the emails is a 71-page opposition research file on Sanders titled "Sanders Hits," Fox News reports. While media outlets continue to comb the newly released documents for interesting scoops, the Clinton campaign reiterated its implication that WikiLeaks is deeply tied to the Russian government. The Russians, the campaign argues, are desperately trying to get Donald Trump elected. Clinton spokesperson Glen Caplin told Fox, "The timing shows you that even Putin knows Trump had a bad weekend and a bad debate." WikiLeaks claims to be in possession of more than 50,000 of Podesta's emails, so observers can more than likely expect to see more of these releases in the weeks leading up to the election.
– The NFL has been rocked by domestic violence allegations, most notably in the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson cases, but Peterson will play Sunday against the Saints after being reinstated by the Vikings today, the AP reports. As debate rages on about what punishment should be doled out to the running back for allegedly abusing his 4-year-old son—with some saying the discipline he administered is "perfectly legal"—Vikings GM Rick Spielman says the team is "trying to do the right thing," adding the team "[believes] he deserves to play while the legal process plays out." Meanwhile, Peterson issued a statement today through his agency in which he said he wants "everyone to understand how sorry I feel about the hurt I have brought to my child. I am not a perfect son. I am not a perfect husband. I am not a perfect parent, but I am, without a doubt, not a child abuser."
– There's an asteroid out there that might slam into Earth in about 170 years, but contrary to some recent scary-sounding headlines, it won't wipe out Earthlings if it does, reports Space.com. "We're not talking about an asteroid that could destroy the Earth," says Dante Lauretta of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona. "We're not anywhere near that kind of energy for an impact." In fact, the odds that asteroid Bennu will strike Earth are just 0.037%, a 1-in-2,700 chance, according to NASA calculations, which are expected to become more precise thanks to a new mission. OSIRIS-RE will lift off on Sept. 8 and spend two years hunting the asteroid, then study it for another couple years before bringing at least 2.1 ounces of its surface back to Earth in 2023. Questions will focus on, say, whether asteroids delivered organic matter to our planet, but the mission will also "allow us to recalculate the impact probability," Lauretta adds. The asteroid crosses our orbit every six years. If it hits a so-called "keyhole" when it passes by Earth in 2035, it would be put on track to collide with the Earth in 2185. Astronomers estimate that space debris has to be at least 0.6 miles wide to be seriously catastrophic; as a frame of reference, the asteroid believed to exterminate the dinosaurs was closer to 6 miles across. Bennu, which was first spotted in 1999 and is classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid, measures about 1,600 feet across, notes Time. (That asteroid that claimed dinos almost wiped out all mammals, too.)
– The novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was believed to help turn the tide of public opinion away from condoning slavery after it was published in 1852, but even the most popular fictional works today aren't shown to impact political leanings on a mass scale. Now researchers at the University of Pennsylvania say their new study, to be published in the journal PS: Political Science and Politics, may be the very first done outside of a lab to show that the lessons learned in a work of fiction seem to shape a reader's political ideologies—namely, that those who've read the Harry Potter series are less inclined to like Donald Trump. The effect is magnified among those who've read more of the series' books, with each book read corresponding with a 2- to 3-point drop in Trump's favorability on a scale going to 100. The study looked at the survey responses of 1,142 people in 2014 and 2016 and found, among other things, that watching the films didn't produce the same effect as reading did. The Atlantic warns that "observational data can't confirm causality," but it surmises that because the books "reinforce the virtues of diversity and acceptance" and consistently reveal the "dangers of cults of personalities and authoritarianism," it's not a stretch to suggest that these messages have helped to shape readers' outlook. JK Rowling, for her part, made her leanings known last year when she tweeted that it's "horrible" to compare Trump to the evil Lord Voldemort because "Voldemort was nowhere near as bad." (Are more Harry Potter books on the way?)
– An Alabama family is reeling after their 13-year-old daughter collapsed and died during a game of tug-of-war during her school's field day last week, WVTM reports. Leslie Wentworth says her daughter Maddison had been excited for the annual event. "She was a beautiful kid," Wentworth says. "She was a bright star. She was going to go places." When Maddison collapsed while playing tug-of-war at Williams Intermedia School in Pell City, a school nurse and coaches immediately started performing CPR, reports WIAT. But the teen was pronounced dead after being transported to the hospital. Wentworth tells Fox News Maddison didn't have any health problems that she knew of, and a cause of death has yet to be determined. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family, students, faculty, and staff,” a police spokesperson tells WIAT. One parent is blaming the school for not providing adequate water for the students during the hot day. “[My daughter] told me that they were only allowed to get water if they went to go to the restroom, otherwise they had to buy the water," Amanda Garrett says. "She said it was like a dollar or a $1.50 a bottle." She says her daughter, who was playing tug-of-war with Maddison, said Maddison complained about being dizzy and having a headache before collapsing. The school district's superintendent tells WVTM teachers made sure water was available for students.
– In what could be the largest defamation suit in US history, Beef Products Inc. (BPI) is having its day in court after claiming the company lost revenue over an ABC News investigative report that described its product as “pink slime.” The Wall Street Journal reports that a 12-person jury heard opening statements Monday in South Dakota as BPI makes the case against ABC and reporter Jim Avila for suggesting “that BPI’s product was not beef or meat, had little or no nutritional value, and was not safe to eat.” According to the Hollywood Reporter, the original report aired in 2012 and was titled, “Pink Slime Meat Investigation—Do You Know What’s In Your Food?" It centered around BPI’s lean finely textured beef (LFTB) product, which is approved by the Department of Agriculture, but was called out by an industry whistleblower. Though LFTB was dubbed by a USDA microbiologist as “pink slime,” family-owned Beef Products claims that ABC used the term to smear the company, causing clients to cancel orders and sales to drop so drastically the company was forced to lay off 700 employees and close three of its four processing plants. ABC lawyers claim that the report repeatedly assured viewers that LFTB was safe to eat, stating “there is not a shred of evidence, let alone clear and convincing proof, that ABC intended to convey the message that LFTB is ‘unsafe for public consumption.'" BPI, which calls the report “fake news,” must prove that ABC’s motivations were based in malice. A new state food disparagement law that allows plaintiffs to triple damages could up BPI's $1.9 billion complaint to almost $6 billion should the company win.
– A familiar face returns to Saturday Night Live on May 11: Kristen Wiig will be back for her first stint as host, reports Deadline.com. Wiig left the show at the end of last season—with a sendoff from Mick Jagger—and her movie career has been strong since. Films on deck include an Anchorman sequel, Girl Most Likely, Despicable Me 2, and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Vampire Weekend will be her musical guest, reports Rolling Stone, while Entertainment Weekly rounds up some favorite Wiig sketches from SNL.
– Sprint's newest ads feature a familiar face—and the company is hoping that consumers hear what he's saying loud and clear. "Hey, I'm Paul, and I used to ask, 'If you could hear me now with Verizon?' Not anymore," former pitchman Paul Marcarelli says in the 30-second spot that aired Sunday during the NBA Finals for his new employer, USA Today reports. Sprint, which has been languishing in last place in the wireless-carrier arena behind Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, is now touting what it says is its much-improved service—it claims it's within 1% of Verizon's reliability and about half the cost of the other three providers—and Marcarelli, who Recode notes stopped shilling for Verizon in 2011 after nearly a decade, is an important part of the new campaign. "I think a lot of people are going to recognize Paul and see [him] in a [Sprint-colored] yellow tee … and ask themselves, 'What happened?'" Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure tells USA Today, adding that the company just had the first quarter in which it squashed both Verizon and AT&T in gaining new customers. Marcarelli's final dig as the ad wraps: "So I switched to Sprint and millions more have, too. Can you hear that?" (Things got heated on Twitter last year between the CEOs of Sprint and T-Mobile.)
– If you hate crowds, a train station in southern China might just be your idea of hell. China's Lunar New Year celebrations begin Feb. 8, and those trying to travel home ahead of the holiday via the main Guangzhou Railway Station on Monday found themselves—and at least 100,000 other people, reports the Guardian—stymied by winter weather. With 23 trains delayed by rare snow elsewhere in the country, passengers found themselves stuck inside and around the station, where the BBC reports more than 5,000 officers were dispatched to keep an eye on them. The Wall Street Journal reports a crowd of 34,000 was still stuck there as of Tuesday morning. It cites a mind-boggling estimate from China's Xinhua News Agency: that as many as 2.9 billion trips will be made to and from home, "via road, railway, air, and water," between the 40-day period that runs Jan. 24 to March 3; it's typically framed as the largest annual human migration on the planet. Shanghaiist points out it's not the first time the station has been a scene of misery: Some 80,000 people were stuck there in 2013 due to a landslide. (This has been called the "largest human gathering in history.")
– A 64-year-old New York widow just wanted some fried chicken; now she's hoping for a family-size bucket of extra-crispy justice with a side of mashed vindication. The New York Post reports Anna Wurtzburger is suing KFC for false advertising after she bought a $20 bucket of chicken last summer only to find it half full. Her lawsuit states that the commercial for the $20 Fill-Up shows "an overflowing bucket of chicken," according to Fortune. “I came home and said, ‘Where’s the chicken?’ I thought I was going to have a couple of meals,” Wurtzburger tells the Post. Wurtzburger is living off Social Security and was splurging on KFC as a treat. KFC says its menu clearly states the $20 Fill-Up comes with eight pieces, and that's exactly what Wurtzburger got. It explained to her that it has to show the bucket overflowing so viewers can see the chicken. “If you want the public to look at your chicken, put it in a dish,” she retorts. Wurtzburger also takes issue with the ad's claim that the eight-piece Fill-Up can feed a family of four. "They’re small pieces," she says. KFC offered the dissatisfied Wurtzburger $70 in coupons, but she turned them down, CBS New York reports. She's now suing KFC for $20 million. “It’s the principle of the matter,” she says. “Sometimes you gotta hit people where they feel the hurt." KFC calls Wurtzburger's lawsuit "meritless." (A judge dismissed a lawsuit against Starbucks over something even "young children" can understand.)
– A jail supervisor says "American Pie" singer Don McLean has been arrested on a misdemeanor domestic violence charge in Maine. Cpl. Brad Woll says McLean was arrested and posted $10,000 bail early Monday at the Knox County Jail. The 70-year-old singer-songwriter lives in Camden, Maine. A message left for the police chief there by the AP was not immediately returned. Woll says he didn't know if McLean had a lawyer, but he tells People that "he's not the first celebrity we've dealt with and he won't be the last." A message seeking comment was left through the singer's website. A phone number listed under his name rang unanswered. Other outlets had similarly bad luck getting more information: The Portland Press Herald reports that McLean was arrested without incident after police were called to his house around 2am. It's not clear whom he is accused of assaulting, but the New York Daily News notes that he lives with his wife, 56-year-old photographer Patrisha McLean.
– A court ruling in Ireland has done a strange thing—legalized possession of certain psychoactive drugs such ecstasy, ketamine, and magic mushrooms. But the freedom is expected to last only about a day as lawmakers race to make the drugs illegal again, reports TheJournal.ie. The rush legislation became necessary after an appeals court today declared a 1977 drug law to be unconstitutional, though the ruling didn't affect older drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, reports the Irish Examiner. Lawmakers knew the decision was potentially looming and had legislation prepared in advance, but it will take about 24 hours to get it in place. "All substances controlled by means of Government Orders made under section 2(2) cease to be controlled with immediate effect, and their possession ceases to be an offense," says Ireland's Department of Health, as per the Irish Times. "These include ecstasy, benzodiazepines, and new psychoactive substances, so-called 'headshop drugs.'" While the loophole will be quickly fixed, the court's decision means that "dozens" of previous convictions have been called into question, says the nation's top health official. They'll have to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
– The US and Israel pitched a fit, but it ultimately wasn't enough to fully stop Poland from moving ahead with its controversial Holocaust law. Polish President Andrzej Duda on Tuesday announced he would sign a bill that prohibits speech that states or suggests his nation was complicit in Nazi Germany's crimes. In a concession to critics, though, Duda will have the Constitutional Tribunal examine the law; Bloomberg reports the court has the power to force lawmakers to alter the law's language in whole or part. The New York Times quotes Duda as saying he's adding that step because the "very painful, delicate issue" needs to be handled thoughtfully, though the Times sees the move as doing little to assuage those who say it could curtail free speech and whitewash the role some Poles played in the killing of Jews during World War II. Duda said that should the court clear the law, he'd like to see it specify exactly what type of speech is subject to prosecution. As it stands now, using the phrase "Polish death camp" to refer to Auschwitz and other Nazi-constructed concentration camps within the country can result in a prison term; claiming the Polish nation "is responsible or co-responsible for Nazi crimes" is punishable by up to three years. In a Washington Post column, Anne Applebaum writes of the law's "ludicrous" potential: "Will the long arm of the Polish state reach out to academic conferences in Tokyo or Buenos Aires if someone uses an incorrect phrase? ... In a pompous speech the Polish prime minister gave supporting the law, an automatic translation service made it appear as if he himself said that 'camps where millions of Jews were murdered were Polish.' Should he go to prison, too? Should Google Translate?"
– CVS has touched a nerve with a new policy requiring workers to disclose a host of health data—including their weight, body fat and glucose levels, and blood pressure—or else pay an extra $50 a month for their health insurance. The move has drawn outrage from at least one national privacy group, the Boston Herald reports. "This is an incredibly coercive and invasive thing to ask employees to do," the founder of Patient Privacy Rights told the paper. CVS refers to the policy as "a health screening and wellness review," and emphasizes that it won't have access to the information, which will go straight to its health insurance provider. It's also offering to pay for all necessary screenings. But Think Progress argues that the policy is unfair to lower-income workers, who can't afford to pay $600 a year to opt-out if they feel their privacy is being invaded. Fox News, meanwhile, sees this as an early consequence of ObamaCare—and a lawyer tells the network it's perfectly legal.
– A wildfire threatening a village in northern New Mexico has doubled in size to over 42 square miles as firefighters try to protect nearly 300 homes and a Boy Scouts camp, the AP reports. Fire management team spokeswoman Sandra Lopez said the fire on Saturday was about 3 miles west of Cimarron, which was evacuated Friday. The fire has destroyed 12 to 14 outbuildings at nearby Philmont Scout Ranch. Lopez says winds from the east may help keep the fire from the village Saturday but precipitation expected from a storm Sunday won't be enough to extinguish the fire before dry conditions return Monday. Approximately 450 firefighters and other personnel are assigned to the fire. Its cause is under investigation. Cimarron is 138 miles northeast of Albuquerque. Meanwhile, officials declared the largest wildfire in recorded California history officially extinguished Friday, nearly six months after it ignited and later burned hillsides that washed away in deadly mudslides northwest of Los Angeles, the AP reports. Los Padres National Forest officials made the designation after detecting no hotspots within the perimeter of the Thomas fire for more than two months. The flames broke out on Dec. 4, 2017, near Thomas Aquinas College and burned more than 440 square miles in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Two people were killed, including a state firefighter. The flames destroyed more than 1,000 buildings before they were fully contained on Jan. 12.
– The death of a Los Angeles man in his car has led police to a huge stash of firearms and an even bigger pile of strangeness. From what cops can piece together, Jeffrey Alan Lash claimed to be a spy—sometimes a hybrid human-alien spy—and just before he died in his car on July 4, he told his fiancee that government agencies would take care of his body, the Guardian reports. She left town on his orders and called police two weeks later after discovering his rotting corpse was still in the vehicle in the upscale Pacific Palisades neighborhood. Police found a stash of 1,200 firearms in the apartment they shared—which has now risen to 1,500, according to the Los Angeles Times—along with $230,000 cash, explosives, and 6.5 tons of ammo. Police say the weapons were legally acquired and that out of 14 vehicles registered to Lash, they've found eight in various LA locations—including an SUV that can drive underwater, the AP reports. The partner of Lash's late father tells the Times that he was a loner and that she lost touch with him years ago and didn't know where his money came from. Police say Lash had late-stage cancer and that foul play is not suspected in his death. He had told his fiancee that his illness was caused by chemical weapons exposure on a secret mission, reports the Guardian, which notes that the "tentative conclusion" investigators have reached is that he was so caught up in a fantasy world of spying that others around him started to believe it.
– Leonardo DiCaprio plays 1820s frontier legend Hugh Glass who runs afoul of a grizzly bear and is left for dead in The Revenant. Thankfully, he survives to put on an epic, yet gory show en route to revenge. Early reports claimed Leo has this year's best male actor Oscar in the bag. Do critics agree? Alejandro Iñárritu's follow-up to Birdman "features a battalion of very fine, hardworking actors, none more diligently committed than Mr. DiCaprio," writes Manohla Dargis at the New York Times. "Iñárritu isn't content to merely seduce you with ecstatic beauty and annihilating terror; he wants to blow your mind," and at times he succeeds. But then he "blows it when he moves from the material to the mystical and tries to elevate an ugly story into a spiritual one." "Few heroes in movie history have endured more torment than this one," and "in a role with little dialogue, Mr. DiCaprio summons up impressive resources to convey the horror of Glass's plight," writes Joe Morgenstern at the Wall Street Journal. But "everything screams primal in The Revenant—the lethal force of a wild animal, the savagery of man against man, the sustaining power of revenge," he adds. "I came out of this would-be epic feeling physically exhausted, psychically mauled, and none the better for wear." The flick isn't for everyone, "but for those to whom the subject matter appeals, it will be among 2015's most memorable theatrical options," writes James Berardinelli at ReelViews. It's "a more visceral and devastating look at seemingly impossible survival than even The Martian," and features "gorgeous cinematography." Its subdued nature also helps showcase "the most raw, primal performance DiCaprio has ever given." A warning: the bear scene may be too bloody for some. But bear the suffering and you'll be rewarded with "the power of cinema unleashed," writes Peter Travers at Rolling Stone. "Surviving nature is Iñárritu's subject, and he delivers with magisterial brilliance," while DiCaprio supplies "a virtuoso performance, thrilling in its brute force and silent eloquence." Travers can't help but mention that bear scene. "The bear is a product of an expert visual-effects team. But not for a second will you doubt you're seeing the real thing," he writes. "This is one for the time capsule."
– An Iowa woman departed on a European vacation on Sept. 20 but allegedly left some rather important articles behind: her four kids. Erin Macke, 30, is accused of child endangerment after she allegedly left her kids home alone while she traveled to Germany. After receiving a call from the father of one of the kids, Johnston police say they visited Macke's home on Sept. 21 and found four children—ages 6, 7, 12, and 12—alone. According to police, the kids said their mom had "left the country" and wasn't to return until Oct. 1. Police called Macke, who explained "all of her sitter options fell through, and she left the kids in the care of the two 12-year-olds," officer Tyler Tompskins tells KCCI. She "did not see it being a problem." Tompskins says he knows of cases where parents left their kids alone for a few hours, or even a night. But "this, where a parent has left the country and left the kids home alone, I've never heard of it before," he tells KCCI. Police told Macke to return early, and she made it back to the US on Wednesday. On Thursday, she was arrested and charged with four counts of child endangerment and one count of making a firearm available to a person under the age of 21, reports the Des Moines Register. (The latter is because police say a handgun was left within reach of the kids.) Macke is being held in Polk County Jail and is not allowed to see her children, who are staying with family members. She appeared in court Friday and will return for a date on Oct. 9.
– The Los Angeles district attorney's office announced Tuesday the result of three probes by its Hollywood sex crimes task force, and in all three cases no charges will be filed. Details from USA Today and Variety: Kevin Spacey will not face charges related to allegations that he sexually assaulted a man in West Hollywood in October 1992 because the statute of limitations has passed. Spacey, 59, is accused in one other case the task force is still reviewing. Steven Seagal will not face charges related to allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman in Beverly Hills in 1993 because the statue of limitations has passed. Seagal, 66, is accused in one other case the task force is still reviewing. Anthony Anderson, Emmy-nominated star of Black-ish, will not face charges related to allegations that he assaulted a woman earlier this year; in that case, the accuser would not cooperate with police, authorities say.
– Once again, every single one of the 20 actors nominated for an Oscar this year is white. The Hollywood Reporter points out a number of minority actors who were overlooked, including Benicio Del Toro in Sicario and Idris Elba in Beasts of No Nation, both of whom were nominated for BAFTAs. Elba was also nominated for a Golden Globe and a SAG-AFTRA. Will Smith (Concussion) and Michael B. Jordan (Creed) were also snubbed by the Oscars despite being nominated by other groups, USA Today reports, and both Concussion and Beasts were completely shut out. Furthermore, Straight Outta Compton was nominated for Original Screenplay but not for Best Picture, despite being nominated for or winning similar awards from numerous other groups. As TMZ points out, the only people from the NWA biopic to get Oscar nods were the screenwriters, who are both white. And just eight movies were nominated for Best Picture, so there was still room for the film if the Academy wanted to include it. The Hollywood Reporter and People run down other snubs. Some of the biggest surprises: Carol, seen as a "shoo-in" for Best Picture, didn't get a nomination. The Martian did get a Best Picture nod, but director Ridley Scott wasn't nominated in his category. Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief was big news, but failed to get a Best Documentary nod. Steve Jobs got acting nominations, but screenwriter Aaron Sorkin wasn't nominated despite winning the Golden Globe in the category on Sunday. Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight was nominated for a number of awards, but not Best Picture, Best Director, or Best Adapted Screenplay. The Paul Walker tribute song, "See You Again," from Furious 7 was not nominated in the Best Original Song category. Helen Mirren missed out on both a potential Best Actress nod (Woman in Gold) and Best Supporting Actress nod (Trumbo).
– Red Lobster may be one of Beyonce's newest fans, but her Super Bowl halftime performance—which featured Bey and entourage dressed in Black Panther-like attire dancing in an "X" shape in tribute to Malcolm X, Time notes—is being slammed as "hate speech" and is now the subject of a protest rally outside the NFL's Manhattan headquarters, the New York Daily News reports. "Are you offended as an American that Beyonce pulled her race-baiting stunt at the Superbowl?" a promo for the Feb. 16 event reads, per the Daily News. "Do you agree that it was a slap in the face to law enforcement? Do you agree that the Black Panthers was/is a hate group which should not be glorified?" Others have piled on, like Rudy Giuliani Monday on Fox News, saying the show was "outrageous" and an "attack" on cops, the Washington Post reports. New York Rep. Peter King tweeted that "Beyonce Formation video & #SB50 act was anti-police, shameful. Repeats big lie of Michael Brown innocence. Cops deserve support not criminals," referring to references in her new single about police brutality. But Marni Senofonte, her stylist for Sunday's show, told Essence "it was important to [Beyonce] to honor the beauty of strong Black women and celebrate the unity that fuels their power. One of the best examples of that is the image of the female Black Panther." The Independent notes a counter-protest is calling for Bey's supporters to "Get in Formation" and not "let anyone make her ... powerful statement about the value of Black life be overshadowed." Jessica Williams of The Daily Show also shut critics down, notes Mashable, saying of Giuliani's claim that halftime should cater to "Middle America," "You know what's in the middle of America? Ferguson, Missouri." (Bey still ruled the weekend, though.)
– Lee Beaumont was sick of telemarketers calling him, so he came up with a brilliant solution: He made them pay him for the privilege. The Leeds man signed up for an 0871-number (the British equivalent of a 900-number), and began giving that out to banks, utility companies, and other commercial concerns, he tells the BBC. Now, whenever anyone calls him, it costs them 10 pence a minute. He has a non-pay number, but he only gives it out to friends and family. When companies ask why he has a pay line, Beaumont says he's "very honest," telling them it's "because I'm getting annoyed with PPI phone calls when I'm trying to watch Coronation Street." The line has so far earned Beaumont around $465, while reducing the number of calls he receives a month from 20-30 to about 13. Schemes like Beaumont's make sense in the UK, because its version of the do-not-call list is a tad ineffective. A study this year found that people on it get twice as many calls as people who aren't.
– The two big story lines from the Masters continue to deliver: Guan Tianlang: The 14-year-old from China, already the youngest player ever to tee off at the event, made the cut at 4-over. This despite the fact that he got penalized one stroke on the 17th for slow play. (It was windy, and he was taking his time choosing clubs.) The kid handled it with class afterward, however, and said he respected the decision, reports Bleacher Report. Tiger Woods: He played well again and is just three shots off the lead at 3-under. Woods shot 1-under today in his bid to win his first major championship since 2008, reports AP. It could have been better: He bogied two of the last four holes. Leaderboard: Australia's Jason Day leads everyone at 6-under, with Fred Couples and Marc Leishman (another Aussie) a shot behind. Angel Cabrera, Jim Furyk, and Brandt Snedeker are at 4-under, and Woods is tied with six others at 3-under. Click for more coverage.
– Mitt Romney knows a little something about health care reform, and he threw his two cents on the pile today, saying President Obama "failed to learn the lessons" of Massachusetts. Romney took issue with Obama's "one-size-fits-all" approach, notes Politico, adding that reform should have been left to the states. But Obama's biggest failing, contends Romney, came when "he told the American people that you could keep your health insurance if you wanted to keep that plan, period," which was "a fundamental dishonesty." "The fact that the president sold it on a basis that was not true has undermined the foundation of his second term. I think it's rotting it away. We've got to have a president that can lead, and right now he's not able to do so." Elsewhere on your Sunday dial: Romney on Chris Christie: "Chris could easily become our nominee and save our party and help get this nation on the right track again. They don't come better than Chris Christie. He's a very popular governor in a very blue state. That's the kind of popularity and the kind of track record the Republican Party needs if we're going to take back the White House." Newt Gingrich on why Romney didn't pick Christie for veep: "Romney would have shrunk, and Christie would have blossomed." Gingrich on why Obama didn't put Hillary Clinton on his 2012 ticket: "If you had said to him, ‘You have to be re-elected but Bill Clinton is going to be next to you for four years,’ he would have said, ‘It ain’t worth it. I don’t need this level of pain.'" Dianne Feinstein on LAX shooting: "The weapon was a .223 MP-15, where the MP stands for military and police, clearly designed not for general consumption. Same gun that was used at Aurora. Would I do a bill? Sure, I would do a bill. I mean, I believe this down deep in my soul." Mike Rogers on why HealthCare.gov should be shut down temporarily: "They’re trying to change a tire on a car going 75 miles an hour down the expressway. That’s not the way cybersecurity works."
– Mitt Romney gave an interview to the New York Times today in which he fleshed out his line of attack that Newt Gingrich is unfit to be president. The main takeaway quote: “Zany is great in a campaign. It’s great on talk radio. It’s great in print, it makes for fun reading. But in terms of a president, we need a leader, and a leader needs to be someone who can bring Americans together.” It echoes a comment Romney made earlier this week when he called Gingrich "an extraordinarily unreliable leader," notes USA Today. In the Times interview, Romney also seemed to tamp down expectations in Iowa and New Hampshire. "If a candidate didn’t win in either one, let’s say one of the people in this contest—Rick Santorum, you know—didn’t win either one, do you write him off? No."
– After months of complaints, Bernie Sanders appears primed to get his wish: additional debates. The Hill reports Sanders and Hillary Clinton have reached an agreement to hold four more debates, starting with an unsanctioned-by-the-DNC event on Feb. 4 in New Hampshire. The deal was actually spurred by Clinton, who pushed for the New Hampshire debate after polls showed her trailing there, according to Politico. The next official debate was not scheduled until Feb. 11, two days after the vote in New Hampshire. Sanders agreed to the New Hampshire debate as long as three additional debates were added. "We are looking forward to four additional debates,” a Sanders campaign source tells BuzzFeed. Sanders has been pushing for more debates for months now, Politico reports. Prior to this agreement—which the DNC has yet to sign off on—there were only six scheduled Democratic debates. Dates and locations haven't been decided, but the Sanders and Clinton campaigns appear to want one each in March, April, and May. And BuzzFeed notes Martin O'Malley just wants to debate "any time, anywhere."
– An American missile attack has killed at least five German nationals suspected of being part of a terror cell training in Pakistan, Pakistani officials say. The missile hit a house in Waziristan, the region where authorities believe a terror cell training for an attack on Europe was hiding out, the AP reports. Dozens of European militants are believed to be training in the area and it's not clear whether the drone attack is linked to the terror plot that has Europe on alert. European intelligence officials say they believe a terror cell that originated in Hamburg is behind a plot to launch coordinated attacks on city centers, CNN notes. The group, whose members are of assorted ethnic backgrounds including Turkish and Iranian, attended the same Hamburg mosque as 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta. The group is believed to have left Hamburg to train in Pakistan early last year, officials say, citing intelligence gained from a German militant captured in Afghanistan in July.
– Those CGI experts were right: The brief Bird Man phenomenon—in which we were enchanted by a guy flying with homemade wings—was a hoax. In fact, "Jarno Smeets" is actually named Floris Kaayk, and he says he's really a Dutch CGI artist, Gizmodo reports. He acknowledged as much on a Dutch TV show. He says his video is in service of a documentary project about online media. The hoax worked because "it's everybody's dream to fly," Kaayk said, according to Wired. Turns out Kaayk is a veteran hoaxer—he also made a documentary about a fake disease in 2006. "As an artist he has succeeded, but he has fooled most of us. We all want to fly, don’t we?” says a scientist who talked to Kaayk about flight. "Although this kind of flight is possible in principle, he must have known early on that it would be impossible for him and that he had to fake it. It’s pretty fantastic that he made us believe that we were on to something."
– Little Haiden Morgan is finally back in Utah. The baby born 15 weeks prematurely in August on a Royal Caribbean cruise and not expected to live much past his birth was reunited with his family at Ogden Airport after spending 78 days at Miami Children's Hospital, Fox 13 reports. Haiden weighed just 1.5 pounds at birth, and his mom, Emily Morgan, was initially told she had miscarried. But once it was determined Haiden was indeed alive, the ship's captain sped 14 hours to the nearest hospital in Puerto Rico; Haiden was flown from there to the Miami hospital. AirMed, an air ambulance service that's part of University of Utah Health Care, flew a now 4.5-pound Haiden home for free, with a spokeswoman telling Fox 13 that "all of us have adopted him … he'll always be part of our family." Haiden's dad, Chase, calls his son's return "surreal." Haiden will be hospitalized for a few more weeks at an Ogden hospital until it's safe for him to go home, with his transition to Utah's higher elevation being one of the factors to watch. The family hopes he'll be home for Christmas, ABC News reports. (A Georgia woman's "miracle baby" saved her life.)
– Now that Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise are donezo, the next unimportant question is, who will they hook up with next? For Katie, the answer may be an old flame: Holmes has turned to her ex-fiancé Chris Klein for comfort, a source tells Heat magazine in an interview picked up by Australia's News Network. "Chris has been a huge source of support. They've stayed on good terms since they broke up and he's one of Katie's few really solid friends," the insider says. "Because of Tom she was really isolated. She only hung out with people who Tom and the Church [of Scientology] had pre-approved, so she hardly has any friends," the source continues. "Having Chris as a shoulder to cry on has been a huge help for Katie. It wouldn't surprise anyone if they became more than just friends." (For Cruise, speculation has swirled around a co-star as well as his own former flame.) Also today in the world of TomKat news, Vulture has a very extensive feature ruminating on whether the whole thing was a stunt.
– The Texas veterinarian who outraged animal lovers nationwide by bragging about killing a cat with a bow and arrow is not going to lose her license permanently. CBS News reports that on Tuesday, the Texas Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners decided that Kristen Lindsey's vet license should be suspended for a year, followed by four years of probation. Lindsey—who was fired after posting a picture of herself with the dead cat online, saying "The only good feral tomcat is one with an arrow through it's head!"—will also be required to have six hours of animal welfare education, the Austin American-Statesman reports. Last year, a grand jury decided not to charge Lindsey with a crime. Tuesday's hearing was attended by animal advocates from across America, along with a family who say the cat was their pet, not a feral tomcat as Lindsey claimed, KHOU reports. Her lawyer told the hearing that she believed the cat was feral, and feral animals are routinely killed in the rural area west of Houston where she lives. One of her former co-workers testified that she had heard Lindsey's boss and landlord tell her to "take care of the cat." Lindsey, who has been a vet since 2012, has 30 days to appeal the board's decision.
– Controversial conservative billionaire David Koch is leaving the board of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the political advocacy group he founded with his brother, Charles, which made the brothers "two of the most powerful men in American politics," as USA Today puts it. David Koch, 78, is also stepping down from his roles at the brothers' Koch Industries industrial conglomerate, where he served as executive vice president and board member as well as chairman and CEO of one of the company's subsidiaries. Koch officials said deteriorating health is behind his retirement, but gave no further details. Charles Koch, 82, will remain chairman and chief executive of Koch Industries, reports the Washington Post, which notes that the aging brothers have "groom[ed] a new generation of leaders" for their massive political network.
– Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Leonardo have a bit of explaining to do. That’s because the Australian film poster for the release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles features the famous turtles falling from a burning building that has apparently just been rocked by an explosion ... and the opening date, prominently displayed below? That’s right—September 11, Sky News reports. Though the film premieres here in the US in August and in UK in October, its Australia premiere date falls on the 13th anniversary of the terror attacks, the Daily Mail reports. Paramount Australia tweeted the poster last night (the tweet has since been deleted) and was immediately barraged with social media anger. "September 11th? Exploding buildings? People falling out of them? Le sigh," reads one critique.
– Yisrael Kristal came very close to dying in the Holocaust along with millions of others—including his wife and their two children. Instead, the 112-year-old survived Auschwitz and has now been confirmed as the world's oldest man, having outlived Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime by more than 70 years, the BBC reports. Kristal, who remarried, had two children, and moved to Haifa, Israel after the war, was a slave laborer at Auschwitz and weighed just 77 pounds when the extermination camp was liberated in May, 1945. He was born in Poland in 1903 and ran successful confectionery businesses before and after the war. "I don’t know the secret for long life," he told the Guinness Book of Records after receiving his certificate. "I believe that everything is determined from above and we shall never know the reasons why. There have been smarter, stronger, and better looking men than me who are no longer alive. All that is left for us to do is to keep on working as hard as we can and rebuild what is lost."
– NATO helicopters crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan at least twice over the weekend, and again this morning, in pursuit of Taliban insurgents, CNN reports. At least 49 people were killed in the attacks Friday and Saturday. NATO initially denied those attacks, according to the New York Times, but now confirms them. NATO says the attacks conform with international rules of engagement, justifying them under the “right of self-defense” according to MSNBC. The attacks were unusual because they were carried out by piloted helicopters rather than unmanned drones. Pakistan is extremely sensitive about US-led operations in its territory. But hey, when you're already doing this, what's a couple of airstrikes?
– Mick Jagger will soon become a great-grandfather for the first time ... but he's also becoming a regular ol' grandfather again, around the same time. Not only is his granddaughter, 21-year-old Assisi Jagger, expecting a baby; Assisi's mom, 42-year-old Jade Jagger, just revealed she's also pregnant, and six months along, the Daily Mail reports. "Happy to announce this granny is going to become a mummy," she wrote on Instagram today alongside a baby-bump photo. "Double whammy this year." Mick already has four grandchildren.
– Police say the gunman who barricaded the doors of a Pennsylvania grocery store and shot three coworkers before killing himself detailed his horrific plan online in the weeks and months before the murders. The New York Daily News reports Randy Stair, 24, brought two shotguns concealed in a duffel bag to his night shift at Weis Market in Tunkhannock on Wednesday. Around 1am Thursday, he blocked the entrances and exits then fired 59 shots, killing Victoria Brong, 26; Brian Hayes, 47; and Terry Sterling, 63. An unidentified witness was able to flee the scene and call 911. The Press & Sun-Bulletin reports that Stair's online postings indicate that he could have been planning the killing spree for up to four months. A 37-minute video posted on May 11 on one account allegedly lays out Stair’s plan of attack. “What’s going to happen in the future after this to prevent this from happening again?” he asks at the end of the recording, where he displays weapons and names employees scheduled to work on June 7. "And the answer is you can’t prevent it. You can only endure it." A long trail of social media accounts believed to be run by Stair under the pseudonym Andrew Blaze, a female cartoon character Stair said represented himself, contain more chilling clues, including an Instagram post of Stair at work the night of the shooting and a final tweet posted at 9pm Wednesday that read: “Goodbye humans...I'll miss you....” Stair also referenced the Columbine shootings in a YouTube video posted Wednesday that he dedicated to killers Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris.
– The woman who reportedly received threatening emails from Paula Broadwell has lawyered up, and in a big way. Jill Kelley has hired Washington super-attorney Abbe Lowell and crisis manager Judy Smith—the equivalent of arming with a Howitzer and a jet fighter—even though the FBI says its investigation is over, Gawker reports. To put it in perspective: Smith's past clients include Kobe Bryant and Monica Lewinsky, and Lowell has represented Bill Clinton and John Edwards. You only hire Lowell "when you're seriously f--ked," quips Gawker. Meanwhile, details are emerging on Kelley: She's a Tampa, Fla., socialite and "unpaid social liaison" for the Joint Special Operations Command, reports the Daily Beast. The JSOC is a fairly mysterious part of the US military that includes the Navy SEALs, helps with counter-terrorism missions, and played a big role in the Benghazi investigation. Kelley has three children, aged 4, 2, and 1. Her husband, Dr. Scott Kelley, is a widely respected doctor. They were often guests at events held by Petraeus at MacDill Air Force Base, where he was stationed from 2008 to 2010, the AP reports. She considered Petraeus to be like a grandfather to her children, reports the Tampa Bay Times. She likes entertaining at her grand, 5,000-square-foot home and usually dresses to the nines, reports GlobalPost. "At weekends while most women dress down and wear sweat pants and the like she will be fully made up and dressed as if she were going to a dinner," says a neighbor. Petraeus was stunned to hear about the emails that Broadwell allegedly sent Kelley, and he insists his relationship with Kelley was purely platonic, friends and former staff tell the AP. Click for more about the Petraeus affair.
– Conspiracy peddler Alex Jones has another lawsuit to handle. Greek yogurt maker Chobani has sued Jones' Infowars for publishing what it calls fake and defamatory stories related to the company's plant in Twin Falls, Idaho, reports BuzzFeed. Two examples: One video headlined, "Idaho Yogurt Maker Caught Importing Migrant Rapists" and a story blaming Chobani for a "500% increase in tuberculosis in Twin Falls." Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya wants the stories pulled and $10,000 in damages, but Jones says he isn't budging. "I’m never giving up, I love this," he said in an audio statement, per the Washington Post. "They have jumped the trillion-pound great white shark on this baby." Jones accused billionaire George Soros of being behind the suit, just weeks after accusing him of staging a chemical weapons attack in Syria. The migrant rape story stems from an incident in June 2016 in which three refugee boys, ages 14, 10, and, 7, sexually assaulted a 5-year-old girl in a laundry room, reports the Idaho Statesman. Details remain sealed, but prosecutors said one boy admitted touching the girl while the others filmed on a phone. The assault later was conflated by right-wing sites into a gang rape at knifepoint by Syrian men. Jones previously called the Sandy Hook shooting a hoax and said the government staged the 9/11 attacks, though in a recent court hearing in a child custody case, his lawyer argued that Jones' public persona is merely performance art. Ulukaya is a Turkish immigrant who has drawn national attention, both praise and scorn, for his advocacy of refugees. He employs more than 300 refugees at the Idaho plant and another in New York.
– Video gaming is about to go indie. Running on Android, a new console will encourage developers to alter its software and hardware to suit their specifications. What's more, players will get lots of games for free, though developers can make money on things like virtual goods. OUYA is currently seeking donations on crowd-funding site Kickstarter, where it hopes to raise almost $1 million, Business Insider reports. With much innovation currently focused on mobile gaming, "we want to bring games back to the living room," says CEO Julie Uhrman. As such, the console is designed to be used with a TV as its screen. Users will download games onto OUYA, whose design is centered on a controller with traditional buttons and an analog stick, plus a touchpad. You'll also be able to "use your phone as a controller," Uhrman notes, and there'll be a USB port as well as BlueTooth for extra add-ons. And since OUYA uses the Android operating system, it'll be able to do much more than just play games. "Could Netflix be on this? Absolutely," Uhrman says. It should be available early next year, notes Forbes.
– An Alabama lawmaker is calling on US citizens to show their patriotism this Yuletide season (and, ostensibly, for always)—by frequenting only American-owned convenience stores, gas stations, and tobacco outlets, WALB reports. And GOP state Rep. Alan Harper has an easy way for consumers to tell which stores are true-blue American stores and which aren't. "The C stores/tobacco outlets, etc. with the lights around the windows and doors are not owned by God fearing Christians," he wrote Monday in a Facebook post. Harper—who seems unaware that his message to avoid stores with lights might have been more effective if he had waited until after the holiday season—adds that the "madness has to stop," because "in large part, these stores are owned by folk that send their profits back to their homeland and then in turn use these funds against our country to create turmoil, fear and in some cases death and destruction." Harper, a former Democrat who switched sides in 2012, notes further down in the comments section of his post that he's on "a personal crusade to … turn back those that would harm our great nation," the Tuscaloosa News notes. And the comments get heated: One poster writes, "So, basically, don't shop at places with brown people. Got it," to which Harper replies, "God bless each and everyone and God Bless America! Isn't it funny when things are taken out of context. Please buy American every chance you get to build our local economies." One person who definitely takes issue with Harper's post: Bobby Luogon, a native Liberian who owns a tobacco and convenience store in Tuscaloosa, and who also happens to be a Christian. "For someone to say something like that who is a public figure … it just bothers me a lot," he tells WALB. "You can't just paint everybody with the same brush." (Cross the Buick Envision off Harper's Christmas list.)
– "Bigfoot" has been found, just not the apish version. An international team of paleontologists has announced the discovery of the largest known dinosaur foot, which belonged to a close relative of the Brachiosaurus now dubbed "Bigfoot." Appropriately so, as a nearly complete left hind-foot fossil totaling 13 bones, found two decades ago in the Black Hills area of Wyoming alongside separate and smaller brachiosaur remains, shows the 80-foot-long sauropod had feet that were about 3 feet wide, report Live Science and Gizmodo. "There are tracks and other incomplete skeletons from Australia and Argentina that seem to be from even bigger animals, but those gigantic skeletons were found without the feet," researcher Emanuel Tschopp explains in a release. Described in journal PeerJ, "this beast was clearly one of the biggest that ever walked in North America." Researchers, who compared the foot to those of other dino species, believe it came from a brachiosaur that lived 150 million years ago, making it the first brachiosaur foot known to come from North America's Late Jurassic Period, per Mashable. Though it's not enough to identify a specific species, it's evidence that brachiosaurs covered a larger area of North America, from eastern Utah to northwestern Wyoming, than previously known. "This is surprising" as "many other sauropod dinosaurs seem to have inhabited smaller areas," Tschopp says. Noting the discovery occurred "several hundreds of miles from where we thought these guys were," fellow researcher David Burnham will look to answer new questions: "Is it a different species than the brachiosaurs down south? Or maybe they were migrating north to south?" (These tire-sized dino prints hid in plain sight.)
– The Trump administration's massive overhaul of how the US targets and deports undocumented immigrants is becoming clearer after two memos from Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly were released Tuesday. The policy changes in those memos could open the door to millions of deportations thanks to classifying most undocumented immigrants as "priorities." Here's what you need to know: Department of Homeland Security officials tells Pro Publica the plan is to send migrants illegally entering the US from Mexico back to Mexico regardless of what country they're actually from. Seeing the reaction to the memos, the Trump administration is currently trying to avoid a "sense of panic" among immigrants, insisting the goal isn't "mass deportations," the Washington Post reports. Officials say undocumented immigrants brought to the US as young children, also known as Dreamers, will only be targeted for deportation if they commit a crime, according to the New York Times. But the Guardian reports undocumented immigrants no longer have to be charged with a crime or convicted of one to become priorities for deportation; just being suspected of a crime is enough, even for minor offenses like shoplifting or traffic violations. The new policy makes detention mandatory for anyone illegally entering the US, which could make it a lot harder for people escaping violence in their home countries to plead their case for asylum, according to Vox. It remains to be seen whether the Republican-led Congress will be willing to pay for the massive expansion of deportation efforts. The administration wants 10,000 new ICE agents, which could cost between $1 billion and $2 billion in the first year, the Washington Post reports. Other cost estimates for Trump's deportation plan are even higher.
– NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is all set for what Space.com predicts will be a "truly epic encounter" with Pluto next month. The first spacecraft ever sent to the dwarf planet, New Horizons is now about 20 million miles away—and 2.9 billion miles from Earth, reports Astronomy—but will get within 7,750 miles of the planet on July 14. During the flyby, it is expected to capture the most detailed views of Pluto ever, before exploring the outer edge of our solar system—if its power supply allows. "There are a lot of interesting interactions between the heliosphere"—the magnetic bubble around our solar system—"and what's beyond that, so we'd like to get there, and it looks like we can make it until the mid-2030s at least," an engineer says. Since providing the first color photo of Pluto in April, the spacecraft has also captured images of all four of the planet's "faces" from 30 million miles away, using its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager. Already, researchers say they're able to make out a "complex and nuanced surface." "We've always known Pluto had dark areas, but now, we're starting to see how large they are, where they're exactly located, what shape they take—and it's very fascinating to see this level of detail," a scientist says. "This is getting really exciting." In the coming days, the spacecraft will snap infrared photographs of both Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, to map surface geology and temperature. Can't wait for the flyby? Appease yourself with this trailer, per the Verge.
– A massive army of terracotta warriors, commissioned by China's first emperor in 246 BC, has mesmerized archaeologists since its discovery in 1974. Slowly, researchers have learned the secrets of the amazing clay statues, including how they were painted, but were still puzzled by how their realistic features were created. Now, after creating 3D models of the warriors using new imaging technology, University College London researchers have found the statues were perhaps modeled after real soldiers rather than given standard-issue noses, ears, and mouths "via a sort of Mr. Potato Head strategy," explains archaeologist Andrew Brevan. Their ears offered up the greatest clue: Ears vary so much among humans that they're "as effective as a fingerprint" in terms of identification, he says. Researchers studied the left ears of 30 warriors and found "considerable variation," reports National Geographic. As the researchers wrote in the Journal of Archaeological Science, "This tentatively supports the hypothesis that the warriors were intended to constitute a real army. ... It remains to be seen whether the ears themselves exhibit comparable levels of individuality to what we might expect in a real population of adult males (as seems likely from the warrior height distribution)." That last statement is a reference to a 2003 study published in Antiquity in which the height of 734 terracotta warriors was analyzed; researchers found "the size of the terracotta figures could well represent the true physical stature of the Chinese infantry." (Newly discovered bones may solve a fascinating Greek mystery.)
– Kellogg's is recalling boxes of its Honey Smacks cereal, identified as the likely source of a salmonella outbreak that's hit 73 people in 31 states since March. Of those, 24 had been hospitalized as of May 28, when the last known case was reported. Most have occurred in California, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania, reports CNN. Some 30 of 39 people interviewed by the CDC said they’d had cold cereal in the week before falling ill, while 14 specifically named Honey Smacks. Kellogg's is voluntarily recalling 15.3-ounce (UPC code 38000 39103) and 23-ounce (38000 14810) boxes of the cereal with a "best if used by" date falling between June 14, 2018, and June 14, 2019, while it investigates, per the Wall Street Journal. Kellogg's has set up a special website here.
– Alfonso Cuaron and Gravity added top film honors to their collection at last night's Directors Guild of America Awards, building momentum in what's seen as a tight three-way race to the Oscars. The award all but guarantees Cuaron the Best Director Oscar (though don't ask Ben Affleck about that particular almost-guarantee), and gives Gravity another boost over American Hustle and the faltering 12 Years a Slave, notes the AP. The latter two films had been seen as the strongest contenders in a flip-a-coin contest at the March 2 Academy Awards, but as Scott Bowles at USA Today notes, "Now the coin has three sides."
– Unlike Gravity, which has critics swooning, the new online-poker thriller Runner Runner is flat-out tanking on Rotten Tomatoes. The film stars Justin Timberlake as Richie, a Princeton grad who puts himself through school by playing poker; when he goes belly up, he hunts down online mastermind Ivan (Ben Affleck) and gets involved in his high-stakes, dangerous business. But for critics, it's becoming a putdown contest: "Even with its glossy Costa Rican setting, Runner Runner ... is a vacant excursion with plot holes the size of a small Caribbean island," writes Claudia Puig at USA Today. "Remember the old Ben Affleck, the one who made 28 consecutive bad movies before he turned out to be a pretty good director?" writes Kyle Smith at the New York Post. "He’s back! Behold, the second coming of ... Badfleck." Ouch. The film has "an intriguing setup," writes Richard Roeper at the Chicago Sun-Times, but it "devolves into a by-the-books thriller with Richie paired off against Ivan in a race against the clock and the FBI agent (Anthony Mackie) who talks as if his entire vocabulary was programmed by watching TV crime dramas and B-movies." A bright spot, as per Betsy Sharkey at the LA Times: "Fortunately we do have Timberlake. He has a way of breathing life into even deadened moments. You want to watch him. But like most stars, his acting is better when the plotting is smarter." At least there's a substantial side to Runner Runner: It has landed in the middle of a regulatory battle over online gambling, reports the AP.
– Most people would be content to occupy the penthouse apartment atop a 26-story building in Beijing. Not, apparently, a man identified as Zhang Biqing. The South China Morning Post reports that the "eccentric resident"—a "medicine mogul" who owns a chain of acupuncture clinics—has spent the last six years constructing an illegal structure above his top-floor apartment, and it's a bizarre one. The Post describes it as equal to the height of a two-story structure and the width and depth of the entire building (and then some), an 8,600-square-foot mansion complete with rooms, trees, grass, and bushes. Now, he's been given 15 days to take it all down. This after photos of the "villa" were splashed across Chinese media yesterday, emblazoned with the headline, "Beijing's most outrageous illegal structure." (Zhang, for his part, calls it "just an ornamental garden," reports the AP.) Residents for years have complained—about construction noise, leaks, and potential structural damage to the building as a whole. The story gets weirder from there, at least according to local papers, which say Zhang has beat up a 77-year-old man "several times" after he complained about it.
– If Jaws left you fearful of going into the water, this story about a much, much smaller predator may only reinforce your fright. The Australian Associated Press reports on the case of Sam Kanizay, a Melbourne 16-year-old who spent about a half-hour soaking his legs, sore from sports, at Dendy Street Beach in Brighton on Saturday. He emerged with his legs dripping in blood. "As soon as we wiped [his legs] down, they kept bleeding," Sam's father, Jarrod Kanizay, tells the AAP. (Very graphic photo here.) "They ate through Sam’s skin and made it bleed profusely." And they left doctors stumped. But there have been theories aplenty, per the New York Times and the AP: Some were sure that sea lice, a group of crustaceans known as isopods, were responsible. The head of the Dolphin Research Institute points the finger at another group of crustaceans called amphipods; another marine expert speculates it was jellyfish larvae. As for Thomas Cribb, a parasite expert from the University of Queensland, "it's not a parasite I've ever come across." In a quest to find the answer, Jarrod Kanizay headed for the beach Sunday night with a wetsuit, a pool net, and pieces of steak to use as bait, and captured "thousands of little mite-type creatures." He has shared an unappetizing video of them noshing on the meat. A marine biologist with Museums Victoria analyzed a sample taken by Kanizay and says they're lysianassid amphipods, or sea fleas. He speculates they have a leech-like anti-coagulant that kept the blood flowing from Sam's legs, and said the teen may not have felt the bites because of the chill of the winter water. (Read another story about odd sea creatures.)
– The New York Times declares a trend in the bartending world: barrel-aged cocktails. Barkeeps across the country are applying the same principle that works on whiskey to their concoctions, writes Robert Simonson. It's as simple as it sounds: Make up a batch, stick it in a barrel for about six weeks, then serve with higher prices. "The wood imparts flavors of vanilla, caramel, and certain spice notes," writes Simonson, who even experimented at home. "Vermouth becomes a bit oxidized from exposure to air through the wood. And practitioners say the various alcohols integrate in the process." Much of the credit goes to Jeffrey Morgenthaler, a Portland bartender with a popular blog who experimented in the spring and posted his results. "Someone just emailed me from Australia saying they were doing an aged cocktail,” he said.
– A century-old, 44-pound cookie sculpture was stolen last month from outside a famous German bakery, and police have now received two "ransom" notes. Both included pictures of a person dressed as Cookie Monster putting the golden cookie in his or her mouth, Spiegel reports; the AP adds that the most recent note was written using cut-out letters. The first letter demanded that the company deliver cookies to hospitalized children, but the most recent letter indicates a change of heart. "Because Werni loves the biscuit as much as I do and now always cries and misses the biscuit so badly, I'm giving it back to him!!!" it reads, likely making a reference to baker owner Werner Michael Bahlsen. Bahlsen had offered to donate 52,000 packages of cookies to various organizations upon the statue's safe return, but he added that the company won't be blackmailed.
– Eight security guards manned the grounds of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, but only one had a gun—and that one resource officer says he now grapples daily with the 17 lives lost and 17 injured on his watch on Feb. 14. The Washington Post talks with Scot Peterson, now blasted in the media and in his community as everything from a "disgrace" and "an awful human being" to the "Coward of Broward" for not running inside to take down the gunman. Peterson says he's tried to piece together what happened that "haunting" day, just like everyone else. "I've cut that day up a thousand ways with a million different what-if scenarios, but the bottom line is I was there to protect, and I lost 17," he says. Still, reliving what happened during what the Post calls those "seven chaotic minutes," Peterson insists he reacted to what he knew in the moment and did what he could to mitigate it all. He says the first call from another guard indicated firecrackers may have been going off, not gunshots. And Peterson says when he arrived on the scene, he couldn't tell where the sounds (which he then suspected were gunshots) were coming from, so he did what he says he was trained to do: "[take] cover in a tactical position so he could clear the area," which included calling in the shooting, putting the school on lockdown, and ushering kids out of the courtyard as he tried to figure out what was going on. "How can they keep saying I did nothing?" he says. "The evidence is sitting right there." Still, he's spent the last few months second-guessing himself and why he only heard "two or three" shots: "Why didn't I know to go in?" Meanwhile, Parkland parents are angry about an assault at the high school four years ago involving Peterson, as well as his $8,700-a-month pension. Peterson's side here.
– Naturally Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe doen't skimp on fights or period color in their gritty take on Robin Hood, but they've both done better, say critics, than this downbeat tale some feel lacks a "beating heart." "it’s reassuring to see Russell Crowe back in fighting form, but the villains here chart new territory in one-dimensionality, the essential storyline is bereft of surprise and the picture ends where most Robin Hood tales—sensibly, as it turns out—begin," writes Todd McCarthy on IndieWire. If you've seen other Robin Hood movies, or Braveheart—or Gladiator—you've seen this before, writes an unimpressed Duane Dudek at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, calling it "a torpid action movie about land reform with the exhausted quality of material so thin you can see right through it." The lack of swashbuckling rankled with Roger Ebert at the Chicago Sun-Times. Robin Hood ”is a high-tech and well made violent action picture," he writes, but "it's using the name of Robin Hood for no better reason than that it’s an established brand not protected by copyright." Colin Covert at the Minneapolis Star Tribune was more impressed. "Scott's natural tone is brooding and sardonic, and Crowe (squint, scowl, rumble, glare) is not the lightest of actors.They need material that lifts their spirits, and that's just what the story provides."
– Maria Shriver isn't going to turn the news of Arnold Schwarzenegger's love child with a staffer into a public battle. Her succinct statement today, from People: "This is a painful and heartbreaking time," she says. "As a mother, my concern is for the children. I ask for compassion, respect, and privacy as my children and I try to rebuild our lives and heal. I will have no further comment." The couple, who announced their split last week, have four children ranging in age from 14 to 21. (And the mother of Schwarzenegger's love child has been revealed.)
– Garth Callaghan has been leaving inspirational notes with his daughter's lunch since her days in kindergarten—but now that he's dying of cancer, they both know that one day the notes will have to stop. So he's writing hundreds of them ahead of time to fulfill his promise of giving 13-year-old Emma a daily note until she graduates from high school, Gawker reports. The Virginia man needs 826 in all; so far he has 740. "At the end of the day, these notes might be the only thing my daughter has left of me," he tells the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Among his notes: "Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. —B. Franklin" "Do or do not. There is no try. —Yoda" "Dear Emma, Everything in moderation. Except Awesome. You can never have too much Awesome. Love, Dad" "Dear Emma, Sometimes when I need a miracle, I look into your eyes and realize I've already created one. Love, Dad" Doctors give him only an 8% chance of living another 5 years, and he recalls being heartbroken one day after surgery when he saw that Emma had ripped up one of his napkins. But it turned out that she was just tearing out parts he had written on and saving them in her composition book. "My daughter’s a teenager now, so at some point, the notes might cease to be cool," he said. But at this point, "for her and I, this is a special thing that we share." Click to see more notes on his webpage, Facebook page, or Twitter feed.
– A scientist who used to work at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico, thinks he knows what caused the mysterious radiation leak that has shuttered the plant: kitty litter. Authorities revealed Monday that the evidence indicated that nuclear waste barrels had melted thanks to a chemical reaction between the waste and another substance. That other substance was kitty litter, which is used to absorb liquid in the drums, Jim Conca, who worked at the plant from 2000 to 2010, tells the Carlsbad Current-Argus. The problem, Conca says, is that the facility switched from non-organic litter to organic litter. "I'm just dying to know why this happened and who approved it, because it was a dumb idea," he says. "You just can't make a change to the procedure without reviewing it." A New Mexico official confirms that the Energy Department is discussing the litter theory, among other possibilities. The February 14 leak exposed 21 workers to radiation. Last month, an Energy Department report ruled that it was preventable, attributing it to "poor management, ineffective maintenance, and a lack of proper training and oversight," according to NPR.
– Chelsea Clinton is ditching her high-paid gig as a special correspondent for NBC News, People reports. The First Daughter says she'll continue her charity work with the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation as she and husband Marc Mezvinsky expect their first child. Clinton's upbeat NBC segments didn't draw huge audiences, the New York Times reports, but gave communities and nonprofits a lot of attention: "It’s hard to get stories like this told on a platform as big as NBC Nightly News," says the head of Share Our Strength, which helps feed needy children. Another example: The nonprofit TOPPS (which provides meals, mentoring, and tutoring for young people, notes Huffington Post) pulled in $300,000 after Clinton's segment on NBC, according to the network. Only rough patch for Clinton: Her "eye-popping" $600,000 salary, the Daily News reports, which Politico says earned her $26,724 for each minute of airtime (Chelsea dialed down her salary to a monthly paycheck "that allowed her to exit," the Times says). Critics also questioned whether her position was becoming a conflict of interest, as Hillary went on a book tour that some considered a de facto presidential-campaign launch.
– Believe it or not, Comcast is not the most hated telecommunications company in the country. The American Customer Satisfaction Index, out Tuesday, ranks America's most loved and hated companies offering pay-TV, phone, and internet service, and though Comcast finds itself among the least loved companies, it's not the most despised out there. The five companies that top the list, as well as the five that bring up the rear, with a score out of 100, per 24/7 Wall St.: Loved: Apple (phone): 81 Microsoft/Nokia (phone): 80 Samsung (phone): 80 Vonage (phone): 80 TracFone Wireless (phone): 77 Hated: Mediacom (TV): 56 Frontier Communications (internet): 56 Windstream (internet): 57 Xfinity/Comcast (TV): 58 Mediacom (internet): 58 Click for the full list or see a list of the most hated US companies overall.
– We are a couple of weeks away from getting our newly designed $100 bills, and when they arrive on October 8, some will actually be worth $1,000 ... or more. No, the government isn't slipping in an extra zero. But it is including, as always, an eight-digit serial number. And as the Boston Globe explains, currency collectors will pay big if the numbers are "fancy." That's the collectors' term, not the Globe's, for serial numbers that fall in a number of categories: there are "low" (00000001 through 00000100), "ladders" (43210987), "radar' (43788734), "solids" (33333333), and "repeaters" (82118211). Then there are random ones: 31415927 (pi) or 07041776 (read that as 07/04/1776). The low number ones are among the most valuable, with new $100 bills with 00000001 expected to sell for as much as $15,000. (Before the serial number you'll see one or two letters; these indicate which Federal Reserve bank issued it. As such, there can be more than one bill in any denomination with the same serial number in a given year.) So how do you get your hands on one? It helps if you have friends in high and very secure places. Bank employees, especially vault workers, are typically able to swap out a normal bill for a fancy one, says the director of currency of a Dallas auction house, and since bricks of money are marked with the serial number range, they can spot the bills fairly easily. But no one is going to become an instant millionaire: Bills in the 00000001 to 00000100 range are specifically split up. Still, feel free to pull out your wallet and take a look: Philly.com notes that CoolSerialNumbers is looking to buy these bills. (Click for another wild money story.)
– Yahoo "identified that a state-sponsored actor had access to the company’s network in late 2014," the company reported in SEC filings related to its proposed $4.8 billion acquisition by Verizon. The disclosure directly contradicts Yahoo's previous claims that the breach was only discovered in August, the Financial Times reports. Yahoo says it launched a serious investigation into its network security in 2016, and that it lacked a complete picture of the hacks because of the "sophisticated nature of state-sponsored attacks." The hack has complicated Verizon's proposed acquisition of Yahoo, which was first announced in July, before the hacks became public knowledge. Verizon believes that news of the hack should affect the deal (read: lower the purchase price), while Yahoo is arguing that the revelations had no impact on Yahoo's business. Yahoo has already been hit with 23 class-action lawsuits—both foreign and domestic—over its handling of the breach, Ars Technica reports.
– President Obama took a big step forward in his quest to gain Congressional approval for a strike on Syria, convincing the leaders of both parties in the House to back his play. Obama held a meeting with John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, and other top lawmakers this morning, arguing that military action was necessary, but would be limited. "This is not Iraq, and this is not Afghanistan," he promised, according to CNN. He said he was confident Congress would back him, and soon thereafter, both Boehner and Pelosi announced that they would. "The United States for our entire history has stood up for democracy and freedom," Boehner said, according to the Washington Post. "These weapons have to be responded to." Eric Cantor issued a statement saying that he, too, would vote to intervene—though he didn't sound eager to strong-arm his caucus into following suit. "It is up to President Obama to make the case to Congress," he wrote, "and I hope he is successful." Mitch McConnell was also at the meeting, but hasn't yet voiced his intentions—though Obama already has two Senate Republicans in his corner in John McCain and Lindsey Graham. But despite all that support, the vote could be close, USA Today warns, as some lawmakers worry that the resolution is too open-ended.
– New York is America's most crowded city, at about 27,000 people per square mile. That's downright airy compared to Dhaka, Bangladesh, which ranks as the planet's densest city at 115,000 people per square mile. And as the Guardian reports, it's not just overflowing with people. Dhaka has a serious sewer problem, one that's exacerbated during monsoon season, when drains that can't keep up with the population and the weather cause "the low-lying city [to fill] with water like a bathtub," writes Poppy McPherson. That has created the existence of what has been referred to as the "world's worst job": sewer cleaner. The cleaners' tools can be as primitive as bamboo sticks plunged into clogged manholes; sometimes, the cleaners themselves are the ones plunged into the filth. It can be deadly work, no more so than in 2008, when seven cleaners tasked with clearing a manhole got sucked in; onlookers used shovels and hammers to bust open the road and retrieve them. Only three survived. And even the unscathed aren't unscathed: "The sewerage lines are acidic and poisonous due to rotten filth," explains one sewer cleaner. "So cleaners are 100% sure to have health problems, especially skin problems." McPherson explains that the city's Mughal-era canals used to provide drainage, but after Bangladesh gained its independence in 1971, they were filled in to make way for development. The city agreed to move forward on a plan to resurrect some of those canals—but that was five years ago, and little has been accomplished. Read the full story here.
– Lady Gaga is (or was) addicted to marijuana, she revealed in a radio interview recently, People reports. "It's ultimately related to anxiety coping and it's a form of self-medication," Gaga told Elvis Duran and the Z100 Morning Show. "I was smoking up to 15 to 20 marijuana cigarettes a day with no tobacco." She says she used the pot to deal with her recent hip injury, as well as other stresses related to her fame. "The truth is that I can break, and I did. I was not very good at breaking," she said. "I lost everything that I love. I was in a wheelchair for six months. I did a lot of drugs and took a lot of pills." "The truth is that it is very hard to be famous," she continued. "It's wonderful to be famous because I have amazing fans. But it is very, very hard to go out into the world when you are not feeling happy and act like you are." She added that she's struggled with addiction, to various substances, from a young age, but she's now fighting it and wants to make new music without being under the influence of anything. (If you're skeptical of her addiction claim, the Huffington Post points out that it is possible to become dependent on the drug, though few people do.) Gaga also recently told Attitude magazine she's seeing a shrink to help her deal, the New York Daily News reports.
– Facebook shares will go on sale at long last today, in the biggest tech IPO in US history—and Nasdaq is desperate to make sure nothing goes wrong. Facebook has set an initial price of $38 per share, meaning it will make some $16 billion on the sale. Trading will begin at 11am ET—an hour and a half after the rest of the market opens—to give brokers time to handle the deluge of orders, the Los Angeles Times reports. "It has to go off without a hitch," said the head of one consulting firm. "If this goes poorly, it will not just be a poor reflection on Nasdaq—it will be a poor reflection on the US market structure." Nasdaq has actually been practicing, using the dummy ticker ZWZZT to test out various scenarios. Facebook, meanwhile, marked the occasion with an all-night "hackathon," which began with Mark Zuckerberg getting a standing ovation from his employees, VentureBeat reports. Zuckerberg will follow up that long night by ringing the opening bell remotely this morning.
– Four people killed when a Ride the Ducks amphibious vehicle collided with a bus in Seattle yesterday have been identified as international students at North Seattle College. Authorities say they were among 48 staff and students from six countries who were touring the city on a chartered bus before classes started Monday. Another 51 people were injured in the crash, including 15 critically, though some have been upgraded to serious condition, reports SeattlePI.com. "I turned and looked, and that's when I saw the carnage," a 61-year-old passenger on the Ducks vehicle tells the Seattle Times. "People I was sitting next to weren't there … they had been thrown completely out of the back of the Duck." He says he felt the rear of the vehicle fishtail before the crash. "And just at that moment, I heard the driver go: 'Oh, no!'" A witness originally said the Ducks vehicle experienced some kind of malfunction and perhaps lost a wheel before the crash. A man driving one of two SUVs also involved in the accident agrees something went wrong, noting he saw red fluid leaking from the Duck's front left tire, which appeared to seize up, before the vehicle slammed into the driver's side of the bus. Seattle police say they're investigating a possible mechanical failure on the Ducks vehicle but add it's too early to pinpoint a cause of the accident. "We've had a terrible tragedy," Mayor Ed Murray says. "The thoughts and prayers of this city go out to everyone—the families and those impacted." He adds the Ride the Ducks tour has voluntarily taken its vehicles off Seattle's streets for now.
– TSA agents are basically known for collectively killing America's buzz, but here's an unusual exception out of the Denver International Airport: A TSA agent there discovered marijuana in rapper Freddie Gibbs' luggage, but instead of confiscating the weed, the baggage screener just left an admonishing note reading, "C'mon son." The agent let the rapper keep his stash. Gibbs tweeted a photo of the note and "probably just got the guy fired," concludes Gawker. How much weed was he able to slide through security? Half an ounce, he says. It doesn't look like the message worked, though. He's apparently "still smokin."
– The G-20 summit is underway in Argentina, and the greeting between two high-profile leaders is drawing attention for its, er, enthusiasm. This time, it doesn't involve President Trump, but Russia's Vladimir Putin and Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. It's not so much a handshake as a high-five, accompanied by beaming smiles. The prince even pats Putin's hand three times as they take their seats, notes the AP. Watch it here. (Putin has been in the headlines of late over his nation's seizure of Ukrainian ships, and the crown prince because of the Jamal Khashoggi killing.)
– Many observers believe Alabama running back Mark Ingram is going to be this year’s Heisman Trophy winner as college football’s top player—and a blog that’s correctly predicted the past seven recipients is one of them. Stiff Arm Trophy has Ingram nosing out Stanford running back Toby Gerhart, with Nebraska defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh running third. Pete Fiutak has Suh and Gerhart flopped, but agrees on the winner, and that quarterbacks Colt McCoy of Texas and Tim Tebow of Florida will round out the top five. Rocking the boat is blogger HeismanPundit, who’s got McCoy taking the hardware, with Ingram, Gerhart, Tebow and Suh finishing behind him. To see who’s right, check the ceremony at 8pm ET on ESPN (though the announcement itself is much closer to 9).
– North Korea continues to apparently move forward with plans for a test missile launch, moving two more missile launchers to its east coast since April 16, South Korea's Yonhap News reports. They are thought to be for shorter-range Scud missiles. South Korean military officials think North Korea might be looking to do the launch, or present some other show of force, on the Thursday anniversary of the founding of the Korean People's Army. Earlier this month, the North moved two mid-range missile launchers and seven mobile launchers, Reuters notes. And yesterday, Reuters reports, Pyongyang reaffirmed its determination not to give up its nuclear weapons, a US condition for talks, but did say it would consider discussing disarmament if a list of demands (like the lifting of UN sanctions) were met. "There may be talks between the DPRK and the US for disarmament but no talks on denuclearization," said the commentary in a state-run newspaper.
– The debate post-mortems have a clear theme Friday morning: Marco Rubio is the consensus winner after his relentless attacks on Donald Trump, with the big question being whether it's too late to stop the frontrunner's momentum. Some highlights: "This was not only Rubio's best debate performance. It was the best debate performance by any candidate in any debate so far in the 2016 election." So declares Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post; he thinks it's now a two-man race between Rubio and Trump. Ted Cruz also scored points for his Trump assaults, and Todd Graham at CNN gives him an A. "His answers on immigration were his best in any debate, talking about faith, family, and patriotism. Both he and Rubio forgot their squabbles and focused on Trump. All great strategic moves." "For those fearful of Trump as the party’s nominee, Thursday was supposed to be the night that the dynamic of the race began to change," writes Dan Balz at the Washington Post. "Certainly Rubio and Cruz tried to make that happen, with some success. But Tuesday’s balloting will be the real first test of whether things actually are changing." Trump generally is getting bad to mediocre reviews—the New York Times says the attacks on him resulted in a "less nimble performance"—but David A. Graham of the Atlantic thinks it was his "worst debate of the campaign." Of course, "one rule of thumb so far has been that no matter how Trump performs during these debates, it doesn’t seem to hurt him." One succinct wrap-up comes from Mary Kissel of the Wall Street Journal via Twitter: “Blitzer loses. Cruz-Rubio tag team against Trump effective, but too late? Trump took big hits. Kasich blah. Goodbye, Ben.” Click to read some of the debate's best lines.
– FBI officials yesterday denied they bungled a case against Joran Van der Sloot after paying him up to $25,000, which he apparently used to travel to Peru where he murdered a young woman. Investigators set up an extortion sting for Van der Sloot last month after he reportedly demanded cash from Natalee Holloway's mom in exchange for information about her daughter's remains in Aruba, where he remains a prime suspect in the teen's disappearance. Officials issued an arrest warrant on extortion charges against him shortly after Van der Sloot admitted killing Stephany Flores Ramirez, 21, in his hotel room, notes ABC News. "The Birmingham investigation was not related to the murder in Peru," said an FBI statement. "Despite having been in motion for several weeks at the time of Miss Flores' death, it was not sufficiently developed to bring charges prior to the time van der Sloot left Aruba." Officials also said cash paid to Van der Sloot came from "private funds," contradicting reports that the fee came from the FBI. CNN reported earlier yesterday that the money—$10,00 in cash and $15,000 paid to Van der Sloot's Dutch bank account—was provided by Natalee's mom, Beth Twitty Holloway.
– Mark Zuckerberg is headed back to Harvard, but this time he'll be giving the commencement speech, the AP reports. The Ivy League school announced Tuesday that the Facebook CEO and Harvard dropout was chosen to address students at a May 25 graduation ceremony on the Cambridge campus. Harvard President Drew Faust says Zuckerberg "has profoundly altered the nature of social engagement worldwide," adding that she's glad to welcome him back. Zuckerberg went to Harvard as an undergraduate in 2002 but left after his sophomore year to pursue his company, which later became Facebook. He had planned to return to Harvard later but changed his mind after Facebook became a quick success. Another Harvard dropout, Bill Gates, gave the commencement address in 2007, Mashable notes.
– President Obama will name Air Force General Lori Robinson to lead the military's Northern Command, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Friday. It's one of the top US military positions and Robinson would be the most senior general overseeing North American activities. She "would also be the first ever female combatant commander," Carter says, per Reuters. The US Northern Command "was created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to coordinate and improve homeland defense and to provide support for other national disasters," the AP reports. Obama's nomination of Robinson "shows ... we have, coming along now, a lot of female officers who are exceptionally strong. And Lori certainly fits into that category," Carter, speaking at an event hosted by Politico, added. The nomination of Robinson, who is currently the head of the Pacific Air Force, is subject to Senate confirmation. If confirmed, she would report directly to Carter.
– A sample of the early coverage/reaction in the wake of Neil Armstrong's death today at age 82: Huffington Post: Its page-leading banner reads, "One Giant Loss for Mankind." Armstrong family: "The next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.” Associated Press: He was a "quiet, self-described 'nerdy' engineer who became a global hero when as a steely-nerved US pilot he made 'one giant leap for mankind' with the first step on the moon." President Obama: "Neil was among the greatest of American heroes—not just of his time, but of all time." Space.com: "A figure so large in American and world history that you can bet many generations from now people will still be talking about him, as well as his moon landing." Houston Chronicle: "Armstrong was the face of what is arguably America's top technological triumph, but for those who knew him in the spaceflight community, he quietly led by setting a good example." Washington Post: He "marked an epochal achievement in exploration with 'one small step'" and thus became one of "the most heroized Americans of the 1960s Cold War space race." The Guardian: Those famous words—"That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind"—still "endure as one of the best known quotes in the English language."
– Ten years into research they call "exhaustive," scientists at the University of Washington and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging are reporting in the journal Cell Metabolism that they've isolated 238 genes linked to aging in yeast cells. After working with undergrads to painstakingly delete a single gene from each of 4,698 yeast strains, they say that when any of these 238 genes are not present, the yeast's life span goes up—and that 189 of these genes hadn't before been linked to aging. One gene, LOS1, produced "particularly stunning results," the institute reports—deleting LOS1 alone helped extend life span by 60%. LOS1 is influenced by a genetic "master switch" that's already associated with reduced caloric intake; switching it off seems to mimic the positive health benefits of fasting. Will these findings in yeast have any bearing on humans? "Almost half of the genes we found that affect aging are conserved in mammals," says lead author Dr. Brian Kennedy. "In theory, any of these factors could be therapeutic targets to extend healthspan. What we have to do now is figure out which ones are amenable to targeting." The findings come on the heels of research out of the University of Southern California finding that a five-day-a-week diet designed to mimic fasting with an up to 50% reduction in caloric intake also slows aging, improves the immune system, and reduces heart disease and cancer, reports the Telegraph. (This test can predict when you'll die.)
– You, and pretty much every scientist in the world, may find this hard to believe, but a top Egyptian general says he has discovered a cure HIV and hepatitis C, along with a wand that can detect the latter virus from across a room. In a press conference on Sunday, Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Abdul Atti said that over 22 years he had personally researched a cure, eventually getting help from Egyptian military intelligence, the New York Times reports. "Defeating the virus is a very easy process, but God grants wisdom to whoever he wants," Atti said. "You will never find another patient suffering from the hepatitis C virus." The military, however, said it would not release the cures outside of Egypt. The military released a video showing patients being scanned with an antenna-like device called "C-Fast" that, according to the Cairo paper Al-Ahram, purportedly has no electronics and is "powered by the body's static electricity"; it was reportedly based on bomb-detecting equipment. If AIDS is detected, the patient's blood is purportedly pulled from the body, purified, and returned in a "Complete Cure" treatment, curing the patient in as little as 16 hours, according to CNN. The general likened the process to feeding the disease back to the patient in kofta. The announcement has been met with just a wee bit of skepticism. Egypt's top presidential science adviser told an Egyptian newspaper that the "cure" was "unrealistic" and "an insult to Egypt." Per the CDC, Egypt has the world's highest prevalence of hepatitis C: at least 10% of the population has it.
– A man Britney Spears dated during her darkest days has been fatally shot down by the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Mirror reports. Spears met John Sundahl at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in 2007, and he was credited with helping her overcome her drinking problems—he was in her life during her infamous head-shaving incident. He once said in an interview that he encouraged Spears to get sober for her kids. The two were even rumored to be engaged at one point, and there was another rumor that they had reconnected last summer—they stayed friends after their relationship ended. Sundahl, 44, was in Afghanistan as a private contractor, "ferrying officials across" the country, the Mirror explains. He was flying a helicopter from Kabul when he was shot down. "John went there to try to repair the country," his brother says. "He was trying to help people, he would often say that the country was in chaos." Sundahl's body was brought to the US last week for a funeral and burial. As for Spears, "she is devastated," says an insider. "Britney thought he was a lovely man." As Sundahl's brother explains, "John was still good friends with Britney, he talked to her regularly. They dated for a while but always kept in touch afterwards. ... We know Britney's upset, too." (Another celebrity lost her ex-boyfriend under tragic circumstances.)
– Adrienne Martin, the dead woman found at the home of former Anheuser-Busch CEO August Busch IV, was Busch's girlfriend—and her ex-husband says she suffered from a rare heart condition. Martin, 27, had Long QT syndrome, says Kevin Martin, a doctor of osteopathy who diagnosed his then-wife with the disorder. "She refused to see a cardiologist about it," he said. "I've always suspected she thought I was overreacting." Her ex, who has an 8-year-old son with Martin, also called Busch "a good man," the AP reports. Yesterday, police released a transcript of the 911 call made from Busch's home on Dec. 19, in which a household employee reported that a woman wouldn't wake up. He told the operator it was "dark back there" and no one could see if she was breathing, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports, noting that 42 minutes passed between the time Martin was found and the time the call was made.
– Voters in five states go to the polls on Tuesday, and analysts will again be looking for clues on what the results might mean for the November midterms. Some highlights: Kansas: The GOP primary for the governor's seat might be the highest-profile contest of the night because of President Trump. On Monday, Trump backed conservative Secretary of State Kris Kobach over the sitting Republican incumbent, Jeff Colyer, notes the AP. One fear for Republicans is that if Kobach wins, he'd be vulnerable to Democrats in November. Ohio: This is a special election, not a primary, to fill the seat of retired GOP Rep. Pat Tiberi. The seat has long been held by Republicans, but Democrat Danny O'Connor is in a surprisingly close race against the GOP's Troy Balderson. A GOP loss would be a "psychological blow" to the party, per CNN, but no matter what happens, the two candidates will be squaring off again in November. Trump tweeted on behalf of Balderson on Tuesday. Michigan: An open governor's seat is at stake, and if Abdul El-Sayed wins the Democratic primary and again in November, he would become the nation's first Muslim governor. Bernie Sanders is a big supporter, notes CNN. Elsewhere, Fayrouz Saad is one of the Democrats vying for the seat of retiring Rep. Dave Trott, and she has the chance to become the first Muslim woman in Congress, per the AP. Missouri: The Senate race here is getting big attention, because it's seen as one of the GOP's best chances to unseat a Democratic incumbent, in this case Claire McCaskill. State Attorney General Josh Hawley is expected to win the GOP nomination Tuesday night. Washington state: Various congressional primaries are on the ballot, and one interesting facet is that Washington uses what the AP calls a "jungle primary" system in which all candidates regardless of party are listed on the same ballot. The top two advance. One big race is for the seat of retiring GOP Rep. Dave Reichert near Seattle.
– Paul Ryan was re-elected Speaker of the House by the 115th Congress on Tuesday, CNN reports. According to the Wall Street Journal, he won the vote 239-189. His re-election to the position is further evidence that Donald Trump's election has soothed relations among Republican lawmakers. "For all of our arguments and all of our differences, we are all united by a deep, abiding love of our country," CNN quotes Ryan as saying. Only one Republican didn't vote for Ryan; that number was nine when he was first elected speaker in 2015. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi was re-elected minority leader with four Democrats voting for someone else.
– This may rank as one of the deadlier selfies-that-kill stories: The photos likely contributed to not one person's death, but two. The NTSB report on a May 31 plane crash in Watkins, Colo., cites recordings from a GoPro camera found at the scene. They show pilot Amritpal Singh, 29, and his passenger using their cellphones to take selfies. The report indicates that the phones' flashes disoriented Singh (it was sometime after 12:30am); he then lost control of the plane, reports KUSA-TV. A portion of the report via the Denver Post: "Post-accident examination of the airplane did not reveal any pre-impact anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Based on the wreckage distribution ... and the degraded visual reference conditions, it is likely that the pilot experienced spatial disorientation and lost control of the airplane." CBS Denver notes the selfies were taken at low altitudes, and speaks with an aviation security expert who knew Singh. Jeff Price says that a camera flash can be particularly problematic at those altitudes. He recounts being in the cockpit once when a flash went off; it was as jarring as lightning, he says. (Read about another deadly selfie attempt involving a train.)
– Yahoo's board will meet later this week to discuss selling the company lock, stock, and Alibaba, sources tell the Wall Street Journal. The sources say that board members are worried about CEO Marissa Mayer's slow progress in turning the company around and are considering selling off Yahoo's "core Internet businesses," as well as its 15% stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, which is valued at around $32 billion. Yahoo, despite years of decline, is still a major Internet player with more than 1 billion users worldwide, meaning buyers could gain instant access to a huge audience, Quartz notes. Alibaba founder Jack Ma is rumored to be among the potential buyers. It's not clear exactly what "core businesses" the board is thinking about selling, but selling all of Yahoo's Internet businesses would mean "there would be nothing left of the company," a Tigress Financial Partners analyst tells CNBC, adding that it may be hard to find a buyer for Yahoo's search unit, which is "in decline and has stiff competition from Google and Microsoft." But for potential buyers, the price could be attractive: The Alibaba stake alone exceeds Yahoo's $31 billion market capitalization, meaning investors "are valuing Yahoo's core business at less than zero," the Journal notes. (In October, Yahoo disclosed that its foray into creating original TV shows had cost it $42 million.)
– One of the longest-serving justices in Supreme Court history thinks it would be a mistake to put Brett Kavanaugh on the court. John Paul Stevens, a Republican who served on the court from 1975 to 2010, told a gathering in Florida on Thursday that he had changed his mind about Kavanaugh after praising him in a 2014 book, the Palm Beach Post reports. Stevens said he once thought Kavanaugh "had the qualifications for the Supreme Court," but the nominee's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee altered his view. "I've changed my views for reasons that have no relationship to his intellectual ability," the 98-year-old said. "I feel his performance in the hearings ultimately changed my mind." Stevens said there was merit in arguments that Kavanaugh had displayed a potential bias big enough that he "would not be able to perform his full responsibilities," CNN reports. "It's not healthy to get a new justice that can only do a part-time job." Kavanaugh defended himself in a Wall Street Journal op-ed ahead of a procedural vote on his nomination in the Senate Friday, the AP reports. Two of three Republican senators who had been wavering signaled Thursday that they were satisfied with the FBI's report on Kavanaugh, while Alaska's Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she was still reviewing her decision.
– The Walking Dead is more than a hit TV show, it might just be a successful get-out-the-vote strategy. Thanks to 24 million out-of-date and inaccurate voter registration records, the United States has up to 1.8 million dead people registered to vote, reports USA Today. "We have a ramshackle registration system in the US. It's a mess. It's expensive. There isn't central control over the process," said one expert. Despite 2.75 million duplicate registrations and other problems, the Pew Center for States, which published the study, says there are still 51 million eligible citizens not registered to vote. The flawed voter rolls go beyond just voting cemeteries. In Wood County, Ohio, for example, there are 106% the number of registered voters as people in the 2010 census. Experts point to the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which made it easier to register to vote and harder to kick someone off. The problem is especially bad in the vital swing states, where national elections are frequently decided, as both parties work hard to sign up as many voters as possible. Pew suggests enacting a multi-state database to track voter registration more efficiently, using driver's licenses, death certificates, and other documents. Eight states are beginning such a system this year.
– Shades of Walter White: A teacher in North Carolina has been charged with running a meth lab. Police say Lori Whitley, 38, and husband Gary Whitley, 41, ran a meth lab inside their own home near Zebulon. Both are in jail, and Lori Whitley has been suspended from her job as a third-grade teacher at the school where she has worked for 13 years, reports the News & Observer. The couple also have been charged with endangering the welfare of a child because they have an 8-year-old son who lived with them and thus in the vicinity of a potentially volatile chemicals. He is now in the custody of protective services. "Unreal," says a neighbor, who tells WRAL that he'd noticed a chemical odor wafting from the house recently.
– Dolphins not only have names for each other, their memories are so good that they can remember the "signature whistles" of friends—and enemies—for at least 20 years, according to a new study. Researchers studied scores of captive bottlenose dolphins that had been shifted around the US and found that they responded much more readily to the sounds of dolphins they had once known—including family members, ex-tankmates, and former mates—than the calls of strangers, the BBC reports. The dolphins' "social memory" is the longest ever recorded in the animal kingdom. Researchers believe the ability to recognize familiar whistles, which stay the same while age changes their outward appearance, helps dolphins live in "fission-fusion" societies, where they join and leave different groups many times over a lifetime. "We know they have relationships in the wild that last decades," an animal behaviorist tells Science. "Remembering a particular individual—even in the absence of that individual—could help them navigate their current social milieu."
– It's been nearly a month since a frightening Southwest flight that ended in the death of one passenger, and now the pilot with "nerves of steel" and her co-pilot are finally offering their takes. In a short clip promoting a longer 20/20 interview set to air Friday, pilot Tammie Jo Shults and Darren Ellisor, her co-pilot on April 17's Flight 1380 from New York City to Dallas, explain to ABC News' Martha Raddatz what happened during what the New York Post calls a "harrowing" 22 minutes, from initial explosion to setting down in Philly. It all started with a "large bang and a rapid decompression," Ellisor recalls, noting that "the aircraft yawed and banked to the left … a little over 40 degrees and we had a very severe vibration from the No. 1 engine that was shaking everything." The instant thoughts that zipped through Shults' mind: "'Oh, here we go.' Just because it seems like a flashback to some of the Navy flying that we had done." She adds that the din was so deafening that she and Ellisor were forced to communicate via hand signals as they tried to land the plane. Fortunately, "Darren is just very easy to communicate with," she says. The passenger who died during the emergency was 43-year-old Jennifer Riordan, a Wells Fargo exec from New Mexico.
– Apparently, only skinny girls can show cleavage on network TV. Or at least, that's the double standard Lane Bryant saw, after ABC and Fox got squeamish about its new lingerie ad, Adweek reports. ABC refused to air the ad during Dancing With the Stars, while Fox “demanded excessive re-edits,” the company complained in a scathing blog post. “The networks exclaimed, 'She has...cleavage! Gasp!'” Meanwhile, Victoria's Secrets' ads have no trouble getting airtime, and their models leave just as little to the imagination. “Does this smack of a double standard? Yep. It does to us too. … ABC and Fox have made the decision to define beauty for you.” The company has since pulled the ad off YouTube, but Jezebel attests that it was “not in the least bit racy or offensive. Unless, of course, you're offended” by models with actual meat on their bones.
– Buyer beware: Nearly 90% of Apple chargers and cables sold on Amazon could be counterfeit, the AP reports. That's according to a lawsuit Apple filed Monday against Mobile Star LLC. Apple claims the chargers—manufactured by Mobile Star and wrongly bearing the Apple logo—"pose a significant risk of overheating, fire, and electrical shock." According to Mashable, the lawsuit claims the cables and chargers are being sold "as genuine Apple products using Apple's own product marketing images." And they're being sold by both third-party sellers and Amazon itself. Apple says customers would have no reason to believe the faulty products are anything but the real deal. And it says that could damage its reputation, 9to5Mac reports. Apple says it routinely buys its own products off Amazon to make sure everything is on the up and up. Apple's lawsuit claims that over the past nine months, nearly 90% of the cables and chargers it purchased were counterfeit. Amazon is cooperating with Apple and has turned over its inventory of cables and chargers. In a statement, Amazon says it "has zero tolerance for the sale of counterfeits on our site. We work closely with manufacturers and brands, and pursue wrongdoers aggressively." Apple is seeking $2 million per type of counterfeit product from Mobile Star.
– Authorities in China detained a woman suspected of abusing children at a Beijing kindergarten run by a US-listed company in a case that has caused nationwide anger. Police in Beijing's Chaoyang district said in a statement Saturday that an investigation into a kindergarten run by Beijing-based RYB Education has led to the criminal detention of a 22-year-old female teacher on suspicion of abusing children. The statement, posted on the district police account on the Sina Weibo microblog platform, identified the woman only by her surname, Liu—CNN notes Chinese police often don't provide suspects' full names—and didn't provide further details on her. RYB Education, meanwhile, said it was "extremely shocked and distressed" about the crimes the teacher is suspected of committing. The statement didn't provide details of Liu's alleged abuses. RYB said it had fired Liu, removed the head of the kindergarten, and is cooperating with further investigations. It also said the company is hiring doctors and psychologists to aid the children who'd been affected, as well as inspecting other branches. The Beijing scandal erupted after local media quoted parents as saying their children were forced to strip as punishment and were found with unexplained apparent needle marks on their bodies. The claims couldn't be independently verified. Chaoyang police said a 31-year-old Beijing woman, who Reuters notes is also surnamed Liu, was detained after admitting to spreading false info about the involvement of a military regiment in sexually abusing the children. The statement said the woman expressed "deep regret" for her actions. RYB and its franchisees operate 1,300 day care centers and nearly 500 kindergartens in 300 Chinese cities.
– Less than a week after reports emerged that Kim Jong Un had staged a major power play by ousting his powerful uncle from government, North Korea has announced that the uncle has been executed, reports the BBC. The state news agency says Jang Song Thaek was sentenced to death by a military tribunal as a traitor, and the sentence was carried out immediately. Jang—who had been forcibly removed from a Community Party forum in front of cameras earlier in the week—had been married to the sister of Kim's father. The state news agency accused him of plotting to overthrow his nephew and labeled him "worse than a dog," reports AP. He had generally been considered the nation's second most powerful figure and once served as a mentor to his nephew. Other charges against him included corruption, drug use, gambling, and leading a "depraved life." Analysts generally view the move as Kim consolidating his power.
– Tony Blair’s memoir, A Journey, has just hit stores, and it’s loaded with juicy revelations that have Britain talking. Among them: Blair says he used alcohol as “a prop,” with his daily intake “definitely at the outer limit” of what was acceptable. “By the standards of days gone by I was not even remotely a topper,” he protests, adding that his intake was “not excessively excessive. I had a limit.” Much of the headlines have been dominated by his always-rumored but until now denied feud with Gordon Brown. Blair says he knew Brown would be a “disastrous” prime minister, and blames him for the party’s recent losses He also reveals that when they were vying to lead the party in 1994, Brown accidentally locked himself in the bathroom. “Withdraw from the contest or I'm leaving you in there,” Blair told him. Of his relationship with Princess Diana, he writes: “We were both, in our own way, manipulators—good at grasping the feelings of others and instinctively playing on them.” He also discusses the extramarital affairs of his colleagues. Such trysts, he writes, “spring you from that prison of self-control. … Suddenly you are transported out of your world of intrigue and issues and endless machinations and just put on a remote desert island of pleasure.”
– After years of preparation, NASA is about to learn a lot more about an asteroid that, a scientist says, is "actually the largest body between the sun and Pluto that a spacecraft has not yet visited." In exploring the 600-mile-wide Ceres, "we're going to reveal the fascinating details of a giant world of rock and ice," engineer Marc Rayman tells the New York Times. There may be a substantial amount of water, too, including "ponds or lakes or even oceans"; vapor coming off the body has suggested the presence of water. Ceres has been classified as a dwarf planet, like Pluto, which is also due for a new investigation. The New Horizons spacecraft, already on its way to Pluto, will be at its closest on July 14; at that point, if the asteroid were New York, "we could count the ponds in Central Park." That should help experts learn answers to all kinds of questions, like why Pluto has turned redder in recent years and whether it has rings. As for Ceres, which has been familiar to scientists since 1801, the Dawn spacecraft could reveal more about a mysterious light spot on the dwarf planet. It could be ice that's reflecting sunlight from a crater, NBC News reports. And hints of water bring questions about the possibility of life. (That's one thing a Mars probe was looking for before it was lost—and then, recently, discovered again.)
– Still no jetpacks, but your inner 9-year-old has to be excited about this: NASA is developing a 3D printer that can print "nutritious and flavorful" food during space travel. The agency says its current space food is "not adequate in nutrition or acceptability through the five-year shelf life required for a mission to Mars, or other long duration missions." So the new printer would combine powders, water, and oil a la carte to create meals that better suit an astronaut's individual tastes and needs, the Washington Post reports. The first goal is to create a 3D-printed pizza, but eventually, astronauts' families could send in personalized family recipes from home. "Mom designs a cookie in a computer, sends the cookie to the space shuttle and the son or daughter prints out a cookie at Christmas," says the engineer who came up with the idea. He also believes the printer could eventually help the fight against hunger back here on Earth, as the powder used to "build" food would be shelf-stable for decades, Quartz reports.
– "Prince of Persia," "Oregon Trail," and "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?" are once again ours for the playing—but this time, they're on the Web. The Internet Archive, purveyor of "universal access to all knowledge" through portals such as the Wayback Machine, has announced a new addition to its software collection: about 2,400 MS-DOS video games that can be played, for free, on most browsers, the Washington Post reports. The update is similar to the digital library's Console Living Room, launched last year to "[harken] back to the revolution of the change in the hearth of the home, when the fireplace and later television were transformed by gaming consoles into a center of videogame entertainment." "Considering the Internet Arcade has dragged in over 5 million people, this new collection will probably bring in a flood of its own. Welcome," Internet Archive curator Jason Scott wrote Monday on his blog. Not that these are obstacle-free emulators. There are "some awful sound emulation quirks," writes Sam Machkovech for Ars Technica, also pointing out that he's not sure how long popular titles such as "Donkey Kong" and "Street Fighter II" will remain available (there are specific copyright rules for archiving vintage software). Even Scott acknowledges some of the library's drawbacks, noting that "some of [the games] will still fall over and die, and many of them might be weird to play in a browser window, and of course you can't really save things off for later, and that will limit things too." But he's also encouraging users to jump right into the beta Version 2 of the Internet Archive's interface and to send him feedback so that he can successfully steer future offerings and updates. (Keep playing games all day and you might start earning millions.)
– Another massive heat wave is poised to engulf much of the United States beginning today, threatening to send the heat index up to 115 degrees, reports Reuters. "It looks like it's going to be a long-term heat wave," says a meteorologist at the National Weather Service. A ridge of oppressive, triple-digit heat is expected to stretch from Mexico to the Canadian border, peaking on Sunday. Just how bad is it? Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin banned outdoor burnings in the western half of the state—and called for people to pray for rain in church on Sunday, notes the Oklahoman. "The power of prayer is a wonderful thing, and I would ask every Oklahoman to look to a greater power this weekend and ask for rain," she said.
– How much students are borrowing for higher education is still creeping up—and the numbers that are coming in are probably conservative. The Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit, reported Tuesday that the average student loan debt for 2015 for those receiving a bachelor's degree was $30,100, a 4% increase over the previous year, per MarketWatch. But that's only examining debt from students who graduated from public or nonprofit private colleges or universities (the amount of money private-school attendees need to borrow is often more substantial). And because about 68% of graduates from these schools have taken on loans, Money.com notes that most students coming out of there will be burdened with monthly payments of $300 or more over the next decade. So why has this uptick not started to trend downward yet? TICAS VP Debbie Cochrane says lack of investment from individual states can claim much of the blame. "States need to increase their per-student level of support for public colleges," she says, per MarketWatch. The states riddled with the highest debt tend to fall in the Northeast and Midwest, while states in the West experience the lowest levels, notes Inside Higher Ed. A financial expert offers tips via Business Insider on how to deal with such debt if you're mired in it. (A mom was told she had to pay off her murdered son's student loans.)
– The ugly tanking of government-funded solar-energy company Solyndra has many people questioning whether Energy Secretary Steven Chu can handle the job, reports Politico. "Just because you are a Nobel Prize-winning physicist doesn't mean you'd be a good orthopedic surgeon," criticized a Bush-era Energy Department official. "They're different skill sets." The White House publicly supported Chu on Friday, but criticism is growing that Chu's team overemphasizes science over policy and politics. "Impressive credentials, but sadly miscast for the rough and tumble, oft unforgiving world of oil and energy markets and its cast of malign actors," writes author Raymond Learsy on the Huffington Post. "The great irony, the big critique (of Solyndra) is the suggestion of too much politics and political influence, when in fact the realities on this might be exactly the opposite, that there was too much science and too little intuition," an anonymous environmentalist tells Politico.
– Emotions Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust must strike a balance in the mind of 11-year-old Riley as she adjusts to a new city and school in Disney and Pixar's Inside Out. With a 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the flick seems destined to become a classic. Here's what critics are saying: Simply put, the film is "the best one I've seen for a very long time," writes Joe Morgenstern at the Wall Street Journal. He calls it "astonishing" for its "ability to turn an abstract concept—the contending forces of our psyches—into a spectacle that’s as funny, stirring, unpredictable, exciting, and riotously beautiful as it is profound." You'll want to see this one at least twice: "The level of invention is so high, and the density of detail is so great, that it's impossible to absorb everything in a single viewing." This is "a boldly conceived film that refuses to follow box-office formula and doesn't condescend," writes Steven Rea at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Interestingly, he says it's "the first psychological thriller that's fun for the whole family." Yes, it can be dark and scary and absurd, but it also has "just the right mix of wit and whimsy." Pixar's moviemakers have "produced another gem." "Inside Out isn't just a sign of renewed youth from Pixar. It's the reason Pixar exists," writes Andrew Lapin at NPR. There are numerous stops "inside Riley's, and this film's, wonderfully warped mind," but each one "is another masterstroke in visual storytelling, and the film boasts Pixar's most ambitious production designs to date." Amy Poehler as Joy and The Office's Phyllis Smith as Sadness are "stellar," he adds, helping to create a character, Riley, we know "better than we've known any character in film history." And more praise: James Berardinelli says Inside Out "is the best American-produced animated film we have seen in many summers." The scenes inside Riley’s head have an "un-Pixar-like… shimmery, cartoonish look that Pixar hasn't previously attempted," he writes at Reel Views. They help the movie find "its own identity" in a genre that's visually been "increasingly generic." Pixar is finally out of its rut, he says.
– An immigrant teen held in federal custody in Texas has had the abortion she had been seeking for a month, overcoming the Trump administration's objection. The American Civil Liberties Union said on Twitter that the 17-year-old had the procedure early Wednesday. Susan Hays, legal director for the Texas group Jane's Due Process, confirmed to the AP that the teen had the procedure. The full US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had cleared the way Tuesday for the procedure to take place. Wednesday's news came exactly a month after the teen obtained a state court order permitting her to have an abortion. The teen illegally entered the US in September and learned she was pregnant while in federal custody in Texas. She obtained a state court order permitting an abortion, but federal officials had refused to transport her or temporarily release her so that others could take her for the procedure. Lawyers for the Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for sheltering children who illegally enter the country unaccompanied by a parent, said the department has a policy of "refusing to facilitate" abortions and that releasing the teenager would require arranging a transfer of custody and follow-up care. Where the teen will go next remains unclear.
– Surprise, surprise: Yet another poll, this one by the Washington Post, shows the presidential race to be a statistical dead heat. What about an electoral dead heat? Real Clear Politics crunches the numbers and comes up with several ways that Mitt Romney and President Obama could be tied at 269 electoral votes apiece after the polls close, a result that would require the House to decide the next president. One example, which Erin McPike at RCP calls the most likely way for a tie to happen: Romney claims all of John McCain's states, along with Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, and New Hampshire. But he loses one electoral vote to Obama in Nebraska because of that state's "anomalous way" of allocating its five votes. Voila: 269-269. There are several other ways, or combinations thereof, that yield the same result, "and given shifting dynamics and poll numbers, they aren't as unlikely as one might think," adds McPike.
– If you're planning to visit the town of Ador, Spain, timing is everything. Get there between the hours of 2 and 5pm, and you'll find nothing open and nobody to chat with—they'll likely be snoozing by decree of the mayor. Joan Faus Vitòria has declared the daily siesta to be an official part of the town's day, which seems to be a first-of-its-kind decision in Spain, reports the Local. "Everything closes between 2pm and 5pm," says a spokesman. "Bars, shops, the swimming pool, everything." The mayor even told children to remain indoors during the napping hours so they don't disturb their slumbering elders. So what's the price for disobeying? Nothing, as it turns out, reports UPI. The siesta won't be enforced by actual penalties, says the mayor. But peer pressure might count: The town has an agricultural history, and siestas have long been a traditional way to escape the midday heat of the fields. "Many people here work in the countryside, so it’s very usual to take a long lunch break and have a siesta after eating," says the spokesman. Both stories note studies showing that an afternoon nap can do wonders for a person's health. (It might even help your memory.)
– Between 2010 and 2014, nearly 56 million women around the world got abortions each year—and the World Health Organization has found that almost half of them weren't safe. Per a WHO/Guttmacher Institute study published in the Lancet journal, of those 55.7 million annual abortions, just over 17 million fell into the "less safe" category, either because women used a mostly safe method (such as taking misoprostol pills) but without the guidance of a trained professional, or had a trained provider but used outdated methods. An additional 8 million abortions veered into the "least safe" category, using what the Guardian calls "desperate and dangerous backstreet measures," including everything from "ingestion of caustic substances" to "insertion of foreign bodies." The WHO looked at data from 182 countries and regions and found almost all of the abortions performed in developed countries were safe. In both Africa and Latin America, fewer than one in four abortions were considered safe, with the highest percentage of "least safe" abortions taking place in Africa (especially in the middle of the continent), where almost half of the pregnancy terminations fell into this most-perilous category. Per CNN, unsafe abortions can lead to everything from hemorrhaging and infection to incomplete abortions and even death. "It's sad that there are so many unsafe abortions, when actually the science and technology for ... safe [abortions] ... is very simple," study lead author Dr. Bela Ganatra says, per Time. (A story about Down syndrome in Iceland set off a fierce debate on abortion.)
– Former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown is not letting the Elizabeth Warren Native American controversy go. For those of you who don't remember, Warren's claims of Native American ancestry made waves during the 2012 senate race (she's reportedly only 1/32 Cherokee), and Brown made sure to rail on Warren over the claim often; his supporters edited images of her to include a feather headdress, for example, or called her "Fauxcahontas." (He still lost the race to her anyway.) Brown, who has now endorsed Donald Trump for president, brought the controversy up again Monday in a conference call with reporters that was organized by the Republican National Committee, the Washington Post reports. "As you know, she's not Native American. She's not 1/32 Cherokee. She has no Native American background, except for what her family told her," Brown said, per CNN. "The easy answer, as you all know, is that Harvard and Penn can release those records, she can authorize the release of those records, she can take a DNA test, she can release the records herself. There's never been any effort." He continued to insist that she may have taken teaching jobs away from other non-white applicants: "That took away somebody who truly was a Native American and gave that opportunity to somebody who is not, and that's just not right. It's a reverse form of racism, quite frankly." (Warren had choice words for Trump Monday.)
– Children shouldn't lie to their elders, right? Fair enough, but a new study says the best child liars possess superior verbal working memory skills, the BBC reports. Researchers at the University of Sheffield gathered more than 100 children, ages six and seven, and told them not to peek at answers about a fictitious cartoon character on the back of a card (meanwhile, a hidden camera was on them the whole time), according to a press release. Then researchers questioned the children, spotted the liars, and evaluated their ability to lie in the face of two entrapment questions. The "best" liars fibbed each time, while poor liars did it only once or not at all. Writing in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, researchers say they were most impressed by a child's ability to keep up a strong cover story for any falsehood. In memory tests that followed, the talented liars showed a more powerful working memory with words, but not with pictures. This is likely because covering up for lies involves juggling a lot of verbal information and "keeping the researcher's perspective in mind," a project leader tells the Telegraph. Parents may not want kids to lie, but "when their children are lying well, it means their children are becoming better at thinking and have good memory skills," says developmental psychologist Elena Hoicka. "We already know that adults lie in approximately a fifth of their social exchanges lasting 10 or more minutes, so it's interesting to know why some children are able to tell more porkies than others." One possible surprise from the study: Only 25% of the children cheated by peeking at the answer. (Another recent study found an interesting consequence of lying on Facebook.)
– More than 1,000 troops from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries entered Bahrain today to protect important oil and power facilities, a Saudi official tells the Wall Street Journal. The move comes a day after violent protests rocked Bahrain, notes Reuters, and mostly-Shiite opposition groups are likening it to a declaration of war. “We consider the entry of any soldier or military machinery into the Kingdom of Bahrain's air, sea or land territories a blatant occupation,” said a statement from the opposition, which fears “undeclared war by armed troops.” “The force will work under the directions of the Bahraini government and protect vital facilities like oil and power,” said the Saudi, adding that “Saudi Arabia took part” in the troop deployment because, like Bahrain, “it is a (Gulf Cooperation Council) member and cares about the regional security.” The US has urged “our GCC partners to show restraint and respect the rights of the people of Bahrain.”
– Donald Trump's latest Cabinet pick is Andy Puzder, the CEO of fast-food chains including Hardee's and Carl's Jr., who is widely expected to be named labor secretary, reports the Wall Street Journal. The AP frames the pick as adding "another wealthy business person and elite donor to his Cabinet," while the New York Times reports on Puzder's policy stances, namely that he is an outspoken critic of raising the minimum wage above $9 an hour or expanding overtime protections, and has strongly supported the repeal of ObamaCare and opposed worker protections rolled out by the current administration. "We've reached the point where overregulation is doing meaningful damage to our businesses," he said last month, citing high labor and health care costs, and "political and social" policies. Puzder would mark another notable Cabinet-level pick that Trump plucks from the business community, along with WWE co-founder Linda McMahon at the top of the Small Business Administration and former Goldman Sachs exec Steve Mnuchin as Treasury secretary, notes the AP. A Trump spokesman Wednesday called Puzder "an excellent advocate for the president-elect and his economic message."
– LAPD Sgt. Frank Preciado tells NBC Los Angeles it was "one of the most horrific crime scenes I've seen in a while." Three people were killed and a dozen wounded in a gun battle that broke out shortly after midnight Saturday inside a Los Angeles restaurant. Police believe it started with an argument during a birthday party at a "makeshift restaurant without permits." The Los Angeles Times describes the business—named Dilly's—as a Jamaican restaurant with a DJ and dominoes games operating out of house. Police say three people left Dilly's during the party and came back with guns. They started shooting at another group at the party, and others shot back. Diners were caught in the crossfire. “When we got there, there were three people dead and people running everywhere,” Preciado says, describing a "bloody scene with shell casings everywhere." Approximately 50 people were in the restaurant when the shooting started. "It was just 'pop, pop, pop, pop, pop," a neighbor says. "It didn't stop. It just kept going." Two people of interest have been detained, and police are looking for suspects and witnesses. Some of the wounded are in critical condition. A neighbor tells CBS Los Angeles he was shocked when he heard about the shooting. "Around this area...we don’t really have any problems with anybody," he says. "Everyone knows everyone and we’re all pretty much like family."
– Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos says at least 154 people have been killed after intense rains triggered an avalanche of mud and water from overflowing rivers that swept through a small city, the AP reports. Santos arrived at the disaster zone Saturday, warning the death toll could rise as the search for survivors continues. The incident happened around midnight in Mocoa, a city of 350,000 located near Colombia's border with Ecuador. A surgeon at the local hospital says he believes there are at least 300 people injured and that doctors are running out of blood. Witnesses described feeling buildings vibrate and say there was little time to seek refuge, catching some victims off guard in their sleep.
– Vladimir Putin today gave his annual televised news conference, with his words described as defiant and patriotic. The New York Times calls his message an "acidic" one, noting he gave no indication of backing down—on Ukraine, or in terms of his anger toward the West. As for the economic doom the country is staring down, Putin framed it as temporary, predicting it would end within two years as oil demand and the world economy strengthen; he also assigned 25% of the blame for the ruble's woes to the West's sanctions. Neil MacFarquhar, the Times' Moscow bureau chief, was one of a number of the 1,200 journalists who live-tweeted the three-hour, 10-minute event. He captured this tidbit, among others: " # Putin says he also does not know how much he earns. It arrives (in an envelope?) and he just forwards it to his accountant." More substantial highlights from the event, which featured journalists who waved toy animals in hopes of being selected to ask a question (a bit of color, per the Guardian: A journo brandishing a "green fluffy crocodile" got to ask about Moscow parking fines): One portion of the event getting plenty of press is an elongated metaphor about a bear—real and stuffed. Putin's comments, per the AP and NBC News: "Maybe our bear should sit quietly, not chasing any piglets around, but just eating honey and berries. Maybe they should just leave him alone? They will not. They are trying to put it on a chain. And as soon as they do it they will tear his teeth and claws out." [The teeth and claws are a reference to Russia's nuclear weapons.] "Once they've taken out his claws and his fangs, then the bear is no longer necessary. He'll become a stuffed animal." On Russia's interests, per NBC News: "To chop Texas from Mexico is fair, but when we make decision about our territories it is unfair." "It might be [true], it might be." That's Putin's take on whether the US and Saudi Arabia are secretly conspiring to suppress oil prices to hurt Russia and Iran. Shaun Walker's (of the Guardian) take: "It was pitched middle-of-the-road in all senses, there was lots of rhetoric but no major new policies announced, some conciliatory words about Ukraine but nothing concrete, and the most difficult questions were ducked or avoided. ... His words are unlikely to terrify the market, but probably won’t massively reassure it either."
– At least 4,000 years before the advent of farming, humans were baking bread. Two dozen charred crumbs found in hearths at an ancient hunter-gatherer site in northeastern Jordan have been identified as the world's oldest samples of bread—specifically, a 14,400-year-old flatbread made from wild cereals. That predates the next oldest sample found in Turkey by 5,000 years. Making bread from scratch—including grinding cereals—is labor intensive, note the researchers. "That it was produced before farming methods suggests it was seen as special, and the desire to make more of this special food probably contributed to the decision to begin to cultivate cereals," says Dorian Fuller, one of a team of researchers who discovered the crumbs at the Natufian site of Shubayqa 1 in the Black Desert between 2012 and 2015, reports the Guardian. Described Monday in PNAS, the bread was likely made from wild wheat and barley flour, with ground tubers of a plant called club-rush adding a bitter, nutty flavor, reports the BBC. Combined with water, the mixture is believed to have been baked in ashes or on a hot stone and consumed as part of a feast of gazelle, water birds, and hare, remains of which were also found. Tasting a bit like modern multigrain bread, the flatbread might have even formed part of a meat sandwich. Noting "food remains have long been ignored in archaeology," researcher Amaia Arranz-Otaegui believes similar "bread-like cereal products" perhaps existed 25,000 years ago. Given this "exceptional find," she now hopes to explore how the Natufians' bread production influenced the later agricultural revolution. (Grape wine dates back a long way, too.)
– You've heard of Dow Chemical. You've heard of DuPont. Prepare to forget both as single entities: Assuming regulators give their blessing, the two will merge into one chemical behemoth to be known as DowDuPont. At least for a while. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the plan eventually calls for DowDupont to then split into three smaller companies via tax-free spinoffs. The two existing companies have more than three centuries of history between them, notes the New York Times, and this merger would be the biggest ever in the chemical industry. Once completed, the split into three smaller companies would take another two years or so. "Despite its size and complexity, the deal could overcome antitrust concerns with modest divestitures," observes a story at Bloomberg that rounds up analyst reaction. "The product overlap isn’t extensive and the focus will probably be on seeds and crop chemicals," according to one of them. And in that area, the new entity would be going up against other giants such as Monsanto. Dow now employs 53,000 and DuPont 63,000, though layoffs are expected at both companies as part of the deal.
– The immense power that Donald Trump's tweets now carry was brought home Tuesday morning, when he tweeted a complaint about "out of control" costs for Boeing's new 747 Air Force One jets, saying "Cancel order!"—a move that caused Boeing's stock to fall around 1%, or nearly $2 a share, in early trading. The Washington Post reports that the Trump tweet came just minutes after the Chicago Tribune posted a story in which Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg strongly criticized anti-free trade rhetoric during the 2016 campaign, and the timing suggests Trump may have "tanked Boeing's stock because he was mad about a news article." The Post notes that the last time Trump "tweeted an out-of-the-blue opinion, about flag-burning, it was immediately after a Fox News segment showing students burning flags." Trump claimed that the cost of the Air Force One deal had soared to "more than $4 billion," though both Boeing and the White House said his numbers were off. "We are currently under contract for $170 million to determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serve the unique requirements of the President of the United States," Boeing said in a statement. "We look forward to working with the US Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the President at the best value for the American taxpayer." MarketWatch reports that Boeing stock recovered after the company's comment and finished the day slightly ahead of where it had been before Trump's tweet.
– The 50-year-old nanny accused of fatally stabbing two young siblings in her care had been on a downward spiral in recent months, losing weight, worried about money, and growing increasingly withdrawn, according to accounts by friends and family to the media. But Yoselyn Ortega, who remains in an induced coma after trying to kill herself, seemed to have no problems with the family she worked for. "They treated her like family," the victims' grandmother tells the Daily News: New York Post: “She looked very unhealthy," says one of her neighbors. "It looked like she was going through some problems. She had aged a lot—like seven years in a few months.” New York Times: "She was unraveling," is the story's first sentence. Ortega, a Dominican who has been a US citizen for a decade, shared an apartment with her son, sister, and niece, and her sister told a friend that Ortega felt lately like "she was losing her mind." The family took her to a psychologist. Daily News: Ortega sold cosmetics on the side to try to make extra money. “She had said that someone owed her 100 or 200 dollars for makeup she sold,” says one neighbor. “She said, ‘Someone owes me money. Pray for me.’”
– A Taco Bell executive has been fired for allegedly assaulting an Uber driver—with the whole thing caught on video. Identified by police as Benjamin Golden, 32, the passenger can be seen on a dashcam video riding in the car of Uber driver Edward Caban in Costa Mesa, Calif., on Friday night, CNBC reports. But the guy appears too drunk to give coherent directions, prompting Caban to pull over and kick him out. "You're too drunk to give me directions, man," Caban says. "Get out of my car or I will call the police." The passenger opens the door from the back seat when he says, "Lemme tell you something, you little s--t" and repeatedly slaps and punches Caban and pulls his hair. Caban retaliates by spraying something in the man's face (reported as Mace or pepper spray) and pursues him out into the street. "The only way that I felt I was going to get him to stop beating me was to incapacitate him, was to use some kind of self-defense," Caban tells CBS News. "I don't believe he would have stopped." Now Golden is facing charges, including public intoxication and assault on a cab driver, and lost his job as a Taco Bell senior marketing manager. "Given the behavior of the individual, it is clear he can no longer work for us," a Taco Bell rep tells Adweek. "We have also offered and encouraged him to seek professional help." As for Caban, Fusion reports that he plans to look for another job. (An NYPD officer got caught on video losing it against an Uber driver.)
– A new threat to the Galapagos Islands "could unleash a disaster," say officials: a cargo ship. At Galapagos officials' urging, Ecuador (which owns the islands) yesterday declared an environmental emergency there after a ship ran aground last Friday. The 19,000 gallons of cargo fuel the Galapaface 1 had been transporting have been removed from it, but dangers persist in the form of nasty pollutants like motor oil and cleaning products still aboard the ship; the Wall Street Journal puts the amount of pollutants aboard at about 1,100 tons. The ship is stranded off San Cristobal island, where it's blocked by sand and rocks that cracked its hull, reports the AFP; the vessel may sink. In declaring an emergency, "the Risk Management Secretariat will be able to directly carry out the purchase of goods, the procurement of services, and the work that are required to overcome this emergency," Ecuador said in a statement, though it gave no indication of how long it would take to remove the ship. And as the BBC notes, authorities have reason to worry: An oil tanker that spilled fuel while stranded off the coast of one of the islands in 2001 essentially destroyed the marine iguana population. (In more positive Galapagos news, scientists have managed to save Darwin's finches using cotton balls.)
– The father of fashion models Bella and Gigi Hadid has been fined and given community service for illegally building a gigantic mansion in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times reports that real estate developer Mohamed Hadid was sentenced Thursday to 200 hours of service, fined $3,000, and ordered to pay the city more than $14,000 to cover building department costs. Hadid pleaded no contest in May to misdemeanor charges for building portions of a 30,000-square-foot mansion in Bel Air without obtaining proper permits, reports the AP. The Times explains that the house's height and size were in excess of what the city permits, and neighbors have complained that the structure has destabilized the hillside it sits on. Hadid has also been ordered to employ an engineer to develop a plan to stabilize the land; if that can't be done, the house may have to be razed, at an estimated cost of $1 million. Authorities say bedrooms, decks, supporting walls, and even an IMAX theater were built illegally. The city halted construction three years ago and the home remains unfinished. Hadid's attorney, Robert Shapiro, said after sentencing that Hadid is interested in bringing the home into compliance and completing it.
– A man attacked a bus driver, stole the bus, then struck and killed a pedestrian after the bus jumped a curb at a gas station Tuesday in Washington, DC, police said. The man boarded the bus and eventually got up from his seat and attacked the driver with what appeared to be a screwdriver or needle-nose pliers, reports NBC Washington. Passengers fled, and the driver hit the emergency button before getting off himself, said Police Chief Cathy Lanier, per the AP. The man shut the door and drove off, but as the bus pulled into a gas station parking lot, it went over a curb and hit the pedestrian, who was killed. The man who stole the bus appeared distraught and was violent as officers took him into custody, said Lanier. "It was a bizarre incident," she noted. The string of events took place over just three minutes, with the gas station just five blocks from where the man boarded the bus. Metro officials tweeted that the bus driver was hurt but that his injuries were not life-threatening. They say passengers on the bus were not injured.
– The group had gathered on the porch of a home in Dyersburg, Tenn., on Thursday to celebrate a 2-year-old's birthday with balloons, a birthday cake, and a highchair. Then shots rang out. Authorities say up to three assailants on foot opened fire on the party around 6:20pm Thursday, killing the mother of the 2-year-old and wounding six others, reports the State Gazette. Shanice Amerson, 21, was pronounced dead at the scene while two victims, including a 6-year-old boy, were airlifted to hospitals in Memphis, per ABC News and WMC. Others were being treated at a hospital in Dyersburg. Neighbors suggest the shooting may have been gang-related, per Fox 13. Police say they have identified one person of interest, but no arrests have been made. "Innocent kids got hurt for no reason and I am scared to death that they haven't caught anyone," says a neighbor who assisted the victims at the scene, where a large poster of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck was hung. Police say they received a call about people flashing guns from one or two vehicles in the area in the hours before the shooting, but no guns were found during traffic stops.
– A New York priest was removed from his parish home Friday evening after police allegedly found meth and child pornography inside, the New York Daily News reports. Acting on a tip, police conducted a search of Father Christopher King's home at St. James of Jerusalem Episcopal Church in Long Island. Police say the 51-year-old vicar had multiple files of child pornography on his computer, as well as meth and Xanax. According to News 12 Long Island, King was booked into jail and faces five counts of possessing a sexual performance by a child and two counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance.
– After President Trump refused to recertify Iran's compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said it was a "waste [of] time to respond to the rants and whoppers of the foul-throated president of the United States." But the country's supreme leader had more to say in response Thursday, when he declared America "the number one enemy of our nation," Reuters reports. "The American president's foolish remarks against our people show the depth of America's hostility towards the entire Iranian nation," he said in a televised speech. "We will never accept their bullying over the nuclear deal ... Americans are using all the wickedness to damage the result of the nuclear talks." The US is the only one of the signatories of the multinational nuclear deal refusing to recertify, and the UN on Sunday confirmed Iran is still adhering to the deal, which lifted most sanctions in exchange for Tehran cutting back on its development of its nuclear program. The other signatories say even withdrawal by the US—which is up to Congress—would not cancel the international accord, but Iran has warned of consequences if the deal does crumble. "Any retreat by Iran will make America more blatant and impudent," Khamenei said Thursday. "Resistance is the only option." His speech comes a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed support for the deal during a visit to Iran, the AP reports. Khamenei told Putin during that visit that Iran and Russia must work together toward Middle East stability and isolate the US, Reuters reports.
– When North Korea imprisoned American tourist Jeffrey Fowle, it accused him of planting a Bible in a bid to spread Christianity. A family spokesperson denied at the time that he was on a religious mission, but now that he's free, Fowle admits that Pyongyang was right. "I did, I knew I was going against the laws of the DPRK," the Ohio resident tells the Cincinnati Enquirer. "Having seen the plight of the people, I knew about the severe Christian persecution. I wanted to help them." The 56-year-old says he left the Bible in a public bathroom under a trash bin. The next day, a tour guide asked the group if anyone had left anything behind, and Fowle, whose name was on the Bible, raised his hand. He got detained two days later at the airport in Pyongyang and remained in custody for nearly six months. "I knew it was a risk, that I was taking a gamble, but I felt compelled to do that to aid the underground church in some small way," Fowle tells the AP in a separate interview. The married father of three is back to work Monday with the streets department in the city of Moraine. The city paid him during his absence, but his bosses have made clear that he'll lose his job if does something like this again. Two Americans remain detained in North Korea: Matthew Miller and Kenneth Bae.
– A familiar name in Congress won't be returning. Republican Dana Rohrabacher has lost his seat in Orange County, California, to Democrat Harley Rouda after serving almost 30 years. The AP called the race Saturday, with Rouda at 52% and up by about 8,500 votes. The 71-year-old Rohrabacher is a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan whose pro-Russian views in recent years have earned him the derisive nickname of "Putin's favorite congressman," notes Politico. (Rohrabacher said Putin once beat him in a drunken arm-wrestling contest.) Rohrabacher also has been one of the few Republicans pushing for legal marijuana, notes the Wall Street Journal. The victory by Rouda in a once traditionally red district (it was home to Richard Nixon) will help Democrats solidify their majority in the new Congress.
– This is your brain on videogames: The brains of hardcore gamers are wired differently than those who rarely play video games, according to a new study. Researchers who scanned the brains of more than 150 14-year-olds found that the brain's "reward hub"—which plays a role in addiction—was bigger in frequent gamers, as it is in gambling addicts, the Los Angeles Times reports. The researchers couldn't determine whether gaming changed the brain, or whether having a certain brain structure made people likelier to enjoy gaming. The results are "really provocative, because this is a central hub in the brain's motivational system and dopamine pathway," a researcher at Cambridge's department of experimental psychology tells Reuters. "The burning question is whether the structural difference is a change caused by the frequent game play, or whether individual differences in this system naturally dispose some people to more excessive play," he says. "For teenagers, parents, and clinicians to make sense of this finding, we need research monitoring brain structure over time."
– "I think we hit a home run," President Trump told a crowd of US service members at an Italian military base on Saturday as he wrapped up his whirlwind first trip abroad. "Maybe I'll stay down with you and celebrate together," he joked, per CNN, which notes that Trump called the trip "tremendously productive," "historic," and said of his peers on the world stage that "we made a lot of good friends this week." Air Force One touched down on US soil at 9pm Saturday night carrying the president and first lady, and the New York Times details some of the crises awaiting his attention, in particular reports that son-in-law Jared Kushner was in contact with Russians during the campaign. A look around the assessments of the trip: CNN compiles video highlights from the trip. The Washington Post calls him "alternately charming and boorish," but calls it "the role of a lifetime" for Trump. The AP delves into the disparity between the optics and imagery of the trip, which were conventional, and the rhetoric, which was not. The Hill has five takeaways from the trip, including the lecture he gave NATO. Politico also have five takeaways, and notes that the president seems more comfortable in one-on-one exchanges than in large summits.
– Community service is never glamorous, but for Lindsay Lohan, paying her debt to society is going to be especially gruesome: The actress will be doing part of her community service—120 hours, to be exact—at the LA County Department of Coroner, reports People. "She won't be handling any dead bodies, but she'll certainly see them," says a coroner's official. "She'll be doing basic janitorial work." People notes that it's not the first trip to the morgue for LiLo: She completed a DUI morgue program after she was convicted of drunk driving in 2007. Click to see where else she'll be completing her service hours.
– First, there were Google Street View cars. But cars can't go everywhere, so next came Google's Trekker, a big contraption worn like a backpack that snaps photos off the beaten path. What's next? Think smaller. GeekWire reports that the company just scored a new patent: "It’s a walking stick with embedded cameras and location sensors, and a switch at the bottom that causes the device to snap pictures whenever the stick hits the ground." It can also be applied to canes, crutches, and things like trekking poles. No word on when the invention might go into production/be put to wide use. While plenty of privacy-loving hikers might hope "never," Ray Willington at Hot Hardware has a different take. If Google is "investing production resources on Glass, surely it could do the same here," he writes. "Imagine being able to map out places of thousands of walkers at once; suddenly, the global mapping task would seem a lot less daunting."
– Note to air traffic controllers: Watching a DVD at work may help to keep you awake, but ultimately it's not much better than napping. A controller in Oberlin, Ohio, learned that lesson the hard way early Sunday, when his microphone was accidentally activated and began transmitting the audio from the Samuel L. Jackson thriller Cleaner to all the planes in his airspace for more than three minutes. The controller and a manager have been suspended, the AP reports. Because his microphone was stuck in the transmit position, the controller was unable to give instructions to planes or hear incoming radio calls during the three minutes. A military pilot alerted officials to the problem. The Wall Street Journal notes that, according to the FAA, the controller brought his own personal DVD player to work with him. This marks the eighth suspension this year related to controllers or supervisors failing to respond while on the job; click to see what the government is doing about it.
– Whitey Bulger is going home after 16 years on the lam. The 81-year-old mob fugitive appeared in court today with girlfriend Catherine Greig. Both waived their right to a hearing, meaning they will soon be transported back to Boston to face charges. Bulger, considered the model for Jack Nicholson's character in the Departed, seemed relaxed in court, reports CNN. Asked by the judge whether he had read the charges against him, Bulger said, "I got them all here. It will take me quite a while to finish these. But I know them all pretty well.” (They include multiple counts of murder; Greig is charged with harboring a fugitive.) Other developments: FBI agents found $800,000 in cash and about 30 weapons in the apartment Bulger and Greig shared quietly in Santa Monica for about 15 years, reports the Los Angeles Times. A neighbor tells the paper she thought Bulger had dementia. "They were a handsome couple, but they were kind of mysterious," another neighbor tells the AP. Boston's WCVB has a photo of a smiling Bulger.
– Casey Anthony's mother had an emotional day on the witness stand today, crying throughout her testimony and at one point asking the judge to remove a photo of Caylee from her view, reports ABC News. She recounted the lies her daughter told to explain the girl's disappearance, with Casey sometimes claiming the girl was with a (nonexistent) nanny or with Casey at her (nonexistent) job. Cindy Anthony also testified that Caylee could not have reached a back-yard pool on her own and that she always removed a ladder the girl used when they were done swimming, note the Orlando Sentinel and AP. (That could shoot a hole in the defense team's claims that Caylee drowned in the pool.) One of Casey Anthony's ex-boyfriends also testified today, and he detailed texts he received from her. "If they don't find her guess who gets blamed and spends eternity in jail?" read one.
– Some think the shady political memes, questionable quotes, and links to eyebrow-raising stories that proliferated on social media throughout the election may have had a significant impact on the actual outcome of the election. Except for someone who happens to know social media pretty well. "Personally I think the idea that fake news on Facebook, which is a very small amount of the content, influenced the election in any way—I think [it's] a pretty crazy idea," Mark Zuckerberg shrugged Thursday, per the Verge. "Voters make decisions based on their lived experience." And the Facebook chief—speaking at the Techonomy conference in Half Moon Bay, Calif., per Forbes—laid out a few reasons for why he feels this way. He cited a "profound lack of empathy" by those who insist other people voted only because of fake news. "If you believe that, then I don't think you have internalized the message the Trump supporters are trying to send in this election," he said, per the Verge. He also noted there were fake, misleading, or inaccurate Hillary Clinton-leaning articles as well on social media (though a BuzzFeed probe from October found nearly double the number of iffy posts on "hyperpartisan" right-wing sites than on left-wing ones). Zuckerberg also denied Facebook's algorithm creates an "echo chamber" that puts roadblocks up to receiving a diverse mix of information. One "hard truth" he did acknowledge: People just don't click on articles that appear to conflict with their own beliefs. "We just tune out [and] I don't know what to do about that," he admitted.
– Federal Reserve officials voted Wednesday to raise a key, short term interest rate for the third time this year, the AP reports. Investors largely expected an increase in the federal funds rate—the interest that banks charge each other—based off public statements by Fed officials. The benchmark overnight lending rate was increased by a quarter of a percentage point, to a range of 2% to 2.25%, Reuters reports. That's up from a level of near-zero between the end of 2008 and late 2015. The higher range points to an improving US economy with inflation staying near the Fed's target of 2%. The vote to raise rates was 9 to 0. In their statement announcing the decision and marking the end of the "accommodative" monetary policy era, Fed officials removed a sentence in prior statements that said its interest rate policy was supporting a strong job market and a return to 2% inflation. By eliminating that statement, they're suggesting that those goals are now within reach and that rate hikes will likely continue, per the AP. Federal Reserve policymakers expect to hike rates one more time this year, three times next year, and only once in 2020, the same as they forecast in June. That would put the rate at 3.4% by 2020, about half a percentage point above the estimated "neutral" rate at which interest rates don't restrict or stimulate the economy.
– "Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine." Those are among the last words Leonard Cohen wrote to the woman who inspired his songs So Long, Marianne and Bird on the Wire. Marianne Ihlen, known as Cohen's muse, died in Norway on July 29 at 81 years old, the Guardian reports. It was Ihlen's friend, Jan Christian Mollestad, who informed Cohen late last month that she was dying of leukemia. Within two hours, Mollestad tells the CBC, a letter from Cohen arrived. "We brought it to her the next day and she was fully conscious," he says, "and she was so happy that he had already written something for her." Two days later, Ihlen "lost consciousness and slipped into death." In the letter, Cohen tells Ihlen that he always loved her wisdom and beauty, "but I don't need to say anything more about that because you know all about that. But now, I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road." The pair met on the Greek Island of Hydra in the 60s, per Rolling Stone, and ended up staying together for seven years after Cohen invited Ihlen and her young son to live with him in Montreal. A post on Cohen's Facebook page says Ihlen's death has "evoked an overwhelming response from those who knew Marianne well, those who knew her only as Leonard Cohen's muse, and even those who previously didn't know there was a real Marianne." In an accompanying post, Mollestad writes that, "In her last hour I held her hand and hummed Bird on the Wire."
– The former Uber driver accused of killing six people during a shooting rampage in Kalamazoo has been cleared to stand trial. A judge ruled Friday that Jason Dalton is mentally competent after she received the results of a psychological exam that found he understands the charges and can assist with his defense. As the Detroit News notes, the exam only declares him mentally fit now and does not prevent him from claiming he was temporarily insane at the time of the shooting spree in February. In a press conference after Friday's competency hearing, the county prosecutor said no plea deal will be offered to Dalton, WOOD-TV reports.
– De Beers' diamonds won't come exclusively from mines anymore. In a significant about-face, the company announced Tuesday it is getting into the synthetic diamond game with Lightbox, its new man-made diamond brand that will offer full carat stones from roughly $800 beginning in September. That price point is essentially the point: While one of De Beers' genuine one carat diamonds costs about $8,000, Bloomberg reports similar lab-made ones currently run about $4,000. That means synthetics made by De Beers' rivals (among them Warren Buffett's Helzberg's Diamond Shops and Leonardo DiCaprio-funded Diamond Foundry) will be extremely expensive in comparison and the gulf between synthetic and real prices will widen, making the two categories more distinct. CNN notes it's a big change for a company whose execs had pledged to never sell lab-grown stones; it even created a machine whose purpose is rooting out such fakes. It justified the change by citing consumer demand, with CEO Bruce Cleaver calling Lightbox "affordable fashion jewelry that may not be forever, but is perfect for right now." He called a spade a spade: "Lab grown are not special, they're not real, they’re not unique. You can make exactly the same one again and again." Lightbox's GM similarly painted the stones as low-brow in comments to the Washington Post: "This is something you might buy for a best friend or for a Sweet 16." The diamonds will be available in white, pink, and blue and made in a facility in Portland, Ore., that De Beers plans to sink nearly $100 million into.
– If Megan Rapinoe had planned to take a knee during the national anthem in her Wednesday night game against the Washington Spirit, the owner of that women's soccer team effectively squelched that plan. Per the Washington Post, Spirit owner Bill Lynch, an Air Force veteran, made sure the anthem was played at Maryland SoccerPlex only after his team and Rapinoe's Seattle Reign FC headed to the locker room after warmups, a preemptive strike against Rapinoe's anticipated repeat of her protest at a Sunday night game (a show of support for the 49ers' QB Colin Kaepernick). "We understand this may be seen as an extraordinary step, but believe it was the best option to avoid taking focus away from the game on such an important night for our franchise," the Spirit said in a statement, referencing its last regular-season home game that could help earn it a first-place slot. The statement went on to say that although Rapinoe is "an amazing individual with a huge heart," the Spirit didn't want her "hijacking" the game for her "personal—albeit worthy—cause," nor to "subject our fans and friends to the disrespect we feel such an act would represent." Rapinoe, for her part, said after the game she was "saddened" by the song subterfuge and called it "f---ing unbelievable" and "incredibly distasteful, four days before [the anniversary of] one of the worst tragedies in our country, to say I tried to hijack this event." One other person not aware in advance of the Spirit's plans, per the Post: National Women's Soccer League Commissioner Jeff Plush, who says he was "disappointed" by Lynch's move. Meanwhile, Rapinoe's team issued its own statement that said it will "continue to encourage" its players to take part in any pre-game ceremonies, but that they're free to do so "in a manner consistent with their personal beliefs." (More Rapinoe reaction in the Post.)
– If you've ever glared at the back of a co-worker's head as he or she left the office on a smoke break, wondering why you don't get to just take breaks from work whenever you want, you'll applaud a Japanese company's recent decision. Piala Inc., a Tokyo-based marketing firm, introduced a policy last month granting six extra paid holidays per year to non-smoking employees to make up for the cigarette breaks of employees who do smoke. It all started when a non-smoker used the company suggestion box to complain about smoking breaks, a spokesperson tells the Telegraph. "Our CEO saw the comment and agreed, so we are giving non-smokers some extra time off to compensate," the spokesperson explains. Smoke breaks are particularly time-consuming at the company—about 15 minutes each—because smokers must travel from the office on the 29th floor to the basement. So far, 25% of the employees have taken days off under the new policy—and, at least according to the spokesperson, four people have quit smoking as a result of the policy. Kyodo News says in Japan, where 21.7% of adults are estimated to smoke, more companies are starting to attempt to rein in the practice, with one company going so far as to ban smoking during work hours. (Here's what happens when packs of cigarettes cost $1 more.)
– Ahead of last night's State of the Union Address, a Republican congressman tweeted his thoughts on the president: "On floor of house waitin on 'Kommandant-In-Chef' [sic] ... the Socialistic dictator who's been feeding US a line or is it 'A-Lying?'" Texas Rep. Randy Weber's office has confirmed the authenticity of the tweet, the Huffington Post notes. The first-term congressman later added, per the Washington Post, "SOTU = Sorry Our Time's Up. POTUS = Poor Obama Trashed US. We shouldn't be surprised. He promised to 'fundamentally change US' Boy is he?!" Weber was elected in 2012, taking over Ron Paul's spot in Congress. If his name still isn't ringing a bell, the Huffington Post points to this description of him, from a July 2013 National Journal profile: "Freshman aims to be the next Republican troublemaker, if only someone would pay attention."
– The United Nations had already called the separations of immigrant children from their parents at the US border "arbitrary and unlawful," and now the intergovernmental group is labeling them something else: possible torture. Per the Independent, the UN's human rights arm issued a statement Friday noting that the executive order President Trump signed Wednesday to address the issue of the separations didn't go far enough, notably in reuniting children who've already been pulled away from their parents. "We call on the Government of the US to release these children from immigration detention and to reunite them with their families based on the best interests of the child, and the rights of the child to liberty and family unity," the experts cited in the statement say. The best interests of the child, those experts add, aren't being served by separating them from their parents, especially kids who have special needs or are still breastfeeding. "Detention of children is punitive, severely hampers their development, and in some cases may amount to torture," the experts say. "Children are being used as a deterrent to irregular migration, which is unacceptable." Other concerns include that asylum seekers may not be getting a fair shake in applying for help, and that messy red tape means it may be difficult, if not impossible, to reunite all the separated families. The UN experts also aren't on board with keeping families together but detained. "While family unity needs to be preserved at all costs, it cannot be done at the expense of detaining entire families with children," the experts note. "Family-based alternatives to deprivation of liberty must be adopted urgently."
– Danielle Herrington is the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover model for 2018. The magazine revealed its swimsuit edition cover Tuesday. Herrington is the third black woman to appear on the cover of the annual issue that launched in 1964, the AP reports. Beyonce appeared on the cover in 2007, while Tyra Banks was the cover model in 1996 and 1997. Herrington first appeared in the magazine's swimsuit issue last year. SI details the ruse used to reveal the big news to Herrington: Staff lured her to a studio for what she thought would be a virtual reality shoot, only to be told the real reason for her visit by Banks herself. Herrington only started her modeling career last year, SI notes. "Danielle was a shy girl, who went from taking her first photos last year to showing up this year a completely different person," says MJ Day, the Swimsuit Issue's editor. "All the good things about her seemed to be magnified." Day notes, however, that even though the issue was conceived and shot before the #MeToo movement heated up last fall, it's about more than just women in swimsuits. Day says the magazine is "creating and giving platforms to these women" and presenting them as multidimensional people. See the emotional moment when the 24-year-old Herrington finds out she's the one at Sports Illustrated, or find out more about her at People.
– If you've ever spent much time in Philadelphia, you've probably heard the word "jawn." But what does it mean? Local news station CBS 3 asked just that in February, and Atlas Obscura digs even deeper with local linguist Taylor Jones to get to the bottom of the "enduring mystery." Turns out that part of what makes the word so tricky to explain, and thus replicate elsewhere, is its nebulous nature—because "jawn" appears to be unlike any other word in any language, and is a stand-in for pretty much any noun, even abstract ones. As Atlas Obscura puts it, "It is a completely acceptable statement in Philadelphia to ask someone to 'remember to bring that jawn to the jawn.'" But its incredible flexibility means it's not always used in a flattering way. Think "side jawn," or a person someone is, ahem, seeing on the side. Unfortunately for many native Philadelphians, the closest word linguists have found in the evolution of "jawn" appears to be "joint," which has its roots in New York when Bronx hip hop group Funky Four Plus One released hit single "That’s The Joint" in 1981. "Sigh," laments the blog Philebrity. "Can't we just have one thing that is truly our own? Besides cheesesteaks and shame that is." Philadelphia magazine, meanwhile, notes that the word made an "extended appearance" in Creed last year, and that it's far from dead: "I base this on anecdotal evidence, but it's pretty strong: All of my girlfriend's students at a middle school in Chester use it frequently." Still confused? So are the commenters on this Jezebel thread, one of whom asks: "So it’s like 'smurf'? I've smurfed the smurf into the smurf and now the smurf is smurfing and crying on the floor. But with jawn. Something like that?" (Have you heard how Norwegians use the word "Texas"?)
– First, the requisite "spoilers ahead" warning. If you've watched last night's episode, the series' Season 5 finale, you'll want to next read Entertainment Weekly's interview with Kit Harington (Jon Snow), or, at least, our excerpt of it. Vanity Fair's headline sums up what countless other publications are this morning asking: "Is This Really the Last We'll See of Jon Snow?" He's stabbed Julius Caesar-style by members of the Night's Watch, and the season ends with his apparent death. Or not so apparent, but crystal-clear, he tells EW. Here's part of the key exchange: EW: "I was talking to [showrunner] Dan Weiss and he said Jon is really dead. But George R.R. Martin left open the possibility the character might not be dead in the books. ... So let me ask you: Is Jon really dead?" Harington: "This is my understanding of it. I had a sit-down with Dan and David, we did the Tony Soprano walk [letting an actor know they're being whacked]. And they said, 'Look, you're gone, it's done.' ... But I've been told I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm not coming back next season. So that's all I can tell you, really." But Harington's words don't stop Joanna Robinson from asking in Vanity Fair if it's really, really the end of Jon Snow. She writes that the show's scene pretty closely mirrors the one that occurred in A Dance With Dragons, the fifth (and last-to-be-published thus far) book in the series, meaning "the only difference between you show watchers and us book readers ... is we've had four years ... to think of creative ways to bring back Jon Snow." She runs down a few of those creative ways here, including a popular one that's popping up in most articles: that Melisandre believes he's Azor Ahai and could resurrect him. Wait, what? More on that and the reasons why he might not be dead (the last word he uttered in the books, that we still need to unravel the mystery of his parentage) here, and here.
– It's a good thing Newt Gingrich didn't like that pesky old mainstream media anyway, because the print media has pulled its last embedded reporters from Gingrich's flailing campaign, reports Politico, which employed one of the last two reporters dedicated to covering the candidate. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was the other; the AP pulled its reporter after Tuesday's primary in Illinois. Television reporters will apparently remain. Gingrich is undeterred, today telling CNN "I think this is not over until it's over," and calling Mitt Romney "the weakest frontrunner in modern times." Continued Gingrich: "If he can't get to 1,144, on 26th of June, it will be a wide open primary at that point. If Romney can't clinch it, I think it becomes pretty wide open."
– A coroner says a woman who collapsed at the end of a half marathon in Pennsylvania died of an internal hemorrhage, the AP reports. The Scranton Times-Tribune reports that the Lackawanna County coroner said Monday that 36-year-old Lindsay Doherty died of intra-abdominal bleeding. The married mother of three collapsed at the end of Sunday's 13.1-mile Scranton Half Marathon. Emergency medical personnel tried to revive her at the race before she was taken to a hospital. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton says Doherty worked in its development office, raising money for Catholic education. A special prayer service was scheduled Monday night at St. Paul's Parish in Scranton. The Scranton resident had run the half marathon the previous year.
– Saturday Night Live opened this weekend with a sketch parodying Fox News (catch highlights here)—but the show had planned a spoof of President Obama, the Daily Caller reports. The ditched sketch featured regular Obama impersonator Fred Armisen taking a lot of credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden. "I hope you had a safe and joyous first anniversary of his killing," Armisen was scripted to say. "Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to be at home this year." That's because "I had to fly to Afghanistan to remind President Karzai that, exactly one year ago, we killed Osama bin Laden, and that the decision to do so was a gutsy one. And was mine." The blog notes that it's "not clear why the skit was scrapped." Still, let's get ready for "another round of election-year fine whine about the long-running comedy show," Mediaite suggests, full of "bleating about pro-Obama bias."
– Expectations were slightly upended with today's release of the June jobs report: Most predictions had the unemployment rate ticking down from 7.6% to 7.5%, with somewhere in the neighborhood of 160,000 jobs created. That latter figure turned out to be 195,000 jobs—and yet the jobless rate held steady at 7.6%, reports the Wall Street Journal. Writing for the Journal, Paul Vigna calls out one interesting bit in the report: May's jobs were revised from 175,000 to 195,000. "That's two months in a row of 195,000, which is near enough to 200,000 to constitute an interesting trend." Also writing for the Journal, Michael Derby doesn't see the report as having much of an impact on the Federal Reserve. He writes, "The labor market continues its slow improvement, but we are still some distance from the 7% mark Fed officials say will likely coincide with them ending the bond-buying program."
– One sheriff's deputy was killed and two others were injured during a shooting in the "picturesque town" of Bailey, Colorado, on Wednesday morning, the AP reports. The suspect was also killed by deputies returning fire, the Denver Channel reports. One of the deputies who was shot has life-threatening injuries, according to the Denver Post. 9News identified the deceased deputy as Nate Carrigan, who had been with the Park County Sheriff's Office for 12 years. A Colorado Bureau of Investigation spokesperson says the resident of the home, Martin Wirth, was armed with a rifle and attacked the deputies. The Post says Wirth was an Occupy Denver activist who faced foreclosure after defaulting on the house in 2013, and notes that the Colorado Foreclosure Resistance Coalition had called for a "non-violent eviction resistance" for Wirth, who "has been an invaluable part of Occupy Denver from the very early days." Wirth also ran for Colorado senate in 2014—the same year Fannie Mae took control of his home—as a member of the Green Party, losing to a Republican incumbent.
– It wasn't that difficult for cops to track down two suspects after an Oklahoma man called in a robbery attempt on Friday: one suspect was the victim's ex-girlfriend, while the other sported face tattoos that are hard to miss, the Tulsa World reports. The unnamed victim told cops his ex, Sonja Moro, and a man demanded money from him at knifepoint inside his Tulsa apartment. The man left after the victim handed over his wallet, and Moro, who lingered behind to ask for more money, fled when the victim said he was going to call 911, per the police report. But in addition to knowing it was his own former flame who had robbed him, the victim thought he had heard the male suspect's name was Terry, NewsOn6.com reports. Plus he had gotten a good look at the male suspect, who happened to have horns tattooed on his forehead, a pair of lips on one cheek, and the words "F--- Cops" over his eyebrows. Police arrested Moro, said to be 29 or 30, and Paul Terry, 26 or 27, the next night, per the Smoking Gun. Moro is being held on $50,000 bond for armed robbery, while Terry, who has a previous felony conviction under his belt, is being held on $100,000 bond. (Terry isn't the first suspect to be IDed by his tats.)
– A young professional surfer is dead after venturing into waves generated by Hurricane Irma. Zander Venezia, 16, was surfing on the east coast of Barbados on Tuesday when he ran into trouble with a closeout set—a wave that breaks all at once so that a surfer doesn't have a clear line through it. The wave sent Venezia barreling into the "shallow, rocky bottom" of Cattlewash Beach, where he was afterward found "bleeding and unresponsive," report Surfline and Nation News. Fellow surfers got Venezia to shore and performed CPR, but although the teen was reportedly breathing when he arrived at a hospital, he didn't recover. Initial reports suggested he broke his neck, though Surfline notes an autopsy revealed he drowned. A Barbados native, Venezia was among several pro surfers who ventured out in search of giant waves resulting from Hurricane Irma. His last words were, "'I just got the best wave of my life!,'" per a surf instructor. "Then that next closeout set came through." Loop News reports a high surf advisory was in effect in Barbados on Tuesday, with swells expected to reach up to 13 feet. People were "strongly advised to stay well away from the water" because of the "large battering waves and dangerous rip-currents," the site noted. Venezia, who became a champion youth surfer in Barbados at age 11, was due to compete in the Rip Curl GromSearch National Championship in California next month after winning a qualifying event in August, reports Surfer.
– A Fourth of July hike to see waterfalls near Grand Lake, Okla., took a bad turn once Jo Rogers and her husband, Keith, got home. Soon after their return, Keith tells ABC News, Jo didn't feel well and suspected the flu. But as Jo got sicker and so lethargic that Keith says "she wasn't making any sense," he took her to the ER about a week after they came home—and things continued to worsen. "She was shaking her hands because they hurt, her feet hurt," her cousin, Lisa Morgan, tells KOCO. Then her organs began shutting down, and "by Saturday morning, her arms and feet were turning dark blue and black. It was crawling up her limbs," Morgan says. The diagnosis: a tick bite that infected Jo with Rocky Mountain spotted fever. The course of treatment: to amputate all four of her already-gangrenous limbs to give her a chance at life. "They had to cut off her right leg just above the knee, her left leg just below the knee and both her arms about mid-forearm," her husband tells ABC, noting Jo has also been contending with other complications from the disease, including blood clots in her lungs that called for a tracheotomy. Up to 5% people who contract RMSF end up dying, the state Department of Health notes, but death isn't common in patients who receive rapid diagnosis and treatment. Keith Rogers doesn't know how long his wife will be in the hospital receiving treatment and rehab, he tells ABC. "Every day is a new challenge. I go in there, sit and talk to her and show her pictures of how our two boys [ages 12 and 17, per a GoFundMe page for the family] are doing," he tells ABC. "I show her videos of her two dogs back at home. I try to keep it normal, but it gets very hard because she'll want me not to leave, and it's so hard because I can't take her with me." (There's another new tick-borne disease making waves.)
– A Chinese vase found by an English family in the attic has sold for $69 million at auction, the Telegraph reports. A brother and sister from Middlesex found it while cleaning out their deceased parents' house. "It is a masterpiece," says one expert, a perfect example of a rare design dating from the Qianlong period of about 1740. The auctioneer Bainbridges figured the vase would sell for about $1.6 million, but a frenzied bidding war between what were assumed to be prominent Chinese businessmen pushed the value into the stratosphere over the last half hour. While the vase is certainly valuable, experts say the auction yielded a "freak price"—reflecting the growing disposable income of the Chinese business elite. The sellers have gone into hiding while they figure out what to do with the money. Click here for more.
– The family of Muhammad Ali is threatening a lawsuit after one of his sons was detained at a Florida airport and asked about his religion. Customs officials held Muhammad Ali Jr., 44, for about two hours at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport when he flew in from Jamaica with his mother, reports the Miami New Times. They let Khalilah Camacho-Ali, the late boxing legend's first wife, go through after she produced a photo of herself with her ex-husband, but Ali's son had no such photo, says family attorney and friend Chris Mancini. They kept asking him, "Where did you get your name from?" and "Are you Muslim?" Mancini tells the Louisville Courier-Journal. Citing privacy restrictions, a spokeswoman for US Customs and Border Protection would not comment specifically on the incident, but she said that "all international travelers arriving in the US are subject to CBP inspection." Ali and his mother had been in Jamaica to speak at a Black History Month event. Mancini says the family is considering a lawsuit because it amounts to "classic customs profiling" over Ali's last name, and he blames the White House. "To the Ali family, it's crystal clear that this is directly linked to Mr. Trump's efforts to ban Muslims from the United States." Ali and his mother live in Deerfield Beach, about 20 minutes from the airport.
– Ohio voters failed to legalize medical marijuana Tuesday—a law that could have prevented what's now happening to Hollie Sanford and her family. The Cleveland mom tried to alleviate extreme morning sickness and sciatic nerve pain during her pregnancy by drinking marijuana tea, a substance she tells Fox 8 she thoroughly researched and determined was safer than other alternatives. "THC, the psychoactive element, doesn't reach the baby after it's metabolized through my body," she says. "So it's not like the baby is stoned." But when her daughter, Nova, was born "very healthy" on Sept. 26, per court records, the infant was given a drug test—a test the Sanfords' lawyer says was taken without the parents' consent. The baby tested positive for a non-psychoactive byproduct of marijuana and was ordered removed from her family by a Juvenile Court magistrate, who said there was "immediate or threatened physical or emotional harm," the Plain Dealer reports. Who's on Sanford's side: the county child services department, which says it only asked for "protective supervision" and that taking Nova "would only serve to disrupt the bond the child would develop with her parents," per a motion filed by an assistant county prosecuting attorney. The department also notes that it often battles Eleanore Hilow, the judge who threw the gavel down, for "rulings disregarding the agency's professional opinion and the opinions of other professionals in the courtroom," per the Plain Dealer. Sanford's lawyer agrees, calling Hilow "ill tempered" and with a rep for "punitive decisions." In the meantime, Sanford hopes her baby will be back home soon. "If people want to say I'm a terrible parent, that's their right," Sanford tells the paper. "I know in my heart that I'm an excellent mother." Nova is now with a family member, who was allowed to take the baby in so she wouldn't have to go to foster care; a hearing is set for December, per Fox 8. (A breastfeeding mom refused to stop smoking pot.)
– "Bittersweet" is how Rolling Stone describes it: The four surviving members of the original Grateful Dead are getting together to play three shows in Chicago this summer, but there's a catch: "These will be the last shows with the four of us together," Bob Weir tells Billboard. Weir himself is 67, Phil Lesh is 74, Mickey Hart is 71, and Bill Kreutzmann is 68. The Dead will play July 3-5 at Soldier Field, site of the last performance with Jerry Garcia before his death in 1995. The four originals, marking 50 years as a band, will be joined by Trey Anastasio of Phish, Bruce Hornsby, and Jeff Chimenti of Ratdog. Anastasio reflects to Billboard: "I've realized that it's no coincidence that they named their best album ever American Beauty," he says. "They really embodied the American concept of freedom, rolling around the country with a ginormous gang of people and the mindset that 'you can come if you want, you can leave if you want. We don't know what's going to happen. All we know is we're not looking back.' What could be more American?" (The mystery of a Deadhead who went missing in 1995 may be solved.)
– Marcel Hamer was walking home from school on the afternoon of June 4, smoking a cigarette, when a plainclothes police officer got out of his car and accused the now-17-year-old of smoking pot. A video of the Brooklyn incident picks up when Marcel is already on the ground, the officer apparently trying to handcuff him as the teen pleads, "Mister, it was just a cigarette, sir." As Marcel's friends protest from the sidelines—"Do you wanna get f---ed up?" the cop asks one at one point, then "Yeah, get it on film"—the officer appears to punch Marcel in the face, knocking him out, the Brooklyn Paper reports. The cop continues to order Marcel to "turn around," but the teen is apparently unconscious, and his friends start pleading with him to "wake up" while telling the cop, "You knocked him out." Eventually, another man—apparently a second undercover cop—helps handcuff Marcel as he lies unmoving on the street. The teen's family says the officer hit him so hard he now has neurological problems, including headaches, dizziness, and memory loss. Lawyers for Marcel say that though the officer suspected him of smoking marijuana, he was only charged with disorderly conduct, New York reports; it's not clear what transpired between the officer and Marcel before the friend started recording, but Marcel's family is calling for the cop to be prosecuted. The family has also filed notice of a $5 million claim against the city, alleging excessive force, ABC 7 reports. The NYPD says the incident is under investigation. The video was released the same day as another one showing Brooklyn cops pistol-whipping an unarmed 16-year-old who had his hands in the air; he was ultimately arrested for marijuana possession, DNAinfo reports. Also yesterday, a video surfaced of another Brooklyn cop apparently taking $1,300 from a man during a stop-and-frisk, then pepper-spraying him when he demanded it back, the New York Daily News reports; that incident is also under investigation. (Meanwhile, in St. Louis, an off-duty cop shot a teen to death last night.)
– Woolly mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, and... horses? According to research using the oldest DNA ever found, horses have been trotting around for millions of years—about 4 million, to be exact. The study, published in Nature, explains how scientists used DNA from a 700,000-year-old horse foot bone found in Canada's Arctic to compare ancient and modern species. What they discovered were exceptional details that dated horse evolution back 2 million years further than previously thought, proving the majestic animals kept some intimidating company. Scientists argue that the bone's discovery in permafrost—which slows DNA decay—has opened doors to how far back they can look. (Before the find, the oldest DNA came from a polar bear that lived more than 110,000 years ago.) It offers "great perspectives as to the level of details we can reconstruct of our origins and the evolutionary history of every animal on the planet," the study lead tells the LA Times. Unfortunately for our own species, says one geneticist, "with the exception of Otzi the Iceman, none of our ancestors have been so obliging as to die under circumstances where the remains are frozen soon after death and remain frozen until discovery."
– Budget-minded entrepreneurs are utilizing the strategy of Netflix in high fashion. Now working girls can afford some of the priciest haute couture frocks by renting them on the Internet. The new mail-order service, Rent the Runway, allows shop-aholics to rent top designer fashions for a tenth of their retail cost. Rentals run as low as $50 for four days and are delivered, just like Netflix DVDs, to the customer's door, reports the New York Times. Fashion mavens plop the duds back in a prepaid envelope to mail back. One recent customer gushed about paying $50 to wear a $500 dress to recent wedding. Co-founder Jennifer Hyman, a graduate of Harvard business school, came up with the idea after realizing her sister was "willing to spend a good portion of her salary" on a dress for a single occasion. "I thought, there has to be a solution for this," she said.
– President Trump is planning to meet hurricane victims as well as officials and first responders when he visits Puerto Rico on Tuesday—but not everybody will be happy to see him. The AP spoke to residents angry about the president's description of some officials as "ingrates" who "want everything to be done for them." "He makes a fool out of himself and a fool out of his country," says linguist Rachel Cruz. She says most struggling Puerto Ricans feel the same way but they are unlikely to insult Trump because they still need his help. School principal Nancy Rivera says people appreciate the aid that has been received, but "his comments are not true." 'We don't deserve that," she says. Other residents say they wish Trump had come sooner and they hope federal aid will be stepped up when he sees the devastation left by Hurricane Maria for himself, NBC News reports. Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello says aid already surged in the days before Trump's visit, the BBC reports. He says around half the island's 3.4 million people now have running water, and 10% of residents will have power restored within the next two weeks. Federal officials say there are now 10,000 relief workers on the island. The White House says the president and First Lady Melania Trump will meet Rossello and other officials after receiving a briefing on relief efforts and meeting residents impacted by the hurricane.
– A text message from President Trump will be sent to more than 200 million US cellphones in a test starting at 2:18pm Eastern on Wednesday—but officials stress that the president won't be texting Americans on a regular basis. The Federal Emergency Management Agency says the "Presidential Alert" message is a test of a new alert system for national emergencies, reports Reuters. "THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed," the message will read, according to FEMA, which says the alert will have a loud tone and a "special vibration." A senior FEMA official said Tuesday that the message will not be coming from Trump's phone and use of the system will be restricted to events like major attacks on US cities or "some other type of public peril," CNN reports. "The president will not originate this alert, say, from his mobile device," the official said. "You would not have a situation where any sitting president would wake up one morning and attempt to send a particular message." Former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson tells CBS that the system is definitely "not something that should be used for a political agenda"—especially since there is no way for Americans to opt out of receiving the alerts. The test was originally scheduled for Sept. 20, but it was postponed due to Hurricane Florence.
– Hurling racial slurs at a Chelsea soccer match could mean an all-expenses-paid jaunt to Poland. It's not exactly a dreamy getaway: After years of issuing bans to racist fans, the English Premier League team is offering to send them instead to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz for a history lesson, per the Telegraph. "If you just ban people, you will never change their behavior," chairman Bruce Buck tells the Sun. "This policy gives them the chance to realize what they have done, to make them want to behave better." Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, who is Jewish, is said to have spearheaded the move, coming a year after the club called out some of its fans for an anti-Semitic chant. "A year ago, Roman sat down with senior people at the club and had a conversation," says Buck. "He had noticed an increase in anti-Semitism around the world and directed us to see what we could do implement a long-term project to combat it." Two visits to Auschwitz by club employees and supporters in April and June "were really important and effective," he continues, adding his hope that other Premier League clubs will "do their own things and make a real dent in what is still a problem." (Take this example of bad behavior by Chelsea fans.)
– A team of 31 specialists led by an archaeologist at the University of Reading are shedding light on some supposed Dark Age legends in their four-year work at Glastonbury Abbey in the UK, reports the Guardian. To wit: "Those feet, immortalized in William Blake’s poem Jerusalem, never walked on the green and pleasant land of Glastonbury; the oldest church in England was not built there by Christ’s disciples; Joseph of Arimathea’s walking stick does not miraculously flower every Christmas after 2,000 years," the paper notes. And that's not all. Even a famous link to King Arthur and his queen Guinevere is false—invented by the 12th-century monks who, after a destructive fire, needed to raise cash fast. The latter fabrication, perhaps the monks' most ingenious, came in the wake of a fire in 1184 that destroyed many buildings and artifacts that would attract visitors and money, reports Discovery. And so they claimed that King Arthur was buried in their midst. The archaeologists, however, found only a pit filled with rubble. “With the other legends there is a possibility of genuine belief or misunderstanding," says team leader Roberta Gilchrist. "But with Arthur and Guinevere I’m afraid there can be no question—the monks just made them up.” The one finding that may not crush the spirits of those who love the myths linked to one of England's most important monasteries is that the scientists unearthed glassworks they've been able to date to as early as the 600s, making it the area's earliest major glassworking site. And ceramic fragments dated even earlier suggest that wine was also imported at a very early date. (King Arthur may have been a Scot who lived in a swamp.)
– A Chicago strip club is hosting what might be the least conservative tea party fundraiser ever: a Sarah Palin lookalike contest that promises to be, um, somewhat low on family values. The club is promoting the show by noting that the last time there was such a contest—at a Las Vegas club in 2008—the winner “demonstrated her plan for world peace with a very presidential striptease.” Palin will be speaking at the relatively nearby Rosemont Theatre on the same day, May 12, and the strip club says it's hoping she'll pop over and help judge the contest—though for some reason she has not yet responded to their inquiries. The winning MILF scores $5,000 and yes, a portion of the proceeds will go to the Tea Party Campaign, the Onion AV Club reports. If this kind of thing revs your engine, you can get more details here.
– A man who lost control of his van and crashed in Carville, France, survived the Wednesday night accident only to be struck and killed by his wife's car when she came to pick him up. The 54-year-old victim and his 16-year-old daughter walked away from the first crash, in which their car flipped and rolled over a few times. But as his 44-year-old wife drove to the scene after they called her for help, she lost control of her car at the same sharp curve, the New York Daily News reports, citing local media. Her car rolled and hit her husband, killing him instantly. The wife and daughter sustained minor injuries and were taken to a hospital, the Independent reports.
– A couple hundred miles from San Francisco, where somedays it seems like $8 million will just about get you a dilapidated one-bedroom condo, that amount of money can buy you an entire town. CBS News reports Nancy Kidwell is selling the Nevada town she founded in 1951 with her first husband, Slim. Cal-Nev-Ari lies 80 miles south of Las Vegas and boasts 375 or so residents, a hotel, a general store, a casino, and even a few stop signs. "It may look bland and boring, but it's pretty cool," says one 12-year-old resident. Kidwell got the land from the federal government when it was nothing but an old WWII airstrip. She and Slim built it up from nothing, and when Slim died in 1983 of Alzheimer's—he was 34 years her senior, according to AFP—she married his son Ace and kept going. Five years after Ace's death, also of Alzheimer's, Kidwell is the town's mayor and police chief; she makes sure there's water in the tank every day, orders provisions for the cafe, and does just about everything else. But at 78 years old, it's time to retire. "I'm selling it because I'm not getting any younger," Kidwell tells CBS. "There's no one to take my place, so I have to start providing for the future of the community." Cal-Nev-Ari is listed on BizBuySell.com, and there are already a handful of interested buyers. One wants to build an automobile test track; another wants to open a marijuana resort. But there's one catch to the sale: The cemetery where Ace and Slim are buried and where Nancy already has a plot must remain. "When your roots are somewhere, that's where you want to be," she tells CBS. (In Maine, this property promised an escape from doomsday.)
– Rep. Justin Amash was proud of his voting record in the House and rightly so: The Michigan Republican didn't miss a vote for more than six years after taking office in 2011, but his perfect streak ended at 4,289 on Friday when he accidentally missed a vote while talking to reporters, the Hill reports. When Amash realized he had failed to notice a roll call, he raced inside the House chamber but was told voting had already finished. Politico reports that Amash asked House leadership if the vote could be reopened but was told there was no precedent for doing so. He broke down in tears when he realized the streak was over. Amash, a House Freedom Caucus member who had often boasted about his perfect record, missed the vote because he had become engrossed in a conversation about his objections to the ObamaCare replacement bill, though he did pause 10 minutes in to check whether he needed to cast a vote, reports the Hill. Rep. Steve Womack, a Republican from Arkansas, now has the longest voting streak, with 4,294. He issued a statement Friday saying he is "humbled by the opportunity" to serve his constituents and thanks "God that no personal hardships have kept me from representing them on a single vote since taking office."
– Attorney General Jeff Sessions slides into the hot seat Tuesday afternoon, to testify in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee on his contact with Russians in an open hearing (the open part reportedly at Sessions' request). It'll be his first time testifying in front of Congress since he recused himself from the Russian investigation, and he'll face questions centered around three names: President Trump, Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and James Comey. As a starting point, the Washington Post explains why Sessions' testimony on Russia matters. Axios outlines three "thorny" questions Sessions will face and provides his expected answers. Two involve Sessions' interactions with Kislyak; the third has to do with a Feb. 14 conversation between Sessions and Comey. "This is a big deal, as Comey gave his account under oath." The Washington Post draws up a list of its own questions Sessions should be asked, and they're spun off of two "key points" from Comey's testimony: that the FBI knew of Sessions' interactions with Russian officials long before it became public and a sticking point around his recusal: If Trump fired Comey over the Russia investigation, how much involvement did Sessions have in the firing? CNN asks a thorny question of its own: "Can Jeff Sessions avoid some questions by citing executive privilege?" Sean Spicer on Monday suggested such a move is possible, and legal experts tell CNN he could legally do so in certain situations—if a question touched on national security, yes, about a confidential conversation, maybe not. But it could get hairy: The committee could hold him in contempt if he invokes it, leaving it to the courts to decide whether privilege is applicable. The Los Angeles Times places its bets: Sessions "is expected to support the president under oath and to question Comey’s version of events, giving the White House a chance to push back after days of harsh headlines." Sessions will appear before the committee about 2:30pm EDT. For some in-depth pre-hearing reading, check out Julia Ioffe's lengthy look at Sessions' interactions with Kislyak and other ambassadors at the Atlantic.
– People in the US have long been on the hunt for Bigfoot, just like those in Canada are in search of Sasquatch and the Himalayas lay claim to the Yeti. But did you know Russians have their own version of an extra large and hairy primate, the Almas? And now a researcher in Russia says he's found evidence in the form of a piece of bark that Almas not only exists but is wandering the forests on the outskirts of Moscow. "The Almas is cosmopolitan," Andrei Stroganov tells the Moscow Times. "I am not worried: They are benevolent and need our protection." The biophysical technologist at Moscow's prestigious Agricultural Academy says he found a piece of tree bark near Moscow that appears to have been marked by a large primate. He believes the horizontal scratches on the bark are from a paw print nine inches across, and there are no claw marks to indicate they came from a bear. Long in search of Almas proof, he also claims to have confirmed the presence of Almas during a recent visit to Chelyabinsk in the Urals, but declined to go into details. The next step is to send swabs of the bark prints to Alabama, where a Russian-born researcher will analyze any DNA found and do a morphological investigation. But one of Stroganov's Almas-hunting colleagues has previously been challenged by an Oxford geneticist who said last year that after putting out calls for Yeti, Bigfoot, and Sasquatch hairs in 2012, he performed DNA tests on the samples sent to him and they pointed to a bear—either a newly discovered species or some hybrid between brown and polar bears, reports National Geographic. Back in 1958, the Soviet government established a short-lived "Almas Commission" to look for the creature; nowadays, Almas is typically thought to roam the Kemerovo region of Siberia, the Caucasus, and the Urals. (Earlier this year, a Texas man claimed to have killed Bigfoot, but...)
– Maybe Dems don't have the momentum they thought they had: Senate Republicans yesterday blocked three amendments Wall Street hates. The first and most controversial, known as Levin-Merkley, would have banned commercial banks from trading for their own benefit with taxpayer money. The second would regulate payday loans, while the third would ban the type of credit default swap linked to the financial crisis, notes the Huffington Post. Republicans knock the Obama administration for staging a “government takeover” of the financial sector. “This is a massive government overreach,” one tells the New York Times. The Dems, meanwhile, accused the GOP of abandoning ordinary people. "If this isn't a sign of the Republicans having the backs of the big banks on Wall Street over the American people, I don't know what is," a Democratic lawmaker says.
– Tired of being underpaid and threatened by their employers, more than 2,000 baggage handlers, cleaners, and wheelchair attendants at seven of the busiest airports in the US will go on strike Wednesday night, the Washington Post reports. "We don't receive enough money to pay the rent," Damaso Mejia, a worker who cleans and checks plane interiors for suspicious objects, tells Reuters. The Post reports the strike will involve workers at Kennedy, LaGuardia, Newark Liberty, Fort Lauderdale, Boston, Philadelphia, and O'Hare and is scheduled to last through Thursday. It's unclear if the strike will result in flight delays ahead of the busy Thanksgiving travel week, as airlines typically have plans to keep things running smoothly during strikes, according to Reuters. The striking workers aren't employed directly by the airports, rather they work for companies that compete against each other for airport contracts, Reuters reports. According to the Post, some of the workers are paid as little as $6.75 per hour and hold two or three jobs to support their families. And the Service Employees International Union tells Reuters some workers have been threatened over plans to organize. “Despite working fulltime, they cannot afford to rent a room for themselves let alone take care of their families,” the Post quotes an SEIU spokesperson. “The workers have a right to get together under federal law and fight for better working conditions.” The strike is part of a national effort for a $15 minimum wage for airport workers.
– A push to make Washington, DC, the nation's 51st state forged ahead Tuesday with voters in the district giving a thumbs-up to the initiative in an Election Day referendum, the Washington Post reports. Per NBC Washington, 86% of DC voters approved the referendum. "With massive turnout, District residents overwhelmingly voted to continue on our bold, new path to DC Statehood," Mayor Muriel Bowser wrote in a Tuesday evening Facebook post. "We will continue the march to convince the next President, Congress and the country that statehood for the District's 672,000 residents is a moral imperative." Despite serving in the military and having to pony up federal taxes, DC residents have no senators representing them, and only one congresswoman, Eleanor Holmes Norton, who doesn't get to vote, notes the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. In a statement, Norton applauded the voters' decision, calling it "a kick in the pants" for Congress, per NBC. But the CBS DC notes that achieving statehood won't be an easy haul: The draft of the constitution that voters endorsed—complete with a spelling out of the proposed state's borders and the replacement of the mayor with a governor—will be presented to Congress, but GOPers would likely balk, since the two new Senate seats created for the state would almost certainly go to Democrats, as would the House representative seat. President-elect Donald Trump's take earlier this year to the Washington Post on DC's statehood drive: It's a "tough thing. ... I'd like to study it." Bowser says she'll present a petition to the new president and congressional leaders by Inauguration Day. (Check out the new name proposal that's been bandied about.)
– An outraged passenger caused a plane to be diverted—all over a $12 blanket fee. The brouhaha began shortly after the Honolulu-bound Hawaiian Airlines flight left Las Vegas on Wednesday morning, KHON reports. The 66-year-old man complained of being cold, asked for a blanket, learned the price, and demanded to talk to the airline's corporate office. During the in-flight call he placed, he allegedly threatened to "take someone behind the woodshed," an LA Airport Police rep tells the Los Angeles Times. Though officials say no "credible threat" was made, the flight crew's discomfort led them to alert the captain. "Our crew felt it was necessary to divert to Los Angeles and deplane the passenger before beginning to fly over the Pacific Ocean," says the airline in a statement. The man was not charged with any offense and boarded another flight. The $12 blanket fee provoked protests on Twitter, with one man tweeting he'll put Hawaiian Airlines "atop my 'no fly' list." The pricey blanket has drawn criticism in the past from cold customers like this one.
– The man who founded the controversial security contractor Blackwater is considering running for Congress, and he'll have the backing of Breitbart leader and former White House advisor Steve Bannon if he does. Erik Prince is reportedly considering a challenge to Republican Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, the Washington Post reports, part of an insurgency against the Republican establishment being led by Bannon and funded by New York hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah. That insurgency was given a jolt last month when Bannon-backed conservative Roy Moore defeated Senator Luther Strange in an Alabama Republican primary. Prince is a longtime Trump supporter, and his sister is Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education. A Prince campaign wouldn't come without controversy. In 2014, 14 Blackwater guards were convicted of manslaughter, and one of murder, after opening fire on a crowded square in Iraq in 2007, killing 17 Iraqi civilians. And along with Bannon, Prince pushed a proposal earlier this year to replace American soldiers with contractors in Afghanistan that was opposed by Trump's national security team, the New York Times reports. And while Prince had an address in Wyoming in the late 1990s and early 2000s, his home state is Michigan, which could be a political problem for him if he runs. In addition, John Barrasso is a popular sitting senator who would have the full backing of McConnell and the Republican establishment.
– The Charles Koch Foundation donated millions to George Mason University, and newly released documents reveal that in exchange, the conservative foundation was granted some influence over the hiring and firing of professors. After the revelation, the president of the university ordered an inquiry into the school's gift acceptance policy, the New York Times reports. "Given the discovery of problematic gift agreements ... I have requested a thorough review of all active donor agreements supporting faculty positions throughout the university to ensure that they do not grant donors undue influence in academic matters," Ángel Cabrera wrote in an email to faculty and staff Monday night, per the Washington Post. Though he did not specifically name the Koch donations in the email, a university spokesman confirms to the Times that's what he was referencing. Per the AP, the documents reveal agreements in which the Koch Foundation endowed"a fund to pay the salary of one or more professors at the university's Mercatus Center, a free-market think tank," and got the right to name two of the five members of each selection committee to choose the professors. The foundation reportedly had similar rights when it came to the committees formed to recommend a professor's dismissal. The documents were obtained after the group UnKoch My Campus filed a Freedom of Information Act Request. After the news broke, the Koch Foundation released a statement downplaying its influence and noting its current grant agreements do not include the same provisions. Cabrera also noted that all the agreements in question, which were made between 2003 and 2011, had expired except one, which has now been voided.
– What can we say: Edwin Tobergta has a type. That type is rubber, inflatable, and, presumably, brightly colored. The Ohio man has been charged, twice in less than two years, with engaging in sexual relations with a pool toy, the Smoking Gun reports. In the most recent incident, for which Tobergta was indicted yesterday, he was spotted outside his Hamilton home last month "naked and ... having sexual relations with a rubber pool float," according to the police report. Children under the age of 10 were witnesses to the disturbing daytime incident, the report adds. In August 2011, a witness saw Tobergta having sex with a pink inflatable raft, pants around his ankles, in an alley. The witness yelled, and Tobergta threw the raft over a fence, where it ended up in the backyard of a home; Tobergta was arrested. According to his felony indictment, he's been convicted of public indecency on at least three occasions before this most recent incident; WHIO reports he's been arrested for "similar offenses" at least five times. WLWT reports that one of those incidents involved an inflatable pumpkin in one of his neighbors' yards.
– At a cost of $7 million per episode, The Crown is one of the most expensive TV series ever made. But while its star's wardrobe has benefited from such a hefty budget, she hasn't. Claire Foy, who won a Golden Globe and two Screen Actor Guild awards for best actress for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in the first two seasons of the Netflix show, was paid less than male co-star Matt Smith, who played husband Prince Phillip, executive producers revealed Tuesday, per USA Today. Foy, 33, whose only major acting credit prior to The Crown was a role in BBC mini series Wolf Hall, pulled in $40,000 per episode, according to Variety. Smith, 35, who rose to fame on the BBC's Doctor Who, received more (the amount hasn't been disclosed) because he was seen as a more established actor, reports the New York Times. However, show runners say the issue will be rectified as The Crown moves into its third season with an entirely new cast, with 44-year-old Olivia Colman taking over for Foy. "Going forward, no one gets paid more than the queen," says Suzanne Mackie, creative director of Left Bank Pictures, which produces The Crown. USA Today notes Netflix only purchased rights to air The Crown and wasn't involved in salary decisions. (Michelle Williams might have some advice for Foy.)
– Here we go: Those promised airport delays, the result of furloughs caused by the sequester, have arrived. All three major NYC-area airports saw flights falling behind schedule yesterday and, as the Washington Post puts it, air traffic controllers "never caught up," with delays clocking in at between one and three hours. Backups at those three airports have the unfortunate tendency to reverberate, and delays started hitting Miami, Los Angeles, and Charlotte in the latter part of the day. Why? Air traffic controllers—1,500 of them—went on furlough; TSA and customs furloughs also caused backups at some airports. About 10% of all air traffic controllers will be off each day until October, and the FAA predicts one-third of passengers will experience delays during that time. Here's some really awful context: Airlines for America reports that the FAA estimates delays could hit 6,700 flights a day; last year's worst travel day saw 3,000 flights delayed due to weather.
– After more than three weeks of street protests, government officials in Hong Kong have agreed to hold talks with pro-democracy leaders—but Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying appears unwilling to budge on the subject of free elections in 2017, or even the merits of democracy in general. He warns that if the public could vote for just anybody, then the city's poor would come to "dominate" the political process. "If it's entirely a numbers game and numeric representation, then obviously you'd be talking to the half of the people in Hong Kong who earn less than US$1,800 a month," he tells the Wall Street Journal. He adds that it makes sense for candidates to be nominated by a pro-Beijing committee, because it would spark a "constitutional crisis" if the city's voters chose a candidate Beijing found unacceptable. The talks with student leaders will be broadcast live on TV and shown on large screens at protest sites, but there are fears that the government's unyielding stance will only provoke larger and more violent protests. "I'm seriously worried about tonight," pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo tells AFP. "If this is just going to be a political show—where political animals form a political circus—people will think: 'Well, let's just take to the streets again.'"
– The White House's last-ditch effort to avoid a contempt of Congress vote against Eric Holder has failed and John Boehner says the House will move forward with the vote, the AP reports. The Obama administration had offered to show congressional investigators some of the documents related to Fast and Furious, the ATF's failed gun-walking operation, CNN adds. The National Rifle Association is paying close attention to the vote, leading some Democrats—concerned for their prospects in an election year—to cross to the Republican side and vote for contempt. One of the first Democrats to come forward publicly with his plan to do so is Utah's Jim Matheson, Politico reports. "Utahns expect and deserve transparency and accountability from government officials, especially when a tragedy such as the death of a US Border Patrol agent occurs," he says in a statement. He and 30 other Democratic lawmakers signed a letter to President Obama this month expressing "serious concerns about the Administration's response" to the Fast and Furious investigation. Tomorrow's vote is expected to go mostly along party lines, and it is not yet clear how many Democrats will defect.
– Nevada on July 1 became the fifth state to sell recreational marijuana to the public, and one week later, it declared an emergency. But the chaos is on the licensing side of things. The new law allows those 21 and up to buy up to an ounce of pot from what are 47 licensed dispensaries, reports the AP. The problem, explains Vice News, is that the only way for dispensaries to legally get pot for the next 18 months is via wholesale liquor distributors, who secured the exclusive right via a November ballot measure. But of the seven liquor distributors to have applied for a license to restock dispensaries, zero have "met the application requirements." That's where the statement of emergency, signed Friday by Gov. Brian Sandoval, comes in. It says the emergency regulation is needed to allow the Department of Taxation to figure out whether limiting licenses to liquor dealers will result in an insufficient number of pot distributors in the state. This is a real concern, because without pot sales, "the State will not realize the revenue on which the State budget relies." Indeed, the Las Vegas Sun reports the first four days of sales brought in $500,000 in tax revenue, with the six-month tax estimate set at $30 million. The whole thing has been a bit of a saga: In mid-June, liquor distributors won a preliminary injunction banning the state from handing out licenses to other entities, Reason notes. As for how pot sales have happened to date, dispensaries were able to stock up pre-July 1. But "some establishments report the need for delivery within the next several days," a rep for the department said in an email to the Reno Gazette-Journal Friday.
– The Taliban pulled off a deadly suicide bombing in Kabul yesterday with a cruel twist: The blast took place during a play condemning suicide bombers, reports CNN. Authorities say the teenaged bomber set off his explosives during a performance of Heartbeat: Silence After the Explosion at the French Cultural Centre, which is located in a French-run high school, reports AP. A German national and several others were killed, though the exact numbers were unclear. Reuters quotes a Taliban spokesman who says the play was meant "to insult Islamic values and spread propaganda about our jihad operations, especially on suicide attacks."
– Piper Verdusco can finally see clearly, and a "melt-your-heart" video that captures the first moments of her experiencing clear vision has itself been seen—nearly 25 million times. Mom Jessica Sinclair tells ABC News that she and her partner told the now-11-month-old's pediatrician that Piper's crawling seemed delayed. An appointment with an eye doctor was scheduled, and it turned out the girl from Bridgetown, Ohio, was "extremely far-sighted," Sinclair explains, writing on Facebook that her daughter is "+7.00 in one eye and +5.00 in the other," which is most likely why she hasn't crawled. Pink custom glasses were ordered. "A week later we picked up the glasses and she tried them on for a quick second in the office to make sure they fitted properly," Sinclair tells Local 12. "Then we decided to go out to eat ... and then this was her reaction of her first time being able to see our faces." "Her reaction :) melts my heart," reads part of the caption to the video, which Sinclair posted to Facebook June 6. That reaction starts with a bit of squirming as the glasses go on, but then Piper breaks out into some serious grins as she stares at her mom. Dad then calls her name and she turns her head, seemingly spots him, and turns her head side to side, beaming again. Sinclair says she was "choking back tears of joy" as she watched, and she's been similarly "blown away" by the reaction to the video, which she hopes will help generate awareness about infant eye health. As for how Piper is doing, she's crawling and is getting better at wearing her glasses—though she likes to chew on them. (Read another viral story about a plus-size woman's "fierce" reaction to cruel comments.)
– The Smithsonian has released a nifty video that allows us to hear the voice of Alexander Graham Bell for the first time, reports the Verge. "Hear my voice, Alexander Graham Bell," the inventor says in the recording, made in 1885 at his lab in DC. The wax disc had been in storage for more than a century, but it wasn't until researchers developed new audio-recovery technology that Bell's voice could be heard. In the recording, he spends most of the time reciting numbers. See his own transcript via the Smithsonian here.
– With the West about to increase sanctions on Iran to include oil sales abroad, Tehran is warning its Arab neighbors not to make a buck off of that embargo, reports the AP. Any Arab nation that raises its oil output will be an "accomplice in the consequences," warned Iran OPEC governor Mohammad Ali Khatibi. Meanwhile, the AP notes that Saudi Arabia's oil minister said today that his country was prepared to boost its petroleum production, but, ahem, just to fill market need, not in any way because of the Iran embargo. Iran has already threatened to block all oil going through the Strait of Hormuz if Western countries implement a petroleum embargo.
– Ted Cruz is out. The Texas senator is ending his campaign after being routed in Indiana by Donald Trump in Tuesday's primary, reports the AP. Cruz had staged a last stand in the state in the hope of preventing Trump from securing the nomination, but he told supporters that he has no "viable path to victory" after the loss. "The voters chose another path," he said. "We gave it everything we've got." Trump, who was leading by about 15 points, had been declared the winner as soon as polls closed at 7pm EDT. "We're going after Hillary Clinton," he told his own supporters after Cruz's announcement. "And we're going to win." In his speech, Trump also praised Cruz as "one hell of a competitor" and said he had an "amazing future." Shortly after Cruz's bombshell, Republican National Committee chief Reince Priebus tweeted that Trump is the "presumptive nominee," adding that "we all need to unite and focus on defeating" Clinton. In his own speech, Cruz made no mention of the front-runner. Earlier in the day, however, he unleashed a diatribe, calling Trump a "serial philanderer" and a "pathological liar," notes NBC News. That came after Trump dredged up a bizarre National Enquirer report linking Cruz's dad to Lee Harvey Oswald. John Kasich was a distant third in Indiana, though he gave no indication he planned to follow Cruz's lead and drop out.
– Following Saturday’s tragic shootings, the Pima County sheriff referred to Arizona as “the Tombstone of the United States,” a clear reference to the silver-mining town that played host to the OK Corral shootout some 130 years ago. "The irony of (his) remark," writes Katherine Benton-Cohen on Politico, “is that Tombstone lawmakers in the 1880s did more to combat gun violence than the Arizona government does today. For all the talk of the ‘Wild West,’ the policymakers of 1880 Tombstone—and many other Western towns—were ardent supporters of gun control.” In fact, when they engaged in the shootout, the Earps and Doc Holliday were law officers enforcing Tombstone’s gun laws—which included a ban on concealed weapons. Today, not only can Arizonans purchase guns without licenses, they can also carry concealed weapons without permits. “Even the Tombstone town council of 1880 realized that some people with guns have intent to kill—and that reasonable laws could help stop them," Benton-Cohen concludes. (Jared Loughner, especially, shouldn't have been allowed to own a gun, considering he was suspended from college due to mental problems—click for Nathan Thornburgh's entire piece on that, in Time.)
– As man continues to encroach upon the forest that has been both home and refuge to wildlife, vicious attacks are becoming commonplace. In this extremely graphic video, a female deer pummels a dog while defending her fawn on a city street in British Columbia. Horrified neighbors can be heard in the background screaming and yelling for help, to no avail. The deer continued kicking the dog, which left the incident limping, but is doing OK, according to CTV. Read the full article.
– Backing up what some parents have been claiming for years, researchers are now hailing a compound in marijuana as a "game-changing medication" for epilepsy. Based on testimonials from parents, Orrin Devinsky of NYU's Comprehensive Epilepsy Center set out to find proof that epilepsy could be treated with cannabidiol (CBD)—and he says he did. In a 14-week study, 60 kids and teens with a severe form of epilepsy known as Dravet syndrome were given doses of CBD and saw their number of monthly convulsive seizures fall from 12 on average to about six, reports Live Science. Three patients saw their seizures stop entirely, the researchers say in the New England Journal of Medicine. One downside: Almost all patients who took CBD reported side effects, including vomiting and diarrhea, per Scientific American. (CBD doesn't get users high.) But 62% of caregivers said the condition of the child in their care improved overall. That's compared to 34% of caregivers of children who took a placebo, who went from having about 15 monthly seizures to about 14. Given this study and others, Devinsky says it's "medieval" that marijuana is deemed a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act. Drugs in this category have "no currently accepted medical use," according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, but that's "simply untrue," he says. "To put CBD as a Schedule I drug violates scientific data and common sense." (More on CBD and epilepsy here.)
– With Tropical Storm Isaac headed for the Gulf Coast, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency today and said he has no plans to attend the GOP convention, CNN reports. "My priority is the safety of our people," Jindal said. "And certainly as this storm threatens the public safety here in Louisiana, I'm not going anywhere." Jindal is expected to speak Wednesday evening if he attends. But Isaac is forecast to be a Category 2 hurricane when it reaches the Gulf Coast Tuesday or Wednesday, the AP reports. Twelve to 16 inches of rain and strong winds are already expected along the coast as soon as tonight, and Jindal has asked 15 low-lying parishes in the initial danger zone to voluntarily evacuate. The governor also failed to make the 2008 Republican convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota, because of Hurricane Gustav.
– The cast of the Danish crime drama The Killing got a visit from a pistol-packing duchess yesterday. Camilla, duchess of Cornwall, is a big fan of the show, and arranged to visit the set with Denmark's Princess Mary as part of her Scandinavian tour, People reports. After picking up a prop pistol and pretending to shoot Mary, the duchess told the crew she was an "addict" of the series. The US version of the program is a hit on AMC. "It was me all along," Camilla quipped as she waved the pistol. "I think it is really surreal, but it's lovely that she wanted to come here," says Sofie Grabol, who plays Detective Sarah Lund. "I told her last night to wear flat shoes. This is not really an inviting place for a royal visit."
– Catalan separatists on Tuesday signed what they called a declaration of independence from Spain to cheers and applause in the regional parliament—but Catalonia's president said he would delay implementing it for several weeks to give dialogue a chance. Spain, however, called an emergency Cabinet meeting for Wednesday morning and gave little indication it is willing to talk, the AP reports. In his highly anticipated speech, regional President Carles Puigdemont said the landslide victory in a disputed Oct. 1 referendum gave his government the grounds to implement its long-held desire to break century-old ties with Spain. Puigdemont proposed that the regional parliament "suspend the effects of the independence declaration to commence a dialogue." "We have to listen to the voices that have asked us to give a chance for dialogue with the Spanish state," he said. Thousands of people watching his speech on a big screen in Barcelona were euphoric at first but disappointed when he said the declaration would be suspended, the BBC reports. The central government in Madrid responded that it did not accept the declaration of independence and did not consider the referendum to be valid. Puigdemont "doesn't know where he is, where he is going, and with whom he wants to go," said Deputy PM Soraya Saenz de Santamaria.
– One doesn't usually think of a cookbook as "lavish and erotic," but that's how the Guardian is describing a reissue by Taschen of a famous cookbook first published in 1973. Described by Food and Wine as "more Hieronymus Bosch than Anthony Bourdain," Salvador Dali's Les Diners de Gala is a 12-chapter compendium of the artist's surreal imagery, as well as 136 often-unconventional recipes, some culled from Paris' top restaurants at the time, notes Kottke. And by "unconventional," we mean such concoctions as conger eel of the rising sun and frog pasties (the Guardian features a recipe for the latter), in chapters with titles like "Deoxyribonucleic Atavism," aka the veggie section. The art is similarly bizarre, including (and it's easiest to quote the Guardian) a "desert scene in which a telephone receiver is suspended on a twig over a melting plate holding two fried eggs and a razor blade." Dali, who died in 1989, and his wife, Gala, were known for throwing sumptuous dinner parties—Konbini notes food would be brought in on gold platters to costumed guests—and the original edition of the cookbook is a collector's item, with only about 400 copies said to remain. Readers will also get a taste for edibles that were among Dali's favorites and those he found unforgivable, including spinach, which he describes as "that detestable, degrading vegetable." Per the cookbook's description on Amazon, where it's now available for preorder, Dali issues just one warning in the book's intro: "If you are a disciple of one of those calorie-counters who turn the joys of eating into a form of punishment, close this book at once; it is too lively, too aggressive, and far too impertinent for you." (On the other end of the spectrum: a recipe book by IBM's supercomputer chef.)
– Sightings of at least two great white sharks—one 16 feet long—stalking the waters off Cape Cod have triggered a swimming ban at the popular summer tourist spot during one of busiest times of the year. One shark was spotted a half mile from shore; the other was just 50 feet from land. "He was big, and he was close," an aerial spotter told MSNBC. Now Chatham officials have banned all swimming within 300 feet of seals, and are warning against swimming at dawn and dusk—though beaches currently remain open to sunbathers. Shark sightings have spiked in recent years as the big fish hunt seals off the Chatham coast. Last year, several Chatham beaches were shut due to shark sightings and seal attacks, notes the Springfield Republican.
– Australia's plan to log "one of the last expanses of temperate rainforest in the world" has fizzled to the acclaim of conservationists the world over. Two years after requesting that logging be allowed in parts of the Tasmanian Wilderness to boost the local economy, the country received a recommendation from UN cultural agency UNESCO on Saturday. The agency says it "does not consider a World Heritage property recognized for its outstanding cultural and natural values the place to experiment with commercial logging" and the area—which covers 1 million hectares, or about 20% of Tasmania, per the BBC and Reuters—"should be off-limits to commercial logging in its entirety." UNESCO also calls for a "master plan" for tourism activities, noting Australia's hopes of allowing cruise ships, planes, and helicopters to land on the island "created room for interpretation and even suspicions," per the Guardian. "The decision of the United Nations to prohibit limited special species harvesting in the Tasmanian Wilderness world heritage area is very disappointing," says the Tasmanian minister for forestry. "However, it would be grossly irresponsible for any government to defy such a ruling, and we will abide by it." The BBC reports the World Heritage site is home to extinct and threatened animals, ancient trees, and "some of the tallest flowering plants in the world."
– Police aren't divulging much about a horrific quadruple homicide near Albany, New York, other than the victims appear to have been deliberately targeted. "This is not a random act," said Troy Police Chief James Tedesco, reports the Albany Times Union. Authorities have not identified the victims beyond their ages and genders: two women, ages 22 and 36; a 5-year-old girl; and an 11-year-old boy. The children's mother was one of the adult victims, and all were found Tuesday in a basement apartment in Troy. The children and their mother had lived there with her unidentified partner. Authorities have not said how or when the victims were killed, but they have emphasized the brutality of the slayings. "After being in this business for 43 years, I can't describe the savagery of a person who would do this," said Tedesco, per the AP. He called the crime "the worst we've experienced." City Councilman Mark McGrath said "the brutal, horrific nature of the crime suggests that this is someone who is psychopathic at the very least." Autopsies were being performed on the victims Wednesday. A neighbor says she fears that her friend who lives in the basement apartment is among the victims. "If it is her, I don't know who could have done it."
– In Turkish Prime Minister's Recep Tayyip Erdogan's latest feud with social media, Twitter access has been blocked and he has threatened to entirely wipe out the service. "We now have a court order. We'll eradicate Twitter. I don’t care what the international community says. Everyone will witness the power of the Turkish Republic," he fumed at a campaign rally yesterday, the Hurriyet Daily News reports. Erdogan has been enraged in recent weeks by leaked recordings and documents revealing corruption in his inner circle, the BBC notes. Turkish users trying to access Twitter are being redirected to a statement from the country's telecommunication regulator that cites court orders against the site, although Twitter has posted a message telling users how to keep accessing the site via SMS, reports Al Jazeera. Erdogan—who blasted Twitter as a "scourge" after it was used to organize protests last summer—has also threatened to ban Facebook and YouTube, which was banned in the country until 2010 because of videos deemed "insulting to Turkishness."
– The last of the Chinese soldiers who helped North Korea avoid defeat in the Korean War six decades ago have finally gone home. South Korea today repatriated the remains of 437 soldiers from China who have been in the so-called "enemy cemetery" near the city of Paju all these years, reports the Xinhua News Agency. The gesture, marked by an official handover ceremony, is a sign of warming ties between the two nations, reports AP. The move doesn't mean that the "enemy cemetery" is empty, however. The New York Times reports that the remains of 770 North Korean soldiers are still buried there, and Pyongyang refuses to negotiate for their return. Doing so "would be seen as a gesture of closing the war, which North Korea insists will not be over until Washington signs a peace treaty with it," writes Choe Sang-Hun.
– The loss was so enormous, the tragedy so unthinkable, it made national news five years ago in March 2011. A family of 10—eight children and their parents—were reduced to three in one cruel night in rural Pennsylvania when a fire of still unknown origins swept through their 100-year-old farmhouse and claimed seven of the children's lives, reported PennLive in 2012. There were so many fundraisers that sponsors had to wait in line for space at local picnic grounds and fire halls, reports PennLive now. But as mother Janelle Clouse put it, the fire that nearly destroyed them didn't, and life went on, literally, with the birth of her son Gabriel just four months later. Then came Yvonne, who is now 3, then Gordon, who is 2, and Jedidiah, who is 10 months. Now Janelle is expecting a boy in April, which will bring the number of living children, including Leah, the only to survive the fire, to six, reports the AP. The family, always busy with chores on their dairy farm, was going about the usual routine that fateful March night when Leah, who was 3 at the time, found her mother tending to the cows in the barn and, visibly frightened, said, "Miranda is playing with smoke." The thinness of her voice, the light breaking through the darkness, and the scent of smoke on the wind had Janelle racing for the house. Six of the children were found upstairs, some huddled under beds, while baby Samantha was in her crib in the living room, just out of reach of Janelle, who will never forget watching, helpless, the fire take almost everything with it. (The children all died of smoke inhalation.) Today the Clouses say they're thankful for the many in their community and beyond—from as far as Hawaii and Australia—who sent cards, letters, and money, reports WGAL. They've kept every last one in their sturdy new brick house built across the street.
– A little more good news on Ebola, at least in the US: NBC journalist Ashoka Mukpo is free of the disease and will be released from a hospital in Omaha, reports AP. The Rhode Island native contracted the disease in Liberia while working as a freelance camera operator for the network and other media outlets. The 33-year-old returned to the US earlier this month for treatment. None of his colleagues showed symptoms, but one got into hot water for disregarding self-imposed isolation to grab takeout. "Recovering from Ebola is a truly humbling feeling," Mukpo is quoted as saying at NBC News. "Too many are not as fortunate and lucky as I've been. I'm very happy to be alive." The development follows news in Dallas that about 50 people who had contact with patient Thomas Duncan were in the clear. Elsewhere in the world, however, the disease has killed more than 4,500 and infected more than 9,000 others. Vaccine trials could start soon.
– Not that unusual: Cops show up to bust a teen party involving booze, and find someone hiding in a bedroom. Unusual: That person is the home's 56-year-old owner, and mother to the 18-year-old who threw the bash. Police say they arrived at the home in Naples, Fla., just after midnight yesterday, to find beer cans, bottles, and pot in the yard; as they approached, the partiers went inside and shut lights off, reports ABC7. Mariel Weinand, 18, answered the knock on the door—with the assistance of the two girls who were keeping her upright, say police—and passed along her mom's cell phone number. Police rang Carolyn Weinand, who said she was unaware of the party and out of town. She also gave them the OK to break up the party, which they moved inside to do. And that's when they say they found people hiding in a number of rooms and closets—and Carolyn Weinand hiding in a bedroom. She then changed her tune: The Naples Daily News reports that Weinand kept making "statements trying to justify having the party and allowing alcohol," per police, among them that she thought they'd be safe if they didn't have to drive. She says she didn't buy the booze, but she's charged with 26 counts of selling, giving, or serving alcoholic beverages to persons under the age of 21 all the same. Both mother and daughter were hit with one count of having an open house party. (Weinand certainly isn't the first parent to get caught at a teen party.)
– Libyan protesters are fighting to keep control of the areas they've taken as they increasingly clash with pro-Gadhafi forces. The latest: The two sides are fighting over a key oil installation and airstrip, the AP reports. They are located on the coast of eastern Libya, most of which is held by the rebels, but today Gadhafi supporters took back the oil facility as the rebels continued to fight. In the same area, pro-Gadhafi forces also retook control of a port and bombed an ammunition depot controlled by the rebels. The bombing is one of many airstrikes launched by Libyan forces against the rebels, all of which reportedly target only weapons facilities. But some air force pilots have refused to fly after they claim they were ordered to bomb civilians. Loyalists yesterday were able to push rebels back from some of the western towns near Tripoli, but protesters managed to hold onto Zawiyah, the city closest to the capital. Gadhafi's forces were able to reclaim control of two other towns near Tripoli and threaten a third, but rebels held on to three other areas near the capital. Two US warships entered the Suez Canal this morning en route to the Mediterranean, the AP adds. Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered the USS Kearsarge, which has 42 helicopters on board, and the USS Ponce to move closer to the Libyan coast. Even so, Gates downplayed the possibility of America's military intervening, noting that it's not a good time for the US to enter into another Middle East war, the New York Times reports. He and Adm. Mike Mullen distanced themselves from comments by Hillary Clinton that a no-fly zone was an "active consideration." A BBC UN correspondent says other leaders also appear to be reluctant to impose a no-fly zone over Libya. Meanwhile, the BBC reports, thousands of people are waiting to cross the border and flee Libya for Tunisia. The UN Secretary General says thousands of lives are at stake, and the UN wants a mass humanitarian evacuation. Click for background on this crisis. More from the BBC: Reports suggest 1,000 have died in the unrest so far, and an overturned fuel tanker resulted in large explosions in Tripoli. No word on whether the tanker was sabotaged. Click for the latest on Libya.
– Climate change has got its upside if you happen to own a shipping company. Researchers say that by 2050, the Arctic ice sheet will be weak enough for cargo ships to take the northern route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans without the aid of icebreakers, the Guardian reports. Ships with just moderate ice protection will be able to sail directly over the North Pole, making it a lot faster and cheaper to ship goods from China to Europe. Scientists, who studied seven different climate models, say it's too late to cut carbon emissions enough to prevent the change, the Telegraph reports. As big business spies new Arctic opportunities, environmentalists are campaigning to create a sanctuary in the region. The Arctic "is melting because of our use of dirty fossil fuel energy, and in the near future it could be ice-free for the first time since humans walked the Earth," Greenpeace's Save the Arctic petition states. "This would be not only devastating for the people, polar bears, narwhals, walruses, and other species that live there—but for the rest of us too," because the region's ice helps cool down the world by reflecting sunlight.
– David Cameron emerged from an emergency meeting this morning with harsh words for Islamic State militants in the wake of yesterday's video that purports to show the beheading of British aid worker David Haines: Calling the execution—which hasn't been officially verified, though a UK Foreign Office rep tells the Wall Street Journal that "all signs are that the video is genuine"—"an act of pure evil," the BBC reports that Cameron vowed "we will do everything in our power to hunt down these murderers and ensure they face justice, however long it takes." In the video, Haines singled out Cameron thusly: "I would like to declare that I hold you, David Cameron, entirely responsible for my execution." ISIS militants threatened a second British hostage, Alan Henning, with the same fate. The White House issued a statement last night, as per the Journal, saying that President Obama "strongly condemns the barbaric murder of UK citizen David Haines," and that "Our hearts go out to the family of Mr. Haines and to the people of the United Kingdom." Haines' family, which the AP notes had asked ISIS to contact them, said in a statement that Haines' "joy and anticipation for the work he went to do in Syria is for myself and family the most important element of this whole sad affair."
– "Deal-a-day" auction site Woot.com is razzing the Associated Press for its coverage of Amazon's recent purchase of the site. In its story, the AP quoted from a Woot blog post. "Why, isn’t that the very thing you've previously told nu-media bloggers they're not supposed to do?" asks Woot in a new posting. It uses the AP's own pricing system for such things and concludes, "We’ve figured you owe us roughly $17.50." "How about this," the site suggests. "Instead of cutting us a check for the web content you liberated from our site, all you’ll need to do is show us your email receipt from today’s two pack of Sennheiser MX400 In-Ear Headphones, and we’ll call it even." Tech bloggers are piling on AP, including MG Siegler at TechCrunch and Mike Masnick at Techdirt.
– The political world is buzzing today over a new Bloomberg poll that shows Barack Obama clobbering Mitt Romney by a whopping 53% to 40% margin. This comes despite voters widely disapproving of Obama's handling of the economy—only 43% approve, while 53% disapprove. So why is Obama winning? Because voters just plain don't like Romney. Only 39% view him favorably, and 55% say he is more "out of touch," with voters. A plurality also say they're better off now than four years ago. Forty-five percent say they're better off, to only 36% who say they're worse off. "I'm just tired of the doom and gloom," says one independent voter. The pollsters point out, however, that the finding runs counter to recent economic indicators. Indeed, the whole poll is such an outlier that it's best taken with "a big grain of salt," Steve Kornacki of Salon warns. Obama probably isn't actually up by 13 points, writes Kornacki, but the poll is evidence that he's faring better than an incumbent in this economy normally would. Click for his full column.
– Ted Cruz is taking the "fast track" to Senate stardom, and that means capitalizing on conflict, writes Frank Bruni in the New York Times. He hasn't been around long, but he's already made "groundless and shameless" accusations against Chuck Hagel, offered Dianne Feinstein some constitutional pedantry, and even slapped fellow Republicans as "squishes." His stand against ObamaCare is forcing GOPers either to call for a government shutdown—likely hurting the party—or risk getting a place "on the far right’s watch list." What's more, his strategy won't get him far (even if it makes headlines) because successful politicians have to be likeable, whereas Cruz is "grandstanding and bloviating his way to obsolescence," Bruni writes. In the Washington Post, Dana Milbank agrees that Cruz is all about ambition—but he says Republicans like Cruz aren't risking their necks in the shutdown debate. In fact, they're "doing what’s necessary to survive in a political system gone mad." Thanks in large part to district mapping, few GOP House seats are "even marginally competitive," and conservative-dominated primaries are the only threat. So to keep their jobs, lawmakers have no choice but to take a Cruz-like path. Click for Milbank's full piece or for Bruni's.
– A new study says surgery isn't always needed for appendicitis and that antibiotics instead can often do the trick, the AP reports. The results from Finland contradict decades of thinking about the best way to treat an inflamed appendix. The condition has long been thought to be a medical emergency because of the risk for a burst appendix, which can be life-threatening. But advances in imaging tests make it easy to determine which patients face that danger. The study in 500 adults found that nearly two-thirds of patients treated with antibiotics fared well after five years. About one-third had another case of appendicitis and had surgery to take out their appendix. "How should these results influence clinical decision-making?" asks Edward Livingston in the study, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. He explains that patients with acute uncomplicated appendicitis can choose to have surgery—which has "relatively few major complications" and the advantage of "removing the source of the disease"—or opt for antibiotics, which pose "little risk" and only a 39% chance of the appendicitis recurring over five years.
– Winter is coming in a galaxy far, far away. Disney and Lucasfilm say the writing and producing duo behind Game of Thrones will begin work on a series of Star Wars movies after the HBO series ends in 2019, the BBC reports. No release dates or other details on the new films from David Benioff and DB Weiss have been announced, though the films will be separate from both the Skywalker saga and the Star Wars trilogy from Last Jedi director Rian Johnson that was announced in November, reports Deadline. "David and Dan are some of the best storytellers working today," Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy said Tuesday. "Their command of complex characters, depth of story, and richness of mythology will break new ground and boldly push Star Wars in ways I find incredibly exciting." Benioff and Weiss will write and produce the new trilogy. "In the summer of 1977 we traveled to a galaxy far, far away, and we've been dreaming of it ever since," they said in a joint statement. "We are honored by the opportunity, a little terrified by the responsibility, and so excited to get started as soon as the final season of Game of Thrones is complete." The new trilogy adds to a rapidly expanding Star Wars universe that also includes Ron Howard's Solo: A Star Wars Story, which has a May 25 release date; JJ Abrams' December 2019 Star Wars: Episode IX; and a rumored Obi-Wan Kenobi movie, the Guardian reports. (Sources say Benioff and Weiss are no longer part of a controversial new HBO show.)
– The homeless man fatally shot in a scuffle with police on LA's Skid Row on Sunday was identified as Charley Saturmin Robinet, a French citizen. But it turns out the real Robinet "is alive and in France," the French consul general in LA tells the Los Angeles Times. The now-dead LA man stole Robinet's identity and used it to get a French passport and enter the US in the late 1990s, Axel Cruau says: "He fooled a lot of people, including us, years ago." The strange part: French officials may have been fooled initially, but they ultimately figured things out because of a bank robbery. The man who stole Robinet's identity was convicted of robbing a Wells Fargo branch in 2000, and as he neared release in 2013, French officials stumbled upon the real Robinet in France. French authorities informed the US of the identity theft, but Cruau says he doesn't know what happened after that. The AP reports that the fake Robinet would typically have been deported after serving his sentence, but since he wasn't actually French, France wouldn't take him. The man spent six months in a halfway house in advance of his May 2014 release; a warrant was issued in January after he didn't report to his probation officer as required. In Sunday's incident, police were responding to reports of a robbery in LA when the scuffle occurred and the fake Robinet was killed, Heavy reports.
– Want to win in the stock market? Start paying attention to Oprah's waistline. Bloomberg reports Weight Watchers stocks rose up to 22% Tuesday after Oprah announced she lost 26 pounds using the program. Oprah—an investor and spokesperson for Weight Watchers—tweeted a video in which she claims she was able to lose the weight while continuing to eat her beloved bread. That tweet appears to be responsible for sending Weight Watchers shares as high as $13.54. Weight Watchers stock performing inversely to Oprah's weight is a growing trend, as the same thing happened a few months ago when the star announced on Ellen that she'd lost 15 pounds, according to CBS News. Oprah bought a 10% stake in Weight Watchers last October.
– A New York Times look at Donald Trump's treatment of women really got under his skin, if the number of angry tweets is anything to go by. In nine tweets and retweets Sunday (and three more Monday), Trump poured scorn on the "failing" NYT and its "lame hit piece," which, among other things, revealed that he kissed many Miss USA contestants on the mouth. "I have had so many calls from high ranking people laughing at the stupidity" of the NYT, he tweeted, accusing the media of being on a "witch hunt." He also accused the NYT of failing to contact any of the women he had suggested they talk to, the Hill reports. Reporter Michael Barbaro tweeted that the accusation was "factually inaccurate," and that women named by Trump's office were among the dozens of women interviewed for the piece. In other Trump news: In yet another tweet, Trump said a Washington Post story about potential VP candidates was wrong. He said most of the candidates named were not being considered. President Obama didn't name Trump in his commencement address at Rutgers University on Sunday, but it was obvious whom he was talking about with his denunciations of "anti-intellectualism," wall-building, and misplaced nostalgia for the "good old days," the Washington Post reports. Obama also warned that "ignorance is not a virtue." "It's not cool to not know what you are talking about," he said. "That's not keeping it real or telling it like it is. That's not challenging political correctness. That's just not knowing what you are talking about." Reuters reports that in an interview that aired on Monday in Britain, Trump said he probably wouldn't have a good relationship with Prime Minister David Cameron, who called his remarks on Muslims last year "divisive, stupid, and wrong." "I hope to have a good relationship with him, but it sounds like he's not willing to address the problem either," said Trump. He also called London Mayor Sadiq Khan "ignorant"—for calling him ignorant.
– The US list of state sponsors of terror may grow to five. The Trump administration is considering adding Venezuela to the list of countries providing "support for acts of international terrorism," already including Iran, Sudan, Syria, and North Korea, reports the Washington Post. The outlet notes the State Department last week asked various agencies for feedback on the proposed move, reportedly based on Venezuela's alleged ties to Lebanese Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The Department of Health and Human Services, for example, was asked to assess how the terror designation would affect "HHS or CDC programming of funding being carried out by a third party in that country," which is suffering from food and medicine shortages amid hyperinflation. Republicans including Sen. Marco Rubio have called for the change to pressure Nicolas Maduro's regime. But some fear the designation would fuel anti-US messaging from Maduro, who has said Venezuela is the victim of a US-led "economic war." Others, like David Smilde of the Washington Office on Latin America, worry the designation could be used to justify US military intervention in the country—an idea Trump has toyed with. "I suspect this will be based on hearsay and sources of questionable integrity," he adds, noting a designation without concrete evidence of Venezuela's ties to terrorist groups would delegitimize the US list. Citing similar concerns among US officials, Reuters reports no final decision had been made as of Monday. (Hungry Venezuelans are reportedly turning to horse meat.)
– A man who shot at George Zimmerman during a confrontation earlier this week along a busy central Florida road has been arrested. Matthew Apperson turned himself in to Lake Mary police this evening. A rep for the police department says that "after conducting numerous interviews throughout the week, detectives determined that Mr. Apperson did intentionally fire his weapon into the vehicle occupied by George Zimmerman without provocation." The Orlando Sentinel reports by way of a police report that Apperson claimed he fired a single shot at Zimmerman's car after Zimmerman first pointed a gun at him and said, "I'm going to kill you." Zimmerman told a much different story: As he made a U-turn, Apperson approached him in his vehicle, yelling and threatening his life; Zimmerman says he tried to drive away after calling Apperson a "clown," but Apperson shot at him. Zimmerman suffered minor injuries from flying glass and debris. Zimmerman also said he didn't recognize Apperson, though the two had two encounters in September. Police recovered two legal guns from Apperson and one from Zimmerman. One interesting tidbit from Zimmerman's attorney: Don West says his client no longer lives in the state; he was back in Lake Mary for Mother's Day. Apperson was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, and firing a missile into an occupied conveyance. Read more on Zimmerman and Apperson's prior relationship.
– Pope Francis likely wasn't referring specifically to Rick Santorum when he said Monday that there was no need for Catholics to breed "like rabbits"—but the ex-Pennsylvania senator and past/possibly future US presidential contender didn't like what he heard. "It's sometimes very difficult to listen to the pope and some of the things he says off the cuff, and this is one of them," Santorum said Tuesday during an interview with conservative Catholic radio host Hugh Hewitt. "The pope is the leader of the Catholic Church, and when he speaks … I'll certainly pay attention. But when he speaks in interviews, he's giving his own opinions, which I certainly will listen to. But from my perspective, that doesn't reflect the idea that people shouldn't be fruitful and multiply, and that people should be open to life as something that is a core value … of the Catholic Church." Santorum, a devout Catholic and father of seven, says he doesn't even know what Francis is talking about, as this "isn't a global problem," he told Hewitt. "Maybe he's speaking to people in the Third World, but the problem, certainly, in most of the Catholic world is not procreation." Despite the pope's words, Santorum doesn't think there will be any significant changes in the Catholic Church regarding contraception. "That's not going to happen," he told Hewitt. "The Holy Spirit isn't going to let him make that kind of mistake." The pope has somewhat walked back his statement, saying Wednesday that "healthy families are essential to society" and often "welcome children as a gift from God," the Washington Post reports. (Santorum also had a lot to say on the alleged Muslim "no-go zones," this week's SOTU, and his possible 2016 presidential run).
– Federal authorities have confirmed that a cyanide trap intended to kill coyotes in Idaho instead killed a dog in an incident that local law enforcement officials say also injured a 14-year-old boy, the AP reports. The U.S. Department of Agriculture acknowledged Friday that workers with its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's Wildlife Services placed the device called an M-44. The device activated and killed a 3-year-old Lab named Casey on Thursday. It's not clear how many other M-44 devices had been set, but Wildlife Services says it's removed them from the area. Sheriff Lorin Nielsen said the boy's father reported that his son had been covered in an unknown substance and the dog had died. "Initially, we were just trying to determine what it even was—that was our biggest concern" said Capt. Dan Argyle. "We have never dealt with these before." He said the device was on top of a ridge about 500 yards from the boy's home. The boy was transported to a hospital emergency room to be tested for cyanide poisoning but was not seriously injured and was released. "It's a miracle the child wasn't seriously injured or even killed," Argyle said. Theresa Mansfield, the boy's mother, said her son was walking their dog on a hillside behind their home when they encountered the device. She said her son watched as the dog died. "Seeing something like that stays with you," she told the Idaho State Journal.
– Taylor Swift forgave Kanye West last night In an unusual musical reconciliation at the MTV Video Music Awards. "Who you are is not what you did," Swift sang to the rapper who rudely stormed onstage last year to challenge Swift's victory in the Best Female Video category. Kanye acknowledged his bad-boy behavior in his own song that ended the program. "Let's toast to the scumbags," he crooned, apparently referring to himself. While the two singers were making nice, Lady Gaga swept the awards, grabbing eight top honors, including wins for Best Pop, Dance, Female Video, and Video of the Year for Bad Romance. She also nabbed Best Collaboration for Telephone with Beyoncé. Boy wonder Justin Bieber won for Best New Artist, and Eminem nailed two wins for Best Male Video and Best Hip-Hop Video, reports the New York Daily News. Lindsay Lohan—who nabbed an unofficial honorary Good Sport award—poked fun at her battles with substance abuse, asking host Chelsea Handler in a backstage skit if she was drunk, adding: "You think anyone would work with a drunk? Take it from me! They don't!" For more news on Taylor Swift, click here.
– Acronym-heavy news reports are proliferating after a recent development regarding Procter & Gamble. Ad Age reports that the consumer-goods behemoth has put in the paperwork for the rights to use four well-known letter combinations—WTF, LOL, NBD (which stands for "no big deal"), and FML ("f--- my life")—in association with some of its products. Per CNBC, those items would include air fresheners, dishwashing detergent, liquid soap, and hard-surface cleaners. Quartz reports the trademark applications were filed in April, and that P&G now has until January to respond to requests for clarification by the US Patent and Trademark Office. There's no apparent sign that any P&G products exist yet using these acronyms in their names. CNBC muses that P&G likely wants to employ these acronyms to reach a demographic that might not be as interested in cleaning supplies and other household items as others: millennials. Quartz notes that going the millennial-friendly route has sometimes gone awry for brands, but it still plays the guessing game as to how P&G may wield these the acronyms, with WTF being a possibility for "Wow, that's Febreze!" and "NBD" serving as a stand-in for "no better detergent," among other suggestions. TBC....
– Malia Obama went to Lollapalooza this weekend—continuing what Jezebel refers to as "the best summer any 16-year-old has ever had" (because hey, pretty awesome internship)—and, as has never in the history of humankind at music festivals happened, someone got accidentally jostled, and it got tweeted: "I got (accidentally) kicked by Malia Obama today at Lollapalooza. No lie. Malia. Obama. It was awesome. #lollapalooza" Then the Daily Caller got involved with a story headlined "Malia Obama Straight Up Kicked A Girl at Lollapalooza": "Malia Obama kicked a (presumably) American citizen at Lollapalooza, and not only did the Secret Service fail to act, the kicked victim was happy about it. Bridget Truskey was minding her own business at the music festival, when the president’s daughter kicked her. 'It was awesome,' Truskey tweeted, apparently dangerously unable to see past the stars in her eyes."
– Six states are ablaze in a searing summer that's breaking records for wildfires. More than 1.2 million acres have already burned and some 10,000 people have been forced to flee their homes as flames devour land in Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Colorado, as well as Georgia and Texas. Some 3,500 firefighters have battled Arizona's Wallow fire that has consumed some 500,000 acres, and 700 smoke-eaters are wrestling the Monument fire near Sierra Vista in the state. "I feared for my husband, my animals and for the air quality," one fleeing Arizonan told ABC News. Also hardest hit is Texas, suffering its worst drought in history, where some 15,000 acres have burned in temperatures topping 100 degrees. Helicopters are currently dumping water on a California blaze raging in an oil field in San Luis Obispo County. Soaring temperatures and super dry conditions will continue to make this summer one of the most dangerous. One issue not a risk factor for fires? Illegal immigrants. Arizona Sen. John McCain came under heat for blaming Mexican drug cartels and illegal immigrants for starting blazes, but now says he was misinformed by National Forest Service officials.
– Yum Brands, which owns KFC, is quietly testing a single store in Arlington, Texas, that appears to be in direct competition with Chick-fil-A, Ad Age and other outlets note. Super Chix offers up "hand-breaded," MSG-, HFCS-, and phosphate-free chicken sandwiches and tenders, toppings like pickles and jalapenos, and signature sauces like honey mustard and Sriracha sweet and sour. Oh, and the store, which opened this month, is not referencing its relationship to KFC at all. A restaurant industry analyst says that's likely because Yum wants to "start free and clear of all perceptions of all existing brands," whether positive or negative. The move takes advantage of a trend toward "premiumization" of menu items, another expert says. As for whether more stores will eventually open, a spokesperson tells CNBC the restaurant "is not being considered to go up against US competitors," but is being tested for the international market. The move comes as KFC struggles, having ceded its position as No. 1 chicken chain by sales volume to Chick-fil-A in 2012, the AP reports. (Yum is also testing a fancier version of KFC in Kentucky.)
– When you're hacking up a lung and it's not getting better, you know you're going to have to visit the doctor. What you (and even the doctor) often don't know is whether that antibiotic Rx you may get is going to work, simply because it's often hard to tell the difference between a viral and bacterial infection. But a study published in PLOS One says that may all change with a blood test that can quickly differentiate between the two, the BBC reports. And if MeMed's ImmunoXpert proves to work as scientists say it does, it could not only get antibiotics more quickly to patients with bacterial infections (the only ones antibiotics work on), but also cut down on patients who don't have bacterial infections from taking them. That's big, because overuse is linked to widespread antibiotic resistance. The study in Israel examined some 1,000 patients, scrutinizing the body's immune response to the sickness and honing in on protein trails that are activated depending on whether an infection is viral or bacterial. In particular, levels in blood of one protein called TRAIL significantly shot up in subjects who had been infected with viruses, while it dropped in patients with bacterial illnesses. The CEO of MeMed says the test works—a post at EurekAlert touts "highly accurate results, with sensitivity and specificity greater than 90%"—and offers results within two hours for most patients, per the BBC. "It is not perfect and it does not replace a physician's judgment, but it is better than many of the routine tests used in practice today," Eran Eden says. (A newly discovered antiobiotic may help fight superbugs.)
– A grisly murder in New York City today is getting attention because the alleged assailant is an aspiring actor who had small roles in Ugly Betty and the movie Step-Up 3D. Neighbors tell the New York Daily News that Michael Brea, 31, killed his mother with a sword while ordering her to "repent" inside her Brooklyn apartment. They also say police waited too long to enter the apartment, but Chief Raymond Kelly says officers followed protocol in such a "barricaded situation." Brea has been arrested and is undergoing psychiatric evaluation. Click here for more.
– Apple has made the biggest buy in its history—and made Dr. Dre the richest man in hip-hop history. The company has confirmed that it is buying Beats Electronics for $3 billion, down from the $3.2 billion discussed earlier this month, reports Bloomberg, which notes that Apple is sitting on enough cash to have bought the headphone and music-streaming firm 50 times over and CEO Tim Cook appears ready to use the money pile more aggressively than predecessor Steve Jobs ever did. Dre has a 25% stake in the firm and the deal puts him close to being rap's first billionaire, the BBC notes. So what's in it for Apple? The company appears to be paying a "star-struck valuation" for a cool company, one analyst tells CNET, saying the price tag appears too high unless Apple has a secret strategy like "expanding into headphones used as wearable tech." But Cook says the buy was a "no-brainer" and while Apple could easily have built a similar streaming service, the talent at Beats Electronics is the most exciting part of the deal. "These guys are really unique," he tells the New York Times. "It's like finding the precise grain of sand on the beach. They're rare and very hard to find."
– A variety of studies have linked heavy drinking to brain damage and dementia, but a new one suggests moderate drinking might also hurt the brain and perhaps lead to memory loss. Contrary to studies suggesting drinking in moderation might actually be good for you, the latest in the British Medical Journal determined that middle-aged moderate drinkers who consumed between eight to 12 shots, bottles of beer, or small glasses of wine per week were more likely than light or non-drinkers to suffer a decline in language ability over a 30-year period, reports USA Today. Perhaps most concerning, moderate drinkers were also three times more likely than non-drinkers to experience a shrinking of the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory. In the study of 527 Brits, mostly middle-class men, researchers found that 35% of non-drinkers had experienced hippocampal atrophy after 30 years, compared to 65% of moderate drinkers and 77% of participants who drank the most, reports the Guardian. As hippocampal atrophy may be linked to dementia, moderate drinking, then, could be tied to future memory loss, reports CNN. Researchers, who expected light to moderate drinkers to be protected from cognitive decline, were "surprised," co-author Anya Topiwala explains. "These are people who are drinking at levels that many consider social drinkers, so they are not consuming a lot." While researchers took age, sex, social activity, and education into account, experts caution that other factors, like diet, may play a role. (Moderate drinking might also increase your breast cancer risk.)
– Long have scholars debated the origins of the "nonsense" language in Jonathan Swift's most famous novel, Gulliver's Travels, though Isaac Asimov once said making sense of it is a "waste of time" because "I suspect that Swift simply made up nonsense for the purpose." But now a linguist at the University of Houston says he's solved the riddle, and he argues in the summer 2015 edition of Swift Studies that the words play off of Hebrew. Irving Rothman says he's amassed several clues, one being that Swift, an Anglican minister, studied Hebrew at Trinity College before going on to publish his iconic book in 1726, reports the Houston Chronicle. The book chronicles the travels of Lemuel Gulliver, who at one point is captured by 6-inch-tall people on the island Lilliput. Here Gulliver encounters a "nonsense" language built off of 22 letters, just like Hebrew. And one phrase, "Borach Mivola," shouted while Gulliver imbibes liquor, could be a variant of the Hebrew "Baruch," or "blessed," with "Mivola" being related to the Hebrew "mivolim," or "complete defeat." And the "Gnea Yahoo," Swift's term for irrational, wild creatures, could be built off a Hebrew variant of God—Yahveh—where "Gnea," if read right to left, as Hebrew is, sounds like "ayn," or "not." "Those beasts are the opposite of God," Rothman concludes, while "Gulliver is a human being achieving saving grace, a hope not accorded to the Yahoo." (How old is the Old Testament really?)
– An explosion at a US airfield in Afghanistan early Saturday killed four Americans—two service members and two contractors, CNN reports. Another 16 US service members and a Polish soldier were injured in the apparent suicide attack inside Bagram Air Field. According to the AP, a statement from NATO's Resolute Support mission said the blast happened around 5.30am and that "force protection and medical teams are responding to the situation." US Defense Secretary Ash Carter says he's "deeply saddened" by the attack. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which they said was carried out by a suicide bomber inside the base. Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the insurgent group, said the attack had been planned for four months. The Taliban says it targeted "a sports ground where...important people and soldiers were busy exercising." It appears people on the base were gathering for a run when the explosion happened. A spokesperson for the governor of Parwan province, where the air field is based, says laborers employed at Bagram line up at the gates around dawn and an attacker could have been among them on Saturday.
– Bob Jones III, a former president and current chancellor of Bob Jones University, is apologizing for comments he made 35 years ago, NBC News reports. In a push against Civil Rights Act measures for gay people, Jones called at the time for "the swift justice … that was brought in Israel’s day against murder and rape and homosexuality. I guarantee it would solve the problem post-haste if homosexuals were stoned, if murderers were immediately killed as the Bible commands." A petition has called on him to apologize for the comments, and this weekend, the 75-year-old did so, the Washington Post reports. "I take personal ownership for this inflammatory rhetoric," he said, noting that it was "made in the heat of a political controversy 35 years ago." The statement, he said, now seems like the words of a "stranger": "It is antithetical to my theology and my 50 years of preaching a redeeming Christ Who came into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." The petition was the work of BJUnity, a support group for LGBT students at the school, the Greenville News reports. The apology "means a lot to us because it represents the beginning of a change in the rhetoric and conversation," the group says. The school recently faced controversy when rape victims said it called them sinners; in December, it apologized for the treatment of victims, the Post reports.
– Joe Biden goes after President Trump in a scathing new op-ed in the Atlantic. The former VP takes particular issue with Trump's response to the violence in Charlottesville, declaring that the president "proclaimed a moral equivalency between neo-Nazis and Klansmen and those who would oppose their venom and hate" and "emboldened white supremacists with messages of comfort and support." Biden also mentions Trump's pardon of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio and concludes that Trump's "contempt for the U.S. Constitution and willingness to divide this nation knows no bounds." Biden sees all of this adding up to a pivotal moment—"we are living through a battle for the soul of this nation"—and says that Americans must do what Trump will not by clearly denouncing hate groups. "We have to remember our kids are watching." As the Hill notes, the essay comes amid rumors that the 74-year-old Biden is considering one last run for the presidency in 2020, though he has publicly denied that. (Read Biden's full essay here.)
– Rick Fonger, who owns a California jewelry store, used to advertise on Yelp. The day after he stopped, last month, a Yelp employee called to tell him that his competitors' ads were now showing up above the reviews on his store's Yelp page. "She said that for $75 a month, she could make those ads go away," Fonger tells David Lazarus at the Los Angeles Times. When Fonger told her that sounded like extortion, "She said she could understand why I'd think that. But she said they do it to everyone." A Yelp rep later explained to Lazarus that she was simply offering Fonger the opportunity to "buy out the ad space on [his] own page." The practice does sound like extortion to Lazarus, and to the expert he consulted. The Yelp rep "said Yelp is doing the same thing that phone books do: selling ads that accompany related business listings," Lazarus writes. "The difference, of course, is that the Yellow Pages never told businesses they could pay extra to get rid of someone else's ad." And therein lies the problem. Lazarus points out that other small-business owners have accused Yelp of threatening to make negative reviews more prominent if the owners didn't buy ads on the site. "Yelp succeeds by making a problem and then taking people's money to solve it," Lazarus writes. "I'm no lawyer, but I know a racket when I see one. Anybody who calls to say that you now have a problem but that they can make that problem go away for $75 a month isn't your friend." Click for his full column.
– Sociologists have puzzled over an odd stat for years: Parents are more likely to divorce if they have girls instead of boys. The New York Times parenting blog today takes note of a new theory by a Notre Dame psychologist: Women who have daughters don't need a husband as much "because they know that with a girl, they'll never be lonely or without help." These women "may be less willing to tolerate any bad behaviors from their husbands (and less willing to stay married)," writes psychologist Anita E. Kelly in Psychology Today. "This idea could even explain why couples expecting a girl are less likely to marry: A woman carrying a girl anticipates that she won't need a husband." As they say, girls rule, boys drool.
– Beyonce hit Coachella on Saturday night—hard. The music festival's first black woman headliner reunited Destiny's Child, bringing out former bandmates Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams in a two-hour tour de force of their hits that included "Say My Name," "Lose My Breath," and "Soldier," reports People. It was the first appearance for the group since 2015, notes the BBC, and Bey wasn't done there. Her set also included one Shawn Carter, aka Jay-Z, for a duet of "Deja Vu." The set was a year in the making: Beyonce had been due to headline last year, but had to pull out due to her pregnancy with twins. "Coachella, thank you for allowing me to be the first black woman to headline," she told the crowd, introducing "Run the World (Girls)."
– No Rockette will have to perform at Donald Trump's inauguration against her will, the company that manages the dance troupe said Friday after controversy over their scheduled performance erupted. "For a Rockette to be considered for an event, they must voluntarily sign up and are never told they have to perform at a particular event, including the inaugural," the Madison Square Garden Company said in a statement, per NBC. "It is always their choice. In fact, for the coming inauguration, we had more Rockettes request to participate than we have slots available." The dancers' union, the American Guild of Variety Artists, said it had never "demanded" that they play, but merely stated the terms of their contract. Former Rockette Heather Lang, however, tells the New York Times that competition to be in the troupe is so fierce that dancers are likely to feel pressured to perform. "One of the most annoying situations about that job is it’s corporate," she says. "It’s not like a Broadway show where you feel like you have an artistic voice. You're sort of owned by this corporation." Only around a dozen of the 80 Rockettes are full-time employees contractually obligated to appear at events year-round, and the union says participation will be voluntary for them as well. Other artists lined up for Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration include the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The AP reports that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says response to the announcement has been mixed.
– More information about the confusion in the days following the Sept. 11 attack on the US consulate in Libya: Emails obtained by Reuters show that scarcely more than two hours after the attack, the White House, Pentagon, and FBI were informed by the State Department's Operations Center that a Libyan militant group had claimed responsibility. One early email, obtained from anonymous sources, carried the headline, "Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack." US intelligence officials have said that initial reports are difficult to analyze, and that they were "relying on the best analysis available at the time." Hillary Clinton responded to the report today, pointing out that the email was referring to a Facebook post from the militant group. "Posting something on Facebook is not in and of itself evidence," Clinton said. "I think it just underscores how fluid the reporting was at the time and continued for some time to be."
– North Korea today awarded Kim Jong Un yet another title—he's now the head of the ruling Workers’ Party. But for his brother, no such accolades. South Korea's Yonhap news agency today reported on the whereabouts of Kim Jong Il's oldest son, Kim Jong Nam: He apparently arrived in Beijing several days ago, and "has been placed under Chinese protection." The AFP notes that the 40-year-old has long lived outside of North Korea, mostly in the Chinese territory of Macau. It's not clear if he'll return for his father's funeral. Back in North Korea, the country's main newspaper today instructed the people to "defend the party's Central Committee headed by respected Comrade Kim Jong Un." The New York Times explains that the head of the Workers' Party's Central Committee serves as both general secretary and chairman of the party’s Central Military Commission. The Times notes that Kim is racking up a number of titles that were formerly bestowed on his father: Over the weekend, North Korean media referred to him as "heaven-sent leader," "the sun of the 21st century," and "eobeoi," which means "parent."
– BlackBerry maker Research In Motion's freefall is continuing. The Canadian company's shares plunged 15% after it posted a $518 million third-quarter loss and announced that its new BlackBerry 10 smartphone had been delayed until next year, reports the Wall Street Journal. The company says it is cutting 5,000 jobs—nearly a third of its workforce—and experts believe it might not survive long enough to release the new smartphone. CEO Thorsten Heins says the delay is due to difficulties with new features on the much-hyped phone and the company is in the midst of a "strategic review." "They had one hope—one—and that was to make BB10 the greatest thing since sliced bread and get it out on time. Clearly, they have failed," the chief of a Toronto software firm tells the Globe and Mail. "There’s just no way now to pull out of the death spiral,” he says. “With stiff competition and a complete lack of marketplace trust, zombie Steve Jobs couldn't fix RIM." Where did it all go wrong for the company? Analysts blame years of resistance to innovation and operating with two CEOs.
– Let them eat their hearts out. Jewels that once belonged to Marie Antoinette, the extravagant and doomed last queen of France, are set to hit the auction block as part of what Sotheby's calls "one of the most important royal jewellery collections ever to appear on the market." Sold by Italy's royal House of Bourbon-Parma, the items up for grabs Thursday in Geneva, Switzerland—smuggled to Antoinette's family in Austria before she and Louis XVI met the guillotine in 1793—haven't been seen in public for 200 years, reports the BBC. They include a pearl and diamond pendant, valued at up to $2 million, and a monogram ring with a lock of Antoinette's hair, expected to fetch up to $50,000, per CNN. (Antoinette's silk shoes were previously sold.)
– This long, cold winter has created the most ice cover on the Great Lakes in 20 years—and with ice cover usually at its peak in mid-March, there's still time for records to be broken. Lake Superior is now more than 90% covered by ice, reports NBC, and with temperatures set to plummet yet again in the days to come, forecasters believe the 1979 record of 95% ice cover across all the Great Lakes could fall by the weekend. Lakes Michigan, Erie, and Huron are all virtually frozen over and ice is starting to cover Lake Ontario, the slowest to freeze, reports MLive, which notes that there have been reports of even parts of Niagara Falls starting to freeze. While many people in the region have had quite enough of winter, the continued cold is excellent news for the lakes because it will help replenish water levels, a hydrologist with the Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab says. "By next fall, water temperatures will be cooler and the evaporation rates next fall will be less than they have in the past. That's the key connection. Water levels should rise a bit," he explains to WSBT. The cold weather will also make life harder this spring for invasive species like the Asian stink bug. (Thanks to all the ice, it's possible to walk to Apostle Island Ice Caves on Lake Superior for the first time in five years.)
– Authorities in Pakistan are braced for massive protests after the acquittal of a Christian woman who was sentenced to death in 2010 for alleged blasphemy against Islam. Asia Bibi was accused of making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed in a 2009 argument with farmworkers who refused to drink water from a container used by a Christian, the BBC reports. Judges on Pakistan's top court ruled that she had been sentenced on flimsy evidence, and a "confession" had been delivered in front of an angry crowd that was threatening to kill her. Her family says she never insulted the prophet. The judges ordered the release of Bibi, a mother of five who has spent most of the last eight years in solitary confinement. She was moved to an undisclosed location and is expected to leave the country, the AP reports. "I am very happy. My children are very happy," husband Ashiq Masih said. "We are grateful to God. We are grateful to the judges for giving us justice. We knew that she is innocent." Hardline Islamist clerics have called for rallies across the country to protest Bibi's release and security has been stepped up at churches. (In 2011, Pakistan's minister for religious minorities and the governor of Punjab province were assassinated for supporting changes to the country's blasphemy law.)
– If you were moved by Jimmy Kimmel's recent push for a National Unfriend Day, you should be glad to hear this news: New social network Path launches today, and it limits you to your nearest and dearest 50 friends. Path's limit is in keeping with the work of evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who famously theorized that you can only maintain close relationships with 150 people—and of those, you probably only trust 50 of them, NPR notes. Developed by a former Facebook exec and a Napster co-founder, the photo-centric service's founders believe that Facebook users aren't divulging everything to their 5,000 friends, and will share more if their number of connections is limited—though they're not pitching it as a Facebook replacement, but as something meant to "ride alongside" other networks. It launches as an iPhone app that allows users to find friends using email addresses or phone numbers, then snap, post, and tag photos to create a "path" of your life, the Los Angeles Times reports.
– The last time Irom Sharmila ate a meal by her own hand was Nov. 4, 2000. In the 12-plus years since, the 40-year-old Indian known as the "Iron Lady" has been on a hunger strike to protest India's Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which gives the military wide-ranging rights in restive regions and which human rights groups say has been used to torture and kill suspected rebels with impunity. She was arrested three days after that last meal and has been force-fed twice daily via a nose tube ever since—and yesterday, she was charged with attempted suicide, the AP reports. Since her arrest, the government has been releasing her once every year, then taking her back into custody when she continues to refuse to eat—the Belfast Telegraph notes that she won't even use water to brush her teeth. The attempted suicide charge stems from a 2006 arrest at a New Delhi protest and subsequent hospitalization. In the hands of India's slow system, the incident has finally made its way in front of the court; it carries a sentence of up to one year in prison. "I will continue my fast until the Special Powers Act is withdrawn," she said yesterday at a court appearance as supporters outside demanded the act be repealed. "I love life. I do not want to take my life, but I want justice and peace."
– Sam LaHood today discussed his "de facto detention" in Egypt, in his first TV interview since returning to the US Thursday, Politico reports. LaHood, who had been barred from leaving Egypt along with 42 other NGO employees, says their attorney compared the circumstances "to a hostage situation." The employees still face criminal charges in Egypt, and LaHood tells CNN he expects the trial against them "to go on for some time" in that country. "We’re working with our lawyers to try to figure out what’s next for myself and my other American colleagues," says LaHood, son of the US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. "But as I said, we’re hopeful that this issue is going to be resolved within Egypt and there will be a positive outcome for our Egyptian colleagues as well." LaHood wouldn't comment on what his detention might say about the post-Mubarak Egypt, but he did note that transitions like the one Egypt is undergoing are often "uneven. There's bumps in the road."
– Stuart Wilson says people thought he was crazy when he gambled $39,000—his life savings—on a 4.6-acre field in Wales. Having heard a farmer's story about moles digging up bits of pottery on the land, the amateur archaeologist tells the Guardian he had a hunch that something important lay beneath, and when the parcel went on the market in 2004, he bought it. Now, it looks like his bet is paying off: He believes his land is sitting atop the lost city of Trellech—Wales' largest city in the 13th century, reports the BBC—and the Guardian reports his theory is starting to gain traction. Wilson, a former toll collector who got his undergrad degree in archaeology, estimates the project has cost more than $200,000, funded in part through donations (you can be an archaeologist for a day for $61). With help from some 1,000 volunteers, Wilson says he has so far discovered eight buildings, and he intends to spend 2017 working on the remains of what he believes is a manor house surrounded by a moat. In 2006, he told Archaeology.org that excavating the field "will probably take about 50 years, so basically the rest of my life." As for the history of the site, it was founded by the de Clare family in the 1200s as a hub that produced iron weapons and armor, and its population exploded. Per Wilson, in just 25 years it grew to 10,000 people—a quarter of London's size, though Wilson points out it took London 250 years to amass its 40,000 people. The BBC reports the de Clares' settlement is thought to have been destroyed in 1296. (Read about the seven biggest archaeology finds of 2016.)
– The Taliban publicly flogged a pregnant Afghan widow some 200 times before shooting her to death for having sex. Her lover escaped. Bibi Sanubar, 35, "was shot in the head in public while she was still pregnant," deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Mohammad Sayeedi told Agence France Presse. Officials found out about the execution because her body was dumped in an area under government control. This was not the way she should have been punished," said a local Afghan official. "She should have been arrested and we would have had proof that she had an illegal affair," he told the Daily Mail. "Then she should come to court and face justice." Sanubar could have faced up to three years in prison under "conventional" Afghan law. The Taliban frequently stoned or lashed people for sex outside of marriage during their harsh rule in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
– Pity poor Anders Breivik; the confessed Norway mass-murderer thinks prosecutors are making fun of him. Prosecutors questioned Breivik for a second day today, asking about sections of his 1,500-page manifesto that describe his "Knights Templar" terrorist group, and boast that he was selected over "several hundred" applicants. "Before you continue, I hope that you will try to ridicule me less," Breivik said, "and concentrate on the case more. The police pulled out parts of the compendium that I agree were poorly written." Norway police don't think the group exists, the New York Times reports. As they pointed out inconsistencies in his account, Breivik sweated and looked uncomfortable, saying he'd made "some sloppy mistakes." Yesterday, he admitted his account was "pompous," according to Reuters. "Instead of telling about four sweaty guys in a cellar … you use other ways of description," he said. Prosecutors also cast doubt on Breivik's story that he met a Serbian war criminal in Liberia. Breivik refused to answer questions about the trip, saying he didn't want to expose fellow militants, and complaining that prosecutors were trying to "detract credibility from me."
– Donald Trump may be hosting a Republican debate later this month, but Jon Huntsman for one wants no part of it. "We look forward to watching Mitt and Newt suck up to The Donald with a big bowl of popcorn," a spokesman tells Business Insider. Trump tells Fox News he doesn't care because Huntsman isn't a "serious candidate." Ever the ratings-conscious showman, the Donald also says he might just endorse someone after the Dec. 27 debate, notes Media Matters. (Click for the Huntsman daughters' latest video.)
– For weeks, President Obama and other senior officials have touted the special FISA court as a safeguard on NSA surveillance. Well, the Guardian and Washington Post have obtained top-secret documents submitted to and approved by that court that outline the rules and limits placed on the program. How reassuring they are may depend on your level of skepticism. The Glass Half Private reading: The documents outline many steps the NSA must take to be sure its would-be target is a foreigner, including reviewing all available data on the target and checking him against a huge database of phone numbers and email addresses known to belong to Americans to make sure he is a non-United States person. If the target enters the US, surveillance is halted immediately, even if the target is not a US citizen. The Glass Half Spied On reading: The NSA doesn't check each target with the court or anyone else; it gets broad authority to spy on anyone it feels meets its criteria, and if it has no data on a target's location, it can assume the target is overseas. It can retain any "inadvertently acquired" domestic communications that contain intelligence or info on criminal activity, and it can keep data that could involve US persons for up to five years. The court issues broad, bulk warrants; one seen by the Guardian was only a paragraph long and unburdened by legal rationale. And any foreigner is fair game to be targeted, whether suspected of wrongdoing or not. The Guardian also points out that these rules only apply to the chunk of NSA activities authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The bulk seizing of call records occurs under the Patriot Act. Civil liberties groups are among those not calmed by the disclosures. "What’s most striking about the targeting procedures is the discretion they confer on the NSA," says a Brennan Center for Justice exec. In an attempt to reassure critics, President Obama will today hold his first meeting with his rarely heard from Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, the AP reports.
– Seniors who indulge in a morning lie-in may want to take note. A new study found that older adults who slept more than nine hours a night were at double the risk of developing Alzheimer's and other neurological disorders, the New York Times reports. The red flag was limited to those who increased their sleeping time with age. But for those sleep-lovers who have always enjoyed lazy mornings curled under the covers, there was no increased risk. Senior author Dr. Sudha Seshadri of Boston University says the change in sleep patterns is likely a symptom rather than a cause of dementia. "We’re not suggesting you go wake up Grandpa," he tells the Times. In the study, researchers tracked 2,457 people over 60, average age 72, for 10 years. They write in the journal Neurology that those who began sleeping longer than nine hours had smaller brain volumes, took longer to process information, and showed signs of memory loss, reports the Telegraph. Seshadri theorizes that sleeping was a "compensatory mechanism" as the body tries to rid itself of a toxic protein called beta amyloid. A buildup of this protein in the brain causes plaques in Alzheimer's sufferers. About 7% of people over age 65 develop some form of dementia, per the Telegraph. While there is no cure, early intervention and meds can lead to treatments that can slow the onset. "Persons reporting long sleep time may warrant assessment and monitoring for problems with thinking and memory," says study researcher Dr. Matthew Pase. (Heartburn meds have been linked to a higher risk of dementia.)
– Drake earned a record-breaking 13 American Music Awards nominations on Monday thanks to his latest album, Views, shattering Michael's Jackson's mark of 11 nominations in a single year from 1984 when the King of Pop had Thriller. Rihanna got seven nominations and Adele and Justin Bieber tied with five each, reports the AP. Beyonce and The Chainsmokers each received four nominations. Bryson Tiller, Twenty One Pilots, Carrie Underwood, Fetty Wap, and The Weeknd earned three nominations each. Nominees for artist of the year are Adele, Beyonce, Bieber, Drake, Selena Gomez, Adriana Grande, Rihanna, Twenty One Pilots, Carrie Underwood, and The Weeknd. The 10 nominees will be cut in half by Nov. 14 based on fan votes. Voting on artist of the year will close Nov. 17. Nominees for the title of new artist of the year are Alessia Cara, The Chainsmokers, DNCE, Shawn Mendes, and Zayn. There is no overall song of the year category this year; instead honors will be handed out for best song in the categories of pop/rock, country, rap/hip-hop and soul/R&B. Nominations are based on a metric that includes sales, airplay, and social activity tracked by Billboard magazine. Winners are determined by fan votes on the show's website or through Facebook and Twitter. The awards show will air live Nov. 20 from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on ABC. Billboard notes that Drake has never won an AMA award. In addition to artist of the year, his categories include favorite male artist, favorite album, favorite rap artist, favorite rap song, and favorite R&B song.
– Emma Raine either has the worst luck with men, or she's—as prosecutors suggest—a "serial husband killer" and "black widow." The 52-year-old woman, widowed three times, face charges of second-degree murder in the death of her second husband, Ernest Smith, shot to death in Louisiana in 2006 by a man allegedly hired by Raine so she could benefit from an $800,000 life insurance policy, reports the AP. It's a twisted tale: Prosecutors say the man who pulled the trigger—Alfred Everette, convicted of murder in 2014—was promised a cut of the insurance money from Raine and her future third husband, James Raine, before James' own murder in Mississippi in 2011. Police say Emma Raine is also a suspect in that case, though no charges have been laid. Raine has pleaded not guilty in Smith's death and faces a mandatory life sentence if convicted. The trial could begin as soon as Wednesday. Police allege Raine hired Everette, James Raine's adoptive brother, to shoot Smith, 38, outside his New Orleans home. Police say his wife was likely inside and witnessed the shooting, but called a friend instead of 911, per the Inquisitr. James Raine was similarly shot inside his home in 2011 while his wife was apparently out of town. During Everette's trial, prosecutors also described the death of Raine's first husband, Leroy Evans, in 1994 as suspicious. Hospitalized after being hit by a car, he reportedly choked after his feeding tube was somehow removed, reports the Sun Herald. (This woman has seven dead lovers.)
– Ann Coulter can speak at the University of California-Berkeley after all, the university says—but the different date it has proposed is nowhere near good enough. After Berkeley, which said it called off her April 27 speech due to security concerns, issued a press release saying she had been offered a slot on May 2, Coulter slammed the university in a series of tweets, the Hill reports. The conservative author complained "burdensome conditions" were being put on her constitutional right to speak, likened Berkeley to a "Southern sheriff" trying to stop black people from voting, and vowed to speak on the original date. Coulter's vow to come to campus April 27 "without regard for the fact that we don’t have a protectable venue available on that date is of grave concern," Chancellor Nicholas Dirks said in Berkeley's statement, adding that he asked for an expanded search, which "identified an appropriate, protectable venue that is available on the afternoon of May 2." Officials worry the Coulter speech will become the latest Berkeley clash between far-left and far-right activists. "It feels like we've become the OK Corral for the Hatfield and McCoys of the right and left," Dan Mogulof, the university's assistant vice chancellor for public affairs, tells the Washington Post. "We're the venue for these showdowns taking place."
– Toronto is in mourning after the horrifying death of a 3-year-old boy who wandered outside at night wearing only a T-shirt, pullup diaper, and winter boots. Little Elijah Marsh is believed to have left his grandparents' apartment at around 4am yesterday morning, opening two more doors—the second of which would have locked behind him—to make his way out of the building, reports the National Post. When his family discovered he was missing at around 7:30am, police launched what they say was an "aggressive and massive" search involving more than 100 officers, as well as volunteers from across the city, the Toronto Star reports. Elijah was found with no vital signs in a corner of a backyard at around 10am and was pronounced dead in a hospital hours later. Security camera video showed the boy leaving the building on a night where temperatures were as low as minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit, the AP reports. "What happened here is unbelievably sad. I just think about that child being outside. Alone. And it being dark, and it is so cold and he was 3—and he comes out—and he can't get back in the building, because the door here locks behind you," a neighbor who joined the search tells the Post. "All he would want was his mom and dad. I always see him with his family. I have never seen that boy alone." Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair says the whole city shares the family's sorrow. "It will remind all of us to go home and hug our kids a little bit more," he says. "I think we all will grieve for that child and for their family and for their community for its loss." (A similar story from December had a much happier ending.)
– Bob and Maureen McDonnell's corruption trial got under way this week, and it's yielding no dearth of grist for the mill. While it appeared financial problems drove Virginia's former first couple to accept $165,000 in loans and gifts from a donor, the McDonnells' lawyer put up what the Virginian-Pilot calls "a line of defense worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy" during yesterday's proceedings. Namely, that the McDonnells' marriage was so terrible that they "were barely on speaking terms," and thus couldn't have conspired. Maureen McDonnell "said she hated (her husband)," said lawyer John Brownlee. Bob McDonnell's long hours on the job and the couple's dreary finances resulted in "a rift so wide" that "an outsider"—in this case, Star Scientific honcho and mega-donor Jonnie Williams—"could invade and poison the marriage." Adding insult to injury, Maureen McDonnell had a major "crush" on the gift-giving Williams. An ex-federal prosecutor tells the AP that lawyers for the McDonnells are trying to build up the lovelorn-wife story to show that she was "duped" by Williams—who reportedly showered her with fancy clothes, trips, and cash in exchange for the governor's promotion of his business—and to break down the prosecution's case by "[creating] some sympathy" for Bob McDonnell. The Washington Post has a liveblog of the trial here, including a photo of the seemingly happy couple posing in Williams' Ferrari.
– When you shake your fist in anger on a bad hair day, shake in the direction of your home's pipes. Scientists say copper might be the culprit, per research published in the International Journal of Cosmetic Science picked up by the Telegraph. The dastardly process: Copper found in pipes (or in your hot water tank) leaches into water; wash your hair with it, and over time the metal will build up in the strands' outer layers, where it amplifies the creation of cuticle-destroying molecules. That translates into weaker hair, which makes it more susceptible to things like split ends and fly-aways. If you dye your hair, the effect is worse, they say. The "they" in this equation is noteworthy, though: They're researchers with Procter and Gamble, which just so happens to be working on creating copper-fighting hair dyes. They looked at hair samples from women living in various parts of the globe, and found that everyone seemed to have it in their hair, at varying levels. "You often can’t see the effects under the microscope, which is why we believe copper has been largely missed as a source of damage," says the head scientist at Pantene. Quirky side note: The Daily Mail reports that a 2012 poll of 2,000 Brits found women endure 26 years of bad hair in their lifetime.
– National Beverage Corp. CEO Nick Caporella is 82 and still pilots the company's business jet—but two other pilots say he can't keep his hands to himself when he's in the cockpit. The male pilots have filed lawsuits in the last two years accusing Caporella of "unwanted touching" on some 30 trips between 2014 and 2016, the Wall Street Journal reports. One pilot, whose lawsuit was filed in 2016 and settled last year, said that on 18 flights, Caporella had engaged in "repeated unjustified, unwarranted, and uninvited grabbing, rubbing and groping" of his leg in a sexual manner. The suits named National Beverage, maker of LaCroix sparkling water, as a co-defendant. In a separate lawsuit, another pilot accused Caporella of "unprovoked and unwanted sexually oriented touching" on more than a dozen occasions, CNN reports. That lawsuit was filed last year and is still pending. Lee Schillinger, the pilots' attorney, says Caporella pays his co-pilots a generous salary. "He reaches over and grabs his co-pilot," Schillinger tells the Journal. "He’s trying to prove that he’s in control." Glenn Waldman, a lawyer for Caporella and National Beverage, says the accusations have been investigated and are false and "scurrilous." He accuses the pilots of targeting the CEO because of his age and wealth, which has increased significantly as LaCroix sales have surged in recent years.
– He says he was just trying to annoy his girlfriend; a Scottish court decided in March it qualified as a hate crime. Now, Markus Meechan will have to pay roughly $1,100 over the video he posted in April 2016 that showed his girlfriend's pug making a Nazi-like salute. The BBC reports the video, titled "M8 Yer Dugs a Nazi," was viewed more than 3 million times. In it, Meechan repeatedly asks his girlfriend's dog, Buddha, if the pug wants to "gas the Jews" in what appears to be an attempt to get him to react to the phrase, and teaches him to raise his paw to the command "Sieg Heil." Sheriff Derek O'Carroll, who issued the fine, didn't buy the 30-year-old's excuse, and Sky News reports he also noted that Meechan's girlfriend wasn't a subscriber to the YouTube channel he posted to. "The fact that you claim in the video, and elsewhere, that the video was intended only to annoy your girlfriend … is of little assistance to you," O'Carroll said. "A racist joke or a grossly offensive video does not lose its racist or grossly offensive quality merely because the maker asserts he only wanted to get a laugh." Meechan disagreed, saying context mattered: "This is a really dangerous precedent to set—for people to say things and their context to be completely ignored and then they can be convicted for it." He says he'll appeal. The BBC notes Ricky Gervais tweeted a take in line with Meechan's last month: "A man has been convicted in a UK court of making a joke that was deemed 'grossly offensive.' If you don't believe in a person's right to say things that you might find 'grossly offensive', then you don't believe in Freedom of Speech." Gervais followed up with a joke of his own Monday: "Can't believe the pug got off scot-free."
– An 18-year-old Oregon student who was forced out of class for refusing to cover up his pro-Trump T-shirt won't end up getting the last word in the matter—which is the outcome he wanted. The last word will go to the principal of Liberty High School in Hillsboro, who agreed to issue a letter of apology as part of a settlement in the case. Addison Barnes sued the school, Principal Greg Timmons, and the Hillsboro School District, accusing them of violating his First Amendment rights. KOIN reports that Barnes initially covered up the "Donald J. Trump Border Wall Construction Co.'' he wore to school in January, but then decided to reverse course. He was then told to cover it again or go home, and he chose the latter option, which the school recorded as a suspension. The Oregonian reports a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order two months ago that prevented the school from banning the shirt for the remainder of the school year, with the judge saying the censorship wasn't legally justified. The school had argued the shirt could fuel a "hostile learning environment." The settlement, announced Tuesday, will also see the district pay $25,000 to cover Barnes' legal fees. Willamette Week has a statement from Barnes, who has since graduated from the school: "Everyone knows that if a student wears an anti-Trump shirt to school, the teachers won't think twice about it. But when I wore a pro-Trump shirt, I got suspended. That's not right."
– Julia Roberts just turned 51, and for her it's the biggest shrug—why would anyone care? "I think that’s made up, that at a certain age, the bell is going to ring and you are done," she says, per ABC News. "I don’t think anybody buys into that. I don't think I am special. I've always been fortunate that I have found the work I am looking for. I mean, 30 years is a long time – and I am grateful and satisfied." She also tells iNews that Hollywood's all-too-slow embrace of equal pay is a headscratcher. "It's an ongoing thing that we wish was more in the rear-view mirror," she says. "I know the World Surf League announced that they will have equal pay for their female surfers and male surfers. ... So if it's a little bit of time, then we have to take it." (Marisa Tomei has her own punchy reaction to getting older.)
– Stephen Hawking believes that mankind might want to just mind its own business, cosmically speaking. Even as he turns his attention to the search for alien life, Hawking says we should think twice before making any efforts to communicate with alien civilizations, ScienceAlert reports. Any civilization advanced enough to contact Earth is likely to be "vastly more powerful [than us] and may not see us as any more valuable than we see bacteria," Hawking says. He explains that an alien civilization arriving at Earth could use its vast technological advantage to take advantage of our planet in the same way Columbus exploited the Native Americans. Hawking made the comments in a new video, Stephen Hawking's Favorite Places, which can be viewed on CuriosityStream. One of Hawking's current projects, Breakthrough Listen, is dedicated to scanning the nearest million stars for signs of alien life, the Guardian reports. That project's first major target is KIC 8462852, an irregular star that astronomers have theorized may be home to an alien "megastructure." "As I grow older I am more convinced than ever that we are not alone," Hawkins says in the film. "One day we might receive a signal from a planet ... but we should be wary of answering back."
– Nearly a decade ago, the remains of 11 women who disappeared in New Mexico in the early 2000s were found buried in shallow graves in what's become the state's largest unsolved serial killing. As macabre as it was, police immediately suspected more graves remained hidden, given the unsolved disappearances of multiple women of similar backgrounds (linked to drugs and prostitution) between 2005 and 2006. Now, in what could be a major break, a construction crew uncovered human remains under a foot of earth Tuesday while building a park on Albuquerque's West Mesa. Described as a dirt mound frequented by kids, the site is a half-mile south of the original burial site, which it was once linked to by a dry creek, per the Albuquerque Journal. At least one body has been fully excavated. "We certainly understand and are concerned this might be one of the six to eight missing women," Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller tells KOAT. "There's enough there to cause concern," adds Police Chief Michael Geier, noting the scene gave him the feeling of "deja vu." The Journal describes the similarities between the two sites as "striking." Still, authorities haven't found evidence linking the find to the West Mesa Murders. If it's there, it could take weeks for investigators to spot it. In the meantime, as they await approval from utility companies for further digs, "we're hoping that this might be a new development that could be a positive lead … in identifying the offenders," Geier says. KRQE has more on two "prime suspects," one of whom is still living.
– Could earthships be the solution to the housing crisis in Canada's First Nations communities? US company Earthship Biotecture thinks so. “This housing that we make is made to take care of people. Feed them, keep them warm, with no utility bills," the company's Michael Reynolds tells the Guardian. By contrast, he adds, “Really, all government housing is junk." But what's an earthship? According to Inhabitat, it's a "low-cost home that strives for self-sufficiency ... built primarily with recycled materials." Earthship Biotecture has built earthships for people in need in several countries, such as Haiti, India, and Sierra Leone. Now it is building one on Canada's First Nations reserve. According to the Calgary Herald, the reality for many reserve residents is overcrowded, sub-standard housing. Take Francine Doxtator, for instance. She lives in a leaky trailer, "ravaged by mice and black mold," with her disabled daughter and five grandchildren. Soon, however, Doxtator and her family will be the first First Nations family to move into an earthship. "I still don’t believe it’s happening,” she tells the Guardian. The $57,000 house, funded by Earthship Biotecture, contributions, and fundraising, will include solar panels, a cistern to collect rainwater, and hundreds of old tires that will "create a dense thermomass" for temperature regulation. Local volunteers will help build it. The hope is to eventually have a local team that can help others build earthships of their own. But, one of the volunteers tells the Guardian, strict building codes may be a hurdle, as well raising the money to build an earthship in the first place. As excited as she is for her new digs, Doxator does have one concern: “I just hope it doesn’t look like a Flintstones house in the end.”
– President Trump lobbed a verbal hand grenade into Theresa May's carefully constructed plans for Brexit, saying Thursday that the British leader had wrecked the country's exit from the European Union and likely "killed" chances of a free-trade deal with the United States, per the AP. Trump, who is making his first presidential visit to Britain, told the Sun newspaper he had advised May on how to conduct Brexit negotiations, "but she didn't listen to me." The Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid published an interview with Trump as May was hosting him at a black-tie dinner at Blenheim Palace. His remarks on Brexit came the same day May's government published long-awaited proposals for Britain's relations with the EU after it leaves the bloc. The document proposes keeping Britain and the EU in a free market for goods, with a more distant relationship for services. The plan has infuriated fervent Brexit supporters, who think sticking close to the bloc would limit Britain's ability to strike new trade deals around the world. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Brexit Secretary David Davis both quit the government this week in protest. Trump came down firmly on the side of the Brexiteers. He said Johnson "would be a great prime minister. I think he's got what it takes." Meanwhile, Trump said what May proposed on Brexit would hurt the chances of a future trade deal between the UK and the United States. "If they do a deal like that, we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the UK, so it will probably kill the deal," Trump said.
– The damaging effects of solitary confinement on a prisoner can appear within three months, sometimes sooner. Albert Woodfox has been in solitary confinement for 43 years, though he could be released from Louisiana State Penitentiary as early as Friday. Since 1972, Woodfox has spent 23 hours a day in a tiny cell that can be crossed in just four paces, the Los Angeles Times reports, but how he'll cope on the outside isn't clear. In a piece last year, Time reported prisoners in long-term isolation are subject to panic attacks, paranoia, disordered thinking, anger, and compulsive actions, like incessant pacing or cleaning, while their basic cognitive functions dim. They also have a hard time sleeping at night. "Without stimulation, people's brains will move toward stupor and delirium—and often people won't recover from it," the magazine reported, noting many are "incapable of tolerating their new environment" when eventually released. Already, Woodfox is battling "serious health problems caused or made worse by his years of close confinement," a rep for Amnesty International says. Both Amnesty and the United Nations agree his treatment has been "inhumane," reports Time. As many as 80,000 US inmates may be in solitary confinement at any one time, reports Christian Science Monitor, though some states are working to reduce that number amid higher rates of reoffending and suicide among the isolated. Still, some say solitary confinement serves a purpose. "For some people, solitary confinement is the only responsible way to incarcerate them," says a criminal sentencing expert. However, he adds, "solitary confinement is something that ought to be used as a last resort, because I don't think it promotes mental health, so you're not creating better citizens" upon release. (A lawsuit reveals the horrors of solitary confinement at Colorado's Supermax.)
– Mike Huckabee has more to say on both of his recent headline-making statements: That Barack Obama grew up in Kenya, and that Natalie Portman is setting a bad example with her out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Mediaite reports Huckabee’s comments from Sirius Radio’s POTUS channel: On Kenya: “The reaction ranged from, ‘This guy is so dumb he doesn’t know that Barack Obama grew up in Indonesia not Kenya,’ all the way to the other extreme, I saw people like Andrea Mitchell saying, ‘Oh no, he did this on purpose, he is very smart and shrewd, he did this in a calculating way.' Well, I can’t be both. I can’t be the dumbest guy in the room and the smartest guy in the room at the same time. I have to be one or the other, or maybe it was just that I made a mistake, I corrected it.” On Portman: “I didn’t bring Natalie Portman up at all. She’s a great actress. I’ve said many times, she deserves her Oscar. He [radio host Michael Medved] brought up Natalie Portman. He brought up her acceptance at the Oscars speech, in the context of the first chapter of my book, and that’s how he kind of got into it, because I talk about the importance of the family as being the most fundamental unit of government. So in the course of that, he asked me about her acceptance speech. I used that as a segue, not to talk about Natalie Portman, but to talk about the economic realities of unwed mothers.” Click for one analyst’s assessment that both of these comments will result in Huckabee being taken “less seriously” as a presidential candidate.
– The theory that King Tut's tomb also holds the remains of his stepmother, the legendary Queen Nefertiti, has tantalized Egyptian archaeology for nearly three years. But after two scans with ground-penetrating radar proved inconclusive, National Geographic reports that third major scan is underway at the tomb in Luxor's Valley of the Kings, and it has exclusive photos of the operation. The scan will search the walls of Tut's tomb for signs of a hidden chamber and is expected to take about a week, reports CBS News. Several weeks of analysis will then follow. Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves believed he saw telltale signs—traces of sealed entrances in the north and west walls of Tut's tomb—in a 2015 scan. It's also been determined that the north wall was initially painted a different color than the others, while paintings on the wall also follow a different pattern than those on the others. This might suggest the wall—where infrared thermography found temperature variations—was built some time before the others. But though experts said a 2015 scan indicated chambers present behind the north and west walls, a second scan in 2016 found nothing. The third scan, being led by the Polytechnic University of Turin, aims to settle whether any voids in the rock exist. If so, archaeologists would then begin the next phase of seeing what's inside them. (Tut's dagger is out of this world, literally.)
– Betting site InTrade has shut down abruptly and its founder might have some tough questions to answer—if he hadn't died during a 2011 attempt to climb Mount Everest. A recent audit found that the Dublin-based company made $2.6 million in "insufficiently documented payments" to founder John Delaney in 2010 and 2011, the Financial Times reports. The company he founded, which allowed customers to bet—or "purchase futures"—on anything from the weather to the papal election, has frozen its customer accounts and it's not clear when or if it will reopen. InTrade closed its US accounts after a lawsuit from the Commodities Futures Trading Commission last fall. One person lamenting the site's disappearance is Neil Irwin at the Washington Post, who would love to see the "horse manure" filled world of political punditry start using InTrade or a similar site to put some money behind their vague predictions. "A successor that has more of a clear legal status and regulatory oversight, can be a vehicle for accountability in punditry, not just a way to make baseball playoff games more exciting," he writes.
– This time, the happy ending looks like a permanent one: A Florida orphan who became an Internet sensation is being adopted by his longtime caseworker, reports ABC News. Davion Only first made a splash in 2013 when, as a 15-year-old, he made an emotional pitch for a family. After an overwhelming response, an Ohio family agreed to take him in as the first step toward adoption—until Davion got into a fight with one of the family's kids, explains the Tampa Bay Times. He returned to Florida's foster system, despondent, and eventually opened up to "Miss Connie," who had been his caseworker for more than a decade, though was no longer in that role. Fast-forward to the present, which finds Davion living with Connie Going, her two daughters and one son (the latter adopted), along with their four dogs and four cats. Davion's adoption is expected to be finalized next week. Family bliss? Nope, but she's fine with that. "I'm OK with messy and difficult," she tells the Tampa newspaper, which has a lengthy story on Davion's new home. "You just have to have your armor on all the time, but it's more than worth it. And every day things get a little bit better."
– If you ever visit gourmet grocers or Italian markets, you've probably seen it: Imported Nutella, straight from Italy, sold in a glass jar at multiple times the price of the Canadian-made stuff found in most US supermarkets. And perhaps you've wondered: Is it really any different? Many devotees insist that it is—a blind taste test at Serious Eats, for example, found that the discrepancy was immediately obvious, with the North American variety tasting "like sugar," and the Italian one tasting "like hazelnuts." Jim Webster at the Washington Post wanted to get to the bottom of the matter, so he sat down with two jars and Italian pastry guru Alex Levin. The story details their epic quest to break down all the tangible and intangibles of both Nutellas. Turns out the ingredients are identical—equal amounts of sugar, hazelnuts, protein, total fat, and more. Both are more than half sugar and thus sweet. The only difference they could suss out was that the North American version, using "palm oil," boasts that it has no trans fat, while the Italian version, made with "vegetable oil," doesn't mention trans fats. The imported has a firmer texture and "sticks to your mouth a little more," perhaps providing at least the sense of a more intense flavor by lingering on the palate longer. "We can't, and don't claim to have solved anything," Webster writes, but they theorize that the FDA's trans fat rules necessitated a change in recipe. After all that, Webster says he's still a Nutella fan and will keep a jar ("probably domestic") in the pantry. But Levin whipped up a homemade batch in minutes, and that's going into the rotation.
– Subscription radio company SiriusXM says it's buying music streaming service Pandora Media Inc. in a stock deal valued at about $3.5 billion that'll allow it to expand its service beyond cars and into homes and other mobile areas. Pandora stockholders will receive 1.44 newly issued SiriusXM shares for each Pandora share they own, the AP reports. Sirius XM Holdings Inc. has more than 36 million subscribers in North America, while Pandora has more than 70 million monthly active users. If the deal goes through, SiriusXM will become the biggest audio-entertainment company in the world, with more than $7 billion in combined revenue expected this year, per CNBC. Pandora has a "go-shop" period in which it can solicit other offers from third parties; one analyst tells CNBC that while he wouldn't rule out a higher bid, he thinks "Apple and Spotify have had a chance to look at Pandora already." Both companies' boards have approved the transaction, which is expected to close in 2019's first quarter. It still needs approval from Pandora shareholders. Shares of Pandora, based in Oakland, Calif., jumped more than 8% in Monday premarket trading; SiriusXM's stock declined 4%. Sirius also recently entered into a partnership with Netflix to launch a comedy channel on Sirius featuring material from comedians who have original content on Netflix; that channel is set to launch in January.
– It sounds like a metaphor but is geological reality: Washington, DC, is sinking. In fact, researchers led by a team at the University of Vermont predict that the ground will drop another six inches by the end of the century, reports UPI. The cause isn't man-made: It's the result of an age-old geologic process that will continue to unfold for thousands of years. But it's presenting the DC region with a dangerous double-whammy—the ground is sinking at the same time that sea levels are rising because of warming temperatures, say the UV researchers. The study confirms a long-held theory on why sea levels around DC are rising faster than any other stretch along the coast, reports the Washington Post. “Right now is the time to start making preparations,” says lead study author Ben DeJong. “Six extra inches of water really matters in this part of the world." He and his team drilled dozens of boreholes around the Chesapeake Bay to figure out what's happening. The culprit is an ancient ice sheet that covered much of North America, then retreated, and the land is oh-so-slowly settling back into place. DC was actually in an area just outside the sheet and "bulged upward," as the Post puts it. "It's a bit like sitting on one side of a water bed filled with very thick honey," says DeJong. "Then the other side goes up. But when you stand, the bulge comes down again." (In another geologic discovery, click to read why the Earth hums.)
– People whose mothers had Alzheimer's appear to have a greater risk of developing dementia themselves, reports the Los Angeles Times. University of Kansas researchers studied the brains of about 50 healthy senior citizens over two years and found that those whose mothers had the disease showed the most deterioration, especially in the areas associated with memory. Those whose fathers had Alzheimer's and those whose parents never got it fared better. The full study is in the journal Neurology, which requires a subscription.
– Mark Zuckerberg values his privacy so much that he's willing to spend tens of millions to buy up neighboring properties. Now, however, he's in a legal battle with a developer and would-be neighbor that threatens to make public details about his personal life and finances, reports the New York Times. It's a little convoluted, but Russian-born developer Mircea Voskerician accuses Zuckerberg of reneging on a promise to introduce him to Silicon Valley contacts, and one of his court filings demands details about Zuckerberg's personal finances. Team Zuckerberg, meanwhile, accuses Voskerician of extortion and says he's “going out of his way to embarrass Mr. Zuckerberg and pressure those around him.” As Bloomberg previously reported, this began when Voskerician sent Zuckerberg a letter in 2012 saying he was under contract to buy a property next to Zuckerberg's and planned to put up a home with a direct view of Zuckerberg's home. However, he said he'd be willing to sell Zuckerberg part of the property to buffer his privacy. After negotiations, Zuckerberg eventually bought Voskerician's rights to the entire property for $1.7 million, then paid the owners another $4.8 million for the lot, reports Business Insider. Voskerician says he could have gotten a better deal but took the offer because of Zuckerberg's promise. Bloomberg says one 2013 email, from Zuckerberg assistant Andrea Besmehn, could be key: “I just had a quick chat with Mark on this issue—and he said he does remember saying that he would help this guy in a ‘light’ way. Is there a way when we chat with him that we can find out a way for us (not necessarily Mark) to help him with something small? Also ... we’ll have to manage this carefully because we don’t want to give an inch and then...” Zuckerberg had to give a deposition Wednesday. "Stay tuned," advises VentureBeat. "Zuckerberg’s life might become a lot less private in the next few months. And a new Silicon Valley melodrama might on the way." (Click to read Zuck's standard hiring question.)
– It turns out, you can't legally stop people from performing ancient yoga poses in a particular order. On Thursday, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled against Bikram Choudhury, the founder of Bikram yoga, who was attempting to copyright his sequence of 26 yoga poses, NBC News reports. According to the Los Angeles Times, Choudhury—who didn't invent the poses, which are thousands of years old—claimed he alone had the right to decide who could teach them in the order he first published in 1979. Choudhury has threatened multiple lawsuits against yoga studios in the ensuing years, often with the studios caving or settling out of court. But one Florida studio fought back. Thursday's ruling was in support of Evolation Yoga's right to teach the 26 poses in any order they like, including Choudhury's sequence, NBC reports. The court compared it to a cookbook—in that the cookbook itself can be copyrighted but not the recipes inside of it—and also to surgery. “The copyright for a book describing how to perform a complicated surgery does not give the holder the exclusive right to perform the surgery,” the Times quotes from the judge's decision. Evolation's lawyer called the ruling “a very big victory for yoga studios and practitioners everywhere.” Choudhury was instrumental in yoga taking off in the US in the '70s, but he's been a controversial figure. In addition to his copyright claims, he's been sued multiple times for sexual harassment.
– A big-wave surfer is already dreaming of getting back on his surfboard a day after breaking his back in what the Telegraph describes as "mountainous seas" off Nazare, Portugal. Britain's Andrew Cotton, 36, was one of several professional surfers riding big waves Wednesday when a gigantic wall of water came crashing down upon him. A video shows Cotton preparing to abandon his ride before the rolling water appears to throw him dozens of feet, where he lands hard on his back. "What can I say, I got a little excited this morning and [ended] up having possibly the worst wipeout impact wise of my life," Cotton wrote on Instagram after he was pulled from the water, put on a spinal board, and taken to a hospital. Cotton says he broke the L2 vertebra in his lower spine, but there are "no complications," per Surfer Today. "I'm already looking forward and focusing my energy to get fit and back out there," he adds on Instagram. His wife isn't surprised. "Although it's the worst thing that could happen to most people, to him it's just part of what he does," she tells the Telegraph. Given his "good prognosis for a rapid recovery ... all he will be thinking about is when he can get back in the water." He should expect no sympathy from the waves of Nazare in the future, reports the Independent, noting the area is home to strong winds and the biggest underwater ravine in Europe, which contribute to waves up to 100 feet tall. (A lightning strike killed two surfers on Sunday.)
– The scene of an infamous criminal act has once again been vandalized. The New York Times charts the recent history of the sign that has marked the spot where Emmett Till's body was in 1955 pulled from the Tallahatchie River; the 14-year-old had been lynched after a white woman said he whistled at her. In 2007, a sign was erected at that spot and seven other places significant to his murder. But that riverside sign's history has been a fraught one: It was stolen and never recovered, reports CNN, and the replacement has been on the receiving end of more than 100 bullets over the years. A fresh sign went up in June and sat there, unscarred, for 35 days. On July 26, four bullet holes blighted the sign once more. One bullet pierced the word "mother," in a sentence referencing Mamie Till Mobley's desire "not to bury her son" but return him to his hometown Chicago. Patrick Weems, co-founder of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, says the very nature of the sign's location suggests the shooting was intentional: One has to travel about two miles down a dirt road to get to it. In the wake of the incident, Weems says he's accepted an offer to have a fourth sign made, for free and out of steel, which is superior to the metal that's previously been used. Till's case was closed in 2007, but the Justice Department reopened the case earlier this year after receiving "new information." The DOJ didn't elaborate, but the development followed the 2017 publication of a book that quotes Till's accuser, Carolyn Bryant Donham, as admitting she made up the worst parts of her story. More of her comments here.
– The death toll in the protests sweeping Iran is now at least 20—and it could end up a lot higher under a recommendation from the head of Tehran's Revolutionary Court. According to Iran's semi-official Tasnim News Agency, Mousa Ghazanfarabadi said Tuesday that some of the hundreds of protesters arrested around the country could face the death penalty for "waging war against God," the AP reports. At least 450 people are believed to have been arrested in Tehran alone since Saturday. President Hassan Rouhani says he can understand public anger at the economy, but lawbreaking will not be tolerated. In other developments: Support from Trump. President Trump has tweeted in support of the protesters, and administration officials say they're urging other nations to support Iranians' right to protest. "We are encouraging all nations around the world to publicly condemn the government violence and to support the legitimate, basic rights of those protesting," Brian Hook, the State Department's director of policy planning, tells the Wall Street Journal.
– Australia’s vast floods shut down the center of Brisbane today, sending thousands fleeing and others to stores in a panicked rush of food hoarding. Rescuers, meanwhile, combed the area for 43 people who have gone missing. Brisbane is the country’s third-largest city, home to 2 million people. Floodwaters are expected to peak before sunrise tomorrow, inundating roughly 20,000 homes and thousands of other buildings, the LA Times reports. “We are in the grip of a very serious natural disaster,” the premier of Queensland tells Reuters. “Brisbane will go to sleep tonight and wake up to scenes many will never have seen before in their lives.” At least 12 people died yesterday when flash floods shot through the town of Toowoomba. “Suddenly (26 feet) of water just came up and went right through the central drain,” said one woman. “It just knocked cars around like little matchboxes in a bath—was just terrifying.”
– Backyard astronomers, ready your telescopes. A big asteroid is about to zip by Earth, with its closest approach coming at 4:59pm Eastern tomorrow, says NASA. The rock will be 3.6 million miles away at that point, meaning there's no chance for a collision, but that should allow people that have telescopes with 4- to 6-inch mirror sizes to catch a faint glimpse in the southern sky for a few nights, reports National Geographic. The asteroid, named 1998 QE2, is 1.7 miles across and even has a smaller "bonus rock" orbiting around it—its own mini moon, reports AP.
– The Iran nuclear deal picked up some high-profile support today, with Colin Powell coming to the defense of what he tells NBC News is "a pretty good deal." "These are remarkable changes, and so we have stopped this highway race that (the Iranians) were going down—and I think that’s very, very important." Critics, he says, are "forgetting the reality that (Iranian leaders) have been on a superhighway, for the last 10 years, to create a nuclear weapon or a nuclear weapons program, with no speed limit." He dismissed concerns about inspectors' ability to verify Iran was sticking to the deal, saying that while "with respect to the Iranians—don’t trust, never trust, and always verify," he thinks "a very vigorous verification regime has been put into place. I say, we have a deal, let’s see how they implement the deal. If they don’t implement it, bail out. None of our options are gone." The Iran deal also got the high sign from Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is Jewish and calls the decision the most difficult she's made in her 23 years as a public servant. "In weighing all the information that I had in front of me, I concluded that the best thing to do is to vote in support of the Iran deal and make sure that we can put Iran years away from being a threshold nuclear state and ensure that we can more closely focus on their terrorist activity," she said today, per the Hill. She acknowledges that while she's still got concerns, per Fox News, the US "will be able to more closely concentrate on stopping Iran's terrorist activity."
– The unemployment rate had been expected to hold steady at 8.5%, with just 125,000 jobs added—instead, unemployment fell to 8.3% and 243,000 jobs were added last month, according to January's better-than-expected jobs report. The report has Wall Street Journal bloggers particularly effusive: "America's back, baby. America's back." Stock futures are also up on the news, the Journal notes. That's the fifth consecutive month in which the unemployment rate has dropped, the AP reports. The number of jobs added is the highest in nine months, and the unemployment rate is the lowest in almost three years.
– The racist and alleged comments of LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling have attracted the wrath of some really big names, including the leader of the free world. "The owner is reported to have said some incredibly offensive racist statements that were published," Obama said today in Malaysia, as per Politico. "When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance you don’t really have to do anything, you just let them talk. And that’s what happened here." But he's far from the only one: Magic Johnson, the target of Sterling's alleged rant, has responded thusly, according to the LA Times: "I will never again set foot in Staples Center when the Clippers are playing. I know where I'm not wanted." Further, "Something has to be done, and if that means him losing the team, then that has to happen. The league has to come down hard and make a statement." Meanwhile, Deadspin has released an extended version of the tape, which now runs 15 minutes. Elsewhere in reaction: Sacramento Mayor and NBPA chairman Kevin Johnson: "The reported comments made by Clippers owner Donald Sterling are reprehensible and unacceptable. There needs to be an immediate investigation and if the reports are true, there needs to be strong and swift action taken." Lebron James: "If the reports are true, it’s unacceptable. It’s unacceptable in our league. It doesn’t matter if you’re white, black, Hispanic, whatever, all across the races. There is no room for Donald Sterling in our league." And an interesting statement from Clippers president Andy Roeser: "We have heard the tape on TMZ. We do not know if it is legitimate or it has been altered. We do know that the woman on the tape—who we believe released it to TMZ—is the defendant in a lawsuit brought by the Sterling family alleging that she embezzled more than $1.8 million, who told Mr. Sterling that she would 'get even.'" Furthermore: "It is the antithesis of who (Sterling) is, what he believes and how he has lived his life. He feels terrible that such sentiments are being attributed to him and apologizes to anyone who might have been hurt by them."
– A little boy who went out for a bike ride with his family in Menasha, Wis., ended up running to save his mother's life after a stranger opened fire on Sunday, police say. After Sergio Daniel Valencia del Toro, a 27-year-old man apparently upset by the end of a relationship, started shooting on the Fox Cities Trestle Trail Bridge, wounded mom Erin Stoffel managed to get her son Ezra, 7, and daughter Selah, 5, off the bridge and told Ezra to run for help, the Post-Crescent reports. The boy met an unidentified man who called for help. "It was a little boy who helped save his mother's life," the coroner says. Stoffel was shot three times in the attack; her husband, Johnathon, and 11-year-old daughter, Olivia, were killed. "You can never underestimate the power of a mother to protect her children," the director of trauma services for Theda Clark Medical Center tells the Post-Crescent. "To have three gunshot wounds and be able to get off that bridge and save two of her children is incredible. It's an amazing story of heroism on her part and certainly of her children." Another man, 31-year-old Adam Bentdahl, was killed in the attack, and police say he also appears to have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, the AP reports. Police say that Valencia del Toro, an Air Force veteran who recently enlisted in the US Army, opened fire unprovoked and at close range before fatally shooting himself, the Post-Crescent reports. He had been in a fight with his ex-fiancee earlier in the day.
– That can of Coors Light in your hand may have a picture of the Rocky Mountains on it, but that doesn't mean the beer within was actually brewed anywhere near the Rockies. And Joaquin Lorenzo isn't happy about it. In fact, he's filed a lawsuit in Florida's Miami-Dade County against brewer MillerCoors claiming the company has become unjustly enriched by deceiving drinkers about the origin of Coors Light, Courthouse News reports. Lorenzo, in his suit, does concede that MillerCoors still operates its famed brewery in Golden, Colo. "However," according to the suit, "it is no longer the sole origin of the Coors brand of beers." A 2008 Denver Post article explained that post-merger with Miller, the then-135-year-old Coors beer would also be brewed in spots like Trenton, Ohio, and Irwindale, Calif. And that's not cool, Lorenzo says, especially when the company markets the beer under slogans like: "Proudly brewed in the Rocky Mountain tradition" "Our Mountain is brewing the World's most refreshing beer" "Born in the Rockies" Lorenzo, seeking compensatory damages, says he would have bought a cheaper beer had he known Coors Light was not brewed exclusively in the Rockies. (Eater points out a 24-pack goes for about $15.) Eater reports there is precedent for winning this kind of suit: In January 2015, a judge ruled Anheuser-Busch had to provide refunds to Kirin Ichiban drinkers who thought the beer was made in Japan; it's been brewed in LA and Williamsburg, Va., since 1996. However, a lawsuit claiming MillerCoors fooled people into thinking the mass-produced Blue Moon was a craft beer didn't fly.
– While 7,000 police officers kept a watchful eye on revelers ringing in the new year in Times Square, three men pulled off a major jewelry heist just blocks away, WGO reports. According to USA Today, police say three men entered a Manhattan building around 10pm New Year's Eve. At midnight—possibly using noise from New Year's celebrations as cover—they allegedly broke into the offices of a jewelry wholesaler and made off with $6 million in jewelry from two safes. Police believe the burglary was an inside job, as the suspects didn't need to force their way into the safes; they were already open, the New York Daily News reports. Police released video—taken just before the men destroyed the surveillance cameras—on Monday. The suspects are still on the loose. Police say the suspects stole rings, bracelets, and necklaces from jewelry designer Gregg Ruth. Rings on his website sell for up to $62,000.
– An ancient village has come to light in Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park—and it's the second such find in as many years. The villages are some 1,300 years old, dating from between 200 AD and 700 AD, ABC News reports. Archaeologists discovered homes dug into the ground known as pit-houses, built in sand dunes. Their floors and walls were lined with sandstone, Archaeology reports. Such accommodations exist elsewhere in the park; in these villages, however, they're clustered together, park archaeologist Bill Reitze says. Each village has "probably more than 50 structures," he notes, as Western Digs reports. The sites appear to be from a cultural era known as the Basketmaker period. Teams have also found tools and weapons made from petrified wood, shells, and ceramics, ABC notes. The findings come as the park doubles in size following an expansion enacted by Congress a decade ago. "There are not a lot of national parks that have the opportunity to get bigger like this to protect sites and produce future research," Reitze notes. "Because the park is doubling in size, we are finding something every day." (Another fascinating recent archaeological discovery: the remains of a mysterious "witch girl" found in Italy.)
– In Japan, there are a dozen basic colors that almost everyone in a recent survey was able to name using one word. And 11 of them—black, white, gray, blue, green, yellow, red, purple, brown, pink, and orange—all overlap with the basic colors Americans can describe in one word. But in Japan, a 12th color, "mizu," which means water, has emerged as a basic color as distinct from blue as green is. Among Americans asked to name basic colors using just one word, "light blue" didn't come up as a color at all because we just don't have a single-word name for it, with the very rare exception of someone using "sky," scientists report in a Eureka Alert news release. Italians, however, do have their own word for the "mizu" color—"celeste," reports IFL Science. And Americans do have a single word for other colors, like "lavender," for which the Japanese do not. Researchers are investigating why certain color descriptions vary so dramatically while others are so consistent across cultures, and report on their findings in the Journal of Vision. While the case of light blue was a notable difference, it's only a recent one, given "mizu" was not a basic color name in Japan 30 years ago. "What's really interesting is there are remarkable similarities in color descriptions amongst people who live thousands of miles apart, and there can be differences between next-door neighbors," one researcher says. (How about blue wine?)
– The opioid epidemic may have claimed two wholly innocent victims. Police say the 17-year-old who killed two sisters after the car she was driving crashed into the girls' Frankfort, Ind., home in July was high on opiates. RTV6 describes a harrowing lead-up to the crash, citing detectives who say Alia Sierra was driving her 2007 Honda Accord at a speed of 107mph when she left the road and careened through a field and ditch before slamming into the home. She had four teen and pre-teen passengers in the car with her; one told police he asked Sierra to let him out of what she called "the beast" because the speeds were scaring him. Sierra faces 10 felony charges, including two counts of reckless homicide in connection with the deaths of Haleigh Fullerton, 17, and sister Callie, 8. People reports the girls had been watching TV on the couch; the Journal & Courier says the car entered their home with such force it nearly exited the other side of the living room. Sierra has been charged as an adult and entered a preliminary plea of not guilty on Friday. Her lawyer plans to appeal the adult classification in a bid to get her case pushed back to juvenile court. (This teen who livestreamed a fatal crash says "everybody does it.")
– Dallas bar-owner David Card spent nearly four years of his life and a "brutal" amount in legal fees for the right to return the grave marker of Lee Harvey Oswald, who he calls "the most famous assassin in the history of civilization," home to Texas. And, last week he finally did just that, the Dallas Morning News reports. The strange history of the marker started on the fourth anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, when some Oklahoma teens swiped it from a Fort Worth cemetery as a prank. CBS DFW reports the marker was returned to Oswald's mother, who put a more discreet marker on his grave and stashed the original in her crawlspace. Card's father eventually bought the Oswald home. After changing hands within the family, a distant relative eventually sold the marker to Illinois' Historic Auto Attractions in 2011 for $45,000. CBS reports Card went to court to prove his relative didn't have the right to sell the marker, and on July 19 the parties settled out of court. Last week, Card and a friend drove the 140-pound granite marker back to Texas all the way from Roscoe, Ill.—a distance of more than 900 miles. "You touch it, and it's like you're reaching 6 feet down and right into Oswald's coffin," he told the Morning News. Card tells CBS he'd like to give the marker to the museum housed in the building from which Oswald allegedly fired, but he may have a private showing of it in his bar first. At the moment, he claims that Oswald's grave marker is "in an undisclosed location guarded by the hounds from hell."
– Well, this is a little different from the usual music copyright lawsuits: Beyonce has been accused of illegally sampling a Roma folk song by a Hungarian singer. Mitsou, real name Mónika Juhász Miczura, is suing Bey and husband Jay Z over 2013's "Drunk in Love," alleging that co-producer Timbaland sampled her vocals from "Bajba, Bajba Pelem" in the opening. She's also upset that "Drunk in Love" evokes "foreign eroticism alongside the sexually intense lyrics," the Daily Dot reports; her 19-year-old folk song is about hopelessness. She wants damages and 29% of the Beyonce song's songwriting credits, plus the song to be permanently banned. (Click to see recent pictures of Bey and Jay meeting Wills and Kate.)
– Team Romney must want a do-over. Coverage of a much-hyped economic speech at Detroit's Ford Field yesterday is getting attention mainly for two things: His poorly received ad lib about owning a few Cadillacs and, more prominently, all those empty seats. A few examples: Washington Post: "Empty seats steal thunder," reads the headline. "At a moment when Romney wanted to project bigness and command, the optics of Ford Field did not help," notes the story. (It adds that he offered nothing much new in speech, because most of the details had been leaked days in advance.) New York Times: "Message lost in the empty seats," says its headline. Romney got "an unintended lesson about how poor visuals and errant words can derail a candidate’s message in this modern political news culture." Guardian: "Speech falls flat at near-empty stadium," reads the headline. And from the text: "The small crowd underlined again his inability to draw large numbers of supporters and to excite the conservative base." The irony: The Detroit Economic Club, not the Romney campaign, chose the venue, and only because the original location was too small to hold the 1,200 people who bought tickets.
– One of Florida's richest women is donating big time to keep medical marijuana out of the state. The trust of Carol Jenkins Barnett, daughter of the founder of the Publix supermarket chain, has donated $800,000 to the Drug Free Florida group, which is fighting a legalization measure on the ballot this November, the Miami New Times reports. Amendment 2 would allow doctors to prescribe marijuana for what it calls "debilitating medical conditions," including cancer, HIV, epilepsy, and PTSD, reports the SaintPetersBlog. A similar amendment failed in 2014—with Barnett's trust donating $540,000 to defeat it—and the only Floridians who now have access to medical marijuana are children with severe epilepsy, who are prescribed a low-THC version, and terminal cancer patients allowed to use marijuana under an "experimental drugs" program, reports the Miami Herald. Barnett, 59, has early onset Alzheimer's and resigned from the company's board last month. Publix says her donation to the anti-pot group is personal and does not reflect company policy. "She feels that Amendment 2 would usher in an unprecedented era of legalized marijuana in Florida as opposed to only helping those who suffer from debilitating illnesses," the company said in a statement to Time. The campaign manager for United for Care, which is leading the legalization campaign, says he thinks she's wasting her money, but it isn't time for "potheads to get up in arms and boycott Publix just yet." "I'm still shopping at Publix, let's put it that way," he tells the New Times. The amendment needs 60% support to pass, and a poll released Monday shows 77% of Floridians in favor. (Scientists have determined how much pot is in a joint.)
– Robots have found the world's biggest underwater "dead zone" in the Gulf of Oman—yet another sign that such oxygen-depleted regions are only increasing worldwide, ZME Science reports. Scientists sent the remote-controlled submarines underwater for eight months and uncovered roughly 63,000 square miles with little to no oxygen in waters that link the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea. "Our research shows that the situation is actually worse than feared—and that the area of dead zone is vast and growing," research leader Bastien Queste says in a statement. "The ocean is suffocating. Of course all fish, marine plants and other animals need oxygen, so they can’t survive there." Such dead zones can happen naturally, the CBC notes, but they're becoming bigger and more common, mostly due to wastewater and chemical fertilizers. The run-off feeds algae blooms that suck up much-needed underwater oxygen. They also clog the gills of fish, which drain more oxygen when the fish decay and die. Climate change plays a role too, Queste says, because "warmer waters hold less oxygen." The Weather Network explains that warmer water floats on top of colder water, so the layers can't mix and allow oxygen from the air to reach down below. The latest find only adds to alarming data that the number of coastline dead zones has gone from 50 to 500 since 1950. Large dead zones are also hard to fix, and Queste doesn't sound too optimistic. "It's a real environmental problem, with dire consequences for humans too who rely on the oceans for food and employment," he says. (Meanwhile, the dying Gulf Stream could trigger a global nightmare.)
– Terry Gilliam is finally making his long-delayed Don Quixote movie, but not without controversy: Portuguese public broadcaster RTP reported that while filming The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, Gilliam's crew damaged a famous Portuguese convent. Per RTP, the 12th-century Convento de Cristo, which was once a Knights Templar stronghold and is a designated UNESCO world heritage site, was left with roof tiles broken, trees uprooted, and masonry chipped. Gilliam, however, posted on Facebook Sunday that the report is "ignorant nonsense" and denied the accusations. "Everythng we did there was to protect the building from harm ... and we succeeded," he wrote. However, a government spokesperson says an investigation is underway, the Guardian reports.
– The 3,500 residents of Rjukan, Norway, live in shadow for five months every winter, thanks to surrounding mountains that block the sun—but this year, they'll have at least one cheery spot when the shadows start to descend in September. The town square will be lighted via huge mirrors, which were delivered by helicopters to the mountains earlier this month, Popular Mechanics reports. Sunlight will bounce off the 538 square feet of surface area provided by the three mirrors to light a 2,000-square-foot circle in the town square, which the city is turning into an ice skating rink. (Gizmodo points out that the light apparently won't bring much heat with it.) The $835,000 "Mirror Project" is pretty high-tech: It will use mostly wind and solar power, and will be run by a computer in the town hall that will monitor the movement of the sun in order to figure out how the mirrors need to be positioned at any given time. Gizmodo explains that these heliostatic mirrors are more commonly found on solar farms. Neat side note: Sam Eyde, the industrialist who basically founded the city when he put his hydroelectric factory there, wanted to install mirrors almost 100 years ago but couldn't carry out the plan due to limited technology; he built a cable car up the mountains instead. (Click to read another story that hinges on the absence of sunlight.)
– A Massachusetts state policeman was furious over Rolling Stone's contentious new cover, which he saw as "glamorizing the face of terror"—so the "tactical photographer" yesterday released some Dzhokhar Tsarnaev photos of his own. The images, handed to Boston Magazine, offer an up-close look at Tsarnaev's capture: In one, he stands covered in blood, apparently pulling up his shirt to show he has no weapon, CNN reports. Some show a sharpshooter's red dot on his head, NPR notes. "Glamorizing the face of terror is not just insulting to the family members of those killed in the line of duty, it also could be an incentive to those who may be unstable to do something to get their face on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine," Sgt. Sean Murphy tells Boston Magazine. Following the photos' unauthorized release, Murphy has been "relieved of duty" for one day, CNN notes. A hearing, probably next week, will rule on his job status, a police rep says. Click to see the photos.
– Adult women can choose to have their labia reshaped as part of a "vaginal rejuvenation" surgery, in which the muscles of the vagina are tightened. Now teenage girls apparently want in on the action, too. Doctors say they're increasingly getting requests from young girls to have their labia trimmed—sometimes to relieve discomfort or a risk of infection, but more often because they're unhappy with the way it looks, reports the New York Times. Some 400 girls 18 or under had labiaplasty last year; that's an 80% increase over 2014, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (that count doesn't include operations performed by gynecologists). Why the jump? Experts cite the preponderance of young girls who shave or wax their pubic hair, thereby making the flesh there more visible. What they see might not jibe with their often-skewed expectations regarding size, shape, and color. And when it comes to those characteristics, there's a huge range of what's "normal," reports Health. It cites a study that found length can range from three-quarters of an inch to nearly 4 inches, and width from a quarter of an inch to 2 inches. Teens might also feel self-conscious in tight clothing, per HealthDay. "This age group may be under particular stress regarding these issues because of societal conceptions of the ideal female body," the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists explains in new guidelines for adolescent labiaplasty. A recent study showed many British women were worried their genitals weren't normal, per the Huffington Post, and even comedian Nikki Glaser debated labiaplasty as a youth. (Temporary "vacation breasts" may soon be available.)
– Big money, big money, no whammies? When it comes to Super Bowl XLVI, the big money sure has poured in: The commercial slots are officially sold out, at a cost of about $3.5 million for 30 seconds. The no whammies part remains to be seen... The Wall Street Journal reports that, bad economy and all, the price took a big jump over last year's $3 million. And this year's figure represents a 59% increase since 2001, a year in which 30-second commercials ran about $2.2 million. Who can viewers expect to be wowed—or disappointed—by on Feb. 5? GM, Volkswagen, first-timer Dannon yogurt, Teleflora, M&M, Pepsi, and Coke, among others. Anheuser-Busch InBev will, of course, be in the house, with a sizable four and a half minutes of air time. No-brainer quote of the day: "The NFL continues to be the gold standard of all programming," NBC Sports' VP of sales and marketing told the Journal, which backed up the claim with some put-it-in-perspective stats: Super Bowl XLV reeled in 111 million viewers; the No. 1 prime-time program last year, American Idol, averaged about 23.9 million. (Click to read about Rolling Stone magazine's planned Super Bowl debut.)
– Lottery officials in Florida pulled a photo of the latest jackpot winner from their website after learning that he is a convicted sex offender. Timothy Poole, 43, served time in prison after being accused of sexually battering a 9-year-old boy in 2001 and has been arrested more than 10 other times for offenses including grand theft and forgery, reports the Orlando Sentinel. He won $3 million on a Super Millions scratch-off ticket and took home a lump sum payment of $2,219,807 this week. "We chose to not draw additional attention to this particular winner" after learning of his past, a lottery spokeswoman says. Poole—who now works as a driver for a taxi firm his mother owns—served 13 months on a plea deal for the 2001 offense and was later sent back to jail for three years after failing to attend mandatory sex offender counseling sessions. He was required to register as a sexual predator but continues to maintain his innocence and has had no legal problems since his release from prison in 2006, reports WKMG, which notes that Florida doesn't allow the lottery to withhold payments from winners based on their criminal records. (In Alaska a few years ago, a convicted sex offender won a lottery that benefited sex-assault victims and suffered a severe beating in the street a few days later.)
– A federal judge approved the $85 billion mega-merger of AT&T and Time Warner on Tuesday, a move that could usher in a wave of media consolidation while shaping how much consumers pay for streaming TV and movies. US District Judge Richard Leon green-lit the merger without adding major conditions to the deal. The Trump Justice Department had sued to block the merger, arguing that it would hurt competition in cable and satellite TV and jack up costs to consumers for streaming TV and movies, the AP reports. Now, the phone and pay-TV giant will be allowed to absorb the owner of CNN, HBO, the Warner Bros. movie studio, Game of Thrones, coveted sports programming and other "must-see" shows; AT&T says it plans to complete the purchase by June 20. A government lawyer says the Justice Department may appeal the ruling. The ruling could shape the government's future competition policy, as well as open the floodgates to deal making in the fast-changing entertainment and video-content worlds. Major cable, satellite and phone companies are bulking up with purchases of entertainment conglomerates to compete against rivals born on the internet, like Amazon and Google. Waiting in the wings are potential big-billions deals involving 21st Century Fox and Disney, Verizon and CBS, T-Mobile and Sprint. Comcast and Verizon are also jockeying for position in the new landscape. Investors welcomed the ruling in after-market trading following the announcement. A "rush to consolidate" by other companies is now expected; the AP takes a look at a number of "mega deals" here.
– It's the kind of story you'd hope would have a miraculously happy ending, but it wasn't to be in South Africa. Last Monday evening, 28-year-old Msizi Mkhize was struck by a car in Durban and pronounced dead at the scene, reports the Times of London. He was transferred to the local morgue and placed in the facility's refrigerator—only to be discovered alive the next day, when his family came to identify the body. "A pulse was found in the patient by mortuary staff," says a provincial official. Mkhize was rushed to the hospital, but he died five hours later. Police and health officials have confirmed the story and say a formal inquiry is underway to figure out how the awful mistake happened. “We arrived there at 8am to do the paperwork and view the body of my child," Mkhize's father tells the local Daily News. "It was after 12pm when an employee told one of the doctors my son was alive." Doctors began an intensive effort to warm and resuscitate Mkhize's body, but it was ultimately unsuccessful, reports the Citizen. One official says staffers stayed beyond their shifts to help. “I have no words to express how I feel about what happened to my child," says Mkhize's father. "To spend the entire night and morning in the mortuary refrigerator is wrong." (This is not a first.)
– In the 26 years she has been in prison for her role in the 1991 murder of her husband, Laurie Kellogg has been "as pristine and perfect as a prisoner can be," a New York judge said Thursday, ordering the release of the woman whose case became the made-for-TV movie Lies of the Heart in 1994. Kellogg, 52, was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life after husband Bruce Kellogg was shot dead by her 19-year-old lover, who was one of a group of teenagers she drove to the cabin where he was sleeping, the New York Daily News reports. She sued for release after the parole board and the appeals board refused to release her in 2016, citing a "lack of remorse." Kellogg told investigators that she had been beaten by the husband she married when she was 16 and he was 33. State Supreme Court Justice Arthur F. Engoron cited Bob Dylan lyrics and dialogue from the movies Chicago and City Slickers in his ruling, which overturns the parole board's decision, Syracuse.com reports. "Maybe she is not one to ululate or 'beat her breasts,'" the judge wrote. "She has 'paid her debt to society' and now just wants freedom. After all these years of exemplary conduct, she is entitled to that freedom, as a matter of law and as a matter of decency and humanity." Kellogg will be free within 30 days unless the judge's order is appealed.
– When you think of criminals who get locked away for life with no hope of parole, murderers or rapists might come to mind. But a guy who shoplifted a $159 jacket? He is one of 3,278 prisoners serving such a sentence in federal or state prisons in the US for a non-violent crime, the ACLU reports. Most are black men convicted of drug crimes who got caught up in mandatory sentencing laws because of prior convictions, says the report. It also has plenty of cases like Timothy Lee's, the now 53-year-old who got busted for stealing that jacket in 1996, reports the Guardian. Another lifer got put away for siphoning gas. The US is “virtually alone in its willingness to sentence non-violent offenders to die behind bars," says report author Jennifer Turner. The ACLU wants life sentences abolished for these types of criminals because they are "grotesquely out of proportion to the conduct they seek to punish." The Huffington Post notes that a movement is afoot to ease US drug sentences, with Attorney General Eric Holder calling for a major overhaul in the system earlier this year.
– In 1992, Pennsylvania woman Christy Mirack was raped and murdered as she left her home for her job teaching sixth grade at Rohrerstown Elementary School. On Monday, a 49-year-old wedding DJ was arrested for the crime on the basis of DNA evidence collected from an event at another elementary school. Lancaster District Attorney Craig Stedman says Raymond "DJ Freez" Rowe was identified as a suspect with the help of a DNA sample a relative uploaded to genealogy website GEDmatch.com, People reports. Stedman says Rowe was placed under surveillance and undercover investigators collected his DNA from used chewing gum and a water bottle after he DJed at an event at Smoketown Elementary School. That DNA matched evidence collected from the crime scene. "The killer was at liberty for this brutal crime longer than Christy Mirack was on this earth alive," Stedman says. "His apprehension was long overdue." Mirack's body was found when her principal went to her home after she didn't show up at work on Dec. 21, 1992, Lancaster Online reports. Stedman says she was sexually assaulted, beaten, and strangled. Her jaw was broken and there were signs she had struggled with her attacker. More than 1,600 people were interviewed during the investigation, but Rowe, who was 24 at the time of the murder, was not on authorities' radar, Stedman says. Rowe is being held without bail and authorities are expected to seek the death penalty. His website states that he has DJed at weddings, proms, concerts—and even fundraisers for groups fighting violence against women.
– Courteney Cox just can’t get mad at David Arquette, even if he did blab about their sex life to Howard Stern. “He’s not a malicious person. … He’s not out to harm,” she explains in a Harper’s Bazaar cover story. “I'm not saying there wasn't some crazy behavior, but if you know who David is, you know what his intentions are, how honest he is, and how big his heart is … I’m his biggest protector. I can’t help it.” More from the interview: On her relationship with Arquette: “I thought I had always been a little bit of a cougar with David. I don't find the whole cougar word that offensive. And also, a cougar is someone who takes care of herself and goes out with younger guys. She doesn't need a man to take care of her.” On the possibility of a reunion: “We loved each other so much … If it doesn't work out, I will have huge waves of pain about failing in that department. But right now I don't have that because I don't know what the future holds and I guess because I have strong feelings for him.” On rumors that her co-star is her new boy toy: “He's a really good friend of mine, so I don't care. It just doesn't matter. He's a great guy, and he's definitely been a part of my support system.” On dating: “I have no desire right now. I'm not saying never; it just seems weird. I don't even know how that would happen or how you meet people. I don't like to go out. I'm not great at small talk … I don't like to go to parties. There's a sign on my forehead: exiting social life, entering into isolation.” Click for Arquette's most recent interview about the split, with Oprah.
– It took a few months, but Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon finally got his answer from national intelligence chief James Clapper. Yes, Clapper wrote in a letter, the NSA does indeed spy on Americans' emails and phone calls—without a warrant—thanks to a revision in a law originally intended to apply only to foreigners, reports the National Journal. The existence of what Wyden has called a "back door" in the law first surfaced in August, courtesy of Edward Snowden, but Clapper didn't respond to Wyden's questions about it in January until the letter dated March 28. "This is unacceptable. It raises serious constitutional questions, and poses a real threat to the privacy rights of law-abiding Americans," wrote Wyden and Sen. Mark Udall. "If a government agency thinks that a particular American is engaged in terrorism or espionage, the Fourth Amendment requires that the government secure a warrant or emergency authorization before monitoring his or her communications," they wrote. "This fact should be beyond dispute." The loophole stems from the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, which gives the government the right to intercept phone calls and emails on domestic soil, without a warrant, as long as the target lives abroad and isn't a citizen, explains the New York Times. In 2011, the government got permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to use the database to search for Americans' details, too. It's this "back door" that has led to most of the NSA's most controversial information-gathering programs, including PRISM, notes the Guardian.
– China's media is crying hypocrisy over US allegations that its military spied on American companies, pointing out that the US isn't exactly a stranger to espionage. The Global Times decried the US a "mincing rascal" and a "high-level hooligan," that had "severely infringed" on the human rights of the five officials it's charging, Reuters and Bloomberg report. The People's Daily called the move "high-handed and hypocritical," while Xinhua called it a "farce" in which the US is "a robber playing cop." As the New York Times points out today, the NSA collects data from a host of foreign companies, including Brazil's Petrobras, China Telecom, and Huawei, a Chinese maker of Internet equipment. It's also spied on the EU's antitrust commissioner. US officials tell the Times that the NSA never spies to benefit specific American companies, but that it does spy to advance US economic interests in general. China thinks the US distinctions between legal and illegal spying are contrived and self-serving, and has suspended a US-Sino cooperation group on cyber issues in retaliation for the indictments.
– Apple juice and grape juice have levels of arsenic that could raise kids' risk of cancer, according to an investigation by Consumer Reports. The study of 88 samples of fruit juice bought in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut found that 10% had arsenic levels that exceeded standards set for federal drinking water. In addition, 25% exceeded the levels of lead deemed safe for bottled water. The advocacy arm of the group, Consumers Union, called on the FDA to set safety levels for fruit juices given how many kids drink them. “What we’re talking about here is not about acute affects,” one CR scientist tells NBC. “We’re talking about chronic effects. We’re talking about cancer risk." In response to the study, the FDA said it remains confident in the safety of fruit juices but added that it "has expanded our surveillance activities and is collecting additional data."
– If you have an infestation of ants in your basement, do not follow the example of David Doucette and try to kill them with fire. The 21-year-old Maine man may have succeeded in exterminating the pests, but he burned down his parents' home in the process, killing their dog and two cats, the New York Daily News reports. The state's fire marshal says Doucette, the only one home at the time, was trying to kill the ants with wooden matches when he ignited nearby combustible materials in the basement. He received second-degree burns to his hands while running out of the house with some of the burning items, WCSH reports. The marshal says Doucette is not expected to face charges. Parents Maurice and Barbara Doucette are known as enthusiastic volunteers in Old Orchard Beach and the community stepped up with an impressive response within hours of the blaze. Residents organized a temporary apartment, donated items, and started a GoFundMe fundraiser that has now collected more than $2,000 more than its $12,000 goal. "We're a small community. When something like this happens, it's nice to see people step up for the family," John Suttie, principal of the high school the Doucettes' daughter attends, tells the Portland Press Herald. "Everyone knew within 10 minutes what had happened and how to help. It goes to show you the power of community and the power of technology and social media."
– Nearly two centuries later, researchers believe they have identified the pathogen that led to Ireland's deadly potato famine. To make their discovery, British, German, and American scientists sequenced DNA from samples of dried potato leaves collected between 120 and 170 years ago, reports PhysOrg. They identified the particular strain of Phytophthora infestans in samples dating to 1845, the year the pathogen arrived in Ireland, then compared the genetic information to that of today's plants, the BBC reports. As PhysOrg explains, researchers had previously believed US-1, today's major pathogen, was the culprit. Instead, they found that a new strain, dubbed HERB-1, triggered the outbreak. Scientists believe HERB-1 appeared at the beginning of the 19th century and wasn't replaced by US-1 until the 20th century, when new potato varieties were planted. ("We can't be sure but most likely [HERB-1 has] gone extinct," says one scientist.) Besides solving a 168-year-old mystery, the find has big implications: It marks the first time the genome of a plant pathogen has been decoded using dried, preserved plant specimens, and paves the way for similar research in the future.
– A sign of how far anti-smoking bans have come in the last decade: In 2000, only one of the nation's 50 biggest cities—San Jose—had a comprehensive law that banned smoking in bars, restaurants, and workplaces. Today, the CDC says that figure is 30, reports WebMD. Of the remaining 20 cities, several are covered by partial bans, either of the city or state variety, but they don't meet the CDC's 100% threshold. "If we can protect workers and the public in the remaining 20 largest cities, 16 million people would be better protected from cancer and heart disease caused by secondhand smoke," says CDC chief Thomas Frieden. Ten of those cities are in the South. The full CDC report is here.
– Certain foods like chocolate, wine, and processed meats have long been linked to migraines, and while nitrates in those foods are often seen as the culprit, it's not entirely clear why some people are more susceptible to ensuing headaches than others, reports Quartz. Now scientists are reporting in the journal mSystems that, thanks to an analysis of 2,200 people participating in the American Gut Project, they've found that people with migraines tend to have more oral bacteria that process nitrates, reports Refinery29. This means that people suffering from migraines could be creating more nitric oxide, which has been linked to migraines, as they process those nitrates. Scientists next plan to study the diets of people with migraines to look for links between nitric oxide levels in their blood and migraines, which would help confirm that nitrate-processing oral bacteria are behind the headaches. If that's true, we could eventually see a "magical probiotic mouthwash" that helps reshape oral bacteria to prevent migraines, reports the Guardian. In the meantime, researchers say, people who suspect that nitrates are behind their migraines should try to avoid them when possible—which could be difficult, considering they're also present in leafy greens. (The source of this man's headache was highly unusual, and more than a little gross.)
– It was a stinging defeat by any measure: The ObamaCare "repeal and replace" bill that President Trump championed was declared DOA Friday after a House vote was canceled at the last minute. Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan had been unable to persuade enough House Republicans to change their minds on the American Health Care Act. The AP reports that the demise of the American Health Care Act, and the damage to Trump's presidency, had Democrats "literally jumping for joy," with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi doing a victory leap outside the Capitol. A roundup of coverage: The White House has been blaming Democrats and Ryan for the defeat, but the buck stops with Trump, who promised during his campaign that his skill as a dealmaker would change Washington, but then played chicken with House Republicans and blinked at the last minute, writes Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post. "Trump wanted this deal, pushed for this deal, called his own party's bluff on this deal and then walked away when it appeared as though the deal wouldn't come together," he writes. Politico looks back at mistakes made on the road to the failure of the AHCA, including Trump's lukewarm attitude to the legislation after it was first introduced. The New York Times reports that Trump was furious at lunchtime Friday when Ryan arrived at the White House to tell him the AHCA could not pass. Trump demanded the vote go ahead, broadcast live on TV, but Ryan argued that broadcasting the bill's defeat would damage Republicans who supported the bill as well as opponents. By midafternoon, Trump agreed to pull the bill, insiders say—and though he remained furious at the House Freedom Caucus, he did not criticize them publicly. The Hill lists winners and losers from the AHCA battle, with Trump and Ryan topping the list of losers. The winners include Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, while the verdict is mixed for the House Freedom Caucus: The hardline conservatives demonstrated their power, but they also defied a Republican president popular with grassroots voters, and preserved a law those voters hate. Politico describes Trump as "overmatched, outmaneuvered, and empty-handed" after his first confrontation with rebellious lawmakers. His ability to work with congressional Republicans to implement other parts of his agenda is now in doubt. The GOP "is still operating as an opposition party," says Josh Holmes, a former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. "If they can't break the fever ... it says an enormous amount about the prospects of tax reform, infrastructure and some sort of immigration proposal," he says. The Guardian looks at the GOP's failure to build a consensus on healthcare after conservatives decided the AHCA didn't go far enough and moderates were alarmed by predictions that 24 million people would lose coverage. The House GOP didn't spend much time "talking about a unified Republican vision for what we should do with healthcare in the House," admits Rep. Mark Amodei. Plenty of other presidents have gotten off to rocky starts, though analysts say Trump is being hurt by an apparent lack of understanding of exactly how government works, the AP reports. "You can't just come in and steamroll everybody," says Bruce Miroff, a politics professor at the State University of New York at Albany. "Most people have a modest understanding of how complicated the presidency is. They think leadership is giving orders and being bold. But the federal government is much more complicated, above all because the Constitution set it up that way."
– Prepare to hear the name Xi Jinping for years to come as a main player on the world stage. China's Communist Party on Tuesday made a rare constitutional move that elevates Xi to the status of Mao Zedong and sets the stage for him to rule indefinitely. Specifically, the party enshrined Xi's ideology, dubbed "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in a New Era," into the constitution, meaning it will be taught in schools from now on, reports the Guardian. He is only the third Chinese leader to receive the honor, after Mao and Deng Xioping, notes the Washington Post. Technically, Xi is only formally beginning his second five-year term as party secretary, but the move and the accolades he has received all week seemingly guarantee his long-term status. "The amendment of the party constitution effectively confirms Xi Jinping's aspiration to be the Mao Zedong of the 21st century—that means a top leader with no constraints on tenure or retirement age," says an expert at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. So what is Xi Jinping Thought? The BBC explains that while it smacks of "vague rhetoric," it contains 14 principles that Xi has long espoused, including a call for "complete and deep reform" and a pledge of "harmonious living between man and nature." Carrie Gracie of the BBC writes that the "new era" part of Xi's ideology is significant. This would be modern China's third. The first was Mao "uniting a country devastated by civil war," the second was Deng making the nation rich, and "this new era is about even more unity and wealth at the same time as making China disciplined at home and strong abroad." (Xi spoke for more than 3 hours last week. Here's what he said.)
– Another entry for the not-dead-yet files: A man who had been pronounced dead in Milwaukee began moving around as a medical team was preparing to take him to the morgue, reports WISN. The strange tale of 46-year-old Thomas Sancomb began earlier this week when his worried girlfriend called 911 because she couldn't reach him. A crew from the Fire Department got into his apartment and found him collapsed near the foot of his bed, "cold to the touch and in rigor." He seemed so clearly dead that they didn't try to resuscitate, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. An investigator from the medical examiner's office showed up, and Sancomb was pronounced dead. Authorities called his brother with the news. At that point, a crew from the medical examiner's office arrived to take the body to the morgue when, lo and behold, Sancomb had "spontaneous respirations" and started moving his limbs, reports AP. Paramedics then returned to the scene and took him to the hospital instead of the morgue. His brother says Sancomb is doing better every day, but didn't go into detail. As for the blown medical call: "We're doing an internal investigation to make sure that everything we did followed protocol," says an assistant fire chief. "It's an active investigation, so I can't comment in detail." (This woman actually woke up in the morgue. As did this guy. And this one.)
– It was glitz DC-style at the Kennedy Center last night, which saw five artists honored during this year's gala: Meryl Streep, Neil Diamond, Yo-Yo Ma, Sonny Rollins, and Barbara Cook. The Washington Post reports that the red carpet was a jumble of politicians (Newt Gingrich and wife Callista) and celebrities (Streep wore Elie Saab). This year's recipients sat with the first couple in the balcony (orchestra seats went for $5,500 a pop). Quips abounded, with director Mike Nichols saying Streep "could handle any part thrown at her, except maybe Gidget." After a video montage of her career was screened, Robert De Niro observed, "Looking at those great moments over the years, I realize ... I was amazing in Deer Hunter." Back at the White House, Obama offered more praise, saying the five "have been blessings to all of us." His take on the honorees: Tony Award-winning Cook has been an inspiration for singers that followed, he noted. Diamond has written songs you can sing “no matter how much you've had to drink,” while “saxophone colossus” Rollins can tear through an hour-long solo without repeating himself, Obama said, according to USA Today. Meryl Streep has garnered more Oscar nods than any other actress. Cellist Ma is “a regular here at the White House,” the president observed. “I was telling him we need to give him a room.” On top of that, “everybody likes him," Obama added. "You've got to give me some tips."
– Johnny Quinn seems to be having quite the spate of bad luck. First, the American bobsledder got stuck in a locked Sochi bathroom Saturday, and had to break his way out. Today, the hopefully-not-claustrophobic Olympic hopeful got stuck in an elevator. And, yes, he knows what you're thinking: No way. His response: Way. "No one is going to believe this but we just got stuck in an elevator. Ask @BOBSLEDR and @Crippsee who were there..." he tweeted, along with photo evidence. Olympic bobsledders may want to stick with the stairs going forward: On Saturday, Brit Rebekah Wilson had a near mishap of her own, reports ABC News, when she came across (but clearly didn't walk into) an open elevator shaft (photo here).
– Turkey and the Palestinians warned on Tuesday of dire diplomatic repercussions if President Trump goes ahead with a possible recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told parliament that his country's response "could go as far as us cutting diplomatic ties with Israel," reports the AP. A senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned that the Palestinian leadership could halt contacts with US counterparts in response to such recognition. American officials have said Trump may recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital this week as a way to offset his likely decision to delay his campaign promise of moving the US Embassy. The White House missed a deadline Monday to waive a law requiring the US Embassy be moved to Jerusalem, reports the Guardian; the waiver is required every six months, and Trump signed it in June. Trump's point man on the Middle East, son-in-law Jared Kushner, later said the president hasn't decided yet what steps to take on Jerusalem. The possibility of such recognition triggered mounting criticism and opposition by Muslim and Arab states. The Arab League was to meet Tuesday, while on Monday, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation said US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital would constitute "naked aggression." Majdi Khaldi, Abbas' diplomatic adviser, said recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital could destroy Washington's role as mediator between Israelis and Palestinians. Recognition "would mean they decided, on their own, to distance themselves from efforts to make peace and that they will have no credibility or role in this issue," Khaldi told the AP. "We will stop our contacts with them [in the event of recognition] because such a step goes against our existence and against the fate of our cause."
– Walmart settled with Tracy Morgan after a truck owned by the company plowed into the comedian's limousine van in 2014—injuring Morgan and killing one of his friends—but it seems Walmart's insurers aren't too happy about that settlement. CBS News reports Ohio Casualty and Liberty Insurance Underwriters are suing Walmart over the settlement, claiming Morgan exaggerated his injuries to get money. They want Morgan to submit to a seven-hour deposition, but the comedian is refusing. Morgan's lawyer, Benedict Morelli, tells Page Six the demand amounts to "harassment," adding that his client was "devastatingly injured." Morgan suffered a broken leg, broken ribs, and what a lawyer called a "traumatic brain injury." Officials ruled that the driver of Walmart's truck was responsible for the accident and hadn't slept in 28 hours, though Morgan and his passengers exacerbated their injuries by not wearing seat belts, People reports. Morgan and another injured passenger reportedly settled with Walmart for $90 million, though Morelli says that figure is "not even close" to accurate. Walmart says the settlement with Morgan was "amicable," and Morelli says the two insurance companies are just upset that after years of taking Walmart's premiums, they have to pay some of that money out. A judge will reportedly decide this month if Morgan must sit for the deposition. "Could have been worse. I could have got hit by a Bob's Discount Furniture truck. You know they ain't got no f---ing money," Morgan jokes about the crash in his new Netflix special.
– The newly released 1950 grand jury testimony of David Greenglass, who helped cement the executions of his brother-in-law and sister Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, offers new evidence that Ethel was innocent in the most intense spying case of the Cold War. Both Rosenbergs were convicted of conspiring to steal atomic secrets for the Soviet Union in 1951 after Greenglass said he saw Ethel transcribing information he gave the Rosenbergs—gained while serving as an Army machinist at the Manhattan Project HQ—on a typewriter in 1945. Both Rosenbergs were sent to the electric chair in 1953, though Greenglass, who spent almost 10 years in prison as a co-conspirator, later admitted he lied. In the 46-page transcript of testimony given six months before Greenglass implicated Ethel, her brother said he never spoke about the data with Ethel, only with Julius and his own wife, Ruth, reports the Guardian. Greenglass' testimony, ordered released after his death last year and unsealed yesterday, doesn't disprove his later claim, reports the New York Times. He actually noted Ethel was present at key meetings, reports Politico. However, after he described Julius receiving a silver Omega watch from Russian agents and was asked if Ethel ever mentioned commendations, he said, "My sister has never spoken to me about this subject." He said Julius discussed Greenglass staying in the Army to pass on more information, but added, "Honestly, this is a fact: I never spoke to my sister about this at all." "There was never really any solid evidence that she had been involved in any part of espionage," says an author on the subject. "It just confirms this idea that the government was using her, imprisoning her to get at Julius Rosenberg." Some say it was Ruth Greenglass who typed notes for Julius to forward to the Soviets, and her husband lied to protect her.
– President Trump will skip an upcoming summit in South America to focus on the US response to a chemical attack in Syria. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement Tuesday that Trump will not attend the Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru, nor travel to Bogota, Colombia, as planned, per the AP. Vice President Mike Pence will travel in his place on the trip, which begins April 13. It was to be Trump's first visit to Latin America, notes the Miami Herald, and the cancellation erases one intriguing question: whether Trump would have shaken the hand of Cuba's Raul Castro. (Trump has promised a quick decision on Syria.)
– Switzerland has rejected a proposed rule to make major cuts to immigration—a measure that supporters backed as eco-friendly. It called for limiting immigration growth to 0.2% of the population each year in order to protect the country's beauty against overcrowding, AFP reports. That would have meant cutting the number of immigrants from about 80,000 per year to 16,000, the BBC notes, in a country where some 23% of the population is foreign. The rejection by 74% of voters comes as little surprise following polls on the matter. All the country's political parties opposed it, AFP notes, citing xenophobia and economic concerns. But in Switzerland, if supporters of a movement get enough signatures, the country must hold a referendum on the matter, the BBC reports. And immigration wasn't the only issue the country voted on today, the AP reports. Another effort called for the Swiss national bank to keep a fifth of its reserves in the form of gold, a move which would have required vast gold purchases in the coming years had it not been opposed by 78% of voters.
– This inevitably wasn't going to end well: In an interview given earlier this week, a high-profile Roman Catholic leader said that the "youngsters" who are sexually abused by priests are often the instigators, and that priests who are first-time offenders should not go to prison, reports the New York Times. "Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him," said Father Benedict Groeschel. "A lot of the cases, the youngster—14, 16, 18—is the seducer." Groeschel, 79, is a founder of Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, a conservative priestly order based in New York, and for 38 years has been a counselor for troubled priests. His remarks were published Monday by the National Catholic Register, but were taken down yesterday and replaced with an apology. “I did not intend to blame the victim,” wrote Father Groeschel in a statement published on the Catholic Register’s site. "A priest (or anyone else) who abuses a minor is always wrong and is always responsible. My mind and my way of expressing myself are not as clear as they used to be."
– Gabrielle Giffords will be released from the hospital on Friday, heading instead to the Institute for Rehabilitation and Research at Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, Politico reports. The center specializes in brain injury recovery. Giffords’ mother sent out an excited email today, telling friends that Giffords was recovering so well that she’d been able to look at get-well cards, scroll through photos on her husband’s iPhone, and even try to unbutton his shirt and pull off his tie. “Everyday Gabby improves and shows higher levels of comprehension and complex actions,” Gloria Giffords wrote, according to the New York Times. “They are even now having her move limbs on command. So now comes the ‘true grit’ part… and won’t be a stroll in the park.” Doctors say Giffords is now trying to speak, and that her husband reported seeing her smile.
– Three people are dead after a deadly shooting last night in Elkhart, Indiana: A gunman entered Martin's Super Market just after 10pm and began firing "from one area of the store to the next," killing two women before he was shot dead by police. The gunman—a local white man in his 20s—pointed a semiautomatic handgun at arriving officers, who fired, WXIN reports, though WNDU notes "several" rounds were exchanged between the man and police. The two victims—a staff member in her late teens or early 20s and a customer in her 40s—were found 10 to 12 aisles apart, making this a "huge crime scene," a police spokesman says. The relationship between the victims and shooter, who was also carrying a large knife, isn't known, but "we are pretty confident that Elkhart's quick response to the scene most definitely saved lives tonight," the spokesman said, adding, "There is not a day that goes by it seems anymore that we aren't learning about a school shooting or at a business. We hope this would never come to our hometown, and here it is." One man, whose mother works at the store, said it was evacuated after gunshots were heard. "She told me that she heard what sounded like gunshots and everybody around her was telling her that they heard gunshots," he said, adding, "You can't even go to the grocery store and not be safe."
– Randy Travis' downward spiral seems to be speeding up: Texas police say an "extremely intoxicated" Travis got into a fight in a church parking lot around 1am and ended up in the hospital, reports TMZ. Cops cited him for simple assault and labeled him the aggressor. It's not clear what the fight was about, but it apparently started as an argument between a husband and wife, and Travis got involved. Fox News notes that it's the country singer's third arrest linked to booze this year, including one earlier this month that involved nudity.
– An Oklahoma father who claimed his daughter fatally shot herself in the face while playing with a gun is going to stand trial for her murder. At a hearing Monday, a police detective in Norman testified that father Ronald Lee McMullen Jr.'s version of events is physically impossible, the Tulsa World reports. McMullen, 43, called 911 at 5:42am on June 29 last year and said daughter Kailee Jo McMullen, 22, had been "playing with a wheel-gun" that went off when he tried to take it from her. Detective Brian Franks, however, testified that the "stippling" of gunpowder residue on Kailee's face indicated that the revolver was fired from around 18 inches away—and her reach while holding the gun could have been no more than 14 inches. "It tells me it was fired outside of her reach," he said. Kailee, a former high school cheerleader, worked as an EMT. Her father was arrested and charged with first-degree murder a few days after her death. The Oklahoman reports that according to an affidavit for a search warrant, officers responding to the 911 call found large amounts of blood and evidence that somebody had tried to clean it up. Officers said that after they took photos of McMullen, he got on the ground and began covering himself with dirt. Police, who describe McMullen as a "very controlling father," say he was accused of sexually abusing Kailee in 2009 but wasn't charged. According to the affidavit, she told friends in the months before her death that her father had started abusing her again. At Monday's hearing, the judge decided there was enough evidence to send him to trial.
– The remains of a boy missing since 1989 appear to have been found this week in Minnesota, USA Today reports. While authorities aren't confirming the identify of the remains, Patty Wetterling and another source tell the Minneapolis Star Tribune the remains are those of Wetterling's son Jacob, who disappeared when he was 11. "Our hearts are broken," Wetterling says. "We have no words." The remains were found with information from Danny Heinrich, a 52-year-old man arrested last October on child pornography charges and a person of interest in Jacob's disappearance. "I am happy for them that they know, not that he’s passed, but at least they have closure," Heinrich's brother tells KARE. Jacob was on the way back from the store with his friend and brother in 1989 when they were accosted by a masked man with a gun. The man had the other boys run into the woods and is believed to have kidnapped Jacob. Heinrich says he had nothing to do with Jacob's disappearance, but DNA evidence tied him to the sexual assault of another boy around the same time and place. The statute of limitations has passed on that crime, so no charges were filed, but Heinrich became a person of interest in Jacob's disappearance due to similarities in the incidents. In the wake of his disappearance, Jacob's family created the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center for families of lost children. “We are in deep grief," the Star Tribune quotes a statement from the center. "We didn’t want Jacob’s story to end this way."
– When it comes to creating a new mascot for your restaurant, maybe brown and log-shaped isn't the way to go. USA Today reports Denny's debuted its anthropomorphized sausage character "Sausage" back in 2014. But the internet wasn't going to ignore a restaurant mascot that looks like poop forever, and it finally took notice this week. Let's see what online observers had to say about our new friend Sausage: AmericanPropagandist: "The Dennys turd is here with lunch." Kira Bindrim: "Denny's new mascot looks like an extremely scared poop that's been forced to wear accessories." John DeBella: "I don't know what demographic they're trying to reach, but I'm pretty sure I'm not in it." Amy: "I'm not a pro, but I can guarantee I would come up with something better than a turd wearing a hat." Orphan J: "Looks like Mr. Hanky got a new gig as the Denny's mascot!" The Wrap: "Rather than making a splash, the fedora-wearing cartoon sausage only stunk up the room." Mashable: "[It] seems more like it's welcoming us to the bathroom than a restaurant." Despite all the potty humor, Denny's doesn't seem to be sweating it. "We do not have any plans to change how Sausage looks because, well, he looks exactly how a breakfast sausage should look," Denny's chief marketing officer tells USA Today, adding, "While this unflattering comparison was never in his plan, he won’t let it stop him from enjoying his 15 minutes of fame."
– An Albuquerque grandmother thought she recognized a masked burglar who entered her home on Friday morning—and when Pamela Dearinger managed to rip off his bandana, her suspicions were confirmed: It was her grandson, police say. Thomas Clark, 22, came in through the back door while she was watching TV, she says; he grabbed her, and that's when she pulled off the bandana. He knocked her down and stole her purse—Dearinger pegged the value of it and its contents at $507—before fleeing, reports the Albuquerque Journal. Police caught up with him at his parents' house several hours afterward, KRQE reports. Why the desperate need for cash? Police say Clark told them his friends suggested it would be a great way to fund a trip to a nearby casino. Worse still, he's broken in once before to steal a TV, his grandmother says in the criminal complaint. Clark now faces felony charges. His grandmother was bruised and received cuts to her wrist and mouth in the altercation, but she says she's OK.
– Two tiny finger bones found in a cave in Poland tell a pretty grim story: Sometime about 115,000 years ago, a "large bird" ate a Neanderthal child, Live Science reports. According to CNN, scientists determined the fate of the child based on the bones' porous surface, which, per researcher Pawel Valde-Nowak, resulted from the bones "passing through the digestive system of a large bird." What isn't known is whether the bird killed and ate the child, thought to be 5 to 7 years old, or if the child was already dead and the bird was a scavenger. Either way, Valde-Nowak says in a statement, "This is the first known example from the Ice Age." Because of the poor condition of the bones, DNA analysis is not an option, according to reports. Nonetheless, the bones, discovered in Ciemna Cave, are an important find in Poland, as they are the oldest human remains unearthed in the country. Previously, the oldest human remains found in Poland were three Neanderthal molars dated to be about 52,000 years old. The finger bones, which measure just a centimeter in length, were found among animal bones a few years ago about 9 feet below the cave's current surface, per CNN. It wasn't until the bones were analyzed this year that researchers realized they were from a human. (Read how a bit of cave dirt has changed archaeology.)
– People around the country are wearing purple today to show their support for the eight teenagers who recently took their lives due to gay bullying. LGBT Spirit Day was started by a Canadian teenager who wanted to show gay teens that the world wasn't against them. A message on the Spirit Day 2010 Facebook page (which shows more than 45,000 people "attending" the event) explains: "Purple represents Spirit on the LGBTQ flag and that’s exactly what we’d like all of you to have with you: spirit." Read the full article at Change.org.
– As Beethoven went deaf, he may have started listening to his heart. In a new study published in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, a cardiologist, an internal medical specialist, and a musicologist point out that three of the German composer's works exhibit "rhythmic shifts and punctuations" that weren't typical of music during his time but that closely resemble various forms of heart arrhythmia. Although the Los Angeles Times notes that Beethoven's heart was found "structurally sound" in an autopsy, no one knows for sure what medical conditions he suffered from. The study analyzed Beethoven's Piano Sonata in E flat major, the String Quartet No. 13 in B flat major, and the Piano Sonata No. 12 in A flat major. In the first sonata, researchers noticed a "distinctive 'galloping' rhythm" in one section, and another section evoking irregular heartbeats both slow and fast; in the string quartet, the "shortness of breath" evoked is like a "short paroxysm of an atrial tachyarrhythmia"; and in the second sonata, a "repetitive run of notes … 'bears some resemblance to rapid tachyarrhythmia.'" In what co-author Zachary Goldberger acknowledges is "entirely speculative," they theorize as Beethoven went deaf, he may have become more "attuned" to his heartbeat, though they admit "similar rhythmic intricacies" are present in other musicians' compositions. "While these musical arrhythmias may simply manifest Beethoven's genius, there is a possibility that in certain pieces his beating heart could literally be at the heart of some of the greatest masterpieces of all time," Goldberger says, per Medical News Today. (A music teacher recreated a Beethoven piece lost for 200 years.)
– The 20-year-old suspect in the deadly Cascade Mall shooting said nothing and appeared "zombie-like" when he was arrested by authorities nearly 24 hours into an intense manhunt, authorities said. Island County Sheriff's Lt. Mike Hawley said he spotted Arcan Cetin from a patrol car Saturday evening in Oak Harbor, Wash., and immediately recognized him. Hawley said at a news conference they had received information that Cetin, of Oak Harbor, was in the area. Cetin, who immigrated to the US from Turkey, is a legal permanent resident. He had been arrested once before in the county for assault. "I literally hit my brakes, did a quick turn, I jumped out," Hawley said. "We both jumped out with our guns, and he just froze." Cetin was unarmed and was carrying a satchel with a computer in it. "He was kind of zombie-like," Hawley said, per the AP. The suspect's arrest capped a frantic search following the slayings of five people the day before. Cetin has not been charged, Mount Vernon police Lt. Chris Cammock said. He will be booked into the Skagit County Jail and is expected to appear in court on Monday. Skagit County court records show three domestic-violence assault charges against Cetin, reports the Seattle Times. The victim was identified as Cetin's stepfather. Cetin also was arrested for drunken driving. Cetin was told by an Island County District Court judge on Dec. 29 that he was not to possess a firearm. However, the stepfather urged the judge not to impose a no-contact order, saying his stepson was "going through a hard time." Says Cammock, per the Times: "I don’t know what his motivations were. But I certainly intend to find out."
– A 46-year-old man died overnight in a car buried in snow in a Buffalo suburb, becoming the fifth casualty so far in the monster storm that dumped up to 6 feet in the region. The freak "wall of snow" has no meteorological term, according to a National Weather Service rep, who calls it "a historic event" and describes "whiteout to blue sky in a very, very short distance." The Buffalo News notes the storm "unleashed historic amounts of snow" in half of Erie County "while the sun shone brightly" on the other half." Indeed, a spot a mile from Lancaster saw 60 inches; Buffalo Niagara International Airport, just 6 miles northwest, logged 3.9 inches. Some 150 vehicles were stranded, reports the AP, with a 132-mile swath of the New York State Thruway shut down and some motorists trapped for 24 hours. Elsewhere: Among the stranded vehicles was a bus carrying the Niagara University women's basketball team; the players were stuck for almost 30 hours before being rescued today. The women ran through all their food and water and were forced to drink melted snow, notes the Washington Post. "It started to get bad fast at about 2am (Tuesday) and we came to a dead stop and haven't moved since," the Niagara coach told the AP last night. "It was a rough weekend for us on the court and it just won't end." The casualties also included three people who died of heart problems, two of them while shoveling snow, notes the AP. Another man died while trying to push a stuck car out of a drift. The storm canceled half the flights at Buffalo's airport, and a local hospital was operating with a skeleton staff, notes the News. "Many of our nurses couldn't get into work today," said a nurse who hitched a ride with a snowmobiler. "They wanted to, but they couldn't get in." The rate at which the snow fell—as fast as 5 inches per hour—was too intense for snowblowers to deal with; the News adds that plows can't function in more than 2 or 3 feet of snow. Click for a gallery of images from the storm.
– Jack Nicholson, whose last film was 2010's How Do You Know, is back: Sources tell Variety that he and Kristen Wiig will star in a remake of German flick Toni Erdmann. The original, which debuted at Cannes last year, was nominated for the best foreign film awards at this year's Golden Globes and upcoming Oscars. It's about a prankster dad who tries to reconnect with a workaholic daughter by pretending to be her CEO's life coach, and Nicholson was said to be a big fan—it was reportedly the 80-year-old's idea to make an English-language version. Variety's sources say Paramount Pictures has acquired the remake rights, but Paramount has not officially commented. (Click for 20 pictures of a young Nicholson.)
– Dick Lugar gets the "maverick" treatment from the New York Times and Politico, with both suggesting that the Indiana Republican's willingness to buck his own party on key issues leaves him vulnerable to a Tea Party primary challenge in 2012: Politico: Tea Party candidates are already "lining up to oppose him, and are poised to use his friendship with Obama, his lobbying on behalf of START, his support for a repeal of 'don’t ask, don’t tell' and his opposition to a ban on earmarks as issues." Full story here. Times: Lugar's history of taking stands on principle goes back to the days when he defied Reagan on apartheid penalties. "Now, in the heat of the post-primary lame-duck Congressional session, he is defying his party on an earmark ban, a bill that would create a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants, a military spending authorization bill and an arms control treaty with Russia." Full story here. Former GOP Sen. John Danforth: “If Dick Lugar, having served five terms in the US Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on foreign policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption.”
– People who got a subsidy from ObamaCare to help pay for their health insurance are getting a not-so-pleasant surprise on their taxes: H&R Block reports that 52% of people who got subsidies have to pay back a chunk of that money to the government. The average payback is $530, equating to a 17% drop in returns, reports the Hill. The main reason for the payback? Filers' 2014 income came in higher than expected, and thus the subsidies they received were too high. “It’s costing taxpayers a large percentage of their refund—a refund many of them count on to pay household expenses,” say H&R Block VP Mark Ciaramitaro. The figures are based on only the first six weeks of the filing season and could change. On the upside, about 38% of ObamaCare filers found out they were getting an average credit of $366 because their subsidies were too low, reports Forbes. So far, the average penalty for those without health insurance is $172, and Forbes thinks many filers who learn of the penalty will take advantage of a new special enrollment period (from March 15 to April 30) put into place for just that reason.
– LSU running back Derrius Guice says he faced some extremely inappropriate questions from teams during the NFL Scouting Combine this week. "It was pretty crazy," told SiriusXM, per USA Today. "I go in one room, and a team will ask me do I like men, just to see my reaction. I go in another room, they'll try to bring up one of my family members or something and tell me, 'Hey, I heard your mom sells herself. How do you feel about that?’" A source confirms to Pro Football Talk that Guice, one of the top running backs in this year's draft, was asked about his sexuality during the combine. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy says the league is investigating, as it did when Nick Kasa said he was asked if he liked girls during the 2013 combine. "A question such as that is completely inappropriate and wholly contrary to league workplace policies," McCarthy said in a statement to the Washington Post. "The league annually reminds clubs of these workplace policies that prohibit personnel from seeking information concerning a player’s sexual orientation." DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association, says the team involved, which has yet to be identified, should be banned from the combine.
– At least six people were reportedly injured in south Philadelphia today, after a home collapsed after a possible explosion, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Police say reports of the blast came at about 11am, but according to Reuters they would not confirm the number of people injured, nor have they commented on the condition of those injured. Aerial footage showed rubble where the home had been; two neighboring homes were also damaged. The incident comes just a month after another building collapsed in Philadelphia, killing six people.
– Another entry in the cat-came-back chronicles, though this orange tabby had some help in doing so. "Kevin" disappeared two years ago in South Carolina and turned up this month about 2,000 miles away in California. He apparently hitched a ride in a U-Haul trailer being towed across the country by a woman, though she had no idea he was inside it, reports the Los Angeles Times. Kevin was discovered during a routine inspection of the trailer at the Arizona-California border, and animal-control officials then tracked down his original owner via the cat's microchip. “We have handled some pets with crazy pet stories, and this is one more for the list,” says an official with Riverside County Animal Services in California. Where Kevin was in the two years before he got inside the U-Haul trailer remains unclear. But he was being flown home to Cheryl Walls in Anderson, SC, today, thanks in part to donations from shelter employees in California, reports the Desert Sun. "He has seen more of the country than me," she says.
– Looks like it's one Palin in, one Palin out for Arizona. Bristol Palin has put the Phoenix-area home she bought in December up for rent already because she's pulling up stakes for LA, reports the Los Angeles Times. Palin and her son, Tripp, will live with brothers Kyle and Christopher Massey for her new reality show on the BIO channel. Kyle was a fellow contestant on Dancing With the Stars. If you like the idea of having Bristol Palin for a landlord, her 5-bedroom Maricopa house can be yours for $1,400 a month—but no pets allowed. No word on if Bristol plans to return to Arizona when filming is done, but if she needs a place to stay in the state, there's probably space in the $1.7 million home her mother bought in Scottsdale last month. (And in other celebrity house-related news...)
– A Saudi woman who suffered a medical emergency when there was no man around is in trouble for driving herself to the hospital. Aliyah Al Farid, a member of the National Society for Human Rights, was pulled over by the country's religious police when she was behind the wheel of her husband's car, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. She was allowed to drive to the hospital after she explained that she suffered from a chronic condition and lives in a remote area, but police took her to be fined by the traffic department after she had been seen by a doctor. Al Farid has campaigned to allow women to drive in the kingdom, but she says the drive to the hospital was an emergency, not a stunt, ArabianBusiness.com reports. "I told the traffic officers that I had to drive because it was an emergency case," she says. "I'm not after fame or media hype. I was very sick and that was it." She owns a center for people with special needs and says she has sometimes driven people to the hospital rather than "leave an epileptic patient convulsing on the ground while waiting for our male driver to come and transport him." Because there is no actual law banning Saudi women from driving, she refused to sign a pledge never to drive again, although it's illegal for women in the kingdom to be issued driver's licenses, the Independent reports. (Last year, a leading Saudi cleric was widely mocked for saying women shouldn't drive because it harms their ovaries.)
– With a new appeal hearing looming in the Meredith Kercher murder case, Amanda Knox's ex-boyfriend and co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito is not doing Knox any favors. In an interview on Italian TV (parts of which were broadcast on Today this week), Sollecito said he "has some questions" about Knox's apparently odd behavior in the hours before Kercher's body was found, UPI and the Independent report. He says Knox left his apartment in the morning to take a shower, and when she returned hours later, she was "very agitated" and said she found her front door open and blood on the bathroom floor. "Certainly I asked her questions," Sollecito said. "Why did you take a shower? Why did you spend so much time there?" And, he added, "I don't have answers." NBC's legal experts think Sollecito is attempting to distance himself from Knox, but in a blog post earlier this month, Knox herself insisted that "is not the case," noting Sollecito "has plenty of reason for resentment, but not against" her. She did, however, include in her post part of a recent email she received from Sollecito in which he admitted, "I don’t want to be punished for, nor have to continue to justify, those things that regard you and not me. Obviously the evidence demonstrates both of our innocence, but it seems that for the judges and the people this objectivity is of no importance."
– Amid rumors that this year's Nobel Prize for Physics will go to the Higgs boson theory, some scientists say the particle's name should be changed so that all the glory doesn't go to British physicist Peter Higgs. At a press conference last year to announce the particle's discovery, Higgs "was treated as something of a rock star and the rest of us were barely recognized by most of the audience," American scientist Carl Hagen tells the BBC. Hagen is considered to have helped develop the theory, along with Higgs and four others. Most scientists, however, agree that calling it the Englert-Higgs-Guralnik-Kibble-Brout-Hagen particle would be too unwieldy—and the acronyms aren't much better. Hagen favors the name Standard Model Scalar Meson. In a BBC interview last week, Higgs himself argued that it should really be called the Goldstone particle after Cambridge physicist Jeffrey Goldstone. Higgs explained that the "God particle" nickname for the Higgs started out as a joke, after an editor rejected an author's plan "to call it 'that goddamn particle' because it was clear it was going to be a tough job finding it experimentally."
– Four members of Pussy Riot who ran onto the field during the World Cup soccer final will spend 15 days in jail. Veronika Nikulshina, Olga Kuracheva, Olga Pakhtusova, and Petya Verzilov also are banned from attending sporting events for three years, reports ABC News. The four took advantage of the world spotlight and disrupted the game to protest Vladimir Putin's policies and to demand the release of political prisoners. Among the offenses that factored into the sentencing: The protesters wore police uniforms during the stunt. Meanwhile, the European Court of Human Rights awarded $43,500 to the group over the prison sentences members received for their now-famous protest performance at a church in 2012, reports the Moscow Times. “Domestic courts had failed to justify why it had been necessary to convict and sentence the applicants to terms of imprisonment,” the ECHR said in a release. Two members served 16 months in prison. The anti-Kremlin group formed in 2011 and has featured various members ever since, notes the BBC.
– A word that has been dogging Secretary of State Rex Tillerson: absence. Absence from the spotlight, from a high-profile human rights event Friday, and from the press, though that's set to change, somewhat, as of Monday. A rep for the State department attempted to answer the question of where, exactly, Tillerson has been, noting 32 phone calls with representatives of foreign countries and 15 in-person meetings on US soil with "foreign interlocutors" (plus two trips abroad), per Politico. The latest: The State Department has historically held a daily press briefing on each business day; under Tillerson, there have been none. That's set to change Monday, though the approach has been tweaked: There won't be briefings on Fridays, and two of the weekly briefings will be conducted over the phone. Politico's take on the lack of briefings thus far: "The long silence has irritated American diplomats who have watched other foreign ministry spokesmen ... try to seize control of narratives without State being able to respond." Another absence that irritated and confused some: Tillerson didn't attend Friday's release of the department's annual report on human rights around the world. CNN reports that for decades the secretary has given the introduction at the high-profile event, and points out that during two exceptions under George W. Bush, the secretary was on a trip abroad; that wasn't true of Tillerson. He's also been absent from President Trump's first three summit meetings with his foreign counterparts: Canada's Justin Trudeau, Japan's Shinzo Abe and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, though Tillerson has met with Netanyahu. Just Security sees this as "very odd ... especially for someone who has no foreign policy experience and most likely does not have prior relationships with these leaders. Plus, being present at a meeting with the president shows foreign leaders—and the public and the State Department staff—that the president trusts and listens to you." Some say it's just Tillerson doing what made him so successful as CEO of Exxon: "He's an engineer and engineers learn the facts and follow where they lead. He's a systems guy, a step-by-step guy ... He's starting out slow as he learns the job," a former national security adviser for George W. Bush tells the Los Angeles Times. We may see what Tillerson is made of soon enough, though. The White House has indicated it plans to slash the State Department's budget. Tillerson has yet to publicly comment on the news (the LAT points out Mitch McConnell has, saying the Senate isn't likely to greenlight extreme cuts). But this after "he lost ... his first battle with the president," as one State employee tells the Atlantic: Tillerson's choice of (past Trump critic) Elliott Abrams as his No. 2 was vetoed by the president. The position remains open. At Vanity Fair, Emily Jane Fox sees a "curious silver lining" for Tillerson. "While the Russian intrigues swirling around the president continues to ensnare more members of his administration, the one man who knows Putin best has managed to stay off the radar by remaining off the grid. It may just be that his diminished role role might be what allows him to walk away the least scathed in the end."
– Miss hearing from Ron Paul? Then tune into talk radio starting next month. The former presidential candidate and congressman will share "his thoughts and opinions" in one-minute commentaries twice a day, alongside fellow libertarian host Charles Goyette, Courtside Entertainment Group announced today. The feature, known as "Ron Paul's America," will also be available as a weekly podcast. It debuts March 18, and Politico reports that it will be distributed to radio stations nationally.
– Megan Fox used the F-word a whopping 24 times in her recent Allure interview, although the mag only printed six. She also divulged her germ phobia (“Every time someone uses a bathroom and they flush, all the bacteria is shot into the air”), her distaste for the paparazzi (“I’m not a fucking reality TV star” who “wants my fucking picture taken all the time”), and, reports HuffPo, her unwillingness to be domesticated (“I’ll starve to death before I’ll cook for myself”). Perhaps most interestingly, Cover Awards reports, Fox airs some of her problems with the “fake” Hollywood culture: “Everyone blows sunshine up everyone else’s ass. I hate receiving compliments; I hate being told I’m talented or people think I’m going to be a movie star.” Which leaves just one question…who are all these people telling her she’s talented?
– The Islamic State has delivered its first public pronouncement about President Trump, and it's one that mocks him as an "idiot." The translation from Reuters is as follows: "America you have drowned and there is no savior, and you have become prey for the soldiers of the caliphate in every part of the earth, you are bankrupt and the signs of your demise are evident to every eye." The spokesman continues: "There is no more evidence than the fact that you are being run by an idiot who does not know what Syria or Iraq or Islam is." The 36-minute audio does not specifically mention policies such as Trump's controversial travel ban, notes NBC News. Trump has vowed to "obliterate" ISIS, and the group's silence toward him until now had baffled those who keep tabs on the group—particularly because President Obama had been such a frequent target, reports the New York Times. The newspaper quotes a senior research fellow in London with a possible explanation: In a sense, he says, ISIS viewed Obama's more favorable standing among Muslims as more threatening. "They assumed that with [Obama] you need to tease out those subtleties. 'He calls Muslims part of American family, but he doesn’t really believe that.' Whereas with Trump, he openly declared Islam hates us. There are no subtleties to unmask."
– More signs of a presidential run: This weekend, Sarah Palin will begin an East Coast bus tour starting in Washington, the Huffington Post reports. “Sarah Palin will embark on a One Nation tour of historical sites that were key to the formation, survival, and growth of the United States of America,” says a rep. (Look for the bus with the Constitution on the side.) It all starts Sunday, when she joins DC’s “Rolling Thunder” motorcycle ride of mostly Vietnam vets. A pair of former George W. Bush advance aides are organizing the trip, whose stops haven’t been announced yet. Meanwhile, Republicans are weighing in on her possible bid. “A Palin entry this summer will have less impact than it would have had if she entered a few months ago because her stock with rank and file Republicans has fallen this year,” says one strategist. “But she’d still shake things up,” he notes. “Everyone in the field would find themselves constantly being asked if they agree with what Palin just said.” Click to read about other signs pointing to a run.
– Police investigating a deadly shooting at a packed hip-hop concert arrested a rap artist Thursday, saying surveillance footage showed him stalking through the venue firing a gun. Roland Collins, who's from Brooklyn and goes by the stage name Troy Ave, will face attempted murder and weapons charges, a police spokesman says. Four people were shot, one fatally, when a fight started Wednesday night in a performers' lounge at a Manhattan concert hall where the star rapper TI was scheduled to perform, the AP reports. The man who died, Ronald McPhatter, was a member of Collins' entourage and had been there to provide security, according to his family. Collins, 33, suffered a gunshot wound to the leg, police say. One of the victims, Christopher Vinson, was shot in the chest on the venue's ground level after a bullet traveled through the floor. Another bystander, Maggie Heckstall, was shot in the leg, authorities say. The circumstances of what prompted the fight are still under investigation. Police Commissioner William Bratton, in an interview with WCBS radio, blamed the shootings on "the crazy world of the so-called rap artists who are basically thugs that basically celebrate the violence that they live all their lives." Mayor Bill de Blasio said afterward that he believed Bratton was "talking out of frustration." "I think it's not really right to see a whole genre through one eye," he said. "There are some rap artists and folks in the hip-hop culture doing amazing, good things for the world."
– Critics agree that the soundtrack of Pirate Radio can't be beat, and the top-notch cast is a joy. So when it comes to the shaky plot and pacing, some can turn a blind eye: "There’s no denying the comic energy of the cast," Peter Travers writes in Rolling Stone. "Couple that with blasts of Brit rock from the Beatles and the Stones to Dusty Springfield and David Bowie, and the ship is unsinkable." Writer/director Richard Curtis introduces "characters and conflicts only to drop them," Stephanie Zacharek of Salon complains. But no matter: The best bits "take place in the movie's margins, in the vignettes and asides that don't necessarily have much to do with the plot." Bah. A great cast and great tunes—some of which are not at all historically accurate—do not a great film make, Sam Adams writes for the AV Club. "Do you like montages, but grow bored with the tedious plot bits in between? Then Pirate Radio is the movie for you." Curtis alludes to the cultural issues behind the plot—a little, writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. Really, "he wants to party." Which he does, and "which is fine."
– Benjamin Netanyahu hasn't done such a great job concealing that he'd prefer a President Romney to President Obama, and as it happens, his donors feel the same way. Nineteen of Netanyahu's wealthiest US donors also contribute to the Romney campaign, the Republican Party, and/or other GOP candidates, a Haaretz investigation has learned. What's more, not one Democrat has donated to Netanyahu's campaign. Romney has repeatedly criticized Obama for his often contentious relationship with Netanyahu, and that continued today in an op-ed on foreign policy in the Wall Street Journal in which he accused Obama of dismissing Israel's concerns about Iran. "At a time when Israel needs America to stand with it, he declined to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu," Romney wrote. He also accused Obama more broadly of allowing "our leadership to atrophy" in the Middle East, complaining that he had no "strategy for success" during the Arab Spring. Click for Romney's full op-ed.
– Ali Abdullah Saleh resigned as president of Yemen today, signing a deal in Saudi Arabia to cede power to vice president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi until elections can be held in three months. The signing was aired on Saudi state-run TV, which showed a smiling Saleh sitting beside King Abdullah and clapping briefly. Yemeni opposition officials signed the deal soon after, according to Reuters. Saleh will now travel to New York for medical treatment, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the AP, though he didn’t specify what treatment Saleh might require, or exactly when he'd arrive.
– It looks like the US won't have to launch a mass evacuation of Iraqis trapped on a mountain after all. A small team of American military personnel who spent 24 hours on Mount Sinjar said US airstrikes seem to have done the trick—most of the trapped Yazidis who wanted to flee to safety have done so, reports the New York Times. As a result, defense chief Chuck Hagel said a rescue mission is "far less likely now," reports the AP. Exact numbers weren't available, but CNN quotes a Pentagon spokesman as saying that "far fewer" Yazidis were on the mountain than expected. He estimated "several thousand" but said many wanted to stay there because their homes are nearby. Earlier, the US deployed 130 troops to Iraq, and President Obama said he would be willing to use those troops as part of a rescue mission.
– "Tony, I miss you bad," tweeted Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme Thursday. Pitchfork reports the rocker was close with Bourdain and helped write the theme to Parts Unknown. He also made an appearance on an episode of No Reservations, and a scene during the opening of the show apparently upset Homme's young daughter. In it, Bourdain interrupts a singing Homme, seizes his guitar, and smashes it against a tree. Homme took to Twitter Thursday to share the letter Bourdain subsequently sent a "so mad" Camille. "You, with great care, such empathy, such sweetness ... you apologized to a little girl who was defending her daddy," Homme wrote. "Ariane [that's Bourdain's daughter], this was your father." The letter reads in part, "Know that that was in fact not really Daddy's guitar, and that we were both just playing around. Daddy would have been very angry were I to do such a thing—and as he is a large man, I would not still be here to write this letter. I like your Daddy very much. We are friends." Another portion reads, "I like your Daddy so much, that when an obnoxious superfan of mine ... got in your Daddy’s face—had your Daddy not gently guided him by the thorax to the welcoming arms of security—I would have broken my beer glass across the man's skull and then jabbed the jagged remnants into his ****ing neck. That’s the kind of guy I am. I had your Daddy’s back—just like he had mine. You will learn about these things later—possibly in grammar school." Read the letter in full here. (Bourdain's ex posted a photo of the "brave" Ariane.)
– A video of Rod Stewart pretending to behead a man kneeling in front of him on a sand dune in the Abu Dhabi desert sure gives the impression that he's imitating Islamic State executioners. Not so, according to Stewart. The 72-year-old singer says the video of him among a group on the dune—initially posted to Instagram by Stewart's wife but since deleted—actually shows him re-enacting a scene from Game of Thrones, per the Guardian. "From re-enacting the Beatles' Abbey Road crossing to spontaneously playing out Game of Thrones, we were simply larking about" before an Abu Dhabi show, the singer says in a statement. "Understandably, this has been misinterpreted and I send my deepest apologies to those who have been offended." Twitter users still say the act was "deeply stupid," per the Independent. That's nothing to how John McCarthy views it. The former hostage, kidnapped in Lebanon in the 1980s, tells the BBC Stewart turned "a grotesque thing into a kind of pantomime." But columnist Marina Hyde offers another viewpoint at the Guardian. After wondering why no one referenced Stewart's "the first cut is the deepest" lyrics, she encourages people to "remember that Rod is a chap who has added to the gaiety of various nations, which is infinitely more than can be said for the endless armies of halfwits taking offense on others' behalf," specifically reporters calling up relatives of ISIS victims to ask how much the video "offended them and shamed their dead beloved's memory."
– Californians voted yesterday in a pair of hot-button referendums, passing a law mandating that porn stars wear condoms while striking down another that would require the food industry to label genetically modified foods. The former means that adult performers in LA County not only have to wrap up, reports the LA Times, but producers will also have to get a public health permit, like tattoo parlors, something AIDS activists say is a major step forward. That bill passed with a 59% majority. The bill that would require foods containing genetically modified ingredients to bear a label reading "Made with GMO" was struck down by a 53% to 47% margin, reports NPR. Opponents said the labels would be expensive and confusing to consumers, not to mention ubiquitous in grocery stores, since many items include GMO corn and soy products. The so-called Frankenfood bill's popularity dropped off a cliff after Monsanto waged a $46 million ad war against it; supporters of the bill vow to continue fighting for the labels.
– Some celebrities certainly have odd beliefs—and we're not even talking about the Scientologists. Fox News rounds up eight celebrities who subscribe to some bizarre notions: Fran Drescher: Believes she and her ex-husband were once abducted by aliens. The extraterrestrials of course put tracking chips inside the couple, causing matching scars. Megan Fox: She believes in leprechauns, Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness Monster, among other things. "This stuff came from somewhere other than people's imaginations," she once said. Russell Crowe: He once posted a video that, he claimed, showed UFOs flying over Sydney. Shirley MacLaine: According to her daughter, MacLaine believed that her daughter's father was not really himself but a clone. Click for the complete list.
– He didn't want to destroy it; he said he wanted to pry it out and sell it. But either way, a guy in construction worker getup smashed Donald Trump's star to bits on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Wednesday morning—and now the LAPD is on the hunt, TMZ reports. The man showed up bright and early (around 5:45am), with a pickax and sledgehammer in hand and decked out in a bright-orange reflective construction vest, and went to work as a few bystanders gawked, per Deadline, which has video of the decimation. The man told Deadline his name was Jamie Otis and that he wanted to auction the star—which Trump received in 2007 for The Apprentice—to raise money for Trump's sexual misconduct accusers; "Otis" took off before the police got there around 6:15am. (Better news for Trump in Florida.)
– The Air Force owns two X-37B space planes, and one of them is finally back on the ground after a nearly 2-year-long secret mission. While the what is unknown, the how long is clear: 718 days in orbit, reports Space.com, with the unmanned plane landing Sunday morning at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida—and flying into the record books. It was the Air Force's fourth such mission since April 2010 and the longest to date. A fifth is planned for 2017, reports Reuters. There's plenty of speculation about what the 29-foot-long plane, which looks like a mini-space shuttle, is up to up there. Reuters cites one group's belief that the secrecy indicates intelligence-related hardware tests are being conducted. An Air Force fact sheet offers up this much: "The primary objectives of the X-37B are twofold; reusable spacecraft technologies for America’s future in space and operating experiments which can be returned to, and examined, on Earth." One cool fact: Though its mission is classified, its location isn't, thanks to what Space.com refers to as "keen-eyed amateur astronomers." The site offers a satellite tracker when missions are active, and notes the X-37B "usually looks like a star of middling brightness moving across the sky."
– It's a wonder anyone dares sit anymore, considering the avalanche of recent studies that have been telling us that doing so ups our risk of cancer and heart disease, makes us fatter, and turns meetings into awful experiences. And here's a new one to add to the pile: Sitting for three hours a day can take two years off of your life, reports the Wall Street Journal—even if you exercise and eschew smoking, according to a new "meta-analysis" of five studies of 167,000 people. Couch potatoes have it even worse: Watch more than two hours of television a day and subtract another 1.4 years. "Sedentary behavior is something we need to take note of beyond telling people to get 30 minutes of activity a day," says one of the study's authors. "Several studies show that when you're sitting, your leg muscles are completely inactive. When you're sitting and completely inactive, this is when you run into trouble managing blood glucose." You can find the full study at BMJ Open.
– Money cannot buy happiness, but most people would choose it anyway, says a new study of more than 2,600 people published in the American Economic Review. For example, if the choice is between a job that pays $80,000 a year and lets you get seven and a half hours of sleep a night, and a job that pays $140,000 a year but allows for just six hours' sleep, most people pick the higher-paying job. Other questions asked about salary versus living close to friends, going home for Thanksgiving versus saving for a vacation, and similar choices. It's not just about greed, though. Often, people say that more money will mean more family happiness, even if their own happiness is diminished. Status, purpose, and health all also factored into decision-making, often beating out happiness. "We found that people make trade-offs between happiness and other things," says one of the paper's authors, according to LiveScience. “People treat happiness as a commodity and are willing to make tradeoffs.”
– Tina Fey is the highest-paid woman on television, but she’ll have to share the top spot with a Desperate Housewife. Forbes’ annual ranking covers the period between May 2010 and May 2011, during which the top 10 ladies made a total of $94 million, and includes salaries, syndication deals, and endorsement deals. The top five: Tina Fey, 30 Rock: $13 million Eva Longoria, Desperate Housewives: $13 million Marcia Cross, Desperate Housewives: $10 million Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: $10 million Marg Helgenberger, CSI: $10 million Click for the full list, which includes the other two Desperate Housewives.
– The Pentagon is squarely blaming China for hacking into its computer systems, marking the first time the Obama administration has made the accusation. China's spying is aimed in large part at boosting its own defense capabilities, the Pentagon says in its annual report to Congress, per Reuters. Further, China may be seeking to identify US "military capabilities that could be exploited during a crisis," the report says. What's more, the "skills required for these intrusions are similar to those necessary to conduct computer network attacks." Cyberspying is also probably being used to gather information about US policy plans, the report says, via the New York Times. Last year, China targeted "numerous computer systems around the world." The 83-page document also describes other advancements in China's military, including plans to develop several aircraft carriers. Its first, which could be ready in three or four years, is poised for deployment near territories disputed with Japan, the Philippines, and other countries. The US, meanwhile, is improving its own cyber arsenal.
– The woman once saluted as the "fastest nun in the West" is on the path to beatification. The cause of Sister Blandina Segale's sainthood has officially been declared open; it's the first time such a cause has been opened in the history of New Mexico's Roman Catholic Church, Archbishop Michael Sheehan tells the Albuquerque Journal. Sister Segale isn't exactly your typical candidate, though. The Italian-born nun was known for "calming mobs of armed men" after she moved to the US and joined the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati. In fact, before traveling to Santa Fe, she was even said to have befriended Billy the Kid in Colorado. When one of her students reportedly told Segale a member of Billy's gang had been shot by an outlaw, she cared for the man, even as four doctors apparently refused. When Billy came to town bent on scalping the doctors, Segale talked him out of it, received his thanks, and later visited him in jail, the New Mexican reports. On another occasion when he met the nun in a stagecoach—terrifying her traveling mates—he simply bowed before riding away. Segale also set up numerous schools and hospitals, worked with the poor and sick, and advocated on behalf of Hispanics and Native Americans, the AP reports. But her canonization process could take years—or even generations. The Vatican must investigate the nun's work and monitor any apparent "miracles" that may be related. "We hope and pray the process goes quickly," Sheehan said. (In terms of Billy the Kid, this may be just the second photo of him ever found.)
– A volcano erupted on a tiny Indonesian island early today, killing at least six people, reports AP. The eruption of Mount Rokatenda on Palue island blasted ash and smoke more than 6,500 feet in the air and sent lava gushing. Authorities have evacuated about 3,000 people, which would amount to nearly half the island's population. The volcano had been on "high alert" since October, with activities banned in about a 2-mile radius from its crater. It appears that five of the victims, including two children, were within that zone when they were killed, reports AFP.
– Queen Elizabeth II turned up the dial on her once quiet activism for Prince Charles to succeed her as head of the Commonwealth Thursday, telling leaders of its 53 member states that the 69-year-old has her full support. In what the Telegraph describes as "an unusually explicit statement of her views," the Queen opened the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at London's Buckingham Palace by expressing her "sincere wish" that leaders would choose her firstborn child to "one day" take the job. That doesn't mean Charles, the clear favorite, is a shoo-in. Though the Prince of Wales is to inherit the British crown with his mother's death, it's up to the leaders of Commonwealth member nations, from Canada to Rwanda, to choose who will lead them, reports the BBC. As symbolic figurehead of the Commonwealth, the Queen will be left out of discussions during the two-day meeting, in which topics like trade, cyber security, and ocean conservation are also to be discussed. Specifically, British Prime Minister Theresa May says she'll be "rallying" nations to take a stand against marine plastics, per the BBC. A decision on the next head of the Commonwealth is expected Friday, a day before the Queen turns 92. Charles didn't campaign in his own address to leaders Thursday but he did describe the Commonwealth as "a fundamental feature of my life for as long as I can remember," per People. He added his hope that the meeting would "revitalize the bonds between our countries" and "give the Commonwealth a renewed relevance" to its 2.4 billion citizens.
– Donald Trump may have woken up what pollsters call a "sleeping giant"—and it's not planning on voting for him. As the campaigns enter their final day, the Washington Post reports that there are signs that the Latino voter turnout is set to break records, and much of the turnout, especially among first-time voters, is motivated by dislike of Trump. The turnout boost could be enough to swing the vote for Hillary Clinton in states including Nevada and Florida, and Democrats are closely tracking increased turnout in states like Arizona and Texas, Politico reports. In other developments: The New York Times, in a look inside the Trump campaign during its final weeks, reports that after the FBI announced it was investigating new Clinton emails, Trump's advisers finally managed to get him to stop tweeting without their approval. They warned him that he "risked becoming like a wild animal chasing its prey so zealously that it raced over a cliff," insiders say. He now apparently has to dictate his tweets instead of sending them himself. CNET reports that at a rally in Florida Sunday, President Obama mocked Trump for having control of his Twitter account taken away. "Now, if somebody can't handle a Twitter account, they can't handle the nuclear codes," Obama quipped. Reuters reports that this election is on course to attract more gambling dollars than any other political event in history, with most of the betting taking place outside the US. British betting firms say people who bet on Brexit are now betting on a Trump win. The Miami Herald reports that early voting records were shattered in the state Sunday, especially in its two most populous counties. According to the Hill, Clinton supporters smell victory after the FBI's announcement Sunday that its latest review of Clinton emails uncovered no cause for criminal charges. "She's got it," a close friend of Clinton's says, predicting an electoral college victory with 310 to 320 votes, well over the 270 needed. Politico forecasts that the Democrats have a better-than-even chance of gaining a slender majority in the Senate, though the Republicans appear likely to retain control of the House. The AP looks ahead to election night and singles out 10 counties in battleground states where early results will say a lot about whether certain Clinton and Trump strategies worked.
– Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad has shown the world how you can be top of your game and still be a loser: As he approached the finish line in the 3,000m steeplechase at the European championships in Zurich, the French runner stripped off his vest, jammed it in his mouth, and waved to the crowd in a display of showboating that caused authorities to decide to strip him of his medal, reports CNN. The 29-year-old received a warning at first but authorities decided to take away the gold—technically because his runner's bib was not visible—after Spain appealed on behalf of the fourth-placed athlete. "When I took off my vest on the last meters, it was because of my joy, of course," the Frenchman said, as per Reuters, before he was stripped of what would have been his third consecutive gold in the event. "It was the pleasure of winning. I was so happy to defend my title." This is far from the first controversy involving Mekhissi-Benabbad, the Telegraph finds. He shoved a 14-year-old girl mascot to the ground at the European finals in 2012, pushed another mascot at the previous finals in Barcelona, and was suspended after fighting a teammate on the track at a 2011 event in Monaco.
– Two men have been arrested following a double homicide and reported abduction, and now, police have found the 2-year-old child believed to have been kidnapped. Police issued an Amber Alert yesterday when Malcolm Crowell, 22, allegedly fled a house in Johnston, Rhode Island, after two women were killed; he was alleged to have taken toddler Isaih Perez with him. Police nabbed Crowell before the toddler was discovered in Providence, "just walking on the sidewalk," a police rep says, per CNN. "We don't know he was dropped off, if he was left off there, we don't have any particulars at this time," says the rep. Isaih seems to be healthy but was taken to a hospital for a checkup. State and local police differ on whether Crowell is still suspected of taking the toddler, the Providence Journal reports. Police also arrested Daniel Rodriguez, a man in his late twenties. Both Rodriguez and Crowell knew the murder victims and the child, police say. One of the victims was reportedly Isaih's mother.
– It was a big day for Ukraine yesterday, and one that Ukrainian lawmaker Vitaly Zhuravsky likely won't soon forget. Parliament ratified a measure deepening its economic and political ties with Europe—the measure that was the issue that sparked the crisis last fall, when then-President Viktor Yanukovych's decision to shelve the deal in favor of closer ties with Russia sparked protests by hundreds of thousands. But before that vote happened, Zhuravsky ended up in a dumpster outside parliament, reports ABC News, which describes Zhuravsky as pro-Russian and a key member of Yanukovych's party. Protesters tossed him in with the trash, even with police nearby, and threw a car tire and water on him. He was eventually able to escape. NBC News notes Zhuravsky "has a history of authorizing bills placing restrictions on anti-government protests." The deal, meanwhile, lowers trade tariffs between Europe and Ukraine, requires Ukrainian goods to meet European regulatory standards, and forces the Kiev government to undertake major political and economic reforms. "After World War II, not a single nation has paid such a high price for their right to be European," President Petro Poroshenko said. "Can you tell me, who now after this will be brave enough to shut the doors to Europe in front of Ukraine?" Earlier yesterday, the parliament also approved laws granting temporary self-rule to rebellious, pro-Russian regions in the east, as well as amnesty for many of those involved in the fighting. The lawmakers took that action behind closed doors, in stark contrast to the patriotic fanfare of the vote on the European agreement.
– A Florida fisherman may have let a big one get away, but local sheriff's deputies sure didn't. Action News Jax reports a man says he was fishing Tuesday evening in St. Augustine when a drunk woman swam up, cursed at him, bit his fishing line, and swam away with his lure. Deputies say the woman—22-year-old Alexandria Turner—was belligerent when they arrived and refused to be put in handcuffs. They say Turner was upsetting the "sense of public norm at the pier," repeatedly yelling, "I'm [expletive] naked." WDBO notes Turner was, in fact, wearing a bathing suit at the time. She was booked on suspicion of disorderly intoxication and resisting arrest, and the fisherman was left with one hell of a fish story.
– Eileen Wagner kept a secret for over 80 years—and it was a big one. As a teenager living in a Green Bay suburb in 1932, she was raped by a boy, sent to a home for pregnant girls, and forced to give up the child for adoption. "In those days, it was such an embarrassment," the 99-year-old tells the Chicago Tribune. "It was a lonesome time." She never hoped to see her daughter again, but a phone call she received in her Monroe, Wis., home last month brought tears of joy. "Hello, Mother," said her long-lost daughter, 83-year-old Dorien Hammann, on the line. The way it happened is an astonishing testament to how modern attitudes and technology have revolutionized adoption reunions. As for Wagner, she admits to thinking of her daughter every day but says she only told the true story to her now-deceased husband, Richard. "Everything is so open now, but years ago," experiences like hers were "taboo," says Wagner. Meanwhile, Hammann was raised by a civil engineer and homemaker in a Milwaukee suburb and told about her adoption—but never felt the need to reconnect. Then states began revealing adoption records after research in the 1980s and '90s showed that adoption reunions were often positive experiences. Eventually Hammann's daughter-in-law Googled names from the adoption document, contacted Wagner, and a reunion was in the works. It turned out to be a happy one, with mom and daughter talking and comparing similarities for hours. "I thanked her for giving me up because I did have such a good home," says Hammann. But not everyone is so happy: In Canada, unwed mothers who were forced to give up their children for adoption decades ago are demanding that the government acknowledge their trauma, the Globe & Mail reports.
– The White House is holding a public poll on what departments, agencies, and commissions to cut as part of what it says is an effort to make the government more "efficient, effective, and accountable." The options in the "Reorganizing the White House" poll include the CIA, the State Department, and even the White House itself, or "Executive Office of the President: Full Department," New York reports. There are also more than 100 options for "What agency would you like to reform?" reports AFP. The reasons people can give for choosing to eliminate a federal agency include "Not Necessary or Effective" or "Not an Appropriate Federal Role." The White House is accepting submissions until June 12.
– A serial rapist and murderer known as the "ice pick killer" received a lethal injection in Texas Wednesday evening after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal. Danny Bible, accused of at least four slayings and nine rapes, had sought to delay the execution by arguing that he was too sick with Parkinson's and other ailments for a lethal injection to work properly, reports CNN. Instead, the 66-year-old asked to be killed by gas or a firing squad, neither of which is offered in Texas and thus would have required action by state lawmakers, who aren't even in session, reports the AP. His appeal made it to the Supreme Court, which declined to stop the execution about an hour before it took place. Bible was pronounced dead 15 minutes after the injection began, with a public information officer for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice saying that he breathed heavily for about two minutes and muttered words that sounded like "burning" and "hurts." Authorities say Bible killed three women and the 4-month-old son of one of his victims and raped others, including young family members. The victims included 20-year-old Inez Denton, the cousin of Bible's friend, who was killed with an ice pick in 1979. The case went unsolved for decades until Bible confessed to it and others after being arrested in Florida in 1999 for a separate rape. "Danny Paul Bible is as vile and evil a person who has ever drawn breath," says the brother of one victim. "We are glad to have witnessed him draw his last breath."
– The matriarch of the Bush family has died—but family associates say Barbara Bush was her irrepressible self until the very end. "Some of the recent emails indicate she is not quite ready to sign off. She’s answering all of her phone calls herself," family friend C. Boyden Gray, White House counsel to husband George HW Bush, told People hours before the 92-year-old died Tuesday. Another family friend told CBS reporter Jenna Gibson on Tuesday that although she was having difficulty breathing, Bush was "alert and was having conversations last night. She was also having a bourbon." A roundup of coverage: First lady facts. Bush, who was born Barbara Pierce, was not only the wife of the 41st president and mother of the 43rd, she was a distant relative of Franklin Pierce, the 14th president, USA Today reports in a look at lesser-known Barbara Bush facts.
– When the Steubenville verdict came in, one of the two convicted teens said in the courtroom that his life was over, notes the New Yorker. Many of his critics would agree, using the conventional wisdom that sex offenders can't be rehabilitated. But at Salon, Irin Carmon makes the case that conventional wisdom is wrong in this instance: "Juvenile sex offenders often can and do get better," she writes. Carmon talks to medical experts on the subject and finds that consensus has shifted dramatically. "We've done a complete about-face," says one at Johns Hopkins. Hold teens accountable, of course, but also acknowledge that their brains, specifically their ability to suss out the long-term consequences of their actions, haven't fully developed. This matters, writes Carmon, "because the main reason researchers argue that juveniles found guilty of sex crimes don’t belong on the sex offender list is the copious evidence that they’re susceptible to treatment—and are unlikely to reoffend." It also raises the hope that if rehabilitation after a crime is possible, so is better prevention in the first place. Click for the full column.
– I'm seeing double here, four more seasons of The Simpsons! USA Today reports Fox just renewed Homer Simpson (the greatest guy in history) and his family for two more seasons—the show's 29th and 30th. That will bring The Simpsons' episode count to 669—more than enough to break Gunsmoke's record-holding 635, according to CNN.The lesson for the old CBS western is never try. The Simpsons, which has won 32 Emmy's since 1989, still brings in pretty good ratings, proving Fox executives were S-M-R-T to renew it (even if they do work for a billionaire tyrant). "I think our new motto is 'on to sixty,'" executive producer Al Jean says. Have no fears, they've got stories for years. So let's all go out for some frosty chocolate milkshakes.
– A Florida National Guardsman in Tampa for the Republican National Convention accidentally shot a colleague with the man's own gun. Police say the guardsman was examining the grip on 21-year-old Michael Wdowiak's revolver when it went off, striking Wdowiak in the upper body and left hand, reports the AP. Three other guardsmen in the same hotel room were not injured. Wdowiak, one of 1,700 troops brought to Tampa for the convention, required surgery. Police say alcohol is not believed to be a factor in the accident and no charges were filed, the Tampa Bay Times reports. Earlier this week, a member of Mitt Romney's Secret Service detail caused a scare by leaving a gun in the bathroom of the candidate's plane.
– Family members are pleading for the safe return of Abby Lynn Patterson, a 20-year-old woman last seen getting into a brown Buick outside the family home in Lumberton, NC, on Sept. 5. The disappearance is especially troubling because three other women were found dead in the town, population 22,000, earlier this year, Fox News reports. On April 18, Christina Bennett, 32, was found dead in an abandoned home and the body of 36-year-old Rhonda Jones was found in a nearby trash can. Then, on June 3, Megan Oxendine, 28, a woman who had been interviewed on TV about the disappearance of Jones, was found dead behind a house around 500 feet away from where the first two bodies were found. Police haven't disclosed how the three women died, and they say they don't know if there is a connection between them and Patterson, who told her family she would be back in an hour. "When she didn’t come home after an hour, I called her cell phone and it went straight to voicemail," says Patterson's mother, Samantha Lovette. "We just want her home," she says. Lumberton police spokesman Terry Carter tells WNCN that they are "99% sure" Patterson's disappearance is not related to the deaths, but there is "always a possibility." Police say they are "still talking" to the young man last seen with Patterson, who lived in Florida and was visiting her family when she disappeared.
– There's a case brewing in DC, and the DOJ is on it. Actually, it's an old case being given new life, seeking potential illegal activities tied to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. The Hill first reported Thursday on the reinvigorated inquiry, with a witness and law enforcement sources saying that FBI agents have been poking around in Little Rock, Ark., where the foundation was established, and conducted at least one interview (the New York Times notes several apparent interviews with "people connected to the foundation"). The officials say the probe will look into whether there was any pay-to-play action going on during Clinton's State Dept. tenure (between 2009 and 2013) in the Obama administration, as well as whether all tax laws were adhered to. The foundation has been under the microscope before, but that probe fizzled out in 2016, per the Washington Post. "Time after time these [politically motivated] allegations have been proven false," a foundation rep tells the Hill. Meanwhile, officials note the DOJ is also re-examining whether there was more to the Clinton email server that hadn't been thoroughly wrapped up before that case was closed. The Daily Beast reported Thursday that a source said to be an ally of AG Jeff Sessions detailed a new effort on the emails front that includes finding more out about the classified correspondence allegedly sent via Clinton's server, as well as who knew about the info there. Newsweek notes President Trump has spoken in the past about diving deeper into Clinton's emails, though it adds it's unclear if the DOJ's actions are linked to his demands. Nick Merrill, Hillary Clinton's spokesman, calls the new looks at Clinton a "sham" and points the finger at Sessions for "doing Trump's bidding by heeding his calls to meddle with a department that is supposed to function independently."
– South Korea likely stands alone in having the words "decapitation unit" feature into its New Year's resolution. As CNN reports, the country's defense minister now says the formation of a brigade that could take out Kim Jong Un and other North Korea bigwigs in the event of war will not be complete in 2019 as previously specified, but in 2017. The network notes that the two countries are technically still at war, as they signed only an armistice in 1953. The Australian reports the sped-up timeline was revealed in a Wednesday policy briefing, with Defense Minister Han Min-koo putting it thusly: "We are planning to set up a special brigade with the goal of removing or paralyzing North Korea’s wartime command structure." The AP spoke to an unnamed official who wouldn't specify whether the unit would be equipped to carry out pre-emptive strikes, or if it would have only a reactionary function in the "event of war." Han in September revealed the country did have a plan in place to take out North Korea leadership if necessary, and Wednesday's comments appear to build on that. More here.
– Where does your body fat go when you lose it? "Into thin air," quite literally, says Ruben Meerman. A new study out of Australia looks at how we shed pounds and the "surprising ignorance" around the process. Contrary to commonly assumed mechanisms—that excess fat is converted to heat or energy, which "violates the law of conservation of mass," per the study—most of our lost mass is breathed out as carbon dioxide, says Meerman; he's the lead author of the study, published yesterday in the British Medical Journal. How the researchers' "novel calculations" take shape: They write that losing 10 kilograms of fat (that's 22 pounds) requires 29 kilograms of oxygen to be inhaled; that in turn produces 28 kilograms of carbon dioxide and 11 kilograms of water. "This tells us the metabolic fate of fat but remains silent about the proportions of the mass stored in those 10 kg of fat that depart as carbon dioxide or water during weight loss," they write. So they set to work tracing how every atom exits the body, and determined that the majority of the fat—8.4 kilograms—departs via exhalation. The remaining 1.6 kilograms become water, and leave the body via a variety ways: urine, feces, sweat, tears, etc. The researchers note that the biochemistry behind their findings isn't new (their study cites research from 1949), but "it seems nobody has thought of performing these calculations before," they say per a press release. The million-dollar question: Can we lose weight by just breathing, well, more? Nope. That's a ticket to hyperventilation, not weight loss, they say. (More on weight loss: Why one woman lived on dog food for six days.)
– "The US will be taking names," Nikki Haley warned Wednesday ahead of the UN General Assembly's Thursday vote on whether to reject President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It has a lot of names to take: The vote was 128-9 in favor of the nonbinding resolution that demands the US walk back its Dec. 6 declaration. The vote "amount[s] to a collective act of defiance toward Washington," the New York Times reports. The AP reports Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reacted by tweeting, "We expect the Trump administration to rescind without further delay its unfortunate decision, whose illegality has been clearly established." How the vote went: There were 35 abstentions and 21 no-shows; one of the abstentions was Canada, which the Guardian reports had been thought to be a vote on the US side. Voting along with the US and Israel were Togo, Micronesia, Guatemala, Nauru, Palau, Marshall Islands, and Honduras, reports the Times of Israel. The Jerusalem Post sees the final tally as demonstrating Israel "has made inroads in Latin America"; it points out both Argentina and Mexico abstained.
– A New York City blogger is launching a crusade against "the Islamization of America" —using the sides of 40 NYC buses. "Fatwa on your head? Is your community or family threatening you? Leaving Islam?" read the ads pasted on the buses. "Got questions? Get Answers" it continues. The ads then refer people to a website that decries 'the falsity of Islam,' reports the Daily News. The campaign is the work of Pamela Geller, a right-wing New Yorker best known for video-blogging her bikini-clad, anti-Palestinian rant, notes Gawker. Geller insists the campaign is helpful, not hurtful. "It's not offensive to Muslims, it's religious freedom," she tells the AP. "It's not targeted at practicing Muslims. It doesn't say 'leave,' it says 'leaving' with a question mark."
– A week before a runoff election that will determine whether she remains a senator, Mississippi's Cindy Hyde-Smith continues to fend off bad publicity over a "public hanging" joke. The latest development is that Walmart has asked the Republican incumbent to return its campaign donations, reports CNBC. "Sen. Hyde-Smith's recent comments clearly do not reflect the values of our company and associates," said Walmart in replying to a critical tweet from actress Debra Messing. "As a result, we are withdrawing our support and requesting a refund of all campaign donations." The company had given Hyde-Smith, who faces Democrat Mike Espy in a Nov. 27 runoff, two donations for a total of $2,000. All of this stems from remarks Hyde-Smith made on the campaign trail, when referring to a local rancher and supporter of hers. If he "invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row," she said. Hyde-Smith has refused to apologize, saying critics are distorting what were good-natured comments, but critics say Mississippi in particular is no place to be making such jokes. Union Pacific and medical device manufacturer Boston Scientific have similarly requested their campaign donations back, reports Politico. (Elsewhere, Democratic candidates have routed Republicans in Orange County, California, a once-red House region.)
– Mark Zuckerberg has set himself a tough challenge for 2016: Create an electronic butler to make Mark Zuckerberg's life easier. The Facebook founder says he plans to "build a simple AI to run my home and help me with my work," which he likens to Jarvis in Iron Man. "I'm going to start by exploring what technology is already out there," he writes in a Facebook post. "Then I'll start teaching it to understand my voice to control everything in our home—music, lights, temperature and so on. I'll teach it to let friends in by looking at their faces when they ring the doorbell. I'll teach it to let me know if anything is going on in Max's room that I need to check on when I'm not with her," he writes, referring to his weeks-old daughter. Zuckerberg explains that he sets himself a new challenge every year, which has led him to "read two books every month, learn Mandarin and meet a new person every day." Even for somebody with Zuckerberg's resources, the AI assistant is "hardly a small side project by any means," notes Jon Russell at TechCrunch. "It'll be interesting to see how much time and what resources ... Zuckerberg dedicates to this project, and how it turns out," he writes, suggesting that Zuckerberg try building Iron Man's actual metal suit next year. (The Facebook founder has promised that the site will fight for the rights of Muslims.)
– It appears that our friends from Down Under are in fact up higher than North Americans—a new study shows that Australians and New Zealanders are the world's top pot smokers, reports the Los Angeles Times. The Lancet found that 15% of Aussies and Kiwis ages 15-64 used some form of marijuana in 2009, as opposed to 11% of North Americans, and just 2.5% of people in Asia. Australians and New Zealanders also are the top users of amphetamines. “Just look at the way we take alcohol as an integral part of everyday life. I think a lot of young people see cannabis in the same way that we see alcohol: as no big deal, as a drug just to use to have a good time,” said one of the study's researchers. The study also found that up to 203 million people around the world use marijuana annually, compared to up to 56 million who use amphetamines and 21 million who use cocaine or opiates such as heroin.
– With countless students taking to the streets of Quebec to protest tuition hikes, the number of arrests over the last three months has already hit 2,500—and it's still growing. Protesters were initially furious over the increased fees; now they're also opposing a new law limiting demonstration rights, the Guardian reports. Bill 78 requires protesters to get a permit and give police eight hours' notice before holding a demonstration. But it hasn't held protesters back: Some 300,000 marched in Montreal Tuesday, prompting 100 arrests. The next night, police let what they dubbed an illegal protest continue for four hours, then began arrests, with 518 people ultimately detained. While protesters say they were peaceful, police say rocks were hurled at them. Still, students' efforts continued last night, expanding outside of Montreal and Quebec City to smaller towns and featuring marchers clanging pots and pans, the Winnipeg Free Press reports. (Elsewhere in North America, students are voicing their anger over a very different issue: Mexico's presidential election.)
– There are runners, and then there’s Courtney Dauwalter—a star of “distance running’s lunatic set,” as the New York Times puts it. The 33-year-old ultrarunner routinely participates in races that exceed 200 miles. Since 2011, she has tackled 51 ultra races, Deadspin reports, winning 11 of them and being the first woman across the finish line in 27. Her ability, the Times writes, demonstrates that “ultrarunning is one of the few sports in which women appear able to hold their own against men.” Evolutionary biologist Heather Heying concedes that men are, for the most part, stronger and faster. But, she says, ultrarunning is about stamina. “It begs the question,” she says, “is there something going on for women … that gives us a psychological edge in extremely long-term endurance events?” Martin Hoffman, an ultrarunner and former researcher for the Western States 100-mile race, chalks up Dauwalter's success to the fact that few people participate in 200-mile races. “If you have the best trained male and female ultrarunners competing against each other, the men will always win,” he tells the Times. Research on 200-mile races, however, is too sparse to draw any conclusions, Heying says, adding that mental strength and pain tolerance are important equalizers. They seem to be for Dauwalter. “I put myself in situations where suffering is going to be involved and hope to be able to tap into the mental piece every time that physical pain becomes too much,” she says. (The ludicrous Barkley marathons will break you.)
– Work crews have resumed the grim task of searching for ice-covered bodies in the wreckage of a seniors' residence in Quebec, where a blaze is believed to have killed more than 30 people. Search teams working in bitter weather conditions are using hot air to melt more than 20 inches of ice and find the 22 elderly people still listed as missing, reports the Montreal Gazette. Ten people are confirmed dead. The tragedy has shaken L'Isle-Verte, a town of around 1,400 people, and rumors are flying about the start of the blaze. According to some reports, the fire began after a night watchman told an elderly resident known for his stubbornness that he couldn't smoke outside, but investigators stress that they are examining many different possible causes. The Red Cross has raised around $180,000 to provide the 20 residents who survived the blaze with clothes, wheelchairs, and other essentials, the BBC reports.
– Democratic candidate Krysten Sinema has edged ahead of Republican rival Martha McSally in Arizona, one of three states where Senate races are still undecided. The state's first major update since election night said Sinema was leading with 49.10%, or 932,870 votes, while McSally was at 48.59% with 923, 260 votes, the Arizona Republic reports. With around 500,000 votes still to be counted, the campaigns of both candidates vying to replace Republican Sen. Jeff Flake released statements expressing confidence that their candidate would prevail. The Senate race in Florida is headed for a recount and the Mississippi race will be decided in a runoff election later this month, Politico reports. (The midterm elections brought 49 out of 50 state legislatures under single-party control.)
– IHOP has come clean. The pancake chain has acknowledged that a name change announced last month was just a publicity stunt to promote its hamburger menu. (Everyone pretty much knew that anyway.) The company best known for its breakfasts already had burgers on the menu but had started using the IHOb name on social media, its website, and for in-store promotions to draw attention to a new line of burgers made of Black Angus ground beef, per the AP. On Monday, it was back on social media, this time to promote a pancake deal tied to IHOP's 60th birthday. On Twitter, the company said, "That's right, IHOP! We'd never turn our back on pancakes (except for that time we faked it to promote our new burgers)."
– Elizabeth Warren has kept a low national profile in her first month on the job as a senator, but that changed yesterday at a hearing in which she grilled federal regulators of Wall Street, reports the Boston Globe and MassLive. In the exchange getting the most attention, Warren noted that civil cases against banks usually end with legal settlements, and asked, "When did you last take ... a large financial institution, a Wall Street bank, to trial?" When nobody spoke up immediately, she asked, "Anybody?" The answers that followed generally danced around the question, but it became clear that banks rarely get prosecuted. "There are district attorneys and US attorneys who are out there every day squeezing ordinary citizens on sometimes very thin grounds and taking them to trial in order to make an example, as they put it," said Warren. (The Huffington Post notes that Internet activist Aaron Swartz was a Warren constituent before his suicide.) "I've very concerned that 'too big to fail' has become 'too big for trial' and that just seems wrong to me." Many on Wall Street are now accusing her of grandstanding at the hearing, notes a separate HuffPo article.
– A Georgia teacher who spent her career helping students continued to do so even in death. Tammy Waddell's final request as she suffered a long illness culminating in her June 9 death was for attendees at her funeral to bring backpacks stuffed with school supplies to help needy children. Per AJC, that's exactly what happened, making the June 12 event a bittersweet one as friends and loved ones marked the 58-year-old's passing. Photos from the funeral show dozens of mourners lined up outside a church, backpacks in hand. Another shot shows the inside of the church, where the bundles lined the pews. Waddell's cousin, Dr. Brad Johnson, told CNN that people pictured carrying the backpacks were teachers who acted as honorary pallbearers by carrying the backpacks out of the church and back to their schools. The backpacks will reportedly be distributed through a school district initiative called Project Connect that will direct them to those most in need. What's more, Johnson said the publicity has helped give his cousin's legacy even greater reach. Johnson said he's been contacted by a non-profit called Tes Resources that intends to donate thousands of school supplies in Waddell's name.
– Looks like Chelsy Davy won't be "next" to marry a prince after all, because Harry is reportedly getting serious with galpal Cressida Bonas. "Harry is very close to Cressida; in fact she was one of the first people he wanted to see when he came back from Afghanistan," a royal insider tells Radar. "He missed her when he was overseas and started thinking she was someone he could settle down with. ... He may well have found his princess." Bonas, 24, is described by People as a "society gal" whose family is "well-connected"; Radar says she's a model. She's apparently into dance and music, and her nickname, for some reason, is "Small" or "Smally." She was romantically linked to Harry, briefly, last summer; she later stood by the prince during his nude photo scandal, and it paid off with a rekindling of their relationship: Harry took her on vacation with other members of the royal family at a Swiss ski resort, and they've been photographed engaging in quite a bit of PDA. At one point, in a restaurant, they were kissing "like love-struck teenagers in the back of a cinema," a source tells the Daily Mail.
– Dismissing reports that Lisa Marie Presley's 8-year-old twin daughters are in the custody of the state of California, grandma Priscilla Presley says the girls are with her. The AP reported over the weekend that Finley and Harper Lockwood, Lisa Marie's children with estranged husband Michael Lockwood, were under the supervision of Child Protective Services as Elvis' daughter, 49, is going through bitter divorce proceedings with Lockwood, who she accuses of child abuse. Among other things, Lisa Marie says Lockwood, 55, had inappropriate child photos on his computer, People reports. But Priscilla posted a picture on Facebook Sunday, showing the two little girls swimming in a pool and noting all of the "confusion, commotion and concern" that's been swirling around about her daughter and grandchildren. "Let me put this to rest … the girls have not been in foster care and never will be," she writes. "The girls have been with me and will be until all this is sorted out." Meanwhile, Lockwood's attorney tells Us Weekly in a statement that Lisa Marie's claims about Lockwood are "very unfortunate and inappropriate." (Priscilla Presley recently spilled on why she left Elvis.)
– The father of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev didn't have reassuring words when he spoke to ABC News from his Russian home today, warning that "all hell would break loose" if his son died. "If they kill my second child, I will know that it is an inside job, a hit job. The police are to blame," Anzor Tsarnaev said. "Someone, some organization, is out to get them." He says his sons are innocent, but still urged Dzhokar to surrender without a fight: "Give up. Give up. You have a bright future ahead of you. Come home to Russia." Dzhokhar's brother Tamerlan reportedly died in an overnight gunfight with police. In a separate emotional interview with People, a "screaming and yelling" Anzor insisted his sons "hated guns" and "hate terrorists." Anzor said he was worried about his sons when he heard about the bombing Monday, and spoke to them by phone. They told him, "Everything is good, Daddy. Everything is very good." In an earlier interview with the AP, he described Dzhokar as "a true angel." Dzhokhar's uncle is also urging him to turn himself in. Ruslan Tsarni gave a media briefing outside his home in Maryland, where he was asked what he would say to his nephew. "I would say Dzhokar, if you are alive, turn yourself!" he bellowed, "and ask forgiveness from the victims, from the injured, and from those who left! Ask forgiveness from these people! ... He put a shame on our family! He put a shame on the entire Chechnyan ethnicity!" The brothers' aunt, speaking in Toronto, suggested that images of them at the marathon had been doctored in order to frame them, reports Business Insider. "I don't trust the FBI," said Maret Tsarnaeva. "Show me the evidence." (See video of her remarks in the gallery.) Media outlets have been tracking down former friends and acquaintances of the brothers, and one of them echoed the "angel" description to CNN, calling Dzhokhar "a walking angel" who "smokes a little weed," Vanity Fair reports. Click for more on the brothers.
– Donated to the Wounded Warrior Project? You might've helped fund lavish parties for employees rather than veterans in need. A two-part CBS News investigation, based on interviews with more than 40 former employees, finds millions in Wounded Warrior donations have been wasted. "Their mission is to honor and empower wounded warriors, but what the public doesn't see is how they spend their money," says Erick Millette, a former employee who suffered a traumatic brain injury in Iraq. He accuses the organization of "using our injuries, our darkest days, our hardships, to make money," which is then spent on catered employee parties, fancy restaurants, and so-called team-building retreats at beachside hotels, where bar tabs can reach $2,500. The cost of the charity's four-day annual meeting at a five-star Colorado hotel in 2014: $3 million. Employees describe CEO Steven Nardizzi arriving to events on a horse or Segway. One time, they say, he rappelled down the side of a building. A former staffer believes the charity wants "to show warriors a good time," but there's no follow up, per CBS. "It just makes me sick," adds Millette. He says Wounded Warriors waits for veterans to call, rather than reaching out to them, though the charity denies that claim. A rep also describes the spending as "the best use of donor dollars to ensure we are providing programs and services to our warriors and families at the highest quality." Tax forms note spending on conferences and meetings spiked from $1.7 million in 2010 to $26 million in 2014, the same amount spent on combat stress recovery that year. Public records also show the charity spends 60% of its budget on vets, compared to up to 96% for other veterans' charities.
– A pair of food bloggers are taking aim at one of America's most iconic delicacies: Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. Lisa Leake and Vani Hari have as of this writing gathered more than 148,000 signatures on a Change.org petition asking Kraft to stop using food dyes in the product, giving US customers the same dye-free mac & cheese already sold in Europe, USA Today reports. European food safety laws generally forbid or discourage Yellow #5 and Yellow #6, so Kraft has devised a version without them that looks and tastes nearly identical. Food dyes are used in a host of American groceries, but Leake and Hari say studies have linked them to hyperactivity, allergies, and learning disabilities in kids, and shown that Yellow #5 and #6 in particular can cause cancer. But Kraft points out that the FDA has approved the ingredients; the company says safety and quality are "our highest priority." Leake's reply: "If they say safety is their highest priority, why still use a questionable ingredient that has a warning label when used in Europe?"
– Authorities have arrested a man in the case of a Halliburton relative found murdered in a bathtub. Police say Dayont'e Omar Resiles broke into Jill Halliburton Su's Florida mansion in a gated community Monday and killed her around 11:30am, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reports. "It appears it was a burglary" but "we cannot say how he got in or out," the Davie police captain said yesterday, per NBC Miami. "Evidence that we were able to obtain on scene led us to the arrest of Mr. Resiles, who is being charged with first-degree homicide." He added the investigation is continuing, however, "because it's not clear if there was any sort of personal connection. I don't want to discount anybody." CBS Miami reports Resiles has a history of breaking into upscale homes but was not seen on surveillance at the community's gate. "It is nerve-racking," says a resident. "I don't know how this person got in." Su and her husband, a prominent insect expert, had returned from a trip to Malaysia just a day before the murder. Their son, Justin, 20, discovered his mother's body in the master bathroom of the home. A glass door had been broken and items were taken; they haven't been recovered. "A hole has been left in my heart," daughter Amanda, 24, wrote on Facebook. "Nothing is going to make my life feel whole again." The Sun Sentinel notes that Su was a distant relative of the founder of the oil services conglomerate and not an heir to any Halliburton fortune.
– The FBI thinks one of Dylann Roof's friends knew specifics about the accused shooter's plan for mass murder in a church. The feds arrested Joey Meek yesterday and revealed today that he is being charged with lying to federal agents and concealing information, reports the AP. He could face up to eight years in prison if convicted on both federal charges, reports the State. Roof was living with Meek on and off prior to the shooting, but Meek has denied knowing any details about Roof's alleged plot. The feds say he not only knew, he "did not, as soon as possible, make known the same to some judge or other person in civil authority under the United States." Meek had spoken previously about hearing a drunken Roof say that black people were taking over the world and "someone needed to do something about it." In fact, Meek and other friends once temporarily took away Roof's gun. Meek is to appear in court this morning.
– At least as of Friday, the US-North Korea summit meeting is back on—but who's going to foot the bill? Especially that darned hotel bill. So the Washington Post is asking in an article about how two teams led by Washington and Pyongyang are hammering out details before the June 12 meeting. Two people familiar with negotiations say the US team is willing to pay for North Korea's favored lodging, at the five-star Fullerton Hotel near the Singapore River, where the presidential suite alone costs over $6,000 a night. But knowing that cash-strapped North Korea may be insulted by a US payment, Americans are asking Singapore to pay for it. Yet such payments are nothing new: North Korean athletes and cheerleaders had their travel costs covered to the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang (by the International Olympic Committee and South Korea, respectively) and when former US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper dined in North Korea to take back two US prisoners in 2014, he was served an elaborate meal and asked to pay the bill. One issue now is that paying for North Korea's hotel bill would violate Treasury Department sanctions; the US could seek waivers, but a detailed exemption list might raise eyebrows. On the bright side, the Fullerton does accept cancellations 48 hours ahead of time and the WiFi is free for guests, the New York Post reports.
– Roman Polanski is now facing sexual assault charges from a fourth woman, the New York Times reports. Renate Langer says the director raped her in February 1972 when she was 15 years old. The 61-year-old former actress says she was visiting Polanski, who she met while working at a modeling agency in high school in Germany, in Switzerland because he was thinking about casting her in a film. She says she tried to defend herself when he raped her at his home. Langer says she didn't tell police, friends, or family because she was worried about her parents. "My mother would have had a heart attack," she says." I felt ashamed and embarrassed and lost." She says Polanski called and apologized a month later, offering her a small role. But while filming in Rome, Langer says he raped her again despite her throwing bottles of wine and perfume at him. Swiss police interviewed Langer about the allegations last month, AFP reports. While Switzerland has no statute of limitations on child sex abuse, a spokesperson says it's unclear at this moment if charges will be filed against the 84-year-old Polanski. Langer says she decided to come forward after another woman did so in August and now that both her parents are dead (her father died over the summer). A woman named only as Robin M. said in August that Polanski "sexually victimized" her in 1973 when she was 16, according to Salon. In 2010, actor Charlotte Lewis said Polanski sexually assaulted her in the 1980s when she also was 16. Polanski fled the US in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.
– The CDC applauds the adding of fluoride to our water supply as one of the biggest public health triumphs of the 20th century. But it seems too much fluoride can do a lot of damage. Not only can it actually damage our teeth and weaken our bones—studies in China and Iran appear to link excessive fluoride to a seven-point reduction in children's IQs, Scientific American reports. Those studies may not control for other health risks, but they could signal a problem—one which is particularly worrying in states like Maine. Much of the state gets its drinking water from private wells, and that water isn't held to federal or state standards. In a voluntary study that included about a quarter of Maine's towns, wells in about 10 communities were shown to contain risky amounts of fluoride—sometimes more than twice the EPA's limit. Fluoride's presence is boosted by the granite under the state, which is packed with the chemical; there's plenty of granite in other New England states as well. An expert tells the Portland Press-Herald that residents should have their water tested, but people only do it "when they buy a house or if they get sick." If there's too much fluoride, reverse osmosis systems can help, but they cost between $1,000 and $2,000. (In better tooth-related news, our cavities could eventually take care of themselves.)
– Khalid Masood, the man responsible for the attack outside Britain's Parliament that killed four people and wounded 50, was born Adrian Russell Ajao, London's top counterterror officer said Friday. Mark Rowley revealed the name in a briefing outside Scotland Yard in which he also announced two more "significant" arrests had been made. That brings the total number of people in custody for the Wednesday attack to nine. "We remain keen to hear from anyone who knew Khalid Masood well, understands who his associates were, and can provide us with information about places he has recently visited," Rowley said, per the AP. Masood, 52, was born in southeast England and had most recently been living in Birmingham. ISIS issued a statement Thursday claiming responsibility for the attack and calling Masood a "soldier." Police say he had criminal convictions going back decades, the Guardian reports. "His first conviction was in November 1983 for criminal damage and his last conviction was in December 2003 for possession of a knife," police said in a statement. Rowley said two police officers targeted in the attack have significant injuries. Two other people also remain in critical condition. The latest victim, who died in the hospital on Thursday, was 75-year-old Leslie Rhodes from Streatham, south London. Police have also identified an injured woman who was pulled from the Thames after Masood drove into crowds on Westminster Bridge.
– President Obama delivered a stirring call for unity at Tuesday's memorial service for five slain Dallas police officers, but the city's top cop's soulful tribute is the one getting the most attention. Dallas Police Chief David Brown recited lyrics from Stevie Wonder's "As," explaining that as a young man in the '70s, he used to recite song lyrics to get dates (and when it was love, he "had to dig down deep to get some Stevie Wonder to fully express the love I had")—and he wanted to show some of that love to the officers' families, the Miami Herald reports. "We all know sometimes life's hate and troubles can make you wish you were born in another time and place, but you can bet your lifetimes and twice as double that God knew exactly where he wanted you to be placed," recited the chief, who was greeted with a long standing ovation when he rose to speak. "So make sure when you say you're in it, but not of it, you're not helping to make this earth a place sometimes called hell. Change your words into truth and then change that truth into love," the chief continued. He recited several more lines before introducing Obama, who quipped: "Chief Brown, I'm so glad I met Michelle first because she loves Stevie Wonder," Mashable notes. In other coverage: The service at the Meyerson Symphony Center also included an extraordinary performance from gospel singer Gaye Arbuckle. The Dallas Morning News describes her rendition of "Total Praise" by Richard Smallwood as a "healing moment in a service that sought to heal, in whatever way it could." Obama delivered his remarks—which can be seen in full here—next to five chairs empty but for folded American flags as tributes to the fallen officers, ABC News reports. The White House says the president stayed up long into the night to write the speech himself, drawing on the Bible for inspiration. The New York Times reports that Obama's speech was, for the most part, welcomed by law enforcement officials, as was that of George W. Bush. "Too often we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions,” Bush said to applause. "And this has strained our bonds of understanding and common purpose."
– With James Comey's much-anticipated testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee approaching, insiders say President Trump is getting ready for a fight. The former FBI chief's testimony begins Thursday morning, and Trump associates say the president is likely to be watching closely and tweeting furiously, reports the Washington Post, which describes the upcoming Senate proceeding as a "political Super Bowl." "He's not going to take an attack by James Comey laying down," says Trump friend Roger Stone. "Trump is a fighter, he's a brawler, and he's the best counterpuncher in American politics." In other developments: Sources tell the New York Times that, in a sign of how much Comey distrusted Trump, he told Attorney General Jeff Sessions that he didn't want to be left alone with the president again following a private meeting. Comey did not tell Sessions, however, that Trump had asked him to drop the investigation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, the sources say. The hearing on alleged Russian meddling in the election opens Wednesday, and officials such as Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein are expected to face questions about Trump's firing of Comey, among other issues, reports Reuters. Sources tell the Washington Post that after a briefing in March, Trump asked Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats if he could intervene with Comey to have the investigation of Flynn dropped. Coats, the nation's top intelligence official, discussed the request with other officials and decided it was inappropriate, the sources say. The AP reports that with Comey's testimony widely expected to reveal damaging new details about Trump's involvement with the Russia investigation, the White House and its allies are already trying to push back. The pro-Trump Great America Alliance group is airing an ad describing Comey as a "showboat" who was so obsessed with the Russia issue he failed to concentrate on fighting terrorism. Friends of Comey tell Politico that he's likely to stick to describing his interactions with Trump instead of discussing the wider Russia investigation with the Senate panel. Special counsel Robert Mueller is now leading a probe into the alleged election interference, and associates say Comey has already discussed his testimony with Mueller. Trump has declined to use executive privilege to try to stop Comey testifying. When asked about the testimony on Tuesday, the president said: "I wish him luck."
– Mollie Tibbetts is still missing, nearly two weeks after the 20-year-old University of Iowa student went on a late-night run and disappeared, and her father is pleading for the public's help finding her. "What we need is for people to tell their friends and neighbors that if they saw anything that seemed even remotely out of the ordinary to call the authorities and they will run that down," her father, Rob, tells Good Morning America. "We just need people to think—because somebody knows something and they don’t even know it’s important." The FBI has joined the search for Tibbetts, and police are hoping the FitBit she reportedly "never takes off" might lend some clues. The reward for information leading to her discovery has doubled to $2,000, Newsweek reports. When she disappeared, Tibbetts was dogsitting at the home of her longtime boyfriend, Dalton Jack, while he was more than 100 miles away, working a construction job. (He is not a suspect in the case.) She sent him a Snapchat photo that appeared to have been taken indoors the evening of July 18; the next morning, a friend of hers from work alerted Jack she had not come in to work or called, and he knew something wasn't right. Family members tell KCCI that evidence shows Tibbetts was doing homework on her computer late in the evening on July 18; while authorities won't comment on a specific timeline, family members say this opens up the possibility that she returned to the home after her run. She was last seen while out running.
– You don't even need a cool million to purchase a 36,000-square-foot castle in Upstate New York. Just $895,000 will do. The New York Times today takes a look at this most unusual piece of real estate—and the unusual consequences of a common problem: homes that buyers intended to flip and, more than five years later, still find themselves stuck with. Susan and Manfred Phemister had done a few flips before buying the Albany-area castle (in truth it's the 119-year-old Amsterdam Armory, though it does have two turrets) for $800,000 in 2005. Their plan: Sink $400,000 into renovations and list it for $2 million in 2007. "Then we'd sell and make the extra million we’d need to buy a brownstone," says Susan. You can predict where the story goes from here: The home has been relisted a handful of times, with the price sinking ever lower. Now, just $24-a-square-foot will get you, per Sotheby's, a massive gymnasium, two kitchens, and staff quarters. The Times looks into how the Phemisters are managing in the meantime: A second downturn, in the music industry, hurt Manfred's CD music distribution business; to keep their income up they've rented the castle to TV and film crews and now operate a bed-and-breakfast out of it. That helped to pay the not-insignificant $13,076 utility bill last year. And for now, they'll keep paying it. "We love living here," says Susan. "It’s just that it’s someone else’s turn to live in a castle."
– Pennsylvania hasn't voted Republican in a presidential election since 1988—but if it goes Democratic this time, it will be evidence of skulduggery, according to Donald Trump. "The only way we can lose, in my opinion—and I really mean this, Pennsylvania—is if cheating goes on. I really believe it," he told a rally in Altoona Friday night, per the Guardian. "We have to call up law enforcement, and we have to have the sheriffs and the police chiefs and everybody watching," Trump said, expressing dismay at the state's lack of voter ID requirements and urging his supporters to "go around and look and watch other polling places" after they have cast their votes in November. A round-up of coverage: Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice, tells the Los Angeles Times that Trump's "disturbing and harmful" remarks could lead to the intimidation of minority voters. Pennsylvania is a must-win state for Trump, but he is 11 points behind Clinton, according to the latest Marist poll. Analysts say that while Trump is doing well with the state's working-class white voters, there aren't enough of them for him to win the state unless there is a massive shift away from Clinton in the Philadelphia suburbs, the New York Times reports. BuzzFeed reports that Trump has added a new page to his website seeking "volunteer Trump Election Observers" to help him stop "Crooked Hillary" from "rigging this election." Philip Bump at the Washington Post looks at problems that have occured in recent Pennsylvania elections, and finds there is little to warrant what he calls Trump's call for voter intimidation—which could be a "recipe for tension, if not violence." Politico reports that earlier on Friday, Trump said his claim that President Obama is the founder of ISIS was "sarcasm," then told a rally in Erie, Pa. he "was being sarcastic—"but not that sarcastic, to be honest with you." CNN takes issue with his use of the word "sarcasm."
– The Democrats have, somewhat belatedly, spotted two huge problems with Hillary Clinton's campaign, the New York Times reports. One was her status as a Washington insider with strong links to Wall Street, and the other related problem was a failure to connect with the white working class that helped send her husband to the White House twice. Insiders say that she turned down an invitation to a University of Notre Dame St. Patrick's Day gathering because her campaign didn't think it was important to reach out to white Catholics—and despite Bill Clinton's urging, the campaign decided to target college-educated suburban voters instead of trying to cut into Trump's lead among whites without college degrees. Strategists say the Clinton campaign blundered by expecting young minority voters to turn out for her in the same numbers that they did for Obama. Her standing with working-class white voters fell even further after her "basket of deplorables" comment. An insider tells the Times that after the remark, she told an aide she knew she had "just stepped in it." In a look at the national exit poll, the Washington Post reports that the expected surge of female voters and Latino voters that might have saved Clinton did not materialize. The poll also shows that Trump won white voters by a record 21-point margin, 58% to 37%. The previous record was 20 points, set by Ronald Reagan in 1984 and repeated by Mitt Romney in 2012. (Trump says "forgotten men and women" gave him the win.)
– Mosquitoes: the scourge of every corner of the Earth except for Berezniki, Russia. That town is gearing up for its three-day Russian Mosquito Festival, which begins on Friday. The BBC picked up an Interfax report on the event, which was founded in 2013 as a bit of a "joke" festival. But this element is reportedly for real: There's a "Most Delicious Girl" contest in which shorts- or dress-clad women compete to see who can attract the most mosquito bites in 20 minutes. A previous winner racked up more than 100, as determined by a set of judges that includes a doctor, and the fest's organizer says those who have the best luck "eat well, don't drink, and don't smoke." The Moscow Times reports 3,000 people are expected, and also flags a less-than-PC-sounding component: the "Mosquito Legs" contest, in which the thinness of women's legs is judged.
– The Serial podcast seems to have helped Adnan Syed get a new trial. But a podcast inspired by Serial might have gone one step further. As one person involved puts it to the BBC, "We actually helped free an innocent man." Kaj Linna had served 11 years of a life sentence for murder and robbery in Sweden when true-crime podcast Spar drew attention to his case in May 2015. Over eight episodes, journalists Anton Berg and Martin Johnson told how Robert Lindberg had been killed and his brother injured in an attack on a farm and how the brother had thought the attacker might've been a former business associate. The associate had an alibi, however, and he suggested Linna as a suspect instead. He steered police to a third man, who became the main witness in Linna's trial and claimed that Linna had planned to rob the Lindbergs, per the Local. Linna was found guilty and imprisoned for the crime in 2004. Of particular importance, however, was an interview the main witness gave to Spar years later. After asking that his microphone be turned off, "he came up with a different story to the one he put forward in the trial," Berg says. He adds that the main microphone had indeed been turned off, but a secondary one inadvertently recorded everything the witness said. Linna used the audio during an appeal and was granted a retrial in December. On Thursday, the Swedish Court of Appeal acquitted him, citing "insufficient" evidence for conviction. Berg says the podcast team is "happy and relieved" and "frankly impressed that a podcast could have this kind of impact." Linna is expected to receive a major payout.
– Women in Oregon and California will be the first to walk into a drug store and order birth control pills right from the pharmacist—no prescription needed. Oregon's bill was signed into law last week and California's, passed two years ago, is being fine-tuned into regulations by state officials, USA Today reports. The laws also allow pharmacists to dispense other hormonal contraceptives without a prescription. Women's health advocates applauded the move: "We were pleased to hear from several male legislators who testified that they deferred to their wives in seeking guidance on their vote," says an official at Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon, per the Oregonian. "[It shows why] birth control decisions should stay between a woman and her doctor, not politicians." Another beneficiary is physicians burdened by long lines of patients, like Americans now insured by ObamaCare and Baby Boomers getting Medicare as they turn 65, NPR reports. But it's no quickie trip to the drug store: Pharmacists will still have to give women health screenings before dispensing the contraception. The laws—which should kick in by October 1 in California and after New Year's in Oregon—arrive as the US Congress is debating birth-control access. Both parties agree to the no-prescription idea, but Republicans don't want insurers footing the bill. Democrats say that would keep many women in poverty from getting birth control. Neither the Oregon nor California laws consider the question of insurance coverage. (See why Oregon women can stock up on the birth-control patch.)
– The Church of Scientology just gets creepier and creepier: Now insiders tell the National Enquirer that Scientology bigwigs will probably choose Tom Cruise's next lady friend, Radar reports. "Tom's next marriage will be inside the church," says one expert. The main contender is Yolanda Pecoraro, 27, whom Radar refers to as a "Latin beauty." A former Scientologist calls her a "Scientology princess," noting that she was raised in the church, and rumor has it she even dated Tom back in 2004—there's at least one photo of them together (with the Beckhams, no less), and Cruise supposedly paid for Pecoraro to attend Scientology courses at the Hollywood Celebrity Centre. She currently lives with a boyfriend, but that's no obstacle for the church—an insider says it will do anything to "stabilize the situation quickly," showing that "Tom has rebounded fast and … his new wife is beautiful and steeped in Scientology." More on the Cruise-Katie Holmes divorce: Cruise finally saw daughter Suri yesterday in New York, but didn't see Holmes, TMZ reports. Click to see video of the father and daughter, who hadn't seen each other in a month. A longtime friend tells People Cruise is "sad" but not "bitter" about the divorce. Another source says that when Holmes filed for divorce, he "was thinking, 'What did I not see?'" A young Holmes used to pray for Cruise every day, and had pictures of him hidden in her textbooks, a former classmate tells Celebuzz. "In religion class, when we were about 16, we would have to say prayers to keep a certain someone safe and out of harm," she says. "Katie would say it for Tom Cruise. We did that every day, so she would have said thousands of prayers for him." Click for more, including never-before-published photos of a teenage Holmes.
– The Boy Scouts of America isn't making any promises, but it will at least review its policy that seeks to keep gay people out of the organization. The group says it will consider a resolution that would allow gay adults to serve as leaders in individual units, reports AP. The issue has been front and center following the dismissal of a lesbian den mother in Ohio, along with the Change.org petition that arose on her behalf. It now has close to 300,000 signatures, notes the Advocate. During the group's national meeting last week, activist Zach Wahls presented the organization with 275,000 signatures calling for a change in the policy. Wahls is an Eagle Scout with two lesbian moms who rose to fame with his public defense of them. "I love the organization and I refuse to stand by idly as it forfeits its cultural relevancy at the very moment this country needs it most," said the author of My Two Moms: Lessons of Love, Strength, and What Makes a Family.
– The CDC rolled out a mix of good news/bad news on this year's flu outbreak today: The bad: The number of states reporting widespread activity rose from 41 to 47 over the week. The far West (Arizona, California, Nevada, Guam, and Hawaii) has largely escaped the brunt of it so far, reports NBC News. The good: The number of states reporting high levels of the illness fell from 29 to 24, suggesting that it's on the wane in some areas. (Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Kentucky saw the decreases.) Deaths: So far, 20 victims under the age of 18 have died, reports CNN. More than 3,700 people, most of them elderly, have been hospitalized. Shots: This year's vaccine appears to be about 62% effective, a decent mark. Severe year? It may seem that way, explains AP, because this year's flu started early and is unusually rough on those who get it. Plus, last year was a mild one for comparison's sake. But we probably won't know until spring how this year's sickness stacks up. "Bottom line: It's flu season," says the CDC chief. Flu activity is up in most of the country, and "it may be decreasing in some areas, but that's hard to predict," he says. "Influenza activity ebbs and flows."
– Elaine Benes could get behind this: A new mom is asking a Maryland hospital to revamp its approach to drug tests for expectant moms after her poppy seed bagel breakfast resulted in a false positive for opiates. "It was traumatizing," Elizabeth Eden tells WBAL of the saga that began when her doctor alerted her to the result of her drug test while she was in labor. Eden had previously heard that poppy seeds, which come from the opium poppy plant, could cause misleading results. "I said, 'Well, can you test me again? And I ate a poppy seed bagel this morning for breakfast,' and she said, 'No, you've been reported to the state.'" That meant Eden's daughter, born April 4, was held at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson for five days and a case worker had to visit her home. Increased awareness about false positives means hospitals generally look for opiate levels beyond 2,000 nanograms per millimeter. Eating one teaspoon of poppy seeds can result in levels of 1,200 nanogram per millimeter, but St. Joseph Medical Center considers a positive test to be above 300 nanograms per millimeter, per Time. The hospital's head of obstetrics says raising the limit would let actual drug users slip through undetected. But, citing a letter in which Eden advises the hospital educate expectant moms about the risks, the doctor adds, "it's a really good point that people probably should know that if you use poppy seeds before you have a toxicology screen that it could result in a false positive test." (This mom sued over her poppy seed debacle.)
– Barclays is set to cut some 3,700 jobs amid an operations overhaul, it announced today. Coming out of a strategic review, the company is looking to cut costs by some $2.7 billion, the BBC reports. Nearly half the job cuts will occur at Barclays' investment bank, mostly in Asia. Meanwhile, the firm will concentrate operations in three locations: the US, UK, and Africa, the Wall Street Journal reports. Its European retail banking will begin to focus on wealthy clients. The move comes as the company attempts to clean up its image after the Libor and other scandals. Related charges meant the bank saw a pre-tax profit last year of some $385 million, compared to $9.2 billion the year before, Reuters notes. "We intend to change what Barclays does and how we do it," CEO Anthony Jenkins said in a statement. "It will take years before people change their impression of us," he noted. But "I'm not daunted by that."
– Exasperation is high on Capitol Hill, as the House and Senate barrel ahead with unrelated debt ceiling plans, neither of which resemble the “grand bargain” President Obama wanted. Today, John Boehner will hold a vote on his so-called “Cut, Cap, and Balance” bill, which calls for $5.8 trillion in unspecified cuts and a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget and making it harder to raise taxes. The White House mocked the bill as the “duck, dodge, and dismantle” measure, Politico reports, and has vowed a veto. The Senate is working on a bipartisan bill, but even there, nerves were fraying. “What will it take,” Harry Reid demands, “for my Republican colleagues to wake up to the fact that they’re playing a game of political chicken with the entire global economy?” Even if all goes according to plan, the Senate won’t vote on its compromise until July 29, giving the House just four days to pass it before Aug. 2—and there’s no guarantee it will, the Washington Post reports. Things are getting “very, very scary,” one top Senate Democrat said, even for those “who believe government should be small enough to drown in a bathtub.”
– Ray Kelly isn't soft-pedaling the effects if the NYPD's "stop and frisk" policy ends: "No question about it, violent crime will go up," he said today when asked if more people would die without it, Politico reports. "The stark reality is that violence is happening disproportionately in minority communities," he said, adding that "officers have to have the right of inquiry if they see some suspicious behavior." Benjamin Crump, the lawyer for Trayvon Martin's family, called the policy "a slippery slope. No matter what you want to call it, essentially it's racial profiling. And we know Trayvon Martin was profiled for something that night on February 26, 2012. And he had broken no laws." Kelly said Trayvon's case is "a little bit different. These are two civilians. It clearly was a tragedy, but it didn't involve sworn police officers." Elsewhere on your Sunday dial, as per Politico: John McCain on Egypt: The US has "no credibility" and the White House is "not sticking to our values. There is no policy. And there is no strategy. We are much more hated and much less respected than we were in 2009." McCain called for the US to cut off aid. Lyndsey Graham on Egypt: "We're gonna have a failed state in Egypt, and we're gonna have to suspend our aid because we can't support the reaction of the military. Even though the Brotherhood overplaying their hand started this, we can't support what the military is doing in response." Reince Priebus rebuts criticism from Eric Fehrnstrom over debate brouhaha: "I don't know if his Etch-a-Sketch is on tilt. I'm not really taking advice from Eric Fehrnstrom right now. I'm trying to build a party that's year-round. I'm trying to fix a dated digital operation, I'm trying to get a hold of a primary process and a debate debacle" Rand Paul on his fight with Chris Christie: "The party's big enough for both of us. This all started with him saying, 'We don't have enough room for libertarian Republicans.' The thing is, that's how we grow our party. There's room for people who believe in bigger government in our party. Some of the things that he seems to have promoted makes us believe that, well, he seems to think there's a lot more spending that could be going on."
– If your child's pacifier falls on the floor, a new study suggests you're doing the kid a disservice by rinsing it off in the sink. Instead, you might just want to pop it in your own mouth before giving it back to Junior. Parents who did that saw their kids have a significantly lower risk of allergy-related conditions including eczema and asthma, according to the Swedish study, which was published in this week's Pediatrics. Researchers stumbled on the correlation during a broader look into babies' allergies, NPR explains. Researchers hypothesize that doing so transfers harmless bacteria from the parent's mouth to the child's, which gives the baby's immune system a workout. Without those practice organisms "there is much less for the immune system to fight off," one pediatrician not involved in the research explains. "So it starts reacting to things that perhaps it should be ignoring."
– A North Carolina cop is on paid leave after video surfaced on social media showing him roughly throwing a female student to the floor, reports the News & Observer. Officer Ruben De Los Santos, a school resource officer for Rolesville High School, was responding to an early morning fight between two female students in the cafeteria Tuesday. The nine-second clip shows De Los Santos (identified by the police department, per the Washington Post) lifting up a girl in a pink shirt to about shoulder's height as a crowd of students watches, then slamming her to the ground, where she remains unmoving for a second or two until he drags her up by the arm and makes her walk away with him. The Rolesville PD says it's asked the state Bureau of Investigation to investigate and pledges to "work diligently to review any and all pertinent information so that we provide an accurate account of the events." The school's principal said in a statement that she was "deeply concerned" about what she witnessed. The student who filmed the video posted it on Twitter and said, "THIS. IS. NOT OKAY.," including a hashtag with the school's name. The ACLU of North Carolina also weighed in, tweeting, "Disturbing use of force at #rolesvillehigh that should never be used against kids in schools." The mother of the student, identified by WLOS as 15-year-old Jasmine Darwin, says Jasmine, an honors student, has a concussion and won't be returning to the school. Jasmine, who says she was trying to defend her sister in the original fight, tells WRAL, "I was in shock." Meanwhile, Dajerria Becton, the teen taken to the ground by a Texas cop in 2015 during a pool party, has filed a $5 million suit against now ex-cop Eric Casebolt, the city of McKinney, and the police department, per the Dallas Morning News.
– It’s not only the founders of a disputed GoFundMe campaign that raised $400,000 for a homeless man who find themselves in hot water. NBC Philadelphia reports Kate McClure, Mark D'Amico, and Johnny Bobbitt will face charges of conspiracy and theft by deception for allegedly concocting a false story to benefit themselves. Believing they were creating a better life for Bobbitt, said to have given McClure his last $20 to buy gas when she became stranded on a Philadelphia highway, 14,000 people donated more than $400,000 to the campaign last year. Temporarily set up in a trailer on property owned by McClure’s family, Bobbitt went on to sue, claiming McClure and D’Amico were using the fund as their "personal piggy bank." Police raided the couple's Florence, NJ, home in September, seizing cash, jewelry, financial statements, and a new BMW, though Bobbitt's lawyer said the donated funds were gone. Citing a source familiar with the case, NBC reports McClure and D'Amico turned themselves in Wednesday to Burlington County prosecutors, who believe the three deliberately prevented campaign donors from gaining information "that would affect their judgment about solicited contribution to that fundraising effort." It's not clear if Bobbitt is also in custody. Per WVPI, prosecutors are to announce new developments in the case at 2pm local time Thursday. (GoFundMe previously promised to give Bobbitt the full amount he was due.)
– Just days after the world learned of Demi Moore's latest younger man, he has apparently dumped her. "Vito has worked very hard to be taken seriously in the art business, and doesn’t want to be seen as somebody who dates celebrities," a source explains to the New York Post, adding that the constant stream of paparazzi proved to be too much for the artist. The final straw? "Demi flew down to party at [Miami's] Art Basel while he was working to build his business," the source says. "It was a distraction he didn't need," so he broke up with her then and there. That didn't dissuade Moore from her mission, though, as she just partied with Lenny Kravitz and other celebs instead. And that did not please her daughters, who are "ever increasingly concerned" about their mom's bizarre behavior, a source tells Radar. Moore was snapped dancing at one of the Miami parties (click to see), and she showed up at another party with a stray cat she found at a pool. Later, she walked the red carpet for another art gala in a cleavage-baring dress and gigantic eyeglasses, making all sorts of faces for photographers. "Rumer, Tallulah, and Scout are mortified," the source says.
– Five teens accused of bullying teenage classmate Phoebe Prince into suicide accepted plea deals today and yesterday and will get probation and community service but no jail time. Charges have been dropped against a sixth teen accused of statutory rape, notes AP. Phoebe's mother once again publicly addressed her daughter's tormentors today with an emotional statement, reports the Boston Globe. “Phoebe tried to be strong, but sometimes all people want to do is break you,” said Anne O'Brien. Referring to one of the accused teens at today's hearing, she said the girl had "terrified my daughter with her anger." Afterward, the teen "began to gently cry, continuing for 20 seconds or so in a still courtroom," writes Peter Schworm of the Globe. Phoebe, a 15-year-old Irish immigrant, hanged herself in January. Click to read an account of the case by Emily Bazelon at Slate, who has written extensively on cyberbullying.
– Even casual use of marijuana could be messing up young people's brains at a time of life when they need to make major decisions, a new study finds. Researchers say that people aged 18 to 25 who used marijuana at least once a week were found to have abnormalities in the parts of the brain linked to emotion, decision-making, and motivation, the Boston Globe reports. While it's not clear whether the changes are linked to decreased function, "this is a part of the brain you do not want to mess around with," the lead researcher warns. The casual tokers had an average of six joints a week, and the changes appeared to be more pronounced the more that was smoked. The changes in young brains are reason to worry, the lead researcher says, because "this is when you are making major decisions in your life, when you are choosing a major, starting a career, making long-lasting friendships and relationships." A neuropharmacologist not involved with the study says that while he doesn't doubt the results, he is wary of marijuana studies like this one that were funded by federal agencies tasked with limiting drug use. "If it were my child, even with this study, I'm more comfortable with young people having a marijuana habit than drinking regularly," he tells USA Today.
– Jamie Sams is alive, and she's suing over that fact. The Albuquerque Journal reports the New Mexico woman has sued Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center over what she alleges were two acts of negligence that occurred at the Santa Fe hospital in 2016. Per the suit, Sams went to the hospital's ER on Feb. 5 of that year to be treated for pain related to Dercum's disease, which she suffers from. Though she claims she advised the staff that she was allergic to the opioid Dilaudid, it was administered to her via IV in the first alleged act of negligence. Then came the second. Sams says she had an allergic reaction to the pain medication and went into cardiac arrest as a result. The staff resuscitated her even though she had signed a double Do Not Resuscitate form and "adamantly did not want" to be revived. (The Santa Fe New Mexican reports it's unclear what a "double DNR" refers to, but says it could indicate she had two directives in place, one via the hospital and one via her estate planner.) Further, "Plaintiff Sams was wearing a purple bracelet issued by the hospital and labeled 'DNR.'" The suit, which names Christus and an ER doctor as defendants, says she is forced to continue to live with "severe pain ... and limitations" and will bear significant medical costs for the rest of her life. (One man's DNR tattoo caused a great deal of confusion.)
– It involves a lamp—that's all you need to know. For those reading on, serial killer Egifius Schiffer died in what appears to be an autoerotic sex act while serving life in a German prison, Oxygen reports. Schiffer, 62, was found last week hooked up to a lamp cable at Bochum prison in Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia. "He removed a cable from his bedside table lamp, then wound it around his nipples and his penis and stuck the end in a power socket," a prison spokeswoman tells the Times of London. A post-mortem found that Schiffer died from heart failure due to excessive electricity in his chest. Known as the "Aachen Strangler," Schiffer initially got away with murdering five female hitchhikers in the 1980s. But the former insurance salesman was picked up in 2007 for stealing scrap metal, and agreed to give up a DNA sample that linked him to the murders, per the Sun. A self-proclaimed sadomasochist, Schiffer then admitted his guilt because he was apparently excited about going to prison—but later changed his mind and claimed innocence. Police say they doubt anyone killed Schiffer, and his lawyer says he wasn't at all suicidal.
– Police in Florida's Broward County have a high-profile murder on their hands: Jill Halliburton Su, a 59-year-old relative of the founder of the oil services conglomerate, was found dead in a bathtub in her waterfront mansion in Davie this week, reports ABC News. Police have ruled it a homicide but haven't commented on the cause of death or named any suspects. Su is married to a prominent entomologist at the University of Florida, Nan Yao Su, who tells police that he grew alarmed while at work Monday afternoon when he could no longer see the live feed of his home's security cameras, reports People. He says he called his adult son to check on the house, and the son made the discovery and called 911. "The initial call came in as a possible suicide, but it became very evident that this was not a suicide, but in fact a homicide," says a police official. That it seemed like a suicide at first doesn't seem to jibe with what a pool cleaner tells WSVN: "I see the kid open the door, and he's crying, screaming hysterically, and he's telling us, 'Don't leave, you can't leave,' so I ask him, 'What's wrong? What's going on?' and he said, 'Somebody broke into my house and killed my mom.'" One of the home's glass doors had been broken and one room ransacked, say police, who are hoping neighbors' surveillance tapes might help. Dive teams were also searching a lake behind the home, reports CBS Local. (Another big murder case this week involves "altruistic filicide.")
– Shortly before midnight on Feb. 4, Richard Pieri was called to the VA Medical Center near Wilkes-Barre, Pa., to assist with an emergency appendectomy. The problem: The 59-year-old nurse had forgotten he was on call and spent the night drinking four or five beers at a local casino, WNEP reports via court documents. Even so, Pieri drove to the hospital, where a camera showed him walking into a concrete barrier and nearly falling in a parking lot, police allege, per the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader. He then prepared the patient and operating room, documented the surgery, and monitored the patient's vital signs. A co-worker reported Pieri after noticing he was "definitely not himself," had difficulty using a computer system, and failed to correctly record the time of the operation. A complaint notes the patient was readmitted to the hospital with stomach pains after the surgery, but the VA believes Pieri’s conduct had no effect on the patient. "As soon as we were notified of the event, we made sure there were no unsafe situations for our patients and then we did the further investigations," a hospital rep says. Pieri now faces charges of reckless endangerment, DUI, and public drunkenness. He has been removed from direct patient care. When police asked Pieri why they might want to question him, he responded thusly: "I guess it has something to do with me being drunk on call."
– Azealia Banks, last seen losing it on a fellow airline traveler, has allegedly had another epic meltdown. The rapper was arrested outside a New York nightclub Wednesday for allegedly attacking a security guard—and sources tell Page Six that Banks really lost it, biting the female guard in the boob. Banks was upset because security guards told her she couldn't enter a private party at the club unless she went back upstairs to get a stamp, witnesses say, and she started screaming racial slurs. At that point, a club owner decided to just let Banks into the party, but apparently it was too late. Once inside, sources say, Banks continued to yell at the guards, who didn't recognize her, "explaining who she was, that she's on Rihanna's album." Then she allegedly spit in the face of the female bouncer and then bit her, "almost breaking her shirt," and later allegedly punched her as she was being tossed from the club. A police source says the alleged bite "caused swelling and redness." Banks was thrown out of the club and arrested around 12:30am; authorities tell E! she was charged with assault, harassment, and disorderly conduct. She was held for evaluation but released Wednesday night. As Page Six notes, after Banks' reported airline meltdown in September, she allegedly assaulted another security guard in LA in October. (Banks has some pretty controversial opinions about abortion.)
– After a week of outrage over child separation at the southern border and a subsequent executive order that claims to stop it, President Trump is again using pointed rhetoric to describe the immigration crisis in America. In a Sunday string of tweets, Trump blasted Democrats, telling them to "fix the laws" while praising his own administration for being better than those of Bush or Obama at handing the complex issue. In that same tweet, Trump connected illegal immigration with crime on this side of the border. "Cannot accept all of the people trying to break into our Country. Strong Borders, No Crime!" he tweeted. As Politico notes, Trump and his supporters have frequently used controversial language when describing undocumented immigrants, specifically when invoking the MS-13 gang. The president did not mention the street gang in Sunday's tweets. However, Trump did say that "We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country ... we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came." As of May, federal immigration courts had a backlog of over 700,000 cases and some courts were scheduling hearings after 2021. Per AP, Republican apprehension over Trump's habit of sending off fiery and unpredictable tweets about the hot button issue and their fear of riling conservative voters are undermining GOP leaders' election-year struggle to shove an immigration bill through the House this week. Party leaders are trying to finally secure the votes they need for their wide-ranging bill with tweaks they hope will goose support from the GOP's dueling conservative and moderate wings.
– It was a slog through three inches of rain that fell at Churchill Downs on Saturday, but Bob Baffert-trained colt Justify had the first nose across the finish line at the Run for the Roses, reports the Washington Post. Justify won by 2 1/2 lengths and is now the first horse to win the Derby in 136 years after not racing as a 2-year-old; he began racing in February, reports the AP. He's now 4-0 in his racing career. It was the wettest Derby ever, and Justify, ridden by Mike Smith, gave Baffert his fifth win at the first leg of the Triple Crown. Baffert won his only Triple Crown in 2015 with American Pharoah.
– Western Europe's highest mountain is giving up more of its dead as the Mont Blanc glacier shifts and retreats. In the latest grim find, a French climber on the Italian side of the peak spotted the bodies of three roped-together climbers believed to have died in 1995, AFP reports. "The glacier is constantly shifting, and we can say that the deaths occurred around 1995," an Italian Alpine rescue spokesman says. Efforts are underway to recover the bodies from the mountain, which has also been yielding the bodies of people killed in two Air India crashes decades ago. Glaciers in the Alps have been melting at an unprecedented rate and authorities expect to find the bodies of hundreds more missing climbers in the years to come. Mont Blanc alone is believed to hold the bodies of 160 mountaineers, along with plane crash victims and people killed in World War II skirmishes. A Swiss Police spokesman tells the Guardian that it's a "great relief" to contact families "who would otherwise never know with 100% certainty whether their loved one had perished on the mountain. Finally when a corpse is discovered, you have an absolute guarantee." (In July, the bodies of a couple who vanished after going to milk their cows 75 years ago were discovered.)
– Seven top Republican presidential hopefuls will gather this month for the first New Hampshire 2012 debate. Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum will meet at Saint Anselm College for the face-off, hosted by CNN’s John King. It's the first debate of the election for Bachmann, Gingrich, and Romney, and it will be held June 13, some eight months before the state’s primary. The Atlantic snarkily refers to it as the "first GOP debate with recognizable candidates," thus distinguishing it from last month's South Carolina debate. As for Sarah Palin: “I don't think I'm going to be there,” she told reporters. “Thank you for asking, though.”
– As searchers listen for pings in the Indian Ocean that might help them find the missing Flight 370, Reuters assesses the cost of the hunt after a month and finds that it's on track to become the most expensive search in aviation history. Reuters figures that the militaries of Australia, China, the US, and Vietnam have spent $44 million already, about the amount spent in the two-year search for the Air France jet that went missing in 2009. The $44 million total doesn't take into account civilian aircraft or the cost of accommodating hundreds of intelligence analysts and other personnel worldwide. Add those expenses in, and the total is in the "hundreds of millions of dollars." Australia is leading the search and has borne about half the costs so far, though Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the nation may ask others to defray its expenses later. "At some point, there might need to be a reckoning, there might need to be some kind of tallying, but nevertheless we are happy to be as helpful as we can to all the countries that have a stake in this," he said. The Pentagon estimates that the US has spent $3.3 million so far. With no sign of the pings in two days, the search could drag on and on, reports AP. Australia plans to release a submersible to scan the ocean floor, but it hopes to get a more precise location before doing so.
– A Somali Olympic female runner drowned as she tried to emigrate to Italy on a boat from Libya, Italian media revealed yesterday. The boat sank as Samia Yusuf Omar, 21, made her desperate bid to escape her African home in April, reports the BBC. Samia faced death threats from the Islamist militia al-Shabab and supporters, who oppose female athletes, when she returned to Mogadishu after the 2008 Olympics, according to al-Jazeera. She moved to Ethiopia to train for the 2012 Games in London, but drowned in the spring. She came in last in the 200-meter event in Beijing, but was considered an impressive runner who managed to make it to the 2008 Olympics despite having almost no formal training.
– Rex Tillerson will take a $180 million retirement deal and make a complete break from ExxonMobil if confirmed as secretary of state. In a deal announced Tuesday, Exxon says the former oil executive who resigned on Dec. 31 will sell his 611,000 shares of Exxon, worth about $55.5 million, and receive the value of a little over 2 million restricted shares, now worth about $184 million, in an independently managed trust, reports Bloomberg. Tillerson would have received the 2 million shares over a decade had he reached Exxon's mandatory retirement age of 65 in March, reports the AP. In total, he'll lose about $7 million, including $4.1 million in cash bonuses and benefits he would've received over the next three years, per Politico. Tillerson also agrees not to work in the oil and gas industry for 10 years; if he breaks that condition, the money in the independent trust will be given to "one or more charities involved in fighting poverty or disease in the developing world" without input from Tillerson or Exxon, the company says, adding Tillerson will "sever all ties with the company to comply with conflict-of-interest requirements associated with his nomination as secretary of state."
– A South Dakota state representative and his brother-in-law drowned in an apparent kayaking accident in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, where they were attending a wedding for the lawmaker's daughter, officials said Thursday. State Rep. Craig Tieszen, 68, a Republican from Rapid City, and his brother-in-law, Brent Moline, 61, died Wednesday, reports the AP. The Cook Islands Police Service wrote in a Facebook post that officials had been at the scene of a "double tragedy at sea," saying two men had taken their kayaks over a reef and capsized. The post doesn't name Tieszen or Moline, but describes the two victims as American citizens aged 68 and 61. New Zealand media indicated Tieszen died trying to save Moline. State Sen. Betty Olsen posted something similar on Facebook, saying her "heart was heavy" after she received a call informing her "Tieszen had died while trying to save his brother-in-law from drowning at Craig's daughter's wedding." Tieszen spent 32 years in law enforcement before retiring as police chief of Rapid City in western South Dakota in 2007, reports the Rapid City Journal. He served in the state Senate from 2009 through 2016 and was in his first term representing District 34 in the House. "Craig Tieszen spent his life serving the public. He was a thoughtful and conscientious legislator, and a leader on criminal justice issues," said Gov. Dennis Daugaard in a statement. The governor said he will order flags to fly at half-staff statewide to honor Tieszen on the day of his funeral, which hasn't yet been scheduled.
– As 40 ships and 34 planes from nine different countries continue the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a Texas family is praying for 50-year-old Philip Wood, one of three Americans among the 239 people on board. Wood, a technical storage exec with IBM, had been transferred from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, reports WFAA, and had returned to Texas to visit family before relocating. The AP reports his Saturday flight was supposed to be his final one to China's capital, where he had planned to wrap up loose ends before moving. Wood is divorced with two sons, one a student at Texas A&M University and the other an alumnus of that school. "Do you want to know how it feels to lose a son at the age of 50?" his mother says. "It's devastating. But, I know in my heart that Philip's with God and I plan to be there with him because I have a deep faith in my God." The two other Americans listed on the flight manifest are Nicole Meng, 4, and Yan Zhang, 2, and it's not clear whether they may have been traveling with American parents with dual citizenship, the New York Times notes. The Times, meanwhile, looks at some of the other passengers aboard the flight: They hailed from at least 13 countries and included a Chinese family of five who took a vacation to get away from Beijing's bad air; a 20-member group of Chinese calligraphers and painters who had been recognized at a Kuala Lumpur arts center; and a Canadian couple on their way back to their home in Beijing—and two young sons—after a romantic holiday in Vietnam.
– Brad Bufanda, the actor best known for playing biker gang member Felix Toombs on Veronica Mars, apparently leaped to his death early Wednesday, officials say. Bufanda, 34, jumped from a building in Los Angeles and died of blunt-trauma injuries suffered in the fall, USA Today reports. His body was found by a transient, per the Hollywood Reporter. His death has been ruled a suicide. "I'm heartbroken to hear of Brad Bufanda's passing. He did great work on Veronica Mars. My heart goes out to his family," tweeted showrunner Rob Thomas Friday. Bufanda's other credits include Malcolm in the Middle, CSI: Miami, and Days of Our Lives.
– Senators are back at work Monday, and their No. 1 priority remains trying to craft an alternative to ObamaCare. The problem is that Mitch McConnell's task of getting the necessary 50 votes seems to have gotten only more difficult over the holiday break, and that's raising a slew of stories about what happens if the GOP bill fails. Shoring up ObamaCare is one possibility, but another is the controversial idea of some kind of single-payer system. The long-shot concept, anathema to conservatives, is surfacing more and more in stories: Definition: Under a single-payer system, "doctors and hospitals are mostly private entities, but are paid exclusively by the government," explains a primer at Mother Jones. "Canada is single-payer, with each province acting as the sole source of payment to doctors and hospitals. In the US, Medicaid and traditional Medicare are single-payer." Tax hikes: Everybody would get core coverage regardless of income, job, or health status, explains Money, and people would no longer get insurance through their jobs. But paying for it would surely require new tax increases of some kind. Sanders, and others: The concept is gaining traction among Democrats, reports the Hill. Bernie Sanders promises to introduce a bill when debate ends on the GOP ObamaCare alternative. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand back the concept, and in the House, a "Medicare for All" proposal by Rep. John Conyers has 113 co-sponsors. Warren, specifically, told the Wall Street Journal last month that "now it's time for the next step, and the next step is single payer." Please, no: Putting bureaucrats in charge of health care isn't the answer, writes Sally Pipes at Forbes. "Single-payer systems have endangered lives and reduced access to quality care everywhere they've been implemented," she notes, citing "deplorable care" in Britain and Canada and arguing that if Republicans needed any incentive to make progress on their health bill, the prospect of a single-payer system should do it. California: A bill to shift to a single-payer system stalled last month in the California Assembly, and the Los Angeles Times reports that a main reason is that it was "short on key policy specifics—most significantly, how to pay for it." Partisan divide: A Pew Research Center poll finds that 52% of Democrats support the single-payer idea, but the overall percentage in support drops to 33 when Republicans are added, reports CNN. For that reason, both sides seem to love talking about it, notes the story. Senate GOP plan: It's not dead yet, though the positions of conservatives and moderates within the GOP seem to have hardened in the last week, reports Politico. That makes McConnell's quest for a compromise acceptable to enough senators exceedingly difficult.
– What could have been a season for the record books has ended in disgrace for Harvard's men's soccer team. The team, ranked first in the Ivy League, was suspended for the rest of the season after the discovery of what the university calls an "appalling" ranking system for female players, the Wall Street Journal reports. In what appears to be a tradition going back to at least 2012, players on the men's team circulated "scouting reports" with pictures of the women's team, along with lewd comments, numerical rankings based on their attractiveness, and a sexual position assigned to each player, reports the BBC. University officials say they decided to cancel the season because they found the "scouting reports" had continued up to the present season, and because players had not been forthcoming when first asked about the issue, the Harvard Crimson reports. "The decision to cancel a season is serious and consequential, and reflects Harvard's view that both the team's behavior and the failure to be forthcoming when initially questioned are completely unacceptable, have no place at Harvard, and run counter to the mutual respect that is a core value of our community," Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust said in a statement. The Crimson notes that the team would have clinched an NCAA tournament berth if it had won its game against Columbia Saturday.
– Another botched execution? Arizona executed a murderer today, but it took Joseph Rudolph Wood nearly two hours to die, reports the Arizona Republic. It took so long that Wood's lawyers filed an emergency appeal to stop the procedure after an hour because they say their 55-year-old client was still gasping for air at that point, reports the Guardian. According to the court filing cited by the LA Times, the lethal injection began at 1:52pm local time. Five minutes later, the state said Wood was sedated, "but at 2:02 he began to breathe," wrote the attorneys. "At 2:03 his mouth moved. Mr. Wood has continued to breathe since that time. He has been gasping and snorting for more than an hour. At 3:02 p.m. At that time, staff rechecked for sedation. He is still alive." The execution continued, and Wood was pronounced dead at 3:49pm, one hour and 57 minutes after the procedure began. The details of what happened aren't out yet, but the case is drawing immediate parallels to the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma. Wood's lawyers had tried to stop the execution from taking place, arguing that he had the right to know where the lethal drugs were coming from, but the US Supreme Court allowed it to proceed. Wood murdered his girlfriend and her father in 1989, and the AP quotes a relative of the victims unmoved by the idea that Wood suffered any discomfort. "This man conducted a horrific murder and you guys are going, 'Let's worry about the drugs,'" said Richard Brown. "Why didn't they give him a bullet, why didn't we give him Drano?"
– Millions of dollars went into the drink, if not down the drain, Sunday night as a yacht worth at least $10 million capsized as it was being delivered to its owner in Washington state's Puget Sound. As KIRO TV and the Skagit Valley Herald report, some five or six crew members employed by the yacht's builder were putting the boat into shallow waters in Anacortes when it immediately began to tilt. Several attempted to adjust the ballast in the engine room of the Bäden, but without success. The engine room began to flood, and one man had to be removed through a port hole that rescuers chopped out with an ax. A spokesman for yacht builder Northern Marine, which will have to bear the cost of the salvage, tells the Herald that the ship took two and a half years to build. It's likely a lot of effort and money wasted: The 85-foot fiberglass hull is expected to be salvageable, but "everything inside is toast—everything. Nothing's made to be submerged in salt water." The owner of the yacht was not identified. Maritime website gCaptain notes that the Bäden was, per an engineering firm employed by the builder, "lighter than other Northern Marine builds of similar length, thus requiring more ballast to sit on a desired waterline." The firm advised final ballasting take place at launch, but exactly why the yacht capsized is unclear. The US Coast Guard will investigate. (Click for another unusual story involving a yacht ... and Louis CK.)
– Four people were killed when two Palestinian men opened fire outside a popular market Wednesday night in Tel Aviv, NBC News reports. The BBC quotes the city's police chief, who calls the attack a "pretty serious terrorist incident." A handful of other people were injured—some very seriously—in the attack, according to the Jerusalem Post. The two gunmen were both apprehended. One had been shot and wounded. An armed civilian had reportedly fired at one of the attackers. Witnesses say the shooters wore white suits and were hanging out at a restaurant before opening fire, the AP reports. "He got up, he had a rifle in his hand," NBC quotes a diner as saying. "He was just shooting point blank at people sitting down." Another witness said he heard 30 to 40 rounds fired. "We ran like lighting with the baby and the stroller," says a mother who was out celebrating her son's birthday, per AP. "I yelled at people who didn't understand what was happening to run." The director of the Sarona market says security guards kept the shooters from entering the market, preventing the violence from being worse. It was the first shooting in Tel Aviv since New Year's Day.
– Turns out President Trump isn't just attacking the Postal Service on Twitter. In off-the-book meetings, he's been urging US Postmaster General Megan Brennan to hike package-delivery charges for Amazon and other companies by 100%—a change that could add billions to their bills, insiders tell the Washington Post. Brennan has refused, saying the deals benefit the Postal Service, but Trump is building pressure with his Twitter attacks and a government review of the contracts. Meanwhile, the Postal Service is still losing money ($2.7 billion net loss last year, per Business Insider) and borrowing from the Treasury Department's Federal Financing Bank to stay afloat. But the Postal Service says hiking their package contracts (which remain private) would only help competitors. "Some of our competitors in the package delivery space would dearly love for the Postal Service to aggressively raise our rates higher than the marketplace can bear—so they could either charge more themselves or siphon away postal customers," a Postal Service spokesman wrote in the Hill. Adding further confusion, Trump's aides disagree on whether Amazon is paying enough or keeping the Postal Service in business. And some White House officials say Trump is only attacking Amazon because of articles published in the Post, which is owned by Amazon founder Jeffrey Bezos.
– Former GE chief Jack Welch became the face of the latest trutherism movement yesterday when he tweeted that the new jobs numbers were too good to be true—"these Chicago guys will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers," it read. He said on CNN last night that he "should have put a question mark" on the tweet but stood by his assertion that he thinks the figures defy logic, reports Politico. His go-round with Anderson Cooper left Cooper sounding a little exasperated at times. "I'm not accusing anybody of anything," Welch says at one point, before again standing by the tweet in which he seems to do just that. "I'm not backing away." Welch made the rounds of media outlets earlier in the day standing by the comments. “I am doing nothing more than raising the question,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s fact-based.” At the Washington Post, Greg Sargent thinks this "unemployment trutherism" is doing Mitt Romney no favors. "This is really out there stuff," he writes, and it's just drawing more attention to the falling unemployment rate.
– Braulio Guerra decided words weren't enough to get his point across on how he feels about President Trump's proposed border wall, so the athletic congressman from the Mexican state of Queretaro apparently put his climbing skills to work. BuzzFeed first reported on Guerra's high-profile stunt: showing himself perched atop a 30-foot-high stretch of fence along the US-Mexico border in photos and video he posted on social media on Wednesday and Thursday. He claims he ascended the fence himself (though observers note there's zero proof he did it without help) and says his point was to show how "simple" it would be to make the full leap into the US and how "unnecessary" and "totally absurd" Trump's wall concept is. Per ABC News, Guerra says he went up the fence in Tijuana and that although it looks "complex," youth in that area do it all the time. One of the videos and at least one photo show two other people on the fence, with Guerra noting they were climbing up and down while he was there. Some are speculating that mystery duo helped him get to the top, though BuzzFeed notes Guerra does list competing in four Ironman challenges in his online bios. Guerra received attention for his ploy, some in the form of online mockery, with one commenter imploring him to stop his "cheap circus tricks" and another asking him to post visual proof he climbed up on his own, per BuzzFeed. Memes also arose. The New York Daily News tried to get US Customs and Border Protection to comment but hasn't heard back yet.
– A former Apple engineer was arrested as he was about to board a flight from San Jose to China Saturday, accused by US prosecutors of stealing tech secrets from the firm with the plan of passing them along to a Chinese startup, the Washington Post reports. Zhang Xiaolang, once a hardware engineer for Apple's driverless car development team, told the company in April that he was leaving to go back to China and work at Xiaopeng Motors or XMotors, which is also developing autonomous vehicles. But Apple became suspicious when his level of network activity "increased exponentially" before his resignation, and officials say he ultimately admitted downloading self-driving car technology files to his wife's laptop. Prosecutors say those files included engineering schematics as well as technical manuals and reports. Zhang was also caught on surveillance video entering the software and hardware labs of the autonomous vehicle department and leaving with a large box. An XMotors spokesperson says the firm has always abided by the law and notes, "There is no indication that he has ever communicated any sensitive information from Apple to XMotors." Zhang's access to his work at XMotors was denied and his computer and other equipment were secured after US authorities notified the company they were investigating him; he was ultimately fired. Apple's work on self-driving cars is extremely secretive; just 2,700 "core" employees have access to the project's databases. Operating under an emergency law, the US Treasury Department plans to increase scrutiny of Chinese investment in US industries including new-energy vehicles, robotics, and aerospace, sources tell Bloomberg.
– Parents of children with serious allergies may soon get some relief when shelling out for a epinephrine auto-injector. The FDA has approved a generic alternative to Mylan Pharmaceuticals' widely used EpiPen and EpiPen Jr., reports CNN. While other name-brand injectors exist, this one, produced by Teva, is the first approved non-brand option. "This approval means patients living with severe allergies who require constant access to life-saving epinephrine should have a lower-cost option," FDA chief Scott Gottlieb, "as well as another approved product to help protect against potential drug shortages." As the AP notes, Mylan caught serious heat in 2016 when it jacked up the price of a two-pack to $600, or five times what it cost 10 years before. Israel-based Teva says it plans to launch the product as soon as possible, though it provided no specifics about a date or a possible price. Mylan has its own generic version of the device on the market for $300 per two-pack, and CNBC says the price probably won't drop substantially below that until multiple approved generics hit the market. (Mylan's CEO had to fend off comparisons to Martin Shkreli.)
– By the time trick-or-treating ends tonight, Americans will have spent a record-breaking $2.3 billion on this year's Halloween candy, according to the National Confectioner's Association. Much like costume sales, candy sales appear to be impervious to the poor economic climate: LiveScience reports that they keep rising 1% to 3% each year. How much of that is candy corn? About 35 million pounds. The good news is, if you don't want your child to eat his or her entire allotment of said candy in one evening, it may very well last forever—or at least until next Halloween. Since candy is high in sugar and low in moisture, it has a long shelf life, Slate explains. Pure chocolate lasts two years or more, although it will only be at peak quality for one of those years, but other candy bar ingredients, like nuts, go bad more quickly. (Click to see how much Americans planned to spend on costumes this year.)
– In the past 50 years, the US smoking rate has fallen from 40% to about 18%. That suggests the habit and the health problems associated with it are easing, yet more than a quarter of residents still smoke in some US cities. The US metropolitan areas (none of them major ones) with the highest smoking rates, per 24/7 Wall St.: Fort Smith, Ark.-Okla.: 28.3% Lafayette, La.: 28.3% Erie, Pa.: 28.2% Kingsport-Bristol-Bristol, Tenn.-Va.: 28% Fayetteville, NC: 27.8% Spartanburg, SC: 27.6% Canton-Massillon, Ohio: 27.5% Huntington-Ashland, W. Va.-Ky.-Ohio: 27.2% Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, NC: 25.4% Winston-Salem, NC: 25% Click for the full list or see the US cities with the worst diets.
– You'll find the name of Roger Gilbert listed as volunteer fire chief in the small Pennsylvania town of Spartansburg. In fact, the 43-year-old just got re-elected. The problem, though, is that you'll also find his name listed in the state's Megan's Law database for sex offenders, reports the Corry Journal. Back in 2001, Gilbert was convicted of "involuntary deviate sexual intercourse" with a 4-year-old girl and served a 5- to 10-year prison sentence. Gilbert says he's a changed man—"that was 20 years ago"—but his re-election is drawing plenty of attention after the story was picked up nationally by the AP. Spartansburg is about 40 miles southeast of Erie, notes PhillyVoice, which points out that Gilbert was elected twice to his post as chief by his fellow firefighters, not the public. (Only about 300 people live in the town.) "The firemen have always elected their own officers and that's how it's always been done," Mayor Ann Louise Wagner tells the Journal. "We don't question their decisions." (Gilbert might see a change in his passport the next time he renews.)
– Three New Zealand cows whose predicament captured the interest people around the world after they became stranded on a small island of grass following a powerful earthquake have been rescued, the AP reports. The two cows and a calf were rescued after a farmer and some helpers dug a track to them and brought them out, reports Newshub, which first filmed the cows stuck on the patch of grass near the township of Kaikoura after the magnitude 7.8 quake triggered landslides around them. The farmer says the cows were part of a group of 14 that survived, though many more are believed lost. The farmer tells Newshub that he would have liked to rescue the trio sooner, but it wasn't clear whether there was going to be another quake. After being rescued, the cows "desperately needed water, cows don't like living without water so that was the first requirement, and I think one or two had lost calves in the earthquake so they were a bit distressed," but they are now safe, he says. The farmer says the fault line runs right through his farm. "It was very steep limestone bluff covered in lovely pasture a week ago and now it's all in the gully," he says.
– The Ferguson police got to test-drive a new device over the weekend: body cameras, which officials hope will show a clearer picture of what happens during police incidents like the ones that occurred during the Ferguson protests. About 50 cameras, which are positioned on officers' uniforms to enable up-close audio and video recording, were given to local law enforcement by two manufacturers and tried out on Saturday during the most recent Ferguson march, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "[Officers] are really enjoying them [and] trying to get used to using them," says Tom Jackson, Ferguson's chief of police. The subject of body surveillance equipment for cops has become a hot topic since the shooting death of Michael Brown. Although some critics claim the cameras might be an invasion of privacy, law enforcement agencies and the ACLU are all for them, reports Reuters. Another St. Louis-area police department has already approved buying the devices for its force, notes the Post-Dispatch, and NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said at a news conference last week that his department is "actively looking" to use the technology, reports PoliceOne. It looks like other departments may be following suit: Digital Ally, one of the companies that supplied the Ferguson police with its cameras, says it has witnessed a "fivefold" jump in camera inquiries since Brown's death, notes Reuters.
– Washington might be Hollywood for ugly people, but this year DC went as viral as any A-lister. Politico runs down the highlights in social media, from the year that brought us binders full of badass secretaries, empty chairs, and more: Bronco Bama and Mitt Romney: 4-year-old Abbie Evans' video meltdown went viral late in the election cycle as a bitterly split nation found one thing we could agree on—We're "tired of Bronco Bama and Mitt Romney!" 'Four More Years': President Obama affirmed his victory on Election Night by tweeting a photo of the first couple hugging—a pic that quickly became the most retweeted ever. 'Binders full of women': Feminists pounced and Amazon was flooded with snarky binder reviews after Mitt Romney's debate gaffe, which ended up as one of the quotes of the year. Texts from Hillary: A random photo of the badass-looking secretary of State texting on a military plane went viral, spawning a website, numerous captions, and even getting Clinton herself in on the joke. Go ahead, make Politico's day and get the full list here.
– Michael Dunn, the man who is going to jail over killing an apparently unarmed teen in an argument over loud music, appears like he's aiming to be even less popular than George Zimmerman. In jailhouse phone calls Dunn made soon after shooting 17-year-old Jordan Davis but just released by prosecutors yesterday, a sometimes laughing Dunn says, "I’m the [expletive deleted] victim here. I was the one who was victimized. I’m the victor but I was the victim too." Dunn made similar statements during the trial, indicating he feared for his life, ABC News reports. In another call, he makes a bizarre analogy while talking to fiancé Rhonda Rouer: "I was the one that was being preyed upon and I fought back. It’s not quite the same but it made me think of like the old TV shows and movies where like how the police used to think when a chick got raped going, 'Oh, it’s her fault because of the way she dressed.' I'm like, 'So it’s my fault (laughing) because I asked them to turn their music down. I got attacked and I fought back because I didn’t want to be a victim and now I'm in trouble. I refused to be a victim and now I'm incarcerated." And in one call, CBS News reports, Dunn complained about being kept "in a room with them animals," and later says, "I was in a room with three black guys." Salon points out that in previously released letters, Dunn wrote, "This jail is full of blacks and they all act like thugs … This may sound a bit radical, but if more people would arm themselves and kill these f---ing idiots when they’re threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior."
– After the story of a woman battling cancer while pregnant with twins made headlines, a record number of people signed up to find out if they could donate bone marrow to her—and now Susie Rabaca has found a perfect match. Rabaca, already a mother of three and due to give birth to her twins Dec. 6, needed a 100% match to treat aggressive acute myeloid leukemia. "For me to find one and for it to be 10 out of 10 at that is amazing. Nothing better in the world right now," the Los Angeles 36-year-old tells 6 ABC. She tells the Daily Breeze it's a "miracle." Out of 30 million people on the worldwide registry, none was a match for Rabaca until her story went viral. She's part Caucasian and part Latino, making it more difficult to find a full match. Within days of Rabaca's story first airing on TV, more than 50,000 people had signed up on Be the Match. "Only 3% of our registry is mixed ethnicity and so it can really difficult to find a matching donor," says a Be the Match rep. "The fact that we have identified a potential match for her is really exciting." The anonymous donor is still undergoing testing. Rabaca's bone marrow transplant is tentatively planned for Jan. 9. (More on her story here.)
– Introducing the new king of the dinosaurs, at least in terms of size. Researchers in the Patagonia region of Argentina found a brute they've named Dreadnoughtus, and they're laying claim to it being the largest land animal whose size can be accurately measured—thanks mainly to the fact that they found 70% of a skeleton. Some highlights of the study in Scientific Reports. Dimensions: It was 85 feet long and weighed 130,000 pounds. Dreadnoughtus had a 37-foot-long neck that enabled the plant-eater to feast without having to move around much. Also: It was still growing when it died about 77 million years ago. Context: "To put [the dino's 65-ton size] in perspective, an African elephant is about five tons, T. rex is eight tons, Diplodocus is 18 tons, and a Boeing 737 is around 50 tons," says study author Kenneth Lacovara of Drexel University in the Washington Post. Demise: The big guy and a smaller companion got stuck in something akin to quicksand, which is why the bones are so well preserved. Name: Dreadnoughtus means "fear nothing." The full name is Dreadnoughtus schrani, with "schrani" an homage to tech entrepreneur Adam Schran, who helped fund the research, notes the New York Times. New king coming? Maybe. Researchers think a cousin in the titanosaur group named Argentinosaurus might have been bigger, reports Discovery. They just need to collect enough bones to prove it. Another recent study says a meteor strike's "bad timing" is to blame for dinosaurs' mass extinction.
– "The documents have circulated for months and acquired a kind of legendary status among journalists, lawmakers, and intelligence officials who have seen them." So writes BuzzFeed in introducing the 35-page dossier it published Tuesday night that alleges Russia has compromising information, both financial and personal, on President-elect Donald Trump. Their publication raises some big questions about journalistic ethics: Why did BuzzFeed decide to pull the trigger on publishing in full (in its words) "unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations"? Why now? Why hadn't other outlets (Mother Jones did quote from it in October)? Some perspective: From the horse's mouth: BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith in an email explains what went into the decision to publish the dossier, concluding, the move "reflects how we see the job of reporters in 2017." At Slate, Will Oremus takes a positional view. Though he says Smith places BuzzFeed within the mainstream media, "he was acting here in a different tradition": that born of the Internet and blogs "in which sensitive and embarrassing information about public figures is readily disclosed" under a public-has-a-right-to-know rallying cry. At the Atlantic, David A. Graham sees that cry as "an abdication of the basic responsibility of journalism." Heaping information into the public's lap is not the reporter's job, he writes. "It is to gather information, sift through it, and determine what is true and what is not." Here, for instance, is New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet's explanation of its own decision: "We, like others, investigated the allegations and haven't corroborated them, and we felt we're not in the business of publishing things we can’t stand by." As for that corroboration, Lawfare makes this point: "This is a document about meetings that either took place or did not take place, stays in hotels that either happened or didn’t, travel that either happened or did not happen. It should be possible to know whether at least some of these allegations are true or false." ProPublica President Richard Tofel suggests the publication an hour prior to BuzzFeed's dump of a CNN story that reported Trump and President Obama had received a two-page summary of the reports last week, changes the game. He tweeted BuzzFeed "kudos ... Once CNN story out, citizens should have evidence to consider for themselves." Hogwash, writes Margaret Sullivan at the Washington Post. "It’s never been acceptable to publish rumor and innuendo. And none of the circumstances surrounding this episode—not CNN’s story, not Trump’s dubious history with Russia, not the fact that the intelligence community made a report on it—should change that ethical rule."
– Thursday marks an awful anniversary for families of the nearly 300 girls kidnapped from their school in Nigeria: It's been exactly two years since Boko Haram staged the mass abduction in Chibok. Now, a video has emerged that appears to show some of the girls, a "proof of life" video apparently taken for use in negotiations, reports CNN, which obtained it. The clip shows 15 of the girls stating their names, and one says that "all" the girls are well. Families and friends confirm it's legit. "The moment I saw them and recognized their faces—Saratu Ayuba, Jummai Mutah, and Kwazigu Hamman—I started crying, with tears of joy rolling down from my eyes, thanking God for their lives," one girl who managed to escape tells the AP. However, it's not clear when the video was shot. One of the girls in it states that she is speaking in December 2015, but the Nigerian government says it may have been taken soon after the kidnapping and thus means little. "As long as we have not closed our search for the girls, of course we’ll keep talking," a government official tells the New York Times. But "most of these claims, they turn out not to be true." The militant group kidnapped 276 girls, but about 50 managed to escape fairly quickly. The rest have not been seen since. "My Saratu!" one mother says of her now 17-year-old daughter, upon seeing her in the video. "If I could, I would have removed her from the screen."
– A coalition of rabbis won't hold its annual presidential conference call this year, accusing President Trump of showing support for "those who advocate anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia," ABC News reports. Per the Washington Post, the coalition—which includes the Rabbinical Assembly, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and others—canceled the conference call with a joint statement Wednesday over Trump's comments on Charlottesville, which the rabbis called "so lacking in moral leadership and empathy for the victims of racial and religious hatred that we cannot organize such a call this year." The coalition states the "Nazis, alt-right, and white supremacists" in Charlottesville "must be roundly condemned at all levels." George W. Bush and Bill Clinton talked with rabbinical groups ahead of the Jewish high holidays, and a conference call with hundreds of rabbis was held every year during the Obama administration, the New York Times reports. The call was typically free of "raw politics" and a chance for rabbis to discuss the high holidays and ask the president questions. Rabbi Jonah Pesner says the rabbis would have liked the opportunity to hear encouraging words from the current president; instead, Trump "has given anti-Semites comfort and aid." The organizations that pulled out of the call represent 4,000 rabbis and congregations. The move suggests Trump may have a very hard time gaining support among American Jews.
– Pet grooming is an unregulated business and requires no license, and a PETA spokesperson tells the San Francisco Chronicle that the organization gets complaints "all the time" from people who say their pets were injured or even killed during grooming at PetSmart. Now a California couple whose dachshund Henry died at a San Mateo PetSmart in May are filing a wrongful death lawsuit against the retailer and a groomer not for money, they say, but for "systematic" changes. "We want these people to be trained," says Stefan Zier, who with his partner Terrie Peacock has been mourning Henry's death ever since. "I was helpless—he was dying right in front of us," Peacock says. "It's been a living nightmare." According to police, groomer Juan Zarate emerged three minutes after taking the 1-year-old dog into the grooming room for a routine nail trimming to say that Henry was having a medical emergency. The dog had two broken ribs and a punctured lung, was bleeding out of his mouth, and died in minutes. Zarate, who was charged with felony animal cruelty after police ruled that his "deliberate actions ... likely contributed to the animal's death," pleaded not guilty, posted bail, and is still awaiting trial, according to the couple's attorney. They allege that since 2010, reports of animal abuse at the national chain range from severe cuts and overheating to strangulation, which is how an autopsy ruled Henry died, reports CBS Local. (One man sued PetSmart for $1 million over a bit of dog poop.)
– It's a line that has likely helped earn LMFAO piles of cash ... but all it got a 6-year-old Colorado boy is a three-day suspension for sexual harassment. First-grader D'Avonte Meadows apparently voiced the line "I'm sexy and I know it" to a female student while in the lunch line. And he didn't even sing it—"I only just said the song," he tells 7News. His mom is none too pleased, and explains that she sees things like "fondling ... looking up her skirt" as sexual harassment, not quoting an MTV favorite. "They're going to look at him like he’s a pervert. And it’s like, that’s not fair to him." Sable Elementary School issued a statement saying it couldn't discuss the case; the district's code on sexual harassment refers to acts that have "negative" effects on the "learning or work of others." His mom says D'Avonte got in trouble for saying the same line to the same girl last month (that time, booty shaking was apparently involved) and the assistant principal spoke to him. But the AP notes that she questions whether her son knows anything about sexual harassment. "I'm going to definitely have to sit with him and see if he understands exactly what the song means."
– King Tut’s dagger is out of this world—or at least it was at some point. Italian and Egyptian researchers teamed up to analyze the blade found in the boy king’s sarcophagus (placed on his right thigh) using portable fluorescence spectrometry. They found that the iron used to make the dagger came from a meteor, reports Discovery News. (As Gizmodo puts it: "King Tut Had a Space Dagger.") "Since its discovery in 1925, the meteoritic origin of the iron dagger blade ... has been the subject of debate and previous analyses yielded controversial results," the researchers write in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science. However, the recent analysis "strongly supports its meteoritic origin." The tipoff? Nickel, researcher Daniela Comelli tells Discovery News. While many iron artifacts have a maximum of 4% nickel, the blade of Tut’s dagger (complete with a gold handle and decorated gold sheath) contains nearly 11%. And then there’s the cobalt concentration, a slim 0.58%. "The nickel and cobalt ratio in the dagger blade is consistent with that of iron meteorites,” Comelli says. Researchers also think they may have identified the meteor the iron came from. Of the 20 they looked at, just one's nickel and cobalt measurements are in the ballpark. That meteor, called Kharga, was discovered in 2000 on a limestone plateau about 150 miles west of Alexandria. The researchers say the quality of the blade indicates that Egyptians of the 14th century BC already were skilled ironsmiths. And then, a linguistic insight: The researchers note a "composite term" introduced one century later means "iron of the sky," and "suggests that the ancient Egyptians ... were aware that these rare chunks of iron fell from the sky already ... anticipating Western culture by more than two millennia." (Egypt has been accused of hiding the truth about Tut's tomb.)
– Four more crew members on the sunken South Korean ferry were detained today, meaning that all 15 people involved in navigating the doomed boat are now in custody, the AP reports. All of them are accused of negligence and failure to help passengers, 115 of whom are still missing with 187 confirmed dead. But one of those arrested today says he and four other crew members broke windows and saved six passengers who had been stuck in cabins. Of the 174 survivors, 22 are members of the 29-person crew. The seven surviving crew members who were not arrested had non-marine jobs, like chef or steward. The search was suspended today due to weather, but officials say divers have reached two large rooms that may hold many of the dead. Yesterday, divers found 48 bodies crammed in a single cabin. Wrenching stories continue to come out: The body of the boy who first raised the alarm, calling an emergency number to report the ferry sinking, was found Wednesday. His father says the boy did not have time to call his parents after that call, Reuters reports. "I was so angry at the reality that all I can do is look at the sea and pray," he says, "but I am so grateful that he has been found and he is back. ... I am so proud of him." A fisherman who helped save passengers—he estimates he pulled 25 from the water—says he's still haunted by the screams, CNN reports. "It was hell. Agonizing," he says. "There were a lot of people and not enough boats, people in the water yelling for help. The ferry was sinking fast."
– Apparently, not everyone in Congress is rich. The Washington Post compiled a list of the 25 lawmakers with the lowest net worth, based on 2010 disclosures analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics. Here are the "top" 5, all of whom are in the red. (There's no explanation given for the debt): Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Florida): Negative $4.7 million Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Tennessee): Negative $3.3 million Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-Texas): Negative $2.5 million Former Rep. John Salazar (D-Colorado): Negative $474,501 Rep. Laura Richardson (D-California): Negative $383,496 Check out the rest here.
– Virgins everywhere might have Vladimir Putin's back, but as the Russian strongman prepares to assume the presidency in two weeks, wife Lyudmila has been conspicuously absent from his side—and tongues are wagging furiously. Is she locked away in a monastery, wonders the Daily Mail? Or shall we believe the Huffington Post, which picked up a report that she's pregnant with the couple's third child and resting in a Berlin hospital? Still other rumors have Lyudmila Putin shuffled offstage while her husband pursues torrid affairs with either former spy/current lingerie model Anna Chapman or gymnast Alina Kabayeva, with whom he's alleged to have a love child. Lyudmila last appeared publicly to vote in the March 4 elections; she has only appeared with Putin twice in the last two years. But some experts say that's typical for Russian wives, who are rarely seen and never heard: "For western people, maybe it's strange. For Russians, it's totally normal," says one. In other fun Putin news, the Vlad today announced that he's stepping down as chairman of his fraud-tainted United Russia party. "In line with political practice here, the president stands above parties," Putin said, according to Reuters. But not former presidents: Putin suggested that soon-to-be-PM Dmitri Medvedev fill the post.
– The United States is at its unhappiest level since the annual World Happiness Report was first released in 2012. This year, the US came in No. 18, down four spots from last year, the Washington Post reports. The report was released Wednesday by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, an initiative of the United Nations, in advance of the UN's International Day of Happiness March 20. It ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels, taking into account six factors: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, social freedom, generosity, and absence of corruption. Income is the biggest variable, but an economist who co-edited the list notes that a sense of belonging and other societal factors also play major roles. The US, for example, struggles with obesity, substance abuse, and other factors despite significant economic growth. This year's 10 happiest countries:
– Dozens of Dutch football fans in miniskirts were escorted from a World Cup stadium and questioned for hours over what FIFA soccer officials say was an ambush marketing stunt. The 36 women wore orange dresses sold by Dutch beer maker Bavaria. The outfits had no branding on them apart from a small tag, but FIFA officials say the women were being used by the Dutch brewery to undercut Budweiser's exclusive sponsorship deal, the Guardian reports. "They tried to scare us by telling us that we had committed a crime, and that we had broken a law and that we could get six months jail for breaking this law," one of the women said. "Some girls were really scared, they were crying and calling their parents." A British TV pundit was fired for having supplied the miniskirted crew with tickets. Photos of the young women were splashed all over the front pages of South African newspapers the next day, proving the dangers of trying to crack down on ambush marketing, analysts tell AP.
– Gunfire rang out at a Tennessee bus stop where South Chattanooga schoolkids were waiting Tuesday. The terrifying scene unfolded as a vehicle approached the bus stop around 8:20am, police tell the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Some children were apparently alerted to the danger seconds before five to 20 shots rang out. No one was injured as the students dove behind houses and hid in porches, police say, though several houses were hit by bullets. The school bus arrived shortly after the shooting and the children "jumped on that bus like it was the safest place to be," says a witness. Police, meanwhile, said they were searching for an Infiniti, which they apparently found at an apartment complex. WTVC reports officers took two people into custody and were searching for a third suspect. The Times reports just one person was detained. Five people have now been shot in five incidents in the area over the last five days. "It ain't over," says a resident.
– Go big or go home—or, in the case of a bunch of drug smugglers nailed in what New Zealand is calling its biggest drug bust ever, to the big house (aka prison). Per the BBC, New Zealand police found 77 pounds worth of cocaine bricks—with a street value of up to $14 million, according to the New Zealand Herald—crammed into a most-unusual vessel: a sequin-adorned statue of a horse's head. The head, which the Guardian describes as a "less than inconspicuous sculpture" that weighed nearly 900 pounds and concealed the coke bricks in the base of its neck, was intercepted by New Zealand cops and customs officials after being shipped from Mexico to Auckland in May. "This is a significant win for New Zealand," a head detective says. "We should be proud to have detected it at the earliest of stages." Cops have already arrested two Mexicans, ages 29 and 44, and a 56-year-old American and are now trying to determine if Auckland was meant to be the final stop or if the horse head and its powdery cargo were supposed to go to another destination. A Massey University researcher speculates the coke may have been meant for the country's east coast. The Guardian notes that cocaine finding its way into New Zealand is an uncommon occurrence due to meticulous border control and because it's far from most major overseas drug markets. "What this find tells us … is that there is obviously a demand for it," a senior sergeant says, per a press release. "While it's possible that this statue may have been sent on to another country … there's every possibility that the cocaine was destined for the New Zealand market and we would be naive to think otherwise." All three suspects are facing charges of importing and possession for supply of a Class A drug, which could lead to life in prison. (Colombia recently had its biggest coke bust ever.)
– More shocking NSA news that shouldn't be shocking to any resident of planet Earth: It turns out that the whiz kids over at the National Security Agency have the capability to access a broad range of data on most smartphones out there, including iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android devices. This according to "top secret NSA documents" cited in an exclusive report in der Spiegel, which the AP notes is co-bylined by Laura Poitras. Yes, the NSA can access data that includes your contact lists, SMS messages, notes, and GPS information; the agency has also reportedly set up teams to deal with the specifics of different operating systems. The documents don't appear to indicate mass spying, but rather targeted individuals. This is particularly bad news for BlackBerry, notes Gizmodo, which has long touted its email as ultra-secure. The NSA documents do note that it was temporarily unable to hack BlackBerries, but that a change in RIM's data compression in March 2010 restored access. The response of the NSA team dedicated to BlackBerry: "Champagne!" RIM is refusing comment, other than to deny it had installed a "'back door' pipeline to our platform." Spiegel's full report is due out tomorrow. Meanwhile, iPhone users shouldn't be too smug: The report says the NSA had access to at least 38 iPhone features.
– Justin Timberlake and Playboy really get into it in a new, and very long, interview. (Sample line: “Listen, you’re touching on a deep issue for me.”) Highlights: On his new movie, Friends With Benefits: “I couldn’t tell you the number of people in the crew watching me and my bare ass, but it was a lot.” On working with ex Cameron Diaz in another upcoming movie, Bad Teacher: “Honestly, the only thing I was worried about before I said yes to that movie was being asked that question. I knew at some point we’d have to promote the film and people would say, ‘Oh my God, that’s so weird that you two dated for four years.’” On rumors of flings with Scarlett Johansson, Mila Kunis, and Olivia Wilde: “None of it’s true, so I shouldn’t even dignify it with an answer. … I’m not going to avoid spending time with people because someone who doesn’t know me makes assumptions about what’s going on. That’s bullshit.” On why he keeps dating famous women: “The girl from the dry cleaners is not going to understand how I feel about the work schedule and pressures I have.” On his diet for the Friends With Benefits nude scenes: It “mostly came down to not drinking as much beer. And you know, beer is good, so that was hard.” On whether he would ever publicly sing an ‘N Sync song again: “I don’t think so.” On his fashion regrets: “The cornrows I wore with ‘N Sync. That was pretty bad.” (He’s not a fan of his infamous denim suit, either.) Click for more from the interview, including his defense of ex Britney Spears' dancing.
– In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, Officer John Moynihan helped save a life. Now he's fighting for his own after being shot "point-blank right in the face," says Boston Police Commissioner William Evans. Police say a traffic stop in Roxbury spiraled darkly on Friday night: After reports of shots being fired, the Boston Globe reports that six gang unit officers stopped a Nissan Murano around 6:40pm to speak with the driver and two passengers, all male. "You just clearly see the driver come out ... and his hand's going up as he comes out," says Evans of the "unprovoked" shooting. Moynihan was shot below his right eye, with the bullet lodging behind his right ear. Suspect Angelo West, 41, was killed after police returned fire. Moynihan is currently in a medically induced coma and listed as in critical condition. "They worried about bleeding in and around his brain ... and want to see how he's progressing before they make any determination of whether to have surgery," says Evans per CNN. The "highly decorated" former Army Ranger's list of accomplishments is a long one considering his 34 years: In addition to being "active" at the finish line after the Boston Marathon bombs went off, he helped save Richard Donohue Jr., the officer who lost all his blood after his femoral vein was severed during an exchange of fire with Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He's racked up eight commissioner’s commendations in his six years on the force, and was in May awarded a Top Cop Award at the White House. CNN reports his girlfriend and family are by his side. As for West, he only recently ended probation tied to shots he fired at police in 2001. It's the first shooting of a Boston police officer since Dec. 7, 2013, notes the Globe.
– John McCain appears to have handed his feud with President Trump down to the next generation, reports USA Today, and the latter took to Twitter to apparently respond to Meghan McCain's swipe at his campaign slogan while eulogizing her father on Saturday. "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN," he tweeted Saturday afternoon from his golf course in Virginia, in response to her statement that "The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great." The anti-Trump vibes coming out of the funeral had his supporters fuming, notes Politico, with former adviser Katrina Pierson tweeting that unlike John McCain, "@realDonaldTrump ran for @POTUS ONE time and WON. Some people will never recover from that." Meanwhile, over at the New Yorker, Susan B. Glasser calls the funeral not "just another funeral of an elder statesman whose passing would be marked by flowery words about the end of an era. It was a meeting of the Resistance, under vaulted ceilings and stained-glass windows."
– French President Francois Hollande fulfilled a major campaign promise today by signing into law a measure legalizing gay marriage, reports Reuters. The first same-sex weddings can be held in 10 days, notes the BBC. Opponents in the heavily Catholic country aren't done protesting the move, however, and plan another demonstration on May 26. France becomes the 14th country to allow gay marriages, and Dawn.com rounds up the others: Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Argentina, Denmark, Uruguay, and New Zealand. (In the US, Minnesota recently became the 12th state to legalize it.)
– Three days lost in the "back country" around Whistler, British Columbia, have left a snowboarder "cold," but apparently no worse for the wear. Twenty-one-year-old Julie Abrahamsen was found yesterday by searchers who spotted her tracks from a helicopter, reports ABC News. "Searchers followed the trail and at approximately 1:30pm located the missing snowboarder in cold, but good, condition," reads a statement from the Whistler Royal Canadian Mounted Police. She had last been seen Wednesday near Blackcomb Mountain; a roommate reported her missing on Friday, triggering a search. Abrahamsen was found in what the CBC calls "extremely rugged terrain" more than three miles beyond the ski boundary. "These moments are big for us because we don't get enough of them quite simply," says a Search and Rescue coordinator. "To find someone with a strong spirit who is able to endure the past three nights of weather—that's a big win for all of us." Officials are trying to figure out how Abrahamsen got so far astray. "It's not an area that would've been accessible by just riding your snowboard out," says an RCMP rep.
– Here's something we don't hear much: good news on the nation's childhood obesity rate. The CDC says it's down among kids ages 2 to 5 by 43% over the last decade, reports Time. That's not just a mild surprise, it's "stunning," declares the New York Times. Specifically, the percentage of kids in that group who were obese dropped from 14% in 2004 to 8% in 2012. “This is the first time we’ve seen any indication of any significant decrease in any group,” says the author of the new report to be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “It was exciting.” Of course, the federal survey shows that obesity in the overall population remains a problem, reports NBC News, with about 33% of adults and 17% of all kids and teens classified as such. But the drop among the very young obviously bodes well. What's going on? The stories cite a slew of potential factors, from fewer sugary drinks, to increased breastfeeding, to better physical-education programs at school, to Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" initiative. In a statement, Obama said she was "thrilled" at the improved numbers. (A recent study show why it's important: Kids are who obese in kindergarten are more likely to remain that way as adults.)
– "These materials, taken in their entirety, provide the most complete public picture of the events surrounding the meeting to date," said Sen. Chuck Grassley in a statement Wednesday morning, per the BBC. Their entirety is a substantial one: The Senate Judiciary Committee released 2,500 pages of testimony and exhibits related to the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump's son and others with a Russian attorney—a meeting that's been a focus of Robert Mueller's probe. Music promoter Rob Goldstone testified that he told Donald Trump Jr. via email that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya had dirt on Hillary Clinton because his client, Russian pop star and developer Emin Agalarov, had been adamant about securing the meeting and because he was told Veselnitskaya was both "well connected" and had "damaging material," reports the Washington Post. Some initial takeaways:
– South Carolina's soon-to-be-congressman, Mark Sanford, hit Fox News Sunday this morning, telling Chris Wallace that "the past is the past" and that he's looking "forward to working with the Republican team," reports Politico. “You probably learn more from the valleys of life than you do from the mountain tops,” he said. But Wallace wasn't quite ready to skip off into the future, notes the National Review, asking Sanford if his four sons have accepted fiance Maria Belen Chapur, if the pair had set a date, and if she would join him in Washington. The awkward line of questioning, and Sanford's refusal to engage, eventually led to Wallace saying, "I feel like I'm the National Enquirer." Responded Sanford, "Exactly, is this Fox News or the National Enquirer?"
– You're not imagining things: Gas prices could soon fall as low as $1 per gallon at some US gas stations, USA Today reports. Some Midwest states—Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Indiana, Ohio, and Kansas—are already seeing the lowest prices in 12 years. And one in four US gas stations is currently selling gas for $1.50 per gallon or less, according to Time. “Incredible as it sounds, we wouldn’t be shocked to see a few stations in these states as low as 99 cents a gallon,” says one expert. As of Tuesday afternoon, the nationwide average was $1.72 per gallon. That's approximately 7 cents less than last week, 26 cents less than last month, and 46 cents less than last year. It's the lowest average price the US has seen in six years. The low prices—caused by a combination of falling demand and increasing production in the US and Middle East—are good news for consumers but bad news for oil companies. Oil prices hit 13-year lows last month, and the stocks of companies like BP and Exxon Mobil were down Tuesday. But not everyone is enjoying the savings. CNN reports the average price of gas in California is around $2.50 per gallon. That's due to both a larger-than-average gas tax and cleaner-than-average gasoline. California's requirement for gasoline that creates fewer emissions keeps prices higher but has made a huge impact on the state's air quality. One expert warns the rest of the country better enjoy low gas prices while it can. Refineries not turning a profit at these prices may close down for maintenance, sending gas supplies down and prices up.
– A survivor of the ambush on US Special Ops forces in Niger offers new details of the Oct. 4 attack to ABC News, declaring that Sgt. La David Johnson was killed while going "above and beyond" to defend others in the group. "He died fighting for his brothers on his team," the survivor says. "He grabbed any and every weapon available to him. The guy is a true war hero." A senior US intelligence official also spoke to ABC News, raising questions about why the team had a second mission added late in the day despite a second team being unable to join them as planned. The team was originally on a reconnaissance mission to talk to local leaders, both sources say, but then a kill-or-capture objective focused on a high-value target with ties to al-Qaeda and ISIS was added on. Multiple US officials confirmed that the team was looking for a high-value target to NBC News as well. "They should have been up and back in a day. Because they were up there so f---ing long on a mission that morphed, they were spotted, surveilled, and ultimately hit," the official who spoke to ABC says. The team of 12 Americans and 30 Nigerien soldiers was out for more than a full day and was on its way back when it was asked to turn around and find the high-value target, the sources say; that directive did not change even when a second US Special Forces team that was supposed to meet up with the original team could not. The team found nothing at the target location and was again on its way back when they stopped to eat, and a village elder who met with the US soldiers was "obviously and deliberately trying to stall them," per both sources. The team also saw two motorcycle riders watching them and then quickly leaving the village. Shortly after the team departed, they were attacked.
– Sara Gilbert, who played Roseanne's daughter on the hit sitcom, is engaged to Linda Perry, the former 4 Non Blondes singer, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Gilbert, who now co-hosts The Talk, told the story on the show yesterday—and it's pretty epic. On a picnic, a street musician started playing a song the couple loves. Then Perry asked him to play another favorite, which is "really obscure and this guy wouldn't know it, but magically he knows it," Gilbert recounted. Then nearby picnickers started playing yet another love song, on string instruments that had been hidden. At that point, Perry started layering on T-shirts with "will," "you," "marry," "me," and "?" printed on them, and finally grabbed the ring. But that wasn't all: Gilbert was then surprised by a few other guests, including family, friends ... and John Waite, who launched into a rendition of "Missing You." Gilbert, who came out in 2010, called it "the most amazing proposal ever." She has two kids with previous partner Alison Adler, but the two split in 2011 after 10 years together, ABC News reports.
– Alex Trebek has a "slight medical problem," in his words—but it's serious enough that Jeopardy! is now on hiatus. NBC News reports the 77-year-old game show host underwent brain surgery to remove blood clots on Dec. 16 at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and is now recuperating. The blood clots, also known as a subdural hematoma, came about after Trebek fell in October. Per ABC News, he announced the news himself in a video posted to the show's Facebook page on Thursday. "Prognosis is excellent, and I expect to be back in the studio and taping more Jeopardy! programs very, very soon," said a baseball-cap-wearing Trebek in the video. The show tapes its episodes ahead of time, so viewers shouldn't notice much of a disruption in the schedule, though the show's college championships will be pushed to April. Trebek "is expected to make a full and complete recovery," show producer Sony Pictures Entertainment says in a statement, noting Trebek is due back in the middle of this month.
– A former Vermont gubernatorial candidate says she had a 60-foot by 24-foot "screen" built so she wouldn't have to see her neighbor's home. Ruth Dwyer tells WPTZ-TV she's lived on her farm in rural Thetford for more than 40 years. Two years ago, a new home was built across the street. Dwyer says one of her horses was startled by a child on the neighbor's driveway, prompting her to plant cedar trees to block her view of the home. She installed the "screen" while they grow. Zoning officials have since fined Dwyer $200 each day she doesn't have a permit for the structure, which has added up to more than $15,000 so far. Dwyer, denied a permit in February, says her screen doesn't violate any rules. She unsuccessfully ran for governor in 1998 and 2000. See video of the massive screen at WPTZ.
– A sad end to a strange story: Bryan Johnson, a former police officer accused of calling in a bomb threat and faking a shootout earlier this year, was found dead in his Millis, Mass., home Thanksgiving morning—and authorities believe he died by his own hand, USA Today reports. The 24-year-old faced a potential sentence of more than 40 years in prison over the bizarre events of Sept. 2, when he allegedly fired his personal firearm into his own cruiser and told dispatchers a man in a pickup truck had shot at him and fled, reports the Boston Herald. Prosecutors say Johnson, whose vehicle was found burning and crashed into a tree, called in a bomb threat to a local school the same day. The twin hoaxes caused the Boston-area town to be put on lockdown for hours during a huge manhunt, CBS reports. Johnson, a police dispatcher who worked part-time as an officer, was fired after authorities decided there had been a hoax. He was indicted on six charges last week and, according to court records seen by USA Today, was on home confinement at the time of his death. (An Illinois police officer tried to hire a hit man before he staged his own death.)
– Florida is next: Hurricane Irma continued to batter Cuba early Saturday as it powered its way toward the US. In fact, South Florida already has begun to feel the outer bands, reports the Miami Herald. As of 5am Eastern, Irma was 245 miles southeast of Miami's coast and moving at 12mph with sustained winds of 155mph. That puts Irma back in Category 4 status after it briefly regained Category 5 strength late Friday. One small bright spot: The latest forecasts suggests its landfall will be southwest of the heavily populated Miami metro area when it eventually arrives, per the AP. Still, given the breadth of the storm, the entire Florida peninsula braced for a devastating hit. In one of the country's largest evacuations, about 5.6 million people in Florida—more than one-quarter of the state's population—were ordered to leave, and another 540,000 were ordered out on the Georgia coast. Authorities opened hundreds of shelters for people who did not leave. Hotels as far away as Atlanta filled up with evacuees. Meanwhile, Miami International Airport said it has no scheduled flights Saturday and Sunday, reports USA Today. So far, the death toll in the Caribbean from Irma is at 20. Elsewhere in the Atlantic, Hurricane Jose is a Category 4 hurricane, about 190 miles east-southeast of the Northern Leeward Islands. In the Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Katia made landfall late Friday north of Tecolutla, Mexico, and weakened to a tropical storm. By early Saturday morning, it was 135 miles south of Tampico, Mexico, moving sluggishly at only 2 mph.
– Your smartphone's 1080p screen may no longer turn heads if a new tech trend takes hold—to maximize the backside of smartphones, TechCrunch reports. Innovations are occurring mostly on the industry's margins, where quirky products are cropping up and nudging powerhouses like Samsung and Apple into using all that forgotten real estate. A few examples: Jolla's Other Half, an NFC-powered backplate, lets users customize a smartphone's theme and access certain content, like news feeds and product catalogs. The Russian YotaPhone has a rear e-ink screen that can display weather, sports scores, health data, and other data. It can even keep info there (like a map or mobile ticket) when the phone's battery dies. Google's Project Ara prototype smartphone has "modules" on its backside to provide various functions, like a Geiger counter or heart rate monitor—but won't come out until next year at the earliest. Google has patented touch controls for the back of a smartphone, so users can scroll through a book or photos without smudging the screen, Patent Bolt reports. Samsung has added a heart-rate monitor to the back of its S5, and HTC has put a second lens on One M8's backside. And the new, curved LG G Flex has a "self-healing" back cover designed to remove nicks and scratches—but it doesn't always work, reports Global News.
– Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, took a nosedive in a new Reuters poll released four days before the first Democratic primary debate, the Hill reports. Clinton lost 10 points in just five days, dropping from 51% on Oct. 4 to 41% on Friday. According to Newsweek, Clinton's loss amounted to gains for Bernie Sanders (28%) and Joe Biden (20%), who has yet to say whether or not he's even running. The Hill points out Clinton's slide in the poll comes amid ongoing coverage of her personal email account and Benghazi. But it's not all bad news for Clinton. Despite dropping 10 points overall last week, her lead over Sanders actually increased over what it was in September, according to Newsweek.
– Barclays named a new CEO today after a surprisingly brief search, and he couldn't be more different from outgoing CEO Robert Diamond. The Wall Street Journal describes new boss Antony Jenkins as a "mild-mannered Brit," while Fox Business calls him "soft spoken," in sharp and deliberate contrast to the colorful Diamond. Jenkins also isn't an investment banker; he'd been running the bank's retail business. Jenkins says he has a three- to five-year plan to reinvigorate the bank, which has been rocked by scandal. Jenkins "knows the strategy, but he's never been a practicing investment banker," one analyst tells Bloomberg. "That will make people in investment banking nervous." But Jenkins insists he's committed to the unit, which British politicians have decried for its "casino-like" business model. "I am confident that the combination of my own business experience and acumen" and other executives' expertise will be sufficient, he said. Jenkins' salary will be $1.7 million, though performance bonuses could amount to 2.5 times that.
– Higher cancer rates have been linked generally to taller people, but University of Minnesota researchers are reporting a startling find: Men with longer legs have a 42% higher risk of developing colorectal cancer than those with shorter legs, reports Live Science. More specifically, they found that the men with the longest legs (at an average length of 35.4 inches) had a 91% greater risk of colon cancer than men with the shortest legs (at an average length of 31.1 inches). But in women, any differences in risk between the tallest and shortest legs were so small as to be statistically insignificant. They also note that it is leg length in particular, not total body length, where the differences in men arise. The researchers offer up two theories as to why leg length matters. One is that taller people have longer colons and thus more real estate on which cancer can grow. The other, which these findings seem to support, is that the growth hormones that increase leg length may contribute to colon cancer risk. The research hasn't yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, notes Live Science, but it's not all grim news: Researchers in South Korea have observed that a diet rich in nuts appears to reduce colon cancer risks for both men and women, reports Live Science. And WebMD has a small but compelling study that a recently FDA-approved stool-based DNA test may help screen for colon cancer. (Now why are colon cancer rates are up among people younger than 50?)
– San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver says he doesn't want gay players on his team. "I don't do the gay guys, man," he told Artie Lange in an interview. "We don't got no gay people on the team; they gotta get up out of here if they do ... Can't be with that sweet stuff," and "can't be in the locker room," he said. Gay people should stay in the closet while playing and "come out 10 years after that," he said, per Yahoo! News. The team has rejected his comments: "There is no place for discrimination within our organization at any level. We have and always will proudly support the LGBT community." Culliver has since apologized, saying that "the derogatory comments I made yesterday were a reflection of thoughts in my head, but they are not how I feel." He added: "It has taken me seeing them in print to realize that they are hurtful and ugly. Those discriminating feelings are truly not in my heart .... I apologize to those who I have hurt and offended, and I pledge to learn and grow from this experience." The media is reacting: The apology was "half-hearted" and "bizarre," writes Gary Myers in the New York Daily News, noting that the 49ers were the first team to join the "It Gets Better" program for young LGBT people. An advocate for gay people in sports calls Culliver's initial comments "disrespectful, discriminatory, and dangerous, particularly for the young people who look up to him." "There goes a year's worth of progress for gay rights in the NFL," notes Connor Simpson at the Atlantic Wire, pointing to a year in which Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo and Vikings kicker Chris Kluwe have taken a stand for gay rights. On top of that, former 49er Kwame Harris was outed this week after a fight with his ex-boyfriend. "So, sorry, Chris: gay players have been in your locker room before," Simpson writes. It's now clear which team to root for in the Super Bowl if you support gay rights, notes the Daily Intelligencer.
– Confusion around the attack that left four US soldiers dead in Niger earlier this month continues, with the Pentagon investigating whether the soldiers had left a routine patrol to chase insurgents without the proper approval, the New York Times reports. US soldiers say they "noticed" insurgents in the area while conducting a patrol—one the Pentagon says the team has conducted nearly 30 times in the past six months, according to NBC News—but did not chase them. US soldiers say the insurgents later ambushed them. But Nigerien military officials say the team, which included Nigerien soldiers, chased the insurgents across the Mali border only to be ambushed on their way back. A mission to go after insurgents would have required approval from higher-ups and would complicate the Pentagon's claim that the US isn't involved in combat operations in Niger. The conflicting accounts given by US soldiers and the Nigerien military are just one more question surrounding the Oct. 4 attack, questions that include information as basic as what US troops are doing in a remote corner of Niger in the first place. A senior congressional aide briefed on the attack says the whole thing represents a "massive intelligence failure." The aide says the mission was being carried out without any overhead surveillance and without a "quick-reaction force" to step in if things went bad, which they did. He says the attack could have been much worse if French fighter jets hadn't shown up. A Pentagon spokesperson says any talk of intelligence failure is "speculation" while an investigation is still underway. Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports at least 12 Nigerien troops were killed by insurgents in an attack Saturday along the same border with Mali.
– Getting Papa John out of the Papa John's kitchen has done nothing to quell the heat between the pizza chain and its former CEO. A special committee of the chain's board of directors penned a letter Wednesday accusing John Schnatter of "promoting his self-interest at the expense of all others in an attempt to regain control" of the company and making "untrue and disparaging statements," reports Reuters. The letter follows one posted by Schnatter at SavePapaJohns.com in which he said the board in June asked him to replace Steve Ritchie, who "is out of his depth as CEO." He added that Papa John's "has detailed evidence of sexual misconduct, harassment and intimidation by virtually everyone in Steve's inner circle, and relating to board members as well." Without addressing the latter claim in detail, the special committee denied it ever asked Schnatter to replace Ritchie, per CNN. "John Schnatter's assertion that the Board agreed with him that Steve Ritchie 'needed to go' is not true." The letter also claims that Schnatter repeatedly undermined Ritchie's leadership, disregarded the board's request that he steer clear of discussing the NFL anthem controversy, and continued to produce commercials starring him after "independent market research showed that a change in spokesperson and advertising strategy was warranted." The view at the Takeout: "This Papa John’s thing is never going to be over, is it?" (Schnatter's use of the n-word led to the latest trouble.)
– Yanelly "Nelly" Zoller was trying to find candy in her grandma's purse when she stumbled upon a gun, accidentally pulled the trigger, and fatally shot herself in the chest. The Florida 4-year-old was at her grandparents' home Sept. 14 when the tragedy occurred; her father, Shane, arrived to pick her up and take her to a nearby splash pad when he saw police cars at the house. "She just wanted some damn candy," he tells the Tampa Bay Times. Her grandparents were at home at the time, Patch reports. "She was extremely close to them and would get so excited when she got to stay at her nana's house," he adds. "She was attached to her nana's hip." A Tampa police spokesperson tells the Washington Post it appears the shooting was accidental, but an investigation is still underway. Funds are being raised for funeral costs on YouCaring and GoFundMe.
– A rare photograph of 19th-century abolitionist and Underground Railroad hero Harriet Tubman has been sold at a New York City auction for $162,500. Swann Galleries says the circa late-1860s image sold Thursday for a hammer price of $130,000, plus a $32,500 auctioneer fee, the AP reports. The auction also included books, other printed materials, and photos from the slavery and abolition eras. The name of the winning phone bidder hasn't been released. The Tubman photo, which Swann specialist Wyatt Day tells Reuters is "remarkable," shows her seated on a chair and was taken in Auburn in central New York in 1868 or 1869. What makes it unique is that the photo was taken when Tubman was in her 40s, unlike most other pictures that show her when she's much older. "This is what she looked like in her prime Civil War period when she was working as a spy for Lincoln," Day notes. Tubman biographer Kate Clifford Larson says this new look at the famous abolitionist could help the public "reimagine" her. The Maryland-born Tubman led escaped slaves to freedom before and during the Civil War. She settled in Auburn after the war and is buried there.
– Darren Aronofsky's psychological drama Mother! Is a descent into chaos, told through the eyes of a woman whose home, which she shares with her poet husband, is invaded by various guests. Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, and Michelle Pfeiffer, the film has an audience score of 53% on Rotten Tomatoes, though critics are more favorable at 74%. Here's what critics are saying: Like Aronofsky's other films (Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream), Mother! is "assaultive" and clearly "not for everyone." But "viewers willing to accept the challenge will be rewarded with passages embodying extraordinary moods and images" in "another of Aronofsky's ominous extravaganzas," writes Walter Addiego at the San Francisco Chronicle. He applauds the entire "top-notch cast," but especially Lawrence. The actress "proves once again what a supernatural screen presence she is, delivering a performance of transparency, stillness, physical grit and self-sacrificing courage," writes Ann Hornaday at the Washington Post. Mother! on the other hand is an "intriguing but ultimately frustratingly undisciplined experiment … whose sense of claustrophobia becomes woozily stifling," writes Hornaday. An "outlandish climax" is off-putting, to boot. But Lindsey Bahr calls the movie "one of Aronofsky's best." It's "an audacious, bold and fascinating fever dream of a film" and an "allegory for, well, everything," she writes at the AP. It "will get under your skin, that's a guarantee," but the film also has moments that are "funny, human and relatable," writes Bahr, crediting Lawrence's "truly stunning" performance. According to Bahr, she's "never been better." According to Barry Hertz, Mother! is a "once-in-a-lifetime film" that, at the very least, will make viewers feel something. But for fans of Aronofsky, "Mother! is a masterpiece … a frenzied plunge into Aronofsky's deepest fears and humanity's darkest temptations," he writes at the Globe and Mail. "The world is lucky to have Mother! I am lucky to have witnessed it," he adds. "But I am also happy that I will never have to watch it again."
– The elementary school teacher who was fatally shot Saturday while showering in a stranger's home in Washington state may have believed he was in a friend's house, the New York Daily News reports. Prosecutor Michael Dorcy says Nathanial Rosa was staying at a friend's house nearby and had been out "drinking and celebrating." Dorcy says the house belonging to 59-year-old Bruce Fanning has the same floor plan as the house where Rosa was staying and the two homes "are almost identical." Dorcy says Rosa probably thought he was locked out of his friend's house, "but he's dead now so we can't confirm." Fanning was charged with murder on Wednesday, the News Tribune reports. The charge was upgraded from second-degree to first-degree murder based on allegations of premeditation. According to the Kitsap Sun, Fanning found Rosa in the shower and left the house, which he uses for his business, before returning with a gun and allegedly shooting Rosa multiple times. Authorities say it's unclear why Fanning, whose property is adorned with signs warning "trespassers will be shot," didn't call 911 until after shooting Rosa. Fanning says he was afraid for his safety. Investigators are attempting to determine if Rosa was drunk at the time or suffering from hypothermia—his clothes were soaked.
– The Colorado Rockies love their All-Star shortstop Troy Tulowitzki so much that at last night's game the team gave out 15,000 replica jerseys—emblazoned with his name spelled as Tulowizki. The rather large-scale typo was in fact noticed, the Rockies say, but they decided to go ahead with the giveaway anyway, reports ESPN; a new round of jerseys presumably stamped Tulowitzki will be given out in September and fans will be allowed to exchange the flubbed one. That is, if they want to: As one usher tells the AP, many "took the shirt and left. They recognized it was a collector's item. They were gone fast."
– Dick Cheney officially has a new heart, and the jokes are rolling in (most recently, compliments of Jon Stewart). No big surprise that many of them are of the "maybe he'll wake up a Democrat" ilk. Which leads Slate to ponder: "Could a heart transplant actually lead to a change of heart?" In a word, yes. Just don't expect Cheney to cast a vote for Obama come November. Among the "significant physiological and psychological changes" that can occur post-transplant: Not so surprisingly, people can become happier, generally thanks to the fact that they should live longer than they expected to. But that happiness can also stem from the fact that they can eat foods that were previously off-limits, and they typically have more energy. But patients can also suffer from psychological issues brought on as a result of the heart being temporarily replaced by a machine during the operation: This has the potential to cause "transient depression," possibly due to a decrease in oxygen to the brain or the effect of blood cells touching the machine's surfaces. Slate notes that there have been anecdotes of new-heart recipients who say they start behaving like their donor did, though cardiologists typically pooh-pooh this; click to read about one professional dancer who says it happened to her.
– The makers of Soylent say their product takes the stress out of trying to eat well by simplifying the process: Just drink the stuff, get all the nutrients you need, and skip actual food entirely. Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times gave it a shot but found it to be utterly "joyless." Soylent "may offer complete nourishment," he writes, "but only at the expense of the aesthetic and emotional pleasures many of us crave in food." (And the jury is still out on those health claims, but studies are underway.) He describes Soylent as being "like gritty, thinned-down pancake batter, inoffensive and dull" and is skeptical the masses will take to it. His gastrointestinal troubles didn't help the cause, either. "Soylent's creators have forgotten a basic ingredient found in successful tech products, not to mention in most good foods," writes Manjoo. "That ingredient is delight." For an opposing view, see Lee Hutchinson at Ars Technica, who has boxes of the stuff at home. He gets the point made by Manjoo and others, but "not every meal needs to be a festive life-affirming display of cultural pageantry where we march from kitchen to table bearing the carefully plated masterpieces of locally sourced delicacies while hidden speakers blare the 'Circle of Life' song from the Lion King." Sometimes you're busy, and that's where Soylent works. Replacing all your meals with Soylent would be overkill, he writes. "As with all things, moderation is the key." Click for his full column, or for Manjoo's full column.
– There's been a lot of water under the bridge since Donald Trump and Ted Cruz were battling it out for the Republican nomination—but David Hogg is among those trying to make sure people remember the clash. The Parkland school shooting survivor has helped activists in Texas raise thousands of dollars for a mobile billboard reminding Texans of some of Trump's anti-Cruz tweets from 2016, reports USA Today. "Why would the people of Texas support Ted Cruz when he has accomplished absolutely nothing for them. He is another all talk, no action pol!" reads one tweet from Trump, who nicknamed the senator "Lyin' Ted." A GoFundMe fundraiser for the billboard was started by activist Antonio Arellano after Trump promised to support Cruz against Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke, the Washington Post reports. "I'm picking the biggest stadium in Texas we can find" for a pro-Cruz rally in October, Trump tweeted Friday, giving his former rival his "full and total Endorsement." Arellano says the fundraiser quickly surpassed its $6,000 goal and they stopped accepting donations when it hit $9,760. The activists hope to have the billboard on the road within two weeks. (O'Rourke's days in a '90s punk band have helped raise his profile in the surprisingly competitive race.)
– Adrian Peterson has been accused of child abuse, then quickly reinstated, and don't expect him to go to prison, writes Mark Joseph Stern on Slate, because "in much of the United States, beating your own children—even to the point of bodily harm—is perfectly legal." Corporal punishment used to be largely accepted, and it wasn't until fairly recently that we started to sometimes view it as child abuse, Stern writes. Child abuse didn't even appear on mainstream America's radar until the 1960s, when an article on it "shocked millions of Americans by implying that their routine disciplinary practices might actually be deeply harming their children." Even so, only "serious" bodily injury is actually against the law, meaning parents are free to spank, smack, and even beat their kids so long as they don't cross the line into inflicting "long-term physical damage," Stern writes. This despite the fact that recent research has found even spanking, largely accepted and seen as "humane," can have serious developmental consequences for kids. Yet not only does spanking remain legal in all US homes, 19 states still permit it in schools. And when abuse cases come to trial, juries tend to let off parents who slap or whip their children, unless the punishment is inflicted in a particularly shocking way. "It’s surprisingly difficult to tell where legal corporal punishment ends and criminal child abuse begins," Stern writes. "And so long as the former is allowed, the latter seems bound to occur." Click for his full column.
– The Taliban is being controlled by Pakistan and Islamabad could bring fighting in Afghanistan to a halt "in weeks" if it gave the order, the chief of the Afghan National Army tells the BBC. The Taliban's "leadership is in Pakistan," Sher Mohammad Karimi says, accusing Afghanistan's neighbor of "unleashing" the militants on the country. A NATO report earlier this year found that Pakistan was well aware that Taliban leaders had found refuge within its borders. Despite its public denunciations of drone strikes, Pakistan is complicit in the program and gives the US military lists of targets, Karimi claims. "The drones are used against those Taliban who are Pakistani Taliban," he says. "The drones are never used against Haqqani or Afghan Taliban." Pakistan says at least 17 people were killed in a US drone strike in the North Waziristan region today, the biggest such strike this year, Reuters reports.
– Need a passport? Better find your birth certificate, because the State Department is considering a new, and nearly impossible to complete, form that would be required for those who can't produce one. In addition to "easy" questions like listing every residence and job you've had since birth and, of course, the personal details of all your siblings, Form DS-5513 includes such baffling queries as where you were circumcised and who was present at your birth. Reactions: On Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow notes that "the circumstances in which people unable to provide a birth certificate will be given this form (rather than the traditional bureaucratic investigation) are not spelled out; further, the form itself remains a Kafkaesque impossibility for most people to complete." "The State Department estimated that the average respondent would be able to compile all this information in just 45 minutes, which is obviously absurd given the amount of research that is likely to be required to even attempt to complete the form," writes Edward Hasbrouck on Consumer Traveler. The Blaze points out that the document claims the questionnaire is voluntary, “but failure to provide the information requested may result in processing delays or the denial of your US passport application.” The questionnaire would be used "when the applicant submits citizenship or identity evidence that is insufficient or of questionable authenticity," according to official documents. On the Raw Story, David Edwards concludes that the form "would make it almost impossible for some people to get a passport." On Reason.com, Radley Balko calls the form "disturbing" and the questions "creepy" and "impossible to answer." Nick Greene concurs in the Village Voice, calling it "completely confounding" and noting that "a team of researchers is needed to complete it." See the form here.
– George Zimmerman has raked in an estimated $340,000 in donations since Trayvon Martin's death, but the money is running low—so he's trying a new tactic. Now, if you donate at his website, you'll be treated to a card "personally signed by George." The second-degree murder suspect, currently out on bail, is no longer raising the $1,000 a day he once was, the Orlando Sentinel reports. Court costs are now outweighing Zimmerman's income, says his lawyer, adding that he may need to have Zimmerman declared indigent. The website announced today that the fund will get a new manager next month. "We are, of course, maintaining the confidentiality of donors," it says. Those who put a little something in the kitty for the jobless-and-in-hiding Zimmerman will be helping to cover living expenses, court costs, and pay his lawyers, in that order, according to the site.
– When appraisers discovered $8 million in rare books missing from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, investigators knew where to turn. As archivist and manager of the William R. Oliver Special Collections Room for 25 years, Gregory Priore let visitors in—and, allegedly, let some 320 items out. According to police, Priore, 61, agreed to sell stolen titles, maps, and plates, along with pages from 16 books, to John Schulman, owner of rare book store Caliban. Authorities say Priore received $100,000 in checks from Caliban and $17,000 in cash between 2010 and 2017, when the thefts were uncovered, per Pitt News. After missing items were found to have been sold by Caliban, a warehouse search uncovered 42 stolen items worth $260,000, according to police. A copy of a book by Isaac Newton, valued at more than $800,000, has also been recovered. "Greed came over me," Priore allegedly told investigators of what the Washington Post calls one of the largest library thefts in history, involving a still-missing book by George Washington and another signed by Thomas Jefferson. According to an affidavit, Priore said he first suggested the scheme in the 1990s to Schulman, who'd legally purchased other items from the library, "but Schulman spurred me on." The 54-year-old Schulman, whose shop is a block from the library, requested specific items from Priore, per police. Both men were charged last week with multiple counts, including theft, conspiracy, and forgery. Schulman has also had his bank accounts frozen, reports the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. In a statement, the Carnegie Library says it is "deeply disappointed that two people we knew well and trusted are at the center of this case." (Book thieves also rappel from skylights.)
– George Stephanopoulos is engaging in damage control today after acknowledging that he donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation but didn't disclose that fact even while reporting on the foundation in his capacity as an anchor at ABC News. (Politico and the Washington Free Beacon first reported the donations.) The first hit: He's bowing out of ABC's Republican debate. "I'm sorry because I don't want anything to compromise my integrity or the standards of ABC News," he tells the New York Times. The newspaper notes that Republicans in particular have long accused Stephanopoulos—who co-hosts Good Morning America and moderates Sunday's This Week program—of a bias going back to his days as an aide to Bill Clinton. ABC is not taking disciplinary action. Stephanopoulos tells Dylan Byers of Politico that he now regrets the donations, "even though I did it for the best reasons." And though he's recusing himself from the February debate, he tells CNNMoney that he'll continue to cover the 2016 election. One particularly vocal critic is Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer, who accused Stephanopoulos of a "massive breach of ethical standards." Stephanopoulos previously interviewed the author about his book, which alleges that donations to the foundation influenced Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. Plenty of other criticism is surfacing, however: In another post at Politico, media writer Jack Shafer asserts that Stephanopoulos, "who has excelled at both politics and journalism, appears to have failed both professions with a single transgression."
– If you're hoping to avoid adding another TV show to your must-watch list, Netflix has a plan to help you out: All you have to do is skip a particular episode and you should be in the clear. Well, maybe. Based on first season viewing data from 25 different shows in 16 markets, including the US and UK, the company identified the point at which at least 70% of viewers finished the rest of the season, reports ABC News and the Verge. A sample: Breaking Bad: Episode 2 Dexter: Episode 3 House of Cards: Episode 3 Mad Men: Episode 6 Orange Is the New Black: Episode 3 Scandal: Episode 2 Sons of Anarchy: Episode 2 The Walking Dead: Episode 2 Since none of the shows hooked viewers during the pilot, Netflix's content chief says "this gives us confidence that giving our members all episodes at once is more aligned with how fans are made," per the Verge. Interestingly, the Dutch seemed to get hooked the fastest—about one episode sooner than the rest—while those in Australia and New Zealand lagged one to two episodes behind. Click for the full list.
– Runners in a San Jose race Sunday willingly added a few seconds to their time in order to thank a veteran, in a spontaneous and touching display that's garnered more than a little attention. The 408K Race is an 8-kilometer race benefiting the Pat Tillman Foundation, which helps military vets. WWII veteran Joe Bell stood on the sidelines, in full military uniform, cheering on the runners ... and then one of them diverted from the course so he could shake the 95-year-old's hand. Others followed, and a stream of people thanked Bell for his service, Mashable reports. How the now-viral video came about was a lucky accident: San Jose Mercury News reporter Julia Prodis Sulek lives two houses down from Bell, and shot the 45-second video on her iPhone after noticing runners initially waving to and even saluting Bell. "They began to pile up," she writes. "For a moment, I worried Joe might get knocked over." Bell later told her, "I never got recognition in my life." The first runner to shake Bell's hand has since been identified as Erik Wittreich, himself a vet: a former Green Beret who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
– Fidel Castro was not the spartan Socialist he claimed to be, says a former bodyguard. In fact, Juan Reinaldo Sanchez writes in Fidel Castro's Hidden Life that Castro lived very much like a king, reports the Guardian and Miami Herald. Among the claims: Castro enjoyed a private island, Cayo Piedra, that Sanchez calls a "garden of Eden." Maybe because of the turtle farm and pool with dolphins. He sailed there in an 88-foot yacht, the Aquarama II, which was adorned with rare wood from Angola and four motors courtesy of Leonid Brezhnev. ("Castro would sit in his large black leather director's armchair ... a glass of Chivas Regal on the rocks in his hand," writes Sanchez.) He had about 20 luxury homes, including an estate in Havana with a bowling alley on the roof. He always traveled with 10 bodyguards, and two of them had to have his blood type in case he needed an emergency transfusion. Castro didn't trust stored blood. "Contrary to what he has always said, Fidel has never renounced capitalist comforts or chosen to live in austerity," writes Sanchez. "Au contraire, his mode de vie is that of a capitalist without any kind of limit. He has never considered that he is obliged by his speech to follow the austere lifestyle of a good revolutionary." Sanchez worked as a bodyguard for 17 years before falling out of favor after asking for retirement. He ended up in prison before escaping to Mexico and then to the US, where he now lives.
– Cops thought they were looking for a car thief. Turns out, it was just somebody a little absent-minded. It seems that a shopper in Halifax, Nova Scotia, returned to the parking lot, hopped in the wrong car, and drove away, according to a police statement. Both cars were white Hyundai Santa Fes, and they were parked next to other, reports the Toronto Star. The errant driver even gassed up the vehicle before realizing his mistake. It's not clear how he was able to start the car; it wasn't left running, but his key fob somehow worked, per the Daily Hive, which calls him the "most Canadian car thief ever." He finally returned to the scene of the not-really crime, and all was cleared up. The woman whose car he took even reimbursed him for the gas. “Happy ending for everyone,” says a police spokesman. (Two young teens raised the ante on joy-riding by stealing a plane.)
– Remember Davion Only? He's the 15-year-old who has spent his entire life in foster care and whose plea to be adopted went viral in October. More than 10,000 people responded, and now the Florida teen is living with a prospective adoption family, reports ABC News. And while it's not a sure thing that he will be adopted, this does mean that Davion gets to spend his first proper Christmas with a family, reports the Daily Mail. Davion made his adoption plea in church after learning via an online search that his mother had died. "I just want him to be happy and loved and to be with someone who is going to do the best for his future," says his biological aunt.
– It's not quite the Norman conquest, but another invasion is worrying locals in West Wales. Scores of octopuses have "walked" out of the Irish Sea and beached themselves on the sand in New Quay, Ceredigion, Wales Online reports. The phenomenon has marine experts scratching their heads. "We don't quite know what's causing it," says Brett Jones, owner of a local dolphin-watching tour company. "They were walking on the tips of their legs," he adds. More than 20 of the apparently confused creatures were reported on the sand on Friday night, and the Telegraph notes the migration continued the following two nights. James Wright of the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth says it is "quite odd" to see so many of the curled octopus, also called the horned octopus, on the same beach. Wright says there were a few other octopus sightings last week in areas hit by storms. Hurricane Ophelia, then Brian, battered the Irish and Welsh coasts earlier this month. The cephalopods, which the Guardian notes grow to about 20 inches, may be injured or sensitive "to a change in atmospheric pressure," Wright tells the Telegraph. A marine biologist says "it’s hard to imagine" the wandering octopuses found a new food source on shore. He speculates the solitary species may be looking to reproduce. Dry land isn't hospitable to the creatures, who hide in rocks some 10 feet below the surface. Since a number of the octopuses were dead, Jones hints they became stranded. He's urging people to put any octopuses they come across in the future back in the sea. (Squid and chips, anyone?)
– The car carrying journalist Michael Hastings—in which he was apparently the only person, the New York Times notes—was likely speeding before he died in a crash, says a former LAPD cop. The car's motor was found some 100 feet away from the vehicle, suggesting the driver was going at more than 60 miles per hour on the edge of Hollywood—or, as the former officer tells LA Weekly, he "was hauling Irish ass and lost control." The investigation continues: Police still haven't identified the victim, says an official, though Hastings' wife has confirmed he died in a car crash, the Times reports. Meanwhile, the coroner is investigating the possibility of a drug or alcohol influence, a process that could take weeks. Hastings wrote about having a drinking and drug problem, including noting a drunk-driving crash at age 19, though he wrote last year that he'd been alcohol-free for 10 years. Meanwhile, the inevitable conspiracy theories are coming out: Hastings wrote in a 2012 book that an aide to Gen. Stanley McChrystal told him, "We'll hunt you down and kill you if we don't like what you write." WikiLeaks tweeted last night that Hastings had told the organization "the FBI was investigating him" shortly before he died. LA Weekly has more.
– When Sue Klebold learned that her son, Dylan, was involved in the Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999, she prayed not for his safety, but for his death—"the greatest mercy" she could imagine. That prayer was answered when Dylan, along with fellow shooter Eric Harris, committed suicide in the school's library after killing 12 students and one teacher and wounding 24 others. In A Mother's Reckoning, out Monday, Klebold apologizes to the loved ones of her son's victims, provides an account of her family's life after the shooting, and catalogs the warning signs she failed to see. "Most of all," Washington Post critic Carlos Lozada writes, "it is a mother’s love letter to her son, for whom she mourned no less deeply than did the parents of the children he killed." Here are some of the "painful and necessary" insights and details from the book: Dylan was "easy to raise … a child who had always made us proud," but hard on himself when he failed, "and his humiliation sometimes turned to anger." Klebold says her son is responsible for his actions, but the "role depression and brain dysfunction can play" must be acknowledged. She resisted blaming Eric Harris for years. "Given what I have learned about psychopathy, I now feel differently." From the book's introduction by Andrew Solomon: "Eric was a failed Hitler; Dylan was a failed Holden Caulfield." Visiting the school library after the shooting, Klebold recognized her son's shape marked on the floor. Weeping, she knelt and "touched the carpet that held him when he fell." Klebold was never angry with her son, she tells the Guardian, until she saw the videotapes he and Harris had made before the shooting. "He was trying to latch on to things that made him feel angry. But I just couldn’t sustain that anger." On the morning of the massacre, Klebold says her son's shouted goodbye to her had a "flat, nasty" sound. "Was he saying to me, you were a bad mother?" Regarding Dylan's depression: "If we had known enough to understand what those signs meant, I believe that we would have been able to prevent Columbine."
– Donald Trump laid into Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and, most of all, Ben Carson in a Thursday night speech in Fort Dodge, Iowa that the Washington Post describes as a "95-minute rant." He accused Clinton of playing the "woman's card" and said Rubio was "weak like a baby," per the Post, then took the insults to another level during the 10 minutes or so he spent on Carson. Trump called his rival "damaged" and, pointing to Carson's claim in his autobiography that he had a "pathological temper" as a young man, likened him to a child molester. "If you're a child molester, there's no cure. They can't stop you," he told a crowd estimated at around 1,500 people. "Pathological? There's no cure." Trump made the same argument about Carson being "incurable" in a Thursday CNN interview, reports Politico. "It's in the book that he's got a pathological temper," he told Erin Burnett. "That's a big problem because you don't cure that. As an example: child molesting. You don't cure these people." At the Iowa rally, Trump scoffed at Carson's account of trying to stab a friend as a teen and being blocked by his belt buckle. He opened his jacket, displayed his belt, and invited audience members to try the same move, the Des Moines Register reports. "How stupid are the people of Iowa?" Trump wondered. "How stupid are the people of the country to believe this crap?" (The last time Trump insulted Iowans, he blamed it on a "young intern.")
– A heroically loyal Washington state dog pulled a Lassie this week, bringing help to an equally adorable pooch stuck at the bottom of a cistern, KING 5 reports. Tillie and Phoebe had been missing for a week Monday when a resident alerted volunteers from the Vashon Island Pet Protectors that a strange dog had been repeatedly approaching them, then heading back into a wooded ravine nearby. Volunteers searched the ravine, which was miles away from where the dogs had last been seen, and finally heard a single bark when they called out Tillie's name. They found Tillie lying next to an old cistern inside of which Phoebe was perched on a small pile of concrete to stay dry. "For nearly a week, Tillie stayed by her side with the exception of the few minutes of each day when she went for help," states a post on the Pet Protectors Facebook page. The dogs were cold and hungry but otherwise OK. Pet Protectors describes Tillie's devotion to Phoebe as "a humbling example of the power of love." Good dog.
– New York's Democrat governor is aiming to make some of the country's toughest gun laws even tougher. In his State of the State address today, Andrew Cuomo is expected to outline gun control plans including new restrictions on assault weapons, lower limits on the capacity of magazines, and a requirement for gun permits to be renewed every five years, the New York Times reports. New York already bans some assault weapons but Cuomo says the law introduced after the 1999 Columbine shooting has "more holes than Swiss cheese." Cuomo has been pushing for fresh gun control measures since the Sandy Hook school shooting and negotiations with legislative leaders continued until late last night, the Wall Street Journal reports. Gun rights advocates—alarmed by Cuomo's suggestion in a radio interview that "confiscation could be an option" for assault weapons—are expected to push back hard against the move, and Republican leaders have demanded that the plan include stiffer penalties for crimes committed with illegal weapons.
– Police in Arkansas are investigating how day care workers could have left a 5-year-old boy in a sweltering van for hours, NBC News reports. Christopher Gardner Jr. was found unresponsive, strapped into a booster seat at 3:30pm on Monday. That was more than eight hours after the van had arrived at Ascent Children's Health Services, per WMC, and only as it was time to drive the kids home. Administrators at the day care center for special needs children fired four workers Wednesday for failing to follow procedures, reports CNN. "There are simply no words to express the overwhelming sadness we feel at the death of this child," Ascent CEO Dan Sullivan says in a statement. "We are heartbroken." Workers are required to walk to the back of the van and check each seat, and then verify the van's roster with a class attendance sheet to ensure all the kids are accounted for, reports ABC News. West Memphis police tell CNN that temperatures in the parking lot were 91 degrees on Monday when they arrived, and that Christopher may have been asleep when the van arrived at the facility. They say the temperature inside a nearby sealed van was measured at 141 degrees, notes NBC. "I just need some answers," says Christopher's mother, Ashley Smith, per ABC. "I just want justice for my son." Great-grandmother Carrie Smith tells WMC that Christopher "suffered in that van." She says they had a routine when Christopher came home each day. "When he got off the van he'd say, 'Granny, have you got me a cookie today?'" (Two toddlers died last week after being left overnight in a hot car.)
– An ugly encounter between a decorated US military veteran and a guy wearing camouflage fatigues has spawned a viral video—and may lead to federal charges, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Ryan Berk, a Purple Heart recipient who served with the 101st Airborne Division in Afghanistan, noticed the shopper wearing fatigues at Oxford Valley Mall in Langhorne, Pa., on Black Friday. Recording video on his cell phone, Berk walked up and pretended his son was interested in meeting a bona fide US Army soldier. Then Berk asked about apparent inconsistencies in the man's uniform, including a US flag patch low on his arm and a highly unusual collection of three Combat Infantryman Badges. (The Military Times lists the inconsistencies and identifies the alleged impersonator as Sean Yetman.) Berk eventually pulled back for a wide shot and said, "Here it is, guys: stolen valor at its finest! He is full of s--t wearing a United States Army uniform." Berk urged him to admit he's "a phony," told him he's breaking the law, and then really got mad: "I've worn that f--in' uniform, and I've had friends get killed in Afghanistan wearing that f--in' uniform!" The video, which has been viewed more than 2.3 million times as of this writing, has inspired a Pennsylvania congressman to seek a federal investigation, the Bucks County Courier Times reports. Wearing a US military uniform is protected by free speech, the Inquirer notes, but is illegal if the wearer claims unearned awards or lies to get a discount. A veteran who runs the Guardian of Valor website says US military impersonators have become more common lately. See the video here.
– Tilikum, the killer whale at the heart of the SeaWorld-damning documentary Blackfish, has a lung infection that could possibly kill him, the Orlando Sentinel reports. SeaWorld announced the 35-year-old whale's illness Tuesday. "I wish I could say I was tremendously optimistic about Tilikum and his future, but he has a disease which is chronic and progressive and at some point might cause his death," a veterinarian says in a video released by SeaWorld. Tilikum is being being treated with antibiotics and antifungal medications. While the whale is still eating, he's become increasingly lethargic. And USA Today reports the bacteria has been resistant to treatment so far. According to NPR, Tilikum has been at SeaWorld for 23 years and is one of its "most prolific breeders." Tilikum has been involved in three human deaths, the most lurid of which was in 1999 when a naked man was found "draped dead across his back" after getting into the park after hours. But it was the 2010 drowning death of a trainer that inspired Blackfish. In the documentary, experts argue that killer whales are highly intelligent creatures who can become depressed and dangerous if kept in confinement. Since Blackfish was released in 2013, SeaWorld has lost attendance, revenue, and sponsors. A SeaWorld spokesperson wouldn't say whether or not the ailing Tilikum is still performing at the park. But a trainer in the company's video says "if he's ready to go out and do a show…I'm excited to do that with him."
– Police officers are people, too. And like us, they share their hilarious finds on Twitter. Take this example: Police in Murdoch, Western Australia, were executing a search warrant on a house in Perth, relating to a burglary investigation, when they uncovered a rather amusing to-do list, News.com.au reports. It described an individual's busy Saturday laid out with helpful reminders like "go to bus stop" and "go get lunch (chips and gravy)," per Mashable. The last two entries on the 10-item list, adding fuel to the idea that marijuana causes memory problems, were "go home and get a stick" and then "chop up and get stoned"—because, you know, sometimes you forget. Police tweeted a photo of the list, with the caption, "Are ur Saturdays hectic like this!!!" They followed that up with, "Yes, the to do list was authentic, I don't think any of us here could make it up if we tried! #nosenseofhumour." The witty replies flooded in. "At least he had realistic personal goals which he probably achieved," one user quipped. But not all social media users were as amused. "No wonder our homes keep getting broken into. The Murdoch police are too busy embarrassing drug addicts on social media. Grow up," another added, per News.com.au. (The list-writer joins a long tradition of misguided potheads.)
– Scientists have—totally by accident—come across a hidden canyon that dwarfs the Grand one, the BBC reports. The researchers were using radar to map out Greenland's bedrock when they stumbled upon the 2,625-foot deep feature, which, at 500 miles, is longer than the Grand Canyon's 277 miles, Design & Trend notes. It's full of ice now—the stuff is up to two miles thick—but a river forged the canyon some four million years ago, predating the ice. Now, a little meltwater drains out of the northern end of the unseen canyon, which runs from central Greenland to its north coast. "With satellite images instantly available on a mobile phone we could assume that the Earth has been fully mapped, but there's clearly a lot left to discover," says a scientist. The canyon could also be bad news: Water moving under Greenland's ice could contribute to faster melting, the Christian Science Monitor notes. So are there more of these in the world? The lead researcher tells National Geographic he's now wondering what lies under the Antarctic Ice Sheet—which is 10 times the size of Greenland's.
– Think phallic graffiti art exclusively belongs to the baseless present? Think again. An archaeologist has uncovered what the Guardian touts as the earliest erotic graffiti on the planet, found in Greece—and predating, in one case, even Athens' Acropolis. Since 2011, Dr. Andreas Vlachopoulos has been directing fieldwork on the Aegean island of Astypalaia, and the professor may have given the students working with him a little more insight than he'd at first intended when he happened upon extremely explicit erotica chiseled into the limestone rocks that line the cape. In one instance, dating back to 5th century BC, two gigantic penises are etched next to the name Dion; in another, dating to 6th century BC, one man boasted: "Nikasitimos was here mounting Timiona." "We know that in ancient Greece sexual desire between men was not a taboo," Vlachopoulos tells the Guardian. "But this graffiti … is not just among the earliest ever discovered. By using the verb in the past continuous [tense], it clearly says that these two men were making love over a long period of time, emphasizing the sexual act in a way that is highly unusual in erotic artwork." One theory is that soldiers were once stationed at this outpost overlooking the bay; other carvings include that of ships, daggers, and wave-symbolizing spirals. Either way Astypalaia, best known for what Archaeology International called "the largest ancient children’s cemetery in the world," with at least 2,700 infant burials identified in one place, can now add ancient porn among its claims to fame. (Meanwhile, in Italy, art restorers have been accused of scrubbing away the erotic...)
– NBC better get its fill of Donald Trump when he hosts Saturday Night Live next month because it sounds like the network won't be seeing him—or any of his fellow candidates—at its GOP debate, the Hill reports. The Republican National Committee has suspended ties with NBC ahead of the network's scheduled Feb. 26 debate over continuing anger about how this week's debate on CNBC was handled. "CNBC network is one of your media properties, and its handling of the debate was conducted in bad faith," RNC chairman Reince Priebus wrote in a letter to NBC Friday. Priebus characterized the CNBC debate as petty, mean-spirited, and purposefully embarrassing for the candidates. "CNBC billed the debate as one that would focus on 'the key issues that matter to all voters—job growth, taxes, technology, retirement, and the health of our national economy,'" Priebus writes in the letter. Instead, he says CNBC focused on "gotcha" questions that were "inaccurate or downright offensive." The RNC still plans on holding a debate Feb. 26 and will partner with the conservative National Review, which was already a co-host of the original debate. It's not clear whether it would be televised. Politico notes that the "relationship between the two organizations is not necessarily dead," and NBC promised to "work in good faith to resolve this matter." The announcement comes on the heels of news that individual campaigns were planning to meet this weekend to discuss a "revolt" against debate hosts and the RNC itself.
– The average American born in 2015 is expected to live to 78.8 years of age. HIV patients aren't far behind. A Lancet study finds a 20-year-old who begins treatment for HIV today can live to an estimated 78 years due in part to advances in antiretroviral therapy, reports the BBC. The latest drugs are better at keeping the virus from replicating and prevent resistance, are less toxic, have fewer side effects, and are more likely to be taken effectively as they often involve only one daily pill, the study notes. Young HIV patients are also starting treatment sooner and benefit from improved screening and prevention programs, say University of Bristol researchers, who reviewed 18 studies involving 88,500 patients in Europe and North America. They found patients who began treatment between 2008 and 2010 were less likely to die over the next three years than those who began treatment between 1996 and 2007, per a release. Twenty-year-olds who started treatment between 2008 and 2010 and survived their first year were also expected to live to 73 for men and 76 for women, compared to 63 for men and 67 for women who started treatment years earlier. If those same 20-year-olds had a higher than average immune cell count, they were predicted to live to 78, though those who acquired HIV from injecting drugs had a lower life expectancy, per the Telegraph. One doctor calls it "a tremendous medical achievement." Another warns new challenges await as one in three HIV patients is over age 50. (An antibody could stop up to 90% of HIV strains.)
– Six people were sent to the hospital late Thursday after an 85-foot high roller coaster derailed in Daytona Beach, Fla. Two people fell as much as 34 feet to the ground from the Sand Blaster's front car, which was left dangling perpendicular to the beach boardwalk with two others strapped in, reports CNN. They were rescued after more than 30 minutes. Four riders from a second car and two from a third were also rescued, with six riders in all taking a trip to the hospital, fire officials said. All injured parties were "alert" as they were loaded into ambulances, reports the Daytona Beach News-Journal. The 45-year-old Sand Blaster operated at an amusement park in Delaware before it was installed in Florida in 2013.
– Billy Ray Cyrus is not happy. He's getting divorced, his daughter is doing bong hits on video ... where did it all go wrong? Hannah Montana, he tells GQ. The magazine's long profile paints a depressing picture: Chris Heath spoke to Cyrus mostly in shadow (he likes to have the lights out), just five days after he first saw the infamous bong-hit video. Highlights ... or, as it were, lowlights: On Hannah Montana: "It destroyed my family. I'll tell you right now—the damn show destroyed my family. ... I'd erase it all in a second if I could." On Miley: "Every time something happened in Miley's career, every time the train went off the track, if you will—Vanity Fair, pole-dancing, whatever scandal it was—her people, or as they say in today's news, her handlers, every time they'd put me... 'Somebody's shooting at Miley! Put the old man up there!' Well, I took it, because I'm her daddy, and that's what daddies do. 'OK, nail me to the cross, I'll take it...'" Why he didn't go to her 18th birthday party: "Because they were having it in a bar. It was wrong. It was for 21 years old and up. Once again all them people, they all wanted me to fly out so that then when all the bad press came they could say, 'Daddy endorsed this stuff...' I started realizing I'm being used." On his parental failings: Cyrus says he's never been able to discipline his children and that he tried too hard to be a friend. "I should have been a better parent. I should have said, 'Enough is enough—it's getting dangerous and somebody's going to get hurt.'" On Miley's future: He brings up Kurt Cobain, Anna Nicole Smith, and Michael Jackson as others for whom the "world was just spinning so fast." Does he really think Miley is in a situation like theirs? "I don't know. I'm her daddy so maybe I'm a little sensitive to it, but now's a real good time to make sure everything's OK," he says. But he is "scared for her. She's got a lot of people around her that's putting her in a great deal of danger." Click for more from the profile.
– The 114th Congress has convened with solid Republican majorities in both houses, Mitch McConnell as the new Senate majority leader, and John Boehner retaining his gavel in the House despite a Tea Party challenge. In what the AP calls "a day of pomp, circumstance, and raw politics," Joe Biden swore in new senators while Boehner loyalists moved to cut off what Politico seems to think is a small but growing opposition within his own ranks. Things to know about the 114th: Legislation: The GOP is looking to hit the ground running with legislation that approves construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, weakens ObamaCare, extends funding for Homeland Security at the cost of blocking President Obama's executive action on immigration, and cuts spending. More here. About that Keystone legislation: The White House wasted no time today in saying it would veto the Keystone bill in its current form. McConnell slid into his dream job: Per the AP, he said that "a lot of hard work awaits," but that "many important opportunities await too." Harry Reid stayed home: Reid, who hurt himself exercising last week, missed seeing McConnell take his old job. He "is in Washington, but on orders from his doctors he will not come into the office so that his injuries can continue to heal," a spokesman said, per Politico. Newbies: The Senate has 13 freshmen, while the House has 58, notes the AP.
– A size-adjustable superhero finds trouble and a partner in Marvel's Ant-Man and the Wasp, so far much better received than its predecessor. The film from director Peyton Reed features Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly (Kate, from Lost) in the titles roles—a first for a female Marvel character. As of Friday, the movie had an 87% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Samples: It's "an engaging goof that resists bludgeoning you with bigness and instead settles for good vibes and jokes," writes Manohla Dargis at the New York Times, giving much credit to Reed. He "persuasively embraces the story's Alice in Wonderland weirdness" and "handles the new, fairly unencumbered material with a generally light touch, so that for once a Marvel movie feels shorter than its running time," she writes. Calvin Wilson calls the film "one of the most entertaining releases from Marvel Studios" and "a vast improvement" over 2015's Ant-Man. "Reed deftly balances action and comedy with special effects that are impressive but not overwhelming," while Rudd's "everyman appeal seldom has been put to such brilliant use," Wilson writes at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He also commends "scene-stealer" Michael Pena. Lilly as Hope, aka the Wasp, impresses, too. In this sequel, she "actually gets to do something this time besides root from the sidelines … and she's excellent," G. Allen Johnson writes at the San Francisco Chronicle. But it's the "loose and breezy" feel and "spirit of childlike fun" that dominate the film, appropriately. After all, "how seriously can you take a movie where weapons include a huge salt shaker and giant Pez dispenser?" "If you're not going to reach the mythic heights of Black Panther, the light-hearted antics of Ant-Man and the Wasp are your next-best bet," as Jake Coyle puts it at the AP. Having "adopted the goofball charm of its leading man," the film is "pretty much exactly what I'd want in a superhero movie: a funny cast, zippy action scenes and not an infinity stone in sight."
– It's not every day that a new packet of makeup smells so bad it needs to be taken outside to air out. Such is the conundrum facing teen beauty mogul Kylie Jenner after her much-anticipated Royal Peach Eyeshadow Palette, which IOL reports sold out in nine minutes last month, is being slammed for smelling like "spray paint" and "paint thinner." TMZ reports that more than 15 complaints have been filed with the Better Business Bureau, with one user complaining of a "horrible headache." Jenner, who's known for turning to social media to warn her fans about fake products, has yet to respond to complaints, but Kylie Cosmetics has announced that it's a packaging adhesive and not the makeup itself that's causing the smell, reports Cosmopolitan. It's unclear whether the packaging has been changed, but the BBB notes fewer reports this week than last. (The massive Kardashian brand encompasses hundreds of trademark applications alone.)
– A male Google engineer who authored a controversial memo on why he thinks women aren't suited to tech jobs is now searching for new employment. James Damore confirmed to Bloomberg that he was fired for "perpetuating gender stereotypes" and that he's "currently exploring all possible legal remedies." In the memo, which can be seen in full here, Damore argued that pursuing diversity policies was "unfair, divisive, and bad for business," partly because of biological differences like female "neuroticism" that he believes explain the gender gap in the technology world. The memo circulated widely among employees. In internal discussion posts seen by Bloomberg, many employees supported the firing. Google declined to comment on the firing, but CEO Sundar Pichai addressed the controversy in a memo to employees Monday, the Guardian reports. "Our job is to build great products for users that make a difference in their lives," he wrote. "To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK." Pichai also addressed concerns about employees now feeling unable to "safely express their views," saying people should feel free to express dissent. He said some of the issues raised in the memo "such as the portions ... questioning the role of ideology in the workplace" are "important topics" that people should feel free to discuss.
– Elizabeth Smart continued her poised testimony today, explaining that she didn't try to escape captor Brian David Mitchell because he promised to kill her family if she did. The Salt Lake Tribune highlights this wrenching detail: Mitchell forced her to burn the red pajamas she had on when he abducted her, and she secretly saved a safety pin "because I didn’t want to let go of my family, of my life.” Mitchell also made her refer to her parents as Ed and Lois to try to distance the then 14-year-old from them. At another point, Smart testified that a Salt Lake City police detective approached her, Mitchell, and Mitchell's wife in the library and asked to see the girl's face under her veil, but Mitchell refused to allow it under a religious pretense. The detective, who said he was looking for Elizabeth, eventually gave up, notes AP. "I was mad at myself, that I didn't say anything," said Smart. "I felt terrible that the detective hadn't pushed harder and had just walked away." Yesterday, she told jurors of Mitchell's sexual assaults.
– President Obama announced his choice to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court: Merrick Garland, chief judge of the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC. He's "one of America's sharpest legal minds" and is "uniquely qualified," said Obama at the White House Wednesday morning. Some coverage: At 63, Garland is relatively old for a nominee, which may have factored into why he was selected, reports ThinkProgress. At SCOTUSblog, Tom Goldstein writes that Garland "would not be among the Court's most liberal Justices." In his detailed handicapping of the leading choices, he adds that Garland is "very deeply respected." NBC News has a bio, noting that Garland is seen as a "moderate." Garland worked in the Justice Department before becoming a judge, and his leading role in the Oklahoma City bombing case "helped shape" his career, reports the New York Times. He also oversaw the Unabomber case. Garland and his wife have two daughters, notes ABC News in its "everything you need to know" file. The Washington Post digs into some of the political pros and cons of picking Garland, noting that foes have 20 years of decisions to pore over. Garland stood out even as a student back in 1970, notes this tweet of an old newspaper blurb. Garland was confirmed to the DC court in 1997 with the support of seven current GOP senators, notes the AP. But Senate Republicans have vowed to not even allow hearings on any nominee in this election year. Democrats were tying the GOP's opposition to a bill on late-term abortion, reports Politico.
– A friend of John Kelly, President Trump's new chief of staff, says the retired general will bring order and stability to the White House. “He knows how to do this: with common sense and good leadership,” the unnamed friend tells the Washington Post. “He won’t suffer idiots and fools.” Kelly, who spent 45 years in the Marines and was currently serving as the head of the Department of Homeland Security, was tapped by Trump to replace Reince Priebus on Friday. Kelly's friend also offered a hint of how the new chief of staff will handle the leaks that are so vexing Trump's aides: “Simply go dark and do not engage.” Here's what else you need to know about Kelly and his new role in the White House: The New York Times reports the success of Kelly—the first general to be chief of staff since the Nixon administration—will hinge on bringing Trump's staff to heel. The president must give Kelly "the authority to crack down on the behavior of his other aides." Kelly got the job as chief of staff because he and Trump are simpatico when it comes to terrorism and immigration, according to NBC News. Kelly has said "smugglers" are bringing "tens of thousands of people to our nation's doorstep." He's also called leaks "darn close to treason" and defended Jared Kushner on the Russia front. CNN's John Kirby says if Trump is "wise enough to use" Kelly, he could "actually come out on the far side of these first six tumultuous months looking pretty good." The national security analyst calls Kelly "a marvel of organization and efficiency, of candid counsel and dogged persistence." While Kelly has had bipartisan support in the past, not everyone is excited about his promotion, the Hill reports. Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee calls Kelly an "extremist" and accuses Trump of "militarizing the White House." And the Nation calls Kelly's promotion a "disaster for immigrants." It looks at six policies Kelly has put in place during his time at the Department of Homeland Security that have caused fear to take hold of immigrant communities. Finally, while Trump enjoys having "my generals" around—preferring them to wear their uniforms even if they're retired and bragging that they look like they came from "central casting"—he doesn't have a history of actually listening to them, Slate reports. That's something Kelly needs to recognize as he starts his new White House gig.
– Richard Cordray, the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said Wednesday he will leave the position by the end of the month. The resignation of Cordray, who was appointed by then-President Obama, will give President Trump a chance to appoint his own director of the powerful agency established in the wake of the financial crisis, per the AP. A Trump appointee could roll back the protections Cordray and his staff put into place in the agency's first years. Cordray's resignation isn't unexpected: The Ohio native had been widely expected to make a run for governor of his home state in 2018, and he couldn't hold his position as director of the CFPB and run at the same time. His memo to employees didn't provide a reason for the resignation. The CFPB was created as part of the laws passed following the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession. The agency was given a broad mandate to be a watchdog for consumers when they deal with banks; credit card, student loan, and mortgage companies; and debt collectors and payday lenders. Republicans, however, accuse the CFPB of overreach. "We are long overdue for new leadership at the CFPB, a rogue agency that has done more to hurt consumers than help them," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling upon hearing the news, per the Washington Post. As chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Hensarling has sought to curb the CFPB's power. Cordray's agency suffered a big setback last month when the Senate scrapped a CFPB rule making it easier for consumers to sue banks.
– Hoping to age gracefully? You might consider tossing some porcini mushrooms in the shopping cart. A new study out of Penn State finds that mushrooms in general contain high levels of antioxidants ergothioneine and glutathione, and some varieties are more potent than others. "What we found is that, without a doubt, mushrooms are [the] highest dietary source of these two antioxidants taken together, and that some types are really packed with both of them," Robert Beelman says in a release. The wild porcini mushroom popular in Italy, for example, had "by far" the highest amounts of any mushroom tested. But though white button mushrooms had the least, they still had more than most other foods, reports Newsweek. And there's no need to eat mushrooms raw, because cooking doesn't seem to affect the compounds. So what makes ergothioneine and glutathione so helpful? Research is ongoing, but it's believed they protect against atoms known as free radicals, which damage or age the body over time, per New Atlas. Beelman even floats the provocative stat that countries such as Italy and France, where people typically eat the equivalent of 5 button mushrooms a day more than Americans, have lower rates of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. He cautions that it's way too early to draw any firm conclusions from that, but says researchers will explore the topic. (Glutathione might also lighten skin.)
– If you've struggled to meet the World Health Organization's five-a-day fruits and veggies recommendation, you may want to reassess your consumption strategy. An Imperial College London study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology has found that doubling the current suggestion to 10 servings a day could stave off 7.8 million early deaths annually if people followed the new formula, the BBC reports. The study also pinpointed specific fruits and veggies that may help prevent heart disease and stroke (including apples, citrus fruits, and the cruciferous family of broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage) and cancer (spinach, peppers, and carrots, among others). The health boost from these victuals may come from the "complex network of nutrients they hold," says study author Dagfinn Aune. The mega-study examined 95 separate studies that covered up to 2 million people and examined tens of thousands of different types of disease cases and 94,000 deaths. Researchers found upping fruit and veggie intake to about 28 ounces a day (a 10-serving equivalent) was tied to a 24% reduced risk of heart disease, a 13% decreased risk of all cancers, and a 31% slashing of premature deaths. Sarah Toule, head of health info at the World Cancer Research Fund, says not to go bananas if you can't hit that magic 10 each day—simply start with the baseline of five servings and try to sneak in a few extra whenever you can, maybe by "swapping one of your naughty snacks for a piece of fruit," she tells the Guardian. (At the very worst, you could end up much happier.)
– Mitt Romney is taking flak for a gaffe 37 times bigger than his bet with Rick Perry. The candidate, while discussing the possibility of releasing his tax returns, mentioned that his income includes "speakers fees from time to time, but not very much." Financial disclosure forms reveal that from February 2010 to February 2011, Romney's "not very much" came to a total of $374,327, the Huffington Post reports. Romney's speaking fees from companies like Goldentree Asset Management add up to 7.2 times the median household income in the US, notes Slate. And the candidate's repeated failures to show a common touch are beginning to cause a major image problem, Romney-watching political scientist Dean Spiliotes tells the Los Angeles Times. "When people look at a president, they want to know: Does this person understand my life and what I'm facing?" Spiliotes says. "People want to know somebody can identify with them in their struggles."
– Business ownership is the latest must-have among women on the A-list. Five female celebs who are cashing in on their star power: Halle Berry, Scandale Paris: The Oscar winner's line of $7 panties and $18 bras went on sale at Target stores in October. It's doing well, and Berry wants to expand the brand into swimsuits, nightgowns—and more international stores. Nicki Minaj, Myx Fusions: The "Anaconda" rapper co-owns bubbly moscato maker Myx Fusions; the drink comes in single-serve bottles in three flavors: mango, coconut, and peach. Up next: a line of fizzy sangrias, set to launch in June. Drew Barrymore, Flower: Flower, the makeup brand co-owned by Barrymore, sells lipsticks, nail polishes, and other cosmetics at Walmart. The company doesn't advertise, instead simply relying on the star power of Barrymore. Jessica Alba, The Honest Company: Alba co-founded consumer products business The Honest Company five years ago. It sells diapers, baby wipes, laundry detergent, and other products, and she said it had $150 million in sales last year. Kate Hudson, Fabletics: The Almost Famous actress has a line of colorful leggings, sports bras, and other workout gear. Each item costs less than $100 and is sold through the Fabletics website. Click for two more celebs who've started their own businesses, including one whose brand has annual sales of $1 billion.
– The Israeli military has a new problem related to Palestinians, but this one comes from within its own ranks. Forty-three vets of a secretive intelligence unit have written an open letter to their superiors refusing to take part in any further action against Palestinians because of what they see as past abuses, reports ABC of Australia. For instance, they say Unit 8200 would gather information about an individual's sex life and use it to blackmail the person into becoming an informer. "The notion of rights for Palestinians does not exist at all, not even as an idea to be disregarded," says one of the 43. Many are current reservists. In an interview with the Guardian, three explain that the letter is not a response to the recent military offensive in Gaza. Rather, the group began forming a year ago. The New York Times points out that other members of the Israeli military have refused to serve in years past—including more than two dozen pilots who objected to targeted assassinations—but this is the first to involve members of an intelligence unit. “There are certain things that we were asked to do that we feel do not deserve the title of self-defense,” one sergeant-major tells the newspaper. “Some of the things that we did are immoral, and are against the things we believe in, and we’re not willing to do these things anymore.” Read the letter in full here.
– Microsoft sued the Justice Department Thursday in a case that will test broad principles of privacy in the digital age. But the root of the complaint is far more specific: Microsoft says the feds have demanded access to customer data 5,624 times in the past 18 months— and 2,576 of those demands came with gag orders that prevented the company from letting people know the US was snooping, reports TechCrunch. The government says it can do so under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, but Microsoft argues that the law, written more than 30 years ago, is outdated and, worse, unconstitutional. The government “has exploited the transition to cloud computing as a means of expanding its power to conduct secret investigations," says Microsoft. What's more, 1,752 of the demands were open-ended, meaning the government can keep spying on someone for as long as it wants. Some coverage: The suit "raises a fundamental question of how easily, and secretly, the government should be able to gain access to individuals’ information in the cloud-computing era," observes the Wall Street Journal. The key point of the case is that it "focuses on the storage of data on remote servers, rather than locally on people's computers, which Microsoft says has provided a new opening for the government to access electronic data," reports Reuters. Engadget notes the business angle: "Sure, Microsoft's lawsuit aims to protect civil liberties, but the company says it also wants to ensure it can continue to sell products that its customers can trust." The New York Times points out the broad scope: The suit, "unlike Apple’s fight with the Federal Bureau of Investigation over access to a locked iPhone, is not attached to a single case. Instead, it is intended to challenge the legal process regarding secrecy orders."
– In the wake of the Hart family's death at the bottom of a Northern California cliff comes the release of reports by child-welfare officials in Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington state that the New York Times sees as peppered with "clues" as to what was going on inside the family. Its take: that the documents show a "pair of mothers—one dictatorial and eccentric, the other constantly working and seldom home—who doled out cruel punishments." Some of the details are expansions of already reported allegations; others are new. One of the Minnesota reports states that the school the children attended stopped calling Jennifer Hart (the more assertive parent) and Sarah Hart (a manager at Kohl's) regarding any issues with their kids because they feared the calls would trigger harsh punishment for the children. The Oregon reports include a friend's recollection of an overnight visit the family made to her home during which Jennifer restricted the kids' pizza consumption to one tiny piece. When the leftovers were discovered in the morning to have been eaten, and none of the kids owned up to it, the friend said Jennifer punished the kids by denying them breakfast and making them lie on a bed with their arms by their sides and sleep masks on for as long as five hours, the Oregonian reports. As for the bruising spanking that led to a misdemeanor domestic assault charge for Sarah in Minnesota, CNN reports Sarah allegedly took the fall for Jennifer, who reportedly punished elementary-school-aged Abigail for saying she'd found a penny she had; her mothers accused her of stealing it.
– Once, there was a "family" of car enthusiasts working out of a dirty garage. Now, that family must stop an evil hacker who's enlisted one of their own in a plot for world domination. Oh, how things change. Here's what critics are saying about The Fate of the Furious, the eighth installment in the Fast and Furious franchise and certainly not the last: "If the fate of the Furious series is to grow somehow both wearier and dumber with age, then the eighth film is proof of a mission firmly accomplished," writes Barry Hertz at the Globe and Mail. Why, then, has he given the film three stars out of four? Because despite its unbelievability, it's "genuinely thrilling" with "more everything and anything. It's stupid, but it's the sort of stupid that comes bearing gifts," he says. Yes, the series is known for its ridiculous action scenes. But Sam Adams has had about enough. "It feels like the movies have gotten as big as they can get, and the gleeful absurdity that drove them is losing ground to the specter of obligation," he writes at Slate. The scenes featuring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham, however, "are some of Fate's best." Stephanie Merry agrees "putting Statham and Johnson together is a particularly ingenious move" and "their constant bickering is among the movie's main pleasures." But the "clunky dialogue and absurd plot twists" suggest the franchise "peaked three movies ago," she writes at the Washington Post. At least the action "doesn't disappoint," which is all fans are likely to care about. If you're willing to throw logic out the window, you're in for "a wildly entertaining thrill ride that never lets its foot off the gas," despite a running time of over two hours, writes Adam Graham at Detroit News. He particularly applauds the "unquestionable levels of silliness" and notes director F. Gary Gray "has a great sense of rhythm and keeps things rolling."
– There are about 7,800 cotton-top tamarins left on the planet, 1,800 of them in captivity—and two fewer of the species of tiny monkey the AP dubs "critically endangered" after a Louisiana zookeeper apparently forgot about them and left them to freeze to death. The one-pound tamarins, which originate in a pocket of Colombian tropics, like it hot—between 76 and 85 degrees—and temps at the Alexandria Zoological Park last Wednesday dipped down into the teens, killing two while a third survived. City officials say an investigation is ongoing, though "this appears to have happened as a result of human error and not a system problem." The zookeeper was initially put on administrative leave, but resigned Monday. Predictably unimpressed is PETA, which was never a fan of zoos to begin with and is calling for a federal investigation, reports the Alexandria Town Talk. Says deputy general counsel Delcianna Winders, "These tamarins lived a sad life of deprivation in captivity, and their deaths were totally preventable. This fatal neglect is all too common in zoos and other places where animals are displayed for human amusement, and that's why PETA's motto reads, in part, that 'animals are not ours to use for entertainment.'" In a letter bemoaning the zoo's "gross oversight," it's asking the USDA to look into violations of the Animal Welfare Act and "hold the zoo fully accountable. (Things turned out much better for a rhino who survived a poaching attempt and gave birth Tuesday.)
– He's baaaaack: Hugo Chavez returned to Venezuela early today, after completing a second round of chemotherapy in Cuba, reports CNN. "Good morning, beloved homeland," Chavez tweeted today. "What a beautiful full moon greeted us at midnight." The Venezuelan president is now hairless after an earlier round of chemotherapy, but appeared vibrant and cheerful upon his arrival this morning, Reuters notes.
– Donald Trump's lawyers have threatened to sue the New York Times over a story alleging that he groped two women—but the lawyers for the Times don't appear to be quaking in their boots. "The essence of a libel claim, of course, is the protection of one's reputation," writes NYT general counsel David McCraw in a letter to Trump's attorneys, noting that Trump has, among other things, "bragged about his non-consensual touching of women." "Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself," McCraw writes, telling Trump's lawyers that he is rejecting their demands to retract the story. Sources tell CNNMoney that McCraw—who told Trump's lawyers that the NYT would welcome the opportunity to have a court set Trump straight if he thinks he can silence his accusers—was cheered as he walked through the newsroom on Thursday. Lawyers for Melania Trump, meanwhile, have threatened legal action against People over a minor detail in writer Natasha Stoynoff's account of Trump forcing himself on her, reports Politico. Melania Trump's lawyers are demanding a retraction of Stoynoff's "false" statements about bumping into her in front of Trump Tower months after the alleged incident. (Trump says his accusers are "horrible, horrible liars.")
– Did a Sarah Palin insult get Joan Rivers kicked off Fox News? Depends who you ask. It all started when Rivers told TMZ that Palin is “stupid and a threat,” and that those who blame her for the Tucson shootings are “right.” Rivers and her daughter, who were originally supposed to appear on Fox & Friends today, then got a call telling them, “You're canceled on Fox because of what you said about Sarah Palin,” Melissa Rivers tells PopEater. (Joan adds that they were also told they were "banned.") And how does Joan feel about that? Fox execs can “go f*** themselves.” Fox quickly denied the report, telling E! in a statement that the show was simply overbooked and the booker “mistakenly canceled Joan’s appearance.” Rivers' rep adds that another Fox rep did call Joan to book her for tomorrow (Joan can’t make it—surprise, surprise—but her rep claims she’ll appear at a later date) and said the booker “should have never said” that the Palin comments got Rivers axed. In a later report, however, Rivers’ rep tells the New York Daily News that the comedian believes Fox is “a bunch of dirty liars and they’re backpedaling” and simply doing “damage control.” Click for more of Rivers’ side of the story.
– LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian invited pals to an alleged engagement party yesterday—then just went ahead and got married, reports People. The couple exchanged "personalized" vows in front of a crowd of 40 at a private California home. "I'm looking forward to settling down," Rimes recently told the mag. "Settling into our life." "LeAnn and Eddie were happily married today surrounded by their closest family and friends," says a Rimes spokesman. "They thank everyone for their well wishes." (Click to read LeAnn's explanation—given in an interview that airs on the Great American Country channel tomorrow—for why she cheated on her first husband with Cibrian.)
– Yik Yak collapse. The Verge reports the once-popular college social-networking app that had visions of rivaling Facebook laid off 60% of its employees Thursday. The layoffs affected 30 employees largely from Yik Yak's community, marketing, design, and product teams. "I didn't know that it was going to come to this," one laid-off employee tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "I don't know what the future of Yik Yak is, but I can't see that it continues." That future was a lot brighter back in 2013, when Yik Yak launched and quickly became one of the 10 most popular apps, spreading to thousands of college campuses and getting valued at $400 million. Yik Yak's big innovation—anonymous posting—was also its downfall. "In a single night, Yik Yak’s feed could simultaneously include threats to athletes coming off a bad game and notes of kindness and understanding to other struggling peers," TechCrunch states. But reports of abuse and bullying spread; people used Yik Yak to make threats, resulting in school lockdowns; and some campuses banned the app. By August, Yik Yak was requiring users to post under names, even fake ones. It was a wildly unpopular move, and Yik Yak currently doesn't crack the top 1,500 apps. Its downloads have dropped 76% in the past year. Of the layoffs, CEO Tyler Droll said: “We recently made some strategic changes at Yik Yak in line with our key areas of focus for the company."
– The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued new guidelines for infants to cut down on sleep-related deaths and reduce TV time. The new sleep guidelines now recommend against all types of bumper pads, noting that “there is a potential risk of suffocation, strangulation or entrapment.” They also urge mothers to breastfeed babies and give them pacifiers to reduce the chances of sudden infant death syndrome, the Wall Street Journal reports. Parents are urged to let their babies sleep in the same room, but not the same bed, as mom and dad. The TV-related guidelines recommend no screen time at all for children under 2—no, not even those Baby Einstein videos, the AFP reports. The AAP says that screen viewing has been linked to developmental delays—and so has parental screen-watching. “When the TV is on, the parent is talking less. There is some scientific evidence that shows that the less talk-time a child has, the poorer their language development is,” the lead author of the guidelines explains. The guidelines also recommend no more than two hours of screen time per day after age 2, but they do not refer to interactive media like video games or smartphones.
– Exiting a world summit with characteristic bravado, President Donald Trump delivered a stark warning Saturday to America's trading partners not to counter his decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, the AP reports. Despite his sharp differences with US allies, the president insisted he has a "great relationship" with his foreign counterparts. "If they retaliate, they're making a mistake," Trump declared before departing the annual Group of Seven summit in Canada for his meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un in Singapore on Tuesday. At a rare news conference, Trump said he pressed for the G-7 countries to eliminate all tariffs, trade barriers, and subsidies in their trading practices. He reiterated his longstanding view that the US has been taken advantage of in global trade, adding, "We're like the piggy bank that everybody's robbing and that ends." Trump's abbreviated stay at this Quebec resort saw him continuing his usual tough talk on trade, accusing the summit's host, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, of being "indignant." Trump also arrived late Saturday for a gender equality meeting at the summit, prompting Trudeau to kick it off without waiting for "stragglers" to arrive, per the AP. Trump created a distraction when he walked in late for the breakfast meeting during a talk by Gender Equality Advisory council co-chair Isabelle Hudon. Security personnel had to open a path for him through a throng of journalists and cameramen, and the camera clicks for Trump nearly drowned out Hudon.
– Joe Biden took aim at a variety of GOP and conservative opponents today at a rally for New York congressional candidate Bill Owens. The VP said Conservative candidate Douglas Hoffman was “handpicked” by Rush Limbaugh, adding that Hoffman is in line with conservatives like Sarah Palin who “will not tolerate” dissenting views, the Watertown Daily Times reports. Stand back! Biden’s charge that Limbaugh enabled Hoffman’s candidacy by forcing out GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava set the conservative talk show host off, Mediaite reports. “Grow up and reacquaint yourself with our constitution,” Limbaugh said, before suggesting cryptically that the VP thinks American “colonists should have negotiated some deal with the King.” Palin shot back on Facebook, notes the Hill, suggesting “one way to tell Vice President Biden that we’re tired of folks in Washington distorting our message and hampering our nation’s progress: Hoffman, Baby, Hoffman!”
– Life was good for Tysen Benz, an 11-year-old middle school student in Marquette, Mich., whom his mother, Katrina Goss, describes as being happy, athletic, and very social. Then he began dating a 13-year-old girl Goss calls mean and controlling, and suddenly, the unthinkable: Goss went to tuck her son into bed one night and found him in his closet, hanging from a belt, reports the New York Daily News. That was on March 14. This Tuesday, the boy died at the University of Michigan's hospital in Ann Arbor. Goss alleges the boy's girlfriend played a "horrific social media prank," telling her son she was going to kill herself and then writing from another friend's device that she was dead. Goss says that led her son to attempt suicide, and that she doesn't know why the alleged prank was pulled. Marquette Police have confirmed to BuzzFeed that a 13-year-old girl has just been charged with "malicious use and computer-using to commit a crime," but they did not address Goss' specific allegations. Goss writes on a GoFundMe page that has raised more than $30,000 that her son "impulsively chose to end his own life" as a result of the prank and urges families to "speak out, reach out and communicate with your children" about the dangers of social media. "I'm angry," Goss tells the New York Post. "Yeah, they're young and all that, but I feel like when you're 13, you're completely knowledgeable of your choices and you know right from wrong." (More kids ages 10 to 14 are now dying from suicide than in car accidents.)
– It might seem difficult to discern the thief in a grainy surveillance video, but police didn't have much trouble, per WFLA. After a boy made off with an 89-year-old man's vehicle in St. Petersburg, Fla., last week, police arrested a suspect they know pretty well: a 12-year-old who'd been arrested more than 20 times before, mostly for auto theft. Police say the boy told Raymond Raftery the air in his tires was low. When he got out to check, the boy "jumped off the bike and into the car and was gone in 30 seconds," Raftery tells the Tampa Bay Times. "I felt kind of dumb afterward, but it was broad daylight, and he was a kid." Police say the boy, who subsequently crashed the vehicle, also has burglary and robbery arrests on his record.
– A Southern California couple has been ordered to pay $5.7 million in damages to the former PTA president they tried to frame by planting drugs in her car and calling the police (using a faux Indian accent). It took a jury less than an hour to find that Kent Easter and his now ex-wife Jill Easter—both former lawyers—acted with malice, oppression, or fraud in February 2011 when they stashed pot, Vicodin, and Percocet in Kelli Peters' car, the Orange County Register reports. "This was really not about money, this was about standing up to people that pick on other people and telling them it’s not OK to do this," an emotional Peters tells the Register. "I feel like justice has been served." The attempt to frame Peters was the culmination of a yearlong campaign to get her dismissed as a volunteer at Plaza Vista School in Irvine. It all started in February 2010 when Jill Easter was upset that her son wasn't waiting in front of the school at pick-up time. Peters testified that she said the 7-year-old may have been "slow to line up." Perceiving an insult to her son's intelligence, Jill Easter (now calling herself Ava Everheart) became enraged. Here's a rundown, according to OC Weekly, of the Easters' actions: They claimed Peters had locked their son in the school. Jill Easter distributed fliers at school outlining Peters' fictitious misdeeds. They filed a police report against her. They claimed Peters was stalking their son. They filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against her. Kent Easter was ultimately sentenced to 87 days in jail in the drug-planting incident, while Jill Easter got 60 days. During the recent civil trial, Kent Easter claimed that Peters was exaggerating her level of distress (she was detained at the school for some two hours while parents, students, and her daughter watched). "The fact that something really bad was done to a person does not give them a winning Powerball number," he told the jury.
– Amid the sea of casualties in today's quake in Nepal are at least 10 that are garnering headlines of their own because of where tragedy befell them: on Everest. The 7.8-magnitude earthquake, the strongest to hit Nepal in more than eight decades, triggered a deadly avalanche in the Mount Everest region. NBC News reports the country's Tourism Ministry has thus far confirmed that 10 are dead, but the toll could very well rise. Indeed, USA Today reports an unknown number of people are missing, and the AP says some climbers may be cut off on routes leading to the summit. As for the scene at base camp, USA Today points to this from Danish climber Carsten Lillelund Pedersen: "Our Sherpas believe that a lot of people may have been buried in their tents." The AP spoke with Ang Tshering of the Nepal Mountaineering Association; he says at least 30 tents were flattened at base camp. Reuters quotes ministry officials as saying at least 1,000 people, about 40% of them foreigners, were on the mountain when the quake hit. The confirmed deaths establish today as at least the second deadliest day on the mountain. Exactly 51 weeks ago, 16 sherpas died on Everest, doubling the toll experienced in the previous worst day, the 1996 incident captured in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. The AP reports today's avalanche began on Mount Kumori, a 22,966-foot-high mountain just a few miles from Everest, and grew stronger as it barreled toward the base camp.
– The new social networking darling Pinterest has been getting all kinds of attention of late, and now comes a sure sign of validation: Mark Zuckerberg has signed up with a profile of his own, reports All Facebook. It notes that Zuckerberg also has accounts on Twitter and Google Plus, but he's relatively inactive on those. If his Pinterest activity starts humming, it may be a good sign for the site. "The simple content sharing site can easily be called the hottest startup of 2012," adds Stan Schroeder at Mashable.
– Selena Gomez stirred up a controversy in Abu Dhabi by posting an Instagram shot of herself flashing her right ankle during a visit to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque there earlier this week. In addition to the ankle-baring photo, Gomez posted a photo to Instagram of herself and friends including Kendall Jenner and Cody Simpson laughing and smiling—activities that, along with women exposing their ankles, are considered disrespectful in a mosque, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Sample comments from angered viewers: "Just because you're not muslim doesn't mean you don't have to follow muslim tradition in a Muslim place." The ankle photo was deleted yesterday, TMZ reports (it has the image), but Gomez has not commented on the controversy. See the other controversial photo—which also includes an exposed ankle—here.
– Since 2007, the DEA has seized a total of $3.2 billion in cash from people suspected of being involved in the drug trade but never charged with a crime, the Washington Post reports. That statistic comes from a Department of Justice watchdog's report released Wednesday. According to the AP, the inspector general reviewed 100 cases of civil asset forfeiture at random and found only 44 were verifiably connected to an ongoing investigation, responsible for starting a new investigation, or led to arrests or prosecutions. That means that 56% of the time "there was no discernible connection between the seizure and the advancement of law enforcement efforts," Business Insider quotes from the report. Civil asset forfeiture allows law enforcement to seize cash, homes, cars, and more without criminal or civil charges or judicial review. Departments can then keep the forfeitures to pad their budgets unless people win a challenge in court. The report found that 81% of the DEA's seizures since 2007 fall under this category. The report says this "creates the appearance, and risks the reality, that [law enforcement] is more interested in seizing and forfeiting cash than advancing an investigation or prosecution." For example, a police department in Florida arrested 84 people, seizing $49 million in cash, without ever filing a charge. The DOJ's criminal division says the report is misleading and uses bad data.
– More than 1,000 people gathered at Harvard's Sanders Theatre yesterday to celebrate the 24th annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, which includes such traditions as throwing paper airplanes and seeing who wins a date with a Nobel laureate. But the real treat is the science itself—which, in addition to being funny or preposterous, can also be extremely useful; it's not unheard of for someone who wins an Ig Nobel to go on to win an actual Nobel Prize, reports NBC News. (There is, for instance, the University of Manchester's Andre Geim, who both claimed an Ig Nobel for studying levitating frogs and later a Nobel for physics due to his research on graphene.) Here's a quick list of some of the highlights from the 2014 Ig Nobel winners: The Physics prize goes to a team that measured the amount of friction between a shoe and a banana skin and then a banana skin and the floor, when a person steps on a banana skin that's on the floor. The Neuroscience prize goes to a team that attempted to dissect the inner workings of the brains of people who see Jesus in their toast. The Biology prize goes to a team that discovered when dogs poop and pee, they tend to align their body axis with Earth's north-south geomagnetic field lines. The Medicine prize goes to a team that was able to treat "uncontrollable" nosebleeds using strips of cured pork. The Arctic Science prize goes to a team that observed how reindeer behave upon seeing humans disguised as polar bears. (Check out last year's winners, which involved swallowing a parboiled dead shrew whole and outlining the best ways to surgically remove a penis as long as it hasn't been chomped by a duck.)
– Heroin use is spiking so dramatically that the NYPD is adding a new tool to its arsenal: an antidote. About 20,000 officers, or more than half the force, will soon start carrying the drug naloxone to treat drug users suffering an overdose, reports the Daily News. The kits cost about $60 apiece, and the money will come fittingly enough from asset seizures in drug cases, says state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. In all, his office is committing $5 million to pay for the drugs at police departments across the state, reports the New York Times. One big reason for the decision is the success of naloxone in pilot programs. Authorities say they've saved 184 lives in Suffolk County since 2012 with the drug, and on Friday alone, two men on Staten Island were revived. Officers won't have to give people shots—the new kits have easy-to-use nasal sprays instead, reports NY1. (The FDA is on board with naloxone, too.)
– Just hours into the government shutdown, the Trump campaign released a video claiming that Democrats in Congress will be "complicit" in every murder committed by immigrants in the country illegally, the Hill reports. "President Trump is right—build the wall, deport criminals, stop illegal immigration now," the ad says. "Democrats who stand in our way will be complicit in every murder committed by illegal immigrants." (Watch it here.) The campaign posted the ad Saturday after negotiations over a short-term spending bill stalled over protections for immigrants in the US under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The ad was greeted with anger by Democrats and Independents in Washington and with consternation by some of the president's fellow Republicans. "It is really unbelievable and so sad for our country that we have a President of the United States that says such nonsense and such outrageous statements," said Bernie Sanders, per CNN. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, meanwhile, said the ad "doesn't work," ABC News reports. "The American people are not going to accept the premise that immigrants are criminals and that we ought to deport the 'dreamers,'" Durbin said. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan told CBS's Face the Nation he doesn't know if the ad is "necessarily productive."
– President Obama looks likely to begin his final year in office by taking unilateral action on gun control in an effort to reduce shooting deaths, CNN reports. The president is expected to release an executive action on gun control sometime before his Jan. 12 State of the Union address. According to Politico, the main component of the executive action would make the definition of who is a gun seller more specific than someone who sells guns with the "principal objective of livelihood and profit." That means people who only sell a few guns per year or sell their own gun collections could be required to be licensed and conduct background checks, CNN reports. According to Politico, this change would shrink—but not close—the "gun show loophole." A second part of the executive action would require guns that are lost somewhere between the seller and buyer to be reported, Politico reports. Thieves will target packages addressed to gun sellers in order to get their hands on unregistered firearms. Currently, all reporting of those crimes is voluntary. According to CNN, the executive action could also increase funding to enforce gun laws. While the exact contents of the executive action are still under wraps or being decided, Politico reports it's almost certainly less than what Obama pushed for following the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. Both increased licensing and mandatory reporting of stolen guns are opposed by gun-rights activists. Obama has taken 25 executive actions on gun control since 2013.
– The parent company of Chili's says it wants to make things right after a veteran had his free meal taken away on Veterans Day, the AP reports. Ernest Walker posted a video to Facebook on Friday of a manager taking away his meal at a Chili's in the Dallas suburb of Cedar Hill. The Army vet writes that the meal was taken away after another diner raised questions about the uniform Walker was wearing. Walker says the manager took his meal even after he showed him his military ID and discharge papers. Walker says he bought the fatigues he was wearing after he was discharged as a tribute to his service. Walker tells KDFW-TV that he believes another diner, also a veteran, was the one who raised doubts about his service. "He said, 'Well, I was in World War II in Germany and they didn't have any blacks over there then.’ He's an older guy so I let that stuff go," Walker says. But then he was approached by the manager, who told him, "We have guests that say you are not a legitimate military veteran," says Walker. Brinker International, which owns Chili's, tells KDFW that it's taking the matter "very seriously." Walker's lawyer is set to meet with the company Monday. “Unfortunately, we fell short on a day that we strive to honor our Veterans and active military for their service," the restaurant chain wrote on Facebook, per CBS.
– Power was finally restored to the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport just after midnight Sunday—some 11 hours after the lights went out in the world's busiest airport. The massive power outage caused the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights, including 900 Delta flights, Business Insider reports. The airline says it expects to cancel another 300 flights at its hub Monday in the aftermath of the outage, which is believed to have been caused by a fire in an underground electrical facility. Travelers say there was chaos and confusion after the outage brought the airport to a sudden standstill, the AP reports. "This is the worst experience I've ever had at an airport," says passenger Jeff Smith, who was stuck on a plane for more than three hours after it landed. Georgia Power says it believes the "very rare" outage was the result of a fire started by an equipment failure, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. "This fire was located adjacent to redundant circuit cables and switching mechanisms serving the airport and those cables were damaged, resulting in the outage and loss of redundant service method," the utility said in a statement. WSB-TV reports that one of the thousands of passengers stranded Sunday was former Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, who served from 2013 to 2017. "Total and abject failure here at ATL airport today," he tweeted. "There is no excuse for lack of workable redundant power source. NONE!" (It took five days for Delta flights to get back to normal last year after an Atlanta outage caused a global systems failure.)
– Rehab is really not agreeing with Lindsay Lohan, according to Radar's sources. She "looks extremely haggard, her face is bloated, and it doesn’t look like she has brushed her hair in days," says one. "She looks very disheveled and has absolutely no energy" because doctors took away her Adderall last week. (Lohan also claims that she's gained five pounds since the drug was taken away, Radar reports.) In more bad news for Lohan, TMZ reports that she's being sued for $5 million by DNAM Apparel Industries, a clothing manufacturer with which she made a deal to make clothes for her 6126 fashion line in 2009. Lohan sued DNAM first, claiming the company didn't honor the deal, but DNAM has now countersued. The lawsuit says no high-end retailers were interested in the line thanks to Lohan's "drug-addled image" and legal problems, which allegedly cost DNAM millions.
– While giving a tour of her $1.6 million home in 2013 with her partner in tow, children's author Helen Bailey noted that the cesspool beneath the garage would be a "good place to hide a body," according to court documents. Prosecutors said that's exactly how Ian Stewart got the idea to bury Bailey's body there three years later after suffocating her with a pillow, reports the BBC. Stewart, 56, was found guilty of his fiancee's 2016 murder in a UK court Wednesday in a case that now has authorities re-examining his wife's death in 2010. Prosecutors say Stewart fed Bailey sleeping drugs for weeks before smothering her on April 11—the same day he increased the monthly sum moved from Bailey's bank account into the couple's joint account from $750 to $5,000. Stewart initially told police that Bailey vanished after leaving a note saying she was staying in Kent. He later said business associates of her late husband kidnapped Bailey and blackmailed him—a story the prosecution argued was "bizarre nonsense." Prosecutors instead painted Stewart as a cold and calculating "narcissist" playing "the long game" to steal Bailey's $5 million fortune, noting that he attempted to sell an apartment Bailey owned and went on a two-week holiday to Spain shortly after the 51-year-old's death, per the Guardian. Authorities say there's "no indication" of foul play in the 2010 death of Stewart's wife after an epileptic seizure, but the case will be re-examined. Stewart was sentened to 34 years for Bailey's murder, reports the Telegraph. (A woman's death in 2001 continues to perplex: Was it a tragic accident or a murder?)
– As of yesterday, Priscilla Chan was no longer married to one of the world's 40 richest people. Bloomberg reports that Facebook's much ballyhooed drop below the $30-a-share mark yesterday caused Mark Zuckerberg to drop from the list. With the stock closing at $28.84, his fortune decreased from $16.2 billion on Friday to $14.7 billion yesterday. That boots him off of Bloomberg's daily Billionaires Index, and behind Luis Carlos Sarmiento, the richest man in Colombia. To hop over him, Zuck's wealth will need to rise $800 million. He's off to a less-than-promising start: Shares opened at $28.40 this morning, down 44 cents.
– JK Rowling, apparently not adjusting so well to post-Harry Potter life in the eight years since the last book dropped, has released yet another new story on her Pottermore website—a biography of sorts of one of the author's alleged "favorite off-stage characters" from the Series That Shall Apparently Never Die. Yes, Celestina Warbeck, ye olde "Singing Sorceress," makes her actual debut—complete with an actual music video of her smash hit, "You Stole My Cauldron, but You Can’t Have My Heart" (it's in the gallery, you're welcome)—after what BuzzFeed calls "throwaway references to her in three Harry Potter books." "I always imagined her to resemble Shirley Bassey in both looks and style," Rowling writes on Today, which has the whole thing, complete with references to Celestina's "Flighty Aphrodite tour."
– Police in South Africa are searching for the person behind the user name PigSpotter, a Twitter feed that alerts drivers to speed traps and roadblocks on the streets of Johannesburg. PigSpotter, who has attracted nearly 14,000 followers since June, tweets frequent warnings using terms such as "pigs" and "pork rash" to describe the police. "He is not just insulting the metro police. He is insulting all officers in uniform. These are people who have got families, and he is using that vulgar language," says a police spokesperson. Police are looking to charge PigSpotter with "defamation and defeating the ends of justice" reports AFP. Read the full article via Yahoo. For all things Twitter, click here.
– The accountant who served as the "middleman" in the 1993 Mumbai bombings that killed more than 250 people and injured more than 700 was hanged this morning—his 53rd birthday—at a prison in India, the New York Times reports. Yakub Memon, who raised funds for the attack, made travel arrangements, and obtained weapons and vehicles for car bombs, was the only defendant in the plot to be executed—a rare outcome in India, where only four people (including Memon) have been executed since 2000, the Times notes. Of the 100 people who've been convicted in connection with the crime, 10 others received death sentences that were commuted to life in prison, the AP reports. The main suspects, mobsters Dawood Ibrahim and Memon's brother Ibrahim, are still on the run. But there are many who don't think Memon should have gotten the death penalty. Social activists and even government officials protested the sentence, with some claiming that Muslims and other minority groups receive worse treatment in the penal system than the Hindu population. His lawyers also said that Memon surrendered of his own free will in Nepal, while a retired intelligence official wrote in a 2007 column that was just published last week that "there is a strong case for having second thoughts about the suitability of the death penalty" based on Memon's willingness to cooperate. But the judge who sentenced Memon tells the Times of India that even if he did surrender, that doesn't qualify "as an act of repentance or remorse."
– NFL fans who hate the overtime rules have reason to hope. More often than not it seems, the team that wins the coin toss zips down the field and ends the game with a field goal. League owners are considering a revision to try to even things up: The game can end on the opening possession only if the offensive team scores a touchdown. If it kicks a field goal, the other team gets the ball back to try to win or tie. The OT becomes sudden death again if both teams kick field goals of if neither scores on its first possession. The rules go into effect if 75% of owners agree—but only for playoff games, reports the Wall Street Journal. Already, critics are surfacing. Sam Farmer at the Los Angeles Times worries the proposed changes give an edge to the team with second possession.
– There are many upsides to being famous, but one notable downside is that, at least in Jennifer Aniston’s case, you’re forced to give periodic interviews informing the world that, no, you’re neither engaged nor pregnant ... you’ve just gained a little weight. “Rumor No. 1: I am not planning to get married anytime soon. This ring that I'm wearing is not an engagement ring,” she tells Hello! “And rumor No. 2, no, we're not pregnant. It's just I quit smoking, so I’ve gained a couple of pounds." As for a famous person who is expecting a baby? Tony Romo, who announced recently that his wife, Candice Crawford, is pregnant, according to People. As for Romo’s ex, Jessica Simpson—well, check out this photo and judge for yourself.
– An Italian supervolcano could be heading toward an eruption—and that's bad news for the 500,000 or so people who live in and around it, the Washington Post reports. Campi Flegrei is a 7.5-mile-wide caldera, the collapsed top of an ancient volcano. The eruption that formed it 39,000 years ago was the biggest in Europe in 200,000 years and may have been responsible for killing off the Neanderthals. Since then, it's only had two major eruptions: 35,000 years ago and 12,000 years ago, according to Science Alert. But a "minor" eruption in 1538 was still plenty serious, releasing enough material to form a new mountain. An Italian philosopher of the time described that eruption thusly: "At the second hour of the night, this mount of earth opened like a mouth, with a great roaring, vomiting much fire and pumice and stones.” Now activity is picking up at Campi Flegrei. Uplift started in 2005, and an alert level for the volcano was raised in 2012, requiring seismic monitoring, AFP reports. Recent years have seen increases in minor seismic activity and ground deformation. On Tuesday, researchers published a study in Nature stating that the caldera is nearing a "critical degassing pressure" that "can drive volcanic unrest toward a critical state." It's still impossible to say when another eruption may occur, but researchers are hoping to spur more research and monitoring at Campi Flegrei for the sake of the residents of nearby Naples, for whom an eruption "would be very dangerous." (Meanwhile, the biggest volcano on Earth may be waking up.)
– Love the beauty craze known as contouring? Then check out Australian-based beauty blogger Chloe Morello's recent video, where she claims to have two makeup artists apply $5,000 of makeup to contour her entire body—a goal she calls "totally achievable" every day. She's kidding, of course, and says her 5-minute mockumentary aims to prove a point: that contouring, and unrealistic images of women in social media generally, have gone too far. "I didn't want to shame anyone that wants to body contour," she tells Today. "It definitely has a place in photo shoots, and maybe even special occasions. But just the thought of applying makeup so heavily all over your body... the time it'd take, and impracticality of it. It rubs off on clothes and furniture and wears off if you sweat or as you walk." Morello admits to contouring her face (shaping it with makeup, in other words) in most of her videos, but she's not alone in saying the trend has gone too far. Some people are even contouring their toes—"seriously," sighs Yahoo! Beauty. And Kim Kardashian, who helped popularize contouring, tells Vogue she's pretty much over it. "I think right now it’s more about non-touring, like real skin with less make-up on it," she says. As for reaction to her video, Morello says that while most people got the joke, some called her a hypocrite who profits from, well, vanity, and others body-shamed her for being "fat," saying she's an example of why a first date should be to the lap pool. (See why this woman spent three hours applying makeup during labor.)
– Only in the world of reality TV would your blessed union spawn a product-placement-extravaganza wedding that earned you $17.9 million, followed by a ridiculous post-wedding media blitz in which you say your vows again, followed by a four-hour-long TV special about the whole thing, followed by … rumors that the marriage is crumbling. But such is the life of Kim Kardashian, whose eight-week-old union with Kris Humphries will apparently fall apart any day now. “I don’t know when they’ll announce the split or why they got married in the first place but they are done,” a source tells the Daily Mail. As proof, another source says that Kim’s agent has dropped Kris as a client, and that—horrors!—there aren’t any plans for a reality show featuring the couple. The New York Post notes that other magazines are reporting similar rumors: Star says Kim may have consulted a divorce lawyer; Life & Style claims Kris got in touch with an ex. In other troubling news, the Kardashians have apparently been told that President Obama is not a fan. And they’re just shocked, shocked, that he doesn’t want his daughters watching their show, sources tell TMZ. They’re particularly surprised at the news because they apparently believe their show is educational, featuring as it does real girls tackling real problems—including health and relationships.
– When the US takes the field against Ghana Saturday afternoon in the next round of the World Cup, it'll be a toss-up on whether they'll advance. So says stats guru Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight, who crunches numbers with ESPN on a Soccer Power Index. It's true that USA has a higher power ranking (it's now 14) than Ghana (33), but Ghana gets the "home continent" advantage from the odds-makers. Without that, USA would be 60-40 favorites. In a more tangible area, Ghana has a solid defense to counter USA's stronger offense. In short, "it's not easy to beat Ghana in a World Cup played in Africa," Silver adds, "and it's certainly not easy to beat a team playing as well as Uruguay should we get them in the quarterfinal. But these are the kinds of matches we'll have to start winning, and with some consistency, if we're going to progress into the next tier of international football. "
– Picture it: Your ex-boyfriend kidnaps you at BB-gun-point, handcuffs you, and drives you from Texas to a bed and breakfast in Kansas, where he plans to spend three weeks with you on a passionate getaway that ends with him convincing you to marry him. If that doesn't sound like the perfect proposal to you, well, a woman identified as HMM in court documents didn't find it all that romantic either. She and Joseph Andrew DeRusse, 24, dated for just two months when things started "cooling down" between them in November, Courthouse News reports, citing court documents. They hadn't seen each other since just after Christmas when on Jan. 22 DeRusse allegedly kidnapped HMM at her sister's Austin apartment complex, forcing her into a car with a BB gun he'd made to look real; police described it as "very realistic," KXAN reports. During their three-state trek, DeRusse not only allegedly handcuffed HMM but also set her up with a neck pillow and a sleep mask so that she would look like a willing passenger in his car simply taking a nap, and didn't remove them for 400 miles. HMM's father reported his daughter and her car missing, and her GPS revealed that the car was in Kansas. Police stopped DeRusse on Jan. 23 before he reached the B&B, and he told officers HMM was his "fiancee" and they were driving her car. During a private conversation with an officer, though, she revealed what really happened. DeRusse eventually confessed and told officers about his proposal plan; they found an engagement ring in the car. He was arrested and has been charged with kidnapping in federal court; he faces life in prison. (This proposal also went very, very wrong.)
– California Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency Wednesday over the crazy natural gas leak that's been spewing massive amounts of methane over a Los Angeles neighborhood since October and may not be fixed for months. Some related coverage: Brown's declaration seeks to speed up the repair and improve backup plans, and requires that well operator Southern California Gas cover projects to reduce emissions elsewhere in the state. Details at the Sacramento Bee. So what happened? Engineers think a 7-inch pipe burst 500 feet below ground, and the Los Angeles Times reports that the leaking well lacked a working safety valve. The story has a graphic explaining what's happening below ground to try to plug the leak. More than 2,000 households in the Porter Ranch neighborhood have relocated to hotels, motels, and relatives' homes, and residents are worried about illnesses and property values, reports the Wall Street Journal. "You can't see it, so there's denial," says a woman whose 2-year-old daughter was hospitalized for respiratory issues. People are getting sick (headaches, dizziness, nosebleed, nausea) not from the gas itself but from chemicals added to it to help detect leaks, reports the New York Times. Health officials say the long-term effects are small. Gizmodo calls this the biggest natural gas leak on record and has one question for Brown: "What took so long?" This "could seriously set back the Obama administration’s high profile efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute directly to global warming," explains the Fiscal Times.
– French PM Manuel Valls issued a new warning in front of the lower house of France's Parliament Thursday, nearly a week after the Paris terror attacks. "Terrorism hit France not because of what it is doing in Iraq and Syria … but for what it is. We know that there could also be a risk of chemical or biological weapons," he said, per the AP. "The macabre imagination of the masterminds is limitless," he added, per the Jerusalem Post. Hakim al-Zamili, the head of the Iraqi parliament's security and defense committee, concurs, telling the AP that "[ISIS] is working very seriously to reach production of chemical weapons, particularly nerve gas. That would threaten not just Iraq but the whole world." Iraqi intelligence officers say ISIS has a dedicated arm going after chemical weapons, and al-Zamili notes ISIS has plenty of chemical experts from Iraq—including some of Saddam's ex-hired hands—and abroad and that research labs are now in "secured locations" in Syria. So far, the only evidence of what ISIS has in its chemical arsenal has been mustard gas used in Syria and against Iraqi Kurds—and an EU official tells the AP that was in small amounts and of subpar quality. The US doesn't think the militants can make more sophisticated weapons such as nerve gas—the Guardian concurs, saying ISIS using any chemical weapons in Europe is "extremely unlikely"—but Iraqi officials don't share that confidence. "[Extremists] now have complete freedom to select locations for their labs and production sites and have a wide range of experts, both civilians and military, to aid them," a senior Iraqi intelligence official tells the AP. It looks like France isn't taking any chances: Per a decree signed the day after the Paris attacks and appearing in the French Official Gazette, France gave the OK to use atropine sulfate, a nerve gas antidote, on the masses ahead of the Paris climate talks set for month's end, per Newsweek.
– Coca-Cola has dropped its "You're on" slogan for Diet Coke after being widely mocked for ads that appeared to say "You're on coke," thanks to the positioning of the logo. The ads, some of which portrayed the drink as a quick pick-me-up, looked like a pretty unsubtle cocaine reference to some bloggers and the lampooned campaign was ditched after just three months, reports the New York Times. The slogan has been replaced by "Just for the taste of it," returning for at least the third time since it was used to launch Diet Coke in 1983. "It's not likely that the reference was intentional," especially since the company's products used to actually contain cocaine, according to CBS, but David Gianatasio at AdWeek disagrees. "The campaign's wording is so obvious, I'd bet client and agency went this route on purpose," he writes. "The ads are certainly getting extra attention, and it's not so offensive as to cause the brand harm. Plus, there's plausible deniability." Coca-Cola says it "in no way endorses or supports the use of any illegal substance," and the slogan change was simply meant to provide "a different way to talk about the brand." (The company also recently agreed to remove a flame retardant from its Powerade drinks.)
– Eating one serving of chocolate per week may help save you from a stroke, researchers say. Chocolate eaters are 22% less likely to suffer a stroke than abstainers, an analysis of three studies with a total of 44,489 subjects reveals. But even the study author cautions that the conclusion "is something that requires further investigation," reports USA Today. And another doc cautions that association isn't the same as causation. "It might simply be that, for example, people who enjoy life have a lower risk of stroke and are more prone to eat chocolate," a Yale researcher tells ABC News.
– A married couple who survived the Oct. 1 shooting in Las Vegas that killed 58 people died just weeks later in a car crash not far from their home in Murietta, Calif. Dennis Carver and his wife, Lorraine, were at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas when Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay and Resort Casino, the Los Angeles Times reports. Dennis Carver jumped on top of his wife to protect her from the gunfire, and during a lull they got up and ran to safety, escaping unharmed. Just over two weeks later, though, the couple was driving less than a mile from their home at about 11pm on Oct. 16 when they went off the roadway and crashed. They were pronounced dead at the scene. Officer William Strom of the California Highway Patrol says the Carvers' car struck a cinder-block column, ripping off the rear axle and rupturing the gas tank. The car then struck a second column, rolled over, and burst into flames, ABC News reports. It took firefighters almost an hour to put out the fire. A week after the crash, Dennis Carver's cell phone, which he'd lost during the chaos in Las Vegas, was shipped back to the family by a Las Vegas FBI agent. “When we turned it on, all his photos and messages were still there,” the couple's daughter Brooke says. “This is how we know they’re looking down and watching over us.”
– It made what VH1 calls "arguably the most famous guitar in rock," the Les Paul Standard cradled by Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page. Now Gibson needs help churning out its guitars also favored by David Bowie and John Lennon. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday, citing between $100 million and $500 million in debt from acquisitions of home entertainment and audio equipment companies, some of which have already been sold off, report the Wall Street Journal and Billboard. "The decision to refocus on our core business, musical instruments, combined with the significant support from our noteholders, we believe will assure the company's long-term stability and financial health," CEO Henry Juszkiewicz says. Variety reports the company will continue operating with a $135 million loan from lenders as its Innovations business, mostly located outside the US, closes down.
– They say Hollywood is liberal, but in fact it's more of a right-wing propaganda machine, writes Rick Moody in the Guardian. From Schwarzenegger to Spider-Man, “the message is there: Might is right, the global economy will be restored, America is exceptional, homely people deserve political disenfranchisement, and so on.” As a result, no one should be surprised by Batman scribe Frank Miller’s recent attacks on Occupy Wall Street, writes Moody. Miller called Occupiers “a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists,” telling them to “wake up” because “America is at war against a ruthless enemy.” Many were shocked, but really, it’s in line with Hollywood’s message. Look at the film 300, based on a Miller graphic novel. It features the Greeks, American stand-ins, who must destroy a “ruthless enemy” from the Middle East “by virtue of the moral superiority of their belief system and their unmatched courage.” In fact, Miller’s comments benefit Occupiers, because it shows that our political system “requires a mindless, propagandistic (or 'cryptofascist') storytelling medium to distract its citizenry.”
– The 16-year-old who admits falling asleep behind the wheel and causing the fatal Louisiana accident that killed five members of his family on their way to Disney World will see a ticket issued over the crash dismissed, the DA for the 4th District says. The teen says he lost control of the family's Chevy Tahoe near Calhoun on Wednesday night when he dozed off. The car veered onto the median, but when the driver tried to get back onto the highway he overcorrected and the car flipped, ejecting six of the occupants, the Monroe News-Star reports. Killed in the crash were parents Michael and Trudi Hardman of Terrell, Texas, and three children, Dakota Watson, 15, Kaci Hardman, 4, and Adam Hardman, 7. None of those killed wore seat belts. Although the Louisiana State Police issued the driver a citation for careless operation of the vehicle, DA Jerry Jones says, "This young man has been punished enough. There is no need to add to his pain. The ticket will be dismissed." No further citations or charges are expected. The Hardmans were both primary-school teachers, reports the AP; it talks to Michael's brother, who says the vacation was to be a "dream trip" for the family.
– Here's how TMZ describes it: Lea Michele "essentially controlled" boyfriend Cory Monteith, "[laying] down the law" when it came to things like his drug use—and has continued to do so after his death, taking over all the arrangements. But the gossip site seems to be a bit conflicted, because it also calls her Monteith's "very strong guardian angel" who "always had [his] back and tried protecting him as much as she could." Apparently he wasn't quite as adept at handling Hollywood as Michele, sources tell TMZ. The problem arose when he went to his "other life" in Canada, away from Michele, the sources add. Before Monteith went to rehab earlier this year, Michele supposedly told him "Clean up or I’m out of here," Radar reports. Post-rehab, Michele had no idea Monteith had relapsed and was using heroin again, a source tells Us. In related news, TMZ assures us that Glee won't be canceled in the wake of Monteith's death. Writers had an emergency meeting yesterday to figure out how to move forward with his character's storyline. The show is even currently casting two new actors, E! reports. Meanwhile, Jane Lynch got teary on last night's Tonight Show, reports People. "He was a real bright light in our family, and we've lost a really great guy," she said.
– Earlier this year, the New York Times reported on China's emerging #MeToo movement, noting that "silence breakers" in the male-dominated culture face the added obstacle of government censors. It now describes how a 20-year-old alleged rape case has broken through barriers to bring about change. It centers on Gao Yan, a 21-year-old who committed suicide in 1998 after claiming she was raped by Peking University professor Shen Yang, whom Gao said had then started a rumor that she had a mental illness. Shared recently by her former classmates—including one who wrote a widely read essay targeting Shen, who denies the allegations—Gao's story is seen as an example of the abuse suffered by women in China, per the Times, and universities including Peking, which Shen left in 2011, have responded with promises to do better. Nanjing University and Shanghai Normal University, schools where Shen taught recently, say they've ended relationships with the professor, reports the Telegraph. Peking University, meanwhile, says Shen received a "warning penalty" after police found he'd "violated teachers' morality" in 1998, per the Telegraph. The school is now promising to institute new rules on sexual harassment, reports Global News, but student activists are cautious. One tells the Times that Peking has "shown no sense of introspection about the unequal power dynamics between students and teachers" since Gao's death. "Merely resolving one or two specific cases is meant to gag the public," she adds. Speaking of gag orders, the Times reports an article published by Chinese media Monday contained sexual harassment accusations against Shen by a second student, but that article was quickly deleted.
– Herman Cain’s sex-harassment allegations don’t seem to have taken much of a toll on his poll numbers. Some 23% of Republicans support Cain’s nomination, putting him in a virtual tie with Mitt Romney, who is at 24%, a Washington Post-ABC News poll finds. That's the best he's done in WaPo-ABC polls all year. What’s more, 70% of Republicans say the allegations won’t affect their vote, and 55% don’t see the charges as a "serious matter." That doesn’t mean Cain is out of the woods, however. Some 37% of Republicans and 42% of GOP-leaning independents call the scandal serious, and Republican women are twice as likely as men to agree that it could make them less likely to vote for Cain. Romney has a strong lead among those concerned about the allegations—details of which keep rolling in. Several sources have provided accounts of an accuser’s story to Politico and the New York Times; one says the woman felt “her job was at risk” if she rejected a suggestive comment from Cain. After she complained about Cain’s advances, she felt her work environment became hostile, the Times notes.
– It's a "terrible day" in Palo Cedro, Calif., as the town mourns a young blues drummer known as "Happy Pap." That's where Sarah Papenheim grew up, per the Redding Record Searchlight, and those who knew her there (and in the Twin Cities, Minn., area where she'd also lived) are now devastated to learn the 21-year-old was stabbed to death in the Netherlands, where she was attending Erasmus University. Per the Minneapolis Star Tribune, police say witnesses heard an argument and screams coming out of Papenheim's third-floor Rotterdam apartment Wednesday. Officers found Papenheim inside the apartment with stab wounds, per a police statement cited by CNN. A 23-year-old man said to be her roommate fled the scene, but cops caught up with him as he got off a train about 65 miles away. The suspect was arrested on suspicion of murder and will likely soon be charged in her death, reports the Washington Post. Donee Odegard, Papenheim's mom, tells the Star Tribune that police and Papenheim's boyfriend told her the roommate had been getting "more and more angry" recently, and she says she'd advised her daughter to "get out of there." Even more tragic: Papenheim had been studying psychology, with a focus on suicide, after her 21-year-old brother killed himself three years ago. "My only two kids, and I've lost them both," Odegard says. Papenheim's family says it can't afford the $40,000 or so they estimate it will cost to bring her body back to the US, as well as for funeral and burial costs; a GoFundMe set up to help them defray those expenses had brought in more than $20,000 as of Friday morning. (A Maryland woman was stabbed to death while helping a panhandler.)
– The USA plays its opening match in the Women's World Cup today, but goalie Hope Solo's personal life is getting more press than the soccer tournament. An ESPN Outside the Lines report yesterday looked into Solo's arrest on domestic violence charges last year, exposing some new details, including alleged obnoxious behavior after her arrest. In a jail report obtained by ESPN, an officer says Solo "showed signs of being intoxicated" and was aggressive and insulting, telling an officer that the necklace he asked her to remove was "worth more than he made in a year," calling another officer "a 14-year-old boy," and warning an officer she'd "kick his ass" if she wasn't in handcuffs. The ESPN report, which included an interview with the half-sister Solo was accused of assaulting, is at odds with the account of the incident Solo has given the public, including on a Good Morning America interview, reports the Washington Post, which notes that prosecutors filed a rare appeal after the charges were dismissed and that the next hearing is in July. Despite the drama, fellow players and head coach Jill Ellis deny that Solo is in any way a bad influence on the squad. "We've moved on. She's been a fantastic player and teammate," Ellis tells USA Today. "None of that has even resonated with us, and I'm sure some of the players aren't even aware of it." (In January, Solo was suspended for 30 days after her husband was pulled over on suspicion of DUI.)
– Now that she's out at the New York Times, will Jill Abramson remove the tattooed logo of its "T" from her back? "Not a chance," she told students during a Wake Forest University commencement speech, which, Politico notes, was her first public appearance since her firing. "It was the honor of my life to lead the newsroom," she said. While she didn't offer details of her departure, she did use it as a model for graduate inspiration. "What’s next for me? I don’t know,” she said. "So I’m in exactly the same boat as many of you. And like you, I’m a little scared but also a little excited." As to that future, Abramson said she'd remain "very much a part of" journalism, Newsday reports. She also offered some advice from her father: "You know the sting of losing or not getting something you badly want. When that happens, show what you are made of."
– The elder Mario Cuomo—the former governor of New York who is father to the current Gov. Cuomo of New York—died today at age 82 at his Manhattan home. Some early snippets in his hometown press: New York Times: "Mario Cuomo, the three-term governor of New York who commanded the attention of the country with a compelling public presence, a forceful defense of liberalism and his exhaustive ruminations about whether to run for president, died ... " Daily News: "Ever-eloquent Mario Cuomo, a son of Queens who rode his rhetorical gifts to three terms as New York governor and tantalized Democrats by flirting with a run for President, died ..." New York magazine: "Running through all of it wasn’t just Cuomo’s towering intellect, and his gift for lyrical phrasing. There was his burning passion, the quality that pushed Cuomo from his first-generation Italian immigrants’ parents grocery store in Queens to law school to mediating an ugly dispute over low-income housing. The quality that drove him from losing an epic and ugly mayoral race against Koch in 1977 to beating Koch in a nearly-as-bitter rematch for governor in 1982." New York Post: "According to President Bill Clinton, he was poised to nominate Cuomo for a spot on the High Court in 1993, but Cuomo took himself out of the running before Clinton had a chance."
– The woman killed today in a horrific elevator accident in midtown Manhattan has been identified as a 41-year-old advertising executive with Young & Rubicam, reports DNA Info. After Suzanne Hart stepped into the elevator in her Madison Avenue building, the doors somehow shut on her foot or leg. (Her foot may have been caught in the gap between the elevator and lobby floor.) The elevator started going up with Hart trapped, and she was killed instantly as it got stuck between floors. Two others on the elevator could only watch. “She’s a beautiful person and I don’t have words for this,” her boyfriend tells the New York Times. “I loved her.” Click for more.
– Gertrude Weaver was the oldest-known living person on Earth for nearly a week, and she got a kick out of it, too, NBC News reports. When 117-year-old Misao Okawa died of heart failure on April 1, Weaver took the top spot at age 116 and basked in the limelight from her Arkansas senior care facility, where she liked reading news articles about herself. She died there peacefully this morning due to complications from pneumonia, KATV reports. "She certainly enjoyed it," says the facility's administrator. "We are devastated by her loss." Weaver was born to a family of sharecroppers in Arkansas, near Texas, on July 4, 1898, and took on work as a domestic aid, Reuters reports. Weaver credited her long life to being kind to people and eating food she cooked herself, says NPR. One of her last wishes was to have President Obama visit the Silver Oaks Health & Rehabilitation Center in Camden, Ark., for her birthday. The new world's-oldest is Jeralean Talley, who turns 116 in May and lives outside Detroit with her daughter. She puts her longevity down to faith: "It's the Lord," she says. "Everything is in his hands." She also bowled until age 104 and says she never drank alcohol or smoked. (Weaver had more advice for living a long life.)
– ICANN today revealed the 1,409 suffixes that companies are clamoring to add to our Internet lexicon, and they run the gamut from .porn to .pizza to .paris, reports NPR. A number of companies got in on the action, with who-cares-about-brevity proposals including .lamborghini, .pamperedchef, and .bananarepublic. The 1,930 proposals, which cost $185,000 a pop, include some duplicates (no big surprise that more than one entity wants to lay claim to .bank). ICANN hopes competing bidders can resolve their claim amongst themselves; if not, ICANN will auction off the in-demand suffix. The public is also allowed to weigh in and blow the whistle on a trademark violation or protest any suffix they find in poor taste. The AP expects it will take as long as two years for ICANN to OK the suffixes. Click to see all the proposed suffixes; our favorite: .mrmuscle.
– This much isn't in dispute: The glaciers of the European Alps retreated by an average of 0.6 miles between 1860 and 1930. But why, especially when the temperature of the continent itself actually cooled in the same period? Now a team of scientists thinks it has the answer, reports LiveScience: Soot from the Industrial Revolution. All those coal-burning factories and homes blanketed the mountains with thick black "particulate carbon," say researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. They concluded as much after drilling ice cores from the Alpine glaciers and measuring remnants of the black stuff, reports Discovery, which explains the melting process thusly: "The soot probably settled on the snow overlaying the glaciers and caused the insulating blanket of snow to heat up like a black car in the sun." That exposed the glacier's underlying ice, which melted, too. If not for the soot, the glaciers would have kept expanding until about 1910, say the scientists, according to the LA Times.
– California's monstrous Woolsey fire is continuing to rage, and the AP reports that officials have called in a mobile DNA lab to assist in the grim task of identifying the 23 people killed so far. The fire's toll is expected to increase, and has extended to something of a Hollywood icon: Western Town in Paramount Ranch, the Old West set where Gunsmoke, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and most recently, Westworld, were filmed. "We are sorry to share the news that the #WoolseyFire has burned Western Town at #ParamountRanch in Agoura," tweeted the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, per CNN. "We do not have any details or photos, but it is our understanding that the structures have burned. This area is an active part of the incident and we cannot access it." Paramount Pictures bought 2,700 acres in 1927 for use as a "movie ranch," CNN notes. (This dad sang to his daughter as they made an incredible escape from the fire.)
– Citizen Kane has to take a rare step back: Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo has claimed its long-held title as "greatest film of all time" in a well-regarded survey, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Sight & Sound, the magazine published by the British Film Institute, says the 1958 movie with Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak got the most votes among 846 international film critics. Citizen Kane had been atop the once-a-decade survey since 1962. Tokyo Story, La Règle du jeu, and Sunrise: A Song for Two Humans round out the top five. Click here for the full list.
– George Zimmerman's trial has moved on from key witness Rachel Jeantel, with today seeing a handful of people take the stand. The day's standout testimony, largely per the Orlando Sentinel: Zimmerman neighbor John Good, described by the AP as having "perhaps the best view of the struggle," said he heard noise while watching TV on the night Trayvon Martin was killed and stepped outside to investigate. He described seeing a MMA-style scene unfold. In his telling, the two men were "tussling" on the ground, with the person on top in a straddle position and throwing punches "ground and pound" style. He described the person on top as darkly-clad, with the one on the bottom in either red or white, and having lighter skin. Per the evidence, Trayvon was in a dark-colored sweatshirt and Zimmerman was dressed in red that night. When asked if he believed Trayvon was on top, Good replied, "Correct ... that's what it looked like." Neighbor Jonathon Manalo, who was the first one to step outside and took cellphone photos that night that were shown to the jury today, described "blood running down [Zimmerman's] nose from both nostrils and over his lips." He said Zimmerman's demeanor was calm, and said Zimmerman asked him to call his wife. "Just tell her I shot someone," Manalo recounts Zimmerman as saying. He said Zimmerman told him at the time that the shooting was in self-defense. When asked if that "seemed completely true," Manalo replied, "yes." The Sentinel notes that some big names have yet to take the stand. Among them: Trayvon's parents, the medical examiner, and lead Sanford police investigator Christopher Serino.
– On what would have been Princess Di's 50th birthday, conservative mouthpiece Ann Coulter lashed the late royal. Diana was "just this anorexic, bulimic narcissist," Coulter grouses in an interview, though she added that the newly minted Princess Kate "seems like a lovely girl." Coulter added: "I find it a little baffling when Americans get so gaga-eyed over a princess." TV Guide notes that this isn't the first time Coulter has had something less than flattering to say about Di: In April she called her a "nitwit hussy" on the O'Reilly Factor.
– The death toll from an attack on an upscale mall in Nairobi today has now reached at least 39, with another 150 injured, the country's president, Uhuru Kenyatta, said in a national TV address. Kenyatta says he "personally lost family members" in the attack on the Westgate mall, the BBC reports. "We shall hunt down the perpetrators wherever they run to," he promised Kenyans in his address. "We shall get to them and we shall punish them for this heinous crime." Americans are among those injured, reports CNN, though no further details were available. "They just came in and threw a grenade," one witness tells AP. "We were running and they opened fire. They were shouting and firing." The Somali militant group al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for what it is calling the "Westgate spectacle", reports the BBC. On Twitter, al-Shabab says "all Muslims inside #Westgate were escorted out by the Mujahideen before beginning the attack," reports CNN. It also tweeted that it still had control of the mall, but after 10 hours of fighting, Kenyan police tweeted that they have "isolated and pinned down" the attackers. A New York Times photographer happened to be nearby when the attackers opened fire—his photos from inside the mall are incredible, though very graphic.
– Egypt's offensive in Sinai is growing. Yesterday saw missiles fired following a series of attacks on government forces; today, officials are sending troops and armored vehicles, including tanks, to the peninsula. Meanwhile, the military is closing off illegal tunnels across the border into Gaza; the 1,200 passageways, typically used by smugglers, are thought to have provided an escape for the militants who attacked soldiers on Sunday, the BBC reports. Local television earlier reported new fighting in Sinai, but a security insider later clarified the incident, saying a man driving an unlicensed car had been firing into the air.
– What 4-year-old doesn't need a frilly bra and panty set? A French fashion line of lingerie aimed at children and teenage girls is making awkward waves thanks to photos of young models in risquè outfits and seductive poses, reports Fashionista. Jours Après Lunes claims to be "the first designer brand dedicated to ‘loungerie' for children and teenagers, comprised of loungewear and lingerie to be worn over and under, inside and outside." The website for the line designed by adult lingerie veteran Sophie Morin has collections for girls ages 3 months to 36 months, 4 to 12, and 13 and up. The set for the babies is "actually age-appropriate and cute, thankfully," writes Dhani Mau, but the others are little disturbing, especially because of the way the girls are posed in the photos. "Maybe it's unwise to throw stones at the French brand when pretty much every mall in America has a Victoria's Secret Pink outpost selling lingerie to teens," writes Margaret Hartmann at Jezebel. "But we will say that whether it comes from France or the U.S., the last thing we need is more images that sexualize young girls." (French Vogue recently caused a flap with a 10-year-old cover model.)
– If a man on the New York City subway started asking riders for money to fund the time machine he was building, you'd probably assume he was a panhandler with a particularly novel method of asking for money. But what that man's future self got on at the next stop and begged riders not to give any money, because if they do, the time machine will indeed get built and ruin all of our lives? That's the pretty neat trick Improv Everywhere pulled off on the subway, using, of course, a set of identical twins to play Current Guy and Future Guy. Three more sets of identical twins also got in on the action at other stops, playing current and future versions of other riders on the subway car. Improv Everywhere staged the scene five times, and unlike some of its past pranks, each performance felt intimate. It "was hyper-focused on the people who happened to be sitting and standing around our playing space," the group's blog post explains. "In most performances, it felt like a surprise for just ten people. I love creating something so ridiculously elaborate (four pairs of twins, perfectly timed staggered entrances on the train) for the benefit of so few people." Of course, the video can now be enjoyed by many more people. Did the time machine builder actually get any money from unsuspecting strangers? Yes, at least $5, the blog post notes, and the giver got off before seeing how the prank played out.
– The verdicts are in on President Obama's Oval Office address to mark the end of major US combat operations in Iraq, and he apparently didn't please many people. The president just wasn't entertaining enough for Bill O'Reilly. The president seemed like a "boring professor," the O'Reilly Factor host complained, criticizing even the way Obama held his hands. "You can’t get him on substance, so you go over his style," guest Alan Colmes retorted. Obama's "grim little speech" failed to ask—or answer—the important questions: "Did it make America safer, and was it really worth it?" complains Roger Simon at Politico. The president, he writes, let George Bush off the hook for a costly war that "began as a fraud." Obama portrayed the official end of the war not as an opportunity to refocus on Afghanistan, but as the time to get America back to work, notes Alex Pareene at Salon. "I don't think it was a particularly great or memorable speech," he writes. "I also think it scarcely would've mattered if it had been a great speech in this media environment and political climate, but this is more or less the withdrawal we were promised." The Washington Post's scribes are split: Obama said nothing, complains Richard Cohen. It was good, counters Eugene Robinson, who adds, "He wore the presidency with an accessory that Americans expect and appreciate: gravitas."
– Netflix's new subscription plan, which hikes the cost of enjoying both streaming videos and sent-in-the-mail DVDs from $9.99 to $16—that's 60%—isn't winning it many friends. Amid a sea of anger, Newser picks some favorite reactions: Points for brevity: "Netflix sucks," opines Pat's Papers. No wonder then that this current subscriber will "be canceling as soon as I find the Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure DVD we rented most recently." Best summary of why we're so angry: "It’s not the $6," explains Matt Burns for TechCrunch. "It’s that Netflix raised the prices without adding any value. There simply isn’t any way of spinning this as a benefit to the consumer." The best "Dear Netflix" tweet: @theroxy quips, "Dear Netflix, As much as we love the 'cerebral romantic comedy documentaries' genre you suggested, paying double is insane. k thx bai." Best (and only?) defense of the move: In a piece for Forbes titled "Could We All Please Shut Up About Netflix," Elisa Douchette writes that "What completely befuddles me about this entire situation is the belief we as consumers are OWED something by Netflix. Last I checked, Netflix is a publicly traded FOR-PROFIT company. If you want cheaper movies? Then get a public library card." To dig deeper into the rich history of America's love affair with Netflix, check out this map of the most popular Netflix movies, by state.
– Last year, President Trump signed an executive order on religious freedom, and now the Department of Justice is creating a "religious liberty task force" to implement the guidance that was issued as a result of that order. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the task force Monday during the DoJ's religious liberty summit, the Hill reports. Among other things, the guidance, issued in October, "staked out religious protections for hiring decisions that could threaten those whose sexual orientation conflicts with employers' faith," USA Today reported at the time, and the Human Rights Campaign responded to the task force news with concern that it will lead to anti-LGBTQ discrimination. Sessions, however, said that many Americans and others in the West feel their religious freedom is under attack. "We’ve seen nuns ordered to buy contraceptives," he said. "We’ve seen US senators ask judicial and executive branch nominees about dogma, even though the Constitution explicitly forbids a religious test for public office." He also cited the case of a baker who refused to make a same-sex wedding cake. Sessions said the Constitution's protections for free exercise of religion mean that "we have not only the freedom to worship—but the right to exercise our faith," by taking action or abstaining from action. The task force will ensure the government protects those freedoms and that the DoJ employees "know their duties to accommodate people of faith," per Bustle. The ACLU tweeted, "Reminder: Religious freedom protects our right to our beliefs, not a right to harm others."
– Before detonating a pipe bomb near Times Square Monday morning, Akayed Ullah reportedly took the time to update his Facebook status—and his message was about President Trump. The detail comes via the five-count federal complaint filed against him Tuesday (NPR posts the complaint in full here), and USA Today has the relevant passage: "On the way to carrying out the December 11 attack, Ullah posted a statement on his Facebook account stating, 'Trump you failed to protect your nation.'" The complaint also unpacks his motive per comments the 27-year-old allegedly made to investigators. "I did it for the Islamic State," he said, according to the AP. The complaint alleges Ullah specifically chose a workday to carry out the attack in order to "terrorize as many people as possible," and that he attacked "because of the United States Government's policies in, among other places, the Middle East." The complaint lays out a timeline that dates his radicalization to 2014, details pro-ISIS materials he viewed online, and notes he began to research bomb-making online within roughly the last 12 months. In Ullah's native Bangladesh, counterterrorism officers are interviewing Ullah's wife (who reportedly gave birth to the couple's son 6 months ago) and other family members, whom Ullah last visited in September. Among the charges Ullah faces: bombing a public place, use of a weapon of mass destruction, and providing support to ISIS.
– It's not located on a dark desert highway, and guests are presumably allowed to leave, but the Eagles still feel that a real-life Hotel California is ripping off their biggest hit. The band filed a lawsuit against the Mexican hotel this week, accusing the owners of encouraging guests to believe that it's associated with the band, Reuters reports. According to the lawsuit, the hotel pumps "Hotel California" and other hits through its sound system, as well as sells merchandise describing itself as "legendary." The hotel in Baja California Sur actually opened under the name Hotel California in 1950, more than 25 years before the Eagles released the song of the same name, the Hollywood Reporter notes. Its name changed several times before new owners took over in 2001 and allegedly sought to boost business with what the lawsuit calls a "reputed, but false, connection to the Eagles." Though the hotel's website states the owners have no connection with the band "nor do they promote any association," it says its guests "are mesmerized by the 'coincidences'" between the song and hotel itself (yes, you can hear mission bells). The lawsuit, which was filed in Los Angeles, seeks damages and an injunction preventing the hotel from using the name. Reuters quotes a 2016 CBS News interview with Don Henley in which he explained the song wasn't really about California—or Mexico, apparently—but rather "a journey ... it's about America." (This music suit involves Eminem and New Zealand's ruling party.)
– Kevin Spacey has surveyed his acclaimed politics drama, House of Cards, and finds it no more wacky than Washington, DC. "Look, for me, it's like performance art," he tells ABC today. "We can get done shooting on a day, and I'll come home and turn on the news and think: 'You know, our storylines are not that crazy, they're really not.'" There are a few differences, he notes: "Some people feel that 99% of the show is accurate, and that the 1% that isn't is that you could never get an education bill passed that quickly. It must be really interesting for not just the American public but people around the world to view a very effective Congress that gets things done." The newest season of House of Cards premiered Friday, notes Politico.
– Well this is pretty hilarious: Princeton researchers recently likened Facebook's spread to that of an infectious disease, and forecast (in part by using Google Trends) that 80% of users will abandon the site by 2017. Slate panned the study, calling it "fatally flawed," but that's nothing compared to Facebook's reaction. In the words of Valleywag, it "decided to be a total spazz." Valleywag picks up this post from Facebook data scientist Mike Develin, who flipped the study around to show that "Princeton will have only half its current enrollment by 2018, and by 2021 it will have no students at all." The cheeky post notes that Facebook's research is "in keeping with the scientific principle 'correlation equals causation'", and includes a "graph of scholarly scholarliness." Develin concludes, "future generations will only be able to imagine this now-rubble institution that once walked this earth." Further, more bad news! "Google Trends for 'air' have also been declining steadily, and our projections show that by the year 2060 there will be no air left." Click here to check out the post for yourself.
– The polls closed at 7pm local time, meaning the first round of the French presidential election is officially in the books. While the official percentages are not yet known, the AP reports centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen will advance to the runoff after major opponent Francois Fillon conceded. The Guardian reports polling agency projections had put Macron and Le Pen in the one and two slots, with roughly 23.7% and 22% of the vote, respectively, though those numbers could change. Of the four candidates who had a shot (11 were angling for the post), "French Bernie Sanders" Jean-Luc Melenchon and establishment candidate Fillon trailed at just below 20%, per those projections. In conceding defeat, Fillon loudly threw his support behind Macron, saying, "There is no other choice than to vote against the far right. I will vote for Emmanuel Macron. I consider it my duty to tell you this frankly." The results set up a duel between a young candidate with no electoral experience and the woman who remade the image of a party tainted by racism and anti-Semitism. It marks the first time in modern French history that no major-party candidate has advanced. The runoff is scheduled for May 7. (Macron and Le Pen have family histories that have made their way into the race.)
– For four years now, Georgia high school custodian Carolyn Collins has been quietly making sure the students at her school have what they need. It started when, as she was getting ready to take out the trash, two students knocked on the cafeteria door and asked to wait inside. They were homeless, living in their mother's car, and had been dropped off at Tucker High, about 25 miles outside Atlanta, hours early to get ready for the day in one of the school's bathrooms. Moved by their plight, Collins, 54, made sure they got some breakfast—and then came up with her plan, the Washington Post reports. She bought $200 worth of food, toiletries, socks, underwear, and school supplies and asked school administrators to give her space to set up a "giving closet." She was soon running it out of a 15-foot by 6-foot storage room, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Now, Collins still spends a few hundred dollars a month on items to stock the closet, but teachers, students, and community members also donate supplies, including clothes, shoes, book bags, and more. She also got thousands to spend on the students during a segment on Steve Harvey's show last month. Many students at the school live in poverty, and Collins estimates she's opened up the closet for about 150 students over the years, letting them take what they need. "If a student needs something and it’s not in the closet, Ms. Collins will go out of her way to get it or find somebody else who can," says the school principal; she's even been known to help with prom wear. Collins, whose son was killed during a robbery six years ago, says she wants to make sure no student feels the need to turn to crime. She hopes to someday open more giving closets.
– It all started with a cranky baby. But this particular baby happened to be with mom and dad as they dined at one of the nation's swankiest restaurants, Chicago's Alinea. As the baby kicked up a fuss, chef Grant Achatz says he could hear it from the kitchen. He took no action, but later tweeted this: "Tbl brings 8mo.Old. It cries. Diners mad. Tell ppl no kids? Subject diners 2crying? Ppl take infants 2 plays? Concerts? Hate saying no,but.." Since that Saturday night tweet, Achatz and his restaurant have been at the center of what's become a national debate on fine-dining etiquette, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. Do babies belong at ritzy restaurants? Much of the sentiment seems to be of the 'no way' variety, observes the Chicago Eater blog. (Sample tweet: "If you can afford a meal at Alinea, you can afford a sitter. How inconsiderate.") But 312DiningDiva is surprised at how much sympathy is out there for the parents. (Sample tweet: "Hard when you shell out that money for non cancelable tics and lose sitter last minute.") For the record, the parents' sitter did cancel at the last minute, reports NBC Chicago. And Alinea does indeed sell "tickets" to diners, usually weeks in advance, and those diners won't get their money back if they cancel. So what now? Achatz is reportedly considering a baby ban, something that surely won't sit well with the AlineaBaby parody account on Twitter.
– Seemingly innocent posts on the Facebook page of South Carolina man Charlie Carver are in fact deeply disturbing, friends and family say. Carver and girlfriend Kala Brown disappeared on Aug. 31, and loved ones say the posts that have appeared on the account this month were clearly written by somebody else, the Daily Beast reports. A post a week after the disappearance said they were "fine," and Carver's history was retroactively edited Oct. 1 to include life events that never happened, including an announcement of Brown's pregnancy, their marriage, and the purchase of a house. When the couple disappeared, they left behind medication and even their Pomeranian dog, NBC News reports. Carver, who started dating Brown earlier this year, was in the middle of divorcing another woman. Brown's best friend tells the Daily Beast that her friend had complained about Carver's estranged wife stalking her and doing "all kinds of really crazy scary stuff." Police say they're investigating the disappearance, but they have not identified any suspects or subpoenaed Facebook to discover the source of the Carver posts—which, chillingly, have included posters issued in the search for the missing couple. (A creepy video turned out to be a dead end in the search for a missing Wisconsin teen.)
– Two kidnappers in India grabbed a 21-year-old Delhi University student who was driving a taxi—and inadvertently messed with the wrong woman, reports India.com. "I just took my gun and shot them," says Ayisha Falaq, 32, the man's sister-in-law and a competitive sharpshooter. "I shot one in his leg, the other in the waist." It all started when the kidnappers beat the man for not having more money on him, and they called his brother at 1am demanding 25,000 rupees or "we will kill him." Little did they know that the young man's older brother was a competitive marksman—and that his wife had taken up shooting after the birth of their second child. In 2015, she'd won a bronze medal at a national shooting competition. After the kidnappers abruptly changed the meeting spot to confuse the police, Falaq and her family were able to pull up behind their vehicle and show them the money. "I said they could take it, my brother was more precious," says the woman now being hailed a hero in India. Using a second car, they trapped the kidnappers, who "got scared" and started screaming. Falaq pulled her pistol from her purse to show that she was armed, and says they began shooting at her. "I normally shoot targets; this time I had to shoot people," she says. She hit both men, slowing their attempted escape on foot without causing life-threatening injuries. Police have the two men in custody, reports the Guardian, and authorities will launch an investigation into whether Falaq acted in self defense. (This widow and novice sharpshooter outshot a national champion.)
– At 2:46pm local time today, people all across Japan stood in silence to remember the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami exactly one year ago that killed more than 19,000 people, destroyed 370,000 homes, and created the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, reports the AP. Sirens marked the earthquake, trains stopped, and a Buddhist priest in one coastal town rang a huge bell. At Tokyo's National Theater, Emperor Akihito, Empress Michiko, and Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda stood in silence, along with hundreds of others. "We shall not let our memory of the disasters fade, pay attention to disaster prevention, and continue our effort to make this land an even safer place to live," said the emperor, who underwent heart surgery just 22 days ago. The earthquake caused at least $200 billion to the nation's coast, cities, roads, and ports, and today there are still 260,000 people living in temporary housing, reports the Washington Post. "We will stand by the people from the disaster-hit areas and join hands to achieve the historic task of rebuilding," said the prime minister.
– When Judd Apatow was a new comedy writer, the first thing he wrote was a spec script for the Simpsons. Some 22 years later, it has gotten the green-light, he revealed yesterday on Conan O'Brien's web series, Serious Jibber-Jabber. The plotline involves a hypnotized Homer thinking he's Bart's age and ending up becoming Bart's best friend, Rolling Stone reports. The Simpsons crew was recently alerted to Apatow's story, and are turning it into an episode next year.
– Kellyanne Conway's boss has taken no small amount of heat over his Supreme Court nominee, but the presidential counselor gave her perspective on Christine Blasey Ford's allegations against Brett Kavanaugh some deeper context on Sunday. "I feel very empathetic for victims of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and rape," she told CNN's State of the Union, per the Hill. "I’m a victim of sexual assault." She says of the Kavanaugh situation, "let's not compare Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, and a few others, to what's happened here. If we're going to have a national conversation, stop judging the victims and perpetrators according to their politics." As far as working for President Trump, himself accused multiple times of sexual assault, Conway is having none of it, saying the media shouldn't "bring Trump into everything." "People on Twitter and elsewhere are saying right now, 'oh how can she work for Donald Trump?' I work for President Trump because he’s so good to the women who work for him. I don’t want to hear it from anybody."
– The New York Times calls Jeanine Pirro of Fox News a "high-octane host"; it seems the adjective could apply to her driving, too. Pirro says she was driving to visit her "ailing 89-year-old mom" just after 1pm Sunday when she was pulled over in Nichols, NY, some 25 miles east of her hometown of Elmira. State police say she was driving 119mph; the speed limit was 65. I "didn’t realize how fast I was driving," she said in a statement. "I believe in the rule of law and I will pay the consequences." As for what those consequences could be, Lohud cites the NY Department of Motor Vehicles point system, which states a conviction for driving 40 or more miles over the speed limit results in 11 points on a driver's license. Drivers who rack up 11 points within 18 months may lose their license. Pirro must answer her ticket in person or via mail by Jan. 8. A police source tells the New York Daily News the Justice with Judge Jeanine host was driving a Cadillac at the time. (This driver was going much faster.)
– Japan's Supreme Court issued a ruling Wednesday that maintains a longtime civil rule some say is unconstitutional and discriminatory: forcing married couples to officially choose one surname, the BBC reports. Presiding Justice Itsuro Terada said that the surname mandate wasn't discriminatory, since a couple could choose to use either the husband's or the wife's surname, though the Japan Times notes that studies over the past four decades show that 96% of couples use the man's name. Terada also noted that women often used their maiden names informally anyway, which would mitigate any distress they felt over losing their maiden name on paper. The one-name system is "deeply rooted in our society," Terada said, and "enables people to identify themselves as part of a family in the eyes of others." Women's rights activists disagree, saying not only is the surname rule inconvenient for women professionals, it's also an emotional transition that can bring on depression and loss of identity, the Times notes. Some couples are even opting to simply stay in common-law relationships rather than marry so the woman can keep her surname, the New York Times notes. It hasn't always been this way. Japanese women traditionally kept their maiden names, but a strict 1898 feudal law forced women and kids to answer to male heads of household, per the BBC. That system was nixed in 1948, but the surname restriction stuck. On a somewhat more progressive note: A second rule barring Japanese women from remarrying until six months after a divorce to avoid paternity confusion was deemed unconstitutional, per the Times. That waiting period has now been cut to 100 days. (An alternate view: Don't judge a woman who chooses to take her husband's name.)
– Popeye knew a thing or two about building muscle, maybe even more than we realized. Per National Geographic, scientists have appropriated the cartoon character's favorite snack—a spinach leaf—to help create new human heart muscle. In doing so, they circumvented a tissue issue that's plagued this type of regenerative medicine and carved a path toward facilitating organ repair down the road. The study published in the Biomaterials journal details that challenge: even though researchers have been able to formulate human heart tissue in a lab, working up the vessels to deliver nutrients to that tissue has been problematic. "The main limiting factor … is the lack of a vascular network," study co-author Joshua Gershlak says in a video on the study. Which is where Popeye's plant food comes in. Scientists at Worcester Polytechnic Institute took a spinach leaf—with its own system of tiny veins to keep it fed and hydrated—removed its plant cells, and then immersed the leaf in a bath of human cells, using the leaf as a "scaffolding" of sorts. They pumped fluids and microparticles through the leaf's veins to demonstrate how oxygen could one day similarly flow through such a vascular system to keep human heart tissue healthy. The researchers were even able to see clusters of the cells "beating" within the leaf. "It was definitely a double take," Gershlak says, per the Washington Post. He and co-author Glenn Gaudette, both bioengineers, came up with the idea while eating lunch one day (which included spinach) and talking about the dearth of donated organs. (In the meantime, please wash that dirty spinach before you chow down.)
– The AP declared Donald Trump the next president of the United States in the early morning hours Wednesday, and Hillary Clinton called him to concede. That concession came soon after aide John Podesta said not to expect one because some states remained too close to call. In fact, NBC News held off calling the race for some time over uncertainty about Pennsylvania, but it eventually put the state in the Trump column and declared him the overall winner with a still-incomplete electoral tally of 278-218. The New York Times, the Washington Post, and others also called it for Trump. The only states still not decided are Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, and New Hampshire. The others: Trump: Alaska Alabama Arkansas Florida Georgia Idaho Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Pennsylvania South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Clinton: California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Hawaii Illinois Maine Maryland Massachusetts Nevada New Jersey New Mexico New York Oregon Rhode Island Vermont Virginia Washington Washington, DC
– The 2-year prison sentence given to Russian punk band Pussy Riot yesterday has sparked angry commentary from Western observers. Among the reactions: Voices in the ruling United Russia party called for moderation in the sentencing, which means "Russia will not become a totalitarian regime again," notes Uwe Klussmen at Der Spiegel. But "by turning basically harmless artists into criminals, the regime has transformed the trial against Pussy Riot into a political time bomb." He quotes a Moscow journalist who predicts that "it will lead to revolution and to war and blood." At Daily Beast, Masha Gessen sees a resemblance to the Salem witch trials. The sentencing judge said a member of Pussy Riot has a "mixed personality disorder" that includes "stubbornness and a tendency to insist categorically on her own opinion as well as a tendency toward oppositional forms of behavior." Writes Gessen: "Sound awkward in English? That’s because it’s not just from a different world but from a different era." The "stark" human rights drama of Soviet times has morphed into a situation that's "harder to figure out, often making it easier for outsiders simply to give the government a pass," writes Rachel Denber at CNN. But under Vladimir Putin, critics have been silenced or murdered; now Pussy Riot has shown us how Russia works. "What we really should be wondering isn't why Pussy Riot is so distinctive, but whether it's just the tip of the iceberg."
– With the United States today dropping a fourth round of airstrikes on Iraq's Islamic State militants, the pope expressing outrage over the humanitarian situation, and Iraq claiming that militants had slaughtered some 500 Yadizis, naturally our elected lawmakers felt compelled to offer up their two cents on the situation there. Highlights, as per Politico: Sen. Dick Durbin: "The bottom line is this: There is so much we can do to help the Iraqis help themselves. Because only Iraq can save Iraq. When it comes to Kurds, they have been the grownups in this neighborhood." And further: "I can tell you this: Escalating it is not in the cards." Rep. Peter King: The Islamic State is "more powerful now than al-Qaeda was on 9/11." It's "a direct threat to the United States of America, and what Dick Durbin just said and what President Obama has said, is really a shameful abdication of American leadership." Sen. Lindsey Graham: "If he does not go on the offensive against ISIS, ISIL, whatever you guys want to call it, they are coming here. This is just not about Baghdad. This is just not about Syria. And if we do get attacked, then (Obama) will have committed a blunder for the ages." Sen. Ben Cardin: "I don't think we can take out ISIS from a military point of view from the use of our airstrikes. That's not going to solve the problem. The fundamental problem is whether the Iraqis believe they have a representative government so that Sunnis feel comfortable with the government in Baghdad. There is not a US military solution to this issue. We're not going to use our military to take care of what the Iraqis should be taking care of." Former National Security Adviser James Jones: "The Kurds are our best friends in the region, and we can't let Kurdistan fall," he said, adding that it's "ludicrous" that the Kurdistan Regional Government is classified as a terrorist group.
– It's important stuff as a child: one's favorite number. And that penchant for a special digit doesn't necessarily fade as adulthood sets in. As Dana Mackenzie writes for Nautilus, it was a question that Guardian math blogger Alex Bellos fielded so frequently that he decided to turn the tables on his readers with favouritenumber.net, a website that asked people to select their favorite, and explain why. The victor, per the 30,025 responses Bellos analyzed: 7. Though 1,123 numbers received nods, almost half of respondents professed to loving a number between one and 10. Indeed, from that range only "one" and "10" failed to qualify for the top 10, replaced by 11 and 13. Speaking to PRI, Bellos says our seven obsession is an ancient one, dating back to Babylon. "You go back to the earliest writers we have, and there are more sevens there than any other number." But Bellos wasn't just interested in the what—he wanted to suss out the why. The most popular reason given for selecting a number was that it was the participant's birthday. But someone born on the 10th was "a lot less likely to choose" that 10 as his favorite than someone born on the 13th, he found. That's because we want an "exceptional" number, Bellos posits. Even numbers feel vague, which could be why he says 110 is the best candidate for least favorite number. He tells Nautilus, "We use round numbers to mean approximate things. When we say 100, we don’t usually mean exactly 100, we mean around 100. So 100 seems incredibly vague. Why would you have something as your favorite that is so vague?"
– A 15-year-old kid in Pakistan is being hailed as a hero after local reports say he was killed while stopping a suicide bomber from entering his school. As the Express Tribune reports, Aitizaz Hasan was standing with two friends outside his school in Hangu when a man approached and said he needed to go inside. When one of the friends spotted a detonator, he and the other youth fled. But Aitizaz grabbed the bomber, who then set off his explosive and killed them both. Authorities credit him with saving the 2,000 or so people who were inside the school at the time. The story is spreading quickly on social media, with calls to honor the teen posthumously, reports the Guardian. Attacks against Shiites in the town are common, notes NPR, and critics say authorities are too timid to stop them. "We live in a land where a young child had to give his life fighting a scourge that our own leaders bend over backwards in an attempt to appease," writes journalist Zarrar Khuhro in the Dawn newspaper. (Click for the story of another hero.)
– Paul Ryan knew exactly what he was doing in a radio interview last week when he said that the US had a "tailspin of culture in our inner cities in particular of men not working, and just generations of men not even thinking about working," Paul Krugman argues in the New York Times today, in the most prominent of several pieces debating the comments. Several Democrats have denounced the comments as racist. Ryan says he was simply being "inarticulate." Here's what people are saying: Ryan was simply "speaking of a true thing that must never be said," write the editors of the National Review. And who's more racist, Ryan "for criticizing those conditions," or "the people who run New York City’s public schools or those who govern Detroit—the people who help create those conditions?" "Paul Ryan was just telling the truth," agrees John Hinderaker at Power Line, pointing out that labor force participation among African Americans is at a record low. "It is impossible to overstate not just how dishonest, but how vicious" these attacks are, he writes. Ryan just expressed concern about "very real human problems" and urged action to fix them. "There's a history here that the Republican Party can't ignore," argues Ian Haney Lopez on Bill Moyers' site. The GOP has used coded racial language for years—two different RNC chairs have even apologized for it. Ryan either "uncritically adopted the charged rhetoric of his party without understanding its racial undertones," or deployed that rhetoric tactically to stoke racial tensions. Krugman agrees, and takes it further, using Ryan's comments as an example of racism he sees baked into GOP rhetoric. "Race is the Rosetta Stone that makes sense of many otherwise incomprehensible aspects of US politics," he writes. Why does the GOP block spending on Medicaid while opposing cuts to Medicare? "Well, what do many Medicaid recipients look like … and how does that compare with the typical Medicare beneficiary? Mystery solved." Many have denounced Ryan for citing Charles Murray, author of the controversial book, The Bell Curve, which argued that black people have lower average IQs than white people, and that the difference was partially genetic. But Andrew Sullivan calls that, and the attacks on Ryan, a "smear." Murray, he argues, is an unfairly maligned "intellectual adventurer," willing to "speak things we only talk about in our own heads." Ryan, for his part, seems eager to smooth the incident over; he's promised to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus soon to discuss it, a spokesman told Reuters on Friday.
– Meghan Markle's half-sister took another shot at her this week over a speech the duchess gave in Fiji, the HuffPost reports. Speaking Wednesday at the University of the South Pacific, Markle talked about the importance of a college education and said she was only able to attend Northwestern University via "scholarships, financial aid programs, and work-study." But half-sis Samantha Grant said Markle received no financial aid, tweeting, "The speech was a lie." "It takes a lot of audacity, and deceit to lie about something as important as funding of a college education," Grant added. "To take that dignity and joy away from dad is morally unconscionable." Thomas Markle has said he paid Meghan's annual $41,980 tuition using money he scored with a $1.6 million lottery ticket, Australia's News Network recalls. "She became the woman that she is today thanks to everything I did for her," Thomas told the Daily Mail. (Grant has also taken exception to words uttered by Prince Harry.)
– A former freshman swimmer at Stanford University has been barred from the campus and is facing felony charges after allegedly raping a woman as she lay unconscious on campus. Early on Sunday, Jan. 18, two male cyclists saw the woman on the ground and a man on top of her; he ran away, but they chased him, tackled him, and held him until police arrived, called there by a third person. The suspect turned out to be Brock Allen Turner, 19, who met the alleged victim Saturday night at a party, the San Jose Mercury News reports. The woman was not a student at the university but was visiting for the party, the Los Angeles Times reports. Turner voluntarily withdrew from Stanford yesterday; he's charged with rape of an intoxicated person, rape of an unconscious person, sexual penetration by a foreign object of an intoxicated woman, sexual penetration by a foreign object of an unconscious woman, and assault with intent to commit rape. He faces 10 years in prison. "This is something that the University takes very seriously, and the University took immediate action," a spokesperson tells the Stanford Daily. Swimming World magazine notes that simply being arrested for such a crime is likely enough to end Turner's swimming career.
– Twenty-two people die every day because there aren't enough organs available for transplants, CNET reports. Stan Larkin wasn't one of them. Instead, the 25-year-old Michigan father of three spent 555 days without a heart, according to Michigan Live. And it didn't even keep him off the basketball court. Larkin was diagnosed with familial cardiomyopathy after collapsing while playing basketball when he was 16. In December 2014, doctors removed his failing heart. There were hundreds of people ahead of Larkin on the donor list, so that same month he became the first Michigan resident to be outfitted with the SynCardia Freedom Portable Driver—a 14-pound backpack that uses compressed air to move blood through the body. Before Larkin, no one really knew what the Freedom Portable Driver was capable of, Science Alert reports. He showed them. “He really thrived on the device,” Larkin's doctor says in a press release. “This wasn’t made for pick-up basketball. Stan pushed the envelope with this technology.” In fact, Larkin kept so active he had to replace the device 10 or so times. One thing he couldn't do, however, was give piggyback rides to his daughters. Larkin got his new human heart in May, and he says his daughters couldn't wait. “They're going to be on the front, the back, my neck," he tells Michigan Live. "They're going to be jumping all over me." (A dad filmed the moment his teen son realized he survived a heart transplant.)
– A Canadian woman who pleaded guilty to killing her newborn after an unrecognized pregnancy has been handed what's believed to be the first decision of its kind in Canada: The 43-year-old woman must take a pregnancy test every six months for the next five years and submit the results to authorities, a Montreal court ruled Thursday, per the Guardian. The move comes after the woman gave birth unexpectedly at her home in July 2016. The newborn, the woman's fourth child, was found in a plastic bag with head wounds apparently inflicted with scissors and died from the effects of asphyxiation days later at a hospital, reports the CBC. The mother, whose name has not been released, was diagnosed with non-psychotic pregnancy denial and dissociative amnesia. It was the second time she had failed to recognize she was pregnant, though in the other case she was alerted to the pregnancy during an unrelated hospital visit at 32 weeks and there was no harm done to the resulting child, reports the Montreal Gazette. If she gets pregnant again, her sentence means "there will be no more denial of pregnancy as there was the last time," her lawyer, Joseph La Leggia, tells the CBC. He tells the Gazette his client is voluntarily taking pregnancy tests each month. The sentence will also see the woman serve 20 months of house arrest and three years of probation for infanticide. Quebec's youth protection service previously found the woman was an excellent mother who posed no risk to her other children. (A mother of three had amnesia for a decade.)
– The "accidental hero" who inadvertently stopped Friday's massive cyberattack that affected nearly 100 countries is a 22-year-old who lives with his parents, the Guardian reports. The British cybersecurity researcher—who's keeping anonymous to protect himself—found a nonsensical website address in the code for the ransomware holding victims' data hostage and causing chaos around the globe. He spent less than $11 to register the domain with the hope of monitoring the spread of the ransomware. But it turns out, registering the domain was a "kill switch" added by the creators of the ransomware in case they ever wanted to stop it themselves. For a more in-depth explanation, check out the 22-year-old's blog titled "How to Accidentally Stop a Global Cyber Attack." But while the spread of the ransomware has been halted for now, the world's computer systems are far from in the clear. Cybersecurity expert Matt Suiche says whoever is behind the attack—their identity is still unknown—can simply update the ransomware and start again. "I'd even say this update probably already happened," he tells ABC News. There were 75,000 individual attacks across 99 countries Friday. CNN runs down the victims, which include FedEx, Nissan, the Russian Central Bank, Britain's National Health Service, and Spain's Telefonica. Most of the attacks were in Russia, Ukraine, and Taiwan.
– You really can put a price on happiness, or at least Albert Einstein's pithy theory on the matter: The theory, scribbled on a piece of paper and handed to a messenger, sold at auction for $1.56 million, AFP reports. The record-setting bid at Tuesday's sale in Jerusalem far surpassed estimates of $5,000 to $8,000, per Winner's auction house. Einstein scrawled the note on Imperial Hotel Tokyo stationery in 1922 while on a tour of Japan after being informed he'd won the Nobel Prize for physics. It reads in German: "A calm and humble life will bring more happiness than the pursuit of success and the constant restlessness that comes with it," per the BBC. The physicist better known for another theory gave the note to a courier who made a delivery to his room. Einstein didn't want the man to leave empty-handed, so instead of a tip he handed him two notes, the anonymous seller tells AFP. The second missive, which sold for $240,000, was less original. "Where there’s a will, there’s a way," it reads. "Maybe if you’re lucky those notes will become much more valuable than just a regular tip," Einstein told the man, says the seller, a relative of the courier who lives in Hamburg, Germany. The auction house says the buyer was a European who wants to remain anonymous, per the BBC. Two other letters Einstein wrote later were also auctioned, fetching prices of $33,600 and $9,600, per AFP. Other Einstein letters about God, Israel, and physics sold for almost $210,000 in June. (These US cities are the happiest.)
– Have a fussy baby? Researchers believe they have the solution: a simple lullaby specifically designed to make babies happy. Though it's a simple tune, the process behind "The Happy Song" was actually quite complicated, per Time. The song is the result of plenty of research into infant musical tastes, which revealed infants would likely respond best to an upbeat song in a major key that was simple and repetitive, but also used various musical devices for an element of surprise, child development expert Caspar Addyman writes at the Conversation. Once a list of requirements was agreed upon, Addyman and musical psychologist Lauren Stewart enlisted Grammy winner Imogen Heap, who has an 18-month-old daughter, to create four test melodies. Two were slow and two were fast. When played for parents and their babies, the majority favored one upbeat tune in particular. Heap then included favorite sounds voted on by parents, including "boo," animal noises, and laughter, along with her own high-energy voice and plosive sounds with pop, like "pa" and "ba," which babies seem to prefer, according to a YouTube video. When 20 infants heard the final version of "The Happy Song," they were "entranced," Addyman writes. This "wasn't the most scientific as tests go," but "I can definitely, confidently say from a scientific point of view something's happened here." Researchers next plan to look at physiological responses to the song, which came in at 163 beats per minute. Listen to "The Happy Song" here. (This is the world's oldest known melody.)
– Operators of farms with a large number of female pigs are seeing a worrying trend—death rates are surging among the sows. One industry group, Swine Management Services, says the death rate increased from 5.8% to 10.2% from 2013 to 2016, per National Hog Farmer. "This makes you wonder what has changed," says Ron Ketchem of SMS. Many of the sows appear to be dying from prolapse, the collapse of the pig's vagina, rectum, or uterus, explains the Guardian. So what's going on? The industry is trying to figure that out, with one theory being that booming demand for pork in the US has led industrial-scale farms to adopt unhealthy breeding practices for the sows, including confined quarters, in order to keep them churning out the average 23.5 piglets a year. “They're breeding the sows to produce a lot of babies," renowned animal behaviorist Temple Grandin tells the Guardian. "Well, there's a point where you've gone too far." A soon-to-be-departing official with Compassion in World Farming adds that the pigs also are being bred to have less fat, which is in sync with consumer demand but not with biology in terms of producing a lot of piglets. "Their bones are weak and they don't have enough fat to support the reproductive process," she says. "We've bred them to their limit and the animals are telling us that." At TreeHugger, Katherine Martinko's suggestion for concerned consumers is to skip supermarket pork and find a small, local farmer. (Thousands of pigs died due to Hurricane Florence.)
– Having trouble keeping track of the blizzard of headlines about investigations involving President Trump? A new list compiled by Garrett M. Graff of Wired might explain why: Graff tallies up no fewer than 17 separate investigations currently underway. "Trump faces a legal assault unlike anything previously seen by any president," writes Graff, a sentiment the president would likely agree with, given his frequent railings about a "witch hunt." This isn't just Robert Mueller, however. Graff counts seven different sets of prosecutors and investigators and lists the cases in New York, DC, and Virginia. Intriguingly, he also writes of a "Mystery Investigation Underway by Unknown Office." The latter refers to redacted information revolving around Michael Flynn, which "could be one of the other investigations mentioned here, could represent another as-yet-unknown unfolding criminal case, or could be a counterintelligence investigation that will never become public," writes Graff. He provides snapshots and status reports on all the investigations, from Russia's election meddling, to WikiLeaks, to taxes, to campaign finance irregularities, etc. "Potentially the biggest unseen aspect of Mueller's investigation is his year-long pursuit of Middle Eastern influence targeting the Trump campaign," writes Graff. See his list here.
– A 6-week-old baby died in a horrific accident Thursday in a New York City building where there had been dozens of complaints about faulty elevators. Police say baby Areej Ali's mother was waiting for the elevator in the Brooklyn building Thursday morning when the doors opened, only for her and the stroller to plunge down the shaft, the AP reports. The baby girl's mother, who was injured in the fall, told investigators that she had stepped forward without realizing that there was no elevator behind the doors. The New York Daily News reports that mother and baby fell several feet onto the roof of an elevator, which then plummeted around eight stories. The baby was pronounced dead at Coney Island Hospital. The Daily News reports that there have been at least 20 complaints about the 23-story building's elevators in the last two years alone, and a mechanic was working on them at the time of the accident. Residents say they are shocked by the little girl's death—but not overly surprised to learn that the building's elevators were involved. "My heart is really bleeding for them," a resident and mother of four tells the New York Post. "This always happens in this building. They come in to fix the elevator and a week later it's broken again. I have a 2-year-old. I have to look out for him."
– Charlie Crist will tell the world tomorrow whether he plans to run for Senate as an independent, and a flurry of reports say he's already decided to make the switch. Anonymous sources close to the Florida governor have told Fox News, Politico, and the Miami Herald that he will bolt the GOP. Crist is expected to spend tomorrow making courtesy calls to supporters ahead of his afternoon press conference. During the announcement, he will likely say that he intends to caucus with Senate Republicans, notes Fox. Crist, the onetime frontrunner who now trails Tea Party favorite Marco Rubio for the GOP nod, must formally announce his affiliation by Friday.
– A Long Island town is changing its name to "Hauntington" for Halloween at the urging of a 7-year-old resident, the AP reports. Newsday reports second grader Angelica Dee Cunningham was all smiles when she learned Huntington was making the one-day switch Wednesday. The town council unanimously approved the switch last week. Angelica's parents encouraged her to write to town officials after she blurted her "Hauntington" idea out during a car ride. She sent a handwritten note explaining how the name would be fun to say, but she didn't think officials would take her suggestion seriously. Town Supervisor Chad Lupinacci loved the idea and says he expects to use Angelica's moniker more in years to come. Cunningham says she thought of the name because she has a Monster High doll named Ari Hauntington. (Thousands want to change Halloween's date.)
– Two animal rights activists who authorities say went on an epic vigilante road trip across the US have been arrested and face jail time. Joseph Buddenberg, 31, and Nicole Kissane, 28, both of Oakland, are accused of freeing about 5,000 mink from various farms along with a slew of vandalism incidents, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Prosecutors say the pair set out in June 2013 in a Honda Fit and began their spree by vandalizing a San Diego fur store with paint and Super Glue. After that, they allegedly freed mink from cages at farms in Idaho, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Pennsylvania, along with one lucky bobcat in Montana, reports the San Diego Tribune. They also vandalized other stores and vehicles (including a police chief's car) along the way, say authorities. “Whatever your feelings about the fur industry, there are legal ways to make your opinions known,” say US Attorney Lura Duffy. “The conduct alleged here, sneaking around at night, stealing property and vandalizing homes and businesses with acid, glue and chemicals, is a form of domestic terrorism and can’t be permitted to continue.” The pair allegedly wrote of their spree in encrypted "communiques" on activist websites as it progressed. They're accused of violating the federal Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, and each faces 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Both are out on bond with electronic monitoring.
– Wounded Syrian protesters would be well-advised to avoid state-run hospitals—because security forces and medical staff are torturing people within them, Amnesty International alleges in a new report. “Syrian authorities seem to have given the security forces a free rein in hospitals,” one Amnesty researcher said, according to the Guardian. “In many cases hospital staff appear to have taken part in the torture and ill treatment of the very people they are supposed to care for.” Those hospital workers who have actually treated protesters have themselves been arrested and tortured. These abuses are taking place in at least four hospitals; the report identifies two in Homs, one in Banias, and one in Tel Kelakh. One witness in the Tel Kelakh emergency room says he saw a man wheeled in surrounded by seven or eight security personnel and nurses. “He opened his eyes and said, ‘Where am I?’ They all suddenly jumped on him and started beating him,” he recalls. (China, meanwhile, is sending an envoy to Syria this week.)
– Michelle Williams has, very quietly, gotten married. The actress revealed her plans to Vanity Fair, and in her profile on Williams, Amanda Fortini wrote that by the time the piece was published, Williams and indie musician Phil Elverum would have been wed in the Adirondacks in a ceremony attended by their two daughters and just a few friends. "I never gave up on love," Williams tells Fortini. After the 2008 death of Heath Ledger, with whom she had daughter Matilda in 2005, she says she used to tell Matilda, "Your dad loved me before anybody thought I was talented, or pretty, or had nice clothes." She says she was looking for that same type of "radical acceptance" from someone else, and now she's found it: "I am finally loved by someone who makes me feel free." Elverum, a 40-year-old singer-songwriter who records and performs under the name Mount Eerie, lost his wife to cancer in July 2016, when their daughter was just 18 months old. This month, he and the now-3-year-old moved from Washington state to Brooklyn to live with Williams, 37, and Matilda, 12. Williams calls their relationship, which People notes was not public until the Vanity Fair interview, "very sacred and very special." She struggled with whether to discuss it with Fortini, but ultimately decided, "There’s that tease, that lure, that’s like, What if this helps somebody? What if somebody who has always journeyed in this way, who has struggled as much as I struggled, and looked as much as I looked, finds something that helps them?" To those people, she says: "Don't settle. ... If it doesn't feel like love, it's not love." Click for the full profile, which delves into more than her personal life.
– Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Chicago Tuesday night soon after police released disturbing video of a white police officer fatally shooting a black teenager, and the Chicago Sun-Times reports that they chanted "16"—the number of times Officer Jason Van Dyke allegedly shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. One tense moment occurred when protesters and police engaged in a "full-on pushing match" for about 15 minutes at one barricade, which resulted in three people taken away in a police wagon. But pleas for restraint were generally heeded throughout the night, reports AP. More demonstrations were planned in the days ahead, including one at City Hall on Wednesday and one designed to block Michigan Avenue on Friday's busy shopping day. Van Dyke was charged with murder on Tuesday, hours before police released video of the Oct. 20, 2014, shooting. Protesters say they're angered not just by the shooting, but by the police department's failure to release the video until a judge ordered it to—and by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy telling the community that the video should start a healing process, after they had spent so long trying to block its release. "People are mad as hell," organizer Page May with the We Charge Genocide anti-police violence group tells the Chicago Tribune. "It still feels so unnecessary."
– Two fraternity incidents in less than two weeks spurred West Virginia University to take rather drastic action yesterday: It suspended all frat and sorority activities. The moratorium was imposed after 18-year-old Nolan Michael Burch was found by police unconscious and not breathing Wednesday evening at the Kappa Sigma house; an unknown man was trying to pump life back into him to no avail, NBC News reports. Burch—who tweeted, "It's about to be a very eventful night to say the least" on Wednesday afternoon—was listed as being in critical care in ICU at Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown after what the university is calling a "catastrophic medical emergency." University officials made the call to halt Greek activity after an emergency meeting yesterday with the Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Council, reports Metro News, which says social media posts paint Burch's friends as "saying their final goodbyes." This came on the tails of a drunken brawl in the street last week in which 19 reportedly drunk Sigma Chi pledges were arrested or cited because of the alleged imbibing; they may face obstruction of justice charges, too: They initially told cops they were from a different fraternity. Drunk party attendees, hazing, sexual assaults, drinks spiked with date-rape drugs, and even a homicide have plagued Greek organizations around the country as of late, NBC notes.
– The Boston Red Sox removed a locker-room cancer and the Los Angeles Dodgers acquired three star players in a landmark 9-player trade today, USA Today reports. Initially the Dodgers wanted only first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, but the Red Sox added pitcher Josh Beckett, injured outfielder Carl Crawford, and $10 million, reports the LA Times. Gonzalez had led a locker room mutiny thus summer, reports Yahoo, and Beckett was an alleged slacker who facilitated Boston's implosion last season. With the trade, the Dodgers flexed their new financial muscle and filled a much-needed gap at first base during a heated division race. As for the Red Sox, they acquired first baseman James Loney, two young pitchers, an infielder, and an outfielder. More than $270 million in salaries exchanged sides overall. But it could be "toxic" for both teams, leaving Boston bereft of big bats and LA with bloated salaries, writes Gabe Lacques at USA Today: "Sometimes the best trades are the ones you don't make."
– Another tidbit from Hillary Clinton's interview with Diane Sawyer: She and Bill were "dead broke" and seriously in debt when his presidency ended, ABC News reports. The debt came from "hefty legal fees," she said (likely due to Bill's "sexual harassment saga," quips the Daily News). "We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, for Chelsea's education," she said. "You know, it was not easy." Despite their income of $416,039, they were $11 million in debt and took on high-paid speaking gigs—with Hillary averaging $200,000 per, reports the New York Times. Conservatives are relishing the "not easy" part, considering the couple bought a $2.85 million residence in Washington and a $1.7 million house in New York state, and put Chelsea through top-notch universities (see a sample tweet here). But not all of their income came from speaking gigs, the Washington Post reports: Hillary's memoir Living History sold well, and Bill received almost $16 million in benefits and pensions from the federal government. Plus the gigs kept them from working as lobbyists, "as so many people who leave public life do," said Hillary. While she has given talks to high-flyers like Goldman Sachs and Silicon Valley tech leaders, she waived all costs to address the United Methodist Women Conference in Kentucky. "I happen to have given lots of free speeches," she added.
– More misery for Japan: The triple disasters that struck the country in March sent the country's economy sliding into its second recession in three years, according to the latest government figures. The earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis disrupted production and caused a collapse in consumer spending, reports the BBC. Japan's economy shrunk at an annual rate of 3.7% in the first quarter of this year, a drop almost double what economists had predicted. Analysts say reconstruction demand is likely to spur growth later in the year, but things are expected to get worse before they get better, the New York Times notes. Companies struggling with energy shortages are having a hard time restoring damaged production and supply lines. Japan estimates that the total cost of the disasters will top $300 billion.
– The latest drug trend sweeping the nation has nothing to do with pharmaceuticals. Kids are getting high on MP3s, Wired reports, pointing to an Oklahoma News 9 report (at left) on the phenomenon known as “i-dosing.” Supposedly, just by putting on headphones and listening to music—which is really “a droning noise,” writes Ryan Singel—you can experience effects similar to those of marijuana, cocaine, opium, and peyote. Officials are concerned i-dosing will act as a gateway drug to actual drugs, but Singel doesn’t seem too concerned: The most pressing issue is how to tell “if a teen with headphones on is i-dosing or just listening to Justin Bieber.” Annika Harris of The Frisky agrees: She listened to “Gates of Hades,” one of the free i-dosing tracks, “and the only feeling I felt was annoyance,” she writes.
– A body pulled from a New Orleans bayou on the weekend has been positively IDed as that of Terrilynn Monette, a 26-year-old teacher who went missing almost three months ago, CNN reports. Monette's body was found decomposing inside her car at the bottom of Bayou St. John. The coroner says drowning was the cause of death and there were no signs of trauma to her body, the Times-Picayune reports. Monette was last seen leaving a bar where she was celebrating a "Teacher of the Year" award nomination with friends, reports CNN. She had been drinking, and told her friends she planned to sleep in her car before driving home, adds the Times-Picayune. "Now that Ms. Monette's car has been found, we begin the second phase of this investigation," says a police spokesperson. "Both homicide detectives and our fatality unit were on the scene today, so that they can pick up where [other] officers have left off and start finding out exactly how and why the car ended up where it did."
– Israel will allow goods to enter Gaza by land but will continue to ban the importation of weapons and will maintain its naval blockade on the area, CNN reports. Rather than listing what's allowed in, Israel will permit everything other than " weapons and material that Hamas uses to prepare and carry out terror ," PM Benjamin Netanyahu tells Reuters. The move comes 3 weeks after Israeli troops stormed aid ships and 10 pro-Palestinian activists died. The US and Middle East envoy Tony Blair sounded cautiously optimistic about the policy change. "There is more to be done, and the president looks forward to discussing this new policy, and additional steps, with Prime Minister Netanyahu during his visit to Washington on July 6," the White House said in a statement. Said Blair: "Plainly there are still issues to be addressed and the test of course will be not what is said, but what is done."
– A woman who disappeared in January after removing her hijab and using it as a flag in protest of Iranian law was sentenced to two years in prison Wednesday, the BBC reports. The unnamed woman, previously described as a 31-year-old mother, whose protest spread across social media was found guilty of "encouraging moral corruption." The majority of the woman's sentence was suspended, and she will serve three months without parole. According to the Guardian, Tehran's chief prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, was unhappy with the "light" sentence given to the woman, who he says removed her hijab to "encourage corruption." Dolatabadi says the woman is "in need of long-term medical treatment and has to be seen by a psychiatrist." Sources say the woman wasn't sorry for removing her hijab in public and attempted to convince the judge that it was the law, not her, that was wrong, Deutsche Welle reports. Iranian law says all women must have their heads fully covered at all times while in public. While enforcement of the law has relaxed in recent years, Dolatabadi says they are cracking down. "We must act with force against people who deliberately question the rules on the Islamic veil," the Guardian quotes him as saying. More than 30 women have been arrested since the end of December for removing their hijabs in public. Dolatabadi says the woman sentenced Wednesday plans to appeal.
– It's a Catholic first: A sitting pope met with his predecessor today. Pope Francis traveled to Castel Gandalfo outside Rome to visit with Pope emeritus Benedict, reports the BBC. The AP says both men paid deference to other other. When they entered a chapel, for instance, Benedict directed Francis to the front row, but Francis insisted they pray side-by-side. "We are brothers," he said. The two met privately for 45 minutes, then had lunch. The Vatican didn't release any details about their discussion.
– At least 50 people were injured when a powerful earthquake shook Bali this morning. The 6.1 quake caused widespread panic on the Indonesian resort island, and witnesses say the roofs of some homes collapsed, AP reports. The quake, centered 60 miles southwest of the island, was not strong enough to trigger a tsunami, but it was felt on islands hundreds of miles away. It hit the day after the island marked the anniversary of the terrorist bombings that killed 202 people nine years ago. In the island's main tourist areas, visitors say they were told to run for their lives as cracks began to appear in buildings. A tourist from California says the quake was unlike any she had felt in her home state. "It started at my feet and went all though my heart and head—it made me nauseous," she told Australia's ABC. "My first reaction was to get out of the house. I was very confused when the roof started shaking."
– Self-identified Republicans are more than unhappy with President Obama—63% think he’s a socialist—and a host of other social ills, says a survey commissioned by liberal blog Daily Kos. Regarding Obama, 39% of the 2,003 Republican respondents say the president should be impeached, 36% believe he was not born in the US, and 31% agreed that he is “a racist who hates white people.” On social issues, 55% of respondents say gays shouldn’t be allowed to serve openly in the military, Politico notes, which is actually charitable considering 73% would like to ban openly gay teachers from teaching in public schools. Meanwhile, 77% oppose gay marriage, 68% oppose “any state or federal benefits” for gay couples, and 77% want creationism taught in schools. Of those surveyed, 83% plan to vote.
– To call attention to the plight of women in Afghanistan, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission tweeted a gruesome picture Monday. The image shows 20-year-old Reza Gul just after her husband sliced off her nose; someone in the picture is holding what appears to be the nose in a plastic baggie in front of Gul's face. Be warned—the image is horrifying, but you can see it here. Gul was mutilated in a Taliban-controlled part of the country Monday, though it's not clear why; NBC News reports that slicing off one's nose is intended to mean that the victim has disgraced her family. The picture has been circulating online and is sparking outrage, NBC reports, noting that Afghanistan is believed to have one of the highest domestic violence rates in the world—it's difficult to measure, because most incidents aren't reported. But recent attacks have prompted protests both online and in the streets. Gul's husband has not been apprehended; the AIHRC is calling for him to be punished.
– In the ongoing tennis match/trainwreck between Donald Trump and Rand Paul that started with last week's GOP debate and continued this week, the two presidential candidates aren't showing any signs of slowing down the political attacks, insults, and even comic impressions. First Rand Paul released a digital ad yesterday calling out Trump for past statements supporting Democrats in general and Hillary Clinton in particular, CNN reports. That was followed by Paul's appearance last night at a town hall event in Nashua, NH, in which he "unveiled his impression" of Trump, per CNN. "We have now people up there who say such profound things as 'You're stupid, you're fired, you're a pig, you look terrible, you only have half a brain,' and then when you respond with an argument it's like "You're stupid,'" Paul said to a chuckling audience. "Another one is, 'You know I must be smart, I'm rich,'" he continued. Trump sent a long response to Rand's ad to the Washington Post yesterday, noting that he recently beat his competitor at golf, donated to the eye center Paul founded, and has kept his relationships strong on both sides of the partisan fence. "Rand Paul is doing so poorly in the polls he has to revert to old footage of me discussing positions I no longer hold," he wrote. "Rand should save his [lobbyists'] and special interest money and just go quietly home. [His] campaign is a total mess." The response of a Paul campaign strategist to the Post: "Wow, that took a while to read. … [Trump] is devoid of ideas other than he likes the idea of power and getting attention for foolish statements and bluster." And a final dig: "While [Paul] appreciates Donald's golf skills, I will note that [the game] was on [Trump's] home course that he plays often." (Read both in full at the Washington Post if you like the drama.)
– A Philadelphia Uber driver went down for a nap Saturday only to wake up in the middle of a police chase in New York, CBS New York reports. According to the Press & Sun-Bulletin, 20-year-old Juan Carlos hired 43-year-old Uber driver Corey Robinson to take him from Philadelphia to a college in central New York. It's a 275-mile drive, and at some point Robinson asked Carlos to take over driving for a bit so he could grab some shuteye. Around 5:35am, Carlos was spotted by state troopers allegedly going 21mph over the speed limit on the interstate, New York Daily News reports. Rather than pull over, troopers say Carlos sped up and tried to elude them. That's when Robinson finally woke up, wondering why they were driving so fast. Carlos explained to him they were being chased by police and refused to stop the car when Robinson told him to. Carlos allegedly eventually crashed Robinson's 2016 Hyundai Sonata into a guardrail, with both men sustaining minor injuries. Carlos has been charged with unlawfully fleeing a police officer, driving without a license, and several traffic violations. Robinson was released without charges. Uber has suspended the accounts of both men while it investigates the situation.
– Kayla Mueller's family previously released what was billed as her last letter to them, but now they've released another, and this one is reportedly the final communication they received from her before she was killed while an ISIS captive. Today has it in full. "Once again you are being contacted by prisoners who have been released," it opens. "As I said in my last letter (that I pray you received from the three women) I am OK, healthy, remaining strong and being treated kindly. Do not worry ... I love you all." She goes on to ask them to pray, then shares part of a song she wrote for "little Lex" with the line, "Oh my Grace. I close my eyes, you bring me home." "I look towards the day when I can sing to her the rest. I do not know what you have told her, but if it's appropriate, tell her Auntie Kayla sends her big hugs and kisses," she writes. "Tell her I am very sad that I am far and that we cannot Skype like before, but when I come home we can play, make music together and have so much fun ... She's my little Grace and I love her so much." Once again, she signs the letter, "All my everything, Kayla." Click for the full letter, as well as other writings her family has shared. Mueller's dad, Carl, says in a Today interview that the US put "policy" ahead of a citizen's life. In the same interview, which aired today, Mueller's brother says her situation got worse after the US swapped five Taliban commanders for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in May, the AP reports. "That's when the demands got greater," he says. "[ISIS] realized that they had something."
– Billy Paul, a jazz and soul singer best known for the No. 1 hit ballad and "Philadelphia Soul" classic "Me and Mrs. Jones," died Sunday. Paul, whose career spanned more than 60 years, died at his home in New Jersey, his co-manager, Beverly Gay, tells the AP. Paul, 80, had been diagnosed recently with pancreatic cancer, Gay says. Paul was one of many singers who found success with the writing and producing team of Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff. His voice made him "one of the great artists to come out of Philly and to be celebrated worldwide," Gamble and Huff said in a statement late Sunday. "Our proudest moment with Billy was the recording of the salacious smash 'Me and Mrs. Jones.' In our view, it is one of the greatest love songs ever recorded." The song was one of the top singles of 1972 and brought Paul a Grammy the following year for best male rhythm-and-blues performance, with runners-up including Ray Charles and Curtis Mayfield. Paul, a Philadelphia native who performed with jazz stars like Charlie Parker in his early days, was drafted into the military in his early 20s and found himself on the same base in Germany with a couple of famous show-business names: Elvis Presley and Gary Crosby, Bing Crosby's son. "We said we're going to start a band, so we didn't have to do any hard work in the service," he told Blues & Soul in 2015. "We tried to get Elvis to join but he wanted to be a jeep driver. So me and Gary Crosby, we started it and called ourselves the Jazz Blues Symphony Band."
– Guantanamo's oldest prisoner won't soon return to Pakistan or the US as he had hoped: The Guantanamo parole board has ruled that 68-year-old Saifullah Paracha will remain in custody as "a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States." The Pakistani businessman has been in custody since 2003 over claims that he worked with alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed to facilitate financial transactions and develop propaganda for al-Qaeda, reports the Miami Herald. Paracha—who lived in the US from 1970 to 1986—was also allegedly in contact with Osama bin Laden and researched chemical and nuclear materials for the terrorist group, though he was never charged with a crime. During a hearing on March 8, Paracha—whose son was convicted of trying to help an al-Qaeda operative reach the US—said he "never worked with anybody to harm anyone," was "duped" into handling certain finances, and only tried to secure an interview with bin Laden while chairman of a TV broadcasting studio in Karachi. The board says his "refusal to take responsibility for his involvement with al-Qaeda" and "refusal to distinguish between legitimate and nefarious business contacts" made their decision clear, though Paracha's lawyer says he "cannot show 'remorse' for things he maintains he never did." The prisoner will respond to the board’s concerns in a review in October, his lawyer adds, per the AP.
– This week on Oprah: dealing with unemployment. The Oprah Winfrey Network is laying off a fifth of its workers as part of a major restructuring at the cable network, which has struggled for ratings since its launch last year, AP reports. "It is difficult to make tough business decisions that affect people's lives, but the economics of a start-up cable network just don't work with the cost structure that was in place," Winfrey said in a statement. The move will cut the network's head count by some 30 people, saving it $20 million over the next two years, an insider tells the Wall Street Journal. That comes on top of savings of close to $25 million made by canceling Rosie O'Donnell's talk show a few days ago. Executives from Discovery Communications, which co-owns the channel with Winfrey, will be taking a more active role in the channel after the restructuring.
– Oscar-winning actor and comedian Robin Williams was found dead today in his house in Tiburon, Calif., of a suspected suicide, says the Hollywood Reporter. Details remain sketchy, but according to a sheriff's office statement, a 911 call came in at 11:55am this morning describing a man "not breathing inside his residence." The sheriff's office and two fire departments were dispatched to the house north of San Francisco where Williams, 63, lived with his wife. Williams was "pronounced deceased" at 12:02pm, and investigators suspect "the death to be a suicide due to asphyxia." A forensic examination is expected tomorrow. The actor's publicist said in a statement that Williams had been suffering from acute depression, the New York Times reports. He'd also been open about his past substance-abuse battles and recently admitted himself into a preventative treatment facility to confirm what his rep called his "continued commitment" to staying off drugs and alcohol, E! Online reports. Called the "funniest man alive" by Entertainment Weekly in 1997, Williams made his mark as an alien on the sitcom Mork & Mindy and went on to win the best supporting actor Oscar for his role in Good Will Hunting (1997), the LA Times reports. Widely celebrated for his improvisatory comedy, he also starred in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), and The Fisher King (1991). (Click to see Williams' final post to Instagram: a touching family photo.)
– You've probably heard about the highly convenient health benefits of dark chocolate. As io9 points out, the stuff is good for your heart, your brain, and even your teeth. But just why is it so healthy? Researchers are explaining that the healthy bacteria in our digestive systems love dark chocolate. When they munch on it, the process releases compounds that reduce cardiovascular inflammation. That cuts our heart disease and stroke risk, io9 reports. The experts reached their conclusions by studying how cocoa powder interacts with digestive enzymes and bacteria contained in our feces, the Los Angeles Times reports. They learned that certain molecules from the chocolate can't be absorbed by our bodies on their own. Fortunately, once those molecules get to our colons, the bacteria take action. "These little guys say, 'Hey—there's something in there that I can use,' and they start to break it down," says Louisiana State researcher John Finley. About two tablespoons a day of cocoa powder appears to offer a health boost, he says. Unfortunately, the sugar and fat in chocolate candy aren't so good for us—so Finley opts to put cocoa powder on his oatmeal. (But soon, we may be able to just take "chocolate pills" to get the benefits.)
– Monday saw the start of UN talks focused on a noble goal: banning nuclear weapons across our planet. It was the result of a 2016 vote that saw more than 100 countries in favor of a UN General Assembly resolution to kick off such talks, which are aimed at ultimately establishing an international treaty that would prohibit the development and possession of such weapons, CNN reports. By extension, using them would also be banned. The AP reports Austria, Brazil, and Ireland were at the forefront of the effort. Wondering where the US is? Boycotting. US Ambassador Nikki Haley was present Monday—but remained outside the General Assembly hall with other boycotting nations in a sign of opposition. One big quote: "As a mom, as a daughter, there is nothing I want more for my family than a world with no nuclear weapons. But we have to be realistic." Her view is that the nearly 50-year-old Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is doing its job, with the US slashing its nuclear arsenal by 85% under it, and that North Korea is too big a loose cannon for this to be a responsible or feasible endeavor. "North Korea would be the one cheering, and all of us and the people we represent would be the ones at risk," she said. By the Guardian's count, 113 countries are participating, but 40 are boycotting, and that list includes the US, China, France, Britain, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea, which the paper points out are the nine states known to have nuclear weapons.
– A Texas man decided to step up and save the life of a total stranger hundreds of miles away after seeing the man's two young daughters plead that "Our Daddy needs a kidney." After Greensboro, Ga., police officer Raleigh Callaway went into stage 5 kidney failure, the 49-year-old's wife put the photo of the girls holding a sign online in a last-ditch effort to find a donor, USA Today reports. After Chris Carroll saw the photo, he was tested, discovered he was a perfect match, and headed to Georgia with his wife. "I just knew. Even though there were thousands of people who called in. I just had a feeling that it was going to happen," says Carroll. "We're supposed to love one another. We're supposed to sacrifice for one another." "It's just so important for me to continue to live, and to take care of my family," says Callaway, who is "thanking God for allowing such a wonderful family to just come into my life." The surgery took place yesterday—less than 10 weeks after Carroll first saw the photo—and both men are recovering in an Atlanta hospital, reports 11 Alive. Callaway's wife says the surgery appears to have been a success and Carroll's kidney is functioning "great" in her husband. (A recent study found the part of the brain that deals with empathy is significantly bigger in people who decide to donate kidneys to strangers.)
– Walter Palmer of Bloomington, Minnesota, just might be the most reviled dentist in the world at the moment. After being identified by the Telegraph as the big-game hunter who illegally shot a protected lion in Africa, Palmer has issued a statement blaming his guides, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “I had no idea that the lion I took was a known, local favorite, was collared and part of a study until the end of the hunt," says Palmer in a statement. "I relied on the expertise of my local professional guides to ensure a legal hunt.” Palmer's whereabouts were unknown today, and his office appears to have been shut quickly, judging by one patient who showed up only to learn it was closed. Palmer, who has a conviction for poaching a bear in the US, promised to cooperate with authorities in Zimbabwe, where the safari took place. In the meantime, he's become Public Enemy No. 1 on the Internet, with death threats and criticism consuming any public pages affiliated with him or his dentistry, notes BuzzFeed. “I deeply regret that my pursuit of an activity I love and practice responsibly and legally resulted in the taking of this lion,” says Palmer's statement.
– Thousands of angry students protested government austerity measures across Italy today and injured up to six policemen in Rome, hitting them with stones while hiding behind homemade shields, Reuters reports. The students also tried rushing a Rome police van but were driven back by batons. Other protests against the policies of Prime Minister Mario Monti's government were staged in major cities like Naples, Milan, and Rome. "The protest is to renew the political class, to get rid of those who are corrupt," said a high school student in Rome. "The politicians make the ordinary people pay. These are heavy sacrifices, and it is a risky policy to keep imposing them." Meanwhile in Verona, a bomb detonated outside a tax collection office and another one failed to go off—but no one got hurt. The office, called Equitalia, has been hit and threatened several times this year for being associated with government tax hikes, reports Reuters.
– Unemployed Britons may have to volunteer full-time for a month in order to keep their benefits. The plan, to be unveiled this week, is part of a massive overhaul of the country's $300 billion welfare program, notes the Guardian. The goal, says a government source, is to "end the habit of worklessness." "This is all about getting them back into a working routine which, in turn, makes them a much more appealing prospect." Some 5 million people in the UK are currently claiming unemployment benefits, with 1.4 million claiming for 9 out of the last 10 years, notes the Telegraph. The country has the highest rate of jobless households in the EU. The plan is opposed by some charity groups who worry the new plans may push people into poverty. (Click here to read about a US charity that paid a UK addicts to get a vasectomy.)
– A man prosecutors say was a top member of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel was sentenced to 22 years yesterday after what the Chicago Tribune reports has been called the most significant drug prosecution in the city's history. Alfredo Vasquez-Hernandez, allegedly the cartel's logistics chief and a lieutenant of captured drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, pleaded guilty earlier this year to involvement in a $1 billion plot to smuggle 600 pounds of cocaine from Mexico to Chicago by train. "I tell you and I tell you on behalf of all Chicagoans … we are tired, tired of drug trafficking, and it continues to hurt this city and this country," a federal judge said as he handed down the sentence. The 59-year-old's lawyer, however, argued that his client was merely a body shop worker who got caught up in a single drug deal, adding that two cartel members who became DEA informants had exaggerated his role in the deal, the AP reports.
– A terrifying new "game" is sweeping across the nation: "Knockout." Just like it sounds, it involves targeting a stranger on the street and rendering him unconscious with one punch, WPIX reports. Videos of the attacks are increasing on YouTube, WJLA reports. The NYPD is investigating a series of attacks in Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn as possible hate crimes; officers think they may be related to the game. There have been reports of similar attacks recently in other US cities and even London, KDVR reports; victims have actually died of their injuries in Syracuse, St. Louis, and New Jersey, CBS Local reports. One teen described the "game" this way: "It’s for the fun of it. It’s like when you were a little kid, running around and hitting people. Only now you’re grown, so you can knock ’em out. Even though they shouldn’t be doing it, people do it." Another says in one "knockout" video, "They just want to see if you got enough strength to knock somebody out." The "game" may have spread to DC, where a woman tells DCist eight males surrounded her on bikes Thursday night and one hit her on the back of the head.
– After scandal and sanctions, Theranos says it is shutting down all of its blood-testing labs and laying off hundreds of workers. "We have moved to structure our company around the model best aligned with our core values and mission," Elizabeth Holmes, the embattled medical technology firm's founder and CEO, says in an open letter, announcing that the move will cost an estimated 340 jobs. She says the company is going to focus on its miniLab technology to "commercialize miniaturized, automated laboratories capable of small-volume sample testing, with an emphasis on vulnerable patient populations, including oncology, pediatrics, and intensive care." Theranos has lost major partnerships and is the subject of several investigations over its claim of being able to conduct blood tests using just one drop, CNBC notes, Holmes has been banned from owning or operating a lab for two years. The closing of its clinical labs marks a major shift for Theranos, but the new focus on selling equipment to outside labs will make it much easier for Holmes to remain in her position, reports the Wall Street Journal, which notes that the 32-year-old controls a majority voting stake in the firm and insiders say it would be very difficult to remove her from her position. (In August, Theranos withdrew its FDA clearance request for a miniLab Zika blood test.)
– Floodwaters have poured over a berm surrounding a Nebraska nuclear power plant, forcing a shutdown of electricity used to control cooling systems. Emergency generators were used until an off-site power supply could be connected to the Fort Calhoun plant, and officials say there has been no danger to the public, reports ABC News. Federal authorities, including the head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, are on the scene. The berm was considered an "additional layer of protection" at the plant, and a work crew will attempt to patch it, said a spokesman for the Omaha Public Power District. The plant, near Brownville, has been closed for refueling since April, and the operation won't be restarted until the floodwaters recede, according to AP. Nebraska's other nuclear power plant, some 75 miles south of Omaha, was threatened by flooding earlier this month and will be shut down if floodwaters exceed a specific level. Federal officials are continuing to monitor the situation. The Fort Calhoun berm breach was the latest trouble in flooding of the Missouri River that has inundated some 4,500 homes. It could be up to six weeks before the river falls back to its pre-flood stage.
– Determining the fate of the US presidency officially kicks off Friday. North Carolina is the first of 37 states and DC to open up advance balloting so voters can, as the AP puts it, "be done with the 2016 presidential race." North Carolinians can now send in absentee ballots by mail for any reason (they'll be able to cast their vote in person starting Oct. 20). Alabama will be next to follow suit, with ballots mailed out during the week of Sept. 15, per the Hill, and all 50 states will mail out ballots to service members and registered expatriates the week of Sept. 19. Meanwhile, in-person voting will get its start in Minnesota on Sept. 23. Why early voting can be important, other than offering convenience for the voter: These types of ballots make up anywhere between 50% to 75% of the overall votes cast in certain battleground states, including North Carolina, Florida, and Arizona. Plus, decent returns can provide momentum. "If one campaign does significantly better in harvesting early votes, that campaign will have a substantial advantage as Election Day approaches," Paul Gronke, director of the Early Voting Information Center, tells the AP. A University of South Florida political scientist who follows early voting trends tells the Hill that more than a third of voters are expected to go the early route this year. (Check out the Hill for an early-voting calendar.)
– More drama in America's public bathrooms: The New York Daily News reports a Utah father was attacked in a Walmart men's restroom after he brought his 5-year-old daughter in with him. Christopher Adams was shopping for storage bins and window blinds when his daughter and 7-year-old son decided they both needed to go to the bathroom, reports KSL. Not wanting to leave his daughter alone in the store or send her into the women's restroom on her own, Adams took her into the men's restroom with him and his son. That's when the trouble started. Adams says a man at a urinal started "freaking out" and "dropping the F-bomb" over the presence of his daughter, which the man said was "inappropriate." When Adams offered a retort of some kind, the man allegedly started shoving him. Adams says he turned to get his kids out of the restroom and was punched in the eye. He says the man continued to punch and kick him. “I didn't know how far it was going to escalate, so I just kind of heaved him out of the bathroom," Adams tells Fox 13. He says he held the man on the ground until Walmart employees arrived to help. The man was cited for disorderly conduct and could face assault charges. “I just think it’s ridiculous,” Adams tells KSL. (This woman was accosted in a public bathroom by someone who thought she was a man.)
– Forget about Taylor Swift, Sam Smith, and Nicki Minaj. The hot concert tour for 2016 features two comedic geniuses we haven't seen onstage in a very long time: Andy Kaufman and Redd Foxx. Well, not the actual deceased comedians (though you never know with Andy Kaufman), but their holograms, which will be featured in shows around the country thanks to Hologram USA, the New York Times reports. "They're comedy icons," Hologram USA founder Alki David tells the paper. But while the company is "working with other estates of famous funny guys and funny girls," he adds, "these just happened to be amenable estates who see the vision." And that vision for the former Taxi star and the Sanford & Son patriarch includes what David says is the best stuff from their famous routines, as well as biographical snippets that lend further insight into the two funnymen. Although a director at the licensing agency for the Kaufman-Foxx deal concedes to the Times that the idea is "uncomfortable" to some, David insists the mission of Hologram USA—which has also projected WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel into remote locations—is no different than any other nonfiction biopic you might see. Others aren't so sure. Jesse David Fox writes for Vulture that this idea emerged because, as the headline on his post puts it, "people who crave money often have stupid ideas." The idea creeps him out, he writes, and "if they respected the 'work,' if they respected comedy, they'd know this is a terrible idea." But Michael Kaufman, Andy's brother, tells the Times that he's on board. Naturally, he also can't help but feed into the "Andy isn't dead" rumor, adding, "What if Andy actually jumps out of the technology and really appears? He'd be 66 and nobody would recognize him."
– If the National Enquirer is to be believed, the Duggars don’t have 19 children simply because they love kids: No, it’s because they belong to a cult that plans to take over the US government. Jim Bob and Michelle, stars of TLC’s 19 Kids & Counting, are acknowledged Christians—but critics say they go further, belonging to a fringe sect called QuiverFull. QuiverFull, as one author on the subject puts it, encourages couples to “breed and indoctrinate enough children” until they can “take over both houses of Congress, 'reclaim' sinful cities like San Francisco and launch massive boycotts against companies that do not support conservative Christian beliefs.” Though the Duggars deny any affiliation, their books and DVDs are sold on the QuiverFull website. A 2009 Newsweek article also alleged the cult connection.
– McKayla Maroney is still not impressed. The Olympic gymnast posted an Instagram video Saturday showing her dancing in skimpy underwear, leading many to question whether her account was hacked—and, if not, criticizing her for posting the video. Her simple response, posted to Instagram later Saturday: "i didn't get hacked. unfollow if u need to. all love." On Twitter, she added, "hey, im just doing me. if u want me to be a role model so bad, get inspired by how i give 0 f---s and go do u." TMZ notes that Maroney is now an aspiring pop singer. (And she's posted other sultry pics in the past.)
– You're probably not going to hit the jackpot in tonight's $540 million Mega Millions drawing—but what if you do? First of all, if you bought a bunch of tickets with a pool of co-workers or friends, you might want to take a moment to write up a formal agreement before the 11pm ET drawing, the Houston Chronicle reports. Another good idea: distribute photocopies of the tickets to each pool member. "You never think about these things until after you won," one attorney says. "And that's what makes the litigation necessary." The AP offers more tips for after you win: DO sign the back of the ticket, make a copy, and hide it or lock it up somewhere safe. DON'T call everyone you know to tell them the good news—soon you'll be overwhelmed with people hoping to share in your newfound riches. DO get in touch with a lawyer and a financial planner—preferably people you trust. Can't think of anyone? Ask a trusted family member or friend for a recommendation. DON'T make your identity public if you don't have to. Depending on where you live, you may be able to form a trust and keep your identity private. DO think long and hard about whether to take the lump sum ($359 million before taxes) or the annual payments (about $19 million per year, before taxes, for 26 years). There are benefits and drawbacks to both, and the final decision will likely depend on how good you are at managing money—and what your tax advisor says. DO splurge a bit—but if you're trying to keep your winnings under wraps, you may not want to park your new Porsche out front. After all that, a reality check: Click to see why you're not going to win.
– Some 26 "forgotten hostages" held by Somali pirates for years after the piracy crisis faded from the headlines are finally free. The captives, fishermen from Vietnam, Taiwan, Cambodia, Indonesia, China, and the Philippines, were freed Saturday with the help of the Hostage Support Partners group, which negotiated with tribal and religious leaders. John Steed, a retired British colonel who works as a coordinator for the group, tells the AFP that the men are in "reasonable condition," considering that they have "spent over four and a half years in deplorable conditions away from their families." He says the men are the "last remaining seafarers taken hostage during the height of Somali piracy." Steed says one crew member died during the March 2012 hijacking of their Omani-flagged vessel and another two died during their captivity. He says the boat sank a year after its capture and the men were taken to a village in Somalia, where they were held by "pirates making increasingly irrational demands." On Sunday, the freed sailors were flown from Somalia to Kenya, where one of them told the BBC he felt like the "walking dead" after so long as a captive. He said food and water were in short supply and the men had eaten rats to survive. "Eat anything, even you not like, you feel hungry, you eat it,” he said. "You eat rat, you cook it."
– It may have seemed like John McCain kept shifting further to the right during his campaign against JD Hayworth, but daughter Meghan insists this is not the case. "My father hasn't changed," she writes in the Daily Beast. "The media bias has." And despite all the distortions, Arizonans chose him "because of his reputation, commitment to his country, and record of outweighing the mudslinging and fearmongering." (At Mother Jones, Suzy Khimm runs down recent McCain "flip-flops" on issues from immigration to climate change.)
– Uber employees are being accused of using customer data to track "high profile politicians, celebrities, and even ... ex-boyfriends/girlfriends and ex-spouses," NBC News reports. That quote comes from a lawsuit filed by Ward Spangenberg in October but first reported by Reveal this week. The former forensic investigator at Uber is accusing the ride-sharing company of a multitude of things, including age discrimination, whistleblower retaliation, and encrypting data to keep authorities from seeing it. Spangenberg claims he was fired after objecting to Uber practices he considered "reckless and illegal." But perhaps of most concern to customers is Uber's alleged handling of their data. Five former Uber security professionals tell Reveal that Uber employees have "broad access" to customer data. “When I was at the company, you could stalk an ex or look up anyone’s ride with the flimsiest of justifications,” a former senior security engineer says. “It didn’t require anyone’s approval.” Uber responds that it's "absolutely untrue that 'all' or 'nearly all' employees have access to customer data," though it adds "fewer than 10" employees have been fired for abusing the ride-tracking "Heaven View" (formerly "God View") tool, the Guardian reports. It says employees need access to that tool for things like refunds and accident investigations. The company says it now flags any Heaven View searches for "MVP" customers, such as celebrities.
– Peter Cronkite, 22-year-old grandson of Walter Cronkite, committed suicide in his Colby College dorm room Sunday, weeks before he was to graduate from the Maine school, People reports. "Peter, an avid film enthusiast, was the voice of Dennis the Menace for an animated movie when he was nine years old," reads an obituary that appeared in the New York Times. He was sports editor of the college paper, served as co-captain of the school's rugby team, played and coached hockey, and tutored, among other things, it continues. He was also "slated to receive the department’s Foster Prize for Classical Civilization for achieving excellence in his major," the college president wrote in a letter to students.
– A guitar lying on a chair. A plane ticket in pieces. A bathroom floor stained with blood. These are just some of the images contained in a Detroit Police Department report regarding the May death of Chris Cornell, obtained from an FOIA request by the Detroit Free Press. The Press notes that while the report doesn't contain any new bombshells, it does elaborate on what happened the night the 52-year-old Soundgarden singer took his own life at the MGM Grand Detroit, including how bodyguard Martin Kirsten found his body and what emergency workers discovered when they entered his suite. Kirsten went to Cornell's room when Vicky Cornell, the singer's wife, became alarmed because he sounded distraught on the phone. The bodyguard forced his way into the suite and found the awful scene. "I went inside and the bathroom door was partially opened, and I could see his feet," Kirsten says in his statement. He also notes Vicky Cornell told him that when she called the hotel front desk to try to get info, "they hung up on her" the first time around. TMZ has a gallery of the images, some of which are graphic, including photos that show bottles for such prescription drugs as prednisone (an anti-inflammatory), an antacid, and lorazepam, which is used to treat anxiety. The Free Press notes that Cornell's autopsy report, released in early June, said he had the lorazepam in his system, as well as a decongestant, caffeine, a sedative, and naloxone, which is used to reverse the effects of opioids—but the report adds these medications "did not contribute to the cause of death." The report also includes a 911 call from the hotel, but the paper notes "no photos of Cornell's body were visible."
– Steve Carell has been promoting Despicable Me 3 lately, and fans have noticed something: Um, he's hot. The former Office star's gray hair is making him into quite the "silver fox," as many have pointed out on Twitter and elsewhere. (Consider the BuzzFeed article "Guys, Steve Carell Just Got Insanely Hot And I Don't Know How to Feel About It," or this sample tweet: "Hot Steve Carell is your ex boyfriend who is honestly just doing better without you.") Carell, 54, reacted to all the hoopla at the film's LA premiere Saturday when Entertainment Tonight brought it up. "I am so sick of people just looking at me for my physical attributes. It's just genetic. There's nothing I can do," he joked before adding, "I'm bursting with pride. That's very nice." On Tuesday night, Jimmy Fallon also brought it up during Carell's appearance on the Tonight Show. "My wife finally said she's in love with me," he joked about his wife of 22 years. Asked how it feels to be in the same club as George Clooney and Anderson Cooper, Carell said, "There's a bracelet you get. Mine says Steve and on the other side of the bracelet, it says, 'hunk of man meat.'"
– The Minnesota dentist who lured and killed Cecil the lion has hired a team of ex-cops to protect him after his Florida vacation home was targeted by vandals. Overnight Monday, someone spray-painted the words "lion killer" on Walter Palmer's garage door and scattered what appeared to be at least seven pickled pigs' feet in his driveway, reports the AP. Walter Zalisko of the hired Global Investigative Group suspects "kids or animal activists" are to blame. "We have armed investigators on the property, we're setting up covert cameras, we're documenting all license plates," he tells the New York Post, adding all of his investigators are "highly trained, armed with handguns." Last week, a critical, hand-written sign was also left on Palmer's property. Police say they're investigating. "If we catch someone on the property, the investigators will have the lawful right to detain them, call police, and file charges," Zalisko says. Palmer has blamed the illegal lion hunt in Zimbabwe on his guides, and one appeared in court Tuesday. He called the case "frivolous" and "wrong," noting hunting is "an integral part of our country and it's got to continue and if we do not use wildlife sustainably, there will be no wildlife." Zalisko says the accusations against Palmer aren't an issue. "We just take care of business," he says. "We don't let our personal feelings get in the way."
– A suicide letter by one of France's most famous poets has fetched $267,000 on the French auction website Osenat, the BBC reports. Charles Baudelaire, the 19th-century poet revered for his original style of prose-poetry, wrote the note on June 30, 1845, to his lover Jeanne Duval. "By the time you receive this letter, I will be dead," he writes. "I am killing myself because I can no longer live, or bear the burden of falling asleep and waking up again." But his stab to the heart did little damage, and he lived for 22 years more—long enough to write his classic volume Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil). The letter's buyer hasn't been identified, per L'Express.
– Police in Irving, Texas, aren't pressing charges against Ahmed Mohamed, whose homemade clock was mistaken for a bomb, which means the teen whiz is now free to move his mind to other matters. "I'm thinking about transferring schools from MacArthur to any different school," Ahmed, 14, said at a press conference yesterday to cheers, per USA Today. He adds he wants to attend MIT after high school—a professor has already offered to give him a tour, per MSNBC—but he has quite a few offers he'll need to consider first: Twitter is advocating for an internship, Google has invited him to its upcoming Science Fair, Mark Zuckerberg has proposed meeting Ahmed at Facebook's offices, and President Obama has suggested a visit to the White House, per the Independent. "We should inspire more kids like you to like science," he says. "It's what makes America great." Though officers initially weighed "hoax bomb" charges, police chief Larry Boyd says they found Ahmed didn't intend to create alarm. Responding to claims that he was targeted because of his skin color and religion, Boyd adds he discussed the issue with leaders at the Islamic Center of Irving, who say the meeting was productive. "The Irving Police Department has always experienced an outstanding relationship with our Muslim community," Boyd says. Though the case now seems resolved, a school district rep maintains we haven't heard both sides of the story. "Unfortunately, the information that has been made public to this point has been very unbalanced," the rep says, per USA Today. "We would provide further factual information about the situation, however we feel it's very important to protect the student's right to privacy."
– A nuclear power plant in Florida described by critics as "environmentally fragile" is almost certainly leaking radioactive cooling water into the nearby ocean, the Miami New Times reports. "You would have to work hard to find a worse place to put a nuclear plant, right between two national parks and subject to hurricanes and storm surge," South Miami mayor Philip Stoddard says. The Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant near Miami has been around for four decades and powers more than 1 million homes, according to Fusion. But problems started being detected with the system of canals used to cool it two years ago after Florida Power & Light increased the plant's power output. Now a study released Monday found tritium levels in Biscayne Bay up to 215 times higher than normal, the Miami Herald reports. It's unclear at the moment if those levels of tritium, a radioactive isotope, are dangerous to people or animals, but they are high enough to "suggest a consistent flow" from the cooling canals into the ocean. A state representative calls the study "the last straw" and is asking the EPA do something to "protect the public." Stoddard says he and others warned Florida Power & Light about the canals years ago but were ignored. "They argued the canals were a closed system, but that's not how water works in South Florida," he tells the New Times. Just two weeks ago, a judge ordered the utility to fix the canals because they were contaminating groundwater and potentially endangering drinking water. Stoddard says there are only two solutions: replacing the canals with cooling towers or shutting the whole thing down.(Radioactive groundwater was detected in New York City.)
– Pyotr Verzilov, an activist long associated with protest group Pussy Riot, is in intensive care and may have been poisoned, members say. Verzilov, ex-husband of Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, was one of four activists who stormed the pitch in police uniforms during the World Cup in July before issuing a list of demands, the BBC reports. "His life is in danger. We think that he was poisoned," Pussy Riot tweeted Wednesday, describing Verzilov as "our friend, brother, comrade." Verzilov became ill after a Tuesday court hearing for fellow Pussy Riot activist Veronika Nikulshina, members say. After the hearing, "he got worse exponentially," Nikulshina told Russian news outlet Meduza, per the Guardian. "First his sight, then his ability to speak, then even his ability to walk." According to Meduza, Verzilov is in the toxicology department of a Moscow hospital, and authorities have not allowed his mother to visit him. Verzilov and three female Pussy Riot members spent 15 days in jail for the pitch invasion, which they described as a protest against police brutality. Verzilov is the publisher of Mediazona, which was founded by Tolokonnikova in 2014 and reports on Russia's law enforcement and penal system.
– A $7.3 million, 12-building compound built by the US Army Corps of Engineers for the Afghan Border Police resembled a ghost town just two months after it was handed over to Afghan authorities, Reuters reports. Inspectors found just 12 personnel at the Kunduz province base camp, which had been built for 175 officers. Most of the buildings appeared unused and equipment like wood-burning stoves had already been dismantled. The investigators had to peer through windows of most of the buildings because the personnel on site only had keys to three of them, ABC reports. The inspectors recommended that the US Army take another look at plans for building other border police facilities to ensure they are appropriately sized. Their report noted that sustaining the Kunduz facility would require people with the skills to maintain electrical generators, fueling stations, and water treatment systems, but there are no plans in place to train anybody.
– Two California drivers are dead after a road-rage incident, but the circumstances of this one are strange. Police say two men were driving on Interstate 5 near Sacramento about 3:45am Sunday when one vehicle struck another, reports the Sacramento Bee. Both men kept driving, but they stopped near an exit, got out, and started fighting. Witnesses tell police that one man began hitting the other with some type of weapon, reports SFGate, and the man died from what is believed to be blunt-force trauma. The other driver then began walking along the freeway, only to be struck and killed by a motorist. “It escalated from a traffic collision to a fight to a homicide,” says a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol.
– A night out at an Ohio Bahama Breeze for a group of sorority sisters ended with complaints of slow service, police on the scene, and now, a fired manager after some of the black patrons said they were racially profiled. WKYC reports on the June 19 incident, when about 40 people, including members of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, headed to the Orange Village eatery and didn't like the service. The manager called the cops, claiming the customers were cursing, disrespectful, and "worked up about the bill." Some of the patrons, however, say the manager assumed they wouldn't pay what they owed because they were African-American. Chante Spencer, one of the customers, tells Cleveland.com that one guest who'd waited 25 minutes for her bill got fed up and said she was leaving. She did stay, Spencer says, but the cops were summoned. Once police arrived, the manager, who claimed that more than one person had threatened to leave without paying, asked officers to stick around to make sure all of the customers in the group settled their individual bills, per a police report, which adds the cops stayed for about an hour. In a statement, Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge, herself a member of the sorority, calls the incident "a chilling reminder that no African-American is exempt from the impact of racial profiling when a group of professional women known for their service and advocacy are victims." "We clearly fell short of delivering great service to our guests," the parent restaurant tweeted Thursday. "The manager involved no longer works for us because they mistreated a guest." The restaurant also noted it has invited those involved back for a better experience. (Nordstrom Rack recently apologized for calling the cops on three black shoppers.)
– Good riddance, Hurricane Irma. The storm was downgraded to a still-powerful tropical storm Monday morning in northern Florida as it moved toward Georgia and other southeastern states, reports USA Today. Irma still had winds of 70mph, along with pounding rain, and nearly 6 million people across Florida remained without power, reports CNN. As of 8am, Irma was about 100 miles north of Tampa. Authorities in Florida asked people to continue sheltering in place so they could clean up streets and assess damage. "Stay off the roads, stay off the streets, let us complete our assessment, clear the roads of water, power lines, trees and then you can get out there and determine what happened to your individual property or your neighborhood," said Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler. Storm surge will continue to be a concern in Florida throughout Monday, and utilities warned it could be weeks before power is fully restored across the state. Much concern had been raised about Tampa, and while the city woke to flooded streets and downed trees, the early sense is that things were nowhere near as bad as once feared, reports TampaBay.com.
– Police in Fort Worth, Texas, are investigating after a video surfaced showing an officer firing a burst of pepper spray at a group of motorcyclists on a highway. Members of the group say about 200 motorcyclists were traveling on Highway 287 around 3pm Sunday when an officer pulled over a pickup truck, one of the group's "safety vehicles," reports WFAA. As captured by one of the biker's helmet cams, the officer—identified as W. Figueroa, per the Fort Worth Star-Telegram—exited his vehicle on the shoulder of the highway, then sprayed a yellow mist in the direction of the bikers as they passed him. A police rep confirms it was pepper spray and that Figueroa documented its use in a police report, reports NBC Dallas-Fort Worth. She didn't, however, reveal why he used it. Police say the department had received several complaints about the motorcyclists weaving in and out of traffic and generally driving recklessly around the time of the incident. But "if you're worried about safety, why would you pepper-spray a large group of bikers like that?" asks biker Jack Kinney. An ambulance called to the scene over exposure to pepper spray— apparently for those in the pulled-over pickup—transported one person to the hospital who asked to be checked out, notes the Star-Telegram. Another four refused treatment. Figueroa, a six-year veteran with the force, has been placed on administrative duty during the investigation.
– Thousands of Baltimore Ravens fans swarmed M&T Bank Stadium today to rid themselves of a jersey many now consider tarnished. Though stores have dropped Ray Rice's jersey, the Ravens are offering fans a chance to swap those already purchased for another player's jersey this weekend after a video surfaced that appears to show Rice knocking out his then-fiancee, the Baltimore Sun reports. "I don't want to wear a jersey of someone who did something like that," said a teen who turned out to swap his Rice jersey for one with Justin Tucker's name on it. "What [Rice] did wasn't right." But as fans gather in Baltimore, the NFL Players Association is gathering evidence after Rice appealed his NFL suspension this week as expected. "This action taken by our union is to protect the due process rights of all NFL players," the NFLPA said in a statement, per the Guardian. "The NFLPA appeal is based on supporting facts that reveal a lack of a fair and impartial process, including the role of the office of the commissioner of the NFL." The union argues a player can't be punished twice for the same offense if all evidence was presented initially. A hearing date is to be set within 10 days.
– This should eventually clear up the conflicting stories of exactly what happened during the Osama bin Laden raid: CBS News and CNN report that the entire 40-minute operation was indeed captured on cameras mounted on the helmets of Navy SEALs. US military officials are still reviewing the footage, which they describe as predictably grainy and fast-moving. "This is not movie-quality stuff," says one. CBS fleshes out previously reported details of the actual bin Laden killing: SEALs first shot at him on a third floor landing but missed. He ducked back into his room, followed by a SEAL who pulled bin Laden's daughters to the side. At that point, one of bin Laden's wives—possibly pushed by the al-Qaeda leader—rushed toward the second SEAL to enter the room. The SEAL pushed her aside (other reports say she got shot in the leg) and shot bin Laden in the chest. A third SEAL followed with a gunshot to his head. Also: Bin Laden had on a "white undershirt and tan robe," says one congressman who saw the death photos.
– On Thursday, the Swedish Academy dropped a culture bomb in the form of a Nobel in Literature for Bob Dylan for his "poetic expressions." It is now Monday, and Dylan has yet to respond, poetically or otherwise, and the Nobel Committee is somewhat publicly throwing up its hands. "Right now we are doing nothing," the academy's permanent secretary, Sara Danius, tells the Guardian. "I have called and sent emails to his closest collaborator and received very friendly replies. For now, that is certainly enough." It's not like Dylan has disappeared, though, as CBS News reported that he played a show in Las Vegas on the night of his win; he simply didn't bring the matter up, and hasn't contacted the committee or indicated whether he might show up in December to collect his shiny trinket. Says Danius: "I am not at all worried. I think he will show up." But, she says, "If he doesn’t want to come, he won’t come. It will be a big party in any case and the honor belongs to him." The Guardian notes that Dylan's current tour wraps up in late November, so he'll be free for the Dec. 10 ceremony in Stockholm. "But in typical Dylan fashion, he’s keeping things a touch mysterious," writes Yohana Desta at Vanity Fair. "The times, they are a-stayin’ the same." (Dylan might have inadvertently coined a phrase you use all the time.)
– The jury in the Rod Blagojevich trial came exceedingly close to convicting him on a host of charges, but were held back by a lone, intractable holdout, jurors told the press today. “The person just did not see the evidence that everyone else did,” Juror Stephen Wlodek told the AP. Another, 21-year-old Eric Sarnello, told the Chicago Tribune that the juror who held out “wanted clear-cut evidence, and not everything was clear-cut.” It’s unclear who hung the jury; Sarnello would only say that the holdout was female. He added that the prosecution’s scattershot case hadn’t helped. “It confused people,” he said. “They didn't follow a timeline. They jumped around.” Foreman James Matsumoto blamed the lack of a “smoking gun” for the mistrial, though he said he was ready to convict, and called the outcome “very frustrating.” Of the other jurors he says, “they were very strong personalities.”
– High cholesterol is bad for more than just your arteries. A study released this week found that high cholesterol may make it tougher for couples to get pregnant, the Washington Post reports. Researchers came to their conclusion after following 501 couples who were trying to conceive (and controlling for other potential infertility contributors, like body mass index). Their finding held true when either both partners or just the woman had high cholesterol; no significant effect was seen if only the man had the condition. The effect was the most pronounced when both would-be parents had high levels, per a statement released by the National Institutes of Health. As study leader Enrique Schisterman explains, cholesterol plays a key role in the production of hormones like estrogen and testosterone. "An excess sometimes creates an imbalance of too much hormones, or too little hormones. You have to have a sweet spot." Schisterman cautions that the finding doesn't mean couples should rush to take cholesterol-lowering drugs, but he does encourage couples looking to become parents to lead a healthy lifestyle. (Click to read about another breakthrough in the study of fertility involving a protein called Juno.)
– Danner Barton's quick thinking meant he escaped an armed carjacking attempt Sunday with only a bullet wound to his hand. "I ducked my head and I gunned it" as the culprit opened fire in Tumwater, Wash., leaving a bullet lodged in his steering wheel, the 16-year-old tells KING5. Still, he's "super thankful" that a bystander eventually put an end to the violence. That bystander has not been identified by name, but he is a 47-year-old pastor and volunteer firefighter from Oakville, Wash. Police say the pastor shot and killed a carjacker identified as 44-year-old Tim Day in a Walmart parking lot—after Day attempted to steal three vehicles during a chaotic spree, say police. He was firing all the while, including inside the Walmart at one point. Another driver he shot remains hospitalized. Megan Chadwick had just escaped the store with her four kids when Day exited. "I thought we were in the clear … and then I just heard four gunshots in a row," she tells KOMO News. Day was shot dead as he fired on yet another driver, police say. "Without him how many lives could [Day] have taken?" Barton says of the pastor, who also administered first aid to the more seriously wounded driver. "He is a hero," says another witness at Walmart. At least one other bystander present also drew a firearm. "Those men who stood up, they are heroes to me," says Chadwick. Noting Day had a criminal history, police have related the episode to drugs and mental health issues.
– All that controversy over the treatment of a German shepherd in A Dog's Purpose? Bogus, says an independent investigation. There was no animal cruelty on the set, just a deliberately misleading video, declares American Humane, the group charged with ensuring animal safety on movie sets, per People. It commissioned the review, which concluded that not only was the dog treated well but that the video leaked to TMZ was "deliberately edited for the purpose of misleading the public and stoking outrage." A statement from the group says those who released the video manipulated footage shot at different times, then waited 15 months until the film was about to be released for maximum impact. (The strategy worked.) The group does say that "the handling of the dog in the first scene in the video should have been gentler and signs of stress recognized earlier." But it says the video was stitched together to make the situation seem far worse than it was. It notes that eyewitnesses said the dog was wagging its tail and wanted to go back in the water, and a veterinary expert concluded that the dog was only "momentarily stressed." The investigation backs up the assertion of the filmmakers, who earlier complained about a misleading video. Still, a PETA rep called the report's findings incomplete and insisted that questions remain, reports AP. "In the making of a film, no animal should be frightened at all," she says. "It's a film."
– Security researchers have been unable to find a "kill switch" for the latest cyberattack hitting systems around the world—but they have developed a vaccine. Researchers say that the Petya ransomware will not encrypt files on computers that have the read-only file "C:\Windows\perfc.dat," the BBC reports. A guide on how to set that up can be found here, though security experts say people running up-to-date versions of Windows will already be protected. And the fix isn't perfect: Researchers warn that although the "vaccination" will make individual computers immune to the attack, the computers could still become "carriers" capable of spreading the malware to others. The cyberattack, which is believed to have originated in a software update for a Ukrainian tax accounting system, spread rapidly around the world Tuesday, with victims including India's largest container port, Russia's biggest oil company, a chocolate factory in Tasmania, and a hospital in Pittsburgh, reports Reuters. The malware encrypted hard drives and demanded $300 in bitcoin to restore files. Around 30 people paid up, though the mailbox involved has now been blocked, Business Insider reports. Analysts tell the Guardian that the low financial return and ineffective payment mechanism suggest that the attack was designed not to make money but to cause chaos in Ukraine, the most affected country.
– It's not like outgoing Tennessee state Sen. Stacey Campfield, most recently in the news for standing by his Nazi-ObamaCare analogy, is known for his tact. But a taunting, personal message he sent to a newly laid-off reporter via Facebook is making headlines nonetheless. "So, do YOU have any comments now?" Campfield wrote to Cari Wade Gervin, who had just lost her job along with the rest of the staff at the Knoxville alt-weekly Metro Pulse. "Tacky and classless," is how Gervin described it to the Huffington Post after news of the dig began circulating. "Typical Stacey, but it doesn't make it any less ridiculous." Campfield, who first rose to the national spotlight with his "don't-say-gay" initiative for schools, initially declined comment but has since posted some Facebook comments of the if-you-can't-take-it-don't-dish-it-out variety. “Do I care about someone who lost their job lying about me? No,” he tells Reuters. Gervin has covered Campfield the last few years, and the two have had what Poynter calls a "contentious" relationship. The state senator will be out of a job himself soon, having lost the Republican primary in August. He also faces a defamation suit from a previous political rival, notes Raw Story. (Click to read about his theory on the origin of AIDS.)
– A federal court in Washington is barring President Trump from changing the government's policy on military service by transgender people, the AP reports. Trump announced in an August memo that he intended to reverse course on a 2016 policy that allowed troops to serve openly as transgender individuals. He said he would order a return to the policy prior to June 2016, under which service members could be discharged for being transgender. US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote Monday that transgender members of the military who had sued over the change were likely to win their lawsuit and barred the Trump administration from reversing course. "There is absolutely no support for the claim that the ongoing service of transgender people would have any negative effect on the military at all," Kollar-Kotelly wrote, per Bloomberg. "In fact, there is considerable evidence that it is the discharge and banning of such individuals that would have such effects." Per Reuters, however, Kollar-Kotelly did rebuff the plaintiffs' complaint against Trump's directive that government funds can't be used for sex-reassignment surgery for most active-duty service members. She noted in her ruling that the plaintiffs hadn't proved they'd be negatively affected by that restriction.
– Yet another tough-to-stomach video is out detailing the abuse of animals in the fast-food industry, this time at a huge dairy farm in Idaho. The video by Mercy for Animals shows workers at Bettencourt Dairies punching, kicking, dragging, and stomping on cows, reports the Miami Herald. Because Burger King gets some of its cheese from the dairy, the group singled out the chain: “The secret ingredient in Burger King’s cheese is horrific animal abuse,” says its director. “No socially responsible corporation should support dairy operations that beat, kick, mutilate, confine and neglect animals.” The Humane Society called the video "reprehensible," but did not gang up on Burger King, asserting that it has done more to improve animal welfare over the last decade than any other restaurant chain. BK, meanwhile, promises to take quick action. The dairy immediately fired five workers, three of whom face animal cruelty charges, and made all of its workers watch the video and sign a zero-tolerance policy on animal cruelty, reports CNN. "We are all devastated by it," says the owner. "We are family-owned and we love our cattle." The dairy supplies other big names, including In-N-Out Burger and Wendy's, notes the Los Angeles Times.
– A federal court has sided with a California high school football player who took a knee during the national anthem, reports the Los Angeles Times. The Native American teenager, identified as "V.A.," sued after the San Pasqual Valley Unified School District put a rule in place banning such protests among its students. The rule went into effect after students at an opposing school hurled racial slurs against San Pasqual players and fans because not all of its players stood during the anthem, per CBS Sports. "Students like our client who conscientiously carry their values and ideals with them cannot be silenced or directed on what to say or not say by their school in this manner," says the teen's attorney.
– News Corp is confirming that the media behemoth will split in two, allowing its more profitable entertainment properties to break free of its less profitable publishing ones, reports the Wall Street Journal—which itself is on the publishing half of that divide. "We will wow the world as two, as opposed to merely one," wrote Rupert Murdoch in an internal announcement obtained by AllThingsD. News Corp's board unanimously approved the split at a meeting last night. Murdoch will be CEO of both companies, while Chase Carey will be COO of the entertainment branch; industry watchers have their eye on Murdoch son Lachlan to head up the publishing arm. Investors are cheering the split; News Corp's stock has jumped 11% since Tuesday, as they salivated over the potential of a Fox unburdened by those pesky newspapers. "I am perplexed about why so much value is created overnight in the entertainment company," said one investor, arguing that the entertainment properties aren't all as high-growth as investors imagine. As for the publishing business, one analyst says that "given print advertising's continuing spiral downward, the new company's thin 7% profit margin would disappear quickly."
– The decimal points alone could buy a posh residence: An unknown buyer has paid $100.47 million for a Manhattan condo overlooking Central Park. The 11,000-square-foot penthouse is in the luxe One57 apartment tower, reports the Real Deal. It's not only the highest price ever paid for a Manhattan condo, it's the first single-family home in New York City to sell for more than $100 million, reports the Daily News. The sale breaks the previous city mark of $88 million set a few years ago by a Russian mogul.
– Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava's five months lost at sea included three major storms, two shark attacks, and a broken water purifier. The women, who were rescued by a US Navy ship on Tuesday, say there were "absolutely" times they thought they would die on their 50-foot sailboat, ABC News reports. Fuiava and Appel gave an account of their ordeal while aboard the USS Ashland, where they will remain until its next port of call, according to the AP. They set sail from Honolulu for Tahiti—a trip of 2,600 miles—in May, but problems started immediately. A structural issue with the mast limited them to sailing under 5 knots and then a storm with nearly hurricane-force winds and 25-foot waves battered them for two days, leaving them without a functional engine just a month into their trip. Appel and Fuiava endured two more storms and "two different shark attacks," which Appel calls "horrific." Groups of sharks would repeatedly slap their tails against the boat. "We were just incredibly lucky that our hull was strong enough to withstand the onslaught," CNN quotes Appel as saying. Appel describes their time adrift at sea as "very depressing" and "very hopeless." "There is a true humility to wondering if today is your last day, if tonight is your last night," she says. Fortunately, the pair had brought along a year's worth of food, a water purifier (which broke and needed to be repaired), and Appel's two dogs, who they say kept them from giving in to depression. Fuiva tried to find the positive: "There's love, and there are different sunrises and sunsets every day." The sailboat was spotted Tuesday by a Taiwanese fishing vessel 900 miles off Japan—5,000 miles from Tahiti.
– Maine firefighters say they had to rescue a New York couple who took a wrong turn and mistakenly drove into the Atlantic Ocean, the AP reports. WMTW-TV reports firefighters were called to the docks in Tremont around 8pm Tuesday after there were reports of two people trapped in a car in the water. Officials say the couple's SUV was in 8 to 10 feet of water after they traveled down a boat ramp into the water. A video shows extremely foggy conditions in the area of the dock. Rescuers were able to pull the couple onto a skiff, and then pulled the SUV back to shore. An ambulance crew evaluated the couple.
– Schlafly is a familiar name for craft-beer lovers: The St. Louis, Missouri-based brewery has been brewing under that label for 20 years. But the private equity firm that bought a majority of the brewery in 2011 wants to see "Schlafly" trademarked, and that's opened up a can of worms of the familial variety. And it's a prominent family at the heart of the mess: That of 89-year-old conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, who the AP describes as famed for her campaign to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s, and whose nephew, Tom Schlafly, began brewing under the family name, without conflict, many years ago. Phyllis Schlafly petitioned the US Patent and Trademark Office to reject the request some 18 months ago, as did her son Andrew Schlafly. He tells the Star-Ledger the name wasn't so much an issue "when the business was in the family" (a reference to the private equity firm, Sage Capital; Tom Schlafly has stayed on as chairman of the board for the brewery) but nonetheless points out that booze is associated with values his mother has fought against, and says supporters assume she's tied to the beer. Settlement talks continue, notes the AP, with the trademark office being asked to determine whether Schlafly is primarily a last name or a commercial brand that deserves legal protection. Two interesting factoids: Schlafly was the 44th largest craft brewery in the country last year, and Phyllis is a Schlafly by marriage, not birth.
– Pundits agree: President Obama's speech last night marked a firm push for progressive goals, shedding much of the bipartisan focus we've heard from him in recent years. A sampling of what analysts are saying: The speech had a "retro flavor—'Democrat Classic,'" writes Glenn Thrush at Politico. It "could have been comfortably delivered by JFK, FDR, or LBJ," marking "the latest step in a clear effort by Obama to nudge the nation’s politics to the center-left." At the same time, it had its similarities to Marco Rubio's response: "At times, the blue-collar rhetoric employed by Obama and Rubio tracked so closely as to co-mingle, like alternating verses in a Bruce Springsteen song." "That was an incredibly ambitious speech," writes Ezra Klein at the Washington Post. If all the measures Obama proposed last night, from gun control to minimum wage, were to pass, "America would be a noticeably different country," he notes. "It’s often the case that candidates are more ambitious than presidents. But Obama’s second term is showing precisely the reverse progression." The Los Angeles Times calls the speech "the most forceful defense of liberal values uttered on this occasion by any president since Lyndon Johnson"—a comment similar to Newt Gingrich's, the New York Times notes. But while Obama "has the support of the American people" on many of his goals, "it wasn't clear how he'd get his ideas, many of them recycled from his first term, through a polarized Congress." Despite that polarization, the president "explained to a wide audience what could be achieved if there were even a minimal consensus in Washington," note the editors of the New York Times. Obama's "task now is to turn his widespread public support into a wedge to break Washington’s gridlock."
– During a meeting with an international group of nuns on Thursday, Pope Francis casually mentioned that he's open to making the biggest change to women's role in the Catholic Church in more than 1,000 years. When one of the sisters asked about the possibility of a commission to look into having women serve as deacons, the pontiff said it was a good idea and it would be useful for him to have the point clarified, the New York Times reports. In the church, deacons are clergy who are allowed to preach and carry out weddings and baptisms, the Washington Post reports. They were important in the early centuries of the church but the role gradually withered from around AD500 onward, though the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s brought back permanent deacons and made the role available to both married and single men. "Many experts believe that women should also be able to serve in this role, since there is ample evidence of female deacons in the first centuries, including one named Phoebe who is cited by Saint Paul in his letter to the Romans," the Vatican press office explained after Francis made his remarks. The Wall Street Journal notes that rising numbers of deacons have helped the church cope with a shortage of priests. Women active in the church in the US say they're thrilled by the apparent shift in policy, which many of them did not expect to see in their lifetimes. "It's very hopeful," Catholic scholar Phyllis Zagano tells the National Catholic Reporter. "It displays Francis' openness to scholarship, to history, and, most importantly, to the needs of the church." (Last month, Francis released a landmark document on marriage, divorce, sex, and family life.)
– The FBI swooped into a Manhattan auction of John Lennon memorabilia yesterday and grabbed a fingerprint card of the legendary Beatle taken at a city police station. Managers of the Gotta Have It! store expected the card to be the biggest sale of the auction, and had set a minimum bid of $100,000. It wasn't immediately clear why the feds seized the card, which was made in 1976 as part of the singer's application for US citizenship and bears the signature John Winston Ono Lennon. Lennon was under FBI surveillance in the early '70s because of his anti-war activism. “I’ve been doing this 20 years and have never had this much government interest in something,” said Peter Siegel, an owner of the store. “Here he is, one of our greatest musicians ever, and they just don’t stop investigating this guy.” Siegel said he received calls about the card from the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the US attorney's office in Manhattan. One official told the New York Times that investigators are attempting to determine "how that item came to be up for auction.” Siegel said the card is being sold for a private owner who bought the card at a Beatles convention. Lennon would have turned 70 on Saturday.
– Quentin Tarantino may have found his next movie, one that's already proving controversial despite scarce details. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Tarantino has written and will direct "a unique take" on the murders carried out by Charles Manson and his followers in the 1960s. Details of the script aren't clear, but the film will reportedly include the brutal Aug. 9, 1969, killings of five people, including a pregnant Sharon Tate, at the Los Angeles home she shared with her husband, Roman Polanski. Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lawrence, Margot Robbie, and Samuel L. Jackson have reportedly been approached. Deadline reports Robbie is eyed to play Tate, while Pitt may take on the role of the detective investigating the murders. Filming isn't scheduled to begin until 2018, but Josh Dickey is already convinced the movie is a "disgusting idea." There will be no sensitivity from the director who "made killing seem stylish and cool," he writes at Mashable, predicting a distasteful "gore-fest." At the Washington Post, however, Travis M. Andrews notes the "no-holds-barred, blood-soaked epics" Tarantino is famous for make this pairing "seem like a perfect fit." Joanna Robinson at Vanity Fair even hopes for more than a feature film: Only a miniseries—which Tarantino has suggested he might be interested in at some point—can capture "the slow creep of [Manson's] mania and the long unraveling of his tight-knit 'family,'" Robinson writes. (One of the killers involved in the Tate murder scene was just denied parole.)
– American scientists have identified a gene that appears to play a key role in the onset of depression, a finding which may help researchers develop new treatments. A team from Yale University found that a gene called MPK-1 is twice as active in those who suffer from depression. The gene works as an "off-switch," they say, controlling a "cascade" of chemicals needed for healthy brain function, the AFP notes. "This could be a primary cause, or at least a major contributing factor, to the signaling abnormalities that lead to depression," the study's lead author tells the Telegraph. Scientists compared tissue samples from 21 dead patients who were diagnosed with depression to samples from depression-free individuals. Subsequent tests on mice confirmed a link. (Click here to read more about depression and dementia.)
– Not a fan of Paul McCartney and Wings, McCartney's follow-up band after the Beatles broke up? No worries, McCartney apparently has no illusions about the group's talent: "We were terrible. We weren't a good group," McCartney admits in a new interview with BBC Radio 4, per the BBC. "People said, 'Linda [McCartney] can't play keyboards,' and it was true. But John couldn't play guitar when we started [the Beatles]." He explains that he was depressed after the Beatles broke up, and wanted to continue in music, but wasn't sure how. Wife Linda suggested putting another band together in 1971. "We knew Linda couldn't play, we didn't know each other, but we learned. We had some funny experiences," he says. "Looking back on it, I'm really glad we did it."
– The head of Luka Rocco Magnotta's former lover may finally have been recovered. Following a tip, police discovered an apparent human head in a Montreal park near Magnotta's apartment yesterday, the AP reports. Testing will help determine whether the head belonged to Jun Lin, a Chinese student allegedly killed and dismembered by Canadian porn actor Magnotta, and whether it's actually even a body part, a police rep said, according to the Toronto Star. Lin's head is the only remaining body part unaccounted for. Magnotta was extradited from Germany to Canada earlier this month.
– Eleven people have been confirmed killed in a 5.7-magnitude earthquake that struck Tanzania Saturday afternoon, but the actual death toll is feared to be much higher, the BBC reports. According to UPI, the earthquake—which the US Geological Survey says was "unusually strong" for the area—struck shortly before 3:30pm local time near Lake Victoria on the border with Rwanda and Uganda. The shallow quake originated only 6 miles below the surface, the AP reports. Shallow quakes typically cause more damage. The city of Bukoba, with a population of 70,000, appears to have been the hardest hit. Photos of collapsed buildings in the city were posted to social media, and the quake's 11 confirmed casualties were people in brick structures in Bukoba when the quake struck. Authorities say 192 people have been confirmed injured in addition to the deaths, but one one authority tells the BBC both numbers are "likely to go up." Local hospitals are already full and having difficulty dealing with the waves of injured.
– When your product has made 169 people sick, you should probably start bracing for a lawsuit. Sure enough, the New England Compounding Center of Massachusetts got hit with its first suit yesterday from a Minnesota woman who used its injections, though she has not been diagnosed with meningitis, the AP reports. The suit could be the first in a wave of litigation—nearly 14,000 people have used the center's injections. And that could be the least of the company's legal worries; Senator Richard Blumenthal has called for a criminal probe as well, Reuters reports. The company's injections have been linked to an outbreak that has so far killed 14 people nationwide, with cases reported across 11 states. The CDC has contacted most of the potential victims and warned them to be vigilant for symptoms, but it says there are about 2,000 it's still trying to notify. "We are not out of the woods yet," a CDC manager said yesterday.
– Democrats have chosen their Benghazi strategy: Instead of boycotting a special committee set up by Republicans to investigate the attack, they're going to play along. Nancy Pelosi today picked five Democrats to sit on the panel following what Politico calls a "heated debate" within the party on the best way to proceed. The New York Times sums up the rationale: While deciding to participate lends credibility to the panel, Democrats now have a chance "to influence the direction of the hearings and get access to documents and other evidence that could be presented." The individuals selected also are notable because four of them have served on committees that have previously investigated Benghazi and thus will be able to call out committee chair Trey Gowdy if he traffics in old news, notes the Times. The five are Elijah Cummings, Adam Smith, Adam Schiff, Linda Sanchez, and Tammy Duckworth, reports the Wall Street Journal. The committee will meet for the first time tomorrow.
– Two days after implementing stiff restrictions on carry-on items and in-flight entertainment, the TSA relaxed the new rules today, airline sources tell MSNBC. Passengers will be allowed to have blankets on their laps and leave their seats during the final hour of a flight, use electronic devices, and watch TV on flights that offer it. The clamp-down had drawn widespread criticism even as passengers submitted to the amped-up rules and tough new screening procedures that delayed many flights. "TSA has a long history with the flying public of little communication, scant explanation and seemingly mind-boggling rules," cautioned Scott McCartney, who blogs about business travel for the Wall Street Journal. "The same mistakes are repeating."
– Today will be a day of high-stakes diplomacy in Paris, as John Kerry meets with his Russian counterpart for the first time since Russia's invasion of Crimea—an invasion Russia is denying has even happened. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today repeated Russia's assertion that those aren't Russian troops occupying the region, Reuters reports. "If you mean the self-defense units created by the inhabitants of Crimea, we give them no orders, they take no orders from us," he said. Black Sea Fleet troops are in their usual positions, he said, and while "vigilance measures" had been taken, "we will do everything not to allow any bloodshed." Such denials have met derision in the West. Today will also see Lavrov meet with French President Francois Hollande and foreign ministers from Germany and the UK. NATO and Russia are also holding parallel talks in Brussels. Meanwhile, EU officials today offered the Ukraine a $15 billion aid package, to be delivered over two years, the New York Times reports. The Obama administration is simultaneously preparing unilateral sanctions against Russian businesses and individuals, the Washington Post adds. In other news: Pro-Russian protesters are turning away families seeking to bring food to the Ukrainian bases that haven't surrendered to Russian forces, the BBC reports. Russia may have seized control of two Ukrainian missile defense sites, according to an unconfirmed Interfax report. Hillary Clinton took the anti-Russian rhetoric to a new level in an appearance yesterday. "If this sounds familiar, it's what Hitler did back in the '30s," she said, referring to Vladimir Putin's push to give Russian passports to ethnic Russians in the Ukraine, according to the Long Beach Press Telegram. The Nazis resettled ethnic Germans in Germany in the late '30s.
– An Alabama police detective says he was pistol-whipped into unconsciousness with his own gun because he didn't want to be the newest cop vilified for killing an unarmed man, CNN reports. "I hesitated because I didn't want to be in the media," he says. The Birmingham detective, whose name has not been released, stopped a car for driving erratically on the freeway last Friday. The driver allegedly defied orders to remain in his vehicle and began questioning the detective about why he was stopped. A scuffle ensued, and police say the driver grabbed the detective's gun and beat him with it, reports al.com. The attack left the officer in the hospital with a concussion and staples in his head. Other officers eventually arrested 34-year-old Janard Shamar Cunningham and charged him with attempted murder. The union president for the police department tells the New York Daily News that officers on the street "are walking on egg shells" because of the media, and the pistol-whipped detective agrees. He says "a lot of officers are being too cautious." The Daily News reports photos of the injured officer taken by bystanders went viral on social media, with many people mocking the officer and police.
– A 24-year-old Ukrainian man who faked his name and age to attend a Pennsylvania high school has been ordered to spend two months in prison on federal fraud charges. Artur Samarin—who called himself Asher Potts when he enrolled at Harrisburg High School in 2012—pleaded guilty to passport fraud and Social Security fraud in August, the AP reports. He has also admitted lying about his identity to get a free public education and having sex with a 15-year-old girl in 2014, when he was 22, and will be sentenced on separate fraud and sex crimes charges next week. Samarin, who will probably be deported when he finishes his sentence, was a star student at Harrisburg High—and a runner-up for homecoming king—before his true age was discovered. At Thursday's hearing, his lawyers said he had been one of the most distinguished students in the high school's history and had supported charities, including the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, PennLive reports. The lawyers said Samarin had been pushed into the fraud by Michael and Stephayne Potts, a couple who became his "adoptive parents" but treated him like a servant—and reported him to authorities when he "escaped." They are also facing fraud charges related to Samarin's high school career.
– Two South African students may have gotten in over their heads when they "liberated" a penguin from a South African marine park, the BBC reports. Surveillance video showed two still-unidentified students breaking into the enclosure at Bayworld marine park, grabbing the penguin, and driving it to the nearby shoreline, where they released it. The problem is that Buddy the penguin was raised in captivity and is "completely ill-equipped to survive in the wild," says the park manager. Staffers are searching up and down the South African coast, hoping Buddy will come back to land before he runs out of fat reserves in two or three weeks. “The individuals stated that they did not agree with the penguins being kept in captivity and that their intention was to capture and then release a penguin back into the wild," says a Bayworld statement, per news24.com. The park has reported the theft to police and says the men's lawyer has been in contact. The African penguin is an endangered species, with less than 20,000 breeding pairs in the wild. The loss of Buddy is especially bad for the park, as he was successfully paired with a mate. Penguins mate for life, and park officials worry Buddy's mate, Francis, may not accept a new partner if Buddy does not return. What's more, one of their two recently hatched chicks has died since his disappearance. (There may be good news about these 150,000 missing penguins.)
– The heart rate tracker technology in fancier models of Fitbit starts to become inaccurate when people start exercising, according to a study included in an amended class-action lawsuit against the company. In a press release, plaintiffs' lawyers say California State Polytechnic University put both Fitbits and ECG sensors on 43 separate subjects tested for 65 minutes of moderate to high-intensity exercise, and found that the PurePulse technology in the Fitbits had an "extremely weak correlation" with the heart rate recorded by the ECGs. The researchers say the Fitbit measurement was up to 20 beats per minute off during exercise. In some cases, Fitbits on both wrists recorded different rates—and heart rates of zero were recorded on subjects who were definitely not zombies. Fitbit argues that the study, which was funded by the lawyers, "lacks scientific rigor and is the product of flawed methodology." The company notes that the ECGs were consumer-grade ones, not clinical devices. Alex Montoye, an assistant professor of clinical exercise physiology at Ball State University tells CNN that his own research has found that Fitbits are pretty good at giving a "ballpark estimate of activity levels, but these are difficult elements to measure perfectly." He says the Fitbit is not a medical device and doesn't claim to be one, which is why the company tends to use words like "track" instead of "measure" in marketing materials and never promises 100% accuracy. (Doctors say heart rate data from this man's Fitbit helped save his life.)
– Embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford admitted that he'd at least used crack today, in what the CBC describes as a "scrum" with reporters outside city hall. "Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine," he said. "Am I an addict? No. Have I tried it? Um, probably in one of my drunken stupors, probably approximately a year ago." He insisted that he was technically telling the truth when he said earlier this year that he didn't use crack cocaine, because he doesn't light up habitually. "I wasn't lying. You didn't ask the correct question." "There have been times when I've been in a drunken stupor," he said, according to the AP. "That's why I want to see the tape. … I want to see the state that I was in." Ford has clung to his office in the face of calls for his resignation. In another twist in the story, his brother, city councilor Doug Ford, called on police chief Bill Blair to resign today, alleging that Blair was biased against Rob Ford. Slate has audio of today's full and hilarious exchange between Rob Ford and reporters. And then there's this.
– Surprised Californians got a shake, rattle, and roll last night just before midnight when a magnitude 4.4 earthquake hit northern Orange County. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage, but the rattler and a 2.7 aftershock a minute later were definitely felt over a broad region, including downtown LA, reports the Los Angeles Times.
– Lindsay Lohan's much-anticipated sitdown with Oprah Winfrey aired last night, but no, there were no "bombshells," Vulture reports. The interview, filmed four days after Lohan left rehab, was a pretty predictable affair. Highlights from Vulture, E!, and Us: Lohan, who was emotional throughout the interview, answered simply "yeah" when Oprah asked if she is an addict. Her "drug of choice"? Alcohol. As for cocaine, she's only used it "like 10 to 15 times," she said, and while she didn't enjoy it, "it allowed me to drink more, I think that's why I did it." She also cited a dependency on Adderall, which she says she's "much calmer" without. She's not taking it anymore, she told Oprah. The only drug she's currently on? "Vitamins," Lohan said. Oh, and "I take Nexium. Because I have acid reflux." Lohan's explanation for why her addiction started: "A lot of stuff went on with my family when I was young and I grew up in a very chaotic home and then there were moments of everything being wonderful and perfect and then things being so uncontrollable and chaotic that—it's something people go through and unfortunately I waited too long to face it." She admitted she was addicted to the chaos, but now she's "exhausted" by it and ready to regain everyone's trust and "get the thing that's made me the happiest my whole life back, which is just work really hard and stay focused and prove myself." Speaking about her troubles with the law, Lohan said, "I somehow inside of me knew I wanted to go in jail. I think that was subconsciously going on in my head through my actions ... just to have some peace." Winfrey expressed concern with a yoga retreat in Europe Lohan planned to attend, suggesting it wasn't a good idea "just a few days out of rehab." Lohan said she's "different" now, but ended up canceling the trip two days later. LiLo also launched a new website last week, and has a guest stint on Eastbound and Down coming up, the Huffington Post reports.
– President Trump has undone one of his predecessor's final executive actions, a measure designed to make it harder for the mentally ill to own guns. The issue is a little more complicated than the usual gun-control debate, however: This time, both the NRA and the ACLU opposed the measure. The move by President Obama in December required the Social Security Administration to provide information about people who met certain criteria to the national database for background checks, reports NBC News. Affected would be those who get full disability benefits because of a mental illness and who were deemed unfit to manage their own finances, explains CNN. They were to be notified that they might not be eligible to own a gun, though they could appeal. The Obama administration estimated it would apply to 75,000 people. Last week, the House and Senate passed a bill to undo the rule, and Trump signed it into law on Tuesday. He had promised to "un-sign that [bill] so fast" even before he became president, reports USA Today. It was criticized by both the ACLU, which said it added to the stereotype that equates mental illness with violence, and the NRA, which opposed it on Second Amendment grounds. The head of the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action says the move "marks a new era for law-abiding gun owners, as we now have a president who respects and supports our arms." Gun-control advocates say the law would've prevented suicides and accidental deaths.
– A 4-month-old girl barred from entry to the US and the lifesaving surgery she required by President Trump's travel ban received an exemption Friday, the New York Daily News reports. Fatemeh Reshad was born with structural abnormalities in her heart. According to KOIN, US doctors reviewing her medical files agreed she would die soon without surgery, but hospitals at home in Iran didn't have the necessary equipment to perform it. Fatemeh's family received a temporary visa to travel to Oregon for surgery, but it was canceled by Trump's executive order Jan. 27. “My niece is 4-months-old coming here for surgery," says Fatemeh's uncle, a US citizen living in Portland. "You're scared of her?" The International Refugee Assistance Project and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo took up Fatemeh's cause. Cuomo called what was being done to her family "repugnant to all we believe as Americans and as members of the human family," the AP reports. It worked. Fatemeh and her family were granted a waiver to enter the country Friday just as a judge was putting a temporary halt on enforcement of the travel ban. Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York even offered to perform Fatemeh's procedure for free, though her family will be having it done as planned in Oregon, where they have family. Fatemeh should be arriving in Portland early next week.
– It sounds like a potentially perilous situation: an officer calling for assistance while on duty. Except in the case of two Toronto officers on Sunday, the problem wasn't gunfire or an uncooperative arrestee—it was pot the cops had allegedly consumed. CBC News reports the officers, whose names haven't been released by the department, allegedly ate marijuana edibles near a police station and then reportedly started to hallucinate. That's when CBC News reports that one made the call, though sources tell CP24 a more colorful story: that the call was placed after one officer ended up in a tree. The two were reportedly found in a police vehicle and at least one of them was brought to the hospital. Making the situation worse: an officer who responded to the scene slipped on ice and suffered a head injury in the process. The Toronto Star reports that some hours prior, a raid had been carried out on a nearby marijuana dispensary; it reports that it's unclear if the officers in question participated, but a source tells CBC News the edibles that were allegedly consumed were thought to have been taken during that raid. The officers have reportedly been suspended and will be investigated by the professional standards unit. (These stoned drug traffickers called 911 on themselves.)
– More than $1.2 million has been raised to help convince Sen. Susan Collins she shouldn't cast her vote for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, but the Maine pol isn't exactly motivated by the cash influx. Mainers for Accountable Leadership, the Maine People's Alliance, and a group led by Ady Barkan, an activist dying of ALS, started the campaign directed at Collins, seen as a possible swing vote against Kavanaugh. The groups, which fear Kavanaugh will help overturn Roe v. Wade, vow that if Collins casts a "nay" for Kavanaugh, they'll nix the fundraiser and donors will get to keep their pledges. However, if she votes yes, they say they'll donate the money to her opponent's 2020 campaign. The effort has ended up rankling Collins, who tells Newsmax, "I consider this quid pro quo fundraising to be the equivalent of an attempt to bribe me to vote against Judge Kavanaugh." Collins also tells the Wall Street Journal she's been advised by two lawyers that the fundraiser is a "clear violation of the federal law on bribery," while a third says it amounts to extortion. A conservative watchdog group agrees and is sending a letter Thursday to the Justice Department asking it to investigate the groups. "It's very obvious that outside influence is being used in an attempt to corrupt a member of Congress," Kendra Arnold, executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, tells USA Today. (Slate pushes back on the illegality of the fundraiser.) Also "incredibly offensive," Collins tells the Journal: the profane voicemail messages and coat hangers—about 3,000 so far—she says her state offices are receiving. She notes her team donated a few hundred of the hangers to a local thrift shop.
– Jerry Sandusky remained defiant today, insisting that "I did not do these disgusting acts" as he was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in the child sex abuse scandal that rocked Penn State to its foundation, reports CNN. Sandusky, who apparently arrived in court this morning wearing a smile, addressed the court in what USA Today calls a "sometimes rambling" statement, saying at one point, "This is the time when you find out who your friends are in the fourth quarter, those who stand by you." Judge John Cleland called Sandusky's statement "unbelievable," telling the former coach he would be in prison "for the rest of your life," reports the Washington Post. He told Sandusky that the "ultimate tragedy of this case is that the very victims you abused had your trust, they trusted you. This crime is not only about crimes of the body, it is also about the assaults on their psyches and their souls." The court also heard victim impact statements from some of Sandusky's victims, with Victim No. 5 telling the court: "The sentence will never erase what he did to me. It will never make me whole." Victim No. 4 addressed Sandusky directly, saying, "You should be ashamed of yourself. I want you to know I will not forgive you."
– If the pilot of your plane tells you over the intercom he's going to turn the plane around if you don't sit down, it's probably best to take a seat. But per the Star Tribune, a woman flying on Delta from Minneapolis to Los Angeles on Wednesday apparently didn't take such a warning seriously, and she and a man with her were arrested after the plane swung back to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The flight crew had called ahead to cops about 20 minutes after takeoff, KTRK reports, with a Delta spokesman telling the Star Tribune the couple had "[become] aggressive and created a disruption in the cabin." The rep didn't say what allegedly set off either 35-year-old Blake Fleisig or 36-year-old Anna Koosmann, but a passenger who shot video of part of the incident says Koosmann got irritated when she was told she had to stay seated and couldn't use the bathroom just a few minutes into the flight. The video shot by Patrick Whalen from the plane's front row shows police leading Fleisig and Koosmann down the aisle of the plane to disembark while other annoyed passengers take verbal swipes at them—until Fleisig punches another passenger, per Whalen. Cops can be seen bringing Fleisig to the floor and yelling at him to "stay down." As the two are finally led off the plane, an officer says to Koosmann, "You're already going to jail," to which she replies, "Why? For what? For what?" The two were hit with disorderly conduct charges (Koosmann also was charged with obstructing the legal process), and an airport rep tells the New York Daily News Fleisig was booked and released right at the airport, while Koosmann remained "uncooperative" and was taken to a local detention center. (Did this "known prankster" act unruly on a Delta flight?)
– Oprah says she's not interested in running for president in 2020, but one of her friends definitely is. Marianne Williamson, described by Politico as a "spirituality guru and fixture of Hollywood's New Age community," announced Friday that she's forming an exploratory committee. "We need to get our country back on track, our government back on track, back to an ethical center that is the true exceptionalism of the American ideal," says the 66-year-old in her launch video. Williamson has dabbled in politics before, with an unsuccessful run for Congress in 2014 as an independent. She picked up some high-profile endorsements, including that of Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm. Another longshot candidate for Democrats? Michael Avenatti. The attorney for Stormy Daniels says he's still considering a run despite this week's domestic violence charges, which he insists are bogus. "I will not be intimidated," Avenatti tells USA Today. "The measure of a person is how they get up when they are knocked down." (Oprah played a role in Georgia's gubernatorial race.)
– Federal officials are investigating after an air traffic controller error sent a jet from Los Angeles International Airport into the flight path of another plane while flying low toward Southern California mountains, the AP reports. An EVA Air Boeing 777 that left LAX in heavy rain around 1:20am Friday was given an incorrect instruction by a controller based in San Diego to turn left instead of right, according to KABC. That sent the airliner toward mountains above Altadena, as well as toward the path of an Air Canada plane that had just taken off. Audio traffic indicates that the same controller realized the error and told the airliner to level out and change direction. The controller told the pilot several times to head south. More than a minute later, she was still trying to get him to comply. "EVA 015 Heavy, what are you doing? Turn southbound now, southbound now. Stop your climb," the controller said after the plane apparently does not heed her initial instruction. The EVA crew eventually pulled up and got onto the right flight path. The FAA is investigating. An FAA spokesperson said the two planes remained the required distance from each other at all times during the incident. Regulations require aircraft to be at least 3 miles away laterally or 2,000 feet vertically above obstacles such as mountains.
– Another restaurant receipt has gone viral, but this one has a happier story behind it than the last one. The King family of Washington state went out for pizza and discovered to their surprise that the restaurant gave them a $4 discount on the receipt for "well behaved kids." (They have three, ages 2, 3, and 8.) A friend posted the receipt to Reddit, and it quickly became an Internet hit, reports Today.com. Sogno di Vino's owner says he often gives free dessert to families with non-bratty kids, as he did with the Kings, but this is the first time he typed it out on a bill. One of mom's tips: No eating out if the youngest kids haven't napped.
– A Vatican official says there is now "a sense of regret" that Pope Francis ever met Kim Davis, reports Reuters—and that could be bad news for the archbishop who set up the meeting. Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the Vatican's ambassador to the US, was appointed by Benedict XVI and is known for his hardline stance against same-sex marriage, the Washington Post reports. Vatican officials say Francis wasn't briefed on the Davis case and the meeting "should not be considered a form of support," which has left church insiders wondering whether Vigano deliberately blindsided Francis or merely underestimated just how controversial the meeting would turn out to be, the New York Times reports. A Vatican source tells CBS 2 that Francis was "exploited" by those with their own agendas and the meeting should never have happened. Davis' lawyer, who first announced the meeting, tells the Times that it was set up by Vigano—whom he met at an anti-gay marriage rally in Washington, DC, earlier this year—but they were "led to believe that the invitation did come directly from Pope Francis." The lawyer says the Vatican's description of the meeting as a very brief one among dozens is "absolute nonsense" and "somebody is trying to throw some people under the bus." Bishops are required to ask for permission to resign when they turn 75, and it seems likely that Vigano's will be accepted when he reaches that age in January, the Times notes. (Francis met a gay couple the day before the Davis meeting.)
– Earlier this month brought the news that 14% of the Zappos workforce—210 employees—was exiting the company rather than taking part in the manager-free "Holacracy" system being adopted by Zappos. The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the initial new landscape; the full shift is expected to take as long as five years. Five stand-out details: The new lingo: Workers can join one of 300 "circles" (ie, work teams) run by a "lead link" (sort of a project manager) where they focus on a specific kind of work (ie, customer service) and might air "tensions" (ie, work problems) or discuss how they're "energizing a role" (that being what one's job is now called). The new lingo, part II: Can you translate yet? The Journal has this jargony line (and an interpretation) from John Bunch, who's heading the shift to Holacracy. "The idea is for each person to selfishly process their own tension. The reaction round is a sacred space." One specific experience: In the title-less world, Brironni Alex, 26, is no longer a customer-service manager, but now has "more time for a workplace diversity committee and to perform on the Zappos dance team," per the Journal. How meetings have changed: At their end, employees can air their thoughts. A 24-year-old employee says she hears things like "I can't wait to eat my leftover pizza for lunch." One specific circle: The Journal highlights one called "Reinventing Yourself," which former managers are encouraged to join as part of their quest to figure out what they should do in the company now that they can't manage. Full Journal article has more great details.
– Whole Foods has ended up with egg on its face after first touting Ramadan then running scared. The company decided to promote some of its halal foods for the Muslim holy month—then backed off when it was ripped by anti-Muslim bloggers. "Ramadan is fast approaching, and I'm getting my kitchen ready for a month of celebration," food writer Yvonne Mafei noted in the Whole Foods company blog last month. The company offered gift cards and directed customers to its halal-certified foods, reports ABC News. Several customers hailed the new interest. "Finally, a major retailer has recognized its Muslim customers," wrote one reader. But anti-Muslim bloggers quickly ripped the posts, with one accusing "anti-Israel" Whole Foods for being "a shill for jihadist interests." Then came this internal email, obtained by the Houston Press: "It's probably best that we don't specifically 'promote' Ramadan. We should not highlight Ramadan in signage as that could be considered 'celebrating' Ramadan." Now Whole Foods is getting slammed again for "[capitulating] to a vocal minority that does not believe in the freedom to observe non-Christian religious practices in America," or so wrote a (former?) customer. A Whole Foods rep says it actually hasn't abandoned the campaign, and noted that the company has 12 operating regions, and the email came from one of them: "Every region operates autonomously. They have their own set of leadership, their own offices."
– How much does it cost to secure the right to sell Starbucks coffee? Nestle says the answer to that question is $7.15 billion, the amount it on Monday announced it would pay Starbucks for a business whose annual sales total $2 billion, reports the AP. The acquisition, the third-biggest for Nestle in its 152 years, would allow the Swiss giant to sell things like Starbucks' bagged coffee and individual pods; ready-to-drink products are excluded, and the deal doesn't have anything to do with Starbucks cafes. Reuters reports that regular shoppers of the affected products won't see a change: Nestle's name won't join Starbucks' on any packaging. "We do not want the consumer to perceive that Starbucks is now part of a bigger family," a Nestle source told the site. Starbucks walks away with greater distribution around the planet. As for Nestle, it's a jolt: The world's leading hot drink company's shares had been down 8% for the year, and 2017 saw sales rise at what Bloomberg calls "their weakest pace in more than two decades." Bloomberg's take: "By entering a marketing pact with Starbucks, the Swiss company is revealing the limits to growing with Nescafe and Nespresso." Reuters' assessment is that the deal will help Nestle "bulk up" in the US where it isn't as strong, allow it to expand its offerings in a ballooning Asia market, and facilitate its "shift away from junk food." The AP adds the deal is subject to regulatory approval but should close before 2018 is out. Nestle will scoop up 500 Starbucks employees as part of the process; operations will remain in Seattle.
– Many divers search long and hard for sunken treasure, but an Israeli diving club out for a recent dive in their local harbor struck literal gold by chance: 2,000 priceless gold coins that had been sitting on the seabed for about 1,000 years, the largest stash of gold ever found in Israel, reports the Jerusalem Post. The Israel Antiquities Authority says the coins appear to date back to between 909 and 1171, and that they're from North Africa and the Middle East. "There is probably a shipwreck there of an official treasury boat which was on its way to the central government in Egypt with taxes that had been collected," an IAA rep tells AFP. Another theory: The coins could have been to pay soldiers stationed at the local garrison. Some of the coins show bite marks—indicating that they were at some point examined up close and personal for authenticity, notes AFP—but are otherwise in excellent condition. The divers at first thought the stash, found in the harbor at Caesarea National Park on Israel's Mediterranean coastline, was made up of toy coins, but they quickly reported the find when they realized it was the real deal. "They discovered the gold and have a heart of gold that loves the country and its history," says the IAA rep. But thanks and praise is all they get: No finder's fee, says the IAA. (Check out how much gold was found last year on a shipwreck dating back to 1857.)
– British Airways canceled all flights out of London's two largest airports Saturday—the first day of a spring bank holiday weekend in Britain—affecting tens of thousands of travelers. The problem stems from British Airway's IT system, the entirety of which apparently crashed worldwide, the AP reports. According to CNN, the airline says it doesn't appear to have been a cyberattack, but rather a "power supply issue." An aviation expert tells the BBC that British Airways "can't do anything at all." That includes having planes take off, moving baggage, and issuing credentials to passengers. The problem affected call centers, the British Airways website, and its mobile app. While British Airways hopes to have some flights in the air Sunday, the problem could persist for days, one expert says. On a normal day, British Airways has hundreds of flights out of Heathrow and Gatwick. On Saturday, travelers described chaos at the airports. One such traveler at Heathrow called it one of "most turbulent, badly organized days that I've ever experienced in Britain." With planes unable to take off and blocking gates, passengers on flights arriving at the airports were unable to disembark. Some waited on their planes for four hours only to get off and learn they had no idea where their luggage was. British Airways eventually told passengers to stop coming to the airport. Those affected will be offered a rescheduled flight or refund.
– Eighteen-wheelers were sent spinning though the air, hundreds of homes were smashed and cars crunched when as many as 13 tornadoes hit the Dallas region—but "miraculously" not a single person lost their lives, said a stunned mayor. "It looks like the Dallas-Fort Worth area really dodged a bullet," Mayor Michael Rawlings told CNN. "We've got hundreds and hundreds of homes destroyed, but amazingly no fatalities. We're looking at a miracle here. We're looking at something amazing." Added Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm: "Thank God for the protection he provided." Three people were injured in nearby Arlington, though not seriously. "We've done the primary search," said Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck. "We feel as though we have everybody now." Observers credit the spared lives to effective warnings from the National Weather Service, and the fact that most people were at work or in school instead of in their homes, which were the hardest hit, reports the Dallas Morning News. The clean up has already begun but it will likely take months. Gov. Rick Perry is scheduled to tour the damage by helicopter today and will hold a news conference to discuss state and federal aid that will be available to stricken communities.
– Bishop Eddie Long’s sex scandal has predictably generated a media firestorm. After all, Long “is one of the most outspoken homophobes in the black church,” writes Joshua Alston in Newsweek. But Alston hopes the community takes the time to skip past the tawdry details of Long’s alleged homosexual dalliances and focus on the bigger issue: “Why is the black church so hostile to gay men and women? Will we ever be accepted as we are?” Yes, Alston is a black, gay Atlanta resident, which is fairly common—Atlanta is 55% black, and has been named "Gayest City in America" by the Advocate. Yet in many black churches, gay congregants are forced “to shout in agreement as they are being flagellated from the pulpit. Why should they have to live this way?” That’s what we should be asking, not who allegedly fondled who when. (Though if you’re curious, this AP story has more details). “It’s not the man that deserves all the scrutiny. It’s his message.”
– Donald Trump doesn't think Jeb Bush is setting a very good example for Americans when he speaks Spanish, but a bilingual Arizona news anchor is likely in the Bush camp on this one. Vanessa Ruiz—who was born in Miami, grew up in Colombia, and studied in Spain before jumping into journalism and nabbing a job at 12 News in July—isn't even taking heat for speaking Spanish, but for her non-Anglicized pronunciation of Spanish words, reports the New York Times. The station's news director tells the Times that some viewers have complained about how Ruiz "rolls her R's when pronouncing Spanish words," as well as how she says certain words like "Mesa" ("MESS-uh," like many Spanish speakers say it, instead of "MAY-suh"). As noted by the Times, the criticism of Ruiz underscores the issues some people have with the proliferation of Spanish in the US, which now has the second-largest population of Spanish speakers in the world. As the Arizona Republic puts it, an "eloquent and unapologetic" Ruiz took to the air Monday to address the issue, gently noting, "I do like to pronounce certain things the way they are meant to be pronounced. And I know that change can be difficult, but ... over time I know that everything falls into place." She added, per 12 News: "Certain words just sound better when said in their natural way. It really is that simple. ... My intention has never been to be disrespectful or dismissive." A bilingual mom of three tells the Times when she heard Ruiz on air for the first time that "I kind of pumped my fist and celebrated. Hey, look, she's not afraid of her heritage." Ruiz posted on Facebook Wednesday: "I'm happy it has ignited a dynamic conversation. … I am more proud now than ever to be an American, and also, a Latina. Thank you. Gracias." (For the record, Spanish is considered the happiest language.)
– DeVry University's ads are about to get an overhaul. That's because the school's oft-touted claim that since 1975, 90% of its graduates looking for employment found jobs in their field within six months actually has no basis in fact, according to the Department of Education. The university was asked to back up the assertion last year, but it "could not provide evidence to substantiate this claim," the department announced Thursday. As part of a settlement, DeVry must now abandon the claim, post a notice on its website for two years noting the claim is unproven, and keep at least $68.4 million in reserves in case of any future issues, report NPR and the Wall Street Journal. However, unlike competitors Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institute—which recently folded after missteps—DeVry will keep its access to federal funding. DeVry, which has more than 50 campuses nationwide, says it's "pleased" to have the issue cleared up, though it suggests its claim wasn't all that bogus. It says it simply lacked "student-specific data for the period from 1975 to October 1980." The university adds it will "continue communicating its strong student outcomes." DeVry is currently fighting an FTC lawsuit over another of its claims: that its graduates have 15% higher incomes one year after graduation than graduates from all other universities.
– It may soon get a little more crowded around Mars: India has successfully launched a spacecraft headed for the red planet, putting the country a 300-day journey away from being the fourth space agency to get there, the BBC reports. The Mars Orbiter Mission took off from a base on India's east coast this morning and if it survives the journey, it will carry out experiments including searching for methane in the Martian atmosphere. NASA, the European Space Agency, and the former Soviet Union have successfully sent probes to Mars, but failure is pretty common, CNN notes. Britain's Beagle 2 probe vanished in 2003, a Chinese probe was lost last year, and Japan's Nozomi orbiter was unable to reach its goal in 1998. Some commentators wonder why a country with such high rates of malnutrition is spending money on a Mars program, but the program's defenders say the project is relatively cheap, at $72 million, and will result in technological development that could benefit India's industries.
– Police say tennis star Venus Williams was at fault in a traffic accident that resulted in the death of a 78-year-old man, TMZ reports, citing a police report from the June 9 incident in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. According to ESPN, Williams told police she was trying to get through an intersection before the light changed. She didn't make it, forced to slow down due to traffic. Her SUV was T-boned by another car entering the intersection. The driver of the other car told police she didn't have time to slow down. Her passenger, 78-year-old Jerome Barson, suffered head trauma and died at the hospital two weeks later. Police said Williams was at fault for being in the intersection, and an investigation is ongoing. A lawyer for Williams calls it an "unfortunate accident." Williams is seeded 10th at Wimbledon, which starts Monday.
– No sooner had Seymour Hersh's Osama bin Laden bombshell dropped than critics were rushing in to pick apart his 10,000-word report, the stuff of instant controversy. But whereas Hersh may have once been a journalistic heavyweight, writes Max Fisher at Vox, his latest "story simply does not hold up to scrutiny—and, sadly, is in line with Hersh's recent turn ... into unsubstantiated conspiracy theories." Among the complaints, from Fisher and others: Sourcing: One source is "a retired senior intelligence official who was knowledgeable about the initial intelligence about bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad." "Read that line again," writes Fisher. "Not exactly a key player, and anonymous at that," yet his "word is treated as gospel." Inconsistencies: Hersh's claim that bin Laden was a Pakistani prisoner for years invalidates the trove of intel the US brought back from Abbottabad—which none other than Ayman al-Zawahri has admitted was real. So Hersh is wrong, writes one expert, or "Zawahiri is helping Obama forge evidence to boost US-Pakistan relations, which seems like an unusual hobby for an [al-Qaeda] leader." The sheer scope: Hersh "produces no supporting documents or proof" yet "accuses hundreds of people across three governments of staging a massive international hoax that has gone on for years" and "when facts seem to squarely contradict his claims, his answer is that this only goes to show how deep the rabbit hole goes." The blowback: The earlier pieces that made Hersh's name "were all quickly confirmed by dozens of independent reports and mountains of physical proof. That's how such exposés typically work: the first glint of sunshine brings a rush of attention." His later pieces "have tended to remain all alone in their claims, and at times have been debunked." Sample intel reaction: "Every sentence I was reading was wrong," former acting CIA director Mike Morell told CBS This Morning, per Mediaite. "The source that Hersh talked to has no idea what he’s talking about. The Pakistanis did not know … The Pakistanis were furious with us. The president sent me to Pakistan to start smoothing things over." Maybe Hersh is right, concludes Fisher, and "there really is a vast shadow world of complex and diabolical conspiracies." Or perhaps, he says, "there's a simpler explanation." Click for Fisher's full column, or Hersh's report.
– A Canadian politician is on a crusade to change the lyrics of O Canada—the Canadian national anthem—to give equal shrift to both genders, the Guardian reports. The third line of O Canada currently reads "True patriot love in all thy sons command." A bill introduced by liberal member of parliament Mauril Bélanger this week would change that to "in all of us command." "I want to pay tribute to all the women who have worked and fought to build and shape the Canada that we know today,” Bélanger says in a statement. “I want to at long last honor their sacrifices and contribution.” Who could oppose that? "I think it just opens up a can of worms that we can look at each and every line of that national anthem," conservative member of parliament Karen Vecchio tells CBC. "This is our national anthem, this is something that we've had for decades," Vecchio tells CBC. O Canada was composed in 1880 with French lyrics that didn't mention "thy sons," the Toronto Sun reports. When English speakers finally started singing it around 1900, the most common lyrics were "thou dost in us," highly similar to the proposed change. According to the Guardian, the lyrics weren't changed to "thy sons" until 1914. And other lyrics were changed to make them less repetitive when O Canada became the national anthem in 1980, the Sun reports. There have been 10 failed attempts to change "thy sons" since 1980. Bélanger himself introduced the same bill only to have it fail last April. But CBC reports it could fare better in Canada's new liberal government.
– In California, the public essentially has the right to access the portion of the beach that gets wet. But with a great deal of coastal development, how one gets to this public strip of land can be far murkier, as a new lawsuit involving a private property near Half Moon Bay demonstrates. In 2008, Silicon Valley billionaire Vinod Khosla, who co-founded Sun Microsystems, bought 53 acres of Martins Beach, which sits just south of San Francisco; two years later, he decided to close the gate and paint over the billboard that had directed beachgoers (it's a popular surfing spot) to a for-a-fee parking area the previous owners had set up, reports the Guardian. In other words, the former owners played nice, and Khosla didn't want to play at all. In his lawsuit filed Sept. 30, Khosla accuses the California Coastal Commission, State Lands Commission, and San Mateo County of unfairly targeting him. The San Jose Mercury News explains that the latter two bodies informed Khosla that what he did in revoking the beach access fits the Coastal Act's definition of development, which means he needs to apply for a coastal development permit. Khosla says the agencies are trying "to harass, coerce, and single [him] out" and says they never interfered when the prior owners locked the gate during winter months or private events. The legal director for the Surfrider Foundation, which has filed its own lawsuit to restore public access to the beach, calls it "almost laughable" that Khosla would claim "state agencies could harass and coerce such a powerful man." (Check out the nation's best beaches.)
– Fast food lovers had camped out all night for the grand opening of a Chick-fil-A in Laguna Hills, California, but their plans were foiled this morning as gay rights protesters descended on the restaurant, and company management made everyone disperse, NBC San Diego reports. The chicken chain has suddenly become America's most controversial eatery after its president declared its opposition to same-sex marriage. In related news nuggets: The owner of Chicago's lone Chick-fil-A franchise is on a mission to meet with Rahm Emanuel and change his mind about the chain. Lauren Silich says she's not interested in politics. "I sell chicken," she tells 89 WLS. "There's nothing discriminatory in anything that we do." Emanuel had supported an effort to block a new Chick-fil-A location. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino had likewise declared the chain unwelcome in Boston. But legal experts—including one ACLU lawyer—tell Fox News that banning the chain would be an "open and shut" case of discrimination. Indeed, Menino has admitted that he was only expressing an "opinion" and wouldn't actually try to block Chick-fil-A. "I make mistakes all the time," he tells the Boston Herald. "That's a Menino-ism."
– Netflix's share price, which had more than doubled since the start of the year, tumbled Monday after the company admitted that subscriber growth is beginning to slow down. In a letter to shareholders, the company said subscriber growth between April and June had been 5.2 million—1 million below its prediction, CBS News reports. The company said it had "over-forecasted" subscriber numbers in the "strong but not stellar" quarter, reports Reuters. Shares dived nearly 14% in after-hours trading following the letter, wiping around $25 billion from the company's market valuation. (The company's top spokesman was fired last month for his "insensitive" use of a racial slur when discussing comedy.)
– The Evanston Township High School baseball team was supposed to be suiting up for a state playoff game tonight, but a sexting controversy brought the season to an early end. It seems girls at the Illinois school sent "inappropriate" photos to their boyfriends on the team, and school officials got wind of it when the boys started sharing them, reports the Chicago Tribune. The athletic director suspended those involved, then pulled the team out of the playoffs because he didn't have enough players left to take the field. You can read the superintendent's letter to parents here. The police aren't getting involved.
– The Justice Department is asking for the public's help in its investigation into George Zimmerman, Fox News reports. A public email address (Sanford.Florida@usdoj.gov) is up and running, and ready to collect any tips you may have on him; Eric Holder previously said the DOJ will "consider all available information." Officials tell the Washington Post the email was set up "because of interest in this matter," and the paper calls the move an "unusual" one. But Fox News reports it's pretty much standard procedure when it comes to highly publicized cases like Zimmerman's. Still, don't expect a response if you write in. "Unfortunately, the Department will not be able to respond to all messages received," the DOJ said in a statement. But police are still responding to those angered by the case: The Los Angeles Times reports that 17 people were arrested last night after a Victorville rally unraveled. And this morning, Trayvon Martin's parents spoke out in their first post-verdict interview. Mom Sybrina Fulton tells CBS This Morning she was "stunned" Zimmerman wasn't found guilty of second-degree murder. To President Obama: "make sure all the Ts were crossed and the Is were dotted," requests Fulton.
– Prince Harry opens up about his naked Las Vegas photo scandal in video obtained by the Telegraph, blaming himself for letting himself and his family down. "It was probably a classic example of me probably being too much army, and not enough prince. It's a simple case of that," he says. But he adds that he didn't think it was "acceptable" for newspapers to publish the pictures: "I was in a private area and there should be a certain amount of privacy that one should expect." In case he didn't have quite enough fun the last time he was in Vegas, the city's mayor thinks he should come back now that he's home from Afghanistan: "When he was here everyone was talking about it," Carolyn Goodman tells TMZ. "We welcome him back with open arms." Harry's line about "too much army, not enough prince" didn't really impress Gawker. In fact, in an impressive piece, Caity Weaver rounds up quotes from all the interviews Harry did yesterday to mark his return home and declares the prince "remarkably poorly spoken." In case you don't quite get her meaning, she adds, "This boy dumb." Some of the other quotes she uses as examples: On why he's such a good soldier: "You can ask the guys: I thrash them at [soccer video game] FIFA the whole time." On finding someone to marry: "You ain't ever going to find someone who's going to jump into the position that it would hold. Simple as that." On his brother expecting a baby: "I literally am very, very happy for them." More on the baby: "I just only hope that she and him—but mainly Catherine—hopefully that she gets the necessary protection to allow her as a mother-to-be to enjoy the privacy that that comes with."
– Long-term unemployed people who lost their benefits at the end of last year now have hope of getting that money after all. A group of bipartisan senators struck a deal today to extend the benefits for five months, retroactive to December, reports Politico. Because five Republicans already have signed on to the deal, it should have enough votes to clear the full Senate, reports the Washington Post. Whether it can clear the House, however, is a dicier proposition. Under the deal, the $10 billion cost would be offset in part by US Customs fees. “It has now been 75 days since UI expired, and it needs to be renewed," says one of the lead negotiators, Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island. "We’re not at the finish line yet, but this is a bipartisan breakthrough."
– Amy Winehouse was a great singer—when sober—who changed pop music and still had her best years ahead of her, say music critics as they eulogize the troubled pop star. "Without Amy, there would have been no Adele, no Duffy, and no Lady Gaga," writes Adrian Thrills in the Daily Mail, adding, "she was without question the outstanding vocalist of her generation." Thrills especially praises Back to Black, saying that "nothing has come close to packing the sheer emotional punch" of Winehouse's famous second album. "Rooted in emotional turmoil, it will go down as one of the classic British albums." "At her sober best, Winehouse displayed a rich and resonant instrument, emotive enough for soul but skilled enough for jazz," writes Jim Farber in the New York Daily News. Farber also focuses on Back to Black, calling it "pitch perfect," "an ideal batch of neo-soul songs, sounding as warm as its '60s reference points, yet enlivened by a current sensibility." He muses, like Thrills, that Winehouse influenced other singers including Duffy, Rumer, and Adele. Now, however, everyone is left to wonder if Winehouse's long-rumored third album will ever be released. Click for more Winehouse appreciation, or watch her last public appearance.
– Facebook announced its own App Center yesterday, in a move being touted as "smart" that will likely boost its influence even further. The "store" will open in the next few weeks, Fast Company reports; there will be both web and mobile versions. On CNET, Rafe Needleman calls the App Center "more showcase than store." Since Facebook does not have its own operating system, the Center will feature apps but then point users to download them from the Apple (or, in the case of Android apps, Google) store; Facebook doesn't get a cut of these sales. But it does "win big," writes Needleman. In order to be featured in Facebook’s App Center, developers will need to enable Facebook Login for their apps, meaning more user data and a larger network for Facebook. And Facebook will make money in one way: It'll take a 30% cut of sales of "non-platform-specific" (ie, HTML5) apps, which Needleman says will bring in a little cash but, more importantly, push developers to "build apps for the platform-agnostic standard of HTML5 instead of for proprietary operating systems." It’s "a smart, well-timed initiative," he declares.
– Two stowaways clung to a British Airways passenger jet on its 6,000-mile journey from South Africa to London, but police say only one survived the trip, NBC News reports. The plane was 11 hours into its flight and preparing to land at Heathrow Airport yesterday when one of the stowaways fell out of the plane and onto the roof of a London clothing store. CNN notes it's unclear whether the victim was hiding in the plane's wheel well, but that's a common refuge for stowaways, who often don't survive there because of the reduced atmospheric pressure and freezing temperatures when the plane is high in the sky, NBC notes. "We are working with the Metropolitan Police and the authorities in Johannesburg to establish the facts surrounding this very rare case," a British Airways rep tells ITV News. The surviving stowaway, who CNN notes was found in the plane's undercarriage, was reported to be in serious condition at a local hospital, per NBC. The AP notes that stowaways have plunged onto the streets of west London before: In September 2012, the body of a 30-year-old from Mozambique was found on a street near where yesterday's incident occurred; he had been traveling in the undercarriage of a Heathrow-bound flight from Angola. (A teen stowaway survived in a plane's wheel well from California to Hawaii by entering a "hibernation-like state.")
– A most unusual manslaughter trial is unfolding in the UK, one that revolves around "death by curry," as a post at Munchies puts it. Prosecutors accuse restaurant owner Mohammed Zaman of subbing in peanuts for almonds in his ground mix to save money and deliberately concealing the switch to customers, reports the BBC. That proved deadly for 38-year-old Paul Wilson of North Yorkshire, who picked up a take-out order from Indian Garden from in Easingwold and later died after going into anaphylactic shock. Wilson suffered from a severe peanut allergy, something he pointed out to the staff—the words "no nuts" were written on the lid of his order. A few weeks before his death, a 17-year-old girl nearly died after eating food from another one of Zaman's restaurants, reports the Telegraph. When her mother called afterward to ask whether it contained peanuts, she was told it did not, say prosecutors. After that incident, an inspector found a box of ground peanuts in a kitchen of one of Zaman's restaurants and ordered that all of his customers be informed about its use, something that allegedly never happened. "Mohammed Zaman received numerous warnings that he was putting his customers’ health, and potentially their lives, at risk," says a prosecutor, per the Yorkshire Post. "His was a reckless and cavalier attitude to risk and one that we, the prosecution, would describe as grossly negligent.” Zaman, strapped for cash, allegedly told his food supplier to sub in peanuts in order to cut his cost in half, then ignored the supplier's demand that he inform customers of the change. He has pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter charge. (A California couple says they were booted from their flight over their son's peanut allergy.)
– President Trump has invited Vladimir Putin to visit the White House—which was news to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats during a discussion at the Aspen Security Forum Thursday. When MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell said the White House had tweeted the announcement, the clearly surprised Coats said: "Say that again?" Coats, the nation's top intelligence official, said "Did I hear you," per the HuffPost, then paused before saying: "OK. That's going to be special." He said he had been unaware of the invite, but his office would brief Trump on the security issues involved. More: Helsinki regrets. Coats, a former GOP senator appointed by Trump last year, told Mitchell he wished things had happened differently during the president's Helsinki summit with Putin, NBC News reports. He said he wished Trump hadn't met alone with the Russian leader—and hadn't questioned intelligence agencies' conclusions on Russian election interference. "I wish he had made a different statement, but I think that now that has been clarified based on his late reactions to this."
– Josh Swartz bought an e-cigarette just two weeks ago, hoping to use it to quit smoking. Instead, on Friday, it exploded while he was smoking it, the Arkansas man tells KNWA. "I put it to my mouth and as soon as I pressed the button on the bottom, the device exploded," he says. His wife, who was on her way to the garage to find her husband at the time, says she heard what sounded like gunfire and saw flames. "That's when I looked back and I found my husband bent over here in the garage and gasping for air and he couldn't even speak to me," she says. In addition to burns on his mouth, throat, and hand, Josh also ended up with severed lips and shattered teeth; they believe the e-cigarette's battery caused the explosion. The tale is just the latest bit of bad publicity for the e-cigarette industry: A study published this week finds that adolescents who use e-cigarettes are 30% more likely than those who've never used the devices to report respiratory problems like coughing or phlegm, Reuters reports. "E-cigarettes are certainly not harmless and serious health problems of long-term use will probably emerge with time," the study author says. But the idea of banning e-cigarette sales to teens is not as good as it may sound: Another recent study finds that when people under 18 are not allowed to purchase e-cigarettes, rates of traditional smoking among that age group actually go up, Medscape reports. (Click to read about another man who was recently injured by an exploding e-cigarette.)
– It's now referred to as "America's first mass shooting," and those who remember it say it certainly felt like the start of something new, strange, and horrible when Charles Whitman started shooting people at random from the University of Texas clock tower on Aug. 1, 1966. In a coincidence that some find chilling, Monday is not only the 50th anniversary of Whitman's rampage, which killed 17 people, but also the day the state's "campus carry" law comes into effect, allowing people to carry concealed handguns at public universities across Texas. A roundup of coverage: The AP answers some questions about the new law, including details on what parts of campuses guns will be allowed in—and on why it was so controversial. Claire Wilson James was eight months pregnant when Whitman—who received a Sharpshooter Badge in the Marines—shot her in the belly from the tower, killing her unborn son. He also killed her boyfriend, Tom Eckman. She talks to the Austin American-Statesman about why she opposes the new law. She recalls that as the rampage continued, Austinites were urged to bring their guns to campus to try to stop him—but that "only made it worse." The university's Daily Texan paper looks at the claim, controversial to this day, that Whitman's behavior may have been influenced by his brain tumor. The Washington Post looks at the arguments on both sides of the "campus carry" movement. Out of 15 states to look at the issue last year, Texas was the only one that ended up passing a law legalizing it. The AP has made a version of its original 1966 story on the mass shooting available. The Guardian speaks to a former newscaster who found himself covering a new kind of horror and to Gary Lavergne, the university's director of admissions research and the author of two books on the rampage. He recalls that in 1966, his father said: "That nut is showing everybody what's possible and we're going to see a lot more of this." "I'll never forget the way he said that," Lavergne says. "And I'll be danged if he wasn't right."
– A retired NASA astronaut who flew on five space shuttle missions has been charged with murder after an early-morning car crash in Alabama took the lives of two young half-sisters, per AL.com. A 2015 Chrysler allegedly being driven by James Halsell Jr., 59, smashed into a Ford Fiesta at around 2:50am Monday just east of Tuscaloosa; 11-year-old Niomi Deona James and 13-year-old Jayla Latrice Parler, neither of whom was wearing a seatbelt, were ejected from the vehicle, police say. Niomi died at the scene of the accident, while Jayla died later at a local hospital. The driver of the Fiesta, 37-year-old Pernell Deon James (officials say he's the girls' dad), and another passenger, 25-year-old Shontel Latriva Cutts, were also injured in the wreck. The AP notes that James was said to be in good condition and ready for release Tuesday from a Tuscaloosa hospital, while Cutts remains in fair condition. Meanwhile, state troopers say an initial examination of the crash suggests speed and alcohol may have both been factors. Halsell has been charged with murder, and a spokesman for the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office says he was released on $150,000 bond Monday evening. Per his NASA bio page, Halsell's stint with NASA started in 1990 and notched him more than 1,250 hours in space, including as the pilot on two space shuttle trips and commander on three others. After the 2003 Columbia disaster that killed all seven crew members, Halsell was the leader of the space shuttle program's "return-to-flight" planning initiative. He retired from the space agency in 2006.
– Previous studies have shown that riding a bicycle regularly can take take a toll on men's sexual health, and new research from Yale suggests the same holds true for women, reports the New York Times. The one stand-out finding: the lower the handlebars, the greater the trouble. If a woman has to lean forward more to reach low handlebars, that means she's putting more pressure in sensitive areas, which can lead to numbness. “We’re basically showing that there may be modifiable risk factors associated with female riders,” says a female Yale professor who co-wrote the study. “This better positions us to educate riders on safe riding practices that may actually be beneficial to reduction of pressure and lost sensation in the pelvic floor.” The study, which looked at about 50 women who rode at least 10 miles a week, is online here.
– A university in Canada is the victim of what is being described as one of the biggest known phishing scams ever. MacEwan University in Edmonton discovered the fraud on Aug. 23, when a construction company it works with asked why it had yet to be paid. But the school had made payments to what it thought was the company: $1.9 million on Aug. 10, $22,000 on Aug. 17, and $9.9 million on Aug. 19—a total of $11.8 million to a fraudulent account, with the money eventually being traced to Canada and Hong Kong, reports the CBC. The school has launched a full investigation, but has preliminarily pegged the scam to a series of emails and a website that used the vendor's authentic logo and claimed the vendor had a new bank account. For now, the school says it is down to "human error," where lower-level staffers failed to verify the bank account change was legitimate, so the transfers went to the phony vendor. Canada's advanced education minister issued a statement expressing his disappointment. "This is unacceptable," he says. "I expect post-secondary institutions to do better to protect public dollars against fraud." The loss is 10% of the university's entire annual operating grant from the Alberta government, reports the Edmonton Journal, with a $118 million grant provided in 2015 for the school's $237.1 million budget. One expert calls it the "single largest publicly disclosed amount I've seen" lost to a phishing scam, while noting that private companies may have fallen victim to similar scams but have not been required to disclose the amount lost. MacEwan says its computer systems have not been compromised, per the Toronto Star, and that it expects to recoup the $11.4 million it's managed to trace, though $400,000 remains missing. (Even bank CEOs have been fooled by phishing scams.)
– Calling it the biggest loophole in the world doesn't quite capture its reach: Dennis Hope claims that he owns the moon—and our solar system's planets—due to what the Outer Space Treaty doesn't say. Mashable reports the treaty has been the guiding document on space law since 1967, and while it bars any country on Earth from laying claim to a heavenly body, it makes no mention of private companies or individuals doing just that. So Hope formed Lunar Embassy Corp, snatched up the property rights to the moon and more, and has been selling off one-acre lots since. Though Yahoo shines a light on Hope's offerings (your own piece of the moon will cost just $19.99 an acre; Mars will run you slightly more at $22.49), it's far from the first time he's been in the news. He was featured in the documentary Lunarcy!, out last month on Epix, notes the Hollywood Reporter, and he's talked to media before. As National Geographic previously reported, Hope thinks he has solid ground to stand on: He registered his moon claim with the UN in 1980, and got no answer, which he thinks means it's a go. And while there's still plenty of real estate to be had, Hope has sold more than a nominal amount of each: 600 million moon acres (about 7.5% of it) and 325 million Mars acres. He says two former US presidents are landowners as well as 250 "very well known celebrities," as are two US hotel chains. But Hope does draw the line somewhere: The Apollo landing sites are off-limits.
– Not much of a shocker, but huge Obama fan Beyonce will perform at the president's second inauguration, People reports. She'll perform the National Anthem at the Jan. 21 event, while Kelly Clarkson will sing "My Country 'Tis of Thee" and James Taylor will perform "America the Beautiful." Beyonce, of course, memorably took part in the 2009 inauguration when she sang "At Last" for President Obama's first dance with Michelle Obama at the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball. Meanwhile, get a look at inaugural poet Richard Blanco, the son of Cuban immigrants, in the New York Times.
– Colorado authorities are trying to figure out whether a man who led Texas police on a high-speed chase and shootout is the man who shot prisons chief Tom Clements, reports the Denver Post. The unidentified man is on life support and declared brain dead after being shot by police when the chase ended. His car, a black Cadillac with Colorado plates, matches the description of a vehicle spotted by Clements' house before the shooting on Tuesday night. During today's chase and shootout, the driver shot and wounded a deputy, who is in stable condition, reports the Wise County Messenger. It could be a while before police in Texas and Colorado, along with the FBI, sort things out. "Our officers are working with the FBI and the local authorities to determine whether there is a connection," says an El Paso County Sheriff's official. "The crime scene has to be processed. That takes time and we're not there yet." The chase ended when the Cadillac slammed into a tractor-trailer, but the driver still managed to get out and open fire on deputies, police say.
– While it may not draw in the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Henry Kissinger, or Melania Trump, activists have declared Thursday to be a "Day Without Immigrants" and are urging immigrants, whether they're in the US legally or not, to strike. The grassroots campaign is calling for immigrants to demonstrate how much they contribute to the US by not working, opening their businesses, sending their kids to school, or buying anything for a day, CNN reports. It's not clear how many people plan to take part, though word of the protest has been spreading quickly on social media, with this Spanish-language Facebook video for "Un Dia Sin Inmigrantes" viewed more than 5 million times. In other coverage: Actions are planned in cities including Philadelphia, Washington, and Boston, the AP reports. In a show of solidarity, the Davis Museum at Wellesley College in Massachusetts says it will remove or cover all artwork created or donated by immigrants. Many Washington, DC-area restaurants will be closed or open with only a handful of staff members. Iraq-born Busboys and Poets owner Andy Shallal tells the Washington Post that all six of his area restaurants will be closed, with staff getting a paid day off. "I realized I'm an immigrant, too, and it is important for me to take that stand," he says. "Our goal is to highlight the need for Philadelphia to expand policies that stop criminalizing communities of color," Erika Almiron, executive director of the nonprofit group Juntos, tells the AP. "What would happen if massive raids did happen? What would the city look like?" Vocativ looks at the origins of the day of protest and notes that it has spread far beyond "large liberal enclaves and places traditionally known for active immigrant communities," with at least 70 Latino-owned businesses in Des Moines, Iowa, expected to close. DNAinfo reports that Rick Bayless is among many celebrity chefs joining the protest in solidarity with restaurant workers. He plans to close four Chicago restaurants Thursday and donate part of the takings from another two to an immigrant rights group.
– The day after Jamie Watts turned 33 in June 2014, she took a picture at the start line of a race near Washington, DC, not knowing if she'd be able to finish. Born with spastic diplegia cerebral palsy due to a lack of oxygen that damaged certain motor functions in her brain, she didn't learn to walk until she was 3 years old, used crutches and a four-point cane to get around as a kid, and still struggles with balance and coordination. But as the Washingtonian reports, the determined advocate for people with disabilities had fallen in love with running the year before and vowed, quietly, to complete 34 races in the year leading up to her 34th birthday. What she didn't anticipate was the following she'd amass as people gathered and waited from one race to the next to cheer Watts on as she crossed the finish line—dead last, every time. Many hours and falls later, Watts completed her mission. It wasn't easy, as she reports in Pacers Running, but she had the help of race organizers who offered her head starts and an escort for most races. Watts runs a 30-minute mile; the first time she tried a 10-mile race she said she knew she could go six but said "it’s going to be my friends that get me through the last four." When she crossed the finish line, six hours and 32 minutes later, a crowd greeted the running community's new hero, and race organizer and friend Lisa Reeves was the first to hug her. "It's just inspiring and it gives you a reason to keep going every day," Reeves says in a Pacers Running video. Watts went on to complete 40 runs by her 34th birthday and another 36 by her 35th. In May, she set off at 2:28am to run her first half marathon and finished in seven hours and 53 minutes. (This woman's half marathon pace is just over 5 minutes, even after having her second baby.)
– Betty White is being sued by her former live-in caretaker of 22 years, BuzzFeed reports. Anita Maynard, who started working for the 94-year-old actress in 1994, filed a lawsuit last week in Los Angeles. The lawsuit alleges Maynard didn't receive overtime pay despite working more than 14 hours a day, six days a week. According to CBS Los Angeles, the lawsuit claims Maynard wasn't allowed uninterrupted breaks to eat meals. And Maynard is also alleging White paid her less than California's legal minimum wage, People reports. The lawsuit claims White has withheld Maynard's wages since Maynard stopped working for her March 11. A representative for White would say only that "Betty has worked with thousands of people over the years and no one has ever had anything but positive things to say about her."
– Donald Trump says he's picked a "high-energy leader" who will "save our country from drowning in red ink" to be the next White House budget director, the Wall Street Journal reports. Pending Senate confirmation, US Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina will head the Office of Management and Budget, Trump announced Saturday. The Washington Post notes Mulvaney, elected during the Tea Party wave in 2010, has been an "outspoken fiscal hawk" who's pushed for spending cuts even when they force him to oppose his own party, as he has on defense spending. "You can't just like spending that your party wants and dislike spending the other party wants," the Journal quotes Mulvaney as saying. As budget director, Mulvaney will be involved in shaping many of Trump's proposals, likely including changes to the tax code, increased spending on infrastructure, and the repeal of ObamaCare. Trump says Mulvaney will help his administration "make smart choices about America's budget," Reuters reports. But many of Trump's proposals seem to go against Mulvaney's staunch opposition to increasing the national debt. Trump wants $1 trillion in new infrastructure spending—an amount opposed by Republican leaders—and it's unclear where that money will come from. He also wants increased defense spending, which Mulvaney himself has opposed. Finally, nonpartisan experts say Trump's tax plan alone would add at least $2.6 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years.
– The parents of a missing 13-year-old western Wisconsin girl were shot to death, and Jayme Closs was apparently home at the time, the sheriff says. Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said Wednesday that the deaths of James and Denise Closs early Monday have been ruled homicides, USA Today reports. He said their daughter, who is not a suspect in the killing of her parents, is in danger, but he has a "100% expectation that she's alive." He said the bodies were found after a 911 call from the home in the small city of Barron in which nobody spoke directly to the dispatcher, CNN reports. He said investigators don't know whether the attack was random or targeted. Fitzgerald said a disturbance could be heard in the background during the 911 call—but there was nobody at the scene and no vehicles to be found when emergency responders arrived four minutes later. The sheriff urged residents to come forward with any information they had on possible suspects, including people with "behavioral changes" like missing work or suddenly leaving town, the Daily Beast reports. Every second counts in this case," he said. "When a child like Jayme is missing, we ask you to observe this behavior and report it to us." Jayme, who was last seen with her mother at a family gathering Sunday, is described as 5 feet tall and 100 pounds, with strawberry-blond hair and green eyes. Read more on the case here.
– The man who shot and killed two former colleagues and himself at an Alabama UPS facility had "asked for prayer" amid a "troubled" period in his life, a pastor at his church tells the AP, adding, "He's just a guy who went through his trials at work. Certainly we have prayed for him." Kerry Joe Tesney, 45, of the Birmingham area, had recently been fired from the UPS job and lost an appeal over the matter, AL.com reports. It's not clear why he was fired, but a lawsuit claims that during a pickup at an auto repair shop, he took a radiator that wasn't meant to be shipped and didn't return it. The judge found the case in favor of Tesney in 2013, the site notes. One of the men who was shot appears to have been targeted, while the other may have been a bystander, insiders say; both were supervisors. People who knew Tesney, who was married with two kids, are stunned: "He was one of the best men I have ever known," says his mother-in-law. "Nobody in a thousand years could have imagined him doing something like this," another pastor at the church tells AL.com. Another friend recalled Tesney's involvement in a program providing free ice cream for underprivileged kids: "He had a servant heart."
– Fans of Alexander Hamilton need not fear a new design for the $10 bill. Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator and star of Broadway musical Hamilton, says Treasury Secretary Jack Lew assured him during a Monday meeting that he is "going to be very happy" with the new bill design, to begin circulating in 2020, which will feature Hamilton and a historically significant American woman, per the New York Times and the Hill. A Treasury rep says Lew thanked Miranda for igniting "a renewed interest in one of our nation's founding fathers" and "reiterated his commitment to continue to honor Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill." Lew has previously hinted that Hamilton may take one side of the bill, while the woman may adorn the other. "Give your regards to Broadway, America," quips MarketWatch. (Watch Miranda rap with President Obama's help.)
– President Trump spilled the beans on his Twitter habits in a wide-ranging interview with British journalist and former Celebrity Apprentice winner Piers Morgan that aired Sunday. The president said he needed social media to defend himself from all the news "that is very false or made up" and admitted he sometimes tweets from bed, reports Reuters. He said he tweets "perhaps sometimes in bed, perhaps sometimes at breakfast or lunch or whatever, but generally speaking during the early morning, or the evening. He added: "I am very busy during the day." Other highlights: Brexit. Trump told Morgan that if he was in Prime Minister Theresa May's shoes, he would be taking a very different—and much tougher—approach to Brexit negotiations. "I would have said the European Union is not cracked up to what it’s supposed to be," he said. "I would have taken a tougher stand in getting out." Climate change. Trump said he would be open to dropping his pledge to exit the 2015 Paris climate accord, though it would have to be a "good deal for the United States" instead of the "horrible" existing deal. Trump claimed the climate has been cooling as well as warming, saying: "The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they're setting records." CBS News notes that scientists say the world is warming, not cooling, apart from day-to-day variations, and the ice caps have set a lot more records for shrinking than growing. His diet. Asked about his fondness for burgers and Coca-Cola, Trump said: "I eat fine food, really from some of the finest chefs in the world, I eat healthy food, I also have some of that food on occasion ... I think I eat actually quite well." His popularity in Britain. When Trump said he thought he was "very popular" in the UK, Morgan told him: "Let's not be too hasty, Mr. President," the Guardian reports. Trump replied: "I know but I believe that, I really do. I get so much fan mail from people in your country. They love my sense of security, they love what I’m saying about many different things." Women. Trump said he had "tremendous respect" for women, and they respected his position on issues like the military because they want to be "safe at home." Asked if he considers himself a feminist: "No, I wouldn’t say I’m a feminist. I mean, I think that would be, maybe, going too far. I'm for women, I’m for men, I'm for everyone." The royal wedding. Trump said he didn't know if he had been invited to the May 19 wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, but he was diplomatic when Morgan asked him about anti-Trump comments Markle has made. "I really want them to be happy," he said. "They look like a lovely couple." (In a previously aired excerpt, Trump made what Morgan called a "significant climbdown" on his retweets of far-right group Britain First.)
– Your typical airline passenger is stuck in a cramped box several miles in the air—already peeved by baggage fees, reduced legroom, and a generally miserable experience—so why not, when nature calls, hit them with another fee to hit the bathroom? Ryanair floated the idea in 2010, disastrously, but just in case the idea should ever occur to American carriers, we present the case of Rep. Dan Lipinski, an Illinois Democrat apparently seeking the title of Hero to the American Traveler. Lipinski has put forth a bill called the Comfortable and Fair Flights Act of 2015, reports Fox News, which tells airlines "don't even think about it" in a number of ways—including banning so-called "pee fees." Per a Lipinski statement: "More and more, airline passengers ... expect to suffer from uncomfortable conditions. One thing they should never have to worry about is access to a bathroom. Unfortunately, commercial flights are not required to depart with a functioning bathroom, sometimes forcing passengers to endure a trip without this basic necessity. Moreover, as ancillary fees continue to grow, the specter of an in-flight bathroom fee continues to loom." But Lipinski's bill doesn't just deal in future hypotheticals: As Popular Mechanics notes, the bill "carries [an] interesting addendum, and one that is frankly more likely to affect travelers: All airlines would be forced to refund extra checked bag fees to anyone who has the arrival of their bag delayed by two or more hours." Or, as Lipinski puts it: "Simply put, if you pay for a service, you should get that service promptly or get your money back."
– Royally messed up, they did. A senior education official and others in Saudi Arabia have been fired after a government textbook included a photo of King Faisal seated next to Yoda, everyone's favorite Jedi Master from Star Wars. The doctored black-and-white photo showing Yoda on King Faisal's right as he signed the United Nations charter in 1945 was accidentally included in a high school social studies book published by the Saudi Ministry of Education, report Reuters and the Telegraph. Though it isn't clear how it came to be included in the book, the photo had been one of several doctored by Saudi artist Abdullah al-Shehri as part of a 2013 series designed to make Arab history more "fun," reports the New York Times. Al-Shehri's photos showing Yoda, Darth Vader, and Captain America present for iconic moments in Arab history were previously shown at galleries in the US and Middle East, but al-Shehri never expected to find one in a textbook, which is where his mother spotted the one of King Faisal and Yoda. Saudi Education Minister Ahmed al-Eissa says the textbooks are being replaced with corrected versions and a legal committee has formed "to determine the source of the error and to take appropriate action." According to Reuters, however, al-Eissa has already fired the undersecretary of the Curriculum and Educational Programs Department and others in charge of reviewing textbooks. (This Indian textbook told kids to suffocate cats.)
– Planning to score a new TV on Black Friday? Apparently this is the year to do so, as deals are exploding in what one analyst calls a “dogfight” between top US retailers. Last year, some retailers only slashed prices on high-end TVs. This year, expect to see discounts across the board—including cuts of up to 40% from one year ago on big-screens—plus other incentives, like free shipping, as companies do whatever they can to lure customers. The TV market is not doing well as recession shoppers avoid purchasing nonessential items, Reuters notes. “As we look at the holiday season, we are going to play offense,” says the CEO of Hhgregg Inc. “We are going to be aggressive.” An analyst adds that the promotions are “starting even earlier than usual,” which is “upping the overall intensity. … It is going to be a dogfight. Everyone's going to be fighting because demand is not great.” In further Black Friday news, it’s not just Macy’s and Target opening at midnight. The Detroit Free Press reports that Black Friday sales are starting earlier than ever—some as early as 9pm on Thursday, for those gluttons who want to go straight from turkey to shopping.
– A bill requiring food packages to carry information on genetically modified ingredients has passed Congress—and NPR reports that neither side of the debate is thrilled about it. Farm groups and food industry lobbyists are opposed to any kind of mandatory labeling, while those calling for GMO labels complain that the bill allows food companies to provide a QR code or even just a phone number consumers can call instead of stating on the packaging whether the product contains GMO ingredients. The bill, which President Obama is expected to sign into law, was approved by the Senate last week and sailed through the House 306-117 on Thursday, the AP reports. The compromise bill on GMO labeling was blasted as a "sham" by some pro-labeling groups and supported by food companies that wanted a national standard—preferably a loose one—instead of state-by-state regulations, BuzzFeed reports. Vermont brought in its own, more stringent law on GMO labeling at the start of this month, and state lawmakers, including Bernie Sanders, argued against the federal bill. "It's a shame that Congress chose to replace our standard with a weaker one that provides multiple ways for the food industry to avoid transparent labeling," Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin said in a statement. (Last year, the FDA approved a genetically engineered animal for human consumption.)
– Tumblr made a big move Monday, one that the Verge says will "fundamentally alter how the service is used." In short: no more porn. CEO Jeff D'Onofrio explained in a blog post that the site will no longer allow adult content or even nudity, the latter with limited exceptions such as breastfeeding images. The move comes less than a month after Apple booted Tumblr from its App Store because an audit turned up child pornography, though Tumblr says the issue goes beyond that. As the Daily Beast reports, porn stars, "cam girls," and others in the sex trade have long used the platform for publicity, and now they're worried. "It was pretty much panic from all of us," a 28-year-old sex worker tells the website. "[We're] talking about if we're going to be able to keep our blogs or if we're going to have to just abandon Tumblr and work on different platforms." The changes are effective Dec. 17, and Tumblr's new "community guidelines" section spells them out: "Don't upload images, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples." Depictions of sex acts are barred, though written erotica is still permitted. If you're wondering about a certain phrase above, you're not alone. "What the hell are 'female-presenting nipples'?" wonders Jezebel blogger Harron Walker, who has reached out to Tumblr for clarification and is posting best guesses in the meantime. At Gizmodo, meanwhile, Charles Pulliam-Moore writes that Tumblr's explicitness has long been "a kind of haven for the imagination" for those exploring their own sexuality. "Tumblr is going to lose a significant part of its identity that turned it into [the] cultural juggernaut that it is today," he writes. (But this won't affect the platform's shoplifters.)
– Oregon women can stock up on the birth control patch, pill, or ring after Gov. Kate Brown signed House Bill 3343 into law yesterday. The legislation, which goes into effect next year, requires insurers to offer 12-month supplies of the contraceptives, instead of the usual 30- or 90-day prescriptions. The bill easily passed the state’s Senate and House of Representatives, and Gov. Brown called it a no-brainer. "[It] has a simple premise that I wholeheartedly believe in," she said, according to the AP. "Increase access and decrease barriers." Oregon is the first state in the country to allow a year's worth of birth control to be obtained at the same time. In a 2011 study, researchers at the University of California San Francisco found that when women had a year’s worth of birth control on hand, unplanned pregnancies dropped by 30%. "Women need to have contraceptives on hand so that their use is as automatic as using safety devices in cars," said the lead author. A bill that would allow Oregon pharmacists to write prescriptions for birth control pills is pending in the state Senate after being passed by the House 50-10 last week, according to the Oregonian. California recently passed similar legislation, but it has not yet taken effect.
– A political dream team—for the tea party set, anyway—of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann wowed the faithful today during a joint appearance in Minneapolis. "The tea party is growin' and steamin,'" declared Palin, who showed up to give Bachmann a boost in her campaign for re-election to Congress. She spent much of her speech lauding Bachmann for standing up to the trio of "Obama, Pelosi, and Reid." "Let me ask you, Minnesota, do you love your freedom?" Palin asked the crowd described as "rapturous" by the Star Tribune. "Voting for Michele ... is the belief that the government that governs least governs best." Bachmann returned the favor: "She is so one of us," she told the crowd of Palin, notes CBS.
– The Ebola patient who's in critical condition in Dallas traveled there to marry his longtime girlfriend, who's now in quarantine with three children at an undisclosed location, her church's pastor tells NBC News. The pastor, George Mason, says the church has been trying to help the woman, identified by Bloomberg as Louise Troh, as she grapples with fear of the disease and her relationship with fiance Thomas Duncan. "She is overwhelmed," says Mason. "She's doing better now that they have moved her. The place that they're living in now is much easier now. There's less scrutiny, and it's more private." But he admits that his church, Wilshire Baptist, can't do much for her because of the quarantine. It's not her first brush with tragedy, either: After moving to the US from her homeland of Liberia 10 years ago, she lost a baby in childbirth, says Mason. She and Duncan had an earlier child in Liberia, but they "had a falling out of some sort," Mason says, and only recently decided to reconcile. Now Troh worries that Duncan won't recover from Ebola and she too may be infected—which a disease expert tells CBS News is "absolutely" possible. "I would not be surprised" if someone who came in contact with Duncan "will get Ebola," he says. Meanwhile, Mason talked about Troh at Sunday service today and told congregants that donations to the church would to go to helping Duncan, Troh, or Ebola victims in Africa. (Read about an NBC cameraman with Ebola.)
– There are more than 7,300 US Special Operations forces soldiers operating around the world, reports the New York Times, and one lost his life in Africa on Friday. The BBC reports the incident in southwest Somalia was believed to be an ambush by al-Shabab militants; four other American service members were injured. The Times calls the death the "first to have been publicized in Africa since an ambush in Niger in October." The American forces were serving near Jamaame alongside Somali troops and supported by armed surveillance aircraft. The BBC reports President Trump has broadened the involvement of US military in Somalia, but the Times notes the US is thought to be moving toward a reeling in of counterterrorism forces in Africa as part of a Pentagon reshuffling that would put the emphasis on Russia, China, and other larger world powers. While al-Shabab was pushed out of the capital city of Mogadishu nearly 7 years ago, the BBC reports it occupies areas around the city. "The mission's objectives were to clear al-Shabab from contested areas," United States Africa Command said in a statement following the attack.
– "I'm just proud of this young lady," attorney Michael Fleming tells the Houston Press. "She stood up to them, she did the right thing, and she was successful." Last summer, 20-year-old Houston resident Lan Cai was hit by a drunk driver, breaking two bones in her back. She hired the Law Offices of Tuan A. Khuu and Associates to help her figure out her insurance and damages, Ars Technica reports. But she says the law firm was less than satisfactory. According to the Houston Chronicle, Cai says they ignored her phone calls and emails, put a lien on her insurance, and even came into her bedroom while she was sleeping in her underwear ("super unprofessional!"). As a result, she left some bad reviews on Yelp and Facebook. Khuu attorney Keith Nguyen sued Cai for libel after she refused to take down the bad reviews, seeking up to $200,000 from a student working six nights a week to put herself through nursing school. "She needs to learn...that there are consequences," Nguyen told the Press. And perhaps Khuu attorneys need to learn that there are anti-SLAPP laws in Texas. These laws protect consumers from businesses angry about online reviews. A judge threw out the libel lawsuit this week after Fleming, working pro bono for Cai, successfully argued that Cai's negative reviews couldn't be proven false and that the Khuu law firm wouldn't be hurt by them because they already have plenty of other negative reviews. The judge also ordered the law firm to pay Cai's attorney fees of $27,000. (An Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star left an irate Yelp review.)
– The $330,000 "Frankenburger" was cooked and eaten at a London press conference today, and it turns out we have Sergey Brin to thank for the blessed event. The Google co-founder put up the aforementioned cash needed to create the first lab-grown burger, a move borne from a concern for animal welfare. "When you see how these cows are treated, it's certainly something I'm not comfortable with," he explains in a 6-minute video for the Guardian. But enough about Brin, and more about the taste of the patty, which was made from the stem cells of cattle. Reactions, per the BBC: Chicago-based author of Taste of Tomorrow, Josh Schonwald: "The mouthfeel is like meat. I miss the fat, there's a leanness to it, but the general bite feels like a hamburger. What was consistently different was flavor." Austrian food trends researcher, Hanni Ruetzler: "I was expecting the texture to be more soft ... there is quite some intense taste, it's close to meat, but it's not that juicy. The consistency is perfect, but I miss salt and pepper. This is meat to me. It's not falling apart." Fun facts: The burger was dyed with beetroot juice, and flavored with breadcrumbs, caramel, and saffron. Click for background on how the patty was created.
– Remember crazy Britney Spears? She seems to have been tootling along rather well. But apparently she's still a tad mentally incapacitated. That's what her parents are arguing in court as they battle a lawsuit from booted manager Sam Lutfi, reports KSFM. He's suing Brit's mom, Lynne, for defamation for writing in her book that he isolated the pop star from her parents and was a major negative influence. He's seeking a deposition from Britney to prove that wasn't the case. Now Britney's parents are trying to convince a judge that she's not mentally capable of giving a deposition, reports Billboard. Lutfi is demanding a shrink exam to prove it. Stay tuned.
– At around 7:15pm on Dec. 8, 2014, prosecutors say two girls who were then 13 and 14 let themselves into the unlocked home of a woman in the UK, a woman known as an alcoholic who sometimes bought liquor and cigarettes for underage teens. At 7:30pm, the woman, Angela Wrightson, who was 39, returned home from the local shop in Hartlepool and was never seen alive again, reports the BBC. The circumstances surrounding her death are now the subject of an intense court trial expected to last five weeks in which the girls are accused of not just murder but torture. The girls were in the care of social services at the time and had troubled relationships with their mothers. Their relationship with each other was described as "intense." The first evidence of a problem was a Snapchat image one of the defendants posted around 9pm, in which Wrightson appears in the background not smiling and with visible, fresh marks on her face. The girls were caught on CCTV leaving the home around 11pm, were asked by a friend why they had blood on their clothes, and then returned from 2am to 4am. Upon leaving, they called police for a ride home, which resulted in another Snapchat image captioned, “Me and [name] in the back of the bizzie van again." The following day Wrightson's landlord found her dead body, sitting upright on a couch, naked from the waist down, with more than 100 injuries, reports the Guardian. Weapons used included a wooden stick riddled with screws, a TV, a printer, a coffee table, a kettle, and glass ornaments. The attack allegedly continued after Wrightson lost consciousness, at which point "further indignities were heaped" on her motionless body on the sofa. The girls reportedly told friends they attacked Wrightson after she threatened them with a knife.
– As promised, four occupiers of the Oregon wildlife refuge who've been holed up there since January have surrendered to the FBI after a tense couple of hours in which one of the four refused at first to come out, the Oregonian reports. Shortly before 9:40am local time, Sean Anderson yelled that he and his wife, Sandy, were coming out of the Malheur, and they were arrested without incident, the New York Times reports. A couple of minutes later, Jeff Banta emerged and was also peacefully taken into custody. That's when the last holdout, David Fry, apparently decided to renege on the deal to give himself up. "Unless my grievances are heard, I won't come out," he reportedly shouted, informing officials he was feeling suicidal as he sat alone in a tent. He then added: "I have to stand my ground. It's liberty or death. I will not go another day as a slave to this system." Among his grievances, per the Times, is that his tax money is being used to fund abortions. Just before 11am PST, Fry announced on the live feed that he was having one more cigarette and cookie, and then he said he was going out to meet with the authorities. The FBI confirmed at 11am that Fry was in custody, per the Oregonian. Gavin Seim, a right-wing activist who had set up the live feed, said after Fry had walked out that "America needs to learn from what just happened here. David's concerns and his fears reflect what all of America feels." Meanwhile, another feed moderator, KrisAnne Hall, started sobbing when it was all over and said, "I need a hot tub and a massage."
– The worst E. coli outbreak in the US since 2006 is over, with five people dead and more than 200 sickened by tainted romaine lettuce, federal authorities say. The outbreak, which affected people in 36 states and caused at least 96 hospitalizations, was traced to the Yuma region in western Arizona and southeastern California, which supplies most of the nation's salad greens in winter, reports the Washington Post. The harvest season in the area is now over. The Food and Drug Administration says a strain of E. coli with the same genetic footprint as the strain in the outbreak has been detected in irrigation canals in the region, which would explain how the bacteria apparently spread to numerous farms, NBC News reports. The last reported illness from the contaminated lettuce was June 6. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement that more work needs to be done to determine how and why the strain "could have gotten into this body of water and how that led to contamination of romaine lettuce from multiple farms." He said that while the E. coli outbreak and other recent food scares might make it seem as if the number of outbreaks is increasing, the US has one of the safest food supplies in the world and "our ability to identify outbreaks has dramatically improved due to new information technologies and laboratory techniques."
– After six days with no fresh pings detected, the chief of the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 says it's time to go underwater. The Bluefin-21 underwater autonomous vehicle will now be deployed to search for wreckage in an area defined by signals picked up last week that are believed to have been from the missing jet's data recorders, reports the BBC. Search chief Angus Houston says the robotic sub will be in a "reduced and manageable search area on the ocean floor" and, with the data recorders' batteries now almost certainly dead, efforts to detect pings will cease. On its first 24-hour mission, the Bluefin-21 will search an area of around 15 square miles, producing a high-resolution map of the sea floor, the Los Angeles Times reports. Houston warns, however, that the underwater search will be a "slow and painstaking process" with no guarantee of results. The area being searched, he says, is extremely deep—2.8 miles—and is largely unknown terrain "new to man." An oil slick detected on the surface of the area last night, meanwhile, is being analyzed and officials believe it didn't come from any of the search vessels, CNN reports.
– TV couple turned real couple Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis got married over the weekend, according to a report in People picked up by several other media outlets. The stars reportedly wed during Fourth of July festivities, though neither has confirmed the news. Kutcher, 37, and Kunis, 31, played adorable couple Kelso and Jackie on That ‘70s Show for eight years, and Kunis has revealed that she had a crush on Kutcher even then. "My first real kiss ever was with him on the show," she told W Magazine last year. "We all get movie star crushes. I’m marrying mine." In the same interview, Kunis revealed that her eventual wedding would be hush-hush. "My theory on weddings is: Don't invite anyone," she said. "Do it privately and secretly." It appears that Kunis got her wish. The famous pair began dating in 2012, and welcomed daughter Wyatt Isabelle nine months ago. The marriage would be the first for Kunis, while Kutcher was formerly wed to Demi Moore until late 2013. It is unknown whether Kutcher informed his ex-wife of his nuptials in advance of the leak to the public, the way he did before Kunis' pregnancy announcement, according to RadarOnline.
– We may have walked on it 45 years ago, but scientists have only now discovered the true shape of Earth's moon. And while it appears to be a perfect sphere, it's actually "like a lemon with an equatorial bulge," one researcher tells the New York Times. "Imagine a water balloon flattening out as you spin it." Using a laser altimeter, the researchers produced topographical maps of the moon's shape in what Gizmodo calls "unprecedented detail." But why the bulge? Scientists theorize that the moon formed almost 5 billion years ago when a large body slammed into Earth and debris got blasted into space. And while they have suggested for decades that tidal forces helped shape the moon, it wasn't until recently that they were able to map out the bulge that froze into place as the moon cooled, reports Space.com. They determined that tidal heating likely stretched the molten moon's crust while it was still forming, and that the bulge formed later as the moon was cooling during a tidal surge that is now essentially frozen in place. (Earth may not be the only planet that helped form the moon.)
– Just in time for Christmas ... a giant New Jersey billboard is challenging the existence of God. "You know it's a myth," says the atheist ad that appears over the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel, featuring an image of the Magi traveling to a nativity scene. "This season, celebrate reason." The debate, of course, isn't ending there. A Catholic group has erected its own billboard on the Manhattan entrance to the tunnel reading: "You know it's real" over pictures of Mary and Joseph. "We can't enjoy the Christmas season without someone trying to dumb it down or neuter it," the president of the Catholic League told AP. Reps from American Atheists say they don't intend to offend anyone. They merely want to "encourage" other atheists to "come out of their closet to attack the myth that Christianity owns the solstice system," they said on their blog site. Each billboard cost close to $20,000.
– A loyal Labrador retriever kept a faithful vigil at his master's side this week even as friends and family wept at his human's coffin. "Hawkeye" waited patiently at the Iowa funeral for a word or a whistle from downed Navy SEAL Jon Tumilson, 35, killed with 29 other US service members when their Chinook helicopter was shot down earlier this month in Afghanistan. Hawkeye led mourners into the ceremony at the local Rockford high school, then lay down with a sigh for the service. Tumilson, who joined the Navy just out of high school, was hailed as a hero at the service attended by some 1,500 in his hometown, reports the Daily Mail. His dog is being adopted by a fellow SEAL. "RIP, shipmate. Fair winds and following seas," a buddy posted on a Facebook page in Tumilson's honor. "I'm sure you and Hawkeye will see each other again."
– When you fire up Angry Birds, Google Maps, or a host of other popular smartphone apps, you're opening yourself up to government spies. The NSA and its UK counterpart, the GCHQ, have been actively intercepting the data that "leaky" apps collect from users, according to a new leak from Edward Snowden, published by the Guardian, New York Times and Pro Publica. Depending on the app, the spies can skim data including your location, marital status, sexual orientation, political alignment, ethnicity, and education level. Angry Birds, which has been criticized in the past for collecting excessive data for advertisers, is listed as a case study on the GCHQ's internal wiki. Another document boasts that anyone using Google Maps is effectively "working in support of a GCHQ system." And an NSA briefing slide describes a target uploading a photo to social media as a "gold nugget," from which their location, contact lists, and "a host of other social working data" can be gleaned. The scale these capabilities has been used on isn't clear, and the NSA responded to the report by saying it doesn't spy on "everyday Americans" or "innocent foreign citizens." Other tidbits from the report: The NSA refers to its various smartphone tracking tools as Smurfs. A program that can turn microphones on, allowing spies to eavesdrop on targets, is called "Nosey Smurf," while another enabling it to turn on a powered down phone is called "Dreamy Smurf." The NSA and GCHQ have a database of every mobile phone tower in the world. According to one GCHQ doc, advertising cookies "are gathered in bulk, and are currently our single largest type of events."
– The nation's devil-worshipers are scrambling to distance themselves from a teenage woman who claims to have killed at least 22 people as part of a satanic cult. "We have never had any contact from this woman, nor her accomplice," the head priest of the Church of Satan tells CNN. "Thorough investigation will likely demonstrate that this cult story is fiction." A spokesman for the rival Satanic Temple also says his group has no ties to 19-year-old Miranda Barbour or her husband. "I feel certain that Barbour's own relationship with any organized satanism will turn out to be vague or non-existent," he says. The FBI and police in five states are still investigating Barbour's claim that she killed a lot of "bad people" during a six-year murder spree, reports the New York Daily News. Barbour and her husband are currently in prison in Pennsylvania, where they are accused of murdering a man they met on Craigslist with an offer of sex. In legal documents, Barbour argues that she should not face a death sentence if found guilty because "the criminal justice system is fallible, thereby subjecting inappropriate persons to the death penalty," TMZ finds.
– Republicans are a bit more up on current events than Democrats, says a new Pew survey. Americans overall scored 5 out of 12 on the questionnaire; on average, Republicans had a score of 6, ahead of Democrats' 5. A measly 2% of respondents got all 12 questions right; 6% got them all wrong. See the questions here. Republicans excelled—relatively speaking—in some areas that should embarrass Democrats, LiveScience notes, such as knowing who the Senate majority leader is. About half of GOP respondents correctly named Harry Reid, compared to just a third of Democrats. The parties tied (39%) when asked to identify Stephen Colbert. Overall, only 32% knew the Senate passed its health care legislation without a single GOP vote.
– Sofia Vergara gave her side of the story to Howard Stern yesterday, saying she's not at all worried the lawsuit from ex Nick Loeb, who wants to bring their two frozen female embryos to term, will amount to anything. Loeb has offered to raise the resulting children himself, but kids need "a loving relationship of parents that get along, that don't hate each other," she told Stern (though she specified that Loeb has a problem with her, not the other way around, People reports). "I wouldn't imagine anyone saying that it's sane to bring [into] the world kids that are already set up [with] everything wrong for them. It would be so selfish." She added the two signed a legal contract (on two occasions) regarding the embryos and "he can't do anything."
– Donald Trump didn't do much to distance himself from the Kremlin Thursday night with an interview aired on the Russia-funded RT America network. The candidate told host Larry King that it was "probably unlikely" that Moscow is interfering in US elections and that claims that it is are probably coming from the Democrats, Politico reports. He also slammed the "unbelievably dishonest" American media and discussed third-party candidates, saying they appear to be fading away and he doesn't want to see Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson on the debate stage. In other coverage: Trump was strongly criticized for speaking to a network widely seen as having a strong pro-Russia bias, with GOP strategist John Weaver calling it "insanity," the Washington Post reports. The Trump campaign said it thought the interview would appear on Larry King's podcast, not on RT. The Hill reports that during a speech in Cleveland Thursday, Trump insisted that Hillary Clinton was lying when she said he was for the Iraq war before he was against it. "If I had been in Congress at the time I would have cast a vote in opposition," he said. "For years I've been a critic of these kinds of reckless foreign invasions and interventions that have been a hallmark of trigger-happy Hillary and her failed career." The Washington Post looks at somebody who has been missing from the campaign trail since late July: Melania Trump. The possible first lady was in the audience for Trump's appearance at a military forum on Wednesday, but she hasn't spoken publicly since what turned out to be a partly plagiarized speech at the Republican National Convention and isn't expected to play a major role in the campaign's final weeks. The New York Times examines the education plan Trump unveiled in Cleveland Thursday. He promised $20 billion in federal funds to help poor students attend the schools of their choice, though it's not clear where he plans to find the $20 billion. The Wall Street Journal reports that Clinton's campaign has decided to try to send out a more positive message about her vision for America instead of focusing on attacking Trump. The candidate spoke about her faith to the National Baptist Convention in Kansas City, Mo., on Thursday, saying doing so "doesn't always come naturally to a Midwestern Methodist."
– DNA evidence could settle once and for all the truth about what transpired in the days after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. The official story is that John Wilkes Booth was killed in a barn days after shooting the president—but his descendants say the dead man was just a lookalike. Now, they’re willing to have Booth’s brother exhumed in order to compare his DNA to that of the man in the barn, AOL News reports. The latter man’s DNA could be obtained from a bone specimen housed at a museum in Washington, DC—but the family wants to secure the museum’s permission before it exhumes the body. The real John Wilkes Booth changed his name and committed suicide 38 years later in 1903, the family says. “I'm absolutely in favor of exhuming Edwin," a Booth family historian tells the Philadelphia Inquirer. "Let's have the truth and put this thing to rest."
– Cypriots hoping to get their hands on what is still technically their money are going to have to wait at least another couple of days. The government has ordered the country's banks, which have been closed since March 15, to stay closed until Thursday to prevent a run on deposits following the last-minute EU bailout deal. People can still make ATM withdrawals, with a daily limit of $130 at the two biggest banks, but the machines often run out of cash and many businesses have stopped accepting debit or credit cards, the AP reports. Meanwhile, Bank of Cyprus chairman Andres Artemis has resigned this morning, reports Reuters. Even when banks reopen, limits on withdrawals are expected to remain, along with measures to prevent money from leaving the country, the BBC reports. Deposits above $130,000 in the two biggest banks, which will be subject to a stiff levy under the bailout deal, will be frozen. President Nicos Anastasiades didn't offer Cypriots many details on the transaction limits that will be imposed, but told them, "I want to assure you that this will be a very temporary measure that will gradually be relaxed," Reuters reports. The BBC spoke with the country's finance minister, who said the levy will be "significant," and as high as 40%.
– Paul Ryan made GOPers swoon with what most pundits say was the best speech of the convention so far. He used his regular-guy appeal to clearly set out a case against the Obama administration—but critics are challenging many of his facts. Ryan "came off young, which he is, but generally not so youthful as to seem off; he was emotional but not soft; he was tough on President Obama but not caustic," writes Maggie Haberman at Politico. His speech—ideological but "delivered in a non-threatening way—went a long way to making a convention that has been troubled a success," she writes. "Ryan has worn many hats on the campaign trail, from attack dog to budget expert," and his speech had elements of all those roles, writes Robert Costa at the National Review, likening Ryan's "conservative rallying cry" to those of Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp, and Barry Goldwater. "Those men urged Americans to shrink government and empower individuals, and Ryan did just that," he writes. Ryan "played the part of the glib, ambitious student," casting the Romney-Ryan ticket as a "father-son pairing rather than a team of equals," writes Molly Ball at the Atlantic. But the speech was heavy on distorted facts, which seemed intentional, she writes. Ryan "is being positioned as the Republican ticket's gleeful, unabashed attack dog, someone willing to take it to the other side without regard for the sniffing of the poobahs: Sarah Palin in an ill-fitting suit." Ryan's start was a little rocky, but he recovered to eloquently deliver a speech packed with great lines, Chris Cillizza writes at the Washington Post. Ryan "made the case against the Obama administration effectively—'They have no answer to this simple reality: We need to stop spending money we don’t have'—and argued just as effectively for Romney."
– Hillary Clinton may or may not run for president in 2016, but Bill Clinton is doing nothing to disabuse supporters of their hopes, reports Politico. Appearing today on Face the Nation, Clinton said, "I have no earthly idea what she'll decide to do," before repeating the oft-repeated line that "she's worked hard for 20 years, and she's tired." One definite: "She wants to take some time off, kind of regroup, write a book, I hope we'll be working together" on the Clinton Global Initiative. "I think we ought to give her a chance to organize her life and decide what she wants to do," he concluded. Elsewhere on your Sunday dial, as per Politico: David Brooks on Mitt Romney: "Romney does not have the passion. He’s a problem solver. I think he’s a non-ideological person running in an extremely ideological age, and he’s faking it. So if I were him, I’d go to what he’s been for the last several decades: be a PowerPoint guy. Say ‘I’m making a sales pitch to the country. You don’t have to love me but I’m going to do these four things for you.’" Kelly Ayotte on Romney's 47% gaffe: “That certainly was a political analysis at a fundraiser, but it’s not a governing philosophy. He absolutely has a vision for 100% of America. And that is very different from this president.” Reince Priebus on GOP's 'good week': "I think in retrospect, in that we were able to frame up the debate." Of Romney's GOP critics: I respect and I admire people that get very concerned." David Axelrod on GOP's 'good week': "Well, I don't know what prism he's looking through. I don't think anybody else would define it as a good week." And Axelrod on Romney's taxes: "Two months ago, he said that anybody who didn't take the deductions they were owed wasn't qualified to be president. Well, I guess he's not qualified, because that's exactly what he did last week to try and get his number up from 9% or 10% to 14%."
– Not too long ago, Hillary Clinton held double-digit leads over Donald Trump in a hypothetical one-on-one matchup. Trump, however, has now actually edged ahead of her in an average of national polls compiled at RealClearPolitics. The development has prompted all kinds of analysis. Some highlights: "Mr. Trump has made gains in unifying his party's base, while Mrs. Clinton has not done the same with hers," writes Nate Cohn at the New York Times. "If anything, her problem with Bernie Sanders' voters has gotten a bit worse." But presidential polls in late May have "historically bad" track records, notes NPR. Let's see what happens after she picks up the nomination. Those who fear a Trump presidency shouldn't panic, writes Michael Cohen at the Boston Globe. "Unless Bernie Sanders refuses to endorse Clinton—and I can't imagine he would do that—the vast majority of Sanders backers will vote for the party nominee." On the other hand, "Sanders supporters hate the Democratic Party, and Trump is a unique political talent." This at the Daily Intelligencer, whose overview offers arguments for both Clinton and Trump supporters. Plus, "after six years of political gridlock, many voters are yearning for change in Washington, and that should help Trump," writes Doyle McManus at the Los Angeles Times. "The only thing we know right now is that, at this moment, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are essentially in a dead heat," writes Anthony Zurcher at the BBC. "And Mr. Trump has made a lot of pundits and prognosticators look foolish over the past year."
– A painkiller that cost $138 a bottle less than five years ago now hovers at close to $3,000—the latest price hike to put the pharmaceutical industry in the spotlight. CNNMoney reports Horizon Pharma's latest increase on Vimovo, which has seen nearly a dozen such rate rises since Horizon acquired it from AstraZeneca in 2013, amounts to a 9.9% increase on a 60-pill bottle, making the wholesale price $2,979. The high cost of the med—which FiercePharma explains is prescribed to help ease symptoms from certain forms of arthritis and to prevent gastric ulcers—is also raising eyebrows because its two main ingredients, naproxen (sold as the Aleve brand) and esomeprazole (commonly sold as Nexium), are sold separately for under $40. "Based on the mechanism of action of these drugs, I see no reason why these products can't be taken individually," the CEO of a company that makes software to help ease drug payments tells the Irish Times. Horizon Pharma disagrees: It says taking the meds separately isn't the same as taking the combo pill; it adds there's no generic or OTC version of Vimovo. The company also pushes back on the steep price, noting it has rebates that allow all but 2% of insured patients to get the drug for less than $10 out of their own wallet. However, analysts say the price hike ends up raising insurance prices overall. It also underlies the murkiness of what happens when drug prices rise, as no one's really sure who's making money off the deal; besides the manufacturer, insurers and pharmacy benefit managers are also in the mix. (Walmart has a plan for your leftover opioids.)
– James Black, the Nobel prize-winning scientist whose invention of beta-blocker drugs is credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives, has died after a long illness. The Scotsman's discovery of propranolol and pronethalol revolutionized the treatment of heart patients and was "one of the few things that really deserves the moniker 'landmark,'" the chief of the American Heart Association tells AP. Black, who also pioneered treatments for heartburn and ulcers, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for Medicine in 1988 and was Chancellor of the University of Dundee from 1992 to 2006. "He was a great scientist who took a keen interest in the development of our research here at Dundee, but he was also a great man to know," the university's vice-chancellor told the Scotsman. "He inspired so many people, from students to senior academics and industrialists, right up until the last few months of his life."
– Conrad Barrett wanted to get national exposure for taking part in the "knockout game," say prosecutors. The 27-year-old from Katy, Texas, succeeded in that much at least, as authorities have charged him with a federal hate crime, reports KHOU. Barrett, who is white, punched a 79-year-old black man in the jaw so hard that the man suffered two fractures and spent several days in the hospital, alleges the Justice Department. Prosecutors say Barrett recorded the assault on video, and the footage shows him laughing after the punch, saying "knockout," and running to his car, reports the LA Times. "The plan is to see if I were to hit a black person, would this be nationally televised?” Barrett reportedly says on an earlier video. He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted, notes the Smoking Gun. The knockout game generally involves teens punching innocent passersby, but there's much dispute over how widespread the assaults actually are. Some critics say the "trend" is more myth than reality—and,a convenient way to demonize black teenagers. The Texas case suggests the publicity is at least spawning copycat incidents.
– Tondalo Hall wasn't accused of abusing her two young children but was handed a 30-year sentence for failing to protect them from her abusive boyfriend. Her partner, meanwhile, nabbed a plea deal and served just two years for breaking the ribs and femur of their 3-month-old infant; he was released in 2006. The 31-year-old Hall appealed for clemency to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, but that appeal was denied Wednesday, leaving her with at least 15 more years behind bars and frustrating women's rights activists, BuzzFeed reports. The board—whose vice chair "seemed incredulous" during the hearing that Hall hadn't done more to help her kids, BuzzFeed notes—offered no explanation for its 5-0 decision against Hall, whose plight had received publicity from a BuzzFeed investigation last year. In court documents, testimony against Hall's boyfriend indicated he choked and punched her regularly, was verbally abusive, and isolated her from family and friends, the Washington Post notes. In her commutation application, Hall—whose sentence ends in 2034, with the possibility of parole in 2030—acknowledged her past mistakes but says she's since dedicated herself to becoming a better mom, taking parenting and anger management classes and earning her GED. "Despite my failures, I did not physically abuse my children," she wrote. "I was an active parent and a proud mother. I loved and cared for my children and I would appreciate the opportunity to watch them grow up." The co-founder of a national advocacy group that got 70,000 signatures on a petition to release Hall tells BuzzFeed, "The [board] had the responsibility to make things right and they failed with [Wednesday's] decision." Read more on her case here.
– President Trump on Friday praised the quick arrest of a suspect in the mail bomb case and promised that "swift and certain justice" would follow. "These terrorizing acts are despicable and have no place in our country," Trump said. Speaking soon after authorities announced the arrest of Florida man accused of mailing explosive devices to prominent Democrats, Trump declared that "we must never allow political violence to take root in America," reports NBC News. "We cannot let it happen. I am committed to do everything in my power as president to stop it and stop it now." Americans, he said, "must unify." As the AP notes, the president's remarks came after he tweeted a complaint about how the media's focus on the incidents were distracting from what he sees as a Republican upswing ahead of the midterms. "Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this 'Bomb' stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows — news not talking politics. Very unfortunate, what is going on. Republicans, go out and vote!"
– Two controversial pipelines stopped by the Obama administration just got revived by the Trump administration. The president signed executive actions Tuesday to advance construction on the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, reports the Hill. The moves do not equate to final approval, and the next steps are a little unclear. Both projects may need to be formally re-submitted, and they will still face tough fights from opposition lawmakers, environmentalists, and, in the case of the Dakota pipeline, Native American protesters. What's more, the agreements for both will have to be renegotiated, reports the AP. Trump, for instance, wants all the material for the pipelines to come from the US, a provision that will likely be tough to enforce. "This is not a done deal," says Bill McKibben, founder of the anti-Keystone group 350.org, per the New York Times. "The last time around, TransCanada was so confident they literally mowed the strip where they planned to build the pipeline, before people power stopped them. People will mobilize again." Still, TransCanada shares were climbing on the news, as were those for Energy Transfer Partners LP, which is behind the Dakota project, notes Bloomberg. Before signing the orders, Trump met with auto industry leaders and said environmental regulations were "out of control." He said it was "absolutely crazy" that it takes so long for permits to be granted. "I am, to a large extent, an environmentalist," he said, per Politico. "I believe in it. But it’s out of control."
– "They lynched my baby." So wrote Melissa McKinnies, an organizer of the Ferguson protests of 2014, upon the death of her 24-year-old son, Danye Jones. Police in St. Louis County, however, say it looks like a suicide. McKinnies' suspicions have since spread across social media, and the story appears only to be gaining steam—especially because it comes in the wake of previous high-profile Ferguson deaths. The details: The death: Jones was found hanging from a tree Oct. 17 near his mother's house in Spanish Lake, Mo., reports CBS News. Police say they found a chair near the body and are investigating it as a suicide. In fact, a spokesman says the family reported it as such in the initial 911 call. Determining an official cause of death could take weeks. Mother's view: McKinnies posted images of her son's body on Facebook that were later removed by the site, reports the AP. She says that he had bruises on his face, and relatives say he didn't know how to make the knots used, and that the sheet didn't appear to come from the house. "He was not suicidal at all," she tells KMOV. She thinks he was killed because of her activism after the death of Michael Brown at the hands of police in 2014.
– Rick Perry, new US energy secretary, is "deeply concerned" about something. But don't worry, it's not America's aging nuclear stockpile but the results of a student election in Texas. CNN reports that after the winner of Texas A&M's election for student body president was accused of voter intimidation and disqualified for not disclosing campaign expenses, runner-up Bobby Brooks became the college's first openly gay student body president. That led Perry to pen an 851-word opinion piece for the Houston Chronicle in which he accused the administration of Texas A&M, his alma mater, of making a "mockery of due process" and stealing the election in a misbegotten "quest for 'diversity.'" Perry says the disqualification of original winner Robert McIntosh—the son of a major Texas Republican fundraiser who campaigned for President Trump—didn't "fit the crime" and wouldn't have happened if McIntosh weren't straight and white. While others criticized a federal official for publicly addressing a student election, Texas A&M settled for "respectfully" disagreeing with its former student. It points out the decision to disqualify McIntosh and make Brooks president was made entirely by students in the form of the all-student election commission and judicial court, the Washington Post reports. Furthermore, Brooks' sexuality wasn't part of his campaign.
– South Carolina may soon have its own currency, if one state senator has his way. Republican Lee Bright introduced legislation that would back the creation of such a currency, because, “If folks lose faith in the dollar, we need to have some kind of backup,” he tells the Spartanburg Herald-Journal. His resolution calls for a study on the subject, and argues that a state currency could protect South Carolina if the strained Fed breaks down. Talking Points Memo notes that South Carolinians have asserted independence from the federal government in other ways over the last two years. The legislation asserts that creating its own currency (which could consist of “gold or silver, or both”) is a right afforded to the states by the Constitution and Supreme Court rulings, and claims that “many widely recognized experts predict the inevitable destruction of the Federal Reserve System's currency through hyperinflation in the foreseeable future.” But the director of the state Senate Democratic Caucus says the bill is just “a waste of time; it's a waste of resources. I mean who's paying for this study? Will they be paid in actual dollars or gold doubloons?”
– In Touch continues to be at the forefront of the Duggar scandal it broke, reporting new details in an article yesterday that has gotten wide mainstream pick-up. According to the tabloid, the Arkansas Department of Human Services is again investigating the family, and an agency rep called 911 on May 27 (days after Josh Duggar's molestation allegations made headlines) because the family did not allow DHS to see a minor about whom the agency was concerned. The Duggars have not publicly revealed the current investigation, but the tabloid made a FOIA request to learn about the 911 call. In the call, the DHS rep gives the address to the 911 dispatcher, noting it's the "Duggar's family home," then explains, "We have an investigation and I guess they’re not being cooperative. We have to see the child to make sure the child is all right. So we just need police assistance or an escort." It's not clear what triggered this latest investigation—the Duggars were first investigated by police in 2006 for Josh's alleged molestation in 2002 and 2003, and were then investigated by DHS in 2007—but experts say a hotline complaint about child abuse, even if it's made anonymously, can lead to such investigations if the operator who answers thinks the allegations are serious.
– On the heels of reports that ISIS militants are learning to fly fighter jets, Iraqi officials say the group has also used chemical weapons—specifically, chlorine gas. Eleven Iraqi police officers were hospitalized on Sept. 15 after being poisoned by the stuff, according to doctors, and the officers say ISIS was to blame. An Iraqi defense official has confirmed the case, the Washington Post reports. Iraqi security forces have reported two other such attacks, though the details are hazy, the Post notes. Meanwhile, a clinic in Kobani, Syria, received patients suffering from breathing trouble and blisters following the sound of an explosion Tuesday night, the Guardian reports. "Some had red patches and blisters on their skins, others had difficulties breathing and others were vomiting, with painful throats, and others with burning eyes and noses. There was one patient ... all his body was covered in red patches and blisters," says a doctor, who believes a chemical other than chlorine was used in this case. Though chemical weapons have recently been used in Syria, these instances appear to be the first confirmed use of chlorine gas in Iraq in years, the Post reports. The US is investigating the case in Iraq, the BBC reports. All eleven of the officers were discharged from the hospital the next morning.
– Don't have a plan after high school? Don't expect a diploma, says Rahm Emanuel. Under a new proposal from the Chicago mayor, high school students of Chicago Public Schools will need to prove they have a plan for their immediate future before they can graduate, reports the Chicago Tribune. To fulfill the graduation requirement, students of the Class of 2020 and beyond will need to show they have a job offer, or are entering university, community college, a trade program, the military, or another educational program. The goal is to prepare students for a challenging job market, Emanuel tells CBS Chicago. "A [high school] diploma alone isn't enough anymore," says CPS Chief Education Officer Janice Jackson. Emanuel notes all high school graduates in Chicago are automatically accepted at city colleges, so no student will be left without an option. But critics say the rule could force undecided students to rush into a decision, or harm students living in poverty, per Quartz. Some say it may also require more high school counselors and additional funding for local community colleges, which are struggling financially. Others question if it's even legal for CPS to weigh in on students' choices. "I've been doing this for 20 years and I've never heard of anything like that," says an education policy expert. "The question I would have for Mayor Emanuel is: 'Where did this come from? What informed your thinking to lead you to believe that this was a good plan of action for CPS?'" Jackson, however, says the Illinois State Board of Education only requires that schools meet the state's minimum graduation requirements, and that schools can individually adopt other requirements that don't need approval from the board.
– The stepgranddaughter that Morgan Freeman helped raise was stabbed to death in New York City early yesterday, allegedly by a crazed boyfriend. Police have confirmed to People that 33-year-old E'Dena Hines was found outside her Manhattan home with multiple stab wounds around 3am. A witness who called 911 tells the New York Daily News that he witnessed the killing from his apartment and heard the attacker yell, "Get out, devils! I cast you out, devils, in the name of Jesus Christ! I cast you out!" Police sources tell the Daily News that the suspect is Lamar Davenport, Hines' 30-year-old boyfriend. Hines' grandmother was Jeanette Adair Bradshaw, Freeman's first wife. "I want to acknowledge the tremendous outpouring of love and support my family has received regarding the tragic and senseless passing of my granddaughter," Freeman said in a Facebook post. In a statement to the Hollywood Reporter, he said the world "will never know her artistry and talent, and how much she had to offer" and "her star will continue to shine bright in our hearts, thoughts and prayers." Hines, who studied acting and had several minor film roles, had recently returned to New York City from Memphis for a role in an independent film, the New York Times reports. "My dream has come true and it's just beginning," she wrote on her blog.
– As Hattiesburg, Miss., mourns two police officers killed in the line of duty Saturday evening, four people accused of involvement are due in court. Marvin Banks and Joanie Calloway have been charged with capital murder, while Curtis Banks—Marvin's younger brother—has been charged with being an accessory after the fact to capital murder, and a fourth suspect, Cornelius Clark, has been charged with obstruction of justice, CNN reports. A state Department of Public Safety spokesman says Marvin Banks has also been charged with grand theft for fleeing in a Hattiesburg police car after the officers were fatally shot, the AP reports. Banks only made it a few blocks before ditching the vehicle, the spokesman says. Police haven't revealed a motive for the killing of the officers, although both Banks brothers have multiple convictions, including possession of crack cocaine, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reports. The killing of the officers during a routine traffic stop has shocked the small city, where an officer hadn't been killed in the line of duty since 1984 and mourners have been leaving flowers at the scene in memory of officers Benjamin Deen, 34, and Liquori Tate, 24, reports the AP. "This should remind us to thank all law enforcement for their unwavering service to protect and serve," says Gov. Phil Bryant, whom the Clarion-Ledger notes is a former law enforcement officer himself. "May God keep them all in the hollow of his hand."
– The United States Social Security Administration paid out $20.2 million to 133 suspected Nazis over the course of decades—a pattern that ended only in January with the implementation of the No Social Security for Nazis Act—according to a new inspector general's report obtained by the AP. That more than twice as many Nazis as originally reported by the AP last October, underscoring what the New York Times calls "the ease with which thousands of former Nazis managed to settle into new lives in the United States with little scrutiny." Among the report's specifics: Thirty-eight former Nazis collected $5.7 million before being deported Ninety-five collected $14.5 million in benefits and were never deported "It is outrageous that any Nazis were able to receive benefits, but this report also makes clear that the Social Security Administration lacked the legal right to terminate benefits in far too many of these cases," says Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who pushed for the review. But some of that payday was obtained with the blessing of the State Department, notes the AP, which cut deals with some Nazis allowing them to keep benefits if they would leave the country. The Simon Wiesenthal Center's top Nazi hunter calls that decision "a travesty," while acknowledging that "the government was trying to maximize what it could do with the tools that they had."
– The Department of Veterans Affairs' problems extend far beyond its much-maligned Phoenix facility, a new audit has confirmed. In a review of 731 hospitals, investigators found that more than 57,000 patients have been waiting up to 90 days for an appointment, and that another 64,000 had enrolled for VA healthcare, but never seen a doctor. What's more, 13% of schedulers reported being ordered by management to falsify appointment dates to meet performance goals, and 8% said they used off-the-record waiting lists, the AP reports. The audit concluded that the department's 14-day wait target for newly-enrolled veterans was "simply not attainable," and that basing managers' compensation on meeting it was "an organizational leadership failure." In response to the findings, the VA eliminated all performance bonuses for its senior management for this year, CNN reports.
– Pope Francis has created a commission to advise him on priest sex abuse, but it's unclear whether the group will wield any power against abusers and bishops who cover up for them, report the Daily Beast and the AP. The commission consists of four men, three of whom are priests, and four women, all laity, one of whom was sexually abused by a priest and advocates for child safety in the Catholic Church. Another woman, French psychologist Catherine Bonnet, has written at length about child sex abuse. But it's not clear exactly what the commission will do—Pope Francis preferred to let its members work out the details, the Boston Globe reports. Broadly speaking, the commission will advise on policies that safeguard children, keep abusers from becoming priests, and train members of the church. Francis created the commission after remarks he made defending the church's record on abuse led to a political firestorm, with one group accusing him of stonewalling on five alleged abuse cases as archbishop in Buenos Aires. And critics are still skeptical: "They do not need yet another 'Study Commission,'" said a victim advocacy group. "The pope must take strong steps right now to protect kids, expose predators, discipline enablers, and uncover cover-ups." (For more, see why Francis called some priests "little monsters.")
– Don't you hate it when you dock your six-figure boat in a harbor and then forget all about it for two years? This somehow happened to a well-to-do Norwegian man who moored his $108,000 boat in a Swedish harbor, reports the BBC. Two years later, a Facebook and media campaign launched by police to find the owner finally jogged his memory. He had a vague recollection of selling the boat, but, no, it's still his. "You have to be very wealthy to be able to forget about a boat in this price range," says a Swedish police official quoted in the Daily Mirror. The owner has to pay up two years' worth of docking fees, but authorities suspect it won't be a problem.
– An Arizona high school had to apologize this week for what some say was an alarmingly sexist poster hung in the school library, ABC News reports. The poster, illustrated with cartoons, states girls who dress "pretty cute" will only be seen as "meat" by boys, who will be distracted and get bad grades. Girls will end up with these dumb boys anyway because "he thought you looked HOT" but will have to support them because they won't be able to get a job. “I don’t get offended easily, but this definitely crossed the line for me,” senior Alissa Adams says. She complained to the librarian who put the poster up but was ignored. Adams tells KNXV that by the end of the day, most of her class was angry about the poster. It was taken down Thursday after another student complained to the principal. “Hanging of the poster was inappropriate and very poor judgment on behalf of the librarian,” ABC quotes a Desert Ridge High School spokesperson as saying. “I think they were trying to be funny but they just went about it all wrong,” Adams tells KNXV. The poster was made at the school, KSAZ reports. But the school claims it doesn't know who made it, and the librarian just "found it lying around."
– Police reaction to the various Occupy protests around the nation have tarnished the US reputation for press freedom in the eyes of Reporters Without Borders. In the group's new world rankings, the US falls 27 spots to 47th, owing to the "many arrests of journalists covering Occupy Wall Street protests." See the full rankings here. The Huffington Post provides a roundup of the rest, with dictatorships and crackdowns on the Arab Spring accounting for the worst offenders. Worst: Eritrea, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Syria, Iran, China, Bahrain, Vietnam, Yemen, and Sudan. Best: Finland, Norway, Estonia, Netherlands, Austria, Iceland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Cape Verde, and Canada.
– At least eight people are dead after gunmen stormed a luxury hotel in Libya popular with foreigners, reports the AP. ISIS (or at least a Twitter account linked to the group) has claimed credit for the attack on the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli, reports the BBC. Details are still unfolding, but authorities say five of the fatalities are foreigners and three are guards. One security official said the situation was "under control," but there were conflicting reports about whether the gunmen were holed up in the hotel with hostages. CNN says three of them were still inside. The attack reportedly began with a car bomb at the hotel, the same one from which Libyan's prime minister was seized in 2013.
– The "bombogenesis" storm now slamming the East Coast is nasty stuff, but at least forecasters aren't throwing around the phrase "acid snow." Quartz did a double-take upon hearing this weather report from Arirang News for Seoul, South Korea: "Please be sure to have an umbrella with you, as the snow that's falling in the central regions right now is acid snow, which is a mixture of snow and yellow dust." As this older story from i09 explains, "acid snow" is indeed real. And while it's less acidic than its "acid rain" counterpart, it can have a real effect on water and soil pH come springtime—a phenomenon known as "acid pulse."
– Residents of the Northeast are expecting a snowstorm this weekend, but they can warm themselves with one thought: It's spring. The new season officially arrives at 12:30am EDT on Sunday, March 20, notes the Old Farmer's Almanac. And as EarthSky points out, this happens to be the earliest arrival of spring since 1896—the result of a fluke in the calendar. "In a nutshell, this earliest spring is happening because the tropical year, as measured between successive March equinoxes, doesn't have an even number of days (365.242 days)," explains the post. And so leap years (366 days) vs. non-leap years (365 days) adjust its timing. And Pope Gregory XIII threw a wrench into things: In 1582 he decreed that leap year not fall on centennial years, unless that year was divisible by four—so 2000 was considered a leap year, but not 1900. That "causes the March equinox to arrive roughly three-quarters of a day earlier in the 21st century than at corresponding years in the 20th century," explains the post. Every four years, the March equinox will shift earlier, ultimately bringing us to the earliest one of the 21st century: 10:03am March 19, 2096. Come 2100, where there is also no leap year, the March equinox times will be pushed forward, and will once again occur on March 21 in 2102. As for that potential nor'easter, it looks like Sunday will be the day for snow, but much remains iffy about the forecast, reports Weather.com.
– No more 72-day marriages for Kim Kardashian. She's apparently very serious about her PR-stunt-slash-relationship with Kanye West, based on an interview with New York magazine. She covers the fashion issue, and explains that it's fashion that brings the couple together. "If I have a design meeting, or he has one, we come back and talk about how our meetings went," she explains. "When this whole life is done, and it’s just the two of us sitting somewhere when we’re 80, you want to have things to talk about that you have in common." She goes on to note that having things in common is "something maybe I didn’t value as highly as a quality I cared about in someone," so perhaps that explains the aforementioned 72-day union. This time around, she can "get more in-depth" in her fashion discussions because West, who also has his own fashion line, "actually knows" what she's talking about, she says. "I think it’s essential to have similarities." (The article also reveals that, yes, Kim and Kanye have exchanged I love yous.) Radar also reports that Kim is eager to get her divorce finalized so she can marry West—and adds that the two of them also want to start a fa-, er, shoe line together.
– Just who are the Tea Partiers and what do they believe? According to a New York Times/CBS poll, the 18% of Americans who support the movement are wealthier, more educated, and a lot more pessimistic than average. Among the poll's other findings: Despite the movement's origins as a tax protest organization, 52% of supporters say the amount of income tax they'll pay this year is fair. Tea Partiers tend to be white, male, over 45, married, and from the South. Some 54% say they're Republicans. Unsurprisingly, a large majority don't approve of how President Obama is doing his job. When asked what they like least about him, the most common answer was that they just didn't like him. Some 24% of Tea Party supporters say violence against the government is justified. Among those classified as activists—the 20% of supporters, or 4% of all Americans, who have attended a Tea Party rally or donated to the cause—that figure rises to 32%.
– A story emerged Monday suggesting that North Korea was violating the spirit of promises to reduce its nuclear arsenal. Not so, says President Trump. "The story in the New York Times concerning North Korea developing missile bases is inaccurate," he tweeted. "We fully know about the sites being discussed, nothing new - and nothing happening out of the normal. Just more Fake News. I will be the first to let you know if things go bad!" The Times story he's referring to was based on a new study by Center for Strategic and International Studies, whose researchers say they have found more than a dozen secret ballistic missile bases in North Korea. The newspaper acknowledges, however, that US intelligence agencies have long known about this network. Here is how the Times frames the issue: "The satellite images suggest that the North has been engaged in a great deception: It has offered to dismantle a major launching site—a step it began, then halted—while continuing to make improvements at more than a dozen others that would bolster launches of conventional and nuclear warheads." South Korea objected to this characterization even before Trump did, also using the phrase "nothing new." A spokesman for President Moon Jae-in adds: “North Korea has never promised to dismantle its missile bases, nor has it ever joined any treaty that obligates it to dismantle them. So calling this a ‘deception’ is not appropriate." That didn't stop Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, who sits on the Foreign Relations panel, from asserting that Trump was "getting played by Kim Jong Un," per Bloomberg.
– Donald Trump won't be able to collect two easy votes in New York's primary later this month: Daughter Ivanka and son Eric failed to register in time and thus can't cast votes on April 19, reports NBC News. "They were unaware of the rules," Trump said on Fox News. "So they feel very, very guilty. They feel very guilty but it's fine." Yahoo News reported last week that only oldest son Donald Jr. is a registered Republican and that both Ivanka and Eric have previously donated to Democratic candidates. Trump has two younger children, Tiffany, a college student not active in the campaign, and a son, Barron, who's just 10.
– The Canadian government says the timing was just a coincidence, but they certainly made this year's 4/20 a day to remember for the country's pot smokers: Health Minister Jane Philpott announced in a speech to the United Nations that the government will introduce a recreational pot legalization bill next year to "keep marijuana out of the hands of children and profits out of the hands of criminals," the CBC reports. Philpott said the government will launch a task force to look at every aspect of legalization, including taxation. Former Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair is the government's point man on legalization legislation, which will fulfill one of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's campaign promises, reports Reuters. Medical marijuana is already legal across the country. Clive Weighill, president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, tells the Toronto Star that the move leaves police in a "gray zone" for the next year. "I've never in my career come up against a law that we know is imminently going to be changed and is causing this much consternation," says Weighill, who hopes his organization will be part of the task force designing the framework for legalization. Legalization advocates cheered the announcement, though it's not clear whether the news has reached Alberta-born Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong yet: "Happy 4/20 to everyone around the universe," he tweeted. "I got so high I daydreamed I was smoking with an alien." Click for more 4/20 news.
– If you can't get enough of the Benghazi story, the White House has some reading for you: This afternoon, it released 100 pages of emails and other internal notes that show how its "talking points" evolved after the attack, reports the Washington Post. You can dig in here, as the Washington press corps is surely doing. Snippets of the emails among the White House, State Department, CIA, and FBI had leaked already, leading critics to charge that the State Department was trying to tone down the link to terrorism so it wouldn't look bad. Others disputed that assertion, and the White House apparently hopes the full release will at least ease the controversy, says the Wall Street Journal.
– A new study published in the Journal of Pediatrics found ensuring children under 15 are properly restrained—or wearing seat belts at all—could save about 232 lives every year. Researchers found 20% of children who died in fatal car crashes between 2010 and 2014 weren't buckled in or were improperly restrained, NPR reports. Of the more than 18,000 children involved in fatal car crashes in those years, 15.9% died. The biggest factor in those deaths was whether the children were properly restrained. Other factors included rural roads, which increased the likelihood a child would die in a car crash, and red light cameras, which decreased that likelihood. The study found child fatality rates varied widely by state, which makes sense as seat belt laws, public information on car seats, rural roads, and the use of red light cameras also vary widely by state. More than half of all children who died in a car crash lived in the South. The highest rates of death were in Mississippi, Wyoming, Alabama, Montana, and Virginia, CBS News reports. The lowest were in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Washington, and Rhode Island. In Mississippi, 38% of children who died in a fatal car crash weren't restrained properly or at all. The study's authors advocate for stronger seat belt laws and better public information—potentially at the federal level—to protect children in car crashes.
– Defense Secretary Robert Gates has always hated Washington, and he plans to get the heck out sometime next year, he revealed today in a lengthy interview with Fred Kaplan for Foreign Policy. “I think that it would be a mistake to wait until January 2012,” he reasons. “It might be hard to find a good person to take the job so late” in Barack Obama’s term, he reasons. Besides “this is not the kind of job you want to fill in the spring of an election year.” Then again, Gates used to tell the media at every opportunity that it was “inconceivable” that he would stay on for Obama’s first term, and even carried around a clock counting down to the day he could leave town. It was, he confesses to Kaplan, a “covert action,” designed prevent Obama from asking him to stay—but ask Obama did. The president always knew “that if I were asked, I would say ‘Yes,’" says Gates. "In the middle of two wars, kids out there getting hurt and dying, there was no way I was going to say, ‘No.’” (Click here for AolNews's take on three dilemmas he'll leave behind.)
– President Obama sat for a wide-ranging cover interview with Rolling Stone, and took a not-very-subtle jab at his opponent right off the bat, reports Politico, which notes the president's "genuine disdain" for Mitt Romney. When told by his interviewer that his 6-year-old told him to tell the president, "You can do it," Obama grinned and swiped. "You know, kids have good instincts. They look at the other guy and say, 'Well, that’s a bullshitter, I can tell.' " More highlights from the interview, which hits the stands tomorrow, as per an AP preview: On Dodd-Frank: "You still have a situation where people making bets can get a huge upside, and their downsides are limited. So it tilts the whole system in favor of very risky behavior." On Dodd-Frank giving shareholders a say in executive compensation: "Have we completely changed the incentives? You've got guys who are making five years of risky bets, but it's making them $100 million every year. By the time the chicken comes home to roost, they're still way ahead." On Romney's 47% comments: They are "just fundamentally wrong." On what Romney should be for Halloween: "I don't know about this Halloween. Next Halloween, I hope he'll be an ex-presidential candidate."
– As Iran nuclear talks approach crunch time, one wild card has emerged—it turns out that President Obama and Iran's ayatollah are even bigger pen pals than realized, relatively speaking. The Wall Street Journal reports that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sent Obama a letter "in recent weeks" whose tone it describes as "respectful but noncommittal." It was in response to a letter Obama wrote in October suggesting cooperation between the two countries in fighting the Islamic State if a nuclear deal were struck. As to whether the exchange might lead to an actual deal, well that part's a little hazy. But the Journal also provides the first details on an earlier exchange of letters between the two leaders early in Obama's tenure, in which Khamenei laid out a set of grievances and, significantly, did not rule out the idea of a compromise in nuclear talks. Analysts see the very fact of their existence almost as more important than the details they contain. “You don’t know how important it is for the supreme leader of Iran to actually write a letter to the US," says a former US official. “It’s a sign he recognizes the country.” A post at Al Jazeera America parses recent public comments from Obama and Khamenei, along with other diplomatic moves, and concludes that "the two sides are closing in on a deal."
– A series of brutal attacks across Afghanistan made yesterday the deadliest day of the year so far for the country's civilians. At least 48 people were killed and more than 100 others injured in shootings and bombings, including a triple suicide bombing in the normally peaceful province of Nimruz, which borders Iran. Bombers there targeted a bazaar bustling with people buying treats for the end-of-Ramadan holiday this weekend, and then attacked a hospital where the injured from the first blast where being treated and where worried relatives had gathered, reports the Los Angeles Times. This morning, at least nine people were injured in a mosque in eastern Afghanistan when grenades were thrown inside during morning prayers. The attacks are seen as a Taliban show of force and an attempt to weaken the country's security forces, who will take control across the country in 28 months as NATO departs. The Taliban "want to expand their influence—show that they are everywhere," an Afghan political analyst tells the AP. "They want to show that the Afghan police are not strong enough so they are targeting the security forces and the government."
– Elin Nordegren didn’t just get herself any old lawyer—she’s reportedly hired Hollywood's superstar divorce guru Sorrell Trope, and is gearing up to go after nearly $284 million. Trope, whose clients range from Cary Grant to Hugh Grant, specializes in “very high-asset, high-income divorces,” an expert tells the New York Daily News, and Elin likely brought him onboard to negotiate a sum on top of her prenup, in light of Tiger’ extramarital mahem. Just how much more money? Sources tell the Mirror she plans to score half of Tiger’s fortune, or about $283.9 million, adding that she told friends, “divorce is 100% on.” Woods could recoup some of that money by taking on a new sponsor—a New York strip club offered the golfer a $1 million endorsement deal, OK! reports.
– Woody Harrelson plays a deluded superhero in Defendor, Canadian writer-director Peter Stebbings' debut. The filmmaker's compatriots get where he's coming from; critics south of the border, not so much: "Made for $3.5-million, it looks, if anything, cheaper," James Adams writes in the Globe and Mail. But Harrelson's "expressive rubber face and intense blue eyes" paint a "convincing portrait of a lonely, damaged schlub whose moral code and sense of the heroic" come exclusively from comic books. The flick has "a proper pace, well punctuated with laughs at the right time, and outrage and sympathy at others," writes Linda Barnard in the Toronto Star. At its core is Harrelson's "unrelenting seriousness and dedication to the literal truth." Harrelson is "winning," but "Stebbings is more interested in deconstructing heroism than creating a concrete world," Glenn Whipp writes in the Los Angeles Times. The result is that "the film never meshes into something cohesive." "Imagine Woody Harrelson's slaphappy simpleton Woody Boyd from Cheers if he were mad as hell and not planning to take it anymore," David Germain writes for the AP, and you've got Defendor. Intriguing, but "you end up not so much rooting for him as for the psychiatric profession, hoping it lives up to its destiny and gets this nut case off the streets."
– Bobby Womack is dead at age 70 after a musical career that has tributes, like this in the Chicago Tribune, referring to him as the "revered poet of soul music." Though renowned as a singer, songwriter, and guitarist in his own right, Womack's work has been extensively covered by the greats. The New York Times relays this anecdote from 1964,when a new British band called the Rolling Stones covered a song he wrote called "It's All Over Now." At first Womack was ticked because he and his brothers had their own version out on the R&B charts as the Valentinos. But the Stones' version hit No. 1 in Britain, and “I stopped being upset when we got our first royalty check," Womack once said. "That changed everything.” Womack got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009 and recorded a widely acclaimed album in 2012 called the Bravest Man in the Universe, a collaboration with younger artists, reports Rolling Stone. "You know more at 65 than you did at 25," he said at the time. "I understand the songs much better now." Womack the singer is probably best known for "Lookin' for a Love," "That's The Way I Feel About Cha," "Woman's Gotta Have It," "Harry Hippie," and "Across 110th Street," notes the Hollywood Reporter. Quentin Tarantino featured the latter song in his 1997 film Jackie Brown.
– The American e-cigarette business is booming: It's expected to make more than $1 billion this year, and sales are projected to overtake those of real cigarettes by 2047. Big tobacco is probably fine with this, reports BusinessWeek, and the reason why is surprising. According to a recent report, an average of 11% of cigarettes sold in each US state are smuggled in, and that figure is way higher in states like New York (61%), Arizona (54%), and New Mexico (53%). "Smuggled" smokes can be anything from those brought in from other states with lower taxes to counterfeit cigarettes—which are sometimes stuffed with sawdust and "human excrement." "Once a tax gets too high, it acts in the same way that Prohibition did: You get substantial black-market activity," says an economist. E-cigs, on the other hand, are only subject to regular sales taxes, so the black market incentive isn't there. Tobacco giants are now moving their focus to the e-cig market and launching products of their own. Of course, now the FDA is looking to start regulating the industry, as the Wall Street Journal reports. But bans on online sales or advertising restrictions probably won't bother them that much, the BusinessWeek report suggests—so long as they're not hit with taxes.
– Jessica Heeringa was working the night shift at a Michigan gas station when she went missing just before the 11pm closing time Friday night, the AP reports. Investigators think the petite 25-year-old mother was abducted, and family members believe she was lured away from the Exxon Mobil in Norton Shores by an acquaintance or someone saying they needed help. A few odd details from the local police chief would seem to fit that theory: "There's no sign of a struggle, no sign of anything inside the store being disturbed. The cash drawer was sitting out and no money was missing. Her purse was in the store with 400-some dollars in it. It's just odd how that occurred." Friends say customers at the gas station are regular, and they also believe Heeringa knew or at least recognized her abductor, Fox 17 reports. Heeringa's disappearance was discovered after customers found the gas station open but empty and called police. There's scant evidence to work with, as the station had no security camera; right now, police are looking for a gray or silver minivan seen in the area and its driver, a white man aged 30 to 40, around six feet tall with wavy, light brown hair. Friends and family members are upset with the owner of the gas station, who they say is not doing enough to help, Michigan Live reports. Heeringa's fiance (the father of her 3-year-old son) and a few other acquaintances have already been cleared, WZZM reports.
– More than 16 years after arguing that George W. Bush should add Cuba, Syria, and Libya to Iran, Iraq, and North Korea in the "Axis of Evil," John Bolton has coined a new term. In a policy speech at a conference in Miami, the national security adviser dubbed Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela the "Troika of Tyranny" in the western hemisphere, the Hill reports. "In Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, we see the perils of poisonous ideologies left unchecked, and the dangers of domination and suppression," Bolton said. He referred to the leaders of the three countries as the "Three Stooges of socialism," who are "true believers, but they worship a false god." Bolton jabbed at the previous administration's policies, saying the Trump administration is concerned with "sanctions, not selfies." "Under this administration, we will no longer appease dictators and despots near our shores in this hemisphere," said Bolton. "We will not reward firing squads, torturers, and murderers." He praised the election of right-wing leaders in Latin America, including Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Bolton announced new sanctions on Venezuela and Cuba, including a ban on American citizens trading in Venezuelan gold, and said Nicaragua would "feel the full weight of America's robust sanctions" until it allows free and fair elections to take place, the Guardian reports. (A source says President Trump discussed an invasion of Venezuela last year.)
– It's not clear whether Alaskan hunters have actually been using Tasers on grizzly bears or bull moose, but the state's Board of Game has outlawed the practice anyway. Officials describe the ban on hunters using stun guns on wildlife as a "proactive measure" intended to prevent "catch and release'" hunting, reports Reuters. "Conceivably someone could Tase a moose or bear, go up and get a picture taken with it, shut the (Taser) off and then release the animal,” a Board of Game expert tells the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. "What we wanted to do was head off at the pass any non-trained use of this equipment." Properly trained state biologists will still be allowed to use stun guns on wildlife—as will people trying to defend themselves from wildlife attacks.
– After decades of barely clinging on as a species, the bear that inspired teddy bears has bounced back. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced on Thursday that the Louisiana black bear—which appeared in the famous "Teddy's bear" political cartoon after Teddy Roosevelt refused to shoot a tied-up one in 1902—has been taken off both the threatened and endangered species list after a population increase from as few as 80 in 1959 to up to 750 today, the Christian Science Monitor reports. In what authorities say should serve as an example to other areas, the bear rebounded with the help of habitat restoration and wildlife corridors that connected different populations of the bear subspecies, which once ranged all the way from eastern Texas to eastern Mississippi. Jewell praised the "recovery of a species," though the AP notes that some groups think the move is premature. "The work's not over," Jewell told reporters. "The work's really just beginning to bring back more of these hardwoods so Louisiana can help enjoy the kinds of animals that Teddy Roosevelt saw when he was here at the turn of the century." There hasn't been a legal bear hunt in the state since 1988, and the New Orleans Advocate reports that state authorities, who will now take over work to protect the species, say it's far too early to talk about holding one now. (This has also been a great month for grizzly bears.)
– The massive storm pounding the East Coast has left three people dead, hundreds of motorists stranded, and airport schedules in chaos. The fatalities occurred in hard-hit Virginia, where major interstates have been shut down, and the National Guard is helping rescue drivers, reports CNN. Nearly 2 feet has fallen in some areas, and DC has shut down all bus and most rail service, notes the Post. Baltimore, Philadelphia, and cities from Tennessee to North Carolina and up to southern New England are being hit. "This snow should end early tomorrow morning with a 24-hour cleanup," said DC Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. "We should have a lot of streets ready to go by rush hour Monday. And, hopefully, all of it done between Monday and Wednesday."
– The Olympics are supposed to be about the grand human drama of sports, entire lives culminating in this one shot at glory. So “why do we insist, like a bunch of preschoolers, on talking all the way through them?” demands LA Times TV critic Mary McNamara. NBC’s commentary is all but ruining the games. Like most sports commentary, it’s “95% blather and 5% insight,” with even the announcers often sounding kind of bored. If you head to NBC’s Olympics site, you can see some breathtaking commentary-free videos—like this one of Lindsey Vonn’s gold-winning downhill run. “The silence, broken only by the sound of her skis on the snow and the distant rattle of the fans, marked not just the thrill of it all but the solemnity,” McNamara marvels. It seems harsh to bash announcers for doing their jobs, but “I find it hard not to befriend the mute button.”
– Perhaps unsurprisingly, the remake of 1981's gore-fest Evil Dead is a love-it-or-hate-it affair. The new version has fewer laughs and even more blood and guts than its predecessor, critics say: The new Evil Dead has "none of the first movie’s handmade charm or hilarity, intentional or otherwise," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, noting that the film, directed by Fede Alvarez, "approaches the creaky material with a surprisingly straight face." What does it have in common with the first film? "Blood lust." Indeed, the "tone is completely different, as the helmer rarely attempts to emulate the self-mocking, over-the-top campiness that distinguished the original," writes Joe Leydon at Variety. Still, with its references to the original, it's "the rare remake that likely will be enjoyed most by diehard fans of its predecessor." In the Los Angeles Times, Mark Olsen applauds the film's "gleeful exuberance of its own analogous to the mad invention of the original." Its best feature "is its tone, paying homage yet staking its own territory; it's scary without being downbeat, fun without being too jokey." "Gorehounds will have a field day with the plentiful mutilations, decapitations, and other blood-drenched moments in the redo," writes Lou Lumenick in the New York Post. Guess he's not a gorehound: He gave it one star.
– Sexual harassment is rampant at Zillow, alleges a former employee in a lawsuit, pointing to an "adult frat house culture" at the online real-estate firm. The suit, which accuses the company of harassment, wrongful termination, and retaliation, was brought by former sales consultant Rachel Kremer, the Recorder reports. It details graphic text messages and images allegedly sent by managers to Kremer. "I have a great opportunity that just opened up on my face," says one, according to the complaint. Another, allegedly sent by Kremer's manager, seeks "dinner drinks and your smooth vagina." The manager, named as Gabe Schmidt in the suit, also sent her a picture of his penis, says the suit, which includes the image. The incidents were far from isolated, the complaint holds: "Privately, Zillow executives bragged that the office culture led to more sexual encounters than Match.com," while they "referred to the internal office directory as 'Zinder,' named after the dating application Tinder." Kremer says her well-recognized performance at work deteriorated amid the harassment, and she was suddenly fired in August. Afterward, she signed a confidentiality agreement, the suit says, via Valleywag. In a statement emailed to Newser, Zillow says it "immediately investigated these claims and as a result took quick action and terminated a sales employee"; further, it doesn't "tolerate harassment of any kind." (More tech-world drama: One of the makers of a hot new app pushed out a partner ... at his parents' request.)
– A fresh turn in the spotlight for an infamous, three-decade-old case: Australia will conduct a fourth inquest into the death of Azaria Chamberlain, who disappeared in 1980 in the Australian outback; her mother famously said that a dingo took the nine-week-old child from their tent. Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton was found guilty of murder in 1982 and sentenced to life in prison; that conviction was later overturned after a piece of Azaria's clothing was found near a dingo den, notes the AFP; the child's body was never found. The Australian reports that the case is being reopened because new information about recent dingo attacks was given to the Northern Territory coroner by the Chamberlains' lawyers. Among the included incidents, as noted by the Telegraph: a 9-year-old boy was mauled to death in 2001 by two dingoes, and a four-year-old girl was harmed in 2007. The new inquest will begin on Feb. 24.
– The military has yet another high-profile sex-assault investigation on its hands, this one involving three unidentified players on the Navy football team, reports Military.com. They are accused of raping a drunk female midshipman during an off-campus party last year, reports the New York Times, which has interviewed the unidentified woman. The 21-year-old says she was drunk before she arrived at the party and continued drinking while there. She acknowledges that she doesn't remember much, apart from being on a bed with one player on the team and later in a car with three others. “I was sitting on my knees on the floor in the back seat,” she tells the Times. “I remember briefly seeing them, and I remember crying, and being upset and saying I’m sorry.” A day later, when she noticed bruises on her body, she says one of the players admitted they had sex with her. Soon, rumors started flying around campus on social media—including a private Facebook page for players—and the woman went to authorities when she heard another female cadet was going to report the incident. No charges have been filed, but the graduation of one of the suspects has been delayed while the investigation continues. The three were allowed to play this season.
– Yo, North, I'm really happy for you; I'ma let you finish, but Kanye West and Kim Kardashian just had a second child. The Los Angeles Times reports the newest addition—a son—to the media power couple was born early Saturday in Los Angeles. "Mother and son are doing well," proclaims a birth announcement on Kardashian's website. The birth was also announced on her app, according to People. While the couple hasn't released the name of their new child, it likely won't be South or East. "I don't think we'll go another direction," Kardashian says.
– Life is just so droll when you’re international man of mystery/rape suspect Julian Assange. Sure, he’s under house arrest, but house arrest doesn’t look so bad in the hilarious-yet-unfortunate “Christmas with Julian” photo gallery Newsweek is running. Maybe it’s because that “house” is a 600-acre British country estate that, the magazine assures us, puts Roman Polanski’s old Swiss chalet to shame. In the gallery, Assange is seen relaxing by the fire, tending to chickens, and, in one sure-to-be famous shot, wearing an ill-fitting Santa suit, with a bag reading, “Dear Santa: I’ve been very, very, very good (most of the time).” Through it all, he manages to look like a carefree country aristocrat. “If this leaking thing doesn't work out,” Gawker quips, “Assange may want to embark on a career as an Eddie Bauer model.” Click here for more observations on the spread, and here to see the photos.
– President Obama continued his lousy run last night in what Politico calls his "region of doom," a swath it defines as the "Upper South" that includes Appalachia. Obama's weak performances in Arkansas and Kentucky, of course, follow his close race against a felon in West Virginia. What gives? Two takes: Jay Cost, Weekly Standard: Liberals say it's racism, but that's "mostly partisan claptrap." The real reason has to do with how the Democratic Party has changed. It used to be "a working class coalition of urban workers and rural farmers" until it developed a "New Left ethos—turning decidedly leftward not only from cultural conservatism but also on middle class, quality of life issues (feminism, environmentalism, consumer rights, etc) that are of much more concern to 'enlightened' liberals in the big cities than rural voters in Arkansas."  Steve Kornacki, Salon: Chalking it up entirely to race "may be an oversimplification," although he notes that Obama fared miserably in the region in 2008 against Hillary Clinton. "Perhaps Obama’s race is one of several markers (along with his name, his background, and the never-ending Muslim rumors, his status as the 'liberal' candidate in 2008) that low-income white rural voters use to associate him with a national Democratic Party that they believe has been overrun by affluent liberals, feminists, minorities, secularists and gays—people and groups whose interests are being serviced at the expense of their own."
– Researchers are pushing for banner ads that offer free HIV test kits to gay men on the dating and hookup site Grindr after a UCLA and Indiana University study. Results from the study, reported in the journal Sexual Health, suggest that greater access to free testing will improve rates of testing. The team says that after posting 300,000 banners ads and three broadcast messages targeting a high-risk HIV population in Los Angeles in the fall of 2014, 333 tests were requested, 56 men took them and filled out questionnaires, and two men ultimately learned that they were HIV positive. Engadget notes that given 5 million men in 192 countries use Grindr, the simple step could be a "very effective" means of slowing the spread of HIV. Paper author Dr. Jeffrey D. Klausner, an HIV specialist at UCLA's school of medicine, tells the New York Times that using the app to encourage home testing is "ripe for expansion" in other cities and possibly countries. He says they used Grindr because it's the "oldest and biggest" gay dating app, and they focused on black and Hispanic men who have sex with men because they are four times more likely than their white counterparts to not know they are HIV positive. Recipients received test kits in the mail, via a pharmacy voucher, or via a code that produced a vending machine kit at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. The test relies on a simple swab of the gums and results are available in 20 minutes. (The CDC predicts that one in two gay black men alive today will become HIV positive in their lifetime.)
– Dads play more with sons but are more open about emotions with daughters, according to a new parenting study published last month in Behavioral Neuroscience. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports researchers looked at 52 fathers of toddlers in the Atlanta area, recording their interactions with their children for random 50-second increments over two days. The results showed a bunch of differences in how dads interact with sons versus daughters. Dads sang more to daughters and talked more about sadness with them, according to Live Science. Dads spent three times longer playing with sons than daughters. And dads of daughters talked more about their child's body, whereas dads of sons used more words like "win" and "best." Researchers also gave the dads MRI brain scans while they looked at photos of their children. Dads of daughters had bigger reactions to their child looking happy; dads of sons had bigger responses to their child looking neutral. Researchers say it shows dads may pay less attention to their sons' emotional needs. But Alan Kazdin tells CBS News we shouldn't draw conclusions from the small study. For one thing, the professor of child psychiatry says it's unclear whether dads treat sons and daughters differently for societal reasons or if they're responding to differences in behavior between boys and girls. (An earlier study found gender stereotypes set in surprisingly early.)
– You get off the subway, stash your earbuds in your pocket, and when you pull them out again, they're completely tangled—even after you painstakingly untangled them yesterday. Why does it happen every time? Well, there's actually a whole branch of science to help explain, and it's called knot theory, Wired reports. A 2007 experiment conducted at the University of California, San Diego, may shed some light on the situation. Researchers dropped string into a motorized spinning box, examining the resulting knots. They argued that knots occurred because when a string is coiled in order to fit in a small space, its end is parallel to other sections. Spinning makes it possible for that end to loop around a segment, and more spinning means more looping. In half of the 10-second spins, strings came out knotted. The longer a string was, the higher the chance of knotting—up to a point. Strings shorter than a foot-and-a-half didn't usually get knotted, and those beyond five feet long got knotty just half the time. So how to avoid knots? Stiffer cables help reduce tangling, as do smaller spaces. Or you can try a do-it-yourself method to avoid tangling.
– Your dog really may be your best friend, according to a new study out of Japan that highlights just how far canine loyalty can go. In a study to be published later this month in the journal Animal Behaviour, cognitive researchers at Kyoto University found that dogs will actually ignore people who snub their owners, even when food is being offered. It's a level of social cooperation seen so rarely in the animal kingdom that even among primates it's not exactly common, reports AFP. "This ability is one of [the] key factors in building a highly collaborative society, and this study shows that dogs share that ability with humans," lead researcher Kazuo Fujita said. The team tested three groups of 18 dogs—using breeds including golden retrievers and chihuahuas, and a range of ages, from seven months to 14 years, reports Quartz—who watched their owners try to open a box. Two strangers were always present. In the first group, the owner asked one stranger for help but was refused while the other remained neutral; in the second, the person being asked did help while the other remained neutral; and in the third control group, neither of the strangers interacted with the owner at all. Then in all instances, the strangers offered the dogs food. The dogs turned out to be willing to take food from anyone—except, of course, the strangers who refused to help with the box. Would your best friend have your back like that? (There's also evidence that dogs are cunning thieves.)
– MGM Resorts is suing more than 1,000 victims of the Oct. 1 shooting in Las Vegas, claiming it has "no liability of any kind." The company—which owns the Mandalay Bay hotel from which Stephen Paddock opened fire, as well as the targeted venue of the Route 91 Harvest country music festival—argues it shouldn't be held responsible for 58 dead and more than 850 injured because it hired a security company certified by the Department of Homeland Security for "protecting against and responding to acts of mass injury and destruction," per the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Under the 2002 Safety Act, a company is granted liability protection if it uses "anti-terrorism" services that can "help prevent and respond to mass violence." Therefore, all claims against MGM Resorts "must be dismissed,” the federal complaint states. Lawyers for victims don't agree. "MGM is trying to beat these people to the courthouse and declare that they have no rights," a Texas attorney tells Las Vegas Now, arguing the case should be heard in state court in Nevada, where MGM is based. Las Vegas attorney Robert Eglet says filing in federal court is a "blatant display of judge shopping" that "verges on unethical." In a statement, per Newsweek, however, MGM says federal court is indeed "the correct place for such litigation relating to incidents of mass violence … where security services approved by the Department of Homeland Security were provided." Additionally, it provides "the opportunity for a timely resolution," MGM says. (Paddock allegedly showed the "mark of a sociopath.")
– The Iran nuclear deal appears good to go following announcements of support from three Democratic senators today in what the Hill is calling an "impressive lobbying win" for President Obama and the White House. Those three senators bring the total votes for the deal to 41 in the Senate, meaning Republicans don't have the numbers to pass a resolution against it. All 54 Senate Republicans were joined by four Democrats—including a West Virginia senator who officially sided with them today—in supporting a resolution to stop the deal, CNN reports. It would have likely been a moot point, anyway, as Obama already had the votes to veto any resolution passed against his deal. Floor debate on the deal begins today. While today's announcements were supportive, they weren't necessarily ringing endorsements of Obama's plan. “Despite my serious concerns with this agreement, I have unfortunately become convinced that we are faced with no viable alternative,” one of the three senators, Gary Peters of Michigan, tells the Hill. "While this is not the agreement I would have accepted at the negotiating table, it is better than no deal at all," another of the senators, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, tells CNN. The three senators made their announcements on the same day Dick Cheney called the Iran nuclear deal "madness." Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are expected to headline a rally against it tomorrow.
– Thousands of people took to the streets in cities across Turkey over the weekend to protest what they described as a law that allows child rape. The proposed law pardons men convicted of statutory rape if there was no "force, threat, or any other restriction on consent" and they married the victim, reports the BBC. "A rape can't be justified," said a protester in Istanbul, adding: "What does it mean to ask a child if they're OK? Until they're 18, a child remains a child, that is why this has to be condemned. We are here so that this law can't pass." The ruling Justice and Development Party says the law, which will affect around 3,000 families from between 2005 and this year, is an effort to deal with the problem of child marriage, the AP reports. "In the past there were people who were not aware of the law," Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said. "The fathers have ended up in prison. This is a one-time measure to correct an unjust situation. It is an important problem." But critics—including the United Nations' Children's Fund—believe it will only worsen the problems of child sexual abuse and underage marriage. (Virginia finally banned child marriage this year.)
– Yet another twist in the Michael Flynn drama: President Trump's transition team knew weeks before the inauguration that Flynn was under federal investigation for links to a foreign power, but that was no obstacle to his hiring as national security adviser, sources tell the New York Times. The insiders say Flynn told the transition team's chief lawyer on Jan. 4 that he had been secretly working as a lobbyist for Turkey while advising Trump on national security issues during his campaign. He was hired in August by a Turkish businessman. Trump campaign officials—and the Justice Department—became suspicious after Flynn wrote an Election Day op-ed in the Hill criticizing a foe of the Turkish government. The Justice Department investigation of Flynn's Turkey links is separate from the FBI investigation of his ties to Russia, an investigation that President Trump allegedly asked former FBI chief James Comey to drop, Slate notes. Flynn was paid more than $500,000 for his work representing Turkish interests, and McClatchy reports that just 10 days into the Trump administration, Flynn rejected a plan that would have involved Kurdish forces helping to retake Raqqa, the de facto ISIS capital in Syria. The rejection, which was what Turkey wanted, halted an operation that had been months in the making. Trump revived the Raqqa plan weeks after Flynn was fired. (Flynn was warned about foreign payments years ago.)
– A Band-Aid to heal a divided America, it was not: Liberals and conservatives alike are calling President Obama's fiery inaugural speech today a call to arms for liberal values in stark opposition to his opponents. A sample: "I was expecting an anodyne tone-poem about healing national wounds, surmounting partisanship, and so on," writes James Fallows at The Atlantic. To the contrary, "it's almost as if he has won re-election and knows he will never have to run again and hears the clock ticking on his last chance to say what he cares about." "Obama’s rhetoric matches what seems to be a marked change in his approach to legislation—and Congressional Republicans—since he won re-election last fall," writes Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post. "On both the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling showdowns, Obama outlined his position and stuck to it. ... Both times, Republicans blinked." Calling it "the most liberal speech he has delivered as president," Glenn Thrush at Politico writes: "In a challenge to the GOP, Obama mentioned the country’s $16.4 trillion debt load once and then, only to announce his stalwart opposition to slashing Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security." On Fox News, Charles Krauthammer called it "Obama unbound" and "the end of Reaganism," adding, "This speech was a declaration the era of big government is back." But Andrew Sullivan somehow found a middle ground: "If you have long believed, as I have, that this man could easily become the liberal Reagan by the end of his second term ... then this speech will not have surprised you," he writes at the Daily Beast. Obama acknowledged "free enterprise, risk, [and] individualism," but emphasized that "we have to act collectively as well." Read the entire speech here.
– It's been quite the up-and-down week for Airbnb, a start-up that helps people rent their homes to vacationing strangers. All began great when the company secured a $1 billion valuation, notes the Wall Street Journal. Then a PR disaster: A San Francisco woman blogged about how she returned from a week's vacation to find that her Airbnb guest had thoroughly ransacked and pillaged her apartment, reports TechCrunch. "They smashed a hole through a locked closet door, and found the passport, cash, credit card, and grandmother’s jewelry I had hidden inside," she writes. "They took my camera, my iPod, an old laptop, and my external backup drive filled with photos, journals … my entire life." It gets worse; read the post in full here. Airbnb's CEO Brian Chesky has promised to go "above and beyond" to help the woman and to ramp up safety protocol, and he says police have a suspect in custody. But, writes TechCrunch's Michael Arrington: "It turns out that when something like this happens, Airbnb isn’t financially responsible."
– US speedskaters aren't doing so hot, but other Americans strapping on skates at Sochi are making up for it. Today, Meryl Davis and Charlie White won the first-ever gold for USA in ice dancing, reports CBS News. They beat the last gold-medal winners, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada, by a relatively wide margin of 4.5 points. (The couples train together.) "It still hasn't sunk in yet," says Davis, 27. Adds White, 26, of their mistake-free skate today: "That in itself justified 17 years of hard work." The win is all the more impressive because, in ice dance, Americans "weren't even afterthoughts a decade ago," observes USA Today. In a less delicate ice-skating sport, the US women's hockey team advanced to the gold medal game against Canada with a 6-1 win over Sweden, reports AP. That's the matchup pretty much everyone expected before the Olympics began, and if previous games between these two very unfriendly rivals are a guide, this one should be entertaining even for non-hockey fans. The game is at noon Eastern on Thursday.
– More than 100 former NFL players have been found to have had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease associated with repeated knocks to the head. One might think, then, that Aaron Hernandez's case of CTE is just another one. Not so. Hernandez's diagnosis "will shake the NFL to its core. As it should," writes columnist Nancy Armour at USA Today. He was just 27, yet had an advanced stage of the disease. The NFL can brush off cases in older men, citing other possible factors, but not here. "If Hernandez had severe CTE before he was 30, how can you promise me that my kid won’t, too?" writes Armour. The the only way the league can save itself is to honestly assess the question and find answers. Related coverage: 'Severe case': Doctors said Hernandez had "the most severe case they had ever seen in someone of Aaron's age," similar to what a former player in his 60s might have, says a lawyer representing Hernandez's family. The New York Times notes that it raises a big, perhaps unanswerable, question: Did CTE play a role in Hernandez's violent behavior off the field? (He committed suicide in prison.) What they saw: Hernandez had Stage 3 CTE out of 4, and Sports Illustrated has images and a video showing what doctors saw when they looked at his brain. Long odds: Hernandez's family sued the NFL and the New England Patriots for $20 million on Thursday, saying they did not protect Hernandez from the dangers of the game. The case would be difficult to win, a legal expert tells the Boston Globe. But he adds that the league and team may want to settle in order to avoid turning over related documents. NFL response: "It's a complicated puzzle," league spokesman Joe Lockhart said Friday in regard to football and CTE, per NBC News. "There are a lot of dots here, and science just hasn’t been able to connect them.” He also said the league plans to "vigorously contest" the lawsuit, adding that the CTE finding shouldn't cause people to view Hernandez as a victim, because the real victims are the friends and relatives of those he killed. Skeptical: Boston Herald columnist Michael Rosenberg writes that it is oh-so-tempting to connect the dots from CTE to Hernandez's criminal life and ultimately to his suicide. But too much is unknown about concussions to do that. "Pinning his suicide on the NFL makes for a good headline," he writes. "It may be a winning legal strategy. But it’s a hard theory for me to buy in this case." More skeptical: The lawsuit is a "money grab," writes David Whitley at the Orlando Sentinel. "One question I'd like asked is of all the people who were posthumously diagnosed with CTE, why did only one start acting like a mob hitman?" He also won't be surprised if attorney Jose Baez, who defended Casey Anthony, adds Hernandez's college team, the Florida Gators, to the lawsuit. Time to act, NFL: Yes, much is unknown about CTE, but enough is known for the NFL to be more aggressive in preventing it, writes Les Carpenter at the Guardian. A small first step could be following the Canadian Football League's lead and banning full-contact practices during the season.
– Horrific new details in the New Year's Day slaying of a popular Catholic priest in California: An autopsy has revealed that the Rev. Eric Freed was beaten to death with a metal gutter pipe and a wooden stake, the AP reports. He was found dead inside the rectory of his church in Eureka; his suspected killer, 44-year-old Gary Lee Bullock, has been charged with murder with a special allegation of torture. Bullock, who was also charged with burglary, arson, and auto theft, has pleaded not guilty and bail has been set at $1.2 million. He had been released from a jail near the church on a disorderly conduct charge just hours before the killing. "I don't think we have a clear motive we are willing to speak about at this point," the local police chief says. "There was significant evidence at the scene to suggest he tried to set the house on fire." Hundreds of people have attended vigils for Freed, with many praising his impact on their lives and his efforts to break down barriers between people and faiths, the Eureka Times-Standard reports.
– A 22-year-old Oklahoma science teacher was arrested Wednesday, accused of having sex with a student. Police say the 16-year-old boy had explicit text messages and nude photos from the Yukon High School teacher, Hunter Day, on his phone, and his parents called police. The boy and Day had a previously-arranged meeting Wednesday, so police texted from the boy's phone asking if it was still on and she said yes and to "hurry up" before her husband got home, NewsOK reports. Police went to Day's home and texted her "I'm here" from the boy's phone. She texted back "The doors [sic] unlocked as usual," police went inside, and they say they found her sitting on the floor in her living room in the dark, with candles lit. Day, who is married to a football coach at the high school, was arrested and booked into jail with bond set at $85,000; she faces charges of second-degree rape, facilitating sexual contact with a minor, and possession of child pornography, News 9 reports. Police say she admitted to sending explicit photos of herself and to receiving pictures of the boy's genitals. "I’m no longer surprised by the people who commit these crimes, because predators come from all walks of life," says the Canadian County Sheriff. "This behavior was representative of a very poor decision by a person entrusted with teaching our students," district officials say in a release, per People. "The safety and well-being of our students is our number one priority."
– Think the Nov. 4 election will determine which party controls the US Senate? Not necessarily: Louisiana and Georgia are facing possible run-offs, while Kansas and South Dakota have strong independent candidates who could become king-makers if either party needs one more to control the 100-member legislative body, Reuters reports. No candidates are polling high enough in Louisiana and Georgia to avoid a run-off, which could extend the battle for Senate control to Dec. 6 in Louisiana and Jan. 6 in Georgia. If independents win in Kansas or South Dakota, they may eventually turn Democrat or Republican. "The fact of the matter is we may not know who is going to control the Senate on November 4," says a former aide to Harry Reid. "It may take at least a month for it to all play out." Democrat Michelle Nunn would apparently win a Georgia runoff (by 51% to 47%, per a CNN/ORC poll) while Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy might win in Louisiana (by 48% to 41%, per a USA Today/Suffolk poll), reports the Washington Post. Other runoff data abounds: In Georgia, for example, turnout usually drops from Election Day to runoff, especially for Democrats, while Election Day numbers tend to hold steady in Louisiana. In a Louisiana runoff, Sen. Mary Landrieu would need to sway independents and supporters of tea party candidate Rob Maness, who view her unfavorably by sizable majorities. What's more, a sudden influx of cash could influence either runoff if Senate control hangs in the balance. "It could be a fun few weeks," quips the Post.
– Already, the Netherlands allows assisted suicide for those who are terminally ill or living with "unbearable suffering." Soon, people who feel they have nothing more to do in life might get the same freedom. In a letter to Parliament on Wednesday, the country's health and justice ministers wrote that elderly people—an exact age wasn't given—with "a well-considered opinion that their life is complete, must, under strict and careful criteria, be allowed to finish that life in a manner dignified for them," reports Reuters. They hope to draft a law by the end of next year, though a commission found the extension to the euthanasia policy to be excessive. A group for elderly people likewise calls it "unnecessary and undesirable," reports the AP. Almost 4% of Dutch deaths in 2015 came under the euthanasia law, expanded since 2012 to include those suffering from certain mental illnesses and dementia. Still, "the Cabinet is of the opinion that a request for help (in dying) from people who suffer unbearably and have no hope without an underlying medical reason can be a legitimate request," the ministers say. The proposed law will lay out the need for checks, reviews, and supervision and will be vetted by a "death assistance provider," the health minister adds. (A child was just euthanized in Belgium.)
– Experts didn't think the White House could reach a goal of 7 million ObamaCare signups as of yesterday—but it looks like their forecasts were wrong. Officials say the administration was on track to receive more than 7 million signups, in line with the original Congressional Budget Office target numbers. That target had earlier been shrunk to 6 million following HealthCare.gov's troubled debut, the AP notes. Still, among the 7 million, it's uncertain how many had previously lacked any coverage; it also remains to be seen how many new enrollees complete the process by actually paying their first premiums. "It's kind of the lead-up to Christmas right now, and all the last-minute shoppers are out," one health insurance marketer tells the Huffington Post of yesterday's flurry of new enrollees. The huge volume resulted in headaches and came amid site glitches, as HealthCare.gov struggled to keep up with traffic that at times topped 125,000 simultaneous visitors. The 7 million milestone is particularly impressive given the meager 26,000 the website managed to sign up in its first month, NBC News notes. Those who missed yesterday's deadline—and haven't qualified for one of nine extensions and exceptions to the rules—won't get another chance at open enrollment until November.
– Minnesota Sen. Al Franken broke his silence Sunday after being swept into a nationwide tide of sexual harassment allegations, saying he feels "embarrassed and ashamed" but looks forward to returning to work on Monday to gradually regain voters' trust. Franken spoke to the Minneapolis Star Tribune after largely being silent since four women publicly accused him of misconduct. Franken told the newspaper he doesn't remember the photographs but that such behavior is "not something I would intentionally do." Three of them said the Democrat grabbed their buttocks while taking photos with them during campaign events. Franken has walked a careful line in his response to the allegations. He earlier apologized to any woman who felt disrespected from their encounters, the AP reports. On Sunday, he said he has posed for "tens of thousands of photos" over the years and doesn't remember any that ended with his hand sliding down to cup women's backsides. "I don't remember these photographs, I don't," he said. "This is not something I would intentionally do." Asked whether he expected any other women to step forward with similar allegations, Franken said, "If you had asked me two weeks ago, 'Would any woman say I had treated her with disrespect?' I would have said no. So this has just caught me by surprise…I certainly hope not." Franken faces a Senate ethics investigation—which he welcomed in the wake of his first accuser going public—though it's unclear when that review may begin.
– The revolving door between Alexei Navalny and jail has swung open again, reports the AP, with the Kremlin opposition leader released after 50 days on the inside for two consecutive sentences for organizing unsanctioned protests. Navalny, President Vladimir Putin's most prominent foe, had been sentenced to 30 days for organizing a protest in August, but upon release was immediately arrested and then sentenced to another 20 days for organizing a protest that took place while he was in jail. Both protests were against a Russian government plan to raise the eligibility age for state pensions, which has since been signed into law. After his release early Sunday, Navalny told reporters that "I think over the 50 days which I spent here, we saw a lot of evidence that this regime has absolutely deteriorated: from failures in foreign intelligence to failures in space industry." He added, per the Guardian: "If anyone thinks that with arrests ... they can scare or stop us, that is clearly not the case."
– The last of the Hobbit films is now playing in theaters, bringing with it an end to Peter Jackson's long foray through JRR Tolkien's Middle-earth (at least for now). How does the finale of the second trilogy compare to its predecessors? Here's what critics are saying about The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies: "Entertaining? Absolutely," writes John Wenzel at the Denver Post. The film starts off with "one of the most tense and spectacular openings in action-film history." But soon, fans "may feel a bit lost," as if the movie was "somehow slapped together in a series of last-minute editing decisions." It's also clear that it's "far removed from its modest source material." It could be worse, though. Overall, "it still manages to work on a surprising number of levels." Peter Jackson continues to struggle with turning "one none-too-thick book ... into three overly long movies," writes Tom Long at the Detroit News. "The result is a great deal of noise serving as filler." Jackson "seems to have lost much of the visual imagination that kept his Lord of the Rings trilogy engaging." Long summarizes the flick like so: "Orcs screaming, elves looking shiny, dwarves wielding hammers, battle, battle." Joe Morgenstern, however, finds the film awe-inspiring. Sure, much of it "could qualify as an animated feature," he writes at the Wall Street Journal, but "the computer-generated effects here are executed so gorgeously ... and intertwined with such stirring live action, that the film as a whole is seamless, quite astonishing, and deeply satisfying." If you didn't watch first two movies, "the closing chapter isn't worth sitting through the 330 minutes' worth of movie that preceded it," writes Rene Rodriguez at the Miami Herald. Though in Rodriguez's view, the trilogy's final film is its best: It has an actual sense of "real life-and-death consequences," and the acting is even better. It's "fleet, rousing entertainment" with "CGI effects that raise the bar on the fantasy genre," he says. "Mr. Jackson, you proved your point by landing the finish. Now please, no more Middle-earth, ever."
– A major figure in the emergence of psychedelic rock in the 1960s has died. Marty Balin, who co-founded Jefferson Airplane and played on and off with its later iteration, Jefferson Starship, died en route to the hospital in Tampa, Florida, at age 76, reports the New York Times. The cause of death wasn't immediately known. The Times calls Balin a "prime mover in the flowering of psychedelic rock in mid-1960s San Francisco," not only through the band he co-founded in 1965 but through a nightclub he owned called the Matrix. Rolling Stone has a detailed obituary on Balin's interesting career, noting that he was a struggling folk guitarist when he met another guitarist named Paul Kantner and decided to form a band. Other original Airplane members were guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, bassist Jack Casady, drummer Skip Spence, and singer Signe Toly Anderson, but the band didn't truly take off until Anderson left and was replaced by Grace Slick in 1967, notes Rolling Stone. Balin wrote or co-wrote many of the songs, and his "high and soulful" voice became a signature sound for the group, per Variety. (Here is "Comin' Back to Me.") But he was also a savvy businessman, as this old quote from the late Kanter shows: “He was the leader of the band on that level. He was the one who pushed us to do all the business stuff, orchestrating, thinking ahead, looking for managers and club opportunities. He was very good at it.”
– Benjamin Netanyahu is facing a corruption scandal, and now his wife is officially in hot water of her own. It's all about her apparent fondness for expensive meals. Authorities on Thursday indicted Sara Netanyahu on fraud charges over $100,000 in gourmet meals she and a staffer ordered to the prime minister's residence between 2010 and 2013, reports the Times of Israel. The pair allegedly placed the orders to high-end restaurants despite a law forbidding such purchases when a cook is living in the prime minister's residence. Authorities say she and the former deputy director of the prime minister's office, also indicted, falsely claimed that no such cooks were present. The Jerusalem Post reports that negotiations were underway until the last minute to settle the "Prepared Food Affair" short of an indictment, but they fell through. Sara Netanyahu reportedly balked at a deal requiring a confession and a partial repayment, per the Times of Israel. She has previously denied any wrongdoing in the percolating scandal, reports CNN. The first lady could theoretically face five years in prison if convicted, but the AP sees that as unlikely. It wasn't immediately clear when a trial would begin, though the Post notes it's expected to start "after the fall Jewish holidays."
– A city councilwoman quit her job on Thursday over the word "Christmas"—then made an apparent deal to return to work, the Star-Ledger reports. Charlene Storey, a councilwoman in Roselle Park, NJ, resigned after council voted 4-2 to change the name of its tree-lighting ceremony from "A Tree Lighting" to "A Christmas Tree Lighting." She promptly issued a resignation letter saying she "cannot in good conscience continue to be part of a council that is exclusionary or to work with a Mayor who is such." A non-believer and former Catholic, Storey later said the new name "cuts non-Christians out of the loop and favors one religion." She also opposed calling it a "Christmas" event after the word was stricken about 20 years go following a court case over the city's holiday display, the Roselle Park News reports. In a statement, Storey adds that council members who supported the name change are "male, white, Catholic and members of the Knights of Columbus, a religious organization that every year posts a large sign urging, 'Keep Christ in Christmas.'" Mayor Carl Hokanson, who says he didn't intend to exclude anyone, tells the Star-Ledger that "a Christmas tree is a Christmas tree. Just like the Easter Bunny is the Easter Bunny and not the Holiday Bunny." Yet Storey and Hokanson, Democrats who supported each other's campaigns, met on Saturday and seemed to iron things out. Storey rescinded her resignation and returned to work with plans to lead a new committee on diversity, CBS New York reports. "I think next year will be much more inclusive," she says.
– One might think a high school senior called the "best thing in Texas" by Texas Monthly, and who got accepted to 20 colleges—some of which were Ivy Leagues, and all of which offered him a full ride with grants and scholarships—would receive universal praise in the media. But per KSAT, staffers at a DC station seemed annoyed last Tuesday at his avalanche of good news. Podcast host Sarah Fraser asked Fox 5 DC morning co-anchors Holly Morris and Allison Seymour if they thought it was "a little ridiculous" Micheal Brown threw his hat in the ring for 20 schools, which Fraser believes yanked spots away from other teens who'd be waitlisted. Morris agreed it was "ridiculous" and also "obnoxious," because "you can only take one full ride and you are taking a spot from someone else who works really hard." Seymour tried to point out that scholarships from schools Brown eventually turns down—his first choice is Stanford, though with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other esteemed schools in the mix, he hasn't made up his mind yet—will go "back into the pot." HuffPost notes that many online were angered by the journos' takes, with some saying their comments may have been racially motivated, as Brown is black. Fraser has since apologized to Brown (he accepted), calling their remarks "petty" and insisting Brown is "awesome." Morris clarified on Twitter she just believes in a more "targeted search" for colleges; she also conducted a Skype interview with Brown, which he says was "respectful," but he adds he won't give permission for it to air until he gets an apology from the station. "Where's the #humandecency?," he tweeted last week.
– Is it possible to have two Fights of the Century? We may be about to find out, as Manny Pacquiao announced Thursday he is in talks with Floyd Mayweather about staging a rematch of last May's bout. Business Insider reports Mayweather is currently retired, but money—May's fight brought in a record $600 million in revenue—could lure him out. Pacquiao blames a shoulder injury for his loss to Mayweather in May and says he wants to get one more fight in before he retires to concentrate on politics full time, starting with the Philippine elections next May, according to Yahoo Sports. And who knows? If it happens, maybe there'll even be some actual boxing in the Fight of the Century Part Two.
– Breast Cancer Awareness Month is all but gone, and chances are pretty good you got a glimpse at some risque campaigns—"Save the Ta-Tas" perhaps, or a "Feel your boobies" T-shirt, or maybe a "Save 2nd Base" poster complete with well-endowed young model in pink bikini. The list goes on—even the American Cancer Society has a "It's Okay to Look at Our Chests campaign—with creators' rationale pretty much the same: We need to be funny and edgy to raise awareness among young women. Well, at USA Today, Liz Szabo talks to several survivors who are tired of having their disease sexualized. A quote from writer Peggy Orenstein sums it up: "On one hand, women with cancer are told—or have to learn—that we are not our breasts, that our sexuality, our femininity are not located in the mammary gland. That's a complicated, sometimes painful reckoning. Then these organizations come along and reinforce the notion that boobs are the most important things about us, particularly if they're hot and apparently most particularly if they're actually fake." Amen, writes Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing, who is living with the disease and hates all these "horrible sexualized breast cancer campaigns that raise dubious funds for dubious goals and leave those of us who have the disease feeling demeaned." Read the full USA Today piece here.
– Ellis Hill's son is competing in shot put in the Rio Olympics next week—and thanks to one of Hill's Uber passengers, Hill will be there to watch him do it. Hill was driving Liz Willock from the Philadelphia airport to her hotel last week when Willock mentioned that she knew someone competing in the Olympics. Hill then mentioned his son—but when Willock asked whether the proud father would be traveling to Brazil to watch, the Uber driver said he couldn't afford the trip. That's when Willock went into action, setting up a GoFundMe campaign to raise the estimated $7,500 Hill would need for travel, lodging, food, and other expenses. Hill's son, Darrell, shared it on social media, and within two days, the money had been raised. Willock works for a global concierge service, and her company is helping arrange Hill's travel and logistics, NBC 10 reports. Uber even gave Hill a $1,000 ride credit for getting around in Rio, plus a $250 gift certificate for a meal at one of the best restaurants in the city. (In all, $8,200 was raised on GoFundMe, and donations have now been disabled.) Darrell Hill got his dad tickets to his event next Thursday, but the elder Hill still needs a passport (he has never traveled outside of the US before), so Willock is helping him get one expedited. She believes it will come through by the time his flight leaves Aug. 15: "There’s been a lot of magic through this whole process," she says. "It’s really meant to be, I believe."
– He was a 6-3, 250-pound former mixed-martial arts fighter who went on to play a villainous werewolf in the Harry Potter movies, but even David Legeno was no match for Death Valley. The 50-year-old actor was found dead in the place known to be the hottest on Earth last weekend, reports the Los Angeles Times. Authorities don't suspect foul play. TMZ reports that Legeno had been hiking and that the autopsy attributes the cause of death to heat stroke. He is best known for playing Fenrir Greyback in the Potter films, though he also appeared in the movies Snow White and the Huntsman and Snatch, notes E! Online.
– "Maternal instinct" and a "solutions-oriented" personality are what a 46-year-old Pennsylvania mom says helped her survive a treacherous trek over more than 25 miles of the Grand Canyon to find help for her stranded family, after their car got stuck in a blizzard, Karen Klein tells NBC News. Klein, now recuperating from exposure in a Utah hospital, was found early Saturday after trudging more than 30 hours through the snow. Klein tells NBC10 her ordeal started Thursday after her family, vacationing in Las Vegas, decided to drive to the Grand Canyon using GPS-provided directions. "Google Maps shows there's a way—but it's impassable" due to closed roads, a local sheriff notes, adding he's seen that type of confusion happen before. When the Kleins' car got stuck in a ditch during a snowstorm and they couldn't get cellphone service, they decided Karen, a triathlete, should head out for help. "It was pretty simple," husband Eric tells CBS News. "Karen is our problem solver, and she's got experience. She's super intelligent." Klein had just a small package of Cheerios to keep her going—she eventually resorted to eating tree twigs and drinking melted snow—during her quest. She refused to let herself sleep (she was afraid she'd freeze to death), lost one of her boots along the way, and had to pick up one of her own legs and move it with her hands after she pulled a muscle. "I could only move it 10 steps at a time" before she became fatigued, she tells NBC News. She finally broke into an empty park ranger cabin, where she was rescued Saturday. After a mini-trek themselves, her husband and son had been able to get cellphone service and call for help. Thoughts of her family pushed Klein, who may lose some frostbitten toes, through her long walk. "I can't leave my son without a mom," she remembers thinking. "[I] can't leave my husband without a wife. I'm not letting my parents bury me."
– Mexican singer Jenni Rivera is missing after a small plane she was in lost contact with Mexican aviation authorities, reports the AP via La Voz. Rivera's plane went missing around 3:30 this morning shortly after takeoff from Monterrey, where she had given a concert last night. It was bound for Toluca, outside of Mexico City, but never reached its destination. A search is under way for the 43-year-old US-born Rivera, best known for her work in regional genres, including norteña.
– Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, is being held in an underground cell near Mexico City following his arrest this weekend—and US federal prosecutors in New York want to extradite him. He's wanted in six districts in this country, NBC News reports: "I fully intend for us to have him tried here," says the Drug Enforcement Administration's Chicago office chief. Guzman was indicted in Chicago in 2009, the Chicago Tribune reports, and he could also see charges in Texas, California, or Arizona. The US had a $5 million bounty on the kingpin, whose cartel "spans continents," in the words of attorney general Eric Holder. Guzman spent last night in a maximum security prison, the Los Angeles Times reports. The newspaper cites reports that Guzman was sleeping beside an AK-47 when US and Mexican authorities found him; he didn't get the chance to pick it up. What does his arrest mean for the cartel? "Absolutely nothing," one expert tells the Tribune; others agree, saying that he had little to do with Sinaloa's daily functioning.
– It's come to this. Beijing's air pollution has gotten so bad—hitting red alert for the first time ever last week, prompting school and factory closures and restricting traffic for days, reports Weather.com—that some residents are not only staying indoors and wearing masks, they're buying fresh air in canisters from Canada. Vitality Air co-founder Moses Lam tells the New York Daily News that it all started on a whim in November 2014, when friends put a Ziploc baggie of air on eBay to see if it would sell. It did, and they figured if companies can bottle and distribute natural spring water, why not good old-fashioned air, too? Vitality Air was born, and employees began to trek out to the mountains around Banff, Canada, sit around with open bottles for 10 hours, and then head back to headquarters in Edmonton to bottle and mail the goods. They sell 7.7 liters, or as many as 200 breaths of fresh air, for $15, or roughly 100 yuan—which could fetch 50 bottles of mineral water—and recently sold 500 bottles across China in less than two weeks. A professor at Polytechnic University tells CNN that buyers are probably fooling themselves. "We need to filter out the particles, the invisible killers, from the air," he says. "One bottle of air wouldn't help. I would be very cautious." Still, Vitality Air's China rep tells the Telegraph that the company has found a niche market in affluent women, who tend to buy for their families and as gifts for friends. Other customers include nightclubs and retirement homes. The bottles are clearly not considered, ahem, gag gifts. (Check out the latest type of bottled water, infused with fat.)
– Russell Simmons is facing new accusations of sexual misconduct—including rape—from nine women just weeks after he stepped away from his businesses following other accusations of sexual assault. The accusations, laid out in major exposés in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times, span a time period of 33 years. Sherri Hines says she was 17 or 18 when Simmons raped her around 1983. She was in the hip-hop group Mercedes Ladies at the time, and he had invited her to check out his new offices. “The next thing I knew, he was pinning me down and I was trying to fight him and he had his way,” she tells the LA Times. “I left crying.” Music journalist Tony Sallie went on a few dates with Simmons and stayed friendly with him. In 1988, she says Simmons invited her to a party at his apartment, but she was all alone when she got there and he raped her. "He pushed me on the bed and jumped on top of me, and physically attacked me," Sallie tells the NY Times. Lisa Kirk says Simmons, who she knew through a former boyfriend, tried to assault her at a club in 1988, following her into the women's restroom and pushing her into a stall. “I smashed into the wall,” she tells the LA Times. “It tore my clothes.” Kirk says Simmons ran off after he saw her looking at him. Singer Tina Baker says Simmons raped her in the early 90s when he was her manager after inviting her to his apartment to talk about her career. "I didn't sing for almost a year," she tells the NY Times. "I went into oblivion." Drew Dixon describes "prolonged and aggressive sexual harassment" at the hands of Simmons while she was an executive at Def Jam Recordings culminating in her rape in 1995 at the age of 24. She says Simmons would expose himself to her, ask her to sit on his lap, and try to kiss her. "I was broken," Dixon tells the NY Times. Natashia Williams-Blach was 18 when she appeared in the Simmons-produced film How to Be a Player. She says Simmons tried to force her to perform oral sex on him one night after filming. Massage therapist Erin Beattie says Simmons exposed himself to her and asked her to touch his penis during a massage at a hotel in 2005. Christina Moore says she and a friend were looking for a bar at a hotel in 2014 when they ran into Simmons, who offered to show them the way. Instead, she says he led them to his room and forcibly groped her. "I felt assaulted," she tells the NY Times. Comedian Amanda Seales says she went to Simmons' office for a meeting in 2016 only to be lewdly asked by Simmons if they had sex in the past. Simmons, 60, denies the accusations against him. "I have never been violent or abusive to any women in any way at any time in my entire life," the LA Times quotes him as saying in a statement. He adds in another statement to the NY Times: "These horrific accusations have shocked me to my core and all of my relations have been consensual."
– Having lost its showdown with the Chinese government, Google is poised to close its Chinese search site, rather than continue to censor results. The company will likely take action within weeks, a source familiar with the situation tells the Wall Street Journal. When it does, China will prevent local news sites from using anything but official accounts of the move. Another source tells the Financial Times that it is “99.9%” certain that Google will pull out. On Friday a Chinese official warned that if Google stopped censoring results, “that would be unfriendly, that would be irresponsible, and they would have to bear the consequences.” Google is hoping to keep some of its other Chinese operations running. “We are not pulling out of China,” Eric Schmidt said recently. “This is about the censorship rules, not anything else.” But some executives fear the backlash from closing Google.cn will make that impossible.
– For tens of thousands of years, where humans go, animals are driven to extinction. We are the superpredator, killing animals—and adults ones at that—at a much higher rate than other predators. And it's not sustainable. So say researchers at the University of Victoria in the journal Science after examining more than 300 studies and 2,125 predator-prey interactions on both land and sea to learn how much the adult population of their prey dwindles in a given year. They found that humans "kill adult prey at much higher median rates than other predators (up to 14 times higher)." Removing so many animals in their reproductive prime has implications for future populations, both in terms of raw numbers that can survive and how species evolve to handle this extreme predation. "We predicted that there would be difference, but we were surprised by the magnitude of that difference," lead author Chris Darimont tells the Los Angeles Times. He goes on to call our hunting strategy "problematic," as we tend to kill adults while other predators naturally tend to target the "younger, smaller, weaker members of a species. ... Typically, human hunters remove one in 5 large carnivores from the planet each year, and ... most large carnivores do not have the reproductive ability to withstand that sort of mortality." But not everyone is ready to toss in the rifle and rod. "I think it’s total rubbish," one ecologist tells Science magazine. In fishing, for instance, the human haul accounts for 40% of total natural predation, which is reasonable for feeding our huge population. Fishing less, in his view, is not an option, thus this new study is "fuzzing up what we mean by sustainability." (Are fish evolving to escape our nets?)
– A string of church fires in East Texas has stumped authorities and frightened congregations, with seven so far this year having been set by arsonists and another three thought to be their handiwork. The damage runs into the millions of dollars and some churches have begun organizing night watches, the Wall Street Journal reports. The fires have mostly been in small towns, but there doesn't seem to be any pattern, investigators say. Churches have been targeted regardless of religion or race of the congregation. Some people suspect Muslims, liberals, or Satan himself are behind the fires, but investigators warn against jumping to conclusions. "It doesn't have to be a hate crime," an ATF spokesman tells the Dallas Morning News.
– Doonesbury is making waves again, with several newspapers around the country planning to skip the comic strip next week or move it to the editorial pages. The reason? Garry Trudeau lampoons a Texas law requiring women to get an ultrasound before abortion, and he pulls few punches. "By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape," says a doctor in one panel, according to a transcript at JimRomenesko.com. (The blog is keeping a running tab of newspapers bowing out.) "We felt the content was too much for many of the readers of our family friendly comic page," says an editor at the Kansas City Star, one of the papers moving the strip temporarily to the op-ed pages, reports AP. Others, including the Oregonian, won't run the strip at all in the print edition. Trudeau is unapologetic, reports Reuters: "This is happening in statehouses across the country," he says in an email. "It's lunacy, and lunacy, of course, is in my wheelhouse."
– “Tired of celebrating spiritual holidays with crass commercialism?” writes Nicholas D. Kristof, in full pitchman mode. Have no fear: “Nothing says ‘happy holidays’ like donating in Aunt Tilda’s name to build a composting toilet in Haiti.” A sampling of the New York Times columnist’s list of worthy charities follows: Acumen Fund: A fund that invests money in for-profit aid initiatives, reflecting "a growing trend of using business mechanisms to fight poverty." BRAC: A Bangladeshi aid group expanding into Afghanistan and Africa that promotes "education, health, and microfinance" by turning "impoverished women into agents of change." Developments in Literacy: A group that builds modern schools, not madrassas, in Pakistan. "This is a security issue, for DIL schools can help protect us from terrorism." Deworm the World: "One of the most cost-effective ways of getting more children into school appears to be deworming them with one pill a year, for about 50 cents per person reached." Sustainable Health Ventures: "A new effort to help women and girls in poor countries to manage menstruation, so that they miss less school and work." For Kristof's full list, click here.
– How to protect your privacy on Facebook? For an increasing number of users, the answer is simple: Lie. A quarter of respondents in a new Consumer Reports study admitted that they “alter personally identifiable information,” such as birthdate, on Facebook. Technically, that’s a violation of the social networking site’s Terms of Service, the New York Times points out. And more than twice as many people are doing it now as were two years ago, when the same question was asked. Most of those surveyed said they protected their privacy by adjusting various settings, while almost 20% said they didn’t do anything to protect their privacy. Consumer Reports says the increase in people who lie is proof that users are becoming more wary of Facebook, and the organization’s advocacy arm is urging Facebook, via a petition, to strengthen its privacy controls. The Consumer Reports study also found that a large number of Facebook users revealed information on the site that could hurt them, including their whereabouts on a particular day or health information.
– The Pirate Party, a Swedish pro-piracy political party, has agreed to host servers for Wikileaks. The party, which also runs The Pirate Bay, a popular file sharing site, says supporting Wikileaks is in line with its commitment to copyright and patent reform, notes Information Week. "We want to contribute to any effort that would increase transparency and helps to keep the powerful in check," the party's leader says. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange visited Sweden this week and the parties reached a deal under which the "pirates" would provide bandwidth and host Wikileaks servers free of charge, reports Gizmodo. For the plan to work, however, the party must win a seat in Sweden's parliament, which would make it impossible for authorities to legally shut its servers down. It may sound far-fetched, but these digital swashbucklers already won a seat at the EU.
– Super Tuesday began with four candidates in the mix, and it ended the same way. All four are focusing on what comes next: Rick Santorum, speaking before Ohio's results were in, said he would pick up a "couple of gold medals" tonight along with a "whole passel full of silver medals," a showing that he says proves he's a legitimate national candidate. “We have won in the West, the Midwest and the South, and we’re ready to win across this country.” More at the Tennessean. Mitt Romney, speaking before his Ohio win was confirmed gave a pretty standard stump speech, congratulated his opponents on their success, and promised to win. "I'm going to get this nomination," he told supporters. He focused most of his speech on President Obama, rather than his opponents, notes AP. Newt Gingrich gleefully celebrated his big win in Georgia, taking pains to tweak the "national elite, especially in the Republican party" who he says have repeatedly tried to torpedo his campaign, reports AP. "I'm the tortoise" who has survived "lots of bunny rabbits," he said, ticking off former rivals such as Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann. He also spent a good deal of his speech ridiculing President Obama's energy policy and high gas prices. Ron Paul, speaking just before the first polls closed, wasn't ready to anoint anybody, notes Politico. “Nobody's going to clinch the election tonight," he said. "Sorting all this delegate selection process, I think we have a little bit of time left before we declare anybody a winner."
– A jubilant Donald Trump assured a crowd of supporters in Las Vegas last night that he'll make a decision on a White House run soon—and his choice will make them "very happy." Trump, in an expletive-packed speech focusing mainly on foreign affairs, called the nation's leaders "stupid people" and crowed about the release of President Obama's birth certificate, reports AP." He did it because we went after him hard," Trump said. "We're tough negotiators like this country needs." Trump told the crowd at the Treasure Island casino that America should take over the oil fields in Iraq and Libya, and demand payment for protecting other countries. "While we're spending billions of dollars being policemen of the world, China is spending billions of dollars a day buying the world," he said. Trump got plenty of cheers, but the Republican crowd seemed split over how serious he really is about a presidential bid, the New York Times notes.
– Australia is redesigning its cash and adding a tactile feature so blind people can tell the bills apart. And as the nation's ABC News reports, the pending change is largely thanks to a 13-year-old kid named Connor McLeod. He launched a campaign and online petition that gained steam and culminated with him making a personal pitch to the Reserve Bank of Australia. Connor, who has been blind since birth, says the idea came to him when he got cash for Christmas. "I kept having to ask Mum what they had given me," he recalls. He says he generally uses coins when he needs money, "and then it just sort of hit me that my life isn't going to be all coins, so I thought I'd better make things a little easier, and easier for others as well." No word on when the new notes will be introduced, but don't expect anything like that for American cash anytime soon, reports NPR. While the Treasury Department has floated the idea in years past, it unveiled an alternative last month in the form of a currency reader. People who are visually impaired can carry around the device, insert the bills, and hear the denomination identified. Various apps, like so and so, can do the same.
– Sex and the City 2 premiered in New York last night, and the early reviews are not good, to say the least. Read on—or, if you’d rather see the red carpet fashions from the premiere, click here. “The only thing memorable about Sex and the City 2 is the number two part, which describes it totally, if you get my drift,” writes Rex Reed in a scathing New York Observer review that goes on to call the movie a “deadly, brainless exercise in pointless tedium” and its characters “vain, narcissistic, selfish, superficial, and really rather stupid.” “The film is an epic eyesore,” declares David Edelstein of New York. Sarah Jessica Parker’s skin looks “leathery,” Cynthia Nixon is “mummified,” and Kim Cattrall looks “like a cross between (late) Mae West and (dead) Bea Arthur.” Carrie is again embroiled in drama, after a run-in with former flame Aidan, in a situation “so been-there, done-that, you wonder if she has an emotional imbalance that keeps her perpetually dissatisfied with life.”writes Amy DiLuna in the New York Daily News. In the Hollywood Reporter, Stephen Farber writes, “There's something bracing about the film's saucy political incorrectness” —but it still goes on “at least 40 minutes too long.”
– Billy Joel is now the proud father of a third daughter—Remy Anne, who was born at New York University Hospital on Sunday night. She is the singer's second child with his wife Alexis Roderick. Joel, 68, didn't reveal the pregnancy until last week. "Alexis and Remy are doing well, and everyone is thrilled," a rep tells People. Roderick gave birth to the couple's first child, Della Rose, in August 2015, a month after they were married. Joel's daughter from his marriage to Christie Brinkley, 31-year-old singer Alexa Ray Joel, joined dad in the delivery room to support Roderick during the birth, E! Online reports.
– Apple recently opened a "secret laboratory" in Taiwan, Bloomberg reports, though no logos or Apple signage underscore that fact on the outside of the building in Longtan. Guards and a receptionist provided no information on what goes on inside the building; neither did workers outside on a smoke break. And an Apple spokesperson refused to comment. So what is going on in this mysterious Apple outpost? Sadly it seems it's just a bunch of engineers working on the next generation of iPad and iPhone screens. Sources speaking anonymously tell Bloomberg the laboratory contains at least 50 workers trying to make brighter and more energy-efficient screens that are thinner and weigh less than the current ones. By developing its own screens, Apple would no longer have to rely on technologies from other companies, such as Sharp and Samsung. Macworld reports this makes sense, since Apple wants to have as much control over its hardware as possible. In addition to better displays, smaller screens could also mean more room for much-demanded longer-lasting batteries. Perhaps coincidentally, though in that vein, the Washington Post notes a new rumor that Apple is coming out with a new generation of smaller iPhones, possibly due in March.
– Texas Gov. Greg Abbott managed to not only slight China by meeting Taiwan's president on Sunday, he managed to step in it with Taiwan's president, too, reports Mashable. During the meeting, Tsai Ing-wen gave Abbott a vase, and Abbott in turn presented her with a clock decorated with the Texas state seal. The rub is that to the Chinese and Taiwanese, the gift of a clock is considered almost a curse, representing the end of a relationship or of life, reports the South China Morning Post. In both Mandarin and Cantonese, the phrase "giving a clock" sounds like the phrase "attending a funeral," and "therefore symbolizes an untimely demise for the recipient," reports Taiwan News. Some Facebook users in Taiwan claimed the gift was "humiliating" and that Americans were "terrible" for not knowing better. But a rep for Taiwan's economic and cultural office in Houston confirmed the president was not offended, reports the Austin American-Statesman. "It was an honor to meet with President Tsai and discuss how our two economies can expand upon our already prosperous trade partnership," Abbott said. He isn't the only one to have made such a mistake. Last year, Britain's minister of state for transport gave Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je a watch. Ko called the timepiece a "piece of junk" and said he would sell it for scrap, but he later claimed he was only joking.
– Stephen Hawking may have a good grasp of the workings of the universe, but he says he can't understand the popularity of Donald Trump. The renowned theoretical physicist tells ITV's Good Morning Britain show that he has no explanation for the success of the presumptive GOP presidential nominee. "He is a demagogue who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator," Hawking says. Hawking also made a plea for British voters to choose to remain in the European Union in the June 23 referendum on the matter, saying it's important not only for economic and security research but also to further scientific research, the AP reports. Hawking says, "Gone are the days we could stand on our own, against the world. We need to be part of a larger group of nations, both for our security and our trade." (Hawking also has opinions on black holes, artificial intelligence, and Zayn leaving One Direction.)
– The View has, apparently, traded one controversial blonde for another. As expected, Jenny McCarthy was officially named as Elisabeth Hasselbeck's replacement on the daytime talk show yesterday; she'll start appearing as co-host Sept. 9. But quite a few people are less than pleased that McCarthy has been given such a huge platform from which to air her well-known belief that childhood vaccines cause autism, the Los Angeles Times reports. One author and critic describes McCarthy as "a homicidal maniac" and the View audience as "impressionable" moms with young kids—a bad combination, in his opinion. Indeed, when McCarthy's hiring was rumored, at least two anti-McCarthy letter-writing campaigns to ABC were organized, and both left- and right-leaning media decried her as a threat to public health. Clearly, the efforts were in vain. After McCarthy was confirmed, Twitter exploded with snark; the Hollywood Reporter has a roundup of reactions.
– Four people were reported killed Sunday and scores more injured when a gunman opened fire at a Florida video game tournament. Per CNN, attendees were gathered at an officially sanctioned event for the Madden Championship Series when shots rang out at a riverfront mall in Jacksonville. Per the AP, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office is reporting that one suspect is dead at the scene after the shooting at Jacksonville Landing, but it was unknown if there were other suspects involved. At least 11 were reportedly injured. The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office used Twitter and Facebook to warn people to steer clear of the Jacksonville Landing. The department says to "stay far away from the area. The area is not safe at this time. STAY AWAY." "We are finding many people hiding in locked areas at The Landing. We ask you to stay calm, stay where you are hiding. SWAT is doing a methodical search inside The Landing. We will get to you. Please don't come running out," the sheriff's office said via Twitter. The sheriff's office didn't provide any other information, but also warned news media to stay away from the area, which contains restaurants and shops along the St. Johns River. The GLHF Game Bar at the Landing was hosting a Madden 19 video game tournament at the time of the shooting. In an official statement on Twitter, EA Sports, which distributes the Madden games, said they were aware of the "horrible situation, and our deepest sympathies go out to all involved."
– There's the donor waiting list, and then there's this: A Mississippi hunter who knocked on a Kansas farmer's door seeking permission to hunt ended up giving the stranger a kidney. As the AP recounts, Rob Robinson first knocked on Gil Alexander's door in 2008 to hunt pheasants. He showed up again three years later to hunt turkey. Again, Alexander consented to the hunt, but this time they got to talking, and Alexander shared that he was ailing and in need of a kidney transplant. When Robinson got home, he got tested. "He texted me and said, 'I'm a match'," recalls Alexander. "I put down the phone and started to cry." Since the successful donation—doubly successful because doctors discovered that Alexander had early-stage pancreatic cancer and snuffed it out—the men have gone on to found Forever Outdoors, a nonprofit that brings vets, kids, and others to Kansas for nature and hunting expeditions. Today, they met with Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback to talk about the initiative, reports WIBW, which has video.
– Plenty of historical knowledge comes from writings on parchment—but now, researchers are learning about the past using the parchment itself. DNA analysis of the writing surface is revealing genetic information about the animals used to make it, and how their genomes differ from similar animals today, according to research published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. "Wool was essentially the oil of times gone by, so knowing how human change affected the genetics of sheep through the ages can tell us a huge amount about how agricultural practices evolved," says a researcher. Whereas bone DNA from the animals is hard to find, he tells the Irish Times, "we figured that one source for DNA from these animals would be parchment, because it is made from animal skins." Teams in Ireland and the UK pulled samples of DNA and protein from small pieces of parchment; they found that samples from different pieces of parchment showed similarity to different breeds of sheep. They're hoping that further study will show how the animals were bred, especially around the 18th century, which saw big changes in agriculture. There's plenty of the stuff around to investigate: "After all, parchment was the writing material of choice for thousands of years, going back to the Dead Sea Scrolls," the expert notes. (Researchers recently decoded a "magical codex" of ancient spells.)
– A Florida woman vanished with her 2-year-old daughter Lilly early last month, in an alleged kidnapping case said to revolve around vaccines, schooling ... and the Confederacy. In a note to Lilly's father documented in court records, Megan Elizabeth Everett, 22, reportedly explained that she didn't want their child to be vaccinated and brainwashed in preschool. Robert Baumann, who tells NBC Miami he was indeed planning to vaccinate Lilly, says Everett wanted to prevent the vaccination in order to keep Lilly out of school, where she'd be taught black history. "She just wanted her to learn about the Confederacy," he says. The two were never married and agreed to joint custody in April, reports the Orlando Sun Sentinel, but in her letter to Baumann, Everett reportedly wrote, "I cannot let a judge tell me how my daughter should be raised. We will miss you. But I had to leave." Everett's mother says Everett cut family ties after getting involved with a man court documents describe as a "Confederate-flag-waving gun enthusiast" named Carlos Lesters. (One photo of Lilly shows the toddler sitting next to boxes of live ammunition while sucking on a pacifier.) Everett and Lilly were last seen May 6, and Lesters reportedly told police Everett "knew she would have to live her life as a fugitive." The Sun Sentinel was unable to make contact with Lesters, who it notes has not been accused of anything.
– The search goes on for 10 missing US sailors after yet another accident involving a Navy ship. On Monday, Navy chief John Richardson took the rare step of ordering an "operational pause" in naval operations around the world so fleet commanders can assess what's going on, reports the Navy Times. Richardson, who pronounced himself "heartbroken" over the latest disaster, also ordered a broader investigation that goes beyond the details of the latest incidents and gets at the "root causes" of the problems. "This is the second collision in three months and is the last in a series of incidents in the Pacific theater," he said. "This trend demands more forceful action." Coverage: The collision: The USS John S. McCain, a destroyer, collided with an oil tanker off the coast of Singapore as it prepared to enter a port there. The collision happened just before dawn in one of the world's most congested shipping lanes, reports the New York Times. Things can get confusing in a hurry, especially in the dark. Protocol: There should have been plenty of crew members on deck looking for the lights of nearby ships, and, given the congestion, it wouldn't have been unusual for the ship's commander to be on the bridge, too. "Clearly at some point, the bridge team lost situational awareness," says Adm. William F. Moran, vice chief of naval operations, per the Washington Post. Out of position? The accident happened on the eastern approach to the Strait of Singapore, and AFP quotes one naval expert from Jane's who says, based on early reports, that the naval ship may not have been in the proper position, a possible sign of crew fatigue. The strait is only 10 miles wide, not leaving much room for error. It's a "dynamic environment" requiring extra vigilance, says one marine insurance official. Fourth this year: This is the fourth accident involving a US Navy ship in Asian waters this year, and CNN has details on all of them. The other big one, of course, was a June collision involving the USS Fitzgerald that left seven sailors dead. Prior to that, a South Korean fishing ship hit the USS Lake Champlain, and the US Antietam ran aground off Japan. A list at the New York Times goes back further. Not that John McCain: The ship in the latest accident isn't named for Vietnam war hero Sen. John McCain. It's named for his father and grandfather, both of them naval commanders during World War II, and the Sacramento Bee provides details on their careers.
– It was just a matter of time: The owner of a Galaxy Note 7 has sued Samsung after the phone exploded in his pants, reports the Palm Beach Post. Florida's Jonathan Strobel says he was in a store on Sept. 9 when the phone exploded in his front pocket, resulting in serious burns to his thigh. He says he also burned his thumb trying to pull the phone out of his pocket. Strobel filed his suit Friday, a day after Samsung issued an unprecedented recall after a spate of similar reports. "He has a deep second-degree burn, roughly the size of the phone, on his right thigh," attorney Keith Pierro tells Reuters. "Unfortunately for my client, the recall came too late." Strobel is seeking $15,000 from Samsung, which would not comment on the case. US safety regulators say the company has received 92 reports of overheating batteries, a total that includes 26 reports of burns and 55 reports of property damage. (One person probably interested in this suit: The owner of a Jeep who blames the phone for a car fire.)
– A rogue trader at UBS has lost around $2 billion, the Swiss banking giant says. The unauthorized trades by a trader in its investment banking unit "could lead UBS to report a loss for the third quarter of 2011," but "no client positions were affected," the bank said in a statement that offered few other details. Shares in UBS dived almost 10% in early trading after the announcement, which arrived on the third anniversary of Lehman Brothers' declaration of bankruptcy, the Guardian notes. The Wall Street Journal identifies the 31-year-old, who was arrested by British police at 3:30am UK time today, as Kweku Adoboli. He reportedly worked in London, at UBS' trading desk for exchange-traded funds. The AP notes that the unauthorized trades could erase nearly all of the 2 billion Swiss francs ($2.28 billion) UBS last month announced that it hoped to save by doing away with 3,500 jobs over two years.
– With female driving in Saudi Arabia effectively banned, mass transit not that great, taxis unreliable and dirty, and private cars expensive, women can have a hard time getting around in the country, the Los Angeles Times reports. "If you can't find a driver, you have to wait for your husband," Hala Radwan, a 29-year-old resident, tells the paper. "If not your husband, then your brother. … Sometimes everyone is just so busy that going from point A to point B is really difficult." The increasingly popular way now for ladies to get around town? Uber, local service Careem, and a handful of other ride-sharing services, the paper notes. The app companies there say more than 80% of their single-rider users are Saudi women, per the Times, while a regional GM for Uber notes that the number of users in the kingdom has multiplied by 20 since the company ventured in last year. Technically there's no law prohibiting women from driving in the kingdom, but because of cleric-issued fatwas, women can't get driver's licenses, the Times notes. Other reasons conservatives spout for not letting women get behind the wheel in the gender-segregated state range from their ovaries getting damaged to increased chance of rape if their cars break down to coming into contact with male medical staff after car accidents. So ride-sharing it is, for now, for working women stuck in the system. That includes Radwan, who coughs up $700 or so a month to Careem to get back and forth to her marketing job. She says the GPS technology in Careem's cars makes them safer than taxis, and no one can tell she's not in a private vehicle—important since women using public transportation solo in Saudi Arabia are also seen as "lacking morals," the Times notes.
– Research has already suggested that people in neat work environments are more likely to opt for a healthy snack than people in cluttered ones. "Messy rooms are, sort of, enabling people to break free from what's expected of them," one researcher from that 2013 study tells NPR. Now a new study out of Cornell University finds a similar effect in kitchens—namely, that people tend to eat more in cluttered ones than orderly ones. "Being in a chaotic environment ... seems to lead people to think, 'Everything else is out of control, so why shouldn't I be?'" says lead author Lenny Vartanian in a press release. To test this, his team introduced 101 women, one at a time, into a messy or tidy kitchen, and asked some to write about a time when they felt in control and others to write about a time when they felt out of control. The same snacks were available in both kitchens: cookies, crackers, and carrots. Those in messy kitchens who wrote about feeling out of control ate 103 calories' worth of cookies, double what their clean-kitchen counterparts with the same writing assignment ate. Those in the messy kitchens who wrote about being in control ate just 38 calories of cookies. "The chaotic environment had no impact on consumption of crackers or carrots," the researchers write in the study, published this month in Environment and Behavior. While certain practices such as meditation may help get us in an in-control mindset, just picking up after ourselves could go a long way, co-author Brian Wansink tells CTV News. (Guys, meanwhile, overeat in the presence of one type of person in particular.)
– Bob Dylan will get the nation's highest civilian honor later this spring, reports Bloomberg. Dylan, 70, will be one of 13 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He's already got scores of Grammys, an Oscar, and a Pulitzer, and the Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog can't help but wonder: Is a Nobel next? Other recipients this year include John Glenn, Pat Summitt, Madeleine Albright, Toni Morrison, Shimon Peres, and the Supreme Court's John Paul Stevens. The Los Angeles Times has the full list, along with brief bios.
– The Washington Times has slashed half of its 170 newsroom staff ahead of Monday's relaunch of its print edition. The sports and metro sections will cease to exist as separate sections and nearly all staff members of those sections have been laid off, sources tell the Washington Post. Managing editor David Jones is among several high-ranking editors losing their jobs. "None of us understand what the strategy is," departing assistant managing editor for world and national security Barbara Slavin tells Politico. The cuts have been done in a "haphazard way," she added. Times president Jonathan Slevin issued a statement saying next week "begins a new chapter in the history of the Washington Times as a 21st-century multimedia company."
– The Archdiocese of Chicago has released more than 6,000 pages of internal documents showing decades of hidden sexual abuse by 30 priests. Priests accused of abuse still received promotions, while alleged victims faced church-backed investigations, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. The church moved accused priests between parishes and left abuse unreported; most of the men were never prosecuted, the Chicago Tribune notes. None of the 30 priests, 14 of whom have died, are currently in the ministry, the archdiocese says. No allegations in the documents, released following a lawsuit, occurred after 1996, it adds—though some allegations came to light during the tenure of current Cardinal Francis George, the Tribune notes. The vicar general of the third-largest archdiocese in the US says the church didn't try to cover up the abuse, though he acknowledged that the institution made mistakes, the Sun-Times notes. Among the cases noted by the newspapers: Despite abuse accusations, Cardinals John Cody and Joseph Bernardin let Vincent McCaffrey, who eventually admitted abusing more than a dozen people between 1976 and 1990, stay in the priesthood, switching between parishes; he was finally defrocked in 2010. McCaffrey received a 20-year sentence for child pornography. Father Robert Becker also got a transfer following allegations; he was accused of attacks involving another priest, Kenneth Ruge. Becker was accused of abusing three siblings. Robert Mayer was appointed pastor even after several allegations emerged. The church board of vicars backed the appointment. Following allegations of child abuse, Cardinal John Cody wrote to the Rev. Raymond Skriba in 1970: "I feel that this whole matter should be forgotten by you as it has been forgotten by me … No good can come of trying to prove or disprove the allegations."
– Protesters be damned, Vladimir Putin outright rejected calls for new elections today in a marathon appearance on a call-in show. Instead, notes the AP, he continued to place the blame for the widespread protests on the West's "well-organized pattern of destabilizing society," adding that they "still fear our nuclear potential," and that Russia's "independent foreign policy" is "an impediment for some." Putin's characteristically bellicose appearance carried a number of gems, and could spark some backlash: On John McCain's tweet that 'the Arab Spring is coming to a neighborhood near you': "He has the blood of peaceful civilians on his hands, and he can't live without the kind of disgusting, repulsive scenes like the killing of Gadhafi. Mr. McCain was captured and they kept him not just in prison, but in a pit for several years. Anyone (in his place) would go nuts." On the protest movement: It is "absolutely normal as long as everyone acts within the framework of the law. I saw ... mostly young people, active and with positions that they expressed clearly. This makes me happy, and if that is the result of the Putin regime, that's good—there's nothing bad about it." On the protesters' white ribbons (via the New York Times): “I have to say honestly, when I saw on television several people wearing these things on their chests, I know it’s indecent, but anyway, I thought it was some kind of propaganda in the fight against AIDS, as if they put a condom there, and tied it for some reason." On March 4 presidential elections: "Let (web cameras) be there next to every ballot box to avoid any falsifications." Click for Gawker's take on Putin's "ridiculous" plastic surgery.
– Adjunct instructors struggle with lower pay and far less job security than their tenured counterparts, and today, they plan to take a stand against it: It's National Adjunct Walkout Day, Inside Higher Ed reports. The walkout was conceived by an anonymous adjunct at San Jose State University in October, the site notes. Now it's all over social media, from Tumblr to Twitter to Facebook. The Chronicle of Higher Education notes that the event's title is misleading: It's more about spreading awareness than actually striking. Supporters will be distributing literature, holding protests, and talking to lawmakers. Students aren't aware of the challenges adjuncts face, says a Yeshiva University history professor, and "until very recently, full-time tenured faculty members did not know how bad off the adjuncts on their campuses were." Some are on food stamps, she says. Adds a Penn State professor to the Kansas City Star: "Many of them are working at or under the poverty line, without health insurance; they have no academic freedom worthy of the name because they can be fired at will." From Southern California to Boston, some have begun to form unions, while workers at universities across the country (and beyond) are announcing plans to get out the message today. "It is absolutely a national movement," says a lecturer.
– The gun-loving mother who was shot by her 4-year-old son earlier this month in Florida may end up facing criminal charges. Jamie Gilt, who has "made numerous social media postings about gun rights," the AP reports, allegedly left a loaded handgun under the front seat of her pickup truck and it slid into the backseat on March 8. Her son had recently figured out how to unbuckle his booster seat, grabbed the gun, and shot his mother in the back, police say. Police announced Tuesday that they are recommending Gilt be charged with a misdemeanor, allowing a child access to a firearm. It will be up to prosecutors to decide whether to actually charge Gilt, who has not been arrested. The second-degree misdemeanor carries a possible penalty of up to 180 days in jail, CNN reports. Florida's child welfare agency is also investigating the incident. There's no current update on Gilt's condition, but News4Jax reports Tuesday that "at last check, Gilt remained hospitalized in stable condition."
– In the depths of European oceans, you'll find coral, sand—and old Heineken cans. Yup, human litter can be found even in the most far-reaching places on the planet, according to one of the biggest scientific surveys ever done of the seafloor. Using video and trawling surveys between 1999 and 2011, scientists analyzed 32 sites in the Atlantic Ocean, Arctic Ocean, and Mediterranean Sea. They found everything from bottles to plastic bags, clothing, and fishing nets—even more than 1,200 miles from land and nearly three miles below the water's surface, the Guardian reports. Not a single site was litter-free. That means your garbage is on continental shelves, ocean ridges, and deep canyons—the worst spot for garbage build-up, the study says. Plastic was most common at 41% of the garbage found, while 34% was related to fishing—think nets and lines. Also spotted: wood, pottery, glass, paper, cardboard, and even burnt coal residue left from steam ships more than 100 years ago. "This survey has shown that human litter is present in all marine habitats, from beaches to the most remote and deepest parts of the oceans," a researcher says. "Most of the deep sea remains unexplored by humans and these are our first visits to many of these sites, but we were shocked to find that our rubbish has got there before us." Smithsonian notes some 14 billion pounds of garbage enter the oceans each year, some of which animals eat, get tangled in, and often die.
– The Supreme Court dealt what looks like a mortal wound to the Voting Rights Act today, striking down the law's key enforcement metric. The court did not, as some had expected, strike down Section 5, which gives the federal government oversight over states and localities with a history of voter discrimination. Instead, in a 5-4 decision, the court's conservative justices ruled that the formula used to determine which places require oversight is out of date, CNN explains. (The Washington Post has a quick primer on the law's specifics.) "Our country has changed," John Roberts wrote in his majority opinion, according to NBC. Congress must ensure that any law passed to fight racial discrimination "speaks to current conditions." The ruling puts the onus on Congress to re-draft the formula, and pretty much no one is optimistic about the deeply divided body's ability to do that. On Twitter, Dave Weigel voiced the conventional wisdom thusly: "SCOTUS to Congress: 'You have to pass a bill to fix this.' Congress: 'We can... pass... bills?'"
– A 27-year-old South Carolina mother of a toddler has been accused of killing her 4-day-old newborn by putting him in the refrigerator for three hours, where he suffered hypothermia with asphyxiation, reports the Rock Hill Herald. After a lengthy investigation over the February incident, authorities arrested Angela Blackwell on Monday and charged her with homicide by child abuse for her "extreme indifference to human life." Her older son has been removed from her care, though the child's father, Jeff Lewis, contends that his common-law wife, who he says is mentally disabled, is not responsible. "She’s always good to the kids," adds Lewis' father, who got to hold his grandchild for a couple hours in the first days of baby William's short life. The magistrate was not allowed to set bond because Blackwell's charge carries a sentence of up to life in prison, so she remains in custody until a November bond hearing before a circuit court judge. Records show that Lewis, who is 35, has been convicted of shoplifting and larceny dating back to 2005 and spent more than two years in prison, reports ABC News. An image of Lewis with Blackwell in 2012 on Heavy.com shows him with several tattoos, including what appears to be a swastika on his forearm. "I think it’s all bull (expletive)," he tells WSOC. "She didn't do nothing to cause it to die." Multiple family members say there were many people in the house the night of the baby's death and that another young child with autism may have put William in the refrigerator. (These parents were allowed to visit their abused baby before she was taken off life support.)
– Still hungry for royal wedding hoopla? You might not have to wait long—if Prince Harry gets his way. "You're next," he was heard saying to gal pal Chelsy Davy at the wedding of the duke and duchess of Cambridge last week. The two were nearly inseparable at the reception and party following the big wedding. The on-again off-again couple have been a sometimes item for the last seven years. But it looked like the relationship was all over when Chelsy, 25, left London for a legal career in South Africa last year. But now she's back in London for another job with a British law firm. It's Chelsy, not 26-year-old Harry, who's reluctant to wed, reports the Telegraph. She wants her own career, and believes the sacrifices of being a royal wife might be too great, according to her pals. Still, she giggled and kissed her prince when he hinted at a proposal. (Also, did Harry make the bride cry at her wedding reception?)
– A Mississippi state lawmaker is facing a firestorm after saying politicians who support the removal of Confederate monuments should be lynched. Four Confederate monuments were recently removed from New Orleans in an effort to "correct" history, the city's mayor tells Time. But Rep. Karl Oliver didn't see it that way. In a Saturday Facebook post, the Republican from Winona, Miss., wrote that "if the … 'leadership' of Louisiana wishes to, in a Nazi-ish fashion, burn books or destroy historical monuments of OUR HISTORY, they should be LYNCHED," per the Jackson Free Press. Appalled politicians, including the head of the Mississippi Republican Party and Gov. Phil Bryant, quickly spoke out, per WJTV, as did the NAACP. Oliver "not only called for the murder of public officials" but "in specifically calling for lynching, he also explicitly raised the ugly history of racial violence in America," said the president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Oliver issued an apology Monday, noting, "I do not condone the actions I referenced, nor do I believe them in my heart. I freely admit my choice of words was horribly wrong, and I humbly ask your forgiveness." Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn says Oliver will be removed as vice chairman of the House Forestry Committee regardless, per the Free Press. The paper adds the monuments removed from New Orleans aren't to be destroyed as Oliver suggested, but will likely appear in museums.
– It's tough enough being on the shorter side, and a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine doesn't make things any easier. Researchers in the UK find that being small of stature increases the risk of coronary heart disease, the Telegraph reports. More specifically, for every 2.5 inches shorter we are, our risk increases by 13.5%. In other words, a five-foot tall person has a 32% higher risk of heart disease than a five-foot-six person does. The findings, which involved data on 200,000 people, are tied to genetics; it seems the genes involved in height could also be involved in heart disease. "The more height-increasing genetic variants that you carry, the lower your risk of coronary heart disease—and conversely, if you were genetically shorter, the higher your risk," a researcher notes. That is, at least if you're a man, NPR reports: Researchers didn't discover a clear relationship between height and heart disease risk in women, though that might just be because the study involved more male than female subjects. Experts have been aware of an apparent relationship between height and heart disease since the 1950s without being able to explain it, NPR notes. In fact, the New York Times reports that researchers didn't take the idea that the two were linked very seriously, making these findings a surprise. "This idea that shorter stature is associated with coronary artery disease is something we would laugh about," notes one scientist. Another expert still has doubts, telling the Times that the connection appears "weak." And on the plus side for short men, a study last year found they live longer.
– When a mysterious crater was discovered this past summer on the Yamal Peninsula in northern Siberia, origin theories abounded, including it being the work of extraterrestrials, a man-made hoax, a meteorite, or the result of a stray missile colliding with the surface of the Earth. Now that it's cold enough to venture in, a team of scientists organized by the Russian Centre of Arctic Exploration lowered themselves into the crater last week and began the hunt for answers, reports National Geographic. "Yamal" means "end of the world" in Russian. The current working theory is that the crater, which is 260 feet wide and 54 feet deep, formed after the release of gas hydrates, and scientists will begin testing that theory now. Researchers performed radiolocation tests as deep as 650 feet and took samples of ice, earth, gases, and air from the largest of three known holes, all of which appear to have formed recently. Once they've processed the information from the expedition, the scientists "plan to explore the surrounding area, comparing images from space, and even those taken in the 1980s, to understand if there are—or were—some similar objects," one researcher tells the Siberian Times. (One geophysicist in Alaska thinks climate change plays a role in the formation of these holes.)
– Another ceasefire is about to start in Israel and Gaza, but this one is expected to last a few days instead of a few hours. The US and UN announced that "all parties" had agreed to the humanitarian ceasefire, which is to begin at 8am tomorrow local time and last 72 hours—unless international negotiators manage to extend it, reports AP. The development comes as the Palestinian death toll climbed above 1,400, which the Guardian says is more than the previous two Israel-Hamas conflicts combined. The vast majority of victims have been civilians. It wasn't immediately clear whether Israel would continue to destroy tunnels used by Hamas to launch attacks over the three-day lull.
– Gunmen disguised as soldiers attacked an annual Iranian military parade Saturday in the country's oil-rich southwest, killing at least 24 people and wounding 53 in the bloodiest assault to strike the country in recent years. The attack in Ahvaz saw gunfire sprayed into a crowd of marching Revolutionary Guardsmen, bystanders, and government officials watching from a nearby riser, per the AP. Suspicion immediately fell on the region's Arab separatists, who previously only attacked unguarded oil pipelines under the cover of darkness. Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif immediately blamed the attack on regional countries and their "US masters," calling the gunmen "terrorists recruited, trained, armed, and paid" by foreign powers. "Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of Iranian lives," Zarif wrote on Twitter. Images captured by state TV showed journalists and onlookers turn to look as the first shots rang out, then rows of marchers breaking as soldiers and civilians sought cover under sustained gunfire. The state-run IRNA news agency says the attack killed 24 people and wounded 53; the gunmen were said to have worn Guard uniforms. Details after were murky: Khuzestan Gov. Gholamreza Shariati told IRNA that two gunmen were killed and two others arrested, while state TV later reported all four gunmen were dead, with three dying during the attack and one later succumbing to his wounds at a hospital. Who carried out the assault also remains in question. State TV immediately described the assailants as "takfiri gunmen," a term previously used to describe ISIS, but in the hours following the attack, state media and government officials seemed to agree Arab separatists in the region were responsible. ISIS later claimed responsibility but provided no evidence it carried out the assault.
– He was thought to be a kingpin in the mysterious world of the dark web, and now the 26-year-old Canadian is dead. Authorities say that Alexandre Cazes is believed to have hanged himself in his holding cell in Thailand after his arrest earlier this month, reports the Bangkok Post. As the Sydney Morning Herald explains, Cazes is reputed to be a co-founder of AlphaBay, one of the internet's top sites for the illicit sale of everything from drugs and weapons to forged IDs and stolen credit cards. Or at least it was: AlphaBay went dark on July 5 after authorities seized its servers in Canada as part of a multi-nation raid. Police also arrested Cazes on July 5 in Bangkok, where he is believed to have been living for the last eight years, and impounded luxury cars and mansions, per the Bangkok newspaper. He was known as DeSnake online. Cazes, who was being held at Bangkok's Narcotics Suppression Bureau, was found dead in his cell last week, about an hour before he was to meet with prosecutors over his extradition to the US. His AlphaBay became a force on the dark web a few years ago after the downfall of its main predecessor, Silk Road. It was "more than twice as big as Silk Road was in its heyday, with a revenue of somewhere between $600,000 and $800,000 a day in early 2017, and that's a rather conservative estimate," one expert tells the AFP. The US Embassy in Bangkok confirmed that Cazes had been detained "with a view toward extradition to face federal criminal charges." If it was indeed a suicide, Cazes might have wanted to avoid the fate of Silk Road founder "Dread Pirate Roberts," now serving a life sentence.
– Is it finally Bloomberg time in America? After multiple false starts, sources tells the New York Times this could be the year former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg runs for president. Those close to the billionaire say he's discouraged by how the race is going so far and has concerns about Trump, Sanders, and Clinton. And he's asked his advisors to figure out plans for a 2016 presidential campaign. According to the Huffington Post, Bloomberg is the "sort of independent candidate for whom economic elites have long been clamoring": liberal on social issues and conservative on economics. Sources say Bloomberg would be willing to spend $1 billion of his own money on the race, and he's been studying past third-party campaigns and polling his popularity against Trump and Clinton, the Times reports. Bloomberg—a three-term mayor—considered presidential bids in 2008 and 2012, the New York Post reports. But he never pulled the trigger because he didn't think he could win, according to the Times. That could change this year, pitching himself as a "technocratic problem-solver and self-made businessman" against radical candidates. Sources say Bloomberg would likely run if it ends up being Trump or Cruz against Sanders. “Hillary is mainstream enough that Mike would have no chance, and Mike’s not going to go on a suicide mission,” says a friend and former DNC chairman. While Bloomberg would ideally steal votes from both sides, him running as an independent would be "a catastrophe for Democrats" of Nader-ian proportions, according to the Huffington Post. The Times reports Bloomberg will make a decision by March.
– The 15-year-old daughter of Olympic sprinter Tyson Gay was fatally shot in Kentucky early Sunday. The Fayette County coroner's office says in a statement that Trinity Gay died at the University of Kentucky Medical Center. "She didn't make it," the sprinter tells LEX18. "I'm so confused. She was just here last week for fall break. It's so crazy. I have no idea what happened." The sprinter's agent, Mark Wetmore, confirmed in a text message to the AP that Gay's daughter was killed. Lexington police said in a statement officers went to the parking lot of a restaurant after witnesses reported gunfire exchanged between two vehicles; Trinity was reportedly shot in the neck. Officers located one of the vehicles and stopped two people for questioning. An autopsy is scheduled for Monday. Tyson Gay, a native of Lexington, has competed in the last three Summer Olympics. He was part of a team that won a silver medal in the 4x100-meter relay at the 2012 London Games though that medal was ultimately stripped after Gay tested positive for steroids in 2013.
– Donald Trump is in Asia this week to talk trade and the threat of a nuclear North Korea, and at his first stop, Yokota Air Base in Tokyo, on Sunday morning he told the American troops gathered to hear him speak that things are going "really, really well" back in the United States "since a very very special day—it's called Election Day." Wearing a leather bomber jacket, Trump talked about the success of the stock market and continued low levels of unemployment, the New York Times reports. He also talked about dealing ISIS "one brutal defeat after another." Trump called American troops "the greatest threat to tyrants and dictators who seek to prey on the innocent.” Tokyo is the first stop on Trump's 12-day tour of Asia, during which he'll meet with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, and China and attend summits in Vietnam and the Philippines. Arguably the biggest issue facing the region is North Korea, and Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he will likely meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam to discuss the rogue nation, CNN reports. Trump's arrival in Japan came on the same day a report in the Japan Times claimed the president questioned the country's decision not to shoot down North Korean missiles earlier this year. The source said Trump, while speaking on the phone with South Asian leaders, expressed disbelief that a country of "samurai warriors" didn't strike back.
– The biggest intellectual, cultural, and technological achievements of the year were powered by these brains—some we know well, some we don’t. The Daily Beast got together with 20-plus recent winners of MacArthur “Genius” grant to determine the year’s smartest: Jon Stewart. Going beyond the biting Daily Show, Stewart "turned his logic-rooted, hypocrisy-bashing comedy into action" by organizing the Rally to Restore Sanity and pushing hard—and successfully—for the passage of the 9/11 first responders health bill. Bill and Melinda Gates. These days, for Mr. and Mrs. Microsoft, it’s all about philanthropy. This year, their Giving Pledge called on billionaires like themselves to give away at least half their money. Some estimate they'll get commitments totaling $150 billion. Steve Jobs. The Apple frontman brought out the iPad and iPhone 4; Apple TV was hot; the Beatles hit iTunes. Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook hit 500 million users this year, greasing Zuck's path toward Time's Person of the Year. J. Craig Venter. The scientist's team developed the first organism whose genome was synthetic, a 15-year project whose results he revealed this year. See the other 15 smartest people.
– US officials didn't see the attack on their Benghazi consulate coming—but critics say they should have. There was a slew of terrorist activity in the months before, including a June 6 IED attack on the consulate itself, the Wall Street Journal reports, but Ambassador Chris Stevens kept security to a minimum to show trust in Libya's new government. State Department officials say they were mainly worried about RPG and IED attacks. Given that the June attack harmed no one, one official said, "Our security plan worked." More details about the attack are still coming to light. The New York Times reports today that officials fleeing the consulate took refuge in a nearby villa, where they came under attack again—this time a sophisticated ambush including gun and mortar fire. "It was really accurate," says one Libyan militia member who was there that night. "The people who were shooting at us knew what they were doing." Initial reports called the villa a "safe house," but like the consulate it was never heavily guarded.
– If you're waiting on Best Buy to ship a last-minute Christmas gift, better check your email. The retailer is informing customers that it can't fill all online orders, reports the Chicago Tribune. It's not clear yet how many will be affected. One analyst chalks it up to a big surge in online buying this year but warns that unhappy customers may think twice about going with Best Buy next time around, notes AP. (Customers are seething at an online forum.) Part of a company statement: "Due to overwhelming demand of hot product offerings on BestBuy.com during the November and December time period, we have encountered a situation that has affected redemption of some of our customers' online orders. We are very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused, and we have notified the affected customers."
– Almost exactly a year ago, in July 2016, a "playful" family video and a handful of private nude images shared between husband and wife were posted online by an anonymous user who encouraged people to distribute them widely, per Politico. But the content wasn't about just anybody, it featured a House of Representatives member—and her staffers may have been behind it. This week, two former staff members of Virgin Islands Del. Stacey Plaskett (D) were charged in the circulation of the private material, reports the Washington Post. Juan McCullum was indicted by a grand jury on two counts of cyberstalking, and Dorene Browne-Louis was indicted on two counts of obstruction of justice. NBC News reports that McCullum has yet to appear in court, while Browne-Louis has pleaded not guilty. Though she was named only by her initials in the court documents, Plaskett confirmed her identity and said in a statement that her privacy was invaded last year, "followed by an organized smear campaign," just before election time. She says she and her family "continue to be saddened by the damage we suffered as a result of those egregious acts." The indictment alleges that McCullum accessed private content after offering to take a House member's malfunctioning iPhone (Plaskett's phone, per NBC) to a local Apple store to be repaired. He left Plaskett's staff in June, shortly before the images were posted under a fake name online. Plaskett, who was re-elected with 85% of the vote, made news this week when she wrote in the Hill about the "eerily similar" status of the Virgin Islands to the original 13 colonies, calling it an "ironic state of freedom without democracy."
– Scientists say they've found the remains of a prehistoric female whose mother was a Neanderthal and whose father belonged to another extinct group of human relatives known as Denisovans, the AP reports. The 90,000-year-old bone fragment found in southern Siberia marks the first time a direct offspring of these two groups has been discovered, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Both groups disappeared by about 40,000 years ago. Neanderthals lived in Europe and Asia, while fossils of Denisovans are known only from the cave where the fragment was found. Past genetic studies have shown interbreeding between the two groups, as well as with our own species, which left a trace in the DNA of today's people. But the new study is the first to identify a first-generation child with Neanderthal and Denisovan parents. "It's fascinating to find direct evidence of this mixing going on," says Svante Paabo, one of the study's lead authors. Paabo says he was surprised by the discovery, given how relatively few remains of our evolutionary relatives have been found around the world. The cave near Mongolia where the bone was found contains some remains attributed to Neanderthals as well as Denisovans. But finding an actual offspring of the two groups—which are more different from each other than any two present-day human groups—seemed like a rare stroke of luck. "The fact that we stumbled across this makes you wonder if the mixing wasn't quite frequent," says Paabo. Click for the full story.
– A 20-year-old US Marine stationed in Arizona has become the only person arrested in the New Year's Eve road rage shooting of University of North Texas student Sara Mutschlechner. Eric Jamal Johnson, a corporal who has been in the military since 2013, was taken into custody at the Marine air station in Yuma, which is more than 1,000 miles away from Denton, Texas, where Mutschlechner was shot dead, CNN reports. A police spokesman says the 20-year-old student was shot after a "verbal confrontation" between passengers in her car and men in an SUV, reports the North Texas Daily. The police spokesman says that after the SUV pulled up, it was an "amicable conversation to begin with, but quickly went downhill and some derogatory statements were made toward the female occupants of [Mutschlechner's] vehicle." He says shots were fired from the SUV after male passengers in Mutschlechner's car reacted angrily to the "very derogatory" remarks, which were of a "sexual nature," reports CNN. Investigators say some members of both groups had been at the same party before the 2am shooting. Police haven't named Johnson as the shooter or said whether there will be more arrests, reports WFAA, though they have said that he was seen with a handgun inside the vehicle before the shooting.
– A horrifying—and perplexing—case out of Cincinnati: A 16-year-old boy died Tuesday after two panicked calls to 911 in which he relayed that he was trapped and dying inside his minivan in the parking lot of his school. "I probably don't have much time left, so tell my mom I love her if I die," Kyle Jacob Plush said in the first call, which came just after 3pm. He "gasped, cried repeatedly for help, and struggled to communicate with the operator" during that call, WCPO reports, but ultimately the call cut off. Officers went to the scene but couldn't find the van and thought the call might have been a joke. But Kyle called 911 again and insisted it was not: "I am trapped inside a gold Honda Odyssey van in the parking lot of Seven Hills," he said. "Send officers immediately. I'm almost dead." Kyle's body wasn't found until nearly six hours later, after his family was told he had not shown up to a tennis match as planned. His mom used an app to determine his phone was in the school parking lot; family members arrived there around 9pm to find him, unresponsive, in his unlocked car, the AP reports. A source tells Cincinnati.com he had climbed onto the third-row bench seat to retrieve tennis equipment from the back of the van when the seat flipped toward the back hatch, trapping Kyle upside-down beneath it. "The young man was trapped in the third row bench seat, and it [was] positional asphyxiation" that killed him, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters said while announcing a comprehensive investigation into Plush's death. Police Chief Eliot Isaac called it a "horrific tragedy" and said something went "terribly wrong"; he said information from Kyle's 911 calls did not get relayed to officers at the scene, and Cincinnati.com reports the dispatcher, who has been placed on administrative leave, seemed to struggle to understand him. Police are investigating whether human error or an equipment malfunction played a role.
– George HW Bush has left the building known as Methodist Hospital in Houston a week after he was hospitalized for shortness of breath. "He is now resting at home, grateful to the doctors and nurses for their superb care," says a spokesman, as per ABC News. At 90, Bush is the nation's oldest living former commander in chief; he suffers from a form of Parkinson's, notes the AP. In a statement yesterday, Bush and wife Barbara said they wished to "thank everyone for their good wishes and prayers."
– Adam Rippon is done with competing in PyeongChang this year, but NBC has given the outspoken figure skater a correspondent gig that will keep his face in America's living rooms through to the end of the Winter Olympics. Buoyed in large part by his penchant for cracking jokes on camera— "Can I just have a Xanax and a quick drink?" is one cited by Vulture—the 28-year-old was offered the job after placing 10th in the men’s individual event. An NBC spokesperson tells USA Today that skating fans can expect to see Rippon's presence as a correspondent on television, online, and in social media. Behind his skills on the ice, Rippon has a another claim to fame in his status as one of the first two openly gay American Olympic athletes, both of whom are representing Team USA in Korea this year. (The other athlete is slopestyle skier Gus Kenworthy.) Rippon has used his moment in the sun to make political statements, specifically about the vice president, who the skater says does not support LGBT rights. "Eat your heart out, Pence" Rippon tweeted along with a photo of himself with Kenworthy at the opening ceremony.
– Former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson won't face federal charges in the shooting death of Michael Brown, the Department of Justice announced today, ending what the New York Times calls a "lengthy investigation" since the teen's death in August with an expected outcome. In so doing, federal investigators rejected the theory that Brown had his hands up and was surrendering to Wilson. "There is no evidence upon which prosecutors can rely to disprove Wilson's stated subjective belief that he feared for his safety," reads the report. "Some of those accounts are inaccurate because they are inconsistent with the physical and forensic evidence; some of those accounts are materially inconsistent with that witnesses' own prior statements with no explanation." The report pulled no punches, however, in what the AP calls its "scathing" assessment of the city's police force and the racial bias rampant within it. "It is time for Ferguson's leaders to take immediate, wholesale, and structural corrective action," says outgoing AG Eric Holder in a statement, per the Times. He's expected to speak this afternoon. While Wilson won't be charged—which was unlikely given the high legal threshold for civil rights violations, notes the AP—pressure is on the police force to make changes or face a DoJ lawsuit. "It's quite evident that change is coming down the pike. This is encouraging," a St. Louis community activist tells the AP. "It's so unfortunate that Michael Brown had to be killed. But in spite of that, I feel justice is coming."
– The Coast Guard has found no sign of debris while searching Lake Erie for a small plane carrying three adults and three children that took off from Cleveland, then vanished Thursday night, reports the AP. All passengers attended a Cleveland Cavaliers game before boarding the twin-engine Cessna Citation 525 and departing Burke Lakefront Airport at 10:50pm bound for Ohio State University Airport in Columbus, where the plane is normally housed in a hangar, per CNN and WKYC. However, it dropped from radar about two miles over Lake Erie. An air search, made difficult by 12- to 15-foot waves, turned up no sign of the plane overnight.
– A Palestinian guest house packed with artwork of the elusive British graffiti artist Banksy unveiled itself Friday in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. The nine-room establishment named "The Walled Off Hotel" will officially open on March 11, but reporters got an advance tour, per the AP. The hotel, which faces the West Bank separation barrier erected by Israel (it's the "hotel with the worst view in the world," its proprietors joke), is awash in the trademark satirical work of the mysterious artist. The highlight is room number three, known as "Banksy's Room," where guests will sleep in a king-size bed underneath Banksy's artwork showing a Palestinian and an Israeli in a pillow fight. The hotel also features a museum with the artist's politically charged work. The Guardian describes the guest house as "hotel, protest and art in one," and says Bansky's intent is not only to bring jobs and tourism to the area but to foster a dialogue about Israeli-Palestinian relations. The hotel will host exhibitions by Palestinian artists, and it's located in a spot where Israelis can legally visit. His team insists it's a legit business venture, not merely an artistic stunt. The cheapest rooms are available from $30 a night. Banksy has made previous forays into the Palestinians territories. In one secret visit, he drew a painting of a girl pulled upward by balloons on the barrier facing his current project. Last year, he is believed to have sneaked into Gaza to draw four street murals.
– An Atlanta family is at odds with SeaWorld today after a playful dolphin leaped up and bit the family's 8-year-old girl on the hand, CNN reports. The Thomases say they posted a video of Jillian being bitten in Orlando, Fla., because they weren't satisfied with SeaWorld's response to the incident. "We felt powerless," says Jillian's dad. "We thought, look, we've got this video, let's make it public, and let's try to put some pressure on SeaWorld to make some changes." In the November 21 video, you can see Jillian feeding dolphins from a paper plate when she mistakenly picked up the plate—against SeaWorld instructions—and the dolphin momentarily bit her. "I was thinking it was going to haul me into the water," says Jillian. What's more, her mother says, SeaWorld staffers never offered a Band-Aid or told them to look for signs of infection. But a SeaWorld spokeswoman says health staffers "quickly responded" to Jillian, who had been given "specific instructions to not pick up the paper trays at any time."
– Jimmy Kimmel pulled a prank on a bunch of unsuspecting tourists at the Oscars Sunday night to mixed reviews. The award show host arranged for a tour bus to be brought to the Dolby Theatre, at which point the people on board were brought inside the auditorium as the audience yelled "Mahershala!" (in homage to Oscar winner Mahershala Ali). The stunned surprise guests were then introduced to the front-row celebrities, including Ryan Gosling (who apparently gave Gary from Chicago his Oscars swag), Denzel Washington (who "married" Gary and his fiancee), and Meryl Streep, whom Kimmel described to the tourists as "overrated." But Kimmel also took the opportunity to make fun of a few of the tourists' names, which didn't go over well on Twitter, the Guardian notes. One woman with a name she explained sounded like "jewelry" received a bit of a jab from the host, while her new husband, Patrick, got a thumbs-up from Kimmel for his more-familiar-sounding name. Advocate reporter Nico Lang tweeted, "I'm not into this trend of making fun of the names of people of color. It's not cute, Jimmy Kimmel," while the Guardian's Benjamin Lee noted of the entire gimmick: "It all [felt] a bit patronizing to be quite honest, allowing 'real people” to gawp at celebrities."
– Russia is considering handing over Edward Snowden as a "gift" to "curry favor" with President Trump, an intelligence source tells NBC. The source claims the handover was discussed in intercepted Russian conversations. Trump has repeatedly described the NSA leaker as a "traitor" who deserves harsh punishment, tweeting in 2013 that Snowden is a "spy who should be executed." In July last year, Trump said that if he became president, Putin would return Snowden to the US. Snowden, however, says the report is proof that he isn't a spy, the Guardian reports. "Finally: irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian intel," he tweeted Friday. "No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear they're next." A Putin spokesman says reports of a Snowden handover are "nonsense," though former deputy national security adviser Juan Zarate tells NBC that such a move would be a "win-win" for Russia. "They've already extracted what they needed from Edward Snowden in terms of information and they've certainly used him to beat the United States over the head in terms of its surveillance and cyber activity," he says. Intelligence sources tell CNN and CBS that intercepted conversations also suggest reports of an explosive Russian dossier on Trump should be taken seriously, though they stress that no proof of "the more salacious things" in the dossier has surfaced. (Last month, Snowden moved a step closer to Russian citizenship.)
– This is not the sort of record Arizona was looking for: The wildfire blazing its way through the Grand Canyon State is now officially the second-largest in its history, having burned 389,000 acres. The "Wallow Fire" is now more than twice the size of Chicago, and second only to a 2002 blaze that burned 468,638 acres, reports CNN. And the fire, which was sparked May 29 by what authorities believe was an unattended campfire, will continue to spread unless the humidity increases and the high winds peter out. It is still at 0% containment, and has cost $8 million to fight thus far, notes the AP.
– Wish you could ditch the inspirational commencement speech for something a bit more realistic? So does Alexandra Petri. But she wasn’t satisfied with Charles Wheelan’s recent list in the Wall Street Journal, “10 Things Your Commencement Speaker Won’t Tell You,” because she kinda remembered hearing all of the observations it contained ... in commencement speeches. So, in the Washington Post, she offers up “the 10 things they really don’t tell you at graduation.” Get ready to be unemployed and living with mom and dad. She’s not trying to be cruel, just stating facts, she explains, and she has the statistics to prove it. Here's one: "29% of 25-to-34 year-olds live in what the poll-taker was kind enough to refer to as "multi-generational living arrangements" rather than "your old room with all the anime posters and Admiral Ackbar figures carelessly splayed on every surface." Don't expect a "gold star" for doing mundane chores like cleaning your bathroom. Though TV commercials may try to convince you that "a bald man or anthropomorphic sponge will give you a high-five" once you've mopped your floor, that'll only actually happen if you "accidentally inhaled some of the cleaning product as you worked." You should really, really appreciate your youth. "Life can be divided into two sections: the years when you know that if you fall over you are unlikely to break a hip, and the years when you’re not so sure," so make sure to have fun during that first part. Your education did not teach you the most important thing. Which is: "how to deal with having money and how to deal with not having money." Since it instead taught you all about the Renaissance poets, you’ll have to learn about personal finance on your own. Click for Petri’s full, amusing list, which includes a hilarious tip about book clubs.
– Kendrick Lamar was the king of Sunday's 2017 MTV Video Music Awards, winning six awards on a night full of emotional performances, political moments, and a new, eye-popping Taylor Swift music video. Lamar's "Humble" won video of the year, best hip-hop video, direction, cinematography, art direction, and visual effects. He also gave an explosive performance of "Humble" and "DNA," backed by ninjas dancing near fire. But the VMAs, hosted by Katy Perry with performances from Miley Cyrus and Ed Sheeran, was tamer than most years, not relying on the shock value and wild antics of past shows, the AP reports. Instead, touching performances and powerful speeches (especially one by Pink) took center stage. Some highlights: Lamar's performance kicked off the three-hour show, followed by the premiere of Swift's video for "Look What You Made Me Do," which featured the singer dressed like a zombie in one scene and surrounded by slithering snakes in another. The video for the track, rumored to be a diss toward Kanye West, also featured Swift in a tub of diamonds, a cat mask, and a car that crashed. Logic performed his inspirational song "1-800-273-8255," named after the phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Kesha introduced the performance and also offered words of encouragement: "As long as you don't give up on yourself, light will break through the darkness." Rock singer and Oscar winner Jared Leto remembered Linkin Park's Chester Bennington, who hanged himself in July. Leto also mentioned Chris Cornell, who hanged himself in May. "I think about his band, who were really his brothers, and I remember his voice," Leto said of Bennington. "That voice will live forever." The night also featured political moments focused on the Charlottesville violence. The Rev. Robert Wright Lee IV, a descendent of Gen. Robert E. Lee, told the audience: "As a pastor it is my duty to speak out against racism, America's original sin." Susan Bro, mother of slain protester Heather Heyer then entered the stage, telling the audience: "Only 15 days my ago, my daughter Heather was killed as she protested racism. I miss her but I know she's here tonight." Bro also announced she had established a foundation in her daughter's name to provide scholarships to activists. Paris Jackson also spoke out against hatred. "We must show these Nazi white supremacist jerks in Charlottesville, and all over the country, that as a nation with liberty as our slogan, we have zero tolerance for their violence and their hatred and their discrimination. We must resist," Michael Jackson's daughter said before presenting an award. Click for a list of winners.
– BP can afford to pay the settlement for a lawsuit filed against it for the Gulf oil spill—but it shouldn't have to, says Joe Nocera in the New York Times. "BP is the best example I’ve ever seen of a company that actually tried to find a better way," he writes. "Immediately after the spill, it set up a claims process to get money into victims’ hands quickly, without having to file a lawsuit." BP has already paid out $11 billion in claims. So why was it sued anyway? Because lawyers wanted to send a message, writes Nocera: "No matter how much money you are willing to pay victims, it will never be enough to keep you out of the courtroom." After all, the lawyers have their own business model to protect. Now, he says, the people that stand to benefit are businesses that weren't actually harmed by the spill, and the lawyers themselves, who get more for every business with its hand out. "All over the Gulf, lawyers are advising clients to line up at the BP trough, and they are doing so," he writes. "But how is this righting a wrong?" Meanwhile, BP's CEO has been arguing much the same thing today, telling CNBC that its $20 billion compensation fund has been drained dry by attorneys, with just $300 million remaining. Click for Nocera's full column.
– On the surface, things aren’t looking good for President Obama—but if Republicans want to beat him, they’ll need a viable candidate. And that’s something they don’t appear to have, writes Matt Latimer for the Daily Beast. Instead, they’ve got battered Herman Cain, who’s still at the top of the field. “When you cannot lure voters away from a man who is accused of several counts of disreputable behavior and who seems to lack an understanding of many basic issues, you’ve got yourself a problem,” Latimer writes. Mitt Romney, meanwhile, seems so full of “consultant-fed pablum” that even his controversial ideas—like raising the retirement age—don’t get the media going. Then there’s Rick Perry, who’s still trying to prove he wasn’t plastered in New Hampshire. Even William Kristol is acknowledging that no Republican is going to come from nowhere and pull a 1980 Ronald Reagan-style victory. “Is it time for the GOP to start panicking yet?” Latimer asks. Yep. And it's not too late for a new candidate to jump in. "Just don't anybody give that idea to Donald Trump."
– Kellyanne Conway may have cleared up whether President Trump knows acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker—after Trump called Whitaker "a great guy" in October, made him acting AG last week, and claimed not to know him Friday, the Washington Post reports. "The president does know Matt Whitaker, has gotten to know him over the course of the last year, since he has been the chief of staff to the attorney general," says Conway on Fox News Sunday. Trump was only emphasizing Friday that Whitaker isn't "a friend there who he's known his entire life," Conway explains. For more around the Sunday dial, including an accusation by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi: The Acosta video: "He either put his hands on her and grabbed the mic [from] her or he did not and he clearly did," Conway says of the much-ballyhooed video showing CNN reporter Jim Acosta resisting the mic-grab of an administration intern, per Rolling Stone. "...Well that's not altered. That's sped up. They do it all the time in sports to see if there's actually a first down or a touchdown."
– An Orlando company is suing George Zimmerman over a partly unpaid security bill following his release from jail on $1 million bail, Fox News reports. Associated Investigative Services Inc. says Zimmerman failed to fully pay $66,000 for 21 days of security, including a "jail escort plan" involving two vehicles, body armor, and a hat-and-glasses disguise. But Zimmerman's lawyer says his client paid quite enough—$40,000—and never signed a contract. Plus Zimmerman was in jail for seven of those 21 days. But back to the "escort plan": Upon his release, Zimmerman would be given concealed body armor and driven away by an armed guard in a vehicle pre-scanned for GPS tracking devices, reports the Miami Herald. Next he would don a disguise in a tourist resort bathroom and be taken in another vehicle to a "safe house." Bodyguards would look for paparazzi, assailants, and “aerial” and "negative counter surveillance" the whole time. It's unclear whether the plan was carried out, but Trayvon Martin's killer is free on bail and living with his wife somewhere in Seminole County, Fla. (Zimmerman is filing a lawsuit himself—against NBC.)
– Even Maverick never pulled off a maneuver this ballsy. Residents of the tiny Washington state town of Okanogan tell the Spokesman-Review they saw a jet drawing something in the sky around noon Thursday. “After it made the circles at the bottom, I knew what it was and started laughing,” Ramone Duran says. What it was was a giant penis drawn in the sky over central Washington. Photos of the sky genitals spread around social media, and it was a popular topic Thursday night at a local sports bar in Okanogan. Twitter user Anahi Torres called it "the most monumental thing to happen in Omak." While a local mother called KREM to complain she would now have to explain to her children what the skywriting depicted, not everyone was upset about the penis hovering above. “I thought it was pretty funny, and so did he," says Misty Waugh, whose 12-year-old son texted her a photo of it. “A lot of people have been talking about it." Officials from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island say one of their planes was responsible for the skywriting. "The Navy holds its aircrew to the highest standards and we find this absolutely unacceptable, of zero training value and we are holding the crew accountable," officials say. An official at the FAA says the agency "cannot police morality," and there's nothing it can do about people defacing the sky with penises unless it poses a safety risk.
– In its bombshell report detailing allegations of sexual misconduct against casino mogul Steve Wynn, the Wall Street Journal alleged that a manicurist who said she was forced to have sex with Wynn walked away with a $7.5 million settlement. In a new report, the Journal details just how that payment was allegedly made. It cites the transcript of an October court hearing related to ongoing litigation between the 76-year-old and his ex-wife, Elaine, in which a lawyer for Wynn Resorts makes clear that "Entity Y," a limited liability company established in 2005 (which sources say was after the manicurist's claim), was created with the intention of handling settlement money. The Journal's take is that the LLC "helped conceal a $7.5 million payment" to the manicurist, but a rep for Wynn Resorts disputes any sexual assault correlation: "Entity Y was created to receive settlement proceeds, however there would have been no settlement or negotiations if the matter was about an alleged assault." Meanwhile, the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Monday reported that it had spiked a 1998 story detailing misconduct allegations against Wynn, including one woman's claim that he pressured her into having sex after she became a grandmother to see what sex with a grandmother was like. Two of the women took lie detector tests. The journalist behind the story, Carri Geer, is now the paper's metro editor and says she doesn't remember who pulled the story and told her to delete it; she saved a copy.
– Fire broke out Thursday in a hotel near the world's tallest skyscraper in Dubai, just ahead of a massive New Year's fireworks display. It was not immediately clear what caused the fire, which ran up at least 20 stories of the building near the landmark Burj Khalifa, which is 905 yards tall. CNN identifies the burning building as the "high-end" Address hotel. Debris rained down from the hotel as firetrucks raced to the scene. At least 14 people were "slightly injured," the AP reports, and one person had a heart attack. The fire broke out about two hours before midnight, when the nearby fireworks display was set to begin. Tens of thousands of people had gathered in the area ahead of the extravaganza, and officials in the United Arab Emirates city said the show would go on as scheduled.
– Archaeologists and thousands of volunteers are in a race against time to digitally map some of the world's oldest and most important statues, temples, and cities before they can be destroyed by the Islamic State, the Los Angeles Times reports. If ISIS "is permitted to wipe the slate clean and rewrite the history of a region that defined global aesthetic and political sensibilities, we will collectively suffer a costly and irreversible defeat," Roger Michel, director of the Institute for Digital Archaeology, tells the Telegraph. In recent months, the terrorist group has blown up a pair of 2,000-year-old temples in Syria and destroyed Iraq's ancient city of Nimrud. ISIS considers these antiquities idolatry, and destroying them is a major facet of its propaganda, notes Forbes. To combat the loss of history, the institute—a venture between Harvard and Oxford—is spending $2 million to send at least 5,000 high-tech cameras to volunteers in the region to take millions of photos, the Telegraph reports. The institute will use the photos to create 3-D images, which could be used to make replicas of destroyed sites, something Forbes states MIT has offered to do. Taking photos at these sites will be dangerous work, and volunteers will only go to sites not yet controlled by ISIS, the Times reports. Though the project started only six weeks ago, time is of the essence. "We want to do something to document this legacy before it disappears," Michel tells the Times. (The group also beheaded an archaeological pioneer in the region.)
– When Rachael Cronin's lips became dry and coarse, she began to apply even more of her gluten-free EOS lip balm "to achieve the results of becoming 'sensationally smooth'" as the packaging promised, only to discover that her lips "began severely cracking on the edges, causing flaking and bleeding from the cracks." The rashes and blistering became so bad she sought medical care a few days later, according to the class-action lawsuit she has subsequently filed against the brand, an acronym for "evolution of smooth." EOS brought the ubiquitous balm to market in 2009 and claims more than 1.3 million followers on Instagram, reports BuzzFeed. According to the suit, which can be read in its entirety on Scribd, Cronin's symptoms lasted 10 days and caused her "severe shock and panic." Cronin attorney Mark Geragos writes that there could be hundreds of thousands of users affected similarly, and he's not only seeking damages but also asking that the company address his client's concerns. EOS, which is linked to some of the biggest names in the business, including Miley Cyrus and Kim Kardashian, writes in a statement to Time that "this lawsuit is without merit" and adds: "The health and well-being of our customers is our top priority and millions of satisfied customers use our products every day, many of whom take the time to share their experiences with us." Comments on BuzzFeed are largely unsympathetic toward Cronin, questioning why someone with an allergic reaction thinks it's OK to sue because of it. (This woman won a disability payout for WiFi sensitivity.)
– Time to change Nebraska's flag? That's what some are saying after the banner flew upside down over the state Capitol for 10 long days, the Omaha World-Herald reports. "Nobody noticed it," says state Sen. Burke Harr. "It took someone drawing it to my attention." Now Harr is calling for a task force to redesign the flag, which shows a busy state seal "plonked" against a royal blue background, per the Guardian. It includes a steamboat, a train, and a blacksmith pounding away with a hammer, plus the state motto, "Equality before the law." It's not the first time the state symbol has been ridiculed. The North American Vexillological Association ranks it among the five worst state flags, and Thrillist ruled that only Maryland's was uglier. "You don’t draw a guy in a robe trying to smash through a tree stump, you just don’t," the site chided. When it comes to terrible state flags, there's apparently a race to the bottom. The good ones are "far outnumbered by the terrible ones," the author of Good Flag, Bad Flag once told CNN. A bid in 2002 to change the flag fell flat, but now Nebraskans appear ready for a makeover. An ad exec who designed the state's 150th anniversary logo as a stylized ear of corn emphasizes the need for simplicity. "It's galling" the flag "doesn't embody" the "uniqueness" that is Nebraska, adds the director of the state's art council. (Flying a flag upside down can send an unintentional message, as Facebook found out.)
– The mother of one of the children murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary has written a book about healing and recovery. Problem? A group known as the Sandy Hook truthers are using the Amazon reviews to trash author Scarlett Lewis—and to push their belief that the shooting was a hoax orchestrated by the government to get tougher gun laws, reports the Seattle Times. It's nasty stuff: “Scarlett Lewis is a fraud and a sellout to all of humanity,” writes one. “‘Scarlett’ should be put in jail! Zero Stars!! This book should be labled ((FICTION)) The Sandy Hook Event is *PROVEN* to have been a ‘drill,'" writes another. They're giving Lewis' Nurturing Healing Love: A Mother’s Journey of Hope and Forgiveness one-star ratings in an attempt to discredit it, which the newspaper says is an increasingly common tactic made possible by Amazon's policy of allowing reviews of products by people who haven't actually made a purchase. Raw Story notes that the hoax theory is the most common of several conspiracy theories floating around about Sandy Hook, and it's getting a high-profile push from the likes of conservative radio host Alex Jones. In fact, after the recent shooting at a community college in Oregon, the local sheriff got into hot water when it emerged that he'd shared a video spreading the idea. Lewis herself seems unfazed, telling the Times, “Once you’ve had a child murdered, shot in the forehead, there’s not a lot that can ruffle your feathers." So who on earth would believe such crackpot theories? Researchers once thought that conspiracy believers were generally people "primed to see patterns everywhere," in the words of Live Science, which reports a first-of-its kind Swiss study casts doubt on that. While it doesn't explain why theories such as the one about Sandy Hook gain traction, researchers say it debunks a commonly held explanation. (Another Sandy Hook parent found solace in music.)
– First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, often recorded its church services, raising the disturbing possibility that Sunday's massacre was captured on video. Now the New York Times reports that such a gruesome video does indeed exist. One law enforcement official says it shows Devin Kelley firing continuously for about seven minutes, "methodically shooting his victims—including small children—in the head, execution-style," the Times notes. Other developments in the investigation: Encrypted phone: Authorities have Kelley's smartphone but have run into a familiar problem, reports the AP. They can't crack the encryption and open it. The FBI will try to gain access on its own, but the development is likely to renew the fight over whether companies such as Apple should provide some kind of back door authorities can use to bypass the encryption. It's not clear what type of phone Kelley had.
– It's Pope Benedict XVI's last day on the job, but don't expect much fanfare: There won't be a major ceremony or declaration, Reuters reports. Clad in a red ceremonial cape called a mozzetta, the AP notes that he met with some 100 cardinals at the Apostolic Palace this morning to say goodbye, telling them, "Among you is the future pope ... to whom I today declare my unconditional reverence and obedience." After a short helicopter ride, Benedict will hold his final public appearance from a balcony at the papal summer residence, Castel Gandolfo, just south of Rome; about 7,000 are expected to be there, Sky News reports, contrasting with yesterday's 150,000. Benedict officially retires at 2pm Eastern time. At that time—8pm locally—the Swiss Guards outside the residence will prepare to head back to Rome. Benedict himself will stay for two months before moving to a renovated convent at the Vatican. The palace at Castel Gandolfo overlooks a lake and the main square of the medieval town, considered one of the most beautiful in Italy, AFP notes. "Here the pope will find a family atmosphere. There are no great works of art, no huge rooms," says an official. At Castel Gandolfo, the pope said in 2011, "I find everything: a mountain, a lake, I even see the sea." The words now appear on a town hall plaque.
– The hackers behind last month's data breach of AshleyMadison.com, one of the foremost websites for "married individuals seeking partners for affairs," have posted the stolen data online, Wired reports. The 9.7 gigabytes of information posted on the "dark web" seem to include account details, log-ins, and payment transactions for at least some of what the company claimed were 40 million users. As Gizmodo observes, "this should be very interesting." The hackers say they released the stolen data to show the "fraud, deceit, and stupidity" of AshleyMadison.com and its users. Ars Technica has downloaded the file and notes that while it does indeed appear to come from a "clandestine dating site," there's no definitive link to Ashley Madison. The company hasn't confirmed and says it is "actively monitoring" the situation. Gizmodo reports people are already finding "juicy gossip" amid the leaked data, including one person who turned up a plethora of British government email addresses. AshleyMadison.com doesn't require email verification to create an account, so anyone could create one using someone else's name and email address. Still, expect divorce attorneys and blackmailers to take notice, notes Ars Technica.
– Israeli fighter planes flew low over Lebanese towns today in apparent retaliation for a mysterious drone that crossed Israel this weekend, the AP reports. The military didn't directly blame Hezbollah—a powerful Shiite group in Lebanon—for the drone, but Haaretz pointed a finger at them and an Israeli lawmaker put it bluntly: "It is an Iranian drone that was launched by Hezbollah," tweeted Miri Regev. "Hezbollah and Iran continue to try to collect information in every possible way in order to harm Israel." Meanwhile, a Lebanese, Hezbollah-affiliated TV channel reported that the aircraft was in fact launched in Lebanon, reports YNet News. Iranian news websites also took a crack at the story, reporting that the drone revealed a weakness in Israel's missile defense system, reports YNet News. One Iranian site, Javan Online, noted that the region where the drone was downed is key to Israel "for that is where it digs uranium, in the Arad and Sodom area"—an apparent dig over Israel's negative stance on Iran's nuclear facilities.
– Powdered alcohol should be available this summer, unless your particular state forbids it. The federal government today approved the sale of "Palcohol," a powdered version of alcohol that transforms into a boozy drink with the addition of water or a mixer, reports the AP. (Earlier federal approval was actually granted in error, but this one is the real deal.) Several states already have moved to ban the stuff, fearful that it would make it too easy for minors to sneak drinks pretty much wherever they wanted. Each packet of Palcohol weighs about an ounce and packs the equivalent of a shot of alcohol, according to the company's website. Different versions, including vodka and rum, will be available. Founder Mark Phillips says he hopes to have it on the market this summer, and he says states banning it are doing so because of "misinformation and ignorant speculation" spread by liquor companies, reports the Spirits Business website. “It is hypocritical to ban powdered alcohol and not liquid alcohol."
– Seven Thai protest leaders surrendered in Bangkok today and called off their uprising, but Bangkok continued to erupt in violence as Red Shirts torched buildings, including the Thai stock exchange, a TV station, a utility company, and shopping malls. Leaders surrendered after troops stormed a protest encampment, killing at least 5, including an Italian news photographer. A military commander called the situation "under control," as explosions continued and smoke engulfed the commercial center of Bangkok, reports the Wall Street Journal. The unrest spread to northeast Thailand, where protesters stormed a town hall complex in the city of Udon Thani, reports MSNBC. The 7 men, called "terrorist leaders" by government officials, said they were surrendering to end the bloodshed, reports AP. "I apologize to you all but I don't want any more losses. I am devastated," leader Jatuporn Prompan told protesters shortly before his arrest. "We will surrender."
– Not that it's a huge surprise, but Reuters reports that its informal survey of social media suggests that Ebola is going to be a major Halloween theme this year. The ultra-dedicated might try to dress up as the virus itself, but otherwise expect to see a lot of makeshift hazmat suits. Generally speaking, these are going to be homemade get-ups, because, as the manager of New York Costumes explains, no major costume manufacturer will touch the subject. "There are certain things—you just don't go there," he says. Some people may be shelling out for the real thing, of course. Whether because of Halloween or paranoia, suits of all kinds are selling on eBay and Amazon, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. "A great combo pack that may help to protect against Ebola," read the ad for one suit on Amazon, and, hey, it's "small enough to keep one in your home and one kit in your car for a quick get away." One company surely happy about the trend is Lakeland Industries, a maker of a hazmat suits whose shares surged more than 50% this week and have more than doubled over last year, reports the Street.
– The man accused of murdering four white men in Fresno—three of them in a Tuesday morning shooting spree—repeatedly referred to "white devils" in online postings. Police believe 39-year-old Kori Ali Muhammad's killing spree was a hate crime, not an act of terrorism. The suspect's father, Vincent Taylor, tells the Los Angeles Times that his son believed black people and white people were at war and "a battle was about to take place." Police say Muhammed, who surrendered peacefully after shooting the three men, has told them he decided to kill "as many people as he could" after he was identified as a suspect in the fatal shooting of a Motel 6 security guard last week, the Fresno Bee reports. Taylor says he's glad his son—who changed his name from Kori Taylor—was arrested and the bloodshed is at an end. Muhammad's other online postings include a rap album with the lyrics: "Hollow points make a white devil body spin." Police say his victims included Pacific Gas & Electric Co. employee Zackary Randalls, the 34-year-old father of two young children. The two other men killed Tuesday are believed to be clients of Catholic Charities, an organization that helps the poor and the homeless, the Bee reports. Police say Muhammad shouted "Allahu akbar" as he was arrested. Leaders from several Fresno Muslim centers joined Christian and Jewish leaders outside City Hall Tuesday to condemn the killings.
– Connecticut's Dram Shop Act makes liable an establishment that serves alcohol to an intoxicated person if that person subsequently kills or injures someone, and it's what a somewhat high-profile suit was filed under. The suit alleges Katherine Berman, the 67-year-old wife of ESPN personality Chris Berman, was served by Woodbury's Market Place Kitchen & Bar on May 9, 2017, though she was intoxicated. She left the restaurant in the early afternoon and crashed into a car driven by Edward Bertulis, 87. Both were killed, and Bertulis' family is behind the suit, which seeks upwards of $50,000 from the eatery and owner Elias Hawli. The suit doesn't detail how many drinks Berman, who was having lunch with sister Sandra Lewis, allegedly received. But a state police report obtained by the Hartford Courant quotes Lewis as saying Berman had oysters, stuffed clams, bread, and one martini that she didn't finish, followed by an alcoholic chocolate drink that also wasn't finished. The report says Berman's blood-alcohol level was .26, more than three times the legal limit. She was driving her Lexus as fast as 82mph on a road that had a 45mph speed limit, did not stay in her lane, and never braked before slamming into Bertulis' vehicle. Traces of oxycodone, tramadol, and anti-depressants including citalopram were found in her system; Chris Berman told police she was being treated for a minor back fracture. One wrenching detail from the Courant: Bertulis was killed after leaving the cemetery he visited daily; his wife was buried there in 2015.
– Kim Jong Un has executed another top military official, sources say. Army Gen. Ri Yong Gil, chief of the General Staff of the Korean People's Army, was reportedly executed last week after being found guilty of pursuing personal gains and corruption. Appointed military chief in 2013, Ri was spotted in public alongside Kim at inspections of military exercises until last month, sources tell South Korea's Yonhap News. However, he wasn't present at a joint meeting of the Workers' Party and the military from Feb. 2-3, nor has he been seen at celebrations in honor of Sunday's rocket launch. A source speculates that Ri may have disapproved of recent military appointments, per the Korea Herald. Gen. Ri Myong Su, a former minister of people's security, may have taken over his post. "This shows that Kim Jong Un is very nervous about the armed forces," the source says. But an expert tells Bloomberg there are two ways to view the purge: "One argument is that even after nearly five years in power, Kim is still weak, and is wiping out his lieutenants to try and keep a grip. The other argument is that he's strong and is in full control of the army. He can do exactly what he wants with the army and this is a typical move to wipe out the old guard."
– During meetings with lawmakers Thursday and Friday, Rod Rosenstein stood by the memo that may or may not have been the reason for James Comey's firing, the Hill reports. "I wrote it. I believe it. I stand by it," the deputy attorney general said. However, Rosenstein said the memo wasn't "a finding of official misconduct," nor was it "a statement of reasons to justify a for-cause termination." The White House had used the memo as justification for firing the FBI director, though President Trump later contradicted that, saying he was already going to fire Comey. According to the Washington Post, Rosenstein told lawmakers he already knew Comey was going to be fired before he wrote the memo—though he said the firing "was appropriate." A number of lawmakers were left unsatisfied by their meetings with Rosenstein, who they believe was withholding important information. Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist says it was a Q and A with "not a whole lot of A." And the Wall Street Journal reports another lawmaker described it as a "waste of my time." One of the major questions Rosenstein refused to answer was who, if anyone, asked him to write the memo. He did say Comey never requested more resources for the Russian investigation prior to being fired by Trump, as had been reported.
– Congressional negotiators have hit on a deal to address the serious issues reportedly plaguing Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals. The agreement in negotiations led by independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and Republican Rep. Jeff Miller comes in the wake of disagreements over dueling Senate and House plans, the Washington Post notes. The new deal, set for announcement today, would allow vets dealing with long wait times or lacking nearby VA facilities to see private doctors on the government's dime, the New York Times reports. The plan sets aside $5 billion to hire new workers and calls on the VA to take on 27 new hospital leases, the Post notes. It also sets up counseling opportunities for veterans recovering from sexual trauma in the military. The agreement squeaks in ahead of a congressional recess that begins this week; lawmakers faced a push to settle on a deal before the break, the Times notes. The deal must be backed by a committee and the full Congress, as well as President Obama, before it's official.
– Deny, deny, confirm: Johnny Depp's publicist has verified to Entertainment Tonight that the actor has indeed split with Vanessa Paradis. The statement is short, typical, and a tiny bit heart-wrenching: "Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis have amicably separated. Please respect their privacy and, more importantly, the privacy of their children." Depp, 49, and Paradis, 39, have been together since 1998, notes Fox News. They have two children together.
– Fentanyl killed 18,335 people in the US in 2016—the most of any drug, making the synthetic opioid the deadliest drug in America. Health officials announced the new ranking of overdose deaths from 2016, the most recent year for which data is available, on Wednesday. It's fentanyl's first time atop the list, which had heroin in the No. 1 spot from 2012 to 2015, USA Today reports. Oxycodone held the top spot in 2011. Fentanyl has experienced a disturbingly fast rise, causing just 4% of overdose deaths in 2011—but 29% in 2016. On average, the rate of fentanyl OD deaths increased by 113% per year from 2013 to 2016. Of note, as the Huffington Post reports, is the fact that most OD deaths involved multiple drugs; of the fatal ODs involving fentanyl or heroin, 70% involved at least one other drug as well, and about 40% of cocaine deaths also involved fentanyl. Read on for the top 10 deadliest drugs in the US:
– President Obama will host his first town hall as an official candidate for re-election—on Facebook. The president will go to company headquarters in Palo Alto on April 20 for the online forum, reports ABC. (Yes, Mark Zuckerberg will be there, too.) Participants can post questions for the president about the budget and the economy here, and Facebook will select questions during the event. It could foreshadow online strategy for the campaign, writes Sam Stein at the Huffington Post. He takes note of a recent Politico article making the case that social media platforms have largely replaced email and blogs as the way to reach out via the web. And Obama's "new media team clearly finds the Facebook forum a comfortable one to traverse," writes Stein.
– Gigi Hadid is clearly a fat gal with overly large butt, boobs, and hips—if, you know, you're insane. Now the 20-year-old model is fighting back against body shamers who apparently trolled her on social media around the time she walked the Versace runway last week in Milan, ET Online reports. "So many people are so quick to comment negative opinions this month," she writes on Instagram. "Yes, judgment on social media comes from people who, 99% of the time, have no idea what they're talking about, but I'm human and I'm not going to lie, I did let the negativity get to me a little." What were their gripes, exactly? Judging by Hadid's comments, it was her body shape and runway walk. "I don't have the same body type as the other models in shows," she writes. "Yes, I want to have a unique walk but I also know I have to improve." She goes on: "I represent a body image that wasn't accepted in high-fashion before. Yes, I have boobs, I have abs, I have a butt, I have thighs, but I'm not asking for special treatment. ... Your mean comments don't make me want to change my body. If I didn't have the body I do, I wouldn't have the career I do. I love that I can be sexy. I'm proud of it." Kris Jenner, whose daughter Kendall is a friend of Hadid's, tweeted that "this is from one of the sweetest, smartest, and most beautiful girl[s] inside and out, in the world." And boyfriend, Joe Jonas, posted a photo of her walking in Milan with a clear message: "My Girl Just Killed It. @versace_official."
– For the first time since 1996, educators have released major national guidelines for science in schools. The big news this time: They include a call for climate change education, potentially beginning in middle school, the New York Times reports. They also strongly urge schools to teach evolution. The Next Generation Science Standards, as they're known, are the result of collaboration between educators and 26 states. Though states don't have to follow the rules, 26 are "seriously considering" them, the Times notes. "In the current situation the state standards are all over the map. It's a hodgepodge," an expert involved says. "We are still in a situation where across the country, basically in every state, students can still graduate from high school and in some cases go through college without learning the basics." Still, the completed guidelines are watered down from earlier drafts, the Guardian notes. The amount of material devoted to climate change has been cut by a third, and the final draft isn't as clear on human involvement in climate change: "It's buried at best," says an education leader.
– YouTube is hoping Channing Tatum will catapult them into the realm of Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. The cat-video provider just announced Step Up as its "first full-fledged, big-budget original drama series," Deadline reports. The series will debut in 2017 on the subscription-only YouTube Red. Step Up is based on the film franchise of the same name that first loosed Channing Tatum upon the world on the way to making $650 million. In fact, Tatum and Step Up-costar-turned-wife Jenna Dewan Tatum will executive produce the new series. An executive at Lionsgate, the studio behind Step Up, calls it “a distinctive, noisy, platform-defining series," according to the New York Times. Lionsgate wanted to bring Step Up—the series will be about dancers at a performing arts school—to an audience that was already invested in it, Polygon reports. “We know that dance is a hugely successful global category on YouTube, so I’m excited to have a series rooted in such an enormously popular genre on our platform," YouTube's head of original content tells Deadline. Each of the first season's 10 episodes will have a budget of few million dollars and utilize YouTube stars for its cast. YouTube hopes Step Up will be its version of Transparent or House of Cards, convincing more people to pay $10 a month for a YouTube Red subscription.
– Earlier this week, Thomas Kinkade's girlfriend told the San Jose Mercury News that the artist "died in his sleep, very happy, in the house he built, with the paintings he loved, and the woman he loved." But another depressing article in The Daily paints a very different picture: When that same girlfriend, Amy Pinto, called 911 on the morning Kinkade died, she apparently told the dispatchers Kinkade had been drinking. "Apparently he has been drinking all night and not moving," the dispatcher says on the recording. And Kinkade's relationship with Pinto was also seemingly troubled: Los Gatos police confirmed they had responded "a couple" of times to Kinkade's home, and a neighbor says those calls involved domestic disputes. "They'd get into some nasty fights," he says. The Mercury News notes Kinkade and Pinto started dating six months after Kinkade's wife Nanette filed for legal separation and had been together about a year and a half. Click for more on Kinkade's troubled final years.
– Sorry, Seahawks fans: Russell Wilson and Ciara are engaged. The Seattle Seahawks quarterback posted a video on his Facebook page Friday showing himself next to Ciara, who was wearing a bright ring. "She said yes. Yeah! Making this thing happen. My baby," Wilson said. Ciara added: "I'm so excited. God is so good." A representative for Ciara confirmed the engagement, the AP reports. Ciara posted a photo on Twitter of Wilson on bended-knee with the caption: "I feel complete." She also wrote, "You Are Heaven Sent. I'm Looking Forward To Spending Forever With You." The 30-year-old singer was previously engaged to rapper-singer-producer Future. They have a son, Future Zahir Wilburn, who turns 2 in May.
– Republicans are calling for the attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Joe Sestak's claims that someone in the Obama administration offered him a high-ranking job to drop out of the Pennsylvania primary race against Arlen Specter. And they've already used the “I” word. “It's very clear that allegation is one that everyone from Arlen Specter to Dick Morris has said is in fact a crime, and could be impeachable,” Rep. Darrel Issa tells Fox News. The Justice Department rejected Issa's request for a special prosecutor last week, but Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans sent their own request yesterday, according to Politico. Sestak has repeatedly confirmed that someone offered him a job, but refused to say who or what job. Issa's threatened to file an ethics complaint if he does not open up on the matter. Democrat Dick Durbin actually agrees on that point. “At some point, Congressman Sestak needs to make it clear what happened,” he said.
– Root for Team USA, sure, but save a spot for Guor Marial, too. The marathon runner will compete as an independent athlete—a first—and run under the Olympic flag, reports the AP. The IOC made an exception given Marial's circumstances: He was born in southern Sudan but fled to the US as a teenager amid his nation's civil war, explains Reuters. He blossomed into a gifted runner, but the Arizona resident is ineligible for the US team because he's not a full citizen. South Sudan recently became an independent country, but it doesn't yet have an Olympic team. Sudan offered Marial a spot, but he declined on principle. "I lost my family and relatives, and in South Sudan 2 million people died," he told Thomson Reuters' AlertNet. "For me to just go and represent Sudan is a betrayal of my country first of all, and is disrespecting my people who died for freedom." An IOC spokesman says Marial's is the first such exception granted.
– Food-focused talk show The Chew is getting spit off the air to make way for a third hour of Good Morning America, ABC announced Wednesday, though that hour is actually in the afternoon. It will air at 1pm Eastern, with the anchors to be announced in the future, reports the Los Angeles Times. Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos and Michael Strahan currently co-anchor the 7am to 9am slot. The Chew, which is ending production in June, has been on the air since 2011. Its highest-profile host, chef Mario Batali, was fired in December over allegations that he harassed female employees at his restaurants; Batali is also currently under investigation over the alleged sexual assault of a former employee. The three remaining hosts have each addressed the show's cancellation online, per Deadline.
– President Trump had choice words on Twitter for London Mayor Sadiq Khan following Saturday’s London Bridge terror attack, but senior adviser Kellyanne Conway doesn’t think an apology is needed … from Trump, at least. Instead, Conway blasted the media for its "obsession" over Trump’s tweets, reports Politico, when she was asked by Savannah Guthrie on Today whether the president’s Twitter tirade merited an apology. “I'm going to not let him be seen as the perpetrator here,” said the senior adviser, reports the Washington Post. Conway went on to claim that the media’s coverage of Trump’s tweets redirects blame onto the president. “So, we've got the 23rd ISIS-inspired or -directed attack, taking innocent lives … and we want to know, we want to put some blameworthiness here on President Trump?” she said. “I'm just not going to allow it.” Guthrie’s question stemmed from Trump’s open criticism on social media of Kahn’s message to Londoners: “You will see an increased police presence today, including armed officers and uniformed officers. There is no reason to be alarmed by this.” Critics panned Trump for taking the quote out of context when he wrote, “At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is 'no reason to be alarmed!'" The president went on to tweet about the importance of US security, referencing the travel ban he’s struggled to implement. Kellyanne Conway's husband George Conway jumped into the fray Monday on Twitter when he wrote that though the president’s posts “may make some ppl feel better,” they won't help in terms of getting the travel ban restored by the Supreme Court, the Washington Post reports. He later clarified that he still supports Trump.
– Oversharing must be contagious, because Courteney Cox just jumped on the TMI train that estranged hubby David Arquette originally rolled out of the station last year. Arquette went back on his favorite place to overshare, Howard Stern's radio show, yesterday—but this time he was joined by Cox, Us reports. Earlier this week, Arquette told Stern he tried to have sex with Cox on a recent trip to Disney World but got shut down. Stern, of course, wanted details yesterday from Cox. "It was early in the morning," she said. "This is one of our problems in our relationship. Whenever I would need consoling from David, he could not literally put his arm around me for one second without completely getting a boner. ... I had just woken up. I don't think [sexual attraction] is the issue. The truth of the matter is that we love each other so much. We have such affection for each other but we are very different." Click for more, including whether or not Cox has had sex since the split.
– A police officer dubbed the "Hot Cop of the Castro" is in pretty deep trouble after a hit-and-run Sunday, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Christopher Kohrs, a 38-year-old who gained social media fame for his chiseled good looks, faces two felony charges stemming from an early morning accident that left two pedestrians with serious, but not life-threatening, injuries. Police say that Kohrs, who was off-duty at the time, hit two men with his 2009 Dodge Charger as they crossed the street, then took off on foot, leaving his car at the scene. "It just looked like somebody had pulled up, stopped, got out of the car and left," witness Trey Bellomy tells ABC7. Police discovered the car was registered to Kohrs and later arrested him. Kohrs was first given the "Hot Cop" nickname in 2014, when San Franciscan Mark Abramson photographed the police officer and put the pictures on Facebook, Heavy.com reports. "It kind of went viral from there," Kohrs told CNN in July 2014. Indeed it did: There is a Facebook page dedicated to Kohrs with more than 52,000 likes. And BuzzFeed dubbed Kohrs "the hottest cop ever." Heavy.com notes that Kohrs’ Internet fame came around the same time as did that of Jeremy Meeks—a felon best known for his swoon-inducing mugshot—creating a good hot guy/bad hot guy juxtaposition. While Kohrs’ future is uncertain, Meeks reportedly signed a modeling contract earlier this year from behind bars.
– A Florida man is facing a litany of charges after allegedly taking his 16-year-old daughter and her 17-year-old friend to a strip club and letting them drink, do drugs, and dance on stage, the Miami Herald reports. According to the Miami News Times, the Pink Pony Gentleman's Club was raided and shut down by police during "Tasteful Tuesday" this week. The Herald reports police were contacted by the friend's mother, who saw cellphone videos and photos from inside the club. Those images allegedly show the girls smoking marijuana and doing cocaine and at least one of them pole dancing with a stripper. The Herald says both girls were on stage at some point, though it's not clear whether they were clothed. The friend's mother described the videos as "disgusting" to CBS Miami. Jose Arguelles, 59, has been charged with child neglect, supplying drugs to a child, and eight counts of sexual performance of a child to promote sex. His attorney says he gets the first two charges but doesn't quite see the last one. "Judge look, I know this is serious, but dancing on a stripper pole is not simulated sexual intercourse," he said, according to CBS. Police say Arguelles has taken the girls to the club multiple times and let them drink. They also say they've got video taken on Arguelles' boat that shows the bikini-clad girls dancing on a stripper pole. No matter how the case turns out, this will make for quite the how-I-spent-my-summer-vacation story back at school.
– President Trump attends his first session of the UN General Assembly this week, with his big speech scheduled for Tuesday. In addition to that, however, he's got a packed week of meetings with fellow world leaders, a format that one analyst compares to "speed dating from hell," via CNN. Aides have previewed some of the big topics Trump is expected to hit, with North Korea, Iran's nuclear program, global terrorism, the Venezuelan economic meltdown, and UN reform among them. But much of the advance focus is on how Trump will interact with his fellow leaders in front of an organization he has previously belittled. UN ambassador Nikki Haley offered a preview on Sunday: "I personally think he slaps the right people, he hugs the right people, and he comes out with the US being very strong in the end," she said in regard to his Tuesday speech, per the New York Times. Some highlights: (Vladimir Putin, China's Xi Jinping, and Germany's Angela Merkel are not expected to attend, notes USA Today): Monday: Trumps meets with the leaders of France and Israel, with Iran expected to be a big focus, reports the Hill. He also hosts a dinner with Latin American leaders, at which Venezuela is likely to be the No. 1 topic. Tuesday: Trump delivers his speech to the General Assembly, his first as president to the full body. Wednesday: Trump meets with the leaders of Britain, Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority, and hosts a lunch with leaders from Africa. Thursday: In addition to meetings with the leaders of Turkey, Afghanistan, and Ukraine, he hosts a lunch with the leaders of South Korea and Japan. The latter could be key in determining what comes next in regard to North Korea. Key quote: "The world is still trying to take the measure of this president," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "For a number of leaders, this is going to be their first chance to see him, to judge him, to try to get on his good side. ... They will have been preparing for a chance encounter for weeks."
– Winning an Oscar is great ... but for these couples, rounded up by People, it was followed by the demise of their relationship less than a year later: George Clooney and Stacy Keibler: As a co-producer of Argo, Clooney won Best Picture last year—five months later, he and Keibler broke up after two years together. Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes: Winslet won Best Actress in 2009 for The Reader, calling Mendes "wonderful" in her acceptance speech. But a year later, their marriage was over. Hilary Swank and Chad Lowe: Swank won Best Actress in 2005 for Million Dollar Baby, and in her acceptance speech she told then-husband Lowe, "You are my everything." Eleven months later, they were separated. Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe: Witherspoon was another Best Actress winner (in 2006, for Walk the Line) who called her husband "wonderful" onstage; seven months later, she filed for divorce. Sean Penn and Robin Wright: But when Penn won Best Actor for Milk in 2009, though, he didn't thank Wright—and within six months, she had filed for divorce. Julia Roberts and Benjamin Bratt: When she won Best Actress for Erin Brockovich in 2001, she also barely mentioned Bratt onstage; three months later, they broke up. Sandra Bullock and Jesse James: She famously called him "really hot" during her acceptance speech when she won Best Actress for The Blind Side in 2010; just 47 days later, their marriage was over. Click for the complete list—or for happier news, check out nine couples in which both members have an Academy Award.
– Twitter suspended three accounts belonging to a far-right group in Britain on Monday, a development that might not have made headlines if not for the group's connection to President Trump. Last month, the president set off a controversy when he retweeted three anti-Muslim videos posted by Jayda Fransen of the anti-immigration group Britain First. Fransen boasted of Trump's retweets at the time, but she won't be able to post anything new for a while: Her account and at least two others linked to her group are now suspended, reports CNN. Twitter says it will not comment about decisions made regarding particular accounts, per the BBC, but the move comes just as the site announced that it was enforcing new rules to curb "hateful conduct and abusive behavior." It's not clear whether the Britain First accounts will be allowed to resurface. "If an account's profile information includes a violent threat or multiple slurs, epithets, racist or sexist tropes, incites fear, or reduces someone to less than human, it will be permanently suspended," reads a company post. The crackdown is part of Twitter's move to rein in what it sees as abusive content in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, Va., notes the Washington Post.
– Wondering why a bread bowl full of pasta with fries on the side sounds like it would really hit the spot right now? It could be a heretofore unknown sixth taste that a group of scientists claims to have discovered, Science Alert reports. Up until now, the five tastes humans were known to be able to sense were sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. According to New Scientist, it might be time to add "starchy" to that list. Researcher Juyun Lim notes that "every culture has a major source of complex carbohydrate," be it rice or pasta or potatoes, and it "doesn't make sense" that humans wouldn't be able to taste those. But because enzymes in our mouths break carbohydrates down to simple sugars, scientists always assumed we were just tasting sweet. Lim disputes that in a study published in Chemical Sense. She found that people could pick out a solution containing carbohydrate chains—it tasted "like eating flour"—even when given a compound that blocked their tongues' sweet receptors. That indicates that starchy is its own taste. It makes evolutionary sense that humans would be able to taste starch, which is an excellent source of sustained energy. And this could also explain why we find starchy foods comforting, the Guardian reports. However, Lim and her team still need to find starch receptors on the tongue in order to qualify it as a primary taste. Other scientists are looking into the possibilities that fat, calcium, blood, and more are their own tastes. (Penguins can't taste the fish they eat.)
– Charlie Sheen stirred up another controversy while in Washington, DC, on Tuesday night: He somehow managed to snag a police escort so he could book it at 80mph to his show, for which he was running almost an hour late. The Washington Post looks into the matter, but no one will say exactly how such a thing was arranged or who paid for it. A police spokesperson says it's "under investigation." Griped one DC council member, "Citizens of the District don’t want to see their police force used to escort private citizens and that Charlie Sheen, of all people, is getting a personal escort." Meanwhile, as Sheen himself told us, he’s “not bipolar,” he’s “bi-winning.” But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about those who are bipolar: He is donating $5,880 to the Calgary-based Organization for Bipolar Affective Disorders, the New York Daily News reports. That amount matches the amount his fans donated during an odd and somewhat controversial charity march Sheen staged in support of the group last week in Toronto, during which he sported a hat that said, “I’M NOT BIPOLAR.” A rep for the group calls the hat insulting, but says, “We’re happy to receive the funds.” (Click to read what Sheen announced he'd do if he was elected president.)
– "I'm not gonna be inauthentic and say I'm sorry about something I'm not sorry about," said Tony Robbins on March 15. On April 8 came the apology. The self-help guru found himself in the crosshairs after comments he made about the #MeToo movement during a March event started grabbing attention. CNN explains the seed of it all: a conversation Robbins had with an audience member named Nanine McCool during his Unleash the Power Within event in San Jose, one that was projected onto the big screen. McCool told him she thought he misunderstood the #MeToo movement; a key line of his response: "If you use the #MeToo movement to try to get significance and certainty by attacking and destroying someone else, you haven't grown an ounce. All you've done is basically use a drug called significance to make yourself feel good." Where things went from there: CNN reports McCool posted a video of the 11-minute exchange on YouTube on March 25. Two days prior, Vice ran an article on Robbins' comments based on the accounts of a few of the event's roughly 12,000 attendees. One explained that Robbins characterizes "significance" as one of our "6 basic human needs. ... Tony went on to say, in a nutshell, that women in the #metoo movement were motivated by this same factor (to be significant)."
– It took years for the Beatles to arrive on iTunes—but a treat for Fab Four fans could help make up for the wait. Fifty-nine rare tracks will arrive today, a mix of live BBC performances, demos, and studio outtakes. Previously, the recordings were only available as bootlegs, the Guardian notes. NME has the full track list for The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963, including plenty of classics as well as lesser-known songs. Why now? A Beatles blogger tells the Guardian that Apple Records doesn't actually want to release the songs. "The only reason why they are doing this is to retain the copyright of this material," says Roger Stormo. New EU rules say unreleased material is copyright-free after 50 years, compared to 70 years for released material. So we might start seeing "new" Beatles recordings every year, industry insiders say.
– The public finally got to hear Richard Nixon’s long-sealed grand jury testimony regarding Watergate today—and what they heard didn’t amount to much. Asked to explain the infamous 18½ missing minutes of tape, Nixon said it was probably just erased by accident. “I practically blew my stack” when I found out how much had been lost, he said. The AP concludes that he “was no help to investigators” in reconstructing the missing conversation. Nixon gave the testimony 10 months after leaving office. Typically such testimony is kept sealed, but historian Stanley Kutler sued to have it released, arguing that it was too historically significant to keep sealed away, the New York Daily News explains.
– In a move Engadget says will help the company "save face," Tinder has added links to an STD testing locator on its dating app and site, ending a monthslong fight with a nonprofit provider of HIV health care and prevention services, Reuters reports. The new locator powered by Healthvana can be accessed via a link in the site's health and safety section, as well as in the FAQ on the mobile app. "Regular testing is critical to staying on top of your health and helping prevent the spread of STDs," the site reads before directing users to the locator, the addition of which Reuters notes was key in getting the AIDS Healthcare Foundation to pull its aggressive ad campaign against Tinder. That campaign, which Engadget notes was designed to get users to seek out testing for possible venereal diseases, has included giant billboards erected in LA and NYC that link Tinder and gay social network Grindr to such STDs as chlamydia and gonorrhea. Now that Tinder has included the Healthvana locator, the foundation says it will take the billboards down and nix any ads bad-mouthing Tinder. "While the CDC … has never identified any connection that supports the idea that Tinder usage correlates with, let alone causes, an increase in STDs, we're of course in favor of organizations that provide public education resources on the topic," Tinder said in a statement Thursday, per Reuters. (In a recent magazine profile, Tinder's CEO talks marriage, sexting, and … living with his parents.)
– The commander of a nuclear submarine tried to concoct an ingenious plan to get himself out a jam, but the Hunt for Red October this is not. The Navy says Cmdr. Michael P. Ward II tried to end an affair by sending a fake email from a guy named "Bob" to his mistress saying he had been killed, reports AP. The airtight plan began to unravel when she showed up at his residence as a friend to offer condolences. As a result, the Navy has relieved Ward as commanding officer of the USS Pittsburgh, a position he held for all of a week. He also might be booted from the Navy on a slew of related military violations. The unidentified mistress tells Connecticut newspaper The Day that the married-with-children Ward sent the fake email after she got pregnant. "I don't want revenge here," she says. "I want everyone to know the truth about Michael. He does not need to be commanding a submarine. He's a deceitful man."
– Two skiers were rescued from an Alaskan glacier on Tuesday—four days after initially setting out for a day trip. An airplane delivered Jennifer Neyman, 36, and Christopher Hanna, 45, to Bear Glacier in Harding Ice Field on Friday, but bad weather prevented their plane from returning, reports the Alaska Dispatch News. By Saturday, the pair from Soldotna had texted a friend with a satellite phone to say wind and snow had ripped their tent to shreds and they were running low on supplies, per the Dispatch News. They then dug a snow cave. A plane was able to drop supplies on Monday—it isn't clear if the pair reached them—while four Alaska Air National Guard rescuers parachuted onto the glacier and began trekking toward the pair's location, which they reached Tuesday. "They had to dig out four feet of snow around the survivors to get to them," says a helicopter pilot, adding "the terrain there is pretty gnarly." A helicopter was able to evacuate Neyman and Hanna to a hospital shortly after noon. Both are in good condition. Hanna even "refused treatment," a hospital rep tells the Peninsula Clarion. Says a friend who found him in the waiting room, " He had a big ol’ ... grin on his face."
– The number of people who attended a meeting in which Donald Trump Jr. had been promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton continues to grow. CNN reports there were at least eight people at the June 2016 meeting—two more than previously believed. A source says the unreported attendees were a translator and a representative of the Russian family that asked publicist Rob Goldstone to set up the meeting. CBS News identifies the translator as former State Department contractor Anatoli Samochornov. He worked as an interpreter for the State Department in the past but was serving as translator for Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at the time of the meeting. Axios argues that the increasing number of attendees at the June 2016 meeting is important because it gives Robert Mueller's special investigation more people to target in order to figure out what was said at the meeting. The prior reported attendees are: Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Goldstone, Veselnitskaya, and Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin. Akhmetshin served in the Russian military and is rumored to be connected to Russian intelligence, which he denies. Trump Jr. accepted the meeting with Veselnitskaya after being told she had information damaging to Clinton. In an emailed response to Goldstone regarding the potential information, Trump Jr. wrote, "I love it."
– America's millions of miles of rivers and streams are in terrible shape, an extensive Environmental Protection Agency survey has found. After sampling close to 2,000 locations ranging from the Mississippi to tiny streams, the EPA found that just a fifth of rivers and streams are in good enough biological shape to support healthy populations of aquatic life, the AP reports. Some 23% were classed as fair and a shocking 55% were considered poor. Excessive nitrogen and phosphorus levels were among the biggest problems found, with conditions worse in the East than the West, the Los Angeles Times reports. Only 26% of rivers and streams were classed as poor in Western mountain areas, while 70% of rivers and streams from the Texas coast to New Jersey were in poor condition. "We must continue to invest in protecting and restoring our nation's streams and rivers as they are vital sources of our drinking water, provide many recreational opportunities, and play a critical role in the economy," an EPA spokeswoman says.
– Chicago police have made a breakthrough in the mass shooting last week that left 13 people injured—and led to talk of the National Guard being brought in to assist city cops. Two men in their early 20s have been arrested and charged with attempted murder and aggravated battery with a firearm, reports the Chicago Tribune. But neither man is believed to be the shooter; police believe the pair helped transport the military-grade weapon that was fired into a crowd gathered to watch a basketball game in a park. "These charges are just the beginning," a police spokesman says. One of the suspects, 21-year-old Bryon Champ, is a known gang member who was sentenced to boot camp last year for unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, Reuters reports. The youngest victim of the shooting, 3-year-old Deonta Howard, is making a fast recovery and is expected to be out of the hospital within a few days despite having been shot in the cheek, his mother says. "He just keep saying, 'Ma, they shot me, they shot me with a gun. You heard me, mama?'" she says. "And I say, 'Yeah, I heard you.' But I just say, 'You OK. You a big boy. You a soldier.'"
– On your own? You're in good company. Just north of half of Americans over the age of 16—50.2% of them, or 124.6 million, to be specific—are single, the Bureau of Labor Statistics finds. It's the first time a majority have been single since such record-keeping began in 1976, Bloomberg reports. Back then, the percentage of singles was 37.4%. A few other relevant numbers: The percentage of Americans who've never tied the knot is now 30.4%, compared to 22.1% in 1976, while the percentage of divorced people is 19.8%, versus 15.3% in 1976, RT reports. The number of unmarried people is significant when it comes to the economy, expert Edward Yardeni tells Bloomberg. "They spend more discretionary dollars than their married counterparts," a Fortune article last year noted, as cited by RT, and they plow $2 trillion into the economy each year. But their habits could misleadingly boost the appearance of income inequality, Yardeni says: "While they have less household earnings than married people, they also have fewer expenses, especially if there are no children in their households." At Jezebel, Kara Brown calls on fellow singles to celebrate: "Swipe right on Tinder proudly and enjoy not having to regularly share your bed comforter."
– Even as Texas suffers perhaps the worst natural disaster in its history, congressmen from the northeast are using Hurricane Harvey as an opportunity to lash out at their Texas colleagues for voting against aid following Hurricane Sandy back in 2013. After Sandy devastated parts of New Jersey and New York in 2012, nearly the entire Texas Republican caucus, led by Sen. Ted Cruz, refused to vote for a multi-billion-dollar aid package, Politico reports. Since the rains started falling in Houston on Friday, several northeastern Republicans have attacked their colleagues for that vote. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called the Texas congressional delegation "hypocrites," and Reps. Peter King and Frank LoBiondo have tweeted their lingering displeasure. These New York and New Jersey congressmen have called the group who voted against the $50.5 billion aid package the "Comeuppance Caucus," the Texas Tribune reports. Cruz, however, says he stands by his vote, even in light of the huge storm in Texas, saying that the 2013 bill was full of unnecessary pork-barrel spending. "Two-thirds of that bill was unrelated spending that had nothing to do with Sandy," Cruz said Monday. Despite their frustration, the lawmakers who have taken a shot at the Texas delegation in the last few days have also promised to vote for a Harvey aid package. "NY wont abandon Texas," King tweeted Saturday. "1 bad turn doesnt deserve another.”
– Democrats' love-hate relationship with Joe Lieberman is definitely on the warm and fuzzy side today after his legislative maneuvering to get Don't Ask, Don't Tell repealed. Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-independent who campaigned for John McCain, was all thumbs-ups and smiles after his role in helping secure the necessary Republican votes. “He’s certainly one of my heroes today,” an official with the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network tells Politico. "This would have not happened without Sen. Lieberman.” He still hasn't decided (or at least announced) whether he's running for re-election in 2012, and he said Friday that if he does run, it would likely be as an independent, notes the Hill. But if his DADT efforts put Democrats back in his camp, who knows... In the meantime, he's winning praise like this from Massimo Calabresi in Time: "With all that has been written about the overdetermination of national politics by money and special interests, Lieberman is perhaps the best example in the current Senate of the fact that individual character and belief still make an enormous difference, for good or ill, in a body with only 100 members."
– An 8-year-old boy who fell into a pool on a cruise ship off the coast of New Jersey and nearly drowned is in critical condition, says the US Coast Guard. A rep tells the New York Daily News that the boy was in the water for eight to 10 minutes Thursday evening before officials with Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas found him, per the AP. The boy received CPR on the ship, which had left New York Harbor bound for the Caribbean but sailed toward Bayonne, New Jersey, the rep says. Fire officials say the boy was taken to a hospital on Staten Island. Royal Caribbean says it's providing support to his family.
– A bad-enough costume can ruin your life, not just your Halloween, two high school students in Connecticut have discovered. The teenagers were arrested and sent to a juvenile detention center this week after authorities found out they had gone out for Halloween dressed as the Columbine school shooters and allegedly threatened other students in the small town of Litchfield, the New York Times reports. The local school superintendent says school officials contacted police when they were informed about the pair. "The costume was essentially black trench coats, baseball caps, and sunglasses," she tells NBC Connecticut, adding that there was never any evidence of a credible threat. The boys, who will likely be expelled from school, were charged with inciting injury to persons or property, which is a felony, as well as breaching the peace, NBC reports. Dressing up as school shooters was definitely a terrible idea, especially in a town less than an hour from the site of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, a lawyer for one of the teens admits, but he tells the Times that the boys didn't have anything that could be perceived as a weapon, and the "threat" was a sarcastic remark made after someone told them, "I bet you're going to shoot up the the school." He says the boys are "so remorseful for their stupidity" and getting kicked out of school "is going to be really, really hard on both of them." (A soldier at Fort Bragg dressed up as a suicide bomber for Halloween.)
– Venus Williams is set to take on Japan's Naomi Osaka at Wimbledon Friday, but she's already scored a tiny win in a different kind of court. A Palm Beach County judge on Wednesday granted an emergency request by Williams' attorney to temporarily block an inspection of a car involved in a fatal car crash, for which Williams is being sued. Her attorney, Kevin Yombor, said lawyers for the family of Jerome Barson, who died two weeks after the June 9 crash in Florida, gave less than a day's notice that they would be inspecting the 2016 Hyundai Accent that carried Barson. Yombor argued experts from both sides should be present for the inspection given concerns that data downloaded from the car might be lost, reports the Palm Beach Post. Barson's family says Williams "negligently operated" her vehicle at a six-lane intersection and is responsible for the crash. Barson died June 22 after suffering "severed main arteries, massive internal bleeding, a fractured spine, and massive internal organ damage," a lawsuit reads, per USA Today. Williams, however, says she had a green light when she entered the intersection and was stopped by traffic. "The on-board data of both vehicles will be critical evidence," Yombor wrote in court documents, per the Sun Sentinel, asking that the inspection not happen until "a procedure is in place to ensure that the data of each vehicle is properly collected." The judge granted the request just an hour after it was submitted Wednesday. The next hearing in the case is 2:30pm Friday.
– Since at least 1990, scientists have known humans can die of a "broken heart." And while most of the stress that brings on this rare condition, known as takotsubo syndrome (TTS) or stress-induced cardiomyopathy, are heartbreaking—the death of a loved one, divorce, even natural disasters—researchers at University Hospital Zurich in Switzerland now say a small percentage of TTS sufferers came down with the condition after a happy event, a press release notes. This "happy heart" study, published in the European Heart Journal, examined data collected from 1,750 TTS patients who had signed up with the International Takotsubo Registry, a database of both men and women from the US and eight European countries, per Live Science. The researchers found 485 of those with TTS—which temporarily weakens heart muscles and makes the left ventricle balloon at the bottom while the neck stays narrow, causing symptoms similar to a heart attack, including chest pain—had experienced a "definite emotional trigger." Of those triggers, 96% were linked to sad or stressful events, but 4% were tied to joyous events such as a surprise party or a favorite sports team winning a game. A stunning 95% of both "broken heart" and "happy heart" patients were women. There was a slight difference in how the TTS played out, too: More "happy heart" patients (35%) had hearts that ballooned out in the mid-ventricle than their brokenhearted counterparts (16%), though researchers have to study this more to see what it means. "We believe that TTS is a classic example of an intertwined feedback mechanism, involving the psychological and/or physical stimuli, the brain, and the cardiovascular system," co-author Dr. Christian Templin says. "Perhaps both happy and sad life events, while inherently distinct, share final common pathways in the central nervous system output, which ultimately lead to [TTS]." (Yoga may help TTS patients.)
– All is not as it has seemed in Cambodia, according to new research published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Using aerial scanning technology that determines precise elevation points beneath even dense jungle foliage, archaeologists say they have uncovered multiple metropolises between 900 and 1,400 years old that might have made up the largest empire on the planet at the time, reports the Guardian. The findings also upend a key chapter in the history of Southeast Asia. Historians have long thought that the city of Angkor was abandoned in the 15th century amid a Siamese attack and occupation, but the research finds no evidence to suggest that a million people uprooted themselves in a mass migration, reports Cambodia Daily. Instead, it appears that the population remained and thrived, boasting complex waterway systems that emerged centuries earlier than thought. "What we had was basically a scatter of disconnected points on the map denoting temple sites," lead archaeologist Damian Evans of Australia tells AFP. "Now it's like having a detailed street map of the entire city." He says more maps will be published in the months ahead, but his second round of scans, which were taken in 2015 after the first round in 2012, has his peers abuzz. "It is as if a bright light has been switched on to illuminate the previous dark veil that covered these great sites,” says New Zealand archaeologist Charles Higham. "It is wonderful to be alive as these new discoveries are being made." The technology, called Lidar, forms a 3D model of any stark changes in ground height. The maps illustrate just how extensively developed the area was around Angkor Wat, a UNESCO World Heritage site. (See why this underwater find isn't a lost city after all.)
– One conservationist went so far is to call them "the most important wild animal photographs taken in Asia, and perhaps the world, in at least the past decade." That's because, captured in them, is an image of the "Asian Unicorn." That's the nickname given to the elusive saola, an endangered animal that wasn't discovered until 1992 and is so rarely seen that the last on-record appearance in Vietnam was in 1998, reports the Los Angeles Times. (Villagers in Laos managed to trap one, which died days later, in 2010.) This time, a camera trap set up by a World Wildlife Fund team snapped the creature in September in Vietnam’s Central Annamite mountains. With only a few hundred of them (at most) thought to be in the forests that sit along the Vietnam-Laos border, the team's director calls the saola "the holy grail for South-east Asian conservationists." What's more, notes the Christian Science Monitor, the sighting could be a good omen for conservation efforts in Vietnam, which is home to five of the world's most endangered species—including the saola. The creature's nickname is a bit of a misnomer, though; the AFP points out that the antelope-like creature (actually a cousin of the cow) has two horns, not one, which have sharp ends and can grow to 20 inches in length.
– President Obama on Wednesday told the Senate to do its job and at least give his eventual Supreme Court nominee a hearing: "They are then free to vote whatever their conscience dictates," he told reporters, per CBS News, but it's clear their "constitutional duties" include at least allowing a hearing. A hearing on whom? Well, per multiple sources who spoke to the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, the White House is currently vetting Brian Sandoval, the Republican governor of Nevada. He's described as a "centrist" by the Post, who says "some key Democrats" see him as "perhaps the only nominee" Obama might be able to get Republicans to consider. Mitch McConnell and the Judiciary Committee have pledged to take no action on any Supreme Court nominee from Obama. Would that change if the nominee is a member of their own party? Three GOP senators who sit on the Judiciary Committee all said no, but other Republican senators say getting a nominee like Sandoval could be cause to reconsider. Some Democrats believe nominating Sandoval would put some Republicans up for re-election in November in an awkward position, and could ultimately force the Senate to break its blockade. Sandoval, who has a "bipartisan record" per the Post and is aligned with Democrats on abortion rights and the environment, met with Harry Reid Monday, and a source says he allowed the vetting process to proceed but said he hadn't decided whether he'd accept a nomination. It's not clear how many potential nominees the White House is considering, but the Journal notes there are likely more.
– In a piece last week on Slate, Laura Helmuth took a long and interesting look at what she dubs "the most important difference between the world today and 150 years ago": the doubling of our lifespan, from about 40 years to about 80. She looked at the big reasons why, of which you probably could come up with a few—like vaccines, clean water, refrigeration. But Helmuth's fascinating follow-up piece takes things a step further, and her headline says it all: "Fourteen Oddball Reasons You're Not Dead Yet." Here are our favorite four: Cotton: Before we started wearing cotton we wore wool, which was tougher to clean. That made it a more welcoming home for body lice, which spread one of history's big killers: typhus. Satellites: Helmuth is referring to the weather-observing kind, which alert us to hurricanes with enough time to prepare and, importantly, evacuate. To wit, she cites a 1900 hurricane that killed 8,000 in Galveston. Hurricane Ike brought a higher storm surge in 2008, but the Texas Department of State Health Services identified just 74 deaths. Window screens: They keep out houseflies, and that has saved us from more than just some hand-swatting. Though Helmuth acknowledges that clean water and sewage treatment were the biggest factors in squashing the spread of potentially fatal diarrhea, flies were also a vector. Shoes: If you think disease-carrying flies sound gross, well, meet hookworms. These parasites find their way from the feces of an infected person (which were ostensibly on the ground) and into the body of another person through the feet. They did so frequently in the Southeast before wearing shoes became an encouraged practice. Head to Slate for the other 10 items on her list, which includes the residents of Framingham, Mass.
– The Westboro Baptist Church is turning its wrath on a new target: New York’s Fashion Week, apparently known to church members as the "Slutwalk extraordinaire." "The whole idea (of the) fashion industry is to make women look as whorish as possible and men look as effeminate as possible," said a rep for Westboro, which has announced plans to protest outside Lincoln Center's tents tomorrow. "All you are doing is teaching girls to be proud whores." His advice, via the New York Post: "Put some jeans on and fear God." (This strikes a blogger at the Stir as a bit ironic.) Lincoln Center plans to ramp up security over fears that "the fashion crowd could be upset or offended," an insider tells the Post. The fashionistas say they won’t let Westboro, known for its protests at military funerals, push them around. “I would probably attack them if they said anything to me,” says a style journalist. Plus, "if they’re looking homely, they won't fit in," zings a model. Westboro has quite the busy calendar this month: It plans to picket a Foo Fighters concert in Kansas City on Sept. 16, as well as Sunday's New York Jets-Dallas Cowboys game.
– Tropical Storm Debby is weakening and just barely keeping her name with winds about 40mph, but she's still not done with Florida, reports AP. Some areas could get about 2 feet of rain before Debby finally heads out into the Atlantic on Thursday, though most of northern Florida and southeast Georgia can expect 4 to 10 inches. Portions of Interstate 10 have been closed, and CNN says about 2,000 people along the Cotee River in Pasco County are under mandatory evacuation orders. The death toll stands at one, and authorities at an animal shelter in Sarke say four puppies and a dog drowned when the shelter flooded.
– Airbnb's commitment to building a connection between hosts and guests in the interest of safety is actually helping them discriminate against each other, the Washington Post reports. Harvard researchers sent out 6,400 requests to Airbnb hosts in Los Angeles, St. Louis, DC, Baltimore, and Dallas using fake accounts. The accounts were identical except for the names, which were either stereotypically white or black. The study —published Wednesday—found guests with "black" names were 16% less likely to be accepted. That's about the same level of discrimination found in everything from the job market to classified ad rates, the Post reports. "This is absolutely not a story about how people are bigots on Airbnb," study coauthor Michael Luca says. "This is entirely about the choices that online platforms make that either facilitate or prevent discrimination." Researchers found discrimination came from all hosts—black, white, female, male, expensive properties, cheap properties, etc. The Post reports the only exception was black female hosts, who didn't appear to discriminate against black female guests. According to the study, this discrimination came at a financial cost, as hosts who turned down guests only found replacements 35% of the time. But the researchers aren't just pointing out the problem, they're helping solve it. According to Forbes, they partnered with some computer scientists to create a downloadable tool called Debias Yourself. Airbnb users with Chrome can download the tool, and Debias Yourself will scrub the names and photos of hosts and guests from the site.
– An 11-year-old girl who beat cancer as a preschooler killed herself last month after what mom Wendy Feucht describes as unceasing bullying, CNN reports. Bethany Thompson, a sixth-grader in Cable, Ohio, had been free of cancer after undergoing radiation therapy for a brain tumor at the age of 3, but the treatments marred her nerves, leaving her with a "crooked" smile. That, along with her curly hair, led to the bullying against Bethany, particularly by a certain group of boys—and on Oct. 19, after telling her best friend she was going to end her life, Bethany hunted for and found a loaded handgun on a high shelf inside her family's home and shot herself before her friend's father could contact Bethany's mom, says Paul Thompson, Bethany's dad, per the Columbus Dispatch. Triad Middle School was aware of the bullying—the school's superintendent confirmed with CNN that it "investigated a complaint raised by the student and appropriately resolved the same"—with Feucht noting she had had a conversation with the principal about it just a few days earlier. She says she found out that Bethany, who saw a counselor to help her deal with self-esteem issues, and her friends had even crafted anti-bullying signs but were prohibited by at least one school administrator from displaying them. "I'm sure she felt pretty defeated," Feucht tells the Dispatch. "I've had this constant in my life for 12 years and now it's gone," she adds to CNN. "Nothing's going to be able to fill that hole." (A 13-year-old Staten Island boy who killed himself in August left behind a note on bullying.)
– A girl who can only communicate with motions and facial expressions said that all she wanted was to have 100 new friends. Now she's been named Homecoming Queen at Cumberland Valley High School in Mechanicsburg, Pa., at the very point in life where her condition may well worsen, PennLive reports. MichaelAnn Byrne, who has an unusual brain disorder called beta-propeller protein-associated neurodegeneration (BPAN), was invited out onto the field in her wheelchair at halftime of a football game on Friday night. "We were all standing on the field," says a girl who was also nominated. "It was the moment we were all waiting for. I was so happy that she got homecoming queen. One of the other girls on the court was crying, she was so happy for MichaelAnn." The story began when MichaelAnn's fellow seniors saw a video by country music star Brad Paisley. He explained that her wish with the Make a Wish Foundation was to have 100 new friends, and asked them to introduce themselves to MichaelAnn and say something about themselves. Then the students figured they would nominate her for Homecoming Queen. "It's 1 in the morning and MichaelAnn is still up giggling," her mom, Sherry Byrne, wrote on Facebook after Friday night's event. Byrne tells ABC 27 that MichaelAnn is among 50 people worldwide with BPAN, which adds extra iron to the brain and leads to characteristics found in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. "It's not easy to get to know her, so for the kids to rally around her really says a lot about them," she says. "It's amazing."
– Missouri's top public defender says his office is so overworked that he has had to assign a case to a lawyer who can do something about the problem: Gov. Jay Nixon. Michael Barrett says he assigned the assault case to the Democratic governor under a rule that allows him to assign cases to "any member of the state bar of Missouri" in extraordinary circumstances, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. "It strikes me that I should begin with the one attorney in the state who not only created this problem, but is in a unique position to address it," says Barrett, who complains that Missouri ranks 49 out of 50 states for public defender funding and that the system's lawyers now have to sometimes deal with more than 200 cases at a time. Barrett says that a recent $1 million funding increase was nowhere near enough to hire the hundreds of extra attorneys the system needs, and the case overload is depriving low-income defendants of their rights. "The only thing that binds us as Americans is what is afforded us under the Bill of Rights," he tells the Washington Post. "People may not have good schools, good jobs, or basic necessities. But they are afforded liberty," he says. "It's my job to make sure that before that liberty is taken away they are afforded a competent defense." The governor plans to fight the appointment: A spokesman says it is "well established" that the public defender doesn't have the authority to appoint private counsel, especially when the counsel does not consent, the Post-Dispatch reports.
– Hilary Swank has been busy: The actress has revealed that she recently married boyfriend Philip Schneider in a ceremony in a grove of 800-year-old redwoods in California, People reports. She dated the social venture entrepreneur for about two years before the surprise wedding. The Million Dollar Baby star, who broke off an engagement to Ruben Torres in 2016, tells Vogue that the wedding to the "man of her dreams" in a "profound setting" was a "dream come true." She says she wore an Elie Saab Couture dress that took seven people 150 hours to create. "I wanted something romantic that felt as timeless as the redwood grove where we were to be married," she says.
– Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death, and current and former US officials are apparently marking the date by revealing more tidbits contained in the 10,000-plus documents recovered from computers, hard drives, and storage devices found in his Abbottabad hideout. Many of them are old-hat (he wanted to kill Obama, he thought about rebranding al-Qaeda). Other highlights: A former intelligence official tells the Washington Post that, according to his writings, bin Laden was none-too-pleased about an idea cooked up by al-Qaeda-linked terrorists: to build a "human lawnmower" out of a pickup truck and rotating blades that could be driven into crowds. Bin Laden "felt it conflicted with his vision for what he wanted al-Qaeda to be." MSNBC confirms that bin Laden was not a leader in name only. "Everything "went through him," down to communications from field ops. The Post notes that he pushed to have oversight over what had become a scattered network of terrorists that had reached Yemen and Somalia. But he sweated the small stuff, too, weighing in on less consequential topics like which crops al-Shabab allies in Somalia should farm. The New York Post reports, by way of the Times of London, that the Pakistani doctor who assisted the CIA in its hunt for bin Laden via a fake vaccination program did more than just that: He helped confirm the presence of bin Laden at the compound by getting his hands on bin Laden's courier's phone number and calling him. The doctor is apparently being held by ISI. And, some quirk: Want your very own piece of where bin Laden spent his final days? The contractor who razed the Abbottabad compound is selling bricks ... for less than a nickel, reports MSNBC.
– The past few months have featured plenty of liberal versus conservative battles as Election 2016 nears the finish line. But two major players on the right took each other on this week—and it was all over Donald Trump. Hot Air reports that Fox News host Sean Hannity used his nationally syndicated radio show on Monday to launch a verbal attack against fellow radio host Glenn Beck, who has proclaimed he's on the "never Trump" side of the aisle. Hannity said that even after the new president has been selected, he has "no interest" in settling things with "saboteur" Beck, adding that he was "sick and tired” of being lectured by "a guy that gives a Nazi analogy a day." Beck responded in a somewhat wistful-sounding Facebook post early Wednesday, calling his fellow conservative's diatribe "very sad." "Sean will always be welcome in my world. He is not my enemy. Nor is D Trump," he wrote. "There is much more to our citizenship than one presidential election. Being kind, understanding or even turning the other cheek is more important." It's not the first time Hannity has gone apoplectic on the Never Trump movement: In August, he fired shots against Beck, Ted Cruz, the National Review, and other anti-Donalds, saying that if "[Hillary Clinton] wins, I'm blaming all of you," per Business Insider.
– Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma. Director Kevin Smith didn't just have a run of hits in the 1990s, he "changed American popular culture," writes Abraham Riesman in a profile for New York. These days, one question Smith gets asked a lot is: What happened to you? "That kills me," says the 47-year-old. "Like, 'I don't know, I just did a thousand more things than I ever did back in the day.'" As the profile explains, Smith still makes movies (the latest ones have been panned), but that's just a small part of his booming little business empire that specializes in "niche" audiences. He's big into podcasting, owning his own SModcast brand, but most of his money comes from live appearances in which he talks to audiences about whatever strikes his fancy for a few hours. "He's in the business of giving his followers more and more Kevin Smith, and business is quite good," writes Riesman. Smith may no longer be part of the mainstream pop-culture conversation, but that could change. He's been directing TV shows such as The Flash, Supergirl, and The Goldbergs; he's adapting the comic book Sam and Twitch for TV; and he's got a movie in the works in which the duo of Jay and Silent Bob (the latter played by Smith himself, as usual) will return. What's more, Smith's long and nasty feud with critics appears to be over (he explains that his film Yoga Hosers was in part an apology to them), and he says he is, for the first time, happy. The only drawback: "Happy people don't really make great art, you know?" But he's not interested in going "through negative s--- anymore." (Click for the full profile.)
– Hurricane Matthew became the strongest Atlantic hurricane since 2007's Felix when it briefly became a Category 5 storm Friday—and it is nowhere near finished yet. The storm, now a Category 4, is dumping torrential rain on Jamaica and parts of Cuba and could do its worst damage when it lashes Haiti on Monday evening, the AP reports. CNN reports that as the storm approached, the US evacuated 700 workers and their families from its Guantanamo Bay base to Florida, though essential personnel—and the 61 terror suspects still being held at the Cuba facility—are staying put. The storm is packing winds of more than 130mph and could dump up to 40 inches of rain on parts of Haiti. "This could be catastrophic for some places, particularly Haiti," National Hurricane Center meteorologist Dennis Feltgen tells USA Today. "This is an area where trees just don't exist" due to deforestation, he says. "The terrain is stripped, and the threat of major flash floods and mudslides is very real." The center says that according to the latest forecasts, Matthew will pass to the east of Florida, but it is still too early to say for sure whether it will threaten the state—or hit areas further up the East Coast.
– Rock 'n' roll legend Fats Domino is dead at age 89, reports WWL-TV of New Orleans. His daughter confirmed the news to the station. No cause of death was immediately released, but the singer—born Antoine Domino Jr. in New Orleans, per People—was surrounded by family and friends. Fats soared to fame in the early days of rock 'n' roll with hits such as "Blueberry Hill," "Ain't That a Shame," and "Walking to New Orleans" and was one of the first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Rolling Stone once put him at No. 25 on a list of the "100 Greatest Artists" of all time.
– The latest Republican testing the 2016 waters is longtime Senate stalwart Lindsey Graham, who tells Meet the Press today that he's already formed a committee and that he's "definitely going to look at it." Graham, who's spent a dozen years representing South Carolina, half of those as a frequent critic of President Obama's foreign policy, says he wants to see "whether or not a guy like Lindsey Graham has a viable path" to a GOP nomination, reports Politico. "I think the world is falling apart, and I’ve been more right than wrong when it comes to foreign policy," he continues, as per the Hill. "But we’ll see." Graham has the approval of Senate BFF John McCain, notes the Washington Post; the two-time GOP nominee joked last week about his "illegitimate son," before adding "I am strongly encouraging Senator Lindsey Graham, particularly with the world the way it is today" to look into a run. Graham also has a potential rival in Mike Huckabee, who told ABC today that there's "a very strong likelihood that some time later in the spring, which has always been my timetable, I'll make some kind of a declaration and clearly state my intentions, I'll put it that way."
– Conservative firebrand Michele Bachmann says she's mulling a run for Al Franken's Senate seat, the Star Tribune reports. The former Minnesota congresswoman, whose controversial remarks helped make her a mainstay in 2012 Republican primary coverage, recently shared the news on The Jim Bakker Show, though she told the televangelist she's not quite ready to announce. "The question is, am I being called to do this now?” she said, per the Washington Post. “I don’t know.” While Bachmann served on the Trump campaign's evangelical advisory council, she's largely been absent from politics since leaving Congress in 2015. However, Franken's official resignation on Tuesday following allegations of sexual misconduct may well bring Bachmann back to the fore. As a potential candidate, Bachmann already has an opponent in Lt. Gov. Tina Smith, who's been tapped to replace Franken starting Wednesday. Smith has pledged to run in the November special election to replace Franken for the final two years of his term, as has state Sen. Karin Housley, a Republican. Ever the outsider, Bachmann said she also has a foe in the Washington establishment. "It is really tough ... if you are trying to stand for biblical principles in DC," she told Bakker. "The swamp is so toxic."
– Paul Ryan is unveiling his latest budget proposal, and this time, he says, it'll balance in 10 years—half the time he claimed for his previous budget, NPR notes, because he's including new revenue from the fiscal cliff deal. As promised, the new plan calls for repealing ObamaCare, to be replaced with "patient-centered reforms," Ryan writes in the Wall Street Journal. Ryan would also boost oil drilling and reform Medicare, the tax code, and welfare, Politico reports. "On the current path, we’ll spend $46 trillion over the next 10 years. Under our proposal, we’ll spend $41 trillion," Ryan writes. "Because the US economy will grow faster than spending, the budget will balance by 2023, and debt held by the public will drop to just over half the size of the economy." Among his proposals: On taxes: Instead of the current "Rubik's cube," "our goal is to have just two brackets: 10% and 25%," Ryan writes. On welfare: "After the welfare reforms of 1996, child poverty fell by double digits," he notes. The budget would let states "tailor programs like Medicaid and food stamps to their people's needs." As for Medicare: "Starting in 2024," seniors will see "a range of insurance plans from which they can choose—including traditional Medicare." It will be "a premium support program," notes NPR. Meanwhile, Patty Murray, Democrat head of the Senate Budget Committee, is proposing her own plan, which would raise tax revenues by almost $1 trillion as it cuts spending to the same extent, Politico reports. She'll meet with party members, including President Obama, today.
– President Obama has no shortage of things to discuss with Hu Jintao, who arrived in Washington yesterday—starting with the fate of Liu Xiaobo. Chinese human rights advocates urged Obama to “publicly and privately” press for Liu’s release, according to the Guardian, and that call was echoed by House Human Rights Committee Chairman Chris Smith, who told Reuters it would be “almost unthinkable” that a Nobel laureate like Obama to meet with “a political leader responsible for jailing another laureate” and not demand his release. Of course, Obama will also have a variety of economic issues to discuss, which have become thornier than ever, the New York Times observes. This time, Obama won’t just be discussing China’s cheap currency, he’ll be addressing complaints from US companies that they’re being locked out of the Chinese market by policies favorable to domestic Chinese businesses. Hu, meanwhile, wants to make nice, reports the Times. He's seen as a lame duck who "wants to go out with the country’s most important bilateral relationship intact,” says one diplomat.
– The body of the sole West Coast victim of last month's tsunami washed ashore on an Oregon beach 383 miles away from where he was swept away in California. The body of Dustin Weber, 25, was discovered earlier this month—22 days after the tsunami triggered by Japan's massive earthquake—and was identified through dental records, CNN reports. The Oregon native had moved to northern California to start a new life just 2 weeks before the tsunami. Weber was standing near the mouth of the Klamath River with two friends when the tsunami swell struck, some time after the main surge had been predicted to hit the California coast. His friends were also swept away but managed to return to shore. "They just couldn't get him," Weber's mother tells AP. "The wave just came so fast and hard. They were soaking wet, both of them. They were lucky they weren't taken also."
– Two Pennsylvania brothers each recently bought winning Powerball tickets while on vacation in Florida. Bob Stocklas won $7. Brother James Stocklas did a bit better, winning $291 million, CNN reports. To mark the occasion, the Florida Lottery printed up two giant novelty checks, one for Bob's paltry payout and one for James' jackpot. After taxes and splitting the pot with two friends he'd bought lottery tickets with for years, James (who opted for the lump-sum payout of $191 million) took home $40 million. The 67-year-old tells the New York Daily News that he's resisting the temptation to tell his ex-wife "the grass isn't greener anymore." The Stocklas brothers were driving home last week after a monthlong fishing trip when they stopped at a gas station for ice and lottery tickets. On Friday, James, a retired judge, was eating breakfast at a diner and checked the numbers. Upon discovering his win, James announced, "We're rich!" and bought breakfast for everyone. He tells the Daily News that he plans on paying off his mortgage, among other things to "make life a little easier"—but he'll still fill in occasionally as a senior judge. What about Bob? "Family's family," James says. "He's not going to worry about anything."
– The Texas fertilizer plant blast first responder charged with possession of a "destructive device" will plead not guilty and maintains he had nothing to do with the explosion. Paramedic Bryce Reed, 31, was arrested after he allegedly gave materials for a pipe bomb—including galvanized metal pipe, a fuse, and several pounds of chemicals—to a man who then called police, the AP reports. Reed "had no involvement whatsoever in the explosion," his lawyer said in a statement. Authorities also say the charges have not been linked to the blast. But some larger questions about Reed are now emerging. Reed was "let go" from West Emergency Medical Services two days after the plant blast for unknown reasons, reports the Dallas Morning News. Despite this, he continued to act as a spokesperson about the fires in the media. His LinkedIn resume claims he holds a bachelor's degree in nursing from a school that says he was never enrolled. Neighbors say they were all given different accounts of his background. Others have accused him of profiting from the tragedy. "I have not received ONE CENT for ANYTHING that I did to help with this situation. I have not been paid by the media, by press, I ...made NOTHING off of this tragedy," he wrote in a defensive Facebook post.
– Arizona's message to the feds: Forget you guys, we're building our own fence. Thanks to new legislation, the state is taking illegal immigration into its own hands and is now accepting private donations to build a wall at the Mexican border. Lawmakers have set up a website where anyone can contribute to help raise the estimated $50 million needed, reports the Arizona Republic. "Donate to the country's security," said state Sen. Steve Smith, who sponsored the legislation. "This is an American problem, not an Arizona problem." The leader of the National Immigration Forum thinks it's a lousy idea. “Spending on a fence is bad public policy,” Ali Noorani tells Politico. ”The mechanics of this are very murky. The data proves that a wall is a waste of money."
– HBO's announcement that it will launch some of type of stand-alone streaming service next year means that "cable companies should be very, very afraid," writes Issie Lapowsky at Wired. It's a sentiment widely shared out there, with Brian Merchant at Vice chiming in, "From where I'm sitting, it’s the death knell for traditional cable television." After all, people who hate the expensive bundles offered by cable companies will be able to cut the cord and still get high-quality shows. Other entities such as the NFL, Comedy Central, AMC, and, now, CBS, offer similar options, and HBO's entry means "there's almost no conceivable reason you'd need a cable subscription," writes Merchant. People finally will be able to pick and choose what they will pay to watch. Skeptics say those most likely to sign up for the HBO service are probably young, tech-savvy adults who already skip cable, and thus the move won't lead to a significant jump in cord-cutters, writes Derek Thompson at the Atlantic. But even if it simply curbs cable's growth by preventing new sign-ups, "that's bad enough," he writes. The cable industry may still be "ridiculously profitable" but the "empire is shrinking" as subscriptions stagnate. "Bundling has worked," he writes. "Now it's ending. Somebody has to lose this game." Of course, cable companies also are in the business of providing Internet service, so expect them to try to boost profits on that front. In fact, at Forbes, Howard Homonoff thinks the biggest loser in all this isn't the cable industry—he figures most people will stick with cable for the foreseeable future—but Amazon, which recently signed a content deal with HBO for its Prime service.
– Residents of this North American country can no longer compete on Jeopardy! What is Canada? The TV game show's eligibility guidelines now single out Canadians, saying that "at this time we are precluded from accepting registration information from Canadian residents. We are currently evaluating this matter." The Ottawa Citizen reports potential candidates must take an online test during a once-annual test period, and 2016's test went live in January—with a required ZIP code field; Canadians don't have those. "Wow," the Citizen quips. "And we thought Donald Trump would build that wall, like, after the election." The Toronto Star weighs in, noting, "Alex Trebek may be one of the only Canadians on Jeopardy! next season." Indeed, Trebek hails from Sudbury, Ontario, and holds dual citizenship, NPR reports. In a response to the Citizen, Trebek says the Canadian exclusion is an "issue affecting my native country and the show I love," and he suggests "Canadian online privacy laws" are responsible for the ban. As far as which law, the Citizen speculates that anti-spam legislation in effect since mid-2014 may be to blame. (Companies must now get express permission to email Canadians, rather than just provide an opt-out.) The Star surveyed government departments to get to the bottom of it and came up empty-handed. A lawyer well-versed in privacy laws says, "These hurdles are very easy to get around" (after all, Microsoft was able to figure it out). Trebek mentions that people are in the contestant pool for 18 months, so there will be Canadians on the show this year. In fact, there will be one competing Monday night. (A Jeopardy! rarity happened in January.)
– As the opening ceremony of the Olympics was unfolding this morning, a passenger aboard a Turkish plane tried to divert it to Sochi, reports CNN. The man, identified only as Ukrainian, announced that a bomb was on board and ordered that the plane fly to Russia, authorities say. He reportedly tried unsuccessfully to get into the cockpit, and the pilot brought the plane down safely in Istanbul. It may not be a serious security threat, however. The AP quotes the Interfax news agency as saying the passenger was "in a state of severe alcohol intoxication," and Reuters says the crew was able to calm him down. Accounts differ, but most now say the man is in custody.
– A French artist has kicked off a weeklong stay inside a 13-ton boulder. Sounds awful, right? Well, it's only the start of what Abraham Poincheval calls "an inner journey to find out what the world is." After seven days confined to a sitting position in a limestone rock shaped like an egg at Paris' Palais de Tokyo museum—a feat that began Wednesday—Poincheval will spend 23.5 hours a day sitting on chicken eggs in order to hatch them, a process that's expected to take three or four weeks. While it certainly won't be a comfortable endeavor, Poincheval should generally know what to expect. He's previously spent eight days buried underground, a week on top of a 65-foot pole, and two weeks inside a stuffed bear, reports AFP. Poincheval says he's been preparing for months for the "Stone" performance—with the goal "to feel the aging stone inside the rock," he tells Quartz—and has all the kinks worked out. In addition to some padding, according to one witness, he'll also have access to air, a toilet, an emergency phone line, and a heart monitor as he munches on dried meat, soup, and other liquids. Once outside the egg, he'll eat plenty of ginger—allowing his blood vessels to expand, increasing body heat—to help him keep the chicken eggs at a minimum of 98 degrees while inside a glass encasement at the museum in a performance dubbed "Egg." After the eggs hatch, the chicks will "go and live with my parents," Poincheval says. (This performance art was probably less comfortable.)
– A 20-year-old father-to-be was only trying to break up an argument between his neighbor and neighbor's wife in Lehigh Acres, Fla., on Saturday. Now two of the three are dead and the third is charged with double murder. Authorities say Ricardo Vaca—who was married May 29—returned home from a Father's Day celebration with his sister around 9:30pm and saw his neighbor's wife clinging to a door frame as her husband tried to drag her into the garage, reports the News-Press. Vaca said he wanted to check on 44-year-old Amparo Moreno and ran over to her driveway. Soon after, Vaca's sister heard multiple gunshots and found her brother and Moreno lying riddled with bullets on the driveway, police say. As she tried to help, Placido Moreno-Torres, 47, held a silver revolver to her forehead, according to a police report. She "began to plead for her life, at which time she dropped to the ground, rolled down the driveway, and ran for safety," the report says. When Moreno-Torres took off on foot, "we all got together to see what we can do but we couldn't save any lives," a neighbor tells WPTV. They drove the victims to an intersection, where they met with paramedics, but both were pronounced dead. Moreno-Torres—who was arrested early Sunday with "numerous cuts and abrasions covering his body, suggesting he'd been traveling through dense foliage"—faces two counts of homicide and one count of aggravated assault. Meanwhile, family members are mourning Vaca and the fact that his daughter will grow up without him. "He was an amazing person, always happy and trying to make people smile," a cousin tells the News-Press. "We as a family are devastated." (At least two other Good Samaritans have lost their lives in 2016.)
– As far as price tags go, it's an attention grabber: $546 for six liters of water and 54 grams of salt. But that's what one patient was charged for what the New York Times calls "one of the most common components of emergency medicine": the IV bag. Nina Bernstein digs into the numbers by way of a 2012 food poisoning outbreak in upstate New York. She reviewed some of the more than 100 affected patients' bills, and quickly realized that some were charged as much as 200 times the manufacturer's price for a liter of saline—which has recently ranged from 44 cents to $1—plus another change for "IV administration." A patient at White Plains Hospital got a bill that included $91 for a single unit of Hospira IV (hospital's cost: 86 cents), plus $127 for administering it. The $546 figure comes from the bill of a woman who spent three days in the same hospital, which paid $5.16 for her six liters of saline. Bernstein acknowledges we're pretty numb to the reality of inflated health-care costs, but sees something more in "the tale of the humble IV bag": "secrecy that helps keep prices high." It's the product of purchasing organizations and distributors and other players who make deals that "so obscure prices and profits that even participants cannot say what the simplest component of care actually costs, let alone what it should cost," she writes. "And that leaves taxpayers and patients alike with an inflated bottom line and little or no way to challenge it." Read her full piece here.
– A Vermont TV station's interview with the first lady is getting lots of attention for unintended reasons, notes Mediaite. In the course of talking about the demands on busy parents, Michelle Obama slipped up and referred to herself as a "busy single mother" before quickly correcting herself. The excerpt from WCAX: “Believe me, as a busy single mother—or, I shouldn’t say 'single.' As a busy mother.” Then: “Sometimes when you’ve got the husband who’s president it can feel a little single, but he’s there." A sample of the reactions: Give her a break: "With her schedule, I'm surprised she can even speak in coherent sentences," writes Laura Beck at Jezebel. "It's a testament to how much she has her shit together that she can even get out of bed in the morning." From the right: A blogger at Michelle Malkin's website thinks it was a Freudian slip. "Sometimes, when you least expect it, parapraxis rears its ugly head," Doug Powers writes.
– New York, your justice has been served—now would you like fries with that? A state appeals court has upheld the New York Supreme Court's ruling to strike down Mayor Michael Bloomberg's soda ban, finding that the prohibition on vendors selling 16-ounce-plus sugary drinks "violated the state principle of separation of power," Reuters reports. The decision was unanimous among the Appellate Division's four judges. "Like Supreme Court, we conclude that in promulgating this regulation the Board of Health failed to act within the bounds of its lawfully delegated authority," they wrote in their ruling, per the New York Post.
– Another nude photo scandal has hit Hollywood. This time, naked pictures allegedly featuring celebrities including Tiger Woods, Lindsey Vonn, Miley Cyrus, Kristen Stewart, Stella Maxwell, and Katharine McPhee have surfaced on the Celeb Jihad website. Per two reports from TMZ, Woods, McPhee, Stewart, and Maxwell have already sicced lawyers on the case; attorneys are threatening to sue the websites that have posted the photos. But as of TMZ's latest report Tuesday, they were still online. "It is an outrageous and despicable invasion of privacy for anyone to steal and illegally publish private intimate photos," a rep for Vonn tells Fox News.
– Poor Anakin Skywalker: First he turns into Darth Vader, and now his childhood home is about to be eaten by a wind-blown sand dune. The Tunisia set for the Tatooine city of Mos Espa in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is expected to soon be buried by the oncoming dune, say scientists, whose observation is more than just a bit of Hollywood trivia. They've actually used the set as a stationary reference point in their study of barchans, or crescent-shaped dunes, the BBC reports. Satellite images have shown the US- and Tunisia-based scientists that this particular barchan is chugging along at a rate of about 50 feet per year. Per tourism photos taken this year, it looks to be already touching the edge of the set, which wouldn't be the first to suffer such a fate: A neighboring site that featured in Star Wars Episode IV was blanketed in sand in 2003, the Independent notes. The good news for Star Wars fans: "Given the importance of this site to the tourism industry of Tunisia, it may be that it is a candidate for mitigation measures [like constructing fences], not being pursued at present," the scientists say. And if nothing is done to stop it, the dune should keep going after it covers the city, bringing Mos Espa once again to light—though probably with some damage. (Click for another tale of desert woe.)
– Salma Hayek had hoped cops would track down the person who shot and killed her dog in mid-February at her ranch in Washington state, and they did—but it looks like there won't be any charges. A neighbor of Hayek's has confessed to shooting 9-year-old Mozart with a pellet gun, per TMZ, but police have already closed the case because the neighbor says he shot the pellet gun just to scare Hayek's dogs off his property. He says her dogs are a constant nuisance on his land and that they attack his own dogs. An officer with the Thurston County Sheriff's Office tells WJLA that the fatal pellet-gun shot was a "fluke" that normally wouldn't kill a dog. An autopsy showed that the bullet cut into one of Mozart's arteries and that he "slowly bled to death internally," he says, per KIRO 7. (A veteran demanded a military burial for his service dog, who was shot and killed by a cyclist.)
– When Islamic rebels backed by al-Qaeda infiltrated Timbuktu in 2012, they wreaked havoc in the Malian city and destroyed Muslim shrines, including nine mausoleums and the door of a mosque that had remained shut for hundreds of years, per the Guardian. Now Ahmad al-Mahdi, a former employee with Mali's education department, is facing war crimes charges at the Hague for directing this cultural decimation, pleading guilty Monday at the international criminal court—the ICC's first prosecution of such a case, the New York Times reports. "All the charges brought against me are accurate and correct. I am really sorry," al-Mahdi told the court, noting his following of Islam led him to repent. "We have to be truthful, even if it burns our own hands." And the lead prosecutor says al-Mahdi used his own hands during the rampage, showing "determination and focus" to turn the revered structures to rubble. "We must eliminate from the landscape everything that doesn't belong," al-Mahdi, believed to be around 40, said in a 2012 video shown in court. Although he could have faced up to 30 years in prison, al-Mahdi struck a deal that will likely net him just nine to 11 years behind bars. Although al-Madhi was suspected of other crimes, too, the ICC prosecutor purposely limited charges to the cultural destruction as a symbolic move, per Swissinfo.ch. Some experts say the case could spur the prosecution of other culturally related war crimes in countries like Iraq and Syria, which the ICC doesn't have reach over. Al-Mahdi promised in court he wouldn't commit such a transgression ever again, asked Timbuktu residents to forgive him "as a son who has lost his way," and said he hoped the "evil spirits" that took him over will be purged in prison, per the Guardian. (A dissenting opinion in the Guardian.)
– Hezbollah confirmed today what many Mideast observers already guessed: It sent up the spy drone over Israel that was shot down last weekend, and it got help in doing so from Iran, reports the BBC. The unmanned craft may have been destroyed by Israeli jets, but Hezbollah's leader boasted that it "penetrated the enemy's iron procedures" and flew over "sensitive sites" for miles before getting shot down. "This is not the first time and will not be the last," added Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. "We can reach any place we want." Nasrallah said the drone's parts came from Iran but were assembled by Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the connection had Tehran crowing about Israel's weak air defenses, reports Reuters. Earlier, Benjamin Netanyahu promised a strong defense. "As we prevented last weekend an attempt by Hezbollah, we shall continue to act aggressively against all threats," he said.
– Remember the Saudi Arabian student who was briefly questioned and quickly cleared in the Boston Marathon bombing? Well, Glenn Beck was really convinced that 20-year-old Abdulrahman Alharbi was behind the attacks, railing against Alharbi on multiple episodes of his show even after he'd been cleared; now Alharbi is suing Beck for defamation. Beck said, among other things: "We know who this Saudi national is," Beck said, threatening to "expose" Alharbi if the US government didn't. "We know who this man is and, listen to me carefully, we know he is a very bad, bad, bad man." "While the media continues to look at what the causes were [behind] these two guys [the Tsarnaev brothers], there are, at this hour, three people involved," Beck said, adding that Alharbi had been "tagged" by the government as a "proven terrorist." "You know who the Saudi is? He’s the money man. He’s the guy who paid for it," Beck said, also claiming Alharbi was an al-Qaeda "control agent." Beck has not responded to the suit, the Washington Post reports, and has been uncharacteristically quiet on Twitter since it was filed Friday. Alharbi is also suing the Blaze, Beck's network, Boston magazine reports.
– NASA's not done with the moon yet. It launched two unmanned spacecraft today (Grail A and Grail B) to study the lunar gravitational field and interior, reports Space.com. The $496 million mission has an interesting twist, notes the PopSci blog: a MoonKAM that will allow students to log in, scan the moon's surface, and request particular images for study. The two probes, which lifted off aboard a Delta 2 rocket shortly after 9am EDT, aren't expected to be in place until the end of the year. (If you like your moon missions with astronauts, click here for newly released images of the Apollo era.)
– Police are now confirming they were aware as early as late April that Elliot Rodger posted "disturbing" videos online, but didn't watch them, even after a visit to Rodger's apartment weeks before the Isla Vista shooting. Four deputies, a UC Santa Barbara police officer, and a dispatcher in training visited Rodger for a welfare check on April 30. How officials are explaining their actions, per a statement from the sheriff's office: They say Rodger was "shy, timid, and polite" during the 10-minute visit and was deemed "not an immediate threat to himself or others." "Rodger told them he was having trouble fitting in socially in Isla Vista and the videos were merely a way of expressing himself," the statement reads. "They did not have cause to place him on an involuntary mental health hold, or to enter and search his residence. Therefore, they did not view the videos or conduct a weapons check." This admission corrects a statement issued Sunday that said "the sheriff's office was not aware of any videos until after the shooting rampage," the AP notes. In his manifesto, Rodger wrote that he deleted the majority of the videos—which the Los Angeles Times reports weren't as sinister as the one he uploaded before the shooting—from YouTube after the check, but he re-posted at least some of them in the week leading up to the killings.
– Oscar Pistorius, one of the most acclaimed Paralympic athletes of all time, suffered a stunning defeat yesterday in the T43/44 200 meters, his first-ever loss in that distance at the Paralympics, reports the Telegraph. Brazil’s Alan Oliveira won with a time of 21.45 seconds, earning accusations from Pistorius (who finished in 21.52) that his prosthetic limbs were too long, and thus violated the International Paralympic Committee's regulations. “We’re not racing a fair race here," Pistorius said right after the race. "The regulations say that you can make yourself unbelievably high." Pistorius said the evidence is in the video, as Oliveira was shorter than him at racing events last year, but now is taller. "Not taking away from Alan's performance—he's a great athlete—but these guys are a lot taller and you can't compete (with the) stride length," said Pistorius. However, the IPC said Oliveira's prosthetics were completely legal, according to the AP. "All athletes were measured today prior to competition by a classifier and all were approved for competition," said the IPC in a statement. Pistorius has since apologized, kind of, via a statement reported by the BBC: "That was Alan's moment and I would like to put on record the respect I have for him. I want to apologize for the timing of my comments but I do believe there is an issue here."
– Is Google trying to destroy America's public transportation system? It's possible, reports the Guardian, which obtained documents from Sidewalk Labs, a Google spinoff and "secretive subsidiary" of Alphabet. Columbus, Ohio, beat out more than 70 other cities for a chance to work with Sidewalk Labs and its Flow software, according to Columbus Business First. Sidewalk Labs and Flow would drastically change how people get around and park in the city. One of the most eye-catching parts of its plans, as laid out in the documents obtained by the Guardian, is redirecting public money that usually goes to subsidies for low-income residents to ride the bus to subsidies for them to ride Uber and other ride-sharing services. The Verge calls this “essentially privatizing public travel under the aegis of Alphabet.” And Engadget points out Alphabet has an interest in steering people away from the bus and toward ride-sharing, as it owns part of Uber and is developing a self-driving car for taxi-like services. Other parts of Sidewalk Labs' plans include mapping public parking spaces and directing drivers to empty spots, requiring cities to take parking payments through its own software, and charging more for parking during in-demand times (something Engadget compares to Uber surge pricing). It also has plans for an Airbnb-like system for renting private parking spots to drivers. Experts warn all of this would make cities beholden to Alphabet for basic services and require large investments of public money. Sidewalk Labs says it just wants to help.
– Rand Paul is OK with illegal immigrants being able to obtain citizenship eventually, and he would even make it easier by tweaking current rules and not requiring them to return to their home country first. But he doesn't want anyone to call that a "path to citizenship," a phrase AP used in a headline last night, along with "pathway to citizenship" in its text. The AP used the language after looking at an advance copy of a speech Paul gave today to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and it stands by the terminology, reports Politico. Paul points out that he never used the word "citizenship" in his speech. “I think the whole debate on immigration is trapped in a couple of words: path to citizenship and amnesty,” he tells the Post Politics blog of the Washington Post. “Can’t we just have reform and not refer to them by names?” The blog adds later: "Paul’s advisers say there is little difference between the current law and what Paul is proposing, at least when it comes to citizenship." Others weighing in: Benjy Sarlin, Talking Points Memo: "The plan Paul laid out in his afternoon call sounded identical in principle to plans put forward by a group of bipartisan senators and by the White House, both of which contain a so-called 'path to citizenship' that would allow illegal immigrants here today to obtain green cards (after meeting certain conditions) and eventually naturalize." Erick Erickson, RedState: "Feel free to disagree with Senator Paul if you must. Just don’t claim he’s pursuing a path to citizenship he never even mentioned." Kevin Robillard, Politico: "In a conference call that Paul held with reporters later in the day, it became clear that differences between the senator’s plan and the conventional definition of a path to citizenship were few, if they existed at all." Erica Werner in the AP's latest story: Paul said "the nation's illegal immigrants should be able to become citizens eventually, but amid a furor from conservative activists on the explosive issue he quickly sought to make clear that, while they would not be sent home, they couldn't get in line in front of anyone else." Paul himself on his plan: "Basically what I want to do is to expand the worker visa program, have border security and then as far as how people become citizens, there already is a process for how people become citizens. The main difference is I wouldn’t have people be forced to go home. You’d just get in line. But you get in the same line everyone is in."
– Weeks after saying she was waiting for her anger to subside before she spoke out on Harvey Weinstein, Uma Thurman delivered a chilling Thanksgiving message that appeared to confirm that she is among those sexually harassed or assaulted by the producer. "I said I was angry recently, and I have a few reasons," she said in an Instagram post. "#Metoo, in case you couldn't tell by the look on my face. I feel it's important to take your time, be fair, be exact, so... Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! (Except you Harvey, and all your wicked conspirators - I'm glad it's going slowly - you don't deserve a bullet)," she wrote. "Stay tuned." Thurman, who shared a photo of herself in her role as vengeful bride Beatrix Kiddo from Kill Bill, said she was thankful "for all those who have the courage to stand up for others," E! Online reports. When she was asked about Weinstein by an Access Hollywood reporter earlier this month, Thurman, who was involved in seven Weinstein films, said: "I've been waiting to feel less angry, and when I'm ready, I'll say what I have to say." Entertainment Weekly notes that Kill Bill co-star Daryl Hannah has said she was sexually harassed by Weinstein and he retaliated against her professionally after she rejected his advances.
– A Texas woman serving a life sentence for a relatively minor drug offense and given a second chance by President Obama is headed back to prison. Carol Denise Richardson, 49, was among hundreds of non-violent drug offenders granted clemency by Obama, who was persuaded by arguments from activists that drug laws were unfair, the Washington Post reports. They argued that defendants like Richardson found in possession of solid crack cocaine—in her case 50 grams—suffered unduly harsh sentences compared with those possessing powder cocaine, which weighs less and carries a lighter penalty. Richardson had served 10 years in prison when she was released in July 2016 as part of the largest prisoner release in US history. But she lost her freedom when she was arrested for theft on April 13. Defense lawyer Mark Diaz tells the Houston Chronicle that Richardson couldn't kick her crack habit and had stolen $60 worth of laundry detergent that she planned to sell to buy drugs. The same federal judge who sent Richardson to prison in 2006 rejected her lawyer's plea for rehab last week, ordering Richardson back to the slammer for 14 months, followed by five years of supervised release. "This defendant was literally given a second chance to become a productive member of society and has wasted it," Assistant US Attorney Ted Imperato said, per the Chronicle. A drug offenders advocacy group counters that Richardson was never treated for her drug problem, saying, "the system has failed Carol, yet again." (One inmate turned down Obama's clemency offer.)
– On March 10, 2014, a Japanese mother found a note in her mailbox. "Don't look for me," it read. The handwriting was that of her daughter, who essentially vanished on that day. The last sighting of the teen had been outside her home a few hours earlier, when she was seen talking to a young man. The now-15-year-old on Sunday escaped from what police say was a 2-year captivity at the hands of a 23-year-old. The Asahi Shimbum reports a bloodied Kabu Terauchi was seen by a newspaper delivery man at 3:15am Monday; police were called, and the suspect, who told police he had tried to kill himself with the box cutter in his hand, was apprehended. The bleeding was too significant to allow for an interrogation, but police say the girl, who is from Asaka, Saitama Prefecture, just north of Tokyo, broke out of Terauchi's Tokyo apartment when he left to go shopping and apparently left the door unlocked. She called police from a payphone, and told them she had been "abducted in front of my home in Saitama by being forced into a car by an unfamiliar man." A source tells the Kyodo news agency that Terauchi is said to have fooled the girl into getting into his car by saying her parents were divorcing and that he would drive her to a law office. Police plan to formally arrest Terauchi, who in March graduated from Chiba University's engineering department, and charge him with kidnapping. (Police say these missing sisters were held captive for 11 months.)
– Teaching today’s lesson on why it’s not a good idea to send sexy text messages to your mistress: Tiger Woods. In Touch got hold of texts and emails to galpals Rachel Uchitel and Jaimee Grubbs, and here are a few of the best, courtesy of the New York Daily News and the New York Post: To Uchitel: "I know it's brutal on you that you can't be with me all the time. I get it. It fucking kills me, too." To Uchitel: "I finally found someone I connect with, someone I have never found like this. Not even at home. You want someone to witness your life." To Uchitel: "I want you to lay next to me, lay on me or where ever you want to lay. Fuck. Why didn't we find each other years ago. We wouldn't be having this conversation." From Grubbs: She mentions a sexy "new piercing," calls golf "boring," says Woods is "my first, last and only black guy!" and tells him, “I'm putting my underwear back on...that’s a no no...come take them off.” To Grubbs: In response to her telling him she bought a friend a present, “What kind of present your naked body.” To Grubbs: “Quiet and secretively we will always be together,” and later, “When was the last time you got laid.” To Grubbs: “Send me something very naughty.”
– Another high-profile case with allegations of police brutality has surfaced, this time out of Savannah, Ga. The county coroner has ruled the death of local student and 21-year-old Nigerian native Matthew Ajibade a homicide, reports CNN. Ajibade died in police custody on New Year's Day following his arrest on domestic violence charges. Authorities say he resisted arrest and then got combative during booking, with one female deputy suffering a broken nose and a concussion. Deputies put Ajibade in an isolation cell strapped to a chair, and he was later found unresponsive, reports the AP. The coroner's report lists blunt force trauma as the cause of death, and nine deputies have been fired. "There were abrasions around the head and a little bit of blood inside the skull case," says Chatham County Coroner Bill Wessinger. Both stories point out that in this context, homicide means only that another person was involved in the death, and that it wasn't necessarily a crime. Yesterday, Sheriff Al St. Lawrence avoided the specifics of the case but defended the use of force when necessary, reports GPB, saying, "I'm not running a summer camp here; I'm running a prison. And I intend to run it as it should be run." The local district attorney hasn't decided yet whether to file criminal charges. Attorney Mark O'Mara, who is representing Ajibade's family, says a girlfriend told arresting officers that Ajibade had mental health problems and gave them his medication.
– More evidence that Simon Cowell really is expecting a love child with a (presumably former) friend's wife? In divorce papers filed two weeks ago, Andrew Silverman names Cowell as a co-respondent and says the divorce from wife Lauren is based on adultery, the New York Post reports. What exactly does that mean? "It’s really a signal to the spouse who cheated that the wronged spouse is very angry and that it’s going to be a very nasty, scorched-earth, high-profile litigation," says a divorce attorney. Another top attorney agrees that the move is "very nasty," so expect this story to drag on for a while yet. Lauren "is a total gold digger," one friend tells the Post; another adds that her pregnancy by Cowell "was by design." Contrary to initial reports, she was not estranged from her husband when she started seeing Cowell, friends say; in fact, Andrew had just upgraded her engagement ring with a 10-karat diamond. All the dirty details could end up being aired on the witness stand, as Cowell might be forced to testify. Sources tell the Daily Mail he's hired top LA attorney Marty Singer, and in case you were wondering about his mental state regarding impending fatherhood, he's reportedly "freaked out." Unless you trust the Post's sources more, in which case he's "thrilled."
– The British government yesterday ordered an immediate halt to direct flights from Yemen to the UK as a security precaution. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, describing the country as "both an incubator and potential safe haven for terrorism," also announced the creation of an expanded no-fly list of people with suspected terror links, the Wall Street Journal reports. The halt to Yemen flights is pending enhanced security precautions on incoming flights from the nation, Brown said. The UK wants flights from Yemenia, Yemen's national airline, to stop in Cairo or Paris for extra security checks, but the airline has opted to cancel the flights instead. "We ourselves are very concerned by security measures,” a Yemenia Airlines official tells BusinessWeek. “They asked us to do these things, but it’s not realistic. We cannot do it. Nobody would fly, the plane would be empty.”
– A police officer was killed in Indianapolis Thursday by a crash victim he was trying to help, police say. Authorities say Lt. Aaron Allen was shot multiple times after approaching a car that had flipped in an accident on the city's south side Thursday afternoon, the Indianapolis Star reports. Another officer responding to the crash and an off-duty officer who was in the area returned fire, injuring the shooter, police say. Both people who were in the flipped vehicle were taken to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and are now in police custody. Allen, 38, was pronounced dead at the same hospital. A witness tells RTV6 that the driver was trapped upside-down in the overturned vehicle when he opened fire for reasons that are still unclear. The witness says at least 20 shots were heard. Allen, the Indianapolis-area Southport Police Department's officer of the year in 2015, leaves a wife and children, CBS News reports. He had been in law enforcement for almost 20 years. He was "a hard worker and today was no different," Southport Police Chief Thomas Vaughn told reporters Thursday. "He responded to a crash with urgency to preserve life and tragically his was lost." (A slain NYPD officer became a father this week, more than two years after his death.)
– Robert Hinton had a chance to move on with his life. But the former inmate of Riker's Island—whose savage beating there by guards spawned a pending $450,000 settlement—was shot and killed Thursday night outside a housing project in Brooklyn, the Daily News reports. Hinton had just eaten Thanksgiving dinner with his family when the 28-year-old went home with his nephews and little sister, according to his aunt, Lynette Johnson. She says the family was still together when they heard news of his death. "It was devastating," says Johnson. "It doesn’t seem real. In the blink of eye you’re gone. He was a beautiful person." Another victim was shot in the leg and fled the scene, officials say. Police are still seeking the gunman. Hinton was just weeks from receiving his money over the beating he suffered at Riker's in April 2012, the New York Times reports. In his lawsuit, Hinton said a captain and five guards shackled and beat him, fracturing a vertebra and breaking his nose; all six were later fired for the attack. Hinton apparently hoped for a new start with the payout, but his mom, Parys Johnson, tells the Daily News that he "felt like something was going to happen to him." She says her son was likely "set up" by people who believed he already had the settlement money. Hinton has a pregnant girlfriend, but it's unclear who, if anyone, will receive the money. Hinton had been linked to the Bloods street gang and was serving time for shooting and injuring a man when the beating occurred. (Read about an innocent man who was "tortured" at Riker's and later killed himself.)
– An Alabama teacher has been suspended without pay after a lesson this week that had parents fuming. An unidentified female teacher at Selma's Brantley Elementary was discussing current affairs with her sixth-grade class when a student brought up the Michael Brown shooting, the superintendent tells the Selma-Times Journal. That's when the teacher reportedly told students to research the shooting, including where each bullet hit Brown, before the class re-enacted the event in what one parent calls an "absurd" skit, per the New York Daily News—though it isn't clear if the teacher was the one to suggest that idea. WSFA notes the suspension was handed down yesterday after an investigation. Parent Jessica Baughn, who brought attention to the incident by posting about it on social media, called the teacher's actions "nowhere near right." As part of the re-enactment, a white student shot fake paper bullets out of a gun, also made of paper, while a black child fell "on the ground like he's dead," she says. "I understand talking about current history," Baughn adds, but "they are teaching these children to hate one another when we're supposed to be teaching them to love one another." The superintendent said the teacher would return to the classroom in the future.
– In 2010, Sonia Vallabh noticed her mother acting oddly. "She was fitful and couldn't really tell you if she'd been awake or asleep," Vallabh tells CNN. Soon, the 52-year-old couldn't recognize her daughter and would spasm and speak in tongues. Upon her death months later, Vallabh recalls her father, a doctor, warning, "Her disease was genetic." Those words would change the course of Vallabh's life. Vallabh and her husband both quit their jobs and are now getting their PhDs in biology at Harvard Medical School in the hope that they can find a cure for fatal familial insomnia before it takes her life. FFI is caused by a gene mutation that Vallabh has inherited as a member of one of the few affected families in the world. Says a member of another such family: "It's been a disaster. A brutal suffering." Research on FFI began in 1984 when an Italian man named Silvano urged sleep scientists at the University of Bologna to discover "the cause of the curse of my family." Researchers watched as Silvano, 53, struggled to sleep while his body jerked him awake, preventing the restorative stage of sleep. A brain analysis later revealed two sections of his brain's switchboard, or thalamus, had been destroyed by abnormal prion proteins, affecting the sleep-wake cycle. For now, relatives can only undergo a genetic test and wait for the disease to hit, usually in their 50s. But Vallabh wants a different outcome. "The hope has to be always that you find a cure," says a pathologist, who imagines a time when "fatal" will be erased from FFI's name. The BBC reported last year on a drug that may keep abnormal prions from forming. (More on Vallabh and her husband here.)
– First Oxford Dictionaries went with an emoji. Now Merriam-Webster has named its "word of the year," and it isn't a word at all. "Ism" was given the honor after words like socialism, fascism, racism, feminism, communism, capitalism, and terrorism saw high traffic on the dictionary's website in 2015. Searches for "fascism" in particular followed the release of the Laquan McDonald shooting video and Donald Trump's proposal to ban Muslims. "We had a lot on our minds this year," an editor tells the AP. "It's a serious year. These are words of ideas and practices. We're educating ourselves." A less-serious term commonly searched, per Quartz: minions. The AP pinpoints when the other various -ism words were most searched in 2015; more here.
– Well, now the UK has gone and gotten itself on Glenn Greenwald's bad list. The Guardian journalist behind the Edward Snowden-NSA leaks story told reporters that after his partner was detained for nine hours at London's Heathrow airport, he plans to be "far more aggressive" in his reporting, Reuters reports. "I am going to publish things on England, too. I have many documents on England's spy system. I think they will be sorry for what they did," he said. Greenwald was at the Rio de Janeiro airport at the time to meet partner David Miranda upon his return to Brazil, where they both live. Brazil's government released a statement calling Miranda's detention unjustified, the Guardian also wants answers, and now even lawmakers in the UK are calling for an explanation from police as to why Miranda was held, the BBC reports. The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation says it's rare for anyone to be held for so long under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which allows police to detain someone at an airport for as long as nine hours to question them about links to terrorism. But "they never asked him about a single question at all about terrorism or anything relating to a terrorist organization," Greenwald says. "They spent the entire day asking about the reporting I was doing and other Guardian journalists were doing on the NSA stories."
– Witnesses say a driver tried to run down pedestrians outside a Los Angeles synagogue Friday night—and then did a U-turn for a second attempt at running them over. Security camera footage shows the vehicle plowing across traffic after the attack, hitting two vehicles. Mohamed Mohamed Abdi, a US citizen originally from Somalia, was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon, CBS Los Angeles reports. Police say they are investigating reports that the 32-year-old was shouting anti-Semitic abuse at people near the intersection where the attack took place, which has two synagogues. A knife was found in the rented car Abdi was driving, police say. The Los Angeles Police Department says the FBI and other agencies have been called in to help investigate the incident, which is being treated as a potential hate crime, ABC 7 reports. LAPD Deputy Chief Horace Frank says the two men Abdi targeted escaped injury by hiding behind an electric box and a traffic light, KTLA reports. The Los Angeles Times reports that investigators are now looking into Abdi's background. Frank says he moved to Seattle from Mogadishu a few years ago and drove to Los Angeles a few days before the attack. He says the suspect's "very concerning actions" strongly resemble those used in recent terror attacks. (Last week, a passenger was arrested after saying he wanted to "identify all the Jews" on a flight to Atlanta.)
– Starting today, Alabama police will enforce what many are calling the US’ toughest immigration law. A federal judge upheld key aspects of the law yesterday, including allowing authorities to question and detain suspected illegal immigrants and requiring officials to check public school students’ immigration status. The governor says those portions of the law, which was passed earlier this year, will be enforced immediately. Despite the fact that other parts of the law are still on hold, it is already stricter than similar laws in Arizona, Utah, Indiana, and Georgia. Three lawsuits, including one from President Obama’s administration, have been filed against the law, and the judge’s ruling will likely be appealed. Other parts of the law that are going into effect include making it a crime to not carry proper alien documentation, forbidding contracts with illegal immigrants, and forbidding state and local agencies from doing business with undocumented immigrants. The AP and the Montgomery Advertiser have details on the portions of the law that are still blocked while waiting for a final ruling. The New York Times notes that the judge’s ruling means it’s very likely that the fate of all such state immigration laws will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.
– You think you're ready for 2012 to be over? Well, these dozen celebrities rounded up by the Huffington Post are probably even happier to wave goodbye to this year: Demi Moore: She kicked off 2012 by inhaling too many "whip-its" and having a seizure; her year went on to include a rift with her daughters, Ashton Kutcher finally filing for divorce (after getting together with someone much younger than Demi), and Demi getting dumped again. Kris Humphries: As if the whole Kim Kardashian fiasco wasn't enough, Humphries also had herpes allegations to deal with, not to mention another apparently crazy ex. Amanda Bynes: Enough said. Lindsay Lohan: Do we really need to explain? Lance Armstrong: He lost his Tour de France titles and a whole bunch of other stuff, got sued, and the icing on the cake: Sports Illustrated named him the Anti-Sportsman of the Year. Ouch. Click for the complete list.
– Relatives considered tossing the torn paper bag they found in the southern home of their late great-grandfather earlier this year. It's a good thing they didn't: Buried beneath old postcards and papers was one of the biggest discoveries of rare baseball cards ever. On Wednesday, memorabilia expert Joe Orlando confirmed the seven cards featuring Hall of Famer Ty Cobb are from a 1909-1911 American Tobacco Company set and worth "well into the seven figures," reports NBC News. Only 15 were previously known to exist. "Finding one of these cards is news," Orlando tweeted. "Finding seven in one shot is ridiculous." (An Ohio man found a card collection worth $3 million.)
– One of the most-watched Grammy moments was the live-on-camera aphasia of entertainment reporter Serene Branson, whose commentary descended into a surrealistic gibberish soliloquy. But you might want to resist the urge to click on that Facebook link promising a look at the footage—a common link making its way across comment walls instead redirects users to a marketing survey and delivers a malware infection, AllFacebook reports. The Serene Branson twist aside, this is just another version of the infamous "survey scam." Infected users may want to check out the video in the gallery by SophosLabs on how to purge the offending program.
– The suspected Iranian hit squad busted in Bangkok last week made cheap portable radios into bombs that they intended to use against Israeli targets, authorities say. Experts say the bombs are nearly identical to those attached to vehicles in attacks in India and the republic of Georgia, ABC reports. After an explosion at a house in Bangkok, one of the three Iranians now in custody in Thailand hurled a radio bomb at police in an attempt to evade arrest, but it bounced back and shredded both his legs. Other bombs were found in the house. The radio bombs contained ball bearings and magnets, indicating that they were going to be attached to vehicles as in the India and Georgia blasts. Thai authorities say the three suspects—who partied with prostitutes soon after arriving in the country—haven't revealed anything substantial under interrogation. Iran has denied any responsibility. While analysts suspect there may be a revenge link to the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists, many questions remain, notes AP, including: Were the assailants part of a global terror network, and if they were professional assassins, why were they so inept?
– The judge in the Stanford rape case isn't just facing a petition to get him off the bench—he's become so unpopular that potential jurors are bailing. KPIX reports that on Wednesday, some 20 potential jurors refused to serve on a jury in an unrelated stolen-goods case under Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky. "I can't believe what you did," one woman told Persky, referring to his lenient sentence for Stanford sex attacker Brock Turner, the San Jose Mercury News reports. In other developments: Lawyer Barbara Spector tells the New York Daily News that in a 2011 civil trial over the alleged gang rape of a 17-year-old girl, she felt Persky sided with the group of baseball players accused of raping the girl. Spector says Persky allowed lawyers for the defendants to show Facebook photos of the girl wearing revealing clothing months after the incident because they argued the photos showed she did not have PTSD. Persky has his defenders, who say he is fair-minded and not a man known for issuing harsh sentences—or bowing to public pressure. He has "a reputation for being a thoughtful jurist and he has been fair and decent to our clients, many of whom come from poor socioeconomic backgrounds," a public defender in Santa Clara tells the Guardian. In an open letter to Turner's victim published on BuzzFeed, Joe Biden praises her "breathtaking" bravery and "solid steel spine." "Your story has already changed lives," he writes. "You have helped change the culture. You have shaken untold thousands out of the torpor and indifference towards sexual violence that allows this problem to continue." Rep. Ted Poe, a former prosecutor and judge from Texas, read portions of the victim's searing court statement in the House yesterday and called for voters to recall Persky, the Dallas Morning News reports. "This judge got it wrong. There is an archaic philosophy in some courts that sin ain't sin as long as good folk do it," said Poe, a Republican. "The judge should be removed. The rapist should do more time for the dastardly deed he did that night." The Huffington Post reports that on the evening of June 15, lawmakers from both parties will spend an hour reading the Stanford victim's statement in full in the House. (Turner may be freed after serving just half of his six-month sentence.)
– When an expert in rhinoviruses told Martin Moore in 2013 that there would never be a vaccine for the common cold, the Emory University professor thought to himself, "Well, let's look into that." Three years later, it appears his probing against the odds has paid off: Per a study published last month in the journal Nature, mice and macaque monkeys given a vaccine developed by Moore and his team have been able to work up antibodies against a variety of rhinoviruses, which most often are the cause of the common cold, Mashable reports. Not that Moore is the sole pioneer on this landscape: Other researchers at colleges and with pharma companies have been toiling away in labs seeking a similar remedy for the coughing, sneezing, and sniffling that the CDC notes is the main reason why kids miss school and grownups call in sick to work. Per an Emory press release, even though scientists in the '60s were able to develop a vaccine effective against one type of rhinovirus, it didn't work against the many other varieties that exist; Mashable pegs that figure at more than 160. So Moore mixed together 50 different rhinoviruses—gathered from immunologist James Gern, who keeps what he calls "one of the world’s biggest collections of kid snot"—into one vaccine, "like a bunch of slightly different Christmas ornaments." Post-vaccine, the monkeys had developed antibodies in their blood for 49 out of the 50 viruses; similar results were found in the mice. Moore is hoping to eventually test the vaccine out on humans. "We think that creating a vaccine for the common cold can be reduced to technical challenges related to manufacturing," he says. (Here's why colds are more common when the mercury drops.)
– Passengers were in the cockpit of the plane carrying the Polish president before it crashed, say Russian investigators. The flight recorder has revealed the presence of one person who has been identified (the identity hasn't been made public), and at least one other, who "will be identified by the Polish side," an official from the Russian aviation authority tells the Guardian. The disclosure supports a theory that high-ranking officials forced the pilots to attempt a landing despite heavy fog. The crash has puzzled officials because the flight crew had been told about the bad weather and instructed to divert to Moscow or Minsk if conditions remained poor. Poland's former prime minister has said he thinks President Lech Kaczynski himself probably pressured the pilots to get him to Smolensk for a WWII ceremony.
– Crystal Tadlock may think twice before accepting anything from a Delta attendant again. Flying back from Paris, the Colorado woman accepted a free apple handed out by an attendant and stuffed it in her carry-on bag—only to discover at customs that the fruit would cost her $500, KDVR reports. The customs agent "asked me if my trip to France was expensive and I said, 'yeah,'" said Tadlock after her bag was randomly searched. "I didn’t really get why he was asking that question, and then he said 'It’s about to get a lot more expensive after I charge you $500.'" She asked if she could toss the apple or eat it, but the agent said no. "It’s really unfortunate someone has to go through that and be treated like a criminal over a piece of fruit," says Tadlock, who also lost her Global Entry Status. She blames Delta for handing out the fruit without warning, and says Customs should have cut her a break. Customs and Border Patrol responded by saying that "all agriculture items must be declared," and a Delta spokesperson said "we encourage our customers to follow US Customs and Border Protection protocols." For her part, Tadlock plans to fight the fine in court. "I understand the laws," she says, per KPTV. "But once again, the apple is from Delta and I think that’s the most important part of this story."
– A pastor's wife says a hearse was stolen from outside a Southern California church ahead of funeral services with a casket inside. The Los Angeles Times reports that the hearse was idling outside Ebenezer Baptist Church in South Los Angeles while the funeral director arranged flowers for Saturday morning services yesterday for 19-year-old Jonté Lee Reed. Shirley Little, the pastor's wife, says the director called ministry friends for help when he saw the hearse was missing. Little says family members driving to the funeral had been notified and stopped the hearse four blocks from the church. KTLA reports that police detained the man, whose mental condition will be evaluated. Little says the hearse was returned and the funeral was only delayed by 30 minutes.
– Qatar's Article 281 makes clear that any man who has extramarital sex "with a female over sixteen without compulsion, duress, or ruse shall be punished with imprisonment for a term up to seven years." The next part of that code raises eyebrows: "The same penalty shall also be imposed on the female for her consent." And it's what has dealt a conviction to a Dutch woman trapped in the Arab country since she reported her own rape three months ago, the BBC reports. The 22-year-old woman, IDed only as Laura, was given a one-year suspended sentence and $850 fine Monday, Daphne Kerremans, a Dutch Foreign Ministry rep, tells the New York Times. Laura was accused of adultery after she says her drink was drugged at a Doha hotel in mid-March and she woke up in a stranger's apartment to find she had been sexually assaulted; when she notified police, she was arrested. Laura's lawyer says that she was on vacation at a hotel that permitted the sale of alcohol (liquor is mostly illegal in Qatar). A former Qatar justice minister tells Al Jazeera that defense lawyers would had to have proved "no voluntary actions" existed between the woman and the man, IDed by Dutch News as Syrian national Omar Abdullah Al-Hassan. He claims the sex was consensual but that they argued after, prompting Laura to file her report; he received a sentence of 140 lashes—100 for the extramarital sex, 40 for drinking booze, none for rape. The burden in Qatar of proving sexual assault is so strong that a man and woman walking together could be enough to convince officials that the woman gave the OK to sex later. Laura will be deported after paying her fine. "The ambassador is with her now and is making sure that she can go home as soon as possible," Kerremans tells the Times. "It was quite overwhelming for her." (She's not the first foreigner to be accused of adultery in an Arab nation.)
– In what could prove to be the most damaging Snowden leak yet, the National Security Agency bugged the United Nations headquarters in New York, as well as at least 80 embassies and consulates around the globe, according to der Spiegel. The agency's experts cracked the code last year, with one of them reporting "the data traffic gives us internal video teleconferences of the United Nations (yay!)," the German magazine reports, citing documents obtained by the NSA leaker. During the surveillance—which violated US agreements with the UN—the NSA snoops discovered some Chinese spies were also listening in. The bugging program the agency calls its "Special Collection Service" also targeted the European Union's UN mission and the International Atomic Energy Agency, reports der Spiegel, which says "the surveillance is intensive and well organized and has little or nothing to do with warding off terrorists." American snooping on the United Nations has been reported before, the New York Times notes, but the Snowden files provide much more information on the program and are likely to do more damage to US relations with allies including Germany. In other Snowden news, Reuters reports that it was Cuba's refusal to let the NSA leaker in that left him stranded for six weeks in the Moscow airport.
– What better way to reveal the sex of your upcoming baby than on the season premiere of your reality show? For those of you who didn't watch last night's episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, E! reveals that Kim and Kanye are having a daughter. "I'm so excited we're having a girl," Kardashian said. "Who doesn't want a girl? They're the best and I know that's really what Kanye has always wanted. He wanted a little girl." Of course, that quote came only after mom Kris Jenner, in the doctor's office with Kim, Kourtney, and Khloe, asked the doctor if he saw "a little peepee" on the monitor, which gave Kim the opportunity to tell the entire viewing audience, "It definitely would take after his father so you would see it." The Kimye spawn is due in July—and so is the royal baby. The Daily Beast reports that Kate, the Duchess Formerly Known as Middleton, is taking a sort of royal maternity leave. She won't appear in public after June 13, ramping up speculation that the heir to the throne is due exactly one month later.
– Rolling Stone's mea culpa made headlines this week, but so did one on a much less serious topic. Here's a look at some of the week's apologies: Adorable: "I don't know their names but thank them a lot and I'm sorry again for throwing up. And I hope you enjoy your ice cream."—Jack, a boy who threw up in a bookstore in Portland, Oregon. He sent the "barf cleaners" a letter and a Ben & Jerry's gift card. Regrettable: "We would like to apologize to our readers and to all of those who were damaged by our story and the ensuing fallout, including members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and UVA administrators and students."—Will Dana, managing editor of Rolling Stone, after the magazine's infamous campus rape story was shown to be a "journalistic failure." Fat shaming: "I sincerely apologize to Kelly Clarkson for my offensive comment. I admire her remarkable talent and that should have been the focus of any discussion about her."—Chris Wallace, after the Fox host suggested the singer should lay off the pizza. A co-host also apologized. PR misfire: "We apologize to the many people who thought our tweet about the new emojis was insensitive."—Clorox spokesperson, after the company tweeted, "New emojis are alright but where's the bleach?" It showed a Clorox bottle made up of Apple's new emojis, and because some of those emojis feature include black- and brown-skinned faces, the Clorox tweet was construed as offensive on social media. Can't hold it: "We have high standards for service and we missed the mark. We want to apologize to our fans for the inconvenience tonight."—Chicago Cubs spokesperson, after the bathroom situation was so bad on Opening Day that fans resorted to peeing in cups.
– Two teenage boys charged with shooting a 14-year-old girl in the back of the head and leaving her wounded in a ditch lured her to the spot in a small Utah town with a plan to rob and kill her, prosecutors said. The 16-year-old boys set up a meeting by promising to sell Deserae Turner a knife, reports KSL. They originally planned to stab her with knives of their own, according to newly filed charging documents. After they arrived, one boy decided instead to use a gun he had brought and shot Deserae, prosecutors said Tuesday. They took $55 from her purse, tossed her backpack in a trash bin, and destroyed her cellphone and iPod, prosecutors wrote. Deserae is in critical condition in a medically induced coma, reports the AP. One teen told police that greed made them do it, investigators said. Deserae was reported missing Thursday evening when she didn't return home from school and was found around 12:45am Friday in the dry canal in Smithfield. "She is in the fight of her life right now," says a rep for her family. The teen who brought the gun gave the spent shell casing to the other boy when he asked to keep it "as a memento," the charges state. Officers later found it displayed on his bedroom windowsill. Investigators say text messages between the boys indicate they planned the robbery and shooting together, the Salt Lake Tribune reports, and footprints in the canal allegedly match the shoes the boys were wearing. KSL reports, per charging documents, that one teen "provided a written apology to [Deserae's] family in which he stated, 'I'm so so so sorry.'" The boys face attempted aggravated murder charges, among others.
– The father of the woman once known to the world as Meghan Markle, and now as Duchess Meghan of Sussex, is back in the news. Thomas Markle, who famously did not attend his daughter's wedding after it emerged that he was staging paparazzi shots to make himself look better, has given an interview to Piers Morgan on ITV's Good Morning Britain. It may not go over well in Kensington Palace, notes BuzzFeed, given that the 73-year-old is offering up details of his phone conversations with Prince Harry. Among the highlights: Politics: "Our conversation was, I was complaining that I didn’t like Donald Trump," said Markle, referring to a chat with Harry. "He said, 'Give Donald Trump a chance'. I sort of disagreed with that." Asked if Harry was still a Trump supporter, Markle answered, "I would hope not now. At the time he might have been." The boyfriend: "The first phone call was, 'Daddy I have a new boyfriend', and I was like, 'That’s really nice'. Then the next call was like, 'He’s British', and I said, 'That’s really nice'. Eventually the third time around was like, 'He’s a prince' and at that point she said, 'It’s Harry' and I said, 'Oh Harry, OK." And then: "(She said) 'Of course we’ll have to call him 'H' so no one knows we’re talking about Harry.'" The wedding: Markle described telling his daughter that he'd be unable to attend the wedding because of his heart trouble, made worse by his paparazzi controversy. "They were disappointed. Meghan cried, I’m sure, and they both said ‘Take care of yourself, we are really worried about you,'" he said, per USA Today. He added, "It was incredible watching her."
– Soccer star Hope Solo is involved in another domestic violence case, but this time as the one facing charges. Police say the 32-year-old hit her sister and her nephew last night during an "out-of-control" party at Solo's home in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland, reports the Seattle Times. "There were visible injuries on them,” says a police official. The two-time Olympic gold medalist (and Dancing With the Stars vet) was being held without bail on two counts of investigation of domestic violence assault. In 2012, Solo's then-fiance, former NFL player Jerramy Stevens, was accused of assaulting her, but charges were dropped because of insufficient evidence. They got married hours after that court appearance. Solo made happier headlines last week when she recorded her 71st career shutout in a match against France, notes AP. That ties the record for a US goalkeeper.
– Four days after Jesse and Melissa Meek posted their pregnancy announcement on YouTube on Easter Sunday, it had about 2,000 views. By Saturday, it hit 100,000; by Monday, 600,000. Currently, it's sitting pretty at more than 3 million views. Why? Because the Oregon couple decided to announce by writing their own lyrics to the Fresh Prince theme song. Sample line: "Our family and friends, who were up to no good, started asking questions about parenthood ... Little did they know the plan had begun to start our own family, and man, it was fun." The video was intended for friends and family members, and "that was the last thing we thought would happen, that it would blow up to what it had, or what it has," Melissa, 28, tells KPTV. "We love to do that kind of stuff," Jesse, 31, tells the Oregonian. "We consider ourselves goofy and fun." They filmed the video while en route to Melissa's parents' house for Easter dinner, in just five takes. Since it went viral, they've uploaded two more videos to YouTube: One of Melissa using the couple's dog to break the pregnancy news to Jesse (and then the couple also using the dog to tell the grandparents-to-be), and one of Jesse proposing to Melissa at a jiu-jitsu tournament. They celebrate their two-year wedding anniversary May 11, and will learn their baby's gender around the same time—another piece of news they plan to reveal creatively, Jesse says.
– CNN is reporting on bombshell classified documents presented to Donald Trump and President Obama last week. The intelligence documents allege that Russian operatives have—or at least claim to have—compromising information, both financial and personal, on Trump. The documents have been circulating since before the election—Mother Jones actually reported on them in October—and took on "a kind of legendary status among journalists, lawmakers, and intelligence officials," according to BuzzFeed. US intelligence officials have now investigated the former British intelligence operative behind a lot of the information, as well his sources, and determined them to be credible. The FBI is investigating, and intelligence agencies want Trump to know that these allegations are out there. The details inside the documents haven't been verified, but BuzzFeed has published the documents in whole "so that Americans can make up their own minds." The documents claim Russia has been "cultivating, supporting, and assisting" Trump for years. They state Trump surrogates and Russian government intermediaries met continuously to exchange information during the campaign and that Trump accepted intelligence on political rivals from the Kremlin. The documents also state that Russian operatives claim to have enough dirt to blackmail Trump, including "perverted sexual acts" recorded by Russian intelligence. The Trump campaign has not commented on the documents.
– Justice Samuel Alito's critical reaction during last night's State of the Union speech is still making waves: Shannen Coffin, National Review: "That Justice Alito betrayed his feelings in a minor way is understandable. ... In his preening, Obama flatly misrepresented the ruling" and showed an "utter lack of tact." Glenn Greenwald, Salon: The judge made "a serious and substantive breach of protocol that reflects very poorly on Alito and only further undermines the credibility of the court. It has nothing to do with etiquette. ... (The court) must remain apolitical, separate, and detached from partisan wars." Sarah Palin, Fox News: Obama is "embarrassing our Supreme Court and not respecting the separation of powers. ... I think that this is going to be a huge take-away moment." Doug Kendall, Huffington Post: If Alito feels this way, he should have written a concurring opinion and explained how the ruling "doesn't change course on over a century of campaign finance law ... and showed us that the court's formalistic approach to the First Amendment and corporations won't lead to foreign corporate spending in US elections. But muttering at the State of the Union clarifies nothing."
– The review embargo on Star Wars: The Force Awakens ended early Wednesday, leaving critics free to tell the world just how much they loved it. The majority had nothing but praise for director JJ Abrams' reboot of the beloved franchise, and even those who thought it was hit-and-miss say it's easily the best Star Wars movie since 1983's Return of the Jedi. A spoiler-free roundup: "There are very few films which leave me facially exhausted after grinning for 135 minutes, but this is one," writes Peter Bradshaw at the Guardian, praising Abrams and co-writer Lawrence Kasdan for creating a movie that is both "a narrative progression from the earlier three films and a shrewdly affectionate next-gen reboot." The Force Awakens "is ridiculous and melodramatic and sentimental of course, but exciting and brimming with energy and its own kind of generosity," he writes. Abrams has "united the original cast with a group of newcomers who mesh seamlessly with their elders, in an ensemble effort that brims with the chops and brio of a great jam session," writes Ann Hornaday at the Washington Post, praising new cast members like Daisy Ridley who "shoulder their responsibilities with skill and confidence." Star Wars fans are certain to love the movie, writes AA Dowd at the AV Club, though he feels Force Awakens may contain a little too much nostalgic "fan service." "What Abrams has done is strip Star Wars down to its core components, rearranging the stuff people liked about the original trilogy and getting rid of what they hated about the rest," he writes. This is the best Star Wars sequel yet and one of the best movies of 2015, according to Mick LaSalle at the San Francisco Chronicle, who's relieved that Disney, which bought Lucasfilm in 2012, hasn't turned out to be the Evil Empire. "It's hard to imagine any Star Wars movie better than the one they've made," he writes. Abrams "blends the old with the new, along with a fanboy's love and a director's skill, and the results are thrilling," writes Bill Goodykoontz at the Arizona Republic, who says even "casual" Star Wars fans—if they exist—will find a lot to love. "What Abrams has done is find and return the ingredient crucial to the original three films in the franchise that was sorely lacking in the second round: fun," he writes. Click for 8 things you'll hear upon leaving the theater after seeing the flick.
– Your dose of Valentine's Day coupledom comes courtesy of archaeologists in Greece, who unearthed a man and woman locked in an embrace for about 6,000 years. The pair in their early 20s were found buried together in southern Greece at a dig site known as Alepotrypa Cave, reports AP. And as Discovery News observes, it appears that they were spooning in their final moments. It's not clear how they died—maybe an earthquake or maybe something to do with the broken arrowheads found nearby, but more analysis of the remains awaits. They're not the first ancient couple to be discovered buried in an embrace, but they might be the earliest. “Double burials in embrace are extremely rare,” says the Greek Ministry of Culture. "The skeletons of Diros represent one of the oldest, if not the oldest, found to this date." (This 14th-century couple were holding hands when they died.)
– Congratulations, Mick Jagger: You and your kisser can now claim as your namesake a long-extinct swamp-dwelling creature LiveScience describes as something between "a small hippo and a long-legged pig" with really sensitive lips. Jaggermeryx naida, or "Jagger's water nymph," lived about 19 million years ago, adds the Washington Post, and its jawbone indicates it "probably had a highly innervated muzzle with mobile and tactile lips, thus the Jagger reference," says Gregg Gunnell, the Duke paleontologist and Jagger fanboy behind its discovery. Jaggermeryx naida was found in Egypt's Wadi Moghra desert, which apparently used to be considerably more verdant; the critter used its snout to forage for plants to eat. But Jagger wasn't a shoo-in, says study co-author and Wake Forest physical anthropologist Ellen Miller: "Some of my colleagues suggested naming the new species after Hollywood star Angelina Jolie, because she also has famous lips. But for me it had to be Mick." (Stephen Colbert has a beetle named after him.)
– Ann Coulter is relishing the new line of attack on President Obama from the left. She told Bill O'Reilly last night that liberals are outraged because they viewed the president as the "tooth fairy or Santa Claus," someone who can magically fix things, reports Mediaite. “Reality betrays children constantly,” she said. “He can't stop this spill, and they are enraged." Oh, and she loves Alvin Greene as a Democratic candidate, she writes at Townhall.com.
– US defense agencies detected an attempted missile launch in western North Korea late Friday, near the city of Kusong, Reuters reports. The object—believed to be a Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile—failed immediately after launch, per South Korea's military. American and South Korean defense agencies declined to provide any further details, but both governments condemned the act as unprovoked aggression. The missile test is the first since North Korea's latest underground nuclear test, which took place on Sept. 9. While it's murky whether North Korea actually has nuclear warheads, so far it hasn't verifiably demonstrated the technical capability, even if it does have them, to mount those weapons on long-range missiles that could strike the US mainland. The missile launch follows a week of joint US-South Korean war games, which the North has called a dry run for an invasion, Stars and Stripes reports. The presence of the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, which arrived in Busan, South Korea, hours before the failed missile launch, lends a further show of muscle to repeated US commitments to defend South Korea against northern aggression.
– Your old science teacher was wrong: It turns out that not all fish are cold-blooded. Scientists have discovered that the opah, a deep-sea dweller also known as the moonfish, is, in fact, a warm-blooded creature and the first such fish ever found, reports LiveScience. Thanks to a unique set of blood vessels in its gills, the opah stays about 9 degrees warmer than the water around it. That may not sound like much, but the Washington Post explains that it gives the fish a huge advantage: Most of the other creatures who live in the deepest and thus coldest parts of the ocean move at a snail's pace because of those cold temperatures. The opah, however, is a relative speedster, which comes in handy when hunting prey or eluding predators. "There has never been anything like this seen in a fish's gills before," says Nicholas Wegner of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, lead scientist of a study in Science. "This is a cool innovation by these animals that gives them a competitive edge." A handful of fish can warm up parts of their bodies, but the opah warms up the entire thing. National Geographic provides a sense of how it's done: "The blood vessels carrying warm blood from heart to gills flows next to those carrying cold blood from the gills to the rest of the body, warming them up. So, while a tuna or shark might isolate its warm muscles from the rest of its cold body, the opah flips this arrangement. It isolates the cold bits—the gills—from everything else." The opah generates the heat needed to stay warm by flapping its large pectoral fins like wings while swimming, notes a post by the NOAA at Science Daily. (This is so much less creepy than the fish with human-looking teeth.)
– A "deepening political crisis and diplomatic embarrassment" is how the New York Times frames what British Prime Minister Theresa May was left to deal with Thursday after a scathing Sun interview with President Trump in which he faulted May's handling of Brexit and noted she may have "killed" chances of a free-trade deal with the US. But at a Friday press conference at May's Chequers estate, Trump did a 180, saying US-UK ties were at "the highest level of special" and praising May as an "incredible woman … doing a fantastic job." He also said whatever the UK chooses to do after it ditches the EU is "OK with me, that's their decision." May, for her part, added that the US was "keen" to forge a trade deal with the UK and that her nation would also forge similar deals with "others around the rest of the world," per the BBC. Trump didn't pass up the opportunity to slam the Sun for "fake news," addressing his criticism of May in that article by saying, "I didn't criticize the prime minister" and lamenting that the Sun neglected to include his praise for May in its "generally fine" story. He said he apologized to May for how the interview came off, to which he said May replied, "Don't worry, it's only the press," the Independent notes. Trump also touched on immigration, saying it's been "very bad for Europe" and is "changing the culture" there, and noted that at his upcoming summit with Vladimir Putin he planned to ask once more about meddling in the 2016 US election. "I will absolutely, firmly ask the question," he said, per Fortune, though he doesn't anticipate a "gotcha" moment with Putin. "There won't be a Perry Mason here, I don't think, but you never know what happens, right?" Watch the press conference here.
– Scientists have taken the first rudimentary step toward developing a material that can do what octopuses and squid have mastered: change color on a whim. Researchers at the University of Houston and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign "developed a flexible pixellated sheet that can detect light falling upon it and change its pattern to match," writes Ed Yong at National Geographic. Their sheet can turn from black to white and then back to black, which the researchers admit is a far cry from the cephalopods' mad skills. "But it's a pretty good starting point," says one of the lead scientists. The technique borrows the general principle of the animals' skin, which has three layers, explains the BBC: "The top layer contains the colors, the middle layer drives the color changes, and the lower layer senses the background patterns to be copied." Scientists used photosensors to detect changes of light, and dyes responded accordingly. The research is funded by the US Navy, but plenty of non-military applications are possible, including one suggested by an art professor in Chicago who studies fashion. Think the opposite of camouflage, with material that responds to your surroundings: "Maybe you want your clothing configured so that you stand out from the crowd," says the researcher. (Click to read about a deep-sea octopus then guards her eggs for four years.)
– John McCain took a lot of heat at a pair of town hall meetings yesterday over his new push for immigration reform, with many angry Arizona residents telling him in turn that illegal immigrants should never become citizens, the AP reports. "Cut off their welfare and their stuff and they'll go back," said one man, in a particularly heated exchange caught on camera by AZCentral. He then threw McCain's 2010 campaign ad back in his face: "You said, 'Build the dang fence. Where's the fence?" McCain replied by citing the money that had been spent to curb illegal immigration, and the progress that had been made. "There are 11 million people living here illegally," he said. "We are not going to get enough buses to deport them."
– The Chevy Bolt picked up more bragging rights Monday that you'll likely be hearing about in lots of future commercials. The fully electric vehicle was named Car of the Year at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, reports USA Today. The Bolt beat out two luxury sedans, the Genesis G90 and the Volvo S90, for the honor doled out by trade writers. It previously won two other big prizes, being named Green Car of the Year at the Los Angeles Auto Show, as well as the Motor Trend Car of the Year, notes CNNMoney. The Bolt is being pitched as the first mass-market electric car made in the US, with its price of $37,495 before tax rebates well below that of the Tesla Model S or X. Tesla, however, has a more competitive Model 3 in the works. Other winners: Utility Vehicle of the Year: Chrysler Pacifica Truck of the Year: Honda Ridgeline
– An unfamiliar name has suddenly become much more familiar this week in the wake of the James Comey firing. It's that of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has emerged as a leading, if reluctant, figure in the controversy. Rosenstein wrote a memo to President Trump that criticizes Comey at length, though he reportedly feels he was unfairly set up to be the villain in the firing. Related coverage: Threat to quit: The Washington Post reports that Rosenstein threatened to resign over the chain of events. As the story lays it out, Trump had already decided he wanted to fire Comey when he asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Rosenstein to write memos justifying the decision. But the White House has been suggesting that Trump made his decision in response to the memos, particularly Rosenstein's. (Update: Trump himself said Thursday that he planned to fire Comey anyway.) The memo: Read the actual Rosenstein memo on Comey at the Baltimore Sun. The focus is on Comey's handling of Hillary Clinton's email mess. What it doesn't say: Though it comes close, the memo does not explicitly recommend that Comey be fired, observes the Los Angeles Times. Who is Rosenstein? He's been deputy attorney general for only about two weeks, but prior to that the 52-year-old was a Justice Department attorney with an unusual resume: He served under George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In a profile, the Atlantic notes that his "integrity has been compared to that of Jimmy Stewart, the actor who portrayed egoless small-town heroes driven by bygone ideals: of right and wrong, and black and white in a world gone increasing gray." Another profile at CNN echoes the point and calls him the "unlikely hatchet man" in the Comey story. Now a target: A Forward piece notes that Rosenstein was confirmed to the Justice Department's No. 2 post by a vote of 94-6 in the Senate, a feat of rare bipartisanship. But he's now being publicly criticized over Comey, and the story raises the question of whether he'll be able to survive the "growing firestorm." A plea to Rosenstein: The New York Times editorial board has written an open letter to Rosenstein, asserting that Trump has exploited his integrity and urging him to name a special counsel for the Russia investigation, even if it costs him his job.
– Jacob Thompson is celebrating Christmas early because this year's holiday will likely be his last one. The Maine 9-year-old, who was diagnosed with neuroblastoma at age 5, was told in early October the cancer would likely take his life in a month. But his request for his final Christmas is simple: He wants cards. "He got some cards from this Halloween, and he opened up and saw them and it was like getting a gift. He read it to us and had a big smile on his face and his nose scrunched," Jacob's dad tells CNN. "He was excited to see what people had to say and it just brightened his day." Now the family is asking for people everywhere to send their son holiday cards. Jacob's early Christmas celebration will take place this weekend, WCSH reports, and will also include snow, a decorated tree, and a visit from Santa Claus. He's already received thousands of cards, including one from Antarctica—particularly exciting because Jacob loves penguins. For those looking for ideas of what type of card Jacob might like, he also loves Minecraft, Legos, Star Wars, photography, singing, and comedy. Anyone who wants to send more can send iTunes gift cards to help Jacob play SimCity, his dad says. Any toys sent to him will be shared with the other children at Barbara Bush Children's Hospital at Maine Medical Center. A GoFundMe campaign is raising money for Jacob's eventual funeral expenses. CNN has the address where cards to Jacob can be mailed.
– A bizarre fishing incident in England left a sole survivor—a 28-year-old fisherman who almost died when a Dover sole he had caught jumped down his throat when he kissed it. With the 6-inch fish stuck in his throat, the man stopped breathing and had a cardiac arrest on the pier in Bournemouth, the Telegraph reports. Paramedic Matt Harrison says after arriving at the scene, he knew that he had to get the fish out or the man would not survive the short journey to the hospital. "I was acutely aware that I only had one attempt at getting this right as if I lost grip or a piece broke off and it slid further out of sight then there was nothing more that we could have done to retrieve the obstruction," he tells the BBC. Harrison says he managed to dislodge the sole's tail with forceps and get it out of the man's throat, though the fish's barbs and gills kept getting stuck on the way out. "I have never attended a more bizarre incident and don't think I ever will," he says. He says paramedics were able to restart the man's heart after three minutes and he will suffer no lasting effects from the incident, "which could so easily have had such a tragic and devastating outcome." The man's friends say it is a local tradition to kiss your first catch of the day. (This Australian fisherman was lucky to survive after a great white shark jumped into his boat.)
– Soon after Ronan Farrow's Pulitzer Prize-winning expose on Harvey Weinstein ran in the New Yorker came word that he had originally been working on the piece for NBC News. Farrow said the network dropped the story, and when initially asked why, he said, "You would have to ask NBC and NBC executives about the details." Now, those details may be emerging, at least via a former producer with the network who spoke to the New York Times and via the Daily Beast's sources. NBC News very vocally denies the new claim that it tried to kill the story, and Farrow had no comment. The Beast lays out a timeline dating to November 2016, when Farrow and producer Rich McHugh decided to report on Hollywood's infamous "casting couch" and were reportedly advised by NBC News President Noah Oppenheim to look into Rose McGowan's October 2016 tweet about rape at the hands of a Hollywood exec.
– Five people have been arrested in connection with what Chinese authorities are calling a "terrorist attack" in Tiananmen Square on Monday. The cops say the car that plowed into crowds and burst into flames, killing five, contained gasoline, knives, and a jihadist flag, reports Reuters. The man identified by police as the driver, Usmen Hasan, had a Uighur name, and was joined in the vehicle by his wife and mother, the AP reports. The five arrested in relation to the attacks also have names that suggest they are Uighurs. "The initial understanding of the police is that the Oct. 28 incident is a case of a violent terrorist attack that was carefully planned, organized, and plotted," police said in a statement. The statement said the five detained had helped plan and execute the attack, and were caught 10 hours after it was carried out. It said they had been on the run and were tracked down with the help of police in Xinjiang and elsewhere. It didn't say where they were captured, but said police had found jihadi flags and long knives inside their temporary lodgings. Meanwhile, ethnic Uighurs say they have been subject to increased police scrutiny since the attack. "They (police) come to search us every day. We don't know why. Our IDs are checked every day, and we don't know what is happening," one man tells the AP.
– The US attorney's office in New York says it won't prosecute the National Enquirer's parent company over its efforts to suppress an embarrassing story about Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, the AP reports. The agreement was announced Wednesday shortly after former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison. Cohen's crimes included working with American Media Inc. to buy the silence of women who say they had affairs with Trump. The president denies the allegations. Like Cohen, the tabloid publisher admitted it was trying to influence the election by protecting Trump from a damaging story. As part of the deal, AMI acknowledged it made $150,000 in hush money payments "in concert" with the Trump campaign with the intent of influencing the election. Per NBC News, the payments went to former Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult film actress Stormy Daniels. The deal, which was signed and dated Sept. 21, requires AMI to cooperate with federal prosecutors in any investigation. (Click for more on Cohen, who got some leniency.)
– Good news for young people tired of being told to grow up: A team of academics writing in the Lancet wants to expand the period in life we think of as adolescence by five years, CTV News reports. "The transition period from childhood to adulthood now occupies a greater portion of the life course than ever before," the team writes in an article published Wednesday. They argue for delaying the end of adolescence, which starts at 10 years old, from 19 years old to 24 years old. "Age definitions are always arbitrary, [but] our current definition of adolescence is overly restricted," the BBC quotes lead author Susan Sawyer as saying. The team argues there are physiological and sociological reasons for expanding adolescence. Scientists now know the brain continues to develop after the age of 20. And young people are moving away from their parents, getting married, and having their own children later than at any other point in history. In Britain, people are getting married nearly eight years later than they were in 1973. The team says adolescence should be redefined for the good of the 1.8 billion people between ages 10 and 24 on the planet. “An expanded and more inclusive definition of adolescence is essential for developmentally appropriate framing of laws, social policies, and service systems,” the article states. However, sociologist Jan Macvarish warns we could end up infantilizing young people. "Society should maintain the highest possible expectations of the next generation," she says.
– Just how badly did the federal government want data about Yahoo users for its now-notorious PRISM surveillance program? It threatened to fine the company $250,000 a day in 2008 if it didn't comply, reports the Washington Post. The revelation comes from newly declassified court documents detailing the company's fight with the National Security Agency to keep the "metadata" out of the government's hands. Yahoo eventually lost its case in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and the NSA soon got other tech giants such as Facebook, Apple, and Google to comply as well. “The released documents underscore how we had to fight every step of the way to challenge the U.S. Government’s surveillance efforts,” says Yahoo General Counsel Ron Bell in a Tumblr blog post. The company viewed the government's request as unconstitutional, but the super-secret intelligence court disagreed. PRISM, first revealed by Edward Snowden, was reportedly discontinued in 2011.
– A man who moved to the US from Guatemala for a better life 20 years ago was murdered in Stamford, Conn., last week in a shocking, unprovoked attack. Police say warehouse manager Antonio Muralles, 52, was killed after he walked out of a McDonald's last Wednesday evening and bumped into a group of youths who were looking for trouble, the New York Times reports. A police spokesman tells the Times that after one of the group poked Muralles with a stick, he backed up and accidentally spilled his coffee on a 15-year-old boy, who stabbed him to death. "At least 10 people drove by and walked by this thing when it was going on, and we only got one call," the spokesman says. "People just don't pay attention or are afraid to get involved." Medics in an ambulance on its way to another call stopped when they saw Muralles collapsed on the sidewalk, but doctors were unable to save him. A police spokesman tells the Stamford Advocate that people "sickened" by the killing eventually came forward, and two suspects, the 15-year-old and 22-year-old James McLamb, have been charged with murder. McLamb allegedly beat Muralles while the teen stabbed him repeatedly. Muralles had been living with his niece, who told the Advocate last week that her music-loving uncle "was one of those guys that never looked for trouble" and had planned to save a little more money before returning to Guatemala to care for his 92-year-old father. (An Iraqi immigrant in Dallas was recently killed while taking photos of his first-ever snowfall.)
– An active-duty soldier who said he wanted to kill a "bunch of people" has been arrested on terrorism charges after allegedly trying to provide assistance to ISIS, the FBI says. FBI spokesman Arnold Laanui says Ikaika Kang, a 34-year-old air traffic control operator at Hawaii's Wheeler Arm Airfield, was arrested on Saturday night, the AP reports. According to a criminal complaint filed Monday, Kang is accused of trying to provide the militant group with military documents and a drone. He is also accused of making a video to try to teach the group combat techniques. At a court hearing Monday, agents said Kang was arrested after telling an undercover agent he wanted to kill people and pledging allegiance to ISIS. The FBI says Kang appears to have been a "lone actor" whose attempt to pass classified materials to ISIS failed. Kang, a sergeant first class, enlisted a few months after 9/11 and has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. His father tells the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that Kang began studying the Islamic faith during a deployment a few years ago. Clifford Kang says he is stunned by the allegations. He says his son is "a great kid, a normal kid" who grew up in Hawaii. The father and defense lawyer Birney Bervar say Kang may be suffering from PTSD. Kang "may suffer from service-related mental health issues, which the government was aware of but neglected to treat," Bervar tells Hawaii News Now.
– On March 20, 1990, Bruce Larson was murdered near Salt Lake City after a contracting deal gone bad, leaving behind a wife and five kids, including 9-year-old Brian. But despite missing out on all the father-son bonding experiences over the years, Brian is finally able to forgive his dad's killer, Eugene Woodland. The driving force behind his newfound inner peace: a dream he had after Woodland died last week at the age of 85, the Deseret News reports. "Last night I had a dream that my father was one of the first people to greet [Woodland] on the other side, full of forgiveness," Brian posted on Facebook Saturday. "His example in this dream makes it easier for me to fully forgive Eugene Woodland for what happened." Woodland, known as "Captain Nemo" for his nautically themed getup, had been building "Captain Nemo’s Dinner Theater Atlantis." The elder Larson was renovating the site, but Woodland declared bankruptcy and Larson took over the property; after the shooting, Woodland was convicted of first-degree homicide. He successfully fought to keep the state from medicating him in a case that "changed the way Utah treats mentally ill defendants," reports the Salt Lake Tribune. After his death, Brian Larson says his mom called Woodland's daughter to lend support. "My mom is truly the most forgiving person in the world," he adds. (Pope Benedict forgave the woman who tackled him one Christmas Eve.)
– Details are filling in on the half-dozen federal raids across the Northeast today in connection with the Times Square bombing case. Three people were taken into custody—two near Boston and one in Maine—on suspicion of providing money to Faisal Shahzad, reports the Washington Post. They're being held on immigration violations. Other raids were conducted on Long Island and in New Jersey. Authorities say the raids aren't a "big break," reports the New York Times, but rather an attempt to follow up on leads and figure out who provided the means for the attempted car bombing. The US has previously linked Shahzad to the Pakistani Taliban. Those detained "may have provided money to Shahzad but may not have known what they were doing," said a federal law enforcement official. "The question is, did they provide money, did they facilitate and were they knowing?"
– At least 4.1% of people sentenced to death in the US are innocent, a new report warns—and most of them end up neither executed nor exonerated, but serving life behind bars. Researchers say that at a conservative estimate, one in 25 of the thousands of people condemned to death between 1973 and 2004 is innocent and while 138 were exonerated and some were almost certainly executed, up to 200 were taken off death row and are serving life for murders they didn't commit, the Guardian reports. The researchers—who employed a statistical method often used to assess survival rates of patients treated with new medical therapies—say being moved off death row tends to reduce the chances of exoneration, as the inmates' cases are no longer treated as priorities and they have fewer options for appeals, Scientific American reports. "The great majority of innocent defendants who are convicted of capital murder in the United States are neither executed nor exonerated," the study concludes. "They are sentenced, or re-sentenced to prison for life, and then forgotten."
– Bristol Palin is engaged, reports People, and this time it is to a decorated former Marine who is only the third living recipient of the Medal of Honor and not someone who is perennially terrible and more than a little hazy on birth control. "Last night, Sgt Dakota Meyer proposed and I said yes!" the 24-year-old Palin wrote on her blog. Meyer is a 26-year-old Kentuckian who saved the lives of 36 Marines in an Afghanistan ambush in 2009, notes NBC News. The pair met last year when Meyer came to Alaska to film Amazing America with future mother-in-law Sarah Palin, who says via Facebook that "our families couldn't be happier for Bristol and Dakota!" Meyer, she says, is "a good and kind man who loves Bristol and Tripp, and is loved by them."
– Bachelor fans were in for a plot twist of epic proportions during Monday night's season finale, during which this season's Bachelor, Arie Luyendyk Jr., proposed to Becca Kufrin—and then, during the final hour of the show (filmed two months after the rose ceremony), broke up with the completely unsuspecting Kufrin because he decided he'd rather be with the runner-up ... while camera crews filmed the whole thing. It was aired unedited, meaning viewers got to see every bit of Kufrin's shellshocked reaction—and those viewers were not happy about it. It's not clear who raised enough money to pull this off, but Entertainment Weekly reports that there are now 16 billboards scattered around Southern California and Minnesota (Kufrin's home state) reading, "Arie... not okay, just leave. - Everyone." The statement is a reference to Luyendyk's insistence on sticking around after the breakup despite a sobbing Kufrin asking him to go. Viewers also sent Kufrin money for wine, BuzzFeed reports, while Time notes that a Minnesota state rep has promised to draft a bill banning Luyendyk from the state. Vulture, which called the breakup scene a "spectacle of human misery," notes that while it was supposedly unedited, Luyendyk's half of the split-screen cuts to black after Luyendyk does, at one point, finally leave the house; when the video comes back, he's heading back inside, presumably at the direction of a producer. "What seemed initially designed to show us a real moment between two people ended up doing something very, very different: It became a presentation of a man being puppeteered by reality-TV producers, and it became an indictment of a franchise plummeting to new depths of ratings-mining cynicism," writes Kathryn VanArendonk. BuzzFeed notes that the show's ratings have been down all season, and by "destroying" Kufrin in the finale, it did manage to boost those ratings. On Tuesday's After the Final Rose live special (spoiler alert!), People reports viewers found out Kufrin forgave Luyendyk and, predictably, was named the next Bachelorette; viewers also got to see Luyendyk and runner-up Lauren Burnham, predictably, get engaged.
– The Amanda Knox legal drama isn't over yet. Italy's highest criminal court today overturned her 2011 acquittal in the slaying of her British roommate and ordered a new trial, reports the AP. The Court of Cassation ruled that an appeals court in Florence must re-hear the case against the American and her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, for the murder of 21-year-old Meredith Kercher. What this means for Foxy Knoxy: The issues under question: ...are still unknown. The specific issues that have to be reconsidered will be revealed when the court releases its full ruling—within 90 days. The BBC notes that the court didn't review the details of the case, but instead considered whether procedural irregularities occurred. What did the prosecutor say? NPR reports that he argued that the appeals court had been too quick to disregard DNA evidence. Will Knox have to go back to Italy? Nope. Italian law can't force her to do so, though she could be found in contempt of court if she doesn't show up. There are no penalties for being in contempt, however. And if she's convicted? It's unclear what would happen next, though her lawyer yesterday said such a ruling could prompt Italy to seek her extradition. The US would then have to decide whether it will comply. Alternatively, the two countries could work out a deal that would allow Knox to stay in the US. How her lawyers reacted: They looked "grim," noted the AP. How Knox reacted: In a statement, she called the move "painful." She described prosecutors' theory on her role in the murder as "completely unfounded and unfair," and said, "No matter what happens, my family and I will face this continuing legal battle as we always have, confident in the truth and with our heads held high in the face of wrongful accusations and unreasonable adversity."
– Sounds like President Obama just isn't black enough for Rupert Murdoch. "Ben and Candy Carson terrific. What about a real black president who can properly address the racial divide? And much else," the media tycoon tweeted Wednesday night. The 84-year-old Fox News owner's suggestion that Obama, whose mother was white, isn't a real black president, "flabbergasted online onlookers," according to CNN, which found that a Fox spokeswoman was unwilling to comment in the immediate aftermath. Murdoch himself issued a mea culpa Thursday morning in a tweet, however: "Apologies!" No offence meant. Personally find both men charming." Prior to that, however, he had suggested via tweet that people read New York magazine to learn about "minority community disappointment" with Obama, reports the Guardian. (Carson has been causing uproar with some comments of his own.)
– At the end of the year, Arne Duncan is stepping down as Education Secretary after seven years. According to a letter to staff that was obtained by the AP and confirmed by a White House official, Duncan is going back to Chicago to be with his family. Duncan, 50, has been the longest-serving secretary of education, according to the Washington Post, which just days ago reported on a speech Duncan gave calling on the US to fix education inequality: "Our K-12 system is basically funded at the local level. We are so property-tax-based throughout the nation, in far too many places, the children of wealthy get far more spent on them than the children of the poor. Until we get uncomfortable with that, we’re going to continue to have huge disparities." In his letter, Duncan calls his decision to retire in December "bittersweet," writing, "It’s with real sadness that have come to recognize that being apart from my family has become too much of a strain, and it is time for me to step aside and give a new leader a chance." That new leader will, at least for a time, be John King Jr., who is currently the deputy secretary. According to the AP, President Obama wants King to be the acting secretary for the rest of Obama's term, but is not planning to nominate King, or anyone else, to be secretary. That will allow the president to avoid "a nomination fight in Congress," the AP notes, though Senate Republicans may resist the "unconventional approach." An official announcement from the White House is expected Friday afternoon.
– The New York Times magazine has a lengthy profile of Tim Geithner ahead of Monday's release of the former Treasury chief's new book, and one bit in particular involving Bill Clinton is getting a lot of attention. Geithner had asked Clinton's advice on appeasing populist anger in dealing with Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs: “You could take Lloyd Blankfein into a dark alley and slit his throat, and it would satisfy them for about two days," said Clinton. "Then the blood lust would rise again.” The Washington Post thinks that's interesting in the context of the 2016 election, considering that it could pit Hillary Clinton, seen as a safe choice by Wall Street, against the more populist Elizabeth Warren. Some other highlights, as spotted by Politico: Trying to leave: Geithner says he began pushing President Obama to let him step down in 2010, suggesting Hillary Clinton as his replacement. Obama resisted, however, even lobbying Geithner's wife, Carole. "I knew it was kind of a hopeless cause—that if he needed to stay, he needed to stay—but I was not easily convinced,” she tells the Times. “And that was probably a little surprising to the president.” Too big to fail: As Treasury chief, Geithner went along with the administration's reforms to end the concept of too-big-to-fail banks, but now he's got a different take. During a lecture, when asked about whether the principle still exists, he answered, “Yeah, of course it does.” Ending too-big-to-fail was “like Moby-Dick for economists or regulators. It’s not just quixotic, it’s misguided.”
– It’s not just David Arquette who has a problem with oversharing. It’s practically an epidemic in Hollywood, and the Daily Beast rounds up 10 more famous TMI-dishers: John Mayer: Really, all you need to know is that he once tweeted about the result of sitting cross-legged for a long while: “my penis fell asleep.” Heidi Klum and Seal: When their kids grow up, they are almost certainly going to be embarrassed by the fact that their parents once rolled around in bed, naked, in a music video. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher: OK, we get it, your relationship is just hunky-dory. Now stop tweeting pictures of yourselves in bed. Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith: These two talk about how fantastic their sex life is about as often as Demi and Ashton tweet obnoxious pictures of themselves. The Kardashian sisters: Really, no one needed to see Kourtney giving Khloe a bikini wax. For the complete list, click here. For even more celebrities who really need to stop, click here or here.
– More bad news for Britain's beleaguered government: The country slid back into recession in the first quarter of this year, according to figures released today. The economy shrank for the second straight quarter, marking the first "double-dip" recession, in which GDP falls before output lost in the previous recession is recovered, since the mid-70s, Bloomberg reports. The British economy shrank 7.1% in the 2008-2009 recession and recovery since has been weak and fitful. The new decline was caused by falling activity in the construction and industrial sectors and stagnation in the services sector. "The dip in activity is small but massively significant," notes Larry Elliot at the Guardian. "With the government up to its eyeballs in the phone-hacking scandal and with local elections looming, the timing could hardly have been worse for David Cameron." Spain has also plunged back into recession, while other major European countries have yet to report GDP data from the first quarter of this year.
– In a month, the five former New Orleans police officers found guilty in the killing and subsequent cover-up of two people after Hurricane Katrina will learn when they go back on trial—unless the Justice Department gets involved. A judge yesterday threw out the men's 2011 convictions in the Danziger Bridge case, citing "grotesque prosecutorial misconduct" in a 129-page decision the New York Times calls "heated." Judge Kurt Engelhardt gave both sides a month to figure out their scheduling issues in advance of setting that new date—though the family of Ronald Madison, one of the men killed, has urged the DOJ to appeal the judge's decision, noting that it "re-opens this terrible wound not only for our family but our entire community." The Times-Picayune notes that the DOJ did release a statement yesterday indicating it was not happy with the ruling; it's reviewing both the decision and its options, per a rep. The misconduct: Federal prosecutors in New Orleans and Washington made anonymous online comments about the case, both before and during the trial, on the Times-Picayune website, creating what the judge called a "prejudicial, poisonous atmosphere." (Sample: One lawyer commented that the police department was "corrupt," "ineffectual," and "a joke.") The online comments were first revealed last year; the US attorney whose Louisiana office was involved stepped down, as did two local prosecutors who made comments. But yesterday, the judge revealed a previously unnamed commenter: a DOJ lawyer in Washington who helped ready the case for trial. In an article calling the judge's reversal a "bitter pill" for Katrina survivors, the Times-Picayune notes that none of the prosecutors involved ever addressed the jury.
– As if platypuses weren't weird enough already, scientists in Australia have come upon a fossilized tooth of what they're calling "platypus-zilla"—a creature some three feet long, or at least twice the size of your everyday platypus. "It probably would have looked like a platypus on steroids," says researcher Mike Archer, citing a "gigantic monstrosity that you would have been afraid to swim with." But the find, which lived between 5 million and 15 million years ago, won't just haunt researchers' dreams; it reveals a lot about the evolutionary history of the platypus, the BBC reports. Scientists had thought "maybe it was just one lineage of strange animals bumbling its way through time and space at least for the last 60 million years," Archer says. Instead, platypus-zilla "indicates there are branches in the platypus family tree that we hadn't suspected before." The tooth's bumps and other local fossils suggest it ate crustaceans, fish, turtles, and frogs, the BBC notes; modern platypuses have teeth only while young, Australia's ABC News notes.
– With activity around missile launch sites suggesting North Korea planned more missile tests, Jang Kyoung-soo, South Korea's acting deputy defense minister, warned parliament Monday that the North also could be planning to "fire an intercontinental ballistic missile." Seoul wasn't letting grass grow under its feet: South Korea said it was talking to the United States about deploying aircraft carriers and strategic bombers to the Korean peninsula in the wake of its sixth and largest nuclear test, Reuters reports. As the UN Security Council was set to meet later in the day to discuss new sanctions against the isolated regime, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said that while the US wasn't looking "looking to the total annihilation" of North Korea, "we have many options to do so." One day after the North tested a powerful hydrogen bomb, the South's air force and army conducted war games that simulated a live-fire attack on the North's nuclear facility to "strongly warn" Pyongyang. The South also said it planned to deploy the four remaining launchers of the new THAAD US missile defense system, vehemently opposed by China and Russia. The US warned of "massive" military response if Seoul or its allies were threatened. Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov urged North Korea to "stop provocative actions that destabilize the situation," the AP reports. In unusually strong language, Ryabkov told reporters that Moscow sees "a dangerous trend in how quickly North Korea is making progress" in its nuclear program. He insisted diplomacy was the only solution, adding, "The one who is stronger and smarter should show restraint."
– This time, apparently the Goonies weren't good enough. Singer Cyndi Lauper flubbed the national anthem at the US Open women's semifinals, in a ceremony honoring 9/11 victims. After a moment of silence, and as an honor guard marched, Lauper did a mash-up of lines from the anthem, changing “O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming" into “O’er the ramparts, we watched as our flag was still streaming." And as always happens after these Christina Aguilera-esque bungles, people took to Twitter to express their outrage, reports the Hollywood Reporter. "Wowww Cyndi Lauper just messed up the words to the National Anthem...and a fan screams out, 'Crackhead!'," wrote a less charitable viewer. At least Aguilera "covered it up like a pro," writes Yahoo. "Lauper, on the other hand, mumbled her way through the line she messed up, like an elementary school student who forgets the lyrics to 'Tomorrow.'"
– Roseanne returns to the airwaves Tuesday night after signing off in 1997, and the reboot is getting lots of attention for more than the usual reasons of nostalgia. The show, especially the premiere that airs at 8pm Eastern on ABC, will have a distinctly Trumpian theme, reports the AP. It seems that Roseanne Barr's namesake character, Roseanne Conner, voted for Donald Trump, a decision that has caused serious friction with sister Jackie, played once again by Laurie Metcalf. A look at some of the coverage: Her argument: In the show, Roseanne explains her vote thusly: “He talked about jobs, Jackie. He said he’d shape things up." When Jackie tells her to watch the news because things are now worse, Roseanne shoots back, "Not on the real news." It's the most "overtly political exchange" not only in the episode but in all nine of the new episodes to come, writes Joanna Weiss at Politico. She talks to executive producer Bruce Helford, who says the show will aim to get polarized families talking again, to "put the whole discourse out in the open."
– If the US designates Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization—as reports state President Trump is likely to do—it would be a "strategic mistake," according to Iran's foreign ministry. "Iran’s reaction would be firm, decisive, and crushing, and the US should bear all its consequences," the Guardian quotes ministry spokesperson Bahram Qasemi as saying Monday. Reuters reports the threats continued from Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, who said such a decision would show "the stupidity of the American government" and would force the Revolutionary Guards to "consider the American army to be like [the] Islamic State." Jafari says the US would have to move its military bases in the region outside the 1,250-mile range of the Revolutionary Guards' missiles. The US has a complicated relationship with Iran's Revolutionary Guards, which is accused of supporting groups like Hamas and Hezbollah while also helping the US fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Atlantic reports. While the Revolutionary Guards itself has never been listed as a terrorist organization by the US, individuals and groups associated with it have. Experts say Trump designating it a terrorist organization would be a largely political move as the Revolutionary Guards has already had a number of sanctions placed on it by the US. Experts also say past attempts by the US to play tough with the Revolutionary Guards have only strengthened it in Iran, and Trump risks further escalating tensions with the country as he mulls a move to "decertify" the Iran nuclear deal.
– Charlie Sheen's worried family will likely seek a court-ordered conservatorship over the way wayward actor to force him into rehab, reports Radar. CBS officials, meanwhile, have yanked Sheen's hit TV program off the air and a permanent shutdown could cost the network millions as Sheen grapples with the effects of his latest cocaine-smoking, booze-guzzling bender. Sheen, 45, is back home after being rushed to a local hospital last week. "Charlie is coughing a lot, and he doesn't seem to care what he is doing to his body," said a source. "He thinks he's invincible, and that he can do as much drugs as possible with no ramifications." Parents Martin and Janet Sheen hope they could use a conservatorship over Sheen's finances and personal affairs to finally force him to get the help he needs and save his life. Early reports said Sheen was being treated at home by a rehab professional. But his dad knows that "Charlie isn't rehabbing at home," says a friend. "That term just doesn't exist. Charlie is calling the shots, he hasn't surrendered to sobriety, and until that happens, this cycle won't end." Network officials are replacing Sheen's Two and A Half Men with extra episodes of replacement sitcoms for a couple of weeks, and have been told Sheen could be out of the show for up to three months, according to the Hollywood Reporter. "I'm fine," the clueless Sheen texted last week. "Guy can’t have a great time and do his job also?”
– Protesters in Chicago say they haven't eaten in eight days and will continue their hunger strike until a proposal to turn a former high school into a new "green tech" school is accepted. For years, members of the Coalition to Revitalize Dyett High School have fought to preserve the school, which was to close after its last class of 13 students graduated in June, before Chicago Public Schools decided to open it under a new name. Pairing with education experts at the University of Illinois, the coalition has now proposed turning it into the Dyett Global Leadership and Green Technology High School, reports DNAinfo. But that's only one of three ideas on the table: Not-for-profit group Little Black Pearl hopes to turn the school into an art and design academy, while a principal brought in to phase out Dyett wants to see an athletic school. CPS says it will make a decision in September. The Chicago Sun-Times reports protesters have asked Little Black Pearl to withdraw its proposal, noting just 5% of the organization's students met or exceeded state standards last school year. "In what sane society do they actually get a school?" asks protest leader Jitu Brown. Yet Little Black Pearl's founder has refused to pull out. "If we're selected, we're going to bring forth everything we can to provide a great opportunity to children in that school, and if we're not selected we're going to support whoever is selected," she says. Protesters argue racism is alive and well in the debate, noting CPS leaders initially ignored the coalition's proposal while calling for additional, inferior plans. Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson joined the hunger strike last week. "We have to starve ourselves to have our voices heard," but "we're undeterred," Brown says. "We'll be here until we get this school." (Chicago has closed many more schools, too.)
– The math isn't pretty: An official in Harris County, Texas, estimated Wednesday that Harvey has destroyed up to 40,000 homes in the Houston area, reports ABC News. Countless others have lesser damage. Now balance those figures with another: Only 2 in 10 homeowners in the hardest-hit areas have flood insurance, according to a Washington Post analysis. It's all adding up to a devastating financial toll for homeowners. Details: $555 a year: The average annual premium for flood insurance in Harris County is $555 this year, and the AP reports that more and more homeowners had opted to skip it. The percentage of those covered dropped 9% in Harris County alone over the last five years, and the plummet is even greater in certain parts of the county. One critic blames FEMA for not urging homeowners to recognize the need. Out $30,000: One homeowner on the outskirts of Houston figured he was safe without flood insurance when he moved in several years ago, because he wasn't in a flood plain and neighbors couldn't ever remember seeing water in the street. He tells the AP that the decision will now cost him about $30,000. The rules: Only those who live in a designated "100-year floodplain" and who have a federally backed mortgage (or a stricter private lender) are required to get flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program, explains Quartz. (The post adds that the data the government uses to designate flood zones can be years out of date.) It's people outside such zones who are out of luck if they gambled on skipping—or perhaps mistakenly thought they were covered. A loophole: Normal home insurance covers wind damage. Therefore, those without flood insurance might be able to collect if they can show that their home sustained water damage after the roof was blown off or windows blown out, per a separate AP story. Ominous quote: "There are some early indications that this is going to have an exceptionally large impact on the number of people who are totally uninsured," says an insurance expert at accounting firm Deloitte, per Quartz. These people can get some federal relief, perhaps through low-interest loans, but a second loan on top of the mortgage might not be a feasible option for many homeowners. A new law: A law that goes into effect on Friday across Texas makes it more difficult for homeowners to sue insurers in a dispute, reports CBS News. Gov. Greg Abbott says it's no cause for concern for homeowners with valid claims, though the Dallas Morning News reports that attorneys are urging people to get their claims in before Friday. Snopes has more details on House Bill 1774, noting that some wild claims now circulating on social media about the measure are lacking context.
– Amazon has a reputation for making returns easy—but many users have complained that the retail giant has banned them because they returned too many of their purchases from the site. People have been talking about such experiences for years, but a new Wall Street Journal article brings new attention to the issue—and reports that dozens of users have told stories online of their accounts being canceled without warning and Amazon informing them they will not be allowed to open a new one. Sometimes no explanation is given; sometimes Amazon cites too many returns as the reason. Though Amazon doesn't have an official limit on returns, its conditions of use state that it has the right to terminate accounts at its discretion. An Amazon rep tells the Journal, "We want everyone to be able to use Amazon, but there are rare occasions where someone abuses our service over an extended period of time." Former Amazon managers tell the paper that human employees typically evaluate cases after algorithms identify users with questionable activity, including too many returns, sending the wrong items back, receiving compensation for reviews, or marking an "atypical" reason for returns. "If your behavior is consistently outside the norm, you’re not really the kind of customer they want," says one former Amazon manager. The Journal spoke to a few people whose accounts were canceled, some of whom were able to get reinstated after much back-and-forth with Amazon and others of whom weren't so lucky. At CNBC, Todd Haselton notes that traditional retailers also flag customers who return items too frequently, but he argues Amazon shouldn't act like a brick-and-mortar store in this regard. "When you walk into an electronics store or a clothing store, you get the chance to see a product and, often, even try it before you walk out the door," he writes. "You don't get that same experience with Amazon."
– Eleven days after laying his son to rest, Frank Kerrigan got a call from a friend, the AP reports. "Your son is alive," he said. According to the Orange County Register, Orange County coroner's officials in California had misidentified the body. The mix-up began on May 6 when a man was found dead behind a Verizon store. Kerrigan, 82, said he called the coroner's office and was told the body was that of his 57-year-old son, also named Frank Kerrigan, who is mentally ill and had been living on the street. When he asked whether he should identify the body, a woman said—apparently incorrectly—that identification had been made through fingerprints. "When somebody tells me my son is dead, when they have fingerprints, I believe them," Kerrigan said. On May 12, the family held a $20,000 funeral that drew about 50 people, and the body was buried 150 feet from where Kerrigan's wife is buried. "Someone else had a beautiful sendoff," one family member said. "It's horrific." Then came the May 23 phone call from a friend; Kerrigan's son was standing on his patio. It's unclear how coroner's officials misidentified the body. An attorney for the family said the coroner's office apparently used an old driver's license photo when identifying the body as the younger Frank Kerrigan. The family plans to sue.
– Adding to the growing international backlash against BP's botched handling of the Gulf oil spill, US officials said yesterday that the oil giant is collecting for sale so much of the oil gushing out of the broken well that it doesn't have a big enough boat to hold it, the Wall Street Journal reports. BP's latest solution? Burn it at the surface in a smokeless contraption called an EverGreen Burner, reports the AP. "It's being brought in because it can handle far more oil than this well is producing," says one expert of the burn rig. The move is the latest to call into question BP's preparedness—as well as the true quantity of oil gushing from the busted wellhead, notes the AP, which some experts say could be far greater than official government estimates.
– An apparent hacking group calling itself the "Shadow Brokers" claims to have hacked the NSA and is asking for about $570 million to share the data. Two sets of files were posted online Saturday—one open, the other encrypted—which the group claims are from the Equation Group, an advanced group of hackers believed to be working with US intelligence. The open files contain "a series of tools for penetrating network gear made by Cisco, Juniper, and other major firms," along with code words found in documents leaked by Edward Snowden, reports Foreign Policy. They are "most likely … part of the NSA toolset," an expert tells Ars Technica. But the encrypted files are "the best files," says the Shadow Brokers, which is asking for 1 million Bitcoin, currently worth about $570 million, to release them. "We hack Equation Group. We find many many Equation Group cyber weapons," the Shadow Brokers writes in a manifesto. In a message directed to "wealthy elites," the group warns about the danger of cyber weapons, noting "your wealth and control depends on electronic data." The NSA hasn't confirmed any breach, but security researchers say the open files—dating from about 2010 to 2013—look authentic. "It's at minimum very interesting; at maximum, hugely damaging," says a former NSA research scientist. "It'll blow some operations if those haven't already been blown." Another expert tells Motherboard that the files could be from "a hacked NSA server used in an operation." Others suspect Russia is involved, given the reported source of the recent DNC hack.
– Western officials are fairly sanguine that Iran's recent provocations are only posturing. But on the streets of Tehran, sanctions are taking a real toll, and the populace expects violence, the Washington Post reports. The country is in the midst of a currency crisis that has made prices shoot up on everything from iPhones to crucial medicine—when either can be found at all. "I will tell you what this is leading to: war," says one merchant. "My family, friends and I—we are all desperate." Iran certainly isn't doing anything to assuage those fears; late yesterday its semi-official news agency announced that it would conduct another round of military exercises near the Strait of Hormuz next month. A naval commander says these war games will be "different" than the attention-grabbing 10-day drill Iran's Navy just completed, without specifying how, according to the AP. Click for more on Iran's recent Internet crackdown.
– The four plaintiffs in the Prop 8 case got a call of congratulations from President Obama this morning, and the rest of us got to listen in because it happened on live TV. One of the couples in the case, Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, were being interviewed on MSNBC when Chris Griffin of the Human Rights Campaign appeared on camera with them to announce that Obama was calling from Air Force One, reports Talking Points Memo. "We're so proud of you guys," said the president, via speakerphone. Soon the other couple, Jeff Zarrillo and Paul Katami, arrived to listen in—and Obama even got an invite to the mens' wedding. Earlier, Obama pronounced that the court decision, which allows gay marriage to go forward in California, "has righted a wrong, and our country is better off for it," reports the AP.
– As experts scramble to make heads or tails over WannaCry, a global cyberattack unleashed Friday that’s affected up to 200,000 computers in 150 countries, some fear the worst is yet to come. According to the Wall Street Journal, the spread of attacks has slowed down after a kill switch was activated by a stroke of luck, but even more computers may find the ransomware waiting for them when they log back into their systems after the weekend break. Here’s the latest on WannaCry: A primer: CNN’s breakdown and timeline of the WannaCry attack, which some are calling the largest cyberattack ever executed, will catch you up to speed on what happened. The attack exploits a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. About ransomware: The anonymous attack comes in the form of ransomware, a type of malware that locks a computer’s files, making it impossible to access them. On the locked screen, users are instructed to pay up a sum within a time frame—in this case $300 to a Bitcoin account within three days. Tech blogger and expert Troy Hunt explains more in detail. Windows users: If you're using Windows XP, upgrade quickly, advises a Q&A in the Irish Times. If you're already infected, the fix isn't easy, but Microsoft has the particulars. Are Macs safer? In this case, yes. WannaCry affects Windows systems, but not Macs. Apple computers tend to field less attacks, but according to the International Business Times, it’s not because Mac security is impenetrable. Since PCs are more widespread, more viruses are written for them. Shoring up your digital security: The New York Times outlines eight general steps that can help your digital thumbprint from mobile to desktop, like using apps such as Signal or WhatsApp when texting. NSA's role: Some of the key code utilized may have been created by the NSA, reports the BBC. It raises the question of whether government agencies should disclose the vulnerabilities they've discovered. Edward Snowden concurs: "In light of today's attack, Congress needs to be asking @NSAgov if it knows of any other vulnerabilities in software used in our hospitals," he wrote on Twitter. Bitcoin in spotlight: Bitcoin, the anonymous digital currency, saw a drop in value on Friday from $1,800 to $1,600, according to CryptoCoin News, before it stabilized to $1,700 Saturday. Some experts think hackers might be trying to manipulate the currency to boost profits. The site looks at how the attack could affect the currency, for better or worse. Microsoft has offered to provide extended support to all users, even those with the most ancient operating systems.
– Two paramedics are facing charges for allegedly refusing to believe a Good Samaritan was injured as he lay dying on the street, the BBC reports. Steven Snively, 53, and Christopher Marchant, 29, arrived on the scene in Hamilton—a town about 40 miles southwest of Toronto, Canada—after local resident Yosif Al-Hasnawi was shot while intervening in an attack on an older man in December 2017. Snively and Marchant apparently thought Al-Hasnawi, 19, was faking his gunshot wound and let him lie on the sidewalk for 40 minutes before taking him away, the Globe & Mail reports. "His dad lay down beside him, and [Al-Hasnawi] tells him in Arabic, 'I have difficulty breathing,'" says the director of an Islamic center where the young man had been celebrating with family that night. "We start to scream at the paramedics, 'Please take him to the hospital.' But we saw they didn't take him seriously." When Al-Hasnawi was taken away by ambulance, it was without sirens, to an academic research hospital rather than Hamilton's trauma center. He was pronounced dead there after 20 minutes. Following a seven-month investigation, authorities have charged Snively and Marchant with failure to provide the necessities of life. Two men are facing murder charges in Al-Hasnawi's death.
– The mountaineers who discovered the bodies of long-lost American climbers Alex Lowe and David Bridges in Tibet left them untouched out of respect—and it took them days to realize who they were. Swiss mountaineer Ueli Steck tells Reuters that he was on the way up Mount Shishapangma with German climber David Goettler when they found the bodies encased in ice at 19,356 feet. The men, who perished in an October 1999 avalanche, were just 6 feet apart. "We did not touch them out of respect and left the bodies on the mountain in the same position as we had discovered [them]," says Steck, considered one of the world's best mountaineers—just as Lowe was at the time of his death, notes the Guardian. "We didn't realize this could be Alex and David. But when we were back in base camp we were talking about this and were like—oh, these two bodies could be," Steck tells the AP. Goettler called Conrad Anker, who survived the 1999 avalanche. Based on the description of the men's clothing and gear, Anker said he was sure that the bodies were those of Lowe, considered the best American climber of his generation, and renowned cameraman Bridges. Steck and Goettler were the only climbers to attempt the difficult southern route of Shishapangma this year, but they were unable to reach the summit in two attempts because of bad weather. Anker married Lowe's widow, Jennifer, in 2001 and adopted his three sons. "Conrad, the boys, and I will make our pilgrimage to Shishapangma," Jennifer Lowe-Anker said in a statement after the bodies were found. "It is time to put Alex to rest." (The mother of a vegan who died trying to climb Mount Everest is demanding answers.)
– An Israeli court has set what is believed to be a worldwide precedent by giving a family permission to harvest and freeze the eggs of their dead daughter. The 17-year-old girl was declared brain dead a week after she was hit by a car, and the parents had already agreed to donate her organs. The court rejected the family's request to have the eggs fertilized with donated sperm before they were frozen, reports the Guardian. The key issue in the case was consent, and the girl's family had to prove that she wanted children, according to a lawyer for an Israeli family rights organization. In 2007, the parents of a dead Israeli soldier won a legal battle to be allowed to use his sperm to create a child with a surrogate mother. The girl's case has sparked a major controversy in Israel, and the teen's parents, under pressure from religious conservatives, have decided not to proceed any further with the process, sources tell the Independent.
– There's no way gun control advocates have the votes to get an assault weapons ban through Congress, NRA President David Keene told CNN today. "I would say that the likelihood is that they're not going to be able to get an assault weapons ban through this Congress," he said, adding that limiting high-capacity ammunition magazines was equally unlikely. "Even David Gregory could find one," he said. Politico notes that when State of the Union host Candy Crowley asked if the NRA was using scare tactics to spur gun sales, Keene responded, "The two people who were selling so-called assault rifles are Sen. [Dianne] Feinstein and President Obama. They're the ones scaring people, not us." Joe Manchin, a pro-gun Democrat who voiced openness to gun regulation in wake of the Newtown massacre, sounded a similarly skeptical note on Crowley's show. "Assault weapons stand alone ban on just guns alone will not in the political reality that we have today go anywhere," said the West Virginia senator. "It has to be comprehensive and that's what I tried to tell the vice president and I've told everybody, it has to be a comprehensive approach."
– On Thursday, the White House rejected a bipartisan deal to protect Dreamers—quickly overshadowed by the racist statement allegedly made by President Trump. On Friday, Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos announced a $33 million donation to provide 1,000 scholarships to DACA youth, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to the Washington Post, which Bezos owns, it's the largest donation ever made to TheDream.US. The donation from the Amazon CEO and his wife will provide each undocumented immigrant high-school graduate with $33,000 in college aid over four years. In announcing the donation, Bezos talked about his father, who was unable to speak English when he arrived in the US from Cuba as a 16-year-old. "My dad became an outstanding citizen, and he continues to give back to the country that he feels blessed him in so many ways,” Bezos said. TheDream.US was founded by a former Post publisher in 2014—Bezos' parents were early donors—and has given more than $19 million in financial aid to immigrants. Reuters reports 2,850 students are enrolled in colleges with the nonprofit's help. Candy Marshall, president of TheDream.US, says the Bezos' donation “is a shot in the arm for Dreamer students at a time when some are questioning whether they should be in the United States at all." Bezos is currently the world's richest person, with a worth of about $107 billion as of this week, according to Forbes. Earlier this year, he had asked for ideas for charitable giving that would help "people in the here and now."
– The great chain of hand-me-downs has been broken after an Idaho family welcomed its first baby girl in more than a century, BuzzFeed reports. Since Bernice Underdahl was born in 1914, seven male Underdahl babies had been born across four generations, according to the Coeur d'Alene Press. That changed this month with the birth of Aurelia Underdahl. "I didn't know what an Underdahl girl looked like," Aurelia's dad Scott tells the Press. "She's pretty quiet, so apparently girls are different than boys in our line." Scott and wife Ashton already had a boy. Scott's father Conrad had four boys. "Maybe it took more than 100 years to create perfection," Conrad tells the Press. Scott and Ashton say the were shocked when they heard the sex of the baby, but the whole family is looking forward to finally finding out what it's like to have a girl around. One thing is for sure: the hand-me-downs that had plagued the Underdahl boys will finally get a rest as the family explores a whole new clothing department. “Pink was a shock. Headbands," Ashton tells KREM. "The girl aisle is overwhelming." (This premature baby girl was one of the smallest babies ever born.)
– Still pining for Carrie Bradshaw? The New York City brownstone that served as her original home on Sex and the City is up for sale for $9.65 million, reports the Daily News. The West Village townhouse has 4,100 square feet, four stories, five bedrooms, six fireplaces, and a steady stream of annoying tourists stopping by the stoop. Which may be why the person who bought it in November for $9 million is bailing already. Curbed has photos, while Noreen Malone of the Daily Intel blog wrestles with all the weighty questions in pitch-perfect Carrie fashion.
– Monday's the day that the Justice Department has demanded to hear back from North Carolina on whether the state is going to enforce its contentious public restroom law, Reuters reports. The feds had warned the state via a trio of letters last week that the law—which requires transgender individuals to use bathrooms that match up with the gender they were designated at birth—flouts civil rights and is discriminatory, and could lead to a federal lawsuit. One of the letters gave Gov. Pat McCrory until the close of business Monday to offer his solution to "remedy the situation," per CNN. But although McCrory has indicated he'll respond by day's end, the governor appears to be digging his heels in to stick by House Bill 2, the AP notes, potentially risking both the suit and funding for his state. UCLA School of Law attorneys estimate up to $4.8 billion in funding, mainly in the form of educational grants, could be at risk. During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, McCrory called the government a "bully" and framed the deadline as "unrealistic," per CNN. Roy Cooper, the state's Democratic AG, scoffed at the time complaint, reports the New York Times: "Governor McCrory signed HB2 into law in the dark of night after passing it in just 12 hours, and now complains when he's given five days to defend it." McCrory had been offered a one-week extension if he had conceded the law is discriminatory. On Fox News he rejected that option. "I'm not going to publicly announce that something discriminates, which is agreeing with their letter, because we're really talking about a letter in which they're trying to define gender identity, and there is no clear definition of gender identity."
– To put the brightest possible spin on this story is to say that three-quarters of Americans are fully aware that the Earth revolves around the sun. The downside, of course, is that means 1 in 4 are in the dark about what Discovery calls "probably the most basic question in science." The National Science Foundation asked that question and nine others of 2,200 Americans, with the average score on the quiz coming in at 6.5, reports Phys.org. Some other results noted by NPR: 39% answered correctly that "the universe began with a huge explosion" Fewer than half—48%—agreed that "human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals" 51% knew that antibiotics don't kill viruses Meanwhile, about 90% of respondents were enthusiastic about science, and 1 in 3 thought it should get more government funding. The poll was conducted in 2012, but the results were released yesterday at a conference. See page 23 on this PDF for the full survey, which includes older results from other countries. Or click to read about Bill Nye's recent debate with a leading creationist.
– One of college football's most successful coaches has been placed on paid leave during the investigation of allegations that could result in his firing. Ohio State says it is looking into claims that Urban Meyer was aware in 2015 of domestic violence allegations involving former assistant coach Zach Smith, the New York Times reports. The university announced that Meyer had been placed on leave hours after former ESPN journalist Brett McMurphy published a report on Facebook alleging that Meyer's wife, Shelley, had known in 2015 about two domestic violence incidents involving Smith and his now ex-wife, Courtney Smith. McMurphy said his report was backed up by text messages. "Shelley said she was going to have to tell Urban," Courtney Smith said in an interview, per the Dayton Daily News. "I said, 'That’s fine. You should tell Urban. We can’t have somebody like this coaching young men." Smith was fired last week after a court granted Courtney Smith a domestic violence restraining order. Meyer could lose his $7.6 million-a-year job if he is found to have violated Ohio State's Title IX sexual misconduct policy on reporting domestic violence allegations, the AP reports. In a statement, Meyer said placing him on leave was a good move. "This allows the team to conduct training camp with minimal distraction," he said. "I eagerly look forward to the resolution of this matter."
– There's a storm headed for the Northeast, and the National Weather Service isn't exactly beating around the bush in its descriptions, calling it "historic" and "catastrophic." "People should be making preparations right now," a NWS meteorologist tells the Boston Globe. "It’s going to be bad, no matter what. … Everything’s probably going to shut down. This is going to be all-out white-out snow, crippling everything. We’re highly advising no travel, starting late (tomorrow), going into Tuesday and on into Wednesday." There's a blizzard effect in parts of the Northeast including Boston and New York City from tomorrow into Wednesday, reports the AP, and winds could gust to a hurricane-force 60mph. "This could be a storm the likes of which we have never seen before," says New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, the AP reports. "Don't underestimate this storm. Prepare for the worst." Between one and three feet of snow are expected.
– Drama alert: The Obamas have been “snubbed” and will not score an invite to Prince William’s wedding. Because Wills isn’t an heir to the throne quite yet, his wedding isn’t a state occasion; thus he and Kate Middleton don’t feel pressured to invite more than a few heads of state, the Daily Mail reports. How shocking, writes Dan Amira in New York, that the Obamas are being excluded from the nuptials of “two British people they have probably never met before. Will the alliance hold?” (On a related note, click to see how Prince Harry feels about his new sister.)
– Facebook has crossed the 1 billion mark, Mark Zuckerberg announced today in an appearance on the Today show in which he nonetheless acknowledged that his 8-year-old company is "in a tough cycle now." The milestone means that one in every seven people uses the site, notes Fast Company, but the heat is on for Facebook to find a way to better monetize its service, and it's got a new plan: Charge US users to promote certain posts. The $7 service, currently being tested, would give users pride of place on their friends' news feeds. That price could change, says a rep. Some are skeptical of the policy: Would users be willing to pay for a key aspect of Facebook? "I know it’s just a test, but it doesn’t send the right message," says an analyst. "Charging for something so generic doesn’t make sense." New Zealand and other countries, however, have had the pay-to-promote service for months. Zuckerberg today posted a note of thanks to users over the 1 billion milestone.
– One person who apparently did not heed the warnings about how to view Monday's solar eclipse: the president. As multiple outlets including USA Today report, President Trump appeared to look at the sun without any protective eye wear for at least a moment during the eclipse. Space.com's headline: "President Trump Shows How Not to Watch an Eclipse." The ill-advised stare was apparently brief; most pictures show Trump, along with wife Melania, son Barron, and others, watching the eclipse from the White House balcony with the proper protective eye wear. According to Wall Street Journal reporter Ted Mann, as Trump glanced toward the sky sans glasses, an aide yelled, "Don't look."
– Is Due Date this year’s Hangover? Not really, the critics say; it’s more “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles for the road rage generation,” writes Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News. Reviews are mixed, with only 40% of critics liking it but 75% of fans approving at Rotten Tomatoes: It’s a “recipe for nutso fun,” writes Peter Travers in Rolling Stone. Zach Galifianakis and Robert Downey Jr. “gift Due Date with something rare in any kind of movie: a soul.” Due Date is “kind of like the Odyssey, but with masturbation jokes and vomit,” notes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. She’s not particularly impressed, but “Galifianakis is good enough to make you almost forget the movie.” Weitzman disagrees, calling Galifianakis’ character “obscenely irritating” in her Daily News review. “Like the direction, the script veers all over the place before reaching its inevitable, unsurprising destination.”
– Four nurses, 23 prison guards, and an inmate were sickened Wednesday at Ross Correctional Institute in Ohio, and officials believe the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl may be to blame, CNN reports. The incident began around 9am when an inmate showed signs of a possible drug overdose; 29 people ended up sickened, with the sickest individuals being those who responded to his bedside, the AP reports. They were treated with naloxone, a drug used to combat opioid overdoses. A doctor says the symptoms victims experienced—including nausea, sweating, numbness, and drowsiness—were consistent with fentanyl exposure. Officials believe contraband fentanyl may have been dispersed in the air by a fan, but the incident is still under investigation. In an apparently unrelated incident, state prisons were on lockdown in Pennsylvania after 29 people in 10 prisons over the course of recent weeks required treatment after exposure to an as-yet-unidentified substance. Victims have reported symptoms after being exposed to what is in some cases described as a liquid synthetic drug. And in Arkansas, five inmates at Varner Supermax have died since Sunday after suspected drug use, the Arkansas Times reports. About a dozen others have received medical attention, and though examinations are still ongoing, officials suspect K2, a dangerous form of synthetic pot, may be involved.
– Given the stakes, you may be tempted to focus more on Senate races next Tuesday than House ones—but there's plenty of political drama to hold your attention in the lower chamber. Among the most interesting races: In New York's 11th district, a man facing a federal indictment on 20 counts—who also threatened on camera to hurl a reporter off a balcony—is actually leading the race, both parties say. Republican Rep. Michael Grimm is ahead of Domenic Recchia in a red area of Staten Island, and Recchia hasn't helped himself with befuddled discussions of policy, Politico reports. In California's 52nd, a poll shows Democratic Rep. Scott Peters with 45% of the vote to ex-San Diego councilman Carl DeMaio's 46%. DeMaio is facing trouble over accusations of sexual harassment from a former staffer; he denies them, and police aren't looking to charge him. The GOP is still hopeful. In West Virginia's 3rd, an almost four-decade incumbent is grappling with Koch-funded attacks pushing his association with President Obama. Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall is now just behind Republican Evan Jenkins in both parties' polls—and if Jenkins wins, Republicans are poised to hold onto the seat for a long time. Here's an odd one: Both candidates running in Florida's 26th are caught up in scandals, and perhaps the weirdest is the accusation that Democratic incumbent Joe Garcia ate his own earwax on TV, the Daily Beast reports. But opponent Carlos Curbelo has taken flak for calling Medicare and Social Security "Ponzi schemes." In Nebraska's 2nd, the race could hinge on an inflammatory ad. Former RNC chairman Michael Steele says the ad, which targets Democratic state lawmaker Brad Ashford, is "racist." The spot argues that Ashford backed a "good time law" resulting in the early release of convicted murderer Nikko Jenkins. The district offers Democrats a chance at a new seat, but some in the GOP believe the ad could help the party keep it. Of course, some people think this election is pretty boring...
– An Indian daredevil who made it into the Guinness Book of World Records died yesterday while repeating a version of his stunt, reports the BBC. Sailendra Nath Roy entered the record books in 2011 after traveling the farthest recorded distance on a zip line ... using his hair. The 48-year-old (other media reported his age as 47 and 50) attempted to cross the Teesta river via ponytail and zip line once again, in front of hundreds of onlookers in West Bengal. But Roy became stuck just shy of halfway through the 600-foot journey, reports India Today, after his hair got stuck in the line's wheeler; within 45 minutes he was dead. Though Roy wore a life jacket, he apparently didn't arrange for emergency aid. "He was desperately trying to move forward. He was trying to scream out some instruction. But no one could follow what he was saying," says a photographer at the scene. In fact, India Today reports that spectators, unaware of what was happening, continued to clap as he struggled. He eventually lost consciousness and died of a massive heart attack, according to doctors. Rescuers were able to remove him from the line after about 45 minutes. A sad coda: A friend tells the BBC that Roy had told his wife, who was worried for his safety, this would be his last stunt. In 2008, he pulled the nearly 39-ton Darjeeling toy train using his ponytail.
– Who is Rachel Uchitel, other than Tiger Woods' possible tigress? Check out need-to-know facts about the party girl, courtesy of the New York Daily News, New York magazine, E! Online, and in her own words to the New York Post: Though she now denies any involvement with Tiger, sources say Uchitel was bragging about sleeping with him not so long ago. She's been married once, as well as linked to Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, David Boreanaz, and Ryan Seacrest. She admits meeting Tiger twice, due to her job, but says, "I do not have sex with celebrities." She became an iconic image after losing her fiancé in the World Trade Center on September 11, showing up on the cover of the New York Post. She's the daughter of an "old money" Palm Beach socialite, and now makes her living in "VIP relations," bringing celebrities to swanky nightclubs "by any means necessary," a source says. A former employer sued her, accusing her of taking inside secrets to work for another club. One source calls her "a fire-starter and a drama queen." She says the tab's sources are just selling fake stories to the tabloids, calling one a "trainwreck" who "is just looking for a payday because she is a fucking hooker."
– After recapturing the city of Palmyra from ISIS, Syrian troops discovered a mass grave containing the bodies of dozens of men, women, and children who had been decapitated or shot, AFP reports. The city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site known for its ancient ruins, was captured by ISIS last May. According to the BBC, one human rights group estimates that in the months since then ISIS executed at least 280 people. The mass grave found Friday contained 42 bodies, 24 of which were civilians and three of which were children. They were soldiers or supporters of the Assad regime and their relatives. Only some of the bodies have been identified so far. The reclaiming of Palmyra by Syrian troops last Sunday is seen by experts as one of the biggest setbacks for ISIS in two years. But its months in the hands of the terrorist group took a toll beyond the loss of life. The AP reports many of the ancient ruins that once drew tens of thousands of tourists every year were destroyed by ISIS, including the 1,800-year-old Arch of Triumph, two Roman-era temples, and a 13th century citadel. And what remains of the city following ISIS' occupation and Syrian and Russian airstrikes is empty. Residents are too afraid of either violence from the Assad regime or remaining ISIS landmines to return. One Syrian officer says they've dismantled 3,000 mines left by ISIS so far. "They booby-trapped everything, trees, doors, animals," he says.
– A 20-year-old Ohio man arrested yesterday stands accused of plotting to attack the US Capitol with pipe bombs and gunfire. As reported last night, Christopher Lee Cornell was undone by an FBI sting (an undercover operative connected with him after Cornell allegedly posted pro-terror-attack tweets). New details as of this morning, per CNN and USA Today: The alleged plan involved using pipe bombs to force those in the US Capitol to flee; Cornell and his partner were to be armed with assault rifles that would be used to take down officials and employees as they exited the building. The CEO of Cincinnati's Point Blank Range & Gun Shop says the FBI approached him about assisting them, and that store employees sold Cornell two "sporting rifles" and 600 rounds of ammunition yesterday at 11am. Cornell was arrested upon leaving the store. Cornell's "partner," the FBI informant, is described by CNN as "a man in trouble with the law who worked with the agency to improve his legal standing." The two met in person over two two-day periods in Cincinnati, in October and November. The attacks were to be carried out in support of ISIS, says the informant. Cornell's dad isn't buying the gun purchase story, noting that his son was an unemployed seasonal worker who "had $1,287 saved up. These guns cost over $1,700." In his view, the FBI may have provided him with the extra funds. (He does note that his son recently moved out of his house and in with a friend who was going to give him some work.) How dad describes Cornell: "He's a big mama's boy, you know. His best friend is his kitty cat. There's no way he could have carried out any kind of terrorist plot. He didn't even drive; he didn't have a car."
– A French gangster inspired by movies like Scarface and Heat broke out of prison yesterday and sparked a manhunt across Europe, CNN reports. Redoine Faid, 40, briefly held four guards hostage and blew up several prison doors before fleeing in a getaway car. He later set fire to his car and left two hostages standing on a highway, reports AFP. His current whereabouts: unknown. "He is remarkably intelligent, and he is using his intellect to serve his ambitions," said Faid's lawyer. "He cannot stand being imprisoned anymore." Faid spent 10 years in prison for robbery before he achieved celebrity in 2010 with his autobiography, Robber: From Suburbs to Organized Crime. But he was back behind bars a year later, suspected of organizing an armored-car robbery that left a policewoman dead in a shootout. Now an estimated 150 French police are after him, Interpol is involved, and warrants have been issued in 26 countries. Authorities say Faid's wife visited him yesterday and may have smuggled explosives into the prison—a claim her lawyer vigorously denies.
– Premiums will go up sharply next year under President Obama's health care law, and many consumers will be down to just one insurer, the administration confirmed Monday. That's sure to stoke another ObamaCare controversy days before a presidential election, the AP reports. Before taxpayer-provided subsidies, premiums for a midlevel benchmark plan will increase an average of 25% across the 39 states served by the federally run online market, according to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services. Some states will see much bigger jumps, others less. Major national carriers such as UnitedHealth Group, Humana, and Aetna scaled back their roles, meaning about one in five consumers will only have plans from a single insurer to pick from. Republicans pounced on the numbers as a warning that insurance markets created by the 2010 health overhaul are teetering toward a "death spiral." "It's over for ObamaCare," Donald Trump proclaimed at a campaign rally Monday evening in Tampa, Fla., promising that his own plan would deliver "great health care at a fraction of the cost." Administration officials, however, stress that subsidies provided under the law, which are designed to rise alongside premiums, will protect most customers.
– After centuries of mistreatment and nearly 50 years of mystery, a biblical painting in a Dutch museum has finally been declared an authentic Rembrandt. Experts say they needed "CSI-style" tools to authenticate Saul and David, which had been repeatedly over-painted in long-ago restorations and even cut in two at some point in the 19th century, possibly in an attempt to sell it as separate portraits of Saul and David, the New York Times reports. The Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery put the painting on display as a Rembrandt in 1898, but a leading expert cast doubt on its origin in 1969. A restoration expert tells the AP the skepticism now seems unsurprising because there had been so much paint added there was none of Rembrandt's left to see. Researcher used tools such as advanced X-ray techniques and paint sample analysis to determine that the Dutch master himself, not one of his followers, created the painting in two stages starting around 1645, the Times reports. Saul and David will now be the centerpiece of an exhibition focusing on the investigation's years of detective work. "The analysis helped us to determine that the painting is in fact made up of 15 different pieces of canvas; three main parts—the Saul, the David, and an insert of a copy of an old painting in the upper right corner plus strips all around the edges," the museum's director tells the AP. "So it's a real patchwork." (Another recent art find: Hitler's long-lost bronze horses.)
– A visit with two male friends at their Art Institute of Philadelphia dorm ended tragically last night for a Temple University student after she fell to her death from an eighth-floor window, CBS Philly reports. "It is with great sadness that I inform you of the death of Rebecca Kim, a first-year student in the College of Science and Technology," reads this morning's statement from Temple University, which also lists Kim as a pre-pharmacy student. Kim, 18, hit a 44-year-old woman walking on the 16th Street sidewalk during her fall; the pedestrian, who was rushed to a local hospital, suffered a fractured spine and ribs (and lost a few teeth, according to CBS) and is said to be in critical but stable condition at a local hospital and expected to recover, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. Witnesses told police that Kim had stepped out onto what's been described as a 2-foot-wide window ledge to take pictures and apparently slipped when one of the dorm's residents asked her to come back in a little before 6pm. The resident said he looked out the window after she fell and saw her lying on the sidewalk below. Kim, who suffered severe head trauma, was transported to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Although police don't have anything to suggest the fall was anything other than a terrible accident, they'll be checking out surveillance tapes from nearby businesses and are in the process of getting a search warrant for the dorm room, according to the Post-Gazette.
– Some half a million people use American Sign Language to communicate. Now, communicating with others who don't know ASL could be as easy as donning a pair of gloves. Navid Azodi and Thomas Pryor, undergraduates at the University of Washington, were recently awarded a $10,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for inventing a pair of gloves, called SignAloud, that convert ASL to speech. The goal is to "provide an easy-to-use bridge between native speakers of American Sign Language and the rest of the world," says Azodi, who used non-verbal communication until age 7, per the Christian Science Monitor. Sensors inside the gloves read hand position and movement, the data is sent to a computer via Bluetooth, and the computer speaks the ASL word or phrase in English. These aren't the first such gloves. "Some use video input, while others have sensors that cover the user’s entire arm or body," Pryor tells Medical Daily. However, "our gloves are lightweight, compact, and worn on the hands, but ergonomic enough to use as an everyday accessory, similar to hearing aids or contact lenses." Whether the deaf community is interested is another story: Azodi tells NPR the pair have been criticized for "not understanding the [ASL] culture." For example, a negative of a word in ASL is often conveyed with a shaking of the head or a frown, which isn't possible with SignAloud. Azodi and Pryor say they're working with ASL users to upgrade the gloves, which may also help monitor stroke patients and enhance dexterity and gesture control in virtual reality, per the University of Washington. (A whole class learned sign language for a deaf boy.)
– Outdoor-goods chain REI has flabbergasted retail analysts with its bold Black Friday plan of not selling anything. CEO Jerry Stritzke says the day has "gotten out of hand" and all 143 REI stores will remain closed the day after Thanksgiving, CNNMoney reports. The chain is paying all 12,000 workers for the day and is encouraging them—and its customers—to enjoy the great outdoors on Black Friday and share their experiences with the #OptOutside tag. The chain will not be processing online orders until Saturday, reports USA Today, which notes that REI is a co-op owned by its 5.5 million members, so although staying closed is certain to cost it money, it won't have to justify the move to any outraged shareholders. "We believe that being outside makes our lives better," Stritzke said in a statement. "And Black Friday is the perfect time to remind ourselves of this essential truth. We're a different kind of company—and while the rest of the world is fighting it out in the aisles, we'll be spending our day a little differently. We're choosing to opt outside, and want you to come with us." The move is "wildly counterintuitive," but perhaps not as "commercially suicidal" as it may seem, writes Micah Solomon at Forbes. Modern consumers look for "authenticity" and "attached meaning," making REI's brand more attractive when it's seen to actually stand for something, he writes. (More stores have decided to stay closed on Thanksgiving.)
– A Denver man is badly injured but lucky to be alive after falling into a weight-activated trash compactor while trying to retrieve a friend's phone. Scott Walsh, 22, tried to help his friend after her phone fell into a trash chute at an apartment complex Friday night. He fell about 15 feet into the compactor after losing his balance. "He was reaching down to get it for her and fell head first down the chute," friend Liz DeSalvo tells Denver 7. "When he fell down, it activated the compactor and he was in there, I would say, approximately five minutes." Another friend, Matt Johnson, says emergency services arrived within minutes and rescued Walsh, who had been screaming in pain and was still conscious. "I saw him come out of the trash compactor," Johnson says. "It wasn't a very good scene. He's very lucky to be alive." Walsh was hospitalized with two broken legs, fractures to both sides of his skull, ruptured arteries in his neck, and facial injuries, the Denver Post reports. Johnson says it's a "miracle" that Walsh survived without brain or spinal damage. Walsh's friends have started a GoFundMe campaign to help him pay his medical bills. (In another tragic accident, a man looking for his lost phone was killed by a roller coaster.)
– Conservationists of all kinds are protesting a Republican lawmaker's proposal for the "disposal" of an area of federal land the size of Connecticut—and their outcry seems to have worked, for now. The House bill introduced by Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz called for the immediate sale of 3.3 million acres of public land in 10 states, Outdoor Life reports. "The long overdue disposal of excess federal lands will free up resources for the federal government" and boost economic development, Chaffetz initially said in a statement. But, following massive uproar, Chaffetz announced Wednesday night he would withdraw the bill. A rule change introduced in January means the federal government is no longer required to make money when it sells off public lands. The bill Chaffetz introduced stated that the land had "no purpose for taxpayers," though hunters and other outdoor enthusiasts strongly disagreed, calling the move a "land grab" that will deprive them of access to large areas of wilderness. "Last I checked, hunters and fishermen were taxpayers," Backcountry Hunters and Anglers spokesperson Jason Amaro told the Guardian. He represents a chapter that includes New Mexico, where a chunk of land the size of Rhode Island would have been sold off under the bill. "That word 'disposal' is scary," Amaro said. It's not 'disposable' for an outdoorsman." Over at Outside Online, Abe Streep warns that this won't be "the last fight between the Republican Congress and the outdoor industry."
– James Alex Fields Jr. has been charged with second-degree murder among other crimes after allegedly plowing his silver Dodge Challenger into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, Saturday, and killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer in the process. What we know about Fields: The 20-year-old from Maumee, Ohio, was photographed earlier Saturday with Vanguard America, a white supremacist, neo-Nazi group that the Guardian reports dresses in white polo shirts and khakis. The New York Times reports Vanguard America denied Fields is in any way a member and tweeted that wearing a white shirt does "not denote membership ... The shirts were freely handed out to anyone in attendance." Fields' mother, Samantha Bloom, spoke to the AP Saturday night and said that she was aware her son was headed to Virginia for a rally, but didn't know it was a white supremacist rally. "I thought it had something to do with Trump. Trump's not a white supremacist." She continued, "He had an African-American friend so..." then trailed off. Fields and his mother had recently moved to Ohio from northern Kentucky, and one of his former teachers there recalls his experience with Fields to WPCO. Randall K. Cooper High School history teacher Derek Weimer says Fields "was very infatuated with the Nazis, with Adolf Hitler. He also had a huge military history, especially with German military history and World War II." Bloom told the Toledo Blade her son moved into his own place in Maumee "five or six months ago" but texted her Friday to say he had left his cat at her apartment before heading to Virginia. One of Bloom's neighbors said she hadn't seen Fields' car recently, and says when she previously did see him he often had polka music blaring from the car. The Times cites military records that show Fields enrolled in the Army on Aug. 18, 2015, but "his period of active duty concluded" just shy of four months later; it reports the reason why is unclear.
– Joan Rivers stopped breathing during a throat procedure this morning and is in "stable but critical condition," reports E! Online. The 81-year-old comedian is now at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, but the hospital isn't saying much. The Daily News reports that Rivers has been placed in a medically induced coma and that doctors won't bring her out of it until the weekend to evaluate her condition. Like all the other reports circulating, however, it remains unconfirmed. Rivers was rushed to Mt. Sinai from a nearby clinic when the throat procedure went wrong. "We have somebody in either cardiac or respiratory arrest," said the caller to 911, reports TMZ. Daughter Melissa and Melissa's son, Cooper, have flown to New York City to be with her. “We are scared,” another family source tells the Daily News. "This is not looking good. No big medical decisions will be made until Melissa arrives." E! reports that the trouble occurred when clinic staff put a scope down Rivers' throat to check her vocal chords. She was sedated at the time, but "this was not major surgery," says the source. A hospital spokesperson said Rivers' "family wants to thank everybody for their outpouring of love and support."
– A translation by Sky News of the video showing the chaotic moments after Moammar Gadhafi's capture zeroes in on what appear to be his final words, reports MSNBC. "What you are doing is not allowed in Islamic law," he shouts to his captors. "What you are doing is forbidden in Islam!" After a gun is pointed at his head, he says, "Do you know right from wrong?" One man answers, "Shut up, dog." Shortly after, Gadhafi appears to lose consciousness. Gadhafi's burial has been delayed until an investigation into exactly how he died is finished, and Libyans have been lining up again today to view his body. The location? A large commercial freezer in a Misrata shopping center. It's normally used by the center's restaurants to store perishables. (Click to read the 16 best Twitter reactions to Gadhafi's death.)
– Paul Ryan's campaign speech on Wednesday was almost universally decried for distortions and inaccuracies, and Mitt Romney told his share last night as well. "The two speeches … seemed to signal the arrival of a new kind of presidential campaign," Michael Cooper of the New York Times writes, "one in which concerns about fact-checking have been largely set aside." Obama isn't blameless either; a recent ad said Romney backed a bill to ban all abortion, no exceptions, even though Romney now supports rape and incest exceptions. The whoppers "appear to reflect a calculation in both parties that shame is overrated," Cooper concludes. Indeed, the Washington Post observes, the fact-checkers themselves are now under fire. After the Ryan outcry, conservative sites accused them of "spinning" facts, not checking them. "You might reasonably conclude that PolitiFact is biased," wrote one blogger, noting that the site more often found fault with conservatives. In a post on Romney's speech, FactCheck.org felt compelled to include a note promising that they'd be "applying the same standards" to Democrats' speeches. While we're here, distortions from Romney's speech pointed out by PolitiFact and others included… Romney said that family income had fallen $4,000 since Obama. The figure comes from a study that began in December 2007, well before Obama took office. He accused Obama of raising taxes on the middle class. Actually, Obama has fought for a number of middle class tax breaks, like the payroll tax holiday. He said Obama started his presidency "with an apology tour" around the globe. PolitiFact rated that "pants on fire," calling it "a ridiculous charge." For others check here, and here .
– A strange case of an alleged imposter out of Texas: A woman who is at least 31 and possibly older posed as a 15-year-old high school sophomore and got away with it for almost an entire school year, reports KLTV. Charity Johnson is behind bars and accused of duping an East Texas woman into taking her in as an abandoned teen, then enrolling in a Longview high school as Charity Stevens. “She acted like a kid," Tamara Lincoln tells ABC News. "She did her homework. She got good report cards." Jail records put Johnson's age at 31, but police think she's actually 34. Johnson's motive is unclear, but she managed to enroll in the school in October 2013 and didn't get arrested until last week. The scheme began unraveling when she tried to join a group for needy kids and a background check turned up red flags. The group contacted Lincoln, who called police after a little snooping of her own. Lincoln herself is 30, making her younger than the supposed teen in her care. "I just don't know why she did it," she says.
– Before election day, the Romney campaign was touting something it called "Project ORCA," an app that was supposed to revolutionize and digitize the GOP's get-out-the vote efforts. How did it work out? Well one volunteer who was using it—John Ekdahl from the Ace of Spades HQ—calls it a massive, possibly unprecedented failure. Basically, it was just a digitized version of the old tactic of watching polls to see if known Republicans have voted, and calling anyone who hasn't. But it was so poorly administered that it couldn't even accomplish that. Crucial information was never communicated, leaving Ekdahl unable to even watch the polls. Breitbart.com has a number of similar reports from other volunteers. The entire system wound up crashing for good at 4pm Eastern—Politico reports that the software had never even been tested before election day. Sources confirm that it crashed constantly, leaving Romney's team to watch public sources like CNN for data. One source likened it to landing a plane "without instruments."
– No last-minute surprises in the Senate: The chamber easily passed legislation this morning that will keep the payroll tax cut in place for another two months, reports Politico. The framework of the deal, which also extends jobless benefits, had been ironed out last night. It sailed through today on a vote of 89-10. The House will take it up next week, and Senate aides tell the Hill that John Boehner will likely back the measure, but he won't do so publicly until he briefs members. As expected, the legislation also includes a Republican provision to step up pressure on President Obama over the proposed Keystone oil pipeline. It calls for a quick decision from the White House, even though Obama had hoped to put off that call until after the 2012 elections. Democratic aides tell the New York Times that the short deadline actually gives Obama a handy excuse to reject the pipeline proposal because the State Department won't have time to conduct the necessary review. (Later, the Senate passed a $1 trillion budget bill as expected, notes AP; it had already cleared the House.)
– A cold case in Maine about a teen who vanished nearly 40 years ago is getting a fresh look from police after his parents received an anonymous letter out of the blue. Police are saying very little about the letter's contents, but they hope the author will reach out again and perhaps end the mystery of what happened to Bernard "Bunny" Ross, reports the Bangor Daily News. Police say Ross, then 18, vanished on May 12, 1977, after taking the family car to his aunt's house in Presque Isle, then stealing another car near her home. It was found about 20 miles away, and Ross has been a missing person since. His parents—Bernard Sr., 80, and Carol, 78—say he'd been going through "ups and downs" at the time, but nothing out of the ordinary. The unsigned letter arrived after a local newspaper story about missing persons a few months ago mentioned their son, reports the Portland Press Herald. The letter writer claimed to have information about the disappearance, but police aren't divulging details. “I’ve never had anything like this happen in my career,” says Maine State Police Lt. Troy Gardner. “Basically, all we’re doing is extending an olive branch, saying we want to make contact with this person." Gardner adds that police can't even be sure at this point that the letter isn't a hoax. The Rosses are going public in the hope that the letter writer, who suggested that another newspaper story be written, is legit. It's been the lack of resolution that's been so hard to deal with all these years, says Carol Ross. “It’s not like there was a death. It was the unknown," she says. "There was always the hope that he’d walk through the door one day.” (A diligent mom helped crack a 10-year-old cold case about her daughter's killing.)
– America's registered child sex offenders will now have to use passports identifying them for their past crimes when traveling overseas. The State Department said Wednesday it would begin revoking passports of registered child sex offenders and will require them to apply for a new one that carries a "unique identifier" of their status, the AP reports. Those applying for a passport for the first time will not be issued one without the identifier, which will be a notice printed inside the back cover of the passport book that reads: "The bearer was convicted of a sex offense against a minor, and is a covered sex offender pursuant to (US law)." The department said in a statement posted to its travel.state.gov website that registered child sex offenders will no longer be issued smaller travel documents known as passport cards because they do not have enough room to fit the notice. The changes come in response to last year's "International Megan's Law," which aims to curb child exploitation and child sex tourism. The State Department, which issues US passports, said it will start notifying those affected as soon as it receives their names from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security. (Australia plans to simply stop issuing passports to convicted pedophiles.)
– Egyptian authorities have arrested five people in a baby-trafficking ring that helped nearly 300 adoptive parents skirt the nation's Islamic laws, AFP reports. Members of the ring allegedly removed unwanted babies by C-section from mothers who had waited too long to get an abortion. The ring then sold babies for up to $570 each to adoptive parents, who could give each child their family name—a practice normally forbidden by Islamic law when children are adopted, reports the BBC. Among the suspects are a doctor and two nurses who allegedly aided the baby-trafficking ring at a Cairo hospital for three years. Police are also seeking the hospital's manager, who evaded arrest. An interesting aside in the story: Abortion is only permitted in Egypt when the mother's health is at stake.
– Kim Jong Il, North Korea's mercurial and enigmatic leader, has died at the age of 69, according to state television. His death was was announced today by a tearful announcer in black who said he had died from physical and mental over-work while on a train trip to a location outside Pyongyang, Reuters reports. A later report from state-run media said the "Dear Leader" had died of heart failure. Kim, revered as a man of almost superhuman talents by state-run media, but widely mocked in the West, inherited power after his father's death in 1994. His designated successor is believed to be his son, Kim Jong Un, who is still in his 20s. Asian stock markets fell on the news of his death and South Korea placed its military on alert. With the transition to power in North Korea incomplete, "very unstable times" times could lie ahead for the diplomatically isolated nation, an analyst tells the BBC.
– A new report shows staffers in Congress—or maybe even the lawmakers themselves—are big fans of illegal downloading. A site called ScanEye tracked downloads via IP addresses and found that congressional offices downloaded all kinds of illegal fare over the last four months, from the mob flick Lawless, to episodes of Dexter, CSI: New York, the Ellen Degeneres Show, and Ultimate Fighter, to the Smurfs movie, reports the Whispers blog at US News & World Report. The specific offices were not named. Of course, the timing isn't quite as heinous as it was in 2011, when TorrentFreak found that House offices were pirating content even as the Stop Online Piracy Act was being drafted.
– An ominous new report on Vocativ says the Sochi Olympics may be the most extreme, security-wise, in the history of the Games—the site describes "a gulag-style restricted area" instituted by Vladimir Putin. The Christian Science Monitor calls the restricted zone the "ring of steel," an area 60 miles wide and 25 miles deep that will be patrolled by tens of thousands of security troops and in which everyone "will be subjected to near total surveillance." Air Force fighters, drones, anti-aircraft missiles, and anti-saboteur patrol boats will be deployed. Travel in and out of the city will be restricted; public protests and marches will be banned. But the most ominous part: According to the Monitor, some worry that even these measures may not be enough. The biggest potential threat appears to be the North Caucasus Islamic insurgency and Chechen Islamist warlord Doku Umarov, leader of the Caucasus Emirate terrorist group, who has promised an attack at the Games. But there are others, experts warn, who are similarly interested in terrorizing Sochi. "When we examine these recent Volgograd attacks, it's hard not to notice how well planned and well organized they were. They seem to have enjoyed a lot of logistical help," says one expert. "Terrorism has become a big business, and there are people with a real, material interest in keeping it going." A rebel news outlet has been decrying Putin's security measures, Vocativ reports, noting that the lockdown starts today—a month before the Games start—and lasts until March 21, nearly a month after they end.
– A passenger plane crashed and caught fire today near the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, but many passengers seem to have escaped before the fire started, Russian media outlets are reporting. Different reports have one or two people dead, out of the 36 people aboard the plane, Reuters reports. The plane, a medium-sized turboprop, was flying from Odessa to Donetsk, according to the BBC. It's unclear if it crashed at Donetsk airport or near it.
– So, how's it going for former Subway pitchman Jared Fogle? "It's been a very hard nine months for me," he allegedly wrote in a March 25 letter sent from the Colorado prison where he's serving more than 15 years for child porn and having illicit sexual conduct with a child. Letter recipient Brena Firkins tells Fox 59 that she met Fogle about eight years ago on a dating site and that the two had a sexual relationship for about a month. She says she wrote to him first because she "kind of felt bad for him," but she describes what she got back as "kind of horrifying." In the handwritten, one-page letter, sent in an envelope bearing Fogle's prison ID number, the former sandwich company spokesman admits to making "a couple of mistakes but nothing like the media reports have said." "Bottom line," Fogle continues, "my director of my foundation and friend did some bad stuff and tried to throw me under the bus with him." Fogle also asks for more photos, which a post at the Delish blog finds "troublesome" given his history with sex addiction. (Written in the letter's margin: "You're so hot—just like I remember.") Firkins says she and Fogle went on to exchange some emails ("I didn't want to hurt his feelings"), but that's done now. Fogle's attorney had no comment on the letter. Fogle, who claims he was unjustly punished for his thoughts, is trying to get a shorter sentence. He has a hearing scheduled for May 20 at a federal appeals court in Chicago, per WGN. (Fogle reportedly was attacked in the prison yard.)
– Despite the fact that one of his bears killed caretaker Brent Kandra, Sam Mazzola insists his exotic animal compound is safe and says he will make no changes. He and the rest of his handlers believe the attack was simply an accident and could have happened to any of them, the AP reports. “This was his choice," Mazzola recently told Good Morning America. "If we get injured, it's no different than an airline pilot getting injured." Mazzola claims the bear—Kandra’s favorite—was just playing with Kandra. "The food was already there. I mean the bear wasn't even interested. He was interested in playing with Brent. And when it was time for him to leave, the bear didn't want him to go and just grabbed him," he says. The bear was euthanized Saturday at the request of Kandra’s family, the AP adds.
– For those who wish they were working this holiday weekend, the Labor Department has a new website aimed at helping out-of-work Americans land a job. Called My Skills, My Future, the site allows job-seekers to punch in their skills, search for jobs, and obtain training, reports Huffington Post.
– A quick-thinking aunt and a group of Good Samaritans on a busy Miami expressway saved the life of a 5-month-old infant who had stopped breathing yesterday. And one of those helpers just happened to be a Miami Herald photographer who captured some amazing images. The drama began about 2:30pm when Pamela Rauseo realized that her 5-month-old nephew, Sebastian de la Cruz, had stopped breathing. She pulled her SUV over on the Dolphin Expressway, carried the baby from the car, and began screaming for help. Herald photographer Al Diaz happened to be right behind her. "A woman pops out of her car holding a baby screaming, 'Help me! Help me! My baby is not breathing,'" he recounts to WSVN. Rauseo began performing CPR and another woman jumped from her car to help. Diaz found a police officer stuck in traffic, and the officer took over the chest compressions. Two other Miami-Dade fire and rescue officials, also stuck in traffic, joined them, and they all managed to get Sebastian breathing again before paramedics arrived. He is in stable condition today. "I was just thinking about my sister, like, 'I can't, I can't let this happen, I can't, I can't,'" says Rauseo. "'She trusted me with her baby, and I can't let this baby die on me.'"
– On Tuesday, in the wake of the Orlando shooting, President Obama launched a "blistering verbal assault" on Donald Trump, according to CNN. And Paul Waldman at the Washington Post says Obama "ripped into Donald Trump's nightmare vision of America" with "his most detailed and comprehensive attack" yet. In his speech, Obama took major issue with Trump's call to ban Muslim immigrants and his demand that Obama use the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism," the New York Times reports. According to CNBC, Obama says attitudes like that "make it a lot easier to radicalize people here and around the world" and go against “the very values America stands for.” Obama calls it a "dangerous mindset." Obama points out that the Orlando shooter was a US citizen born in America and would have been unaffected by Trump's proposed immigration ban. "Where does this stop?" CNN quotes Obama as saying. "Are we going to start treating all Muslim-Americans differently? Are we going to start subjecting them to special surveillance? Are we going to start discriminating [against] them because of their faith?” He also says the phrase "radical Islam" lumps Muslims and terrorists together and saying it wouldn't help. "Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away," he says. Obama called on Congress to pass stricter gun laws, including a ban on assault weapons, and to keep people on the no-fly list from being able to buy guns. “Enough talking about being tough on terrorism,” the Times quotes Obama as saying. “Actually be tough on terrorism.”
– George Zimmerman has finally surfaced—at least online. The Florida man who killed Trayvon Martin has posted a personal website, therealgeorgezimmerman.com, to collect money for his own legal defense. His attorneys have confirmed to MSNBC that the site is authentic, unlike other websites claiming to raise money in his name. "I cannot attest to the validity of these other websites as I have not received any funds collected," writes Zimmerman on his site. On a page called "The Facts," he writes: "I cannot discuss the details of the event on February 26th," but he thanks friends for "allowing law enforcement to proceed with their investigation unhindered." A US flag can be seen fluttering in the background. In related news, MyFoxDetroit notes that a construction site sign in Michigan was altered to read, "Trayvon a [N-word]." A state official says someone—not the subcontractor, he insists—must have snuck over and "changed the message."
– A fugitive convicted in a big insurance fraud scheme who taunted authorities via Twitter is now in custody in San Diego, reports the LA Times. The plight of Wanda Podgurski is getting national attention because of her bold tweets to the DA in San Diego County. "Catch me if you can," read one. "Help find me before I con anyone else," read another. Police arrested the 60-year-old this week in Rosarito Beach, Mexico. The former Amtrak clerk had been previously sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison for faking injuries and receiving $650,000 in insurance and disability payments. The tweets were undeniably stupid, but did they also play a role in her arrest? Prosecutors will say "only that information from the Twitter account was turned over to its Computer and Technology Crime High-Tech Response Team, known by the acronym Catch," reports AP.
– BP says 150 people have been evacuated from its offshore oil platforms in the North Sea due to an unmanned barge drifting in rough seas toward the Valhall oil field. A company spokesman says the evacuees were taken to other oil fields as a precaution, and that 85 people remained on platforms in the Valhall field Thursday morning. He says a tugboat is trying to gain control of the barge, which broke from its anchor and started drifting amid strong winds and high waves late Wednesday. CNN reports that the 360-foot barge has begun drifting north, forcing ConocoPhillips to evacuate 145 workers from an oil field. Earlier, Norway's Statoil said one worker was killed and two were injured when a big wave slammed into a drilling rig Wednesday in the Troll field, also in the North Sea. A spokesman for Norway's coast guard tells the BBC that the wave that hit the workers' accommodation block on the rig must have been around 60 feet high. Two other workers were injured. The rig is now making its way back to Norway with more than 50 workers aboard. Another 50 were evacuated after the accident, and a Petroleum Safety Authority Norway spokeswoman tells Reuters that they had to be lifted off the platform because winds were too strong for a helicopter to land.
– Truckloads of Atari's 1983 ET game—often listed as the worst video game in history—are believed to be entombed in a New Mexico landfill, and it doesn't look like they'll be unearthed any time soon. The New Mexico Environment Department has nixed a film production company's plan to dig for the old games, saying the firm has failed to submit a proper waste excavation plan, reports the Alamogordo Daily News. Fuel Entertainment and LightBox Interactive had planned to excavate the site for a documentary to be released on the Xbox One console, tied in with giveaways of games that might be unearthed at the site, the AP reports. Commissioners in the city of Alamogordo approved the search back in June, but state officials say they rejected the dig plan last month and a new one has yet to be submitted.
– Once the fiscal cliff has been put to bed, immigration reform will reportedly be President Obama's No. 1 priority, and a series of surveys indicate most voters will be behind him. Some 62% of American voters support giving illegal or undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship, a new poll finds, while 35% oppose the idea. The Politico/George Washington University (PDF) poll echoes a November survey that found 57% backed the plan, with 39% opposing it; a September poll had similar findings, CNN notes. More of the poll's nitty-gritty: 74% of Democrats and 61% of independents support such a plan A plurality of Republicans are behind it, 49%-45% More than 75% of voters back the DREAM Act's effort to allow undocumented immigrants' kids permanent US residence if they finish college or serve in the military And while immigration may soon be Obama's most important issue, the same can't be said for voters; only 2% ranked it as their most important But his tackling it could move some voter numbers in his favor: Those polled currently disapprove of Obama's handling of immigration, 48%-45%
– A woman was shot four times in what police are calling an "extreme case of road rage" Tuesday in Minneapolis, Minnesota Public Radio reports. The 39-year-old victim is expected to recover. According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the victim honked at a tan Jeep Cherokee with tinted windows that cut her off during the evening rush hour. The Jeep changed lanes again and slowed down so that it was driving next to the victim's car. That's when the Jeep's passenger opened fire. The victim was struck three times in the arm and once in the abdomen. Despite her injuries and a shattered windshield, the victim continued to drive in order to find help, NBC News reports. She eventually ended up at a nearby business, where she called 911, according to KARE. Police, who say there were likely multiple witnesses to the shooting due to heavy traffic, are angry over the incident. "Stop the violence," NBC quotes a Minneapolis police rep as saying. "Put the guns down."
– Leave it to Sarah Palin to go from talking Israel to talking “redneck” ringtones all in one Fox News appearance. Speaking on Justice With Judge Jeanine last night, Palin criticized President Obama’s Middle East speech ("More than ever we should be standing strong with Israel and saying ‘No, you don't have to divide Jerusalem, you don't have to divide your capital city.’”), calling Obama “our temporary leader.” Who does she like as a replacement? Well, Tea Party favorite Herman Cain has her excited, even though his main experience is as the head of the Godfather’s Pizza franchise, ABC News reports. “He knows how to make a payroll … He knows how to make a really good pizza,” Palin explained. But it wasn’t until the end of the interview that they really got into the meaty stuff. When asked about her cell phone ringtone (Newt Gingrich’s was recently revealed to be ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”), Palin admitted that hers is “really boring” at the moment. But “I think the mood that I am in today and the venue that I am in, I’d pick Gretchen Wilson’s ‘Redneck Woman’ and I’d be proud to have that as my ringtone.” Meanwhile, the Arizona Republic reports Palin may have purchased a nearly $1.7 million home in the state, where she is rumored to be considering running a 2012 campaign.
– Potential celebrity scandal alert: Room Eight, a New York politics blog, says Lena Dunham did not vote in 2012. The Girls creator, of course, made a controversial ad last year urging people to vote for Obama. But, while a Lena Dunham is registered to vote in Brooklyn, she didn't actually vote there in last year's presidential election, according to Room Eight. What's more, she was eligible to vote in 2004 and didn't, Slate revealed last year. (Dunham basically admitted this in the aforementioned ad, in which she reveals that her "first time" was with Obama.) And both Slate's and Room Eight's investigations found that Dunham has also failed to vote in any local elections, both when she was registered in Manhattan and now that she's registered in Brooklyn. But, one BuzzFeed commenter thinks it's possible Dunham voted in 2012 by absentee ballot: She was in India at the time, and a Gawker writer asked her two days before the election whether she had voted. Dunham's reply: "Big time."
– The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is demanding a full-scale investigation into the rape of at least 11 women at the hands of Mexican police during a crackdown on protesters in 2006—a crackdown ordered by now-President Enrique Peña Nieto. Fox News Latino reports Peña Nieto was the governor of the state of Mexico when hundreds of people took over a town square to protest police stopping vendors from selling flowers at a nearby market. More than 40 women—vendors, students, and activists—were violently arrested, according to the New York Times. The commission found that at least 11 women were "raped, beaten, penetrated with metal objects, robbed, and humiliated, made to sing aloud to entertain police." The government initially accused the women of making it up but eventually acknowledged the rape and abuse. Regardless, no police were ever prosecuted. Instead, the women were prosecuted, with five of them spending more than a year locked up on minor charges, such as blocking traffic. One woman tells the Times the experience "haunts" her. While Peña Nieto was not directly accused of wrongdoing by the commission, any thorough investigation would involve looking into his involvement in ordering the crackdown. It's yet another scandal for a president whose approval ratings have been tanking amid accusations of corruption and violence. In total, two protesters were killed and another 207 were "victims of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment" in the 2006 incident.
– President Trump talked tough on North Korea in an interview with the Financial Times, his language setting the stage for Friday's meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The Voice of America reports that one line of thought is that Trump may be willing to offer Beijing incentives on a range of trade and security issues in exchange for help with the North. Meanwhile, a flurry of North Korean developments were making headlines: The highest-ranking North Korean defector in recent decades has a stark warning about Kim Jong Un: "Once he sees that there is any kind of sign of a tank or an imminent threat from America, then he would use his nuclear weapons," Thae Young Ho, who bolted in 2016, tells NBC News. A story in the New York Times suggests that it might be too late to prevent Pyongyang from joining the ranks of advanced nuclear powers. It points to the discovery of a classified ad, traced to North Korea, offering the sale of 22 pounds of lithium 6 per month; lithium 6 is needed to make a hydrogen bomb, and the ad suggests the North has excess supplies. A blogger at Forbes thinks the Times might be overstating the importance of that classified ad. It is far from proof of nuclear strength in the North, he writes. In his Financial Times interview, Trump said the US is prepared to act alone against the North if China is unwilling to help. What might that mean? CNN takes a look. In addition to sanctions and military action, there's the provocative idea of engagement—talking directly to Kim, which Trump as a candidate floated as an idea during the campaign. An analysis by the AP digs into the context of Trump's answers. Any solo solution would have to be "pretty clever," given the possibility of antagonizing not just the North and China, but Russia as well. There's lots of chatter about heightened activity at a nuclear site in the North, suggesting that another test is imminent, but the 38 North blog assesses satellite photos and throws some cold water on the theory. The world will be able to challenge North Korea in a different way next year: South Korea is hosting the Winter Olympics and says the North is welcome, reports Sky News. (The welcome was necessary because the two nations technically remain in a state of war.)
– Argentina introduced the world's most liberal law on transgender rights yesterday, giving people the freedom to change their gender legally and physically without the approval of a judge or doctor. The law—which passed the country's Senate last month 55-0 despite firm opposition from the Catholic Church—has removed all the hurdles blocking the country's estimated 22,000-strong transgender community from changing gender, and is the first in the world allowing people to change their legal gender without changing their bodies, reports the AP. "This law is saying that we're not going to require you to live as a man or a woman, or to change your anatomy in some way. They're saying that what you say you are is what you are," notes a Stanford University bioethicist. "And that's extraordinary." The law also requires public and private medical practitioners to provide free hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery to those who desire it, notes the New York Times.
– Six people in downtown Minneapolis were injured after being shot in two separate incidents in the early morning hours Monday, and police are trying to determine if the events are linked, the AP reports. KTSP notes that five of the victims suffered non-life-threatening wounds, while the sixth is now in stable condition, per KARE 11. The first shooting took place right outside the city's downtown police precinct around 1am local time, police spokesman Corey Schmidt tells CNN. After cops ran outside and found the first two male victims, as well as a gun, in a nearby parking lot, they heard more gunshots about 15 minutes later coming from a nearby block. That crime scene had three male victims and a juvenile victim. A man linked to the second shooting has been taken into custody, but Schmidt adds all six of the victims are being "uncooperative" as police try to find out if the two shootings are related. (An "extreme case of road rage" took place in Minneapolis this past spring.)
– Despite the hottest June temperatures in more than 40 years, the head teacher at Isca Academy in Devon, England, told boys shorts were not an acceptable part of the school uniform—but she didn't ban skirts. To keep cool and protest the ban, dozens of boys at the secondary school turned up Thursday in skirts that had been borrowed from friends or siblings, CNN reports. One teen described the feeling as a "nice breeze" amid the sweltering temperatures. The mother of a 14-year-old boy tells Devon Live that head teacher Aimee Mitchell sarcastically told boys protesting the shorts ban that they could wear skirts if they liked—but "children tend to take you literally." "Children also don’t like injustice," another mother says. "The boys see the female teachers in sandals and nice cool skirts and tops while they are wearing long trousers and shoes and the older boys have to wear blazers." Boys who wore the school's regulation tartan skirts did not get into trouble—apart from one who wore his too short. With the protest now spreading to other schools with shorts bans, Mitchell has signalled that she is ready to reconsider. "Shorts are not currently part of our uniform for boys," she said Thursday, per the Guardian. "However, with hotter weather becoming more normal, I would be happy to consider a change for the future." (This London school is considering gender-neutral uniforms.)
– Somehow, we don't see Mitt Romney stumping with his latest endorser: Lindsay Lohan. It seems the starlet is concerned with unemployment—and there are so many jokes to make here about why that might be, we won't even go there—and that's why she's voting Romney, she said last night at a launch party in LA. There's apparently more to her support for Romney—"It's a long story, but you're going to have to wait for that," she said, though we're not really sure we want to know. The New York Post notes that LiLo—who called President Obama's victory four years ago "amazing"—tweeted the president last month asking him to cut taxes … for millionaires. Some reactions to her endorsement: Alexander Abad-Santos waxes nostalgic on the Atlantic Wire: "Four years ago, Lindsay Lohan was a lesbian-rights activist, a pro-choice advocate and an Obama supporter. She was in that relationship with Samantha Ronson and laying attacks on McCain running mate Sarah Palin on MySpace (yes MySpace)." "Most of what LiLo knows about unemployment comes from being under house arrest," writes Jessica Wakeman on The Frisky. "Even when you live in a snow globe full of vodka and cocaine, the job crisis weighs heavily on your mind," writes Anna Breslaw on Jezebel. "Not to harp on Stacey Dash's much-ballyhooed Republican endorsement, but now the two of them can dress up for Halloween as Mitt's top half and Mitt's bottom half." "We would bet real money on Lohan not being registered to vote, or at least not showing up, but at least she is focused on the issues most relevant to her life right now, dark as it may be," writes Joe Coscarelli on Daily Intel. He also compares her current career trajectory to "that of the dude from the Dell commercials, but with more arrests."
– People streaming movies from Netflix are eating up a ton of bandwidth, and it's only going to get worse, writes Farhad Manjoo in Slate. He notes the takeaway stat from from a new report: Netflix watching accounts for 20% of web traffic in North American homes during peak usage hours. "That's an amazing share," writes Manjoo. "It beats that of YouTube, iTunes, Hulu, and, perhaps most tellingly, the peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol BitTorrent, which accounts for a mere 8% of bandwidth during peak hours." The scary thing is that relatively few people are using the service, and they're still racking up that huge percentage. Sounds like a disaster in the offing, but "the outcome might actually not be that dire," writes Manjoo. The demand may force ISP providers to expand capacity and finally get America's broadband capabilities where they should be. They better: Netflix will be streaming more than shipping discs in a few years. "The future of Netflix, then, is the Internet. It's an open question whether the Internet can keep up."
– Lindsay, Lindsay, Lindsay…didn’t we just beg you to stop with the Samantha Ronson drama? Apparently the (former?) starlet wasn’t listening, because she hurled a drink at her ex Friday night. “Just got a glass thrown at my head. ... Hmmm - wonder who did it?” Ronson tweeted. A source tells the New York Daily News the attack was unprovoked—“Sam was sitting at a table, and Lindsay came up from behind and tossed an entire drink at her.” Speaking for us all, the source continues, “Why people even let Lindsay inside their establishments anymore is beyond me.” But Lilo seemed to learn her lesson, tweeting, “Last night - never again - believe it or not she's done with the club scene i've learned my lesson.” Or not: She was spotted at Chateau Marmont the very next night.
– Carnival's Triumph cruise ship hasn't quite lived up to its name. The disabled vessel, currently being hauled to Mobile, Ala., amid reports of hallway sewage, has had its next 14 trips canceled as the cruise line addresses an array of problems. The cancellations mean no more trips through April, the AP reports. Meanwhile, more unpleasant stories from the Triumph—which is now delayed, and could arrive in Mobile as late as 11pm tonight: Passengers are "having to urinate in the shower. They've been passed out plastic bags to go to the bathroom," says the husband of one traveler. "There was fecal matter all over the floor." Passengers will get refunds, future discounts, and $500 in compensation, Carnival says. "We obviously are very, very sorry about what is taking place. There is no question that conditions onboard the ship are very challenging," says president Gerry Cahill, per NPR. "Every action we are taking" is to benefit customers. Not so, snarks the Daily Mail: CEO Micky Arison was at a Miami Heat game Tuesday. Mechanical problems on the ship existed even before an engine-room fire stranded the ship, the company admits. There's "no evidence" that an earlier electrical issue was tied to the fire, a Carnival rep tells AFP. But the ship was late to depart Galveston, and a several-hour visit to Progreso turned into a two-day wait as workers reported waiting for parts. What treat awaits passengers when they get to Mobile? A two-hour bus ride. The company has booked 1,500 hotel rooms in New Orleans; customers will be flown to Houston tomorrow, unless they want to take a bus directly today, the AP reports. Mobile's mayor wasn't thrilled with the news, noting the city's many hotel rooms and two airports allow for a more comfortable experience than the one planned.
– Donald Trump's plan to cozy up to Russia is "backwards" and all politicians should stand against it, says the current US ambassador to the UN. In her last major speech on the job Tuesday, Samantha Power urged politicians to prevent the Kremlin from "tearing down" a "rules-based" world order and keep Trump from excusing Russia's crimes, including the annexation of Crimea, the hacking of the US election, and its role in a Syrian bombing campaign, per Quartz. She even went as far as to accuse Vladimir Putin of killing his opponents. "Having defeated the forces of fascism and communism, we now confront the forces of authoritarianism and nihilism," she said at the Atlantic Council. Reversing sanctions against Russia "will only embolden Russia" and encourage North Korea and Iran, "which are constantly testing how far they can move the line without triggering a response," Power continued, per Politico. Her sentiments were echoed by Joe Biden at the World Economic Forum on Wednesday. Biden referred to Russia's escalating efforts to "undermine the US-led liberal democratic order," promising the Kremlin will interfere in upcoming elections in Europe, reports the Huffington Post. He also noted a general "willingness to revert to … the same nationalist, protectionist, and isolationist agendas that led the world to consume itself in war," adding a "hands off" approach to foreign policy "could be very ugly," per USA Today.
– Malaysian officials "spent way too much time" looking for Flight 370 in the wrong places, charged House Homeland Security chair Michael McCaul this morning on Fox News Sunday. "We wasted a week of precious time at the mountain region when all along it’s been in the southern Indian Ocean, is where the location is," he said, amid news that French satellite images might show debris from the crash. "The good news is we’ve confined it to the area where the debris is so we can get to the black box to finally find out what may have happened in this case." Politico notes that he refused to rule out terrorism. Elsewhere on your Sunday dial: Mike Rogers on Vladimir Putin: "He goes to bed at night thinking of Peter the Great and he wakes up thinking of Stalin. We need to understand who he is and what he wants. It may not fit with what we believe of the 21st century." He wants military aid for areas Putin could target, "and you do that in conjunction with sanctions, now you've got something that says, ‘Mr. Putin, we're done with you expanding into other countries." Jimmy Carter on Big Brother: "I have felt that my own communications are probably monitored. And when I want to communicate with a foreign leader privately, I type or write the letter myself, put it in the Post Office and mail it, because I believe if I send an email, it will be monitored." Michael Chertoff on the Malaysian jet: "Increasingly, we face the question of what we call ‘inside threats. It could be pilots. It could be members of the crew. So I think the issue of screening and understanding when people are going off the rails inside the enterprise is going to become more of an issue. Mitt Romney on a 2016 run: Not going to happen. "I’m thinking about the people who I want to see running for president. I fully anticipate that I’ll be supporting one of them very vigorously." Ukraine's foreign minister Andrii Deshchytsia: "The Ukrainian government is trying to use all the peaceful means, diplomatic means to stop the Russians." But, "people are also ready to defend their homeland."
– In what appears to be a first-of-its kind policy, the Graduate Center of the City University of New York has told its staffers not to address students in written correspondence as "Mr.," Mrs.," or "Ms.," reports the Wall Street Journal. The school says the move will help "ensure a respectful, welcoming and gender-inclusive learning environment," and a spokesperson frames it in the context of Title IX rules that prohibit discrimination. But the Journal talks to a Title IX attorney who thinks putting the kibosh on gendered salutations is "ridiculous." The policy has set off a debate about political correctness on college campuses, and it comes just after New York writer Jonathan Chait posted a much-discussed essay arguing that the PC police of the left is back in force and hurting liberalism. At the Daily Beast, Lizzie Crocker finds it ironic that "Ms." has been barred four decades after Gloria Steinem claimed it for the feminist cause. "Depending on your own political views, the banishing of 'Mr.' and 'Ms.' over 40 years later at CUNY is either a bracing new cultural milestone, or a symptom of political correctness gone ever wilder, and a mind-boggling waste of academics’ and students’ time and energy," she writes. Either way, teachers will be skipping the salutations.
– What advice would Jennifer Aniston give to her 30-year-old self? "Go to therapy. Clean up all of the s--t. Clean up all of the toxins and the noise. Understand who you are. Educate yourself on the self," she says in a new Glamour interview. Why is this interesting? Because, as Us points out, when Jen was in her thirties, she just so happened to be married to Brad Pitt. More from the interview, which was actually carried out by Aniston's We're the Millers co-star Jason Sudeikis: On fiance Justin Theroux: "Justin ... has extremely amazing paternal instincts. Because [growing up] he had to sort of become the parent. I think when you have to become the parent when you're a younger person, you learn those instincts." The advice she'd give her teenage self: "Don't try so hard. Pay attention. Do your homework. Go to class." And her 20-year-old self: "Not to fret so much. I did OK in my twenties." And more on her thirties: "You can undo a lot of things. If you're not happy, you can become happy. Happiness is a choice. ... You actually deserve to have a family. And once you meet yourself, and truly love yourself, then you attract that. And look—I mean, the two of us have found these two, beautiful, loving, open people." In another recent interview, Aniston told the AP she and Theroux "already feel married." She shot down recent rumors of pre-wedding jitters and said they simply haven't tied the knot yet because "we just want to do it when it's perfect, and we're not rushed, and no one is rushing from a job or rushing to a job."
– A lawyer says a South Carolina woman died in police custody last year because she was denied a basic necessity: water. Joyce Curnell, 50, was suffering from sickle cell disease, alcoholism, and hypertension, when she went to the emergency room with stomach flu last July. She was treated and released into police custody on July 21 over unpaid court fines, reports the Charleston Post Courier. Even though Curnell was vomiting "within minutes" of arriving at her cell at Charleston County jail, staffers failed to provide her with medical attention as advised by doctors at the hospital, according to court documents filed Wednesday against the jail's medical contractor, Carolina Center for Occupational Health. She was found dead 27 hours later, per the New York Daily News. A doctor serving as an expert witness for Curnell's family blames the woman’s death on a "series of conscious violations." She says vomiting would have activated Curnell's sickle cell disease, which can make it more difficult to fight dehydration. "Simply put, Ms. Curnell died because she was deprived of water," she says. Court documents say there's no record of jail staffers providing Curnell with water or intravenous fluids. Medical staffers "refused to provide any medical attention to (her) whatsoever" and denied Curnell access to her medication, the court documents allege, reports WCIV. Curnell's death was the result of a "deliberate failure," the lawyer adds. "Providing access to reasonable medical care to those under police custody is a necessity, not a privilege." Curnell is black, and the ACLU says it is monitoring the case.
– Available only to scholars for decades, on the date of Harper Lee's death last week the UCLA Library Special Collections released what may be the only recorded interview of Lee talking about her most famous work, according to a press release. And while the transcript of her 1964 interview with New York radio station WQXR has been available for a while, the recording "lets listeners hear Lee's Southern accent, her occasional drags on a cigarette, and her humor," as the Los Angeles Times puts it. According to the Smithsonian, Lee comes off "as charming and thoughtful as the novel that made her so famous" during the 11-minute interview. Listen to it here. (Note: The sound improves after a minute or so.) "I never expected the book would sell in the first place," Lee says of To Kill a Mockingbird. "I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers." She's similarly modest about her goals, which include becoming the "Jane Austen of South Alabama." “I think I want to do the best I can with the talent that God gave me, I suppose," she says. Other topics include a new novel she's working on and her love of writing. "I'm afraid I like it too much, because when I get into work, I don't want to leave it," she says. "As a result, I'll go for days and days and days without leaving my house." In addition to possibly being the only recorded interview of Lee discussing To Kill a Mockingbird, it's also believed to be one of the final interviews she ever gave.
– "We confirmed the ancient proverb 'eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper,'" says the leader of a team of researchers that found eating just two meals a day can be an effective way to manage type 2 diabetes. The researchers split diabetic volunteers into two groups eating the same number of calories every day in either two meals or six meals and found that those who only consumed breakfast and lunch lost more weight, had lower blood sugar, and had better insulin management than those eating six meals a day, reports the New York Times. "The patients were really afraid they would get hungry in the evening but feelings of hunger were lower as the patients ate until they were satisfied," the lead researcher tells the BBC. "But when they ate six times a day the meals were not leaving them feeling satisfied. It was quite surprising." She added that the findings, as earlier studies have indicated, could be useful for non-diabetics who are trying to lose weight.
– The Democrats' platform will include references to God and to Jerusalem being the capital of Israel, after all. Republicans, including Mitt Romney himself, had seized on the absence of both in the platform that got adopted yesterday. This afternoon, the party added both in a floor voice vote at the convention, though it took three tries, and even then many in the audience seemed skeptical that the two-thirds threshold of "ayes" had been reached. (The Guardian says the convention was "plunged into chaos" at the move.) Most wire services cite sources who say President Obama himself ordered that the references be reinserted. (AP, Fox News, CNN, and Politico agree on that.) "Why on earth would that have been taken out?" Obama reportedly said, referring to the removal of a reference to God. The restored version reads: "We need a government that stands up for the hopes, values, and interests of working people, and gives everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential." The Jerusalem reference now reads that "it is and will remain the capital of Israel. The parties have agreed that Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations. It should remain an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths."
– While the Northeast digs itself out from under historic snowfall, a major storm hit the Upper Midwest today with 8 to 15 inches of snow, CNN reports. The new snowstorm struck seven states but targeted Minnesota and the Dakotas in particular. Meanwhile, heavy rain drenched much of the Southeast, prompting flood watches from central Georgia to southeastern Louisiana up to tomorrow afternoon. In other storm news: At least 15 tornadoes appeared in southern Alabama and Mississippi yesterday. One wreaked havoc in Hattiesburg, Miss., injuring at least 13 and striking a main street. Nearly 140,000 still lack power in New England and New York, where many schools are still closed, the AP reports. Crews have cleared most major highways, but many secondary roads remain unusable under ice and snow. In hard-hit Bridgeport, Conn., about 10% to 20% of the 30-inch snowfall has been plowed, says Mayor Bill Finch. And Bridgeport is not alone: "I've talked to other mayors; we're all buried," he says. A new concern: roof collapses as warmer daytime temperatures soothe Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy reported several cases of buildings caving in. What's more, rain will lay the groundwork for frozen roads when temperatures fall below freezing overnight. Click for more from the AP or CNN.
– An amazing show of solidarity on a US Airways Express flight Wednesday night: After a flight attendant made a blind man and his guide dog exit the plane, all the other passengers exited with them in protest. The flight attendant was upset because the guide dog, Doxy, wouldn't stay underneath Albert Rizzi's seat, Rizzi tells 1010 WINS. There was a delay, and as the Philadelphia-to-Long Island flight sat on the tarmac, Doxy became agitated. The flight attendant said the dog needed to be "stowed under the seat," rather than beneath Rizzi's legs. But Rizzi was in the back row and says he had no storage room underneath his seat, and adds that the flight attendant never offered to move him. After the flight attendant ultimately had security escort Rizzi off the plane, his angry fellow passengers—35 people, by Rizzi's count—followed. (One tweeted, "blind man and his dog just got kicked off @USAirways after we’ve been on the tarmac an hour, bc dog wiggled a bit. Whole plane outraged." Another tells ABC News, "This dog was more controlled than the people onboard.") In a statement to CBS Philly, US Airways paints a slightly different picture, saying the dog was roaming the aisle, that Rizzi was "verbally abusive" during the incident, and that "other customers were unhappy about the situation." The flight was ultimately canceled because the "crew did not feel comfortable operating the plane," and passengers were bused to Long Island.
– A scary moment at an indoor swimming pool in Tampa, Florida, this week: Five children had to be taken to the hospital after a cloud of gas formed. The Hillsborough County Fire Rescue responded to a 911 call from the Calypso Pool about a chemical release around 7pm Monday, reports ABC News. They transported the children, who were complaining of stomach discomfort and nausea, to the hospital, where they were treated for respiratory burns, stomach irritation, and vomiting. The owner of the pool said a thunderstorm earlier in the day caused the pump that circulates water in the pool to shut off, reports Fox News. The pump that infuses the water with chemicals kept running, however, filling one of the pipes. When the circulating pump turned back on, it pushed 2.5 gallons of mixed chlorine and muriatic acid into the pool, causing the gas cloud. A hazmat crew was called in to ventilate the pool and eventually determined it was safe. The operators of the Calypso Pool called the incident a "freak accident."
– The Keystone XL pipeline was dealt yet another setback yesterday when a Nebraska judge struck down a law that the governor had used to approve the pipeline's route in the state, and seize land for it via eminent domain. The judge sided with three Nebraska landowners who argued that under the state's constitution, only the Public Service Commission has routing authority, the Wall Street Journal reports. "I am more or less ecstatic," one of the landowners said. "A good day for me will be when I see TransCanada's taillights cross the Canadian border, heading north." The legislature gave Gov. Dave Heineman the power to OK a revised pipeline route in 2012, after the original drew objections because it passed through ecologically delicate areas. Now, "there is no approved route across Nebraska," the plaintiffs' lawyer said. Nebraska immediately vowed to appeal, but experts tell the Washington Post that could delay a final decision on the project—which still requires White House approval—until after the November elections. "This gives the US State Department and Obama an out," a business professor tells Bloomberg. "I think he's going to push it back another year."
– Hoping to erase all memory of its recent troubles, Uber has unveiled a host of new policies aimed at better treatment of its drivers—though forgetful riders might not be so thrilled. Among the recent policy changes making headlines is a new rule requiring riders to pay $15 to have an Uber driver return an item accidentally left behind, reports the Verge. The delivery was previously free to the ire of drivers, who will now enjoy other perks. US drivers, for example, are eligible to receive tips, begin getting paid after two minutes of waiting for a rider, and will have bad ratings as a result of unavoidable issues like app glitches erased. Drivers can adjust fares without Uber's say-so, too, reports CNN. A driver will also no longer be automatically deactivated after three complaints. Instead, a complex formula will take into account ratings, driving history, and other factors, reports NPR. But one of the biggest changes is the creation of a 24/7 support line for drivers, who previously communicated with Uber via text message. "We need to move away from the facelessness of what the company has inadvertently become," a company rep explains. That and other changes as part of Uber's "180 Days of Change" answer many drivers' concerns. Some drivers, however, were hoping they'd also see a change in title from independent contractors to Uber employees, which would give them access to benefits like overtime and health insurance.
– With the nation's fastest-growing economy and lowest unemployment rate, it's no wonder North Dakota is the happiest state in the country—but it's also the deadliest for workers. According to a new report from the AFL-CIO, oil and gas workers are six times more likely to die on the job in North Dakota than in other states, Bloomberg reports. The state is at the bottom of the heap for workplace safety, with 17.7 deaths per 100,000 workers across all sectors in 2012. That's not just five times higher than the national average, but one of the highest fatality rates ever reported. Massachusetts ranked best with 1.4 deaths per 100,000 workers. So should we all avoid work in North Dakota? Not quite—though you may want to think twice about a career in the state's booming oil and gas industry. In the mining and oil and gas extraction sector, the rate was 104 deaths per 100,000 workers. Before the industry boomed, the rate across the board was 7 deaths per 100,000. Of the 65 North Dakotans who died on the job in 2012, 15 worked in mining, oil, and gas, while another 25 were in construction, which can include some jobs on oil and gas sites. But why is the rate higher than in other oil-producing states? "The industry is more established in other states; in North Dakota this is a relatively recent phenomenon" involving inexperienced and untrained workers, AFL-CIO's director of safety and health says, per Mother Jones.
– Members of the sunken South Korean ferry's crew have been likened to "murderers," and two more were detained today, the BBC reports. But some of them, the AP notes, were actually heroes, survivors say. Four gave up their life jackets for passengers amid a shortage; others broke windows to drag would-be victims out of the ship. One refused to leave until she got students to safety and was later found dead. Says the wife of another, who's still missing: "His last words were, 'I'm on my way to save the kids.'" Meanwhile, the number of victims continues to rise and now stands at 108, the BBC notes. Families have agreed that after two more days of searching the rescue operation can become a salvage effort; authorities today set up an underwater robot to help haul up the ship. Relatives are acknowledging that it's unlikely any more will be rescued. "It's been too long already. The bodies must be decayed," an uncle of one of the students tells the AP. In other news: One theory as to how the ship sank: It took a turn too sharply. Only two of 46 lifeboats were accessible because the ship tilted so much, the BBC and NBC News report. The ship's initial distress call came from a frightened boy who called the emergency number 119. "Save us! We're on a ship and I think it's sinking," he reportedly said. Afterward, about 20 more children called 119. Many child survivors may need therapy following the disaster. "We're considering sending about 20% of the patients to a psychiatric clinic with consent from themselves and their parents in the judgment that they require constant intervention," says a hospital chief, via Yonhap. Classes at their school are set to resume this week.
– A rocket that was supposed to deliver supplies to the crew aboard the International Space Station exploded in spectacular fashion just six seconds after liftoff this evening, reports CNN. The good news is that nobody was aboard, and NASA says nobody appears to have been killed on the ground at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. ("No indicated loss of life," in NASA-speak.) The rocket's cargo ship held about 5,000 pounds of supplies and science equipment for the six people now on the space station, reports AP. The Anteres rocket was launched by Orbital Sciences Corp., one of the two companies (along with SpaceX) hired by NASA to make supply runs to the space station. No word yet on what went wrong. NASA reported "100% favorable weather" and "no technical concerns" just prior to liftoff.
– Two members of India's security forces and a civilian were killed Saturday when gunmen stormed the Pathankot air base near India's border with Pakistan, CNN reports. The New York Times and AP are stating at least four shooters have been killed, while CNN claims all five of the suspected militants are dead. The shootout on the base lasted for approximately 15 hours. According to the AP, India's security forces were able to keep the shooters away from areas containing helicopters and other military equipment. "I congratulate the nation's security forces for turning the intentions of our country's enemies into dust," India's Prime Minister Modi says. "They didn't let them succeed. And I salute the martyrdom of the soldiers who sacrificed their lives." Indian officials had been tipped to a possible attack, and security at the base had been increased in response, CNN reports. According to the AP, the shooters were spotted by aerial surveillance immediately upon entering the base near security force living quarters. While no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, many see it as an attempt to undo recent progress in relationships between India and Pakistan. The Times reports Modi met with Pakistan's Prime Minister Sharif just over a week ago. It was the first meeting between the countries' leaders in a dozen years. India has accused Pakistan of supporting militants in the area in the past. Saturday's attack was condemned by Pakistan in a statement.
– If most people were asked to name the demographic mostly likely to die from alcohol poisoning after binge drinking, it's a safe bet that "college students" would be at the top of the list. As it turns out, the correct answer is middle-aged white men, reports ABC News. A new CDC report shows that 2,200 Americans, or about six people per day, die from alcohol poisoning each year—the result of drinking too much in too short a time. But 75% of those victims are ages 35 to 64, most are men, and most are white. "What I think very interesting in this is that these people have probably been doing this for a long time, so why are they now dying of it?" asks the director of the Addiction Institute of New York. He figures most victims are probably weekend drinkers who wouldn't think they had a problem. "This is showing the dangers, the real dangers, of binge drinking, which we tend to associate with younger people." The report also finds that 38 million Americans binge-drink four times a month, with an average for eight drinks per sitting, reports Time. On a per-capita basis, American Indians and Alaska Natives have the most deaths. (At the very least, binge drinking seems to mess up your immune system.)
– "I didn't think anybody was crazy enough to do something like this." So says Florida's Monica Walley, who was at her Orange County home Aug. 20 when a bullet whizzed through a window, missing her father's head by inches. It was one of three fired at the home in retaliation for a critical restaurant review, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Office. Walley had penned the review on Facebook, explaining her disabled mother was denied service at the Daybreak Diner where she had once suffered a fall. "It was my mother's birthday, and all she wanted was her favorite Greek omelet," Walley wrote. Told she couldn't be in the restaurant without a companion, "she arrived back home in tears," Walley added in the review, which prompted hundreds of negative comments and some angry phone calls to the diner, per Fox 35. The restaurant said employees "have never and will never practice any form of discrimination." But the review was still a talking point that night as the son of the diner's owner drank beer with his roommate and a family friend, 42-year-old Norman Auvil. After finding Walley's address online, they discussed driving there to pick a fight or slash tires, police say, per WESH. Once outside the home, however, Auvil allegedly fired three shots. "I actually could feel the air from the bullet as it passed by me," Walley's father tells WJAX. "It missed me by about 4 inches." Arrested Thursday, per the Orlando Sentinel, Auvil was charged with shooting into a building, shooting from a vehicle and abuse of a disabled person after his two companions "expressed concern for their safety" and described other "violent outbursts by Auvil," per a criminal complaint.
– Chris Brown isn't exactly handling his break-up from Karrueche Tran in typical Hollywood fashion: Instead, he released a sort of confessional video last night, in which he mused about his love for, apparently, both Tran and Rihanna. "Is there such thing as loving two people?" Brown asks, as pictures of both women flash onscreen. "I don't know if that's possible. For me, I just feel like that, you know?" continues Brown—who was "a little drunk" at the time. "You share a history with somebody, then you tend to fall in love with somebody else. It's kind of difficult," Brown says. TMZ notes that, two hours before Brown posted the video, Rihanna tweeted: "Ain't nobody bidness..... But mine and my baby!" As for Tran, she tweeted after the video was posted, New York Daily News reports: "Wtf is going on? Life moves on ... So let's all." Watch the NSFW video at Celebuzz.
– It's official: Cats are better than dogs. Better predators, that is. So say researchers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences after looking at more than 2,000 fossils of prehistoric cats and dogs in North America. It turns out that when cats arrived on the continent 20 million years ago, which was about 20 million years after prehistoric canines started to call it home, cats were more successful hunters and helped cause the extinction of 40 species of canines vying for the same foods, reports the Telegraph. "We usually expect climate changes to play an overwhelming role in the evolution of biodiversity. Instead, competition among different carnivore species proved to be even more important for canids," writes the lead researcher. "These results imply that competition among entire clades, generally considered a rare process, can play a more substantial role than climate change and body size evolution in determining the sequential rise and decline of clades," the researchers write. In fact, the canine species that survived that competition are the early ancestors of those alive today, including wolves, foxes, jackals, and of course dogs, reports Mashable. What's more, unlike the calamitous effect cats had on dogs, prehistoric canines had little discernible impact on the course of cat species. (See what the world's oldest cat enjoyed on his 26th birthday recently.)
– "It's true, Joseph Kony wants to come out of the bush," says the president of the Central African Republic. Tantalizing words, though there's plenty of doubt about how true they actually are. President Michel Djotodia insists his country has been in direct talks with Kony on a possible surrender, reports AFP. (Most Americans are probably familiar with Kony, whose Lord's Resistance Army has been fighting the Ugandan government for two decades, via a viral video calling for his capture. He just might be the world's most wanted warlord.) US officials say they doubt that Kony himself has been involved in any such talks. But even if that's true, there's another to think his days as a warlord are numbered. The BBC cites reports that Kony is in "fading health" and a "shadow of his former self," while an African Union envoy told the UN this week that he may be suffering from a "serious, uncharacterized illness." The International Criminal Court in The Hague, meanwhile, wants Kony on charges that include forcing children to serve as soldiers and sex slaves.
– Disney's South Pacific animated tale Moana fell short of a Frozen-sized debut, reports the AP, but it nevertheless dominated the Thanksgiving box office with an estimated $81.1 million over the five-day weekend. The well-reviewed Moana, set in ancient Polynesia, earned $55.5 million from Friday to Sunday. It didn't match the 2013 Thanksgiving release of Frozen, which opened with $93.6 million. But Moana scored the second-highest Turkey Day debut ever, and Variety notes that it puts another feather in Disney's cap of successes this year, which include Zootopia, Doctor Strange, Finding Dory, and The Jungle Book. All told, Disney so far has five of the year's top-grossing films, with Rogue One due soon. Falling to second was JK Rowling's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which earned $65.8 million over the five-day weekend. Those releases far outpaced more star-driven films. The Brad Pitt-Marion Cotillard World War II romance, Allied, opened with a mediocre $18 million over five days. Warren Beatty's first film in 15 years, Rules Don't Apply, bombed with $2.2 million over the five-day weekend.
– The United Methodist Church dropped the hammer today on a Pennsylvania pastor who'd performed his son's same-sex wedding, defrocking him entirely. The church board decided Rev. Frank Schaefer's fate in a meeting that lasted just 15 minutes, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. The church had convicted him last month, and on Monday told him that if he didn't renounce his same-sex-marrying ways and recommit to the Methodist Book of Discipline, he should resign. But Schaefer responded by saying that he could not "uphold those discriminatory laws" because they are "hurtful and harmful to our homosexual brothers and sisters in the church." He also refused to voluntarily resign, the AP reports. The case has set off debate within the church. One bishop, for example, posted a statement Monday saying that "several statements in the Book of Discipline are discriminatory," which has left many "wondering how we can talk out of two sides of our mouth," the Washington Post reports. Later, she posted a revised version saying that the statements "may seem discriminatory" but were "intended to be clear and fair."
– There's always room for one more: "My name is Bobby Jindal, and I am running for President of the United States of America." So declared the Louisiana governor today. The 44-year-old Indian-American is low in most polls, however, and faces steep odds. One typical example of coverage: FiveThirtyEight calls him a strong candidate—if this were 2012. NPR, meanwhile, rounds up some odds and ends about him, including: Given name: He was born Piyush Jindal in Louisiana, but asked to be called Bobby at age 4—after Bobby Brady of the Brady Bunch. Rhodes scholar: He turned down Harvard Medical School and Yale Law School to attend Oxford as a Rhodes scholar and study health policy. He then ran his home state's health department at age 24. Bad impression: He was a given a huge opportunity to make his name by delivering the GOP response to President Obama's first congressional address in 2009. Instead, he drew comparisons to Kenneth on 30 Rock. Jindal will have a formal address later tonight, notes the Washington Post, which calls his chances "extraordinarily low" among the 12 other major GOP candidates (so far). His entry is no surprise, it adds: "In the months leading up to his launch, Jindal tried to stand out from his GOP rivals by playing up his Catholic faith, being unusually hawkish on defense issues, and being unusually tough on fellow Republicans in Washington."
– Thousands of travelers booked on Southwest Airlines flights out of Chicago's Midway Airport had to change their plans after the airline found out that it didn't have enough de-icing fluid—for the second time this winter. An airline spokesperson said Southwest had "actively worked to manage" its level of glycol, which is used to de-ice aircraft, but "proactively" canceled at least 220 flights Sunday after levels ran low, USA Today reports. Midway Airport said a total of 250 flights were canceled after an icy storm, suggesting other airlines were also affected, though operations are expected to return to normal Monday, the Chicago Tribune reports. Forbes notes that the same thing happened in December, when Southwest canceled at least 90 flights from Midway due to de-icing issues.
– The public received its first look at footage of the shooting death of Keith Scott at the hands of Charlotte police when lawyers for his family released cellphone video Friday showing the moments before and after he was killed, NBC News reports. The video was taken by Rakeyia Scott and features her pleading with police not to shoot her husband while telling him to listen to officers. "He has no weapon—don't shoot him," Rakeyia Scott says in the video. And to her husband: "Don't you do it...Come on out of the car." According to the New York Times, Rakeyia Scott told police her husband has a traumatic brain injury but: "He's not going to do anything to you guys. He just took his medicine." Four shots are heard in the video, and Rakeyia Scott screams. She tells officers, "He better not be fucking dead" and, "He better live." Rakeyia Scott's video doesn't show a gun. Police have claimed Keith Scott had a gun and was an "imminent, deadly threat." Family says he was unarmed. The family's attorney says they hope releasing the video will convince police to release theirs, CNN reports. "We want the public to take a look at this tape and see what was in the video before he was shot, and what was there afterward, and ask how it got there," Eduardo Curry says. Scott was waiting for his child to get home from school when officers arrived at his apartment complex to serve a search warrant on another man.
– A judge today bound Theodore Wafer over for trial on second-degree murder and manslaughter charges for killing an unarmed teenager. The ruling came after a two-day hearing to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to charge Wafer, the Detroit News explains. The 54-year-old Michigan man doesn't deny that he shot 19-year-old Renisha McBride in the face when she came to his door for help after a car accident, but his attorneys argued that there was no evidence he'd intended to kill her. Judge David Turfe disagreed. "He could have not answered the door," he said. "He had other options." He also pointed out that testimony from neighbors indicated that McBride wasn't combative. "She couldn't find her phone. She was patting her pockets. … She just kept saying she wanted to get home," one witness said, according to the AP. Prosecutors also pointed out that Wafer had to take his shotgun out of its case, load it, and rack it, before answering the door, the Detroit Free Press reports.
– Baseball’s hot stove was boiling mightily today, with the Philadelphia Phillies making the biggest news, reaching a deal to land Toronto right-hander Roy Halladay. That move could be part of a three-team trade, Jayson Stark hears, with Philadelphia sending left-hander Cliff Lee to Seattle. Toronto and Seattle would receive mainly prospects, though the AP reports that big-league pitchers JA Happ and Joe Blanton are on the table. On the free-agent market, the Boston Red Sox are just a physical exam away from adding right-hander John Lackey, late of the Angels, to their rotation, with Sports Illustrated reporting a 5-year contract worth upward of $80 million. The Angels, for their part, lured designated hitter/outfielder Hideki Matsui west after 7 years in New York, with the Yankees’ World Series MVP agreeing to a 1-year deal, the Times writes.
– Just how deportation is handled by the US government will get a fresh look: President Obama yesterday ordered a review of deportations to see if they can be carried out "more humanely within the confines of the law," Politico reports. Though no specifics were given, the review, to be conducted by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, comes as Obama has been facing intense pressure from immigration rights activists, who've dubbed him "deporter in chief" due to the record number of deportations under his watch, the Los Angeles Times notes. Obama broke the news in a meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus yesterday. For months the White House had insisted that nothing could be done on the issue unless the comprehensive immigration reform Obama has been pushing was passed by Congress. But as that looks unlikely, Obama has "emphasized his deep concern about the pain too many families feel from the separation that comes from our broken immigration system," White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement. "It is clear that the pleas from the community got through to the president," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, who met with Obama yesterday. "The CHC will work with him to keep families together." Activists tell the New York Times, however, the review isn't likely to go far enough.
– Americans love Mexican beer. The US imports more beer from its neighbor to the south than all other importers put together, and Corona is the country's fifth best-selling beer, the Wall Street Journal reported in 2015. But the mayor of the municipality of Zaragoza just south of the US border says a brewery there—which produces Corona among other beers and was bought by US firm Constellation Brands in 2013—is sucking so much water from the region's already dry wells that it has left the area bone dry. "WE HAVE NO WATER FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION," he writes in a single-sentence letter to the Coahuila state governor, and tells the Guardian there's "barely a drop of water when you open the tap." The beer produced by the brewery is exported to the US, and Constellation Brands in June 2015 announced a $2 billion investment to expand the facility, Reuters reported. Its aim: to produce and fill 20 million bottles of beer a day by 2017. In comments to the Guardian, a rep for the brewery dismissed the mayor's comments, saying the local aquifer is replenished at rate greater than that at which the brewery removes beer from it. He also asserted that Zaragoza would have water problems even without the presence of the brewery. Indeed, a public administration professor notes arid conditions are typical of the region, though he blames business interests for making the problem worse. "We’re still giving concessions to private entities on the premise of bringing jobs." Constellation Brands had previously said the expanded brewery would mean another 2,500 jobs.
– Mitt Romney has stirred up a few headlines today over a little matter of revenge. Stumping in New Hampshire, Romney criticized President Obama for urging supporters to vote because "voting is the best revenge." Romney said, "Vote for revenge? Let me tell you: Vote for love of country." His campaign also released a "revenge"-themed ad. But The Hill reports that Obama made the remark yesterday to calm a Springfield, Ohio, crowd that was booing Romney. "No, no, no," Obama said. "Don't boo. Vote. Voting is the best revenge." The presidential camps are also exchanging volleys over Romney's auto company ad and the effect of Superstorm Sandy on the campaign. One subject that seems off the table: Benghazi security, perhaps because Romney doesn't want to expose CIA Director David Petraeus to criticism, writes Michael Crowley at Time. But two major newspapers—the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal—have picked up the slack by slamming Obama on the issue, reports the Weekly Standard.
– Minneapolis Police Chief Janeé Harteau has stepped down at the request of Mayor Betsy Hodges, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. Harteau is leaving the police department less than a week after Justine Damond was shot and killed by officer Mohamed Noor. "I’ve lost confidence in the chief’s ability to lead us further—and from the many conversations I’ve had with people around our city, especially this week, it is clear that she has lost the confidence of the people of Minneapolis as well," Hodges said in a statement. According to the New York Times, authorities have yet to offer any explanation for the shooting of Damond. The 40-year-old Australian woman had called 911 Saturday night to report a possible sexual assault near her home. Harteau had been widely criticized for not returning to Minneapolis from vacation quickly enough following the shooting. She said she was "backpacking in the mountains" at the time, so it was difficult to get back, ABC News reports. Minneapolis city council members had also expressed a desire for Harteau to resign Friday. "Last Saturday’s tragedy, as well as some other recent incidents, have caused me to engage in deep reflection," Harteau said in a statement announcing her resignation. Harteau had been with the Minneapolis Police Department for 30 years. Mayor Hodges is facing re-election in November and has been criticized for her handling of police issues. The shooting of Damond was ruled a homicide and is under investigation.
– If there were a World Cup for tackling corruption in soccer, the US would now be the runaway favorite to win it. At least six officials from FIFA, soccer's world governing body, were arrested in a surprise overnight raid at a hotel in Zurich, where they had gathered for their annual meeting, the AP reports. More: The soccer chiefs are being held pending possible extradition to the US on federal corruption charges that go back more than 20 years and include alleged bribery involving World Cup bids, sources tell the New York Times. The Times' sources say US prosecutors targeted members of FIFA's powerful and secretive executive committee, and the BBC reports that those arrested include Jeffrey Webb, head of the confederation for North and Central America and the Caribbean. The officials arrested in Zurich do not include FIFA President Sepp Blatter—who is up for re-election Friday—but sources tell the Guardian that nearly a dozen other soccer officials worldwide may have been arrested overnight. The bribery allegations are believed to center on bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, and the Swiss have now opened their own investigation into the bidding, reports the BBC. The charges follow a long FBI investigation, reports CNN, which notes that although most or all of the alleged bribery is believed to have occurred outside the US, American prosecutors may be able to claim jurisdiction because of the long reach of US banking regulations, and because the US is the biggest World Cup television market. (Allegations of FIFA corruption go back many years and include claims that Russia gave away a Picasso as it bribed its way toward hosting the 2018 World Cup.)
– Call it a War on Hogwarts—eBay has announced it will no longer allow the sale of hexes and potions, reports the Los Angeles Times. Starting next month, the site's new guidelines also will prohibit the sale of blessings, enchantments, psychic advice, "and other metaphysical readings & services." Such transactions often end up in "issues that can be difficult to resolve," explains a spokeswoman. But witches and warlocks needn't worry too much—more tangible items often used in rites such as crystals are still game. And those who want to sell their magic can head over to Craigslist, where postings still offer "Big Booty Spells" and "Candy Charms." ABC News rounds up some criticism of the new rules, including one user's complaint that Catholic holy water still makes the cut.
– A day after Hillary Clinton blamed him in part for her election loss, FBI chief James Comey acknowledged to Congress that she might have a point: "It makes me mildly nauseous to think we might have had some impact on the election." But Comey defended his decision to announce a new investigation into Clinton's email less than two weeks before Election Day, reports the New York Times. Keeping quiet would have been "catastrophic," he said. More coverage related to his testimony and his role in the election: Comey revealed details on how Anthony Weiner got tied up in the email investigation. It turns out that Weiner's wife, Clinton aide Huma Abedin, "appears to have had a regular practice of forwarding emails to him for him to print out for her so she could deliver them to the secretary of state.” And some of those emails were classified. Comey said the FBI investigated them both but found no evidence they meant to break the law. CNN has a separate story on this aspect of the testimony. At FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver takes an exhaustive look at the election and concludes that Comey's letter probably cost Clinton the victory. It "had a fairly large and measurable impact," he writes. "It wasn’t the only thing that mattered, and it might not have been the most important. But the media is still largely in denial about how much of an effect it had." Axios has some "quick hits" from the Comey testimony. For one thing, he expects the Russians to be back in 2018 and more so in 2020. The Boston Globe has five revelations from the testimony, including that Comey said he wanted to go public about Russian interference in the election, but the Obama White House prevented it. If you just can't get enough, the Washington Post has the full transcript here. David Axelrod thinks Clinton should stop talking about the election. Comey played a role "in a narrow sense," he said on CNN, per the Hill, but he "didn't tell her not to campaign in Wisconsin." He suggests the fault lies mainly with her: "It takes a lot of work to lose to Donald Trump."
– The shooting that upended a 60-year-old tradition in Louisville on Thanksgiving may have been sparked by a spat over a motorcycle. Police reportedly believe that during Thursday's Juice Bowl football games, a man in his 60s knocked into the motorcycle of a man in his 20s, who pulled out a gun, reports the Louisville Courier-Journal. After initial shots were fired, police believe bystanders also pulled out guns, a source says. Police say some 20 shots were fired in total. Two men were pronounced dead "at separate scenes in the park," per WDRB. WLKY notes they were found about 150 yards apart. Four others were taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. No arrests have been made. Authorities say the initial shooting occurred around 1:30pm about 200 yards away from where hundreds, including Mayor Greg Fischer, had packed Shawnee Park to watch football games. "A guy fell, and I went over to see if I could assist him. And once I got there, I saw his brains were blown out," says a witness. Police have yet to determine if the victims who died fired shots or were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But given the number of people and shots fired, "there could have been more victims," says a police rep. One local official says he hopes "national shame and attention" will now help "stop the bloodletting" in the city. The deaths brought Louisville's murder total for the year to a record 112.
– In the US, we mostly laugh off the Mayan-predicted apocalypse that will probably eradicate us all in a few days. But in China, it's serious business. Authorities there have now arrested more than 500 members of the banned Christian "Almighty God" cult for allegedly spreading doomsday prophesies, the AP reports. Police also seized leaflets, DVDs, books, and other materials warning of the impending apocalypse. The cult believes that the "sun will not shine and electricity will not work for three days beginning on December 21," the state-run Xinhua news service reported. Then again, perhaps China has good reason to try to clamp down on the rumors; according to another report, such prophesies were a motivating factor in the knife attack on 23 children at an elementary school on Friday. The suspected slasher, identified as Min Yongjun, "had been strongly psychologically affected by rumors of the upcoming end of the world," Xinhua reported. If you are similarly being psychologically affected, we urge you to calm down and read this or this.
– Hundreds of residents living in five public housing buildings in the Camden borough of London were being evacuated Friday evening after firefighters couldn't guarantee their safety in the wake of the deadly Grenfell Tower disaster, the AP reports. According to the New York Times, police say cladding material used on the five buildings at the Chalcots housing estate failed safety tests by investigators. It's similar to the combustible cladding used in Grenfell Tower, where at least 79 people died in a fire last week. The Camden council is trying to find hotels for residents of the approximately 800 apartments being evacuated. A rest center has been set up at an area library, the Guardian reports. Residents are scared and angry about the sudden evacuation. “I don’t know where we are going to go," one resident says. "One man in a suit said to me, ‘You can’t stay here tonight.’" Renovations to the buildings are expected to take up to a month. "I know it's going to be difficult, but Grenfell changes everything," the Times quotes Gould as saying. She adds: "All we care about is getting people to safety."
– Former FBI chief James Comey's long-anticipated memos on his private meetings with President Trump were released to Congress on Thursday after House Republicans seeking to clear the president of obstruction of justice allegations threatened to subpoena the documents. Comey has said he kept a detailed record of his conversations with the president because he worried Trump would end up lying about them some day. Some highlights from the 15 pages of documents, which were obtained by the AP: "We need to go after the reporters." Comey said Trump discussed jailing reporters in a Feb. 2017 conversation about preventing leaks. Comey said he told Trump: "I was eager to find leakers and would like to nail one to the door as a message. I said something about it being difficult and he replied that we need to go after the reporters, and referred to the fact that 10 or 15 years ago we put them in jail to find out what they know, and it worked." "Beautiful hookers." Comey said Trump, fixated on lewd allegations in a Russia dossier, told him Putin had bragged about the beauty of Russian prostitutes. The president "said 'the hookers thing' is nonsense, but that Putin had told him 'we have some of the most beautiful hookers in the world,'" he wrote. Comey wrote that the president said it "really bothered him" if his wife had any doubt about the "Golden Showers thing." Flynn's "serious judgment issues." Comey said that at a Jan. 2017 dinner, Trump complained that national security adviser Michael Flynn had some "serious judgment issues." "I did not comment at any point during this topic and there was no mention or acknowledgment of any FBI interest in or contact with General Flynn," Comey wrote. Question about a Flynn warrant. Comey said days before Flynn's firing on Feb. 13, 2017, then-White House chief of staff Reince Priebus asked him if the adviser's communications were being monitored under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Comey's response is redacted in the unclassified version of the memos. Trump claimed to be vindicated after the documents were released, the Washington Post reports. "James Comey Memos just out and show clearly that there was NO COLLUSION and NO OBSTRUCTION," he tweeted. "Also, he leaked classified information. WOW! Will the Witch Hunt continue?" Comey told CNN that he had no problem with memos being turned over to Congress and said they were consistent with what he wrote in his memoir. "I think what folks will see if they get to see the memos is I've been consistent since the very beginning, right after my encounters with President Trump," he said.
– Anna Kendrick told a surprisingly off-color story on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Friday about an encounter with President Obama, TooFab reports. Asked by the host to explain a photo of Obama doubled over with laughter while shaking her hand, the A Simple Plan actor explained: "I got an email saying, 'Hey, do you want to meet the president?'" she says. "Naturally, I said, 'Of what?' and they were like, 'The country, you idiot.'" So Kendrick attended an LA meet-and-greet with around 30 people when Obama, giving a talk, praised her 2009 film Up in the Air for dealing with the US recession, reports Mashable. "I was like, 'This such an inconvenient time to be having a full stroke, which is obviously what's happening,'" says Kendrick. Shaking Kendrick's hand later and having a photo taken, the president said, "I hope I didn't embarrass you earlier." Recalls Kendrick: "I was like, 'Yeah, you're such an ***hole.' He kind of laughs and he says, 'Oh and you're from Maine, aren't you?' .... I said, 'Yes, and actually I was the first person here.' And he goes, 'Are people from Maine really punctual?' And I was like, 'You didn't know that? You're the president.'"
– Canadian actor Douglas Rain never appeared before the camera in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, but anyone who's seen the movie will vividly remember him anyway. Rain provided the voice for the HAL 9000 computer, which eventually turns against the human astronauts when it realizes they intend to disconnect him. "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that," Rain informs astronaut Dave Bowman when Bowman famously asks him to open the pod bay doors (see the movie clip here). Rain has died at age 90, reports the BBC. The news was announced by the Stratford Festival, of which Rain was a founding member. Earlier this year, the New York Times wrote a story about Rain's role in the movie, noting that he wasn't Kubrick's first choice. Kubrick picked Martin Balsam, but he then decided the actor sounded "too colloquially American." He turned instead to Rain after hearing his voice in a 1960 documentary called Universe. "I think he's perfect," Kubrick wrote at the time. "The voice is neither patronizing, nor is it intimidating, nor is it pompous, overly dramatic, or actorish." The article makes the case that Rain's calm cadence has influenced how devices such as Amazon's Alexa and Google Home are heard today—and Anthony Hopkins used it as a model for his Hannibal Lecter. Rain wasn't primarily a voice actor, though: He had a distinguished career on the stage. (See where the movie ranks on a list of sci-fi classics.)
– Could the 51st state be wedged between California and Oregon? Voters in two northern California counties will tomorrow weigh in on the question, Reuters reports. Activists in Del Norte and Tehama Counties want to break away from the Golden State, linking parts of northern California and southern Oregon together as the state of Jefferson. Other nearby counties have already backed the separation effort, the AP notes, though actually seceding would require state and federal approval. And that approval seems unlikely, an expert tells Reuters. "There is no incentive" for federal officials to pass the measure, he says. “If you’re one of 100 senators, you don’t want to become one of 102." Pro-separation activists in the sparsely populated area are tired of having little representation in state government. "We have 11 counties up here that share one state senator," says movement leader Aaron Funk. Some in the conservative region feel disconnected from the state's urban areas. Up to 16 California counties could choose to join the movement, backers say, covering a quarter of the state's land but far less of its population, the AP notes. The name Jefferson is linked to Thomas Jefferson's concept of a possible republic in the west. Click for another proposed split.
– The backlash against President Trump's inflammatory remarks on Charlottesville continues, including two White House business councils being shuttered after members started defecting. The latest voice to enter the mix: Apple CEO Tim Cook, who Wednesday sent a memo to employees decrying "hate and bigotry" in general, and Trump's take on things specifically, CNET reports. "What occurred in Charlottesville has no place in our country," Cook writes in the memo, also posted by Recode. "Hate is a cancer, and left unchecked it destroys everything in its path. Its scars last generations." He also takes issue that this is a partisan divide, noting that "it is about human decency and morality" and that we must, all together, be "unequivocal" about fighting hate. As for Trump's "both sides" stance, in which he says both white supremacists and the "extremist" left were to blame for the Charlottesville violence, Cook writes: "I disagree with the president and others who believe that there is a moral equivalence between white supremacists and Nazis, and those who oppose them by standing up for human rights. Equating the two runs counter to our ideals as Americans." He ends the memo with a paraphrased MLK quote: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter." Cook also says Apple will give $1 million each to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, as well as match employee donations to human rights groups on a two-to-one basis until Sept. 30, as well as roll out a process that allows users to give money to the SPLC via iTunes. Read Cook's full memo at Recode.
– A British Airways IT specialist has been convicted of plotting to blow up a plane, along with three additional counts of terrorist planning—including conspiring with Yemen-based radical Anwar al-Awlaki and passing him useful information. It took police nine months to crack encrypted messages on Rajib Karim’s home computer; investigators called them the most complex yet seen in British terror, the Guardian reports. Born in Bangladesh, Karim and his brother had supported a banned radical group, the BBC notes. Karim, who studied at Manchester University, returned to England in 2006 and took a job at BA in 2007; police believe he was looking for a position where he could contribute to the terrorist cause. A message from Awlaki—whom Karim called "professor"—asked if it was “possible to get a package or person with a package on board a flight heading to the US,” noting that a US attack was “our highest priority.” Click for more on Rajib Karim.
– A tip for looking your best at age 145: Try replacing bits of your skin with plastic. That's what the experts in charge of preserving Vladimir Lenin's body have done, Scientific American reports. The Soviet Union founder, who died in 1924, would have turned 145 this week, and his mausoleum closed while the preservation team made improvements to his embalmed body. Their primary goal is maintaining the body's look and feel rather than its original material, Scientific American notes: "They have to substitute occasional parts of skin and flesh with plastics and other materials, so in terms of the original biological matter, the body is less and less of what it used to be," says an expert. That sets the work apart from processes like mummification, he notes, "where the focus was on preserving the original matter while the form of the body changes." Now, in addition to the skin replacements, Lenin has false eyelashes, and instead of skin fat, researchers have molded a combination of chemicals to keep his skin looking the same. The body is re-embalmed using a bath of chemicals in alternate years. Lenin has kept scientists busy: During the period between the 1950s and 1980s, as many as 200 experts had jobs maintaining the body, Scientific American notes. Meanwhile, the image of Lenin remains a potent symbol, as two statues of the leader in eastern Ukraine were knocked down last week in protest of Russia, AFP reports. (Last year, a similar incident led to an auction of Lenin's nose.)
– President Obama had a second high-profile departure to announce today: Press secretary Jay Carney is resigning, reports the Washington Post. Obama called Carney one of his closest friends and advisers, notes NBC News. "Today the flak jacket is officially passed to a new generation," he said, referring to Carney's replacement: deputy press secretary Josh Earnest. "I will continue to rely on him as a friend and an adviser after he leaves to spend as much of his summer as he can with his kids before he decides what's next for him," said Obama. "Whatever it is, I know he's going to be outstanding at it." (We're guessing the folks at Morning Joe won't be sorry to see Carney go, with Mediaite noting that they again criticized him this morning for "insulting" reporters at his daily briefings.)
– A French minister was caught in the middle of an orgy with young boys in Morocco but it was covered up by France, a former French official has charged. French and Moroccan prosecutors have launched a probe into former education minister Luc Ferry's explosive allegations, presented during a TV talk show, the BBC reports. Ferry, a philosopher who was in government from 2002 until 2004, says the "highest authorities of the state," including a former prime minister, informed him of the incident at that time. The pedophile minister was flown back to France and authorities hushed it up, says Ferry. It's not clear what government role, if any, the former minister may be playing now. Ferry refused to name the former minister for fear of running afoul of France's strict libel laws. Rumors of the Moroccan orgy have long circulated in French media circles, notes the Guardian. "All of us here probably all know who I'm talking about," Ferry told fellow panelists during a TV debate. Ferry's allegations come as French society is taking a harder look at the behavior of its politicians in the wake of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's arrest on sex assault charges.
– After years of rumors and false starts, Apple is finally going to launch an online TV service this fall, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cites "people familiar with the matter." The Journal's sources say Apple is in talks to provide a bundle of around 25 channels starting in September, with the service—which would include a huge back catalog, as well as online streaming—available on all Apple devices for $30 or $40 a month. The insiders say NBC has been left out of the talks for now because of a disagreement over the set-top box streaming service Apple was discussing with NBC parent company Comcast last year. Fox and CBS, which are said to be in talks with Apple, declined to comment, the Guardian reports. Last week, Apple and HBO announced that they were partnering on the "HBO Now" streaming service, which will be available starting next month.
– The glacier that spawned the iceberg that sank the Titanic isn't deliberately trying to send thousands more people to watery graves—but it couldn't be doing much better if it was. Researchers say that as the Arctic warms, Greenland's Jakobshavn glacier has become the fastest-moving glacier in the world, hitting speeds of 150 feet per day in summer 2012 and pushing more and more ice into the sea, the Christian Science Monitor reports. The glacier—essentially a river of ice inside the Greenland ice sheet—is moving around four times as fast as it was in the '90s, when it was already one of the world's fastest-moving glaciers. This glacier alone has contributed an extra millimeter to sea levels over the last decade, making the acceleration alarming news. "As the glaciers flow faster, they discharge more icebergs to the ocean, and as you pour more ice into the ocean, sea level goes up and the ice sheet goes down," the lead researcher tells NPR. "So the fact that this glacier is flowing so much faster means it's actually making a much bigger contribution to sea level." Scientists tracking the melting ice have employed an unusual tool—rubber ducks.
– When a skiing accident left her trapped in an icy mountain stream, Anna Bågenholm's core body temperature dropped to an astonishing 56.7 degrees Fahrenheit—and that may just have saved her life. The Atlantic this week printed an excerpt from Kevin Fong's book Extreme Medicine that recounts Bågenholm's incredible 1999 rescue in Norway. By the time a helicopter got Bågenholm to Tromso University Hospital, her heart hadn't beaten in two hours. But the team decided to try to resuscitate her anyway, on the theory that the extreme cold might have preserved her brain. To raise her body the required 42 degrees quickly and safely, doctors extracted her blood with a heart-lung bypass machine and heated it before recirculating it. Miraculously, her heart resumed beating, and 12 days later Bågenholm awoke. At first she was paralyzed, and she cursed doctors for not letting her die. But she'd suffered no spinal damage, only nerve damage, and slowly that recovered. Six years later she was able to ski again, and she's now a doctor at Tromso. "Doctors exploited Anna Bågenholm's profound hypothermia to successfully resuscitate her." Fong concludes. She is "living proof that extremes can cure as well as kill." Bågenholm's case was extensively covered at the time as well; in 2000 she told CBS that "as a medical person, I think it's amazing that I'm alive."
– In what the Washington Post calls a "landmark" case, a federal labor board has just made it easier for workers at fast-food restaurants and other franchise operations to negotiate for better wages and working conditions. The National Labor Relations Board changed a three-decade-old definition about which companies should be called "joint employers," reports Bloomberg. The term now covers companies that use subcontractors or other middlemen operations to supply employees, meaning unions can now negotiate with the parent company as well as the subcontractor that hired them, explains the New York Times. The old rule is "increasingly out of step with changing economic circumstances, particularly the recent dramatic growth in contingent employment relationships," declared the NLRB, which split 3-2 along party lines. The ruling stems from a recycling company that used a temporary staffing agency, but it will be applied to pending cases involving McDonald's. In fact, it "could upend the traditional arms-length relationship that has prevailed between corporate titans such as McDonald's and its neighborhood fast-food franchises," says the Post. The ruling has been anticipated for a while, and the industry says it will fight to overturn it with help from Republicans in Congress.
– Limitless, in which Bradley Cooper plays a struggling writer who takes a pill to vastly expand his brain power, may not exactly be award-worthy—but critics agree it's a fun ride: In the New York Times, AO Scott calls the movie “an energetic, enjoyably preposterous compound—it’s a paranoid thriller blended with pseudo-neuro-science fiction and catalyzed by a jolting dose of satire.” But, he notes, sometimes “the filmmakers seem to have misplaced their supply of coherence pills.” Peter Travers observes that “the plot hits some nasty speed bumps, and the ending is rote. But getting there is terrific,” he writes in Rolling Stone. “Watching Eddie flex his brain cells delivers a kick on par with Spider-Man testing his skills with small skips and jumps until he is leaping across rooftops.” Notes Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times: “Limitless only uses 15%, maybe 20% of its brain. Still, that’s more than a lot of movies do.”
– Sure, the Daily Beast's Tina Brown wants a Newsweek merger because she crazy-hates rival Arianna Huffington, or so claims the Guardian. "We are sooooo busted," laments one AriHuff in a "leaked" IM conversation with one TBrown. "How did they find out we 'simply cannot stand each other?' I thought we’d done such a good job hiding it over the past four decades," AriHuff rejoins in the new media mavens' takedown of the old media. "I truly thought we’d pulled the wool over their eyes when I agreed to contribute to the Daily Beast when it launched,"AriHuff continued, wondering if they "would ever run a piece about two guys’ business strategy being fueled solely by bitch-slap rivalry?" Brown responds: "The male editors around town all must be bosom buddies, because otherwise the Guardian’s crack investigative team would no doubt have exposed them." Ironically, both sites are attracting a growing number of journalists defecting from print media, a Politico profile notes.
– Iran is rattling sabres in the Strait of Hormuz today: Iranian warships have boarded a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship—after firing warning shots, reports Reuters—and ordered it to "divert further into Iranian waters," adds CNN, quoting a US official. The M/V Maersk Tigris was reportedly on a recognized maritime route when the Iranians approached, and the shipmaster "initially declined" the order; the warning shots proved persuasive and the Tigris issued a distress call. The USS Farragut is responding along with aircraft, reports CNN; the closest American warship was 60 miles away. There are no American citizens aboard the Tigris.
– Air Force One is reportedly not to Donald Trump's taste. The president wants a bigger, cushier bed and a "more American" look for his aircraft, now painted what he calls a "Jackie Kennedy color," Axios is reporting. Air Force One last underwent a redesign under the John F. Kennedy administration, which opted for a color scheme of white and blue—JFK's favorite color, reports the Sun. But during a February meeting with Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg about a $4 billion program to replace two 747-200B jets used by the president, Trump reportedly expressed his preference for a red, white, and blue design. Per Axios, this "could cause friction" with Air Force officers who are content with the current paint job "known around the world." Per the Sun, the aircraft is "instantly recognizable" as it's marked by a large American flag. It also bears the presidential seal and reads "United States of America" in large letters. It's unclear how much a revamp would cost; a now-canceled order to replace two refrigerators on the plane was set to cost $23.6 million. Despite Trump's apparent wishes, former White House stenographer Beck Dorey-Stein believes it's the inside of the plane that's most problematic for him, per People. "I don't know how he gets lost, but he does," she writes in a new memoir of one particular flight to Mar-a-Lago. "Air Force One is a beautiful bird, but it's no different from any other commercial 747 in that there's one narrow hallway that takes you from the front to the back." The book is out Tuesday.
– California officials, having concluded coffee drinking is not a risky pastime, are proposing a regulation that will essentially tell consumers of America's favorite beverage they can drink up without fear, per the AP. The unprecedented action Friday by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment to propose a regulation to clear coffee of the stigma comes three months after a judge ordered coffee sellers in the state to warn customers that coffee poses a cancer risk. But “extensive scientific evidence” shows that “drinking coffee has not been shown to increase the risk of cancer and may reduce the risk of some types of cancer,” declared the state office, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. If the regulation is adopted—the first step is a period of public comment—it would be a huge win for the coffee industry. That's because the industry faces potentially massive civil penalties after losing an 8-year-old lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court that could require scary warnings on all coffee packaging sold in California. The state agency implements a 1986 law that requires warnings of chemicals known to cause cancer and birth defects. One of those chemicals is acrylamide, a byproduct of coffee roasting and brewing present in every cup of joe. In March, Judge Elihu Berle found that Starbucks and other coffee roasters had failed to show that benefits from drinking coffee outweighed any risks. Big Coffee didn't deny that acrylamide was found in the coffee, but argued it was only found at low levels and was outweighed by other benefits such as antioxidants that reduce cancer risk. The state office agrees.
– Almost four years after insurance exec Melissa Millan was fatally stabbed on a Connecticut jogging trail, a suspect walked into a police station and confessed to the killing, law enforcement sources say. William Winters Leverett, 27, has been charged with murder and will appear in court Monday, police in Simsbury said in a press release. Police sources tell the Hartford Courant that Leverett, who arrived at the station accompanied by members of his church last week, said he could no longer live with what he had done. The sources say Leverett led police to where he had stashed items he had kept from the crime scene after what was apparently a random attack. Millan, the 54-year-old mother of two children, was stabbed in the chest on a popular hiking trail on the evening of Nov. 20, 2014. Police said six months later, when an anonymous donor offered a $40,000 reward, that they had no suspects. Leverett's landlord, Brian Durso, tells WFSB that Leverett couldn't live with himself any longer. "This young man went to the leaders of the church that I had been associated with and he was, and they made a decision after I think a lot of (tears) and prayer to go to the authorities," he says. Leverett is a registered sex offender who was convicted of sexual assault on a child in Colorado in 2011. He moved to Connecticut the same year.
– "I don’t need to say, ‘I told you so,'" Lisa Bonet tells Net-a-Porter. “I just leave all that to karma and justice and what will be.” The interview published Friday marks the first time the one-time Cosby Show star has spoken publicly about the allegations against her TV dad, E! News reports. “There was no knowledge on my part about his specific actions, but … there was just energy," Bonet says. "And that type of sinister, shadow energy cannot be concealed.” Cosby has been accused of drugging and sexually assaulting over 60 women, USA Today reports. Bonet tells interviewer Sanjiv Bhattacharya that if she knew anything about specific incidents she would have already come forward. "The truth will set you free," she says. Bonet was 16 when she started playing Denise Huxtable on The Cosby Show, and her relationship with Cosby soon grew strained. Not only would she show up late for filming, but the two butted heads over her personal life. Cosby opposed her doing a nude sex scene in the movie Angel Heart and appearing topless in a magazine. Her pregnancy and engagement to Lenny Kravitz was also an issue. Cosby eventually fired Bonet over "creative differences." The legendary comedian is now facing a retrial on some of the allegations against him. Bonet's Cosby Show costars Malcolm Jamal Warner and Phylicia Rashad have come to Cosby's defense.
– Thousands of volunteers have joined law enforcement agencies in the search for Noah Chamberlin, a 2-year-old boy who disappeared while hiking with his grandmother and sister on Thursday afternoon. The grandmother says they were in the woods near their home in Pinson, Tenn., at around 1:30pm when the boy went missing while she was paying attention to his 4-year-old sister, WBBJ reports. In a press release, authorities say Noah is 2 feet tall and around 25 pounds, with blue eyes and blond hair, and was last seen wearing a gray shirt and blue jeans. People in the area have been asked to search homes, outbuildings, and anywhere else a 2-year-old could possibly fit. Searchers say the terrain is difficult but that they're not going to stop until the boy is found. Dogs, volunteers on horseback, and a police helicopter have assisted the search. "Been cold, wet, muddy, lots of hills, lot of hard terrain, lot of swamps, lot of bottoms. I just pray that the boy is good," a volunteer tells WMC. The Chester County sheriff tells the station that there's no reason to suspect foul play. "It is a search and rescue mission," he says. "We have total faith that we're going to find Noah and we're going to bring him home safe." As temperatures started to plummet on Sunday night, volunteers gathered to search through the night in one-hour shifts, reports the Jackson Sun.
– On Friday—his 99th day in office—President Trump did something no sitting president has done in more than 30 years: He spoke at an NRA conference. "The eight-year assault on your Second Amendment freedoms has come to a crashing end," NBC News quotes Trump as saying Friday in Atlanta. The AP reports Trump, who attended the conference last year as a candidate, became the first sitting president to officially address the NRA since Ronald Reagan. Trump told members they now have a president who's a "true friend and champion" of gun rights. Sean Spicer says the speech was a "good way to end an incredible week." Trump used his speech to the NRA to get involved in a congressional race for the first time since becoming president, stumping for Karen Handel in front of NRA members and then attending a private fundraiser for her afterward. Handel is running to replace Tom Price, who is now Trump's health secretary, in Georgia. The Washington Post reports Trump also took the opportunity to revive a derogatory insult he frequently directed at Elizabeth Warren during his presidential campaign. When musing about the 2020 presidential race, he said "Pocahontas" could be the Democratic nominee, and "she is not big for the NRA." Warren has claimed to be part Native American.
– Too many gadgets in the bedroom can kill a couple's sex life, but technology is also changing and, in some cases, improving the way people relate to each other sexually. Below are 10 ways in which technology is transforming the way we think about—or have—sex. Lab-grown vaginas are helping women born with a rare genetic condition called vaginal aplasia have normal sex lives, and scientists are closing in on lab-grown penises. No partner? No problem. You can 3D-print your own sex toys (at UPS, apparently). If you're worried about your sexual prowess, Italian researchers have created a gadget that tracks your movements in bed. The wearable huMOVE device monitors how many thrusts you take before you orgasm—and could help doctors help those with sexual dysfunction. Setting up a video camera was so 1999. In late 2013, some participants at a hackathon in London created Sex With Glass, a Google Glass sex app that promised to "let you see what your partner sees" and allowed you to record a video—which would be deleted after 5 hours. If you prefer your sex tape to resemble a NatGeo documentary, these filmmakers made outdoor porn via drones. On the subject of porn, virtual reality porn does exist, and it "looks a lot like actual sex." As for actual sex, attitudes are changing: A 2014 survey found 17% of us are willing to have sex with a robot. An app called Lick This was created to help people "train" their tongues, and thereby improve their oral sex technique. Georgia Tech students last year created a condom prototype called the "Electric Eel" that delivers electric stimulation. Or if you do want to get pregnant, robot-sperm could soon do the job. Click to read 7 more ways tech has changed sex, or find out what one of the co-inventors of the birth control pill thinks sex will be like in the year 2050.
– At least three people in Florida have now died from a nasty warm-water bacteria called vibrio vulnificus this year, but the latest case should put people outside of Florida on alert, too. That's because the victim contracted it while on vacation in Mississippi, reports Tampa's Fox 13. Florida officials have warned people not to go swimming in the ocean with open wounds, even small cuts, and they also note that eating raw shellfish can trigger an infection. Those unfortunate enough to get one—Florida saw 32 cases last year—can expect swelling, redness, and skin ulcers, but a Florida health official notes that vibrio is "not a flesh-eating bacteria," reports NWF Daily News. Meanwhile, WTSP talks to the mother of an apparent fourth victim, a 26-year-old man who she says got vibrio after swimming near Hernando County's Pine Island Beach. "I'm not telling anyone don't go into the water, just do your due diligence and make sure that you're not going to harm yourself," says Karen Yeager. (A woman on a "mud run" lost vision in one eye from an infection.)
– A manhunt for two university employees wanted in the murder of a Chicago hairstylist ended Friday in California. Wyndham Lathem, 42, a bubonic plague expert who has been an associate professor at Northwestern University since 2007, turned himself in "peacefully" to police in Oakland on Friday evening, NBC News reports. Andrew Warren, 56, a treasury assistant at Oxford University in Britain, surrendered to cops in San Francisco in connection with the death of Trenton Cornell-Duranleau, 26, who was found dead in Lathem's apartment on July 27. The victim died of multiple stab wounds, police said. The men are awaiting extradition to Illinois on first-degree murder charges, CNN reports. On Friday, Chicago police said Lathem sent family and friends a video message apologizing for "his involvement" in the brutal slaying, calling it "the biggest mistake" of his life, per the Chicago Tribune. Police have not released a motive or many details about the murder, but a high-ranking police source tells CNN the "victim was savagely ... mutilated" in Lathem's upscale apartment. Police recovered a broken blade believed to be the murder weapon. They said it was unclear if Warren knew the victim; the Brit was just three days into his first trip to the US when the murder occurred. An odd twist: On the day of the killing, one of the suspects walked into the public library in Lake Geneva, a Wisconsin resort town about 90 minutes northwest of Chicago, and made a $1,000 cash donation in Cornell-Duranleau's name, the Tribune reports.
– When Andrew Hanson heard his son, Karson, cry for the first time, "it was like he knew that we needed to hear him," he tells the Today Show. The new father grabbed the man who’d just delivered his son safely, Dr. Bryan Hodges, and both men dissolved into tears in an image that's since gone viral. Karson's birth was bittersweet: The year before, the joy of the Hansons' first son's birth ended in tragedy, making Karson what's considered a rainbow baby, explains WWBT—a birth that follows a miscarriage or newborn death. This time around, mom Amanda says she felt the presence of her firstborn in the delivery room. The Hansons had suffered fertility issues for two-plus years before getting pregnant, but despite a normal pregnancy baby Klayton wasn’t breathing when he was born. By the time he was resuscitated, Klayton was brain dead; He died six days later. "We tried to fit a world of love into that little short time. We just got as much time as we could," Amanda says. Now four months old, Karson is healthy and happy. His middle name? Klayton. "Looking at Karson, I try to imagine where Klayton would be at this point and some days it just hits me like a ton of bricks that he’s not here," says Amanda. "I just wish he was." (A woman in Pennsylvania recently had her own miracle birth.)
– The only thing more mysterious than the identity of the couple who stumbled upon an estimated $10 million in US gold coins while walking their dog on their California property: Where did the gold come from? The San Francisco Chronicle floats a theory with all the intrigue and illegality you could hope for: Historian/coin collector/fishing guide Jack Trout provided the paper with a passage from the Bulletin of American Iron and Steel Association that references a $30,000 turn-of-the-century gold heist from the San Francisco Mint that he believes is linked to the coins. Lending credence to the theory: The unearthed 1,427 gold coins, dated 1847 to 1894, were mostly uncirculated and in chronological order, suggesting they hadn't entered the public realm. And though they are worth millions today, their face value is $27,000, which roughly syncs with what was taken from the mint. Trout also points to the buried stash's 1866 Liberty $20 gold piece not emblazoned with "In God We Trust"; he suspects it was a private coin created by a mint manager that never left the mint. "For it to show up as part of the treasure find links it directly" to the mint heist, he says. But the couple's coin broker is no fan of the mint robbery theory, telling the Chronicle he'd expect the haul would have included coins dated closer to the heist date. But a former SF Mint detective sees it as plausible: "Downstairs, we had vaults where we kept old coins that hadn't been put into circulation." PJMedia further digs up a 1906 congressional report that indicates mint clerk W.N. Dimmick was convicted of the mint theft, but the document doesn't state whether Dimmick revealed the coins' location, or if they had been recovered. ABC News notes that if the coins are indeed purloined government property, the couple may owe Uncle Sam more than a heck of a lot in taxes: They may have to turn over the entire haul, and get a finder's fee in return.
– Robin Williams' children are fighting his widow in court over how to divide his belongings—and one of the exhibits in the court battle reveals that Williams protected the use of his image in what the Hollywood Reporter calls an "innovative, cutting-edge" way that "just might become a model for other celebrities preparing for their demise." As part of the Robin Williams Trust, Williams bequeathed the legal rights to his name, image, likeness, and signature to a charitable foundation his own legal reps had set up. The Trust decrees that Williams' "right of publicity" won't be exploited for 25 years after his death, meaning that the first time you might see an authorized ad featuring the comedian is 2039. It also means you won't be seeing, at least not immediately, a holographic Williams' stand-up routine a la Michael Jackson or Tupac. "It's interesting that Williams restricted use for 25 years," says one estate-planning expert. "I haven't seen that before. I've seen restrictions on the types of uses—no Coke commercials, for example—but not like this." Meanwhile, Time notes, a "peaceful conclusion" looks to be in store for the aforementioned court battle: Williams' kids and widow agreed yesterday to private mediation, as well as a transfer of various items in the near future. (Meanwhile, daughter Zelda has posted a statement on Tumblr.)
– Edward Albee can no longer be considered America's greatest living playwright. The 88-year-old, whose most famous works include A Delicate Balance and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, died Friday at his home in Montauk, New York. Albee, a three-time Pulitzer winner, was famous for challenging audiences with his works, starting with 1960's The Zoo Story. "All art should be useful," he once told NPR. "If it's merely decorative, it's a waste of time. You know, if you're going to spend a couple of hours of your life listening to string quartets or being at plays or going to a museum and looking at paintings, something should happen to you. You should be changed." Albee was put up for adoption within weeks of his birth in Virginia in 1928 and ended up with the owners of a chain of vaudeville theaters, the New York Times notes. "They didn’t want a writer on their hands. Good God, no," recalled Albee, whose path to becoming a playwright included expulsion from Hartford's Trinity College, moving to Greenwich Village during its heyday as a creative hub, and what he described as failure in all other branches of writing. Albee's partner of 35 years, sculptor Jonathan Thomas, died in 2005. The AP reports that before surgery several years ago, Albee wrote this statement, to be issued on his death: "To all of you who have made my being alive so wonderful, so exciting and so full, my thanks and all my love."
– The last message sent by 14-year-old Madison Coe before she was electrocuted in the bathtub shows the tragic mistake that killed her. "When you use and (sic) extension cord so you can plug your phone in while you're in the bath," the teen from Lovington, NM, wrote to a friend, sending a picture of the cord connection on top of a towel. But despite the precautions, Madison was apparently unaware that there was fraying on part of the cord, NBC 12 reports. Officials say she was killed after touching a frayed section while she was in the water. Investigators believe her phone was never immersed in the water. According the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Lovington Police Department, the cord had been plugged into a non-grounded outlet with no circuit-interrupting safety mechanism, the New York Daily News reports. Family members released her final message to help raise awareness of the danger. Her father, firefighter and EMT Logan Coe, tells Inside Edition that Madison often took her phone into the bathroom to listen to music while she was in the tub. "Whenever I talked to Madison about it, she said, 'Dad, it's outside the tub,'" he says. A GoFundMe campaign to help the family has now raised more than $20,000.
– More than one in 10 US children between the ages of 5 and 17 have been diagnosed with ADHD, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of Clinical Psychology. That means about 5.8 million kids have the most commonly diagnosed mental disorder for US children. The study looked at surveys of more than 190,000 kids between 2003 and 2011, Reuters reports. It found diagnosis rates rose 43% over that time to the point 12% of US children were diagnosed with ADHD in 2011. But that's a "good thing," according to Healthline. "Some people would look at that and say we’re just diagnosing too many kids,” an American Academy of Pediatrics spokesperson says. “I see that some of it is encouraging in many kids who have been under-diagnosed in the past may now be getting diagnosed.” ADHD was historically mostly diagnosed in white boys, Reuters reports. But the study found diagnosis rates for girls rose 55% between 2003 and 2011. “It is possible that female adolescents may have different forms of verbal aggression than male adolescents," study co-author Sean Clearly explains to Healthline. “It’s not particularly surprising if you have teenagers." Similarly, diagnosis rates rose for older teens (52%), Hispanic children (83%), and black children (58%). Researchers don't believe more kids actually have ADHD than they did in 2003 and are less worried about possible over-diagnosis than children who need help not getting it. According to Healthline, increases in diagnosis rates mean more kids who need medication have access to it, allowing them to do better in school.
– Last year, Lydia Johnson is said to have blown $90,000 at the MGM Grand Detroit casino, which would be a lot of your own money to lose, let alone someone else's. And a chunk of it was allegedly someone else's. Macomb County authorities say the 29-year-old Dakota High School teacher handled cash as the student activity coordinator. Based on 2016 homecoming dance attendance records, school officials and authorities say $30,000 or so should have come in, yet the the Detroit Free Press reports Johnson only deposited $11,000 into the school's homecoming account. Prosecutor Eric Smith said in a release that empty envelopes believed to have held homecoming cash were found in her classroom, with casino receipts nearby. Meanwhile, Johnson deposited just $500 for a student-parent trip to Tamarack Camps that should have brought in about $13,000. School officials uncovered things were amiss after Tamarack Camps started trying to collect money it was owed; the school then contacted the sheriff's office. Per WJBK, MGM Grand Detroit records indicated Johnson spent more than $90,000 on penny slots during 2016. Smith says when her personal bank account was examined, it showed deposits that would have been far and above what she made as a math and Spanish teacher at the school. Johnson was placed on administrative leave in early May, with the grand total she's accused of stealing running close to $32,000, the Detroit News reports. She now faces a felony charge of embezzlement from a nonprofit, which could earn her 10 years in prison if she's convicted.
– On Nov. 22, 1956, Erie, Pennsylvania, got buried by 20 inches of snow, reports CNN. That record was crushed on Christmas Day, when 34 inches covered the city ... and then kept falling. By 6am Tuesday, the total snowfall clocked in at 53 inches, which the National Weather Service tweeted is a state record for a two-day period; the previous record, from 1958, was the 44 inches that fell on Morgantown. And the lake-effect snow that brought the huge dump is set to continue through 4pm Wednesday, reports TribLive, with as much as another 16 inches coming. The paper notes the Christmas Day snowfall was so great it came close to besting Erie' record for the most snow in seven days: 39.8 inches that fell between Dec. 27, 2001, and Jan. 2, 2002. As one 28-year-old who said he had already shoveled his mother's driveway three times tells NPR, "It might be the last time I wish for a white Christmas."
– Does President Obama play favorites with the press? A new study shows certain media outlets getting a healthy dose of attention at news conferences, while others—notably Fox News—receive less, Politico reports. Smart Politics finds that Fox is "still shunned" at the events; its reporters, the study says, are called on just half as frequently as ABC, CBS, and NBC. Fox gets called on in less than 40% of pressers. Indeed, ABC comes out on top, getting called on 29 times in the president's first term; CBS is second, the AP third, and NBC fourth. Meanwhile, Fox News comes in ninth, called on 14 times. That, however, beats quite a few other major news sources, including the Washington Post, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal. Among the least-called-on? Time, the Hill, and the Washington Times, to name a few of those with only one question to their name. Head to Smart Politics for the full list.
– The retired British couple who was released yesterday after a year held hostage by pirates who seized them as they sailed the ocean in their yacht opened up about their ordeal, saying one of their most difficult parts was being severely beaten when they refused to be separated during their captivity. "We were really distraught, we were very frightened at that point," said Rachel Chandler, 56. She and her husband were held in harsh conditions in intense heat in Somalia throughout their captivity. Paul Chandler said the two were still relatively healthy, though "rather skinny and bony," reports the BBC. Details of any ransom paid were not revealed, though it's believed to be close to $1 million. The pirates initially demanded $7 million for their release. A payment of some $430,000 last summer failed to free the couple. "Throughout the protracted discussions with the pirates it has been a difficult task for the family to get across the message that these were two retired people on a sailing trip on a small private yacht and not part of a major commercial enterprise involving tens of millions of pounds of assets," said a statement issued by the couple's family.
– By 20 months of age, many infants are capable of a wide range of skills, from throwing a ball and using a toilet to stringing words together and finding objects. But researchers report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they now have evidence of babies doing more than gathering skills and knowledge—they're capable of something called metacognition, or as Donald Rumsfeld famously put it, they're aware that there are "known unknowns." What's more, they turn to caregivers when they realize they don't have an answer for something—as the researchers write, "They consciously experience their own uncertainty." To study this, researchers at the Ecole Normal Superieure in Paris developed a non-verbal memory test to get around the fact that most infants aren't yet verbalizing the inner workings of their minds. Gathering 80 Parisian parents and their 20-month-olds, the researchers prompted the babies to remember the location of a toy hidden beneath one of two boxes after a three- to 12-second delay, reports the Atlantic. Turns out they turned to their parents for help as the problem got harder—e.g., after a longer delay, or if hidden behind a curtain. And in doing so, they guessed correctly more often. "Children are capable of learning and questioning from an extremely young age," reports Time. "This means engaging the child, not just plonking him in front of a screen. It means that even when you're playing with your baby, he or she is learning about learning." (Check out why babies smile.)
– John Boehner was a late addition to Fox News Sunday today, and painted a two-step deal as the only alternative left. "It's not physically possible to do all of this in one step," Boehner told Chris Wallace, advocating a short-term fix through early next year; President Obama has vowed to veto any deal that doesn't extend to 2013. "I know the president is worried about his next re-election, but, my God, shouldn’t we be worried about the country?" Boehner said. The speaker said he'll put forth a plan based on the House's Cap, Cut, and Balance plan, and said Republicans are "prepared to move on our own." He added that his last offer to the White House of $800 billion in revenue was "still on the table." Elsewhere on the Sunday debt-ceiling dial, as per Politico: Tim Geithner floats new grand plan: "Both of those are on the table," he said of the so-called "grand bargain" and the McConnell backup plan being advanced in the Senate. "Now, they could be combined in various forms." Tim Pawlenty thinks Obama is 'chicken:' "If you're the leader of the free world, would you please come to microphone and quit hiding in the basement about your proposals, and come on up and address the American people? Is he chicken?" Bill Daley on a two-step deal: "The president's position is: Yes, let's move forward. If there's two steps, fine. But do not have a step in the second part that lets the political system once again show its dysfunction. Get this ceiling put off until after the election." Tom Coburn on Obama's veto threat: "I think that's a ridiculous position because that's what he's going to get presented with. That's the... way through that's going to build a compromise."
– Viral videos can entertain, surprise, and, in this case, get a McDonald's worker fired. A disturbing NSFW clip recorded by a customer at a Detroit Mickey D's shows an employee working the drive-thru window, luring a homeless man he calls Willie over by holding up a sandwich and saying, "I'm about to help you," then dousing him with a cup of water when Willie approaches and reaches for the food. "Why'd you do that?" a stunned Willie asks before walking away. The video, posted Friday, has more than 660,000 views and caught the attention of the restaurant's owner, who confirmed the employee has been canned, the Detroit Free Press reports. "I expect my employees to treat everyone with dignity and respect, and this was unacceptable," the franchise owner says in a statement. "This individual no longer works for my organization." Reuters notes the LiveLeak version of the video includes the caption "Videographer states that he did this as payback because the panhandler had earlier argued with a McDonald's customer." That cameraman—in the car where laughing can be heard off-camera—tells a WWJ reporter he's now sorry he put the video up. "They were … arguing with each other and that's what was funny to me," he says. Residents are outraged, with a local bishop telling the Free Press that the worker's actions were "cruel," while the CEO of a nearby homeless center calls it "unconscionable," adding, "To me, it comes from a place of ignorance, not really having compassion for other people's plight." The director of the Homeless Action Network of Detroit agrees. "I like to tell my staff that we're one missed paycheck away from homelessness," she tells the Free Press. Detroit police are searching for Willie to see if he wants to press assault charges, Reuters notes. (A McDonald's worker in Chicago, meanwhile, pulled off an extraordinary act of kindness.)
– Thing are getting downright personal in the GOP race. A sampling of some of Friday's remarkable back and forth and between Marco Rubio and the new team of Trump-Christie, via the New York Times, the Hill, the Los Angeles Times and Mother Jones: Trump: "It's Rubio!" he said while holding up a water bottle, dumping some on stage, and pretending to guzzle from the bottle, all to mock Rubio's penchant for getting thirsty in the spotlight. Here's the video. Rubio: “He was having a meltdown,” he said of Trump during commercial breaks of Thursday's debate. “He was applying makeup around his mustache, because he had one of those sweat mustaches.” Trump: “You had to see him backstage. He was putting on makeup with a trowel. I don’t wanna say that. I will not say that he was trying to cover up his ears. I will not say that. He was just trying to cover up—he was just trying to cover up the sweat that pours … Did you ever see a guy sweat like this?” Rubio: In explaining why Trump had a full-length mirror backstage: “Maybe to make sure his pants weren’t wet. I don’t know." Trump: “I honestly thought he was going to die. ... He was so scared, like a little frightened puppy, and he kept saying the Obama phrase over and over," referring to Rubio's reaction of Christie's criticism during an earlier debate. Rubio: "A tough guy? This guy inherited $200 million, he’s never faced any struggle." Christie: "Part of his talking points now is to be entertaining and smile a lot now,” he said of Rubio. “Listen, it’s one act after another.” Rubio: He mocked Trump for misspelling "choker" as "chocker" in an anti-Rubio tweet. One problem? Rubio said this: "He spelled choker C-H-O-K-E-R. Chocker," accidentally spelling it correctly. Peanut gallery: “I think Emily Post would be totally just turning in her grave right now,” a 52-year-old woman at a Rubio rally in Oklahoma City tells the New York Times. “Anyone can say anything."
– Barnard’s Star, a red dwarf star located in a solar system about six light-years away from Earth, may have some company. Researchers of the “exoplanet-hunting” group Red Dots have detected a planet—some 3.2 times the Earth’s mass and very cold—orbiting the star, Smithsonian reports. Their findings were published in Nature on Wednesday. “We firmly believe the object is there,” says lead researcher Ignasi Ribas. “We always have to remain a bit cautious … but we were sure enough that we were willing to go forward with publication.” The planet, Barnard’s Star b, is the second-closest exoplanet (a planet outside of our solar system) to Earth, per USA Today. Researchers looked at two decades worth of data from seven different telescopes to pick up the planet, according to Forbes. As for the possibility of life on Bernard’s Star b, the planet is "way too cold” to sustain liquid water, Ribas says, and whether life may be frozen beneath an ocean is just speculation at this point. During the course of their study, Smithsonian notes, researchers found faint evidence of another planet, which would be Barnard’s Star c. Several decades ago, scientists believed that they had detected planets around the star. However, those ended up being the result of an instrument problem. (Last year, scientists found the smallest possible star.)
– Ukraine has elected a new president, and it's the man they call "The Chocolate King." Petro Poroshenko made billions in the candy industry before becoming a leading figure in Ukrainian politics. Here's what we know: He's distinctly pro-European—at his victory speech he appeared alongside Vitali Klitschko, the former boxing champ who started the street protests that deposed President Viktor Yanukovych, the New York Times points out, and he's vowed to sign the European trade deal Yanukovych spurned. In his victory speech, Poroshenko also said he would push for early parliamentary elections this year, a concession to Yanukovych critics who said that replacing the president wasn't enough. But Moscow doesn't hate the guy; Poroshenko has business interests in Russia, and has served in pro-Russian governments before. Russia's foreign minister says Russia is "ready for dialogue" with Poroshenko, and that Vladimir Putin would respect the election results as the "will of the Ukrainian people," the BBC reports. Yet US Senator Kelly Ayotte, who was in Ukraine to observe the elections, accused Russia of breaking its pledge not to interfere with the vote—separatists in the east largely prevented voting there. "We know this was Russia," Ayotte said, calling for more sanctions. Poroshenko has avoided involvement with Kiev's interim government, but he's no newcomer to politics. "He is very much a figure of Ukraine’s failed past — dysfunctional governments, outsized oligarchs and epic corruption," observes Jackson Diehl at the Washington Post. One Poroshenko voter put it this way: "It's like choosing the best from the worst."
– If it looked like Jesse Jackson Jr. was on track to getting his bipolar depression under control and heading back to Congress, this might suggest otherwise: The Chicago-Sun Times says Jackson is returning to the Mayo Clinic for treatment because constant media scrutiny made progress in Chicago impossible. Despite his struggles, the Hill thinks he will still win re-election next month. All this comes on the heels of a Wall Street Journal report saying Jackson is under investigation for allegedly using campaign money to decorate his house.
– In the latest turn in the Charlie Gard saga, a London hospital says it will not turn off life support for the brain-damaged baby as it seeks a new court opinion, the New York Times reports. The about-face came Friday after the hospital received "claims of fresh evidence" for an experimental treatment. Two international hospitals approached 11-month-old Charlie's doctors to propose a new therapy "and we believe … it is right to explore this evidence," Great Ormond Street Hospital says. Charlie's parents say an experimental treatment in the US could help the infant, who suffers from a rare genetic disorder with no cure. The London high court that approved unplugging Charlie and forbade his transfer will reconsider the case on Monday, per the BBC. The hospital's decision came even as doctors there still believe the boy has "catastrophic" brain damage and that treatment would be "futile." Great Ormond did not identify the hospitals, but one in New York City—New York Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Irving Medical Center—offered to treat the child after his parents' pleas went global. The Vatican and President Trump also pledged support. Charlie's parents pinned their hopes to an unidentified US neurologist who proposed trying nucleoside therapy, which helped a boy with a less severe form of the same disease. It has never been tried in someone with Charlie's form of TK2 syndrome, and even the doctor who pitched it concedes its efficacy in Charlie's case was only "theoretical" and the results unknown, per the Times. "There’s around a 10% chance of this working for Charlie," mom Connie Yates says, without citing evidence.
– US-Iranian relations have been tense lately—and by "lately" we mean for more than three decades—but the election of moderate Hasan Rouhani may have changed all that. President Obama has been exchanging letters with Rouhani in recent weeks, the LA Times reports, and officials say it's possible the two will meet on the sidelines of the next UN General Assembly in two weeks. US and Iranian officials are also quietly working up to the first face-to-face talks between the nations since the Islamic Revolution. Both sides have been more cordial in public as well. Obama made a point of listing Iran as a potential ally in controlling Syria's chemical weapons in a recent interview, pointing out that Iran "detests" chemical weapons, having been on the receiving end of them in the Iran-Iraq war. (Naturally, he didn't mention the US' role in those attacks.) Rouhani, meanwhile, has been eschewing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's anti-Western bluster and Holocaust denials—he even sent a tweet wishing Jews a happy Rosh Hashanah. Another sign the new administration may be different: Iran's new envoy to the UN nuclear agency says he will cooperate with the agency to "overcome existing issues once and for all," Reuters reports. He also, however, said Iran won't give up its right to produce nuclear energy.
– Spirit Airlines customers were not happy when as many as nine flights were canceled Monday night at Florida's Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport—in fact, they were so unhappy, police had to be called in. Video posted by onlookers and witness reports detail a massively chaotic scene, complete with yelling customers and physical altercations, though the official word from the Broward County Sheriff's Office to ABC News is simply that "several people" were "upset" and that the sheriff's office was called in to make sure things didn't get "very unruly." Three people, however, were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, WSVN reports. "I saw two people go down on the floor and get … handcuffed and dragged out of here," one onlooker says. Per the sheriff's office, no injuries were reported. Video shows lines out the door of the terminal; one customer says they were told they wouldn't be able to get a flight out until Wednesday, while another says three of their flights had been canceled by Spirit and they had already had to spend one night in an airport. The flight cancellations come amid a dispute between Spirit and its pilots. The pilots say they're working without a contract, CBS News reports, but Spirit says the pilots are taking putting their "quest for a new contract ahead of getting customers to their destinations." The airline calls the move "unlawful labor activity" and an "illegal slowdown" of operations, though it denies an actual strike. More than 150 of the airline's flights have been canceled over the past few days, and Spirit has now filed a lawsuit against the Airline Pilots Association, hoping a court will intervene.
– Scott Brown's victory is less than 2 days old, and a potentially embarrassing photo of the senator-elect and his daughters is already flying around cyberspace. Ayla—the older, taller, American Idol-competing, Boston College basketball star—wears a scallop-shell bikini top. Arianna—the blonde, un-"available" Syracuse student—wears what appears to be a super-elaborate lei. Given Scott Brown's post-election "pimping out" of his daughters, Animal New York blogger Cajun Boy finds the photo pretty creepy. To see pics of Arianna palling around with a horse—passed along, like the bikini photo, by a "tipster"—click here.
– One of the still-jailed members of Pussy Riot has declared a hunger strike, RIA Novosti reports, after a Russian court denied Maria Alyokhina access to her own parole appeal. She had been participating via video, but when denied transportation to the courthouse, she refused to keep participating and prohibited her defense team from continuing to represent her. The Guardian reports that Alyokhina had been required to fax in all her motions, which meant the hearing was regularly paused. She made her hunger strike declaration at the end of today's hearing; proceedings are scheduled to continue tomorrow. "Let the troika sitting here—the judge, the prosecutor, and the colony employee—decide my fate," she said. Alyokhina was sentenced to two years in prison last year for the punk band's performance of an anti-Putin song; two other band members were also sentenced, but one has since been released.
– Two major studies of common cancers have zeroed in on the particular gene mutations associated with both, a breakthrough that could lead to better treatment for those with acute myeloid leukemia and endometrial cancer, reports the Boston Globe. But the studies also lend credence to a broader idea: that our traditional way of defining cancer by the organ in which it originates is outdated, reports the New York Times. Instead, it might be time to start thinking of cancer in terms of genetic mutations. In the latest studies, for example, researchers were surprised to discover that the worst endometrial tumors of the uterine were remarkably similar to the worst forms of breast and ovarian cancer. That raises "the tantalizing possibility that the three deadly cancers might respond to the same drugs," writes the Times' Gina Kolata. This emerging approach is called "precision medicine," notes the Wall Street Journal. The theory has been around for a while, but the new research under the sprawling Cancer Genome Atlas project seems to validate it. "It is very rewarding—I can't overstate it," says one expert not affiliated with the work.
– An Australian artist has been buried alive with a bucket and a book, but don't worry—they plan to dig him out Sunday. More than 3,000 people watched Thursday as Mike Parr, 73, descended a ladder into a 25-foot-square box under a road in Hobart, Australia, for a performance piece called "Underneath the Bitumen the Artist," the New York Times reports. The confinement was billed as a memorial to victims of totalitarian violence and British colonialism in Australia, notes ABC News Australia, but many assumed it was about local Aboriginal Tasmanian history being buried—particularly the 19th-century Black War in which British settlers nearly wiped out Indigenous Tasmanians. And that sparked a few fighting words. "It is a bit insulting, really," says Tasmanian Aboriginal Center CEO Heather Sculthorpe, per Pedestrian. "If they have any interest in telling the Aboriginal story then they should have put it out there for Aboriginal people to do it." But an Aboriginal activist called Parr "courageous" and said that "we support this bloke." Meanwhile, Parr sits below Hobart traffic with his thermos and a microphone that lets his team monitor his breathing. The apparent risk is old hat for Parr, who in past works has nailed his arm to a wall, sewn his mouth shut, and stayed in a glass cage for 10 days with only water to survive. But what if he never emerges from this one? "I haven't thought of that," he says. "No, no, no, I'm coming out definitely. I have all sorts of performance plans." (National Geographic admits its past coverage of Australian Aboriginals and others has been racist.)
– An adjunct professor in New Jersey says she was suspended by the administration because of an appearance on Fox News, the Star-Ledger reports. Lisa Durden was scheduled to teach courses on speech and popular culture at Essex County College in the fall but was informed June 8 she had been indefinitely suspended. "They did this to humiliate me,'' Durden says. "Essex County College publicly lynched me in front of my students.'' Two days earlier, she had appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight to defend a Black Lives Matter event. According to Mediaite, it didn't go well, with Carlson calling Durden "demented" at one point. Durden says officials told her she was suspended because she associated herself with the college during the appearance. But Inside Higher Ed reports that at no point did Durden mention her position at Essex and even specified she was "speaking for Lisa Durden." It wasn't her first appearance on Fox News, and Durden believes someone called the college to complain about her comments and the administration caved. On Tuesday, Carlson was supportive of the decision to suspend Durden, calling the idea of her teaching children "insane." Durden's colleagues are trying to get her reinstated, and an online petition has more than 1,000 signatures. "I find it shocking that an African-American woman would be so disrespected at her place of employment for merely exercising her First Amendment right to free speech,'' one Essex professor says.
– Lonely stoners have a new option for finding fellow tokers: Seshroulette, a random video-chat site similar to Chatroulette but for marijuana smokers. Promising enjoyable "seshes with randos," Seshroulette is officially only for users of medical marijuana, but it's populated with potheads from around the country. The Daily Beast's Brian Ries tried it and ended up connected to Amanda from Austin, Texas. The site keeps locations anonymous except for city, and Amanda didn't seem bothered by the possibility of authorities trying to track her down. (It's not legal in Austin.) "Nah, no one will find out about it and, like, make a big deal out of it,” she told Ries when he asked. “I mean I don't think that would happen. Everyone loves weed :)"
– Scientists at the University of Virginia were able to control the brains of living mice using magnetic fields, essentially harnessing the power of mind control, according to a study published this week in Nature Neuroscience. Researchers created a synthetic gene—dubbed Magneto, obviously—that is sensitive to magnetic fields and put it into a handful of mice, a university press release explains. Ars Technica reports scientists then created a magnetic field to simulate a dopamine-like response in the genetically altered mice—basically the mice felt as happy as if they had just been given a treat. “This is, to our knowledge, the first demonstration of bona fide magnetic control of the nervous system,” Ars Technica quotes the researchers as saying. Until this newfound power is hijacked by a super villain, scientists hope to use it to study how the brain works and test out "magneto-genetic" therapies for people with brain disorders. Ali Deniz Güler, the study's lead author, called their results a "dream tool." In the immediate future, researchers can use it to figure out what pathways in the brain do what in terms of feelings and behaviors, IEEE Spectrum reports. In the future, it could be used to control neural networks that aren't functioning properly, potentially treating conditions like schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease. (Dogs apparently mastered magnetic fields long ago, using the one created by Earth for pooping.)
– Sudden GOP frontrunner Herman Cain defended his 9-9-9 tax plan on the talk show circuit today, shooting back at critics who say it would jack taxes for the poor, middle class, and elderly. "There are invisible taxes that are built into everything we buy," said Cain, adding that his plan replaces those "with a 9% visible tax." If people "do the math on their individual situation, I believe more are going to see it's advantageous." Questioned by David Gregory, Cain reaffirmed his February statement that liberals want to "destroy this country" by stunting the business sector, and said that Occupy Wall Street should take their grievances to the White House's door. Cain also shot back at critics questioning his wife's absence from the campaign trail, saying that Gloria Cain "is maintaining the tranquility of (our) family life," and "will be visible at some point, but it'll be based upon when we want her to be visible, not when the powers that be or the media wants her to be visible." Elsewhere on the Sunday dial, as per Politico: John McCain on Obama and creating jobs: “It’s time the president came off the campaign trail, sat down and negotiated with us [on areas of] common ground." McCain on Iran: “I think his policy of engagement with Iran has clearly been a failure. It’s time the American people were told by the president of all of the activities that the Iranians have engaged in." David Axelrod on Mitt Romney: “There’s a question about where his core principles are." Axelrod hammered Romney as a onetime "pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-environment candidate for office and then he decides to run for office and did a 180 on that … time and time again, he shifts.” Newt Gingrich on Cain's 9-9-9 plan: "If Herman figures out how to do it all right and if he can explain a 9% sales tax so people decide they want it, he has a good chance to be the nominee. "If, however, in New Hampshire, for example, where they have no sales tax at all and no mechanism for collecting it ... it gets to be a lot harder sale." Gingrich on his competitors: “Perry was the natural alternative to Romney and, if Perry had a flawless campaign, he would’ve been the nominee."
– The brother of Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng has followed in his younger brother's footsteps and fled their closely guarded village in Shandong province, reports AP. Chen Guangfu has made his way to Beijing with the help of supporters, and is now seeking legal advice on how to protect his son from what he believes is retaliation from local officials infuriated by the activist's escape from house arrest last month. He says he managed to elude village guards by avoiding roads and running through fields. Chen Guangfu's son was arrested and accused of attempted murder after using a knife to fend off officials who had entered his home and were beating his mother after his uncle's escape. His father says he is "extremely pessimistic" about his son's prospects. Asked for his thoughts about his brother's new life in the US, the elder Chen said he should bring his family over to take a look. "So many people have said bad things about the United States. Someone even said he was like a dog that was kicked out of the US embassy," he tells Reuters. "But ultimately, he ended up in America. So I think the criticisms aren't justified."
– Baseball announcers mocked a group of sorority students in the crowd this week and got a slice of humble pie for their effort, Jezebel reports. As described by SB Nation and Sporting News, Arizona Diamondbacks announcers Bob Brenly and Steve Berthiaume mocked a group of female students from Alpha Chi Omega at Arizona State University for taking selfies during the game Wednesday. "That's the best one of 300 pictures I took of myself today!" says one, followed by this exchange: "Every girl in the picture is locked into her phone." "Oh, Lord." "Every single one is dialed in. Welcome to parenting in 2015." As it happens, the two minutes of shaming occurred during a T-Mobile Fan Photo promotion that was about getting fans to snap photos during the game and send them in for use during the broadcast. Lo and behold, the students were offered free tickets for the next game. Here's an excerpt of their response on Facebook: "We appreciate their generous offer of tickets to tonight’s game. However, instead of chapter members attending the game, we have asked the Diamondbacks and Fox Sports to provide tickets to a future game for families at A New Leaf, a local non-profit that helps support victims of domestic violence. Today, October 1, marks the beginning of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. If everyone who viewed this statement took the time to make a donation in recognition of domestic violence awareness, which is Alpha Chi Omega’s national philanthropy, we would be so grateful!" For more, see SB Nation's rundown of reactions from people in the sports world who were outraged to see the announcers mock the students.
– He called himself Count Victor Lustig. Others knew him as "the smoothest con man that ever lived" and a "top man in the modern world of crime." After all, he did sell the Eiffel Tower. And his counterfeit US banknotes were so authentic that authorities were concerned they could "wobble international confidence in the dollar." But the true identity of Lustig, who died of pneumonia in 1947 after a stint in Alcatraz, may never be known, writes Jeff Maysh in his book Handsome Devil, an excerpt of which is in Smithsonian. In 2015, a historian from Lustig's purported hometown of Hostinné (in what is now the Czech Republic) failed to find any evidence that "the world’s most flamboyant con man" was ever born. Lustig, Maysh writes, became a criminal early on, "progressing from panhandler to pickpocket, to burglar, to street hustler." Later, he moved to the US and graduated to bigger scams, making himself a millionaire in the process. Some highlights: Lustig dressed well, was charming, and spoke five languages. He was no over-the-top "bogus count," the New York Times once wrote. After reading a newspaper article about the Eiffel Tower needing repairs in 1925, Lustig passed himself off as a government official and convinced scrap metal dealers to bid on buying it. (Lustig got one payday off the scam and nearly pulled it off twice, notes TodayIFoundOut.) Lustig, who traveled with a trunk of disguises, wrote the 10 Commandments of the Con, which included: "never look bored," "never boast," and "never get drunk." It all came to an end in 1935 when Lustig was arrested (or re-arrested after escaping the "inescapable" Federal Detention Center in Manhattan) on charges related to counterfeiting. Read the whole story here.
– Sri Lanka is looking for a new hangman after its latest recruit quit in horror at his first sight of the gallows. The country's prison commissioner says the man was "shocked and afraid" after seeing the gallows after a week of training, reports the BBC. He is the third hangman to quit in the space of the year. "Next time, we will show the gallows to the new recruits before giving them basic training," the commissioner tells Reuters. Whoever gets the job will be mostly doing clerical work: The country hasn't executed anybody since 1976, though there are more than 400 inmates on death row.
– Fires blazed across London as riots continued unabated into a third night in Britain's capital city and even beyond. Metropolitan Police's Twitter feed says that more than 225 people have been arrested, but the official response is coming under fire and one pub manager tells the BBC that the scene is "an absolute war zone." The latest: British PM David Cameron cut short a vacation in Italy, and was returning home overnight, notes NPR. He'll meet with his emergency response team first thing. Over at the Atlantic, Rebecca Greenfield parses the role of the BlackBerry in the spread of the riots, noting that the device is hugely popular in the UK, and BlackBerry Messenger allows much more private messaging. RIM is said to be cooperating with police in figuring out whether the BlackBerry played a role in organizing. London's 2012 Olympics loom large over the riots, notes the AP. "You can imagine how stretched the police would be if this were to occur during the Olympics," says an expert. British police were calling off soccer matches and many public events, reports the AP, because, as one club was told, "of the need to focus police resources elsewhere." Egyptian bloggers are watching the events in London, and giving their two cents, notes the New York Times. One take: "Egyptians and Tunisians took revenge for Khaled Said and Bouazizi by peacefully toppling their murdering regimes, not stealing DVD players."
– The Navajo Nation has been shaken by the nightmarish murder of an 11-year-old girl who was kidnapped along with her 9-year-old brother. Authorities say the body of Ashlynne Mike was found in a remote area near the Shiprock monument in northwest New Mexico on Tuesday, the day after a stranger lured her and her brother into his van after school, the Arizona Republic reports. Her brother told authorities Monday evening that the man walked into the hills with his sister and returned alone. He ran toward a highway when he saw the man coming back and was eventually picked up by somebody who took him to police. A frantic search for Ashlynne followed. "He was so tired and just crying and crying for his sister. It was really hard for the FBI to get any information from him," the boy's aunt tells the AP. On Tuesday night, hours after the girl's body was found, the FBI announced that Tom Begaye, 27, had been arrested in connection with the murder. Relatives say the family did not know Begaye, who allegedly tried to get other children into his van, saying he wanted to take them to a movie. Shawn Mike, father of a boy who refused to get into the suspect's van, tells the Albuquerque Journal that the siblings lived with their father, Gary. "I just can't imagine what the individual said or did to lure them into the vehicle," he says. "I know Gary, he's a good father and taught his kids well." He says the horrific killing should teach the community two things: "I think it's really important to remind our children everywhere not to talk to strangers," he says. "And most importantly to tell them that we love them."
– The man who stands accused of impregnating the 10-year-old daughter of his girlfriend—and consequently igniting a firestorm of controversy over Paraguay's refusal to allow the child an abortion—has been arrested after more than two weeks on the lam. And as the AFP reports, 42-year-old Gilberto Benitez offers up an unlikely and unscientific defense: "I will do any (paternity) test to show it wasn't me. I've been with tons of women, and I never got anybody pregnant." Benitez was apprehended some 125 miles from Asuncion, Sky News reports, where the girl lived. He blames the girl's mother for setting him up; if convicted, he faces 15 years in prison. If photos of Benitez are any indication, police weren't exactly gentle in his capture. Click for more on the case.
– The last top-level meeting between North and South Korea took place 11 years ago, and tensions have since "risen dramatically," per the Los Angeles Times. And so South Korea is offering an olive branch ahead of this week's summit, silencing the speakers it uses along the border to spew K-pop tunes, weather reports, and other propaganda. South Korea's Defense Ministry said muting the speakers in the Demilitarized Zone was done to "ease military tensions and create a peaceful mood for the meeting," per the New York Times. "We hope that our move today will result in South and North Korea ending mutual slandering and propaganda against each other and creating a peaceful new beginning." South Korea says the speakers—which have annoyed the North so much in the past they've been shot at, per CNN—were turned off early Monday, per the BBC. Loudspeakers have been used by both sides as propaganda producers along the border, although the South's are said to be much louder and more powerful than the North's. Using the speakers to tamp down the cult of personality around North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been a main goal of the South; one tactic both sides engage in is to use the speakers to try to cajole soldiers to cross over to the other side. Although the speakers were muffled after the first summit in 2000, they were plugged back in as the relationship between the two nations worsened, a deterioration exacerbated by the North's nuclear tests. South Korean officials say the North is expected to also turn off its loudspeakers as a gesture of goodwill this time around. The summit in the border "truce village" of Panmunjom reportedly could result in the formal ending of the Korean War.
– One of the world's biggest PR firms pitched anti-Google stories to newspapers and bloggers in what appeared to be an attempt to smear the search giant. Who could have hired them: Apple? Microsoft? Turns out it was Facebook, as a spokesman for the company confirmed last night. The bizarre move escalates the war between the two companies, and makes Facebook—which previously seemed "so invincible"—look "clumsy" and "a little bit afraid," writes Dan Lyons in the Daily Beast. Facebook's main beef with Google appears to be Google's use of Facebook data in its own new social networking operation. Facebook hired Burson-Marsteller, which has worked with both Bill and Hillary Clinton in its 58-year history, to do the dirty work. Two Burson flacks, former reporters both, pushed negative stories about Google's foray into social networking to multiple outlets, claiming Social Circle, a tool that lets Gmail users see info about their friends and their friends' friends, violated privacy. USA Today looked into the privacy claims, wasn't convinced, and accused the PR firm of spreading a "whisper campaign." Lyons thinks Facebook's "pious handwringing" about privacy might be a "smokescreen. What really seems to be angering Facebook is that some of the stuff that pops up under 'secondary connections' in Google’s Social Circle is content pulled from Facebook," he writes, concluding that the whole incident is simply "embarrassing" for Mark Zuckerberg & Co. Click for his full piece.
– Police searched woods, divers searched ponds, and a sketch of an apparent suspect spread across social media. All this in the 60 hours after Charisse Stinson reported her 2-year-old son missing early Sunday, claiming he'd been taken by a man who offered her a ride before knocking her unconscious. But there was no "Antwan" in a white Toyota Camry with dreadlocks and gold teeth, according to police, who arrested 21-year-old Stinson on first-degree murder charges Tuesday, reports the New York Times. Hours after Stinson told Spectrum News she was "a damn good mom," the body of Jordan Belliveau was discovered in a wooded area behind a baseball field in Largo, Fla., and police say his pregnant mother admitted to putting him there, per the Tampa Bay Times. Stinson said she struck the boy in the face, causing his head to hit a wall, "during a moment of frustration" after an "unexplained, serious injury" to his right leg, per an arrest affidavit. After the boy suffered repeated seizures, Stinson brought him to the wooded area Sunday and departed without him, police say. Describing Stinson as a "struggling single mother," police on Monday had noted that bloody items in her apartment might've been from an accident that required Jordan to get stitches. Despite that, "we honestly knew it was her because of her past with us," an uncle of the boy tells Fox 13. Per Spectrum News, Jordan was put in foster care at 3 months old but returned to Stinson in May. An autopsy of the boy is scheduled for Wednesday.
– Airport authorities aren't willing to see the hilarious side of jokes about Ebola right now, a passenger flying from Philadelphia to the Dominican Republic discovered yesterday. After the coughing and sneezing passenger declared "I've been to Africa"—early reports said he yelled "I have Ebola!"—the plane was held on the tarmac for more than an hour after landing while emergency workers in hazmat suits removed the passenger from the plane, reports Fox. "I ain't from Africa," he protested as he was taken off the plane. "I think the man that has said this is an idiot," a flight attendant says in video of the incident, ABC reports. The passenger, who pleaded that he had only been joking, was booed by fellow passengers as he was removed, reports TMZ. An airport spokeswoman says that the airport had to take all precautions, though the incident turned out to be just a "joke of poor taste." Authorities determined that the man, who is being returned to the US, didn't have Ebola and hadn't been to Africa.
– After serving 10 months of a five-year sentence for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, Oscar Pistorius is about to start doing time in his uncle Arnold's house, which Reuters reports has "more than a dozen bedrooms, a private gym, outdoor swimming pool, and landscaped garden." Prisons are overcrowded in South Africa, and prisoners are routinely released a sixth of the way into their sentences. Pistorius will have to wear an electronic tag as he serves the rest of his time on "corrective supervision" in the luxury home. "It's more like mansion arrest," a security guard on the uncle's street in a Pretoria suburb tells Reuters. Pistorius is expected to leave prison Friday and will be able to leave his uncle's house to work. He apparently plans to work with disadvantaged children and is unlikely to run competitively anytime soon: CNN reports that the International Paralympic Committee has banned him from competing until after his full sentence expires, meaning the next Olympics he can take part in will be in 2020, when he will be 33 years old. His future may also hold more time in prison. Prosecutors filed papers yesterday to have Pistorius' culpable homicide conviction in Steenkamp's death converted to a murder conviction, which carries a minimum 15-year sentence, reports the BBC.
– To maximize your productivity, you should probably be spending a lot more time not working. At least, that is, according to a study that finds we should take 17-minute breaks after every 52 minutes of work. The idea, the Muse reports, is to treat those 52-minute work periods "as sprints," while during the breaks, "we’re talking completely dedicating yourself to not working," Julia Gifford writes. Her team used an app called DeskTime, which keeps track of what workers are doing, to determine the habits of the highest-achieving 10% of employees studied. Researchers have long said that the human brain isn't designed for eight straight hours of focusing, Fast Company reports. And sitting for eight hours isn't good for us either, the Muse notes. Instead, we should take breaks—and actually get away from our computers, perhaps taking a walk, talking with coworkers, or getting a healthy snack. If your boss isn't cool with 17-minute breaks, 5- or 10-minute breaks could be helpful, too, Gifford writes. (Speaking of all that sitting, here's how to walk back the damage it's doing.)
– Vladimir Putin has freed famous oil-tycoon-turned-Kremlin-critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, after announcing he would do so yesterday. Putin signed a pardon that allowed for Khodorkovsky's release today on the basis of "the principles of humanity," reports the BBC, which confirms Khodorkovsky left prison after eating lunch. Putin's foes have long held up Khodorkovsky's prosecution and imprisonment as examples of his abuse of power. (The BBC has a profile of Khodorkovsky here.) Yesterday, Putin said he'd never freed him because until now, he hadn't asked, the BBC reports. "He has already been in detention more than 10 years, this is a serious punishment," Putin pointed out. "He is referring to humanitarian circumstances as his mother is ill." But Khodorkovsky, his mother, and his lawyers all denied that he'd requested the pardon, Reuters reports, and he had previously said that such a request would essentially be an admission of guilt. The initial news came a day after Russia's lower house passed an amnesty bill that could free as many as 25,000 prisoners—possibly including the jailed Pussy Rioters and Greenpeace protesters, the New York Times reports. Both moves are widely seen as attempts to deflect international criticism ahead of the Sochi Olympics. Khodorkovsky's release is also "good for the investor perception of Russia," one analyst told Bloomberg, and indeed Russian stocks rose 1.3% on the initial news.
– Only a handful of ancient Mayan temples rise above a dense jungle of trees in Guatemala. But what's obscured by the thick foliage, revealed for the first time, is evidence of a sprawling civilization to rival ancient Greece or China. Using LiDAR technology (Light Detection And Ranging), which measures wavelengths from laser pulses aimed at the ground, scientists digitally removed the jungle to reveal more than 60,000 previously unknown Mayan structures like palaces, fortifications, farms, irrigation systems, and raised highways connecting nearly all ancient cities across 800 square miles in northern Guatemala, report Live Science and National Geographic. "We'll need 100 years to go through all [the data] and really understand what we're seeing," says researcher Francisco Estrada-Belli. But already it's apparent that the civilization has been "grossly underestimated," says archaeologist Thomas Garrison. The new data show a civilization twice the size of medieval England at its peak 1,200 years ago. And though population estimates previously hovered around 5 million, expansive irrigation and terracing systems and wide highways indicate there might've been "10 to 15 million people there—including many living in low-lying, swampy areas that many of us had thought uninhabitable," Estrada-Belli says. Walls, fortresses, and ramparts also suggest war was "large-scale and systematic" and "endured over many years" not just "toward the end of the civilization," says Garrison. One of the coolest discoveries, however, was a 100-foot pyramid in the heart of the city of Tikal, which was previously assumed to be a small mountain, reports Reuters. More discoveries are likely to be made as scientists plan to map 5,000 square miles of Guatemala's lowlands during the ongoing project. (The Maya parried one collapse before the fatal blow.)
– Kyle Plush managed to call 911 twice from the third-row seat of the van in which he had become trapped on April 10, using Siri to place two calls from the phone in his pocket. The 16-year-old suffocated in the parking lot of Cincinnati's Seven Hills School, and on Monday the City Council's Law and Public Safety Committee was presented with the findings of an investigation into the teen's death and discussed them publicly. Police Chief Eliot Isaac, his investigators, and technical staff were the ones sharing the findings, reports WLWT. The most looming question, per the Cincinnati Enquirer: "whether 911 operators and police officers responded appropriately to Kyle's two calls for help." The report concluded 911 operations and police did act appropriately, but the report cites technical and personnel failings that produced the failed response. "We failed to get the outcome we wanted in this emergency response," said Mayor John Cranley. The investigation found that the two officers who responded to the 911 calls erred in turning off their body cameras 3 minutes into their 14-minute search, reports Fox 19. Isaac said the officers drove through lots looking for Kyle over the course of those 14 minutes; that included the lot where he was trapped. They at no point exited their vehicle, a decision they said was made in order to cover the most ground and because the lots were crowded due to school just ending.
– If Rush Limbaugh doesn't want to absorb some of the cost of female contraception as a health insurance consumer, others are wondering: Why should we pay for Limbaugh's Viagra? "We know" Limbaugh "has used Viagra, which is covered by medical insurance plans," Dr. Nancy Snyderman points out on MSNBC. Limbaugh was detained in 2006 by Customs agents for a mislabeled bottle of the little blue pills crossing the border from the Dominican Republic. Limbaugh said at the time that they were for his personal use, even though a prescription for them was made out to his physician to "protect" his privacy, “given the potential embarrassing nature of Viagra," according to a note from Limbaugh obtained by the Smoking Gun. Snyderman also notes that Limbaugh has been married four times, and has no children, so "I assume he has used some form of contraception." (Limbaugh also entered rehab for an addiction to pain pills, which may or may not have been paid for by health insurance). Limbaugh said last week that Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke's support for insurance coverage for contraception amounted to a demand for payment for sex, calling her a slut and prostitute.
– Donald Trump apparently doesn't have NBC's vote. This, from the company today: "At NBC, respect and dignity for all people are cornerstones of our values. Due to the recent derogatory statements by Donald Trump regarding immigrants, NBCUniversal is ending its business relationship with Mr. Trump." The Miss USA pageant will not air on NBC on July 12 as previously scheduled, reports CNN. That pageant, along with Miss Universe, had been jointly owned by NBC and the GOP candidate, NBC News reports. The AP notes that Trump has said he will no longer appear on The Apprentice; per NBC, Celebrity Apprentice will continue without him. The news followed the creation of a petition that was asking for this very thing, and had garnered more than 215,000 signatures as of NBCUniversal's announcement. "I grew up wondering if Rachel and Ross would stay together, my favorite psychiatrist would finally have a relationship, and trying to figure out if George was really the master of his own domain," Guillermo Castaneda Jr. wrote in his Change.org plea to the network to cancel the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, as well as Trump's Celebrity Apprentice. "I watched show after show in the good and the bad times. … Which is why I am wondering as to why the Latinos are being treated as second class citizens."
– "He who represents himself has a fool for a client," according to an old saying that Jared Fogle isn't doing much to disprove. The former Subway pitchman, who is serving a 15-year sentence for child pornography and child prostitution, has filed a bizarre appeal arguing that the judge who has presided over his case is biased because she has two teenage daughters, the Indianapolis Star reports. "It is the opinion of a 'reasonable party' that Judge Tanya Walton Pratt has demonstrated she is prejudicially biased to the Defendant Jared S. Fogle, and should in facts and law, recuse herself from these proceedings," Fogle writes in the filing, one of several self-written legal documents he has submitted in recent months. Fogle—whose crimes involved teenage girls being illegally photographed and a teenage prostitute—has also argued that Pratt wrongly allowed prosecutors to charge him with conspiracy, WTTV reports. After Fogle pleaded guilty in 2015, Pratt handed down a sentence harsher than the maximum 12.5 years prosecutors had agreed to in a plea deal. Last year, a federal appeals court upheld the sentence as reasonable "in light of the district court's sound exercise of discretion under the disturbing facts of this case." Fogle is required to serve at least 85% of his sentence, which he is serving at a low-security federal prison in Colorado. (In 2016, Fogle sued the parents of one of his victims, arguing that they were the ones responsible for her emotional distress.)
– The strongest earthquake to hit Ecuador in decades flattened buildings and buckled highways along its Pacific coast, sending the Andean nation into a state of emergency. As rescue workers rushed in, officials said the damage stretched for hundreds of miles. The magnitude-7.8 quake was centered on Ecuador's sparsely populated fishing ports and tourist beaches. Vice President Jorge Glas later that at least 235 were confirmed dead, with another 1,557 injured, reports the AP. He said there were deaths in the cities of Manta, Portoviejo, and Guayaquil—all several hundred miles from where the quake struck shortly after nightfall. He said the quake was the strongest to hit Ecuador since 1979 and accessing the disaster zone was difficult due to landslides. "We're trying to do the most we can, but there's almost nothing we can do," said Gabriel Alcivar, mayor of Pedernales, a town of 40,000 near the epicenter. Alcivar pleaded for earth-moving machines and rescue workers as dozens of buildings in the town were flattened, trapping residents among the rubble. He said looting had broken out but authorities were too busy trying to save lives to re-establish order, reports the AP. "This wasn't just a house that collapsed, it was an entire town," he said. President Rafael Correa declared a national emergency and rushed home from a visit to Rome. Ecuador's Risk Management agency said 10,000 armed forces had been deployed. The USGS originally put the quake at a magnitude of 7.4 then raised it to 7.8. It had a depth of 12 miles. At least 36 aftershocks followed, one as strong as 6 on the Richter scale, and authorities urged residents to brace for even stronger ones in the coming hours and days.
– Tufts University students who'd crammed for their last tests of the year found out they got some extra study time after a car fire and bomb threat resulted in the college shuttering multiple buildings and putting off finals Monday morning, the Boston Globe reports. "All morning activities, including final exams, are postponed," read an email sent to Medford/Somerville campus staff and students around 9:35am, asking staff to return home and students to stay inside their living quarters; the school's Twitter account has likewise been posting instructions and updates. The email added that a decision about afternoon exams would be made "pending reopening of the affected buildings," including those listed in a "suspicious" note, Tufts confirmed shortly after 6:30am Monday. The school went into postponement mode after police and fire officials checking out the reported car fire at the university's health center found the handwritten note taped to the health center's door, the Washington Post reports. The note stated there were bombs in four buildings on campus, and, per NECN, a senior VP at the school says the message made reference to the school custodial staff. The site adds it's not clear if that reference is in regard to an ongoing labor dispute between administrators and the school's custodial staff, which has been upset about a reduction in their working hours and other changes to their work duties. The janitors' union sent out a statement saying it condemned "the violent actions," while a student labor group that has supported the janitors also denied involvement. Sophomore Evan Sayles, who works for the Tufts student newspaper, was one of those students studying for finals in a residence located near the car fire when he "heard a series of loud bangs" around 4:30am, ran outside with his camera, and took pictures of the burning car and the note. (Tufts was in the news a few years back for canceling the annual Naked Quad Run.)
– If you haven't heard of the paranoia fest known as Jade Helm 15 yet, yesterday's announcement from the Pentagon might seem a little weird: It swears it doesn't plan to take over Texas and impose martial law. A spokesman felt compelled to officially tamp down those rumors, explaining that Jade Helm is a military exercise that "poses no threat to any American's civil liberties," reports Politico. From July 15 to Sept. 15, thousands of troops will converge on the Southwest for the massive exercise, which has spawned all kinds of colorful conspiracy theories. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott didn't exactly suppress the concerns by ordering the Texas State Guard to keep an eye on things to safeguard the "constitutional rights" of Texans. And today, Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas demanded that the Pentagon change the map being used for the exercise, which shows Texas shaded in red to designate "hostile" territory, reports Talking Points Memo. "The tone of the exercise needs to be completely revamped so the federal government is not intentionally practicing war against its own states," he explains. A fellow Republican, who just happens to be chair of the House Armed Services panel, has a different view: "These are incredibly capable, patriotic Americans, and the notion that they're going to be some sort of private army for the president to take away all our guns is just silly," Rep. Mac Thornberry tells the Dallas Morning News.
– The latest victim of Chicago's surge in gang violence is just seven years old. Heaven Sutton died after being shot in the back at a candy stand her mom set up two weeks ago to help keep neighborhood kids close to home and away from gang crossfire, reports the Chicago Tribune. "She looked forward every day to opening up the candy store, and for somebody just to come take her life, it's not right," says her mother. Heaven, she says, had just had her hair done ahead of a family trip to Disney World to reward her for good grades. Heaven's mother believes the shooter was targeting somebody in the crowd near the stand. She had hoped gangs would stay away from a place meant for kids, but they "really didn’t even care," she says. "They killed my baby." Homicides in Chicago are up 38% this year and Heaven is the 253rd victim. Asked about the shooting, an angry Mayor Rahm Emanuel said, "This is not about crime. This is about values. Take your gang conflict away from a seven-year-old. Who raised you?" ABC reports. "Stay away from the kids!" he said.
– A new book gives an in-depth look at the Obama White House as officials made momentous choices about the war in Afghanistan—and author Rajiv Chandrasekaran sees some major missteps. Among them: Despite former top Afghanistan adviser Richard Holbrooke's expertise on ending wars—he played a role in peace deals for Vietnam and Yugoslavia—other aides couldn't stand to have him around, in large part thanks to a personality that included a "thirst for the spotlight," Chandrasekaran writes in an excerpt printed in the Washington Post. Other top advisers went out of their way to sideline him—even attempting to fire him, a move halted by Hillary Clinton—as he pushed for a negotiated solution to the conflict. The "staggering cost," according to the author: "The Obama White House failed to aggressively explore negotiations to end the war when it had the most boots on the battlefield." Elsewhere, the book takes issue with Obama's troop surge, revealing that the president intentionally skipped over a CIA memo suggesting the 30,000 extra troops hadn't provided much improvement on the ground, according to the AP. Joe Biden strongly opposed the potential 40,000-strong surge, citing serious flaws with an Iraq-style counterinsurgency effort. Click through for a lengthy excerpt.
– After more or less conceding the Florida gubernatorial race to his Republican opponent, Democrat Andrew Gillum is now reportedly ready for a recount. On Wednesday, with tens of thousands of votes still uncounted, Gillum tweeted, “I’m looking forward to seeing every vote counted,” per the Tallahassee Democrat. Although, as NBC notes, he has not explicitly requested a recount, Gillum did say Thursday that his campaign is prepared for one. As of late afternoon local time, Republican Ron DeSantis held a lead of 38,613 votes, per the AP, which is a margin of 0.47%. If DeSantis’ lead remains below 0.5 percentage points when the first unofficial count is verified on Saturday, a mandatory recount will be triggered. And state officials appear to be preparing for that possibility (a recount in a Florida Senate race also is anticipated). “The recounts will be nationally watched,” Secretary of State Ken Detzner reportedly told election supervisors during a morning conference call, adding that Florida will be “under a microscope.” Speaking via Facebook Live on Thursday, Gillum said, “This is extremely hard. But, you know what, the fight for progress, the fight for change, the fight for what it is we want, it’s hard." As for DeSantis, he told reporters, per the Tampa Bay Times, that he is “looking forward to serving,” adding, “we’ll let the lawyers do what they got to do, but we’re good. (The fate of Florida's racing dogs is unclear.)
– This probably wasn't the focus Rolling Stone was going for when it ran a profile on Serena Williams headlined, "The Great One." Nonetheless, attention has centered on one controversial comment that comes toward the end of its lengthy article, made by Williams in reference to the Steubenville rape case as she watches the news: "Do you think it was fair, what they got? [Two high school football players were found guilty of rape.] They did something stupid, but I don't know. I'm not blaming the girl, but if you're a 16-year-old and you're drunk like that, your parents should teach you: Don't take drinks from other people. She's 16, why was she that drunk where she doesn't remember? It could have been much worse. She's lucky. Obviously, I don't know, maybe she wasn't a virgin, but she shouldn't have put herself in that position, unless they slipped her something, then that's different." Williams' follow-up statement, posted on her website: "I am currently reaching out to the girl’s family to let her know that I am deeply sorry for what was written in the Rolling Stone article. What was written—what I supposedly said—is insensitive and hurtful, and I by no means would say or insinuate that she was at all to blame." A few reactions to the initial quote: This is different than, say, an outburst at the US Open, which Williams has refused to apologize for in the past, writes Chris Chase in USA Today. "Williams can’t hide behind a cheap call or aggressive umpiring. She went too far. If she doesn’t know it yet, she’ll know it soon enough." On Vulture, Margaret Hartmann calls Williams' opinion "breathtakingly insensitive," and highlights this tweet, from journalist Jamil Smith: "Pro tip for @serenawilliams or others discussing rape: if 'I'm not blaming the girl, but...' exits your mouth, stop there. There is no 'but.'" At Jezebel, Katie JM Baker keeps it simple: "Whyyyyyyy." On Salon, Katie McDonough goes with "clueless."
– Ever wonder what would happen if Jon Stewart and Roger Ailes went for a beer? According to Ailes, the two actually did meet in a bar once—and the Daily Show host "basically admitted he's a socialist," said Ailes. The Fox News chief, speaking at his alma mater, Ohio University, described Stewart as a comedian who "wouldn't do well without Fox," Mediaite reports. The only difference between Fox and CNN or MSNBC, Ailes told the audience, is that "Fox invites liberal voices to engage in dialogue." MSNBC is "out of the news business," said Ailes, who also laid into the Associated Press, which he said "tips to the left," and the New York Times, which he called a "cesspool of bias" with reporters who are "a bunch of lying scum," reports the Huffington Post. Asked why he believed he could run Fox News, Ailes said, "One thing that qualifies me to run a journalism organization is the fact that I don’t have a journalism degree."
– Dominique Strauss-Kahn's old job has been filled, but supporters waking to the news that the sexual assault case against him is collapsing have a new one in mind for him: president of France. Before his arrest, the former IMF chief was considered a leading contender to unseat Nicolas Sarkozy in next year's election, and his allies are now urging the Socialist Party to put its primary process on hold until he returns to France, reports AP. "I am a happy man, happy for him and for our country,” former Socialist culture minister Jack Lang tells the New York Times. "“You can’t play with the honor and dignity of someone. His life was temporarily broken, his honor put into question." The news is "like a thunderbolt," says former Socialist leader Lionel Jospin. Other French politicians, however, note that the case against Strauss-Kahn is ongoing and it may be too soon to pop the champagne.
– Despite being derided as "trash" and a "glorified yard sale," the belongings of infamous mob kingpin James "Whitey" Bulger fetched more than $109,000 at auction Saturday, the Boston Globe reports. According to Bloomberg, the US Marshals Service was selling the items—seized during Bulger's capture in 2011 after 16 years on the run—to benefit his victims. More than 250 "mafia history enthusiasts" and others turned out to bid. The items included a rat-shaped pen holder (fetched $3,600), the white bucket hat Bulger was wearing when he was arrested ($6,400), the newspaper he was reading right before his capture ($500), and a replica of the 1986 Stanley Cup Champions ring ($9,100). That ring was the only belonging Bulger fought with authorities to keep. But the auction also included more mundane items, Reuters reports. A punching bag, a floor safe, books on WWII with Bulger's handwritten notes, and a collection of sneakers ("You can walk in Whitey's shoes," says the auctioneer). A "lumpy old couch" was bought for $35. Left out of the auction were Bulger's toiletries, underwear, and Nazi memorabilia. The money brought in at the auction, combined with $800,000 in cash Bulger had on him during his arrest, is still far short of the $25 million he owes his victims. Nevertheless, authorities were glad to be rid of his belongings. "We hope this will finally be the end of the Whitey Bulger saga here in Massachusetts and for the city of Boston," one official tells Bloomberg. The 86-year-old former mob boss is currently serving two life sentences.
– Isabelle Dinoire has died 11 years after receiving a new mouth, nose, and chin in the world's first partial face transplant, the Guardian reports. She was 49. The procedure was seen as a medical breakthrough at the time, notes the AP. Dinoire died in April, but her death wasn't announced until Tuesday, as the French woman's family originally hoped to keep it private. The BBC reports Dinoire had been happy with the results of the transplant but not with the international attention it brought her. The announcement of her death mentioned only a long illness, but the BBC reports Dinoire died from cancer, to which she was vulnerable because of the immunosuppressants needed to keep her body from rejecting her new face. The Guardian reports Dinoire wanted "to forget" her problems when she took sleeping pills in 2005. When she came to, she went to light a cigarette only to discover her pet dog had chewed off her mouth and nose. She believed her dog was trying to save her. Dinoire's injuries were too severe for facial reconstruction, leading to the groundbreaking surgery. "I have a face like everyone else," the AP quotes Dinoire as saying a year after her surgery. "A door to the future is opening." But it wasn't easy. Getting used to the inside of a new mouth, for example. "It was soft," the Guardian quotes Dinoire as saying. "It was horrible." And she had lost partial use of her lips last year as her body continued to reject the new face. Nearly 40 face transplants have been performed since Dinoire's operation. (This hand transplant recipient regrets having surgery.)
– The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search just paid dividends in the hunt for ever-bigger prime numbers, the New Scientist reports. University of Central Missouri mathematician Curtis Cooper has discovered the biggest prime number yet, a 17 million-digit behemoth, as part of GIMPS. The project uses a huge network of volunteer computers as part of the search for Mersenne primes, a rare type of prime number first noted in the 17th century. The number—2 raised to the power of 57,885,161 minus 1—is more than 4 million digits longer than the previous record holder, which was found in 2008, LiveScience adds. So what is the giant number good for? Large primes can be used for online encryption, but mathematicians say it's mostly about the thrill of the hunt. "People enjoy it for the challenge of the discovery of finding something that's never been known before," the computer scientist who created GIMPS says. Cooper also wins $3,000 for the discovery, but a bigger payday looms. The Electronic Frontier Foundation will award $150,000 to the person who finds a prime with 100 million digits; a one billion-digit find returns a $250,000 prize.
– Michele Bachmann has jumped into the new mommy war, proclaiming that stay-at-home moms know the economy the best. She blasted Democrat Hilary Rosen's gaffe that mom-of-five Ann Romney has "never worked a day in her life" as "shocking and insulting." Not only does her experience qualify Romney to comment on the economy, but she might have a better understanding of it than Mitt, Bachmann suggested on Meet the Press yesterday. "When women are home full-time they have a better pulse on the economy,” Bachmann said, noting that because the moms buy groceries and get gas, they're often the first to notice rising prices. New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand emphasized that the presidential election "is not going to be about Ann Romney or Hilary's remarks. What this election is going to be about is which candidate fights for America’s women.” But Bachmann, who hasn't yet endorsed a GOP candidate, insisted: "On every measure women’s lives are worse under President Obama than they would be under Mitt Romney." She pointed out that Romney "knows how to turn around businesses," and requoted a much-challenged fact stated by Mitt Romney that 92% of the people who have lost jobs have been women—a figure Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called "ridiculous."
– Having a depressed parent can take a toll on a child in any number of ways, and a comprehensive new study suggests a tangible one: lower school grades. The study led by researchers at Philadelphia's Drexel University found that kids whose mothers were diagnosed with depression had GPAs about 4.5 points lower than their peers at age 16, while kids with depressed fathers were about 4 points behind, reports NPR. The effect was especially pronounced for daughters whose mothers were depressed, notes Philly Voice: Those teen girls scored 5.1 points lower. The study looked at the grades of more than 1 million students in Sweden and cross-referenced them with their parents' mental health records; Sweden was used because records were easier to assess there. "One of the interesting things that we did observe was that even if parental depression occurred before the child was born, that was still associated with school performance when the child was 16," says Drexel researcher Brian Lee. The researchers don't get into the reasons why parental depression might hurt their kids' grades, though an epidemiologist at Columbia University Medical Center notes that a parent in this situation isn't going to make it to an appointment with a teacher, for instance, or have the energy to talk to their kids about problems in general. "Diagnoses of parental depression may have a far-reaching effect on an important aspect of child development, with implications for future life course outcomes," write the researchers in JAMA. (A TV star shut down his fat shamers by telling his own story of depression.)
– Bad news, boys. A Georgia man has set the "unique wedding proposal" bar very, very high. In a video that has received more than 5 million hits on YouTube in a matter of days, Ginny Joiner sits in a movie theater watching what she thought was a pre-film trailer ... but turned out to be video of boyfriend Matt Still asking her father for her hand in marriage—and then racing to the theater to propose. Still, 30, says he's amazed that so many people have seen the proposal. “We posted it just so our friends and family who couldn’t be in the audience could see it. It just spread," he tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Joiner—who said yes—says she expects the wedding to be as memorable as the proposal. "I have no clue what we’re going to do,” she says. “Everybody has these high expectations!" (Click here to see another very unusual marriage proposal.)
– For a retired speaker of the House, John Boehner has had a lot to say lately. Over the past couple of weeks, he's likened Ted Cruz to Lucifer and bragged about the House GOP's victory against ObamaCare, and now he's moved on to his next target: Hillary Clinton. Speaking Thursday at the SALT investment conference in Las Vegas, Boehner touched on the FBI's probe into Clinton's private email server and made mention of a possible alternative for the Democrats if Clinton has to drop out of the presidential race, the Hill reports. "Boehner says he 'would not be surprised at all' if Clinton 'has to withdraw' and [Joe] Biden 'parachutes in,'" tweeted CNN correspondent Phil Mattingly, whose Twitter timeline was filled with plenty of other juicy Boehner quotes from the SALT speech. Boehner was on a rip-roaring roll, dissing Bernie Sanders ("he's an old curmudgeon"), Elizabeth Warren ("I don't need a nightmare while I'm awake"), and, naturally, Ted Cruz ("Thank God the guy from Texas didn't win"). He also begrudgingly threw his support behind Donald Trump, noting Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee "whether people like [it] or not," even though he conceded he doesn't agree with Trump on much policy-wise. "Anybody who doesn't think Donald Trump can win, just watch," he warned, shortly after he took a long, awkward pause when asked why current Speaker Paul Ryan would want Trump as the nominee. But despite his loquaciousness, Boehner is still glad he's out of the fray. "Every day I read the news, I'm [reminded] of how happy I am that I'm not in the chaos," he said.
– A Florida cop is out of a job following the less-than-brilliant decision to bring targets with Trayvon Martin's image to on-duty shooting practice. As CNN reports, Sgt. Ron King of the Port Canaveral Police Department brought a couple of the targets—which he apparently purchased online—to an April 4 training session and offered them to fellow officers, who declined. He was fired Friday after an internal review; a Canaveral Port Authority spokesman calls King's action "unacceptable," and says an apology to Trayvon's family is in the works. "Whether his act was hatred or stupidity, none is tolerable," he tells WFTV. The Martin family is unamused, and issued this statement via their lawyer: "It is absolutely reprehensible that a high-ranking member of the Port Canaveral Police, sworn to protect and serve Floridians, would use the image of a dead child as target practice. Such a deliberate and depraved indifference to this grieving family is unacceptable." King had a little more than two years on the force; he has seven days to appeal.
– Liberals are just a wee bit unhappy with the deal President Obama struck to increase the debt ceiling. The Progressive Caucus and the Black Caucus will hold a press conference today to announce their opposition to the deal, Raw Story reports. Black Caucus Chairman Emanuel Cleaver delivered the real money quote yesterday, telling Roll Call that based on early reports, the pact looked like “a sugar-coated Satan sandwich.” Rep. Cleaver stood by the quote in an MSNBC interview, saying the bill was “antithetical to everything the great religions of the world teach, which is take care of the poor, take care of the aged.” He said he still needed to review the details, “but on the surface, it looks like a Satan sandwich.” Nancy Pelosi meanwhile darkly hinted that “We all may not be able to support it, or none us may be able to support it.” But Washington Post sources say Pelosi is just firing a warning shot past a dismissive White House, and won't actually block the bill.
– In what some are calling one sign of an improving economy, if at the expense of newlyweds, a new survey by The Knot finds that the average cost of a US wedding jumped to $31,213 last year, marking a five-year high when adjusted for inflation. In its eighth report, the wedding site reveals in a press release that when it came to the 16,000 brides and grooms married in 2014 and then surveyed, most couples split that bill evenly with the bride's parents: On average, each footed 43% of the bill, with the groom's parents chipping in 12%. In fact, only 12% of couples paid for their weddings themselves. And sticking to the budget is apparently tough: 45% of couples didn't manage to do so (another 23% didn't even make a budget). As for the dress, brides spent an average $1,357. The survey also found that the most expensive place to wed was Manhattan, where the average price tag was $76,328 (which is actually down almost $10,000 from the previous year), while the least expensive was Utah, where weddings cost less than half the national average at $15,257. Couples are spending more per head, too, as the average guest list shrunk from 149 in 2009 to 136 in 2014. On the subject of marriage and money, according to a February Redfin survey, 38% of millennials say they have or intend to put off marrying so they can afford to buy a home, reports Bloomberg Business. MarketWatch notes the average wedding price happens to be $92 less than a 15% down payment on a $208,700 home—the country's median price last quarter. (Check out some of the celebrities who perform at weddings.)
– As brutal fighting continued for control of Syria's largest city, a furious Leon Panetta vowed that the regime's assault on Aleppo would be a "nail in the coffin" of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Some 200,000 residents have fled the besieged city as rebels battle to hold off government troops, reports the BBC. Several were huddling in schools and other public buildings in a bid to escape the violence, reports CNN. Many are fleeing to other towns, or over the Turkish border; Jordan has also opened an emergency refugee camp to house Syrians fleeing violence. The Syrian regime claimed late yesterday to have taken control of a district of the city of 2.5 million, but Reuters reports several communities in Aleppo were still dotted with rebel checkpoints. If the government troops "continue this kind of tragic attack on their own people in Aleppo, I think it ultimately will be a nail in Assad's own coffin," Panetta told reporters at the start of the defense secretary's week-long trip to the Middle East and North Africa. "What Assad continues to do to his own people makes clear that his regime is coming to an end. It's lost all legitimacy. It's no longer a question of whether he's coming to an end, it's when."
– One bigwig in the tech industry is making headlines this morning for dissing another. Oracle CEO didn't mention Apple's Tim Cook, but he made clear in an interview with CBS that he thinks Apple will flounder without Steve Jobs. Asked by Charlie Rose about the post-Jobs era, Ellison said "we already know" how it will turn out because of Jobs' history with the company: "We saw Apple with Steve Jobs." (Finger in the air.) "We saw Apple without Steve Jobs." (Lowers finger.) "We saw Apple with Steve Jobs." (Finger back up.) "Now, we're gonna see Apple without Steve Jobs." (Finger swoops low.) Ellison and Jobs were close friends, notes CNET, so he may be biased. On the other hand, "if anyone has insight into the way Jobs worked at Apple, it's him," writes Steve Kovach at Business Insider. Ellison also offered up insight into Jobs' final days, notes a separate Business Insider post: "We'd always go for walks. And the walks just kept getting shorter. Until near the end we'd kind of walk around the block or maybe—maybe four blocks. And you just watched him getting weaker. And this ... was absolutely the strongest, most willful person I have ever met. And after seven years, the cancer even wore him out. He was just tired of fighting. And he decided—shocked Lorraine, shocked everybody—that the medication was gonna stop. He just pulled off the meds, I think on a Saturday or a Sunday. And by the following Wednesday he—he was gone.
– Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday announced plans to travel to North Korea with newly hired special envoy Stephen Biegun next week. On Friday, however, President Trump said he asked Pompeo to cancel the trip. The reason for what the New York Times calls the "abrupt cancelation": "I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," the president tweeted, adding that he does not think China is helping with the denuclearization process "because of our much tougher trading stance." Pompeo "looks forward to going to North Korea in the near future, most likely after our trading relationship with China is resolved," continues Trump. It would have been Pompeo's fourth trip to Pyongyang, per CNN. During a July trip, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "snubbed" the secretary of state and the visit went "as badly as it could have gone," sources told the network.
– Scott Weiland, the former frontman for the Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, has died at age 48. His wife, Jamie Weiland, confirmed the news to the Los Angeles Times. "I can't deal with this right now," she said, crying. "It's true." Weiland's current band, Scott Weiland & the Wildabouts, had been scheduled to play at a Medina, Minn., concert venue, according to the venue's website. Sources tell TMZ that Weiland, who was dogged by substance abuse problems throughout his career, was found dead on his tour bus. The cause of death hasn't been determined. Weiland "passed away in his sleep while on a tour stop in Bloomington, Minnesota, with his band," says a post on his Facebook page. "At this time we ask that the privacy of Scott’s family be respected." In the 1990s, the "Stone Temple Pilots mixed brooding hard-rock with Weiland's powerful, husky baritone in a way that struck a chord with the grunge generation," observes Rolling Stone. The LA Times calls him an "archetypal rock singer."
– Dozens of protesters have been arrested in at least two cities so far today during nationwide protests seeking $15 an hour for fast-food workers, reports the AP. At least three people in McDonald's work clothes in New York's Times Square and about two dozen demonstrators at a Detroit Mickey D's were handcuffed and taken away because they were blocking traffic, cops say. Protesters in about 150 cities are participating in the Fight for $15 campaign, according to union organizers who planned the event. The current minimum hourly wage in Michigan is $8.15; in New York, it's $8, reports the National Conference of State Legislatures. About 100 protesters—some wearing T-shirts that simply said "$15," as per Mashable—convened in the parking lot of a Detroit McDonald's, spilling out onto a nearby street, where police reportedly asked them to leave, reports the Detroit News. When they wouldn't, the cuffs came out. "They were in a traffic lane … and preventing people from getting by,” one local sergeant says. “There was no force used by our officers and no resistance from the protesters.” Although the National Restaurant Association says unions are just trying to "boost their dwindling membership," protesters say their beef is strictly with not being able to afford to live. A Detroit mom tells the News that she's "asking for a living wage, not a minimum wage—I have to put gas in my car. I don’t want to have to decide if I’m going to pay [the energy bill] or my rent."
– When a 61-year-old Canadian man startled a bear cub while walking his dog Sunday near Sudbury, the tiny "yelp" the baby bear made wasn't endearing. "I knew right away I was in trouble," Rick Nelson tells CBC News. "It's calling for mommy." Sure enough, the mama black bear emerged from the bush in attack mode, and Nelson, who didn't have a rock, stick, or any other possible weapon nearby, had to resort to what he knew best: boxing. His first swing at the 300-pound-plus beast hit it in the teeth, and the bear retaliated with scratches across Nelson's chest and face. Nelson, who the Guardian says is a former featherweight boxer and bear hunter, combined both skill sets to anticipate the bear's next move. "I knew it would swing first with its left, but it would really come with its right, because most bears are right-handed," he tells the CBC. And Nelson's second punch was spot-on, nailing the bear right in the snout. It was at that point the cub let out another sound and, either bored of the fight or frightened, started leaving the scene. As Nelson held his breath, the bloodied mother bear decided to follow her baby instead of bringing Nelson back to the mat. His wife, Sheryl, tells the Sudbury Star that when Nelson—who's since been nicknamed "Kung Fu Panda" by his co-workers—and the bear both retreated, "it was like two warriors backing away from the battle." Nelson, meanwhile, concedes, "I really lucked out there," adding that black bears really aren't that dangerous unless you mess with their cubs. The Ontario government concurs, noting on its site that the bears usually stay away from humans, per the BBC. (A Boy Scout leader fought off a black bear last year.)
– Tim Geithner is about to enact some “extraordinary measures” in anticipation of Congress’ failure to boost the debt ceiling by May 16, he wrote in a pointed open letter to John Boehner yesterday. These measures, coupled with “stronger than expected tax receipts” will allow him to stay afloat until Aug. 2, about 25 days longer than he estimated last month, according to the Washington Post. “While this updated estimate in theory gives Congress additional time to complete work on the debt limit, I caution strongly against delaying action,” Geithner writes. “The economy is still in the early stages of recovery, and financial markets here and around the world are watching the United States closely.” Geithner’s “extraordinary measures” will include ceasing to issue securities to help state governments manage their budgets, and declaring a “debt issuance suspension period,” preventing several Treasury maneuvers.
– Ron Artest drank cognac during games in his first few NBA seasons with the Chicago Bulls, the volatile forward tells the Sporting News. “I used to drink Hennessy … at halftime,” Artest, now 30 and with the Los Angeles Lakers, says. “I (kept it) in my locker. I’d just walk to the liquor store (near the stadium) and get it.” More nuggets from the conversation: On the 2004 brawl in Detroit, the so-called “Malice at the Palace”: “It wasn't my fault. … I don’t see anything I could have done different. The only thing I could have done was have God pause time so I could have said, ‘Oh, look, you’re about to run in some stands, so stop.’” On early stints in Chicago and Indiana: “In Chicago, I was a head case. I worked really hard but still had this ghetto thing in me that I could not get out. … I could’ve stayed at Indiana my whole career, but I said I wanted to be traded. I was getting more stable, but I was still unstable and I was a bad teammate. They had to get rid of me.”
– When dentists ask if we've been flossing our teeth, 27% of us lie, according to a new survey from the American Academy of Periodontology. But, as NPR notes, your dentist can tell whether you're telling the truth on this particular matter—and the two dental health professionals it spoke to were surprised that 27% figure wasn't higher. "Is that all?" said one. "I am shocked," said another. "Given my experience with patients in my practice I thought it would be higher." Maybe people lied on the survey, too? Another poll from the American Dental Association last year found that just four in 10 Americans floss at least once a day. The AAP survey also found that 36% of Americans would rather do some other unpleasant activity than floss: 18% would rather wash dishes 14% would rather clean the toilet 14% would rather wait in a long check-out line 9% would rather sit in traffic for an hour 9% would rather do their taxes
– Tempted to hand your fussy toddler an iPad? You may want to think again: Research out of Boston University finds that, for children younger than 30 months, using smartphones and tablets for anything other than educational purposes can be "detrimental to ... social-emotional development," the Washington Post reports. At that age, kids learn best from "real-life interactions," the study published in the journal Pediatrics finds, and they need to learn empathy and problem-solving skills by playing with other children. The use of mobile devices instead can interfere with the acquisition of those skills. "If these devices become the predominant method to calm and distract young children, will they be able to develop their own internal mechanisms of self-regulation?" the study authors ask. The researchers also note, per the Guardian, that for children under 3 years of age, "interactive screen time" can hurt their development of the skills they'll later use for math and science: "These devices may replace the hands-on activities important for the development of sensorimotor and visual-motor skills," such as playing with building blocks, the authors note. Allowing children to use mobile devices for educational, rather than "mindless" or "mundane" purposes, can be useful, but only when children are closer to school age, the Telegraph reports. When children are younger, such devices are most effective when used alongside adults, rather than simply as a means of distraction. (Of course, there can be practical benefits to your toddler knowing how to use your iPhone.)
– A former banker is suing Citibank for firing her because she's "too hot" and was distracting male workers, she argues in court documents. Citibank managers officially cited Debrahlee Lorenzana's poor work performance when she got the ax. But the 33-year-ol single Queens mom says she was told repeatedly she was "too distracting," and told not to wear clothing (like turtlenecks) that were worn by other, less curvaceous, female co-workers. "It's like saying, "We can't look at you without wanting to have sexual intercourse with you. And it's up to you, gorgeous woman, to lessen your appeal so that we can focus," her attorney, Jack Tuckner, tells the Village Voice. Citibank says the suit is without merit. A pal says Debrahlee always turns heads. Says Debrahlee: "I can't help the way I look." For lots of pix of the bodacious banker, click here.
– The one-time Chinese police chief who blew the whistle on the Bo Xilai murder scandal has been sentenced to 15 years in prison. Wang Lijun, who attempted earlier this year to defect to the US, was sentenced today by the Chengdu City Intermediate People's Court for bending the law for selfish ends, defection, abuse of power, and taking some $480,000 in bribes, reports CNN. The sentence was considered lenient, given that he could have been sentenced to death for the bribes alone, reports the New York Times. Wang, 52, was the right-hand man of now disgraced former Chongqing Party chief Bo Xilai, whose wife, Gu Kailai, was handed a suspended death sentence last month for the murder of family associate and British businessman Neil Heywood. Bo hasn't been seen in public for several months. Wang's trial indicated the next court target will likely be Bo, reports Reuters. The murder scandal, the biggest to hit Chinese politics in years, was blown open by Wang, who told US diplomats when he attempted to defect at the Chengdu consulate that Gu had poisoned Heywood late last year. The US refused to grant Wang asylum and turned him over to Beijing authorities. Bo was bounced from the Chongqing top post and from the Politburo a short time later.
– A spacecraft intended to carry tourists into space someday crashed this afternoon in California's Mojave desert, with one pilot dead and another injured, reports AP. "Our first concern is the status of the pilots," says a Virgin Galactic statement following the loss of its SpaceShipTwo craft. NBC News reports that at least one parachute was spotted after the mid-air explosion, and KGET reports that a medical helicopter brought one patient to the hospital. The SpaceShipTwo took off from Mojave Air and Space Port and soon suffered a "serious anomaly," says Virgin Galactic. "We will work closely with relevant authorities to determine the cause of this accident." One witness says the craft exploded after it released from its carrier plane and ignited its rocket motor. The carrier plane landed safely. The crash follows the explosion of an unmanned supply rocket for the International Space Station earlier this week in Virginia.
– The Ebola outbreak that's claimed at least 500 lives in West Africa may have been lurking a while before going on its killing spree, NBC News reports. Researchers figured this by studying blood samples from old cases of viral illnesses in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, and finding possible signs of Ebola. The results aren't 100%—the samples were old, after all—but evidence suggests that an Ebola outbreak could be spotted ahead of time. "It makes us realize that you don’t have to see an outbreak" to know it's there, said Randal Schoepp, a US Army researcher. "In Africa, it is easy for a disease to smolder because there is so much disease." This is Ebola's first outbreak in West Africa, but other dangerous diseases like dengue, malaria, and particularly Lassa fever are common there. Lassa fever also comes with Ebola-like symptoms such as internal and external bleeding, vomiting, and high fever. Analyzing 253 blood samples from 2006 to 2008, Schoepp's crew found that almost 9% of samples cleared of other ailments tested positive for Ebola antibodies. Another challenge is educating West Africans about Ebola, for odd rumors are spreading there—like the notion that Nescafe can cure it when mixed with sugar and coca, the Washington Post reports. But Susan Sered writes at Salon that the biggest challenge may be educating Americans, who could easily afford to "support local governments in building functioning public health infrastructures." (Read about Guinea's rather odd means of curbing Ebola.)
– He's been dabbling in the movies, so why not the cartoons? None other than Mike Tyson is getting his own animated series on the Adult Swim network next season, says the Hollywood Reporter. Tyson will voice himself as his character ... solves mysteries. He'll get help from a foul-mouthed pigeon sidekick and, of course, a "magical tattoo on his face." No specifics yet on when Mike Tyson Mysteries will first air.
– George Costanza's political stature just keeps growing. Former Seinfeld actor Jason Alexander has taken to Twitter to voice his stance on gun control, noting that the weapon on the Dark Knight massacre was "a military weapon. Why should it be in non-mil hands?" After that prompted online debate, he offered a lengthy follow-up attacking "absolutists," or "ideologues" who think "they hold the only truth, everyone else is dangerous. Ever meet a terrorist that doesn’t believe that? Just asking," he wrote, according to ABC News.
– Despite his reported role in the Penn State sex abuse scandal, it probably won’t surprise you to hear that 51% of people surveyed in a recent Public Policy Poll still view beloved coach Joe Paterno favorably. You probably also won’t be shocked to hear that 88% of respondents view alleged abuser Jerry Sandusky unfavorably. You may, however, be taken aback by the news that 3% still have a positive opinion of Sandusky, according to SportsGrid. Meanwhile, one of Sandusky’s accusers sought an injunction this week that would stop Sandusky’s Second Mile charity from transferring its assets, the New York Times reports. “We felt it was necessary to take this action after learning the organization was considering transferring its programs and not continuing its operations,” the lawyers say in a statement. The court papers note that at least 11 alleged victims plan to sue the organization, which is accused of failing to properly supervise Sandusky or report what it knew about abuse allegations against him.
– How’s this for karma: A man in Albany pushed ahead in line for a Mega Millions lottery ticket—and the guy he shoved aside got the winning Quick Pick. The man “actually cut in front of me to buy a ticket,” said Mike Barth. “I thought about saying something but let it slide.” His coworkers are thanking him: Six of them bought the ticket as a group, so they’re due $19.1 million each after taxes, the Times Union reports. “There is pretty much no better comeback than, ‘Thanks for the $319 million, jerkoff,’” notes the Daily Intel blog. The winners, all state IT workers, range in age from 29 to 63. Click here to read about the poor soul who decided not to go in on the ticket with the lucky six, even though he normally did.
– You probably know that walking into a grocery store on an empty stomach is unwise. Now a new study suggests walking into a mall while hungry is just as bad—at least for your wallet. The study's title sums up the finding: "Hunger promotes acquisition of nonfood objects." Reporting in the journal PNAS, researchers at the University of Minnesota say they conducted five experiments whose results consistently showed an increase in the desire to acquire things when people reported being hungry. In one experiment where the items (in this case, binder clips) were free, the hungry cohort left with 70% more than satiated participants. And even when people had to pay (this time for department store items), the hungry ones spent 64% more. "It's probably better to feed yourself before any type of shopping, whether you're going on an actual shopping trip or shopping online," researcher Alison Jing Xu tells Smithsonian. "And if you're really hungry, you'd better think twice before purchasing any items at all or you might regret those purchases later." (The study notes that "hunger does not influence how much they like nonfood objects.") New Scientist reports Xu was inspired by a shopping trip of her own, during which she bought 10 pairs of tights on an empty stomach, "not just the two I needed." She says ghrelin, a hormone released by the stomach that makes people seek out food, may also affect other behaviors. (Doctors are puzzled by a boy who's never hungry.)
– The founder of a neo-Nazi blog and major figure in the alt-right movement has resigned after he was revealed to have a Jewish wife. A post published on Medium over the weekend claimed Mike Enoch of The Right Stuff—whose Daily Shoah podcast has 100,000 subscribers—is actually Mike Peinovich, a New York City web developer with a "liberal family" and a Jewish wife. Peinovich, who often discussed killing Jewish people, denied the report to Salon before confirming it on the TRS forum. He then resigned. As several others involved in TRS were outed recently, Mic reports its future is now unclear, though National Policy Institute head Richard Spencer says Peinovich "will continue to be a force on the alt-right in the future," per the Guardian. The revelation came less than a month after a former alt-right vlogger described a major alt-right player as "married to a Jewish woman," without naming names. Peinovich's wife appeared on the Daily Shoah podcast numerous times. In one 2015 episode, she read a neo-Nazi parody of The Night Before Christmas of which she was "very proud," Peinovich said at the time. If her Jewish heritage "makes you want to leave the movement, or to have nothing to do with TRS, then I understand," Peinovich wrote on the TRS forum this week. The response from the movement was less than understanding, with one user suggesting the pair were "actors in the same play being orchestrated by the Jews," while other memes showed Peinovich and his wife in gas chambers.
– There was a time when living on the US-Canada border wasn't such a big deal. When Brian DuMoulin, who grew up in a home that was built right on the line in 1782, inherited it, he and wife Joan, who are both dual citizens, didn't think much of it at all. Now that they're in their 70s and trying to sell it, however, "it stresses everyone out," Brian tells the AP. Their home is known by locals as the Old Stone Store and was built by a merchant who wanted to sell to farmers in Vermont and Quebec. There are entrances on both sides of the border, and a small granite border marker just outside the front door. Derby, Vermont, is on one side; Stanstead, Quebec, on the other. The house comes with granite walls, 1950s decor, and a whopping 7,000 square feet of living space divided into five currently vacant apartments, and is listed for a relatively low $109,000, per Zillow. The AP cites a renovation estimate of $600,000, though it doesn't provide specifics. Of note: The new owners will have to be OK with border security agents keeping track of their whereabouts. Mashable goes so far as to call this a "bonus" considering it results in "armed 24-hour security from two powerful nations!" DuMoulin admits that there is a certain "awkwardness" to the house's location, because "you can't just go this way or that way." That said, if it's always been a dream to live in two countries simultaneously, this house has exactly what you want. (One island is the subject of a centuries-old custody agreement between Spain and France.)
– "This is really momentous, bigger than recovering the bald eagle," an environmental writer tells the Christian Science Monitor after the US Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday proposed removing grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone from the endangered species list. When grizzlies were added to the list in 1975, there were just 136 bears remaining in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (which includes both the park and surrounding lands) as a result of hunting. Today, there are an estimated 700 to 1,000 bears. "There is robust agreement that this population has recovered," Service Director Dan Ashe says. "It's now our obligation to delist the population and return management to the state." A final decision is expected later this year, reports Reuters. Grizzlies have also doubled their range to occupy more than 22,500 square miles of the Yellowstone region, but wildlife advocates fear they're still at risk. A record 59 Yellowstone grizzlies died last year as food sources, including white bark pine and cutthroat trout, dwindled. The proposal comes "a couple years too early," says one advocate, who fears that Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana will resume grizzly hunts, not held since 1974, on bears who stray beyond the park's boundaries. A scientist with the National Resources Defense Council tells CNN that the bears could see genetic problems if they don't interact with bears outside the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Ashe says a five-year plan will be put in place to "ensure healthy grizzly populations persist across the Yellowstone ecosystem long into the future."
– Britain's foreign secretary said Sunday that the trail of blame for the poisoning of a former spy "leads inexorably to the Kremlin," reports the AP, after a Russian envoy suggested the nerve agent could have come from a UK lab. "We actually have evidence within the last 10 years that Russia has not only been investigating the delivery of nerve agents for the purposes of assassination but has also been creating and stockpiling Novichok," Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson tells the BBC. "We think it overwhelmingly likely that it was (Vladimir Putin's) decision to direct the use of a nerve agent ... on the streets of Europe for the first time since the Second World War." Johnson said officials from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons would arrive in Britain on Monday to take samples of the nerve agent used to poison Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. Britain says it is Novichok, a powerful nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. Vladimir Chizhov, Moscow's EU ambassador, said Russia has no chemical weapons stockpiles and was not behind the poisoning. "Russia had nothing to do with it," Chizhov told the BBC. Chizhov pointed out that the UK chemical weapons research facility, Porton Down, is only eight miles from Salisbury, where the Skripals were found March 4. They remain in critical condition. Asked whether he was saying Porton Down was responsible, Chizhov replied: "I don't know." The British government dismissed the ambassador's suggestion as "nonsense." Johnson said it was "not the response of a country that really believed itself to be innocent." Russia's ambassador in London, Alexander Yakovenko, called for "cooler heads," telling the Mail on Sunday that the dispute is "escalating dangerously and out of proportion." Britain and Russia have each expelled 23 diplomats.
– To arm or not to arm Ukraine is the question—and although the US and Germany may not agree on the answer to that question, for now they're presenting a unified front in finding a solution to Ukraine's conflict with Russia. President Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held a joint press conference this morning at the White House, declaring that Russian aggression against Ukraine has only strengthened the resolve of Europe and the US to work toward a resolution, the AP reports. "We are in absolute agreement that the 21st century cannot have us stand idle and allow the borders of Europe to be redrawn by the barrel of a gun," Obama said, per USA Today. The sticking point between the two countries lies in what Obama calls "tactical disagreements": whether or not to send lethal aid to Ukraine. The US has so far only provided Ukraine with non-lethal assistance. Merkel—who, along with French President Francois Hollande, met with Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko last week and is scheduled to meet with them again Wednesday—doesn't believe arming Ukraine is wise. Although Obama noted that Putin has "violated just about every commitment" in striving for a peaceful solution, Merkel said the "progress that Ukraine needs cannot be achieved with more weapons," per CNN; she added she fears Russia could increase military action if that happens. Sen. John McCain, however, said that "[Putin] does not want a diplomatic solution, he wants to dominate Ukraine as well as Russia's other neighbors," and British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond calls the Russian leader a "mid-20th century tyrant," the Independent notes. The European Union agreed to new sanctions against Russia today, though it decided to delay the sanctions for one week to see if a peace plan can be reached.
– To conceive identical triplets with fertility drugs, or to spontaneously conceive fraternal triplets, is not necessarily headline-worthy. But "to have a patient with spontaneous identical triplets is incredibly rare," says a doctor who recently delivered a set of such triplets—and puts the odds at about one in a million. Jody and Jase Kinsey of Miles City, Mont., knew that multiples were a possibility—Jase's dad was a twin—but they weren't expecting to hear, from the tech at their first ultrasound, that there appeared to be three babies in there. They soon ended up under the care of the aforementioned specialist, Dr. Dana Damron, and Jody gave birth to sons Cade, Ian, and Milo on Dec. 5, the Billings Gazette reports. Jody, 30, and Jase, 29, were already parents to son Jax, 6. "With them being identical, they all shared the same placenta so there could be possible complications," Jody explains; Damron kept a close watch to make sure all the babies were growing equally. Jody stopped working in September and was admitted to the clinic with early signs of labor in November, but ultimately the babies waited until 32 weeks—about the average gestational age for triplets, according to Damron. They were born via C-section between 3 pounds, 11 ounces and 4 pounds, 1 ounce, and all were "in excellent condition," he adds. Cade has been released from the hospital, but doctors want Milo and Ian to get a little better at eating first. Interestingly, another set of spontaneous identical triplets was born on New Year's Eve in Minnesota to Terri and Peter Pazdernik, People reports. These three are girls, named Hannah, Natalie, and Elise. (More identical triplets here and here. Even crazier? This story of identical quadruplets conceived naturally.)
– A Philly high school senior is describing his prom as "epic," which is probably still an understatement considering what his mom forked out for it. WTXF reports that Saudia Shuler had originally wanted to send son Johnny Eden Jr. to Dubai as a graduation gift, but serious health problems on her end (including a cancer diagnosis and a stroke) put those plans on hold—so instead she spent $25,000 to lend a Dubai feel to his big prom night. That over-the-top UAE ambience included Johnny's three dates, who accompanied him to the prom in a succession of luxury vehicles (a Lamborghini, a Range Rover, and a Rolls, to be exact), multiple stylist-assisted outfits, and a pre-prom block party complete with 3 tons of sand and … a camel, rented from an Ohio farm, per Billy Penn. "I was just trying to pay honor [to] my son, because he is such a good kid," Shuler tells CBS Philadelphia, adding that her son, whose dad was murdered when he was young, boasts high grades and plays basketball. She also wanted to give a nod to his Muslim faith (she isn't Muslim herself), which helped him when she was extremely ill. "My son took it real hard," she says. "[His faith] is what kept him strong." She's still combating various health issues, but she says that during the worst of it she had vowed to go all out for her son's prom and graduation if she lived to see it—and she has no regrets, despite critics saying she overindulged. Johnny, who says he doesn't like being the center of attention, at first thought the whole thing was a bit much, but he now thanks his mom for a night he'll never forget. "It was epic, man," he tells CBS. "My mom was the real MVP." (One school handed out condoms at prom.)
– It's not that researchers think switching from sugary sodas to diet versions is a bad thing, it's just that those who do make the switch should bear in mind a few things: They may eat more: A Johns Hopkins study finds that heavy people who drink diet soda tend to eat more than heavy people who drink regular soda, reports Today.com. “When you make that switch from a sugary beverage for a diet beverage, you’re often not changing other things in your diet,” says the lead researcher. The advice isn't to give up the diet soda, it's to cut down on the food that goes with it, especially sweet snacks, reports the Los Angeles Times. They'll get drunker: People who favor their booze mixed with diet soda will blow higher breathalyzer readings—an average of 18% higher—than those who mix with regular soda, according to a study picked up by Scientific American. It seems the sugar in regular soda helps slow alcohol consumption. "If you're watching your weight, watch out for what you drink," says the post.
– President Trump was speaking in Reno Wednesday even as the assessment continued over his Tuesday night rally in Phoenix. In Arizona, he didn't just vent about the media, he also made headlines on multiple policy fronts. Among other things, he renewed his push for a border wall in a big way. "If we have to close down that government, we are going to build that wall," he told cheering supporters. The issue is expected to come to a head during budget negotiations in September, with Politico reporting that Trump has been telling advisers he won't accept any deal unless it contains "real money" to start construction. “He is animated about the wall,” one source tells the website. “He cares about that more than many other things. He knows his base cares and chants about it.” Related coverage about the rally: Followup tweet: In a tweet on Wednesday, Trump went after Arizona GOP Sen. Jeff Flake, who is up for re-election, calling him "weak on crime & border." Flake has been skeptical about a wall, notes the New York Times, which sees Trump's threat of a shutdown as an "extraordinary challenge to his own party." Killing NAFTA? Trump also made an ominous threat about the trade pact with Mexico and Canada, currently in the midst of a renegotiation process. "We will renegotiate NAFTA, or we will terminate NAFTA," he said. "I personally don't think you can make a deal without a termination, but we're going to see what happens, OK?" Axios rounds up that quote and others, including his promise to remember the business leaders who abandoned his councils. Violence at the end: Police officials say they will investigate the use of pepper spray, smoke canisters, and flash bangs by officers on protesters, reports the Arizona Republic. Meanwhile, Trump supporters took exception to Reuters' description of the protesters as "peace activists," per Twitchy. And an African-American supporter of Trump was punched repeatedly in the face by a protester as he left the rally, reports Mediaite, which has video. Familiar face: Those watching on TV likely noticed an African-American man holding up a "Blacks for Trump" sign in the audience behind Trump. He's a regular at Trump events, and the Washington Post digs into the story of the man who calls himself "Michael the Black Man." One paragraph provides a taste: "The radical fringe activist from Miami once belonged to a violent black supremacist religious cult, and he runs a handful of amateur, unintelligible conspiracy websites. He has called Barack Obama 'The Beast' and Hillary Clinton a Ku Klux Klan member. Oprah Winfrey, he says, is the devil." Familiar photo: The Arizona Republic reports that a viral photo purporting to show a huge crowd of Trump supporters was actually from a Cleveland Cavaliers parade a while back. The photo has surfaced previously, notes Cleveland Scene. At the same time, one critic thinks the Republic's front page, featuring a large "Violence Erupts" headline, was "overcooked."
– There's candid, and then there's "painfully candid." Tinder CEO Sean Rad chose the latter route in an interview with the Evening Standard published Wednesday—a day before Tinder holder Match Group went public, reports the Washington Post. The result: The group has basically disowned him. Though joined by Tinder's communications VP—who cut him off at one point, noting "That's it! We're going to be fired"—the 29-year-old delivered some uncomfortable lines, including when trying to describe himself as sapiosexual, or someone who finds intelligence the most attractive quality. Rad accidentally threw out the word "sodomy," then had to Google what it meant. "What? No, not that. That's definitely not me. Oh, my God," he then clarified. Rad went on to say he doesn't approve of penis pictures and has slept with 20 women, per Re/code. That led him to brag that a "really, really famous" supermodel has been "begging" him for sex. "She's one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen but it doesn't mean that I want to rip her clothes off and have sex with her," he said. It wasn't just Rad that seemed odd. The interview itself was surprising since most companies keep quiet ahead of an IPO. Match Group's statement on the interview, however, explains all: "Mr. Rad is not a director or executive officer of the Company," it states in a new filing. "The article was not approved or condoned by, and the content of the article was not reviewed by, the Company or any of its affiliates." Rad's comments aside, Reuters notes that Match Group's shares were up as much as 12.5% in their IPO Wednesday morning.
– When Pope Benedict steps down as pope later this month, he loses some serious bragging rights: No longer will he be infallible, reports AFP via Raw Story. “These powers go with the office, so they will pass to the next pope," says a Vatican spokesman. "Whoever renounces no longer has the assistance of the Holy Spirit to guide the Universal Church." For the record, the pope isn't deemed infallible in all things all the time, but only when he lays down the law on church doctrine in what's known as an "ex cathedra" statement, explains Slate. Those statements are exceedingly rare, and Benedict, like most popes, never had the pleasure. But even though he's losing his chance at infallibility, Benedict still is expected to advise his successor on the occasional papal matter, reports the LA Times.
– In an effort to keep the focus on the victims, President Obama has agreed not to mention the name of James Holmes, the killer in Friday's Dark Knight Rises massacre. "Sat down with President Obama. He has been incredible. He too has agreed not to mention the shooter's name," tweets Jordan Ghawi, brother of victim Jessica Ghawi. White House press secretary Jay Carney made the same promise, Politico notes. After meeting with victims and their families, Obama said he assured them that "although the perpetrator of this evil act has received a lot of attention over the last couple of days, that attention will fade way." He also cheered up one of the victims, who needs to fly home but has no driver's license, noting, "I have a little pull with the TSA." The victims were also visited by six of the Denver Broncos yesterday, the AP reports. "What we were trying to do was go in there, show support and try to put a smile on these peoples' faces," linebacker Joe Mays said. Meanwhile, at a fundraiser in San Francisco yesterday, Mitt Romney said it was "the right thing for the president" to be visiting victims. He also pledged to tone down the partisan nature of his speech, and held a moment of silence for the victims, Politico reports.
– The way you don't expect a wedding reception to be described: "I'm telling you, there was blood everywhere. There was holes punched in the walls." But that's exactly what transpired at a Saturday reception outside Buffalo, NY, according to an unidentified worker at the Orchard Park Country Club. The Buffalo News reports that seven police agencies were called to the scene after a massive fight broke out just after 11pm, as the reception ended and guests were readying to go home. "Things were said that can never be taken back," says one witness; the paper reports that family members were yelling of their hatred for each other. The worker says about 200 people attended the reception, and WIVB reports that an arriving officer saw at least 100 people fighting. The bride and groom reportedly weren't among them: She was taken to a back patio, while her new husband stayed inside and attempted to get his guests to exit. One man received stitches for a head injury, and a few others were treated on the scene. No arrests were made, and while the State Liquor Authority has opened an investigation into what transpired, police tell the News that criminal charges are unlikely. As for what caused the fracas, the police chief doesn't seem to know: "It could be someone was touched inappropriately. It could be a family issue. It could be an emotional issue." And someone actually was touched inappropriately, allegedly by a member of the wedding party who was then punched; police were previously called at 10:18pm to deal with that. (This fight seems small compared to one that happened this summer at a NJ wedding.)
– The New York Post's front page today features a picture of the last moments of the man who was pushed in front of the subway and killed yesterday, above the blaring headline, "DOOMED." It's obviously sparked outrage on various levels, with many questioning whether the cover, a picture of Ki Suk Han trying desperately to climb back up on the platform, is appropriate, while others wonder why the photog was snapping the picture instead of trying to help. In the Post, the photographer explains his actions thusly: "I just started running, running, hoping that the driver could see my flash. ... In that moment, I just wanted to warn the train—to try and save a life." The Post notes that the photographer fired off his flash "repeatedly" while running toward the train, and adds that he wasn't strong enough to actually lift the man to safety. But, as bloggers and Internet commenters alike point out, it seems more likely the camera flash would have blinded the train operator than alerted him to the person on the tracks. The Atlantic Wire's headline sums up the reaction to the photo: "Who Let This Man Die on the Subway?" Adding to the controversy is the Post's sensational headline: "Pushed on the subway track, this man is about to die," it reads, adding, "DOOMED." Police have released a video of Han and the suspect, who is still at large, arguing before Han's death, the Wall Street Journal reports. Witnesses say the suspect had been harassing people on the platform, and Han was trying to calm him down when the suspect started screaming at him. Han's wife says she and her husband had fought just before he left home around 11am, and that he had been drinking. Police did find a bottle of vodka on him, and one witness claims Han was the one who started the argument.
– The International Energy Agency will release 60 million barrels of oil over the next month, in a bid to “offset the Libyan disruption,” the group announced today. The oil will come from the strategic reserves of the IEA’s 28 member nations, and will be portioned out at a rate of 2 million barrels per day, Reuters reports. It’s the third time since its inception during the ‘70s oil crisis that the IEA has moved to goose the supply, and the executive director says he expects it to ensure “a soft landing for the world economy.” Oil prices fell 5.5% after the announcement, to $90.21 a barrel, reports MarketWatch.
– The man who kidnapped, raped, and killed a 20-year-old nursing student in Tennessee has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, WTVF reports. Holly Bobo disappeared in 2011 after going into the woods outside her parents house with an unidentified man; her body wasn't found until 2014. According to USA Today, a jury found 33-year-old Zach Adams guilty on all counts Friday, and Adams accepted a plea deal Saturday morning before a jury was set to decide if he would receive the death penalty. In addition to the life sentence for murder, Adams received two consecutive 25-year sentences for kidnapping and rape. Karen Bobo, Holly's mother, called Adams an "animal" while delivering a victim impact statement in court on Saturday. “I know that my daughter fought hard for her life and I know that she begged for her life because my daughter loved and enjoyed life,” Bobo said. “But you chose to take that from her and you have shown absolutely no remorse for anything that you have done.” Prosecutors say the Bobo family reluctantly agreed to the plea deal, WREG reports. Adams' attorney says she plans to file for a mistrial but first needs to figure out a reason for doing so. Two other defendants are still awaiting trial in the case. A motive for the murder of Holly Bobo is still unknown.
– California Gov. Jerry Brown broke the bad news yesterday by YouTube: His state is facing a $16 billion deficit, not the $9.2 billion shortfall he had projected in January, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Brown blamed the budget gap on lower-than-expected tax receipts and the loss of spending cuts, which were blocked by court order and federal officials to protect the needy. Now, Brown says, the public had better support his ballot measure in November to boost taxes and raise $9 billion. A balanced budget is required by June 15, but the state Senate's Republican leader predicts that "another phony budget" will be passed by a simple majority of Democrats. Advocates for those who use health and human services, however, are predicting harsh cuts when Brown reveals his proposed budget tomorrow: "The cuts are expected to be big, bad and brutal for California families," says one. A state senator calls the new deficit "as bad as our worst fears have been. The options get fewer and fewer."
– When it comes to the most covered candidates of the midterm elections, is it any surprise that Tea Partiers claim five of the top 10 slots? The Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism analyzed the election stories produced by 52 TV networks, websites, radio stations, and newspapers since Jan. 1 and added up those in which a candidate was featured in more than 50% of the story. Its results: Christine O’Donnell: the lead newsmaker in 160 stories Meg Whitman: 90 stories Rand Paul: 88 stories Joe Sestak: 85 stories Sharron Angle: 80 stories Harry Reid: 74 stories Charlie Crist: 67 stories Carl Paladino, Blanche Lincoln: 52 stories each Jerry Brown: 49 stories Joe Miller: 47 stories See the chart here, or check Yahoo! News for more.
– Bernie Sanders isn't giving up the fight after Tuesday's primary results—but there may be a shift in what he's fighting for. In what Vox describes as "a major hint that the race is over" and a "savvy, classy way" to start winding down his campaign, Sanders issued a statement Tuesday night saying he is looking forward to "issue-oriented campaigns in the 14 contests" to come and that he plans to go to the Democratic convention with "as many delegates as possible to fight for a progressive party platform." Clinton won four out of five states and her delegate haul puts her 90% of the way to the nomination, according to the AP, leaving Sanders little chance of winning, even with his surprise victory in Rhode Island. Sanders plans to "reassess his candidacy" Wednesday, according to the New York Times, and chief strategist Tad Devine says there will definitely be "adjustments" if it turns out there is no mathematical route to the nomination. The thing "to watch now is whether Sanders tempers his rhetoric against Clinton, a tacit acknowledgement that the math is close to conclusive, or whether he keeps going at her hammer and tongs," writes Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post. Politico notes that in her victory speech Tuesday night, Clinton praised Sanders, listed the policy priorities she shares with him, and urged his supporters to unite behind her. "There's much more that unites us than divides us," she said.
– Need some bragging rights on your next vacation? The Telegraph rounds up the most extreme places on the planet, including: Dallol, Ethiopia: The globe's hottest inhabited area. The average air temperature (highest in the world) is a stifling 93.9 degrees Fahrenheit. The Dead Sea, Jordan/Israel: The lowest point on the planet. The shore of the Dead Sea is 1,390 feet below sea level. Krubera Cave, Georgia: The world's deepest cave. It reaches back 7,188 feet. Mount Thor, Baffin Island, Canada: The biggest vertical drop on Earth. Located in the Auyuittuq National Park, fearless base jumpers can plunge 4,100 feet. Check out the other extreme destinations here.
– If Democrats are desperate for signs of hope heading into the midterms, two new polls may be about as good as they're going to get: A New York Times/CBS survey finds that while most people (63%) don't like them, even more (73%) don't like Republicans. The stat provides "a potential opening for Democrats to make a last-ditch case for keeping their hold on power," write Jeff Zeleny and Megan Thee-Brenan. Also good for Dems: Most people still blame George W. Bush and Wall Street for the economic mess, not President Obama. Still, voters are clearly angry—the highest percentage in 20 years say it's time for their own congressman to go—and most don't think Obama has the right answers. A Politico poll, meanwhile, says most voters think the GOP will take over both the House and Senate. But respondents were split at 43-43 when asked whether they would vote for a Democrat or Republican. "This is good news for Democrats and at odds with many other public polls, which have shown Republicans holding a single-digit edge," write Charles Mahtesian and Jim Vandehei. More significantly, Democrats actually hold an edge in key battleground regions of the Midwest and Northeast. For all (or at least more) things Election 2010, click here.
– The Orlando shooting has raised anew the issue of the powerful weapons used by gunmen in mass shootings. While police initially said Omar Mateen used an "AR-15-type assault rifle," they have since clarified that he used a Sig Sauer MCX rifle. A look at some of the coverage: The Washington Post looks at those two weapons and finds that they're similar in broad terms: "a highly portable, customizable, easy to operate and accurate rifle." But one big difference is in the mechanics of how the bullet is propelled and the next round readied. It's "direct impingement" vs. "piston gun," as the Post explains here. The Sig Sauer can use magazines common to other semiautomatics, "but otherwise has no major parts that interface with AR-15s in any way, shape or form," says the Bearing Arms blog. (The post bashes media ignorance on the subject.) The Economist digs into the controversy over use of the term "assault rifle," which gun-rights advocates say is inaccurate because a gun such as the AR-15 "shoots only one round per trigger-pull." Orlando station WFTV offers a primer on topics such as the difference between semi-automatic and automatic weapons. (The AR-15 and the Sig Sauer are in the first camp; the military's M16 is in the latter.) PBS NewsHour did a segment on the AR-15 here. A Philadelphia Daily News columnist explains how she bought an AR-15 in seven minutes. Two Huffington Post writers got it done in 38 minutes. A New York Daily News writer fires an AR-15 for himself. He's "mostly terrified" as a result. Though he's taking flak for saying he got a temporary case of PTSD. FiveThirtyEight looks into the complicated topic of how such weapons are covered under gun laws.
– John Ashcroft is off the hook. The Supreme Court tossed out a lawsuit against the former attorney general in an 8-0 vote today, finding that he did not misuse his power or violate the 4th Amendment. American Muslim Abdullah al-Kidd sued after being arrested at Dulles Airport and held for two weeks, ostensibly as a “material witness” in a terrorism case, without ever being called to testify or charged with a crime. Supporters of the former University of Idaho football player accused Ashcroft of misusing his authority by seizing al-Kidd with no reason to believe he committed any crime. But the high court found Ashcroft’s use of the law did not clearly violate the right against unreasonable searches and seizures, in a decision that continues a trend of shielding top officials in the Bush administration when lawsuits are brought over their conduct during the “war on terror,” the Los Angeles Times notes. But, the AP adds, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that the case does raise questions about how the government can use the material witness statute and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said al-Kidd’s “ordeal is a grim reminder of the need to install safeguards against disrespect for human dignity, constraints that will control officialdom even in perilous times.”
– Chuck Barris, whose game show empire included The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and that infamous factory of cheese, The Gong Show, has died at age 87, per AP. Barris died of natural causes Tuesday at his home in Palisades, New York, according to publicist Paul Shefrin. Barris made game show history right off the bat, in 1966, with The Dating Game, hosted by Jim Lange. The gimmick: a young female questions three males, hidden from her view, to determine which would be the best date. Sometimes the process was switched, with a male questioning three females. But in all cases, the questions were designed by the show's writers to elicit sexy answers. Celebrities and future celebrities who appeared as contestants included Michael Jackson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steve Martin, and a pre-Charlie's Angels Farrah Fawcett. The grinning, curly-haired Barris became a familiar face as creator and host of The Gong Show, which aired from 1976 to 1980. The program featured performers who had peculiar talents and, often, no talent at all. When the latter appeared, Barris would strike an oversize gong, the show's equivalent of vaudeville's hook. As The Gong Show and Barris' other series were slipping, he sold his company for a reported $100 million in 1980 and decided to go into films. He directed and starred in The Gong Show Movie, a thundering failure. Afterward, a distraught Barris checked into a New York hotel and wrote his autobiography, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. In it, he claimed to have been a CIA assassin, though the book (it was made into a 2002 film) was widely dismissed by disbelievers who said Barris had allowed his imagination to run wild. (Watch Barris and "Gene, Gene, the Dancing Machine" here.)
– Bill Clinton threw a very expensive fundraiser Tuesday, but the non-celebrity guests were not impressed, with at least one calling it the "worst party ever." The Telegraph recounts tweets and interviews with attendees who stood in line outside for hours after paying anywhere from $200 to nearly $1,600 for a ticket, while Clinton and VIPs like Gwyneth Paltrow and will.i.am schmoozed inside. Once they finally made it in to the underground venue, multiple guests reported perspiration dripping from the walls, and one adds that "the place absolutely stank." Plus, it was so crowded that some couldn't even see or hear Clinton. The London event, a fundraiser for the Clinton Foundation Millennium Network, isn't the only party Clinton's been to lately: Last night, he was photographed with "a porn star on each arm," the New York Post gleefully reports (or, as TMZ puts it, "SURROUNDED by porn stars"). This time around he was at another gala he co-hosted, this one a benefit for the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation
– "The cancer world is forever changed." That's what a researcher is saying following the FDA's approval of America's first-ever treatment that genetically alters a person's cells to fight cancer. The customized treatment to be administered at certified medical centers involves drawing a patient's blood, genetically engineering their white blood cells, called T cells, turning them into a "living drug" that fights the disease, before re-dripping them back into the patient. It's expected to be a 22-day turnaround for Novartis' Kymriah treatment. Kymriah, which can cause a potentially life-threatening immune reaction, is so far approved only for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, but companies are working to develop similar therapies for additional cancers. Just don't expect them to come cheap; Kymriah carries a $475,000 price tag, reports the New York Times. Though analysts had expected Kymriah to cost $750,000, the founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs tells Forbes the cost is "excessive," while Stat News notes that that number doesn't include hospitalization and travel fees. Novartis CEO Joseph Jimenez, however, says developing the treatment cost more than $1 billion. And in order for investors to continue to advance medical science, they need to get a proper financial return, he says. His compromise: There will be no charge if a patient doesn't respond within a month. For those who do respond—in a trial, 52 of 63 leukemia patients went into remission within three months of treatment, though the disease often kills quickly—the cost is less than that of a bone-marrow transplant, a doctor tells the Times. "This is a big paradigm shift, using this living drug," says a pediatric oncologist. "It will provide a lot of hope. This is the beginning."
– An ex-Breitbart reporter filed an assault report against Donald Trump's campaign manager earlier this month, and Tuesday morning those accusations came to roost. Corey Lewandowski turned himself over to police in Jupiter, Fla., just after 8am, and he was charged with misdemeanor battery, the Palm Beach Post reports. The charges stemmed from a March 8 Trump rally, at which reporter Michelle Fields alleges that Lewandowski grabbed her left arm, causing bruising. "Mr. Lewandowski is absolutely innocent of this charge," Trump himself said in a statement, per CNBC. "He will enter a plea of not guilty and looks forward to his day in court. He is completely confident that he will be exonerated." (There are others who aren't fans of Lewandowski.)
– If the desire to go green wasn’t enough to convince you to buy a Chevrolet Volt, maybe this will: The $41,000 plug-in hybrid was named North American Car of the Year at the country's largest auto show. The Volt beat out Nissan’s all-electric Leaf and Hyundai's Sonata sedan to snag the top honor at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. It's the latest in a long line of awards for the car, including Motor Trend Car of the Year, CrunchGear notes—but not everyone is impressed. Bloomberg reports that Ford's Explorer grabbed Truck of the Year.
– Consumer confidence soared to a seven-month high, flying far above analyst expectations, according to a Conference Board report released today. The board's index came in at 70.3, up from 61.3 a month earlier. That's a whole heck of a lot better than the 63 that the economists Reuters polled had expected. That wasn't the only good economic news on the day either. Home prices increased 1.2% in July compared to a year earlier, according to an S&P/Case Shiller index report. It's the second straight year-over-year increase—after two years without a gain, the AP reports. Prices rose in 16 of the 20 cities surveyed. Hard-hit cities saw especially big gains; Phoenix saw homes shoot up 16.6%.
– Harry Reid tossed some zingers at Republicans last night after they failed to vote on John Boehner’s debt ceiling plan. Reid adjourned the Senate just before 11pm, the Hill reports, saying, “I apologize to everyone for the late hour, but we've been waiting for the House to conduct their business and they're having trouble conducting it.” Asked by a Talking Points Memo reporter if he had expected the non-vote, he replied, “With their performance the last few days, I don’t expect anything.” Indeed, the Washington Post offers a frankly hilarious look at yesterday’s scramble for votes in the House. One undecided Republican says that by 7:20am he’d been pestered three times—including once while he was naked in the gym. Boehner was apparently three votes short, sources tell the Huffington Post, with some reps bothered by the $17 billion in Pell Grants funding added to the bill in a bid to attract Democrats. The Republican caucus will meet at 10am this morning to try to pick up the pieces; Senate Democrats will meet around the same time. For more details, click here.
– Rod Blagojevich's defense team asked the judge to subpoena Barack Obama yesterday with a motion that was supposed to be heavily redacted. But whoever redacted it did a lousy job; the blacked out text could be easily read just by copying and pasting it, as Capital Fax revealed. Here's what Blago's lawyers allege in the redacted portions: Obama lied about his conversations with Tony Rezko. The lawyers say Obama turned down a fundraiser Rezko offered him in exchange for favorable legislative action. Obama has denied even having such a conversation. Obama directly recommended Valerie Jarrett for his old Senate seat, and gave Blagojevich a list of four candidates he considered acceptable. One of Obama's supporters offered to raise money for Blagojevich if he picked Jarrett. Obama had a secret phone call with Blagojevich in December—though the document doesn't say what was discussed. You can read the full redacted sections at NBC Chicago.
– A man British police call "extremely dangerous" was accidentally released early from prison, possibly due to court staff mishearing his sentence, the Telegraph reports. Last September in London, 25-year-old Ralston Dodd stabbed a man three times in the back following an argument, nearly killing him. He was arrested three weeks after the attack following a manhunt and pleaded guilty in November. He was sentenced to nine years in prison. But it's possible court staff misheard the judge's "nine years" for "nine months," and now Dodd is the subject of a second manhunt, the Sun reports. According to the BBC, an arrest warrant has been issued for Dodd, who police say was guilty of an "appalling act of violence." "This is an unacceptable blunder by them," the 21-year-old victim's father tells the Sun. "How can this happen without anyone noticing?" A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice, which is investigating the circumstances, says these kinds of mistakes are "extremely rare." (Woman granted clemency by President Obama is back in prison.)
– Kevin Bacon has inadvertently given his Fox TV show The Following a big dose of publicity, but not in the way diehard fans will appreciate. We won't give it away here, but Bacon served up a major plot twist on Twitter before deleting the tweet and apologizing, reports the Christian Science Monitor. “To all the fans abroad and late watchers I'm truly sorry I retweeted a spoiler,” he tweeted. “I just wasn't thinking. Won't happen again.” In the show, Bacon plays an FBI agent chasing a serial killer with a cult-like following. If you just can't live without knowing the plot twist, see the LA Times coverage.
– Actor Daniel Radcliffe has come to the aid of a man who was mugged by moped-riding attackers in London, reports the AP. Former police officer David Videcette told the Evening Standard that two moped riders attacked a man just off the upmarket King's Road in west London, slashing him across the face and making off with a Louis Vuitton bag. He said he saw 27-year-old Radcliffe consoling the victim after the attack. Per the Telegraph, he said: "He wasn't going to give up the bag willingly. I tried to ram the bike with my car but I wasn't able to." A spokeswoman for Radcliffe confirmed Tuesday that the Harry Potter star had been present but gave no other details, calling it a police matter. The Metropolitan Police force said officers were called Friday to reports of a robbery in the area, in which a man in his 50s suffered a cut to the face. There have been no arrests.
– British cops are investigating whether a serial killer locked up for nearly four decades could be behind two cold cases in Sweden. Police in the southern Swedish city of Malmö say a passenger ferry list shows that "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe was apparently in the area in September 1980 when the body of 26-year-old Teresa Thörling was found dumped at a construction site, Kvällsposten reports via the Local. At the time, that murder was linked to the brutal killing one month earlier of Gertie Jensen, 31, in Gothenburg. Swedish sleuth Bo Lundqvist confirmed to the newspaper that Malmö cops told UK authorities in 1981 that the truck driver may have been in the city around the time of the murders. That lead went nowhere after Interpol reported—wrongly, it turned out—that Sutcliffe was not there. Interpol later corrected that version in a telex that apparently wasn't spotted by UK cops until last year, when a cold case squad took another look at the two unsolved murders. They have another major clue to pursue: a hair recovered from Thörling's body that could identify her killer. Lundqvist confirmed that UK cops have asked his department for help. "They wanted answers," he tells Kvällsposten, including forensic evidence and "whether Sutcliffe was named in any investigations." Sutcliffe was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, per the Guardian, after being sentenced to life in prison in 1981 for the murders of 13 women in the UK in the late 1970s, and the attempted murders of seven others. Although the statute of limitations has lapsed for the two murders in Sweden, Sutcliffe could be prosecuted under UK law. (A letter reopened a very old case.)
– If the United States of America had a nickel for every time its current vice president opened his mouth and inserted foot, we'd all get a trip to Disneyland. But Joe Biden's comments Sunday instead got us President Obama's personal endorsement of gay marriage—yesterday, not at some random point over the summer. The vice president absolutely forced the president's hand in terms of timing, White House insiders tell Politico, and Obama seemed to confirm that in his full ABC interview, aired on GMA this morning. "I had already made a decision that we were going to take this position before the election and before the convention," Obama said. "He probably got a little bit over his skis, but out of generosity of spirit," added Obama. "Would I have preferred to have done this in my own way, in my own terms, without there being a lot of notice to everybody? Sure," he continued. "But all's well that ends well." Biden "leaned in more than he normally would have," a senior adviser tells the LA Times, but the VP fully knew that Obama's mind was made up weeks or months ago when he spoke Sunday. Coupled with Arne Duncan's unexpected stance on the issue the following day, the White House's careful deliberations on the political implications of a presidential endorsement went up in smoke.
– Egypt's interim leadership has set an elections timetable to establish a new democratic government, but the Muslim Brotherhood immediately rejected the idea and has called for an "uprising." The interim administration wants the current, suspended draft constitution to be amended and ratified in a referendum; parliamentary elections by 2014; and presidential elections after that, al-Jazeera reports. But here's the response from a senior Muslim Brotherhood official on Facebook: "A constitutional decree by a man appointed by putchists ... brings the country back to square one." And a legal adviser for the Brotherhood's political arm called Adli Mansour's decree "invalid and illegitimate," the BBC reports. The Brotherhood wants nationwide protests today, in the wake of 51 Morsi supporters being shot dead during a Cairo sit-in yesterday, which it is calling a "massacre." The interim administration expressed "deep regret" for yesterday's violence, while the military blamed it on "terrorists." Witnesses say civilian "thugs," not security forces, fired the lethal shots. It's very unclear exactly what happened, reports the AP, which has a more detailed look at the violence. Meanwhile, the Washington Post takes a look at what's at stake for the Brotherhood, which rose from a banned, oppressed organization to a powerful one within a decade, and now must decide whether to fight rather than return to lives of persecution, ousted from the political process.
– A white Michigan police officer who accused fellow cops of "straight-up racism" will receive a $65,000 settlement, though he's not exactly pleased. Sgt. Cleon Brown, a 19-year veteran with the Hastings Police Department, initially demanded $500,000 from the city in a lawsuit claiming he was subject to taunts beginning in 2016 when a genetic test revealed he was 18% to 33% "sub-Saharan African," reports MLive. The suit claimed his police chief referred to Brown as "Kunta," an African slave character from Alex Haley's Roots: The Saga of an American Family. Other officers stopped talking to Brown, or would whisper "Black Lives Matter" and pump their fists in his presence, while a black Santa head with "18%" written on its beard appeared in Brown's Christmas stocking, according to the suit. "It was almost like a disgraced type of reaction that I got from them like, 'Why are you proud of this type of thing?'" the US Army veteran told WDIV when the suit was filed last May. The city disputed his account at the time, arguing Brown "specifically went to other officers, raised the topic [of his DNA test], joked about it, and engaged in typical racial stereotypes," reports CNN. Per WWMT, the city's manager now says it viewed the lawsuit as without merit but found the settlement was more favorable than "the cost and disruptive effect of defending the case." Brown's lawyer says his client is disappointed with the outcome—which allows him to remain on paid administrative leave until the end of October, when he'll resign—but couldn't afford to continue litigation. Per CNN, he plans to leave the city to find work.
– The US Secret Service confirmed Monday it interviewed a person claiming responsibility for the gift-wrapped horse poop that turned up at Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's house Saturday in Los Angeles, the AP reports. Secret Service spokesperson Cody Starken declined to identify the individual who was interviewed. But AL.com reports Robby Strong, a child psychologist based in Los Angeles, says he sent the horse manure on behalf of the American people. "I was exercising my First Amendment rights," he says. "My rule of thumb is now that if corporations are free speech, then so is horses***t." He calls the poop present an "act of political theater" and posted a photo on Facebook showing himself holding a shovel next to a gift box. "We're returning the 'gift' of the Christmas tax bill. It's bullshit," he wrote in another Facebook post. Strong says he was interviewed by the Secret Service on Sunday but not arrested.
– The New York Daily News is mourning a man described as one of the greatest talents sports journalism has ever seen. Cartoonist and columnist Bill Gallo, who worked for the paper for the best part of 70 years, has died of pneumonia aged 88, reports the New York Times. Gallo, a Marine who fought in battles included Iwo Jima, drew more than 15,000 cartoons for the paper, winning praise for his vivid impressions of sports events of all kinds. Gallo—described by boxing historian Bert Sugar as "second-most outstanding symbol of New York, other than the Statue of Liberty"—kept producing cartoons and columns from hospital beds as his health declined over recent months. "I can't imagine the Daily News without Bill," sports editor Teri Thompson says. "It was an incredible honor to work with someone who so loved our business, and could take you back to JoeDiMaggio and Joe Louis in one moment and to Tiger Woods and Carmelo Anthony the next, all with a smile and a flick of the pen."
– If you want to hear Beck's new album, you better learn how to play a musical instrument. He'll be releasing Beck Hansen's Song Reader in December not as a CD, vinyl record, or digital files, but as … sheet music. "The Song Reader is an experiment in what an album can be at the end of 2012," reads the announcement on Beck's website. "An alternative that enlists the listener in the tone of every track"—and for which "bringing [the songs] to life depends on you." McSweeney's will publish the 20-song, 108-page album, which will include the song booklets, carrying case, art, and a foreword by Beck, Rolling Stone reports. The publishing house will also post versions of the songs as performed by both musicians and readers on its website. Will Beck be among those performers? Who knows.
– April is Whiteness History Month at Oregon's Portland Community College, NBC News reports. But instead of dissertations on the Tea Party, juice cleanses, and Macklemore, Whiteness History Month will attempt to "challenge the master narrative of race and racism through an exploration of the social construction of whiteness," per the event's website. NBC reports Whiteness History Month was created by the college's diversity council to improve the culture of a campus that is 68% white. "Colleges across the country continue to struggle to improve diversity, inclusion, and racial equity," the website states. "At Portland Community College, evidence from hiring data, student-­led research, surveys, focus groups, college-wide emails, and other sources have illuminated the underlying reality of whiteness embedded in the overall college climate" USA Today reports Whiteness History Month is predictably drawing criticism from certain circles. The American Conservative calls it "hate whitey month," and Right Wing News claims it's an effort to shame white people for their "disproportionate" accomplishments. In a statement, Portland Community College interim president Sylvia Kelley says Whiteness History Month isn't trying to "shame or blame" anyone. "We view this project as part of a larger national conversation around race and social justice on America’s college campuses," she says. According to the event's website, it's currently looking for lectures, plays, and more to accomplish its goals of understanding whiteness, how it can be done away with, and what can replace it.
– Kim Kardashian loves selfies, so of course she wanted to take one of herself and a baby elephant during her trip to Thailand. The plan, however, went hilariously awry: In a series of photos from Friday, Kardashian is shown first posing near the elephant, holding out her phone to take the picture ... and then running screaming from the elephant as it blew air at her from its trunk, Us reports. (Animals don't seem to like Kim much.) Her own mother made fun of Kim later, the Stir notes: On Instagram, Kris Jenner used the hashtags "#scaredycat" and "#hesjustababykim." See the awesome pictures here.
– Maya civilization was no mere collection of city states using slash-and-burn farming—that we learned earlier this year. Now archaeologists are looking deeper into an airborne survey that revealed a formidable civilization double the size of medieval England at its peak 1,200 years ago, Ars Technica reports. The survey, which used LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) to peek beneath the jungle foliage, revealed some 61,000 buildings, draining canals, fortresses, and roads across roughly 828 square miles. What archaeologists are saying about those details in Science: Population: About 7 million to 11 million people populated the central Maya Lowlands—an area including some of Belize, Guatemala, and Yucatan—between 650 and 800 CE, the Late Classic Period. How did researchers crunch that number? By counting the structures per square mile and estimating how many were houses. Big cities like Tikal likely had hundreds of people per square mile, per Discovery. Farming: A huge agricultural effort was needed to keep all those mouths fed, LiveScience notes. Imagine a complex grid of channels providing flood control and irrigation, with grids up to six feet wide and 20 inches deep, some stretching over half a mile. Still, densely populated cities like Naachtun and Tikal had to import food from other Maya kingdoms to survive. Causeways: In earlier Maya times, from 1000 to 250 BCE, cities were linked by elevated roads or causeways up to 65 feet wide and up to 13 miles in length—but they fell into disuse when so-called Preclassic cities were abandoned. Yet their faded ghost outlines are visible on the LIDAR. Fortresses: Mayans built more of them than expected in the Late Classic Period, and sophisticated ones, too. One has walls over 25 feet high and an Olympic-pool-size reservoir: "In other words, this place was ready for a siege," says Ithaca College archaeologist Tom Garrison. "That is not really the type of conflict that we think about for the ancient Maya." Overall: "Seen as a whole, terraces and irrigation channels, reservoirs, fortifications, and causeways reveal an astonishing amount of land modification done by the Maya over their entire landscape on a scale previously unimaginable," a Tulane researcher says in a statement.
– Characters in the wildly popular video game Fortnite can snag celebratory emotes—read dances—based on real moves. There's The Floss, The Worm, and the Electro Shuffle. There's the Turk Dance as featured on Scrubs and this Seinfeld scene. And, to 2 Milly's dismay, his Milly Rock dance, dubbed "Swipe It" within the game. The rapper, real name Terrence Ferguson, says maker Epic Games included his signature move in Fortnite, where it can be bought for $5, without his permission and without offering compensation, in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed Wednesday in California, per Variety and the CBC. His lawyer tells Kotaku race is a factor, noting it appears "they believe that they can railroad African-American talent because they doubt that there will be any legal consequence," though the Kotaku points out non-African-Americans could lob similar accusations. The CBC notes that while Fornite is free to download, in-game purchases of things like emotes have reeled in more than $1 billion for Epic Games since 2017 in the US alone. While 2 Milly registered the Milly Rock with the Copyright Office on Dec. 4, a lawyer explains it's typically the name of a dance move that's trademarked, rather than the move itself. The CBC's take: It was a "smart move" for Epic to tie its brand to the most viral of moves, but it comes at a cost for the originator: "If you weren't already following rap or internet culture, it would be easy to assume the dance originated in Fortnite."
– A tractor-trailer carrying cars slammed into a restaurant in Ithaca, NY, yesterday, killing one person and injuring seven others, reports the Ithaca Journal. The driver survived, and the investigation is continuing into what happened. A witness tells the newspaper that the truck didn't sound its horn as it came barreling down East Hill and that she heard no screeching brakes before impact. The Ithaca Voice talks to another witness, one of a number of pedestrians who had to jump out of the truck's way. "Thank God I'm here today," he says. Ithaca is home to both Cornell and Ithaca College. (It's the second high-profile tractor-trailer accident this month, the other being the crash that critically injured Tracy Morgan. He's since been moved to rehab.)
– If Yahoo's sale of most of its business to Verizon goes through, the man hired to run what little remains of the company will receive double the salary of female predecessor Marissa Mayer, according to an SEC filing. Board member Thomas McInerney will receive $2 million base pay, twice what Mayer received, plus an annual bonus up to another $2 million, NBC reports. The disparity has raised some eyebrows, especially since McInerney will apparently have a much easier job than Mayer: At new spinoff company Altaba, he will be overseeing the company's stake in Chinese Internet firm Alibaba in what Fortune describes as a "practically no-show job" taking care of a fund that "almost runs itself." McInerney, former CFO at media company IAC, may also be eligible for up to $24 million in long-term incentive grants, more than Mayer's last such grant. A source tells Fortune that his job at Altaba will be trickier than it might seem, since he will have to untangle the firm from "a long and significant tail of Yahoo operating company liabilities." Mayer, meanwhile, won't exactly be going home empty-handed: She is expected to get a $23 million severance package and around $60 million in stock options. If she leaves the company, she will also be free to sell the estimated $97 million in Yahoo stock she already owns. (Verizon is now getting a discount on the Yahoo deal.)
– Donald Trump promises a busy first few days in office, with a series of executive actions ready to be rolled out within days. Some highlights: Day One may bring two major trade moves: Trump intends to give official notice that the US plans to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and that he wants to renegotiate NAFTA with Canada and Mexico, reports AP. Reuters reports executive orders are coming within days, and cites two: a directive regarding the construction of a Mexico border wall, and limitations on the entry of Latin American asylum seekers. "A senior GOP Hill aide said lawmakers anticipate that Trump will roll out multiple executive orders related to Obamacare. But the stresses they have not yet been briefed or given any heads-up about what is coming." See CNN. The Hill predicts "dramatic" funding cuts soon, and specifies five departments that will take a hit: Commerce, Energy, Transportation, Justice, and State. The New York Times rounds up all of Trump's "day one" promises from the campaign here, including a vow to lift restrictions on oil drilling. Trump plans to visit the CIA on Saturday after weeks of rancor between him and the intelligence community. He would attend the swearing-in of Mike Pompeo as the new chief, assuming the Senate confirms him on Friday, reports NBC News. Politico assesses the outlook for the first 100 days on some of the higher-profile issues, from a border wall to health care. On that wall, Trump can start aggressively, but "addressing larger immigration problems legislatively would require a vision that extended beyond fences and deportations." Read it here. ABC News' 100-day preview suggests a giant infrastructure bill might be one of the few initiatives that will get bipartisan support. Read it here.
– No felony crime was committed by jailers in the puzzling jailhouse death of Sandra Bland and no indictments will be issued, a grand jury in Texas decided Monday night. In what was ruled a suicide, the 28-year-old was found dead in her cell at the Waller County Jail three days after she was arrested during a July 10 traffic stop. An independent special prosecutor says the process isn't over and the grand jury will meet again in January to consider charges against the trooper who arrested Bland, though a lawyer for her family says it has all been a "sham of a proceeding," the Houston Chronicle reports. The family's lawyers have been unable to access evidence from the secret grand jury proceedings, including a report from a Texas Rangers investigation, the AP reports. Bland's sister tells the Chicago Tribune that the family has been "shut out of this process from the very beginning" and is "in pieces this holiday season." "The timing of the grand jury, in my personal opinion, is disrespectful to the family and it continues to pour salt on a wound that has already been ripped open for the past five months," she says. Bernie Sanders also weighed in on the case, NBC News reports. "There's no doubt in my mind that she, like too many African-Americans who die in police custody, would be alive today if she were a white woman," he said in a statement. "We need to reform a very broken criminal justice system." (The family's lawyers say the county made an insulting claim when it sought to have their wrongful death lawsuit dismissed.)
– Former workers for the beleaguered WikiLeaks have a new whistle-blowing project, and it’s set to launch Monday, Mashable reports. Openleaks, whose founders left WikiLeaks over differences with Julian Assange, hopes to act “as far as possible” as a “messenger” between whistleblowers and publishers of leaked material. That way, “all editorial control and responsibility rests with the publishing organization,” an insider tells the Swedish news site DN.se. “As a result of our intention not to publish any document directly and in our own name, we do not expect to experience the kind of political pressure which WikiLeaks is under at this time,” the insider says. “In that aspect, it is quite interesting to see how little of politicians’ anger seems directed at the newspapers using WikiLeaks sources.” The Daily Intel has more on the WikiLeaks rift and its spawn.
– Recession is relative department: A Hermes handbag sold for a record $203,150 at auction in Dallas this week, reports the Houston Chronicle. The red alligator bag fetched way beyond expectations, helped along by the gold and diamonds embedded in its hardware. It's "an extraordinary example of one of the world’s most exceptional handbags," an official at Heritage Auctions tells Women's Wear Daily. The buyer remained anonymous, apparently not thrilled to be known as the person who shelled out 200 grand for a purse.
– The good news: Three drugs that already exist appear to be successful at fighting the Zika virus. The bad news: Scientists aren't yet sure if the drugs will actually work on humans who have the Zika virus, the Washington Post reports. The drugs—PHA-690509, a drug currently being tried on cancer patients; emricasan, a drug currently being tried on patients with liver damage from hepatitis C; and niclosamide, which is used for gut parasites—"are very effective against Zika in the [petri] dish, but we don’t know if they can work in humans in the same way," says the co-author of the study that led to the discovery. The study, which screened 6,000 existing drugs, used the drugs on lab-grown human cells; the three aforementioned drugs allowed those cells to live longer when faced with Zika infection—and sometimes even recover completely, though Zika damage was previously thought to be impossible to reverse. The next step is to test the drugs in animal models, then, if the results are replicated, test them on humans. Meanwhile, in addition to the problems Zika is already linked to in unborn babies, USA Today reports that the virus is now also linked to hearing loss.
– What's this? Someone on the doomed Costa Concordia is actually praising the actions of Capt. Francesco Schettino: "Look at how many people are alive because of him. It’s a tragedy that people are missing, but he saved over 3,000 people on that ship because of his actions." So says 25-year-old Domnica Cemortan, reports the Telegraph. Schettino, however, may not be happy Cemortan has emerged in the spotlight. Details are still sketchy, but she may have been the young woman that passengers saw the captain dining with before the ship ran aground. Sample headline from the Guardian: "Italian captain linked to mystery woman." The Daily Mail, meanwhile, refers to her as a "glamorous blonde." The young Moldovan woman had worked as a hostess on the ship but apparently wasn't on duty this voyage, reports AP. Still, she said she went to the bridge with Schettino and other officers to help translate evacuation instructions to passengers, adding that Schettino was still on the deck when she evacuated about two hours later. Italian media say prosecutors plan to interview her.
– In 2012 the average medical-school grad owed about $162,000 in student loan debt. But many of these newly minted doctors can, thanks to one government program, pay just a few hundred dollars a month on their loans—in some cases, far less than the interest that's being tacked on each month. And after 10 years, when the balance has swelled above $200,000, they can have whatever they owe wiped clean. The Wall Street Journal takes a look at this expanding class of borrower: graduate or professional-school students with a six-figure loan who don't expect or intend to pay it back. That attitude isn't a flouting of the rules. As the Journal reports, one 2012 program allows borrowers to pay a max of 10% of their discretionary income (that's any adjusted gross income beyond 1.5 times the poverty line.) And while undergrads are prevented from taking on more than $57,500 in federal loans, as of 2006 grad students stopped being restricted in a similar manner: Once they've borrowed $138,500 in government Stafford loans (that figure includes undergrad debt), the roughly 10-year-old Grad PLUS loans step in, in many cases eliminating the need to fill the gap using private loans. Grad PLUS was actually supposed to help taxpayers, because the interest rates on these loans were higher. But a 2007 measure allows those working full-time for a federal agency or nonprofit to have their balance wiped away if they make 10 years of payments (which, yes, can be capped at the aforementioned 10%) on time—at the taxpayers' expense. The Journal notes that 73% of America's hospitals are nonprofits or government owned, meaning doctors working there qualify.
– A closely watched congressional race near Buffalo looks to be tipping in Democrats' favor: A new poll gives Kathy Hochul a 4-point edge over Republican Jane Corwin heading into Tuesday's special election, reports Politico. The race is drawing national attention in part because it's seen as a proxy fight on Paul Ryan's budget/Medicare plan and partly because a good chunk of votes that would presumably go to Corwin are being siphoned away by Tea Party candidate Jack Davis. National groups have been pouring money into the race, GOP ones especially of late. Hochul has been pounding Corwin in ad after ad by linking her to Ryan's plan and calling her a Medicare killer. Corwin insists she's the one trying to save it. "The national Democrats came down on this 'Oh, you're decimating Medicare!' message," she tells Dave Weigel of Slate. "They just sent it down to my opponent and let her run with it." Weigel's take: This "isn't really a fight over the Ryan plan. It's about which candidate loves Medicare more—or more accurately, about how the other candidate loves it less." So whose seat are the candidates trying to fill? Remember Craigslist cruiser Chris Lee?
– The Lovely Bones got a sneak showing in London last night, and one reviewer is already calling it the best film of next year—while another lambastes it as candy-coated crap. An anonymous critic from the Sun says he’s already sure he won’t “see anything more astonishing, emotionally draining, and life-affirming” next year, and calls it Peter Jackson’s best film. “Yes, even better than The Lord of The Rings” (emphasis his). But Xan Brooks of the Guardian pans the film, which amounts to “an ongoing clean-up operation” of Alice Sebold’s acclaimed book. How do you make a PG-13 movie about the rape and murder of a 14-year-old? Why, just remove the rape! Jackson never mentions it, nor does he show the murder, nor any plot point that’s less than squeaky-clean. He surveys the crime scene with his “eyes averted, spraying cloying perfume left and right.”
– The Federal Trade Commission is investigating Facebook's privacy practices following a week of privacy scandals including whether the company engaged in "unfair acts" that cause "substantial injury" to consumers, the AP reports. Facebook's stock, which already took a big hit last week, plunged as a result. Facebook said in a statement on Monday that the company remains "strongly committed" to protecting people's information and that it welcomes the opportunity to answer the FTC's questions. News outlets reported on the FTC investigation last week, but the FTC hadn't confirmed it until Monday. Facebook reached a settlement with the FTC in 2011 offering privacy assurances. (Cambridge Analytica isn't Facebook's only current privacy scandal.)
– More than 50 Colorado National Guardsmen are helping hundreds of firefighters battle a blaze that the Boulder County Sheriff's Office says was started by two careless campers from Alabama, USA Today and the AP report. Jimmy Suggs, 28, and Zackary Kuykendall, 26, of Vinemont were arrested Sunday and charged with fourth-degree arson—a felony because lives were endangered by the wildfire, a sheriff's statement cited by the Denver Post notes. They reportedly started the campfire Thursday night going into Friday at a campsite on private property near the Peak to Peak Highway and Cold Springs Road, and while it may be reasonable to assume the men didn't mean for the fire to get out of hand, the sheriff's statement notes they're being charged because they didn't make sure the fire had been put out properly or ensure the ashes were cooled down before they left the site, AL.com reports. The Cold Springs fire, which officials say was helped along by hot, dry weather and winds that blew the still-smoldering ash, has since Saturday spread over more than 600 acres, burned down three homes (one of which is a Nederland firefighter's, CNN reports) and three other buildings, and caused the evacuation of more than 2,000 people southwest of Boulder. Thirty other homes are still said to be at risk depending on how hot it gets and which way the wind blows. One resident who was evacuated tells the Boulder Daily Camera that as she was leaving the area, she "looked and saw an inferno in the sky." Both suspects are being held at the Boulder County Jail. The Denver Post has images of the wildfire and affected residents.
– HIV infections are "exploding" among gay men, according to the World Health Organization. In fact, the infection rates are so bad, the organization—for the first time—"strongly recommends men who have sex with men consider taking antiretroviral medicines as an additional method of preventing HIV infection," it announced today. Despite the attention drawn to HIV infections among gay men in the 1980s, WHO's HIV head tells AFP the younger generation is less focused on the disease when, in fact, gay men today are 19 times more likely to contract HIV than the general population. WHO notes that taking pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP—typically, two antiretrovirals combined into one daily pill—in addition to the use of condoms is estimated to cut HIV incidence among gay men by up to 25% or prevent "up to one million new infections among this group over 10 years." Al Jazeera America reports that when taken consistently, PrEP can cut the risk of HIV infection in high-risk groups with "universally poorer access to health services," including prostitutes and prisoners, by up to 92%. (In other news, a baby apparently "cured" of HIV has tested positive for the virus.)
– Caracas, Venezuela, has the unwanted distinction of being the most dangerous city in the world in a new survey. The report by 24/7 Wall St takes a look at global homicide rates and finds that the city's mix of gang warfare and political unrest puts it at the top of the list. Here are the 10 worst: Caracas, Venezuela; homicides per 100,000: 130.35 Acapulco, Mexico; 113.24 San Pedro Sula, Honduras; 112.09 Distrito Central, Honduras; 85.09 Victoria, Mexico; 84.67 Maturín, Venezuela; 84.21 San Salvador, El Salvador; 83.39 Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela; 82.84 Valencia, Venezuela; 72.02 Natal, Brazil; 69.56 Click for the full rankings, which put the first US city, St. Louis, at No. 14.
– Mafia 'boss of bosses' Salvatore 'Toto' Riina died Friday in a hospital while serving multiple life sentences as the mastermind of a bloody strategy to assassinate Italian prosecutors and law enforcement trying to bring down the Cosa Nostra. He was 87. Riina died hours after the Justice Ministry had allowed his family members bedside visits Thursday, which was his birthday, after he had been placed in a medically induced coma in a prison wing at a hospital in Parma, northern Italy, per the AP. Riina, one of Sicily's most notorious Mafia bosses who ruthlessly directed the mob's criminal empire during 23 years in hiding, was serving 26 life sentences for murder convictions as a powerful Cosa Nostra boss. Nicknamed "the Beast," he was thought to have ordered an estimated 150 murders between 1969 and 1992, reports NPR. He was captured in Palermo, Sicily's capital, in 1993 and imprisoned under a law that requires strict security for top mobsters, including being detained in isolated sections of prisons with limited time outside of their cells. During the height of his power, prosecutors accused Riina of masterminding a strategy, carried out over several years, to assassinate Italian prosecutors, police officials, and others who were going after the Cosa Nostra. The bloodbath campaign ultimately backfired, however, and led to his capture as the enraged state fought back after bombs killed Italy's two leading anti-Mafia magistrates, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, two months apart in 1992. Top anti-Mafia prosecutor Franco Roberti said that Riina had never repented for his crimes.
– Once upon a time, an average worker with average skills could expect an average lifestyle in America—but not anymore. "Today, average is officially over," writes Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. Average people can't expect the lifestyle they used to enjoy, because "employers have so much more access to so much more above average cheap foreign labor, cheap robotics, cheap software, cheap automation, and cheap genius." The chief culprits, of course, are globalization—which allows companies like Apple to produce iPods more efficiently overseas—and technology, which always has and always will eliminate jobs. Consider for instance this Slate piece about an iPad-like device that threatens to destroy even a usually reliable service position like waiters. So how can we respond to the trend? Bolster education. Whatever change comes, "one thing we know for sure," Friedman argues, is that "the best jobs will require workers to … make themselves above average."
– "Incredible" is how Dr. Alain Carpentier describes the progress of a patient who's set to go home almost six months after receiving the artificial heart Carpentier invented, the New York Times reports. The 68-year-old man, who has requested confidentiality, is "living a completely normal life" now and has been "pedaling like crazy" on a stationary bike, Carpentier tells Le Parisien. The patient suffered from terminal heart failure—an inability of the heart to pump enough oxygen and blood to other organs—and underwent surgery on Aug. 5 at the University of Nantes hospital, according to Carmat, the device's manufacturer. Unlike other artificial hearts (most notably, the Jarvik heart first implanted in a human in 1982), the Carmat heart combines cow tissue with synthetic material to stop blood clots and is self-regulating, more closely imitating a real heart's contractions, Smithsonian reports. More than 23 million people worldwide have heart failure, according to the National Institutes of Health, but options are limited: Transplants are usually necessary, but there aren't enough donated organs to go around, the Times notes. The Carmat heart was first implanted in December 2013—unfortunately, the patient died a little over two months later, but his survival doubled the previous success of 30 days. The August operation took six hours, as opposed to the eight hours it took for the 2013 surgery, according to the Times. If further trials go well, Carmat plans on selling the device for between $162,000 to $208,000. Investors were obviously pleased with the news: Carmat shares were up 18% this morning, leading to a company market value of $387 million, Reuters reports. (An artificial heart that weighed as much as two nickels saved a baby's life in Italy.)
– Aurora theater shooter James Holmes is being held at a high-security federal prison in Pennsylvania, the Colorado Department of Corrections has announced following a nearly two-year effort by victims and family members to get the information. Months after Holmes was assaulted in October 2015, he was moved from Colorado State Penitentiary to San Carlos Correctional Facility, then to an unnamed facility out of state. On Wednesday, officials revealed Holmes was "recently" moved to a federal facility with "appropriate security" when a spot opened up. That facility is USP Allenwood, where he's kept with 825 other male inmates, reports the Denver Channel. "I'm pleased that after all these many, many months of obfuscation by the state government here that these family victims are finally going to get the peace of mind, knowing [the location of] the guy who murdered their loved ones," Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler, who was lead prosecutor in the shooting case, tells the Denver Post. But he's still curious to know where Holmes has been, and what kind of conditions he's experienced, since the recent move to USP Allenwood was allowed to take place. He's also holding out hope that Holmes will be back in Colorado before long so he can serve his 12 consecutive life sentences near the spot where he killed 12 people and injured 70.
– Seems like a good problem to have: Sweden is shutting down four prisons and a detention center because it doesn't have enough inmates to fill them, reports the Guardian. The move follows a 6% drop in inmate numbers from 2011 to 2012, with similar numbers expected this year. What gives? The leading factors seem to be an increased focus on rehab and fewer jail sentences for drug crimes. But "we are not at the point of concluding that this is a long-term trend and that this is a change in paradigm," says the top prison official. "What we are certain of is that the pressure on the criminal justice system has dropped markedly in recent years." For comparison's sake, the US has 2.24 million people in jail, for a rate of 716 inmates per 100,000 residents. Sweden has 4,852 in prison for a rate of 51 inmates per 100,000, notes the International Business Times.
– Donald Trump announced his White House communications team Thursday with former RNC communications director Sean Spicer nabbing the role of White House press secretary, Politico reports. The rest of the team will be Hope Hicks as strategic communications director, Jason Miller as communications director, and Dan Scavino as social media director. “Sean, Hope, Jason, and Dan have been key members of my team during the campaign and transition,” Trump said in a statement. “I am excited they will be leading the team that will communicate my agenda that will Make America Great Again.” Trump likely made the final decisions on his communications team Wednesday during "internal staff meetings" at Mar-a-Lago. Spicer, believed to have been the favorite for the press secretary role due to his connections with incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus, calls it an "amazing honor," Fox News reports. But the Washington Post notes it's "likely to be a challenging position given Trump's sometimes hostile relationship with the media," not to mention his habit of unfiltered tweeting. On the other hand, CNN reports Spicer's appointment could be seen as a "positive sign" for members of the media afraid Trump would limit press access to his administration. After 15 years doing communications for Republicans in Washington, Spicer knows the "press relations game" in the city.
– There is a museum for just about anything these days, and now, thanks to some pioneering folks in the UK, even those with poop fixations can get their fix thanks to the grand opening of the National Poo Museum at the Isle of Wight Zoo. The samples of feces range from scant insect excrement to gigantic elk and lion poo, as well as the doodoo of a human baby, reports the BBC. The museum even includes fossilized feces dating back some 38 million years, reports Mental Floss, and also covers the more metaphorically gross side of dung, such as the diseases spread without toilets or proper sanitation. In an innovative display that required a custom built drying contraption, the crap curators have placed the fetid samples in illuminated resin spheres that include related facts hidden behind toilet lids. And while it's billed as the first-ever museum devoted to poop, Huffington Post has tracked down two similarly themed endeavors, including a poop museum that opened in Italy last year and the one and only Mr. Toilet House in South Korea, which features statues of an assortment of mammals doing number two. Curator Nigel George, meanwhile, tells the BBC that "small children naturally delight" in the topic while "for most of us, under the layers of disgust and taboo, we're still fascinated by it." (What does a unicorn have to do with poop, anyway?)
– Amid a furious backlash, a key source behind an Al Jazeera report claiming Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning received supplies of human growth hormone has recanted the allegations. In a video statement, Charles Sly says that what he was recorded saying to undercover investigator Liam Collins about sending HGH to athletes, including Manning, is "false and incorrect," the Denver Post reports. Sly tells ESPN that contrary to what the documentary claims, he isn't a pharmacist and he wasn't at the Guyer Institute at the time Manning was being treated there. Sly says Collins, a former hurdler, had promised that he could make money as a consultant to injured European athletes and he was dropping names "to pull one over on Collins to see if he had any idea of what he was talking about." Clinic founder Dale Guyer tells ESPN that Sly, a former intern, clearly fabricated the allegations and Manning is "one of the most honorable and upstanding individuals I have had the pleasure of knowing." The Denver Broncos released a statement denouncing the "false claims," and the Indianapolis Colts added that "Peyton played the game in Indianapolis for 14 years the right way" and they hope his legacy won't be tarnished by a "crude effort to besmirch" his reputation. Manning—who earlier denounced the report as "complete garbage"—told NBC on Sunday that he's furious about the "defamation" and will probably sue. ESPN reports that lawyers for other athletes named in the report, including Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison, are also planning to sue Al Jazeera.
– Sean Hannity gave Roy Moore a 24-hour ultimatum Tuesday—and the embattled Senate candidate responded. In an open letter to Hannity, Moore said he never dated "underage girls" and suggested that an inscription in the yearbook of Beverly Young Nelson, who says he sexually assaulted her when she was 16, was a forgery, CNN reports. Moore said he "cannot comment further" on other allegations "at the direction of counsel." At the end of his show Wednesday night, Hannity said Moore had provided the answers he asked for, but he declined to say whether he believed them, the AP reports. "The people of Alabama deserve to have a fair choice," he said. "I'm very confident that when everything comes out, they will make the best decision for their state." "It shouldn't be decided by me, by people on television, by Mitch McConnell," the Fox host said. A sixth woman came forward Wednesday to accuse Moore of groping her, followed by two more who accused him of harassing them at the Gadsden Mall in his hometown when they were in their teens and he was in his 30s. Gena Richardson tells the Washington Post that she declined to give Moore her number after he approached her while she worked at Sears, but he contacted her through her high school. She says they ended up seeing a movie together, and she was frightened when he suddenly gave her a "forceful" kiss afterward. Her friend Kayla McLaughlin backs up the account and says after the encounter, Richardson hid whenever Moore came to the store. (Locals say Moore was banned from the mall for constantly pestering young women.)
– How much would you pay for a Sony Walkman? Now double it. You're still not even close. Engadget reports Sony unveiled a $3,200 Walkman during IFA 2016 Thursday in Berlin. Or as Mashable puts it: "Sony's out of its mind." The new NW-WM1Z is meant to appeal to super serious audiophiles. And the Verge reports the big changes are in the hardware. The Walkman is made out of gold-plated copper to reduce magnetic interference and contact resistance. It also separates its analog and digital circuitry and includes a "dual clock circuit with low phase noise quartz oscillator." And if any of that makes sense to you, you might be the target customer. Sony's expensive new Walkman is "as bulky as an original iPod," according to Mashable, and features a 4-inch touchscreen that "can be a little terrifying" in the amount of information in displays. It boasts 256GB of storage and works with Direct Stream Digital audio files, which have a sample rate 64 times better than CDs. Still, Mashable "wasn't blown away" by the sound quality. And the Verge states all this will only result in "minor sound quality improvements that only serious audiophiles with equally high-end headphones will notice." For everyone else, there's this Walkman cassette player currently going for $5.00 on eBay. (A Florida man wants $10 billion for inventing the iPhone in 1992.)
– As a raging fire burned through the three-story brick home of a family in Norristown, Pa., a 12-year-old boy watching the flames grew increasingly worried about his father, who was still recovering from hip-replacement surgery. Not realizing that his dad, Sanford Harling Jr., who was 58, had jumped out of a second-story window, Sanford Harling III, who was 12, broke free from a family friend and ran in to help him, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. "I’m going to go back in to get my dad because he’s walking with a walker," he said. That's the last time anyone saw him alive; firefighters found the 12-year-old on the first floor, where he'd died of smoke inhalation and thermal burns in the Feb. 5, 2016 blaze. On Wednesday, Sanford was among 20 people named national heroes by the Carnegie Hero Fund, which has bestowed the honor upon nearly 10,000 people since it was established in 1904 with the mission of freeing them from "pecuniary cares resulting from their heroism," reports Patch.com. (Each recipient receives a one-time $5,000 grant.) "As we said from the beginning, he was a hero," says Fire Chief Tom O'Donnell. Harling Jr. feels the same way, calling his son "my angel." A GoFundMe page set up to help the family of "My Little Hero!" raised nearly $42,000, surpassing its $25,000 goal. Of the 20 heroes named in 2017, Sanford was among three who died performing their heroic acts. He was a seventh grader and part of the Norristown Youth Eagles Football Program. (See how this toddler saved his twin brother's life.)
– A website is apologizing after one of its writers made a very ill-advised holiday joke on Facebook. CoolCleveland, which promotes events in Cleveland, posted an announcement about an upcoming gingerbread house building event and made what appeared to be joking references to Cleveland's "House of Horrors" case in which Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus were held captive by Ariel Castro for a decade, the New York Post reports. Referencing the area's recent housing crisis and resulting empty houses, the now-deleted post said, "Many end up becoming dens for cracker addicts. In one notorious case, three missing gingerbread women were found held as gingerbread sex slaves for 10 years, while gingerbread police remained baffled … But there is a solution!" The restaurant hosting the event was unaware of the post and immediately requested it be taken down, a rep tells Cleveland.com. CoolCleveland has since apologized in a statement in which the publisher called the post "inexcusable and inappropriate," adding, "It is never OK to make light of such serious issues, and I take full and personal responsibility for this post ever being published." In a Facebook post linking to the statement, the website added a comment announcing the writer responsible for the post no longer works for the company. "We apologize to anyone who may have read this egregious post, to victims and survivors, and to the community of Cleveland," the statement continues, adding that CoolCleveland has made a donation to a nonprofit that helpss survivors and victims. "When we started CoolCleveland over 16 years ago, it was to help and support the cool events, cool people and cool venues in our region, not to cause further harm and pain." Cleveland.com has a screenshot of the original post and some of the angry responses. (Another ill-advised holiday post here.)
– This Saturday, a Beverly Hills gallery plans to auction off a piece of crap—literally. The IM Chait Gallery says it will put a 40-inch-long piece of excrement up for auction, and it hopes to fetch around $10,000, LiveScience reports. Why the big bucks? The "eye-watering" poop "boasts a wonderfully even, pale brown-yellow coloring and terrifically detailed texture ... across the whole of its immense length," reads the gallery's description. Oh, and the fossilized dung (or coprolite) could be 33 million years old, according to the auctioneers. Though it's not known which species excreted it, it's going up for sale alongside five smaller pieces of "petrified feces" found in Washington state and thought to be from Miocene turtles, a spokesperson tells the Daily Mail. Paleontologists might buy the poop to examine it for more data, like information on diet, but collectors like buying the stuff too, Boston.com reports. A 130-million-year-old pile of dinosaur poop sold for almost $1,000 in New York in 2008, and Chait has sold a few smaller coprolites before for around $6,000 each. So what makes this one so special? "I've never seen anything close to this in terms of size," the gallery's natural history director says. It's even been mounted on black marble and displayed in four pieces so it won't break during shipping. (Last month, a Neanderthal latrine yielded the oldest human poop ever discovered.)
– Michael Lohan can always be counted on to bring the class. While defending himself against allegations he doesn’t do enough to help his troubled daughter in an interview with Shepard Smith on Fox News, Lohan dropped the F-bomb: “Don't tell me how much time I spend helping my daughter or going out to eat dinner, or how much time I spend in the f***ing gym.” He went on to melodramatically suggest that Lindsay’s ordeal “could end in death.” If not in death, it could at least end unattractively: TMZ reports poor LiLo will not be allowed to wear hair extensions or makeup while in jail. Perhaps more tragically for the two-packs-a-day smoker, she won’t be allowed cigarettes either. Need some entertainment after all that sad news? Check out the second video in the gallery—Perez Hilton claims it’s a leaked LiLo song with eerily appropriate lyrics like “Crashing my car coming flying through the windshield, oh I'm too young die,” but Gawker calls it a fake.
– The woman who was gang-raped on a New Delhi bus has been flown to Singapore for treatment. The 23-year-old remains in 'extremely critical condition,' says a hospital rep, and she may need an organ transplant. India's government fears that continuing protests—which have already seen the death of a police officer, the BBC notes—could grow depending on the woman's fate, the Times of India reports. And it adds that her health has only worsened: She suffered a cardiac arrest on Wednesday, and is fighting sepsis, which must be dealt with before an intestine transplant can be considered. Authorities, led by a retired judge, are conducting an inquiry into the official response to the assault. Two police officers have been suspended amid concerns that authorities have looked the other way while women are attacked. The protests earlier prompted a citywide lockdown, but roads and subway stations are beginning to reopen, the BBC adds.
– Texas has sicced the Air Force on a post-Hurricane Harvey enemy: mosquitoes. As of Tuesday, 1.85 million acres (that's about 1% of the state) had been coated with insecticides via Air Force C-130 cargo planes. The planes had at that point sprayed three eastern counties, with plans to expand their footprint over the next two weeks. Reuters says officials are hoping the effort will tamp down on mosquito-carried diseases like West Nile and Zika, though a rep for the Texas Department of State Health Services says the mosquitoes that tend to materialize after floods aren't usually carriers. What they are: nuisances. That's the word the CDC uses in its Mosquitoes & Hurricanes alert, which agrees that the issue here really isn't disease (though those types of mosquitoes can be a problem a month or two later in areas that didn't flood but saw a big uptick in rainfall). During post-hurricane flooding, "mosquito eggs laid in the soil by floodwater mosquitoes during previous floods hatch. This results in very large populations of floodwater mosquitoes. ... Large numbers of nuisance mosquitoes can affect recovery efforts." How large? Gizmodo has some photos that might make you shudder.
– Jurors in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev heard about the murder of MIT police officer Sean Collier today, along with his chief's final exchange with him. As Chief John DiFava was leaving the campus, he spotted Collier's cruiser, reports NBC News. "I always make it a point to say hello," says the chief. "I chatted with him for a few minutes. I told him to be safe, and I left." That took place about 9:30pm on April 18, 2013. Less than an hour later, Collier was shot to death in his car, allegedly by the Tsarnaev brothers as they unsuccessfully tried to steal his gun. Video footage from the scene shows two men approaching Collier's car and his brake lights flickering, reports the Boston Globe. Then one of the two men extends an arm as a muzzle flashes and a bicyclist rides by. The latter appears to have been graduate student Nate Harman, who testified today that he was riding home and made eye contact with one of the two men by the car. Harman identified him as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. (Previously, jurors got a close look at Tsarnaev's written messages inside the boat where he was hiding.)
– While promoting her new movie, A Bad Moms Christmas, on Conan Thursday night, actress Mila Kunis waded deep into the culture wars, and now it looks like she may have taken a beloved brand of bourbon with her. During her interview, Kunis admitted to Conan O'Brien that she's been donating to Planned Parenthood in the name of Vice President Mike Pence, the Hill reports. Unhappy with Pence's stance on abortion, Kunis says she set up the recurring monthly donation "as a reminder that there are women in the world that may or may not agree with his platform." Which means every month, Pence receives a card from Planned Parenthood informing him a donation has been made in his name. The Conan crowd applauded Kunis' story, but not everyone is happy about the actress' act of resistance. Over the weekend a campaign began on social media calling for a boycott of Jim Beam, the bourbon manufacturer whose spokeswoman is none other than Mila Kunis, USA Today reports. "#BoycottBeam" is now a hashtag on Twitter, with numerous people taking to Twitter to voice their displeasure with Jim Beam and its spokeswoman. "Jim Beam = for selling baby body parts and abortions," wrote user Covfefe Deplorable on Sunday, while others swore their new allegiance to competing bourbons like Jack Daniel's and Wild Turkey. There has been no comment yet from Jim Beam.
– The Billboard Music Awards paid tribute to the students and teachers affected by recent deadly shootings in Texas and Florida, while the night also featured show-stopping performances by iconic singer Janet Jackson and K-pop group BTS. A tearful and emotional Kelly Clarkson opened the show in honor of the 10 people who died Friday at Santa Fe High School, barely able to speak as she urged the audience and the world to do more to prevent deadly shootings from happening, the AP reports. She said she was asked to hold a moment of silence, but she chose instead to call for "a moment of action." "Once again we're grieving for more kids that have died ... I'm so sick of [moments of silence] ... it's not working," she said, almost in tears. "Mommies and daddies should be able to send their kids to school." Shawn Mendes and Khalid, who won top new artist at the event Sunday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, were joined onstage by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas show choir for the song "Youth," a performance occurring three months after 17 people were killed at the Florida school. The show wasn't all somber, though: Jackson, who earned the Icon award, delivered an energetic and powerful performance of her past hits. Ed Sheeran, who didn't attend the show but performed from Dublin, won the night's biggest honor—top artist, besting Bruno Mars, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and Taylor Swift. But Swift didn't leave empty-handed: She won top female artist and top selling album for Reputation. Click for a full list of winners.
– Police in Uganda have dismissed reports that thugs poisoned Amazing Race producer Jeff Rice, saying the American appears to have died from a cocaine overdose. Rice was found slumped in a chair on his hotel balcony, and an autopsy found the drug in his system, officials say. Rice's assistant Kathryn Fuller, who remains critically ill in a local hospital, also tested positive for the drug, and may not be allowed to leave the country for treatment in her native South Africa until after questioning. Police believe the pair voluntarily ingested the drug, contradicting reports from Rice's wife that he was apparently poisoned after rebuffing a shakedown by local crooks, ABC reports. The two were in Uganda filming a documentary about a non-profit organization that provides the poor with hearing aids. "It is unfortunate," a government official tells E! Online. "He came to this country to do a good program—he came across as someone of humanity. It is unfortunate he has passed away, and really, our condolences to his family."
– A pretty jarring story out of Washington state, where an 11-year-old boy was last night arrested and faces an attempted murder charge following the police discovery of a handgun, more than 400 rounds of ammunition, and several knives at a Vancouver, Wash., middle school. No one was hurt in the incident, which prompted a two-hour lockdown at the middle school and an elementary school next door yesterday morning, the Columbian reports. The boy has been placed in juvenile detention, CNN reports.
– It had police scratching their heads—and wondering if they should be searching for missing persons: an SOS message spotted by helicopter in a part of Western Australia so remote the nearest city of note is more than 600 miles away. Now police may have their answer, thanks in no small part to the BBC. It reports that a man identified only as John read its initial coverage of the mystery and called police, telling them his brother Robert and a female became stranded at the location of the rocks—Swift Bay—in 2013. Unable to operate their yacht out of the bay, John says they dramatically weathered a crocodile attack while en route to shore in an escape raft; upon landing there, he says they constructed the SOS from rocks. The story ended, John says, with the pair being picked up by another yacht, and police are "very confident" that story is "legitimate and it's the real deal," Senior Sgt. Dave Rudd with the Western Australia Police tells the BBC. The West Australian reports police have thus far communicated with Robert, who is currently sailing in the Mediterranean, only via email, with Rudd offering this: "He said after three days they saw a plane flying overhead and realized the SOS sign couldn’t be seen from the air." But Rudd says police have seen photos taken from the time of the pair's alleged stranding, and "we can see from the photo that it's the same location and the same SOS." (An SOS led to this desert-island rescue.)
– A model taking part in a Sports Illustrated swimwear fashion show stole the spotlight with one of the most unusual runway walks ever. Mara Martin strutted during Miami Swim Week while breastfeeding her 5-month-old daughter, reports People. In a video clip, you can hear the audience cheering when they realize what's happening. (The baby is wearing protective ear muffs.) “I can’t believe I am waking up to headlines with me and my daughter in them for doing something I do every day,” wrote Martin on Instagram after the weekend show. “But to be honest, the real reason I can’t believe it is a headline is because it shouldn’t be a headline! My story of being a mother and feeding her while walking is just that," wrote Martin, who was one of 16 models chosen to take part in the show at W South Beach hotel from an open casting call. Sports Illustrated swimsuit editor MJ Day says it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. "When I was talking with the girls backstage prior to the show beginning, I saw that Mara's baby was sleeping and peacefully nursing," she tells Sports Illustrated. "I asked Mara if she would want to walk and continue to nurse. She said 'Oh my gosh, yes!'"
– A letter from Jesus Christ might be the affirmation Oprah Winfrey needs to run for the presidency, reports the AP. An 83-year-old Maine woman who changed her name to Jesus Christ says she began a letter writing campaign 50 years ago to spread a message of faith and peace, WGME-TV reports. "Most of them think I'm plain crazy and ignore me," Christ says, adding that she sent the letter to Winfrey because she likes her but had no idea it would get so much attention. Gayle King, one of the hosts of CBS This Morning, posted about the letter to Winfrey on Instagram on Wednesday, asking if it was the sign her best friend was looking for. Winfrey said on 60 Minutes that if God wanted her to run for president "wouldn't God kinda tell me?" Christ says she didn't know there was speculation about Winfrey, but "if she does, I'll vote for her—that's for sure."
– Love to doodle, Internet-style? Have we got the job for you. Google is searching for a full-time Google doodler. "First impressions matter," says Google in its ad for the position, referring to the behemoth search engine's cutting-edge Internet art (and likely a word to the wise for those sending in resumés). The job requires a "sense of humor, love of all things historical, and imaginative artistry." Google's employee selection process is famously rigorous, and bound to be even more demanding for a showcase homepage doodler. No salary has been revealed. The firm's first doodle was created in 1998 to mark the Burning Man festival, and they've been increasingly frequent and more complicated ever since, notes the Telegraph. Now, as the Google ad encourages: "Go forth and doodle."
– Yet another reason to not let young kids play M-rated video games: They may get ideas they carry over to real life. At least that's what apparently happened to one curious 11-year-old boy in Ontario, who cops say spent Saturday evening playing Grand Theft Auto, then set out in his parents' car while they were sleeping to check out what the real deal felt like, CTV News reports. Sgt. Kerry Schmidt of the Ontario Provincial Police says reports started filtering in after 11pm of a vehicle that was "all over the highway" just north of Toronto. In a Periscope post on the police department's Twitter page, Schmidt describes how officers went after what they suspected was an "impaired driver," who first crawled along much slower than the speed limit, then rushed away from cops at more than 75mph. The police were eventually able to box the vehicle in, and were thrown by the kid they found in the driver's seat. "[The boy] had just been finishing playing Grand Theft Auto at home and wanted to find out what it was like driving a car," Schmidt says. He adds, per Global News: "It's pretty frightening to think of what could have happened, all over the highway with no experience and with the mindset of running from the cops." Schmidt says no charges are being filed—the OPP is letting his parents decide how best to deal with his behind-the-wheel transgression. As for others thinking of skipping driver's ed, "GTA is not the way to learn how to drive," Schmidt says, per the Toronto Star.
– What do you do when a city is sinking? Why, you move it, of course. That's what the Swedish city of Kiruna has decided because iron mining below it has weakened the foundations of houses and buildings, Tech Insider reports. Now LKAB, the state-owned company behind the mining, is dedicating billions of dollars to moving Kiruna about 2 miles east. The ongoing 30-year plan includes relocating 21 particular buildings (like Kiruna's city hall and its attractive church) and paying residents to have their homes demolished and rebuilt at the new location, the Guardian reported last year. An Arctic city that's in darkness most of the year, Kiruna "will be a bit like a walking millipede with a thousand feet, moving, crawling, slowly ... toward the east," says an architect in a promotional video for the plan. Critics say social networks will be shattered by the move and relocated residents will have higher rents, but on the bright side, the new city is supposed to be more walkable and economically diverse. Plus there's a lot at stake: Founded partly by LKAB in 1900, the city of 18,000 supplies the European Union with 90% of its iron. "There might be some concerns, but the mine has to keep operating," a resident says. It's not a first, either: Cities have been relocated before for economic or safety reasons, and other towns are considering moves over climate change, the New York Times notes. Only possible problem for Kiruna? "Iron is under the new town center, too," admits a city official. "[But] it will be too expensive for LKAB to move the city again." (In another mining story, Apple and Microsoft are said to use cobalt mined by kids.)
– The “best meteor shower of 2018” will be on display overnight, Space.com reports. The Geminid meteor shower will be visible above North America before sunrise Friday, CNN reports, and it will peak at 7:30am EST (find the best viewing time for your location here). Checking out the shower is easy—no special equipment required, Sky & Telescope’s Diana Hannikainen says in a statement. “Go out in the evening, lie back in a reclining lawn chair, and gaze up into the stars,” she says. “This is a good shower for younger observers who may have earlier bedtimes.” Clear, dark skies are the best for viewing, of course. Hannikainen says that under good conditions, you may see the light of a meteor streaking across the sky every minute or two.
– Queen Elizabeth II shattered yet another royal record Monday when she became the first British monarch to have a Sapphire Jubilee marking a 65-year reign. Elizabeth—head of state of Australia, Canada, and more than a dozen other countries besides the UK—became queen on Feb. 6, 1952 after her father, King George VI, died while she was on an official visit to Kenya with her husband, Prince Philip, NBC News reports in a look at her long career. The queen is expected to celebrate the milestone privately at her Sandringham estate as she has done on "Accession Day" in previous years, the Telegraph reports. Royal gun salutes will be fired elsewhere, including a 41-gun salute from the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery in London. The queen broke Queen Victoria's record for longest-serving British monarch in 2015 and became the world's longest-serving living monarch with the death of Thailand's king last year. ITV reports that the palace has reissued a 2014 photo of the queen by David Bailey to mark the occasion. In the photo, Elizabeth wears sapphire jewelry she was given by her father as a wedding gift in 1947. BBC royal correspondent Peter Hunt notes that the day is a "moment for contemplation rather than celebration" for the queen because it marks the anniversary of her father's death as well as her ascension to the throne. She turned 90 last year and Hunt predicts that she will cut back her duties further in the months and years ahead, with grandson Prince William expected to take on more.
– As far as winter breaks go, Caleb Shumway has had an unusual and potentially lucrative one: The Utah Valley University student likely found the human remains he was looking for. The 23-year-old Moab native is the son of an officer, one of the 150-plus law enforcement members who in 2010 spent days hunting for Lance Leeroy Arellano, who allegedly shot Utah State Parks ranger Brody Young nine times on Nov 19 of that year near the Poison Spider Mesa Trailhead. Arellano was believed to have himself been shot and was thought to not have made it out of the desert; officers combed a 15-square-mile area without luck, and a $30,000 reward has remained on the table since. "For a poor college student, that's pretty appealing," Shumway tells the Salt Lake Tribune. Two days into his search, he found something. Shumway and his 15-year-old brother decided to zero in on a two-mile area that contained a number of caves, and on Wednesday at the mouth of a "cave-like area" near Tangri-La Ranch found a bone and bag. They returned the next day with police, who were unable to fit inside what the Grand County Sheriff's Office describes in a press release as a "narrow entrance way to a void in the rocks that was approximately 6 feet long and 3 feet high and approximately 3 feet wide." Shumway went in and found more bones, clothing, and a bag with a gun in it; he believes an animal dragged the initial items he found from the cave. The release states that "evidence ... located with the remains" points to them belonging to Arellano, but the state medical examiner will make the final determination. The AP reports that Young survived, with his Kevlar vest and a credit card in his pocket blocking three bullets.
– "Almost all parents say that they don't favor one of their children over another," says the lead author of a new study that shows that sentiment flies out the window when times get tough, because "economic recessions subconsciously lead parents to prefer girls over boys." The idea, per the study in the Journal of Consumer Research, is that parents are instinctively inclined to help the survival of their species, and, as another researcher adds, "when resources are scarce, parents prefer females because they have a larger reproductive payoff. Almost every female child will produce some offspring, but many male children end up having zero offspring." To test this bias in humans, researchers enlisted 629 people and showed them a news article that described the economy as neutral, getting better, or getting worse. Asked to divide their assets between an imaginary daughter and son, as well as assign one to a benefits program, the split was 50/50 when times were good or neutral, but 60/40 in favor of daughters when the economic forecast was bleak, reports Phys.org. And as those kids approached reproductive age, the bias sharpened. "It's very clear (parents) want to treat their children equally," says a third researcher. "But if they're relying on feelings for how they're allocating resources, it's very likely this bias is seeping in, especially when ... they don't have money to do everything." (Meanwhile, daughters of working moms make more money.)
– President Trump announced new tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum—25% and 10% respectively—on Thursday, leading some experts to fear a global trade war, the New York Times reports. "Our Steel and Aluminum industries ... have been decimated by decades of unfair trade and bad policy with countries from around the world," Trump tweeted Thursday morning. "We must not let our country, companies and workers be taken advantage of any longer." Experts say the tariffs could lead to retaliation from other countries (China is talking about tariffs on US sorghum and soybeans and the EU is considering tariffs on US cheese and bourbon), higher prices on goods using steel and aluminum, and possibly an economic slowdown. Nervous investors sent the Dow plunging 500 points immediately after the news broke, reports the AP. According to Business Insider, the Commerce Department recommended tariffs of 24% and 7%, but it was reported Trump preferred a "round number." The Times describes a "frenetic and chaotic morning" leading to Trump's announcement. White House advisers have bitterly debated tariffs for months, and Trump decided only Wednesday to announce them, CNN reports. White House aides were still discussing if the tariffs will apply to all countries or just a handful as of Thursday morning, and a White House official says the policy is not ready to be implemented yet. Advisers were still debating Thursday morning if Trump could announce anything. "Maybe he wants to make an announcement, but the proclamation isn't ready," one White House official says. "Without the proclamation, nothing has legal force." Despite announcing the tariffs Thursday, Trump said he won't sign the trade measures until next week. At this point, the specifics of those measures are unclear.
– New photos taken on the surface of an asteroid show that it is (drum roll, please) ... rocky. It may be no surprise, but Japanese space agency scientists and engineers are thrilled by the images being sent to Earth by two jumping robotic rovers that they dropped onto an asteroid about 170 million miles away. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency posted the latest photos on its website late Thursday. They show slightly tilted close-ups of the rocky surface from different locations. "I cannot find words to express how happy I am that we were able to realize mobile exploration on the surface of an asteroid," project manager Yuichi Tsuda said on the space agency's website. It took more than three years for the unmanned Hayabusa2 spacecraft to reach the vicinity of asteroid Ryugu, the AP reports. Last week, the craft successfully dropped a small capsule with two rovers onto its surface. The rovers, each about the size of circular cookie tin, don't have wheels but jump around the asteroid. Hayabusa2 is scheduled to drop a German-French lander with four observation devices onto the asteroid next week. It later will attempt to land on the asteroid itself to collect samples to send back to researchers on Earth. The asteroid is believed to be a leftover from the early days of our solar system and studying it could provide insight into how our planet formed, the BBC reports.
– With a new pope on the way, Britain's most influential Catholic says the Vatican should let priests marry and have families, the Guardian reports. Spurning Catholic orthodoxy, Cardinal Keith O'Brien said that "many priests have found it very difficult to cope with celibacy," which "is obviously not of divine of origin." O'Brien, a semi-retired cardinal who plans to step down as head of Scotland's Roman Catholic Church, will be Britain's only Catholic involved in choosing Benedict's successor at the Vatican next month. ""For example the celibacy of the clergy, whether priests should marry—Jesus didn't say that," he told the BBC. "There was a time when priests got married, and of course we know at the present time in some branches of the church—in some branches of the Catholic church—priests can get married." He added that "many priests have ... felt the need of a companion, of a woman, to whom they could get married and raise a family of their own." O'Brien has sparked controversy by strongly opposing gay marriage and gay adoption in the UK.
– Dennis Rodman wrapped up his second visit to North Korea today, and, no, he didn't secure the release of a detained US citizen. "Guess what? That's not my job to ask about Kenneth Bae," he testily told reporters at the Beijing airport, reports AP and CNN. "Ask Obama about that, ask Hillary Clinton," said Rodman, possibly unaware that Clinton is no longer secretary of state. "Ask those ---holes." As for the four-day visit itself, Rodman showed photos of himself dining and watching a basketball game with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un, reports USA Today. "He's my friend for life," said Rodman. "I don't care what you guys think about him." Rodman, whose trip was again sponsored by Irish bookmaker Paddy Power, said the two of them discussed "peace" and "sports."
– Azodicarbonamide is a chemical used to make shoes, yoga mats, a variety of plastic products, and … bread? American supermarkets are crawling with the chemical, also known as ADA, according to the Environmental Working Group, which today released a report identifying almost 500 food products that use it. Most of the foods were bread-like—things like hot dog buns, bagels, pizza, tortillas—and they came from brands ranging from Wonder Bread to those marketed as healthy, like Village Health. The World Health Organization says there's "abundant evidence" that ADA can cause asthma and skin sensitization, according to Reuters. It also releases the carcinogen urethane when baked. In plastics, it's used to make materials more flexible. For bakers, it bleaches flour, making dough easier to work, and bread fluffier. ADA was thrust into the public eye earlier this month when FoodBabe.com launched a petition demanding that Subway stop using it. The chain acquiesced, but said it believed the chemical was safe—and some scientific experts do agree; one tells Bloomberg that toasting bread creates far more urethane than ADA.
– Police officer Osman Iqbal of Birmingham, England, had lucrative sidelines in drugs, prostitution, and money laundering—and he might have gotten away with it for longer if he hadn't started driving a $250,000 Ferrari to his day job. After the officer, who made roughly $60,000 a year, according to the Daily Mail, starting driving the supercar to the police station where he was based, colleagues became suspicious. Anti-corruption investigators discovered the 37-year-old sergeant had been making hundreds of thousands of dollars from brothels located in two parts of London, the BBC reports. The Birmingham Mail reports on how Iqbal and his partners operated: Drugs and sex were offered to men outside strip clubs; those who were interested were then taken via car to a brothel, where their credit cards were overcharged. "Their greed was their downfall, and when they were seen driving around in their supercars, it didn't take us long to piece together exactly what they were up to and take action," a police spokesman says of Iqbal and his associates. Iqbal was sentenced to seven years in prison in September, but reporting restrictions on the case were only lifted this week after he was found guilty on unrelated charges of making unauthorized attempts to access police intelligence systems on behalf of a local religious leader. Police say they're going to try to seize the assets Iqbal gained through criminal activity, as well as his police pension. (In another corruption case, a Porsche-driving Apple exec was jailed and fined $4.5 million last month.)
– Health experts want consumers to be wary of an intravenous treatment that claims to erase skin blemishes and lighten skin tone in a safe alternative to dangerous skin bleaching creams. Intravenous treatments gaining popularity in Asia, the UK, and the US involve weekly or twice-weekly doses of glutathione, the naturally occurring antioxidant which is believed to reduce melanin production in the body, reports the New York Times. But while oral and topical glutathione treatments have undergone study, experts say no major studies have explored the possible dangers of IV glutathione treatment, which can go for $150 to $400 per dose, with some spas recommending as many as 30 doses to be repeated every few months. That's despite the FDA stating injectable skin-lightening products "are potentially unsafe and ineffective, and might contain unknown harmful ingredients or contaminants." An editorial in the BMJ suggests IV glutathione treatments may also pose a cancer risk, while the Philippine government has linked the practice to skin disorders, thyroid dysfunction, kidney dysfunction, and even death, per NewBeauty. Reports of side effects are lacking in the US, where treatments are less frequent than in the Philippines, involve smaller doses, and are administered by doctors and nurses. But "it's probably not a good idea to use something when you don't know all the potential side effects," a dermatologist tells the Times. (This country has banned skin whiteners.)
– Jay Z responded to the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile Thursday night with the release of an emotional new song, "Spiritual," decrying police brutality, E! reports. "Yeah, I am not poison, no I am not poison / Just a boy from the hood that / Got my hands in the air / In despair don't shoot," he raps on the track. As he explained in a post on Tidal's Twitter account, he actually started the song a while ago. "Punch (TDE) told me I should drop it when Mike Brown died, sadly I told him, 'this issue will always be relevant.' I'm hurt that I knew his death wouldn't be the last." Meanwhile, his wife, who had earlier called the killings of Sterling and Castile a "war," offered up a tribute to them at her concert in Glasgow, Scotland, Thursday night. Beyonce asked the crowd to join her in a moment of silence for the men and dozens of other victims whose names flashed on a screen behind her, TMZ reports, then launched into her song "Freedom." The gossip site notes that the tribute happened hours before five police officers were murdered in Dallas.
– The Republicans wrapped up their last debate before New Hampshire votes on Tuesday, a particularly feisty affair in which Marco Rubio took the biggest hits. One theme emerging is that it was a good night for governors but not for frontrunners: Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "Marco Rubio hit a wall named Chris Christie. Donald Trump couldn’t put down an aggressive Jeb Bush. And Ted Cruz had to issue a public apology to Ben Carson." On the flip side, "Christie was the relentless prosecutor. Bush was knowledgeable and, in contrast to some earlier performances, tough and direct. Ohio Gov. John Kasich carved out space as a candidate ready and willing to work across party lines." David Graham at the Atlantic has a similar take: "Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump all hit rough patches, while three often-overshadowed governors—Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, and John Kasich—delivered some of their strongest moments of the campaign so far." Christie hit Rubio the hardest, but Bush and Trump also took their shots at him. The New York Times focuses on the Rubio onslaught. The AP takes note of Cruz's "very human moment" in talking about his sister's fatal drug overdose. The New Hampshire audience didn't like Trump, and the feeling was mutual. The Hill recounts the booing. A CNN media writer says Cruz lied about the network's reporting. Politico rounds up the "most explosive moments." ABC News offers up the "best lines" of the night. Don't miss the disastrous introductions.
– A new study suggests that heavy drinking raises a person's risk for dementia, especially the early-onset variety. The research, published in Lancet Public Health, looked at 1.1 million French hospital patients diagnosed with dementia from 2008 to 2013. Of those patients, 16.5% of the men and 4% of the women had alcohol use disorders, which CNN reports is about twice the rate of those without dementia. The stats for early-onset dementia were worse. Of 57,000 cases, 38% were "alcohol related by definition" and another 18% featured an additional diagnosis of alcohol use disorder, per the Guardian. The bottom line? "Alcohol use disorders were a major risk factor for onset of all types of dementia, and especially early-onset dementia" per the study. "Thus, screening for heavy drinking should be part of regular medical care." The WHO defines chronic heavy drinking as roughly four to five drinks a day for a man and about three for a woman, per Science Daily. And while the study focused on heavy drinking, the results raise questions for those who indulge in more moderate fashion as well, notes the Guardian. "What is most surprising about this paper is that it has taken us so long to recognize that alcohol misuse and dependence are such potent risk factors for the development of dementia," says Robert Howard of University College London. Study author Michael Schwarzinger says that while the rate of alcohol use disorders is lower in the US than in France, "it remains substantial enough to be considered [a] major risk factor for dementia onset."
– Donald Trump is clarifying how he'll deal with his businesses while president: He won't deal with them at all, he promises. In a series of tweets Wednesday morning, Trump said he "will be leaving my great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country." He reiterated his view that he is not obligated to do so under law, but said, "I feel it is visually important, as President, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses." Trump said that legal documents were being drawn up to make it official, and that he would provide more details at a Dec. 15 news conference. "The Presidency is a far more important task!" he wrote. It's not clear whether his children would take over. Earlier this week, New York Times business writer Andrew Ross Sorkin made the case for an independent overseer in an open letter to the president-elect. He even floated a candidate: Kenneth Feinberg, who was in charge of the 9/11 victims' compensation fund and who told Sorkin he'd be willing to do it. Also Wednesday, former Goldman Sachs executive Steven Mnuchin confirmed that he has been chosen to be Treasury secretary, and Wilbur Ross confirmed that he is the pick to be commerce chief, reports the AP. (Mitt Romney, meanwhile, had a cozy dinner with Trump as the decision on secretary of state looms.)
– Bust out your best put-baby-in-a-corner jokes. A Florida woman has been arrested after police say she tried to re-enact a scene from Dirty Dancing with a friend in a wine store, reports TCPalm. Tragically, the police report doesn't specify which scene, though the Smoking Gun guesses that it's surely the one where Patrick Swayze lifts Jennifer Grey to the backdrop of "(I've Had) The Time of My Life." The arrest of 24-year-old Cindy Barrientos occurred after the manager of the Total Wine & More store in Jensen Beach called cops to say that two intoxicated women were, um, causing a scene. The manager wouldn't sell the pair alcohol and asked them to leave, and the police affidavit says both did so but then returned. Officers arrived to find Barrientos in her vehicle, and they say she "became belligerent with deputies" when asked to turn over her keys. She was arrested on a disorderly intoxication charge. (Re-enacting the same scene didn't end well for a couple rehearsing for their wedding.)
– An undercover video targeting Planned Parenthood made waves all the way to Congress. Now, the anti-abortion activist behind it says there's more where that came from. David Daleiden, 26, tells the New York Times he has enough footage—after infiltrating the organization over two and a half years—to release a new video each week for three months, in addition to a second video yesterday. It shows eight minutes of a conversation with Mary Gatter, a Planned Parenthood medical director, and implies the organization sells fetal body parts for profit, per the Daily Beast. A similar claim was made via the first video, though full footage showed the discussion of legal fetal-tissue donation and processing costs. Daleiden says his work was funded by $120,000 from at least a dozen donors who "believed in the mission and wanted to see it done." The money helped him nab footage he knew was "going to shock a lot of consciences," he tells the Times. But though the "valuable consideration" of human fetal tissue is illegal under US law, Planned Parenthood is allowed to accept "reasonable payments associated with the transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage of human fetal tissue." In the most recent video, Gatter suggests $75 per specimen. An actor posing as a buyer tells her "that's way too low," and suggests $100. Gatter says she was actually going to suggest $50. At one point she jokes that she wants "a Lamborghini," but quickly says "no" and laughs. "We're not in it for the money," she adds. Daleiden's next videos will likely filter out as Congress works on spending bills, which could affect Planned Parenthood's funding, and as Republican presidential candidates duke it out in the first televised debates.
– A suspect accused of shooting four officers as he tried to avoid arrest finally surrendered this morning after a nine-hour standoff with police in Roseville, Calif., reports NBC News. A police robot sent into the house urging him to give up may have helped seal the deal. All of the officers—a federal immigration officer and three local cops—are expected to recover, reports CNN. Samuel Duran, 32, is under arrest. The violence started yesterday afternoon when authorities tracked down the wanted parolee at a residence, and a shootout and chase on foot ensued. The officer from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement got shot in the leg, one police officer got shot in the jaw and another in the shoulder, and a third got hit with shrapnel. Duran eventually holed up in a local home whose occupants got out safely, notes AP. Police sent in the robot about 11pm, and Duran gave up an hour or so later, reports CBS Sacramento.
– Cameraman Justin Lyons was with Steve Irwin when the "Crocodile Hunter" was fatally stabbed by a stingray in 2006, and now he's speaking about the tragic experience publicly for the first time. They had just about finished filming in the Great Barrier Reef on September 4, but needed one final shot of a "massive" stingray they'd found, intended to be shown swimming away from Irwin. "I had the camera on, I thought this is going to be a great shot, and all of sudden it propped on its front and started stabbing wildly, hundreds of strikes in a few seconds," Lyons tells Australia's Studio 10. "I panned with the camera as the stingray swam away and I didn't know it had caused any damage. It was only when I panned the camera back that I saw Steve standing in a huge pool of blood," Lyons continues. He adds that, contrary to rumors, Irwin didn't pull the jagged stingray barb out of his chest; "it went through his chest like hot butter." Irwin initially didn't realize how serious his injury was, telling Lyons, "It punctured me lung." But his condition deteriorated as the crew hurried him back to the main boat for help. Lyons urged him to hang on, but Irwin "calmly looked up at me and said, 'I'm dying.' And that was the last thing he said," Lyons says. The incident was filmed, but Lyons does not want it ever to be aired.
– Tennis star and undeniable hottie Anna Kournikova will replace Jillian Michaels next season on the Biggest Loser, X17online reports. Kournikova, whom PopEater notes has been dating singer Enrique Iglesias for nearly 10 years, recently put her Miami mansion on the market for $9.4 million—perhaps because she’s preparing a move to Los Angeles for the show. She'll join new trainers Cara Castronuova and Brett Hoebel, who made their Biggest Loser debut this season; click for more on them. Or, if you’d rather, more on Kournikova’s house.
– Spilled champagne and wardrobe malfunctions may sound like a typical Lindsay Lohan night on the town, but this time it happened during her stage debut in London. During her first-night performance in David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow on Tuesday, Lohan—who's "been a fixture of the London nightlife circuit in recent weeks," Radar Online notes—had to be fed lines, kick-starting a flurry of mean girl (and guy) tweets and reviews. "Oh my God, it's so embarrassing," one woman in the crowd piped up during the performance, according to the Daily Beast. The audience seemed to forgive her "first audible prompt," as the Beast calls it, but when she needed a second line read to her, the audience started giggling. It didn't help that co-star Richard Schiff's very next line was "You have done a fantastic job!," followed by a third LiLo snafu and her line: "I know what it is to be bad, I've been bad." As the Beast points out, someone in a box seat did drop champagne on a front-row occupant, and Lohan's blouse billowed out when it wasn't supposed to, which may have aggravated her nervousness in acting on the stage for the first time. Either way, Madonna has to be breathing a sigh of relief. (Oprah wasn't too keen on Lohan's OWN reality show, either.)
– Tondalo Hall was allegedly being abused by her boyfriend, Robert Braxton Jr. Yet when Braxton broke the ribs and femur of their 3-month-old daughter, he served just two years in prison, while Hall was sentenced to 30 years for allowing the abuse to happen. She was one of 28 mothers in similar situations uncovered in a recent BuzzFeed investigation, one of just three such cases in which the mom got a longer sentence than the man who abused the child. Now, BuzzFeed reports, she is applying for her sentence to be commuted. Clemency seems to be the only option left: She lost her appeal; the judge denied a request to modify the sentence, of which 20 years remain; and she's not eligible for parole until 2030. In court during her trial, as well as in statements outside of court, Hall described the abuse she says she suffered; the judge who sentenced her acknowledged that she seemed to fear Braxton. She tells BuzzFeed things got especially bad when their second child was born in 2004. She says she never saw Braxton hurt their kids. But that fall, she brought their 20-month-old son to the hospital when she noticed his leg was swollen; he had a fractured femur and broken bones, leading suspicious authorities to check on his 3-month-old sister and find her injuries. Both parents were arrested. Hall ended up pleading guilty and testifying against Braxton, though she did not get a reduced sentence in return and he did get a deal when prosecutors realized their case against him was going south. An activist group has started a petition on Hall's behalf.
– Senior government officials in the United Arab Emirates chose a bad day to be late for work on Sunday. Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid paid a surprise visit to Dubai's municipality, land, and economic development departments starting at 7:30am Sunday—a regular working day in the UAE—and found several bosses not at their desks, per the National. A short video posted to Twitter shows the PM walking through one office without encountering a soul. And he wasn't in a forgiving mood. Sheikh Mohammed—who is actually well-known for his surprise inspections, reports the Gulf News—announced Monday that nine senior officials would be forced to retire, including the executive director of legal affairs. "He certainly wanted to send a message," says a rep for Dubai's Media Office. "Timeliness starts at the top and we won't go after the employees when their bosses aren't there." The office adds that the move reflects Sheikh Mohammed's "keenness to allow a new generation of young leaders to shoulder the responsibility of development in the next period," per Al Arabiya. (The UAE also wants to build a mountain—to control the weather.)
– Miley Cyrus has a coming out of sorts in her new Elle UK cover interview: "I'm very open about it—I'm pansexual. But I'm not in a relationship. I'm 22, I'm going on dates, but I change my style every two weeks, let alone who I'm with." What is pansexual, you might ask? Urban Dictionary defines it as "like bisexuality, but even more fluid," noting that pansexual people "can love sexuality in many forms. ... A pansexual person can love not only the traditional male and female genders, but also transgendered, androgynous, and gender fluid people." Cyrus, who is hosting this weekend's VMAs, also gave a recent interview to the New York Times in which she addresses the 2013 VMAs—you know, the one where she twerked all over Robin Thicke. "I got so much of the heat for it, but that's just being a woman," she says. "[Thicke] acted like he didn't know that was going to happen. You were in rehearsals! You knew exactly what was going to happen. And he was actually the one that approved my outfit, so I thought that was very funny. He wanted me as naked as possible, because that's how his video [for 'Blurred Lines'] was." She notes that the whole thing shouldn't have been so controversial: "It wasn't shocking at all." Click to see what she had to say about Nicki Minaj.
– In a development that may have had some onlookers scanning the sky for flying pigs, Donald Trump expressed regret Thursday night for things he has said. "Sometimes in the heat of debate, and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don't choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that," he told a rally in Charlotte, NC, per the AP. "And believe it or not, I regret it. I do regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain. Too much is at stake for us to be consumed with these issues," he said, reading from a teleprompter. He promised that he would always tell the truth—and called on Hillary Clinton to apologize for "one lie after another." The speech was the first since Trump's campaign shake-up and was a stunning turnaround after more than a year of constant feuds, reports the Washington Post. Clinton's campaign called on Trump to be more specific about his regrets. Trump "literally started his campaign by insulting people," spokeswoman Christina Reynolds said in a statement. "He has continued to do so through each of the 428 days from then until now, without shame or regret. We learned tonight that his speechwriter and teleprompter knows he has much for which he should apologize." The AP reports that in another campaign shift, Trump spent $5 million Thursday on TV ad space in battleground states.
– Some 33 years after it was launched in 1977, Voyager 1 has reached the outer edge of the solar system and is on course to become the first man-made device to sail into the vast stretches of space that lie beyond. Astronomers have confirmed that the spacecraft has reached a region called the heliopause, where the solar winds that have blown past Voyager for the last 10 billion miles slow to a stop, Discover reports. In another few years, the spacecraft will emerge from the shell of gases that surrounds the solar system and enter interstellar space. "When Voyager was launched, the space age itself was only 20 years old, so there was no basis to know that spacecraft could last so long," a project scientists tells the BBC. "We had no idea how far we would have to travel to get outside the solar system. We now know that in roughly five years, we should be outside for the first time."
– We may very well be at zero hour: John Boehner has privately told Republicans that in order to get a debt ceiling measure signed by President Obama by the Aug. 2 deadline, it must be introduced in the House today. But despite the increasing likeliness of a US default, Politico reports that hope for a bipartisan deal has disintegrated. After meeting with the president and Nancy Pelosi last night, Harry Reid accused Boehner of taking a "my-way-or-the-highway approach," and reiterated the fact that his two-part plan—or any short-term plan—is "a non-starter in the Senate and with the president." Politico also notes that Obama, after three weeks of being highly visible, was on the sidelines during this weekend's developments, a potentially risky move this late in the game. Republicans, however, say Reid had been working with them right up until the change-of-heart-inducing White House meeting: “Sen. Reid took the bipartisan plan to the White House and the president said no,” says one Republican aide. Another adds that while Boehner has the 218 House votes he needs for his proposal, Reid and Obama don't have the 60 they need in the Senate for any alternative. At this point, the New York Times reports, Boehner and Reid are preparing dueling back-up plans; Reid's would include $2.7 trillion in spending cuts, no new taxes, and the full $2.4 trillion debt limit extension, as opposed to Boehner's two-stage extension plan. Bloomberg notes that even if default is avoided, the US could lose its AAA rating.
– Bitcoin fans have to cool their heels until 10pm Eastern. The biggest exchange of the digital currency has halted trading after a steep drop in value yesterday, reports the Guardian. Tokyo exchange Mt. Gox blamed the drop—from $266 to about $100—on an "astonishing" number of new accounts that led to lags in trading. "As expected in such situations people started to panic, started to sell Bitcoin ... resulting in an increase of trade that ultimately froze the trade engine," it said in a statement. Maybe, writes Matthew Boesler at Business Insider, but those kinds of lags in trading also could be explained by a hackers trying to manipulate the market. Whatever the cause turns out to be, "exchanges like Mt. Gox will have to figure out ways to mitigate the conditions that lead to massive price swings like that in order to attract a wider user base." If you need a refresher on the typical Bitcoin buyer, at least in the currency's early days, the Guardian explains: It's "a favorite of libertarians critical of central banks as well as those involved in illegal gambling and drug trades."
– Harold Agnew, a physicist who helped build the first atomic bomb and served as a director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, died yesterday at his home in Solana Beach, Calif. He was 92. Agnew, who was suffering from chronic lymphocytic leukemia, died while watching football on TV, the AP reports. A key figure in the nuclear age, Agnew also helped build the world's first reactor and many new weapons in the postwar period. "Harold was an innovator," says a Los Alamos historian, per the LA Times. "The vast majority of weapons in the nuclear stockpile were designed at Los Alamos and Harold had a hand in designing most of them—I'd say about 75%." Unlike many nuclear-era scientists, Agnew remained unapologetic for his contributions. He autographed the "Little Boy" bomb destined for Hiroshima, and flew in a plane alongside the Enola Gay, capturing the mushroom cloud on 16-mm film, the New York Times reports. "My feeling towards Hiroshima and the Japanese was, they bloody well deserved it," he said in a 1984 interview, per the LA Times. Agnew did, however, believe every world leader should be required to watch an atomic blast every five years ... while standing in their underwear. "We're approaching an era where there aren't any of us left that have ever seen a megaton bomb go off," he said. "And once you've seen one, it's rather sobering."
– Harman Singh is a devout Sikh, meaning his turban stays on his head at all times when he's not in the privacy of his own home. But Singh broke religious protocol earlier this month when 5-year-old Daejon Pahia was hit by a car in Auckland, New Zealand. The 22-year-old rushed into the street and took his turban off to cushion the child's bleeding head, and the photo of him doing so went viral, the Telegraph reports. The public started bombarding social media with praise and thanks for Singh, even though he noted that emergency situations took priority over his religion's headgear mandate. "I wasn't thinking about the turban," he says, per the New Zealand Herald. "I just thought, 'He needs something on his head because he's bleeding.' That's my job—to help. And I think anyone else would have done the same as me." Whether or not that's true, some wanted to repay Singh for his charitable act. When a local news crew went to his home to interview him about the incident, they noticed his spare living conditions, the India Times reports. The TV station teamed up with a nearby furniture store and and surprised Singh with a second visit, pulling up in a van stocked with a new bed, coffee table, and sofa set. Singh was so surprised that he started crying, as did the station interviewer and the furniture rep. "Thank you, thanks a lot. I'm very happy," he says in the video documenting the delivery. Meanwhile, little Daejon is expected to make a full recovery despite suffering a serious head injury and kidney lacerations. (Some people mix up Sikhs and Muslims—but they're both targets of bigotry, a prominent Sikh says.)
– The Army has decided not to discharge a Special Forces soldier who beat up an Afghan police official he believed had been raping a young boy, CNN reports. Sgt. Charles Martland and Capt. Daniel Quinn claimed in 2011 that Afghan police commander Abdul Rahman had been raping the boy repeatedly for more than a week. According to the New York Times, Rahman kept the boy chained to a bed as a "sex slave." Martland and Quinn went to their superiors, who refused to do anything, saying it was a matter for Afghan authorities. Nothing was done about Rahman, and Martland later told Army officials, "Morally we could no longer stand by." When Quinn and Martland confronted Rahman, he tried to laugh off the rape, Fox News reports. So they attacked him, kicking him and body slamming him multiple times. Martland and Quinn were sent home from Afghanistan. Quinn left the Army, while authorities delayed a decision to discharge Martland for years. Then on Thursday, in what Fox News calls a "stunning reversal," the Army announced it would not be discharging him. "I am real thankful for being able to continue to serve," Martland tells Fox News. Quinn says he thinks it was the smart move for the Army. "Charles makes every soldier he comes in contact with better, and the Army is undoubtedly a better organization with SFC Martland still in its ranks," he says. Martland, who served in Afghanistan twice and earned a Bronze Star, was supported by Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, the American Center for Law and Justice, and actor Harvey Keitel.
– Last year, volunteers mailed in dust samples taken from above interior and exterior door frames in 1,200 homes across the US as part of a citizen science project called Wild Life of Our Homes. Now, scientists are reporting in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B that our dust reveals a lot about who we are and where we live. There are 9,000 unique species of microbes in our dust, reports the BBC, with an average of 7,000 of those being bacterial. There are also insect parts, pollen, dead animal cells, dry wall powder, carpet fibers, and soil particles. "I don't want any readers to be paranoid about this," Noah Fierer, a microbial ecologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, tells the Los Angeles Times. "Most of the organisms are completely innocuous, and some may be beneficial." The No. 1 thing researchers can now predict about a home based on a simple analysis of dust? Whether cats or dogs live there. The type of fungi tends to be indicative of a home's geographical location, but bacteria change depending on who lives there—and that doesn't just mean what types of pets, but even whether a home is inhabited primarily by men or women. "There are some kinds of bacteria that are more common on women's bodies than on men's, and we can see the impact of that on the bacteria found in house dust," says Fierer. And while most of the fungi and bacteria are likely harmless, some could be linked to diseases and allergies, something scientists want to study further to discern how our dust specifically affects our health. (Did you know there's more dust in the world now than ever?)
– A nursing student at Georgetown has died of suspected meningitis, and the final tweets of Andrea Jaime suggest she knew something was horribly wrong. "This is what dying must feel like," the sophomore tweeted on Friday, three days before her death, reports the Daily Dot. And in a reply to someone commenting on the post, she explained that she had a fever of 105, adding, "I think I'm dying." The school is awaiting tests to confirm the 19-year-old's cause of death, reports NBC News. Assuming meningitis is correct, it would be the first case of the contagious disease at Georgetown in years, reports the Washington Post. Princeton, on the other hand, has had eight cases since last year and the University of California, Santa Barbara, has had four. (Last year, a woman died soon after tweeting about her 30-hour workday.)
– When the Whydah Gally went down in a 1717 storm 144 lives were lost—none so noteworthy as that of Samuel "Black Sam" Bellamy. The New England Historical Society describes the pirate as infamous, but not infamously cruel: As historian Colin Woodard puts it, he followed a credo of "Fight smart, harm few, score big," and big he did score—plundering 54 ships before his watery death at age 28. The wreck of the Whydah Gally was found off Wellfleet, Mass., in 1984 by Barry Clifford, whose Whydah Pirate Museum now features coins, weapons, and other items pulled from the wreckage, with the Boston Globe reporting the ship also had four tons of silver and gold aboard. It notes a 2008 report from Forbes that weighed in on just how successful Bellamy was on the financial front: It estimated he had pilfered the equivalent of $120 million as a pirate. The museum earlier this month announced that archaeologists in 2017 located remains in a huge concretion (that is, a hardened mass of sand and stone) pulled from the wreck near what they suspect is Bellamy's pistol, reports the AP. University of New Haven scientists now plan to compare whatever DNA they can recover from the femur with that of one of Bellamy's modern-day relatives, with results due in roughly 6 weeks, reports the Cape Cod Times. If the bones are indeed Bellamy's, they'll be buried in his native England. As for his nickname, "Black Sam" came from the fact that declined to wear the powdered wigs popular in the day, instead simply securing his black hair with a black satin ribbon. (A surprising find was recently made in Blackbeard's cannon.)
– Teachers in Oklahoma will continue their protests for better pay and more education funding for a fourth day on Thursday, reports the AP. One of those participating in the walkout is middle school art teacher Laurissa Kovacs, who has received an overwhelming response to a Facebook post about classroom conditions, reports CNN. Kovacs wrote about crowded classrooms and a lack of supplies, and she included a photo of a broken chair. Since then, she's been deluged with $44,000 in contributions ranging from scissors to Google Chromebooks. "The past five days has been totally surreal and I don't think the full effect will hit me until I'm back in my classroom with my students," the teacher at Puterbaugh Middle School in McAlester tells CNN. "I think they will be amused to see me cry when I'm explaining everything." Packages continue to pour in to the school, and it's reached the point where Kovacs has created an Amazon registry for donations. She promises to share everything with other teachers.
– The cruise line that operated the doomed Costa Concordia has a strange way of compensating the victims of its shipwreck—30% discounts off a future cruise, provided survivors stick with Costa Cruises, reports the New York Daily News. “The company is not only going to refund everybody, but they will offer a 30% discount on future cruises if they want to stay loyal to the company,” said a spokesman for the cruise line. There's been no word of any refunds for flights customers have bought for future Concordia cruises. “It is a ridiculous and insulting offer,” says one survivor. Instead, lawsuits are being launched against Costa Cruises in Italy and the US, with 100 survivors expected to join a class action suit against the company this week in Miami. Passengers in the Miami lawsuit are seeking about $160,000 each, which would total $513 million for all 3,206 passengers. Costa Cruises also denied yesterday reports it had unregistered passengers on the Concordia, according to the New York Times.
– Glenn Greenwald thinks the New York Times is a "nationalistic" source that has printed "quite toxic smears of government critics without any accountability," and you could learn that by reading today's New York Times. Columnist Bill Keller had a very lengthy back-and-forth with Greenwald about the nature of journalism, centering largely around whether reporters should strive to be impartial, or wear their biases on their sleeves. Keller believes in the former, saying it can produce "more substantial and more credible" reporting. "I believe that in most cases it gets you closer to the truth, because it imposes a discipline of testing all assumptions." Greenwald, in contrast, believes it "drains journalism of its passion, vibrancy, vitality, and soul," and that it's less honest, given that all journalists have biases anyway. "A journalist who is petrified of appearing to express any opinions will often steer clear of declarative sentences about what is true, opting instead for a cowardly and unhelpful 'here’s-what-both-sides-say-and-I-won’t-resolve-the-conflicts' formulation." Greenwald also bashes the Times for a number of specific sins: "It isn’t WikiLeaks that prints incredibly incendiary accusations about American whistleblowers without a shred of evidence. And it wasn’t WikiLeaks that allowed the American people to re-elect George Bush while knowing, but concealing, that he was eavesdropping on them." He also complains about the Times' refusal to use the word "torture" when referring to CIA interrogations, and one reporter's undisclosed support for the Iraq War. Keller's reply: "There’s very little you’ve said about the Times in this exchange that hasn’t been said before in the pages of the Times, albeit in less loaded language." Gawker was particularly tickled by an exchange about David Brooks. Greenwald bashed Brooks as an "East Coast rendition" of a conservative. Keller took this as a contempt for moderates. "My contempt for David Brooks is grounded in his years of extreme war cheerleading and veneration of an elite political class," Greenwald replied. "I don't see anything moderate about him." Click for the full exchange.
– The Women's March on Washington Saturday drew about 500,000 people, with millions more demonstrating worldwide. Six days later, another march is taking place in DC, and the New York Times notes this event may be tinged with "a new sense of urgency, anxiety, and maybe a little envy." The 44th anti-abortion March for Life is set for Friday, and one organizer says they're "pulling out all the stops" to boost attendance, which last year was marred by a snowstorm. What organizers hope will draw crowds: speeches by VP Mike Pence and Kellyanne Conway, excitement over a possible new Supreme Court justice who could overturn Roe v. Wade, and "pent-up energy" from those who canceled last year due to the inclement weather. The march is scheduled to start shortly before noon with a rally close to the Washington Monument before participants head over to the Supreme Court, ABC News reports. Pence, who's lobbied over the years to defund Planned Parenthood, is said to be the highest-ranking White House official to ever speak in person at the event, per USA Today; speeches by Reagan and George W. Bush at previous marches were piped in. In the end, though, March for Life President Jeanne Mancini says there's a number more important than how many show up for Friday's march: 58 million, "the number of Americans [who] have been lost to abortion," she tells the Times. (Trump signed an executive order Monday that keeps federal funds from going toward international groups that provide or give info on abortions.)
– The Coen brothers' latest film tells the dark tale of a folk musician in Greenwich Village in 1961. Though you might not want to befriend Llewyn, his story is well worth a watch—in fact, some critics are calling Inside Llewyn Davis a candidate for the Coens' best. A sampling of reviews: "While the bleak, funny, exquisitely made Inside Llewyn Davis echoes familiar themes and narrative journeys, it also goes its own way and becomes a singular experience, one of (the brothers') best films," writes Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. Its "sympathy with the plight of artists in general" makes the film "an unexpectedly emotional piece." Andrew O'Hehir has "already heard from people who haven’t enjoyed this movie because they found couch-surfing, folk-purist, arrogant Llewyn too unpleasant a character to spend two hours in his company," he writes at Salon. But star Oscar Isaac offers "the year’s breakout performance," and the movie is "one of the Coens’ richest, strangest, and most potent." At RogerEbert.com, Glenn Kenny says the film has "the most satisfyingly diabolical cinematic structure that the Coens have ever contrived, and that's just one reason that I suspect it may be their best movie yet." It's "full of devastating scenes. And full of quick, devastating observations." Inside Llewyn Davis is as "enigmatic" as its lead character, writes Claudia Puig in USA Today. It's also "brilliantly acted, gorgeously shot and altogether captivating," offering "sly humor and a profound undercurrent of tragedy."
– After years of pressure, the White House has released details about the number of civilians accidentally killed by US drone strikes—though the information comes with plenty of asterisks. The official estimate is that between 64 and 116 civilians have been killed in such strikes since 2009, reports USA Today. Some of those asterisks: That range is much lower than estimates by independent groups—their figures go from about 200 to more than 1,000—and the White House doesn't specify when or where the fatalities occurred except to say they were in non-war zones. That means strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria were not counted, but those in countries such as Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and LIbya were, reports the Washington Post. The US also says that it killed about 2,500 enemy militants in those same non-combat zones. As part of the release—most coverage notes that the White House did this on a Friday before a holiday weekend—President Obama made a significant policy change: He issued an executive order requiring that future presidents make this information public in an annual list, notes the New York Times. "This is a remarkable shift, even if you’re skeptical of numbers this reports," writes Naureen Shah at the Guardian. But Shah also sees a downside: "The drone data could be completely misleading—and provide a veneer of legitimacy to unlawful killings." The reaction from Human Rights Watch: “Unless details are provided on specific incidents, it’s not possible to determine if individuals killed were civilians, and thus whether the US is complying with its own policy and with international law."
– In Wild, Reese Witherspoon plays a woman who embarks on a 94-day, 1,100-mile hike alone, and the actress says the role is "the hardest I've ever done"—and not just because she had to carry a heavy backpack while filming so her movements would look realistic. The movie is based on Cheryl Strayed's memoir about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail after her mother dies and her marriage ends, and the film includes explicit sex and drug scenes. "The physicality was really difficult, but after that was the emotional part of it," Witherspoon told reporters before last night's European premiere in London. The raw role could pay off, as Witherspoon's performance is generating no small amount of Oscar buzz. "The sex scenes were the hardest thing for me to do. I've never had to do anything like that in my entire life," Witherspoon continued, according to the BBC. "I had to do all the parts of the movie, the parts that made me feel uncomfortable, too, because it is about emotional honesty." And Strayed herself was there during filming, which initially "scared" Witherspoon, she said, but ultimately, "it would actually help me get into the scene." British novelist Nick Hornby, who wrote the screenplay, underscored Witherspoon's take on the movie: "It's about grief and heroin addiction and promiscuity and being really tough physically and mentally," he said. "So it's not really like any chick flick I've ever seen." (Click to read another recent Witherspoon interview in which she opens up about her other new movie.)
– The grim details are taking shape in the wake of today's shooting at Kabul's airport. All nine victims were Americans—eight US troops and one contractor—who were training members of Afghanistan's fledgling air force. The shooter, an Afghan pilot, got into an argument with the trainers, left the room, then re-entered and forced the Americans to remove their weapons, reports ABC News. When they were disarmed, he shot them with a US-provided semi-automatic. He then apparently fatally shot himself. The Taliban immediately claimed responsibility and said it was yet another infiltrator attack. But that looks unlikely, notes AP, which talked to the pilot's brother. "He was under economic pressures and recently he sold his house. He was not in a normal frame of mind because of these pressures," said the brother. "He loved his people and his country. He had no link with Taliban or al-Qaeda."
– Two Ukrainian military fighter jets have been shot down in the east, the country's Defense Ministry is claiming. The Sukhoi-25 fighters were shot down today at 6:30am Eastern (1:30pm local time) over an area called Savur Mogila. Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksiy Dmitrashkovsky says the planes may have been carrying up to two crew members each. The government says the pilots of the planes ejected, though their location and condition are not currently known, reports the Los Angeles Times. CNN notes that the ministry also believes an air defense system shot the planes down. Ukraine is expected to hold a military briefing later today.
– American photojournalist Luke Somers is dead after a rescue attempt by American forces in Yemen, reports the Washington Post. Defense chief Chuck Hagel says that US troops tried to free the 33-year-old Somers because his execution was "imminent," but that his al-Qaeda keepers killed him during the raid. Another hostage identified as South African teacher Pierre Korkie also was killed, reports AP. "We ask that all of Luke's family members be allowed to mourn in peace," said sister Lucy Somers in London. Her brother was kidnapped last year from the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, and US forces had tried to free him in a previous raid. "Al-Qaeda promised to conduct the execution (of Somers) today so there was an attempt to save them, but unfortunately they shot the hostage before or during the attack," says Yemen's national security chief. Somers' father, Michael, had called his son "a good friend of Yemen and the Yemeni people" in a video prior to his death. Luke Somers had worked as a copy editor and photographer for the National Yemen. The charity group Gift of Givers says the South African hostage with him had been scheduled for release tomorrow.
– President Barack Obama sat down with VICE co-founder Shane Smith, and the two jawed about issues of the day based on questions sent in after a VICE online query—Smith says "the Internet blew up" after VICE posted its request. Highlights from the interview (which Politico notes was posted at 4:20pm yesterday), or you can watch in the gallery: On climate change: The president mentions goals such as doubling fuel-efficiency standards, upping clean-energy production, and making appliances more efficient. "If I'm able to do all those things now, when I'm done, we're still going to have a heck of a problem," he says. "But we will have made enough progress that the next president and the next generations can start building on it." And to snowball-hurling detractors like Sen. Jim Inhofe? "That's disturbing," Obama says. "I guarantee you that the Republican party will have to change its approach to climate change, because voters will insist upon it." On an Iran nuclear deal: How does the president feel about the 47 senators who sent their own letter to Iran? "I'm embarrassed for them," he says. "I think it's entirely legitimate for my friends in the Senate who signed that letter to ask very hard questions. … [But] this is a good example, I think, of where the state of our politics … leads Republicans to be more worried about a Tea Party primary than they are about what ordinary folks are thinking. It damages the country, it damages our standing, it's not productive." On pot: According to Smith, the "No. 1 question from everyone on the Internet": How does the president feel about marijuana legalization? While Obama discusses what he thinks is a currently "skewed" criminal justice system with too-long prison terms for nonviolent drug offenders, costly state incarceration programs, and the "terrible effect on many communities," pot shouldn't be Generation Y's first priority: "Young people, I understand this is important to you, but you know, you should be thinking about climate change, the economy, jobs, war and peace. Maybe way at the bottom you should be thinking about marijuana." (Sadly, the president didn't cap the interview by reading mean tweets about himself.)
– Russian authorities believe that as many as four women intend to launch terror attacks targeting the Sochi Olympics, and that one might already be in or near the city, sources tell NBC News. Wanted posters are already up in Sochi for Ruzan Ibragimova, aka Ruzana, a 23-year-old woman described as having a limp, a left arm that doesn't bend at the elbow, and a 4-inch scar on her cheek. Russian security forces killed her husband last year. "Black widows," the bereaved wives of fallen militants, are common agents for Caucasus militant groups, prized for their ability to avoid attention. US officials were already getting worried about Sochi security, complaining that Russian authorities weren't sharing information, CBS reports. "I think fundamentally, they don't want to admit that they don't have complete control here," one former CIA official said. Yet despite the fears—and an explicit video threat—the US is sending a smaller-than-usual security team, the Wall Street Journal reports. About 40 FBI personnel are headed to Sochi, the smallest US contingent in a decade. But CNN adds that the US military is planning to have two warships stationed nearby in the event that an evacuation is necessary.
– President Trump's first international trip has given the public its longest look yet at how President Trump and Melania interact as a couple, and the Washington Post assesses. "Do they hold hands? (Not regularly.) Glance at one another lovingly or roll their eyes? (Neither, at least before the cameras.)" But don't be too quick to buy the negative press. They've been together 17 years, and the story has plenty of quotes from insiders who say they are much happier than headlines suggest. Yes, this hand-holding fail went viral, but less noticed were the times they have held hands on the trip. 'Awkward'? Speaking of that negative press, a headline at Newsweek wonders if the Trumps are "the most awkward couple in politics," running through examples going back to the inauguration. Subtle trolling: When the apparent hand swipe emerged, Pete Souza, the official photographer in the Obama White House, posted an image of the Obamas holding hands More assertive: A Financial Times writer thinks Melania is finally coming into her own as first lady. Debate all you want about that maybe-hand-slap, but "less disputed is the fact that Mrs. Trump is gradually becoming a more assertive and visible figure on the political stage—one enigmatic gesture at a time," writes Courtney Weaver. It makes sense she has laid relatively low, given that, unlike her predecessors, she is new to politics. Poker face: Unlike most previous first ladies, Melania doesn't have a "permanent" smile on her face at public functions, and that's not such a bad thing, writes Claire Zillman at Fortune. "No matter what you think of Melania Trump or her husband's politics, there is a subtle strength in her stone-faced expression during these command performances." Fashion: A post at news.com.au runs through her outfits on the trip and is impressed. "She’s been channelling her inner Business Barbie and rocking a series of fabulous two-piece suits, complete with giant belts cinched in at the waist." Refinery 29 notes that Dolce & Gabbana is the first major fashion house to boast of dressing her. Those belts: Caryn Ward at the Chicago Tribune takes an admiring dive into Melania's fashion and sees much in her choices, particularly her use of belts. "To me, Melania's message is a cinch. It's that she has power and no one, least of all the president, should forget it. Or he just might get swatted again." Her Catholicism: One thing that hasn't gotten much attention is a nugget that emerged out of her visit with the pope—confirmation that the first lady is indeed Catholic, notes CNN. That makes her the first Catholic first lady since Jackie Kennedy.
– The reason four kids in Ohio woke up to find their parents dead: Brian and Courtney Halye not only injected cocaine, they injected cocaine laced with a tranquilizer so potent it's used on elephants and rhinos. The Montgomery County coroner has concluded that the Halyes used cocaine mixed with carfentanil, a lethal derivative of fentanyl, reports People. The coroner can't say whether the couple knew the cocaine was tainted, only that they injected a fatal dose. The story first made headlines in March not only because their four children, ages 9 to 13, found them on their bedroom floor but because Brian Halye, 36, was a pilot for Spirit Airlines who had flown just a week prior to his death. The Dayton Daily News notes that the deaths are consistent with a pattern of overdoses in which people combine opioids such as fentanyl and its derivatives with cocaine or other drugs. Carfentanil is particularly potent: 100 times more powerful than fentanyl and 1,000 times more powerful than morphine. Last month, the medical examiner in Ohio's Cuyahoga County told a Senate subcommittee that he believed drug dealers were secretly lacing cocaine with fentanyl to increase addiction in the black community, per the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It's not clear when Brian Halye had his last drug test as a pilot. (These 10 states have the biggest drug problems.)
– Those tuning into the Late Show on Thursday and Friday were served a repeat, and for decent reason: Stephen Colbert is in Russia. The host traveled there "on assignment for a future broadcast of his show," per the Hollywood Reporter, which subsequently reported on his Friday night appearance on a popular Russian late-night show. Ivan Urgant hosts Evening Urgant, and Colbert took a few vodka shots alongside him in the part-Russian, part English interview (video here). Colbert first raised a glass to the "beautiful and friendly" Russian people: "I don't understand why no members of the Trump administration can remember meeting you." Then came the big news: "I am here to announce that I am considering a run for president in 2020, and I thought it would be better to cut out the middle man and just tell the Russians myself." That wasn't the last of the jokes on the topic, per the Reporter. Colbert also offered up, "If anyone would like to work on my campaign, in an unofficial capacity, please just let me know." Urgant had a strong volley back: "I’d like to make a toast to the beautiful country of the USA, which invented the Internet. Thanks to it, we can meddle with US elections." A fresh Late Show will run on Monday.
– Fox is officially no longer "Fair and Balanced." New York reports the network decided to drop the slogan it's used for more than two decades after the removal of Roger Ailes, who came up with it in 1996 as cover for the network's right-leaning news. Fox News will henceforth be going with the slogan "Most Watched. Most Trusted." An unnamed source tells Mashable that while "Fair and Balanced" is out as a slogan, it will continue to be a kind of "editorial mantra" for the network.
– The White House celebrated "Made in America Week" this week. So CBS News reports it "seem[s] to clash" that at the same time the Trump administration was touting American products and American jobs, President Trump's Mar-a-Lago club requested permission to hire 70 foreign workers under the H-2B visa program. Meanwhile, Trump's golf club in Jupiter, Florida, requested permission to hire six foreign workers. The requests were made to the Department of Labor and published online Thursday, according to the Washington Post. BuzzFeed reports the workers would fill positions as cooks, waiters, and housekeepers, earning between $10.33 and $13.34 per hour. The temporary foreign workers would be employed from October to May. Mar-a-Lago claims it needs the H-2B visas because it can't find qualified American workers to fill the positions, and Trump has said it's "very, very hard to get help" during the tourist season in Florida. Trump's companies make frequent use of the H-2B visa program, and this week Trump said he was increasing the number of visas available nationwide by 15,000. The UN says the program puts workers at risk of everything from exploitation to trafficking, and a 2015 BuzzFeed investigation found exploitation of H-2B workers is common and workers are also sometimes subjected to physical and sexual violence. On Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said American workers "can rest easy knowing that they have a staunch defender in the White House."
– Greek PM George Papandreou will step down as soon as a new coalition government is formed, CNN reports. As the Greek Cabinet met a second day today in a last-ditch effort to avoid bankruptcy, the government issued a statement saying the meeting would be the last presided over by the embattled Papandreou, whose exit has often been predicted in recent days. Leading candidates to replace him include Petros Moliviatis and Loukas Papaimos; the new government will have a shelf life of four months, followed by elections in the spring. "We need to have an agreement during the course of today for a new coalition government, and we need to specify by tomorrow, Monday, the name of the new prime minister," said a spokesman for Papandreou's PASOK party. "I can sense the agony of the Greek people," said opposition leader Antonis Samaras, adding that "everything will take its course" when Papandreou resigns and "everything else is negotiable."
– Lindsay Lohan will not be prosecuted for a theft at a Hollywood Hills home, reports the Los Angeles Times. But it's not entirely clear if that's because Lohan had nothing to do with the theft, or merely because the homeowner and other witnesses stopped cooperating with police. Sources told TMZ that Lohan and her assistant Gavin Doyle were suspects in the apparent theft of some $100,000 worth of watches and pricey sunglasses from the home of multimillionaire Sam Magid. But prosecutors tell the Times all that was reported to them was a missing $3,000 in cash, four pairs of sunglasses, an iPod and car keys. Magid, who authorities say has a "longstanding relationship" with Lohan, is now refusing to identify any suspects, reports Reuters. "We do not have sufficient evidence to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt," Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Deborah L. Kranze wrote in evaluating the case. Magid apparently has a thing for Lohan and texted her after the news broke that "what's mine is yours," reports TMZ. A jewelry theft charge would have been particularly bad news for the troubled 26-year-old actress because she's already on probation in another jewelry theft case. Lohan's spokesman blasted "media outlets quick to point fingers and jump to conclusions without having all the facts."
– "Unreal," proclaimed ESPN. Usain Bolt on Sunday won an unprecedented third Olympic gold in the 100 meters, defeating Justin Gatlin of the US by .08 seconds. Bolt became the first person (man or woman, notes the New York Times) to win three straight Olympic 100-meter titles, blowing down the straightaway in 9.81 seconds for his seventh overall Olympic gold. American Justin Gatlin, Bolt's closest pursuer over the past four years, finished second, .08 seconds behind. Andre de Grasse of Canada won the bronze, reports the AP. The fastest Bolt has ever run the 100 meters is a world-record time of 9.58. Bolt came into the Olympics not having run a 100 since June 30, when he pulled out of Jamaican national championships with a bad left hamstring. The rehab began immediately, and on a muggy Sunday night in Rio, the shining star of track and field showed no signs of distress. After a typically clunky burst out of the starting block, he started pulling away from Gatlin with about 30 meters left. "As we’ve seen so many times before in major finals, his rivals were tightening up and Bolt was flowing," observes the Guardian. He's not done. Qualifying for the men's 200, his favorite race, starts Tuesday, with the relay on Friday. The Times reports one of his big remaining goals is to break the 19-second mark in the 200 meters; his world-record time is 19.19. He's won all but five of his 74 races since 2008.
– Brett Kavanaugh firmly denied a fourth and a fifth allegation of sexual misconduct—one of which was later recanted—in a Tuesday conference call with Senate Judiciary Committee investigators, according to a transcript released late Wednesday. In one claim, made in an anonymous letter sent to Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, a woman alleged that her daughter saw an intoxicated Kavanaugh push her friend up against a wall "aggressively and sexually" in a bar in 1998, when he was an attorney working on the Ken Starr investigation, CBS News reports. "No, and we're dealing with an anonymous letter about an anonymous person and an anonymous friend," Kavanaugh said when asked about the claim. "It's ridiculous. Total twilight zone. And no, I've never done anything like that." (He used the same "twilight zone" phrase in regards to a third accusation.) Another accuser alleged in a call to Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse that his friend had been sexually assaulted on a boat in Rhode Island in 1985 "by two heavily inebriated men she referred to at the time as Brett and Mark," and he recognized Kavanaugh as one of the men. Kavanaugh denied the "completely made up" claim. The accuser withdrew the allegation in a tweet Wednesday night, saying, "I have recanted because I have made a mistake," CNN reports. A Senate Democratic aide tells Politico that some Democrats worry that Republicans are "now releasing anonymous allegations in an effort to make all allegations look frivolous. We're focusing on the ones that have names attached." (President Trump says Thursday's hearing could change his mind on Kavanaugh.)
– Joseph Meek met Dylann Roof in middle school, and back in May, Roof asked him for a place to stay. Now Meek, 21, is the "potential target" of a federal criminal investigation into the June mass shooting at a Charleston church of which Roof is accused. Meek tells the State that he broke down when FBI agents notified him last month that he's being investigated for allegedly lying to authorities and hiding knowledge of a crime from authorities. Meek says the only thing he may have done wrong was trust Roof too much; during his time at Meek's South Carolina mobile home, Roof would sometimes make comments about wanting to start a race war, but Meek says neither he nor anyone else living at the trailer—Meek's two brothers and his girlfriend Lindsey Fry—took him seriously. Roof only talked like that while drunk, Meek and Fry say; he also did drugs including cocaine—possibly every day—leading the pair to believe they needn't be concerned about anything he said. "There are a lot of people talking violent things, like rappers, and no one takes them seriously," Meek says. He and Fry also note that Roof had black friends that they never knew him to mistreat, and once appeared infatuated with a black stripper at a club. It's been known since July that authorities were investigating associates and friends of Roof, but no names had been released until now. (A federal official confirms to the AP that Meek is under investigation.) A few people Meek knows, including Fry and at least one member of the Meek family, have testified before a federal grand jury after being subpoenaed. Fry tells the AP Meek is trying to find a lawyer. (Click for more on Roof's life at Meek's place.)
– More than two dozen NASCAR fans were injured today when large chunks of debris, including a tire, sailed into the grandstands when a car flew into the fence on a frightening last-lap accident in the second-tier Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway. As emergency workers tended to injured fans and ambulance sirens wailed in the background, a somber Tony Stewart skipped the traditional post-race victory celebration. The Orlando Sentinel reports that at least 28 fans were injured, four were fastened to backboards, and six were described as seriously injured. The crash began as the field closed in on the finish line and sent rookie Kyle Larson's car sailing into the fence that separates the track from the seats. Large chunks of Larson's car landed in the grandstands. The car itself had its entire front end sheared off, with the burning engine wedged through a gaping hole in the fence. "There obviously was some intrusion into the fence and fortunately with the way the event's equipped up, there were plenty of emergency workers ready to go and they all jumped in on it pretty quickly," NASCAR President Mike Helton said. "Right now, it's just a function of determining what all damage is done. They're moving folks, as we've seen, to care centers and take some folks over to Halifax Medical." Click for more.
– Cops in India said a woman who was abducted and raped earlier this month in Bhiwani was likely the victim of the same five men who gang-raped her three years ago and were out on bail. Now, echos of that case in another: CNN reports a 14-year-old Delhi girl has died after allegedly being kidnapped, raped, and abused by the man suspected of raping her in December. That man, said to live in the girl's neighborhood, was out on bail when the alleged abduction occurred on May 15—one day prior to a hearing on his case. (Some reports say the alleged rapist kidnapped her; others say it was his maternal aunt.) NDTV reports she was raped repeatedly, with Chair of the Delhi Commission for Women Swati Maliwal saying the teen was "fed a corrosive substance which completely destroyed her internal organs and she died a very painful death." NDTV reports the girl made a deathbed statement that described what she allegedly endured: beatings, rapes "several times a day," a lack of food, and the forced consumption of acid in juice. The girl's mother says, "We looked for her for 12 days. When my child came back home, she had bruises all over. Her mouth, chest and limbs had been blackened." CNN and NDTV report she was hospitalized in June and on life support for a month. CNN cites police as saying the man was arrested following the girl's death. On Twitter, Maliwal accused India of failing another "Nirbhaya"—a reference to Jyoti Singh, who died after an infamous 2012 gang rape. As in the case earlier this month, the teen was a Dalit, considered the lowest, "untouchable" caste—and a particularly vulnerable one; read more about why.
– The Google empire is extending its reach into the heart of people's homes with its acquisition of Nest, a maker of Internet-connected fire alarms and thermostats. Google, which coughed up $3.2 billion in cash for the start-up, says Nest will continue to operate independently, though co-founder Matt Rogers will move to Google, the Verge reports. Google had already invested tens of millions in the firm, whose products include a smart thermostat that adjusts itself after monitoring your behavioral patterns. The acquisition sparked plenty of jokes about Google Ads on smoke alarms, Wired notes, but Nest promises that customer information will only be used to improve services. The buy looks like a good deal for both sides, adds the New York Times: Nest's founders—Apple veterans who were already rich—gain the corporate muscle needed to expand their business, and Google gains plenty of engineers with hardware expertise, along with a way to learn more about human interaction with connected devices.
– After nine months together in the womb but a lifetime apart, twins Ann Hunt and Elizabeth Hamel have finally been reunited. The pair—whose reunion after 78 years is a new world record—were born to an unmarried domestic servant in England in 1936 who was going to put both twins up for adoption but decided to keep Elizabeth out of fear that curvature of the spine would make her unadoptable, the BBC finds. Elizabeth learned that she had a twin when she was 15, but didn't know how to find her, while Ann, who moved to the US after marrying an American man, had no idea that she had a twin until her youngest daughter discovered her while researching the family tree. "How lovely to see you in the flesh," Elizabeth said last week when she embraced her sister for the first time. They met in California, where they took part in a study led by prominent twins researcher Dr. Nancy Segal, reports the New York Daily News. The researcher hopes the twins will be able to shed light on the nature versus nurture debate. "We want to get a comprehensive overview of their lives, their abilities, their interests, and put it all together as an important case study," she says. The sisters have found that they share several mannerisms and characteristics—and both of them married men named Jim. (Click to read about another wild reunion.)
– It's no secret that Susan Sarandon, like Sarah Silverman and Rosario Dawson, is one of the Hollywood luminaries who've been stumping for Team Bernie, not Team Hillary. So it wasn't totally surprising the actress was captured on camera Monday night at Philly's Democratic National Convention with a dour expression, shaking her head in seeming disgust as speaker after speaker took to the stage to talk up Clinton. Politico notes a video of Sarandon's decidedly muted enthusiasm circulated on social media with the caption "Susan Sarandon is having literally the worst time at the #DemConvention," which one might be tempted to attribute to unflattering lighting or a shot taken at an inopportune moment—except Sarandon herself agreed with the assessment. "Accurate," she tweeted in response to the GIF, to which one commenter responded: "You'll feel a hell of a lot worse if Trump wins."
– John Oliver's new HBO show debuted last night, and it featured possibly the most aggressive interview anyone's managed with former NSA Chief Keith Alexander. Almost all of Oliver's questions were barbed ("What would you like Snowden to know right now, other than significantly less?"), and sometimes he descended into outright mockery. ("You do understand that 'collect everything' is also the motto of a hoarder?") The segment ended with Oliver suggesting the NSA re-brand itself "Mr. Tiggles," an adorable cat in a boot, or "The Washington Redskins," which Oliver described as "a slightly less tainted brand than yours." Asked which he'd go with, Alexander (who generally weathered the interview with equanimity), suggested people vote on it. Opening up Oliver for his final gag: "At long last, Americans are being allowed to vote on something to do with the NSA." Here's what people are saying about the debut: That interview segment saved an episode that "seemed in danger of bombing," writes Tom McCarthy at the Guardian. "The value of the confrontation was not simply that Oliver made fun of Alexander," he writes. "Oliver also showed himself to be an effective interviewer by coming back at Alexander with a quickness and precision that the former top spy has very rarely encountered in public." While the Daily Show is clearly "Oliver's spirit animal," this show "suggested the sharpest possible version of its inspiration," writes Darren Franich at EW. It was "as if Oliver spent his Daily Show tutelage making a list of everything that works—and everything he wanted to do just a little bit differently." James Poniewozik at Time appreciated Oliver's "sharper tone and his globalist, English-outsider perspective," which showed itself in a "sweeping essay" in India's election and the lack of coverage it was getting in the US. But the show "did feel simultaneously long and breathless, maybe because there was very little to vary it." Oliver might need a few more taped segments, or to get himself some correspondents of his own.
– Tray Walker, the Baltimore Ravens cornerback who was injured in a motorcycle accident Thursday night in Miami, died from his injuries Friday—less than 24 hours after the accident, Yahoo! Sports reports. According to the Baltimore Sun, the 23-year-old suffered multiple serious head injuries when the dirt bike he was riding collided with an SUV at an intersection. Walker wasn't wearing a helmet at the time of the accident, and his dirt bike didn't have headlights. The driver of the SUV stayed at the scene. Last year was Walker's first season in the NFL. He appeared in eight games for the Ravens.
– One of the 276 women and girls kidnapped from a Nigerian boarding school by Boko Haram in 2014 was found by the Nigerian army Saturday, CNN reports. The girl, identified by Reuters as Maryam Ali Maiyanga, was carrying a 10-month-old baby, her son Ali. She was with a group of people who escaped a Boko Haram base in the Sambisa Forest. Maiyanga was number 198 on Bring Back Our Girls' list of Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped in April 2014. She was abducted with her twin sister, who is still missing. Of the 276 girls and women taken from the Chibok boarding school, 57 quickly escaped from Boko Haram. Another was found in May after escaping, and 21 were freed in October as part of a deal made by the Red Cross and the Swiss government. The Nigerian government says it's negotiating with Boko Haram to release 83 more of the schoolgirls. The rest, sources tell CNN, are either dead or don't want to leave Boko Haram. The terrorist group has been fighting for seven years to set up an Islamic state in Nigeria, the BBC reports. It's killed some 15,000 people and displaced more than 2 million during its insurgency.
– Ground turkey joins the salmonella scare parade. The CDC says one person has died and nearly 80 others have gotten sick across the country since March, apparently from eating contaminated batches of the meat, reports ABC News. The feds don't have enough information yet to issue an official recall or name brands or manufacturers. Instead, they're warning people to keep taking the precautions recommended for all ground turkey—cook it thoroughly to an internal temperature of 165 degrees, wash your hands, etc. (See the CDC advisory for details.)
– Owen Wilson is going to be a dad—any day now. Wilson and his girlfriend of more than a year, Jade Duell, “are happy to be expecting a baby,” the actor’s rep tells Entertainment Weekly. No other official details are being given, but PopEater notes that various online reports claim the baby will be born very, very soon. Click for more, including how Wilson has been preparing for the baby.
– A woman in Sweden gave birth to a healthy baby boy last month, an otherwise ordinary event that is making international headlines for good reason: The woman who gave birth was herself born without a womb. Doctors fixed that with a womb transplant earlier this year, leading to last month's medical milestone, reports AP. The unidentified 36-year-old becomes the first woman to give birth with a transplanted womb. The baby is doing "fantastic," says lead researcher Mats Brannstrom of the University of Gothenburg and Stockholm. His team will soon provide more details in the medical journal Lancet. It's "still sinking in that we have actually done it.". The woman received her uterus from her own mother, reports the Telegraph, which spells out another related milestone: The baby is "the first born to a woman using the same womb from which she emerged herself." The Swedish team actually transplanted wombs into nine women, though two of the procedures eventually failed. But the other seven women are doing fine, and two of them are currently pregnant. "It was a pretty tough journey over the years, but we now have the most amazing baby," says the proud new father in Sweden.
– For seven seconds, the footage shows an American president walking to a White House railing to wave at a crowd. But "when I saw [it] ... I gasped," says Paul Sparrow, director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, which has acquired the silent film of the 32nd president at the 1935 White House Easter Egg Roll. It's so remarkable because FDR, disabled by polio in 1921, wasn't keen on walking, which for him often required braces. Only a handful of short, blurry films show him doing so, per History. Indeed, cameramen were told not to record his stiff gait for fear it would make clear his disability, per the Washington Post. Apparently unaware of such a rule, New York tourist Fred Hill aimed his camera at Roosevelt as he walked with help from a cane and bodyguard, his wife and two nieces at his side. Secret Service agents surely would've taken the film had they spotted Hill's camera amid the crowd of 50,000, says Roosevelt biographer Geoffrey C. Ward. "It's by far the clearest image I've ever seen of something that's obsessed me for 20 years," he adds, pointing to the careful "choreography" of bodyguard Gus Gennerich, who helps FDR to a railing, vanishes behind a pillar, and reemerges just as the president is ready to leave, per the Post. The footage stayed with Hill as he relocated to Reno, Nev., continuing to make home movies, and was discovered by his grandson in the 1980s. "I've kind of jealously guarded this stuff" but it "needs to go where it belongs," says Richard Hill, 66, who made the December donation announced Wednesday. "It's an important part of history that almost got away." (This FDR footage is rare for another reason.)
– It was bad this morning, and it got downright ugly this afternoon: The Dow finished the day down 531 points, while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 were similarly hammered, reports the TheStreet. The Dow fell more than 300 points yesterday, making this the biggest two-day drop since the financial crisis. Investors are "spooked" over China's economic troubles, and it's taking a toll on both stocks and commodities, reports the Wall Street Journal. At one point today, oil dipped below $40 a barrel, which it hasn't done since the crisis. The final numbers: The Dow fell 531 (3.12%) to close at 16,460, the Nasdaq fell 171 (3.52%) and the S&P fell 65 (3.18%). One school of thought is that this is a necessary "cleansing," as an analyst puts it at MarketWatch. "I know that everyone likes to think crash when the proverbial stuff hits the fan, but a cleansing is a good thing—not a bad one," writes LA Little. "What is being said here is a correction—not a bear market—might just be the outcome when it is all said and done."
– Robin Thicke and Paula Patton's custody battle is spiraling: A judge on Thursday denied the actress' request for an emergency hearing Patton was seeking in hopes of limiting her ex's time with 6-year-old son Julian, reports ET Online. Spanking appears to be at the root of the request: Julian is said to have told adults at his school that Thicke spanked him more than once, which triggered an early January call to the Los Angeles County Department of Child and Family Services. It's looking into the alleged physical abuse, reports Us Weekly. TMZ quotes Patton as writing in court filings that Julian confessed the alleged excessive spanking to her the day before he spoke with school officials. She asked him to demonstrate, and says that she called out "ow" as he hit her back, with her 6-year-old saying it was actually more painful than that. E! News has Thicke's reply, per court documents: "On a very rare occasion, and only as a last resort, I will use light spanking, but it is consistent with the law—open hand on the butt. This is the type of discipline to which Paula and I agreed during our marriage." He further alleges that Patton is going after him because she's dealing with "residual anger toward me" after he prohibited her and her family from attending dad Alan Thicke's December funeral due to unkind things he says she said to him about the elder Thicke. TMZ has some more accusations leveled against Thicke, including Patton's allegation that he showed up to Julian's kindergarten graduation—held at 8:30am on a June day in a Catholic church—drunk "and making inappropriate jokes."
– Charles and David Koch are officially sitting on their wallets when it comes to the candidacy of one Donald J. Trump, reports Fox News, with Charles Koch telling a gathering of conservative elites Saturday in Colorado that "We don't really, in some cases, don't really have good options" in the "current political situation." That translates to zero Koch dollars for the Republican nominee, a Koch rep says, given that no presidential candidates lined up from "a values, and beliefs and policy perspective. Based on that, we're focused on the Senate," he says, noting that Koch Industries has thus far dropped $42 million on advertising for GOP Senate candidates. Trump responded to the slight via Twitter, saying, "I turned down a meeting with Charles and David Koch. Much better for them to meet with the puppets of politics, they will do much better!" The Kochs' decision doesn't mean they'll use their money to undermine Trump, however. "We have no intention to go after Donald Trump," their rep tells the AP. But with a war chest that he says is about $750 million—of which a significant chunk was to go toward re-taking the Oval Office from the Democrats—it's still a financial blow to Trump and windfall for Senate Republicans.
– If you're a fan of Wilco and/or Popeye, the band's new video for Dawned on Me is must-viewing, notes Xeni Jardin at BoingBoing. The collaboration between the band and King Features results in the first hand-drawn Popeye cartoon since 1987, and it features the Popeye crew grooving as the band plays. Alas, Olive Oyl falls for lead singer Jeff Tweedy at the end, leaving both Popeye and Bluto out of luck. More about the video's creation here. A deeper look at the song comes from Todd Martens at the LA Times' Pop & Hiss blog: It's "one of the more lighthearted songs on Wilco's new album, The Whole Love, although lyrically it has a slightly dark undercurrent in its midsection." What seems at first "to be a bouncy number about calling a loved one is revealed to be something a little more sinister when it's made clear that the couple are no longer together."
– A landmark Supreme Court ruling in Mexico has legalized recreational marijuana for four people, a decision that could open the door to legal pot for another 122 million Mexicans. The court's 4-1 decision found that banning marijuana violated the constitutional right "to the free development of personality" of the four plaintiffs from a group called the Mexican Society for Responsible and Tolerant Consumption, the Guardian reports. The four, including prominent businessman Armando Santacruz, will now be allowed to grow marijuana and smoke it, reports the BBC. For pot to become legal for all Mexicans, the court will have to rule the same way in five similar cases, the Guardian notes. Pot smoking isn't as widespread in Mexico as it is in the US, and the government is firmly opposed to legalization, but advocates say it makes little sense for Mexicans to be locked up or killed in cartel violence over a substance that's gradually being legalized north of the border, reports the New York Times. "We are killing ourselves to stop the production of something that is heading to the US, where it’s legal," Santacruz tells the Times, adding that bad regulation "is better than whatever regulation El Chapo and the narcos can provide." (On Tuesday, Ohio voters rejected a legalization measure that would have established a "marijuana monopoly.")
– During an interview and cover shoot with Du Jour, model Chrissy Teigen let slip this little story in a behind-the-scenes video spotted by Business Insider: "I actually was fired from a job. Forever 21. They booked me directly when I was much younger. I showed up on set, they asked me if they could take a photo and they shoot that photo off to my agency, who then calls me as I'm sitting in the makeup chair. And they say, 'You need to leave right now. They just said you are fat and you need to come get your measurements taken.' So I hate you, Forever 21. Hate you so much. Honestly, you're the worst." Business Insider notes that Teigen tweeted back in 2012, "So next time you pass a Forever 21, remember the fact that they are a bunch of a--holes who fired me mid-makeup for being fat."
– A second American doctor working in Liberia has tested positive for Ebola, missionary group Serving in Mission USA is confirming, as per the AP. It's not clear how the doctor, who was not named, contracted the virus: He was working in an obstetrics unit in a Monrovia hospital, and not in the isolation unit. He immediately isolated himself and is said to be doing well, reports NBC. SIM USA's president, Bruce Johnson, said in a statement: "My heart was deeply saddened, but my faith was not shaken, when I learned another of our missionary doctors contracted Ebola. As a global mission, we are surrounding our missionary with prayer, as well as our Liberian SIM/ELWA colleagues, who continue fighting the Ebola epidemic in Liberia."
– In the 1960s, 94% of parents used physical punishment on their children. In 2010, just 22% of parents did. Parents have figured out that there's a better way than spanking—and now it's time for yelling to experience that same reckoning. Most parents today yell at their kids, and in the New York Times, Stephen Marche calls the practice "the most widespread parental stupidity around today." Studies have found that shouting at kids can lead to increases in anxiety, stress, depression, and behavioral problems and decreases in self-esteem. It makes parents look out of control and weak, and all it accomplishes is teaching kids to yell themselves. "Yelling, even more than spanking, is the response of a person who doesn’t know what else to do," Marche writes—before explaining what else you can do. He highlights the ABCs of parenting, a process that does require advance planning: A: antecedents. Instead of yelling at your children every time they leave their shoes strewn around the room, clearly explain to them what you want them to do—before you want them to do it. In this case, talk to them in the morning about putting their shoes away when they come home from school. B: behaviors. Define, shape, and model the behavior you want. Put your own shoes away, and help your kids understand what to do. C: consequences. When your child puts his or her shoes away, or even gets them closer to where they're supposed to go, go over-the-top with praise, both verbal and nonverbal (touching). "The beauty of having a system is that instead of reacting after your kids do something bad, instead of waiting for them to mess up and then getting angry, you have a conscious plan," writes Marche. His full explanation of the system is here.
– The future is now—in the South Korean city of Gumi, anyway, which just enabled 15 miles of road to recharge electric cars as they drive along, Business Insider reports. Cables about a foot underground generate a 20-kHz electromagnetic field, which is absorbed by a coil in the bottom of the vehicle, ExtremeTech explains. The system now works with two public buses, but 10 more are planned by 2015. Each has a battery one-third the size of a standard electric vehicle's, which makes the system even more efficient, as the buses weigh less and consume less energy.
– A year even more disastrous for elephants than it was for celebrities is ending with some great news for the species. China, by far the world's biggest market for ivory, announced Friday that it is phasing out the ivory trade and will have a complete ban in place by the end of 2017, the BBC reports. Conservation groups including the World Wildlife Federation praised the move as a historic step towards protecting elephants, which poachers have been slaughtering in huge numbers to supply the Chinese market. A 18-country "Great Elephant Census" released this year found that a third of Africa's elephants were wiped out between 2007 and 2014, with the population continuing to drop 8% a year. Around 70% of poached ivory is believed to end up in China. "Ivory traffickers have just lost one of their biggest markets," said Aili Kang of the Wildlife Conservation Society. Elly Pepper of the Natural Resources Defense Council described the move as "critical to saving the species." Beijing says commercial processing and sale of ivory will be halted by March 31 and trading will be phased out entirely over the following months. The New York Times reports that negotiations between China and the US may have speeded up the introduction of the ban. After Xi Jinping visited Washington in 2015, the White House released a statement saying both nations had agreed to " take significant and timely steps to halt the domestic commercial trade of ivory." (Poaching has caused more elephants to be born tuskless.)
– A tiger roaming the streets of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi—one of several creatures that escaped the Tbilisi zoo this weekend amid heavy flooding—killed a man today in a main city square, and wounded another, reports the BBC. The killing set off a hunt by camouflaged special forces, who tracked the tiger down and "liquidated" it, an interior ministry rep says, per the Washington Post. The tiger apparently evaded being caught by hanging out in an abandoned factory, Sky News reports; Georgia's PM mistakenly said yesterday all missing animals had been accounted for. Earlier reports had suggested the attacks were the work of a lion, the BBC notes. (It can happen here, too: A tiger escaped its cage at the San Francisco Zoo in 2007 and killed a visitor.)
– A statue dedicated to the memory of Confederate soldiers 105 years ago came crashing to the ground at the University of North Carolina on Monday night. "Silent Sam," a statue of a Confederate soldier donated to the university by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and erected in 1913, was brought down by some of the protesters who had marched against the statue earlier in the evening, WTVD reports. A group of protesters cheered and threw dirt on the statue after others brought it down using a rope. Police officers, who made at least one arrest, then moved in to form a human shield around the toppled statue. Students and faculty at the Chapel Hill campus had called the statue a monument to a racist past and called for its removal, the AP reports. Reactions ranged from joy to anger, with the university calling the protesters' actions "dangerous," the News and Observer reports. "The Governor understands that many people are frustrated by the pace of change and he shares their frustration, but violent destruction of public property has no place in our communities," Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper said in a statement. (Another Confederate statue was toppled by a crowd in Durham last year.)
– Two senior Equifax execs have stepped down as the investigation of what may be the biggest data breach in US history continues. The credit-reporting firm says security chief Susan Mauldin and chief technology officer David Webb are retiring effective immediately, the New York Times reports. After the leak that exposed the data of 143 million Americans became public, it emerged that Mauldin has a degree in music composition but apparently no education in technology or security. Interviews with Mauldin have been removed from YouTube, though MarketWatch unearthed a transcript of one in which she says they are interested in hiring good analysts of any kind, because "security can be learned." The departing execs are not among the three that sold off $1.8 million in shares days after the company discovered the breach. The company's shares have dropped by around a third since the breach was disclosed, the AP notes. Democratic senators introduced a bill Friday that would ban Equifax from profiting from the breach by charging for credit freezes. At Bloomberg, the editorial board argues that Equifax should be dealt with under existing legislation, which allows the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to "penalize companies for failing to make 'reasonable' efforts to keep sensitive information out of the wrong hands." (For two months, Equifax failed to fix the known security hole that hackers exploited.)
– We're going to go ahead and guess that JPMorgan's social media staff is getting an earful today. Fresh from helping Twitter launch its IPO, the company announced that Vice Chairman Jimmy Lee would be holding a Twitter Q&A today, urging people to tweet questions with the #AskJPM hashtag. Questions started pouring in yesterday—but they probably weren't the kind JPMorgan was hoping for. Examples include: "At what number of Billions of Dollars in fines will it no longer be profitable to run your criminal enterprise? #askjpm" (link) "Do you have a secret jail in your offices so your executives get at least one chance to see the inside of one? #AskJPM" (link) "I have Mortgage Fraud, Market Manipulation, Credit Card Abuse, Libor Rigging and Predatory Lending AM I DIVERSIFIED? #AskJPM" (link) "Would you rather negotiate with 1 horse-sized Eric Holder, or 100 duck-sized Eric Holders? #AskJPM" (link) "As a young sociopath, how can I succeed in finance? #AskJPM" (link) "Are you involved in a massive corruption scandal in China? #AskJPM" (link) "#askJPM Does getting roasted on social media feel too harsh a penalty for rigging #LIBOR? Will you lobby Congress to regulate Twitter?" (link) "What's your favorite type of whale? #AskJPM" (link) The company beat its retreat and cancelled the Q&A before Lee had answered a single question. "#Badidea! Back to the drawing board!" a spokesman said in an email to the New York Times. At least 8,000 tweets were sent using the hashtag, and at least two-thirds of them were negative, the Twitter analysis firm Topsy tells the Financial Times. "I think companies sometimes forget that social media belongs to the people," one e-marketing analyst said. "Consumers have control beyond their wildest expectations."
– It's hard to imagine Facebook without the face of Mark Zuckerberg at its helm, but that's exactly what the site's board of directors is anticipating in its latest proposal to the SEC. Per Reuters, the board submitted a proxy filing Thursday, notifying the federal agency that it intends to call for a shareholder vote on converting the CEO's current Class B shares (about 419 million of them) into Class A shares (4 million), so that if and when he bade a Facebook farewell from any executive position, he won't retain majority voting control. All of his shares together equal about 54% of the company's voting power, but he also holds proxy over shares owned by co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, effectively giving him 60% control, reports CNNMoney. "These new terms thus ensure that we will not remain a founder-controlled company after we cease to be a founder-led company," the filing says. Investopedia explains: Although Class A shares are often thought to hold more voting power, this isn't always true, and in Facebook's case, the latter appears to be what's going on. If Zuckerberg were to resign or be fired for cause, his Class B shares would morph into Class A versions, which would allot him just one vote (instead of 10) per share, CNN notes. What would remain unaffected if his shares are converted is Zuckerberg's economic stake in the company—currently 14.8%, per CNET. Facebook's reasoning for loosening Zuckerberg's grip: The company says the power he holds may scare away interested CEO candidates. It also hopes to convince him to remain with Facebook for the long haul and not jump to a competitor. The vote will reportedly take place on June 20. (Facebook has a big project in the works with Microsoft.)
– When it comes to movement, human engineering has much to learn from Mother Nature, says a new study in Nature Communications. Researchers found that animals of all kinds use the same essential mechanics to move whether on land, air, or water, reports the Houston Chronicle, which likens it to a "magic formula." In other words, "the fin of a fish moves just like the wing of a bird," explains Texas A&M's Tamu Times. And it's no accident: "The best reason we can think that these similarities are there in nature is that they are the most energy efficient," says an A&M researcher. The team looked at everything from insects to birds to whales to fish to molluscs, and found that the secret is in their flexible wings, fins, and tails. It's all about the bend, which always falls into a range of 30% to 60%. It's not that they can't bend further, it's that it doesn't make aerodynamic sense. Compared with how we get around on our man-made contraptions, animals show "a potentially perfect universal design," the Chronicle notes—and scientists hope they can steal some wisdom to help technology catch up. Maybe someday, then, fixed-wing aircraft will be replaced by planes with bendable wings. (Elsewhere in the animal kingdom, researchers found that your dog really does know when you're happy.)
– In 2014, it's estimated that more than 44,000 people contracted HIV, NBC News reports. In advance of World AIDS Day on Wednesday, GetTested looked at CDC data for that year to determine the 10 cities with the highest rates of new HIV diagnoses. The top five: Baton Rouge, La.: 44.7 new diagnoses per 100,000 people Miami, Fla.: 42.8 per 100,000 New Orleans, La.: 36.9 per 100,000 Jackson, Miss.: 32.2 per 100,000 Orlando, Fla.: 28.8 per 100,000 Click for the complete list.
– " It was an absolutely cold track," a French intel veteran of the hunt for Salah Abdeslam as of Monday night. Four months into the hunt for the key terrorist in the Paris attacks, officials didn't know if he was still in Europe or if he'd slipped through to Syria. But, as Time reports, "on Tuesday, that changed entirely": A SWAT team investigating another matter caught gunfire from an apartment in a Brussels suburb; grainy cell phone video indicated Abdeslam might've been among those who escaped, and a fingerprint inside confirmed his presence—hidden right in plain sight. Another coincidence: Abdeslam's slain brother, Ibrahim, a suicide bomber at the Paris cafe, was finally being buried Thursday. Cops tapped the phones of 20 of the brothers' friends who collected Ibrahim Abdeslam's body, which apparently gave them intel to set up Friday's successful raid in Mollenbeek. " This is a really, really good thing, that he was captured alive," says Mollenbeek's deputy mayor. Meanwhile, Abdeslam is talking, reports the BBC. "Salah Abdeslam today during questioning by [Belgian] investigators affirmed that, and I quote, 'he wanted to blow himself up at the Stade de France and that he had backed down,' " Paris' prosecutor said Saturday. Abdeslam's lawyer says he's planning to file a legal complaint against the prosecutor for that particular disclosure, reports Sky News. Abdeslam is also fighting extradition to France, adds the New York Times. But investigators believe he wasn't idle while on the run: Abdeslam said "he was ready to restart something from Brussels, and it's maybe the reality," says Belgium's foreign minister. "We found a lot of weapons, heavy weapons in the first investigations, and we have seen a new network of people around him in Brussels."
– Former Alabama math teacher Matthew Shane Wester—accused of having sexual contact with student Amy Nicole Cox—married the teen over the weekend. Wester, 37, and Cox, 18, got hitched just weeks after she graduated high school. Cox was still 17 years old when she had an inappropriate relationship with the then-married Wester, Blount County District Attorney Pamela Casey tells the Huffington Post. The relationship was discovered in November, and Wester was placed on unpaid leave. He later resigned, according to AL.com. The former assistant football coach, head track coach, and algebra and geometry teacher was indicted in January, and finalized his divorce in April. Per the indictment, Wester "intentionally and knowingly engaged with a male or female student under the age of 19 in sexual contact which was done for the purpose of gratifying the sexual desire of either party, to wit—kissing and spending the night with the victim." The pair's marriage will not halt the criminal investigation, although it may impede its progress. "Now that the legal status of their relationship has changed, we will have to look at our case to determine how we will proceed,'' Casey says, because under Alabama law spouses cannot be compelled to testify against each other. (In other teacher-turned-lover news: Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili are still married after 10 years.)
– An Oklahoma man who gave his stepfather a fatal "atomic wedgie" was on Thursday sentenced to 30 years for the crime. Brad Davis, 34, in May pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the death of Denver Lee St. Clair; at the time Davis said he killed the 58-year-old "in the heat of passion while defending myself in a fight that got out of hand and went too far." Police say both men had been drinking on the night of Dec. 21, 2013, and a fight ensued after St. Clair allegedly spoke ill of his estranged wife, Davis' mother. In a hearing early in the case, investigators testified that Davis knocked out his stepfather before the killer wedgie and took photos both before and after. St. Clair was found dead with his underwear pulled over his head, with the elastic band cutting off his air. The Oklahoman reports that the head wounds St. Clair sustained would have killed him, had the wedgie not ended his life first; Reuters reports St. Clair's cause of death is listed as blunt force trauma and asphyxiation. Davis, of McLoud, had faced between four and 35 years; the judge handed him the sentence that prosecutors had requested. Davis' lawyer had maintained his client had been bullied.
– It has to be a football first: Mississippi high school student Kaylee Foster was named homecoming queen during halftime of her school's game Friday night, then made the game-winning kick in overtime of that same game a little bit later, reports WLOX. The senior's extra point gave Ocean Springs High School a 13-12 win—and Foster had kicked two field goals earlier in the homecoming game, per ABC7. "I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be homecoming queen, but I was pretty sure I was going to make that kick," she says. "Jack King, the holder, he like looks at me and like, 'It’s OK, Kaylee. Just kick it like you always do. It’s OK,'" she tells WLOX. "And the next thing I know, everyone is like right there. Just a nice group hug." Foster has been playing football for six years and says the male players have always been supportive. "They don’t like treat me any differently other than I don’t go into the locker room."
– Police may have their first decent lead in the armed robbery of Kim Kardashian West after a passerby found one of her pendants, the Telegraph reports. The diamond cross—believed to be worth more than $32,000—was stolen as part of an $11 million heist of Kim K's valuables last Monday at a luxury hotel in Paris. Authorities have reportedly found "several" DNA profiles on the piece of jewelry, which was found the following day near the scene of the crime. According to NBC News, investigators hope to use DNA from the pendant to find the men responsible for the robbery. Sources have described the crime, during which Kardashian West was tied up and feared rape, as six minutes of terror.
– If conditions could get incrementally worse than "barely survivable," they just did in Aleppo, Syria. The human rights arm of the United Nations says that forces supporting the Syrian regime have been entering homes in eastern Aleppo and murdering residents, with one report coming in that 82 civilians (11 said to be women, 13 children) have been shot in four separate areas of the city, per the BBC. "We're filled with the deepest foreboding for those who remain in this last hellish corner," says a UN spokesman, who conceded that confirmation of the reports was impossible at the moment. Another humanitarian rep from the UN is calling it a "complete meltdown of humanity." From elsewhere on the internet: The New York Times reports rebels hold just a "sliver of territory," per reps for the Syrian government and opposition forces. The paper notes it's "increasingly likely" that Assad's regime could regain control of the city "within days, if not hours." The UN and the Red Cross are making desperate pleas to spare the people of Aleppo, the BBC reports, with the International Committee of the Red Cross noting residents have "literally nowhere safe to run." UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is said to be "alarmed over reports of atrocities against a large number of civilians," and the ICRC said further tragedy could only be avoided if the basic rules of war were adhered to. An opinion piece in the Independent examines why the rebels are losing (they can partly blame Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia) and whether Assad will have truly won the war if he gets eastern Aleppo back under his command. Vice News has compiled social media postings from people trapped in Aleppo now saying their final goodbyes to the world. One photographer there wrote, "I am waiting to die or be captured by the Assad regime … Pray for me and always remember us," while the mom of Bana Alabed, the 7-year-old girl who's been made famous by her tweets out of the war-torn city, posted on her daughter's Twitter account, "Final message—I am very sad no one is helping us in this world, no one is evacuating me & my daughter. Goodbye." SBS.com notes that Aleppo's governor has pledged to evacuate Bana and her family.
– Up until the middle of last week, Turkey put the number of Syrian refugees within its borders at more than a million. That number has swelled by 130,000 in the last four days, according to Turkey's deputy PM. It's not just the sheer number of refugees that's noteworthy: They're mainly Kurds, and as the BBC reports, many are "deeply hostile" to Turkey. And since Thursday, they've been pouring into the country in an attempt to flee ISIS militants who have, as the AP puts it, "pushed the conflict nearly within eyeshot of the Turkish border." The current conflict centers around the town of Kobani, which ISIS attempted to take in July, reports Reuters. That attempt was quelled with the help of Kurds who entered Syria from Turkey, and there were skirmishes on the Turkish side of the border yesterday as the country tried to prevent Kurds from flowing into Syria once again. As BBC correspondent Mark Lowen explains, there's a fear that the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which for decades battled for autonomy for Kurds inside Turkey, could team up with a beefed-up Syrian Kurdish militia and once again take up arms within Turkey. For now, the Syrian Kurdish fighters are said to have halted an ISIS advance on Kobani from the east, according to a rep for the Kurdish group, who says that's the front where the most intense fighting is taking place.
– A Long Island man accused of rape will now also be charged with conspiracy to murder after what police say was a plot hatched using, well, paper airplanes. Patrick O'Sullivan, 21, had hoped to kill his alleged victim and a witness, police say, and offered a fellow inmate $23,000 to make it happen, via flying notes the men called "kites," NBC New York reports. "Without a vic's statement, the DA's case against me would lose all the power right? As long as you get that done, I will be Gucci," said one message, which the other inmate (who is set to be released soon) then handed over to police. O'Sullivan's alleged plot was particularly gruesome: He wanted the victim's body dumped in the water, but the witness' body buried ... "so after the case against me collapses and I get out of jail I can dig up the body, cut its head off and mail it to his family for the holidays," one of the notes allegedly said. O'Sullivan is accused of raping the woman at gunpoint while she was housesitting, the New York Daily News reports; he allegedly admitted in one of the notes that he wasn't wearing a condom. O'Sullivan could face life in prison for the rape charge alone. (In another recent case, a wife convinced her husband to shoot their neighbor ... over "telepathic rape.")
– Megyn Kelly tried to ask Newt Gingrich about the Donald Trump groping allegations Tuesday night—but she didn't get further than the words "If Trump is a sexual predator ..." before Gingrich blew up. "He's not a sexual predator!" Gingrich told the Fox host, per USA Today. "You can't say that. You could not defend that statement. Now, I'm sick and tired of people like you using language that's inflammatory, that's not true!" said Gingrich, a prominent Trump surrogate. "I think that your defensiveness on this may speak volumes," Kelly told Gingrich, who earlier in the interview accused the media of having Pravda-like bias in its coverage of Clinton versus Trump. As the exchange grew more heated, with Kelly insisting that the Trump allegations are an issue people care about and that Fox had also covered allegations against Bill Clinton, Gingrich said: "You are fascinated with sex and you don't care about public policy." Kelly responded: "I'm not fascinated by sex, but I am fascinated by protection of women and understanding what we're getting in the Oval Office." Gingrich went on to demand that she say the words "Bill Clinton, sexual predator," reports the Washington Post, which calls the showdown "one for the ages." "We're going to have to leave it at that, and you can take your anger issues and spend some time working on them, Mr. Speaker," Kelly said as time ran out. "Thanks for being here."
– The big rumor in Silicon Valley is that Apple is trying to build an electric car. And while the company isn't confirming, a new lawsuit sure seems to support the idea. Reuters reports that a company named A123 Systems is suing Apple for poaching its engineers. And what does A123 make? Batteries for electric cars. "Apple is currently developing a large-scale battery division to compete in the very same field as A123," the lawsuit says. A123 says Apple began going after its engineers last June, and it's suing five former employees for breach of contract. One of them allegedly has been helping Apple recruit other former A123 engineers, with the lawsuit asserting that the company has had to shut down various projects as a result. Apple also has lured experts with electric-car experience from Tesla and Mercedes-Benz, reports the Wall Street Journal. Both stories note that while A123 was once a leader in the industry, it filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012.
– Six suspected tiger poachers in Bangladesh aren't going to make it to trial: Officials tell the BBC that the gang members were killed in a shootout after opening fire on police, and officers found the skins of three endangered Bengal tigers that had been killed just days earlier. The men were killed at their hideout in the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, where there has been a huge fall in tiger numbers, the AP reports. A recent survey found only around 100 tigers where 440 tigers were recorded in 2004. Some of the drop is believed to be due to different survey methods, though authorities say rampant poaching is also to blame. (In Nepal, tiger numbers are rising amid a "zero-tolerance attitude to wildlife crime.)
– Amid all the uproar over chemical weapons in Syria comes this surprising revelation: What could be the earliest archaeological evidence of chemical weapons was uncovered in the country—and it is some 1,700 years old. A mixture of sulfur and pitch combined with fire was the first way humans gassed their enemies, explains Discovery News. It dredges up 2009 findings by British archaeologist Simon James, who asserts that such a poison gas was used during a siege on the Roman-controlled city of Dura-Europos around AD 256. The site was excavated throughout the 20th century, first in 1920; in the next decade, the bodies of 20 armor-clad Roman soldiers were found in one of the counter-mines they dug in order to access the tunnels made by the invading Sasanian Persians. The original theory was that the collapse of the tunnel killed them. But James offered proof that the Romans were actually gassed: A jar near the bodies contained residue composed of pitch and yellow sulfur crystals. National Geographic shares James' explanation: "I think the Sasanians placed braziers and bellows in their gallery, and when the Romans broke through, added the chemicals and pumped choking clouds into the Roman tunnel." Death would have come within minutes. There is one bit of archaeology that could predate it: a sulfur and pitch fireball that struck Alexander’s army in 327 BC. But a Stanford research scholar notes that there's no way to determine whether it was purposefully or accidentally ignited. (More on this history front: Researchers now say ancient Egypt sprang up faster than we thought.)
– The Denver Broncos upset the Carolina Panthers 24-10 in Super Bowl 50 on Sunday with a dominating defense that forced four turnovers—two of which turned into touchdowns, USA Today reports. Denver opened with two scores in the first quarter, a Brandon McManus 34-yard field goal and a strip-sack of Carolina quarterback Cam Newton that Denver's Malik Jackson recovered in the end zone. The Panthers, held to 28 yards in the first quarter, retaliated with a 5-yard TD run by Jonathan Stewart early in the second quarter. But the Broncos' Jordan Norwood soon slashed across the field for a 61-yard punt return, the longest in Super Bowl history. Stymied in the red zone, Denver settled for a McManus 34-yard field goal. The teams traded field goals in the second half before Denver again stripped Newton of the ball, forcing a fumble that led to a 2-yard CJ Anderson rushing touchdown. Denver capped it off with a 2-point point-after. Carolina actually led the Santa Clara, Calif., game in passing yards (197 to 104), rushing yards (118 to 90), first downs (21 to 11), and time of possession (32:47 to 27:13), ESPN reports—but trailed all game and for the first time all post-season, notes CBS Sports. Denver linebacker Von Miller, who strip-sacked Newton twice, was named the game's MVP. So was this Denver quarterback Peyton Manning's last rodeo? Asked after the game, he said he'll consider retirement. "I'm gonna drink a lot of Budweiser tonight," he said.
– The search is back on: The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery is returning to the Pacific island of Nikumaroro next year to hunt for wreckage from Amelia Earhart's plane, reports NBC News. TIGHAR has already undertaken several expeditions at the site, where it believes Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan may have lived after landing on the surrounding reef. This time around, TIGHAR is looking for the mysterious "Bevington Object" spotted in a 1937 picture taken by British Colonial Service officer Eric Bevington. TIGHAR thinks the object, first noticed in 2010, might show the landing gear from Earhart's plane's wreckage. The organization will used manned submersibles to go as deep as 3,280 feet, searching an area a mile wide. "Live searching by three people aboard each sub looking at wide vistas illuminated by powerful lights is far superior to searching by looking remotely via the toilet-paper tube view provided by a video camera on an ROV," says TIGHAR's executive director, according to Discovery. During the 30-day Niku VIII expedition, searchers will also look for evidence of a campsite along the shore.
– ISIS carried out its deadliest attack in Iraq in months Thursday night, killing at least 73 people, including dozens of Iranian pilgrims, in an attack on a gas station on a highway south of Baghdad. At least 65 other people were wounded in the attack, which targeted Shiite pilgrims who had visited the holy city of Karbala, the AP reports. The Guardian and Reuters—which puts the death toll at 100—report that a truck laden with 500 liters of ammonium nitrate exploded at the gas station in the city of Hilla, setting five pilgrim buses alight. In a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, ISIS, which considers all Shiites to be heretics, boasted of killing or wounding 200, including Iranians. The AP notes that ISIS has stepped up attacks around Iraq in an effort to weaken the offensive to retake Mosul. The previous day, at least 31 people were killed in roughly a dozen bombings in Baghdad. The Guardian reports that around 3 million Iranians are in Iraq this week to mark a holy day in the Shiite calendar, and the Thursday night attack was seen as retaliation for Tehran's anti-ISIS stance. Iran's foreign ministry issued a statement denouncing the "heinous and barbarous crime," believed to be ISIS' deadliest attack on Iranian nationals, and vowing that Tehran will continue to support Iraq in its "relentless fight against terrorism." (A US service member assisting anti-ISIS forces in Syria was killed on Thursday.)
– A judge in Britain has denied a woman's claim that dim lighting in a jazz club was to blame for injuries she suffered in a fall, with her unusually frank ruling making headlines because of its references to the woman's "inebriated, obese state." Judge Heather Baucher ruled last week that 254-pound Eren Hussein was responsible for her own injuries when she tumbled down stairs at a popular London jazz spot "on three-inch platforms," the Telegraph reports. Hussein, 53, filed a civil lawsuit demanding thousands of dollars in damages from Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club after she broke her wrist and elbow there in March 2012 during a night out. Hussein testified that she missed a step outside an upstairs lounge and fell down two flights of stairs. "It was dark, it was dim and I didn't see my step as I was going down," she said. But the judge faulted her for not holding the banister, noting that Hussein "must have taken up much of the width of the stairway." Hospital records described Hussein, who has since lost 70 pounds, as "obviously drunk," but she insisted she only had 2.5 glasses of wine and champagne. The judge noted she may have been affected by painkillers she was taking. "On that evening, whether due to one or more of the factors—painkillers, weight, shoes, drink—she simply missed her footing," the judge said, per the Independent.
– In the hours before her February 2015 car crash that ended up killing a 70-year-old woman, Caitlyn Jenner says she was chased, harassed, and tailgated by "Stalker Defendants" who ultimately helped cause her accident, she says in court documents seen by People. Those defendants are paparazzi photographers, whom Jenner is now suing for what she says was their role in causing her to become "visually distracted" and slam into the car of Kimberly Howe, who herself had hit the car in front of her that had suddenly stopped short. The photographers' "negligence and reckless conduct" helped lead to the accident, in which "seconds and split seconds mattered," per the court papers. News of her lawsuit came just a day after appearing on Bill Simmons' Any Given Wednesday show on HBO, in which she told him she had once contemplated killing herself during her transition after a paparazzo took a picture of her as she left a doctor's office after having a procedure done on her Adam's apple, per E! Online. She told Simmons that as she paced her hallway in the middle of the night after the snapshot, she thought, "'Damn, all this s--t is going to come out tomorrow and it's going to be horrible.' … And I said, 'You know what? Go in the other room. You got a gun. Let's just end it right here.'" What Jenner is seeking in her suit: for the photographers to assume partial liability and financial responsibility for damages and legal proceedings.
– Quite a few gossip outlets are gleefully crowing today that Justin Bieber got booed last night while accepting the Milestone Award at the Billboard Music Awards. (Though the cheers from the Beliebers in the audience seem to drown out a lot of the boos in the video, Vulture notes that the jeering was so obvious in the auditorium itself that host Tracy Morgan commented on it.) Sample headlines: TMZ: Justin Bieber—BOOED at Billboard Music Awards Vulture: Justin Bieber Collects Award, Publicly Sulks, Gets Booed The Stir: Justin Bieber Booed at Billboard Music Awards, Making for a Very Awkward Acceptance Speech As for that "very awkward" acceptance speech, here it is: "I'm 19 years old. I think I'm doing a pretty good job. And basically, from my heart, I really just want to say, it should really be about the music, it should be about the craft, the craft that I'm making. This is not a gimmick. I'm an artist and I should be taken seriously, and all this other bull should not be spoken of." TMZ also notes that Bieber didn't sit with on-again/off-again girlfriend Selena Gomez at the ceremony, and Gomez didn't stand up when Bieber won Top Male Artist. But Gomez and Bieber were photographed kissing backstage, and in a moment that may cause you to actually appreciate Taylor Swift, Swift made a pretty awesome "ew" face as she spotted the PDA. Click to see.
– Another investigation into the so-called Climategate scandal has found no evidence that researchers manipulated data to buttress their case for global warming. In the latest, Penn State today cleared Michael Mann, the meteorology professor at the heart of the controversy, of research fraud, reports CBS. It's the fourth investigation, including the second of Mann in particular, to exonerate the scientists. The review did give Mann a slap on the wrist for sometimes sharing the work of other researchers before getting consent. “I’m aware, and many researchers now are keenly aware, of the depths to which the climate-change disinformation movement is willing to sink, to the point where they’re willing to criminally break into a university server and steal people’s personal email messages,” Mann tells the New York Times. End of the controversy? Nope. A critic who leads a DC advocacy group calls the Penn State results a "whitewash."
– A couple was rescued from a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean on Friday after their cry for help was spotted by a US Navy helicopter, the BBC reports. The couple were identified as Linus and Sabina Jack, both in their 50s. According to USA Today, they set sail in an 18-foot vessel Aug. 17 in Micronesia with few supplies and no emergency equipment. They were supposed to arrive at their destination Aug. 18 but didn't show, ABC News reports. The US Coast Guard was informed the Jacks were missing Aug. 19, launching an international search involving 12 boats, two aircraft, and more than 16,500 square miles. On Wednesday, a Navy helicopter spotted the letters "SOS" dug into the sand on Micronesia's East Fayu Island. A boat arrived to pick the Jacks up Friday—more than a week after they disappeared.
– Count Melania Trump among those surprised that her husband won the presidency. A profile of the first lady at Vanity Fair quotes two insiders who say that Melania gave Donald Trump an ultimatum of sorts: Either run for the presidency or stop brooding about it. "She was very clearly the one who said, 'Either run or don't run,'" says Roger Stone, who paraphrases Melania's message to her husband: "Your friends are tired of this striptease. Every four years you talk about it.'" And with that quasi-encouragement, Trump ran, but Melania wasn't counting on a victory. "She didn't want this come hell or high water," says another source, described as a longtime friend of the Trumps. "I don't think she thought it was going to happen." (In a statement to CNN, the first lady's spokeswoman says Melania is "honored" by her role and that the story is filled with "false assertions.") The profile goes on to recount her unusual approach to her new role as first lady, including a relatively sparse staff and her decision to remain in New York with son Barron for the first five months of her husband's presidency. But the latter dovetails with what seems to be Melania's No. 1 priority: shielding the 11-year-old (who speaks her native Slovenian) from the media glare. The story provides a mixed view on the relationship between Melania and Donald, with one of her friends saying it is "old news" that they lead largely separate lives. A longtime friend of the president, however, has a warmer picture. "The one who has the most control over Donald is Melania, 100 percent," says Thomas Barrack Jr. "And he listens to her and adores her." (Click for the full profile.)
– The Kansas City Chiefs learned of an incident earlier this year involving running back Kareem Hunt and a woman—but when the management team confronted him about it, "Kareem was not truthful," the team said Friday. Those lies became all too clear with TMZ Sports' Friday release of surveillance video that captures the incident and shows Hunt shoving and kicking a woman in a hallway in his Cleveland hotel apartment, The Metropolitan at the 9. In light of the video's release, the team announced it was "releasing Kareem immediately." The Kansas City Star reports police did respond to the Feb. 10 incident and two police reports resulted. No charges were filed, and the paper describes the footage as being "not available" until TMZ obtained it. Both the team and the NFL said they hadn't seen it. More: The Star reports one police report named the 19-year-old woman as the suspect; the other named Hunt. Citing a police report, USA Today reports the female said she and a female friend had met Hunt that day, partied with him and his friends, and returned to his apartment. She said she got thrown out because she "didn't want" one of the men; a friend of Hunt's says the two women were booted when their ages surfaced. The woman allegedly used racial slurs, knocked repeatedly on the door, and sat outside the apartment. Hunt and a friend then tell her and her friend to leave. The video shows the two talking before Hunt shoves her. She hits him in the face and he tries to charge toward her as others restrain him; he kicks her toward the end of the video as she's squatting on the ground. Hunt said in a statement, "I want to apologize for my actions. I deeply regret what I did. I hope to move on from this." As far as moving on goes, the Washington Post notes that prior to the Chiefs releasing Hunt the NFL put him on paid administrative leave via the commissioner’s exempt list. That means even if another NFL team were to scoop him up, he's not currently eligible to play. The NFL launched an investigation in February and will now include a review of the video, which a source tells the Post the NFL repeatedly tried to obtain. The hotel reportedly said its policy restricted it to only giving it to law enforcement. ESPN reports the league did reach out to the Cleveland Police Department, but it would not share the video. Here's the AP on Hunt's standout career thus far: "Hunt led the NFL in rushing as a rookie with 1,327 yards and eight touchdowns in helping Kansas City make the playoffs. He had run for 824 yards this season, with seven touchdowns passing and seven more receiving, in helping the Chiefs to a 9-2 start and a stranglehold on the AFC West."
– Adele is out with her first new song in three years, and the Internet is decidedly happy about it. Five reactions to "Hello," the first single from Adele's 25, which will be released Nov. 20: "The song [is] a heart-wrenching ballad about a woman who's nostalgic for the not-so-distant past," writes Puja Patel on The Concourse. "It's soulful, easy-listening with a thunderous hook—a classic Adele sing-along if there ever was one. ... [The song] is a reminder of exactly why Adele so easily outsells her peers." "Everything people like about Adele’s vocals can be heard on this recording: emotional veracity, directness, melodic elegance, a balance of intimacy and fireworks," writes Neil McCormick in the Telegraph. "'Hello' is a class act, an old fashioned ballad that never hurries, never overdoes it, but delivers the raw, honest feeling that has made Adele a superstar. In today’s overcooked climate of histrionic plastic pop excess, it unfolds like a breath of pure pop oxygen." USA Today has a roundup of excited tweets, and there are more where those came from. One of our faves, from Hunter Schwarz: "RT if you’re sitting at your desk listening to Adele crying. fav if you’re holding it all in, trying to keep yourself together." It's not just the song itself winning praise: "While the video is intimate, it also has an epic feel to it. That large-scale feeling is likely due to the fact that 'Hello' is the first music video to ever film with IMAX cameras. Leave it to Adele to come back in a major way," writes Vanity Fair's Joanna Robinson, who deems the video "technologically groundbreaking." MTV's headline: "Adele's ‘Hello’ Is Emotional, Heartbreaking And Will Leave You Drowning In Tears." And the deck: "It's just so good." Click to see what Adele has revealed about the rest of the album.
– A scary situation was diffused by the Orlando Police Friday evening right before a Lana Del Rey concert in that city's Amway Center, with Del Rey at the center of it. E! News and CNN report that 43-year-old Michael Hunt was arrested and charged with attempted kidnapping with a weapon and aggravated stalking about a block away from the center, allegedly intent on abducting the singer. Per a tweet from the Orlando PD, Hunt had tickets to the show on him, as well as a knife, though they add Hunt never had contact with Del Rey (real name: Elizabeth Woolridge Grant). The police note it was a tip from the public that set them on Hunt's trail, with TMZ noting Hunt had reportedly posted "cryptic and threatening" messages on social media. The site adds Hunt also has a "long, long rap sheet," with at least five prison sentences under his belt. "OPD determined this was a credible threat and worked swiftly to ensure the safety of everyone involved and of everyone who attended the show," the police say in their statement. Del Rey didn't make mention of the incident in her Saturday afternoon tweet thanking Florida for its hospitality. "Orlando! Fort Lauderdale! Miami! Thank you so much for coming out and making those shows totally crazy and keeping the energy high," she wrote. Hunt is being held in the Orange County Jail without bond.
– Justin Timberlake had a special gift for all of us at his wedding reception: a new song. He performed the unreleased tune and "dedicated it to Jessica [Biel]," a source tells Us. A number of other Timberlake hits were in rotation, thanks to the deejay—Roots drummer Questlove—but he didn't play any *NSYNC songs, sadly. Speaking of *NSYNC, none of Timberlake's former fellow boy banders were invited, and they're "pretty upset about it," a source tells the New York Post. Alas, most of the 100 guests were "close family and friends," the source adds. (TMZ notes that one of the boys, Chris Kirkpatrick, was in Italy while the wedding was going on … but it remains a mystery whether he was actually at the wedding.) More details trickling out: Justin and Jessica scored $300,000 from People for their wedding pictures, plus more from a deal with OK! in Europe. So much for a secret wedding. In-law drama already? A source tells the Chicago Sun-Times that Biel wanted "a very small wedding," but Mama Timberlake insisted on a bigger bash. "Lynn is a very powerful factor in Justin's life," the source says, and if Jessica "wants to have a smooth marriage, she has to have Lynn in her corner … a big part of that is letting Lynn have her way." And, of course, now that the wedding is over, the gossip mill turns to babies. According to a Radar source, Jessica is ready for them "as soon as possible," so expect the baby bump watch to begin any day now. Simply must know more about that song JT performed? Click here.
– A social worker in Washington state wasn't the only person to call 911 in reference to the Hart family around the time their SUV plunged off a seaside cliff in California. Shortly before the SUV was found on March 26 at the bottom of the 70-foot cliff alongside five bodies, a friend called 911 to say she'd been unable to reach Sarah and Jennifer Hart since receiving a text from Sarah at 3am on March 24. Sarah had said in the text that she was feeling sick, wouldn't be at work, and might have to visit a doctor, reports the Statesman Journal. "We're just concerned," Cheryl Hart, unrelated to the family, told a dispatcher, per CBS News, adding she'd already checked local hospitals. Unbeknownst to her friend, Sarah's text had been sent hours after a child welfare official visited the Hart home in Woodland, Wash., acting on a call from a neighbor who said the couple's six adopted children weren't being fed. Jennifer Hart had just returned home from work but didn't answer the door, per CNN; a card left at the door was later found to have been removed. By the next morning, the family was gone. A surveillance video shows Jennifer buying groceries in Fort Bragg, Calif., on the morning of March 25. The bodies of Jennifer, Sarah, and three children were found the next day at the bottom of a cliff 15 miles away. The Harts' three other children are believed to have been in the vehicle at the time of the crash. (Another body was recently found near where the crash occurred.)
– Fashion designer and icon Oscar de la Renta died yesterday at 82, after a yearslong battle with cancer, the New York Times reports. His illness, the paper notes, didn't slow him down: He designed Amal Alamuddin's dress for her wedding to George Clooney just last month, and his business expanded by 50% in the eight years he faced the disease. The Dominican Republic-born designer's clientele ranged from first ladies—including Jackie Kennedy, Nancy Reagan, and Michelle Obama, Vanity Fair reports—to Oscar winners. "You want to know who my customer is?” he once asked. "All the women who can afford to buy my clothes!" He began work in fashion design in the 1950s in Spain, when the wife of the then-US ambassador saw his drawings and sought a dress for her daughter. His career moved him to Paris and eventually the US in 1963. By the 1970s, de la Renta and his first wife, Françoise de Langlade, were "the Social Lions of New York," André Leon Talley writes in Vogue. The Times notes that the couple were central to the rise of designers as the social elite. But de la Renta didn't see his work as particularly "heavy. Somebody might ask, 'What is Oscar de la Renta?' And you could say, 'It's a pretty dress.'"
– Microsoft's tablet price has finally been revealed: Earlier today, the Microsoft Store listed the 32-gigabyte Surface RT for $499. The price is "more than the retina-display competitive" and "seems right to make a major impact," writes Brian Barrett at Gizmodo, at $100 less than the retina-display iPad. If you want a covering keyboard, however, you'll have to shell out $100 extra; there's also a 64GB model for $599 sans keyboard. The gadget will hit stores October 26 and is available for preorder today. The prices are for the Surface with the Windows RT operating system. Another version, the Windows Surface, will be more akin to the full PC experience, but its price hasn't yet been announced. The RT tablet weighs 1.5 pounds, notes the Verge; we've got more details here. Reuters reports that rival Apple, perhaps aiming to steal a little Surface thunder, today announced a special event for October 23—rumored to be the launch of the mini iPad.
– Taylor Swift's super powers apparently know no bounds: The pop star, who can save a Montana high school from a final exam, is being credited with a more serious, albeit accidental intervention. Three Louisiana teenagers tell WBRZ that they were on their way home from Swift's Baton Rouge concert on May 22 when one, Elizabeth Dazzio, fell asleep behind the wheel and wrecked. "You could smell the gas and smoke," says sister Caroline Dazzio. "I was just thinking we need to get out of this car." Trapped, with their cell phones either dead or missing, the teens used light bracelets from the show as flares to flag down help. It worked: A woman saw the lights and "could tell that there was someone in the car," says Caroline Dazzio. She and a man pulled the teens from the car and called for help. Tweeted Swift: "This is unreal. I'm so happy they're okay."
– Former New Orleans Saints defensive end Will Smith, who played on the 2010 team that brought home the Super Bowl title, was "having a blast" Saturday night in NOLA's Garden district, per his own Instagram photo. Then abruptly, he was dead, reports the Times Picayune, the victim of an apparent road-rage incident that also sent the 34-year-old's wife to the hospital with gunshot wounds. The Smiths were apparently returning from a French Quarter party when their SUV was rear-ended by a Hummer. Smith exited the vehicle, and "exchanged words" with the driver, "at which time the driver of the Hummer produced a handgun and shot the male victim (Smith) multiple times and his 34-year-old wife twice in the right leg," per an NOPD rep. Cardell Hayes, 28, has been charged with second-degree murder, adds the Times-Picayune. "A senseless and tragic loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with Will Smith—his wife Racquel—his children William, Wynter and Lisa," said a Saints rep in a statement, via CNN.
– HIV has evolved into a less potent disease than it was 30 years ago, says a new study, and scientists say it might one day turn into a relatively harmless version of itself. British researchers drew the conclusions after studying HIV patients in Botswana and Africa, reports HealthDay. HIV arrived in Botswana a decade earlier than in South Africa, and today's version in Botswana is slower and less likely to cause AIDS. Twenty years ago, for example, the typical HIV patient in Botswana got AIDS in 10 years. Now it takes 12.5 years, "a sort of incremental change, but in the big picture that is a rapid change," says one of the lead researchers from the University of Oxford. As the BBC explains, scientists see it as a natural evolution: Eventually, HIV runs into people with natural immunity and has to adapt to survive, and this "watered down" version begins to spread. "In theory, if we were to let HIV run its course then we would see a human population emerge that was more resistant to the virus than we collectively are today," says a virologist at the University of Nottingham. "HIV infection would eventually become almost harmless," though he cautions that he's talking about "very large timescales." In its coverage, Reuters notes an HIV milestone: For the first time, the number of new annual infections is lower than the number of new HIV-positive people getting treatment, "meaning a crucial tipping point has been reached in reducing deaths from AIDS. "
– Republican congresswoman Martha McSally called on the national GOP to "grow a pair of ovaries" as she launched her Senate bid Friday, joining the race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Jeff Flake by embracing President Trump and his outsider playbook in one of the nation's premier contests. Like few others, the Arizona election is expected to showcase the feud between the Republican Party's establishment and its fiery anti-immigration wing in particular—all in a border state that features one of the nation's largest Hispanic populations, per the AP. McSally, 51, enters a Republican primary field that features a nationally celebrated immigration hardliner, 85-year-old former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The primary also includes former state Sen. Kelli Ward, an outspoken Trump advocate who was an early favorite of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. McSally, a two-term congresswoman already backed by many GOP leaders in Arizona and Washington, announced her candidacy in a fiery video that touched on border security and Sharia law and featured Trump himself. "Like our president, I'm tired of PC politicians and their BS excuses," McSally said. "I'm a fighter pilot and I talk like one." "That's why I told Washington Republicans to grow a pair of ovaries and get the job done," she said. "Now, I am running for the Senate to fight the fights that must be won—on national security, economic security, and border security." Later in the day, McSally, a retired Air Force colonel and the first female fighter pilot to fly a combat mission, plans to fly herself across Arizona to announce her candidacy before voters in Tucson, Phoenix, and Prescott.
– The country's law-enforcement agencies are being asked to be extra vigilant this holiday weekend after a list of US churches was published on pro-ISIS websites, CNN reports. In a warning issued Friday, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security say ISIS supporters "continue aspirational calls for attacks on holiday gatherings, including targeting churches." According to the Boston Herald, the FBI is looking into the "credibility" of the threats, and none are specific so far. “We continue to work closely with our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners should there be any potential threat to public safety,” CBS New York quotes the FBI as stating. CNN reports the warning was issued "out of an abundance of caution," and the list of US churches is publicly available. Meanwhile, religious leaders in Boston say their followers should show "courage" in celebrating and worshiping as normal this Christmas. “Come to church like you always planned," Rev. Mark Scott tells the Herald. "Church is the safest place you can be."
– It's a well-ingrained stereotype: That Neanderthals grunted their way through life as less than brilliant "club-wielding brutes." A new study published in Plos One says that just isn't so. Scientists have long theorized that early modern humans had a cognitive advantage (which translated, they posited, into a better diet, better weapons, and better communication) that allowed them to survive when Neanderthals did not some 40,000 years ago. Wil Roebroeks at the Netherlands' Leiden University was one of two researchers who dug through archaeological records looking for research to support the idea of a dimwitted demise, but instead found "there is no archaeology to back them up." Adds Dr. Paola Villa of the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, "The evidence for cognitive inferiority is simply not there." In terms of being able to communicate and work as a team, they point to a sinkhole in France where Neanderthals are believed to have steered hundreds of bison to their deaths; food remains at cooking sites suggest a diverse diet that included pistachios and wild olives, a press release notes. Villa says part of the issue is that Neanderthals have long been compared to humans who came after them (in the Upper Paleolithic period) rather than those who were their Middle Paleolithic contemporaries. Quips Villa, "It would be like comparing the performance of Model T Fords to the performance of a modern-day Ferrari and conclude that Henry Ford was cognitively inferior to Enzo Ferrari." So why did they die out? Roebroeks and Villa think the answer is a complex one, but note that interbreeding with modern humans may have produced infertile male offspring, the Guardian reports. (And there's more evidence that Neanderthals weren't the brutes their name suggests.)
– An Arizona man should be a bit more comfortable in a hospital bed having spent two days stuck at the bottom of a 100-foot mine shaft. Believed to have been descending into the gold mine shaft near Aguila, 90 miles northwest of Phoenix, when he fell Monday, 62-year-old John Waddell suffered two broken legs, per FOX 10. But his hardships didn't end there. The father also battled three rattlesnakes (now dead) and severe dehydration over 48 hours without food or water before a neighbor discovered him Wednesday. Terry Schrader had agreed to check on Waddell at the shaft if he didn't return by Tuesday, though it was Wednesday before he actually went searching. "I was afraid of what I was going to find," Schrader says. "As I pulled up my truck, I could hear him hollering, 'Help, help.'" Schrader adds, per ABC15, that "the carabiner broke, I guess, and he supposedly fell 40 to 50 feet." Though Waddell had a phone, there was no cell service; Schrader had to drive out of the desert to call authorities. The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office organized the rescue beginning around 2pm, reports the Arizona Republic. It took more than six hours and a team of more than a dozen before Waddell could be airlifted to a hospital. "We are looking forward to his recovery," an MCSO rep says. Regardless of his screams as he was removed from the shaft, "he's a tough guy," Schrader says. (Rescuers decided to abandon efforts to pull a man out of a Nevada mine shaft.)
– David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell attempted to keep much of their communication secret by using a trick popular with both teens and terrorists, the AP reports: They shared an email account and saved unsent draft messages to one another, so both could log on and read them. The tactic, which is used by al-Qaeda, leaves a much fainter trace than actually sending messages. The Washington Post calls it a "well-worn online trick" that has "been around for quite some time"—it was even featured in a 2008 spy movie—and thus it didn't fool FBI investigators. The AP also reports that Petraeus was "shocked" when he learned that Broadwell allegedly sent threatening emails to Jill Kelley, the woman who eventually set off the FBI investigation. Those emails were said to contain "stay away from my man" type warnings, according to the AP, but a source tells the Daily Beast that's not so. Yes, the emails included "kind of cat-fight stuff," but they were "more like, 'Who do you think you are? ... You parade around the base ... You need to take it down a notch,'" the source says, and they included just one passing reference to Petraeus. Kelley was apparently disturbed by the emails, which were sent anonymously, but the FBI found no evidence of actual threats and almost decided not to pursue the case. Click for the latest from the Petraeus scandal.
– This year's highest-paid YouTube star made $22 million in one year by playing with toys. Ryan of the channel Ryan ToysReview is a 7-year-old first-grader who, yep, opens, plays with, and reviews toys in his super-popular videos; he has more than 17.3 million followers. (His family also runs Ryan's Family Review, which has more than 3 million subscribers.) In an interview with NBC News last month, Ryan, who started filming toy videos with his parents when he was 3, said he wants to be a game developer when he grows up. Forbes notes that, not surprisingly, Ryan's fans are mostly other elementary school-aged kids. Other than $1 million earned from sponsored posts, the entirety of that $22 million came from pre-roll ads that play before his videos. Last year, he was No. 8 on Forbes' list, Business Insider reports. "Unboxing videos provide the proxy for actually experiencing the joy of receiving and opening something you really desire; this is especially true for items that are out of reach or unattainable," says the founder of a company that manages many "unboxers," though not Ryan. BI notes that Ryan's fame began in earnest when a 2015 video of him opening a box of more than 100 Cars toys went viral; his mom left her teaching job to manage the channel full time, the Verge reported in 2016. As a result of his YouTube fame, Ryan also recently launched a line of Ryan's World toys and clothing for sale at Walmart, and his videos will soon be repackaged and distributed through Hulu and Amazon—deals that did not add to his earnings for this year's list, but will surely impact next year's. See the rest of the top 10 YouTube earners between June 2017 and June 2018 at Forbes. (Or read more about Ryan here.)
– A holiday present for families of soldiers serving in Iraq: Everybody's coming home by the end of the year, President Obama announced today. "After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over," said Obama, who had announced the end of the combat mission earlier this year, notes AP. The US had considered leaving several thousand troops in the country for special ops and training but could not reach an agreement on that with the Iraqi government, reports the Washington Post. That means the only US forces in the country next year will be the relative handful, about 150, necessary to provide protection for the US embassy and American diplomats. "Today I can say that troops in Iraq will be home for the holidays," said Obama, who spoke earlier in the day with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. More than 4,400 American forces have been killed since the US invaded in 2003, notes MSNBC.
– Last month, comedian Hannibal Buress called Bill Cosby a rapist in a video that quickly went viral. "Google 'Bill Cosby rape,'" Buress told an audience during a standup routine—and suddenly, Cosby's name and the accusations that he raped several women in the 1980s were everywhere. But why now? asks Barbara Bowman, who says Cosby "drugged and raped" her after winning her trust as a mentor when she was a 17-year-old aspiring actress three decades ago. On another occasion, at an industry event in Atlantic City, "he pinned me down ... while I screamed for help," she writes in the Washington Post. "I'll never forget the clinking of his belt buckle as he struggled to pull his pants off." "I first told my agent, who did nothing," then told a lawyer, who "accused me of making the story up," Bowman writes. But that didn't stop her from speaking out publicly, which she has done numerous times. Other women, including Tamara Green, Beth Ferrier, and Andrea Constand have done the same, CNN reports. "Why didn't our stories go viral?" Bowman asks, noting that the public outcry began "only after a man" called Cosby a rapist. That's "a very valid question," but "we know why, and that's part of the tragedy," Alanna Bennett writes at Bustle. She says Cosby, who has a new NBC show on the way, "is the kind of figure in American cultural history whom it is very uncomfortable to confront in the context of what's been accused." Click for her full column, or Bowman's.
– Almost 6 million people die from a stroke each year, and although scientists aren't recommending spider bites to remedy that, the poison contained in one particular arachnid may fend off stroke-related brain damage, the Guardian reports. In a study published in the PNAS journal, Australian scientists discovered that just a tiny amount of a peptide called Hi1a, found in the venom of the Darling Downs funnel web spider (Hadronyche infensa), was able to cut down on brain damage in rats by 80% if it was given two hours after the rats had suffered a stroke. And the effects were still significant when Hi1a was administered eight hours after the stroke, leading to a 65% reduction. The discovery was made somewhat by accident after researchers had "milked exhaustively" three funnel web spiders they'd gathered in Brisbane to study their toxins. They noticed one peculiar-looking molecule that looked like a mega version of a brain-cell-protecting chemical—so they tested it to see if it might help cells starved of oxygen by strokes. Rats that didn't receive the H1iA "performed very badly" after their stroke, study co-author Glenn King says, while those who did get it were nearly as good as new. "We believe that we have, for the first time, found a way to minimize the effects of brain damage after a stroke," says King, per the Sydney Morning Herald. The researchers warn that the results can't yet be extrapolated to humans and that it's unclear whether the peptide would work in strokes caused by blood vessel ruptures, as well as those caused by blockages. One scientist not involved in the study called it "a very exciting discovery and a very big effect," but cautioned that any practical applications are years away. (Rare snake venom could one day provide humans with pain relief.)
– A Kansas state senator has some people's knickers in a twist after implementing a new dress code that singles out women who wear "skimpy skirts or blouses with plunging necklines," the Topeka Capital-Journal reports. Mitch Holmes is the chairman of the state's ethics and elections committee, and his new dress code applies to those testifying before the committee. The problem, according to critics: It singles out women while having no male-specific rules. “He could have just said that attire is business professional and kept it gender neutral,” state Rep. Stephanie Clayton, a fellow Republican, tells the Kansas City Star. "I’m just appalled anyone would treat taxpaying Kansans with such disdain." The rule causing the trouble reads, "For ladies, low-cut necklines and mini-skirts are inappropriate." Holmes says he included that because he's seen women around the Capitol dressing "provocatively," which can be a "distraction." He also explains that men don't need additional rules to let them know how to dress appropriately. Other female senators besides Clayton have called Holmes out over the new dress code. “Oh, for crying out loud, what century is this?” Sen. Laura Kelly asks the Capital-Journal. Another senator says people's opinions on bills should be more important than what they're wearing. A blogger at Jezebel translates the code into advice: "Watch out, literally any women who don’t dress exactly like a 54-year-old Midwestern man’s (surely totally neutral) idea of what’s respectable, or who in any other way happen to 'bring eyes.'" (Kansas is not the only state to introduce this kind of code.)
– Massage therapists and home contractors are not authorized to prescribe drugs—but Medicare will still cover the cost, anyway. That's according to a new study by the Department of Health and Human Services, which found Medicare paid $31.6 million in 2009 as part of its Part D program for 30,000 prescriptions written by people who ... can't actually write prescriptions, ProPublica reports. People like nutritionists, opticians, art therapists, vets, and interpreters, it says in the report. Given many of the drugs prescribed, such as painkillers, are easily abused, the department's inspector general found the error isn't just dangerous, but "may also contribute to the prescription drug abuse problem in our nation." The news comes just days after the inspector general released another report identifying over 700 doctors in the US with " question able prescribing patterns," ProPublica reports. In one case, a doctor had prescriptions filled in 872 different pharmacies in 47 states and Guam. In another, Medicare paid $9.7 million in one year for the scripts of a single doctor—151 times the average.
– Ted Cruz's big 4pm announcement? As sources told Politico in advance that he would, he named Carly Fiorina as his vice presidential running mate. "After a great deal of consideration and prayer, I have come to the conclusion that if I am nominated to be president of the United States that I will run on a ticket with my vice presidential nominee Carly Fiorina," Cruz said, per CNN. Politico calls Fiorina one of "Cruz's most loyal and active surrogates" since she ended her own presidential bid. Cruz made the announcement in Indiana, where he's campaigning this week in advance of Tuesday's primary.
– A new ruling from the California Supreme Court might mean big trouble for the business model of companies such as Uber and Lyft. The upshot is that Monday's decision makes it harder for companies to classify employees as independent contractors, reports the Los Angeles Times. "This could ruin the gig economy as we know it," is one quote from an attorney not involved in the case cited in a report at Law.com. "It’s a massive thing—definitely a game-changer that will force everyone to take a fresh look at the whole issue," is another collected by the New York Times. The court applied what's known as the "ABC test" to determine who qualifies as an independent contractor. This Cornell Law blog post has details on the criteria, but it boils down to this: If the worker performs a task that is part of the "usual course" of the company's business, he is an employee, not a contractor. The court provided examples: If a store hires a plumber to fix a leak, the plumber is an independent contractor. But if a clothing company provides material and patterns to a seamstress who sews dresses in her home, the seamstress is an employee. In its ruling, the California court followed the lead of the top court in New Jersey, but the California decision is expected to have a far greater impact because companies such Uber and Lyft are headquartered there. As Law.com notes, similar cases in other state courts were on hold waiting for the California decision. "A huge number of businesses will be calling their lawyers saying 'What should I do?'" a professor at the USC Gould School of Law tells the LA Times. The ruling came in a lawsuit against a package and document delivery company called Dynamex that was accused of misclassifying drivers as contractors.
– Two Hungarians have been convicted of trying to steal bricks during a tour of the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. Per USA Today, the tourists told authorities they wanted to take the bricks home as souvenirs. Polish police reportedly said that officials were alerted to the pair's misdeeds when they were pointed out by their fellow tourists. The man and woman were charged with theft of a cultural asset, fined the equivalent of $405 each, and sentenced to a suspended sentence of one year, per DW.com. Auschwitz was the largest concentration camp constructed by the Nazi regime and estimates put the number of Jews killed in the complex outside Krakow between 1940 and 1945 at around 1 million. Auschwitz has been protected as an UNESCO World Heritage site since 1979.
– Recently released court documents suggest that traders at Barclays, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and UBS were most central to the Libor-rigging scandal, reports Reuters. Those three banks—much of the blame has fallen on just Barclay's up to now—employed more than a dozen traders who tried influencing dollar, euro, and yen rates. As several of those traders under investigation worked at a variety of banks over the years and still have senior jobs on Wall Street, investigators believe they made rate-fixing more systematic over the years. According to prosecutors' documents, euro and dollar rate-rigging appears to have begun in 2005, spreading into the yen rate market by 2007 by RBS and USB. Traders at JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank are also reportedly under investigation. On the other hand, one former Morgan Stanley trader writes in the Financial Times that he warned of Libor-rigging going on way back in 1991. "Libor misreporting has been going on for decades," writes Douglas Keenan. "Why have investigations only recently begun?"
– The family of Jackie Collins announced last night that the author of steamy novels had died at 77 of breast cancer, reports People. Collins followed actor sister Joan to Hollywood from the UK and became a star in own right, selling more than 500 million copies of her books. Maybe the height of her fame came in the 1980s with Hollywood Wives, which sold 15 million copies—while her sister was starring on Dynasty, notes AP. Her book spawned a TV miniseries of the same name. Some quotes collected from the various obituaries, including Reuters and the Los Angeles Times: "A lot of people say to me, 'Oh, I read your books under a cover with a flashlight when I was really young and I learned everything I know about sex from you.'" After the release of her first book, The World is Full of Married Men, in 1968, romance novelist "Barbara Cartland said to me, 'Oh, Miss Collins, your books are filthy and disgusting and you are responsible for all the perverts in England.' I pause for a few moments and said, 'Thank you.'" "If anything, my characters are toned down—the truth is much more bizarre." "I'm not grammatical in the way I talk, or in the way I write, and I don't pretend to be. I'm a high school dropout who eavesdrops." "I did it my way, as Frank Sinatra would say. I've written five books since the diagnosis, I've lived my life, I've traveled all over the world, I have not turned down book tours and no one has ever known until now when I feel as though I should come out with it," Collins told People in 2014 of her cancer diagnosis about five years earlier. "Now I want to save other people's lives."
– Stocks are surging on Wall Street, and MarketWatch and the AP are chalking it up to the FBI's announcement Sunday that newly discovered emails do not warrant any action against Hillary Clinton. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 338 points, or 1.9%, to 18,226 in midday trading Monday. The Standard & Poor's 500 index, meanwhile, is on track to end a nine-day losing streak, its longest slump since 1980. The index was up 42 points, or 2%, to 2,127 at midday. The Nasdaq composite was up 115 points, or 2%, to 5,162.
– At least one person is somewhat happy with Lindsay Lohan’s sentence: Her estranged father, Michael. He tells Larry King in the above video he feels “a little satisfaction that she’s going to rehab,” though the jail part of the sentence is “harsh.” More from the land of La Lohan: Friends think the judge should have sent LiLo to jail immediately—some tell TMZ they’re worried she will take her last two weeks of freedom and go completely off the rails. Though she’ll still wear her SCRAM bracelet during those two weeks, she can still legally drug herself thanks to a Dilaudid prescription. The painkiller is stronger than morphine and has even been compared to heroin, TMZ reports. Assuming all goes well, at least Lindsay will have a job waiting for her upon her release from jail. The director of Linda Lovelace biopic Inferno says they are “not moving on, not re-casting, not under any circumstances,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
– President Trump has reacted to what he's calling "a major Nuclear Test" by North Korea—branding the North "a rogue nation" whose "words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous" to the United States. North Korea says it has conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test to date—and claims it was a "perfect success," reports the AP. Trump tweets that North Korea "has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success." He adds: "South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!" In other global reaction: French President Emmanuel Macron "calls on the members of the United Nations Security Council to quickly react to this new violation by North Korea of international law." He says the international community "must treat this new provocation with the utmost firmness" to bring North Korea back to the path of dialogue and give up its nuclear and missile programs. The Russian Foreign Ministry is calling for all parties to refrain from escalating tension, and reaffirms it will participate in negotiations, "including in the context of the implementation of the Russian-Chinese road map." Under that, North Korea would suspend nuclear and missile tests in exchange for the US and South Korea suspending joint military exercises. China's foreign ministry said Sunday that the Chinese government has "expressed firm opposition and strong condemnation" of Sunday's detonation and urged North Korea to "stop taking erroneous actions that deteriorate the situation." South Korea says President Moon Jae-in will seek every available diplomatic measure, including new sanctions from the UN Security Council. Moon will also discuss with Washington ways to deploy the "strongest strategic assets" the US has to completely isolate Pyongyang.
– A backpack full of pipe bombs intended to cause terror and carnage ended up turning a homeless man's life around instead. Lee Parker and his friend Ivan White alerted police after they found the backpack in a garbage can in Elizabeth, NJ, Sunday night. Authorities say the bomb was close enough to a bar to have caused many deaths and injuries. The Elizabeth Coalition to House the Homeless says Parker, 50, now has a roof over his head and the group is working on finding a permanent home for him, USA Today reports. A GoFundMe page to raise funds for Parker, the homeless organization, and White, who's a Navy veteran on a fixed income, has now raised $20,000, double its $10,000 target. White tells New Jersey 101.5 that Parker, who carried his possessions in a plastic bag, had a job interview on Monday and thought the new-looking backpack he saw in the garbage was exactly what he needed—until he saw what was inside. Norma Bowe, director of the Be the Change NJ activist group, says the group found Parker and put him in touch with the homeless charity after hearing his story. "He literally moved that bomb, was there all night with the police, and then slept in an abandoned building," she says. "We can do better than that." NJ.com reports that well-wishers have given Parker clothes and food—and a new backpack.
– Efforts to rehabilitate the image of a tiny British territory in the South Pacific that was rocked by a 2004 sex abuse scandal have hit a roadblock. The former mayor of Pitcairn Island has been convicted of possessing more than 1,000 images and videos showing the sexual abuse of children, reports Vice, which notes that Michael Warren is the eighth man of the island's male population of about 12 to be accused of sex crimes against children. The island's total population is about 50. Prosecutors say Warren, mayor between 2008 and 2013, began downloading the images more than a decade ago, the Guardian reports. Warren's possession of the images was first discovered when he mistakenly sent an email to a diplomatic staff member from an email address linked to a chat site containing explicit images. Warren downloaded the images during a period in which he was working in child protection on the island. Initially, he defended himself by saying he did so to understand child pornography after the 2004 scandal, in which seven of the island's men were accused of 55 sex crimes. Defendants in that trial argued that sex between men and young girls was a cultural tradition on Pitcairn. Those men received sentences ranging from community service to six years in prison, while Warren was sentenced to 20 months. It is unclear if he will serve the sentence in New Zealand, where the island's legal proceedings are conducted, or as the sole inmate of Pitcairn's prison, which was constructed by islanders convicted of sex crimes. The island desperately needs new immigrants to survive, and Warren's case surely won't help. (In the US, some former vets are now going after child predators.)
– Barack Obama has officially arrived in Hawaii for his family’s annual Christmas getaway to the state, and what a pricey trip it is: The Hawaiian Reporter estimated the cost of the vacation at more than $4 million. The exact cost of the trip is unknown, but based on the military’s most recent estimate that Air Force One costs $181,757 per hour to operate, the paper estimates the cost of the flight alone at $3,271,622, plus another $100,000 or so for Michelle Obama’s early flight down. The trip will be more expensive than past vacations, the paper said, because Obama extended it by three days, and because the price of running Air Force One has jumped. The piece has garnered criticism on conservative sites, and even prompted one reporter to ask Jay Carney if Michelle Obama’s early trip “isn’t quite an extravagance,” according to Politico. Carney said she was traveling alone via military aircraft “as previous first ladies have done."
– James Comey has a book coming out and an accompanying "media blitz" starting Sunday—and the Republican National Committee, in turn, has its own plan to discredit the fired former FBI director, according to CNN and ABC News, which have obtained copies of talking points the RNC prepared to distribute to "surrogates and allies" of President Trump. The talking points call Comey's credibility into question by focusing on what the RNC calls his "long history of misstatements and misconduct." ABC calls the RNC's plan "aggressive" and CNN calls it "extensive," noting that the RNC is also setting up a war room to track Comey's media appearances and respond in real time. There's even an accompanying website, lyincomey.com, which will be updated as Comey's media tour continues and his book is released. Digital ads will also be rolled out. "James Comey’s publicity tour is a self-serving attempt to make money and rehabilitate his own image. Comey is a liar and a leaker, and his misconduct led both Republicans and Democrats to call for his firing," RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel says in a statement. "If Comey wants the spotlight back on him, we’ll make sure the American people understand why he has no one but himself to blame for his complete lack of credibility." A source says the White House has signed off on the plan, though it is not plotting its own specific response to Comey, and sources add that aides are concerned about how Comey's media tour might influence Robert Mueller's investigation. But sources tell CNN the White House is preparing its own talking points aimed at discrediting Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, painting him as too conflicted to objectively oversee the Russia investigation.
– A potentially big breakthrough against the Ebola virus: Researchers came up with a drug cocktail that completely cured infected monkeys, reports io9. In the study, scientists infected 12 monkeys with the particularly lethal Zaire strain of the virus. Four that got the cocktail within 24 hours survived, two of the four that got it within 48 hours lived, and the four who got no dose were dead in five days, notes Wired. "The treatment works by having the antibodies slow down the replication rate of the virus in the infected monkey until its own immune system is able to kick-in and finish the job," explains George Dvorsky at io9. It's not ready for humans, though biologists sound confident it won't be too long before the treatment becomes a staple kept on hand for outbreaks. "This is certainly a viable strategy, and they have only a few steps before they can go through to humans," says one.
– Newt Gingrich has received a much-needed boost from a big win in his home state—although without even a second-place finish elsewhere, the road ahead looks uncertain. Gingrich took 47% of the vote in Georgia to Mitt Romney's 26%, and Rick Santorum's 20%. More than a third of voters in the state Gingrich represented in the House for two decades said that his ties to Georgia influenced their choice, the New York Times notes. Alabama and Mississippi vote next Tuesday, and Gingrich aides expect him to do well there, although Santorum won both Tennessee and Oklahoma on Super Tuesday, with Romney coming in second. With the pro-Gingrich Winning Our Future super PAC still awash with Nevada billionaire Sheldon Adelson's cash, Gingrich is unlikely to drop out soon. But "he’s got to win something outside the South,” an Emory University political scientist tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Where’s he going to go? Where’s he going to show strength?”
– There's nothing more American than mom, baseball, apple pie—or, on the Fourth of July in North Carolina, pizza rolls and assault. WJZY reports that 24-year-old Brad Scott Beard and 21-year-old Samantha Brooke Canipe were arrested early Monday and charged with misdemeanor assault after they apparently declared their independence from civility and started attacking each other with pizza rolls in the Gastonia apartment they share. Details haven't been divulged on motive, method of attack, or pizza roll brand. Per Cosmopolitan and a peek at the Gaston County Sheriff's Office website, the snack-loving suspects are each being held on $2,500 bond. Cops tell WJZY that Canipe could face 30 days in jail, and Beard 60. (A "disrespectful" Florida fracas took place over cheesy garlic knots.)
– The man who created the Android operating system unveiled a brand new smartphone Tuesday to compete with Apple and Samsung, Business Insider reports. Andy Rubin's Essential Phone—Essential is his new company—will sell for $699 and only in the US to start. It has a massive screen that takes up nearly the entire front of the phone, wrapping around the selfie camera. It has a larger screen than the iPhone 7 Plus, 128GB of internal storage, and magnetic connectors to attach accessories. Here's what you need to know: Wired, which has more on Rubin's journey from Android to Essential, calls the Essential Phone (it has no branding) the "anti-iPhone." Rubin believes Apple no longer has the ability to create devices that seem brand new; Essential can take that mantle. But if that's the case, Vox would have to classify the Essential Phone a failure: "One of the smartphone industry’s greatest innovators set out to reinvent the smartphone and found that there just wasn’t that much room for improvement." Rubin promises to do a few things different with the Essential Phone than Apple does with the iPhone, namely staying away from "planned obsolescence" and not forcing customers to have stuff on their phone they don't want, Recode reports. Phone Arena compares the Essential Phone to its top competitors, the Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus, the LG G6, and the Apple iPhone 7 Plus. The Essential Phone "looks incredible"—and it promises to be more durable than its competition because it's made of ceramic and titanium instead of aluminum—but there's little reason to believe it will have better luck than any other phone not made by Samsung or Apple, according to the Verge. CNET reports the Essential Phone also has a few drawbacks, such as its lack of headphone jack and water resistance.
– Officials say there are no specific threats to Americans over the Thanksgiving holiday, but travelers can expect heightened security and extra delays regardless. The Los Angeles Times cites two anonymous law enforcement officials, who say there are no additional security measures being put in place for holiday travelers to address recent Islamic State videos threatening attacks on New York City and Washington DC. Experts have deemed those threats not credible. However the officials note law enforcement and aviation security are already on heightened alert following the attacks in Paris and the destruction of a Russian passenger jet over Egypt. ABC News reports travelers can expect extra layers of security at airports and train stations—typical during any holiday season. There will be increased patrols at airports, tunnels, trains stations, and more in New York City. And Amtrak is deploying additional security personnel at various locations. Officials say the extra measures are necessary because of the high number of travelers over Thanksgiving. According to the Times, an estimated 25.3 million Americans will fly somewhere next week—the most since 2007.
– A 28-year-old MetLife employee in Southfield, Mich., has been missing since she left work around 5pm on Dec. 2, and as the days crawl by, her parents fear their oldest of four has been the target of foul play. Danielle Stislicki is a "people person" who's both "responsible and conscientious" and has "a lot of plans," her parents tell the Huffington Post. They're holding out hope, but her father says he's not expecting a "100% happy ending." Stislicki was supposed to meet up with a friend for dinner after work, but when she didn't show, the friend assumed she'd just gone to bed. The next morning, however, the friend went to Stislicki's apartment building and found her 2015 Jeep Renegade still parked outside, with a full wallet and other personal belongings still inside. The FBI, Secret Service, and local sheriff's office are coordinating the investigation. "If she would have gotten out of her car at her apartment building and if someone was there and asked her for help, she would have been that outgoing person who would give someone directions or help someone find a lost pet," a friend tells People. Stislicki's parents have maintained a Facebook page, passed out fliers, and held a candlelight vigil attended by hundreds. MetLife is offering $50,000 for her safe return, and her apartment building is offering another $50,000, while a GoFundMe page has raised more than $25,000. "We just want to make sure we stand at the highest mountain and scream her name until she comes home," her mother says. (A missing woman was just found in Ohio.)
– An elderly nursing home resident sits on a toilet with her pants below her knees. A 97-year-old woman is struck lightly in the face with a nylon strap by a nursing home assistant as the woman cries out, "Don't!" Elderly residents of a care facility are coached to quote a rap song about cocaine as one lies in bed with a banner across her chest reading, "Got these hoes trained." An elderly woman is taunted by nursing home staffers as one tugs at her hair. These are some of the stories uncovered by a ProPublica investigation, which found that at least 35 times since 2012, employees at nursing homes and assisted-living facilities shared photos or videos of residents, who are sometimes partially or totally naked, on social media. Instances like these may be increasing thanks to the popularity of Snapchat—the investigation, which was published in conjunction with the Washington Post, found that 13 of the cases took place in 2012 and 2013, while 22 took place over the past two years. And the 35 number is likely an underreporting, as ProPublica searched only court cases, media accounts, and government inspection reports. One DA suspects other similar incidents have gone unreported because the victims often suffer from dementia and don't realize what took place; in most cases, the photos or videos were discovered only because someone who saw the postings alerted authorities or officials. And, even in the cases ProPublica found, "most" did not end in criminal charges; experts say this is an emerging problem that facilities must learn how to handle. Click for ProPublica's full piece.
– Did the sun have an "evil twin" that wreaked havoc on Earth, perhaps obliterating the dinosaurs? Scientists think they can answer at least part of that question with near certainty: Yes, the sun had a twin, the Telegraph reports. Whether it was "evil" remains up in the air. New research out of UC Berkeley and Harvard suggests every sun in the universe is born with a fraternal twin. In fact, Earth's closest neighbor, Alpha Centauri, is a triplet system. Astronomers have long puzzled over binary and triplet solar systems and what becomes of sidekick suns, which are actually stars. And in one of space's most tantalizing mysteries, researchers have long theorized that a dwarf star dubbed Nemesis once rattled our solar system so fiercely that it unleashed killer comets toward Earth, obliterating the dinosaurs. "We are saying, yes, there probably was a Nemesis, a long time ago," says study co-author Steven Stahler. The study does not, however, address whether Nemesis had any role in the dinosaurs' fate. Researchers say the wayward sun likely broke free and ambled off into the Milky Way billions of years ago, never to be heard from again, reports Space.com. The website thinks this exonerates Nemesis in regard to dinosaurs: It would have been long gone by the time the dinosaurs arrived. But a post at Science Alert isn't so sure: It notes that one theory holds that Nemesis still swings by our solar system periodically and thus could cause trouble. In the study, scientists used data from giant telescopes in New Mexico and Hawaii, along with a mathematical model they designed, to focus on the star-studded Perseus constellation about 600 light-years away. (This space mystery was finally solved.)
– A new History documentary floats one of the most provocative theories yet about Amelia Earhart: The show focuses on a newly surfaced photo that some think proves she and navigator Fred Noonan survived their 1937 plane crash. Investigators with the documentary say the image shows Earhart sitting on a dock with her back to the camera and Noonan standing to the far left, reports Time. The person believed to be Earhart is looking out at a ship that appears to be towing a plane. The image fits into a larger theory: After being blown off course, Earhart crashed in the Marshall Islands, then got picked up by the Japanese military, which apparently thought she and Noonan were spies. They were then taken to Saipan, where they're believed to have died in prison. History buff and retired federal agent Les Kinney says he found the "misfiled" photo in the National Archives, per People. "When you pull out, and when you see the analysis that's been done, I think it leaves no doubt to the viewers that that's Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan," former FBI official Shawn Henry tells NBC News. The photo has Office of Naval Intelligence markings and is labeled "Marshall Islands, Jaluit Atoll, Jaluit Island, Jaluit Harbor." The photo, which isn't dated, might have been taken by someone spying for the US on Japan's military operations in the Pacific. Not everyone is buying it, however. Dorothy Cochrane, curator for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Aeronautics Department, tells People that the idea Japan took Earhart prisoner is "ridiculous." She had not yet seen the show, which airs Sunday night.
– Cardi B is no longer feeling the love after little more than a year of marriage to fellow rapper Offset. She posted a video on Instagram saying that "we gotta lot of love for each other, but things just haven't been working out between us for a long time." The 26-year-old adds, "I guess we grew out of love, but we're not together anymore," though they're good friends and business partners. Cardi B says "it might take time to get a divorce." Her video has been viewed more than 6 million times. Offset responded, "Y'all won," reports the AP. The couple got married in September 2017 and welcomed a baby girl in July. Cardi B is scheduled to appear in court Friday over allegations stemming from an altercation at a New York City bar. CNN reports she risks jail time if she doesn't show, after she skipped out on a Monday court appearance. Her attorney told the judge she was at a previously scheduled commitment. How Page Six reported on said commitment: "Cardi B dressed up like a tiger instead of going to court." It has a photo of her as said creature, apparently filming a music video in Miami. See the pic here. (Or read more on her arrest here.)
– There's a literal casualty of Venezuela's ongoing economic woes: those with kidney problems. Reuters dives into the dire situation that both kidney transplant recipients and those hoping to join their ranks face in the midst of the country's inability to buy enough drugs from abroad or make enough domestically. USA Today cites the Pharmaceutical Federation of Venezuela in saying the country was experiencing an 85% shortage of medicine—and that was as of June 2017. There are some 16,000 people who require dialysis, but the country's ability to clean their blood is waning, with an opposition lawmaker and oncologist saying only about half of the country's dialysis units are operational. Codevida, a health-related NGO, logged seven deaths in the first few weeks of February due to a lack of dialysis. But dialysis patients, many hopeful for a future transplant, aren't the only ones dying. About 3,500 Venezuelans have had kidney transplants, and that number is slowly being chipped away at as they find themselves unable to obtain the anti-organ rejection drugs they need to take for the rest of their lives. A 40-year-old woman lost the transplanted kidney she's had for nearly 20 years and is now on dialysis, though she's encountering issues there, too; a 45-year-old man is trying to hang onto his by taking immunosuppressants made for animals. In the case of two brothers who received transplants, one died in November after going a month without medicine. Says his brother, "If you lose your kidney, you go to dialysis, but there are no materials. So you go straight to the cemetery." Deutsche Welle reports HIV patients there are trapped in a similar situation.
– When it comes to Pinterest, colors matter. Researchers analyzed about 1 million posts on the site and found that images heavy on red, pink, or purple were repinned the most, reports Phys.org. By contrast, those with black, yellow, green, or blue fared the worst, according to the study in PloS One. Because the vast majority of Pinterest users are women, Biz Report suggests that advertisers should pay close attention to the results. Next up might be studies of other sharing sites such as Instagram and Flickr to see if the same holds true.
– Several US states, including Georgia, Utah, and Idaho, have enacted laws or are considering bills allowing for "abortion reversals." Per the concept driven by California doctor George Delgado, if a woman takes only the first of two pills in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy and regrets her decision, he'll pump her full of progesterone to try to counteract the first pill. Medical community members, however, say Delgado is "experimenting on women" and using a highly flawed clinical trial of just six pregnant women to spread his agenda, reports Marie Claire. Still, state governments are using it as the basis of bills requiring women who seek abortions to receive info about abortion reversals, with a disclaimer the procedure isn't scientifically vetted. "We're just saying you have the right to try. We're not saying it's going to work," GOP Rep. Ben Smaltz of Indiana said earlier this year. Critics argue high levels of progesterone have yet to be tested for either safety or efficacy. The four women he wrote about who went on to carry to term (two didn't make it that far) had only taken the first pill, mifepristone, which is less than 50% effective on its own. (Abortion success rates shoot up to 97% when the second pill, misoprostol, is taken.) "Just as we have laws protecting babies who have already been born from being killed, we should have laws protecting unborn people from being killed," Delgado, a practicing Catholic, argues. He's also on the record calling contraception "evil," saying HIV-positive men shouldn't wear condoms when having sex with their wives because it's a "barrier" to the "conjugal embrace." His abortion-reversal hotline has received more than 1,800 calls since 2012, 600 of them in 2016 alone, with women paying $200 to $1,500 for out-of-pocket treatment.
– President Trump admitted Thursday he never recorded his conversations with fired FBI Director James Comey—more than a month after he implied he may have, the New York Times reports. "With all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, I have no idea ... whether there are 'tapes' or recordings of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings," Trump said in a series of tweets. Back on May 12, Trump had tweeted: "James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!" Trump's original tweet led to weeks of speculation that he was recording conversations in the Oval Office—despite multiple government agencies saying that wasn't the case, CNN reports. A senior administration official says Trump has been enjoying all the attention his talk of "tapes" has gotten—CNN notes he's been treating it "like a game show reveal"—but he probably shouldn't be. Comey testified that Trump's "tapes" tweet spurred him to leak a memo detailing a conversation with the president to the media. That directly led to the appointment of the special counsel currently investigating the Trump administration. "If he doesn't regret this, he should," the administration official says of Trump.
– In its first investigation of a manned space launch, the National Transportation Safety Board says pilot error may have caused the deadly crash of SpaceShipTwo on Friday. The agency's acting chairman told reporters last night that a lever on the doomed spacecraft was moved to the unlock position sooner than it should have been, CNN reports. He explained that the experimental spacecraft disintegrated seconds after a "feathering" system designed to slow descent was deployed at the wrong speed, but he stressed that finding the cause of the crash will take months and that issues including possible mechanical and design failures or "pressure to continue testing" are also being looked at, the AP reports. One test pilot was killed in the crash. The other suffered a shoulder injury, and the company that designed the craft for Virgin Galactic says he is now "alert and talking with his family and doctors," reports the Los Angeles Times. The space tourism firm has been accused of excessive risk-taking, but its chief executive tells the Financial Times that those claims are a difference of professional opinion and that the firm listens carefully to the "several hundred engineers that we have on staff." He says a second spaceship under construction "is getting close to readiness" and could be ready to fly by the time the NTSB probe is complete.
– A single tweet from Bernie Sanders was enough to send the share price of Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc. to dive 15% Friday, wiping around $387 million off the value of the drug firm, the Hill reports. "Drug corporations’ greed is unbelievable. Ariad has raised the price of a leukemia drug to almost $199,000 a year," Sanders tweeted, linking to this article about the Massachusetts-based firm, which has raised the price of its Iclusig medication four times this year. "Our pricing reflects our significant investment in R&D, our commitment to the very small, ultra orphan cancer patient populations that we serve and the associated risk with research and development," the company said in a statement, adding that its R&D cost was more than its revenue last year. CNBC notes that this has been a tough year for the biotech sector, with overall share prices down more than 20% amid strong criticism on the campaign trail. But Ariad shareholders aren't going to lose their shirts: Even with Friday's drop, the company's share price is still up 78% this year.
– Why did the grand jury decide against indicting Darren Wilson? Soon after the decision was announced, the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney's office released thousands of pages of evidence that had been presented to the jurors over 25 days of meetings that included testimony from around 60 witnesses. Some key points, as reported by the AP, CNN, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Wilson said he feared for his life after Michael Brown punched him twice in the face and slammed the door on him as he tried to get out of his cruiser. "I felt that another of those punches in my face could knock me out or worse," the officer said. "I've already taken two to the face and I didn't think I would, the third one could be fatal if he hit me right." (Much more on Wilson's testimony here.) In a gallery of photos from the officer's medical examination after he shot the teenager, Wilson appears to have a bruise (described as a "facial contusion") on the right side of his face and abrasions on his neck. Dorian Johnson, who was with Brown at the time, testified that he saw the teenager struggle with Wilson, and "I'm hearing cuss words from both of them, but I don't really hear the officer saying you know, stop or get down on the ground." He said he didn't see Brown run at Wilson, but saw him take a step toward him "to show him that he didn't have anything." Another witness who was working nearby gave an account that resembles Wilson's, saying he saw Brown do a "body gesture" of some kind and immediately after, "he came for force, full charge at the officer." One juror asked the officer why he didn't just drive away. "My thought is, I was still dealing with a threat at my car," Wilson said. "You know, we're trained not to run away from a threat, to deal with a threat and that is what I was doing. That never entered my mind to flee." The final witness was a homicide detective who investigated the shooting, and jurors asked him a long series of questions. "This officer felt he was in danger of being beaten to death sitting in his car, you could almost say there was a weapon involved at that point, that's where I'm confused a little bit," one juror said. "I understand no weapon in the form of a pistol or a handgun, if you are in danger, that your life was in danger that you are being beaten to death, is there a weapon or not?"
– Yellowstone officials keep warning visitors about the dangers of the park's hot springs, but curiosity seems to be stronger than fear. A 21-year-old suffered severe burns this week when he fell into a spring in the park's Lower Geyser Basin, reports East Idaho News. Gervais Gatete of Raleigh, NC, had to be airlifted to a hospital in Salt Lake City. It's still not clear what happened, reports the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, but Gatete had been with seven other people when he fell in about midnight Tuesday. They got him into a car and eventually flagged down a park ranger, who summoned medical help. "Yellowstone’s thermal features are dangerous," park superintendent Dan Wenk says in a statement. “We continually stress that people must stay on trails and boardwalks in geyser basins, not only to protect resources, but for their own safety." Gatete, who works for Xanterra Parks and Resorts, might consider himself lucky. Late last year, a man slipped into a hot spring elsewhere in the park and was essentially dissolved in the scalding liquid.
– Pot makes some people paranoid, but Seattle residents weren't imagining that one particular cop was handing out more than his fair share of marijuana citations. A notice posted by the chief of police on the police department's website yesterday said an officer was reassigned after an internal review discovered he had penned 66 out of 83 of the city's toking-in-public tickets in the first half of 2014, reports the AP. The department also recently revealed that homeless constituents received about 46% of public pot use tickets, while African-Americans received 36%, even though they only constitute 8% of the city's population, according to KOMO News. The unnamed officer occasionally added his own personal statements to his tickets, noting that Washington's legalization law was "silly" and even admitting that he flipped a coin on at least one occasion to figure out which citizen to crack down on for cannabis use—adults are allowed to partake recreationally in the state, but not out in the open. Some of the officer's notes were made out to "Petey Holmes," a reference to City Attorney Peter Holmes, who also happens to be a legalization advocate, notes KOMO. "I am personally very sorry that apparently a significant number of homeless individuals were inconvenienced by an officer's apparent attempt to get at me," Holmes said in a statement last night.
– Fifteen judges on Europe's highest court ruled Tuesday on a case involving Muslim headscarves in the workplace, and the verdict did not come down in the headscarf-wearers' favor. CNNMoney reports that the European Court of Justice decided businesses not wanting to give an appearance of having any political, philosophical, or religious leanings can ask employees to keep to a dress code that doesn't include any such representative symbols or signs. Not allowing the two Muslim plaintiffs, as well as any other women, to wear the headscarf isn't discriminatory, the court notes, as long as symbols from other affiliations are similarly nixed. NBC News notes the ECJ's ruling applies to all 28 countries in the EU. One thing the new ruling doesn't allow: a worker forced to stop sporting a religious or political symbol just because a customer requests it—though if the company already has a ban in place, it wouldn't be discriminatory to make that request. Per the Guardian, this case revolved around an ex-receptionist for security firm G4S, pink-slipped in 2006 for not taking off her headscarf when asked, as well as a former design engineer for IT consultancy company Micropole, which fired her after a client said her headscarf "embarrassed" company staff during a visit. Francois Fillon, a conservative running for French president, hailed the decision as an "immense relief," per the Independent, noting it would bring "social peace," but the policy officer for the Open Society Justice Initiative says the decision could "exclude many Muslim women from the workplace." (Nike has a new hijab for athletes.)
– Scientists exploring the seafloor around California's Channel Islands have made a strange discovery. They just aren't exactly sure what it is. While studying deep-sea coral via a remotely operated vehicle, scientists on the research vessel E/V Nautilus noticed a "dark purple blob" with a pink center on the ocean floor and zoomed in, reports the Washington Post. They were "stumped" by what they saw. Indeed, they can be heard contemplating the mysterious creature in the video of the discovery. "We have like a dark purple blob on the left," a woman says. "I have no idea what that is," adds a colleague. "Blobus purplus," a scientist jokes, before others guess what it could be: an octopus, salp, tunicate (sea squirt), or "an egg sac of some sort," per National Geographic. After sucking the creature up a tube and examining it, scientists write that it "began to unfold to reveal two distinct lobes." The researchers suspect it's a pleurobranch, a type of soft sea slug that CNET reports is found in bright colors like pink, orange, and blue. Except "currently none of the known species of California deep-sea pleurobranchs are purple, so this could be a new discovery," reads Nautilus' website. It could be years before scientists are certain. One thing they do know: The blob can apparently survive being poked by a crab, as the video shows. (This sea slug can grow a penis in a day.)
– A warning too far? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has taken a lot of heat this week for a press release warning that more than 3 million American women of childbearing age who drink alcohol and don't use birth control are at risk of exposing a potential baby to fetal alcohol syndrome. "About half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, and even if planned, most women won't know they are pregnant for the first month or so, when they might still be drinking," warned CDC Principal Deputy Director Anne Schuchat. "The risk is real. Why take the chance?" The CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics say there is no safe amount of alcohol that can be consumed during pregnancy. The warning caused a backlash, with the Atlantic labeling it "Protect Your Womb From the Demon Drink" and USA Today noting that "alcohol plays a role in many conceptions, after all, even among married couples." Lela McKnight-Eily, however, a member of the CDC's Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Prevention Team, tells the Huffington Post that the intention wasn't to order millions of women to use birth control or stop drinking completely. "We definitely didn't make any recommendations for women who are pre-pregnant," she says, explaining that the warning was aimed at raising awareness of the risks among women who are actively trying to conceive. (Recent research suggests that for pregnant women, a coffee a day won't affect child IQ scores or behavior.)
– The driver of a $70,000 Tesla Model S put his fancy car on the line to save lives with an impressive maneuver Monday in Germany. Jalopnik reports the driver was on the autobahn near Munich when he saw an out-of-control Volkswagen Passat swerve across the road and repeatedly hit a guardrail. The Tesla driver caught up with the Passat and realized the driver was near unconsciousness, according to the Local. The Tesla driver first called fire services, then did something officials would later say "showed incredible courage": He purposefully crashed his Tesla. Electrek notes that Tesla owners are typically super careful about their cars because dings to the lightweight aluminum bodies can be expensive to repair. Regardless, the driver of the Tesla got in front of the Passat and hit the brakes. The Passat crashed into the back of the Tesla, and both cars slowed to a stop. The Tesla driver's actions allowed the Passat driver, who was likely having a stroke, to get medical help more quickly and prevented a potentially more dangerous accident. While waiting for fire services to arrive, the Tesla driver administered first aid to the Passat driver, who is now in stable condition. Damage to the vehicles was estimated at more than $10,000, not that the Tesla driver will have to worry about that. After hearing about what happened, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Tesla will cover the repairs, according to Inside EVs. (A Tesla owner got stranded in the desert—and not for the reason you might think.)
– A popular and inspiring 2012 TED Talk extolled the benefits of "power posing": That is, stretching your body into what researchers called "open, expansive postures" associated with dominance in order to feel more powerful. It's an encouraging idea, as the researchers put it, "that a person can, by assuming two simple one-minute poses, embody power and instantly become more powerful." (See some of the poses here.) But new findings are casting doubt on the original US study, Ars Technica reports. A University of Zurich researcher led an effort to replicate the findings, but it didn't work out the same way. Both studies involved participants giving saliva samples and engaging in various poses, either "open" or more closed-in. But the new study involved 200 participants, compared to the original study's 42. And in the new study, participants got their instructions through a computer rather than a person, thus theoretically preventing the possibility that an experimenter was creating some kind of bias with her instructions. After performing their poses, subjects participated in games along the lines of gambling, which involved deciding what level of risk to take or how competitive to be. While the subjects who'd performed power poses said they felt more powerful, they didn't actually behave differently in the games, Ars Technica reports, nor did saliva samples indicate a difference in hormones between the two groups. Still, there are a number of complicating factors, including the fact that the two studies were performed in different countries. (Feeling an inspiration drought? Here are some uplifting stories to fix that.)
– Michelle Obama's speech to the Democratic National Convention is being widely hailed as a triumph. Even many conservative pundits praised her performance, while some of the giddier Democrats are now hoping she plans her own run for office. She "knocked it out of the park" by delivering "a series of devastating contrasts with the Romney family and policy agenda, cloaked in the bromides of wifely love," writes Garance Franke-Rute at the Atlantic. Michelle "reminded that she hasn't just been growing vegetables in the White House garden—she's been sharpening her political skills, too." Michelle "turned in a masterful showing, delivering a subtly yet distinctly political speech without seeming to do so," writes Guy Benson at Townhall.com. "It remains to be seen whether her uber-personal reintroduction of 'Barack' will sway too many viewers, but I think she did everything she could on her husband's behalf." "In a cloyingly theatrical modern tradition, first ladies attend the national conventions to testify about biography, not policy," writes Irin Carmon at Salon. But Michelle "managed to effortlessly marshal both to tell a story about change in America—with the promise of more to come—and to deliver her speech transcendently." Michelle "largely avoided the treacly pitfalls of the spouse’s speech, in favor of crystal clear, passionate advocacy for her husband’s work, and the values that guide it," writes Tommy Christopher at Mediaite. His favorite line was: "Success isn’t about how much money you make, it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives," though "it’s a tossup as to whether the sentiment, lovely on the lips, gets any traction on the ground."
– As the nation's capital languished during October's 16-day government shutdown, a nurse in Washington, DC, made a Facebook prediction: “Furlough babies????" Lo and behold nine months later, reps at Sibley Memorial Hospital, where the nurse works, say there’s been a nearly 33% increase in births over the last month, says the Washington Post, while two other area hospitals report similarly notable jumps. Anecdotal evidence seems to support the timeline, with one FDA analyst recalling the time around her new daughter’s conception as "all kind of hazy," while a Pentagon worker cops to "celebrating congressional action" with his wife. Similar booms have been positively correlated with other major events—including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and a series of East Coast hurricane warnings, notes the Post. But not everyone’s convinced: At least three other DC-area hospitals tell the Post they haven’t seen any "significant" increase, and a sociologist who spoke with McClatchy DC says that seemingly burgeoning birth rates after such events are "usually … just romantic hypotheses with nothing to support them." (Read about a massive Native American baby boom that reportedly took place 1,500 years ago.)
– As of today, you can fire off a tweet-length message to a far-flung solar system, but you'll need patience—it won't get there for about 18 years, and it will take just as long to receive any extra-terrestrial response. As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer explains, a start-up called Lone Signal has begun sending submitted text messages in all languages to the Gliese 526 solar system. The first one is free, and then a group of four will set you back 99 cents, reports CNNMoney. The company is making use of the Jamesburg Earth Station in California's Carmel Valley to send the messages, and it hopes to expand its operations in the coming years to every hemisphere. Along with the text messages, the company is sending up missives written in binary code that explain our understanding of physics. Also fair game? Animated GIFs, and the Verge has a peek at the first one going up—of a guy scratching his ear.
– Bristol Palin's wedding to a Marine war hero this weekend has been called off, mom Sarah Palin writes on Facebook. But the Palins are still planning "a great bar-b-que" in Kentucky that day for family and close friends, the former Alaska governor adds. Bristol and fiance Dakota Meyer "couldn’t be more thankful for the love and support of family and friends over the past months while preparing for their wedding," Palin writes, per USA Today. "They have informed loved ones that unfortunately the announced celebration planned for May 23 will not be held." Whether it's over or just delayed isn't totally clear, People notes. Awkwardly, tabloids like the Daily Mail reported mere days ago on Meyer having a "secret wife" he was "still calling." But on mom's Facebook post, Bristol dismisses such "salacious headlines," saying "Dakota and I discussed our past relationships prior to our engagement. Dakota was legally divorced years ago." Indeed, Meyer's lawyer tells Inquisitr that the Marine and his former wife, Cassandra Wain, divorced back in 2010. But a friend of Wain's sister reportedly accused Meyer on Facebook of "trying to hide" the old marriage—and now Wain is "suffering from other peoples [sic] opinions of her based off your lies Dakota." Well, at least there's gonna be a barbecue. No fighting allowed.
– Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have wrapped up their big DC rally, a mix of their usual political shtick and eclectic musical acts (Ozzy, Tony Bennett, and the former Cat Stevens, for instance) performed in front of tens of thousands on the National Mall. "I can't control what people think this was," said Stewart. "I can only tell you my intentions: this was not a rally to ridicule people...or look down at the or to suggest times are not difficult and we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. We live now in hard times but these are not End Times. We can have animus and not be enemies." A sampling of the material: Stewart handed out a "Medal of Reasonableness" award to Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga for accepting, with grace, a blown call that cost him a perfect game. Colbert gave a "Fear Award" to various news organizations for not allowing employees attend the rally. Coverage at AP, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and MSNBC.
– President Obama's second State of the Union address probably won't win over many critics from the left or right, but he did an impressive—at times even Reaganesque—job of pitching to the center, pundits say. "The point wasn't soaring rhetoric or soothing the nation," notes Joshua Green at the Atlantic. The speech seem designed to recast the president's image "as someone who has finally gotten the message that he should be focused on jobs, jobs, jobs." The speech didn't soar, but it charted "ways to get over, under, around and through some of the roadblocks that stand in the way of Obama's policy proposals" on energy, education, and infrastructure," writes Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post. The substance of the speech was "moderate liberalism—we like business, but government has a role, too," writes Jonathan Chait at the New Republic. Obama, he decides, set out his vision of American unity more clearly than he's done before. The theme of the address was "winning the future," but "It also could have been labeled, "winning the center," writes Gerald F. Seib at the Wall Street Journal. The speech, with its focus on the future beyond the economic mess, was "the best illustration yet of how the post-election Barack Obama has repositioned himself" to win back voters who abandoned him in November, he writes.
– Angela Kinsey, the actress best known as Angela Martin from The Office, has been trending on social media Friday thanks to an inadvertent boost from a nephew. As People explains, Kinsey became aware that one of her nephews was boasting of his famous relative on his Tinder profile. "You can still call me a fireman cause I turn the h— on and yes Angela from the office is my aunt," reads the offending line from the 25-year-old identified only as James. When it came to light, auntie Angela posted this on Instagram Stories: "Nephews…do not put me in your @tinder profile photos. K. Thx. Byeeeee.” It's a response worthy of the fictional Angela Martin, notes E! Online. This tweet apparently exposed the profile. (Note: language.)
– As Paula Deen was dropped by seemingly every company she's ever been associated with, Novo Nordisk continued to say it would stand by her—but even that relationship appears to have frayed. The diabetes drug maker that partnered with Deen as she announced she had the disease today announced it is suspending the relationship "for now." A rep tells Eater there is the "option" to resume the partnership in the future, "but it's too early to say" whether that would happen. As if that wasn't bad enough, Target and Home Depot are also severing their relationships with Deen. Target will "phase out" her cooking merchandise and won't be ordering more, a rep tells TMZ. Home Depot also apparently sold her cookware, but will no longer, a rep confirms to NBC News. Still hanging on: Sears, which has said it is evaluating its Deen partnership. Here's the statement from Novo Nordisk: "Novo Nordisk and Paula Deen have mutually agreed to suspend our patient education activities for now, while she takes time to focus her attention where it is needed. Novo Nordisk would like to acknowledge Paula's involvement in our Diabetes in a New Light campaign, where she has helped make many people aware of type 2 diabetes and the lifestyle changes needed to control this serious disease." Her adoring public certainly doesn't seem to care: There's huge demand for her cruise vacations, and her books are selling like butter-slathered hotcakes. (Meanwhile, a former waitress at Deen's restaurant says the celebrity chef used the n-word "all the time." Click for more on that.)
– A TV crew from WMTW News 8 in Maine was setting up to do an update about missing 73-year-old Bob McDonough when McDonough himself walked into the shot. McDonough, who has dementia, had gone missing the previous day, and police were out with canine units looking for him. He appears to be fine. "Good news and a happy ending," said reporter Norm Karkos. "Rather bizarre," adds Slate.
– It turns out that a parasite thought to be confined to fish from Asia is in fish around the US, too. Researchers identified the Japanese broad tapeworm, aka Diphyllobothrium nihonkaiense, in wild pink salmon caught off Alaska, they report in a study in the CDC's Emerging Infectious Diseases journal. "Therefore, salmon from the American and Asian Pacific coasts and elsewhere pose potential dangers for persons who eat these fish raw," write the researchers. However, Jayde Ferguson, a state wildlife official who co-authored the study, tells Alaska Dispatch News that the discovery shouldn't be much cause for alarm among consumers. "If it was anything that was of concern, increased risk or anything like that from a management standpoint, we would have said something," he says. "They're wild animals—they're going to have parasites, they're out in nature." The comfort for US sushi lovers is that the FDA requires that any fish sold or served raw be frozen first, which would kill any parasites, reports the Seattle Times. (Those who caught the fish themselves and planned to eat it raw would want to freeze it first as well, notes the San Francisco Chronicle.) The researchers cautioned that "Pacific salmon are frequently exported unfrozen," though that doesn't apply to the vast majority of Alaskan salmon. A preventive medicine professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine tells CNN most infected humans remain asymptomatic—some may feel slight abdominal discomfort or nausea—though there are rare cases in which the infection can turn serious. The CDC notes that cooking the fish also will annihilate Diphyllobothrium parasites. (A Canadian man bit into a piece of salmon and fell into a coma.)
– Sure, according to the BBC, "it looks like a piece of old leather"—but if you ask at Smithfield, Virginia's Isle of Wight County Museum, you'll learn that a century-old ham is still, apparently, edible. It just celebrated its 112th birthday, and it's the oldest cured ham in the world you could conceivably still eat, the museum says, per the Wall Street Journal. The ham is one of three kept side-by-side in cases that block out bugs and mold while silica trays keep things dry. An expert lends support to the edibility idea: "From a microbiological standpoint, it's got an indefinite shelf life once you remove enough of the water," says a food microbiologist. Still, he notes, that doesn't mean it would taste good. Meanwhile, a food standards official isn't so sure it would be safe to eat: "After such a long time, and without knowing how the ham was processed, it's difficult to know," he says. Either way, the ham has long been an attraction: As far back as the 1920s, it was appearing on Ripley's Believe It or Not. (In somewhat related news, click to find out why bacon smells so amazing.)
– Ivanna Krekhtyak apparently grabbed her 8-year-old daughter's neck and squeezed until she saw no signs of life. Then the 36-year-old woman hanged herself in the basement of her home in Fairfield, Conn., police say. Sometime later, however, Krekhtyak's daughter, Anna—who had only lost consciousness—woke up. After finding her mother's body, the girl ran to a neighbor for help, reports the Connecticut Post. Authorities, who responded around 10:30am Saturday, are now trying to piece together the tragedy as Anna has "some memory issues with regard to exactly what occurred," Fairfield Police Chief Gary MacNamara tells NBC Connecticut. Despite that, he says "strangulation marks" suggest "strangulation was meant to kill her." Anna—who was listed in stable condition at a hospital Monday, per People—had previously contacted police at least once over fears her mother was suicidal, and she wasn't the only one to do so. However, police say they never felt Krekhtyak's daughter was in danger over the course of several visits to the home. During one visit, Krekhtyak told police she was depressed, but not suicidal, over her husband's suicide in July 2015. Police say Vasyl Krekhtyak, 38, had been working in Florida but returned to Connecticut to visit a doctor. Shortly after, he was found hanged in a wooded area near Fairfield University. His wife told authorities he had mental health issues and had been hearing voices, per the Fairfield Daily Voice. (A man was accused of trying to kill his son in a car crash.)
– The accused ISIS defector from Virginia says he made a "bad decision" and now regrets his actions. In an interview with K24 TV, Mohamad Jamal Khweis, 26, says he left the US in December, visited London and Amsterdam, then arrived in Turkey, where he met a woman from Mosul, Iraq, who said she could take him there, per ABC News. "So I decided to go with her," he says. "I was not thinking straight." They took a bus to the Turkish border, then a taxi into Syria. On Jan. 16, another bus brought Khweis to Mosul. There, "our daily life was prayer, eating, and learning about the religion for eight hours," he says, per NBC News, which describes the interview as "heavily edited" and notes he made no mention of "combat activities." "I didn't agree with their ideology and that's when I wanted to escape." Kurdish forces say Khweis was among a group of fighters they exchanged fire with on Sunday and was captured on Monday near Sinjar "for attempting to enter the Kurdistan region," per CNN. Khweis says he was trying to contact Kurdish forces. "I wanted to go back to America," he says, adding he didn't view ISIS fighters as "good Muslims. ... The people who control Mosul don't represent a religion." The US Justice Department is planning to press charges, reports CBS News. A University of Texas School of Law professor suspects Khweis will likely be a "huge priority for intelligence collection," per the Daily Beast. Khweis' mother says she last saw her son a couple of months ago and had no idea he was in Iraq. Khweis' father, a Palestinian immigrant, turned a water hose on reporters outside his Virginia home on Monday, while a brother yelled, "You're wrong, you're wrong."
– Google doesn't just use "lorem ipsum" as filler text. It has also used "Casey Baumer" as the randomly generated filler name on all its Google Docs prompts because, well, it's so much more personal than the ever popular Jane or John Doe, reports Gizmodo. But it's also become a major nuisance for Casey Baumer, an actual person who is 20, a food stylist, and fully fed up fielding the Facebook messages she gets on a daily basis from strangers accusing her of hacking into their accounts or having affairs with their husbands. As one user asks in the Google Docs help forum, "why do my docs have the name Casey Baumer attached to them? is this standard?" "If you actually look at the documents, instead of just reading the name, it's clear that none of it's real," Baumer tells Business Insider. "But people clearly don't really read it!" (Indeed, a screenshot of a resume template shows Baumer's address as "123 Address St., Anytown, NY.") Instead, they take the time to tell her to knock it off, a request she's essentially forwarded to Google. A company spokesperson says the company will change the name to spare Baumer, and her two-year-long headache may be just about gone: The aforementioned template now features Your Name. (Check out the most adorable Google search ever, and how Google UK decided to respond.)
– Six of the contestants who lost the Miss Corpus Christi Latina Pageant not only think the pageant crowned the wrong winner, they're suing over it. Their lawsuit makes the case that Caitlin Cifuentes, 25, should not have received the crown on June 11 because of her criminal record and a past marriage, reports the Houston Chronicle. Specifically, the suit argues that Cifuentes should have been disqualified because she is on deferred adjudicated probation for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, along with probation for misdemeanor DUI. Those charges stem from a 2013 car crash that injured four people, reports Courthouse News Service. The lawsuit is seeking $100,000 from pageant director Kayla Alvarez, who stands by the decision to crown Cifuentes. "Just because you have a bad background ... doesn't mean that should hold you back from accomplishing your goals," Alvarez tells the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. "She's worked very hard and the judges saw that and she won fair and square." Alvarez says Cifuentes' probationary status means she was never technically convicted and was therefore still eligible to compete. While the suit cites a clause in the agreement all contestants signed that begins "I have never been married," Alvarez says the rule against no marriages applies only to the teen competition, with divorced adults eligible for the "Miss" title. The suit also argues that due to Cifuentes' probation, her travel outside of Nueces County is dependent on the Nueces County Probation Department's approval. As of now, Cifuentes is still on track to compete for the state Latina title in August. (Want to win Miss Universe? This Yale law grad can help.)
– The three Afghan soldiers who vanished from a training exercise in Massachusetts on Saturday were found today near Niagara Falls, apparently trying to gain asylum in Canada, the Cape Cod Times reports. A source tells WCVB that the soldiers told Customs Agents at the Rainbow Bridge crossing that they were refugees. According to several officials, the three missing men—Major Jan Mohammad Arash, Captain Mohammad Nasir Askarzada, and Captain Noorullah Aminyar—were just looking for a way to avoid returning to Afghanistan, NBC News reports. They may have been hoping to benefit from Canada's looser asylum policies. All three were detained, but it's not clear who has them or whether they'll be returned to Joint Base Cape Cod or somewhere else. Neither US Customs in Buffalo nor federal authorities are holding the men, according to a customs rep, so the Canadian Border Services Agency may have them, the Boston Globe reports. The soldiers sparked a manhunt when they disappeared during a two-week training exercise that included 200 soldiers and civilians from different countries. (It's been held since 2004 to boost cooperation between forces from around the world, the AP notes.) And such vanishings are nothing new: Just last week, two Afghan policemen disappeared from a Washington-area DEA training program and were later found in New York.
– It was only a matter of time before drama erupted between the new panel of ladies on The View—but apparently "time" here means a whole two days. The season premiered Monday, and by Tuesday, there was trouble, according to Page Six. It started on-air, when Republican co-host Nicolle Wallace said President Obama "doesn't love people." Rosie O'Donnell responded, "When Kanye West says, 'I don't think President Bush cares about black people,' it's like an international incident. But you can say that you don't think Obama likes people?" It didn't end there: A source says the two continued arguing even after filming stopped. "Executive producer Bill Wolff had to call them both in and order them to calm down," the source continues, though an ABC rep flatly denies the account. But in a recent Variety interview, O'Donnell revealed that even the audition process for the new panel was rather contentious: "It was very much like the Hunger Games," she said, describing candidates, including Wallace, having to engage in mock debates with herself and Whoopi Goldberg. "I think Whoopi and I were both a little shocked at having to do a chemistry test," she added. "I don't know if there's a way to test that. It felt very negative and competitive." O'Donnell returned to the panel after a 50-pound weight loss—click for before and after photos.
– Finland's president isn't sure where President Trump got the idea that raking is part of his country's routine for managing its substantial forests. Trump told reporters Saturday while visiting the ruins of the northern California town where a fire killed at least 76 people that wildfires weren't a problem in Finland because crews "spend a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things" to clear forest floors. Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said in an interview published Sunday in the Ilta-Sanomat newspaper that he spoke briefly with Trump about forest management on Nov. 11, when they both were in Paris for Armistice Day events. Niinisto said their conversation focused on the California wildfires and the surveillance system Finland uses to monitor forests for fires, the AP reports. He remembered telling Trump that "we take care of our forests," but couldn't recall raking coming up. Trump's comment generated amusement on social media in Finland, which manages its vast forests with scientific seriousness. Some posted pictures of themselves raking the forests and joked about "raking America great again," while others pointed out that they "don't exactly manicure" the forests that cover more than 70% of the country, the BBC reports. (Trump said seeing the devastation Saturday didn't change his mind about climate change.)
– West Vancouver wants its drivers to be safer and less distracted, so it's going to start scaring the bejeezus out of them with a 3-D image of a girl on the road. "You’ll see this image start to rise off the pavement and it will look like a little child is crossing the street," a traffic official tells the Globe and Mail. "As you get closer to the image, the image recedes into the pavement." The $15,000 program will be in place for a week near an elementary school starting Tuesday. "What could go wrong?" wonders Allie Townsend at Time, hoping that drivers don't get too comfortable with the notion of driving through children. Near a school. In theory, drivers will see the image in plenty of time to slow down. But for those who don't, "you'd have to think it might involve braking, shouting, swerving, swearing, sidewalk hopping and possibly actual-people hitting," writes Tim Nudd at the AdFreak blog.
– An 18-year-old Colorado woman who tried to surprise a friend was shot dead by the startled man, police say. Premila Lal had apparently sneaked into the house 21-year-old Nerrek Galley was staying at and jumped out of a closet Friday night. (CNN reports the Longmont home belonged to Lal's family, and Galley was a family friend.) Two witnesses, including Lal's 15-year-old brother, were present, and police say her death was "unintended and extremely tragic," reports the Times-Call. Police say drugs and alcohol do not appear to be a factor in the death. Galley is being held on charges including reckless endangerment, but Lal's father says he feels no anger toward the man. "We lost a daughter, so we don’t want anybody else to lose their son, you know, especially when it was an accident," he tells CBS. (It wasn't the only deadly shooting this weekend: A 3-year-old girl died in Yellowstone's first fatal shooting in more than 30 years.)
– A Hellfire missile sent to Europe for a NATO training exercise ended up in Cuba, and authorities aren't sure whether to blame spies, criminals, or incompetent shippers. Sources tell the Wall Street Journal that the inert missile was clearly marked as sensitive cargo when Lockheed Martin sent it to Europe from Florida in 2014, but after it was used in a training exercise in Spain, it ended up among other cargo on an Air France flight from Paris to Havana when it was supposed to be on a flight from Frankfurt, Germany, to the US. Cuban officials seized the missile when it arrived and they realized what it was, the Journal's sources say. A US official tells the AP that while authorities aren't too worried about Cuba reverse-engineering the Hellfire to create its own drone-based missile program, they suspect Havana may have shared the unexpected find with other countries. According to the Journal, American authorities have been asking Cuba, without success, to return the dummy missile and have been examining the paper trail in Europe to try to determine how it went so badly astray. A federal official says Lockheed Martin and other companies have been cited for export-control violations in the past. "This is a complicated business, mistakes are inherent in complicated businesses," the official says. "Mistakes are a part of any human endeavor. Mistakes are made." (Another dummy Hellfire landed on a Texas town.)
– Workers constructing a sewer line in East Jerusalem last month discovered a 2,000-year-old water-supply system that—think about this—worked fairly well until the last century, LiveScience reports. The 13-mile long Lower Aqueduct, which was fed by a spring south of Bethlehem and runs through four modern-day Jerusalem neighborhoods, was built by kings governing Judea and environs from roughly 140 BC to 37 BC. City rulers kept it up over the years, covering the open channel with terra cotta pipe about 500 years ago. It remained a major water-supply source until an electrical water distribution system replaced it roughly 100 years ago, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority. The IAA says it will cover part of the aqueduct "for the sake of future generations" and expose parts for access by the general public, Discovery reports. Meanwhile, archaeologists are marveling: "The aqueduct begins at the ‘En ‘Eitam spring, near Solomon’s Pools south of Bethlehem," says IAA Director Ya'akov Billig. "Despite its length, it flows along a very gentle downward slope whereby the water level falls just one meter per kilometer of distance." The original designers look pretty smart, too, having built the aqueduct in uninhabited areas where Jerusalem neighborhoods now exist, the Times of Israel notes. Other parts of the aqueduct system have been found before, including tunnels in the City of David and ones near the Sultan's Pool beside Mount Zion in Jerusalem.
– The latest school shooting has left two students wounded and the gunman dead at Great Mills High School in Maryland's St. Mary's County, reports the Baltimore Sun. The shooting happened about 8am, and details are beginning to emerge: Sheriff Tim Cameron says a male student fired at a female student in a hallway, and he apparently struck her and a male student nearby, reports USA Today. A school resource officer arrived on the scene and fired at the shooter, says the sheriff, and "that stopped any further attack or assault." The unidentified gunman is dead, says Cameron, but it was not immediately clear whether it was the shots fired by the school resource officer that killed him, per the AP. The Sun lists the 14-year-old boy as being in good condition; the 16-year-old girl was said to be hospitalized in critical condition but has been stabilized. FBI agents were on the scene to assist deputies. No word yet on a possible motive.
– Asking for tips on social media isn't the most reliable way to track down a fugitive, as 11 armed bounty hunters found out the hard way in Phoenix on Tuesday night. They converged on a home around 10pm only to discover, after a confrontation, that it was the residence of Police Chief Joseph Yahner, the LA Times reports. Police say that when they were called to Yahner's address, they found employees of NorthStar Fugitive Recovery and Delta One Tactical Recovery surrounding the home, with one man banging on the door with a weapon and ordering the chief to come out, the Arizona Republic reports. Police video of the incident shows the furious chief emerging in his underwear to confront the men. Brent Farley, the owner of NorthStar, was arrested on charges of criminal trespass and disorderly conduct, reports the LA Times. The bounty hunters were seeking a drug fugitive from Oklahoma who, unlike the chief of police, is black and weighs 310 pounds. The bounty hunters followed an "unconfirmed tip," police say, and Reuters reports that NorthStar had asked for tips earlier in the day on its Facebook page, which has apparently now been taken down. The former president of the Arizona Bail Bondsmen Association tells the Republic that such mistakes are the result of weak state laws for bail bondsmen that allow anyone to act like "John Wayne all day long, without any education or training." (In June, country singer Randy Howard was killed in a gunfight with a bounty hunter.)
– Pope Francis' anti-corruption stance could put him at risk from "the most dangerous, most unified, and most difficult to penetrate" mafia clan in Italy, an Italian prosecutor tells the Washington Post. As "Pope Francis is dismantling centers of economic power in the Vatican," mobsters are "nervous and agitated" that their dealings with corrupt bishops could come to an end, says prosecutor Nicola Gratteri, who's battled the 'Ndrangheta mob clan, told an Italian daily, per the Guardian. "I don't know if organized crime is in a position to do something, but certainly they are thinking about it." Gratteri continued: "'Ndrangheta and the church walk hand in hand ... The mafia that invests, that launders money, that therefore has the real power, is the mafia which has got rich for years" off of its alliance with the church. But after a fiery speech against corruption earlier this week and several pope-backed reforms in the Vatican, "it could be dangerous," said Gratteri. Even though about 88% of jailed mobsters are religious, and a 'Ndrangheta mobster often prays before killing, "they wouldn't hesitate" to "trip him up," Gratteri said.
– Pope Francis sets foot on US soil at 4pm today (full schedule here), and officials in DC, New York, and Philly are scrambling to ensure a smooth, safe stay. Here are five of the more unusual details of his visit: The visit has spurred one of the largest security operations in US history: The pope's five-day visit has received the rare designation of "National Special Security Event," the Washington Post reports, and the Secret Service-led security operation also involves the FBI, Coast Guard, Pentagon, and other agencies. Adding to the challenge: the pontiff's "proclivity to wade into public crowds," and the doubling-up of events. The 70th UN General Assembly and Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit are also on the docket. President Obama will meet him at the airport: When he arrives at Joint Base Andrews just outside DC, Obama will be there to greet him. This is actually a big deal. "It is a gesture the president has extended to virtually no other foreign visitor," observes the New York Times. No congressional handshakes: The pope's attendance at Thursday's joint session of Congress is a "sold-out" event, and those members who will be attending have received a "Please Behave Yourself" notice co-signed by John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid, the Post reports. "Out of respect for the Pope's schedule and the expectation of a timely address, we respectfully request that you assist us by refraining from handshakes and conversations along and down the center aisle," the memo reads. There's a saintly sticking point: According to social media (and Vocativ), there's one major sticking point about Francis' visit to DC that's causing a ruckus: his expected canonization tomorrow of Junipero Serra, a controversial 18th-century missionary who's accused of enslaving and wiping out indigenous Native Americans and forcing conversions in California. More than 10,000 signatures have already been gathered on a MoveOn.org petition asking the pope to ditch his sainthood plans. There's a rookie at the social wheel: Deesha Dyer is the "rookie" planning what the New York Times calls "the 'Super Bowl' of social planning." The new White House social secretary, 37, is an ex-hip-hop reporter tasked with organizing not only every detail of Obama's visit with Pope Francis tomorrow, but also the meeting and state dinner with Xi later in the week, followed by a presidential appearance at the UN in New York.
– The medical examiner in San Diego confirmed today that Junior Seau committed suicide with a gunshot to the chest, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. The family has not decided yet whether to donate his brain to researchers to see if he suffered damage from football. Seau's former wife told the AP that he sustained concussions as a player, but she didn't know whether they contributed to his death. The suicide, though, is enough for Ta-Nehisi Coates to call it quits as a longtime football fan. "I'm not here to dictate other people's morality," he writes in the Atlantic. "I'm certainly not here to call for banning of the risky activities of consenting adults." But he says it's clear that football isn't ready to confront what's happening to its players. "I'm out." (Click to read another writer's view that this could become a common refrain.)
– If millions of tons of rock slide down an Alaskan mountain and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Regardless, it certainly creates enough of a ruckus to get picked up by a sophisticated seismic monitoring network, Alaska Dispatch News reports. The Oct. 17 Icy Bay landslide into Taan Fiord, which took about a minute, was North America's biggest since the 1980 collapse of Mount St. Helens, according to ADN. It caused a local tsunami (up to 100 feet high) that could have been dangerous if people had actually been around. Alaska's southeast is the "world's hotspot for these huge rockslides," geology and geophysics professor Colin Stark told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union earlier this month. Scientists discovered the slide, which had a magnitude of 4.9, via its "seismic signature," the AP reports. The monitoring network includes hundreds of seismographs and atmospheric sensors. "We're reading the data … in a way that lets us detect the landslides and figure out where they are," Stark says. Also in October, there was a 45 million ton slide at Mount Steele in the Yukon; and in February 2014, 68 million tons of debris tumbled down Alaska's Mount La Perouse, ADN reports. Scientists say fragile rock from developing mountains and retreating glaciers in the region result in a faster erosion rate and more slides, per ABC. Some are concerned that the retreating Columbia Glacier along Alaska's south coast may cause a destructive slide closer to towns. (After ground ice gave way, a Canadian lake fell off a cliff.)
– ISIS has stunned the world with its brutality and rapid advance in recent months—and the publicity has also attracted more foreign fighters, including around a dozen Americans that US intelligence services have been able to identify, officials say. The recruits—who seem to be getting younger—see the militants as "the true jihad" because they have seized territory and are trying to establish an Islamic state, a senior official tells the New York Times: "They're saying: 'Look at what we are doing, what we're accomplishing. We're the new face. We're not just talking about it. We're doing it.'" Officials say more than 100 Americans have fought with assorted groups in Syria in the last three years and they have been identified through intelligence, including social media postings—but authorities often don't become aware of their presence until well after they've arrived in the country. That was the case with Douglas McCain, a former Minneapolis-area resident who died over the weekend while fighting for ISIS. A second American from the area has now been identified as having died in the same battle, according to KMSP. Abdirahmaan Muhumed was a father of nine who went to high school in Minneapolis, according to an MPR report from June on local Somali-Americans who have joined the Syria conflict. (Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, who is on military death row, has written to ISIS asking to become a citizen.)
– A day-long meeting set to take place in London will have "wider governance considerations" on its agenda. The BBC reports that's code for something much more fascinating than it sounds: succession. Not of the crown, which Prince Charles will inherit upon his mother's death, but of the role as head of the Commonwealth. It has 53 member states—many of them formerly part of the British Empire, reports the Telegraph, with Rwanda most recently joining in 2009—that are home to 2.4 billion people, but only 15 of them will eventually have Charles as their head of state. The Commonwealth position is not hereditary, leaving open the possibility that someone else could fill the role, and that's reportedly what a "high-level group" will be discussing before appearing at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in April. Queen Elizabeth became head of the Commonwealth when she was crowned in 1953, but the Commonwealth has only been in existence since 1931, and there is no formal process for deciding on a successor. There have been some murmurings in the past about electing what the BBC calls "a ceremonial leader to improve the organization's democratic credentials." The Telegraph reports a 2009 diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks allegedly voiced the concerns of the Commonwealth's secretariat director of political affairs with Charles assuming the role, saying he "does not command the same respect" as his mother. She has been quietly lobbying for her son, whose website expresses his support for the Commonwealth and notes he has been to 41 of its countries. (The queen's father used a most unusual hiding place for the crown jewels during World War II.)
– Wesley Snipes has been ordered to report to jail to begin serving his three-year sentence for tax evasion. A judge rejected the Blade star's request for a new trial, reports the BBC. "The defendant Snipes had a fair trial," he wrote. "The time has come for the judgment to be enforced." No comment from Snipes, who was in Atlanta to film a movie, but his attorney says he'll appeal to the Supreme Court, notes AP. He doesn't expect the actor to be taken into custody for about a week and says Snipes is "incredibly calm and positive."
– Oil officially hit Mississippi's shoreline yesterday, and the state's governor has finally decided that this spill is bad news: Gov. Haley Barbour, who just last month suggested that the spill would have "minimal impact," is now pushing BP and federal officials to boost his state's resources, reports the AP. "While command and control of on-water resources has improved, it must get much better and the amount of resources to attack the oil offshore must be greatly increased," said Barbour in an email statement.
– One-third of the country is covered in snow, but the storm hammering Chicago is especially intense. What they’re dealing with, courtesy of the Tribune, Sun-Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle: Hundreds of motorists and bus riders were stranded last night and early this morning on Lake Shore Drive due to snow, ice, and whiteout conditions; while many were rescued after five hours or so, some reported being trapped for as many as nine hours. The Drive was completely closed around 7:50pm, as officials tried to clear abandoned vehicles from the paths of plows, buses, and salt trucks. Though official reports claim drivers were urged to stay in their cars, “Lake Shore Drive” quickly became a trending topic on Twitter as users tweeted that people were being told to leave their cars in order to avoid danger from Lake Michigan’s 24-foot swells. As officials worked to reopen Lake Shore Drive, I-80 was also expected to be closed. That and other interstates, highways, and roads were reported to be “impassable.” Among the buildings damaged by the blizzard: Wrigley Field, where a portion of the roof blew off. Nearly 20,000 power outages were reported in Chicago and the surrounding area last night, and ComEd was working through the night to brace for more downed power lines. Train riders also found themselves stuck when frozen switches halted Red Line trains in both directions as well as some Yellow Line trains, and had to scramble for alternate transportation. Click for more on this crazy weather.
– An 18-day mission to save 12 boys and a soccer coach trapped in a Thai cave succeeded without Elon Musk's mini-submersible, which was deemed unsuitable and left behind in the Tham Luang cave complex. It's "a reminder that sometimes this tech superhero doesn't quite match up to the Iron Man of his fans' dreams," says the BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones. Musk begs to differ. After rescue head Narongsak Osottanakorn said Musk's kid-sized sub built from rocket parts was "not practical for our mission," the billionaire SpaceX founder took to Twitter to question Osottanakorn's expertise. He "is not the subject matter expert," Musk tweeted Tuesday, sharing a July 7 email from a rescue diver, per the New York Times. It asks Musk to "please keep working on the capsule details." A spokesman for the diver said Tuesday that cave passages were too narrow for the sub, but "based on extensive cave video review & discussion with several divers who know journey, SpaceX engineering is absolutely certain that mini-sub can do entire journey & demonstrate at any time," Musk continued, adding he left the sub behind "in case it may be useful in the future." Aaron Mak at Slate gives him some credit. "Musk's involvement, though ultimately unnecessary, appears to have been well-intended and did not impede the operation," he writes. You can't fault a guy for trying, adds Bryan Clark at The Next Web. "Musk delivered a working submersible in around 30 hours in an attempt to solve a very real problem, a problem that undoubtedly costs hundreds of thousands of his own money in materials, research, and man hours," he says, deeming the effort "worthy of praise."
– Tori Spelling is apparently enough recovered from financial ruin to support another child: The 43-year-old actress is expecting baby No. 5 with hubby Dean McDermott, who also has an adult son from a previous marriage. "It was a total surprise," Spelling, whose eldest child is 9, tells People. "Nothing is ever perfect," she adds, but "this baby happened at the best time." It's not all roses and baby powder, however: Spelling was just ordered to pay $39,000 to American Express for unpaid debts, while the state of California has sued the couple for an alleged $260,000 in unpaid taxes, per CBS News.
– George Zimmerman will face criminal charges in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, reports the Washington Post, though it's not clear yet what they will be. The announcement from special prosecutor Angela Corey will come at 6pm Eastern, reports the AP, also citing anonymous sources. Zimmerman is expected to be arrested soon. The development comes a day after Zimmerman's attorneys dropped the case because they had lost contact with him. Whatever happens in Florida, Zimmerman also faces possible charges from a separate federal investigation. "I know that many of you are greatly—and rightly—concerned about the recent shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, a young man whose future has been lost to the ages," Attorney General Eric Holder told a gathering today. "If we find evidence of a potential federal criminal civil rights crime, we will take appropriate action," he said.
– A breakthrough at last in the Kyron Horman case? The mother of the Oregon boy who disappeared on June 4, 2010, says a search in the Portland area turned up "a lot of things and possibly evidence." Around 60 volunteers and 10 search dogs were involved in the hunt for clues to the whereabouts of Kyron, who was the focus of the largest search in Oregon's history when he disappeared aged 7, KPTV reports. His stepmother was the focus of the investigation but police have never named a suspect in the case. "I still feel like I'm stuck back on June 4," his mother tells the Oregonian. "I can't move on from that because I don't have answers, I don't have Kyron."
– It's probably happened to you: You open up your food delivery, hungry and excited to chow down, only to find out you were given the wrong order. But a Connecticut woman took things a bit farther than most of us would with her response: She called 911, Fox 61 reports. "I ordered a small pizza, half cheese and half bacon," the woman told the dispatcher. "They bring me half hamburger. So I called them back, and they don't want to give my money back. They keep hanging up on me." Why was she calling 911? She wanted to know, "If ... they don't want to give me my money back, can you guys do something?" The dispatcher informed her she would have to take her issue up with the pizzeria, though she did add that if the woman headed over to the shop, "You can call and have an officer meet you there. But an officer isn't going to just call them and have them give you your money back." Per NBC, the pizzeria says it would have offered a refund, but the woman had already eaten half the pizza. The woman will not be charged for misuse of 911.
– President Trump declared North Korea was "no longer a nuclear threat" after his summit last month with Kim Jong Un, but the latest assessment from the Korean Peninsula's top US military commander offers a different take. The North's nuclear "production capability is still intact," Army Gen. Vincent Brooks, via a video link, told Aspen Security Forum attendees Saturday, adding that there's been no "complete shutdown" and no sign of fuel rods being removed. CNBC notes that what Brooks is saying jibes with a Washington Post report Sunday on a frustrated Trump and "stiff resistance from a North Korean team practiced in the art of delay and obfuscation." Some of that resistance has included canceled follow-up meetings, requests for more money, and a lack of communication, as well as a still-intact missile-engine testing site Trump vowed would be dismantled. "There has to be demonstrable action [toward denuclearization] or we cannot be satisfied and we probably can't be friends and we probably won't be at peace," Brooks said, per CNBC, though he stressed it was critical not to "overreact" and for the US and the North to build trust. He also expressed hope that steps toward denuclearization would happen. "[Kim] has really demonstrated he is a man of his word in a number of ways," Brooks said, per Voice of America. Others didn't share his optimism. "This is not the time to be putting the brakes on maximum pressure," said Rep. Mike McCaul, head of the House Homeland Security Committee. "This is a time [to] be putting the accelerator on." Brooks also relayed that the remains of "some" Americans killed in the Korean War would make their way home, per CNN. "The pain of those families is as acute today as it was then," he told the forum.
– Colin Kroll, a tech executive who co-founded the HQ Trivia app, has died. He was 35, the AP reports. The New York Police Department says officers went to Kroll's Manhattan apartment early Sunday after getting a call asking for a wellness check on him. They found him unconscious and unresponsive on his bed. He was pronounced dead at the scene. TMZ says he "died of an apparent drug overdose," but the medical examiner's office will determine cause of death. Kroll was the chief executive of the trivia app, which live-streams short trivia shows to users and became popular after its release in 2017. He also was a founder of Vine, which was an app built around six-second videos, and worked for a period at Twitter. But Vine was scuttled four years after Twitter bought it in 2012, and HQ Trivia had fallen in popularity, falling from iTunes' list of 100 free games, per CNN. What's more, Intermedia Labs—a business he co-founded that created HQ Trivia—was said to be in disorder. Kroll recently ousted co-founder Rus Yusupov and engaged in behavior that one source told Re/Code was "inappropriate and unprofessional." Kroll had been fired from Twitter for poor managerial skills, and had a reputation for behaving poorly with some female colleagues—although a Kroll probe by an outside investigator "yielded no concerns," the company said.
– Is Duchess Kate expecting a little girl? At a public appearance yesterday, she gave what some are calling a hint about the sex of her baby, the AP reports. When someone handed her a teddy bear as a gift, Kate said, "Thank you, I'll take that for my d—" and then stopped herself. Asked if she was about to say "daughter," all Kate would say was, "We're not telling," the Telegraph reports. She claimed she doesn't even know the sex of the baby due in July, but her slip of the tongue was enough to get Britain's tabloids declaring, "It's a girl!" in today's papers. Royal precedent dictates that the baby's gender will be kept a secret until birth, the Telegraph notes. Also at yesterday's appearance, Kate revealed that the little one is kicking "very much."
– President Trump's daughter and son-in-law are renting a house from a foreign billionaire who is fighting the US government over a proposed mine in Minnesota. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are renting a $5.5 million house in Washington's Kalorama neighborhood from Andrónico Luksic, the Wall Street Journal reports. One of the Chilean billionaire's companies is suing the federal government over the Obama administration decision's not to renew mineral rights for a proposed copper-nickel mine in Minnesota. Luksic's company, Twin Metals Minnesota, filed suit in September to force renewal of its leases. The lawsuit remains pending. Luksic bought the Kalorama property after the November presidential election. Ivanka Trump and Kushner, the president's senior adviser, moved into the property around the time of Trump's inauguration in January. Luksic still lacked the business license necessary under Washington law to collect rent on the property as of earlier this week.The White House says the couple is paying fair market value for the home and hasn't met Luksic nor discussed the mine with him. Rob Walker, an ethics lawyer at the law firm Wiley Rein, tells the AP that the arrangement may pose an appearance problem, because "deservedly or not, critics may still question the propriety of entering into any significant transaction with an individual with these apparent interests before the administration." President Trump could reverse the Obama administration decision to protect this part of the National Wilderness Preservation System from mining. His interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, has advocated for increased mining on federal lands.
– A strange footnote to Farrah Fawcett's death has been settled in court: Ryan O'Neal can keep a large portrait that Andy Warhol made of her in 1980 and that now hangs over O'Neal's bed. A California jury ruled today that the silk screen on canvas belongs to him and not to the University of Texas at Austin, which had sued to obtain it, reports AP. Fawcett bequeathed her art collection to the school, but O'Neal took the painting from her condo after her death—with the permission of the trustee overseeing her belongings. (He and Fawcett were a longtime couple but never married.) As the LA Times explains in a previous story about the lawsuit, things got a little confusing because two of the portraits exist. The school already has one of them, and it sued O'Neal when it discovered that a near-identical one was hanging in his home. O'Neal maintains that Warhol always intended for him to have one of the two. "During Farrah's lifetime, she told her closest friends and she told the people who work for her a very simple fact: Ryan owned one portrait and Farrah owned another," O'Neal's attorney said in his closing statement earlier this week. The jury agreed.
– The singer who was performing when the shooting began in Las Vegas says he can't comprehend the violence of Sunday night. "Something has changed in this country and in this world lately that is scary to see," wrote Jason Aldean on Instagram. "This world is becoming the kind of place i am afraid to raise my children in." Aldean expressed sympathy for the victims and called for unity. "At the end of the day we arent Democrats or Republicans, Whites or Blacks, Men or Women," he writes. "We are all humans and we are all Americans and its time to start acting like it and stand together as ONE!" Also drawing attention is a social media post by another musician who performed at the festival. Caleb Keeter, guitarist for the Josh Abbott band, wrote on Twitter that he has long been a supporter of gun rights and the Second Amendment, reports the Guardian. But Sunday night made him do an about-face. "I cannot express how wrong I was," he writes, referring specifically to the powerful rounds of gunfire raining down on victims. It "was enough for me to realize that this is completely and totally out of hand. ... We need gun control RIGHT. NOW. My biggest regret is that I stubbornly didn't realize it until my brothers on the road and myself were threatened by it.”
– Royal Caribbean has crowdsourced the public before to help it name its cruise ships, but it's tapping into a rather unusual source this time around: the guy who came up with "Boaty McBoatface." The company invited British bloke James Hand—whose "whimsical moniker," as a press release puts it, for a $300 million UK research vessel was the most popular choice in an online Internet naming contest—to come for a sail in May on its new Harmony of the Seas, USA Today reports. But this is no simple pleasure cruise: RC apparently wants the 26-year-old Hand to help it brainstorm for a name for another upcoming ship. (The LA Times doesn't think it's an April Fools' joke, but a fan blog isn't so sure.) "Like the rest of the world, we fell in love with the name Boaty McBoatface when we heard it, and we knew immediately that Royal Caribbean could use James Hand's talent to name our next ship," CEO Michael Bayley says. Hand, who has called his whole experience "bonkers," isn't granting interviews at the moment, but he tells USA Today in an email through a third party that "the offer came as a massive surprise, as has all of the interest since I submitted the name Boaty McBoatface." Meanwhile, Bayley says Hand could have a sweet future in the business of ship-naming: "Who knows, perhaps he could name all our future ships. James Hand, Chief Naming Officer, Royal Caribbean International. It has a nice ring to it."
– Twitter officially joined the crowded world of online music today with the launch of its Twitter Music app. The premise is to help users find music via Twitter in a few different ways—through the bands you follow, what's trending on the site, what your connections are listening to, etc., reports Good Morning America. For now, it will draw from Pandora, Spotify, and iTunes, the company says in a blog post. (Business Insider offers a run-through of how the app works. "It's gorgeous," writes Steve Kovach. It's available on iTunes, but Twitter says an Android version is on the way.) Some initial reactions: Darrell Etherington, TechCrunch: It's "great-looking, both on the web and on the desktop, and it works well enough once you have an active Rdio or Spotify account. ... But for the average user looking for a way to discover new music, the field is rich and Twitter #Music’s current capabilities are relatively paltry." Brian Barrett, Gizmodo: "The most appealing part of Twitter Music at first blush seems to be the easy breezy discovery of what complete strangers—some of them famous—are listening to at any given moment. Less appealing? The fact that it's cordoned off as a separate app (or browser tab)."
– Those who lived in what is now Bolivia more than 1,000 years ago likely wound up at the end of their days in what USA Today calls an "ancient mortuary." There, the morticians of their day dissected the bodies and boiled the various parts in pots of quicklime, which dissolved the flesh and left "plastered bones" in place. Archaeologists theorize that the nomadic population of the day then took the larger bones with them—"portable ancestors for a mobile population," as one of the researchers from Franklin & Marshall College tells the newspaper. The find suggests that "the dead still played an active and important role in the lives of the living." The ritual of the boiling may have been significant in itself, notes io9, citing this passage from the study: "The reaction produced by adding quicklime to water is a violent one, where heat is produced and gas is released," write the researchers. "This would have been quite an impressive sensory experience," and one that may have invoked an "otherworldly realm." Those who lived in this region of the Andes Mountains back then were on the move much of the time, but it appears that the site of the "mortuary," called Khonkho Wankane, gradually became more and more important because of this end-of-life ritual. (Click to read about how other ancients used flour to predict the future.)
– When Lucy Johnson was reported missing in Surrey, BC, in 1965—four years after she actually disappeared—police suspected her husband. They even dug up his yard, but no trace of the woman was ever found. That is, until Johnson's daughter, Linda Evans, who was seven or eight when her mom vanished, decided on a whim to place ads in northern BC newspapers last month asking for information on her long-lost mom, who had links to the north, the Surrey Leader reports. Not expecting to hear much news about the 52-year-old mystery, she was amazed to find an entirely new family instead. "The original daughter of Lucy Johnson, who went above and beyond to promote and try to generate tips all over BC, actually somehow connected with a stepsister, who she did not know she had at the time," a police rep explains to the CBC. It turns out Johnson, now 77 with another family—including three sons and a daughter—was alive and well in Yukon. "The police phoned me and said 'we found your mom' and I said 'no, I found my mom,'" says Evans, who hopes to visit her mom to get some answers. But mainly, "I just hope I can be part of her life," she says.
– The Waldo Canyon fire blazing through Colorado Springs has claimed its first victim: Human remains were found in one burned home, police announced last night, and a second person living in the home is missing, the Gazette reports. Ten people in all are still unaccounted for. Nearly 350 homes have been destroyed so far in the wildfire, the most destructive in Colorado's history. The Denver Post has heartbreaking stories from evacuees, like the couple who lost their home on their daughter's first birthday. But ABC News has perhaps one of the saddest stories of all: Emily Franklin, 18 and a rookie firefighter battling her first fire this week, watched her own home burn in the Estes Park fire, another wildfire in the state. "I look through the trees and see fire going under our deck, and I was like, 'I think that's my house,'" she says. "It goes up, and I was like, 'That's my house!" Even so, she kept working. President Obama, visiting Colorado today, issued a disaster declaration for the state so that federal funds can be made available, the AP adds. Click for more photos of the devastation.
– Vladimir Putin just took his bromance with Steven Seagal to a whole new level. The Russian leader has signed an executive order granting Seagal Russian citizenship, reports the BBC. A Kremlin rep says Seagal "was asking for citizenship persistently and for quite a long time," and his soft spot for Russia—the American actor once described Putin as "one of the greatest world leaders" and Russian's actions in Crimea as "very reasonable"—helped make it possible, per the Guardian. Seagal, whose father was Russian, says he's "tremendously grateful" for the honor and plans to "work tirelessly" until the US and Russia are "best friends and allies," per TASS.
– Oscar-winner Sean Penn is suing director Lee Daniels for comparing him to another actor, Terrence Howard, in terms of their alleged history of abusing women, E! Online reports. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Empire co-creator Daniels discusses Empire star Howard being sued by his ex-wife for domestic violence. "[Terrence] ain't done nothing different than Marlon Brando or Sean Penn, and all of a sudden he's some [expletive] demon," Daniels says. "That's a sign of the time, of race, of where we are right now in America." Penn's lawsuit filed today in New York calls that statement "reckless, false, and defamatory," E! reports. He's seeking $10 million in damages. "Sean has been subjected to false, baseless, and reckless attacks for years, and this is only the most recent example," his attorney tells E! The lawsuit alleges Howard has publicly admitted to abusing at least one woman and has been arrested five or so times for violence against women. On the other hand, the lawsuit boasts Penn—who it refers to as one "of the greatest actors and humanitarians of our time"—has never been arrested or convicted for domestic violence. But Slate reports Penn was arrested for allegedly tying his then-wife Madonna to a chair and physically and emotionally abusing her for hours in 1987. Madonna later dropped the charges.
– Osama bin Laden is dead, the New York Times reports. Few details yet, but the newspaper (and just about every other media outlet now) quotes a US official saying the al-Qaeda leader has been killed in a "targeted assault" by US forces. CNN says that it happened in Pakistan, and that other members of his family were killed as well. President Obama is to inform the nation tonight. A source tells AP that it's no guessing game: The US has bin Laden's body. (Update: Obama confirms to the nation.) The news of the 54-year-old bin Laden's death comes nearly 10 years after the 9/11 attacks. The development presumably leaves Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's No. 2, in charge—assuming he wasn't with bin Laden. (Click to read how the news set off spontaneous celebrations outside the White House.)
– The Earth will be having a close call—astronomically speaking—when a 65-foot-wide asteroid buzzes past on Thursday, the Christian Science Monitor reports. According to AFP, asteroid 2012 TC4 will come within 27,000 miles of Earth—about one-eighth the distance between the Earth and moon and about 5,000 miles above most of the satellites orbiting Earth. There's no chance the asteroid will hit the Earth, but its proximity will be used to test an asteroid warning system. 2012 TC4 will make further passes by Earth in 2050 and 2079, and there is a chance it could make impact on the latter fly-by. "Things do hit other things, and we’re not special in that regard,” the associate director of the International Astronomical Union tells the Monitor. The asteroid is at No. 13 on the "risk list" of objects that could impact Earth.
– Angie Jackson wants to take the veil off of abortion. The blogger and mother of one became pregnant when her IUD failed, found out too late to take the morning-after pill, but because of health risks has turned unapologetically to RU-486. And she's live-tweeting the entire experience. “I’m doing this to de-mystify abortion,” she says, “so other women know, ‘Hey, it’s not nearly as terrifying as I had myself worked up thinking it was.” Jackson isn’t the first woman to publicly share her abortion—Jessica Wakeman of TheFrisky enumerates others—but she is, as far as Wakeman can tell, the first to use Twitter to do it. You can follow Jackson’s Twitter feed here.
– Britney Spears and—as TMZ put it—"some other girl" appeared in New York today to present themselves as new judges on Simon Cowell's X Factor. That "other girl" has 15 Billboard Hot 100 hits, by the way, and her name is Demi Lovato. A photo of the two singing gals alongside Cowell and LA Reid appeared on Britney's Twitter page before the official announcement, reports Billboard, so Spears preempted the roll-out a second time (the first when her stunning $15 million contract broke online.)
– The allegations of sexual assault plaguing Bill Cosby have inspired a former member of the all-girl rock band the Runaways to come forward with her own story of rape. Bassist Jackie Fuchs, aka Jackie Fox, says male band manager Kim Fowley raped her at a motel party in 1975 when she was just 16. Now 55 and a lawyer, Fuchs says an apparent roadie told her to take a Quaalude "no questions asked" after the Runaways performed a New Year's Eve show in Orange County, Calif., reports the Huffington Post in a lengthy profile of the band. Witnesses share their recollection of the moment with HuffPo: As Fuchs lay unconscious on a bed in a crowded room, Fowley took off her clothes, raped her with the handle of a hairbrush, and then had sex with her. "I remember opening my eyes, Kim Fowley was raping me," Fuchs says. She recalls seeing bandmates Joan Jett and Cherie Currie watching. "Jackie was dead, dead, dead drunk—like corpse drunk. She was just laying down on her back, sound asleep, out of it," says Runaways co-founder Kari Krome, who was 14 at the time, adding Fowley sexually assaulted her several times when she was a young, aspiring songwriter. Fowley, who died of cancer in January, maintained he had no inappropriate sexual dealings with the bandmates, reports the Guardian. A rep for Jett says she denies "witnessing the event as it has been described." However, a witness says Jett told him he "needed to deny being in the motel room that night" in case Fuchs tried to sue when she left the band in 1977. Fuchs says the assault was behind her departure, per the New York Daily News. Read "The Lost Girls" in full.
– The 54-year-old man police say killed a former NFL player during a road rage incident Thursday in Louisiana had been arrested and charged for a road rage incident at the exact same intersection 10 years ago, USA Today reports. In 2006, a man saw a truck driving unsafely and called the number on the back of the truck to report it. Ronald Gasser, the driver, answered the phone, got into an argument with the man, and followed him to a gas station, where he allegedly attacked him. Assault charges against Gasser were dismissed, and according to NBC Sports, the sheriff's office isn't sure why. This time, Gasser may not even be charged. Police say Gasser shot 28-year-old Joe McKnight three times Thursday without ever getting out of his car. A witness tells the Times-Picayune that McKnight was trying to apologize when he was shot; she says the shooter shot McKnight again while he was on the ground. Gasser was taken into custody but released without charges. It's unclear if any are coming. Louisiana law makes it legal to kill if you feel threatened, and Gasser is claiming self defense. Police say McKnight was unarmed and had no weapon in his vehicle. “You tell [me] how can a man murder someone go get to sleep in his bed at night. But my brother can’t. What the hell am I to tell my nephew,” the New Yorker quotes McKnight's former teammate Antonio Cromartie.
– British meteorologists say up to 20,000 lightning strikes hit the UK during a powerful overnight thunderstorm, reports the AP, and a London-area airport is reporting flight disruptions after an aircraft refueling system was damaged. London Stansted Airport said Sunday that a lightning strike had rendered the fueling system "unavailable for a period this morning. Engineers have been on site and have now restored the system, however flights may still be subject to diversion, delay or cancellation." Britain is in the middle of a holiday weekend, and budget airline Ryanair couldn't say how many flights had been affected at the airport, but was offering full refunds to some. Meteorologist Charlie Powell said information suggested there were "somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 strikes across the UK during the overnight period;" the BBC says 15,000 strikes were recorded in a four-hour period. The Express quotes a meteorologist who calls it "the mother of all thunderstorms."
– Harry Reid and John Boehner each made progress in their quest for votes yesterday—but that actually drove them further away from a compromise. House Republicans and Senate Democrats “seemed to operate in alternate realities,” the New York Times observes, with each sure the other would eventually cave and accept their bill. If there’s hope for a compromise, it might come from Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell, who according to Politico are in talks on how to end the showdown. To build support for his bill, Boehner tweaked it to raise its disappointing CBO score to $917 billion in savings—mostly through technical changes that took CBO accounting practices into account. But 53 Senators, including two independents, signed a letter saying they wouldn’t pass the House bill. The standoff spooked investors and sent stocks plummeting—the Dow fell 199 points, with the Nasdaq and S&P down 75 and 27, respectively, according to MarketWatch. The Treasury is preparing for the worst, too; by the end of the week, it says it will lay out who will and won’t get paid if a deal isn’t reached.
– A big batch of emails among current and former Chris Christie aides is out, and while no bombshells appear to be in the mix, one exchange in particular is getting a lot of attention. Weeks before bridgegate, Christie's then deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, joked with former Port Authority official David Wildstein about a local rabbi, Mendy Carlebach. It begins with Wildstein emailing a photo of Carlebach. Wildstein: "And he has officially pissed me off." (It's not clear why.) Kelly: "Clearly. We cannot cause traffic problems in front of his house, can we?" Wildstein: "Flights to Tel Aviv all mysteriously delayed." Kelly: "Perfect." The Star-Ledger quotes state Assemblyman John Wisniewski, who is leading an investigation into the Fort Lee traffic mess, as saying the emails show a "kind of a juvenile, cavalier attitude toward their official responsibilities and joking about the power they had to create traffic or delay flights.” The New York Times story includes a similar take: The emails "lend new context to the highly charged environment in which Mr. Christie’s aides operated, an atmosphere of political paybacks where the planned lane closings for Fort Lee could be joked about as a weapon to be wielded against people who irked or defied them." As for the rabbi, he's bewildered. "I have totally no idea," he tells the Bergen Record when asked what he did to tick off the aides. "None of it makes any sense."
– In Chicago, next year is here. At exactly 11:47pm local time Wednesday night, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series title that had eluded them for 108 years. Fans who packed bars to watch the games on television near Wrigley Field—neither of which existed back in 1908—erupted in cheers before swarming onto the streets just before midnight to celebrate in the shadows of the statues of Cubs greats Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ron Santo, and legendary announcer Harry Caray, the AP reports. As the game ended, the roar from inside the bars and the throngs of fans on the streets was deafening. The crowds inside and out sang "go, Cubs, go" at the top of their lungs. As the celebration of the 8-7 win over the Cleveland Indians in Game 7 progressed, thousands of fans poured into the streets leading away from Wrigley, many of them singing "We Are the Champions." Fans hugged each other, many of them crying, and took turns writing their names and words of congratulations in chalk on Wrigley's brick walls. Longtime Cubs fan Bob Newhart, who grew up in the Chicago area, tweeted: "The billy goat is dead!! As I've said, from the beginning, I'm getting too old for this!" The 87-year-old comedian was alluding to the curse allegedly placed on the team during the 1945 World Series by the owner of the Billy Goat Tavern after he was told his pet goat wasn't welcome at Wrigley.
– Omar Mateen used Facebook before—and even during—the Orlando mass shooting, ranting against the West and searching for posts on the massacre, according to a lawmaker's letter to Mark Zuckerberg. Sen. Ron Johnson, GOP chair of the Homeland Security Committee, quotes posts including: "The real muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the west" and "You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes ... now taste the Islamic state vengeance" in a letter asking Zuckerberg for his assistance investigating the attack, the AP reports. According to Johnson, Mateen searched Facebook for "Pulse Orlando" and "shooting" on Sunday morning, apparently when the mass shooting was already underway. In other developments: Mateen was kicked out of high school in the ninth grade for fighting, according to records seen by the Washington Post. The records also state that he used marijuana and steroids and had been convicted of a crime, though records do not specify the offense. A student at Indian River State College tells NBC News that Mateen was rejected from a six-month law enforcement training program last year. Mateen's father, Seddique Mateen, says he "worked very hard to put him in the police academy." News 13 reports that Mateen called the station during the rampage, telling producer Matthew Gentili, "I'm the shooter. It's me. I am the shooter." Gentili says the caller said he "did it for ISIS." It's too early to say whether Mateen's wife, Noor Salman, will face charges, the US Attorney for the Middle District of Florida tells the Orlando Sentinel. Lee Bentley promises that "no stone will be left unturned" and that "you will not find a more exhaustive or thorough investigation anywhere else in the United States." Insiders say Salman told federal agents that she tried to talk Mateen out of the shooting. The Miami Herald reports that Orlando has opened a center at the Citrus Bowl Stadium to deal with bereaved family members. The city is also bracing for the arrival of anti-gay protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church. The New York Times spoke to Joshua Stephany, Orlando’s chief medical examiner, who lost count of how many autopsies he performed this week. "Take a typical homicide scene, multiply it by 50, even that just won't prepare you for what you see," he says. Stephany says that out of respect for the victims, Mateen's body is being kept in a separate area of the morgue that is normally used for decomposing bodies. (A Pulse survivor says Mateen claimed he wanted to spare black people.)
– The second day of Anders Behring Breivik's trial began today, and the accused Norway terrorist took the stand for what was supposed to be a 30-minute statement explaining his actions. Instead, Breivik went on for 65 minutes and was interrupted four times by a judge who asked him to shorten his 13-page statement. Breivik ranted against liberalism, immigration, and multiculturalism, and compared the Norwegian Labour Party's youth camp that he attacked to the Hitler Youth, but claimed that he "lowered the rhetoric out of consideration for the victims." Excerpts, per the Telegraph and the BBC: "I have done the most sophisticated and spectacular political attack seen in Europe since the Second World War." On the US McCarthy witch hunts: "McCarthy was far too moderate. He thought about deporting all American communists to the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, he did not do so." "Were [Sitting Bull and other native American chiefs] terrorists because they fought for indigenous rights? Were they evil terrorists or were they heroes? In the same way militant nationalists in Europe are seen as evil because they fight for the same ideals." "These acts are based on goodness, not evil," he said of his attacks, adding, "Yes, I would have done it again. These were not innocent, non-political children, but these were people who actively worked to uphold multicultural values." "I cannot plead guilty. I acted in defense of my culture and of my people and so I ask to be acquitted." Later, Breivik said he admires al-Qaeda because it is the "most successful revolutionary force in the world."
– Russia has rejected calls to stop arming and training Bashar al-Assad's regime, despite evidence that its weapons are being used against civilians. "Russia enjoys good and strong military technical co-operation with Syria, and we see no reason today to reconsider it," Russia's deputy defense minister said yesterday, insisting that existing contracts will be honored. The two countries have been closely linked for decades and Syria hosts Russia's only naval base outside the former Soviet Union, the Independent notes. The evidence is mounting as to how brutal Syria's crackdown on the year-old uprising has been: In a report out today, Amnesty International found that Assad's regime regularly tortures prisoners using sticks, rifle butts, cords, and sexual assault, reports the AP. In addition to the 7,500 estimated killed so far, the crackdown continues to claim dozens of lives daily and human rights groups say land mines have been planted along the routes refugees are using to flee the violence. Assad's forces have now recaptured most of Idlib, a rebel stronghold near the border with Turkey that had been held by hundreds of military defectors, the AP reports.
– Former Korean Air executive Heather Cho will spend a year behind bars over an epic case of "nut rage" that her sentencing judge said hurt the "national image" of South Korea. The daughter of the airline's chairman, Cho was found guilty of obstructing aviation safety after a Dec. 5 incident in which she threw a tantrum and forced her taxiing plane to return to the gate at JFK Airport so the chief flight attendant could be removed—all because Cho was served macadamia nuts in a bag rather than on a dish, the BBC reports. "Human dignity was trampled upon," a judge said today, noting Cho acted "as if it was her own private plane." The judge added that Cho, in custody since December, wasn't remorseful, and letters of apology submitted to the court describing her newfound humility didn't seem genuine. South Koreans are taking no small amount of glee in the downfall of the scion of one of its "chaebol," or family-controlled mega-businesses often run like personal empires, reports the AP. The chief flight attendant testified that Cho became like "a beast looking for her prey, grinding her teeth, yelling" during the incident and made him and the attendant who served her apologize on their knees "like slaves in a medieval era," the New York Times reports. Prosecutors had asked for a three-year prison sentence based partly on additional charges of using her position to obstruct due process and assault with a service manual. The judge said Cho's twins, under 2 years old, factored into the sentencing, Reuters reports. Another Korean Air executive was sentenced to eight months in prison for pushing crew members to lie to investigators. (The incident caused macadamia sales to surge.)
– Bretagne's Sweet 16 birthday party was an impressive affair: She flew into New York City, took a limo ride to her hotel suite, ate room service, saw her face on a Times Square billboard, and played in Central Park. It was a very different visit from the rescue dog's first to the city, when she helped owner Denise Corliss search for people trapped beneath World Trade Center debris following Sept. 11, reports USA Today. Believed to be the only rescue dog still alive of about 100 who took part in the mission, Bretagne was recently given a celebration worthy of one who brought comfort and support to victims, courtesy of blog BarkPost. For more on the day, check out the video.
– A trial is needed to determine if Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" copies its opening notes from a song performed by the rock band Spirit, a federal judge has ruled. US District Judge R. Gary Klausner ruled Friday that lawyers for the trustee of late Spirit guitarist Randy Wolfe had shown enough evidence to support a case that "Stairway to Heaven" copies music from the Spirit song "Taurus." "Taurus" was written by Wolfe in either 1966 or 1967, years before Led Zeppelin released "Stairway to Heaven" in 1971. Klausner wrote that while the songs have some differences, lawyers for Wolfe's trustee may be able to prove they are substantially similar, reports the AP. Led Zeppelin and Spirit performed at some concerts and festivals around the same time, but not on the same stage. Klausner wrote that the evidence presented so far represented a circumstantial case that Led Zeppelin may have heard "Taurus" performed before "Stairway to Heaven" was created. Experts hired by Led Zeppelin contend both songs use notes that have been used in music for centuries. The attorney for Wolfe's trustee, Michael Skidmore, praised the ruling, saying it brings his client one step closer to getting Wolfe credit for helping create one of the most recognizable song introductions in rock history. Skidmore was able to overcome statutes of limitations because "Stairway to Heaven" was remastered and re-released in 2014. A jury trial is set for May 10 in Los Angeles. (Click for 30 songs that are probably rip-offs.)
– A hunter in Tampa, Fla., mistook a man practicing turkey calls for a deer Sunday night and shot him—twice—with a high-powered rifle. Amazingly, he survived, Opposing Views and the New York Times report. Clint Galentine, 37, was walking with a friend in a wildlife management area when the bullets hit him in the left side; one shot passed through his arm and broke a bone. The hunter, 43-year-old Michael Trott, rushed over and apologized as Galentine and his buddy wrapped up his arm. "I don't know how he mistakenly thought we were animal[s]," Galentine said. What's more, Galentine says he saw a sign on the trail reading "Boundary Closed to Hunting"—but he overlooked the fine print that said, "access is provided at designated access points." And Trott, 43, had the required firearm and hunting licenses, officials say. Now Galentine, who often walks the path with his 8-year-old daughter, is having trouble speaking and may have suffered permanent damage. "I do not know who enforces those rules, but it definitely needs to be stepped up," he said. "[If] I was there with my daughter, she would not be here right now."
– It's official: John Kelly is leaving the White House. "John Kelly will be leaving toward the end of the year," said President Trump while heading out for the Army-Navy game Saturday, USA Today reports. Rumors had been swirling after White House sources said Kelly was on his way out—and Nick Ayers, Vice President Mike Pence's most senior aide, might be taking his place, per the Wall Street Journal. "Stop calling John [Kelly] for anything," President Trump was quoted as saying. "Call Nick. He's my guy." But Trump aides warned that Ayers was more a Pence advocate, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly criticized Ayers' foreign-policy skills. On the plus side, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner—who have bristled under Kelly's command-and-control style as chief of staff—are said to be pro-Ayers. Kelly repeatedly clashed with Trump and lost some West Wing authority during his 17-month tenure, per CNN. A former Marine Corps general, Kelly imposed discipline on a freewheeling White House but saw Trump work around his who-gets-to-see-Trump-when rules. Kelly also made his own problems, erupting in a profanity-laced exchange with national security adviser John Bolton, engaging in a "near brawl" with informal Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski, slamming Rep. Frederica Wilson with false information, and apparently mishandling the abuse scandal around ex-staff secretary Rob Porter. Kelly also denied reports that he'd called Trump "an idiot" and considered himself "the lone bulwark against catastrophe" in Trump's White House. Trump called Kelly "a great guy" in announcing his departure.
– Los Angeles has announced the country's biggest police body camera program so far, with plans to buy 7,000 cameras to record every LAPD officer's interaction with the public. The rollout will begin with 800 body cameras funded by $1.5 million in private donations, and Mayor Eric Garcetti says his next budget will provide funds for thousands more, Gizmodo reports. The cameras "are not a panacea, but they are a critical part of the formula," the mayor said at a press conference yesterday. "The trust between a community and its police department can be eroded in a single moment. Trust is built on transparency." Steve Soboroff, chief of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, helped raise money for the cameras. He calls the plan a "very big deal" that could set a precedent for other big-city police forces, the LA Times reports. "There are more and more advantages of having cameras than we've ever thought," he says. The body camera plan has been in the works for at least a year, before a spate of controversial officer-involved deaths in cities including Cleveland, New York, and Ferguson, Mo., CBS Los Angeles reports. Many police forces are still only in the testing phase for body cameras, although Ferguson cops started wearing them in September.
– China has been hit with yet another train-station slashing, with multiple attackers wounding six people this morning. It's the third such incident in less than three months, the AP notes; just last week, three were killed at a station in Xinjiang province. Neither the attackers nor their cause has been identified in the latest brutality, but Reuters notes that there were at least two of them, and possibly four. The violence occurred at a train station in Guangdong, capital of the Guangzhou province, where police arrived with the attack under way. "After verbal warnings were ineffective, police fired, hitting one male suspect holding a knife, and subdued him," police said. Police caught another suspect as he tried to escape, according to an official news daily. One victim was critically wounded, police say. The attackers were dressed in white, with white hats; their knives were 20 inches long, said a local report, via Reuters. A store owner offered an eyewitness account: The attackers, he said, crouched on the ground for two hours near the shop as they covered their bags in clothes. Suddenly, they pulled knives from the bags and, with a yell, started hacking at victims. Recent similar attacks have been blamed on extremists in the far west of China, the AP notes.
– If he were a betting man, it doesn't sound like President Trump would be betting on a short-term budget agreement passing Congress by Friday. In brief comments to reporters outside the Pentagon Thursday, Trump said there "could very well be" a shutdown. "We'll see what happens. It's up to the Democrats," Politico quotes him as saying. That seems to be Mitch McConnell's line, too. Politico reports—by way of GOP sources and an email from McConnell it viewed—that should the short-term funding bill the GOP is pushing not pass by the Friday deadline, McConnell plans to try to foist the blame for the ensuing shutdown on Democrats and their DACA-related demands, particularly those Democrats whose seat will be up for grabs this fall and who hail from states Trump won (there are 10, Politico notes). The reported strategy is for McConnell to keep the Senate in session all weekend and arrange a slew of votes that could put Dems in a bad light, should they continually vote against things like the Children’s Health Insurance Program. If a shutdown does kick in at midnight Friday, the AP reports the impact would be evident but not paralyzing. Federal workers would be impacted and national parks could close, but essential things—Social Security payments, Homeland Security, the military, air traffic control, food inspection—would truck on. There could be an economic cost, though. In a great primer on what a shutdown could mean, the Los Angeles Times notes that the 16-day 2013 shutdown dropped Q4 GDP growth from 3% to 2.4%, per Standard & Poor's estimates.
– Almost half of parents have concerns about their kids playing football, but according to a new AP-GfK poll, they're not exactly yanking their offspring off the field in the kind of droves that will "kill pro football." Some 44% of parents were "not comfortable" letting their child punt and pass the pigskin, but only 5% said they had actually "discouraged" their kids from playing over the last two years, reports the AP. The majority of the 1,044 adults interviewed for the poll said they didn't have a problem with their kids playing most other sports, including baseball, basketball, and soccer—though the New York Times reports that FIFA was sued yesterday by a group of soccer parents and players over its handling of concussions. Feeding into parents' fears are high-profile deaths of pros like Junior Seau and a pending class-action settlement that would pay "thousands of former NFL players for concussion-related claims," notes NFL.com. But the National Federation of State High School Associations says that participation in high school football actually rose last year, after four straight years of losses. One possible explanation: With the NFL and NCAA finally acknowledging the seriousness of head injuries in the league, and college teams testing the next generation of head protection, some parents are feeling better about their kids on the field. "There's a lot of publicity on [concussions] now … I'm not as worried," one parent tells the AP.
– Almost 80 years after Adolf Hitler picked a design for a massive seaside resort for weary German workers to recharge their batteries, the Prora complex is finally popular. The mammoth Nazi-era complex on a Baltic Sea island is being redeveloped into apartments and hotels—and with the German property market heating up, buyers seem willing to ignore its tainted past, reports the Wall Street Journal. "I am happy to see that this building is being made into nice vacation apartments. It was always ruins," a buyer who plans to move in this fall tells the Journal. "The buildings were built in a dark, bad time. Now they are being transformed." The Nazis put the project on hold in 1939 and the complex, designed to accommodate 20,000 people, was used by the Soviet Union and the German military after the war before being left to decay for years. The transformation comes amid a wider redevelopment of Nazi-era buildings into residential properties, and although it has been dubbed "Hitler's resort," developers dismiss controversy around the Prora project. It was "always about tourism, so it doesn't have such a negative history," the director of one of the site's developers tells the Guardian, which notes that since the property has been deemed historic, the German government is subsidizing sales. (Archaeologists say they've unearthed a Nazi hideout deep in a South American jungle.)
– The first Russian critter on Mars likely won't be a mouse, if the results of a month-long "space ark" mission are anything to go by. A capsule containing 45 mice, along with eight gerbils, 15 newts, crayfish, snails, and other small animals, landed yesterday with more than half the mice and all of the gerbils dead after a month spent 357 miles above the Earth, the AP reports. The fate of the newts is a bit unclear, with the AP reporting that all 15 "lizards" survived, and Space Reporter noting most newts died. The deaths weren't all due to the ravages of space; some were the result of equipment failure, scientists tell PhysOrg. "This is the first time that animals have been put in space on their own for so long," a researcher says, adding that despite the casualties, enough of the rodents survived for the study into the effects of weightlessness on cell structure to be completed. The animal test is expected to provide scientists with vital information on how humans might fare on a voyage to Mars.
– If you happened to tune into a diving event Tuesday, you probably noticed the pool at Rio's outdoor aquatics center was "as green as split-pea soup," as the National Post puts it—or "close to the color swatch movie set designers turn to when they want to make something look radioactive," per Vox. Indeed, just a day earlier the outdoor pool had appeared crystal clear. Vox floated several theories, including an insane amount of urine in the pool, or perhaps a corroding pipe. (BuzzFeed also rounds up theories and reaction.) An official statement from Rio's organizing committee said the cause was under investigation, though a spokesman late Tuesday chalked it up to a "proliferation of algae" whipped up by "heat and a lack of wind," reports the AP. "it will be blue from now on," he promised. But as an image at Gizmodo shows, the problem appears to have shown up Wednesday in the neighboring water polo pool. Officials had previously said the green water posed no danger to athletes, and one half of Canada's women’s synchronized diving pair, who won bronze on the 10-meter platform Tuesday, certainly didn't mind. "[Diving] is a visual sport and you have to see the water," Meaghan Benfeito tells the Post. "The fact that it was completely different from the sky really helped us." (Team USA won multiple gold medals in a separate pool Tuesday.)
– The shooter who wounded six co-workers at a FedEx shipping facility near Atlanta today before killing himself has been identified as 19-year-old Geddy Kramer, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We’re dealing with our own loss and wishing the best to everyone who was affected,” said the gunman's father, Scott Kramer. “We make no excuses for his actions and are shocked and devastated by them,” he added. Police say they have a general idea of the motive but aren't ready to make it public. Of the six people that Kramer wounded, one remained in critical condition with life-threatening injuries this evening, three were in stable condition, and two were treated and released, reports AP. Police say Kramer had a shotgun and Molotov cocktails, though he did not use the latter in his attack. He fatally shot himself before police arrived. "It was chaos," recalls a FedEx truck driver who arrived at work about 6am and saw that a security guard had been shot. "Everyone was running, ducking and hiding, trying to get out of there."
– Three Russian tanks have made their way into eastern Ukraine by way of a rebel-controlled checkpoint, according to Ukraine's interior minister, the BBC reports. Arsen Avakov says the tanks, along with armored troop carriers, entered via the Luhansk region then rolled into the adjacent Donetsk region, where they made way to the town of Snizhne; a Reuters correspondent reports seeing three tanks there. Per Avakov, two have since moved to the town of Horlivka, where Ukrainian forces engaged them and a "fight is underway." Russia has not commented on Avakov's accusations that it let the tanks cross.
– Using Kickstarter to fund an indie movie is officially a Hollywood thing now. After the folks behind Veronica Mars proved it could be done, Zach Braff is taking his turn, reports the Hollywood Reporter. The Scrubs star aims to raise $2 million for his Wish I Was Here project, about a struggling actor forced into home-schooling his kids. Braff hopes to repeat the success of his cult hit Garden State, and he's well on his way: In its first hours, his Kickstarter page had already raised nearly $1 million.
– Small scuffles broke out Saturday as police in Portland, Oregon, deployed "flash bang" devices and other means to disperse hundreds of right-wing and self-described anti-fascist protesters, the AP reports. Just before 2pm, police in riot gear ordered people to leave an area downtown, saying demonstrators had thrown rocks and bottles at officers. "Get out of the street," police announced via loudspeaker. There were arrests, but it wasn't immediately clear how many. There was also debris left in the streets by various protesters. A reporter for the Oregonian was injured when he was struck by a projectile during the protests, per the AP; Eder Campuzano was bloodied but says in a tweet that he's "okay" and is going to get evaluated. Demonstrators aligned with Patriot Prayer and an affiliated group, the Proud Boys, gathered around mid-day in a riverfront park. The hundreds of opposing demonstrators faced them from across the street, holding banners and signs. Many of them yelled out chants such as "Nazis go home." Officers stood in the middle of the four-lane boulevard, essentially forming a wall to keep the two sides separated. The counter-protesters were made up of a coalition of labor unions, immigrant rights advocates, democratic socialists, and other groups. They included people dressed as clowns and a brass band blaring music. The rally organized by Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson was the third to roil Portland this summer. Two previous events ended in bloody fistfights and riots, and one counter-protester was sent to the hospital with a skull fracture. Click for more.
– Some 7,000 chickens on their way to be slaughtered had an unexpected shot at freedom Tuesday when the truck transporting them crashed into a bridge in Austria, spilling its load on the highway. Traffic on the A1 autobahn into Vienna was snarled for hours as authorities cleared the scene of dead birds and tried to catch the survivors, thousands of which ran onto both sides of the highway, the Local reports. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports that it took 120 firefighters four hours to catch all the stray chickens. A police spokesman tells CNN that the driver says he hit a bridge pillar after falling into a "second-long sleep." No humans were hurt in the accident.
– Rumors of Prince's money troubles continue: Lawyers involved in the probate battle over the musician's estate say taxes due to the state and the IRS could slash the worth of his estate in half, NBC News reports. Experts have estimated the cash value of Prince's estate at $300 million, but if he died without that much money on hand, things will have to get sold in order to pay the taxes that are due by Jan. 21. The Minneapolis Star Tribune notes that the case underscores "the complexity and pressures involved in a fortune built mainly on intangible intellectual property." What could end up getting sold off? Any unreleased songs in Prince's vault, rights to his music and his image, digital streaming revenue, and possibly his home, guitars, and other tangible items. The lawyers for the company overseeing Prince's estate urged a judge Tuesday to make quick decisions in the fight over who is the rightful heir (nine people, including several relatives and this guy, have filed formal claims), because if the tax deadline is missed, the government "will have a fire sale, and that is not in the best interests of anyone." Prince apparently died without a will.
– Four decades after the Vietnam War, Jim Reischl still remembers how her long hair fell down her back that night in a bar in Saigon. He remembers the drink he bought her—a cup of tea—and her name, Linh Hoa. He also remembers some of the last words she spoke to him before he shipped out in 1970 at age 21: "She told me she was pregnant," he tells the Washington Post. Reischl, now 67, had been warned by his Air Force superiors that it could be a trap to get him to take the sex worker back to America with him, and he never found out if it was just a line, though he's returned to Vietnam four times searching for an answer. Now in his golden years, he's one of several vets hoping to reunite with the women—and perhaps the children—they left behind in Vietnam, sometimes after lengthy relationships, with help from volunteer website FatherFounded.org. The website connected Reischl with a translator so he could place ads in local papers. He tried to find the apartment he shared with Linh Hoa and even underwent hypnosis in an attempt to remember the mailing address he threw away when she didn't respond to his letter. So far, he has no leads and only a faded old photograph he snapped from a cab. But "I will never stop looking," Reischl says. "I want her to tell me whether it’s true or not. Is there a child involved here? That's what I want to find out." Some 100,000 children were born of American fathers in Vietnam during the war, and 21,000 had moved to the US as of 2013, the New York Times reported, but only around 5% found their fathers. Hundreds still remain in Vietnam today. "We're at an age now we want to find out answers," another veteran says. "It's been in the dark for so many years. It would be nice to know before we pass away."
– The world's tallest waterslide has been shut down indefinitely while authorities investigate the tragic death of a lawmaker's son. Caleb Thomas Schwab, 10, died Sunday afternoon on the "Verruckt" waterslide at the Schlitterbahn waterpark in Kansas City, Kansas. The boy, son of state Rep. Scott Schwab, was at the park for "Elected Officials Day," a day of fun the park held for lawmakers and their families, the Kansas City Star. Authorities haven't said whether the boy fell from the 168-foot slide, which opened in 2014. "We honestly don't know what’s happened," a park spokeswoman told reporters. "That’s why a full investigation is necessary. We have to understand what’s happened." State lawmakers say their prayers are with Schwab, a Republican from Olathe. "As we try and mend our home with him no longer with us, we are comforted knowing he believed in his savior, Jesus, and they are forever together now," Schwab said in a statement, per Reuters. "We will see him another day." The slide—which is taller than the Statue of Liberty—sends riders down secured with straps in three-person rafts. It is "safe dangerous" and designed to attract the "thrill-seekers of the world," co-creator and park co-owner Jeff Henry told USA Today after it first opened. According to the park's website, riders are required to be at least 54 inches tall. The park shut down after the boy's death and will remain closed Monday.
– Starting Monday, residents of Montreal will no longer be allowed to own pit bulls "or pit bull-type dogs," the CBC reports. The controversial ban was put in place Tuesday by the city council, three months after a 55-year-old Montreal woman was killed by a neighbor's dog that entered her backyard (possibly through a hole in the fence, the Montreal Gazette reported at the time). The dog, which was shot and killed by police after it attacked one of the officers who responded to the scene, was originally reported to be a pit bull; however, authorities are still awaiting official DNA test results to determine the dog's breed, and the Humane Society claimed in July that the dog was registered as a boxer. The vote came down 37-23 in favor of the ban, which had been decried by animal rights advocates and protested by pit bull supporters. "This is very serious. It's not an object, it's not the right to seize a car—it's a right to take a member of your family and that should not (be) permitted," says one lawyer. But a city executive committee member argues, "A Montreal woman died because someone didn't have control of their dog." The ban will also include Staffordshire terriers, any mix including a banned breed, and "any dog that presents characteristics of one of those breeds." However, current owners can apply for a permit to be allowed to keep their pets. Animal rights advocates plan to launch a court challenge.
– After more than a century without any women on American paper money, there will soon be at least eight to choose from. The Treasury unveiled its plans for the new $20, $10, and $5 bills Wednesday, revealing that in addition to Harriet Tubman replacing Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20, suffragette and antislavery figures Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul will be on the new $10, which will keep Alexander Hamilton on the front. The new $5 will feature Marian Anderson and Eleanor Roosevelt on the back, as well as Martin Luther King Jr. A roundup of coverage: Andrew Jackson will be moving to the back of the $20, but a lot of people want him gone altogether, reports NBC News, which notes that for some, replacing the slave-holding Jackson with a former slave is "perfect historical payback." The Wall Street Journal contrasts the life stories of Tubman and Jackson, who fought to kill off the predecessor to the Federal Reserve. The New York Times recaps the stories of all the new faces coming to US currency, including Sojourner Truth, who was best known for her 1851 "Ain't I a Woman" address. CNN reports that Ben Carson has called for keeping Jackson where he is on the $20 and putting Tubman on the $2 bill instead. He didn't say what he wants to do with Thomas Jefferson, who's currently on the little-used bill. At the Washington Post, Philip Kennicott argues that the $20 should feature not the "primly dressed" and "grandmotherly" woman most images of Tubman depict, but the "ferociously brave and determined woman" depicted holding a gun in what was a "shockingly confrontational image" at the time. Change for the $20 will take time: The redesigns won't be unveiled until 2020, the Guardian reports. In a Medium post, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew explains the changes and why Tubman was chosen for the $20.
– In what must be one of the greatest sales feats on record, a Massachusetts man has managed to actually sell some of the absurd amount of snow that has fallen on the state this winter. Manchester-by-the-Sea resident Kyle Waring tells Boston.com that he got the idea for ShipSnowYo.com while shoveling the stuff, and he's now sold more than 100 16.9-ounce bottles of genuine Massachusetts snow for $19.99. Though the snow was treated with dry ice to lower its temp prior to shipping, many of the bottles melted long before they reached buyers around the country. But Waring says he is now selling 6-pound packages in insulated containers for $89, which will reach the customer in 20 hours, with enough snow remaining to make up to 15 snowballs. So who's buying the stuff? Waring says it "seems to be corporations paying for the $90 product as a funny gesture, where the $20 one is regular consumers." He says there have been no complaints about snow melting in transit. "They understand that we want to clean up Boston, so even if it does arrive as water, they get a kick out of it," he told Boston magazine earlier this month. His website stresses: "We will not ship snow to any states in the Northeast! We're in the business of expunging snow!" (The site's occasionally snarky tone—"Trapped in our tiny ass apartments and dealing with 3 hour long commutes ... we desperately need your help getting this snow out of our city!"—isn't dissimilar from that of another notorious mail-order site.)
– Three years and three months later, a massive oil spill in North Dakota still isn't fully cleaned up. The company responsible hasn't even set a date for completion. Though crews have been working around the clock to deal with the Tesoro Corp. pipeline break, which happened in a wheat field in September 2013, less than a third of the 840,000 gallons that spilled has been recovered. While the nearest home was a half-mile away and the state said no water sources were contaminated and no wildlife hurt, one of the largest onshore oil spills recorded in the US serves for some as a cautionary example, especially given a recent pipeline break in Belfield, about 150 miles south, and ongoing debates over the four-state Dakota Access pipeline. Texas-based company Tesoro and federal regulators have said a lightning strike may have caused the 2013 rupture in the pipeline, which runs from Tioga to a rail facility outside of Columbus, near the Canadian border. The cleanup has cost Tesoro more than $49 million to date and is expected to top $60 million, according to recent filings to the state. Crews have had to dig as deep as 50 feet to remove hundreds of thousands of tons of oil-tainted soil, North Dakota Health Department environmental scientist Bill Suess says. The company has now switched to special equipment that cooks hydrocarbons from crude-soaked soil in a process called thermal desorption before putting it back in place. Landowners, not the monitoring equipment in place, discovered both the Tesoro and Belfield breaks, reports the AP.
– A new survey on modern slavery around the world pegs the number of people in the US who fall into that category at about 400,000, reports the Guardian. The new Global Slavery Index also puts the number worldwide at 40.3 million and rising. While modern slaves in the US make up just a fraction of that figure, the group behind the survey—the Walk Free Foundation—says America plays a deeper role in the problem as the biggest importer of goods produced by suspected slave labor. The 2016 estimate was $144 billion worth of such goods. Other report highlights: Worst offenders: North Korea has the highest concentration of modern slaves, who account for 1 in 10 of the population, or 2.6 million people, reports CNN. Then comes Eritrea, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Mauritania, South Sudan, Pakistan, Cambodia, and Iran. Women hit hardest: The vast majority of modern slaves, 71%, are women, reports Axios. The usual route is through forced marriages. Solutions: The foundation calls for outlawing forced marriages, setting a minimum marriage age of 18, setting up a database of human trafficking cases, and bringing greater transparency to the world's supply chain. One victim: "Over 40 million people ... they are not numbers," says North Korean defector Yeon-mi Park, who escaped to China only to be forced into a marriage, per the AP. "It could be anyone. It was me. It was my mother. It was my sister. Even now, there are 300,000 North Korean defectors in China, and 90% of them are being trafficked. They are being sold by Chinese men for a few hundred dollars."
– Skype just got a lot more social. The voice and video calling service has announced a new partnership with Facebook, reports CNN. The new service will allow you to see your Facebook "news feed" while you Skype, and give users the ability to call 'friends' who use "Facebook Phone" via a single click. Also new: group video chat, which Skype says will be free for now but eventually will be fee-based. The goal is to "make it easy to find your friends anytime you want to connect," says a rep from the social networking site. Skype's latest iteration, which is now available for download, is designed for Windows. No word yet on whether or not Mac and Linux versions will follow. The Facebook integration comes as Skype gears up for a $100 million share issue, notes the BBC. Click here to watch Skype's announcement and here to read how Google is taking on Skype.
– "You're more than just plastic, you're more than amazing, you're more than fantastic," croons Toby Keith in his 2011 hit "Red Solo Cup," a song that Robert Leo Hulseman surely loved. The inventor of the plastic chalice known as the Red Solo Cup, who lived in both Illinois and Arizona, died on Dec. 21 at age 84, reports People. A death notice describes the devoted family man and father of 10 as a philanthropist, "an innovator, a hands-on manufacturing expert, and an industry pioneer." After starting at his father's Solo Cup Company at 18, Hulseman worked his way up and is credited with inventing the famous party cup at some point in the 1970s. He also developed the Traveler Lid, which has been featured at the Museum of Modern Art, notes the Miami Herald. Hulseman—who eventually rose to the position of CEO—is "owed a debt of thanks by virtually every American (and quite a few imbibers overseas) for his now-ubiquitous invention," the Red Solo Cup, with rings marking 1.5 ounces for liquor, 5 ounces for wine, and 12 ounces for beer, observes People. Before that product was introduced, the Solo Cup Company had mostly focused on cone-shaped paper cups. The precise history is a bit iffy, but "we know we were one of the first to introduce a party cup," a Solo rep told Slate in 2011. There may be competitors, but the Red Solo Cup remains a staple, with tweaks along the way to provide for better stability during, say, enthusiastic beer-pong matches. (More on the cup here.)
– Former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson authors a controversial new cover story for New York magazine, and the headline pretty much explains all: "The Case for Impeaching Clarence Thomas." The lengthy piece revisits the Supreme Court justice's infamous confirmation hearings, along with the allegations of harassment made by Anita Hill and others and concludes that "it's time to raise the possibility of impeachment." Not because Thomas talked about watching porn with a female colleague or otherwise behaved crudely in the workplace, but "because of the lies he told, repeatedly and under oath, saying he had never talked to Hill about porn or to other women who worked with him about risque subject matter," writes Abramson. Telling lies is a "cardinal sin" for lawyers, and "the idea of someone so flagrantly telling untruths to ascend to the highest legal position in the US remains shocking, in addition to its being illegal," writes Abramson. Read her full story here. Two notable reactions: No: The conservative National Review has a five-part rebuttal, the gist of which is captured in this line by Carrie Severino: Abramson's "obsessive quest to try and destroy Clarence Thomas (and pull her career out of free fall) has resulted in another 4,200 words of warmed-over, long-ago debunked, and perjurious allegations." Yes: At HuffPost, Angela Wright-Shannon writes that she would love to see an impeachment but considers it unlikely. The reason she's in favor? "I believed Hill because I had experienced similar behavior from him: He had repeatedly pressured me to date him and inquired about my breast size."
– Does a supposedly natural coffee that will improve your libido and sexual stamina using just herbs sound too good to be true? Well, it was. CaverFlo Natural Herbal Coffee, which promised to do just that, is being recalled after a consumer died after drinking it—and subsequent Food and Drug Administration tests found that the so-called "natural" coffee actually contained sildenafil and tadalafil, the same active ingredients that Viagra and Cialis, prescription drugs for erectile dysfunction, contain. It's not clear what led to the consumer's death, the Consumerist reports. CaverFlo's website (which has apparently since been taken offline) marketed the coffee as "an absolutely all herbal beverage containing instant coffee and three herbs," all of which grow wild in Malaysia and have supposedly been used for centuries to boost sexual health. The website didn't disclose the two active ingredients in the coffee, which is a big deal because those ingredients can dangerously interact with nitrates, which are found in some prescription drugs taken by men with diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart disease. The FDA says the coffee also may contain undeclared milk, which could cause an allergic reaction. Food Safety News has a picture of the coffee packet and instructions for what to do if you bought any. (A deadly combination of legal beverages killed this teen.)
– The worst-kept secret in Hollywood is secret no more. NBC and Jay Leno confirmed today that Leno will leave his Tonight Show in 2014 after 22 years and turn over hosting duties to Jimmy Fallon, says the Hollywood Reporter. As part of the move, Fallon will indeed bring the show back from the West Coast to 30 Rockefeller Center in New York City. Fallon will take over in February, reports the New York Times. The pair had goofed on the controversy a few days ago, and Leno sounds upbeat, at least publicly. "Congratulations Jimmy," he said in a statement. "I hope you're as lucky as me and hold on to the job until you're the old guy. If you need me, I'll be at the garage.” THR thinks Seth Meyers is the frontrunner to replace Fallon on Late Night. Click for more.
– A complete copy of a heretical biblical text that purports to describe conversations between Jesus and his brother James has been discovered in its earliest known form. The forbidden writing, dubbed the First Apocalypse of James, wasn't included in the 27-book New Testament established in 367. It was one of 13 Gnostic books uncovered in Egypt in 1945, per a release; all were written in the Coptic language, though the original manuscript would've been in Greek. "We never suspected that Greek fragments of the First Apocalypse of James survived from antiquity," says Geoffrey Smith of the University of Texas at Austin. When he and colleague Brent Landau searched at Oxford University, however, "there they were, right in front of us." "To say that we were excited once we realized what we'd found is an understatement," adds Smith. He tells Newsweek the neat Greek text, likely written in the 5th or 6th century, "is significant in part because it demonstrates that Christians were still reading and studying extra-canonical writings long after Christian leaders deemed them heretical." Studying, indeed. Landau explains the text is broken down into syllables—a rarity in ancient manuscripts, suggesting it was used to teach students to read and write. News.com.au explains that the text contains Jesus' teachings to James, including his knowledge of heaven and future events, including James' own death.
– A New Yorker staff writer has quit the magazine and confessed to attributing phony quotes to Bob Dylan, reports the New York Times' Media Decoder blog. Jonah Lehrer says he initially panicked when cornered by a reporter about the quotes in Lehrer's book, Imagine: How Creativity Works. "I told [him] that they were from archival interview footage provided to me by Dylan’s representatives," said Lehrer in a statement. "This was a lie spoken in a moment of panic." Even when the reporter, Michael Moynihan, followed up with Lehrer, the New Yorker scribe continued to lie. But "the lies are over now," said Lehrer. "I understand the gravity of my position." He explained that the quotes were either wholesale lies, "unintentional misquotations," or blends of "previously existing quotes." New Yorker editor David Remnick called it a "terrifically sad situation." Oddly enough, Lehrer had already stolen from his own articles. (See Moynihan's original article in Tablet.)
– It was a rocky opening day at a $43 million California water park after a 10-year-old boy careened off a water slide and hit the pavement. Miraculously, the boy was "just shaken up" after he sailed from the tube Saturday at The Wave park in Dublin, a park rep tells the East Bay Times. A harrowing video, per KRON, captures the moment the boy catapulted from the Emerald Plunge. Luckily, he was near the bottom of the three-story slide when he slapped down on concrete. "He got up immediately … and was stunned," eyewitness Linda Smith, the assistant city manager, tells the Times. "I was worried if he was mentally OK, but physically he just had some scrapes." The boy's parents declined medical attention at the scene. Park officials closed the slide and two others while authorities investigate, including one called the Dublin Screamer, which boasts a "heart-pounding near vertical drop," per the park's website. Three of the slides remained open. The steepest slides are fully enclosed, but the Emerald Plunge has open sides and promises "a splash you'll never forget." Riders must be 48 inches tall and are told to cross their arms and legs. Park officials say the boy's legs were open, but the Mercury News counters that they appear closed. “We’re not going to open it until we know what happened,” Smith says of the slide. (A boy's death closed the world's tallest water slide.)
– Women hoping to become police officers in Indonesia need to be strong, healthy—and should have an intact hymen, officials say, to determine whether or not they are moral. The revelation has sparked a new round of debates about women's rights in this highly conservative nation, the New York Times reports. "Similar tests are not carried out for men because of differences in anatomy, but also because sociologically, it is women who are considered the symbol of purity, not men," says an independent state body on violence against women. Critics also say that the tests (which involve a doctor inserting fingers inside a woman) are discriminatory, traumatic, and inconclusive considering that hymens can be damaged by other means, like horseback riding or contact sports. A Human Rights Watch report and video sparked the debate last month about such tests, which have been going on for 50 years or more under the radar. "We don’t know how widespread the practice is, and we don’t know if it’s nationwide," says an HRW researcher. "But it’s there. ... The argument has been, 'We don’t want prostitutes in the police force.'" A top police official tells the Jakarta Post that a failed virginity test only hurts a candidate's chances rather than disqualifying her, but a woman's rights activist says that's all the more reason to abolish the practice. Last year, an education official in Indonesia proposed giving high-school girls virginity tests to thwart prostitution and promiscuity, but the notion was scrapped after widespread outrage on social media sites.
– President Obama officially endorsed Hillary Clinton for president on Thursday, Politico reports. According to ABC News, the president made the endorsement via a video posted by the Clinton campaign. “I don’t think there’s ever been someone so qualified to hold this office," Obama says in his endorsement. “Honored to have you with me, @POTUS. I'm fired up and ready to go!” Clinton tweeted following the endorsement. Obama plans to campaign with Clinton next week in Wisconsin. The president met with Bernie Sanders earlier on Thursday, leading to Sanders saying he's willing to work with Clinton to make sure Trump doesn't get elected (though he's not yet ready to drop out of the race).
– The fast-paced world of social media wasn't quite so speedy at the Mitt Romney presidential campaign. Sure, tweets may only be 140 characters at most, but they required the approval of 22 different people "towards the end of the campaign," a digital media campaign staffer says in a new study. "Whether it was a tweet, Facebook post, blog post, photo—anything you could imagine—it had to be sent around to everyone," Caitlin Checkett told journalism professor Daniel Kreiss, as Politico reports. The campaign's digital director calls them "the best tweets ever written by 17 people," Vox reports. At the Obama campaign, things were a little different. Digital head Teddy Goff's four-person team "had significantly more autonomy" to decide what should be posted, the study says. That made it easier to respond right away to events like Clint Eastwood's Republican convention speech. The team aimed to "make sure that no matter what was going on—frankly, whether or not the president did his job—there would be very loud voices talking about how we were doing well," Goff says.
– Sarah Palin thinks the GOP establishment is out to get her, and it sure feels like the knives are out. There's Rove, of course, and then Bush (or at least a source claiming to speak for him), and now two former presidential speechwriters, Michael Gerson and Peggy Noonan, the latter of whom busts out the word "nincompoop" to describe her: Gerson: She's "increasingly tolerant of disturbing extremism" and doesn't seem to care about the consequences for the GOP. Her endorsement of Tom Tancredo "raises the question of whether Palin has any standards for her support other than anti-government rhetoric," he writes in the Washington Post. "Either as a power broker or a candidate in the 2012 election, Palin's increasingly erratic political judgment should raise Republican concerns." Noonan: In a Wall Street Journal column devoted mostly to bashing Obama—he's a "human depression" that Democrats would be wise to abandon, she argues—Noonan rips Palin for dissing Reagan (for whom she wrote speeches) as an "actor." She rises to his defense: "The point is not 'He was a great man and you are a nincompoop,' though that is true." Reagan "brought his fully mature, fully seasoned self into politics with him," she writes. He had accomplished great things before becoming president. His "career is a guide, not only for the tea party but for all in politics."
– Georgetown University will give admissions preference to the descendants of slaves owned by the Maryland Jesuits as part of its effort to atone for profiting from the sale of enslaved people, the AP reports. Georgetown President John DeGioia told news outlets that the university in Washington, DC, will implement the admissions preferences, noting Georgetown will need to identify and reach out to descendants of slaves and recruit them. Per the New York Times, although the subject of scholarships for slave descendants was broached by the school committee that's been working on how to deal with Georgetown's history with slavery, the committee ultimately didn't recommend financial assistance in this first wave of initiatives. A university committee released a report Thursday that also called on its leaders to offer a formal apology for the university's participation in the slave trade. In 1838, two priests who served as president of the university orchestrated the sale of 272 people to pay off debts at the school. The slaves were sent from Maryland to plantations in Louisiana. Per the Times—which notes historians are calling this move "unprecedented"—DeGioia also will lay out plans to launch a slavery studies institute, rename two buildings after an African-American slave and an African-American educator, and put up a memorial for slaves who toiled to benefit the university, including those sold in 1838. "It goes farther than just about any institution," an MIT professor tells the Times. "It's taking steps that a lot of universities have been reluctant to take." (Harvard is also bogged down by connections to slavery.)
– Twelve miles northeast of Area 51 lies Area 6—a site that might be as mysterious as its more famous neighbor. Never heard of it? That's not surprising. Government officials have long kept mum about Area 6, part of Nevada's national security site, which is home to a mile-long, $9.6 million airstrip and several buildings, including "a large hangar with unusual clamshell doors," the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. A 2008 Energy Department report says the site—see it here via Google Earth—is used "to construct, operate, and test a variety of unmanned aerial vehicles" for "airframe modifications, sensor operation, and onboard computer development." A rep for the National Nuclear Security Administration says simply that the runway is used by the Defense and Homeland Security departments. "They come here to test their own sensors," he says. Because the location has controlled airspace, "we do a wide variety of work for others … supporting people with sensor development activities," he adds. "In other words, it's a drone proving ground," reports Popular Mechanics. One imagery analyst says the hangar complex could house 15 MQ-9 Reaper reconnaissance drones. John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org agrees the runway is just the right size for Reaper or Predator drones. Its location also makes sense. The desert terrain mimics the "boondocks" of Libya, home to ISIS and al-Qaeda. "Trying to develop targeting signatures in this type of mountainous desert terrain, that's got to be a really high priority," he says. "I can't think about a better place to do it where you wouldn't have civilians stumbling on what you're doing." (The US didn't admit the existence of Area 51 until a few years ago.)
– Wanted gang leader Thomaz Viera Gomez has been dubbed Brazil's very own Robin Hood, thanks to his alleged involvement in what may be one of the most unconventional kidnappings ever, reports Newsweek. That's because the two men Gomez, or "2N," is accused of kidnapping on Jan. 27 are nurses who were ordered to vaccinate residents of one of Rio de Janeiro's slums. According to TV station Telesur, Gomez and his cronies stole syringes and yellow fever vaccines from a vaccination center before forcing the two nurses to leave with them. They then took them to the Salgueiro favela, or slum, where they were instructed to administer vaccinations over two hours. The nurses were then returned to their place of work. Brazil faced an outbreak of yellow fever, spread by infected mosquitoes, last year. And though government officials said it was over by September, more than half of 53 deaths from yellow fever since July occurred last month, per Tech Times. The nurses told local media the kidnappers weren't aggressive and had only the poor residents of Salgueiro in mind because they didn't have access to vaccination centers. Former environment minister Carlos Minc went as far as to describe his latest act as a "public service," per Telesur. In another incident lending to his Robin Hood persona, Gomez is said to have caused a riot last March after throwing bunches of cash to locals in Salgueiro.
– Police in Montana say a man told friends he needed help moving and got their unwitting help stealing $40,000 worth of items from another man's home. One of the friends allegedly rented a U-Haul in the July incident without knowing it would be used in a crime, the AP reports. The other told police he became suspicious and left after he saw military medals in the Great Falls home; he doubted 36-year-old Patrick Joseph Adams Jr. served in the military. Investigators say the true homeowner came home later that night, found his home had been burglarized, and called 911. Per the Great Falls Tribune, neighbors told cops they'd seen a U-Haul and an SUV at the home earlier that day, and so police headed over to the local U-Haul rental office. They discovered a man ID'd as "RP" in court documents had rented a vehicle that day, and when they spoke to him, he said he'd rented it as a favor for "Big Mike" (later identified as Adams) because Adams said he didn't have a current driver's license. Police also tracked down the man driving the SUV, known as "NW," and NW revealed he, RP, Adams, and Adams' girlfriend, Chantelle Beal, all helped move items out of the home. NW is the one who says he thought it odd to see military medals on the walls (Adams had never talked about his service) and that Beal couldn't find the home's basement. Prosecutors charged Adams on Thursday with burglary and criminal mischief, both felonies. The Great Falls Tribune reports Adams faces up to 30 years in prison and $100,000 in fines. It wasn't clear if Adams had a lawyer.
– One day after North Korea tested a missile that experts say has the range to hit major cities in the United States, President Trump took to Twitter to express his disappointment with China for doing "NOTHING for us" when it comes to the rogue country, CBS News reports. "I am very disappointed in China," Trump tweeted around 7:30 on Saturday night. "Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk." Two weeks earlier a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry said that China does not "hold the key to resolve" the Korea issue, the Atlantic reports. Experts in the US, South Korea, and Japan say the intercontinental ballistic missile launched from near North Korea's border with China on Friday flew about 2300 miles high and for a distance of 621 miles, CNN reports. All told the missile was in the air for about 45 minutes. Had the missile been fired on a flatter trajectory, major US cities like Los Angeles and Chicago would have been in its range, possibly even New York City and Boston. In response to the test the US flew two supersonic B-1B bombers over the Korean peninsula in a show of force Sunday, Reuters reports. The US also hopes to set up an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council this week to discuss the issue.
– Those who feel stressed and anxious all the time might want to try one simple remedy before others: Go to bed earlier. It's not just a matter of getting a good night's sleep, however. Researchers at Binghamton University say that when you go to sleep matters when it comes to fending off "repetitive negative thinking," according to a post at Eureka Alert. While they don't specify bedtimes, the researchers say that people who are night owls and thus wake later in the day tend to obsess about their problems more than people who keep more regular sleeping hours, reports Red Orbit. "Making sure that sleep is obtained during the right time of day may be an inexpensive and easily disseminable intervention for individuals who are bothered by intrusive thoughts," says one of the researchers for the study published in Cognitive Therapy and Research. The scientists can't say exactly why this is the case, but it might have something to do with the body's natural rhythms, explains a post at Yahoo Health. As the researcher explains, the brain might be better suited to handle "high-level cognitive processes, like the ability to inhibit thoughts and images" in the morning. (Another recent study reaffirms that about eight hours of sleep is optimal.)
– A new scientific study delves into that most important of questions: Why do humans kiss? It's a practice carried out by almost no other animals, especially not with the same level of intensity, Time notes. But researchers found locking lips may actually serve an evolutionary purpose: It helps us assess potential mates and weed out the lesser options, LiveScience reports. That explains why women (who are pickier than men when it comes to mating) and people who rate themselves as attractive (who are also pickier) said they found kissing more enjoyable and important than their male and/or less attractive counterparts, Science Daily reports. It also explains why women find kissing especially important when they're at their most fertile. One theory: Kissing might transmit pheromones or chemical information—some of which can be transmitted through smell—about a partner's health, fertility, or genetic and immune compatibility. As one researcher says, "It's just an excuse to get two people who are interested in each other close enough to have a sniff." Says another, "Mate choice and courtship in humans ... involves a series of periods of assessments where people ask themselves, 'Shall I carry on deeper into this relationship?'" Kissing can help answer that question. (And once a partner is found, one writer suggests applying the principles of software code to the relationship.)
– Officials in the northeast declared states of emergency today as Hurricane Sandy and two nasty weather systems moved ominously toward the region, the Daily News and NBC Washington report. New York, DC, Maryland, and Virginia each declared a state of emergency, and New York City said it may evacuate up to 375,000 people before the hurricane arrives Sunday. Sandy—now churning north as the weakest-category hurricane—will likely converge Tuesday with frigid air from Canada and a wintry storm from the west, creating "a very serious storm that could be historic," a meteorologist tells the AP. Forecasters give the East Coast a 90% chance of being hit with extreme tides, harsh wind, heavy rain, and possibly snow for days starting Sunday morning. "It's going to be a long-lasting event, two to three days of impact for a lot of people," says the National Hurricane Center's top forecaster. He compared it to the "Perfect Storm" that lashed New England's coast in 1991: "The Perfect Storm only did $200 million of damage and I'm thinking a billion" with Hurricane Sandy, he said. "Yeah, it will be worse." Sandy has already killed at least 40 in the Caribbean. You can follow its path here.
– France is wrapping up the first phase of its Mali mission: Its forces took back the last big urban center once held by Islamic militants, reports Reuters. The success in Kidal follows similar operations in Gao and Timbuktu over the last three weeks, and now France is getting ready to turn over operations to an African force. Those troops will be charged with rooting out militants in the desert in the hope of preventing a counterattack. "Now it's up to the African countries," says the French foreign minister. "We will leave quickly." Things might be going well, but the idea that militants bent on taking over the government can be flushed out so easily is "highly unrealistic," writes William Lloyd George at the Daily Beast. The Los Angeles Times rounds up similar skepticism, based on the precedent in Libya. In Timbuktu, meanwhile, the latest reports suggest that the city's priceless trove of ancient manuscripts has survived mostly intact. Earlier reports, including this one from the BBC, raised fears that militants had done some serious looting before fleeing the city. National Geographic quotes a tour guide on the significance: "The manuscripts are the city's real gold. The manuscripts, our mosques, and our history—these are our treasures. Without them, what is Timbuktu?"
– If you're the type who would take the blue pill and would prefer to "just wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe," stop reading. If you want to discover the truth about a mystery of The Matrix, pop the hypothetical red pill and read on, but with the warning that a bubble might be burst. Munchies spotted a CNET report on the origins of the green code that waterfalls down the screen as the movie—and its successors—opens by way of Simon Whiteley. He's the production designer who created the code, and he says credit goes to his Japanese wife and her cookbooks, which he scanned. "I like to tell everybody that The Matrix's code is made out of Japanese sushi recipes," he notes. "Without that code, there is no Matrix." Munchies offers this further bit of Matrix trivia: Whiteley's name doesn't appear in the film's credits. (See what makes Barack Obama's list of the best sci-fi movies and TV shows.)
– Silvio Berlusconi squeaked through a confidence vote in the Italian parliament today, but the agonizingly close 316-301 vote didn’t exactly inspire, well, confidence. Berlusconi’s majority is so slim that it effectively cannot pass legislation, the New York Times reports, and analysts say that the slightest bump in the road could break the fragile coalition entirely. Berlusconi called the vote himself after failing a routine vote this week and refusing calls to step down. Berlusconi survived thanks to loyalists afraid his government would be replaced by a non-political technocratic one seeking structural changes to Italy’s economy—a government they’d have no place in. Of course, many business leaders were hoping for exactly that. “The best signal that Italy could have sent to the markets would have been to boot Mr. Berlusconi out, but it has failed to do so,” one economic think tank director tells the AP. Opponents, meanwhile, complained that Berlusconi can win confidence votes, but cannot govern. “He only knows how to stay stuck in his seat using tricks,” one opposition leader complained.
– Facebook on Thursday announced a concrete step toward combating the spread of fake news. NPR reports Facebook will allow users to flag stories they believe to be fake. Those stories will then be forwarded on to one of several fact-checking organizations that have signed on to Poynter's International Fact Checking Code of Principles, according to CNN. (Facebook won't be fact-checking stories itself.) If the fact-checker decides the story is false, it will be labeled "disputed by 3rd Party Fact-Checkers" on Facebook. Users will still be able to share the story but won't be able to turn it into a promoted ad. Facebook says a lot of fake news is being created to make money, and hopefully this will help fight that. Disputed stories may also be placed lower in the News Feed.
– More than 250 half-marathon runners are facing bans in China for what organizers describe as blatant cheating in a race in Shenzhen. Some 237 participants in Sunday's race face two-year bans after traffic cameras spotted them taking shortcuts. One video shows runners making a U-turn through a treed area well before the designated turn, shaving up to 1.8 miles off the 13.1-mile course, per CNN, which notes such races typically have only one or two cheaters. Another 18 runners found to be wearing fake bibs and three participants who ran on behalf of others also face lifetime bans, per the Guardian. "We deeply regret the violations that occurred," organizers say. "Marathon running is not simply exercise, it is a metaphor for life, and every runner is responsible for him or herself." Some 16,000 runners are believed to have taken part in the race. (Read about the ludicrous Barkley Marathons.)
– A third baby—and the first in Florida—with Zika-related microcephaly has been born in the US, ABC News reports. Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced the birth Tuesday. According to the Miami Herald, the baby was born to a woman from Haiti who contracted Zika while outside the US. She traveled to Florida to give birth. “It is heartbreaking to learn that a baby has been born with Zika-related microcephaly in our state, and my thoughts and prayers are with the mother and child," the Orlando Sentinel quotes Scott as saying. Microcephaly causes babies to have unusually small heads and leads to problems with brain development. Babies with Zika-related microcephaly have also been born in New Jersey and Hawaii. Both of the mothers contracted Zika while outside the US. In fact, there are still no known cases of mosquitoes spreading the virus in the US. With more than 200 reported cases, Florida has more Zika infections than any other state. Forty of those cases involve pregnant women. Scott has declared a public health emergency and made $26.2 million in state money available to fight Zika. (A tweeted photo from the CDC speaks volumes about the problem.)
– Scientists know very little about the pocket shark—they're not even sure what it keeps in its pockets—but a Gulf of Mexico catch has doubled the number of known specimens. At 5.5 inches, the species is small enough to fit in your pocket, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says, but it got its name from the two deep pockets it has next to its front fins. The only previous specimen was caught off the coast of Peru 36 years ago and is now in a Russian museum, reports the AP. The new catch was a recently born male, and it "has us thinking about where mom and dad may be, and how they got to the Gulf," NOAA biologist Mark Grace says. The rare creature was caught in the Gulf on a 2010 research trip and spent three years sitting in Grace's freezer waiting to be identified, reports the AP. Scientists have classified the species as the only member of the genus Mollisquama in the family Dalatiidae. That family includes "cookiecutter sharks," and researchers believe the pocket shark may feed in the same way: by removing plugs of flesh from larger creatures, the NOAA says. The pockets are still a mystery, but Grace suspects they may secrete a glowing fluid, the AP notes.
– A teenager found guilty of helping his schoolmate hang herself has received his prison sentence: five years to life, CNN reports. Tyerell Przybycien, now 19, bought the rope and compressed air that 16-year-old Jchandra Brown used to take her own life in a Utah campground in May 2017. He also shot video as she inhaled the air, passed out, fell from a wooden pedestal, and hanged herself. "What I did I'm not proud," he said in court, per KSL, "and it doesn't deserve pity." Brown's mother, Sue Bryan, took a big framed photograph of Jchandra into the Provo courtroom. "I don't want him out to cause pain and havoc on anyone else's family, anyone else's children," Bryan told the court. "I cannot describe to you the pain of losing a child." Przybycien, initially charged with murder, pleaded guilty to child abuse homicide in a plea bargain, per the Salt Lake Tribune. But in Bryan's words, "There never will be true justice for Jchandra, because she never will come home." (In related news, a skydiving instructor killed himself during a tandem jump.)
– Blue smoke indicating Dennis Dickey would be the father to a baby boy was briefly visible. But the flames erupting at the off-duty Border Patrol agent's gender-reveal party on state land in Green Valley, Ariz., quickly stole the focus, per the Arizona Daily Star. A man warned those gathered in the Santa Rita Mountain foothills to prepare to leave the grassy area seconds after Dickey used a high-velocity firearm to shoot a target filled with explosive Tannerite and colored powder, as seen in a newly released video from April 23, 2017—the day Dickey calls "probably one of the worst days of my life." The so-called Sawmill Fire eventually spread to become a 47,000-acre wildfire that caused $8 million in damage, though thankfully no injuries. Per the Arizona Republic, some 100 people were forced from their homes, however, as flames moved into the Coronado National Forest and beyond. Dickey initially agreed to pay $8.1 million in restitution, but as that would be "like getting blood from a stone," per his attorney, he'll now make an initial payment of $100,000, then monthly payments of $500 for 20 years to help cover a $220,000 penalty after pleading guilty to a federal misdemeanor charge of causing a fire without a permit, per the Star. Authorities say Dickey—also sentenced to five years' probation—immediately reported the fire, admitted to starting it, and cooperated with an investigation. The video of the incident, released Monday by the US Forest Service on a request from the Star, conceals the identities of two people who appear on camera, with an official citing privacy protection. (A Georgia man made the poor decision to shoot at a lawn mower filled with Tannerite.)
– Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, one of the main defenders of the administration's harsh border policies, decided to dine at a Mexican restaurant Tuesday night. It did not go well. Protesters entered the MXDC restaurant in Washington and confronted Nielsen and her dinner companion about the family separation policy, the New York Daily News reports. "How can you enjoy a Mexican dinner as you're deporting, imprisoning ... thousands of people who come here seeking asylum?" one demonstrator asked. Video of the encounter shows Nielsen looking at her cutlery and not engaging with the protesters, who were kept at a distance by Secret Service agents. Protesters shouted "Shame" and "If kids don't eat in peace, you don't eat in peace." They also played audio of distressed children calling for their parents in a border detention center. Witness Erica Olmstead tells the Daily News that some restaurant patrons joined in the clapping and chanting, while others seemed "ambivalent." After about 10 minutes, Nielsen left the restaurant and entered a vehicle, the Guardian reports. Trump praised Nielsen in a tweet Tuesday, saying she had done a great job at a Monday press conference "explaining security at the border and for our country, while at the same time recommending changes to obsolete & nasty laws, which force family separation."
– Need some election interference? The Russian Foreign Ministry is ready to help—or so it says on April Fools' Day. On Saturday, the ministry posted on its Facebook page an audio file of the purported new automated telephone switchboard message for Russian embassies. "To arrange a call from a Russian diplomat to your political opponent, press 1," the recording begins, in Russian and English. Press 2 "to use the services of Russian hackers," and 3 "to request election interference." A ministry duty officer, who did not give his name in line with official practice, confirmed to the AP that the post was an official joke. More coverage of April Fools' Day gags: Slate lists some of the best pranks of 2017, including the Irish Times claiming President Trump would be building a new Trump Tower in the country. Adweek and Mashable round up hoaxes from brands, including "Whopper cologne" from Burger King and "Petlexa" from Amazon. Mashable has a separate article dedicated to just the pranks from Google. The New York Daily News reports that George Takei fooled a bunch of people when he claimed he would be running for Congress in an attempt to unseat Devin Nunes. E! Online rounds up April Fools' Day pranks from other celebrities. A Democratic representative marked April 1 with a fake bill proposal calling for Trump to be banned from "unsupervised tweeting," Mediaite reports. Rolling Stone declares that the best April Fools' Day prank award goes to College Humor, which teamed up with Sinbad to create fake footage from Shazaam, a 1990s movie in which Sinbad supposedly played a genie that tons of people remember seeing. Trouble is, the movie never actually existed. Until now, kinda. The footage is here. New England got a very real April Fools' Day snowstorm, the AP reports.
– The death toll in yesterday's Hong Kong ferry collision is now at 37, including five children, and six crew members have been arrested in the tragedy—one of the worst maritime accidents in Hong Kong in decades. The crew members, three from each boat involved, "are being investigated for endangering people's lives at sea," says the Security Minister. The ferry that sank, a pleasure craft, was carrying more than 120 passengers to a fireworks display; it went down within minutes. The other boat, a regular ferry, was able to reach nearby Lamma Island as it was taking on water. None of the fatalities were from that boat, al-Jazeera reports. Rescue crews are still searching for survivors, and the number of missing is not known, the BBC reports. More than 100 were injured, including nine who remain in critical or serious condition. The suspects who were arrested were "responsible for manning the two vessels," says the head of police, and investigators suspect they "had not exercised the care required of them by law to ensure the safety of the vessels as well as the people on board." More people will likely be arrested, he adds. The scene on the sinking boat was described as "total chaos," with many passengers unable to swim or not wearing life jackets.
– Yet another beauty pageant scandal: Less than two weeks after Amanda Longacre was crowned Miss Delaware, she's been stripped of the title because pageant officials say she's too old. Longacre is 24, and will still be 24 when the Miss America pageant is held in September—and she says she was told that as long as she was 24 during the Miss America competition, her age was not an issue. But officials now say that according to the fine print, Miss America can't turn 25 any time in 2014; Longacre's birthday is in October, the Smyrna-Clayton Sun-Times explains. Longacre had no trouble while competing on the local level, and when she advanced to the state level, she says her age and birthday were clearly stated on her contract, which the Miss Delaware Scholarship Organization signed, she tells NBC Philadelphia. The organization verified her birth certificate, license, and social security card before the competition. A media relations coordinator for the Miss Delaware organization even confirms that Longacre didn't do anything wrong, and calls the whole thing "a terrible mistake." After being told on Tuesday she'd be losing her title (plus prizes including $11,000 in scholarship money), Longacre says officials have been "ignoring" her. Making things worse: She had deferred her master's program and her Department of Justice internship for a year so that she could fulfill her Miss Delaware duties. Runner-up Brittany Lewis was crowned the new Miss Delaware last night, MyFox Philly reports.
– If the US does indeed strike Syria, "you should expect everything," "expect every action," from Syria in response, President Bashar al-Assad tells Charlie Rose in a new interview. CBS This Morning previewed the interview today; it airs in full on PBS tonight. Some of Assad's quotes, from CBS and the Guardian: "You should expect everything. Not necessarily from the government," Assad said when asked about Syria's response to a US strike. Syria is "not the only player in this region," Assad said, likely referring to Iran and Hezbollah. "You have different parties, you have different factions, you have different ideology. You have everything in this region now." Asked if that retaliation might include chemical warfare, Assad said it depends on whether "the rebels or the terrorists in this region or any other group have it. It could happen, I don't know. I am not fortune teller." "There has been no evidence that I used chemical weapons against my own people," Assad said; he insisted President Obama has not presented any evidence to Congress. (One report suggests the army may have used chemical weapons without Assad's OK.) Rose said Assad claims to feel remorse over the attack nonetheless, and that he would neither confirm nor deny whether his government has any chemical weapons. (If it does, Assad said, the weapons are under "centralized control.") "Our soldiers in another area were attacked chemically. Our soldiers," Assad said. "They went to the hospital as casualties, because of chemical weapons. But in the area where they said, 'The government used chemical weapons,' we only had video and we only have pictures and allegations. We're not there. Our forces, our police, our institutions don't exist. How can you talk about what happened if you don't have evidences? We're not like the American administration, we're not social media administration or government. We are the government that deal with reality." "We are against any WMD, any weapons of mass destruction, whether chemical or nuclear," Assad insisted.
– At this point, it's one of the largest thefts in history—and one of the most convoluted. Some person, or group, apparently made off with 96,000 Bitcoins worth a staggering $100 million, reports the Verge. The Bitcoins came from users of the underground bazaar called Sheep Marketplace, one of the successors to the shuttered Silk Road site. The cyber-thieves managed to drain users' accounts over the course of a week, and nobody was the wiser because they did so while keeping fake balance statements up, reports the New Statesman. Many of those who got bilked are on Reddit sharing information and trying to track down the money. "Many believe the heist was a scam, and the No. 1 suspect among Redditors is the Sheep Marketplace administrator, a Czech citizen named Tomáš Jirikovský," reports Mashable. The New Statesman article has details on the world of Bitcoin laundering—it's called "tumbling"—with this intriguing line: "Right now, as you’re reading this, you can watch as the thief starts trying to move their Bitcoins on again—it’s currently down to 92,000 Bitcoins and dropping as smaller chunks begin going out." In the meantime, Sheep Marketplace has shut down.
– The US government is fining General Motors $35 million for delays in recalling small cars with faulty ignition switches. The government also says that GM will report safety issues faster in the future. The fine is the maximum allowed by law and a record at that, the Detroit News reports, but it's only a fraction (a hair under 1%) of the $3.8 billion GM made last year. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also ordered GM to implement "significant and wide-ranging internal changes to its review of safety-related issues." The government boasted that the fine "puts all manufacturers on notice that they will be held accountable" if they fail to report defects—as GM allegedly did for at least a decade. Automakers are required to report safety defects within five days of discovering them. GM's stock rose slightly on the announcement, Bloomberg reports. The fine is the highest ever because the max fine has increased since Toyota and Ford were each fined $17.4 million in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Regulators have asked Congress to drastically increase the cap to $300 million.
– They didn't stop the health care bill, but tea partiers have gotten the voice of GEICO fired. No, not the gecko, the guy who says, "GEICO, real service, real savings." It seems he called up the group FreedomWorks and left a long, nasty message with lines like, "What (are) the percentages of people that are mentally retarded who work for the organization and are members of it?," reports NPR. FreedomWorks easily identified the caller as Lance Baxter (who does acting work as DC Douglas), mainly because he left his phone number in the message. After the group's president wrote about it at BigGovernment.com—urging readers to call both the actor and his employer—GEICO gave Baxter the ax. He gives his side of the story at his blog here, fessing up to the voicemail while accusing FreedomWorks of encouraging hate speech, writes Mark Memmott of NPR.
– Rep. Mark Sanford can now spend as much time as he wants hiking the Appalachian Trail: The congressman and South Carolina governor lost his Republican primary Tuesday, hours after a very critical tweet from President Trump, Politico reports. "Mark Sanford has been very unhelpful to me in my campaign to MAGA. He is MIA and nothing but trouble. He is better off in Argentina," Trump said, referring to Sanford's infamous 2009 affair. "I fully endorse Katie Arrington for Congress in SC, a state I love," Trump said. Analysts say the 58-year-old Sanford, whose political career is now probably over, criticized President Trump more often than South Carolina voters considered acceptable. "We are the party of President Donald J. Trump," Arrington told supporters after winning just over half the vote. Sanford, who has long seen himself as a political outsider, was unrepentant after the defeat Tuesday, which was his first-ever election loss, CBS reports. "I stand by every one of those decisions to disagree with the president," said the Republican, who was re-elected to his old House seat in 2013 despite the national GOP withdrawing support. In other races, Nevada's Sen. Dean Heller cruised to victory in the GOP primary, the Washington Post reports. He had been expected to face a tough challenge from activist Danny Tarkanian, but Trump persuaded Tarkanian to seek a congressional nomination instead, which he won Tuesday. In North Dakota, Rep. Kevin Cramer won the GOP primary for a Senate race. He will face Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp this fall in a race that could determine control of the chamber.
– Guests were forced to flee as gunmen stormed the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul and opened fire Saturday night, the BBC reports. Najib Danish, spokesperson for Afghanistan's Interior Ministry, tells Reuters the approximately four attackers also included suicide bombers. Afghan Special Forces responded to the attack and killed at least two gunmen, Danish says. An official with Afghanistan's spy agency says the gunmen were "shooting at guests." "We are hiding in our rooms," one guest is quoted as saying. "I beg the security forces to rescue us as soon as possible before they reach and kill us." There are reports the Intercontinental Hotel, one of two major luxury hotels in Kabul, was hosting an IT conference at the time of the attack. There has as yet been no word on possible casualties. The AP reports no group is claiming responsibility for the attack on the hotel so far, though the Taliban previously attacked the hotel in 2011. The attack comes just two days after a warning from the US embassy in Kabul that the city's hotels could be targeted. "We are aware of reports that extremist groups may be planning an attack against hotels in Kabul," the embassy said in statement Thursday.
– Climate change, sinkholes, human water use—the reasons are many, but the result is the same: Lakes across the world have shrunk or disappeared completely, and in the Smithsonian, Sarah Zielinski tells their stories. Among them: It's called the Dead Sea, but it's technically a lake, and it's been around for millennia. Thanks to water diverted to businesses and homes, however, the balance between water entering and evaporating from the lake has been thrown off. Now, it's getting shallower, at a rate of about a meter yearly—though officials are working on the problem. Lake Waiau was seen by native Hawaiians as a sacred spot. Just 10 feet deep at its deepest, it started disappearing in 2010, and as of September, it was just a pond, less than a foot deep. The reason for the phenomenon, which US officials call "unprecedented in modern times," isn't known for certain; drought is among the possibilities. Florida's Scott Lake was the victim of a 2006 sinkhole; it was gone within two weeks, and it took some 32 tons of wildlife with it. The lake is slowly returning as clay and silt fill the sinkhole, but whether it will be back for good is an open question. Last year saw Chile's Lake Cachet 2, in the Andes, disappear in a night. The culprit here was climate change, which has caused the glacial lake's frequent disappearance and return. The Colonia glacier holds Lake Cachet 2 in place; when melting thins the glacier, a tunnel allows the water to escape. Lake Chad, which is found in Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria, used to be the sixth-biggest lake in the world. Not anymore: Some 90% of its area is gone, thanks to a combination of familiar reasons—drought, human use, and climate change among them. That's caused a "local lack of water, crop failures, livestock deaths, collapsed fisheries, soil salinity, and increasing poverty throughout the region," the UN says. Images at Discover magazine show the changing lake. Click for Zielinski's full list.
– Two Detroit carjackers are back in prison after their victim went online and found they'd been mistakenly released, the AP reports. Local and federal authorities are pointing fingers at each other—but there's no dispute that Brittany Guerriero is the person who had to get her own justice. The men were free for months until December. Per the Detroit Free Press, Guerriero was moving into a new apartment in September 2014 when she was carjacked while waiting in the valet line. Thanks to surveillance camera tapes and Guerriero's testimony, Kendall Kelly and DeMarcus Catlin were captured, and each received sentences of nine to 20 years in prison on the carjacking charge (Kelly had other time added on for a fatal shooting). But Guerriero tells the Detroit Free Press that she went online in November and found Kelly and Catlin had been released from federal prison. They were sent there first because their carjacking convictions in state court violated their probation. Kelly and Catlin were supposed to go to a Michigan prison last year to serve their carjacking sentences, but the US Bureau of Prisons says it wasn't told that the men were supposed to be transferred. A rep for the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office says the snafu was the federal prison bureau's fault, but the feds deny any wrongdoing and say the proper detainer paperwork wasn't filed to alert them that the convicts shouldn't have been released. "It shouldn't take some random victim looking through the system," Guerriero says. "Who else have they accidentally released?"
– Donald Trump is taking another crack at responding to an assault in Boston reportedly committed in his name, this time with a little more feeling: "Boston incident is terrible," he tweets. "We need energy and passion, but we must treat each other with respect. I would never condone violence." The comments follow an assault in which two brothers allegedly beat a homeless Hispanic man and later invoked Trump's negative comments about immigrants, notes the Boston Herald. Initially, Trump called the assault a "shame" but quickly added that his followers were passionate, and critics accused of him of downplaying the violence. Or as Time puts it, he "flubbed" his first attempt. The 58-year-old victim is a citizen of Mexico, reports NECN. He was recuperating from a broken nose and other injuries.
– President Trump chided NATO leaders to their faces Thursday for "chronic underpayments" to the organization, the New York Times reports. "Members of the alliance must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations," CNN quotes Trump as saying during the opening of a new NATO headquarters. Per the BBC, Trump said other NATO countries owe "massive amounts of money," and that's "not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States." Only five of 28 NATO members are putting the agreed-upon 2% of their GDP toward defense spending. Trump also didn't recommit the US to NATO's mutual defense pledge, which leaves other NATO countries to wonder if the US will automatically assist them if they're attacked. NATO leaders didn't appear pleased by Trump's speech, and the Times reports the US president got a "chilly reception" from European leaders. Trump reportedly disagreed with his European counterparts on climate, trade, and Russia. Cameras also caught Trump apparently shoving a NATO leader out of the way so he could get to the front of the stage, according to Mediaite. That Trump wasn't more warmly welcomed wasn't exactly a surprise: The speech took place in Brussels, a city Trump once called a "hellhole" following a terrorist attack. And he gave the speech in front of a new 9/11 memorial. The Sept. 11 attacks were the only time NATO has invoked the mutual defense provision—backing the US in Afghanistan—that Trump declined to state his support for.
– When Ruthie Robertson declared on Facebook that "homosexuality and transgenderism are not sins," the 22-year-old political science instructor at Brigham Young University-Idaho expected the feedback would be harsh. "But it never crossed my mind that I would lose my job," she tells the Idaho State Journal. Now, that's exactly what happened. Though her lengthy statement was in response to the bullying of gay students at BYU, which is operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Robertson says school administrators weren't pleased. Indeed, after she refused their demands to remove the post—which also called out the church's treatment of LGBT people—Robertson says she was told her summer classes would be her last. "I kind of felt like the rug was pulled out from under me," says Robertson, a lifelong member of the LDS church who'd previously been scheduled to teach a course in the fall term, per KUTV and the Washington Post. She maintains there was nothing in her contract banning her from expressing her opinions online, but she admits her views were in opposition to church policies. A BYU rep refused to comment. However, the same BYU honor code noting "homosexual behavior is inappropriate" also states adherence to "the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ … is a specific condition of employment and admission." Despite losing her job, Robertson says she has no regrets about what she wrote. "It was something that needed to be said," she tells the Post.
– Caitlyn Jenner had never met another trans person until a few months ago, she revealed after receiving the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPY Awards last night. She used her acceptance speech to make a plea for tolerance, saying, "It's not just about me, it's about all of us accepting one another. We're all different. That's not a bad thing, it's a good thing," ABC News reports. She spoke of how difficult it had been dealing with her "situation" alone and warned of the abuse many young trans people face. "If you want to call me names ... go ahead, I can take it," she said, per the Guardian. "But for the thousands of kids out there coming to terms with who they are, they shouldn't have to take it." Jenner was a controversial choice for the award, with some saying it should have gone to Lauren Hill, the 19-year-old NCAA player who played—and scored—for Mount St. Joseph while dying of an inoperable brain tumor. Her game was chosen as the year's best moment and her parents accepted the award, with her mother saying Lauren "showed us through heart, determination, courage, strength, and faith that no matter what, it is possible to achieve your dreams," Cincinnati.com reports. Hill's mom tells the New York Daily News that her daughter, who died in April, would have hated the backlash against Jenner winning the award because "to be out there and do the transformation takes a lot of courage and a lot of guts."
– Stop the presses, because Prince William has actually discussed the babies he will one day have with wife Kate. Specifically, he would like two of them, Wills said today while the couple was touring Singapore as part of Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee. "Someone asked him how many children he would like to have, and he said he was thinking about having two," a student tells the AP. William has never before specifically numbered his future children, although an heir and a spare isn't unheard of in royal circles. And the heir might already be on the way, because Kate—gasp—ignored her glass of wine at a banquet in Singapore yesterday, the Daily Beast reports. Even more suspicious, she—not once, but twice—toasted the queen with the water she drank instead. Such a thing is just not done in royal toasts, the Beast notes, adding that rumors of a royal pregnancy have been coming in recently even before the wine incident. The New York Daily News also claims the duchess "showed what may be a hint of a baby bump" in Singapore, and Star magazine recently ran a photo of one of her dresses that had been let out an inch as proof that she must be with child. Judge for yourself in our photo gallery.
– Joan Rivers' family remains tight-lipped about the comedian's condition. Daughter Melissa released another short statement today: “My mother has been moved out of intensive care and into a private room where she is being kept comfortable,” it says. “Thank you for your continued support.” The younger Rivers didn't explain why the move occurred, reports the Daily News, while TMZ notes that it doesn't necessarily suggest an improvement. E! Online says the 81-year-old remains on life support.
– Let the royal fallout begin. Prince Harry has flown back to London to an angry queen after the frisky party boy stripped in his Las Vegas hotel suite, and photos ended up in the US press, reports the New York Daily News. The royal family was scrambling yesterday to do damage control, and contacted the Press Complaints Commission in London in a bid to block publication of the shots—which appeared to be enough to keep them out of British newspapers, reports the BBC. Because the game of strip billiards took place in Harry's $8,000-a-night VIP suite, the 27-year-old prince had a reasonable expectation of privacy, and publication of the photos could be an illegal invasion of privacy under British law. It's not clear who took the photos of a naked Harry cupping his genitals, and giving a nude young woman a bear hug. TMZ reportedly purchased the photos for $15,000. The antics have raised serious questions about Harry's judgement and his ability to effectively serve as a representative of the queen, reports the Telegraph. They've also hurt his image in the British military. He'll likely get a dressing down by superiors, and may be officially censured. Military codes of conduct require officers to maintain high standards of professionalism "both on and off operations." Says a military source: "His commanding officer will probably have a word, but I imagine his family might be even more annoyed at his stupidity."
– The withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan could become a major bone of contention among the GOP's 2012 hopefuls, judging by their differing responses to President Obama's speech outlining the US drawdown. Tim Pawlenty took the most hawkish position, calling the decision to bring all the surge forces home by the end of next summer a "grave mistake." "Look how he phrased the outcome of this war: He said we need to end the war 'responsibly,'" Pawlenty told Bill O'Reilly. "When America goes to war, America needs to win. We need to close out the war successfully." Mitt Romney also stressed the importance of staying the course as long as necessary, Politico reports. "We all want our troops to come home as soon as possible, but we shouldn’t adhere to an arbitrary timetable on the withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan," he said. "This decision should not be based on politics or economics" Jon Huntsman, meanwhile, said the pace of withdrawal should be faster, calling Obama's plan "a little cautious," reports the Hill. "Now it is time we move to a focused counter-terror effort which requires significantly fewer boots on the ground than the President discussed tonight," he said. "We need a safe but rapid withdrawal which encourages Afghans to assume responsibility."
– A member of President Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida posted a Facebook photo over the weekend that has caused quite a fuss. The reason? It shows the member posing with "Rick," whom he identified as the aide who follows Trump everywhere and carries the nation's nuclear codes. The Washington Post first mentioned the posting by retired investor Richard DeAgazio, who took it down after being asked about it. You can see the image at the Daily Caller, which also has wire-service photos that appear to show the same man following Trump on different days, and he is indeed carrying a hefty briefcase. Assuming this is, in fact, the man with the fabled nuclear football, it's not exactly a state secret, notes Gizmodo. After all, it's inevitable that he would show up in photos given that he's with the president constantly. The Hill, though, frames the hubbub this way: The photos "raise questions about the access enjoyed by Mar-a-Lago members, who have seen their annual membership fee double to $200,000 since Trump won the presidency." On that front, both the original Post story and another at CNN detail how Trump and Prime Minister Abe of Japan were at dinner at the club when news broke of North Korea's missile test. A line from CNN: "The patio was lit only with candles and moonlight, so aides used the camera lights on their phones to help the stone-faced Trump and Abe read through the documents." They did so as guests sat nearby. "Wow.....the center of the action!!!” wrote DeAgazio in another post.
– Bill Gates might be one of the world's richest men, but he's also one of the world's best Secret Santas according to one grateful Reddit user named Aerrix who appears pretty excited after a "GIANT" package was delivered Friday from the Microsoft guru. For the past four years, Gates has participated in Reddit's gift exchange, surprising lucky recipients with a splashy mix of presents tailored to them. The billionaire philanthropist's latest effort did not disappoint, reports IGN, which confirmed the Santa was really Gates. Aerrix Laurel writes on Imgur that when the package came she tore open the box "and my jaw. Just. Drops." Inside under bubble wrap and glitter was a photo of the Microsoft founder holding a personalized note. "BILL GATES IS MY FREAKIN SANTA!!!!!" she writes. A "flabbergasted" Laurel immediately called her husband at work and started snapping photos for her mom. The goodies included an XBox with custom controllers and Zelda-emblazoned mittens for Laurel and booties for her dog; the video game character (Laurel is a fan) also adorns a beaded picture frame with a doctored photo of Gates with Laurel, her husband, and dog wearing Santa hats. “Come on now, that is the cutest thing!” she writes. Gates also made a donation in her name to the charity code.org "to give more students the chance to learn computer science," Laurel writes, "which is AWESOME because it's something near and dear to my heart." Now, Laurel is wondering what to do for Gates. "I would love to send a thank you card or some kind of something to him," she tells the Huffington Post. Then speculating on whoever ends up as Gates' Santa: "You DON’T get something for the man that has everything, you make something!" (New Zealand really gets into the spirit of Secret Santa.)
– Another state is looking for alternatives after running out of the execution drug pentobarbital. Ohio says it doesn't have enough of the drug to execute child killer Ronald Phillips next month so it plans to use the untested combination of the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone for the lethal injection, reports the Christian Science Monitor. Pentobarbital's Danish manufacturer banned its sale to prisons in 2011. Other pentobarbital-using states, including Texas, the nation's most prolific executioner, have turned to "compounding pharmacies" that custom-make drugs for their supply. Ohio introduced new execution guidelines earlier this month that allowed it to obtain drugs from such pharmacies, but it was unable to find a suitable supplier. Lawyers for Phillips—who was sentenced to die for the 1993 rape and murder of his girlfriend's 3-year-old daughter—are suing to delay his November 14 execution, the AP reports. If they fail, the 40-year-old will become the first person in any state to be executed with the two-drug combination.
– What you see when you log on to Facebook will be changing soon—because Mark Zuckerberg wants to make sure "the time we all spend on Facebook is time well spent." The Facebook CEO announced major changes to news feeds in a post Thursday, saying they've received feedback that "public content—posts from businesses, brands, and media—is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other." Zuckerberg said that from now on, "you can expect to see more from your friends, family, and groups," and the public content that does appear should be the kind that encourages "meaningful interactions between people." He gave the example of "tight-knit communities around TV shows and sports teams." In a blog post, Facebook said it will "predict which posts you might want to interact with your friends about, and show these posts higher in [your] feed." Zuckerberg acknowledged that the focus on interaction instead of passive consumption might cause people to spend less time on Facebook, but he said the change "will be good for our community and our business over the long term, too," the Guardian reports. The move follows criticism that Facebook and other social media sites exploit human psychology to make themselves addictive, though analysts say Facebook consumption was already beginning to tail off. "Facebook is responding to a decline in consumption, not just encouraging a decline in consumption," Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser tells USA Today.
– As part of London’s bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics, organizers offered a plan to keep the Games green—but they’ve changed their minds. The committee will “no longer pursue formal offsetting procedures,” it said, dropping its pledge to balance carbon emissions from the Games with clean-energy investments in developing countries. Such offsetting would have “diverted” attention from Britain, says the Games’ sustainability chief. The decision also saves the organizing committee up to $4.4 million, Bloomberg reports. “If you want to go down certified carbon-offsetting, all projects have to be overseas, so if we plant a lot of trees in Essex that just doesn’t count,” says the official. “Because the Games are in the UK, we wanted to maximize the Games locally.” A British Green Party rep wasn’t happy with the shift. “Obviously we want the Olympics to benefit London, but environmentally they should be a green Olympics to benefit the whole world as well.” The move comes amid reports of mounting costs, according to the Guardian.
– "I stabbed an innocent woman to death earlier today ... It was absolutely fantastic." If that sounds to you like the diary entry of Charles Manson and not a teenage girl, you'd be very wrong. It is that of Pearl Moen, now 19, who will serve 15 years in prison after taking a plea deal Friday for stabbing a stranger 21 times on Nov. 14, 2015. Moen goes on to describe the early morning attack, at a park near her home in Austin, Texas, as "a high unlike any other—it feels like this crisp unreality, flashing and sparkling, adrenaline and shock, fight or flight mode." The victim survived, reports the Austin American-Statesman, and told police that her attacker was smiling. The victim tells KXAN that her medical background as a nurse saved her life. She'd been relaxing on a blanket with a friend and closed her eyes when the friend went into an apartment; and seconds later she was attacked. She lost a lot of blood and suffered a collapsed right lung. "I always thought she would walk around with guilt, but knowing she had this joy and this pride is very unsettling," she says. KVUE reports that Moen made several drawings depicting the attack, which her mother found and gave to police. In March of 2016, KVUE interviewed a former classmate of Moen's, who expressed shock that a shy, sweet girl who'd left school to be homeschooled had turned so violent. Moen apparently fell in with a rough crowd and had a history of drug use and psychological issues, though no criminal record. (America's smallest state capital is investigating a rare murder.)
– Kevin Epps has been making "gritty films" documenting violence in poor San Francisco neighborhoods for two decades—so his arrest Monday after the fatal shooting of a man in his home shocked his friends, who describe him as a gentle community activist, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. "This is one of the last things I would expect to hear," says an Oakland rapper who was featured in Epps' 2006 documentary Rap Dreams. Police booked Epps, 48, on suspicion of murder, but on Tuesday night, the DA's office said it was declining to file charges because of insufficient evidence at this time. Marcus Polk, 45, was found dead of a gunshot wound inside Epps' San Francisco home just after 1:30pm Monday. Police have declined to offer details of what happened, why Polk was in Epps' home, or what a possible motive might be, but Polk's son tells CBS San Francisco that Epps was married to Polk's ex-wife. Polk was a registered sex offender and had a rap sheet dating back to 1995 that included drug offenses, domestic violence, attempted robbery, and auto theft, NBC Bay Area reports. A woman who came to Epps' home to mourn Polk told the Chronicle she had known him for 10 years and that he had fallen into drugs and homelessness after his mother, with whom he lived, died a decade ago. She says he would often show up uninvited at the home where he ultimately died, in which his two children still lived, and cause trouble. Residents at a nearby apartment complex say he had recently been evicted from an apartment there that was believed to be a drug den; the apartment's tenant filed for a restraining order against Polk saying he had no right to live in there and had once gotten violent with him. Polk's son says his father insulted Epps and they got into an argument prior to Polk's shooting. Vic Lee of ABC 7 tweets that sources say the shooting may have been self-defense.
– After what the Washington Post is calling a "testy" 50-minute phone call between President Trump and his Mexican counterpart, the latter will not be visiting the former as planned. The major sticking point seems to be Trump's border wall, and Enrique Peña Nieto's refusal to pay for it. The Mexican leader had planned his first trip to the States since Trump's election this month or next, but dropped his plans after Trump refused to publicly acknowledge Peña Nieto's refusal to pay for the wall. Though Peña Nieto met in Mexico with Trump as a candidate, he canceled a planned January 2017 visit over Trump's wall rhetoric, reports the AP. The Post paints the two men as opposites, with the Mexican leader "a physically slight man," who is "exceedingly formal" and fond of "carefully scripted public events." And with Mexican presidential elections looming in July, he could be looking to make sure he avoids embarrassment for the sake of his party. "The problem is that President Trump has painted himself, President Peña Nieto, and the bilateral relationship into a corner," said Arturo Sarukhan, a former Mexican ambassador to the US. "The idea of Mexico paying for the wall was never going to fly. His relationship with Mexico isn’t strategically driven. It’s ... personal, driven by motivations and triggers, and that’s a huge problem. It could end up with the U.S. asking itself, ‘Who lost Mexico?' "
– There’s a term for that cold you’re going to get when you take a few days off work this holiday season: leisure sickness. And, while there are no medical studies to confirm the phenomenon, a Dutch psychologist published findings in 2002 that 3% of 1,900 people polled did say they tended to get sick on weekends and vacations, Quartz reports. Professor Ad Vingerhoets of Tilburg University in the Netherlands previously told the Guardian that his own propensity for leisure sickness spurred him to conduct the study. His thoughts, and the reigning theory, hold that all the work stress leading up to a break compromises the immune system, and then once you're finally able to rest, all that stress catches up with you. But, as Quartz points out, becoming ill on vacation likely has more to do with traveling than with taking time off work. “Whether influenza, the common cold, or other viruses, it’s really quite clear that mass transportation contributes to transmission,” William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, tells Quartz. In our daily lives, we build up antibodies to fight the germs around us, but at an airport, we're exposed to new viruses from around the globe. Worse, many viruses spread more easily in crowded places like airports, and the relatively low humidity inside airplane cabins also help them to spread. There's also the fact that "people [probably] remember illnesses during vacations better than those that occur during more regular work schedules," one psychology professor points out. The best way to avoid getting sick this holiday season, Schaffner says: Get a flu shot. (This study predicts how often adults and kids will get the flu.)
– Accidents happen. Like, sometimes you steal a car without even meaning to. Surveillance video taken Tuesday night in Portland, Ore., shows a woman unlocking Erin Hatzi's red Subaru in Hatzi's driveway and driving off, the Guardian reports. Hatzi tells KGW it didn't seem like a normal car theft as the thief sat in the car in the driveway for a few minutes before driving away. Regardless, Hatzi notified police and her insurance. On Wednesday, Hatzi's Subaru was back in front of her house with a note and $30 cash inside. "I more than apologize for the shock and upset this must have caused you," reads the note, which Hatzi posted on Facebook. "So, so sorry for this mistake." The note-writer says she told her friend to pick up her car—also a red Subaru—Tuesday night. The next morning, the note-writer discovered her friend had chosen the wrong Subaru; hers was parked a block away from Hatzi's home. The note-writer even left her name and phone number for Hatzi. The $30 was for gas. “It’s insane,” Hatzi tells KGW. “It’s like a bad sitcom that nobody would ever buy the story because it’s stupid and it makes no sense." Apparently, keys for older Subarus can be interchangeable, and that's what allowed Hatzi's car to have what she calls "a little adventure," the Oregonian reports. (The theft of a Snuggle Mobile was no accident.)
– President Trump says he plans to introduce a tax reform package next week that includes a "massive tax cut" for both businesses and individuals, the AP reports. According to CNBC, Trump is promising a "big announcement" on Wednesday that will "formally" start the tax reform process. While he didn't provide any details, the president says his tax reform package will be "bigger I believe than any tax cut ever." The White House immediately tried to downplay Trump's comments, issuing a statement clarifying that what the president meant was "he wants to do tax reform as quickly as possible while still doing it right." Earlier this week, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Trump's tax reform plans had been derailed by the failure of the GOP health care bill, pushing back his original goal of having tax reform done by August to sometime before the end of the year. Speaking of health care, Trump said on Friday it "doesn't matter" to him if there's another vote on health care next week, the Hill reports. He adds there's "no particular rush." That contradicts reports from earlier this week that Trump was pushing hard for another health care vote in time for his 100th day in office, which is a week from Saturday. On Friday, Trump called the 100-day mark a "ridiculous standard."
– The discovery of a mysterious blonde girl at a Roma camp in Greece has spurred more than 10,000 phone calls and emails to the charity trying to identify her. Smile of the Child says it has heard from many parents whose children have gone missing, and it is following up around 10 promising leads, including at least four from the US, the Guardian reports. The girl, who was discovered in the home of a couple with 13 other children, speaks only a Roma dialect and is believed to be around four years old. The couple have been charged with kidnapping and police say they have given at least five different accounts of how the child came to be with them. The Roma community where the girl was found has rallied around the couple, reports the BBC, but social workers suspect the girl was forced to beg in the streets and may have been sexually abused. The charity caring for her says she was "filthy and terrified" when they found her last week but her condition has improved and she is now out of the hospital and playing with other children. "She was frightened and cried herself to sleep," the charity's director tells Reuters. "It has shaken everyone and has helped bring to light a major problem—just how easy it is to traffic children."
– Pity poor Thomas Bacon, who is grabbing headlines for what might be a mundane arrest—were it not for his last name and the role sausage allegedly plays in the story. NJ.com reports the 19-year-old has been charged with simple assault in connection with a May 12 incident. Police were called to his Madison home, where, some time before 3:30am, Bacon had allegedly assaulted another person there who had eaten the last piece of breakfast sausage. Madison Patch reports the alleged victim didn't need medical care. Bacon was released on his own recognizance, per the Daily Record. (Bizarrely, in the same vein: an alleged crime involving bacon and an unfortunate last name.)
– Donald Trump might actually be able to follow through on his promise to reduce immigration as he's already made British actress Emily Blunt regret her new US citizenship. "I became an American citizen recently," Blunt told the Hollywood Reporter when asked about Trump. "That night we watched the Republican debate, and I thought, 'This was a terrible mistake. What have I done?'" Blunt, who became a naturalized citizen in August, discussed other reservations with her new status last week on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Fox News reports "I'm not sure I'm entirely thrilled about it," Blunt said last week on Jimmy Kimmel Live. "People ask me about the whole day. They were like, 'Oh, it must have been so emotional.' I was like, 'It wasn't! It was sad!' I like being British." The Into the Woods star said the hardest part was renouncing allegiance to the queen, especially because she's still a British citizen as well as a new American one. To Americans upset about Blunt's lack of enthusiasm (and there are many on Twitter), she may have been punished enough already: THR reports Ellen DeGeneres had Blunt dress up as the Statue of Liberty on yesterday's show and sing "Yankee Doodle," only to be scared by a man in an Uncle Sam costume.
– At least one worker is seriously ill at the US South Pole station, and because it is winter in Antarctica, it would be easier to reach the unidentified person if he or she were anywhere else on the planet—or even on the International Space Station. The worker is one of 48 people wintering at the National Science Foundation's Amundsen–Scott South Pole research station, and two planes have been sent from Canada to carry out a very unusual and risky rescue mission, reports Science. Only two other such rescues have been carried out in the 60 years the station has been operating and, until the evacuation of physician Ron Shemenski in 2001, it had been thought that the relentless cold and dark made it impossible to get people away from the South Pole in winter, reports the Washington Post. Shemenski had pancreatitis and the NSF feared he would die. Two Twin Otter bush planes, each with a pilot, a co-pilot, an engineer, and a medic, are carrying out the mission, with one plane remaining at a British research station on the Antarctic Peninsula in case crew from the first plane need to be rescued. They hope to carry out the rescue by the middle of next week. (You can track progress here.) "It's a 10-hour flight, and you only have 12 or 13 hours of fuel on board," pilot Sean Loutitt, who was chief pilot during the 2001 rescue mission, tells the Post. "You're monitoring the weather the whole time, but eventually you get to a point of no return. Then you're committed to the pole, no matter what." He also took part in a rescue in 2003, when a worker had a gall bladder infection. The currently ill worker's medical situation has not been specified. (In 2011, the NSF balked at sending a plane after the station's winter manager had a stroke.)
– Not many details are out yet, but it's a big enough story that the FBI is now involved. ABC News reports that both local and federal authorities are investigating the Tuesday death of a 52-year-old woman on Princess Cruises' Royal Princess cruise ship. The vessel had departed its Florida port in Fort Lauderdale and was on a seven-day journey, with Aruba as one of its destinations. That's where police boarded the ship after the incident was reported. "We are cooperating fully with the investigating authorities, including the FBI," Princess Cruises noted in a statement. CBS News and USA Today report that some Aruba news outlets are saying authorities may be treating the incident as a possible murder; an island police update on Facebook Tuesday notes it doesn't appear to be a "natural death." Per Newsweek, one outlet gets even more detail, reporting that the woman fell off the boat's top deck after she was seen scuffling with a "muscular" man who appeared to be choking her. A person claiming to be a passenger posted in a cruise forum that passengers weren't immediately allowed off the ship in Aruba, and that cops and forensic technicians had come onboard. "We are deeply saddened by this incident and offer our sincere condolences to the family and those affected," the cruise line added in its statement. The ship is set to arrive back in Florida on Saturday. (A "tragic accident" on another cruise line last month.)
– If you're looking to live in a place where people like what they do, like where they live, and make smart physical and financial choices, get thee to North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, Fla. Of the 100 most populated US metropolitan areas considered in the newly released Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, it ranked No. 1; on a possible scale of zero to 100, it scored 64.1. Completing the top 5: Urban Honolulu, Hawaii; Raleigh, NC; Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, Calif.; and El Paso, Texas. While the communities with the highest and lowest well-being weren't separated by too many points—Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, Ohio-Pa., brought up the rear with a score of 58.1—Gallup called out "substantial differences [that] distinguish the lowest well-being communities from the highest." Among them: Inhabitants of the lowest-ranking communities are "68% more likely to smoke, 26% more likely to be obese, 55% less likely to like what they do each day, and 58% more likely to not feel pride in their community." When it comes to lowest-ranking areas, Ohio didn't fare so well: It has four more in the bottom 10, including Toledo, Dayton, Columbus, and Cincinnati; Knoxville and the Indianapolis metro area also made the bottom five. Gallup and Healthways have been measuring well-being since 2008, and note that the 2014 index, which resulted from 176,702 interviews carried out over the entirety of last year, provides "a more comprehensive measure of well-being" than in previous years. It considered these five "essential" elements of well-being: purpose, social, financial, community, physical. See the full report to review all the rankings.
– The first results of a study out of the UK are raising the tantalizing possibility that researchers have figured not just how to treat HIV but how to actually cure it. The first of 50 patients to undergo the experimental therapy, a 44-year-old British social worker, has no detectable traces of the virus in his blood, reports the Sunday Times. The team of scientists from the UK's leading universities say it's way too early to claim success, but they're clearly optimistic. "We are exploring the real possibility of curing HIV,” says Mark Samuels of the National Institute for Health Research Office for Clinical Research Infrastructure. “This is a huge challenge and it’s still early days but the progress has been remarkable.” The treatment is kind of a one-two punch, explains Medical Daily. First, it uses standard antiretroviral drugs, the type used by today's HIV patients to keep the virus from reproducing and thus remain in check. But, crucially, it then does something those ART drugs cannot do—it eliminates dormant cells that lie in hiding. (Those dormant cells are the reason HIV treatment is currently a lifelong prospect.) The Guardian reports that the second phase of the treatment, involving a drug called Vorinostat, aims to "trick the virus into emerging from its hiding places" so it can be wiped out. For the first patient, at least, it seems to have worked, but researchers say they must monitor his health for years before making definitive claims—because previous hopes about "cures" proved to be false ones.
– In what STAT describes as an "exhaustive" 24-page report, there's one type of thermometer that rises above the rest when it comes to gauging body temperature. Rectal thermometers remain the "gold standard" for getting the most accurate reading, HealthDay News reports, even though "it's no one's favorite method." For the study appearing in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers examined 75 published studies, comprised of more than 8,600 patients total, that compared "central" thermometers (i.e., either rectal ones or those that can get temps from a vein) with "peripheral" ones—the kind we stick under our tongues, in our armpits and ears, and on our foreheads, STAT notes. The results: Rectal thermometers were "highly accurate," while peripherals didn't perform as well, especially in detection of low-grade fevers and accuracy in measuring high-grade ones (the study found ear and armpit thermometers could be up to two degrees off in either direction). For most people with a minor cold, that isn't a big deal, lead author Dr. Daniel Niven tells STAT. But when you're dealing with certain groups—including older patients, those with immunity issues, and patients with tumors—it's critical to use the most accurate thermometers that can pick up even the slightest fever, the study notes. The least-accurate instruments for temp-taking? Armpit thermometers, Niven says. The study didn't include infants or toddlers, so the recommendation to use rectal thermometers can't be extrapolated to them based on this study, NPR notes, though it adds that the American Academy of Pediatrics gives a thumbs-up to rectal thermometers as the most accurate for kids under the age of 3. (Toucans don't need thermometers—they've got their own beaks to keep things in balance.)
– It seems like a raging hangover would be enough to deter anyone from drinking again ... but, as will surprise no one who's woken up Saturday morning feeling woozy only to hit the bars again Saturday night, a new study finds that hangovers actually have very little impact on when we have our next drink. And not only do they not dissuade us from drinking more, it's also a myth that they encourage us to go for another drink in an attempt to relieve our pain, "hair of the dog" style. It should be noted, however, that the public health researchers arrived at these results by asking 386 US college students and other young adults—not, say, middle-aged people—to keep a drinking diary for three weeks, the BBC reports. Each morning, subjects reported whether they had a hangover and rated how likely they were to drink later that day, and researchers found that there was no difference in the ratings between mornings subjects had hangovers (even bad ones) and mornings they did not. (Amusing note: Some diary entries were blank, perhaps because the subjects were too hung over to put pen to paper, the researchers theorize.) However, researchers did then look at subjects' actual drinking and found that having a hangover did delay the timing of the next drink ... by six hours, from 38 hours to 44, LiveScience reports. "The message here for clinicians is that it is probably a waste of time to discuss hangovers when trying to motivate a problem drinker to drink less or drink less often," says one expert, according to the Star-Ledger. (Click to read about a man who suffers from severe hangovers—after eating carbs.)
– Bette Midler had a rough Thursday on Twitter, and it all started with her paraphrasing Yoko Ono. In a now-deleted tweet that you can see at USA Today, the 72-year-old wrote, "'Women, are the n-word of the world.' Raped, beaten, enslaved, married off, worked like dumb animals; denied education and inheritance; enduring the pain and danger of childbirth and life IN SILENCE for THOUSANDS of years They are the most disrespected creatures on earth." USA Today reports the more than 8,000 comments her tweet gathered over the next three hours were mostly negative, with many arguing, as @NoisyAstronomer puts it, that it "erases the struggles of black women in particular." Journalist Jemele Hill's reaction was simply, "Full stop." Midler's initial reaction wasn't to apologize. In a second now-deleted tweet, she wrote, "I gather I have offended many by my last tweet. 'Women are the...etc' is a quote from Yoko Ono from 1972, which I never forgot. It rang true then, and it rings true today, whether you like it or not. This is not about race, this is about the status of women; THEIR HISTORY." The title of Ono's song is "Women Are the N----- of the World," and the Washington Post reports it was largely kept off the radio at the time. In Midler's case, the critics eventually won out. After three hours, the post was pulled and she tweeted this: "The too brief investigation of allegations against Kavanaugh infuriated me. Angrily I tweeted w/o thinking my choice of words would be enraging to black women who doubly suffer, both by being women and by being black. I am an ally and stand with you; always have. And I apologize."
– Check out Twitter and Facebook today and you may notice the cover and/or profile photos of musical artists from Kanye West to Madonna to Coldplay are blue. Why? Jay Z. The rapper is launching his own music streaming service tonight, and artists started turning their social media profiles teal last night to promote the service, known as Tidal, Mashable reports. Sample tweet accompanying the blue overhaul, from Usher: "It's time to turn the tide and make music history. Show you are part of the movement by turning your profile pic blue. #TIDALforALL." (Some tweets about Tidal also taunt "#RIPspotify.") Others supporting the service include Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, and, of course, Beyonce. It's not clear exactly why artists are so excited about the service. All the website promises so far is "the first music streaming service that combines the best High Fidelity sound quality, High Definition music videos, and expertly Curated Editorial," and Jay Z has promised via press release "a commitment to a new direction for the music industry from both a creative and business perspective," per TechCrunch. But insiders say musicians will get better payouts from Tidal than they get from its streaming rivals, and Tidal will aim to score initial releases of new tracks before other services. Pricing starts at $9.99 a month after a free trial. Jay Z will unveil the service in New York at 5pm Eastern. Technically, he's taking over: He bought Swedish tech company Aspiro this year, and that company ran Tidal and another streaming service, WiMP.
– Did Piers Morgan sanction a bit of phone hacking while in charge of the Daily Mirror? The CNN host has been denying it all week, after a British lawmaker accused him of it. But now, audio has surfaced online of a 2009 radio interview in which Morgan seems to admit to doing just that, the Telegraph reports. In the clip, first reported by the “Guido Fawkes” blog and the Daily Beast, Morgan is asked how he felt about “down-in-the-gutter” journalism tactics like phone hacking. “To be honest … not a lot of that went on,” Morgan replied. “A lot of it was done by third parties rather than the staff themselves. That’s not to defend it, because obviously you were running the results of their work.” Today Morgan told Mediaite that the comments were just “a general observation about tabloid newspaper reporters,” and not an admission of phone hacking specifically.
– Diagnoses have just been made for patients who've been dead for thousands of years. Researchers digging in Egypt have uncovered six cases of cancer among ancient Egyptians, including a young child with leukemia, a middle-aged woman with a carcinoma—most likely ovarian, breast, or colorectal cancer—and a middle-aged man with a preserved tumor indicating rectal cancer, per Live Science and ScienceAlert. Based on those and three other cancer cases perhaps caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), found among the remains of 1,087 Egyptians buried 1,500 to 3,000 years ago in a cemetery in the Dakhleh Oasis, researchers say ancient residents had a 0.5% risk of developing cancer during their lifetimes, compared to the "100 times greater" risk of 50% for people living in the West today. In most cases, researchers had to identify cancers based on bone damage, including holes left by tumors, and admit traces of disease could've long ago vanished. Still, the finding makes sense since ancient Egyptians had significantly shorter life spans than modern humans (which would affect lifetime cancer risk) and "the carcinogenic load in their past environments would have been considerably less carcinogenic than modern Western societies," anthropologist El Molto and doctor Peter Sheldrick write in the International Journal of Paleopathology. As three of the six cases occurred in people who died relatively young, in their 20s and 30s, the pair suspect HPV could be to blame. "HPV is a confirmed cause of cancer of the uterine cervix and testes" and "both types of cancers peak in the young adult cohorts," write the authors, who found no evidence of cancer treatment. (A 3,000-year-old prosthesis has been found.)
– In what's been called an epic fail, the finale of Australia's Next Top Model was thrown into confusion yesterday when the host announced the wrong winner. Sarah Murdoch (daughter-in-law of Rupert) named 19-year-old Kelsey Martinovich as victorious, but was informed minutes later via her earpiece feed that the actual winner was Amanda Ware. (Check out the video in the gallery.) Murdoch, who Australia's ABC reports was "close to tears," then had the unenviable task of telling Martinovich, who'd already made her acceptance speech, that she was not the winner. In front of a live studio audience, Murdoch said, "This was a complete accident. I'm so sorry. It's Amanda. I'm so sorry." A gracious Martinovich took it on the chin and congratulated Ware. FOX8, the show's broadcaster, offered the runner-up $20,000 and a trip to New York. Read the full article here or here at the Frisky.
– Unless fans of failed 1853 Whig Party gubernatorial candidate William Waldo make a last stand, California will soon be getting a Robin Williams Tunnel. A bill to rename the tunnel, which connects the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County and was once part of the comedian's daily commute, sailed through the California Assembly 76-0 yesterday, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The tunnel is currently known as the Waldo Tunnel and has also been nicknamed the "Rainbow Tunnel" because of its painted archways, NBC Bay Area reports. The bill, which started out as an online petition, will now be considered by the state Senate. The tunnel's rainbows "personify Robin in that he was so playful, fun, accessible, alive, and colorful" and are also reminiscent of the suspenders he wore in Mork and Mindy, writes petition starter Julie Wainwright, who lived near Williams in Marin County. "Robin was a one-of-a-kind type of person, and I want him to be honored in an unconventional, everlasting, and beautiful way," she writes. (Williams made sure that you won't be seeing him as a Tupac-style hologram for at least 25 years.)
– A re-released version of a Guns N' Roses' album won't sound quite how fans remember it. "One in a Million," a song that made waves upon its release because it featured the N-word, an anti-gay slur, and anti-immigrant sentiments, has been omitted from a box set reissue of the band's 1987 album Appetite for Destruction. The song was actually on the 1988 album G N' R Lies, but the box set's bonus tracks include all the other songs on G N' R Lies, reports Pitchfork. Frontman Axl Rose defended the use of the N-word to Rolling Stone in 1989, saying "it's a word to describe somebody that is basically a pain in your life" and "doesn't necessarily mean black." A few years later, guitarist Slash, born to a black mother and white father, had this to say: "I don't regret doing 'One in a Million,' I just regret what we've been through because of it and the way people have perceived our personal feelings," he told Rolling Stone in 1991, per the Guardian. Despite an apology for "One in a Million" included in the original cover art for G N' R Lies—"This song is very simple and extremely generic or generalized, my apologies to those who may take offense," it reads—people were outraged by the song's lyrics. "Immigrants and f------/They make no sense to me/They come to our country/And think they'll do as they please/Like start some mini-Iran/Or spread some f---ing disease," they read in part. The band has yet to explain why the song was cut.
– Police believe that they have found the body of missing 5-year-old Lucas Hernandez, of Wichita, Kan. Lucas’s stepmother, Emily Glass, has been arrested for obstruction and one count of interfering with a law enforcement officer, reports People. According to the Wichita Eagle, the badly decomposed body was under a bridge on a gravel road, about a quarter of a mile from the nearest house. Sheila Medlam, a volunteer searcher, says she got a text message from a private investigator telling her, "We found him at 5:01." Within hours of the discovery, about two dozen volunteer searchers went to where the body was found and stood vigil for him, per the Eagle. The area where the body was found—near the town of Sedgwick about 20 miles north of Wichita—was close to where they had been searching. Glass, who has a one-year-old daughter, reported Lucas missing from their rental home on Feb. 17. The boy's father, Jonathan Hernandez, works out of state for long stretches and was away at the time, per ABC. A few days after Lucas’ disappearance, the police arrested Glass, 27, for endangerment—specifically, smoking three bowls of marijuana and then driving her daughter to a restaurant—but a jury found her not guilty. Court documents indicate that Lucas was frequently seen with bruises, and after Lucas was reported missing, friends and relatives came forward and said they thought he had been abused. A family friend who says she spoke with Jonathan relayed a message from him: "Jonathan said thanks to all searchers and everybody" who has supported the family and cared about Lucas. The friend adds, "Just continue to pray for the family because they lost somebody they love."
– We have seen the future Thor, and she is female: In a rather startling change, Marvel revealed today (to The View, naturally?) what it calls "one of the most shocking and exciting changes" to rattle the ranks of its biggest heroes—it seems our "classic Thunder God" is no longer worthy of the mighty hammer, Mjölnir, and so Marvel is rolling out a new female character to take it up. But careful: "This is not She-Thor," says writer Jason Aaron. "This is not Lady Thor. This is not Thorita. This is THOR." It's an interesting change, notes Katy Waldman at Slate, because "while a lot of superheroines—including Marvel’s own Storm, Black Widow, and Captain Marvel—rely on lithe acrobatics to fight evil, Thor favors the brute smashing of things. Thor is mighty and unsubtle and loud." But while Marvel editor Wil Moss notes the inscription on Thor's hammer reads, "Whosoever holds this hammer, if HE be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor," he says that nevertheless, "it's time to update that inscription." The new hero debuts in October. (In other comics news, this is how Archie dies.)
– The mothers of the world are mad, and they're not going to take it anymore. A growing movement against "birth rape" is placing institutions on notice that women in labor oppose any vaginal intrusion by "fingers, hands, suction cups, forceps, needles and scissors" without consent, notes the Sydney Morning Herald. Uncaring, sometimes brutal physical examinations often traumatize vulnerable laboring women, notes birthtalk.com, which defines "birth rape" as anything that "crosses decent boundaries." Critics have called the assumption that doctors can examine women in labor whenever and how ever they please "institutional violence against women." One blogger complained: "The tools of birth rape are wielded with as much force and as little consent as if a stranger grabbed a passer-by off the street and tied her up before having his way with her."
– The man police say confessed to the shocking road-rage killing of a 4-year-old girl in Albuquerque, NM, has a long history of criminal charges—including a previous road-rage incident involving a gun—but no history of convictions. In the previous incident, Tony Torrez allegedly pulled a gun on a man in a parking garage in 2006 and was charged after the gun went off during a struggle and his friend was injured, the Albuquerque Journal reports. The charges were dismissed after the victim and a witness failed to cooperate with prosecutors, which appears to be a common theme in nine cases involving Torrez, including a 2008 incident where he allegedly pointed a gun at his girlfriend and asked her if she "wanted to die," the Journal reports. KOB reports that the only case where a charge against Torrez stuck was a parking ticket. Torrez appeared in court Thursday on several charges, including murder, child abuse resulting in death, and tampering with evidence, CNN reports. He's being held on $650,000 bond. Court documents revealed more details of the shooting that the judge called one of the "most wanton and atrocious acts in the history of this city," per the Journal. Alan Garcia, father of 4-year-old Lilly, told police that he was on his way to the grocery store on Tuesday with his two children when a car crossed two lanes of traffic in front of him and blocked his exit. Garcia told police that he swore at the other driver, who shot at his truck several times, killing his daughter with at least one shot to the head. A GoFundMe page in honor of Lilly has raised more than $70,000, reports KOB.
– At least 144 people were killed yesterday in the latest Syrian violence, including some 64 slaughtered in a "horrifying massacre" at a single checkpoint in Homs province, according to witnesses. But the government has no plans to end its attacks on citizens. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem vowed to "defend" his country. "We are not happy to see brothers killing each other," he said. "This is our country. But we will defend our sovereignty and independence," he told reporters. The scores killed at the checkpoint were attempting to flee shelling in the city of Homs. Security forces and thugs kidnapped the women among them, and killed the men, sources told CNN. They were either shot or stabbed to death. The killings occurred as Syrian officials announced that the nation's new draft constitution was overwhelmingly approved by voters, and the European Union imposed new sanctions. US officials dismiss the constitution vote "as absolutely cynical," said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. What Basahr al-Assad has done "is put a piece of paper that he controls to a vote that he controls so that he can try and maintain control." In other Syrian news, the BBC earlier reported that French reporter Edith Bouvier refused to board a Red Cross vehicle that managed to enter besieged Baba Amr, and UK photographer Paul Conroy stayed behind in solidarity. But the BBC now reports that Conroy has indeed been smuggled out of the country; Bouvier's whereabouts are unknown.
– Police tell WKYC that Michael Madison, the registered sex offender suspected in the murders of three women in Cleveland, has confessed to one of the killings. He was charged with three counts of aggravated murder today, CBS News reports, and his bail has been set at $6 million. Meanwhile, one of the victims has been identified as Angela Deskins, 38. Authorities are asking for anyone with information on possible IDs of the other two women to call 1-800-CALL-FBI. Autopsies on the badly decomposed bodies are complete, but cause of death has not yet been determined. Volunteer searchers were told yesterday to expect more remains to be found, but the search was called off—for now, at least—last night. All three victims are believed to have been murdered in the past six to 10 days, the AP reports. The mayor says detectives, who are still questioning Madison, have "lots of reasons" to believe there are more victims. A neighbor who saw Madison frequently says the man threatened, about a month ago, to attack women in a similar fashion as Anthony Sowell, who was convicted of murdering 11 women whose bodies were found in his Cleveland home in 2009. Madison also indicated to police that Sowell may have influenced him.
– In his first hurrah, John Wick managed to kill an incredible 84 people. You can expect the count to rise in John Wick: Chapter 2, hailed as beautiful despite all the blood. Wick, an assassin played by Keanu Reeves, embarks on a final mission but ends up with a $7 million bounty on his head. Here's what critics are saying: "You would not expect a sequel to a Keanu Reeves shoot-em-up to be one of the more engrossing and beautiful films of the year, but hey, it's 2017—there have been a lot of surprises," writes Barry Hertz at the Globe and Mail. Yes, there's a lot of blood, but it comes in some of the "most artfully arranged shots in recent cinematic memory," with stunning locations as a backdrop. This "is an eye-popping feast that defies genre expectations." Stephanie Zacharek credits much of the film's success to its leading man. The "beautifully orchestrated" violence is "mostly semi-comical" and Reeves "knows what's awful and what's funny about every scenario, cluing us in with an invisible wink," she write at Time. "The pleasures of John Wick: Chapter 2 may be even greater than those of its predecessor." Unlike many sequels, "Chapter 2 justifies the existence of more Wick without overstaying its welcome," writes David Sims at the Atlantic. Instead of trying to "match the emotional heft of the original," the filmmakers focus on the violence and impressive "worldbuilding," a "fantastic decision," according to Sims. Fans of the original will be happy to know Chapter 2 also suggests another sequel is in store. It could have been awful, but Chapter 2 is "one of the most fun action pictures in recent memory" partly due to its "lighthearted tone" and sense of humor, writes Adam Graham at Detroit News. Reeves "gives Wick the charred soul that powers the film," but the supporting cast is just as good, with Common delivering "his best-yet screen performance," Graham says. Overall, "it's a wicked blast."
– A 21-year-old Welsh woman says that, because she "kissed a guy," her father shaved her head and locked her up, putting metal bars on her bedroom door and preventing her from using the phone and internet—or even the bathroom, instead forcing her to urinate in a cup. Amina Al-Jeffery grew up in Wales and has dual British and Saudi Arabian citizenship, and says her father Mohammed Al-Jeffery, a 60-something academic, took her to Saudi Arabia four years ago, where he has kept her imprisoned and physically abused her, the Independent reports. Lawyers representing her are now in London asking a court to help her. It's not clear how they learned of her, though the BBC reports that she alerted the British Consulate in Jeddah to her situation. Her lawyers say it has been difficult to communicate with her. "Her treatment has extended to depriving her of food and water, depriving her of toilet facilities, physical assault, and control of her ability to marry who she wishes and creating a situation in which she feels compelled to marry as a means of escape," one of her lawyers said, per the Telegraph. Mohammed Al-Jeffery disputes his daughter's claims; he says he took her to Saudi Arabia to "save her life," and that he "fear[s] she will go back to her old destructive lifestyle" if she is returned to the UK. That lifestyle involved taking drugs, not focusing on her education, and "going to clubs and spending time with older men," his lawyer says. Mohammed Al-Jeffery also says Amina shaved her own head. The judge is considering whether he has the power to make an order relating to someone living abroad, and suggested Amina request sanctuary at the British Consulate. (Police say an autistic woman was kept outdoors in a crate.)
– Tomorrow at Bonhams auction house in New York, more than 300 lots of WWII memorabilia—uniforms, flags, cigarette cases—from nearly 10 countries will go on the selling block. But one piece of memorabilia is especially rare, somehow making it out of war-torn Germany before it could be thrown into the fire pit. The surrender order signed by Nazi Adm. Karl Doenitz, who took over the Third Reich for Hitler after he perished, is expected to bring in between $20,000 and $30,000 during tomorrow's sale, the Guardian reports. "This is a very important historical document, and it could go to any country that values that," Tom Lamb, curator of the sale, tells the paper. Doenitz's note—put together while he was holed up on a military base in northwest Germany—to Robert von Greim, the head of the German air force, spelled out an "unconditional" end to fighting as of 1am on May 9, 1945. "This was unavoidable in order to prevent the complete destruction of certain parts of the front … and, in so doing, to save as many people as possible for Germany," the telegram reads, per the Guardian. The surrender note was found in von Greim's briefcase when he was captured by US forces in Austria on May 8, 1945; he killed himself a couple of weeks later. Doenitz, for his part, was convicted of war crimes, served 10 years, and died in 1980 in Hamburg, per the Jewish Virtual Library. The fact that the surrender papers even made it to auction is "extraordinary," Lamb says. "The Germans had a scorched-earth policy as they pulled out, so they burnt, destroyed every piece of paper they had," he tells the Guardian. "And if they didn't do it, the Russians did it." (A handwritten notebook of WWII code-breaker Alan Turing was sold for $1 million earlier this month.)
– A man's body was found in a vehicle buried in mud by a severe storm in Los Angeles County, but authorities aren't certain that it was the storm that killed him: The sheriff's department has sent homicide detectives to investigate the grim find made by firefighters Tuesday afternoon, the Los Angeles Times reports. The vehicle was under several feet of mud near a road in Palmdale and if foul play wasn't involved, the death may be the first one confirmed to have been caused by last Thursday's storm, which left scores of cars and trucks stuck in tons of mud on roadways in the region,the AP reports. Police say the victim is a white man in his 40s. Palmdale resident Stacy Horwood says she believes the vehicle is one that she saw disappear into a ditch after driving through several feet of water during the storm. "It went nose first, and then you saw the back axle just continue to sink down, and that was it," she tells KTLA. "The water just kept going and going and going, and nothing came up." She says she called 911 at the time, but authorities didn't find the vehicle and it was only uncovered after she pressured them to have another look. "My heart's been breaking every day," she says. (Last month, a flash flood turned a first date deadly in San Bernardino National Forest.)
– Just days after David Letterman received death threats from an angry (and apparently confused) jihadist, follow-up program The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson received a threatening letter from Europe containing a mysterious white powder, reports the AP. Two staffers who came in contact with the substance were held for observation until a hazmat team determined it was harmless. "Ack! Someone mailed my show white powder & claimed it was anthrax," he tweeted. "I'm not a big fan of that sort of thing." Much like Letterman, Ferguson responded with humor, joking that the threat caused him to change several planned jokes about the East Coast earthquake from earlier in the day. "Because the earthquake only scared millions of people on the East Coast," he said in his monologue, "but the white powder did something much worse. It scared me." The LAPD and FBI are investigating.
– During this year's Super Bowl, advertisers mostly played it safe—apart from Fiat Chrysler, which faced a major backlash after using a Martin Luther King Jr. speech in an ad for Dodge Ram trucks. "Recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That's a new definition of greatness," the civil rights leader said in the Feb. 4, 1968 speech. The company said it had obtained permission from King's estate, though the King Center nonprofit said it hadn't approved the ad, USA Today reports. Critics noted that MLK's dream "probably wasn't to drive a Ram"—and that in the same speech used in the commercial, he said families shouldn't spend too much of their income on automobiles. Some other standout ads, which can be seen in the gallery: NFL. The "Touchdown Celebration" NFL spot featuring Eli Manning and Odell Beckham Jr. in a Dirty Dancing spoof got some laughs at AdAge, which writes: "Not since the Super Bowl shuffle have we so enjoyed seeing these big lugs boogie." Amazon. The company's "Alexa Loses Her Voice" ad featured an appearance from CEO Jeff Bezos, as well as celebrities including Gordon Ramsey, Cardi B, and Sir Anthony Hopkins. Doritos/Mountain Dew. Peter Dinklage and Morgan Freeman trade rhymes in an ad for Doritos Blaze versus Mountain Dew Ice that Billboard describes as "the rap battle of the 21st century." Tide. David Harbour stars in what he tells AdWeek was a "wildly self-aware" series of ads mimicking ads for other products designed to make viewers wonder, "Wow, maybe every ad is like a Tide ad." Pringles. Pringles brought out Bill Hader and what AdAge calls a collection of "slack-jawed wacky types" to introduce the concept of "stacking" Pringles for new flavor combinations. Budweiser. In one of several socially conscious beer ads, Budweiser, the game's largest advertiser, highlighted its efforts to send water to places in need. Toyota. Toyota promoted its Paralympics sponsorship by telling the story of skiier Lauren Woolstencroft, reports the AP, which notes that a fifth of this year's ads involved social causes, up from 6% last year. Hyundai. The automaker tugged at heart strings with an ad focusing on its pediatric cancer research charity. "This is the first time Hyundai has trotted out its charity in a Super Bowl ad, and we're betting it isn't the last," CNET predicts. Tourism Australia. The Dundee ad came as part of an elaborate Australian marketing campaign featuring a nonexistent sequel to Crocodile Dundee, reports the New York Times.
– Two teachers and a superintendent's secretary have resigned after video surfaced of them playing a game of "F***, Marry, Kill" involving coworkers and students last month at a bar in Michigan, Fox 17 reports. Some of the students named during the game have special needs. According to WOOD, the video was posted to YouTube on Monday and was addressed during a heated school board meeting that night. The three Bangor Public Schools employees who resigned could be heard making inappropriate comments in the video. Four other teachers present in the video were reprimanded by the school district. One parent at Monday's school board meeting called the video "disturbing" and said it "shows that maybe they're not right for this job." Police were made aware of the video after another Bangor Public Schools staff member filed a complaint "because she felt threatened" by it, WZZM reports. The chief of police says he watched the video and didn't see anything criminal in it. According to WSJM, an attorney for the school district says he think's everyone involved has learned from the incident. (Police say a PE teacher stole cash out of students' lockers.)
– The jackpot for this Saturday's Powerball drawing is already the highest jackpot in US history, and it's likely it could soon become the country's first $1 billion jackpot. Michigan Live reports the jackpot is up to $800 million—an increase of $100 million in the past 24 hours. If the current pace of ticket sales continues, it should hit $1 billion by the drawing on Saturday night. The previous high jackpot was $656 million for a MegaMillions game back in 2012, according to CNN. There have now been 18 straight Powerball drawings without a winner, dating back to Nov. 7. So is it worth buying a ticket? "Playing the lottery is a bad idea, financially speaking," Time notes. But the value of a $2 Powerball ticket can actually increase if the jackpot gets large enough, which makes buying one slightly less of a bad idea, mathematically speaking. According to Time, in order for a Powerball ticket to be worth more than the $2 it costs, the jackpot would have to hit $1.2 billion, taking into account federal taxes and the possibility of multiple winners. With an $800 million jackpot, the expected value of a $2 Powerball ticket is currently a piddly $1.01. You should probably read the whole explainer to understand.
– A chilling threat for visitors to next month's Sochi Olympics: Islamic militants say they have a "present" ready for those attending the Games in southern Russia. The threat was made in a video that surfaced yesterday, sparking serious security fears with the event less than three weeks away, CNN reports. "We've prepared a present for you and all tourists who'll come over," two black-clad men say in the video. "If you will hold the Olympics, you'll get a present from us for the Muslim blood that's been spilled. The two men are believed to be suicide bombers who blew themselves up in last month's Volgograd attacks, killing 34 people. Russian and American authorities are analyzing the video and while it's not clear whether it presents a credible security threat, US lawmakers have expressed concern about Russia's ability to protect athletes, USA Today reports. Some American athletes, however, say they have full confidence in Russia's security measures. "Putin is not going to compromise security. This is his baby," speedskater Patrick Meek said after the Volgograd bombings. Click for more on Russia's intense security measures.
– Did notorious gangster Al Capone have a soft spot? An intimate letter he penned from prison suggests so. The three-page letter, which being auctioned off next week, is addressed to Capone's son, Albert "Sonny" Capone. The mobster signed it, "Love & Kisses, Your Dear Dad Alphonse Capone #85" (his number at the Alcatraz prison), the AP reports. "Well heart of mine, sure hope things come our way for next year, then I'll be there in your arms," Capone wrote. "It's an exceedingly rare personal letter showing the softer side of the notorious gangster," says the executive VP of RR Auction, which is handling Monday's auction in Cambridge, Mass., and expects the note to fetch around $50,000. The legendary Brooklyn-born mobster, who ruled gangland Chicago during Prohibition, was charged with income tax evasion in 1931; he was convicted and sentenced to 11 years in prison, much of which he spent at Alcatraz. He was released from prison in 1939; riddled with syphilis, he suffered a stroke and died in 1947 at age 48. Though the letter to his then-college-aged son is dated only "Jan 16th," experts say he likely wrote it in 1938, four years after he transferred to Alcatraz. In a somewhat surprisingly cheerful tone, his letter describes the daily grind in prison, which Capone tried to relieve by playing banjo and mandola. Capone ended the letter encouraging his son to stay strong: "Well Sonny keep up your chin, and don't worry about your dear Dad, and when again you [are] allowed a vacation, I want you and your dear Mother to come here together, as I sure would love to see you." Read more from the letter here.
– A feel-good tale of a homeless man using his last $20 to help a stranded New Jersey woman buy gas was actually a complete lie, manufactured to get strangers to donate more than $400,000 to help the down-and-out good Samaritan, a prosecutor said Thursday. As expected, Burlington County prosecutor Scott Coffina announced criminal charges against the couple who told the story to newspapers and television stations along with the homeless man who conspired with them to tell the story. He said the money, donated to the homeless man, Johnny Bobbitt, will be refunded to people who saw the story and contributed to him through a GoFundMe page set up by the couple, Mark D'Amico and Katelyn McClure. "The entire campaign was predicated on a lie," Coffina said, per the AP. "It was fictitious and illegal and there are consequences." Bobbitt was arrested Wednesday night by US marshals in Philadelphia and remained in custody Thursday on probation detainers and a $50,000 bond. D'Amico and McClure surrendered to authorities Wednesday night and were released. All were charged with theft by deception. Coffina said almost no part of the tale behind the fundraising campaign was true; the couple actually met Bobbitt near a Philadelphia casino they frequented, People reports. Less than an hour after the couple set up the page to solicit donations, McClure allegedly sent a text message to a friend saying, "The gas part is completely made up, but the guy isn’t. I had to make something up to make people feel bad." Police say they likely would have gotten away with the scheme had Bobbitt not gone public with his claims that the couple had only given him $75,000; an investigation was launched after that. (Bobbitt's lawyer has said all the money is "gone.")
– A Long Island man is suing CVS after, he says, the drugstore alerted his wife to his Viagra prescription, according to a lawsuit filed in Nassau County Supreme Court. Michael Feinberg brought a prescription for eight of the little blue pills with five refills to CVS and asked that his insurance company not be billed for the purchase, explaining that he preferred to pay himself, reports the New York Post. His lawsuit alleges that when his wife called a few days later to inquire about one of her own prescriptions, a CVS employee identified as “Aurula” mentioned the Viagra prescription, pointing out that it was not being covered by insurance. The disclosure, according to Feinberg, has caused “severe mental anguish, pain and suffering," per Patch, as well as damage to his marriage, although court documents don’t explain what exactly happened between the couple. Feinberg’s suit accuses the pharmacy chain of violating his privacy rights under HIPAA, a federal law that prohibits disclosure of confidential health care information without the patient’s permission. He is seeking unspecified damages for emotional harm. In a statement to the Huffington Post, a CVS rep says the company places "the highest priority on protecting the privacy of those we serve." (Hiding Viagra prescriptions from spouses isn't a problem for Brits.)
– In nearly three hours of jailhouse video, South Carolina church shooter Dylann Roof is seen laughing at his family, asking about his cats, and becoming upset when his relatives suggest he should use his lawyers. Federal officials showed the videos to reporters in Charleston on Tuesday. The videos were part of hearings that determined the white supremacist was competent to stand trial for killing nine black church members, the AP reports. Many of Roof's bizarre behaviors are evident in the videos, which are not being publicly released. He laughs at inappropriate times, shows no sign of remorse, and cries once when he insists he has syphilis even though he had been examined and did not have the disease. In one exchange, Roof's father cries after his son tells him: "I'm going to make this even worse," the Post and Courier reports. In another, when his mother argues he should keep his defense team instead of representing himself, he says lawyers "represent criminals and lie for them." CNN reports that in a transcript released earlier this week, the 23-year-old tells a psychologist that he won't be executed because he will "be rescued by white nationalists after they took over the government." Another document states that Roof told an autism expert that autism was for "nerds and losers" and he was a sociopath.
– Piers Morgan was in the hot seat today in Britain's phone hacking inquiry, but the CNN host refused to play along. He got grilled via video from the US on one point in particular, notes AP: If he didn't engage in phone hacking, how did he manage to hear a voicemail left by Paul McCartney on Heather Mills' answering machine? Morgan, who wrote about the voicemail in detail in 2006, refused to say how he came to hear the tape. "I'm not going to start any trail that leads to the identification of a source." Morgan served as editor of two British tabloids years ago, the News of the World and the Daily Mirror after that. It's his stint at the Daily Mirror that seems to be drawing the most attention, notable because that tab is not owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International, reports the New York Times. The scandal to date has largely been confined to Murdoch-owned papers. Morgan has steadfastly denied hacking a phone, asking anyone to do so, or knowingly publishing any story based on hacking.
– Mike Rogers dropped a dire prediction this morning, contending that the Islamic State militants currently rampaging through Iraq "are one plane ticket away from US shores" and that an attack "is a very real threat." Continued the House Intelligence Committee chair: "There’s no mulligans in foreign policy. We need to regroup." John McCain also chimed in, hours after a 6.1-magnitude earthquake rolled through Napa County, trotting out its inevitability as a contrast for the Islamic State: "The president has to understand that America must lead and, when America hasn’t, a lot of bad things happen," said McCain, as per Politico. "This is not like the earthquake in San Francisco. All of this could have been avoided, like leaving a residual behind force in Iraq, and obviously the challenge is now much greater than it would have been." They led a bevy of politicians discussing the militants on the Sunday talk shows: Lindsey Graham: "It's time now to assume the worst about these guys rather than underestimating them—they're not the JV team anymore. They're the most prominent terrorist organization in the world, but they're not the only one. They're in competition with the other jihadist groups, and the gold medal will be awarded to the group that can hit America." Paul Ryan: What I want to hear from our commander in chief is that he has a strategy to finish ISIS off, to defeat ISIS. Let's not forget that there are reportedly thousands of terrorists with foreign passports. If we don't deal with this threat now thoroughly and convincingly, it's going to come home to roost. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul: The Islamic State "would love more than nothing else to hit the United States of America. They are intent on hitting the West. And there are external operations, I believe, on the way." Kelly Ayotte (senator from James Foley's native New Hampshire): "What I want from [President Barack Obama] is a strategy to defeat ISIS. That's what I think we need to work together on, and he needs to lead this, because the containment aspect of it is not going to defeat them. And we're going to have to defeat them because of the threat that they ... present to us."
– Two days before a judge moved forward with the sexual assault case against him, Bill Cosby sued his accuser, claiming she breached a confidentiality agreement signed as part of a 2006 settlement. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports specific allegations weren't made clear on Tuesday when a judge partially lifted a seal on the suit, naming Andrea Constand, her lawyers Dolores Troiani and Bebe Kivitz, her mother, and the publisher of the National Enquirer as defendants. All apparently signed a confidentiality agreement when Constand settled a civil suit against Cosby, whom she accused of drugging and molesting her in 2004. Cosby's lawyers have repeatedly accused Constand's attorneys of breaching the agreement in the past, reports the New York Times, describing Cosby's latest move as "aggressive." During a pretrial hearing earlier this month, Troiani said the agreement barred Constand from initiating a criminal case against Cosby. However, she argued Constand was in her rights to cooperate with authorities who reached out to her, like the Montgomery County DA who reopened the criminal investigation into her alleged assault. Cosby lawyer Monique Pressley suggested Troiani "divulged what was in the confidential settlement agreement to the district attorney before they made the request for the file." The Hollywood Reporter points out Cosby's lawyers also hinted at legal action after Cosby's deposition in the 2006 civil case became public in July. "How that deposition became public without being court-sanctioned is something we are going to pursue and deal with very vigorously," a lawyer said. It's not the first time he's tried to turn the tables on accusers.
– Because extra fees and delayed flights weren't enough reason to sour on airlines, the Justice Department has added one more: Federal investigators suspect that the airlines are colluding to rip off passengers. The Justice Department has launched an antitrust investigation and demanded all communication airlines have had with each other about adding flights, routes, or seats, reports AP. The suspicion is that they're sending each other signals about such things in order to keep seats in short supply and prices high. A Justice Department spokesperson confirmed the investigation, though the airlines aren't named. The Washington Post reports that United is one of them, and both stories point out that United, American, Delta, and Southwest now handle 80% of all domestic passengers, making the other recipients of the feds' letter not hard to guess. One sign that something isn't right: Domestic airfare shot up 13% from 2009 to 2014, after a series of industry mergers.
– Slate wants to fix the Oscars—"Academy Awards ceremonies are laughable, even to those of us who love them," the site declares—so it's asking writers and editors to offer up their proposals in advance of the Feb. 26 ceremony. Lowen Liu's idea: Allow for a re-vote on the major categories 10 years later. That would mean that this year, Academy voters could finally make up for the travesty that occurred when A Beautiful Mind won over such "diverse and dazzling" films as English manners mystery Gosford Park and the theatrical Moulin Rouge! The golden statues would be "repossessed and redistributed," and we'd end up with "an officially sanctioned shadow awards, always 10 years the wiser, with perhaps less relevance but more respect," writes Liu. Rather than masking their disappointment, those who are robbed of their rightful awards each year can "flash signs that say, 'See you in a decade.'" After all, when it comes to the arts, there's no such thing as a final judgment. If the Academy doesn't take Liu up on the idea this year, "then soon," he writes. "It’s not too late for those who gasped in horror along with so many others when Crash stole the honors from Brokeback Mountain in 2006." Click for another proposal involving canceling the ceremony entirely.
– Depending on your willpower and how much time you have to sit and stare at a countdown clock instead of working/sleeping/interacting with humans, you might want to head over to Reddit to check out "the button." In an online social experiment that promises to both fascinate and irk everyone who gets sucked in, the site inexplicably posted the button on April 1, with only a few sparse notes about what exactly the button is and what to do. The timer will count down from 60 seconds, but every time someone presses the button before it hits zero, it resets back to 60 and starts the countdown all over again, Time magazine notes. "You may only press the button once," the instructions on the site warn. "We can't tell you what to do from here on out. The choice is yours." Not everyone gets to press: You need to have created a Reddit account before April 1. Time reports a handful of people have waited till a record low time of 0:27 before pushing, though Chris Stevens, a teen from England who's created a rather insane website to compile the button's stats, notes a record low of 0:26. Nearly 760,000 people had already pressed the button by 2pm ET today. The comparison Time makes to the LOST button was inevitable. What's also inevitable: that the clock is going to eventually run down to zero, when all eligible account holders—or at least, all those who want to press the button—eventually use up their presses. And what happens once the clock hits zero? No one's sure, though there are plenty of theories on the Reddit thread. (There's a new button Amazon wants you to press.)
– Remember when your purse's contents were private? Then gossip magazines started asking celebs to show off what was inside their bags. Now, Atossa Araxia Abrahamian writes at the Pacific Standard, it's become a phenomenon: From education periodicals to tech blogs to newspapers, everyone wants to know what's in your bag. For Foreign Policy, it's a war reporter's bag that's of interest; the Verge is more fascinated by the contents of a Silicon Valley worker's handbag; the Wall Street Journal reveals what executives carry. Why the obsession? For one thing, we're more prepared to publicize our lives these days, whether it's online or at the airport. "The bag traditionally is designed to hide your personal activities—but now you display it because you know that no matter what you do, everyone will know who you are, what you’re doing, where you live," says a sociologist. And when the contents are authentic, the bags "reveal a certain hierarchy in who gets to travel light (young city dwellers whose essentials take up little space) and who must bear the burden of their tools," Abrahamian notes. "The 'what’s in your bag' phenomenon helps us situate ourselves—and others—within this hierarchy."
– Authorities are hoping Thursday's attack in Nice, France, doesn't lead to a wave of similar vehicular attacks that are both easy to pull off and incredibly difficult to prevent. Back in 2010, the Department of Homeland Security warned of terrorists using vehicles to kill civilians at "sporting events, entertainment venues, or shopping centers," the Washington Post reports. "Vehicle ramming offers terrorists with limited access to explosives or weapons an opportunity to conduct a Homeland attack with minimal prior training or experience," NBC News quotes the department as saying. One expert says this method of attack not only can be done by anyone at any time, but they won't need to first tip their hand by traveling to Syria, contacting other terrorists, or anything like that. “Al-Qaeda and ISIS have both exhorted their followers to use any means to bring death," a counterterrorism expert tells the Los Angeles Times. "With limited access to explosives, large vehicles into large crowds are an obvious event.” In fact, both groups have recently suggested using vehicles as weapons. It's a method that can be extremely deadly even when used unintentionally, as shown in 2003 when an elderly man killed 10 people by accidentally driving through a California farmers market. But the attack in Nice, which killed 84, represents a new level of carnage for vehicular assault. Three similar attacks in France between 2014 and 2016 killed only one person total.
– Monsanto, a name many critics equate with genetically modified crops and the heavy use of herbicides, will be rebranded once German pharma leader Bayer takes the helm, NPR reports. Bayer announced in 2016 it would acquire the agri-chemical business and this week said, following the takeover, "Monsanto will no longer be a company name." Per the AP, Bayer said Monday that it plans to complete its purchase of US seed and weed-killer maker after receiving all the required approvals from regulators. Along with the politically charged name, Bayer will be shedding much of Monsanto's agriculture arm. Regulators directed Bayer to divest assets such as vegetable oils, seeds and seed treatments to ensure fair competition and prevent price spikes after the massive agriculture business deal goes through. The assets will be sold to BASF, a German chemical company.
– So you're interested in learning to cook lentils; your news-junkie son has been reading about the Boston Marathon bombings; and your husband is shopping around for a new backpack. It's the "perfect storm of terrorism profiling," writes Michele Catalano, and it's what got Catalano and her family visited by six police officers with guns (the Long Island woman describes them as "agents from the joint terrorism task force"), she says. Catalano had been researching pressure cookers, so when the officers showed up Wednesday morning, they asked her very confused husband if the family owned a pressure cooker. "My husband said no, but we have a rice cooker. Can you make a bomb with that? My husband said no, my wife uses it to make quinoa. What the hell is quinoa, they asked," Catalano recounts in a Medium.com post picked up by the Guardian. After completing a casual search of the house and determining they were not dealing with terrorists, the officers left. Catalano, not home at the time, was shaken: "This is where we are at. Where you have no expectation of privacy. Where trying to learn how to cook some lentils could possibly land you on a watch list. Where you have to watch every little thing you do because someone else is watching every little thing you do." (In an update posted later, she explained that the suspicious searches also involved things her husband had looked up at his former workplace, but they weren't made aware of that at the time.) Click for her full post.
– If you like energy drinks but hate the drinking part, then Harvard undergrad Ben Yu and venture capitalist Deven Soni have a product for you. The two are trying to launch a product called "Sprayable Energy," that, you guessed it, gives you a jolt of caffeine straight through your skin. While skin is capable of absorbing caffeine, caffeine normally isn't soluble enough to actually be effective. Sprayable Energy adds a "secret sauce" (a derivative of the amino acid tyrosine) to correct for that, the Atlantic reports. The spray is comprised of just three ingredients: that derivative, plus caffeine and water. The product is currently up on Indiegogo, and has already more than doubled its initial $15,000 goal with 32 days to go. The plan is to sell a 40-dose bottle for $15. But there may be bumps ahead: The Atlantic notes that in May the FDA promised to look into regulating caffeine "in response to a trend in which caffeine is being added to a growing number of products" like, say, gum or even waffles. At Fast Company, Anya Kamenetz passed on coffee and tried Sprayable Energy for a day. Her conclusion? "Well, I got through my day." Click for her full report.
– The world has a new octopus: Meet the "frilled giant Pacific octopus," newly detected by a student at Alaska Pacific University working on his senior thesis, reports Earther. The creature resembles the familiar giant Pacific octopus, but Nathan Hollenback not only laid out some distinctive visual differences but took DNA samples that proved it was indeed a new species. One easy giveaway is that the octopus, whose Latin name is still pending, has two white spots in the front of its head, while its more common cousin has one. As its name suggests, the new octopus also has a frill along the length of its body. “Presumably, people have been catching these octopuses for years and no one ever noticed,” says David Scheel, Hollenbeck's adviser. The pair presented their findings in the American Malacological Bulletin. Given that the giant Pacific octopus is a "master of deception," Elijah Wolfson at Quartz thinks it's fitting that the new cousin has essentially been lurking undetected right under the noses of marine biologists for years. The GPO is known to inhabit a wide swath of the northern Pacific, from the western US coast to the shores of Japan, but the researchers for now estimate that the frilly new species has a smaller range, from Juneau, Alaska, to the Bering Sea. They also think it generally prefers deeper waters. News stories about the discovery suggest it's possible that we may someday come to view "giant Pacific octopus" as more of an umbrella term that encompasses various species rather than one distinct species of its own. (Wales recently had an odd octopus invasion.)
– Researchers have made an impressive find in Cairo: part of a chapel built by a pharaoh some 2,300 years ago, Phys.org reports. That pharaoh was King Nectanebo I, whose reign lasted from 379 to 360 BC, daijiworld.com reports. The chapel, part of a temple site in the historic area of Heliopolis, includes "carved basalt blocks" and a statue, Egypt's antiquities ministry says. The sculpture portrays King Merineptah, who was the son of King Ramses II of the 19th dynasty. Nectanebo, of the 30th, was part of the final native family in charge before Alexander the Great took control of Egypt, the Cairo Post notes. "Historical evidence suggests the pharaoh came to power by overthrowing Nepherites II, his predecessor and the last pharaoh of the 29th dynasty," an archaeologist tells the Post. Stones from such ancient sites make for unusual discoveries, especially since many were used in work on Cairo during the 1300s. But archaeologists expect the rest of this particular chapel in Heliopolis Temple to emerge during the next season, the International Business Times reports. (A study recently revealed the horrible death of another pharaoh.)
– Police say suspect Tommy Schaefer has admitted to murdering his girlfriend's mom, a month after her body was found stuffed in a bloody suitcase in Bali. Schaefer, who was arrested along with the victim's daughter, Heather Mack, confessed to killing Sheila von Wiese-Mack, 62, because "he was hurt and offended by the victim's words in an argument with him," police tell the AP. Witnesses reportedly saw von Wiese-Mack arguing with Schaefer, 21, and Mack, 19, about Schaefer's hotel bill the day von Wiese-Mack was murdered, the Chicago Tribune reports. Police say Mack admitted to helping her beau pack up her mom's body before dropping it in a taxi at the St. Regis Bali Resort. The pair then returned to the hotel and allegedly tried to break into von Wiese-Mack's safe-deposit box, which housed their passports and some jewelry, police say. They fled when hotel staff wouldn't assist them. Authorities say von Wiese-Mack suffered blows to the head but died of asphyxiation. Meanwhile, her brother William Wiese says his sister had been enthusiastic about the vacation. "I think she was hoping it would be a fresh start for her and Heather," who had a troubled relationship, he says. He suspects things went sour when Schaefer showed up unexpectedly. In a strange twist, Reuters reports Mack is now three months pregnant and has hired a lawyer to represent her unborn child.
– A teen apparently saw it as the perfect "promposal." The National Park Service sees it as vandalism. Someone spray-painted rocks at the Colorado National Monument with messages including, "PROM...ISE?" reports the Denver Post. Monument officials are now seeking the person who did it, per this Facebook post. In theory, the vandalism carries a punishment of up to six months in prison and a $500 fine, but monument officials say they would be lenient if a young person comes forward. "What better way to impress your date than to show that you're the type of person who will take responsibility for their actions?" says monument rep Frank Hayde, per CNN. The park service is working on removing the graffiti, but it first must assess whether the paint damaged any cultural items of note, such as works of art that might have been on the rocks.
– Bachelor in Paradise has survived its big scandal. Following allegations of sexual misconduct, the show was suspended and rumored to be done for good. But Warner Bros. Television, which produces the reality show, announced Tuesday that it has completed an investigation—with the help of an outside law firm—and found that video of the incident (which will not be released) "does not support any charge of misconduct by a cast member" and also does not show that any cast member's safety was ever in jeopardy. As such, filming on the current season is resuming. Sources tell the Hollywood Reporter producers are confident they will be able to complete the season, the show's fourth. But Warner Bros. did say in its statement it will "implement certain changes to the show’s policies and procedures to enhance and further ensure the safety and security of all participants." In total, filming was suspended for a little more than a week. It's not clear whether the halt will impact the season's debut, which was originally scheduled for Aug. 8, though Warner Bros. did say the show would still air this summer. The BiP scandal began when a producer filed a complaint about an alleged sexual encounter between contestants Corinne Olympios and DeMario Jackson, who had been drinking, but sources tell THR Olympios was "lucid" and "conversational" during the entire encounter caught on tape. It's not clear whether she and Jackson will resume filming; both have retained lawyers and Olympios released a statement last week referring to herself as "a victim."
– Unlike the person who flew a giant "CHEATER" banner over Tiger Woods' head as he played in the US Open in June, the pro golfer and his ex-wife have made their peace with the infidelity that helped break up their marriage in 2009 (the two divorced in 2010). In an interview with Time right before his 40th birthday at the end of the month, Woods says ex Elin Nordegren is now "one of my best friends" and explains that the "fantastic" relationship they now enjoy is due to their two kids, 8-year-old Sam and 6-year-old Charlie. "We've worked so hard at co-parenting," he says. "I've taken the initiative with the kids, and told them up front, "Guys, the reason why we're not in the same house, why we don't live under the same roof … is because Daddy made some mistakes." He goes on to say that he'd rather the kids hear it from him instead of finding out from friends or the Internet. "We're all human," he says he tells his kids. "We all make mistakes. But look what happened at the end of it. Look at how great you are. You have two loving parents that love you no matter what." Read the full Time interview with Woods, who also talks about his "fantastic" former relationship with Lindsey Vonn. (Vonn also still has much love for her ex.)
– Cairo has served as Egypt's capital for more than a millennium, but its long run may be ending: The Egyptian government announced plans Friday for a new capital right next door that would take seven years and $45 billion just for the first stage, the AP reports. Egypt's housing minister said the Capital Cairo project is meant to ease congestion and overpopulation in the current capital over the next four decades, during which time Cairo will reportedly double in size. The initial phase will include 150 square miles (about the size of Denver, the Atlantic notes) of development in Cairo's outskirts, adding a new governmental center, universities, hospitals, and an international airport. Expansion would eventually reach 270 square miles and link up with the Suez Canal area, the AP notes. The Cairo Capital website has plenty about this "momentous endeavour to build national spirit … and provide for long-term sustainable growth." Khaled Fahmy's take in the Cairo Observer, however, isn't quite so rosy. Announcing that "we, Cairenes and Egyptians, were not informed, let alone consulted about this move," Fahmy goes on to say how "unsuitable" it is to model the new city after Dubai (Egypt hired a Dubai-based private investor group to build the city, per the Atlantic). He also wonders why the estimated $66 billion final cost isn't simply being reinvested into Cairo itself. "With [$66 billion] we could solve the problems of Cairo's inner cities, where 63% of the city's inhabitants live," Fahmy writes.
– Gunmen have launched a fresh assault on Pakistan's biggest airport just two days after a Taliban attack left dozens of people dead. Officials say security forces are battling militants who attacked a security training facility at Karachi airport from two directions, the AP reports. All flights have been suspended and the military has rushed troops to the scene. The death toll from the earlier attack rose to at least 34 today when authorities found the bodies of seven workers who had been trapped in a cold storage facility that caught fire during the battle, CNN reports. Angry relatives accused security forces of abandoning the workers during their battle with militants, who intended to hijack a passenger plane. Before today's attack, the military said 25 militants were killed when "nine terrorist hideouts" were destroyed by airstrikes near the Afghan border, reports Reuters, which notes that it's not clear whether the strikes mark the start of an all-out offensive in retaliation for the airport attack.
– Police in England are investigating controversial tweets posted by the head of a small, far-right conservative party, reports the BBC. The postings from British National Party leader Nick Griffin listed the address of a gay couple who recently won a court case against a Bed and Breakfast that refused to provide them with a single-bed room. The first of two consecutive tweets listed the name and address of the couple, then read that protesters would arrive to "give you a ... bit of drama by way of reminding you that an English couple's home is their castle. Say No to heterophobia!" The New York Times says the Twitter account was initially suspended, but later reappeared with the same tweets minus the address. It wasn't clear who ordered the addresses to be removed. The controversy comes after Twitter first used its new censorship policy to suspend the account of a neo-Nazi group in Germany. Griffin has ridiculed the whole mess and declared that discrimination is a "fundamental human right."
– President Obama may not get to see Nelson Mandela, but he paid tribute to the apartheid icon today by visiting the bleak prison cell where Mandela spent 18 years of his prison term, reports the BBC. Writing in the Robben Island prison guest book that he was "deeply humbled," Obama praised Robben's "heroes, who remind us that no shackles or cells can match the strength of the human spirit." Mandela, 94, remains in critical condition with the very lung problems he contracted during his time in the prison. Obama moves on to the University of Cape Town later today, where the AP notes that he'll unveil a $7 billion, five-year initiative to double access to South Africa's power grid.
– On the night of April 1, 1990, a woman crossing the street in Huntington Beach was hit by one car, then a second, and died at the scene. For 27 years, police have tried to figure out who she was—and now she's finally been identified. Andrea Kuiper of Fairfax, Va., an artist who suffered from manic depression, started using drugs, and moved to California. Two months before her death at age 26 that night in 1990, a friend called her family to say she was safe, and they never heard news of her again. They never filed a missing persons report. Now they have answers, and in a statement, her father says they "are thankful to know what happened to our daughter after all these years. Andrea was loved and respected. She was beautiful. But she was manic depressive, and therefore we had been through quite an adventure." Authorities, thinking she could be a teenager, submitted her data to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and her story was featured on TV's Unsolved Mysteries. In 2010, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) was created, and authorities added her information to that. But none of those measures led to an identification. Then, this year, the FBI worked with NamUs to closely examine fingerprints, and found a match for the unidentified victim: fingerprints given by Andrea Kuiper when she applied for a job with the Department of Agriculture three years before her death, ABC 7 reports. Authorities are happy to have given the former Jane Doe her identity back, but it's a tragic end for her family; per the Los Angeles Times, Kuiper's dad says they always hoped she'd drive up in a "car full of beautiful children and say, ‘Hi, it’s me.'"
– Police near Albuquerque released new details about 15-year-old Nehemiah Griego, who is accused of shooting to death his parents and three siblings over the weekend: Griego shot his mother while she slept about 1am Saturday, say police. Then he allegedly killed his 9-year-old brother, described as "awake and distraught" at the time; his sleeping 2-year-old sister; and his 5-year-old sister, who also was awake. Police say Griego waited for his father to return from work about five hours later and ambushed him with an assault rifle, reports KOB. His father had taught him how to shoot. "The motive, as articulated by the suspect, was purely that he was frustrated with his mother," said Bernalillo County Sheriff Dan Houston. "He did not give any further explanation." Griego texted a photo of his slain mother to his 12-year-old girlfriend, and spent much of Saturday with the girl at a church where his father had been a pastor. It's not clear whether she will face charges. Griego likes violent video games, including Modern Warfare and Grand Theft Auto, but Houston didn't speculate on whether he thought that played a role, reports AP. Griego planned the attack for more than a week, but he abandoned his original intention of killing more people at a local Walmart.
– Bill Cosby has generally been avoiding saying anything at all about the rape allegations against him, but he went on ABC's Good Morning America today and agreed to talk at least a little about them: “It’s interesting. When I talk to people they will say, ‘This is a situation that’s unprecedented.’ I, my family, my friends, I have been in this business 52 years. I’ve never seen anything like this. And reality is the situation. And I can’t speak.” Cosby was speaking to youths in Alabama today about the importance of education, and he was asked on GMA about what they may think of the scandal. “I think that many of them may say, ‘Well, you are a hypocrite. You say one thing, you say another.' My point is, 'OK, listen to me carefully. I’m telling you where the road is out. I’m telling you where, as you drive, you are going to go into the water. Now, you want to go here or you want to be concerned about who is giving you the message?'” The remarks weren't exactly extensive, and they're not going over well. Time calls them "rambling" and says he "seemed to be at a loss for sensible words." Other reaction: AV Club: "Anyone expecting a direct response—or even coherence—they left disappointed," writes Sean O'Neal. Think Progress: "This is about as close as Cosby gets to 'responding' to the dozens of allegations against him: in this elliptical, I’m-the-real-victim-here sort of way," writes Jessica Goldstein. "So his latest comments aren’t too surprising, even though they are disappointing and frustrating and, no matter how closely you read them, incomprehensible."
– There are signs and warning lights that flash. But, still, box trucks, campers, and other tall vehicles keep taking on the notoriously low railroad bridge at Peabody and Gregson streets in Durham, NC. And they keep losing. The bridge has shaved the tops off of more than 100 vehicles since 2008, and Jürgen Henn has captured it all on video, the Wall Street Journal reports. "It can be pretty spectacular," he says. Henn works in a building near the bridge. After witnessing several accidents, he says, "I figured I’d keep track of it for a while." He aimed a security camera at the bridge. Then added a second camera on a building across the street, along with an infrared camera to capture nighttime wrecks. Some of his videos have more than a million views, per the Journal. You can buy "crash art" and T-shirts on his website. The bridge, which offers 11-feet-8-inches of clearance, was built about a century ago, according to Henn. During the intervening decades, the Journal notes, vehicles have gotten taller. Today, minimum vertical clearance for a bridge is 14 feet. Since 2008, there have been no fatalities due to the Durham bridge and just one minor injury, the state transportation department tells the Journal, but there has been a toll: more than $500,000 in vehicle damage. Each time the bridge is bashed—about once a month, Henn says—inspectors check it for damage, according to an earlier report by WRAL. To curb crashes, the city installed a height sensor that triggers flashing lights when a truck is too high to clear the span. Since the accidents keep happening, the city is now connecting that sensor with a traffic light in hopes drivers who are forced to stop will eventually figure out that their best bet is to turn before slamming into the bridge. (Another span making headlines? One inspired by da Vinci.)
– Ueli Steck, the famed Swiss mountain climber who died in an accident near Mount Everest on Sunday, almost died in very different circumstances the last time he was in the area. The 40-year-old "Swiss Machine" was one of three European climbers who fled to base camp after brawling with around 100 Sherpas at more than 20,000 feet. Despite how the 2013 incident was portrayed, Steck was no "cultural imperialist," writes Nick Paumgarten in a tribute at the New Yorker, though he was "certainly hardheaded and single-minded, to the point of being relatively heedless of the opinions of others, be they Sherpa or Swiss." Paumgarten describes Steck as the most accomplished mountaineer of his generation. Paumgarten notes that last year, Steck found the body of Alex Lowe—considered the best mountaineer of his generation when he was killed by an avalanche in 1999—and the two "are now forever linked, in the alpinists' circle of death." Authorities in Nepal say Steck fell more than 3,000 feet while climbing the 25,791-foot Nuptse peak ahead of a planned attempt to scale Everest on a route only successfully used once before, the New York Times reports. British mountaineer Sir Chris Bonington tells the BBC that Steck was known for speed climbing, though he doesn't believe that put him at greater risk. "The death rate among the very best mountaineers is very high, particularly in the Himalayas," he says.
– Adolf Hitler was a blowhard in more ways than one. He frequently used cocaine, ingested some 28 drugs at a time, and suffered from "uncontrollable flatulence," according to his medical records. Someone with enough bucks and a high bid can have those fascinating files, about to be offered in an online auction. The records—including ten X-rays of Hitler's skull, sketches of the inside of his apparently cocaine-eroding nose, and notes about "cleansing enemas" and bull-testicle extract injections to pump up his libido—are being sold through the Alexander Historical Auctions. They include a classified military report on Hitler's health, as well as tests and notes compiled by his six chief physicians. Though the classified report makes no mention of Hitler's love of cocaine, one of his doctors notes he used it frequently to "clear" his sinuses and "soothe" his throat—and craved it because it made him "happy." Bids are being accepted next week. Each document could sell for as much as $2,000, a spokesman believes.
– More than a decade ago, a young Brazilian girl did what many girls do: She got a manicure. Now 22, the unidentified woman recently found out she's HIV-positive when she went to donate blood—and a study of her situation points to the manicure instruments she used 11 years ago, the New York Daily News reports. The study published in the AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses journal says that the woman used her older cousin's manicure gear when she was a child, Medical Daily reports; the cousin was later found out to be HIV-positive. After the 22-year-old's recent blood donation turned up an HIV diagnosis, doctors realized they had to go further back in her history than they anticipated: Her bloodwork revealed a "high viral load," which means the infection had been there for a long time, Fox News reports. The likely baffled patient told doctors she hadn't had unprotected sex or shared needles with anyone, the most typical risk factors for HIV transmission, the CDC reports. Genetic testing on both the woman and her cousin showed they shared a "common viral ancestor" that dates back about 11 years and coincides with the cousin sharing her instruments. Although the study's authors warn that sharing "utensils with possible blood-blood contact" (a group that also includes tattoo or acupuncture needles) without proper disinfection can up the risk for contracting HIV and other diseases, it's not clear if this patient had blood-to-blood contact. The study's authors says it's a "very rare event that should serve not to make people fear HIV or contact with HIV-infected people." (Some fear a certain kind of manicure can cause cancer.)
– An 80-year-old Long Beach, Calif., man says he gunned down burglary suspect Andrea Miller Tuesday night as she pleaded for the life of her unborn child, reports the AP. “She says, 'Don't shoot me, I'm pregnant, I'm going to have a baby!' And I shot her anyway," Tom Greer told KNBC-TV. And while cops mull whether Greer will be charged or let off for self-defense in Miller's death, there’s another major question to answer: whether 28-year-old Miller actually was pregnant. Despite her desperate appeal to Greer as she tried to flee, police say she didn’t appear to be with child and that an autopsy will clear up if she was. (Update: That autopsy has found she was not pregnant, reports Fox News.) Miller and her alleged partner in crime, 26-year-old Gus Adams—who were both unarmed, cops say—allegedly pummeled Greer with their hands and “body-slammed” him to the ground when he busted in on the burglary. Greer says he somehow managed to grab his own gun and shot Miller as she ran away. Cops say Adams has been arrested on suspicion of residential burglary as well as murder, because he was involved in a felony crime that resulted in a death. A neighbor tells CBS Los Angeles that Greer is a “nice old man” who’s been the victim of previous break-ins—and Greer suspects that Miller and Adams were responsible for those, too. However, as a legal analyst notes to KNBC, “[Greer] did shoot a person who was trying to get away … he wasn't in imminent danger himself, and the law says you can't shoot somebody under those circumstances.”
– On Friday night, 500 people were welcomed to the jungle when Slash and Axl Rose played together as Guns N' Roses for the first time in more than 20 years, AFP reports. It was—as Rolling Stone puts it—"a sight most GNR fans believed they would never witness again." The band announced the surprise show—taking place at the Troubadour in Los Angeles—Friday morning, leading many to believe it was an April Fool's Joke. But it was no laughing matter for the hundreds of people that lined up in the hopes of securing a $10 ticket to see the legendary rock band. Axl Rose, Slash, and bassist Duff McKagan hadn't played together since 1993 in Argentina. They opened Friday's reunion show with It's so Easy as dozens of fans not lucky enough to get tickets hung around outside hoping to catch snippets of the band. The lineup for the show also included keyboardist Dizzy Reed, guitarist Richard Fortus, and drummer Frank Ferrer. Guns N' Roses will follow the Troubadour reunion with a full stadium tour and headlining spots at the Coachella festival. Rolling Stone has photos, videos, and the full set list from Friday's show.
– Someone has agreed to hand over $2.14 million for President Trump's childhood home in Queens—and an unnamed neighbor tells the New York Times she's witnessed suited-up people pulling up to the Jamaica Estates home in black luxury SUVs and speaking Chinese since the secretive deal went down. She says she wants to know why they're so keen on the president's boyhood residence, built by his father. "What do they want?" she muses. Although the LLC that bought the Tudor-style abode at auction is listed as "Trump Birth House," someone who's said to know details of the deal tells the Times the buyer behind the LLC is a Chinese woman. "Trump is a very popular kind of character in China," a New York real estate agent says, noting she's not surprised someone with ties to that country would purchase the home. DNAinfo documents the home's paper trail over the past decade or so: It was first purchased by a married couple in 2008 for close to $800,000, then sold to a real estate investor for nearly $1.4 million in December—meaning he made about three-quarters of a million dollars on his quick flip. The owner of the realty group that closed the deal last week says the lucrativeness of such a transaction is the "perfect example of why special properties are appropriately sold by auction, just like art is." Meanwhile, in Trump Tower, a woman who owns an apartment there was fined $1,000 by the city for advertising her 30th-floor digs for rent through Airbnb, Quartz reports. Lena Yelagina was hit with the penalty due to a recently passed NYC law barring ads that rent out a full apartment for fewer than 30 days. (There's been some grumbling about Melania Trump choosing to stick around NYC for now.)
– Newsweek is saying it could be Banksy's "most jaw-dropping trick yet," and it would be hard to find anyone who disagrees. It happened Friday night at a Sotheby's auction in London, when the enigmatic street artist's 2006 Girl With Balloon painting was sold off for $1.1 million to a bidder on the phone. However, shortly after the gavel came down on the sale, something unexpected happened: The print inside the frame started moving downward as it was slowly shredded. Per the Financial Times, via Vice, the shredding took place "by a mechanism apparently hidden within the base of the frame, with most of the work emerging from the bottom in strips." "We've just been Banksy'ed," Alex Branczik, Sotheby's senior director, told the crowd after the shredfest, adding he hadn't known ahead of time that this was going to happen and that "tonight we saw a little piece of Banksy genius." There are whispers that Banksy himself was at the auction to witness his self-destructive prank, with the Art Newspaper noting "a man dressed in black sporting sunglasses and a hat was seen scuffling with security guards near the entrance … shortly after the incident." On Instagram, Banksy posted a photo of the stunned audience watching his work get obliterated, mischievously captioning it: "Going, going, gone." The buyer may not be totally out of luck: Vice notes that while sales are usually nixed if works are damaged before they leave Sotheby's, the on-site annihilation could actually make the artwork even more valuable. "It's certainly the first piece to be spontaneously shredded as an auction ends," Branczik says.
– Employees are calling out AT&T for what they say are lost jobs amid fat profits. Communication Workers of America members say AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson promised to spend at least $1 billion on capital projects that would create 7,000 jobs if the Republican tax plan passed, reports the Detroit News. However, a CWA analysis says the company has eliminated more than 7,000 jobs nationwide since January, when the plan went into effect. Four call centers closed this year, bringing the total over seven years to 44, the Guardian reports, noting much of the work is being outsourced to countries like India and Mexico, where workers can earn less than $2 an hour. At the same time, AT&T appears to be doing just fine. The company reported $10 billion in profit in the first six months of the year, per the Guardian, and spent $419 million on stock buybacks in the second quarter, bringing its total spent in that category to roughly $16.5 billion since 2013. "This is not a poor company," says an employee at a Wisconsin call center that she says is down to 30 employees from 500 a decade ago. "We've made the company extremely profitable" but "they're liquidating us." AT&T acknowledges "there are some areas where demand for our legacy services continues to decline." Claiming it continues to invest in middle-class careers, however, the company says it's hired 8,000 US workers this year, and 87,000 over three years.
– Rand Paul cut a media interview short yesterday and walked off when pressed over a specific issue—but it's not clear whether Paul was miffed or just out of time. Interviewing him over the app Periscope, Guardian reporter Paul Lewis asked whether the GOP presidential contender's passion for criminal justice reform will jibe with white Republicans: "All the research shows that Republicans, white Republicans ... don't think criminal law is applied in an unfair way, so how are you going to win the nomination with this," says Lewis. Paul cuts in, saying that "I think your premise is incorrect. I think I can take that message into a white Evangelical church anywhere in Iowa and give the exact same speech and be received well." Lewis tries to quote a couple of polls, but Paul points in his direction, says something hard to hear, and walks off. Soon the lights in Paul's room are turned off. "So we got that interview cut off maybe it was because I was about to push him on the specific, oh the lights are off in fact, we're being told to go," says Lewis. But Paul's people tweeted that it was CNN that turned the lights out, and the Guardian admits that Paul had said he only had time for one more question, Mashable reports. Yet Paul has struggled with other reporters recently, shushing CNBC anchor Kelly Evans and having a heated exchange with Today show co-host Savannah Guthrie. Megyn Kelly of Fox News asked him about it last month and wondered aloud whether he was "ready for primetime." See the Guardian interview here.
– After an Everest avalanche killed a reported 16 Sherpas, Nepal officials are coming around to the idea of coughing up some cash. Following two days of meetings with Sherpa representatives, the government says it will establish a relief fund for Sherpas wounded or killed in mountaineering accidents, the New York Times reports. The government will divert a portion of its receipts from Everest climbs to the relief fund. Elderly Sherpa climbers will receive pensions, while children have been promised educational funding, a culture ministry official tells the paper. Some Sherpas had threatened a strike after the avalanche, which killed 13 (three more are still missing), prompted a government pledge of $413 for each affected family. Following the meetings, the Nepal Mountaineering Association president, Ang Tshering Sherpa, said climbing would be "resumed." But many Sherpas say they won't be participating anymore this season, the AP reports. "It is just impossible for many of us to continue climbing. While there are three of our friends buried in the snow, I can't imagine stepping over them," says one. Hundreds of foreign would-be climbers are thus stuck at base camp, the Guardian notes. For Jon Krakauer's fascinating backstory on the Everest disaster, click here.
– Donald Trump wants to more than merely decimate federal regulations: He told a town hall event in New Hampshire on Thursday night that he wants to wipe out a full 70% of them. "We are cutting the regulation at a tremendous clip. I would say 70% of regulations can go," Trump said. "It's just stopping businesses from growing." He didn't specify which 70% will be axed, but he said regulations on the environment and safety could stay. Earlier in the day, Trump adviser Anthony Scaramucci told Reuters that the candidate was planning to get rid of the "least important" 10% of federal regulations. In other coverage: Trump denied that the town hall was prep for Sunday's second debate with Hillary Clinton, which will have a similar format, the New Hampshire Union Leader reports. He told the audience that his rival was "resting" to "build up her energy" instead of prepping for the debate—and strongly denied that he was "upset" about running mate Mike Pence being seen as the winner of this week's vice presidential debate. The Guardian reports that after criticism from Republicans, the Clinton campaign has asked cable companies not to run the ads it bought on the Weather Channel this week ahead of Hurricane Matthew. The Trump campaign, meanwhile, has called on people in the storm's path to heed evacuation orders, and Trump says the US should "offer our assistance to help our island neighbors" affected by the storm in Haiti. The Washington Post reports that Trump appears to be trying harder to stick to his advisers' script: His tweets have been restrained and he has said he doesn't plan on bringing up Bill Clinton's infidelity during Sunday's debate. Politico reports that with a month to go and around $150 million to spend, Clinton's campaign is planning an ad blitz like no other in battleground states. The Hill looks at five things Trump will need to do to win Sunday's debate. They include learning from Pence's performance—and not taking the bait every time there's a charge against him. The New York Times and the Washington Post look at an episode from Trump's past that could come back to haunt him in the debate: In 1991 he appeared before the House to successfully lobby for the restoration of tax breaks and loopholes for real estate developers that had been removed in Ronald Reagan's 1986 tax reform legislation.
– Google took a bold stride onto Skype's turf yesterday, announcing that Gmail users will now be able to call landline and cell phones directly from their email. The company says Gmail users will be allowed to call phones in the US and Canada free for at least the rest of this year, Reuters reports. Calls to other countries will be billed at low, Skype-like rates. The service will be rolled out over the next few days. Analysts say that while the service probably won't be a major earner for Google, Skype's marketshare is likely to suffer. "Google Voice in Gmail will gain some traction, simply because it's there—some people live in Gmail," a communications analyst at Frost & Sullivan tells CNN. "It will steal some share from Skype, but Skype has been in this space for a while, so it will be a long time before Google's share becomes significant."
– An unidentified journalist recently broke from Saudi tradition when she read the news on a Saudi TV channel called Al Ekhbariya without covering her face with a hijab, leading some conservative viewers to take to social media to condemn the station for the "transgression." Saudi radio and TV spokesperson Saleh Al Mughailif tells the Al Tawasul news site via Gulf News that the woman was reading from a studio in Britain, and adds, "She was not in a studio inside Saudi Arabia, and we do not tolerate any transgression of our values and the country's systems." The country is in a state of transition, with positions on women's rights starkly divided, reports Gulf News. King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz appointed 30 women to the Shura Council in 2013, and the labor ministry recently suggested more women work in the private sector, such as in retail. Women appearing on TV news channels is fairly new, while women appearing uncovered reading the news on state TV is unheard of. Women aren't allowed to drive and need a male guardian's approval to travel outside of the country, access certain medical treatments, or get a higher education, reports the New York Daily News. The Saudi spokesman says the incident will not happen again. (One Saudi teen wore a hijab while competing in the Olympics in 2012; her father threatened not to let her compete if she didn't.)
– Kelly Ripa's anger has apparently yet to fade. After skipping out on Wednesday's Live! With Kelly and Michael following news that co-host Michael Strahan will abandon her for Good Morning America in September, ABC says Ripa will also miss shows airing Thursday and Friday. She had planned to film both episodes Thursday, then go on vacation until Tuesday. Erin Andrews will now fill in for the two shows this week with actress Shay Mitchell co-hosting on Monday, reports Page Six. A show rep won't say when exactly Ripa will be back, per the AP, and a source on set tells Entertainment Tonight that she's "threatened to not come back until Michael leaves." But TMZ is throwing cold water on rumors that Ripa is planning to abandon the show, too, noting she can't afford it. Despite pulling in $15 million a year, "her lifestyle eats up most of it," the site says. At least Ripa can take solace in the fact that Oprah has her back. The former talk show host tells TMZ that "she should not have found out that way."
– Space shuttle Atlantis undocked from the International Space Station for the last time this morning and began its return trip to Earth. With Tony Antonelli at the helm, the shuttle did an inspection lap around the nearly complete ISS before its 3-day trip home, reports Florida Today. "This place is now a palace," one astronaut told the AP about the space station. "It's huge, and I've had great fun exploring it."
– A Spike Lee tirade earlier this week on gentrification in New York City's black neighborhoods continues to resonate, with Lee going on CNN last night to explain his expletive-laden rant. He's fine with new people moving into neighborhoods that were once mostly black and mostly poor, he says. "My problem is that when you move into a neighborhood, have some respect for the history, for the culture." This all started Tuesday night at an African-American History Month event in his native Brooklyn. As New York recounts, Lee vented about the "Christopher Columbus syndrome" of rich white people moving in. "You can't discover this! We been here. You can't just come and bogart." He also told the story of his jazz-musician dad who bought the family home in 1968, "and the mother******* people moved in last year and called the cops on my father. He’s not—he doesn’t even play electric bass! It’s acoustic! We bought the mother******* house in nineteen-sixty-mother*******-eight and now you call the cops? In 2013? Get the f--- outta here!" And that's just a small sample. In response, self-described white "gentrifier" Joshua Greenman called Lee's remarks racially offensive in the Daily News. "The phenomenon he decries is mostly innocuous, inevitable and, in a diverse and economically dynamic city, healthy," writes Greenman. At Salon, Mary Elizabeth Williams thinks Lee's argument is complicated by his own vast wealth, and she also thinks he's simplifying a complicated issue. But, she adds, he's spot-on "in his assertion that whoever you are, 'You can’t just come in when people have a culture that’s been laid down for generations, and you come in and now s--- gotta change because you’re here?'" (Click the New York link to hear the full audio of Lee's remarks.)
– Some majorly good news, if true, for Lamar Odom: Sources tell TMZ he's undergone a "shocking" improvement, with his kidneys doing so much better that he'll soon be off dialysis and won't need a kidney transplant after all. Sources say doctors were surprised at the turnaround, seeing as they thought Odom's kidney troubles were life-threatening, and Odom has been moved from the ICU to a hospital floor focusing on physical therapy. Some perhaps not-as-good news for him? Khloe Kardashian may not have been kidding when she insisted the two weren't back together romantically. Despite reports claiming that she was taking a break from current boyfriend James Harden (another NBA player) in order to focus on Lamar, E! reports that she attended Harden's Houston Rockets opener Wednesday to support him. "Khloe and James never broke up," a source says. "He's been so understanding and he knows that Khloe's love for Lamar is deeper than what most people can understand." (Another report says Lamar is being treated as a brain trauma victim.)
– The worst thing about having a famous and powerful dad? The extra notoriety surrounding your marijuana conviction. The best? Having dad make said marijuana conviction go away. Such is the case of Kyle Beebe, the 34-year-old son of Mike Beebe, who happens to be governor of Arkansas and as such plans to pardon his son for his 2003 conviction of marijuana possession with intent to deliver. To be fair, the younger Beebe paid a fine, served three years' probation, and wrote a lengthy letter making his case, reports CNN. "Mr. Governor, I am asking for a second chance at life," wrote Kyle Beebe. "I am asking for a second chance to be the man that I know that I can be." Kyle Beebe also has the state parole board's backing. Says his dad: "I would have done it a long time ago if he'd have asked, but he took his sweet time about asking. He was embarrassed. He's still embarrassed, and frankly, I was embarrassed and his mother was embarrassed." Snarks New York mag, while noting that the pardon will scrub Beebe's record clean: "Also, dad, you totally promised you would do this for me if I didn't tell mom that it was really you who scratched the Range Rover!" The elder Beebe has issued some 700 pardons, the majority of which are for nonviolent offenders.
– The world has been hearing lately from soldiers criticizing freed soldier Bowe Bergdahl. While they have a right to their opinions, much of the publicity they're currently getting is thanks to a "GOP-run dog-and-pony show" reminiscent of the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry, writes Adam Weinstein at Gawker. For evidence, he points to the New York Times, which spoke to several of these soldiers. The piece notes that the interviews were "arranged by Republican strategists." What's more, according to the Pentagon, claims of deaths linked to the search for Bergdahl aren't backed up by data. Both soldiers who spoke to the Times say they don't want to get political. But when you're supporting a "data-denying political missile" by calling it "a neutral account … you're 'speaking on the political' before you even you open your mouth," Weinstein writes. At Salon, Elias Isquith notices a similar problem: When soldiers don't conform to flag-waving GOP "fantasies," they're turned from heroes to "charlatans—or maybe even traitors." Click for his full piece; Weinstein's is here.
– To the trio of railroad workers, the situation just seemed a bit off: While tending to track for Norfolk Southern in Alabama on Tuesday afternoon, they came upon a truck parked near the tracks. Inside was a sleeping man and a young girl—who turned out to be 4 years old, but was sitting in the front passenger seat. Alarmed, they called Riverside authorities, and when Police Chief Rick Oliver came upon the scene, something seemed off to him, too: The girl was dressed in adult-sized clothes, reports Al.com—PJs and a hoodie. As the girl was removed from the vehicle, the driver jumped back in and fled, making it to Mississippi, where he was apprehended in Lauderdale County. Police say the man is Thomas Lawton Evans, 37, who was released from prison Feb. 1 and had allegedly kidnapped the girl from Johns Island, SC. Heidi Renae Todd's disappearance was discovered Tuesday, after the child's mother didn't collect two of her children from school, reports the Post and Courier. Police, alerted by the school, stopped by the home to check on her and found the woman badly beaten. Two of her five children were present and unharmed, but Heidi was gone. The suspect was described by authorities only as an "unwanted visitor," and police have not yet provided a motive for the attack or kidnapping. Heidi's mother is in "reasonably fair condition under the circumstances," says Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg, who said she was slated for surgery; her husband was away with the Coast Guard during the time of the attack.
– The daughter of Africa's most famous archbishop is leaving the priesthood over her marriage to a woman. The Washington Post reports Reverend Mpho Tutu-Van Furth, daughter of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Desmond Tutu, married Marceline Furth in December. Same-sex marriage was legalized in South Africa in 2006, but the South African Anglican Church still defines marriage as between a man and a woman, according to the Independent. Tutu-Van Furth tells City Press that the church was going to take away her license to preach, so she decided to quit instead. She calls it "a slightly more dignified option with the same effect.” As the daughter of one of the leading voices against apartheid, Tutu-Van Furth finds her situation ironic. "Coming from a past where difference was the instrument of division, it is our sameness that is now the cause of distress," she tells City Press. "My wife and I are both women." The South African Anglican Church plans to debate changing its position on same-sex marriage within the next year. In the meantime, Tutu-Van Furth maintains her priesthood in the American Episcopal Church. Her father has called homophobia "the same level" of problem as apartheid. “I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven," the Post quotes Desmond Tutu as saying. "No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place. I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this."
– The first question at the Democratic debate Saturday night resulted in a rarity: a direct apology from one candidate to another. In this case, it was delivered by Bernie Sanders to Hillary Clinton in succinct fashion. Asked whether she was owed an apology because one of his staffers improperly breached her campaign's voter data, he replied, "Yes, I apologize." The quick response drew applause, and he then expanded the apology to all his supporters. "This is not the type of campaign that we run," he said, per the New York Times. The staffer in question has been fired, he said, and others will be, too, if an investigation turns up further wrongdoing. Clinton said she appreciated Sanders' statement, and both, along with Martin O'Malley, seemed eager to move on from the controversy, reports Politico.
– An Army vet and longtime green card holder has begun a hunger strike after failing to block his deportation to Mexico, which could be imminent because of a felony drug conviction. Fearing drug cartels will kill him after a failed attempt to recruit him for his military background, 39-year-old Miguel Perez Jr. of Chicago says an "extreme fast" is his only avenue after an appeals court denied his request to remain in the only home he's known since age 8, reports the Chicago Tribune. That decision last week stemmed from a conviction for delivering less than 100 grams of cocaine to an undercover officer in 2008, though prosecutors say a plea deal masked that the real amount was significantly more. Perez, who has two American children, argues he only got mixed up with drugs because of a PTSD diagnosis following two tours in Afghanistan. Perez was also to undergo tests for a traumatic brain injury—WGN reports he was injured in an explosion—but was arrested before that could happen, per the Tribune. After serving half of a 15-year sentence, he was summoned to immigration court, placed in the custody of customs officers, and taken to a detention center in Wisconsin, where he's been for more than a year. "The system has been killing me slowly, and now I'm facing death if I'm deported to Mexico, so I would rather die in the country I fought for than in a place that's not my home," he tells CBS Chicago of the hunger strike started Wednesday. His lawyer has filed two stays, one arguing Perez needs immediate medical attention, and another seeking retroactive citizenship dating to 2001, when Perez joined the military. His supporters are also asking Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner for a pardon.
– Mac fans everywhere gathered online and at Apple stores offline last night, mourning the loss of Steve Jobs, reports the LA Times. There were flowers, memorabilia, and even a bagpipe player at the company headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., where the company flags flew at half-staff. At an Apple store in Pasadena, a person left a white rose and a red apple with "bye" carved into it. "Steve Jobs was one of the great inventors, certainly of our time," said the owner of a graphics design firm, adding that he came to the Santa Monica store "just to pay homage." Fans gathered outside Apple stores all over the world, although sometimes the media outnumbered mourners, the Wall Street Journal notes. Even in Beijing, mourners placed flowers and photos of Jobs in front of the main Apple store. One fan at the Beijing store said he would buy an iPhone 4 in memory of Jobs. "It would mean 4 Steve," he said, adding, "this is truly the end of an era." At the Ginza Apple store in Tokyo, a man gave staff a bouquet of white lilies. "I of course love Apple products, but I really admired Steve Jobs," he said. "He thought of products appealing to everyone—men, women and children. It excited everyone."
– A certain female protagonist of Star Wars: The Force Awakens is missing from some of the toys related to the movie, leading fans to wonder #WhereIsRey on Twitter, Entertainment Weekly reports. Daisy Ridley's character—arguably the main hero or at least one of the main heroes of the new movie—is not a token in Hasbro's new Star Wars Monopoly game, which instead offers players the chance to play as John Boyega’s Finn, Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker, Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren ... or Darth Vader, who doesn't actually appear in the new film. Hasbro's response to the outcry—beware, spoilers ahead: "The Star Wars: Monopoly game was released in September, months before the movie’s release, and Rey was not included to avoid revealing a key plot line that she takes on Kylo Ren and joins the Rebel Alliance," a spokesperson says in a statement, adding that Rey is included in other Star Wars-themed games the company has released. But, as the Guardian reports, Rey is notably absent from other toys, including a toy version of the Millennium Falcon that includes figurines of Chewbacca, Finn, and BB-8 (the latter two never pilot the ship, while Rey does). A Disney rep told the Daily Beast in December that Rey will feature more prominently in toys released this month.
– Derrick Dearman has offered up not a motive but an explanation for why he says he murdered five people, one of whom was five months pregnant: the drugs. While entering the Mobile County Metro Jail on Monday the 27-year-old spoke briefly to reporters, telling one he didn't kill estranged girlfriend Laneta Lester and an infant who were also in the Citronelle, Ala., home because at some point the drugs wore off enough for him to comprehend what he was doing, reports AL.com. "Drugs (were) making me think things that's not really there," he also said, per the AP, which reports that he says he was on methamphetamine during the Saturday morning massacre. "Don't do drugs," he advised. Capt. Paul Burch with the Mobile County Sheriff's Office wouldn't say whether the investigation has turned up drug evidence, but the evidence he does have is "overwhelming." Burch described domestic abuse as a major factor in what transpired, and a man whose home Dearman and Lester previously lived in described Dearman as frequently taking Lester into the woods surrounding the home and "beating the crap out of her." Police are now explaining the relationships between the victims: Lester had sought shelter from Dearman in the Citronelle home, which her brother, Joseph Turner, lived in. Turner was married to Shannon Randall; Robert Brown was her brother, and Chelsea Reed was her niece. Reed was expecting a child with husband Justin Reed.
– Volvo made big headlines Wednesday when it became the first traditional automaker to announce that all of its cars would be at least partially electric in 2019. The trend away from old-school engines may seem inevitable, but the Wall Street Journal has a sobering stat for electric advocates: Less than 1% of the more than 17.5 million vehicles sold in the US last year were all-electric. That probably won't change unless gas prices rise, charging stations multiply, and government subsidies remain in place. Other developments: Overhyped? The BBC notes that Volvo promised a "portfolio of electrified cars across its model range, embracing fully electric cars, plug-in hybrid cars, and mild-hybrid cars." That's a little vague. Hybrids still use combustion engines, so it's not all that clear just how "electric" the company will be in 2019. "Mild hybrids" in particular are essentially standard cars whose engines get the occasional boost from an electric motor. Look out, Tesla: Still, this is a sign that Tesla, which rolls out a more affordable all-electric model on Friday, will face "intense competition by next decade" from legacy auto companies, writes a Barclays analyst, per Fortune. He lays out the reasons why, including hybrids sold by other automakers. (Tesla has lost $10 billion in valuation over the last two weeks, notes Quartz.) Transition: Hybrids may indeed be big sellers in the next five years or so, but don't expect the trend to last long term. The reason is simple: "From a cost perspective, it's a bit daft to have both an electric motor and a combustion engine in the car," writes Chris Bryant at Bloomberg. That tax credit: Buyers of electric cars are likely counting on a $7,500 federal tax credit, but a post at Electrek makes a key point: The credit starts being phased out once a particular automaker hits the 200,000-vehicle mark. For Tesla, it's doubtful that would happen by the end of the year, but potential buyers will want to pay attention in 2018. China's role: An analyst at Autotrader tells the Washington Post that Chinese ownership of Volvo likely played a big role in the shift. The Chinese market is obviously huge, as are concerns there about air pollution. US automakers: Despite the caveats, Volvo's move shows that the "road ahead for carmakers looks increasingly electrified," writes Jonathan Berr at CBS Money Watch. That includes the Big Three in the US: GM has its $35,000 Chevy Bolt, Ford has 13 new electric vehicles in the works, and Fiat Chrysler is planning hybrid versions of the Pacifica minivan and other models.
– Oklahoma's Supreme Court has ruled that when it comes to informing a man that he is about to become a father, a Facebook post doesn't cut it, legally speaking. In this case, a woman had a three-month fling with a man named Billy McCall in 2011, then realized she was pregnant after they broke things off, reports the Oklahoman. She sent him a Facebook message informing of the big news, gave birth in 2012, then immediately put the baby up for adoption. McCall says he never saw the Facebook post and learned about the baby only after it was born, explains Courthouse News Service. Lower courts declared that McCall's parental rights had been terminated, but the state Supreme Court disagreed. "This court is unwilling to declare notice via Facebook alone sufficient to meet the requirements of the due processes clauses of the United States and Oklahoma Constitutions," wrote a justice in the majority opinion, according to the Wall Street Journal. A dissenting justice wondered why Facebook should be considered different than other forms of communication—"letters can remain unopened; and faxes can be lost"—but no matter, the issue now goes back to the lower courts to determine whether McCall still has fatherly rights to the child. The toddler is now 2 years old and has been living with the same adoptive parents since birth. (In other Facebook legal news, parents might be responsible for their kids' posts.)
– Vanity Fair's new editor-in-chief has kicked off her tenure with a scandal. The magazine issued an apology Wednesday, four days after a video mocking Hillary Clinton drew outrage on social media, per Deadline. In it, six editors suggest New Year's resolutions for the 2016 presidential candidate while holding glasses of champagne. They suggest Clinton teach a class on alternate-nostril breathing and "take more photos in the woods." But they also say she should abandon her "James Comey voodoo doll," and take up knitting or "literally anything that will keep you from running again," despite the fact that Clinton has stated she is done running for president. "Get someone on your tech staff to disable autofill on your iPhone so that typing in 'F' doesn't become 'Form Exploratory Committee for 2020,'" an editor quips. Though Fox News sees the video as "light-hearted and in good fun," Erik Wemple's interpretation of it as "snarky and demeaning" is more in line with social media users, who were quick to point out the sexist, ageist air, per the Washington Post. "Hey STOP TELLING WOMEN WHAT THE F--- THEY SHOULD DO OR CAN DO," tweeted Patricia Arquette. One Clinton adviser even used the hashtag #CancelVanityFair, while another burned his copy of the magazine. An editor included in the video initially defended it, noting "this wasn't a Hillary hit piece" and similar videos were made for other politicians, including President Trump, per the Huffington Post. By Wednesday, however, the magazine was trying to quash the backlash. The video "was an attempt at humor and we regret that it missed the mark," a spokesperson said.
– Exactly the news Herman Cain didn't want to hear today: One of the two women who accused him of sexual harassment wants to go public, reports the Washington Post. The woman wants the National Restaurant Association to release her from a confidentiality agreement that was part of her settlement, says her attorney. (Cain characterizes the settlement as a mere severance agreement, but the lawyer disagrees.) “It is just frustrating that Herman Cain is going around bad-mouthing the two complainants, and my client is blocked by a confidentiality agreement," he says. "The National Restaurant Association ought to release them and allow them to respond." Cain denies the allegations as a "smear campaign." The Huffington Post rounds up his "evolving responses" on the issue—see the video here—since Politico broke the story.
– A 13-year-old boy was suspended from his Pennsylvania school after discovering a knife in his pocket and immediately telling the principal. Thomas Ross Jr. had used the pocket knife to help his father open a cardboard box on Sunday before putting it in the pocket of his shorts, reports WTAE. Thomas wore the same shorts to Brownsville Area Middle School on Monday and, during his second period, realized the knife (Opposing Views has a photo) was still in his pocket. Thomas tells WTAE he immediately alerted the principal, only to receive a three-day suspension and a citation. Asks Thomas' father: "Why is there zero tolerance on a child bringing a weapon by accident to school and then doing the right thing and turning it in?" "The safety and well-being of our students and staff is paramount," says Superintendent Keith Hartbauer. "We will follow our district's policy, procedures, and solicitor's recommendation regarding this discipline incident." According to Hartbauer, district policy includes an automatic three-day suspension for students who bring a weapon to school. But Thomas' father says he was told a possible 10-day suspension will be considered at a hearing on Thursday, despite the fact that his son has never been in trouble at school before. "He's a typical kid. Don't discipline a child for doing the right thing," he says. Hartbauer says the hearing will allow school administrators to gather more information.
– Marco Rubio acknowledges that microcephaly, a birth defect associated with Zika virus, "is a terrible prenatal condition" and that children born with it face a "lifetime of difficulties." Nonetheless, the Republican senator from Florida tells Politico that he doesn't believe pregnant women infected with Zika should be able to get abortions. "When you present it in the context of Zika or any prenatal condition, it’s a difficult question and a hard one," Rubio says. "But if I’m going to err, I’m going to err on the side of life." Per the CDC, Florida is the only state that has Zika infections that were transmitted by local mosquitoes, as opposed to being travel related. According to the Miami Herald, there were 16 such cases as of last week. In June, a bill to provide $1.1 billion to the fight against Zika derailed when Democrats balked at a provision that would have prevented Planned Parenthood from getting any of the funds, according to Quartz. Rubio tells Politico that both parties have played "political volleyball" with the issue.
– The queen's Christmas luncheon had attracted more attention than usual—and then even more attention, this time of a negative flavor. The lunch entered the spotlight thanks to Meghan Markle's presence at Buckingham Palace among what People reports were about 50 royal family members. But the headlines then shifted to the sartorial choices of one of them: Princess Michael of Kent. She was pilloried for wearing "racist jewelry" after being photographed (see image here) wearing a blackamoor brooch to the luncheon. NBC News explains the two-inch brooch features "an antiquated depiction of a black figure that many contend exoticizes people of color." It notes Dolce and Gabbana dealt with similar accusations in 2012 after one of its models wore a pair of blackamoor earrings in a runway show. NBC News reports some considered it an insult to Markle, who is biracial. A rep for the princess, who is married to the queen's cousin, had this to say: "The brooch was a gift and has been worn many times before. Princess Michael is very sorry and distressed that it has caused offence." The Guardian points out it's not the princess' first rumble with accusations of racism: In 2004, she was said to have told black diners at a New York restaurant to "go back to the colonies" during a dispute about noise, and in an interview about the incident, she said that she once pretended to be "a half-caste African, but because of my light eyes I did not get away with it, but I dyed my hair black." People reports that Markle will buck tradition and attend church with the royals on Christmas.
– Sharon Osbourne has had quite a few cosmetic procedures, and things got a little graphic while discussing them recently on the Graham Norton Show, the New York Daily News reports. Asked by Norton what her most painful operation was, Osbourne responded, "Having my vagina tightened. It was the worst. It was just excruciating." But it was worth it, she added, according to Radar: "My husband thinks so. It’s back the way God wanted it to be."
– Randy Bilyeu thought he knew where Forrest Fenn's treasure was. But instead of being the first to find the $2 million haul of jewels believed to be buried somewhere in New Mexico, he ended up being its first victim. Police confirmed Tuesday that the remains of the 54-year-old grandfather from Colorado, who disappeared in January, were discovered along the Rio Grande west of Santa Fe by a US Army Corps of Engineers crew working in the area, the AP reports. Bilyeu, who quit his job in 2014 to search for the treasure, told a friend in early January that he had finally figured out its location, 5280.com reported in an in-depth look at the disappearance earlier this month. But Fenn, who says the clues to the location are in a cryptic poem in his 2010 memoir, says the treasure is in the Rocky Mountains, not Frijoles Canyon, where Bilyeu thought the treasure chest could be found. Bilyeu was reported missing on Jan. 14, more than a week after he bought a raft and set out on his final search. His raft and dog were found the day after he was reported missing, but searchers, including family members, treasure hunters, and the 85-year-old Fenn, who chartered a helicopter to search the river for three days, could find no other trace of him. Linda Bilyeu, Bilyeu's ex-wife, tells the Albuquerque Journal that she now believes the father of her two daughters died looking for something that doesn't exist. "We're disappointed that he lost his life because of a treasure hunt," she says. "There's no treasure—it's not real. He lost his life for a hoax." Fenn says the treasure is real, and searchers should remember that it is hidden in a place that he was able to get to when he was 80 years old. (Last year, Fenn said the treasure hunt was "out of control")
– In what a top Nazi hunter calls a "terrible failure of the Bavarian judicial authorities," one of Denmark's most-wanted Nazis has died a free man at the age of 93. Soren Kam, one of the highest-profile Danish Nazis during World War II, was wanted in his homeland for the 1943 kidnap and murder of anti-Nazi newspaper editor Carl Henrik Clemmensen, the Copenhagen Post reports. He fled to Germany after the war and the country refused to extradite him back to Denmark after he was granted citizenship in 1956. Kam—who died on March 23, around two weeks after his wife, according to a death notice—also fought on the Eastern Front with the Waffen SS and was granted the Knight's Cross medal by Adolf Hitler in 1945. Kam, who was the Simon Wiesenthal Center's No. 5 most wanted war criminal, "should have finished his miserable life in jail, whether in Denmark or Germany," Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff tells Reuters, calling him a "totally unrepentant Nazi murderer." "The failure to hold him accountable will only inspire the contemporary heirs of the Nazis to consider following in his footsteps," Zuroff says. Kam successfully fought extradition attempts by claiming that he feared for his life and only shot Clemmensen after he was already dead, reports the Telegraph, which tracked Kam down to his home in a peaceful Munich suburb in 2007 and was confronted by his angry daughter. (Archaeologists recently found a hidden Nazi lair deep in the jungle.)
– The Denver debate wasn't President Obama's finest moment, but many pundits say there was a bigger loser: PBS' Jim Lehrer. The 78-year-old moderator struggled to enforce time limits and seemed to let the candidates—especially Mitt Romney—take control, Politico reports. Fox's Chris Wallace accused Lehrer of failing to control the debate and of asking questions that helped Obama, while MSNBC's Chris Matthews said, "I thought the moderator did not moderate." The "Poor Jim" tag trended on Twitter soon after the debate began and a "Silent Jim Lehrer" account gained thousands of followers, New York reports. After the debate, an Obama spokeswoman suggested Lehrer had failed to control Romney. "I sometimes wondered if we even needed a moderator because we had Mitt Romney," she said. "We should rethink that for the next debate." A Romney adviser fired back, "You know you've lost the debate when you start blaming the moderator for a poor performance." This was the 12th presidential debate Lehrer has moderated, but moderators have increasingly come under attack; days earlier, he said he was outraged by suggestions that he was an uninspired choice.
– Since the first Facebook Betty White campaign was a rousing success—who didn’t love her stint on Saturday Night Live?—it’s time for a few more. The New York Post points to a page dedicated to scoring White a gig hosting the Emmys, and a quick search of Facebook reveals not only that group, but numerous pages devoted to getting her the Oscars hosting job as well. Join one of the many here. Also a possibility for Betty's future? Dancing With the Stars, says a show insider. For more on that, click here.
– Police believe the 19-year-old University of Pennsylvania student found dead in a California park knew his killer. Samuel Lincoln Woodward, 20, of Newport Beach was arrested Friday in the death of college sophomore Blaze Bernstein; the AP reports the two were friends who had gone to high school together. Per Orange County Undersheriff Don Barnes, Woodward was the last person to see Bernstein alive, and DNA evidence spurred the arrest. Woodward had told police the two drove to Borrego Park on Jan. 2 and that Bernstein walked into the park by himself and did not return. Court filings back up initial reports: That a sheriff's investigator thought Woodward seemed nervous during their interview, that he had scratches on his hands and dirtied fingernails, and that he tried not to touch the building's doors. Bernstein had been home for winter break visiting his family in Lake Forest, and his mother had this to say to the Los Angeles Times in the wake of the arrest: "We ask the world to please honor Blaze’s memory by doing an act of kindness today—don’t wait —do it now. Celebrate the goodness that still exists in this world." Police have not provided a motive or details of the crime beyond saying Bernstein was found in a shallow grave. Woodward had previously attempted to explain the state of his hands.
– A group of elite warriors pulled off the battlefield by injury or illness has a new mission here in the US: helping law enforcement take down people who possess and produce child pornography. The HERO Corps (Human Exploitation Rescue Operative) trains veterans in computer forensics, CNN reports. Participants then work as computer forensic analysts, scanning the computers and external hard drives of child pornography suspects. "It's an opportunity for me to go after bad guys again," says former Army Ranger Sgt. Tom Block, who is among a recent class of 24 veterans who will undertake 11 weeks of training followed by 10 months of on-the-ground experience as part of a yearlong unpaid internship. Conceived in 2009 by nonprofit Protect (National Association to Protect Children), the HERO program partners with Homeland Security and the US Special Operations Command. Participants "are truly individuals who have lost their mission on the battlefield," Protect CEO J. Christian tells CNN. For them, the HERO Corps is an "opportunity step back into that role," says Christian, a former Army Ranger who fractured his spine during a mission in Afghanistan. The stats are troubling: Christian says the US leads the world in producing child pornography. In 2008, a study found, more than 300,000 individual computers were being used to traffic child pornography. And a study by the University of New Hampshire found that more than half of people who possess or trade child pornography are "hands-on offenders." That's why veterans like Block want to be HEROs. "Hopefully I can get to them before they get to another child," he says. Injured by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan in 2013, Block wears a prosthetic eye that bears the shield of Captain America. "He doesn't like bullies," Block says of the super hero. "And neither do I."
– This is no trick about keeping veggies fresher: Australians are putting their onions outside—and snapping photos of them—to pay tribute to their prime minister, who will soon be prime minister no longer. Tony Abbott, who ousted Liberal Party leader Malcolm Turnbull in 2009, has now been ousted by Turnbull, who will become Australia's fourth prime minister in two years after a 54-44 party leadership vote, per the BBC. Turnbull had officially declared he would challenge Abbott for the leadership today, noting Abbott lacks "economic leadership" and would cause the coalition government to lose the next election since he's been falling behind in the polls. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who backed Turnbull's challenge, kept her role as party deputy by a 70-30 vote over Defense Minister Kevin Andrews. "The prime ministership of this country is not a prize or a plaything to be demanded," Abbott said before the vote, per the Telegraph. "It should be something which is earned by a vote of the Australian people." After news of the challenge broke, Australians began putting onions outside their doors in honor of Abbott, who is known to eat the veggies like apples, per Mashable. The hashtag #putyouronionsout began trending on Twitter, with some remarking that it meant Abbott’s downfall as leader. Last year, people shared photos of cricket bats outside their doors using #putoutyourbats to pay tribute to late Australian cricket player Phillip Hughes. To make matter worse for Abbott, a reporter notes he'll miss out on the $600,000 per year prime minister pension. A prime minister must be in power for two years to get it; Abbott managed one year, 361 days.
– Facing 15 years in prison on a manslaughter conviction, NYPD officer Peter Liang will avoid jail, instead getting six months of house arrest and five years of probation, NPR reports. Liang, 28, was convicted of killing Akai Gurley in 2014 when he was startled by a noise while patrolling a housing project and fired into a darkened stairwell. The bullet ricocheted off a wall and hit Gurley. On Tuesday, Judge Danny Chun reduced Liang's sentence to criminally negligent homicide. “Given the defendant’s background and how remorseful he is, it would not be necessary to incarcerate the defendant to have a just sentence," the AP quotes Chun as saying. The district attorney, who lobbied the judge to keep Liang out of prison, was upset by the switch to criminally negligent homicide and plans to appeal, the New York Daily News reports. The decision also angered Gurley's family—his aunt stormed out of the courtroom—and protesters outside. In addition to house arrest and probation, Liang, who says he hopes to rebuild his life, was sentenced to 800 hours of community service.
– It's been a year since Malala Yousufzai was shot by Pakistani Taliban—and new threats aren't stopping the 16-year-old in her fight for girls' education. Traveling to her native Swat Valley, the BBC offers a new window into Malala's background and life story. The region launched boys' schools in 1922, and within a few years it offered girls' schools as well. Standing out from its neighbors, "Swat was proud of its record on education," says the grandson of former leaders. But in 2008, the Taliban demanded that girls' schools shut down—or face danger. Despite the threat, Malala blogged and made public appearances to describe her educational experience. "I didn't want my future to be just sitting in a room and be imprisoned in my four walls and just cooking and giving birth to children," she tells the BBC, which gives a detailed account of the shooting and the risky surgery afterward. Now attending school in England, Malala continues to face danger from the Taliban. "She accepted that she attacked Islam, so we tried to kill her, and if we get another chance we will definitely kill her and that will make us feel proud," says a spokesman, per Sky News. But there are bright spots on the horizon, the AP notes: Malala has been invited to a reception with Queen Elizabeth, and she's a Nobel Peace Prize contender.
– The Senate powered through an 18-hour session that ended at 3:28am this morning, giving a yea or nay to more than 50 amendments in a "vote-a-rama" marathon and, in a 52-46 vote, approving a budget that looks to pave the way for dumping ObamaCare, Reuters reports. Not one Democrat said yes to the plan, the New York Times reports. The GOP plan for purging deficits by 2025 without raising taxes: slash $5.1 trillion in social "safety net" and other programs. What's going to rise amid the deep cuts is military funding, with a proposal to funnel about $38 billion over to a war-funding account. The Senate now begins a spring recess, so come mid-April, the approved Senate budget will need to be reconciled with the House budget that passed Wednesday. The Times notes it would be "the first common congressional budget in a decade." While not legally binding or in need of Obama's signature, the legislation informs spending limits for domestic and military programs, per the Times, and lays the groundwork for future bills that seem destined for veto fights with the president, the AP notes. "Fortunately for the country, the Republican budget will not become law," Harry Reid tells the Times. Two GOPers voted "nay" to the plan: presidential wannabes Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. As for the dozens of amendments that flew through the approval process, there were some conciliatory overtures from the Republican side: They helped sail through amendments on Social Security and veteran benefits for same-sex couples, and 14 GOPers voted to pass an amendment that calls for American workers to earn paid sick leave, Reuters notes.
– The most-talked-about political story today ended up being the story about a story. If you heard references to the "stench" today, here's the tale: Politico columnist Roger Simon wrote a piece about Romney-Ryan with this line: (Ryan) "has been marching around his campaign bus, saying things like, 'If Stench calls, take a message” and 'Tell Stench I’m having finger sandwiches with Peggy Noonan and will text him later.'" He was joking, playing off a quote that appeared in this New York Times story over the weekend, saying Ryan would "have to wash the stench of Romney off of him" if he planned to run for national office again. The problem is that several big media outlets didn't read Simon's line as a joke, reports BuzzFeed, which rounds up examples of reports that Ryan had a new nickname of "Stench" for his running mate. It also got confirmation of the joke from Simon himself: "Some people always don't get something, but I figured describing PowerPoint as having been invented to euthanize cattle would make the satire clear. I guess people hate PowerPoint more than I thought." At Gawker, one of the sites that initially reported on the nickname, John Cook critiques Simon's "completely inscrutable" column and concludes that he doesn't understand what satire actually is.
– The family of Philando Castile will be filing a civil lawsuit that will seek justice for his shooting death and also push for "systemic changes" to law enforcement to prevent violence and bias at the hands of police, Castile's mother and the attorney representing his family said at a Tuesday press conference, per the Pioneer Press. "We're going to sue whoever's responsible," said lawyer Glenda Hatchett, adding that they wouldn't be depending on the state's own probe to assist them. Hatchett, a 65-year-old former Georgia judge in Fulton County who used to sit behind the bench on the reality court show Judge Hatchett, noted the family will also press for criminal charges to be lobbied against officer Jeronimo Yanez, who shot Castile during the July 6 traffic stop. "Valerie Castile and her family are very passionate and committed to ensuring that Philando's death is not just another statistic," Hatchett said in a press release, per KARE 11. "I am deeply concerned about what seems to be an epidemic of African-American men being killed by police officers," Hatchett said in a statement from her Atlanta-based law firm, per NBC News, adding she took on Castile's case "to make sure that working class people have a legal dream team," 11Alive notes. Hatchett also addressed reports of police dispatch audio from the night Castile was killed, noting she hasn't confirmed the audio is genuine but that if true, IDing a black man with a "wide-set nose" is about as helpful in tracking down a suspect as IDing a white woman with blond hair. Castile's mother, Valerie, also spoke at the press conference on the grounds of Minnesota's State Capitol in St. Paul, calling her son a "humanitarian" and "pillar in the community," per the New York Daily News. "In what country being honest and telling the truth will get you killed," she said. "You answer that one for me." (Watch Hatchett's entire presser at 11Alive.)
– Need a pick-me-up but can't afford a dose of caffeine at your local Starbucks? Jonathan Stark can help. The mobile applications consultant is currently running a social sharing experiment—he's letting people use his Starbucks card to buy coffee, at no cost to them. Stark hit on the idea while researching mobile payments, which he believes are the wave of the future. He began allowing people to download a picture of his Starbucks card's bar code and use it—on their smartphones, via a printout, even on their laptops—and he also asked people to pay it forward by helping to fund the card. The experiment picked up over the weekend, when it went viral; most of the $4,400 that had been spent on the card as of yesterday had been spent in the prior two days. Stark estimates $4,000 of that was funded by anonymous donations, since he hasn't put money on it in a while. "All the money going through the card right now is the kindness of strangers," he tells the Los Angeles Times. And though some have criticized him for "[giving] away coffee to people with iPhones," he sees it as "giving people hope. ... Imagine if you had a CVS card and you could give someone $10 for their Alzheimer's medication." Want to use the card? Read more here or check the balance on Twitter.
– The Zodiac killer who terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area is still living in northern California, says a new book by a former state police officer. The Zodiac is blamed for at least five slayings beginning in 1968. No one was arrested for the murders, and police stopped hunting for the killer 2004. Former Highway Patrol Officer Lyndon Lafferty is convinced the Zodiac is a 91-year-old alcoholic living in Solano County, who Lafferty refers to using a pseudonym because of safety concerns. His case is strong, indicates the San Francisco Chronicle, which received two dozen taunting letters from the Zodiac during his bloody spree. Lafferty told the Chronicle in an earlier interview that he discovered the suspect's name spelled out in the cyphers that marked the Zodiac's letters to the newspapers. Lafferty helped investigate the case on the job after the murders, and says in his book, The Zodiac Killer Cover Up, that he developed solid leads linked to his suspect. The information was squelched by officials, however, including by a judge having an affair with the suspect's wife, says the former cop. Lafferty wrote the book with help from six other investigators, some of whom worked the case while it was unfolding. “As God is my witness, my partners and I have always tried to share our material and our case with the proper authorities, but in the past 40 years the latter have ignored and stymied and stonewalled us again and again,” Lafferty writes. Police will only say that the case remains unsolved.
– As of this writing, there are more than 16,000 people who care so much about (spoiler alert!) last week's shock Grey's Anatomy death that they have decided to sign a petition entitled, "Bring Dr. Derek 'McDreamy' Shepard BACK!!!" Just a few of our favorite lines from the petition: From the organizer: "You have people out here donating blood and organs trying to save lives, wanting to become doctors and all from committing to this television show..just to let us down like this. You've destroyed us. COMPLETELY!" "By taking him away you are ruining the lives of all your Fans ... You don't get to play with our us and our feeling as if we were your unimportant dolls that you can you mess with whenever you feel like it." "If two plane crashes are possible in one show then at least add another absurd season where they'll all meet in some odd metaphysical way, are happy and Derek is fine - and Mark [Dr. McSteamy, killed off in a previous season] half-naked." "Derek and Meredith are what the show is all about... They are life goals and my dreams were crushed when he died!!" "Shonda you are extremely talented, successful and creative, please consider making this a dream. Derek has been through enough already. I'll accept an accident and long-term rehabilitation, but not DEATH!" "Show that some miracle happens and he wakes up during the post-mortem or something." "I not only have watched the show through its live airing, but also have re-watched every episode on Netflix more than 6 times each. ... Taking McDreamy from your loyal and loving fans is like shooting a puppy in front of a classroom of kindergardeners. ... I hope that you know that you have lost thousands of viewers through this cruel and inhumane stunt. ... Also, it is BS that the 'Meredith and Derek' song didn't play during his final moments." Sadly, all these people are likely to be disappointed; Patrick Dempsey tells Entertainment Weekly he has no plans to return to the show. Click to read what series creator Shonda Rhimes has to say on the matter.
– Meryl Streep is set to team up with Mamma Mia! director Phyllida Lloyd again for a movie with considerably less singing and dancing. Producers have confirmed that the actress is in talks to play Margaret Thatcher in a biopic focusing on the tense 17 days leading up to the 1982 Falklands War, the Telegraph reports. Fellow Oscar-winner Jim Broadbent is expected to play husband Denis Thatcher. "Meryl Streep is the consummate film actress and can nail all kinds of emotional and dramatic colours, so she is the perfect choice," the editor of movie magazine Empire tells the Independent. She delivered an impeccable English accent in The French Lieutenant's Woman and has played formidable women throughout her career. She will draw out the humanity in Margaret Thatcher—no mean feat."
– The once-explosive growth in the proportion of Americans who are obese has slowed, but it's still expected to grow to 42% by 2030, according to the latest Centers for Disease Control study. The study found that if the obesity rate stays at the current level—34%—then some $550 billion in health care costs would be saved, reports the Washington Post. Earlier studies predicted that 51% of Americans would be obese by 2030, but no matter which is correct, "we still have a very serious problem," the head of the CDC's obesity program says. The obesity rate among women has stayed flat, but other groups, including higher-income men, are continuing to put on weight, and more obese people are becoming severely obese, according to the study, which predicts that the aging of the population will probably nudge many overweight adults into the obese category, and obese people into severely obese. The study's authors say it's not clear whether the growth in obesity has slowed somewhat because of the success of public policy initiatives, or because the US is nearing the maximum level of obesity that a population can sustain, notes the Los Angeles Times.
– About 5,000 barrels of oil—that's 210,000 gallons—spilled from the Keystone pipeline in South Dakota Thursday. The company that operates the pipeline, TransCanada, says in a statement obtained by KSFY that the spill "was completely isolated within 15 minutes and emergency response procedures were activated." The pipeline was shut down and "crews, including TransCanada specialists from emergency management, engineering, environmental management and safety as well as contracted, nationally recognized experts are assessing the situation," the statement continues. An environmental scientist manager at the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources tells the Bismarck Tribune officials don't think any surface water bodies or drinking water systems are threatened.
– At least four people are dead and 63 hurt after a Metro-North passenger train derailed on a curved section of track in the Bronx this morning, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says, according to the AP. Metropolitan Transportation Authority police say the train derailed near the Spuyten Duyvil station in a "slow speed area," and one passenger says it seemed to be traveling "a lot faster" than usual as it approached the sharp curve. The train operator, who was injured, told investigators he tried to apply the brakes but the train wouldn't slow, CNN reports. Seven of the eight cars derailed just 100 yards from the station, and at least two flipped onto their sides. Three of the dead were thrown from the train, and the fourth was found inside. Police divers were searching for victims in the Harlem River, feet away from one of the cars, as cadaver dogs searched through the wreckage, but police think all the passengers have now been accounted for. The southbound Hudson Line train had left Poughkeepsie at 5:54am and was scheduled to arrive at Grand Central Terminal at 7:43am. NTSB investigators are headed to the scene. (A freight train also derailed in New Mexico yesterday, killing its three operators when it plunged down a ravine.)
– The BMX world is shocked and mystified by the apparent suicide of Dave Mirra, one of the sport's biggest names. The 41-year-old, who was married with two children, was found in a truck in Greenville, NC, on Thursday afternoon, dead from what police say was a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the Los Angeles Times reports. One of his final Instagram posts was a photo of himself in a boxing ring, with the message: "Fight to win! We all have battles to fight. Never back down. Love you all. #diewithyourbootson," the New York Daily News reports. Mirra—who was nearly killed by a drunk driver in 1993—won a total of 24 X Games medals, a record only broken by Bob Burnquist in 2013, the Guardian notes. In recent years, he switched to competing in Ironmans and triathlons. Mirra's death has brought many tributes. He called Greenville home and "was as humble a guy talking with kids on a street corner about bikes as he was in his element on the world stage," says Mayor Allen Thomas. "Dave was nothing short of the most iconic BMX rider of all time and single-handedly inspired generations of riders to come," writes Justin Benthien at RideBMX magazine. "It is with very heavy hearts that tonight we must say goodbye to the Miracle Boy." "We'll never know exactly why, but that's not our place to question," adds Ryan Fudger. "Our job is to honor the guy that pushed the boundaries of BMX both on the bike and off of it and give our condolences to his family. Rest in peace, Dave."
– The fate of Flight 8501 now appears to be a tragedy, not a mystery: Indonesian officials say search-and-rescue teams have recovered debris and bodies from the sea around 10 miles from where the AirAsia jet was last heard from on Sunday, in a spot roughly 100 miles from land. The Indonesian navy says bodies have been removed from the sea, and that rescuers are "very busy now," reports the BBC. Workers being lowered on ropes from a hovering helicopter are encountering six-foot waves in their quest to retrieve more bodies. One body, that of a half-naked man whose shirt partially covered his head, was shown on Indonesian TV, to wails in a waiting room at the Surabaya airport (more on that here). Earlier, an Indonesian military aircraft spotted debris floating off the coast of Borneo, including suitcases and a life jacket, which officials say they have now confirmed came from the Airbus A320, the New York Times reports. Officials say the bodies were found after a search plane spotted a shadow on the seabed that is believed to be the missing plane, CNN reports. More search teams, divers, and ships with sonar equipment are being sent to the site off the coast of Borneo, where the depth of the sea is around 100 feet. "My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ 8501," AirAsia founder Tony Fernandes tweeted. "On behalf of AirAsia my condolences to all. Words cannot express how sorry I am."
– While North Korea keeps up its taunting missile tests, Japan is making plans of its own, with North Korea seemingly in its sights. The Wall Street Journal reports Japan is set to purchase extended-range missiles that could hit the North's military bases. The country's Defense Ministry says it will ask for $19 million in next year's budget to scoop up a Norwegian-built Joint Strike Missile that can travel up to 300 miles, as well as extra funds to revamp its F-35 jet fighters to carry Lockheed Martin missiles, including the company's Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile. The latter can reach just over 600 miles—far enough to hit land targets in the North from jets near Japan. Japan's defense minister minimizes the news, saying Japan would keep its reliance on the US for any such strikes. This would mark Japan's first-ever purchase of long-range missiles, notes CNN, and the move is upsetting some who want to stick to the official pacifist stance the country has maintained since World War II. One person likely to be pleased is President Trump, who said during a November visit that Japan should buy "massive" amounts of military equipment from the US. Meanwhile, North Korea has reportedly expressed a willingness to have a sit-down with the US over the nuclear detente. The Guardian reports that Sergey Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, informed Rex Tillerson of that news Thursday when the two met in Vienna. No response from Tillerson yet, but the US State Department's stance has been that the North needs to show it's serious about giving up its nukes before a true conversation can be had.
– Another intriguing detail to Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer: We already knew that he, Natalia Veselnitskaya, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort were in the room. Now comes word that Veselnitskaya brought along a Russian-born lobbyist described by NBC News as a "former Soviet counterintelligence officer who is suspected by some US officials of having ongoing ties to Russian intelligence." The lobbyist's name is Rinat Akhmetshin, and he confirms to the AP that he attended the meeting. Like Trump Jr. and Veselnitskaya, however, he said the meeting didn't yield much of substance. "I never thought this would be such a big deal to be honest." He also denies being a spy. Coverage: His background: Akhmetshin was born in Russia, emigrated to the US after serving in the Soviet military, and reportedly holds dual citizenship. He insists to the Washington Post that he is not and was never a Russian intelligence officer. He says that he served two years in the Soviet army as an 18-year-old draftee and that his unit had some unspecified role in intelligence matters. But he says he never trained as a spy. Now a lobbyist: Now a Washington resident, he is well-known in congressional circles as a pro-Kremlin lobbyist, reports the New York Times. He has been working with Veselnitskaya trying to get the Magnitsky Act overturned. (The act, which punishes Russians accused of human rights abuses, is bitterly opposed by Vladimir Putin.) Grassley's letter: Now getting a lot of attention is a letter written by Sen. Chuck Grassley in April to Homeland Security seeking information about Akhmetshin. Grassley said he "has been accused of acting as an unregistered agent for Russian interests and apparently has ties to Russian intelligence." Read it here. Why was he there? Akhmetshin said Veselnitskaya invited him to attend the meeting at the last minute. This part gets vague: He said she had come across evidence that a US hedge firm seemingly linked to the Democratic National Committee was violating Russian tax laws and sought his advice on how to present the information, per the Post. Documents left behind? Both the Post and the AP suggest that Veselnitskaya did indeed leave behind a folder of documents about what she had uncovered regarding allegedly shady funds going to the DNC. Never heard of him: A spokesman for Putin says "we have no knowledge of this person." Putin similarly has denied knowing Veselnitskaya. Hacking accusation: NPR notes that in 2015, a mining firm accused Akhmetshin of hacking into its computer system. Details on that via Courthouse News. All this means what, exactly? Everyone will have to stay tuned. "Apparently the White House is content to let the media put together the puzzle, piece by piece," writes Aaron Blake at the Washington Post. "If they truly have nothing to hide, that's a really bad strategy." A similar sentiment from Zack Beauchamp at Vox: If nothing else, the new scoop "does prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there’s more to this meeting than what we know right now."
– Things were looking so dire for 13-year-old Trenton McKinley of Mobile, Ala., that his parents signed the papers to donate his organs to five other kids. But a day before doctors were to take him off life support, Trenton began showing signs of recovery from a traumatic brain injury, reports WALA. Now he's shooting hoops during rehab. "It's a miracle," mom Jennifer Nicole Reindl tells USA Today. Trenton's ordeal began two months ago, when he was riding in a cart being pulled by a dune buggy, and the cart flipped. "I hit the concrete and the trailer landed on top of my head," Trenton tells the Alabama TV station. "After that, I don’t remember anything." Reindl wrote on a Facebook fundraiser that her son suffered seven skull fractures requiring multiple surgeries, and that doctors were detecting no brain activity over several days. At that point, they made the decision to donate his organs—"I knew he would not hesitate to save 5 more lives"—until a final test of brain waves came back positive. Trenton is recuperating at home, and he suffers from nerve pain and daily seizures. But he's thankful for his recovery, and tells WALA that he credits something beyond the hospital. "There's no other explanation but God," he says. "There's no other way."
– The FDA's latest kill-joy for thousands of kids (and their parents) who like to lick the bowl: Don't eat it. And not because of the raw eggs, which can be tied to salmonella poisoning, the Huffington Post notes. This time the culprit is raw flour, which has been linked to an E. coli outbreak that's sickened at least 38 people in 20 states since December, USA Today reported last month. This particular strain of E. coli (O121) is a Shiga toxin-producing variety that can cause diarrhea, cramping, vomiting, and even death, per the CDC. The FDA warning even extends to parents who make homemade Play-Doh out of flour and water, as well as restaurants, schools, and daycare facilities that offer kids flour-based dough to play with, as the harmful bacteria can still be passed on by someone touching foods made with the flour. General Mills voluntarily recalled 10 million pounds of flour sold under the Gold Medal, Signature Kitchens, and Gold Medal Wondra names at the end of May (the FDA notes you should throw bags of these brands away), even though the agency says the danger could lurk in any brand. "Flour is derived from a grain that comes directly from the field and typically is not treated to kill bacteria," an FDA rep says—meaning bacteria "from a cow doing its business in the field" could end up being milled into flour, an Indianapolis infection specialist tells the New York Times. It's not common to see outbreaks of this sort linked to flour, a food safety lawyer told USA Today, noting the last time he could remember was a Nestle Toll House cookie dough recall in 2009. The FDA says if you've got to get your cookie dough fix, stick with commercially made ice creams that contain cookie dough chunks, as they're typically made with treated flour and pasteurized eggs. (A Slate columnist may have to give up her cookie dough habit.)
– In his much-celebrated speech last week, President Obama said that "this war, like all wars, must end," and that al-Qaeda is "on the path to defeat." Well, PJ O'Rourke at the Weekly Standard has a word for that kind of thinking: "Stupid." His take? "This war, like all wars, must end when someone wins it," he quips, and al-Qaeda is "on the path to Boston and London and any number of other places." But Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post doesn't think those apparent lone-wolf attacks justify ongoing war. Yes, we'll probably suffer more attacks from Islamic radicals, but "what distinguishes their crimes from other senseless acts of violence? Put another way, what would the reaction have been if Adam Lanza … had yelled, 'Allahu akbar'?" Al-Qaeda is in shambles, and while Obama was wise enough not to declare victory, "columnists aren't obliged to be so circumspect: it is time to declare victory and get on with our lives." Click for O'Rourke's full column, or for Robinson's.
– In her latest cover interview, this one for Vanity Fair, Angelina Jolie dishes on her recent marriage—and a possible future political career: On marriage to Brad Pitt: "It does feel different. It feels nice to be husband and wife." On the vows their children wrote for them: "They did not expect us never to fight, but they made us promise to always say, 'Sorry,' if we do. So they said, 'Do you?,' and we said, 'We do!'" On the wedding as a family affair: "We were all going to have a wedding," Jolie said, according to E!. "There was no cake, so Pax made a cake. The kids made little pillows for the rings and Knox practiced [being a ring bearer] with an acorn that kept falling off the pillow. Brad's mom [Jane Pitt] went and picked some flowers and tied them up." On whether politics are in her future: "When you work as a humanitarian, you are conscious that politics have to be considered. Because if you really want to make an extreme change, then you have a responsibility. But I honestly don’t know in what role I would be more useful—I am conscious of what I do for a living, and that [could] make it less possible." (Later, asked directly if she sees herself going into politics, public service, or diplomacy, Jolie says, "I am open.") Click to see the cover.
– An American reporter brought onto the state-funded Russia Today network to discuss Bradley Manning decided the chance to blast Russia's repressive anti-gay laws was too good to pass up. As cameras rolled, James Kirchick donned rainbow suspenders and said, "Being here on a Kremlin-funded propaganda network, I’m going to wear my gay pride suspenders and speak out against the horrific, anti-gay legislation that Vladimir Putin has signed into law," the Washington Free Beacon reports. As hosts in the Stockholm studio tried to cut him off, he told them "RT has been Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden twenty-four-seven. I haven't seen anything on your network about the anti-gay laws that have been passed in Russia and the increasing climate of violence and hostility towards gay people. Where is the coverage of that?" Unsurprisingly, he soon disappeared from the broadcast. He later tweeted that the network had called the taxi company that took him to the studio and ordered it to dump him by the side of the highway on the way to the airport.
– More than a week after America went to the polls, seven House races are still too close to call and two statewide elections are undecided. The results look certain to make the historic Republican win in the House even bigger, the Los Angeles Times notes, with Democratic candidates defending all seven districts and leading in just two—California's 11th and Kentucky's 6th. The differential is fewer than 700 votes in most races; a 10th race in North Carolina's 2nd has been called for the Republican, but a recount is expected. Alaska is preparing to examine write-in ballots to decide its Senate race; in Minnesota, the last unresolved governor's race in the nation shows no sign of being decided anytime soon, the AP reports. Republican Tom Emmer trails Democrat Mark Dayton by 8,750 votes—well within the margin for a recount—and the fight is expected to continue into December. Gov. Tim Pawlenty has held transition talks with both men and may have to extend his term if the race isn't resolved by Jan. 3.
– If they can agree who goes first, Paris and Los Angeles will be awarded the 2024 and 2028 Olympics. International Olympic Committee members voted unanimously to seek a consensus three-way deal between the two bid cities and the IOC executive board, the AP reports. Talks will open with Paris widely seen as the favorite for 2024. If a deal falls through, only the 2024 hosting rights will be voted on when the IOC next meets, on Sept. 13 in Lima, Peru. However, an agreement seemed assured by the reaction of the two mayors. Eric Garcetti of LA and Anne Hidalgo of Paris emerged on stage holding hands to welcome the decision. A deal is also likely because a head-to-head fight for 2024 would create a loser that is unlikely to return four years later for a new 2028 bid contest. At separate news conferences, the mayors said they could work toward a deal. The mayors were united on stage by IOC President Thomas Bach, who raised an arm of each in a shared gesture of triumph. A deal to make both cities winners would fulfil a strategy that Bach set in motion last December to help safeguard a stable future for the signature Olympic event. The dual award can give the IOC a decade of stability with two world-class cities touting financially secure bids. LA plans to use only existing venues with zero risk of white elephants. This follows years of overspending by Olympic hosts and a series of political defeats that have sunk the campaigns of potential candidates. It also avoids inflicting a third recent defeat on Paris—which lost with bids for the 2008 and 2012 Olympics—and the United States. New York and Chicago both lost heavily for 2012 and 2016, respectively. "Working hard to get the Olympics for the United States (L.A.). Stay tuned!" President Trump tweeted Tuesday.
– Walter Palmer, the Minnesota dentist who has incited the ire of people around the world for killing Cecil the lion, may soon be making a return trip to Africa if Zimbabwe has its say. The Zimbabwean environment minister said today that the country is seeking Palmer's extradition "so that he be made accountable" for what it says was illegal poaching, the AP reports. "We want him tried in Zimbabwe because he violated our laws. Police should take the first step to approach the prosecutor general who will approach the Americans. The processes have already started." A 2000 treaty between the US and Zimbabwe would allow Palmer's extradition to happen, as long as Palmer is charged with what would be considered a criminal offense in both countries, and as long as that crime carries a minimum one-year sentence in both countries, the Guardian and Minneapolis Star Tribune report. But while the US Fish and Wildlife Service says it's investigating just that, the Star Tribune points out extradition could prove tricky: African lions aren't listed as an endangered species here, and Palmer didn't try to bring the lion's carcass back to the US (which would violate a wildlife importing law). One law that could factor into things: the illegal bribing of foreign officials by Americans overseas, which the president of Zimbabwe’s Safari Operators Association suspects may have happened. "There had to be [bribes]," he tells the Star Tribune. "The documents which they used for carrying out the hunt were all illegal and fraudulently obtained." Meanwhile, Theo Bronkhorst, the hunting guide who's facing charges back in Zimbabwe, says right after Cecil was killed, Palmer wanted to take down an elephant next—but he bid adieu to his guide after Bronkhorst said he couldn't find an elephant big enough for Palmer's tastes, per the Telegraph.
– The bumpy ride is over for Uber's Travis Kalanick: After a shareholder revolt, Kalanick has stepped down as chief executive of the company he co-founded in 2009. Sources tell the New York Times that the resignation came after "hours of drama" on Tuesday, with five of the company's biggest shareholders demanding he step down immediately. "I love Uber more than anything in the world and at this difficult moment in my personal life I have accepted the investors' request to step aside so that Uber can go back to building rather than be distracted with another fight," said Kalanick, who has dealt with multiple scandals involving the company this year as well as the death of his mother in a boating accident last month. Kalanick, who announced last week that he was taking an indefinite leave of absence, will remain on the company's board. At least 15 other top execs, including key Kalanick allies, have already left the company this year, the Washington Post reports. The surprise resignation caps what is "surely the most dramatic fall from grace the start-up world has ever seen," according to BBC technology analyst Dave Lee. Kalanick's aggressive, "success at all costs" mentality attracted a lot of investment, but he "created a company that deceived local regulators, neglected the well-being of employees ... obtained rape victims' medical records, and allegedly stole trade secrets from a rival," Lee writes.
– Was the bloom at one point off the Neil Gorsuch rose? When President Trump first tapped the Supreme Court justice for the job earlier this year, he praised Gorsuch as being the "best" candidate for the job, and by many accounts, Gorsuch has since made good at carrying out the president's conservative agenda. And Trump has publicly touted Gorsuch as one of his main achievements so far—but privately things may have been quite different initially. Sources tell the Washington Post Trump was furious after hearing Gorsuch was slamming him in private meetings with lawmakers (specifically a February one with Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal) in response to the president's attacks on the judiciary. So furious, in fact, that Trump spoke of yanking his nomination of Gorsuch and finding someone else for the job, sources say. "He's probably going to end up being a liberal like the rest of them," Trump reportedly told Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell during a meeting; a source says McConnell had to talk Trump down. Part of what fueled Trump's "explosion" was that Gorsuch didn't seem "loyal" and appeared ungrateful for the opportunity of a lifetime position on the Supreme Court, other sources note. What appears to have soothed Trump's nerves: a handwritten letter from Gorsuch, dated March 2 and seen by the Post, expressing his gratitude. "Your address to Congress was magnificent," Gorsuch wrote. "And you were so kind to ... mention me. My teenage daughters were cheering the TV!" The White House is pushing back on the Post report. "At no point did the president consider withdrawing Justice Gorsuch's nomination," a spokesman said in a statement. "He is very proud of the accomplishment."
– Today's fiscal cliff developments have a familiar ring: More talk, no solutions. But while no miracles emerged from Capitol Hill, President Obama took to his podium to declare, "I still think we can get it done." He wants lawmakers to come back after the holiday to pass a scaled-down deal before year's end that protects most Americans from a tax increase and lays the groundwork for more comprehensive legislation, reports AP. Earlier, John Boehner said he would continue working toward a deal in the wake of his own "Plan B" meltdown, but added, "How we get there, God only knows," reports the Hill. Obama made the case that because Democrats and Republicans alike agree that the vast majority of Americans should be saved from a tax hike, "there is absolutely no reason, none," not to make it happen before the deadline 10 days from now. "Call me a hopeless optimist," he said, adding that he spoke with both Boehner and Harry Reid today. One plan in the works among Democrats is a proposal to extend tax cuts for those making below $250,000, extend unemployment benefits, and temporarily suspend automatic spending cuts, reports the New York Times.
– A team sets out to explore a mysterious island in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and soon discovers the fist of a massive monkey in Kong: Skull Island. It might be a familiar story, but critics are mostly applauding Jordan Vogt-Roberts' telling. Here's what they’re saying: Richard Roeper calls it a "wildly entertaining" B-movie with an A-list cast. Among its best qualities are "remarkable visuals" and "perfectly timed moments of comedic relief," he writes at the Chicago Sun-Times. For those who want it, there's "shocking violence," too, yet the film also "has a sense of humor about itself," Roeper says. "It's great stuff." For a film that takes inspiration from Apocalypse Now, Kong: Skull Island is "surprisingly fun and fresh," writes Katie Walsh at the Tribune News Service. But though "never boring," it also "never sits still," a fault Walsh blames on too many characters. Samuel L. Jackson's Col. Packard isn't one she'd be willing to lose, though. He's "riveting." Tom Shone was not on the same page. Here's "the usual story: a lopsided mixture of mega-blast effects and a script that hasn't worked out what opposable thumbs are for," he writes at Newsweek. Thank goodness for John C. Reilly "stealing every scene," he adds. "You'd say he was the comic relief, except Kong: Skull Island can't seem to manage seriousness in the first place. Quit monkeying around." Stephanie Zacharek agrees Reilly is "wonderful," but that's not all she has to admire. "Vogt-Roberts knows he's gotta go big or go home, so he treads boldly." The result is a film that's "great fun" as well as "grand and nutty and visually splendid," she writes at Time. The real star, however, is Kong. "He's the movie's soulful center" and might even "make you cry."
– A Texas judge who sparked outrage by limiting the punishment of a rapist—and criticizing the man's 14-year-old victim—has recused herself from the case, the Dallas Morning News reports. State District Judge Jeanine Howard made no comment beyond what she said Thursday night (that the girl "wasn't the victim she claimed to be") but others had plenty to say. "I feel as if the judge blamed the victim, which is never appropriate in sexual assault cases," said District Attorney Craig Watkins, who wants the next judge to impose a harsher punishment on the rapist, Sir Young. As it stands, Young—who faced up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty last week—will serve only five years of deferred probation, meaning he'll have no criminal record if he meets all requirements, like spending 45 days in jail and serving 250 hours of community service at a rape crisis center. He will have to register as a sex offender for life, but Howard waved typical requirements for rapists, like going to sex offender treatment and staying away from children and pornography. Why? Because the victim apparently had previous sex partners and had agreed to sleep with Young, even though she said "no" and "stop" more than once during the rape. Critics say that federal law usually prohibits evidence of the victim's other sexual behavior, and now future rape victims may think twice about stepping forward. The victim herself was outraged: "It was a slap in the face," she told KHOU. "I thought I was going to get help. I thought that it would be taken care of, and I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore."
– Counterfeiters do a booming business in the US, if seizures by US Customs and Border Protection are any indication. 24/7 WallSt pored over data related to more than 31,000 seized shipments last year to come up with the most commonly counterfeited items in the US. The list below has the category, the percentage of seizures it represents, and the MSRP of the items if they were legit: Apparel/accessories (fake Super Bowl merchandise was a big contributor), 20%, $110.8 million Consumer electronics, 16%, $122.9 million Footwear, 12%, $51.2 million Watches/jewelry, 11%, $653.6 million Handbags/wallets, 10%, $234.1 million Pharmaceuticals/personal care, 8%, $73.7 million Optical media (DVD, Blu-ray discs, etc.), 3%, $8.2 million Click for the full rankings.
– A 73-year-old man is banned from a Florida beach after a parent complained that he was handing out business cards that read, "Sugardaddy seeking his sugarbaby." While police didn't arrest Richard Basaraba, Volusia County Beach Safety Ocean Rescue Capt. Tammy Marris says he's been told to stay off the beach and walkovers for six months for violating an ordinance that prohibits soliciting on the beach, the AP reports. The ban is a trespass order, and Marris says someone who violates such an order can be arrested for trespassing. Basaraba wasn't arrested because police didn't see him handing out the business cards. Basaraba told the Daytona Beach News-Journal he's "devastated" by what he considers an overreaction by officials. He said he wasn't trying to entice anyone into doing anything illegal when he handed a business card out to a group of girls on Daytona Beach on Saturday. But the mother of a 16-year-old girl complained to authorities after her daughter told her about the incident. The girl told officials the man handed her 18-year-old friend the business card while they were at the beach. It featured a picture of a younger woman sitting on the lap of an older man wearing a business suit. Printed on the card were an email address and the accompanying text: "Ask me about your monthly allowance." Basaraba told the newspaper he's been careful not to hand the cards, which he recently ordered, to anyone under 18. A beach patrol report says Basaraba told the 16-year-old that she should contact him when she's 18. "I engaged [the younger girl] before I knew she was 16 because of her bust size," Basaraba tells the News-Journal. "I did make the mistake of saying, 'You're the cutest one here. Call me when you're 18.'"
– A Roman-era treasure trove has been retrieved thanks to two strokes of luck. The first happened 1,600 years ago when a merchant ship carrying the statues and coins to be recycled sank in the ancient port of Caesarea in Israel. The second came last month when two divers discovered the wreck, reports Live Science. Ran Feinstein and Ofer Raanan found one statue, then another, but "it took us a couple of seconds to understand what was going on," Raanan tells the AP. "It was amazing," he says, noting he dives in the area on alternating weekends and hadn't made any big finds previously. The Israel Antiquities Authority believes the ship got caught in a storm and smashed into rocks. Since the discovery, archaeologists have recovered priceless bronze statues and thousands of coins, per the Sydney Morning Herald and AP. "A marine assemblage such as this has not been found in Israel in the past 30 years," says Jacob Sharvit of the IAA, noting most metal statues were melted down in antiquity. "Because these statues were wrecked together with the ship, they sank in the water and were thus 'saved' from the recycling process." Protected by sand, they're in such good shape that they appear "as though they were cast yesterday," Sharvit adds. There are also two bronze lamps, a statue of a whale, a faucet shaped like a boar, a figure of a moon goddess, and coins depicting emperors Constantine and Licinius. While some objects date to the 1st and 2nd centuries, most are from the 4th century, says Sharvit. (Priceless gold coins were found in the area last year.)
– Economist John Maynard Keynes called gold the "barbarous relic"—and it has a lot in common with Bitcoin, writes Paul Krugman in the New York Times. Right now, both are being collected at high cost. In Papua New Guinea, the Porgera open-pit gold mine is a leading producer worldwide, but it's also a center for terrible abuses, both of human rights and the environment. It keeps functioning because of gold's soaring value—even though the printing press has long meant "unlimited amounts of cash could be created at essentially no cost." After the toil of getting it, gold sits in vaults "doing nothing." Meanwhile, there's the Bitcoin mine in Reykjanesbaer, Iceland, which is expending energy "to create virtual objects with no clear use," Krugman writes. "Gold, after all, has at least some real uses ... but now we’re burning up resources to create 'virtual gold' that consists of nothing but strings of digits." Why the effort for gold and Bitcoin? For one thing, there's the unfounded fear of the debasement of government-backed currency. And with Bitcoin, there's "the sense that it’s high-tech and algorithmic, so it must be the wave of the future." But really, we just miss "the days when money meant stuff you could jingle in your purse": We're "digging our way back to the 17th century." Click for Krugman's full column. Or over at the Washington Post, Timothy B. Lee says Krugman just doesn't get a key element of Bitcoin.
– A group of nearly three dozen migrants, most of them kids, paid smugglers to whisk them out of Niger and Nigeria and to a new life to the north—but instead paid the ultimate price. The five men, nine women, and 20 minors were found dead Sunday in the Sahara, per Niger's Ministry of Interior, apparently ditched by those they'd hoped would save them and likely victims of extreme thirst, ABC News reports. The interior minister said the migrants had perished between June 6 and June 12 near Assamaka, per the BBC, with the Guardian noting that temps in the desert can soar upward of 105 degrees Fahrenheit. What transpired isn't an uncommon consequence: "Thousands of people have lost their lives as a result of the indifferent or even deliberate actions of migrant smugglers," the UN Office on Drugs and Crime says on its website, noting that as borders have become more tightly policed, migrants have become more wary of trying to cross over on their own. Which often leads to a "highly profitable" endeavor for the smugglers, who "enjoy low risk of detection and punishment," and tragedy for the smuggled, who may pay upward of $345 each for the chance to escape, per an International Organization for Migration report. The IOM notes that Niger is a waypoint for escapees on their way to Algeria and Libya (and Europe after that), with migrants usually hailing from Nigeria, Cameroon, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea-Bissau. What made this group of doomed deserters unusual: the number of children. Per the IOM report, a tracking tool showed that between February and April, the 60,000-plus migrants who passed through Niger were overwhelmingly male and between the ages of 18 and 59. (A drowned baby has become a "crushing symbol" of Europe's migrant crisis.)
– A navy ship found bodies and aircraft parts in the seas off Myanmar while searching Thursday morning for a military transport plane carrying 120 people, a spokesman says. The Chinese-made Y-8 turboprop aircraft disappeared Wednesday afternoon about a half-hour after leaving Myeik, also known as Mergui, for Yangon on a route that would have taken it over the Andaman Sea, the AP reports. It was raining, but not heavily, at the time. Nine naval ships, five army aircraft, and three helicopters were searching for the plane Thursday morning, a military spokesman says. Gen. Myat Min Oo says the ship found two life jackets, three bodies, and a tire that was part of an aircraft wheel. The bodies were of a man, a woman, and a child. The plane carried 106 passengers—mostly families of military personnel—and 14 crew members. Fifteen of the passengers were children. It is not unusual for such flights to carry civilians to offset transportation costs for military families stationed in the country's remote south. The military says Myanmar received the Y-8 plane in March of last year, and since then it had logged 809 flying hours. The BBC reports there was no mayday call from the aircraft and while the cause of what is believed to be one of the deadliest plane crashes in Myanmar's history is still unclear, the dispersed debris suggests the plane broke up in mid-air.
– Jason McCarthy, 16, died days after a suspected drunken driver sideswiped a vehicle, fled the scene, then crashed into the rear of McCarthy's car minutes later outside Minneapolis last week. But while the teen was fighting for his life, the alleged driver of the other vehicle, Michael Vanwagner, 24—whose license had been revoked—laughed about his smashed-up ride on Facebook, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. "That’s her front end after I got done with her lol," Vanwagner wrote under a picture of his car Saturday, adding a smiley face for good measure. "I'm all good slept a day in the hospital then came home and did yard work lol," another photo was captioned. The state trooper who spoke with Vanwagner after the two accidents reported that he smelled the "odor of alcoholic beverage," and the results of his blood-alcohol test are pending. Raw Story notes that a week after the accident, Vanwagner also posted a meme in which an officer asks a driver, "Any drugs or alcohol?" The driver responds, "No thanks, I've got everything." After learning "another kid died," Vanwagner deleted the photos Wednesday. "I didn’t even know I hit somebody. I just thought I hit something," he told the Star Tribune. Charges are pending. "I know I’m looking at spending time in prison, so I’m trying to spend as much time as I can with my 18-month-old." (Another awful recent story: A woman walking home was allegedly hit and killed by the friend she thought was too drunk to drive her there.)
– The Russian doping scandal just keeps getting bigger: A new report implicates 1,000 athletes in 30 sports over recent years, along with officials at various levels of government. The upshot is sure to be increased pressure to penalize Russia ahead of the 2018 Winter Games. In the report—which amplifies an earlier one in July—World Anti-Doping Agency investigator Richard McLaren lays out 1,166 "immutable facts" he says prove Russia to be guilty of an "institutional conspiracy" between 2011 and 2015, per the New York Times. This involved cheating "on an unprecedented scale" at the 2012 London Olympics, where athletes were given a "cocktail of steroids ... to beat the detection thresholds," McLaren says. The Russian Anti-Doping Agency says accusations of cheating haven't been proven, reports USA Today. Though his initial report helped ban 30% of Russia's delegation from the Rio Games, McLaren's investigation continued. American athletes, for example, have discussed boycotting the world championships in bobsled to be held in Sochi in February over lingering concerns about doping. "Coaches and athletes have been playing on an uneven field," McLaren says, per the AP. "It's time that this stops." New evidence presented in the report shows Russian officials swapped or tampered with urine samples, including those of 15 medalists at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Samples from female athletes, for example, had male DNA. IOC's president has said he supports lifetime Olympic bans for athletes and officials involved.
– For all the attention given to the amazing story out of Cleveland, the wire services as of this evening still hadn't managed to move a photo of Michelle Knight, one of the three women rescued. It was a similar story a decade ago, when the disappearance of Knight, now 33, got far less attention than the cases of Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus. Why? Unlike the other two, Knight was a legal adult at the time and had just lost custody of her toddler. Police concluded that she probably left town of her own accord, her mother tells the Plain Dealer. Barbara Knight, who now lives in Florida, recounts that her daughter started having trouble about age 17, when she dropped out of high school upon becoming pregnant. And then this: "Barbara Knight said that among her own greatest regrets was becoming involved with an abusive man, whom, she believes, injured her toddler grandson—spurring a chain of events that led Michelle to lose custody of the child," says the story. Michelle Knight disappeared the day she was due in court for the custody case. Though police gave up on the disappearance quickly, Barbara Knight kept putting up fliers and searching for her daughter in vain. She now hopes for a reunion but isn't sure it will happen. "In hindsight, it seems clear that the Cleveland police should have done more to look for her," writes Justin Peters at Slate, though, in fairness, we don't have all the information about her case. "At this point, it looks like Michelle Knight slipped through the cracks."
– US intelligence agencies hacked into the email servers of Chinese tech giant Huawei five years ago, around the time concerns were growing in Washington that the telecommunications equipment manufacturer was a threat to US national security, two newspapers reported yesterday. The NSA began targeting Huawei in early 2009 and quickly succeeded in gaining access to the company's client lists and email archive, Der Spiegel reported, citing secret US intelligence documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The New York Times also published a report about the documents. A Huawei official objected to activities that threaten network security, saying the articles reaffirm "the need for all companies to be vigilant at all times." The operation, which Der Spiegel claims was coordinated with the CIA, FBI, and White House officials, looked at Huawei president's emails and netted source codes for Huawei products. One aim was to exploit the fact that Huawei equipment is widely used to route voice and data traffic around the world, according to the report. But the NSA was also concerned that the Chinese government itself might use Huawei's presence in foreign networks for espionage purposes. Click for more on the story.
– An Oregon bakery that refused to make a cake for a lesbian couple and then refused to pay the $135,000 damages award that ensued has decided to finally pay up. A spokesman for the state Bureau of Labor and Industries tells KOIN that Aaron Klein, co-owner of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, paid $136,927.07 on Monday to settle the damages and interest. The spokesman says that with the help of a private collections agency, the bureau had already recovered around $7,000 from a garnished bank account belonging to Aaron and Melissa Klein, who closed their bakery in 2013 and now run the business from home. The couple was ordered to pay damages after authorities decided they had violated the civil rights of the two women who ordered a wedding cake. The Kleins' lawyer tells the Oregonian that they still plan to appeal the ruling, but they decided it didn't make sense to rack up interest charges while the case was pending. "The prudent thing to do, given the generosity of people who have contributed funds, was to take care of it and continue the fight," he says. And supporters have definitely been generous: The Kleins have received more than $515,000 from supporters since their case became national news, including at least $400,000 from a Continue to Give campaign that's still receiving a steady stream of donations. (This baker in Denver refused to make a "God hates gays" cake.)
– Boston is now rid of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who has been transferred to a federal prison medical facility about 40 miles west of the city. "Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been transported from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and is now confined at the Bureau of Prisons facility FMC Devens at Ft. Devens, Massachusetts," says an official. The amount of time he spends at the local facility hinges on whether prosecutors decide to pursue execution, NBC News notes. Attorney General Eric Holder will ultimately make the call, but he likely won't do so for several months. Meanwhile, Tsarnaev's parents have left their home in Dagestan—but they're not headed to the US, at least for now. Instead, they're going elsewhere in Russia, CNN reports. Zubeidat Tsarnaeva cites her husband's health; she called him an ambulance yesterday, but gave no details on his condition. (Meanwhile, the Tsarnaevs' carjacking victim tells his story.)
– Jared Kushner spoke in public on Monday. And that alone counted as news. In a White House full of loud voices, the powerful senior adviser and son-in-law to President Donald Trump tends to keep his mouth shut, the AP reports. He shuns televised interviews, avoids public speeches and rarely addresses a meeting when cameras are rolling, preferring to work behind the scenes. So Washington took notice Monday when Kushner presided over a White House meeting of technology executives and actually took the microphone. It took a few moments for Kushner to get the attention of the dozens of suited executives gathered in an ornate room at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. But eventually the room quieted and he could finally be heard. The slim, stylish former real estate executive addressed the crowd in a soft but confident tenor, revealing the New York influences around his vowels. News outlets pounced. "Jared Kushner Actually Has A Voice," read a headline on the Huffington Post. Time's online headline read: "Hear Jared Kushner Speak in a Rare Public Appearance." And the Daily Beast's: "This Is What Jared Kushner’s Voice Sounds Like." Kushner sometimes speaks at sanctioned background briefings for reporters. He also briefly popped in to an interview that his wife, Ivanka Trump, did with CBS at the White House last month. He declined to join the interview, but when asked if he enjoyed their late-night walks on the Washington Mall, Kushner said: "Beautiful. Great company. Beautiful scenery." Business Insider, though, notes that this is Kushner's first time giving an on-camera speech in his White House role. While his public speaking has been limited at best, Kushner has been busy with an expansive policy portfolio, charged with modernizing government and leading an effort to broker a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
– The United Nations released some disturbing numbers Tuesday related to ISIS activity in Iraq, noting that its actions may "amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and possibly genocide," CBS News reports. In the period from Jan. 1, 2014, to Oct. 31, 2015, more than 18,800 civilians were killed by the militant group, and nearly 36,250 were wounded. And the death toll, which the UN calls "staggering," was brought about via beheadings, shootings, burning victims alive, throwing them off buildings, and even bulldozing. But there are others suffering a different horrible fate: Per the report by the UN's Assistance Mission for Iraq and its human rights division, about 3,500 Iraqis are being held as slaves. "Those being held are predominantly women and children and come primarily from the Yezidi community, but a number are also from other ethnic and religious minority communities," the report reads. The report notes that verified information suggests between 800 and 900 Iraqi children in Mosul alone had been snatched for religious indoctrination and to be incorporated into ISIS' military ranks, Business Insider reports. Some of those child soldiers were murdered when they tried to run from fighting in Anbar province, Fox News notes. Others in Iraq who haven't been targeted through outright violence have perished from hunger, thirst, or lack of medical care. "Even the obscene casualty figures fail to accurately reflect exactly how terribly civilians are suffering in Iraq," the UN's human rights chief said in a statement, per Business Insider. (An ISIS fatwa last year instructed members to "be kind" to their sex slaves.)
– Somebody's ouija board deserves a raise. In this scene from the pilot of Matthew Perry's short-lived 1987 sitcom Second Chance, Moammar Gadhafi is seen dying and meeting St. Peter ... in 2011. (BuzzFeed picked up on it.) OK, so the show predicted he'd bite the big one on July 29 not Oct. 20, but still, pretty dang close, no? In case you're wondering, no, the whole show wasn't about St. Peter hilariously judging notorious dead people (although maybe it should have been). The main plot was about a dead guy trying to convince his younger self to be more virtuous—this was just a prologue. But as Mediaite points out, this means that the idea of Gadhafi going to hell was deemed funny even back in 1987.
– A novel therapy holds real promise in changing the way dentists treat your cavities—they'd get the cavities to fill themselves. As the Guardian reports, researchers at King's College London found that they could stimulate stem cells within the teeth to regenerate through a relatively simple approach: They insert a tiny drug-soaked sponge in the cavity. "The sponge is biodegradable, that's the key thing," researcher Paul Sharpe tells the BBC. "The space occupied by the sponge becomes full of minerals as the dentine regenerates so you don't have anything in there to fail in the future." In their study, the drug used was tideglusib, which has been used in clinical trials as a treatment for dementia and Alzheimer's. Having a tooth refill itself naturally is far preferable to the usual treatment of filling the cavity with some kind of amalgam that raises the risk of related problems down the road. "This simple, rapid natural tooth repair process could thus potentially provide a new approach to clinical tooth restoration," write the researchers in Scientific Reports. Also promising is that because the drug already has been proven safe for clinical trials, the turnaround to real-world applications could happen relatively quickly. One caveat: The study was on mice, and researchers can't say for sure yet whether they'd get the same results in larger, human cavities. (The main reason people avoid the dentist isn't fear.)
– A Kentucky man who was dragged kicking, yelling, and spitting off an American Airlines flight last month after allegedly attacking crew members was banned by a US District Court judge Monday from flying on commercial flights as he awaits trial, the Charlotte Observer reports. A video shot July 21 by a fellow passenger shows a man IDed as Michael Kerr, 25, trying to disembark the plane that had landed in Charlotte, NC, from Lexington, arguing with the flight crew and eventually becoming physical, shoving a flight attendant to the ground, per the Lexington Herald-Leader. It's at that point that the pilot can be seen emerging from the cockpit and forcing a seemingly inebriated Kerr to the ground, exclaiming, "You don't put your hands on my flight attendant!" Kerr, who had just reportedly accepted a marriage proposal and downed three whiskey drinks during the morning flight, per the Daily Beast, was apparently impatient to get off the plane once it landed, ignoring instructions to remain seated. Per an FBI affidavit, he also warned a flight attendant he'd break her jaw and kicked an attendant in the leg before the pilot intervened and held him, with the assistance of the co-pilot and seat restraints, until the police arrived. "I felt like the flight attendant's life was in danger," the man who shot the video tells the Herald-Leader. Kerr was charged with being intoxicated and disruptive, assault on a female, communicating threats, and interfering with the duties of a flight crew or attendant; the flight attendant he pushed is now in physical therapy for back and neck pain. (A flight was once grounded because of a mob of irate passengers.)
– Another prominent Republican is coming out against Trumpism without actually mentioning President Trump by name. In a speech at a Bush Institute event in New York Thursday, former president George W. Bush said that in this moment, "bigotry seems emboldened. Our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication," Politico reports. "Bullying and prejudice in our public life sets a national tone, provides permission for cruelty and bigotry, and compromises the moral education of children." Politico says the speech, which discussed, among other things, factors Bush believes are contributing to democratic collapse and what needs to be done, made "obvious references to Trump" without his name ever being mentioned. "We've seen nationalism distorted into nativism, [and] forgotten the dynamism that immigration has always brought to America," he said. "Our identity as a nation, unlike other nations, is not determined by geography or ethnicity, by soil or blood," he added, per CNN. "This means that ... bigotry and white supremacy, in any form, is blasphemy against the American creed." Bush said divided partisan politics has failed us and the government is stuck; he also mentioned Russian interference in the last presidential election and called for more election security: "Foreign aggressions, including cyberattacks, disinformation, and financial influence should never be downplayed or tolerated." And he spoke out against isolationism, per the Hill, considering "American security is directly threatened by the chaos and despair of distance places." Sen. John McCain gave a similar speech just days ago.
– Google is giving out free laptops—but good luck getting one. The search giant unveiled its new Chrome OS yesterday, but announced that the public wouldn’t be able to buy netbooks sporting it until the middle of next year, eWeek reports. But in the meantime, Google is running a pilot program to test the OS, giving participants a shiny new ultraportable that Mashable thinks has the potential to “put a serious hurt on devices like the MacBook Air.” The boxy black notebook, dubbed the Cr-48, doesn’t look like much, because it’s not intended for consumer release. But it weighs in at just 3.8 pounds, and Google boasts that it gets 8 hours of battery life, boots up in 10 seconds and runs cool. It also has no spinning disks, caps-lock key, or function keys. But Google will be picky about who gets one, and warns that given the bugs still lurking in the beta OS, “the pilot program is not for the faint of heart.”
– Curmudgeon wanted: Andy Rooney is calling it quits from 60 Minutes, says CBS. The 92-year-old will announce the move at the end of this Sunday's essay, which the network notes will be No. 1,097 since 1978. Though a network fixture, Rooney has run into repeated criticism that he's out of touch with modern culture, notes the TVNewser blog. "There's nobody like Andy and there never will be," says CBS News chief Jeff Fager. "His contributions to 60 Minutes are immeasurable; he's also a great friend. It's harder for him to do it every week, but he will always have the ability to speak his mind on 60 Minutes when the urge hits him."
– Mark Zuckerberg announced the birth of his baby daughter and a $45 billion giveaway on the same day this week, and he's had to do a little more explaining about the latter. In a Facebook post on Thursday, Zuckerberg explains that Chan Zuckerberg Initiative LLC, the entity he's donating 99% of his Facebook shares to, is being set up as a limited liability company instead of a traditional foundation so it can engage in actions like "funding non-profit organizations, making private investments, and participating in policy debates," reports TechCrunch, which notes that some critics accused Zuckerberg of having ulterior motives or said the move could be "a big waste." The initiative will focus on "personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities," building on previous investments in "education, science, health, Internet access, and inclusion," Zuckerberg explained. He also addressed concerns that the donation—equivalent to the GDP of Serbia, or around $38 for every Facebook user—could be some kind of tax dodge, explaining that "we receive no tax benefit from transferring our shares to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, but we gain flexibility to execute our mission more effectively" and that if he wanted to avoid tax, it would have been far more effective to set up a traditional charity, the Verge reports. (A ProPublica piece calls the initiative a "tax vehicle.")
– Bird strikes at New York City-area airports have been known to cause emergency landings, but a different type of creature kept some planes from even taking off this week, the AP reports. As part of their annual migration ritual, about 40 diamondback terrapin turtles emerged from Jamaica Bay Friday afternoon and creeped onto the runways at JFK International Airport in Queens, causing some flight holdups, per the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. "There were planes briefly stuck in [the] queue," a Port Authority spokeswoman tells the New York Daily News, adding that although it's turtle mating season, the event "was a little unusual." Experts told DNAinfo last year that although turtles typically head to the beach to lay their eggs, NYC turtles seem to like the sand that surrounds this particular airport. Officials say that when pilots spot a turtle in their taxiing path, they'll either hang out until the turtle moves on or have airport staff move the turtle from harm's way. Gothamist rounded up some passenger reaction to Friday's event, with one commenter calling it "perhaps the only excuse I have ever found endearing." (At least the turtles didn't fall out of this guy's pants.)
– A 113-year-old woman living in suburban Cleveland is believed to be the oldest person in the United States after the death of a 114-year-old Pennsylvania woman. The 88-year-old daughter of Lessie Brown says her mother remarked, "that's good" when told Friday she had become the country's oldest person, reports Cleveland.com. Brown was born in 1904 in Atlanta and moved to Cleveland when she was 18. She married and had five children, three of whom are still living. The Cleveland Heights resident has more than 50 grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren. Family members attributed Brown's long life to her eating a yam every day until she was 110, per the AP. Delphine Gibson was 114 when she died Wednesday in Huntingdon, Pa.
– The captain of the Cincinnati Bengals cheerleading squad and her mother both pleaded not guilty today to charges in a sex abuse case, the Kentucky Enquirer reports. Sarah Jones, 26, is accused of having an affair with a 16-year-old football player at a high school where she once taught—her mother, Cheryl Jones, of tampering with physical evidence in the case. The arrests mark the latest chapter in a charmed life that went awry when a website made claims about Sarah's sex life in 2009, the New York Daily News reports. Back then, Jones was dating her high school sweetheart, teaching high school, and leading the Cincinnati Ben-Gals cheerleading squad, ABC News reports. Things went sour when TheDirty.com posted a photo of her with Bengals kicker Shayne Graham and claimed she had an STD. Jones begged the site to delete the posts and later sued for defamation of character, winning an $11 million judgment—but litigation is ongoing. Sarah and her mother are currently held on bonds at the Kenton County Detention Center in northern Kentucky.
– It hasn’t been the best of summers for Jenny McCarthy: First the vocal anti-vaxxer was unceremoniously dumped from The View, then she was accused of slamming cousin Melissa McCarthy’s weight—a rumor that the blonder McCarthy denied to People. Now Jenny says her own 12-year-old son called the cops on her for a decidedly 21st-century crime: texting and driving. ABC News reports that McCarthy made the reveal about her "rule follower" son, Evan, on her Sirius radio show Dirty, Sexy, Funny. "He called the police on me and said, 'My mom is texting and driving right now.' True story!" She confesses that she chucked his phone out the car window, and says Evan called 911 one other time on her when she went outside for a smoke and he couldn’t find her. "My mom abandoned me," McCarthy says he told the dispatcher. Hope Evan’s OK with his mom marrying Donnie Wahlberg. (For more on texting and driving, click here.)
– The coach of a youth football team in Georgia might be paralyzed for life after a freak accident at an end-of-season celebration, reports USA Today. Jonathan Magwood, 28, was with his 10-and-under Union City Eagles team at a rec facility when he tried to do a flip from a trampoline into a foam pit, reports CBS46.com. Magwood broke two vertebrae while landing. Supporters are now raising money to help cover medical costs and properly equip his house. "He's done so much for everyone in the community," says a friend. "Now is the time for us to do something for him."
– Mark Christeson is scheduled to die in Missouri at a minute after midnight tomorrow, but no fewer than 15 former state and federal judges are seeking a stay of execution on the basis that his lawyers were terrible. The two court-appointed public defenders who represent Christeson were 117 days late in filing a federal appeals petition, leaving him as the only death row inmate in Missouri who hasn't had a chance to challenge his sentence in federal court, reports the Guardian. In a brief filed with a federal appeals court, the ex-judges accused the lawyers of "apparent abandonment and misconduct," noting that the lawyers can't now seek a federal review without confessing their own misconduct. The appeals court declined to review the case and an appeal has now been made to the US Supreme Court. Religious leaders in Missouri are also seeking a stay of execution for the 35-year-old, who was sentenced to death for the 1998 murders of a Missouri woman and her two children. A spokeswoman for the Constitution Project organization tells the AP that it's highly unusual for anybody to be executed without having an appeal heard in federal court. "Not having federal court review means there's been no independent examination regarding the fairness of the trial and the appropriateness of the death sentence," she says. "No federal court has been able to address these issues at all." (This man died just 20 months after he was freed from prison, where he served 23 years for a crime he didn't commit.)
– Clashes between police and protesters angry over an anti-Islam film continued for the fourth day today, and US embassies were bracing for more protests in the Islamic world as traditional Friday prayers commence. Updates from Al Jazeera, AFP, NPR, and the AP: Libya: The airspace over Benghazi has been declared a no-fly zone after the death of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in violence there, but there have been no recent reports of major violence. Egypt: Security forces are blocking the route to the embassy as hundreds protest. More than 200 people were injured and at least 12 have been arrested. The Muslim Brotherhood initially called for a nationwide protest of the film, but changed its mind after violence escalated. Yemen: Four were killed in Sanaa yesterday, including one protester shot dead by police, as 2,000 protesters were blocked from the US embassy. Iran: As many as 500 people protested the movie in Tehran, chanting slogans against America and against the film's director, but the protest ended peacefully. Other cities: American flags were burned outside the US embassy in the Tunisian capital, in Gaza City, and in Afghanistan. There were demonstrations in Indonesia, Kuala Lumpur, Kashmir, and Sudan, and more protests are expected in Iraq, Jordan, and Israel. Google has not removed clips from the anti-Islam film, Innocence of Muslims, from YouTube, but has blocked access to the clips in the protesting countries.
– Vic Rawl is crying foul over his defeat by total unknown Alvin Greene in the South Carolina Democratic primary for the US Senate. Rawl, a former judge and state lawmaker, has filed a formal protest with the state's Democratic Party over what he calls the "strange circumstances" surrounding his loss to Greene, an unemployed Army veteran, AP reports. Rawl, who received 41% of the vote to Greene's 59%, says he suspects his loss was the result of either faulty voting machines or malfunctioning software. He says several people have told him they pressed his name on the touch-screen ballot, only to see Greene's name apppear. "I sat on the bench for 12 years and I have a pretty good nose," Rawl tells the Charleston Post-Courier. "This does not smell right."
– Teachers and staff of an Oregon public school district are disturbed at a district rule requiring them to report any student sexual activity—whether they know about it for a fact or just suspect it, and even if it involves their own children—to law enforcement or state officials. According to the Salem-Keizer district, the requirement is necessary under the state's mandatory reporting and child abuse laws—all district employees are mandatory reporters and as such are required to report when they have "reasonable cause" to suspect a child is being abused—but the Statesman Journal reports that most other school districts in the state don't consider consensual sexual activity between teens to be something teachers are required to report. More than 1,300 people have signed an online petition asking the school board chairman to put an end to the requirement. The superintendent explains the policy is not new, but the district recently added a training session dealing with situations employees would be required to report. Some of those situations included things like a 15-year-old confiding that she's having sex with her boyfriend and needs birth control, a 14-year-old telling a teacher his parents kicked him out over a same-sex relationship that has turned sexual, or a teacher's own 17-year-old son confessing his 16-year-old girlfriend is pregnant. Employees and students alike say they're concerned that under this requirement, students will lose trusted confidantes at school and will have a harder time getting access to information about safe sex. A district spokesperson tells KATU she has been in touch with a legislator about the law's interpretation, and adds to Newsweek that the district is "erring on the side of caution."
– A dead body—a real one, not one created for the attraction—was found inside the haunted mansion ride at Disneyland Paris Saturday morning. The 45-year-old park employee is believed to have been electrocuted while fixing a light fixture inside the ride, which is called Phantom Manor at the Paris park. Colleagues found him before the park opened, and the ride was shut down for an investigation, AOL reports, citing local media. As RT reports, a number of Disney workers have died in accidents at the theme parks over the years, including a monorail driver killed in a collision, at least two stunt performers who died while practicing or performing in shows, a parade marcher who tripped and was run over by a float, and two workers who were fatally struck by a rollercoaster. Disneyland Paris has seen just one other employee death: In 2010, a worker was cleaning "It's a Small World" when he was trapped under a boat and dragged along the tracks after the ride turned on.
– Hillary Clinton appeared on NBC's Meet the Press with praise for her longtime colleague and political rival, the late Sen. John McCain—who "really understood in the marrow of his bones what it meant to be an American," she says, per the Hill. "He knew that the Senate couldn't work if we didn't work together. I think it was heartbreaking to him that—as he said in the speech he gave right before he voted against repealing the Affordable Care Act—that we need to cooperate. We need to learn how to trust each other again and do better to serve the people who elected us." For more around the Sunday dial, including Michael Cohen fallout and talk of possible impeachment: Unshakeable McCain: "And all of a sudden, he pointed to the two of us and said, 'You two are right.' And that’s when I knew he was going to vote no," says Sen. Susan Collins on CNN's State of the Union, about the moment when McCain sided with her and Sen. Lisa Murkowski on opposing the GOP repeal of ObamaCare, per CNN. "But once John McCain made up his mind about something, there was no shaking him. And I knew he would be there on the final vote."
– Things got about as nasty as they get in the Supreme Court chambers as the justices today debated the constitutionality of a lethal-injection drug. Samuel Alito, for example, accused opponents of the death penalty of engaging in a "guerrilla war" to stop it, while Elena Kagan likened the execution protocol to being burned alive, reports the Washington Post. At issue specifically is whether the first drug in a three-drug combination used by Oklahoma works well enough—critics say the sedative, midazolam, fails to make the following two drugs painless. Kagan likened the effects of one of those drugs to being "burned alive from the inside" and wondered whether the state would sanction burning at the stake after administering an iffy anesthetic, reports NBC News. "Maybe you won't feel it, maybe you will," she said. "We just can't tell." Antonin Scalia, meanwhile, declared that states can't get "100 percent" drugs because death-penalty "abolitionists" are making it impossible with their pressure on manufacturers. The big question, as usual, is where probable swing vote Anthony Kennedy stands. "It seemed clear that he, too, was frustrated with the resistance movement and what it required the Justices to do to examine each state’s approach to executions," writes Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog. Meaning that when the decision is eventually announced, it will probably be bad news for death-row inmates. (The arguments came exactly one year after the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma.)
– The mother of a newborn in the UK is taking to Facebook to warn how easy it is to expose babies to herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1), which is the kind typically transmitted orally, and what caused her own infant to be put on a drip in the hospital as her body fought the infection. The source? A well-meaning hospital visitor who didn't even have visible cold sores and kissed baby Brooke on the lips. "Before 3 months old a baby cannot fight the herpes virus," Claire Henderson writes. "If a baby contracts this it can cause liver and brain damage and lead to death. I know this sounds like I am scaremongering, but if my friend had not told me about this my baby girl could have been very seriously ill." A doctor at the University of Pennsylvania tells CBS News that transmitting the virus this way is actually quite unusual, and that because "the contact person did not know they were having an outbreak of herpes ... there is virtually no way to prevent this rare event from happening." Still, one New York pediatrician tells Yahoo Parenting that parents can be proactive: "Limit the number of people who visit and handle your baby for the first few months, and remind them not to kiss the baby's face, especially on the lips." In 2008, a newborn with a cold sore died a week after symptoms disappeared, having been diagnosed with HSV-1, notes Cosmopolitan. As for Brooke, she was treated early, and "all her tests came back clear." (Here's another way babies are getting herpes.)
– Yesterday was the 150th anniversary of the day the last shots of the Civil War were fired and it turned out to be a bad day for symbols of the Confederacy: South Carolina's top lawmakers called for the Confederate battle flag's removal from the state Capitol and Walmart stopped selling items bearing the flag. But wiping those symbols from America may not be so easy. The latest: The National Statuary Hall at the US Capitol is a surprising stronghold of statues of important Confederate figures, with no fewer than eight on display, including Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, reports NBC, which notes that the count doesn't include those who served as Confederate soldiers but are better known for their lives after the war. Each state has two historic figures in the collection and replacements are rare, although Alabama replaced Confederate military officer Jabez Curry with Helen Keller in 2009. Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and Florida each have one Confederate statue in the collection; Mississippi has two. A top GOP lawmaker in Mississippi broke ranks yesterday to call for the Confederate emblem's removal from the state flag, the AP reports. "We must always remember our past, but that does not mean we must let it define us," House Speaker Philip Gunn said in a statement. "As a Christian, I believe our state's flag has become a point of offense that needs to be removed." So what do Americans think? The Hill reports on a poll from the left-leaning Center for American Progress Action Fund that found 21% of Americans support flying the flag at government buildings. When it comes to the flag flying at the state capitol in Columbia, it'll almost certainly fly over the casket of State Sen. Clementa Pinckney when he lies in state there tomorrow, reports USA Today. Though officials plan to bring up the flag in a legislative session today, USA Today explains that the lengthy process requires a few two-thirds votes, a clearing of the judiciary committee, and floor debate. A Democratic state rep predicts Aug. 1 as a feasible deadline; a Republican state senator suggests waiting until 2016 rather than staging an "almost ... opportunistic" vote now. Gov. Nikki Haley has said she'll call a special session if the topic isn't tackled this summer. Fascinating additional reading: The Washington Post takes a look at the subtle ways in which the "Confederacy lives on in the flags of seven Southern states."
– A Florida judge who publicly dressed down an abused woman in 2015 and sent her to jail for three days for not showing up to face her abuser in court is now facing her own repercussions. Seminole County Judge Jerri Collins, who reached a plea agreement in March to receive a public reprimand for what many are saying was a callous response to the domestic violence victim, will still receive that public reprimand, and now she's been ordered to take a domestic violence course as well by the state's Supreme Court, WESH reports. Click Orlando reports that Collins already completed an anger management course that was also part of her punishment. The abused woman attended a contempt of court hearing on July 30, 2015, after she was served a subpoena for a July 22 court date and never showed. The crying woman told Collins she had been suffering from anxiety and depression, to which Collins replied, " You think you're going to have anxiety now? You haven't even seen anxiety" before sentencing her to jail. The Supreme Court of Florida found that "Judge Collins raised her voice, used sarcasm, spoke harshly, and interrupted the victim," adding that the judge's "behavior created the appearance of partiality toward the state." Earlier this year, Collins admitted to a judicial panel she shouldn't have come on so strong to the woman, but she said the woman had ignored a subpoena and therefore earned her contempt-of-court punishment. Collins' public reprimand has been scheduled for Aug. 30.
– They succeeded in making a viral video, but it might have been in exchange for their freedom. Alabama police say they've arrested two men after they were alerted to an ill-advised "mannequin challenge" video making the rounds on Facebook, per AL.com. Posted on Nov. 9 and shared 85,000 times, it shows at least 22 men pointing at least 19 guns at each other outside of a home in Huntsville in what appears to be a mock drive-by shooting, per the Washington Post. On Tuesday, police say they searched the home and found two hand guns, an assault rifle and magazines, a shotgun, ammunition, a tactical vest, and marijuana packaged to be sold. Kenneth White, 49, faces charges of first-degree possession of marijuana and being a felon in possession of a firearm, while Terry Brown, 23, faces charges of possession of drug paraphernalia and loitering. Brown was also charged with promoting prison contraband after police say he arrived at jail with marijuana in his possession, per WHNT. Police add more arrests could be on the way. "There are several persons in the video who may be convicted felons," the captain of the Madison County Sheriff's Office says. He adds officers are working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to identify the individuals and draw up any potential charges.
– After her public comments on the Obama girls' lack of "class" went viral, a Republican congressional staffer is stepping down from her post. Elizabeth Lauten is resigning as communications director for Rep. Steven Fincher, she tells NBC News. Her comments—for which she apologized—helped her name to garner 22,000 mentions on Twitter in a 24-hour period, MSNBC reports. Lauten has run into social-media trouble in the past, adds the Daily Mail: A few months ago, she was behind a tweet on Fincher's feed reading, "God I love this song. And beach music. AND shagging #pandora." She called the post an accident.
– The Catholic Church may be "pro-traditional marriage," but it's "not anti-anybody," Cardinal Timothy Dolan said today on NBC's Meet the Press. The church has simply "been out-marketed" when it comes to the issue of gay marriage, and "caricatured as being anti-gay," the Archbishop of New York continued. "When you have forces like Hollywood, when you have forces like politicians, when you have forces like some opinion-molders that are behind it, it's a tough battle." Elsewhere on the Sunday dial, per Politico: Dolan also said the Church could have been a "cheerleader" for ObamaCare, seeing as Catholic bishops are "for universal, comprehensive, life-affirming healthcare." The problem? The Affordable Care Act "isn't comprehensive, because it's excluding the undocumented immigrant and it's excluding the unborn baby." Speaking of ObamaCare, Rep. Mike Rogers said on the same program that Healthcare.gov's security standards show a "sheer level of incompetence." Specifically, he claimed, "The security of this site and the private information does not meet even the minimal standards of the private sector." On ABC's This Week, former National Security Adviser Tom Donilon weighed in on the Iran nuclear deal ("a very solid achievement") and Afghan President Hamid Karzai's refusal to sign the US-Afghan security agreement ("reckless"). And on CNN's State of the Union, Howard Dean and Rick Santorum sparred over ObamaCare. At one point, Santorum asked, "Is the president competent to do his job?" and Dean responded that though ObamaCare is not "ideal," "I fail to see how it has anything to do with the president’s competence. I lose my patience with this nonsense."
– Appraiser Brendan Ryan was at a house in Greenwich, Conn., to take a look at furniture and other items the owner wanted to sell, but it was a framed document hanging on a wall that caught his attention. "I said to myself, 'Oh my God, that's Beethoven," Ryan tells ABC News. Beethoven's handwriting is "unmistakable," explains Ryan, who is also a composer. His hunch panned out, and what turned out to be a rare 1810 Beethoven sketch leaf of Beethoven's opus 117, König Stephan, sold at auction in November for $120,000, the Journal News reports. But before that could happen, the sketch leaf had to be authenticated and the music identified, and Ryan is providing new details about the weeks-long process. “I equate it to trying to find a word in the dictionary without knowing the first letter," says Ryan, who sought the help of his former music professor, Mel Comberiati of Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY. The pair pored over the digital archives of Beethoven's works from the Beethoven Haus in Bonn, Germany. Most composers threw out their notes, but luckily, "Beethoven didn’t throw anything out," Comberiati told Greenwich Time. One important clue came in the form of three small holes on the side of the leaf that matched up perfectly with known samples from the complete sketchbook. The sketch leaf sheds light on Beethoven's process, showing ideas in pencil getting tweaked and then made permanent with ink, reports ABC News. "It's kind of a mess," Comberiati tells the Journal News. "He's working out the music. He writes a line, crosses it out." It's like the "moment you get to see inside the composer's mind." (Beethoven's heart arrhythmia may have influenced his music.)
– As a Canadian, Shania Twain can't vote in American elections—and after taking flak over the weekend, she may give up commenting on them as well. The country star faced a major backlash after telling a Guardian interviewer that she probably would have voted for Trump in the 2016 election. "I would have voted for him because, even though he was offensive, he seemed honest," she said. "Do you want straight or polite? ... l would have voted for a feeling that it was transparent. And politics has a reputation of not being that, right?" In a series of tweets Sunday, Twain apologized for the "awkward" answer to the "unexpected" interview question and stressed that she does not endorse Trump's policies, reports USA Today. "I am passionately against discrimination of any kind and hope it’s clear from the choices I have made, and the people I stand with, that I do not hold any common moral beliefs with the current President," the 52-year-old singer said in one tweet. Twain is beginning her first album tour since 2002. In the interview, which can be read in full here, she also discusses issues including childhood sexual abuse. She says she is still angry at former friend and personal assistant Marie-Anna Thiebaud over the affair that ended both their marriages. "I do really nasty things in my dreams to her," says Twain, who is now married to Thiebaud's ex. "I'm always cutting her hair or shaving it off."
– Madonna might well get upstaged by her opening act in three upcoming shows in New York City, though not musically. Comedian Amy Schumer will do the honors for the mid-September shows, reports Billboard. The news comes with two unusual tweets: The first, from Schumer, is a video clip of her as a girl singing along to Madonna's "Like a Prayer." The second, from her famous cousin, Sen. Chuck Schumer, is him clarifying that the newspaper headline "Schumer Will Open for Madonna in New York" is not referring to him, notes the Washington Post.
– You may not have ADHD, but your smartphone could certainly be making you feel like you do, according to a study published this month. Researchers took 221 students at the University of British Columbia and split them into two groups. For one week, half the students turned their phones to "do not disturb" and put them out of reach and out of sight as much as possible while the rest kept using their phones as normal. The groups switched for the next week. “The results were clear: more frequent phone interruptions made people less attentive and more hyperactive," researcher Kostadin Kushlev writes in Quartz. Researchers came to that conclusion by asking participants how often they experienced 18 symptoms—trouble listening, restlessness, careless mistakes, etc.—associated with ADHD during the two-week experiment. According to Vice, the students—none of whom had been diagnosed with ADHD—were more distracted, anxious, and inattentive and more often bored during the week they were using their phones. And while smartphones aren't giving people ADHD, the study concludes they are causing ADHD-like symptoms. “These findings should concern us," Kushlev writes in Quartz. "Smartphones could be harming the productivity, relationships, and well-being of millions.” Luckily, there's an easy fix: Turn off your notifications and take a break from your phone whenever possible.
– "It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it is—a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia," CIA chief Mike Pompeo said Thursday, pulling no punches as he laid into the organization that President Trump declared his love for on the campaign trail. Julian Assange and "his ilk make common cause with dictators today," Pompeo said, per Politico, accusing the WikiLeaks founder of cloaking himself in the language of liberty and privacy while really caring only about his own celebrity. "Their currency is clickbait; their moral compass, nonexistent," Pompeo said, adding that he was confident "that had Assange been around in the 1930s and '40s and '50s, he would have found himself on the wrong side of history." Pompeo, a former GOP congressman from Kansas, called Assange a narcissist, a fraud, and a "coward hiding behind a screen," the Wichita Eagle reports. "And in Kansas, we know something about false wizards," he said. Pompeo strongly suggested that the Trump administration, which has apparently sharply shifted position on WikiLeaks, is about to take firm action against WikiLeaks. "It ends now," warned the CIA chief, who said his agency has a "fantastic relationship" with Trump. WikiLeaks fired back with more than a dozen tweets, including one with a screenshot of a tweet Pompeo made last summer saying that DNC emails, leaked courtesy of WikiLeaks, were proof that the election "fix was in" from "Obama on down."
– Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones have weathered a lot together (his cancer; her bipolar disorder; his son's struggles), but their 13-year marriage may be kaput. The Mirror cites multiple reports claiming a divorce is imminent. One such report in the Daily Star claims Douglas is the one who wants the divorce while Zeta-Jones is fighting to salvage their union; another reportedly claims it's the other way around. Says a Douglas spokesman, "I won't talk about that." The meatiest report is in Celeb Dirty Laundry, which cites the upcoming print edition of Star magazine. Supposedly, Douglas thinks Zeta-Jones is unstable and shouldn't be "calling all of the shots" in their marriage, and last week he reportedly took their two kids to Germany against her wishes. The two have not been photographed together for four months, and they've already denied rumors of marital problems earlier this year.
– One day after Donald Trump cemented his hold on the GOP nomination, Mitt Romney has gotten the rumor mills churning with the announcement that he'll give a speech Thursday morning in Utah about the state of the election. At NBC News, Andrew Rafferty cuts right to the chase with a tweet: "Close (Romney) aide says he won't endorse or get in, but tomorrow's speech 'will be worth covering.'" ABC's Rick Klein had a similar tweet: "Romney is not getting in this race, sources telling us." One safer bet is that Romney will go after Trump, as he has been doing aggressively of late—warning of a "bombshell" in his taxes and calling Trump's response to white supremacist David Duke's praise "disqualifying." The Washington Post suggests Romney's speech will echo one he gave last month in which he said the national electorate was fed up with "the failure of current political leaders to actually tackle major challenges, or to try at least." And given the election year, there's speculation that Romney is remaining visible in case something crazy happens at the GOP convention, as per this line in coverage at CNN: "In Washington, Utah's Sen. Orrin Hatch told CNN, 'If the convention is locked up, there's a possibility' Romney would run for president." At Hot Air, blogger Allahpundit has a similar sentiment: "This does, however, look an awful lot like Romney putting himself back on the radar of #NeverTrump conservative voters at the very moment that they’re starting to look around for an 'in case of emergency, break glass' candidate."
– Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro regularly accuses the US of plotting against him, and the arrest of two family members by American authorities is unlikely to soften his stance. The two men were arrested in Haiti on Tuesday and flown to New York the same day to answer charges of plotting to smuggle 800 kilograms of cocaine to the US, reports the Wall Street Journal, which notes that the US alleges top-level government involvement in Venezuelan drug trafficking. The two suspects are Franqui Francisco Flores-de Freitas and Efrain Antonio Campo-Flores, nephews of Maduro's wife, Cilia Flores, reports Reuters. Sources tell the New York Times that the two men approached a DEA informant in Honduras last month to discuss smuggling the shipment and were arrested in Haiti at the request of US authorities before being flown to the US on a DEA plane. Maduro—who says US accusations of government involvement in drug trafficking are part of an American conspiracy to bring down his socialist government —is due to speak about his country's human rights record at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday, Reuters reports. On the same day, his wife's nephews are due to make their first appearance in federal District Court in Manhattan.
– Richie Incognito has reportedly been admitted to an Arizona psychiatric clinic, in the wake of an incident in which he smashed his own car with a baseball bat. Sources differ on the circumstances; TMZ's sources say Incognito didn't go to the facility willingly, and that police filled out a form requesting his admission, but the South Florida Sun Sentinel and NFL.com are both reporting that he checked himself in. According to the latter, the Players Association and NFL both urged Incognito to get help. "After going through what he's been through the last five months, he's mentally exhausted," one source said. Earlier this week, photos surfaced showing Incognito's Ferrari parked half on his lawn and badly damaged, apparently with a baseball bat. Incognito told police yesterday that he'd damaged the $300,000 car himself, ESPN reports. "That was just me venting, that was self expression. That's a piece of art," he quipped in a distinctly affable interview with Fox 10. He plans to donate the car to charity.
– Rumors flew through the gossip media Tuesday that Olivia Munn and Aaron Rodgers got engaged, but Munn made it clear the rumors were not true in a rather clever way: She posted a text message exchange she had with her mom on the subject, the Los Angeles Times reports. "Oh man you engagement??" reads her mom's text. "You know we love Aaron. I pray say thanks for him all the times. I bet [your dog] Chance happy. Hey why don't you tell me first?" Munn's response: "Oh my gosh Mom no. You know you shouldn't believe gossip on the Internet. If I was engaged, I promise you'd be like the 8th person to know. Maybe 9th. But definitely way before the Internet." "Answering yes or no to personal questions can be tricky because if you say 'No' it means whenever you say 'No comment' that kind of becomes your default 'Yes,'" Munn wrote on Instagram alongside the screenshot of the texts. "But since I'm doing press for the next few days, I didn't want to have to answer the same question over and over. So instead, I'm going to let my text conversation with my Asian mom help me out." Her mom's good-natured final text response, by the way? "Okay sound good. I see you going to be on Kelly and Michael show. Tell her I love her. She so delicate, work out a lot I think. And Colberto too! Oh man you see everyone I love. Okay I have to go. Tell Aaron and Chance I said hi." (Click for more of Munn's mom's thoughts on Rodgers.)
– Hurricane Mitch and the flooding it brought to Central America killed more than 19,000 people in 1998. In its wake, the US granted Nicaraguans and Hondurans a Temporary Protected Status (TPS), meaning they were sheltered from deportation and allowed to get things like jobs and insurance. On Monday, the White House announced an estimated 2,500 Nicaraguans will not see their TPS designation renewed; they have 14 months—until Jan. 5, 2019—to get out or change their residency status to one that permits them to stay. More: The decision came from Department of Homeland Security acting secretary Elaine Duke, who the Washington Post reports found the bleak situation wrought by Hurricane Mitch wasn't a factor in Nicaragua anymore. As for the 57,000 Hondurans who have the same protection, a punt. Per a statement, "Based on the lack of definitive information regarding conditions on the ground [in Honduras] compared to pre-Hurricane Mitch," the TPS protection has been extended for six months.
– Comedian Katt Williams was arrested Monday on charges that he beat up an employee at a Georgia pool supply store, but that's far from the only trouble he's allegedly in recently: At a press conference Wednesday afternoon, an attorney accused Williams and his entourage of attacking five women who were in Atlanta for the weekend, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. The women say they saw Williams on the street around 2:30am Sunday and asked him to take a picture with them, but he got upset when they started filming him. He allegedly punched one woman and pointed a gun at the entire group. Police responded, and Williams told them the women were actually filming him without his consent and even grabbed a chain from around his neck, which he says is what started the fight; no one was arrested, but the incident is still under investigation. The lawyer also accused Williams of stealing the women's cellphones and says police should have done a more thorough investigation. Williams is also suspected of misdemeanor battery in Los Angeles on Tuesday, TMZ reports. Police say he got in a fight with onlookers at a car crash and punched somebody; Williams says he went to the scene of the accident to help, but the onlookers started making fun of him. When he told them to be quiet, he says, one of them struck him and he was just defending himself when he hit back. Williams had been released from jail in the Atlanta case, and was in LA Tuesday to appear in court for yet another past incident (perhaps this one?), TMZ reported prior to the car accident incident.
– It's been five years since former Massachusetts State Police chemist Annie Dookhan pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence while working on tens of thousands of criminal cases. But 24,000 people left with questionable convictions as a result of her fraud are still waiting to see if their names will be cleared. Not for much longer, though. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has until April 18 to decide who among the group will be re-prosecuted without evidence touched by Dookhan. And though prosecutors are still deciding on cases, a rep for the Middlesex County District Attorney says the number of convictions that will be kept on the books will likely be "in the hundreds," per NBC News. In other words, more than 95% of them will be vacated, reports the Boston Globe. "There are no words for it … It's absolutely stunning," says a member of the National Commission of Forensic Science. While this means some who did commit crimes may see their convictions overturned, it also means those wrongfully convicted will finally get justice, including non-citizens who've been threatened with deportation, defense lawyers say. The ACLU of Massachusetts says that about 90% of the convictions are for misdemeanors or minor felonies, usually involving drug possession, and that most defendants have already finished their sentences. Dookhan herself was paroled last year. (Click for more on the scandal.)
– Transgender athletes should be allowed to compete in the Olympics and other international events without undergoing sex reassignment surgery, according to new guidelines adopted by the International Olympic Committee. IOC medical officials say they changed the policy to adapt to current scientific, social, and legal attitudes on transgender issues. The guidelines are designed as recommendations—not rules or regulations—for international sports federations and other bodies to follow and should apply for this year's Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. "I don't think many federations have rules on defining eligibility of transgender individuals," the IOC's medical director tells the AP. "This should give them the confidence and stimulus to put these rules in place." Under the previous guidelines, introduced in 2003, athletes who transitioned from male to female or vice versa were required to have reassignment surgery followed by at least two years of hormone therapy in order to be eligible to compete. Now surgery will no longer be required, with female-to-male transgender athletes eligible to take part in men's competitions "without restriction." Meanwhile, male-to-female transgender athletes will need to demonstrate that their testosterone level has been below a certain cutoff point for at least one year before their first competition. "The overriding sporting objective is and remains the guarantee of fair competition," the IOC said in a document posted on its website explaining the new guidelines.
– Despite a vote to oust him, pastor Juan McFarland has refused to leave his church in Montgomery, Ala.; now, deacons are suing to fire him. McFarland admitted he'd had affairs with parishioners on church property—without telling them he has AIDS, the AP reports. At that point, "we wanted to get him help," says a church official. But he refused, and next he acknowledged drug abuse, finally prompting the deacons' 80-1 vote to remove him on Oct. 5. Instead of leaving, he changed the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church's locks and its bank account number. Yesterday, the deacons announced a lawsuit against him asking a judge to force him out; it points to "debauchery, sinfulness, hedonism, sexual misconduct, dishonesty, thievery, and rejection of the Ten Commandments." "I will command the pulpit from this day forward," says McFarland, 47. He hasn't been charged with a crime, though the knowing spread of an STD is a misdemeanor in the state. Meanwhile, deacons are concerned for their safety, their lawyer says. A backer of McFarland, one Marc Anthony Peacock, allegedly said that if the deacons return to the church, they'll face "castle law," NBC News reports; Peacock denies the claim. But "most of the membership is scared to go to church right now," says the lawyer. "They don't want someone to shoot them." Some 50 people attended McFarland's Sunday sermon; normally, about 170 people attend on Sundays, says the chairman of the board of deacons.
– With Betty White hosting, Saturday Night Live drew its best ratings of the season and the largest audience since Nov. 1, 2008, when John McCain appeared with the Tina Fey version of then-running mate Sarah Palin. The broadcast thrashed not just its time-slot competitors but also every primetime show, reports Entertainment Weekly. Your move, Alec Baldwin.
– An Amtrak train had to be evacuated outside Los Angeles Friday night due to a passenger with a gun, the Los Angeles Times reports. According to KABC, fellow passengers saw the armed man and alerted Amtrak personnel, who notified police. The man appeared to be intoxicated, on drugs, or having a mental health issue. The 187 passengers on board were evacuated at the station in Chatsworth, and the train was surrounded by officers from the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, and Amtrak. The armed man barricaded himself in one of the train's cars, Good Morning America reports. He surrendered following an eight-hour standoff only after officers fired tear gas at him.
– Researchers excavating the remains of one of the most notorious Nazi death camps have uncovered a pendant that appears identical to one belonging to Anne Frank, Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial said Sunday. Yad Vashem says it has ascertained the pendant belonged to Karoline Cohn—a Jewish girl who perished at Sobibor and may have been connected to the famous diarist. Both were born in Frankfurt in 1929, and historians have found no other pendants like theirs. The triangular piece found has the words "Mazal Tov" written in Hebrew on one side along with Karoline's date of birth. The other side has the Hebrew letter "heh," an initial for God, as well as three Stars of David. Researchers are trying to reach out to remaining relatives of the two to confirm whether they were related, reports the AP. Since 2007, the Israel Antiquities Authority, together with Yad Vashem, has been conducting excavations at the former camp in Poland in a novel approach to Holocaust research. The pendant was found along with numerous other personal effects in the area of the destroyed camp where victims were forced to undress before being sent along the "road to Heaven," the Times of Israel reports, or the path to the gas chambers. It's believed the pendant fell through the floorboards. Anne died at the Bergen-Belsen camp, in northern Germany, in 1945. "This pendant demonstrates once again the importance of archaeological research of former Nazi death camp sites," an Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist tells the Times. "The moving story of Karoline Cohn is symbolic of the shared fate of the Jews murdered in the camp. It is important to tell the story, so that we never forget."
– Crime-solver by day, offbeat artist by night? That's New Orleans homicide detective Charles Hoffacker, who last week scrawled a message at a murder scene—in the victim's blood, WWLTV reports. The department has decommissioned him (no uni, no gun, no street jobs) and launched an internal investigation, but Hoffacker's attorney is taking a stand. He says Hoffacker wrote the message long after the victim was removed, and was likely stressed out over a weekend of Memorial Day violence that saw four killed and 15 injured (Hoffacker was lead detective at the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old girl, the Times-Picayune reports, but no word on whether that's the crime scene in question, notes Huffington Post). Andy Antippas, owner of Barrister's Gallery, defended the blood-scrawl as Hoffacker's way of coping: "On at least two occasions, he described crime scenes to me with such pathos, such personal anguish, that I remember distinctly on one of those times tears coming out of his eyes." The art Hoffacker has shown at Barrister's was political satire, though Hoffacker says he has no political bent and just makes art to decompress, the Times-Picayune reports. In a profession that tends to leave people depressed, he says, art "has helped me be more healthy."
– John McCain thinks President Obama's tarmac spat with Arizona's Jan Brewer is proof that he's got a "prickly personality." He told Fox today that Obama got into a similar tiff with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, notes the Hill. "It is very well-known (that Obama) has a prickly personality, and I think it has been displayed in both of those cases.” At Forbes, John McQuaid says the encounter could pay off for Brewer because in these days of declining political decorum, "spats are good for business." Indeed, sales of Brewer's book, Scorpions for Breakfast, already are doing better, notes Mediaite. According to Amazon's stats, it's the second-fastest mover on the charts in the last 24 hours. It was ranked at No. 56 about 2pm EST, up from 177 when McQuaid wrote his Forbes post this morning. At the Daily News, David Hinckley loves that there's no video of the encounter, a rarity these days, which makes it kind of fun to "fill in the blanks."
– The good news: American financial security jumped 3% this month. The not-so-good news: Three out of 10 of us have nothing saved for a rainy day. This according to Bankrate's June survey, which found that 29% of 1,000 US adults don't have readily available funds in checking, savings, or money market accounts—the highest percentage since Bankrate started keeping tabs on savings five years ago, NBC News notes. The reason is that, while housing prices and stocks have bounced back, household income hasn't grown. "That makes it very difficult for people to ramp up their savings," says Greg McBride, Bankrate's chief financial analyst. That doesn't bode well for surprise expenses, which a 2014 American Express survey indicates pop up more often than you may think: Nearly half of respondents had an unforeseen expense last year, with car trouble, health care, and home fixes topping the list. Part of the savings problem, McBride says, per MarketWatch: "People don't pay themselves first—they wait until the end of the month to save what's left over and then nothing is left over." When those unexpected expenses strike, folks are forced to drive up credit card balances and take out high-interest loans. A financial adviser tells MarketWatch that what you don't see can help you and recommends a monthly automatic transfer to a savings account; another adds to keep that account separate from your checking so you're not tempted to take money out of it. The goal to set for your emergency savings, experts suggest: six months' worth of income—even more if you have kids. (About one-third of us don't have anything saved for our golden years, either.)
– Look out "Like" button, here comes Google's "+1." The company unveiled a new gizmo today—the "plus one" button—that mimics the general idea of Facebook's popular feature. The idea is that you'll be able to click on the button to designate things you like, and people in your Google "social circle" (think Gmail and "My Contacts" lists) can see it. For now, it's being rolled out in experimental form only on search results, allowing people to "+1" any results or ads they like. Not everyone can see the button at the moment, but if you'd like to join the experiment, go here. In a few months, the button should be showing up on web sites, reports Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land. (He also has an in-depth walk-through of the new feature.) "It’s pretty clear that Google wants to become a whole lot more social and in order to get there, they’re going to take a page directly out of Facebook’s playbook," writes Nick O'Neill at All Facebook.The company announcement is here.
– Two big-name celebs are on opposite romantic trajectories: Alicia Silverstone just filed for divorce, while Hugh Grant just got married. Details: Silverstone: The 41-year-old Clueless actress filed for divorce from estranged husband Chris Jarecki, reports US Weekly. The two married in 2005 but had been together for 20 years. They have a 7-year-old son, Bear Blu. The divorce papers cited irreconcilable differences. Grant: The longtime bachelor married Swedish girlfriend Anna Eberstein Friday in London, reports People. Grant is 57 and Eberstein is 39, and they already have three children together after six on-and-off years as a couple. They had "a low-key civil ceremony" at the Chelsea Register Office, per Reuters.
– The Des Moines Register has meted out its presidential endorsement, and it's going with a Republican for the first time since Nixon. While acknowledging deep divisions both in the nation and its editorial board, the Register, which also endorsed Mitt Romney during the Republican primaries, looks with an eye toward who can "forge the compromises in Congress" needed to fix the economy, and decides the challenger emerges the stronger candidate. The LA Times calls the endorsement "notable because of the Register's long history of supporting Democrats," but more importantly, "it may offer a window into the mood of heartland voters in a state that is a crucial battleground." Team Obama, meanwhile, won one in a state that is decidedly not swinging: The New York Times comes out swinging for the incumbent today, dismissing Romney as a candidate with a murky, "regressive" economic plan who "has gotten this far with a guile that allows him to say whatever he thinks an audience wants to hear." While dinging Obama on "individual policy choices," the Times decides he is "clearly ready for the partisan battles" that lie ahead and "we enthusiastically endorse" him for a second term—with hope that "his victory will be accompanied by a new Congress."
– Paying $59 for "a package of crap" is how the Verge describes the experience of buying Urban Outfitters' newest Halloween costume. The good news, though, if you pony up the cash for a pair of grayish leggings and "sports bra" (really a very short crop top with zero padding) is that you'll supposedly pass for a social media "influencer," though the Verge notes you'll still have to pay another $100 or so to buy the accessories to complete the look, like a long blond wig and Fila sneakers. Reaction is unsurprisingly snarky, with Teen Vogue noting Urban Outfitters has "jumped the shark." The magazine explains the look seems to be inspired by Kanye West's clothing line, which would explain why the model in the Halloween costume looks eerily like a Kardashian with a dye job.
– Organ donors added 2,270,859 years to the lives of American transplant recipients over 25 years—a "stellar accomplishment," experts say in a study published Wednesday in JAMA Surgery. They arrived at the figure after identifying 533,329 patients who received at least one donated organ between Sept. 1, 1987, and Dec. 31, 2012. They then compared that group to another 579,506 patients who were put on an organ waiting list but didn't receive one to determine the transplants' effect on lifespan, the Los Angeles Times reports. According to their calculations, people who had kidney transplants lived 1,372,969 extra years, liver recipients lived 465,296 extra years, and heart recipients lived 269,715 extra years. An average of 4.3 years were added to a life per transplant. In terms of specific surgeries, heart transplants gave patients an extra 4.9 years on average, while pancreas recipients averaged 2.6 extra years. The study shows many surgeries, including kidney transplants, are actually "lifesaving," rather than "life-enhancing," experts say. However, as 52% of those who needed organs went without over those 25 years, "organ donation must increase" in order "to do even more good for humankind in the future," researchers say, per Medical Daily. About 123,000 Americans are now waiting for organ transplants. Some of the 102,000 who need kidneys could be helped by living donors, though lost wages and other donor-related costs (average: $5,000) can be a deterrent for potential donors, Reuters reports. (A recent study found that kidney donors have brains "built for compassion.")
– A New Hampshire teen who survived the Boston Marathon bombing says she was forced to leave a Nashua TJ Maxx because she couldn’t cram her service dog, Koda, into a shopping cart, reports NewsCenter 5. Sydney Corcoran, 19, who sustained shrapnel wounds and now suffers from PTSD, says a TJ Maxx store manager approached her while she was shopping last Thursday and said, "If you want to keep your dog in the store, you have to put him in the carriage." Corcoran says she tried to explain to the manager that Koda (who was sporting his bright-blue service dog vest and has been "crucial to my everyday life") couldn’t fit comfortably in the cart, but the manager reportedly insisted she comply with what was described as a new policy. A shaken Sydney says she left the store in embarrassment and called her mom, Celeste, who lost both her legs in the Boston bombing. Celeste rushed to the store and confronted the manager for violating her daughter’s rights: The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 states that businesses must allow service animals in public areas and that they are not considered "pets." TJ Maxx sent a statement to NewsCenter 5 apologizing for the incident, saying: "Customers with disabilities who are accompanied by their service animals are welcome in our stores at any time. We ... deeply regret that our procedures were not appropriately followed in this instance." Sydney and her mom note on their Facebook page that they hope to continue educating "ignorant" people about service dogs and the rights of their owners.
– The global weapons trade is booming, Vice reports, citing numbers from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute that show it grew 14% between 2011 and 2015. That's not surprising—between "tensions in Asia" and a "state of total melt-down" in the Middle East, according to the BBC. "Just look at the headlines," the news outlet states. "In Asia and the Middle East, re-armament is very much the order of the day." Indeed weapons imports by the Middle East have increased by 61% in the past five years, the Guardian reports. And imports are rising even more in Asia, with Vietnam increasing its imports by an astounding 699% in the past five years. The biggest weapons importers in the world are India, Saudi Arabia, China, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia. As massive as the global weapons trade is, the US dominates it, accounting for one-third of the entire thing. In the past five years, the US has sold "major" weapons to at least 96 countries—or nearly half the membership of the UN—with the major buyers being Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Turkey. A congressional report found the US sold more than $36 billion worth of weapons in 2014. That's nearly $10 billion more than in 2013. Russia remains the world's second largest weapons dealer, accounting for 25% of all exports. Russian weapons are mostly going to India, China, and Vietnam. China is the world's fastest-growing arms exporter, with most of its weapons going to Pakistan. China's share of exports grew by 88% from 2006 to 2015.
– The first known domesticated dog in the Americas lived some 9,400 years ago and likely provided its owner with company, security, and, eventually, dinner, an ancient bone fragment suggests. A University of Maine researcher found the bone fragment in a prehistoric sample of human waste in Texas. DNA testing confirmed that it came from a dog and not a wolf, AP reports. Researchers believe American dog breeds, like the ancient pooch, are descended from Eurasian wolves that crossed the Bering land bridge along with human settlers. “I didn’t start out looking for the oldest dog in the New World,” the researcher tells Discovery. “I started out trying to understand human diet in southwest Texas. It so happens that this person, who lived 9,400 years ago, was eating dog."
– The Harvey Weinstein case may even be making waves across the pond, with a Tory trade minister facing investigation for allegedly sexually harassing his ex-assistant. Among Caroline Edmondson's accusations, which Mark Garnier doesn't deny: asking her to buy sex toys for him and calling her "sugar tits," per the Guardian and the BBC. Garnier told the Daily Mail on Sunday that "I'm not going to be dishonest" and copped to asking Edmondson to purchase two vibrators, which he called "good-humored high jinks," after a 2010 holiday meal in Soho. He also admitted to making the "sugar tits" remark, but he said it was made during an "amusing conversation" about a popular British TV show in which the term is used to describe an attractive woman. "It absolutely does not constitute harassment," he insists, saying he and Edmondson later had a fight and now she's "disgruntled." Edmondson, who says the two vibrators were for Garnier's wife and another woman who worked in one of his offices (he wasn't yet a minister), replied to his response by calling him a "sh--." She also says the "amusing" comment was made to her at a bar and that Garnier's exact words were: "You are going nowhere, sugar tits." Edmondson's allegations, which the Cabinet Office will now look into, are part of a larger debate over how women are treated in UK government, as other politicians have also recently come under fire for inappropriate behavior. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt tells the BBC that the reports are "totally unacceptable if true," while PM Theresa May has vowed to crack down on such behaviors, noting current disciplinary procedures lack the "teeth" to deal with them. "It's grim. The whole culture has to change," a former Conservative Party minister says, per the Guardian.
– A new invention could help blind people "read" books and other written text without the need for Braille. MIT researchers have created a prototype of a finger-mounted device that uses a camera to scan text, which is then converted to speech in real time. "For visually impaired users, this is a translation," researcher Roy Shilkrot explains at Phys.org. "It's something that translates whatever the finger is 'seeing' to audio." A huge challenge, however, was figuring out how to keep visually impaired volunteers' fingers in line with text. Researchers came up with two options: a device that used vibrating motors on top and beneath the finger to indicate if it needed to move up or down, and another that issued musical tones as clues. While volunteers didn't favor one device over the other, researchers say the motorless option is smaller, lighter, and therefore more ideal. The device uses an algorithm to process what the camera perceives. For now, it relies on an attached laptop, but the next version may use a phone to make it more portable. In an interview last year with TechCrunch, Shilkrot said the invention should open up a huge number of books to the blind. And perhaps to those who aren't blind but just have trouble reading: Shilkrot says parents of kids with dyslexia have already reached out. An engineer is working on a similar device that could help blind people identify distant objects. (A blind man can see again thanks to a bionic eye.)
– It's not every day Americans are rankled by baby clothes, but today is apparently that day. Fortune reports that Walmart is finding itself in President Trump supporters' crosshairs after the presence of a T-shirt sloganed "Impeach 45" was found on its website. Per a tweet, searching for the phrase "Impeach 45" previously turned up 13 items, among them baby clothes. MarketWatch reports the T-shirts, which are no longer available on the site, ranged in price from $16.95 to $41.95 and were made by the brands including Old Glory, City Shirts, and Hanes. "Make America Great Again" and other pro-Trump apparel is still available on the site. USA Today reports the chairman on Students for Trump first flagged an image of the baby onesie on Monday, with Ryan Fournier tweeting, "@walmart why are you selling Impeach 45 baby clothes on your website?????" His find apparently spurred the hashtag #BoycottWalmart. USA Today provides a brief history of Walmart's other recent T-shirt debacles, noting it pulled clothing that read "Bulletproof – Black Lives Matter" in December 2016 after complaints from the National Fraternal Order of Police and removed a shirt reading "Rope. Tree. Journalist. SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED" just shy of a year later.
– A bold prediction, courtesy of the Gates Foundation: The lives of people in poor countries "will improve faster in the next 15 years than at any time in history." That statement comes via the foundation's annual letter, published today, which makes some other "big bets." Among them: Polio will be eradicated by 2020, Africa's agricultural productivity will increase by 50% by 2030, and deaths of children under 5 will be cut in half by 2030, the Guardian and the AP report. Why are Bill and Melinda Gates so confident? Their foundation is celebrating its 15th anniversary, and the progress against inequity that they've seen in those 15 years is "very exciting—so exciting that we are doubling down on the bet we made 15 years ago, and picking ambitious goals for what's possible 15 years from now." In addition to polio, the foundation says guinea worm, elephantiasis, and blinding trachoma will be eliminated by 2030. There will also be a single-dose cure for malaria, a vaccine to prevent it spreading to mosquitoes that bite those with the disease, and a diagnostic test to reveal the infected, the Gateses predict. The foundation also foresees a rise in digital banking and online education and will push for gender equality. "We know that when women can participate equally in a country's economy, the GDP goes up 12%," Melinda Gates tells USA Today. (Help for the poor and inequality appear to be a hot topic, with Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush each taking on the issue, the New York Times reports.)
– In an effort to prevent the "increasingly decrepit" building from falling into further disrepair, Austrian officials say they plan to draft a law that would allow them to seize Adolf Hitler's birth home in Braunau, a quaint town of 17,000 on the German border, reports the New York Times. "The aim is to prevent the property from falling into the hands of neo-Nazis" who sometimes make pilgrimages to it, a journalist in Vienna tells NPR. "We have come to the conclusion over the past few years that expropriation is the only way to avoid the building being used for the purposes of Nazi [sympathizers]," interior ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck tells AFP. The building is owned by an aging and "reclusive" Gerlinde Pommer, reports Newsweek, who is a descendant of the family that has owned it for more than a century. (Hitler was born in the house on April 20, 1889.) But as a local historian told the BBC in 2014, Pommer "does not allow any changing of the house, so you can't rebuild any rooms, you can't build modern bathrooms or put in a lift." Though it has been empty since the last tenant moved out in 2011, the Austrian government still pays nearly $6,000 a month in rent. The building has recently been proposed as the site for a center for adult education, a museum, or even flats, reports the BBC, which notes that one Russian MP has offered to buy the house and blow it up. (Hitler largely ignored his birth home, visiting it just once during his reign.)
– Stop the presses! Everybody swoon! Ryan Gosling saved a woman from being hit by a taxi last night. Our winning headline appears above, but we couldn't stop ourselves from brainstorming a few alternatives: "Gosling Continues Superhero Streak, Saves Woman's Life" The news came to light after British reporter Laurie Penny tweeted, "I literally, LITERALLY just got saved from a car by Ryan Gosling. Literally. That actually just happened." Recalling that the Gos also once broke up a street fight, Annie Georgia Greenberg declares on Refinery 29, "Bruce Wayne, meet your match." "Hey Girl, Don't Step in Front of That Car" OK, so what Gosling actually said was, "Hey, watch out!" according to Penny. "Woman Saved From Taxi, Nearly Murdered by Jealous Onlookers" Gosling's identity was all but confirmed by a woman standing next to Penny, who said, "You lucky bitch." "Millions of Women Fall Unconscious After Gosling Heroics" Coverage of the incident includes lines like: "Laurie Penny … just had the dreamiest brush with death ever." (New York Observer), and "Did anyone else just get weak in the knees?" (Jezebel). And, one actual headline from The Frisky: "Ryan Gosling Returns To NYC, Saves Pedestrian’s Life, Leads My Libido Out Of Hibernation." Click to see all of Penny's tweets on the matter.
– Tarzan loves to fetch sticks, run after snowballs, and is, per Julie McDowall, "a playful example of global kindness and cooperation." Writing for the Guardian, McDowall explains that Tarzan is one of hundreds of stray dogs living in the 1,000-square-mile exclusion zone surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear plant, a native population to the devastated Ukrainian area for heartbreaking reasons: They're the descendants of pets abandoned by their owners in Pripyat and other neighboring villages in 1986 when the plant melted down, an exodus that left "dogs howling, trying to get on the buses. … They ran after the buses for ages." Squads were sent in to shoot the animals left behind, but some of the dogs survived, and now their progeny wander the area as "Chernobyl mascots," hanging out near the local cafe and eagerly greeting visitors. McDowall concedes it's not the easiest life for the canines, who endure brutal winters and a life expectancy cut short by radiation—she says not many live past the age of 6. The Clean Futures Fund, a US nonprofit that's set up three veterinary clinics nearby, also notes the dogs are malnourished and exposed to rabies and vicious wolves, and that the plant "out of desperation, not desire" even hired a worker to come kill the dogs (he's now refusing to do so). But the fund, which so far has raised more than $46,000 to care for the pups, offers the dogs emergency medical care, as well as helps vaccinate and neuter them. "We want to get the population down to a manageable size so we can feed and provide long-term care for them," says one of the fund's co-founders. In the meantime, "some [tour] guides … try to avoid the dogs to stay on the safe side," one guide tells McDowall. "But I love them."
– Perhaps Ryan Zinke wanted to show off his foreign language skills at a hearing Thursday, but it ended with reprimands in very plain English. Politico and HuffPost report the Interior secretary attended a gathering of the House Natural Resources Committee and was asked about a commitment to $2 million in grants to preserve WWII's Japanese-American internment camps; President Trump's proposed budget for next year doesn't include that funding. Pressing Zinke for a pledge was Rep. Colleen Hanabusa of Hawaii, whose grandfathers were among those detained in the camps during the war. One of her grandfathers, a US citizen kept in Oahu's "Hell's Valley" camp, couldn't even talk about his experience there until he was much older. After relaying that background, Hanabusa asked Zinke: "Will we see [the grants] funded again in 2018?" To which a smiling Zinke replied, "Oh, konnichiwa," which Politico notes is a Japanese greeting used midday; the hearing was taking place in the AM. After a pause, Hanabusa filled Zinke in on the correct terminology, answering, "I think it's still 'ohayo gozaimasu,' but that's OK." Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono, herself born in Japan, slammed Zinke later on Twitter, posting: "The internment of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans is no laughing matter, @SecretaryZinke. What you thought was a clever response to @RepHanabusa was flippant & juvenile." Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, born in Thailand, was more direct, tweeting, "Nope. Racism is not ok." No word from Zinke on the kerfuffle, but he said at the hearing he'd work with Hanabusa on the funding "because I think it is important." (He's still facing questions about a $139K door.)
– For the first time ever, Barbara Walters’ Most Fascinating Person of the Year is no longer alive: She chose Steve Jobs. Walters had already selected the Apple founder when he announced his retirement from the company, but never got the chance to sit down with him for the interview. It seemed appropriate to break the show’s rule that "every fascinating person must be living," Walters said last night, because "rules were made to be broken—and that’s certainly how Steve Jobs lived his life." Another interesting entry on the list that was not initially reported: Herman Cain. In an amusing portion of his interview picked up by the Daily Beast, he told Walters he would like to be defense secretary. Fortunately, he acknowledged that he was speaking “totally, totally hypothetical,” because he just might have a few foreign policy issues. The Daily Beast notes that Walters "looked stunned" and replied, "What?" Click for the rest of Walters' Top 10.
– It's been well documented how smoking wreaks havoc on your body, with tobacco use upping the risk for a variety of cancers—lung, bladder, esophagus, larynx, pancreas, and more—and causing almost one in five deaths in the US and 30% of all cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society. Yet a new study finds that nearly one in 10 people who've beaten cancer continue to light up—either because their addiction is too strong or perhaps because they don't know enough about treatment plans that could help them quit, researchers theorize. Almost 3,000 cancer survivors who had made it nine years past their original diagnosis were surveyed for the study, published today in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. The heaviest smoking rates were found in people who had cancers "strongly linked to smoking," USA Today reports: While the smoking rate among cancer survivors overall was 9.3%—still half that of the general population—people who had fought bladder and lung cancer still puffed away at the more alarming rates of 17.2% and 14.9%, respectively. And those survivors who do smoke go big, with 83% of them plowing through an average of 15 cigarettes daily—and 10% saying they're not going to quit. (Thanks in part to smoking, cancer cases are expected to jump 50% by 2030.)
– Tufts University students celebrating the end of fall classes will have to keep their clothes on from here on out, at least in the campus quad. The president of the Massachusetts school has ended the tradition of the Naked Quad Run, which attracts throngs of students who shed their clothes and run around nude in chilly December. In an op-ed in the Tufts Daily student newspaper, Lawrence Bacow says it's become too dangerous, mostly because of booze. "Even if I did not act now, NQR would end some day," writes Bacow. "The only question is whether a student has to die first. We cannot allow this to happen, and the Naked Quad Run will not continue." Students aren't happy, and dozens protested the decision by running around the quad in what the campus paper described as a "partially nude" protest.
– Mount St. Helens already stands out as one of the most active volcanoes in the Cascade Arc and the deadliest in the US, since its 1980 eruption claimed nearly 60 lives. It's also an outlier in a literal sense, sitting 30 miles west of the volcanoes that neatly line the Cascade Arc from north to south. Now scientists are reporting in the journal Nature Communications that they've discovered another oddity: The volcano appears to be perched atop what Gizmodo calls "a cool wedge of serpentine rock"—dramatically unlike the fiery cauldrons of hot magma beneath other volcanoes. "We don’t have a good explanation for why that’s the case," Steve Hansen, a geoscientist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, tells Gizmodo. His team drilled a couple dozen holes, filled them with explosives, and triggered minor earthquakes to watch seismic wave activity beneath Mount St. Helens, "a bit like a CAT scan," Hansen says. But their findings leave them with more questions, namely: What's the volcano's heat source, if it's not right below the volcano itself? Hansen surmises that it's coming from further east, but until his team does more research, it's what Science News is calling "a cold case." (Earlier this year, there were dozens of small quakes on the mountain every week.)
– Diehard fans of The Breakfast Club have a new scene to memorize. In advance of Criterion Collection's re-release of the 1985 film—to include 50 minutes of never-before-seen footage—Vulture got its hands on a 55-second unreleased clip. It finds Molly Ringwald's character, Claire, in a bathroom with Ally Sheedy's character, Allison. Claire criticizes Allison for eating food while "inches away from a live toilet," per CNN. Allison's silent reply is to eat a potato chip out of a sink. Criterion Collection's 4K digital restoration, which will also include director John Hughes' production notes, is due out Jan. 2. (An early script for The Breakfast Club was recently found in a school cabinet.)
– Hackers say the now-bankrupt Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has been less than honest about money lost in a major security lapse. Yesterday, they hacked into CEO Mark Karpeles' blog and Reddit account, announcing that the company had kept currency it claimed was stolen, Forbes reports. They said they'd hacked Mt. Gox's servers, and posted a file full of data suggesting the exchange had a balance of 951,116 bitcoins. Hackers say that points to fraud after the company claimed it lost 750,000 of users' bitcoins. The authenticity of the document isn't entirely clear, though some Reddit posters noted that personal account information revealed in the file appeared accurate, CNET notes. Still, it's possible that the balance shows money that was already lost in the security breach, reflecting bad accounting rather than theft, the Verge reports. Meanwhile, a bitcoin forum user said he or she was trying to sell 20 gigabytes of stolen information from Mt. Gox—a database that holds user details, including passport scans. "Selling it one or two times to make up personal loses (sic) from gox closure," the user said. The price: 100 bitcoins, or some $63,000, Forbes notes.
– Competitive eating contests were in full force over the July 4th weekend—chow-down champion Joey Chestnut even got engaged before one of his recurring food feats. But there was a tragic ending for one participant in a South Dakota competition: Walter Eagle Tail choked to death last Thursday during a hot-dog-eating contest in Custer. Although paramedics tried to save the 47-year-old at the scene after a piece of hot dog apparently lodged in his throat, Eagle Tail died after being taken to a nearby hospital. "It all happened within minutes" Custer County’s sheriff tells the Rapid City Journal. The local chamber of commerce director said it was the first time "in memory" anyone had been injured at the annual event. It’s not, however, the first time someone has died while taking part in such a contest. A 60-year-old died during a sausage-eating contest in Romania last year, per the Huffington Post, and a Florida man choked to death in 2012 after devouring dozens of live cockroaches in a bid to win a python. That's exactly why the International Federation of Competitive Eating has strict rules in place during the contests it sponsors (it appears the Custer contest was not one of them). "Walter was just being Walter, having fun when he entered this contest," a friend tells the Journal, adding that Eagle Tail enjoyed a good joke and interacting with the customers who purchased the bear-claw necklaces he made and sold.
– Hopefully Adele wasn't wasting any time on Twitter after the birth of her son, because some "hateful trolls," as Mashable calls them, weren't exactly sending good wishes. Quite a few tweets mocked the singer's weight, including one from Joan Rivers: "Congratulations to Adele on the birth of her 68 pound 8 ounces bouncing baby boy." Sadly, Adele is far from the first celebrity to be bullied online; Celebuzz rounds up eight more: Melanie Griffith was in for a nasty surprise when she recently joined Twitter. "Most people are telling me I look horrible," she revealed. LeAnn Rimes actually ended up in rehab after her Twitter bullying. Paris Jackson has a healthy attitude about the cyberbullying she's endured: "They try to get to me with words, but that doesn't really work." After criticizing the vice-presidential debate, Tamera Mowry-Housley was attacked by people who took her for a Paul Ryan supporter. Her Fox News correspondent husband, Adam Housley, defended her. Click for the complete list, including one former model who attempted suicide after being bullied on Twitter.
– You can feel the love tonight if you already own a copy of 1994's Lion King on DVD, but soon you'll be able to feel the love live-action style, too, Us reports. Disney announced Wednesday it's working on a do-over of the animated film, per a press release, which means Simba, Scar, and the rest of the gang on the savannah will join other Disney characters, like Cinderella and Maleficent, who've gotten a live-action makeover. "The Lion King builds on Disney's success of reimagining its classics for a contemporary audience," the company says. Songs from the cartoon version will be incorporated into the reboot, and helming the film will be Jon Favreau (the actor/director, not the speechwriter), who tweeted a short message Wednesday morning that simply said: "Excited for my next project," accompanied by emoji of a lion and a crown. There's no release date for either The Lion King or the sequel to The Jungle Book, which Favreau is also overseeing. (Relive that time a Lion King cast broke into song on a plane.)
– Authorities are investigating whether a female accomplice was involved in the escape of two prisoners from a New York penitentiary on Friday or Saturday, police tell Reuters. Officials are talking to a woman who worked at the maximum-security Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemor, NY; she was an employee, not a guard, and has since been fired, the New York Post reports. Sources tell the Post that one of the convicts, 48-year-old Richard Matt, "has a way with the ladies" and "gets girlfriends any place he goes." Earlier today, Gov. Andrew Cuomo told CNN that police were talking to "civilian employees" and "private contractors" to see if anyone aided in the escape, which involved power tools: "They wouldn’t have equipment on their own, that's for sure," he says. Authorities are still searching for Matt and his fellow escapee, 34-year-old David Sweat.
– A 3-year-old boy in Siberia has been given the nickname Mowgli after he survived three days in a bear-infested forest as temperatures neared 32 degrees. Tserin Dopchut had been playing with dogs near his home in the village of Khut when he wandered into the forest on Sunday, possibly while chasing a puppy, reports the Guardian. Without a coat and with only a chocolate bar in his pocket, he seemingly vanished in the harsh landscape, home to wolves and bears. After three days of land and air searches, however, Tserin responded to calls from his uncle and was found safe, almost two miles from his village. He showed signs of exhaustion and hypothermia, per RT, but immediately "asked if his toy car was OK," regional leader Sholban Kara-Ool tells the Siberian Times. Tserin—now dubbed Mowgli, referring to the character from the Jungle Book, per the BBC—explained he ate his chocolate and, to try to escape frost at night, "found a dry place under a larch tree and slept there between the roots," Kara-Ool says. An official noted just how potentially perilous an experience the child survived: "The bears are now fattening for the winter. They can attack anything that moves." Kara-Ool says a celebration will be thrown for Tserin. (This boy survived in the wilderness thanks to a tip from his dad.)
– Omarosa is out at the White House. The one-time Apprentice star, full name Omarosa Manigault Newman, is once again parting ways with President Trump. The reasons aren't clear, but the AP notes that it means Trump is losing one of his most high-profile supporters in the African-American community. Omarosa had served as communications chief for the Office of Public Liaison, responsible for reaching out to various constituency groups. An official White House statement says Omarosa resigned to "pursue other opportunities" and wishes her the best, but the departure may not have been on the best of terms. The White House says the resignation is effective in January, but New York Times reporter Yamiche Alcindor tweeted that she's hearing Omarosa was "let go" on Tuesday and escorted from the White House by security. Fox News adds that Omarosa is believed to have been on the outs with chief of staff John Kelly. One thing that most definitely didn't help her status: In the spring, she brought her entire bridal party, all 39 people, to the Rose Garden for a photo shoot that appears not to have been sanctioned. The White House forbade her to post any of those images, per Fox. She also got some negative press when the Daily Beast ran a profile suggesting that her job duties were a little murky.
– After Serena Williams won at Wimbledon again today, JK Rowling sang her praises on Twitter: "I love her. What an athlete, what a role model, what a woman!" she wrote. Which drew a response from "Rob," who tweeted, "ironic then that main reason for her success is that she is built like a man." Rowling then tweeted a photo of Williams in a dress, writing, "Yeah, my husband looks just like this in a dress. You're an idiot." Maybe the guy had read this New York Times story today, which goes into detail about how Williams stands apart from her competitors: She "has large biceps and a mold-breaking muscular frame, which packs the power and athleticism that have dominated women’s tennis for years. Her rivals could try to emulate her physique, but most of them choose not to." The Root, for one, calls it "tone-deaf" and notes that it's drawing lots of hate on Twitter.
– A 10-year-old boy who confessed to killing an elderly woman is in prison in Wayne County, Pa., and has been charged as an adult with criminal homicide. According to the Morning Call, Tristen Kurilla was visiting his grandfather on Saturday when he argued with Helen Novak, the 90-year-old woman his grandfather was caring for. Police say the boy has told them that after Novak yelled at him to leave the room, he became "very mad," hooked a wooden cane around her neck, pushed it into her throat for a few seconds, and then punched her multiple times in the throat and stomach. Tristen then went and told his grandfather that Novak was bleeding from the mouth. The grandfather called 911 after finding her unresponsive. Police say he told them "I killed that lady," but he "was only trying to hurt her." The coroner determined that blunt force trauma to the neck was the cause of death and ruled the death a homicide, reports the Pocono Record. The boy—whose mother told cops he has a history of "mental difficulties"—was charged as an adult because juveniles can't be charged with homicide in Pennsylvania, according to the district attorney's office. Tristen is being held without bail and his next hearing will be Oct. 22. The lawyer who will represent the fifth-grader has filed a petition to get him out of jail. The boy "really kind of doesn't have an idea of what is going on," he tells WBRE.
– One interesting quirk from yesterday's presidential news conference: President Obama took questions from eight reporters, and all were women. What's more, it was no accident, reports Politico (whose Carrie Budoff Brown got the first question). White House spokesman Josh Earnest explains: "The fact is, there are many women from a variety of news organizations who day-in and day-out do the hard work of covering the president of the United States. As the questioner list started to come together, we realized that we had a unique opportunity to highlight that fact." It's both a milestone and a sign of the times, writes Zeke Miller at Time. "Before the George H.W. Bush White House, it would have been hard to find eight women to ask questions of the president, as there weren’t that many on the beat." Also of note: It was during this Q&A portion that the president actually made some news, by criticizing Sony's decision to pull its movie The Interview. "See how newsy press conferences can be when women ask the questions?" tweeted Gwen Ifill of PBS.
– North Korea today piled more accusations upon a 25-year-old American arrested there and sentenced to six years' hard labor. The state-run Korean Central News Agency says Matthew Miller entered the country on a tourist visa from South Korea and deliberately got himself arrested by tearing up his visa in order to become famous, reports CNN. The North says Miller claimed to be seeking asylum because he had attempted and failed to collect secrets about the US government, reports Reuters. "He perpetrated the above-said acts in the hope of becoming a 'world famous guy' and the 'second Snowden' through intentional hooliganism," says the KCNA, referring to Edward Snowden. Pyongyang also thinks that Miller wanted to infiltrate the prison system to investigate human rights conditions and to try to negotiate the release of American prisoner Kenneth Bae. Not much is known about Miller, who graduated from California's Bakersfield High School in 2008. In an earlier, bizarre story, Reuters reported that he had been in South Korea for several months prior to traveling to the North "pretending to be an Englishman named 'Preston Somerset.'" He had reportedly been trying to line up artists to adapt Alice in Wonderland in anime form.
– North Korea ignored UN resolutions by firing a medium-range ballistic missile into the sea on Friday, Seoul and Washington officials say, days after leader Kim Jong Un ordered weapons tests linked to its pursuit of a long-range nuclear missile capable of reaching the US mainland, the AP reports. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the missile fired from a site north of Pyongyang flew about 500 miles before crashing off the North's east coast. It was the first medium-range missile launched by the North since it fired two in April 2014, says a South Korean defense official. Earlier this week, North Korea's state media said Kim had ordered tests soon of a nuclear warhead and ballistic missiles capable of carrying warheads. A military expert at the South's Konyang University says it's likely that Friday's launch was a test of a re-entry vehicle mounted on Pyongyang's purported Rodong missile. The North Korean missile fired may not be a Rodong but a long-range missile whose launch angle was altered so that it didn't fly its full range, says a professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. He says the missile may have carried an empty warhead, which contains trigger devices but lacks plutonium or uranium, to see if it can survive the fiery re-entry and detonate at the right time. Japan denounced the launch and lodged a formal diplomatic protest, warning that it will take "all necessary measures" to defend itself, reports Reuters. (Pyongyang claims it could wipe out Manhattan.)
– Rumors of an Amazon smartphone have been kicking around for a while, and the Wall Street Journal weighs in today with some funky-sounding specifics. Its sources say one of the devices the company is working on has a 3D screen: "Using retina-tracking technology, images on the smartphone would seem to float above the screen like a hologram and appear three-dimensional at all angles," writes Greg Bensinger. "Users may be able to navigate through content using just their eyes." At VentureBeat, John Koetsier writes that it's a safe bet Amazon will come out with a smartphone sometime this year. But he's skeptical about this 3D business, even suggesting the nugget might have been planted as a way to identify the source of leaks. And at Business Insider, Jay Yarow writes that for Amazon's sake, it better be false. "There is no value in a 3D screen," he writes. "HTC made a phone with a 3D screen, the EVO 3D. It didn't come out with a second 3D phone, which tells you all you need to know."
– A popular medication among pregnant women is linked to higher rates of hyperactivity in children, according to a study published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics. CNN reports acetaminophen is found in Tylenol, as well as cold, flu, and allergy medicines. The study's author, Evie Stergiakouli, says it's "considered safe to use during pregnancy." In fact, acetaminophen is one of the few pain relievers that is considered safe for pregnant women, according to NBC News. That may explain why the study of nearly 7,800 women in the US and Europe found that more than half reported using acetaminophen while pregnant, mostly as a treatment for pain or fever. The study found women who reported using acetaminophen at 18 weeks of pregnancy were more likely to have children with conduct problems and hyperactivity. Women who reported using it at 32 weeks, were more likely to have children with hyperactivity and emotional and conduct problems. Still, only 5% of the children in the study were shown to have any such problems. And medical experts say women shouldn't worry yet and should keep using acetaminophen as directed by their doctors. A spokesperson for the company that makes Tylenol points out the study doesn't show a causal relationship between acetaminophen and hyperactivity.
– Talk about political inside baseball: Nevada restored order to the GOP's chaotic primary scheme today by agreeing to run its caucus in early February. Prodded by Mitt Romney's campaign, Nevada had slated its caucus for Jan. 14, but with half the Republican field promising a boycott, and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus personally showing up to sway Nevada Republicans, the state switched its caucus date to Feb. 4, Politico reports. “This has become a distraction," Nevada GOP Chairwoman Amy Tarkanian told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "It’s time to move forward. … We will be the good guys in the end. We don’t need to be New Hampshire’s pinata.” Republicans in other early-caucus states expressed relief as Nevada accepted being the first caucus in the West, after Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida. The move also means Nevada will have its full slate of 29 RNC delegates reinstated.
– MySpace has a new look that’s, well, sort of familiar. The site has revamped its homepage, featuring a “wider and more prominent” stream of updates from your friends, crowned by a “What do you want to share?” prompt and flanked by recommendations of activities, events, and people you may know. Which, New York magazine notes, looks sorta similar to that other social networking site. Some users get a “sneak preview” of the homepage today, and it’ll be implemented for everyone else on Monday. It’s intended, a MySpace executive tells Mashable, to showcase the corners of MySpace that users may not have discovered already. It’s also just a portion of the “major relaunch” the company is promising for this fall.
– You might want to be a bit extra vigilant when visiting these US cities, according to 24/7 Wall St. The site determined the metropolitan areas with the fastest-rising crime based on differences in violent crime rates from 2011 to 2015. Household income, employment, education, and poverty rates were also considered. Here's the top 10: Monroe, La. Missoula, Mont. Sioux Falls, SD San Luis Obispo, Calif. Odessa, Texas El Centro, Calif. Milwaukee, Wis. Waterloo-Cedar Falls, Iowa Springfield, Mo. Mansfield, Ohio Click for the full list or see the least safe cities for women.
– Lynsi Snyder, the 34-year-old billionaire heiress and president of the In-N-Out burger chain, is frequently described as "reclusive," "private," even "mysterious." But in a new, nearly 10-minute video interview with I Am Second, Snyder gets surprisingly candid about her past. Snyder, granddaughter of the chain's founders, opens up about how she spiraled after her father died of a prescription-drug overdose in 1999. She discusses her own drug and alcohol abuse, failed marriages, and how she feels religious faith ultimately saved her, Business Insider reports. Snyder inherited half of In-N-Out's shares when she turned 30, and will get the other half in May when she turns 35. More on her background here.
– Swimmers are now free to go back in the Seattle-area Pilchuck River without worrying unduly about being attacked by crazed otters, authorities say. Wildlife officials say they tracked, shot, and killed a large, aggressive male otter just yards from where an 8-year-old boy and his grandmother were badly injured in an otter attack last month, reports Reuters. Authorities say they initially suspected a female otter protecting pups attacked the boy as he swam and then attacked his grandmother as she went to his aid, but the male they shot was unusually aggressive and they're pretty sure he was the culprit, the AP reports. The otter, which was at least 4 feet long, appeared to have no fear of humans, authorities say. A necropsy will be carried out to determine whether disease may have played a role in its behavior.
– America's pediatricians have come out in support of gay marriage. In an announcement published today, the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is comprised of 60,000 such doctors, expressed that such unions benefit children, providing them with legal and financial security. It also backed adoption and foster care rights for gay couples. The key statement: "Scientific evidence affirms that children have similar developmental and emotional needs and receive similar parenting whether they are raised by parents of the same or different genders. If a child has 2 living and capable parents who choose to create a permanent bond by way of civil marriage, it is in the best interests of their child(ren) that legal and social institutions allow and support them to do so, irrespective of their sexual orientation." The New York Times reports that in addition to its policy statement, the academy published a 10-page technical report that has been four years in the making and reviewed 30 years' worth of research on the subject. It found that children's "relationships with their parents, their parents' sense of competence and security, and the presence of social and economic support" affect a child's well-being more than the gender or the sexual orientation of his parents. Not everyone is on board, however, with some calling the statement premature and noting the limitations of the research used, including small sample sizes and a lack of nationally representative data.
– It's "Game Over" far too soon for Nintendo President Satoru Iwata. The 55-year-old has died due to a bile duct growth, the company announced in a brief statement. Iwata, who started out as a programmer at Nintendo subsidiary HAL Laboratory in the '80s and worked on games like The Legend of Zelda, became company president in 2002. He had been having health problems for some time but was able to resume his duties last year after bile duct surgery, reports the BBC, which describes him as a "highly revered figure" on the gaming scene who was able to turn the company around with big successes like the Wii. The last few years weren't smooth sailing for the company—Iwata volunteered for a pay cut after poor sales last year—but profits are rising again as the company moves into the smartphone market, Bloomberg reports. In the industry and among gamers, Iwata was known as someone who thought gaming should be for everybody, and as someone who never lost sight of the fact that gaming should be fun. "Iwata always struck me as someone who genuinely cared about the joy of gaming more than anything else," writes German Lopez at Vox. "Rest in peace, Mr. Iwata, and thank you for all the joy you brought to my life."
– In defending himself against renewed allegations of sexual misconduct by female accusers, President Trump on Tuesday also called out Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand after she said he should resign. Since then, the backlash has been fast and furious from Democrats, including Gillibrand herself, who say Trump's tweet was sexist itself, reports the Washington Post. The White House refutes the notion. Details: The tweet: "Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Charles E. Schumer and someone who would come to my office 'begging' for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump," the president tweeted. "Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!" Gillibrand's response: After tweeting that Trump had brought "shame to the White House," Gillibrand doubled down at a news conference. Trump's tweet, she said, was "a sexist smear attempting to silence my voice." She repeated her call for GOP leaders to launch congressional investigations into the allegations against him. "I will not be silent on this issue."
– Jupiter's Great Red Spot has never looked greater. On Monday, NASA's Juno spacecraft got closer to the giant storm than any man-made object in history, the Washington Post reports. According to CBS News, Juno came within 2,200 miles of Jupiter's clouds and 5,600 miles of the Great Red Spot itself. On Wednesday, NASA started releasing the closest photos of the storm ever taken. The images are composites of photos taken using red, green, blue, and infrared filters, Vox explains. Some of them have an hour-glass shape due to Juno's spinning. In addition to photos, Juno sent back data on Jupiter's magnetic fields, the mass and composition of its atmosphere, and more. This data will likely be studied for years. The Great Spot is the biggest storm in the solar system. Its 400mph winds have been going for nearly 200 years and likely longer than that. At 10,000 miles wide, it would cover the Earth. "Here's the largest and most fierce storm in the entire solar system and it's lasted hundreds of years," NASA's Scott Bolton tells CBS. "The question is, how can it last that long? What's powering it, how's it really working inside?" In addition to those questions, scientists hope to use the data from Juno to find out how deep the Great Red Spot goes, why it's red, and why it's been shrinking in recent decades. The answers to these questions could help us understand more about how the solar system formed and how weather works both at home and throughout the galaxy.
– Kim Jong Un hasn't been seen in public since Sept. 3, even missing the year's second session of its rubber-stamp parliament yesterday, and North Korea today explained why, albeit vaguely. The 31-year-old is "suffering discomfort," according to state media, in what Reuters terms the "first official [acknowledgment] of ill health." It didn't get more specific than that, though it did attest to the fact that he has continued to light the way for his country "like the flicker of a flame." Media beyond the Hermit Kingdom is getting more specific, however, and the consensus is that it's gout. Footage aired on state television in July showed him limping, and pre-recorded footage aired yesterday shows him struggling to walk, adds Reuters. A source tells Yonhap that it is indeed gout, and he's limping "on both legs." The Wall Street Journal reports that what has been dubbed "the disease of kings" typically strikes those who eat a high-calorie, boozy diet, causing intense joint pain, most typically in the toes; genetics can also play a role. Gout has dogged members of the Kim family, having reportedly struck his grandfather, father, and oldest brother. And it may not be the only thing dogging Kim: The source says he's also believed to be suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure. Another source tells Yonhap that North Korean doctors have journeyed to Europe in secret in search of ways to treat Kim. (Meanwhile, a 24-year-old American held in North Korea describes prison there.)
– Sudden death apparently sounded better to Jason Binkiewicz than 13 years in prison. The 42-year-old Dillonvale, Ohio, man had in July been found guilty of attempted murder and felony assault after shooting a man in the face on Nov. 27, 2015; he was handed a 13-year sentence Friday morning, reports WTOV. What followed were screams, but not his own: Prosecutor Jane Hanlin says a deputy escorted Binkiewicz out of the courtroom per procedure, but as they approached the elevator the convict took off running and threw himself over the banister of the Jefferson County Courthouse's third floor, reports the Intelligencer. Binkiewicz fell roughly 30 feet to his death. Jefferson County Sheriff Fred Abdalla says the deputy managed to catch Binkiewicz by the jumpsuit, but had he held on, "most likely [the deputy] would have gone over with him." Abdalla says Binkiewicz wasn't wearing ankle shackles as he had previously complained about swollen ankles; his hands were cuffed. But Abdalla tells WTOV that even if he had been shackled, "there's enough movement that he could have still made it to the railing and jumped over." Said Hanlin, "We certainly had no idea this would happen." (This man killed himself in court in June after hearing his sentence read.)
– Prehistoric man got cavities, too, and just like us, they had to go to the dentist. Researchers studying a 14,000-year-old infected molar say someone tried to clean it with flint tools—a discovery that amounts to the first known evidence of dentistry, reports Atlas Obscura. The patient was a roughly 25-year-old man who lived in what is now northern Italy. When researchers examined his tooth with a microscope, they found "extensive enamel chipping." And while prehistoric people were known to have used toothpicks made of wood or bone, this clearly wasn't the result of that. “It predates any undisputed evidence of dental and cranial surgery," the lead researcher from the University of Bologna tells Discovery. Previously, dental drilling had been detected on 9,000-year-old molars found in modern Pakistan, but this more primitive scraping technique predates that by a mile. It looks like somebody "tried to dig out the rotten part of the man's tooth with a stone implement," in the words of the Christian Science Monitor. Though it wasn't entirely successful, the effort at least shows that even people of that era, the Upper Paleolithic to be precise, recognized the importance of dental hygiene and the danger of infected teeth, the researcher tells an Italian newspaper. (Someday, your cavities might fill themselves.)
– A big swing and a miss for prosecutors: The judge in the Roger Clemens perjury trial declared a mistrial today—on only the second day. Prosecutors showed evidence to the jury that the judge had earlier deemed inadmissible, reports the Los Angeles Times. "I don't see how I unring the bell," declared US District Judge Reggie Walton. He scheduled a hearing in September to determine whether a new trial will take place, notes the AP. The judge called a halt to proceedings during a video of Clemens' testimony before Congress in 2008 in which he denied using steroids. The video included comments from Rep. Elijah Cummings discussing the credibility of Andy Pettitte and his wife, the LA Times explains. Cummings seemed to side with Pettitte's view that Clemens doped. Earlier, Walton said he wouldn't allow testimony about the credibility of certain witnesses, including Pettitte, and prosecutors had been ordered to redact such statements. "Is it me, or do government lawyers kind of suck?" asks Elie Mystal at the Above the Law blog. Click the link to read his take on what happened.
– A self-proclaimed "caliph" of the Middle East is urging Muslims worldwide to join the fight in Iraq and one day conquer the world, "if Allah wills." Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the newly named Islamic State (formerly ISIS) that has grabbed swaths of northern Iraq, issued his call today in an online audio tape, the Telegraph reports: "Rush O Muslims to your state. It is your state. Syria is not for Syrians and Iraq is not for Iraqis. The land is for the Muslims, all Muslims. This is my advice to you. If you hold to it you will conquer Rome and own the world, if Allah wills." He also called on judges, doctors, and engineers to add their skills to the battlefield, and told everyday jihadists to intensify fighting for the month of Ramadan, which started yesterday. He described their battle as one between "belief and hypocrisy," the latter including Jews, the US, and Russia, NBC News reports. The Islamic State just pronounced al-Baghdadi as "caliph," a medieval title, but of course not everyone agrees; fighters in Syria and an association of Muslim scholars in Iraq have already issued rejections, Al Jazeera reports. Meanwhile, the Sunni militant group showed off a parade of military hardware this weekend in a Syrian town, including armored personnel carriers, tanks, and a scud missile—but experts say the missile is likely inoperable, the Daily Mail reports. (The Islamic State also crucified eight rebel fighters deemed "too moderate.")
– "Financial crusader" John Oliver is riding a horse made of money on the latest cover of Money as its champion of the year. While Oliver recently joked that he's "wasting HBO’s resources," per Vanity Fair, Money notes he dedicated whole episodes of his third season of Last Week Tonight to "complicated subjects critical to Americans' financial health," including credit reports and retirement savings, offering "detailed explanations, investigative reporting, exhortations for viewers to take action, and even practical advice." The millions of viewers who tuned in suggest his approach—similar to "the kind of populist TV journalism made famous by 60 Minutes"—"resonates in a way that personal finance never has before," the magazine says. "The heightened public awareness creates an environment in which it's possible to win reform," says the head of Public Citizen. Indeed, Money credits Oliver with pushing the Big Apple to revamp its bail policy, while noting the FCC issued its net neutrality ruling a few months after Oliver's fans caused its website to crash. "John Oliver shines a light on some really big problems," says Elizabeth Warren. "He makes us laugh and teaches us something, but he also calls on the audience to take action to influence public policy. He helps make change." Money also named 12 other champions of 2016, including the parents who rallied against a spike in EpiPen prices, leading to $500 million in penalties for maker Mylan. (In one episode of his show, Oliver gave away $15 million.)
– A new lawsuit claims there's a big problem with Playboy's website: it's not accessible to the blind. The suit, though, isn't about racy photos. Donald Nixon, who is legally blind, filed the class-action suit on Wednesday, arguing Playboy.com and Playboyshop.com aren't compatible with screen-reading software that translates text into braille or recites it using a speech synthesizer, reports TMZ. Nixon's suit claims the visually impaired "cannot fully and equally use or enjoy the facilities, products, and services" offered, putting Playboy in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires businesses to make services accessible to people with physical disabilities. Nixon hopes to force Playboy to become accessible to the blind but is also seeking unspecified damages. The Kardashians' DASH website was hit with a similar complaint in 2016. A year later, a blind woman sued Kylie Jenner's Kylie Cosmetics, arguing its website wasn't compatible with her screen-reader software. A legally blind man sued some 40 mid-Atlantic schools in federal court in Manhattan last week for the same reason, per the Allentown Morning Call. The paper notes the Justice Department has yet to release guidelines on how to make websites compliant with the ADA, and the delay has left businesses in the lurch. (A novel treatment for blindness doesn't come cheap.)
– A former aide says Rep. Trent Franks offered her $5 million to act as a surrogate for he and his wife, the AP reports. And according to Politico, sources say female staffers were unclear if the Arizona Republican was suggesting in vitro fertilization or actual intercourse when he made the pitch. Franks announced his resignation Thursday ahead of a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations of sexual harassment, admitting to speaking to two female staffers about surrogacy. Now new details are leaking out. A former staffer says Franks asked her about being a surrogate at least four times, making her uncomfortable. "I was asked a few times to look over a 'contract' to carry his child, and if I would conceive his child, I would be given $5 million," she tells the AP. She says she felt retaliated against after refusing. Meanwhile, sources say the two female staffers asked about surrogacy by Franks were unclear if he was suggesting sex as part of the deal. A former staffer says in another instance Franks tried to convince a female aide that she was in love with him by giving her an article about how you know you're in love with someone. Andrea Lafferty, president of the Traditional Values Coalition, says she reported allegations against Franks to House Speaker Paul Ryan in recent weeks, calling his behavior "horrific"—"a powerful man hiring young women, procuring staff, to potentially surrogate children for him." Ryan then asked Franks to resign. While Franks had said he would leave office in January, he now says he will resign Friday after his wife was hospitalized Thursday night "due to an ongoing ailment," CNN reports.
– Paul Ryan tried to massage his running mate's 47% faux pas yesterday in an interview with KRNV-TV in Nevada. "He was obviously inarticulate in making this point," Ryan said. "The point we're trying to make here is, under the Obama economy government dependency is up." Does Ryan think Romney regrets the comment? "I think he would have said it differently, that's for sure. But the point stands." A look around at the 47% fallout: The GOP is gently panicking over the video, and the Romney campaign's seeming inability to gain momentum, Politico reports. "The campaign is now in a spiral and no one knows how to pull out," a McCain 2008 strategist says. "Romney needs a big idea, then he needs to shift the debate to spending." Scott Brown outright distanced himself from Romney's comments. "That's not the way I view the world," he said. "As someone who grew up in tough circumstances, I know that being on public assistance is not a spot that anyone wants to be in." Conservative stalwart Peggy Noonan savaged the campaign in a Wall Street Journal post. "It's time to admit the Romney campaign is an incompetent one," she writes. "It's not big, it's not brave, it's not thoughtfully tackling great issues. … An intervention is in order." A new poll underscores how damaging the video could be: It shows that in swing states, somewhere between 54% and 56% believe a Romney presidency would benefit the rich, while just 10% believe it would benefit the middle class, CNN reports. And that was before the video hit. Meanwhile, Jimmy Carter IV took a bit of a victory lap on Anderson Cooper's show last night. "A lot of my Twitter followers have been saying that it's poetic justice that a Carter was the one who helped get out this video," he said, according to Politico. "And I agree with that."
– After the Parkland school shooting, Colorado father of four Aaron Stark listened as his wife and daughter discussed the massacre of 17 people. "They could not understand what could make someone do this. Sadly, I can," Stark writes in a letter to KUSA. "I was almost a school shooter." It's a confession perhaps as hard to hear as it is for Stark to air publicly. But it's a conversation that must be had, Stark says. He tells KUSA a violent childhood and years of bullying led him to consider murder and suicide in 1996. "I was going to try to kill a lot of people and then kill myself," he says, per NBC News. It had nothing to do with "the media, or video games, or music." Rather, "I felt like I had nothing at all in life to look forward to and ... nothing to lose." But though he tried to find a gun, he wasn't able to, in part because of an assault weapons ban in place from 1994 to 2004. "Guns don't kill people, people kill people. But people with guns kill lots of people," Stark writes. "Do we really need to have assault weapons?" he adds in an interview with MSNBC. But this issue is bigger than guns alone, says Stark, noting one kind act—a friend baking him a pie—kept him from committing suicide. Acknowledging "a severe lack of love" took a toll on his mental health, Stark now says "compassion is the only real way we can stop this." Something as simple as "a kind word, a hug, saying 'Hey how are you' … could literally save someone's life," Stark tells MSNBC. "When you're in the worst state and you think that no one cares, having someone actually care can make an entire world of difference."
– That extra glass of wine you're downing every night after you've put in a 10-hour workday could be because … of that 10-hour workday. A review of 61 studies across 14 countries (for a total of more than 330,000 subjects) linked working more than 48 hours a week with "risky" alcohol use, Harvard Business Review reports. Marianna Virtanen and fellow researchers at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health found when subjects worked those longer hours, they were 11% more likely to be heavy drinkers than those who punched in for no more than the typical 40-hour workweek, New Scientist reports. For the purposes of this study, Virtanen defined "risky" drinking as more than 14 alcoholic drinks per week for women, more than 21 for men—a definition that Sarah Green writes for HBR is "rather generous." After all, the CDC defines heavy drinking as more than eight drinks a week for women, 15 drinks if you're a guy. Virtanen warns the study is "observational" and more studies are needed, but her team did find this when it looked at workers who put in long hours but had normal drinking habits: Over a six-year period, 12% of them evolved into heavy drinkers. The study was published in the BMJ in January, and in emails with Virtanen, Green says she tried to find a "loophole." For instance, is there a difference between working in an office or from home? Does the extra time you spend emailing in the evenings count? Virtanen answered her with more questions, like, "What if you enjoy your work and it’s highly rewarding? We hope we will get answers to these questions in our future studies." (Here's how much America's heaviest drinkers drink.)
– A New York judge refused Thursday to let his court "inject itself into the political process" and turned down a media request to unseal the divorce file of Donald Trump and first wife Ivana, Politico reports. The New York Times and the Gannett Co. had tried to gain access to the 25-year-old file in case there was info that could prove useful to voters in determining Trump's fitness for the presidency. "The court's role in the electoral process is strictly limited to determining whether a candidate complies with the Election Law," wrote Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Frank Nervo in his decision. What apparently proved compelling to the court: filings by both Ivana Trump's and Donald Trump's lawyers earlier this month that sought to block any opening of files on their 1991 divorce, in which Ivana cited "cruel and inhuman treatment" in her filing, per the Hill. Nervo wrote in his decision that although Donald Trump is running for president, Ivana isn't, and so even if there's something to be found on Donald in the file that voters might be interested in, that doesn't justify infringing on Ivana's privacy.
– At age 20, Richard Platz tossed a brown bottle into the Baltic Sea. Some 101 years later, it has found its way home, or as close to home as it can get. A German fisherman whose previous wild finds include bombs, torpedoes, and a corpse hauled the bottle out of the sea last month, and it made its way to researchers at Hamburg's International Maritime Museum. Inside was a postcard dated May 17, 1913, and bearing a "polite" request, reports the Local: that the bottle make its way to a Berlin address. Using that address, researchers sourced the bottle to Platz, who apparently let loose with the bottle while on a hike. The researchers then turned to a genealogist who tracked down Platz's 62-year-old granddaughter. Angela Erdmann never met her grandfather, who died in 1946, but describes the situation as "unbelievable" and "pretty moving." Though the handwriting was verified against other samples from Platz, much of what he wrote has largely been lost to the ages, on account of the moisture and time, though experts plan to take a stab at recovering the text. As far as time goes, the 1913 bottle is being hailed as the world's oldest, reports the AFP, beating Guinness' current record holder, which entered the water in 1914 and stayed there 98 years. But could a find from 1906 have it beat?
– A big boost for medical marijuana advocates: A massive study involving data on a million teenagers in 48 states has found no evidence that legalizing pot for medical use does anything to increase teen usage, the Guardian reports. The study, published in the Lancet Psychiatry journal, looked at some 1,098,270 8th-grade, 10th-grade, and 12th-grade students over 24 years; the teens had been asked if they used pot in the last 30 days. The researchers found that teenage pot use not only failed to rise in the 21 contiguous states where medical marijuana was legalized as of 2014 (Alaska and Hawaii bring the nation's total to 23), usage actually went down among the youngest teenagers, from about 8% before the law was passed to 6% after. In states that brought in medical marijuana laws, teen pot use was already slightly higher than in other states, at about 16% usage to 13%. Experts say that could be due to a more liberal general attitude toward the drug, LiveScience reports. "Our study findings suggest that the debate over the role of medical marijuana laws in adolescent marijuana use should cease, and that resources should be applied to identifying the factors that do affect risk," the researchers wrote. As for why pot use fell among 8th graders after it was legalized for medical purposes, here's one theory: that the teens started to see marijuana as a relatively harmless medical product, which "certainly doesn't fit with the idea of being a rebellious teenager," writes Debra Borchardt at Forbes. (A separate study tracked the pot "use" of kids—under age six.)
– Politico's Mike Allen weighs in with an early assessment on the choice of Paul Ryan, and sees it as a sign that Mitt Romney recognizes his strategy of playing it safe and making the campaign all about Obama's record instead of his own vision wasn't working anymore. Given Ryan's aggressive plan to overhaul Medicare and cut the deficit, this is a bold, "politically dangerous" move. The 42-year-old surely "will bring excitement and purpose to a campaign that had been devoid of both," but he's also an easy target for Democrats. So is it a smart pick? We probably won't know until November. It will end up being "brilliant, or political malpractice," writes Allen. "Some Beltway Republicans are already fretting that this could be an intellectual version of Sarah Palin: It’s August, you’re behind, conservatives don’t like your candidacy, so you throw a long ball." Read his full take here. Meanwhile, conservative Bill Kristol sounds very happy with the choice at the Weekly Standard.
– A New York lawyer said he told Trump attorney Michael Cohen years ago that former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was abusing women, reports the AP. Schneiderman, a frequent legal nemesis of the president, resigned this week after the New Yorker published the accounts of four women who said they were slapped and choked by the Democratic ex-prosecutor. Attorney Peter Gleason said in a letter filed with a federal judge Friday that he was contacted "some years ago" by two women who claimed Schneiderman was "sexually inappropriate" with them. Gleason said he advised the women not to report what happened to prosecutors. Instead, he said, he discussed the matter with the retired New York Post columnist Stephen Dunleavy. According to Gleason, Dunleavy offered to talk about the issue with Trump, then not yet president. Gleason said he then got a call from Cohen and "shared with him certain details" of Schneiderman's "vile attacks" on the women. In his letter, Gleason asked US District Judge Kimba Wood to issue a protective order sealing all relevant correspondence with Cohen. In a phone interview Friday, Gleason confirmed that Cohen told him during their 2013 conversation that if Trump were elected governor, he would make the allegations about Schneiderman public. He added that shortly after that conversation, Trump tweeted about Schneiderman. "Weiner is gone. Spitzer is gone - next will be lightweight A.G. Eric Schneiderman. Is he a crook? Wait and see, worse than Spitzer or Weiner," Trump's tweet said, referring to former US Rep. Anthony Weiner and former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, both of whom resigned because of scandals involving women.
– In case you missed it, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony announced on Friday that they're splitting up. Up next: the expected deluge of gossip. Was J.Lo cheating on her hubby? Bossip notes that "word on the Latino streets" is that she was having some extramarital fun with telenovela star William Levy, who starred in the video for her song, "I'm Into You." The "proof" includes the fact that the video featured some steamy embraces, as well as the fact that both Lopez and Levy have since left their spouses. (Jezebel notes that Levy allegedly cheated on his wife with more than three dozen ladies.) Break-up and rumors of infidelity aside, Lopez and Anthony are still working together on Q’Viva: The Chosen, which Bossip calls "American Idol in Latin America." Simon Fuller's XIX Entertainment, which partnered with the couple on the talent search show, tells the Hollywood Reporter and Deadline it will start filming in the fall. (Either "they're handling this divorce very maturely," writes Mike Vilensky in New York, "or they just figure they might as well cash in.") Anthony is apparently handling the separation quite well, flirting with female audience members at a Colombia concert Saturday night, People reports. His idea of a joke, delivered to huge cheers: "They're saying I'm single."
– It's a sign of just how close the vote is and just how important it is to President Obama: He made a rare personal appearance on Capitol Hill today to schmooze Democrats in a bid to save an international trade deal—but it's not at all clear that he'll succeed, reports Politico. The weird formula to success: TAA plus TPA equals TPP. The first is something called Trade Adjustment Assistance, would provide job training and other help to people who lose their jobs because of the trade deal. The second is Trade Promotion Authority, which gives Obama fast-track authority to negotiate the deal with foreign leaders, and the third is the deal itself, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The first vote will be on TAA, and if it fails, the game is over—no vote on the TPA would even take place. Democrats would typically support a measure such as TAA, but they know that if they torpedo it, they can kill the larger deal, explains the Hill. "Certain people argued that this is the mechanism to kill TPA, and that that’s worth doing," says Democratic Rep. Jim Himes, who backs fast-track. "Other people pointed out that that’s a terribly cynical gamble." At this point, CNN rounds up 124 "hard nos" among the 188 Democrats, who say that the trade deal will result in too many jobs going overseas. That number means that Obama must flip some votes among Democrats or John Boehner must do the same among Republicans. As for how Obama tried to do that today, Politico notes he spent about 45 minutes making his case and took no questions. The number of votes needed to pass the bill: 217.
– India is taking a tangible first step to address concerns that its largely male police departments look the other way when it comes to rapes and sexual assaults: It's recruiting women to the force, reports Pakistan Today. Each precinct in New Delhi, where last month's gang rape took place, must add 12 women in the coming months, says the nation's interior minister. Overall, 2,500 female officers will be recruited, reports the Wall Street Journal. (The victim's boyfriend spoke out for the first time yesterday, offering new details and complaining about the response of police and passersby.)
– Omar Sharif, the dashing Egyptian actor who rose to fame in America in 1962's Lawrence of Arabia and 1965's Doctor Zhivago—both directed by David Lean—has died at the age of 83, the AP reports. His longtime agent tells the news agency that Sharif died of a heart attack in a Cairo hospital. His grandson Omar Sharif Jr., who had just last week posted a photo of himself and his grandfather on Facebook with the message "I love you," simply tweeted this morning, "Al-Baqa Lillah," an Arab expression used to convey condolences. The Telegraph reports that Sharif had suffered from Alzheimer's, and in May his only child, Tarek El-Sharif told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo his dad couldn't remember certain details about his films. "He remembers, for example, that it was Doctor Zhivago but he's forgotten when it was filmed," El-Sharif said. Sharif garnered an Oscar nomination for his turn as Sherif Ali in Arabia, even though he wasn't Lean's first choice—the actor Lean had picked was rejected for having the wrong eye color, per NBC News. Sharif was brought back by Lean for Zhivago then went on to rack up more than 100 acting credits, including roles as Mongol chief Genghis Khan in the 1965 eponymous movie, Che Guevara in 1969's Che!, and as a gambler in Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand, a movie that was banned in Egypt because Sharif played a Jew, NBC reports. The Telegraph notes he was also known as "one of the world's greatest bridge players."
– The 4-year-old son of Pulse shooter Omar Mateen won't likely bear his late father's name for much longer. Mateen's wife, Noor Salman, has asked the Contra Costa County, California, court for permission to change her son's name from Zakariaya Omar Mateen. Available court records don't show which new name has been chosen by Salman, who has moved three times since the shooting that left 50 dead; she now lives in California, reports the Orlando Sentinel. A hearing is set for February, reports the AP. (Salman says her husband "had no remorse.")
– Federal officials say they identified and rescued 18 minors who were the victims of child pornography, reports CNN. The month-long investigation resulted in nearly 200 arrests, mostly in the US but also in the UK, Argentina, the Philippines, and Spain. Many of the victims were apparently duped into striking up a relationship online, in some cases then meeting in person. "Let this operation be a warning to anyone who would think they can use the Internet to exploit children: We are out there looking for you, we will find you, and you will be prosecuted," says John Morton, director of ICE, which worked with Homeland Security on the investigation. One of those arrested is a 35-year-old Louisiana man accused of making porn based on an assault of a 7-year-old, and the local Shreveport Times runs down that one and some of the other arrests.
– President Obama will lay out his plan to cripple the Islamic State tomorrow night, and the Washington Post reports that he looks poised to order airstrikes in Syria. That controversial action probably won't come right away, but Obama has met with foreign policy experts and believes he is within his authority to do so when necessary. Obama met with congressional leaders today—John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi—and informed them that he would welcome congressional support but that he plans to broaden the attack on ISIS regardless, reports the AP. Afterward, none of the four talked about the necessity of an authorization vote, and both parties seem eager to avoid one before the midterms, reports the Hill. The first steps in the US strategy will likely be to expand airstrikes in Iraq, to beef up an international coalition against ISIS, and to provide more aid to groups on the ground that are fighting the militants in both Iraq and Syria. As for airstrikes in the latter country, which could be seen as helping Bashar al-Assad: ISIS "is not an organization that respects international boundaries," says former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy, who was among the experts who had dinner with the president last night. "You cannot leave them with a safe haven. I expect him to be very candid." Obama speaks at 9pm Eastern tomorrow.
– Kids these days ... no respect for their elders. Rihanna has officially swooped in and stolen Janet Jackson's No. 2 spot on Billboard's Dance/Club Play Songs chart. "Right Now" marks Rihanna's 20th No. 1 hit, bumping her in front of Jackson and her 19 top songs. Up next: Grabbing the crown from Madonna. On its face, that's no easy feat, as Madonna has racked up 43 such songs in the chart's 37-year history. But Billboard points out that Rihanna has amassed her 20 songs in just a hair less than eight years. Madonna, for her part, topped the chart for the first time in 1983, reports the Huffington Post.
– Someone took advantage of the severe earthquakes last month in Italy to steal a 17th-century painting from a church that was badly damaged by the temblors. "Pardon in Assisi," a 1631 piece by French painter Jean Lhomme and "well-known among historians," per the AP, was taken from a church in the village of Nottoria. The thief or thieves cut the oil painting from its frame, apparently not concerned that the church could have collapsed in on them at any time. The national police announced the theft Monday. Authorities have salvaged around 200 works of art, including paintings, statues, crucifixes, urns, and more, from churches damaged in the Oct. 26 and Oct. 30 quakes. "Our churches are destroyed and full of art works," says a local priest. "To add insult to injury ... we now have this despicable behavior." Making the art recovery effort even more difficult: torrential rains that hit the region Sunday and Monday. Artwork that has not yet been saved could be in danger from the storms, such as a 15th-century fresco in Visso's town hall: It would require a helicopter to be recovered, which could damage it, but the rain could also damage it, the Local reports. Italian soldiers are now being sent to the mountainous region near Norcia in Umbria, near the church from which the Lhomme painting was taken, to guard against looters, the Telegraph reports. (An "unrestorable" Renaissance painting damaged in a flood 50 years ago just got restored.)
– Another day, another person calling President Obama a secret Muslim—only this time, the person in question has a history with Christine O’Donnell. Jon Moseley, who's described himself as manager of O'Donnell's failed 2008 Senate campaign and also worked as its treasurer, is a longtime activist who's toiled for decades for right-wing policy groups. Moseley made his “Obama is a Muslim” claims on his blog last year, reports David Corn in Mother Jones. (O'Donnell's 2010 campaign filings list a payment to him, but Moseley says it's for his 2008 work and that he's not affiliated with the current campaign.) Among his evidence on the president's faith: Obama once recited the Muslim call to prayer, which, “according to Islamic scholars,” Moseley wrote, “makes one a Muslim.” And there's the fact that he bowed to Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah but did not bow to Queen Elizabeth. And that he once misspoke and said he had visited 57 of the 58 states—57 actually being the number of states in the Organization of Islamic Conference. Moseley writes off Obama’s 20 years of church attendance as a means of “strategic deception.” In another article, Moseley claims “the forces of international communism” have “much influence” over Obama: So apparently he’s not just a secret Muslim, Corn concludes, he’s “a secret commie-influenced Muslim.”
– "It appears he wanted to go shopping." That's what Ohio police say was the motive behind a 10-year-old boy's alleged 11-mile jaunt Sunday behind the wheel of his parents' vehicle, which ended up a little worse for wear. An officer had attempted to stop the vehicle in Fostoria around 7:15am but the driver took off speeding, police tell the Review Times. Only after the vehicle slammed into a curb, knocking off a wheel, did the officer notice the driver was a child; police now say he'd visited at least two stores that morning to buy soda, per Fox 29. The boy—who police note was uninjured despite nearly colliding with a tractor-trailer, per the AP—is charged with fleeing from police, a felony.
– This year's National Spelling Bee winner is a 13-year-old eighth-grader from New York. Arvind Mahankali triumphed on the word "knaidel," meaning dumpling, thus conquering his trouble with German-derived words; they've knocked him out of the running in the previous two competitions. "The German curse has turned into a German blessing," he said. Mahankali became the first boy to win the contest since 2008, USA Today notes. The Scripps national contest began Tuesday in Oxon Hill, Maryland, with 281 competitors; the number was whittled down to 11 finalists in last night's bout. Along with his trophy, Mahankali gets $30,000 in cash, a US savings bond of $2,500 courtesy of Merriam-Webster, and a $2,000 collection of reference materials from Encyclopedia Britannica. So what's next for Mahankali? Not Disney World: "I shall spend the summer, maybe the entire day, studying physics," he said, per CNN.
– More disturbing details on the California couple accused of abusing and torturing their 13 children, now from the sister of the children's mother. Teresa Robinette, sister of 49-year-old Louise Turpin, appeared on Megyn Kelly Today on Monday and said she received a few odd phone calls between 2008 and 2010 in which her formerly straight-laced sister revealed she and husband David Turpin had been "experimenting with different religions," getting loaded at bars, and going through what the New York Daily News calls a "spiritual and sexual awakening." Robinette recalls one call in which her sister said her husband dropped her at a hotel so she could have sex with a stranger; a year later, Louise Turpin called her back to say David Turpin had taken her back "to the exact same hotel room, the exact same bed she slept with this man in, so David could sleep with her in the same bed," says Robinette. Robinette isn't the only relative speaking up. Louise Turpin's brother, Billy Lambert, has also been making the tabloid rounds, revealing his sister was obsessed with the reality-TV show Kate Plus 8, which featured Kate Gosselin and her eight children, and that Turpin aspired to be a reality star herself, per the Desert Sun. In interviews with Inside Edition and the Mirror, Lambert says the Turpins moved from Texas to California to be closer to Hollywood and renewed their vows at the Elvis Chapel in Las Vegas, with the children (faces blurred) by their sides as part of the stunt; the Daily News has video. Per the Desert Sun, court records show all 13 children had names starting with "J," like the Duggars of the former TLC show 19 Kids and Counting. Lambert says the Turpins were even planning for a 14th child. "They didn't care about the kids—it was all about them," he notes.
– Thomas Hardy fans, prepare to geek out. Archaeologists may have uncovered the remains of a woman whose execution is said to have inspired the death of the main character in Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Back in 1856, a 16-year-old Hardy was among a crowd of 4,000 that gathered to watch Martha Brown's public hanging at Dorchester prison in Dorset, England. The prison has since been closed to make room for a housing development, and archaeologists conducting a routine survey because of the site's history turned up the still-unidentified remains, including a skull. Only eight convicts were executed and buried at the prison before 1878, reports the Telegraph. "I don't think it would be too difficult to establish if any of the remains are those of a woman," a Dorset-based filmmaker tells the Guardian. "If they are, they are almost certain to be the remains of Martha." Like Tess, Brown was executed for murdering a man who had wronged her: in Brown's case, her violent husband. "I remember what a fine figure she showed against the sky as she hung in the misty rain, and how the tight black silk gown set off her shape as she wheeled half-round and back," Hardy said of her execution some 70 years later. "Hardy is well-known for storing up experiences and using them decades later," says a rep for the Thomas Hardy Society. "When he wrote Tess, I'm sure he had in mind Martha Brown." The housing developer is resisting requests to allow a more thorough dig that might definitively answer the question about the remains, and the government's senior archaeologist in the county will make the final call on whether it's necessary. (Archaeologists recently found the site of an 1826 murder.)
– Lots of people fall in love at work, but one New Jersey state trooper seemingly took this life goal to the extreme and is now paying the price for it. NJ.com reports that Marquice Prather, 37, was arrested Friday on records tampering charges and suspended without pay after authorities say he'd taken to pulling women over in their cars and asking them out on dates. He's also accused of trying to cover it up so he wouldn't get caught. Per CBS News, the three-year veteran of the force would target women between the ages of 20 and 35 and try to get their phone numbers or get them to go out with him, prosecutors say. Where the cover-up allegations come in: He's accused of falsifying the genders of people he pulled over in police logs so his pattern wouldn't be noticed, as well as of switching off the wireless mic he was wearing and reporting it hadn't been working right. (A fake cop pulled over a real one.)
– "There clearly was an over-exuberance of one's faith" in a Canadian woman who lived with her husband's corpse for six months while she and five of their children prayed for his resurrection, a court heard this week. Kaling Wald's husband, Peter, is believed to have died in March last year, but the 52-year-old's decomposing body remained in a room in their Hamilton, Ontario, home—sealed to prevent the smell getting out—until that September when the sheriff arrived to evict the family for defaulting on their mortgage, the Hamilton Spectator reports. She told investigators that the family and seven adult friends who lived in the home all prayed daily for him to come back to life. Neighbors tell the CBC that Peter Wald was a deeply religious man who had Christian sayings and symbols on his van and even his clothes. He had diabetes, and authorities believe he died of natural causes. His wife was initially charged with neglect of duty regarding a dead body and offering an indignity to a body, but that was reduced to a single charge of failing to notify police or the coroner of the death; prosecutors agreed there was no ill intent. On Monday, she was given a suspended sentence and told to get counseling. Her lawyer tells Reuters that his client now understands the law, is remorseful, and after court proceedings, has finally felt able to properly grieve for her husband. (In Detroit last year, two brothers hoping for resurrection allegedly stole their 92-year-old father's body from a cemetery.)
– Security experts worldwide are melting down over Meltdown and feeling haunted by Spectre. Those are the names security researchers have given two massive, newly discovered security flaws that affect central processing units at the chip level, meaning nearly all computers are at risk no matter what kind of operating system they run, TechCrunch reports. The bugs, discovered by researchers from Google's Project Zero team and independent other teams, exploit flaws in computer architecture that make it possible for malicious software to steal information from other programs, according to a website set up by researchers to explain them. The researchers had planned to wait until fixes were available next week before disclosing the flaws, but they released them early after a tech site revealed the vulnerabilities, the AP reports. The flaws differ in some ways: Meltdown, which breaks through barriers protecting computer memory, affects only Intel chips and works in a way that makes cloud computing especially vulnerable, while the Spectre technique, which is harder to exploit but can trick other applications into revealing information, affects just about everything with any sort of chip in it. Analysts say a patch for Meltdown could slow CPUs down by up to 30%, while there is no known fix for Spectre, which could require a major chip redesign. Researcher Paul Kocher, part of the team that discovered the bugs, tells the New York Times that focusing on improving speed in new chips resulted in design flaws. "We’ve really screwed up," he says. "There’s been this desire from the industry to be as fast as possible and secure at the same time. Spectre shows that you cannot have both."
– Oscar Pistorius had been expected to take the stand in his murder trial today, but the beginning of the defense case has now been delayed until next month. Judge Thokozile Masipa says one of two legal experts helping her with the case is sick and the trial has been suspended until April 7, reports the AP. The athlete's defense lawyers had been set to begin their case today after four weeks of testimony from the prosecution. Pistorius is not legally obliged to testify, but he was expected to take the stand today as the only witness to girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp's death, the BBC notes. He says he shot her after mistaking her for an intruder. When the trial resumes, the defense is expected to address key issues including his alleged past carelessness with firearms and why he failed to check on his girlfriend's whereabouts when he believed there was an intruder in the house.
– The Doomsday Clock may not have moved last year, but today it made up for it: The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced that the clock jumped ahead two minutes and now stands at three minutes before midnight, reports Mashable. "Midnight," of course, being the end of civilization. The organization cited concerns about the world's nuclear arsenals, but it also placed a big share of the blame for the time change on global warming and what it sees as political inaction to get it under control, reports the Guardian. "Human influence on the climate system is clear," said Richard Somerville of the Bulletin. "Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer than any preceding on record." This is the closest we've come to the group's Doomsday since the US and the Soviet Union were in the grips of the Cold War in 1984. The only time the clock has been closer to midnight is after the USSR's work on a hydrogen bomb in 1953 set it to 11:58.
– The Silicon Valley billionaire who bought and then closed public access to a popular California beach must let the surfers return, a court ruled Thursday. In a 3-0 decision, a state appeals court ruled venture capitalist Vinod Khosla must restore public access to Martins Beach near San Francisco. Martins Beach had been frequented by surfers and fishermen for almost a century before Khosla bought its surrounding 89 acres for $32.5 million in 2008, per the San Jose Mercury News. Shortly after, Khosla, who the Guardian reports does not live on the land, blocked the only road providing beach access. Thursday's decision relates to a suit filed by the Surfrider Foundation in 2013. The foundation argued that under the 1972 California Coastal Act, Khosla needed to obtain a Coastal Commission permit before changing "the intensity of use of water, or of access," and both a lower court and the appeals court agreed. A lawyer for Surfrider says it's "probably one of the most important public right-of-access cases in the country," with huge implications. He now expects Khosla to appeal to the California Supreme Court. Khosla previously said he would sell a land easement allowing public access to the beach to the State Lands Commission. But though the 6.4-acre stretch chosen is worth about $360,000, Khosla wants $30 million. His lawyer explained the price in December, saying "Khosla is unwilling to be coerced into giving up a vested constitutional property right." A lawsuit in which Khosla accuses the commission of harassment is pending. More on that here.
– Japan on Friday executed the leader of a doomsday cult and six of his followers, public broadcaster NHK reports, a mass hanging that had been rumored for months. Chizuo Matsumoto, also known as Shoko Asahara, was the head of Aum Shinrikyo, the group responsible for the 1995 sarin nerve gas attack on Tokyo subway lines that killed 13 and injured more than 6,000 as well as other murders and other nerve gas attacks, one of which killed eight. Thirteen members of the cult had been sentenced to death; six are still awaiting execution. Japan does not carry out executions until all associated cases have been closed, with no more appeals pending; that happened in January, the BBC reports. Matsumoto, 63, had been imprisoned 22 years; his case was finalized in 2006, CNN reports. Matsumoto founded Aum Shinrikyo in 1984, and at its peak in the 1990s the cult had more than 10,000 members in Japan and thousands more in other countries; a successor group still has 1,500 members in Japan. The group's scientists produced nerve gas at its commune at the foot of Mount Fuji as Matsumoto, who claimed to be a messiah, preached what the Guardian describes as "a bizarre mix of Buddhist and Hindu meditation along with Christian and apocalyptic teachings, yoga, and the occult." There were reports of brainwashing and abuse in the cult, and after the 1995 attack dozens of followers were rounded up in police raids. Per the Japan Times, Matsumoto never offered an explanation for the group's crimes. After the executions, Amnesty International released a statement condemning them; it called the mass hanging "unprecedented in recent memory in Japan" and said the death penalty "is the ultimate denial of human rights."
– The Colombian hit man known as "Popeye" has been freed from prison after 22 years—which works out to around 27 days for each of the 300 people he has admitted killing. John Jairo Velasquez was the chief assassin for drug lord Pablo Escobar and is believed to have had a role in thousands of killings on top of the ones for which he was imprisoned. He was freed early from his 30-year sentence after giving evidence against other criminals, and Colombia is divided on whether he deserves a second chance in society, the BBC reports. The 52-year-old—who murdered his own girlfriend on Escobar's orders—is believed to have been involved in the 1989 killing of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán, the kidnapping of future President Andres Pastrana, and the bombing of an Avianca flight, which killed all 107 people on board, Reuters reports. He left prison in Bogota under heavy police guard yesterday and will be on probation for the next four years. But although his testimony against others means he is now a target for hit men himself, it's not clear whether he will be receiving ongoing protection. (Another legacy from Escobar's time as cartel boss: a herd of hippos breeding out of control.)
– He was on probation in Connecticut; eyed as a suspect in a New York murder; and now has been busted across the country for rape and attempted murder. Danueal Drayton offered some other crimes to cops in Los Angeles when he was arrested and charged there last week, per the Hartford Courant: He may be responsible for the deaths of up to seven others. Police aren't sure Drayton, 27, is being truthful about those killings, but they are sure he's wanted for the slaying of 29-year-old Queens nurse Samantha Stewart, who police say Drayton met on Tinder, per the New York Daily News. And authorities believe the woman they say Drayton was holding in a North Hollywood apartment also met him on Tinder, and that he may have used other dating sites to lure victims as well, CBS New York reports. Per the Washington Post, Drayton's brushes with the law date back to at least 2011. Charges against him in Connecticut have included strangulation and harassment, for which he received a year on probation after pleading guilty in March. On June 30, he was arrested for allegedly choking an ex but released without bail on July 5. Stewart was found dead on July 17, strangled in her apartment. Authorities say he bought a plane ticket to California shortly after that and soon set up a date with the woman he's accused of holding in the North Hollywood apartment. Police say Drayton's use of Tinder was linked to both Stewart and to a Brooklyn woman who'd been raped on June 17 and who allegedly knew him from the dating site. "My body did this, not my mind," a police source says Drayton told LA investigators, per the Daily News. Drayton, who's set to appear in California court Monday, will face charges of attempted murder, forcible rape, and false imprisonment by violence, among others.
– Aaron Swartz may have been a WikiLeaks source, the group said on its Twitter feed over the weekend. In a series of tweets, WikiLeaks said that activist and hacker Swartz, who committed suicide earlier this month while awaiting trial on computer fraud charges, "assisted" the organization and "was in communication with Julian Assange, including during 2010 and 2011," Mashable reports. But the tweets did not go so far as to name Swartz as a WikiLeaks source, only saying, "We have strong reasons to believe, but cannot prove, that" he was. WikiLeaks also noted that its disclosure was due to the Secret Service's involvement—it had taken over the investigation two days before Swartz was arrested, the Verge reported last weekend. Now, the Verge also notes that these tweets from WikiLeaks could be implying that the Secret Service was targeting Swartz in order to attack WikiLeaks, but that "taking that implied claim at face value would be irresponsible without more evidence"—because it could also just be a grab for attention by WikiLeaks. (The website also notes that WikiLeaks may have just violated its own policy regarding anonymity.)
– Donald Trump's much-hyped Saturday Night Live appearance is this weekend, and it seems one protest group is actually excited for it. "They're doing it for ratings," Luke Montgomery tells the Hollywood Reporter. "We are going to try to steal their thunder and steal the spotlight." Montgomery's group, Depart Racism 2016, is offering $5,000 to anyone in the SNL studio audience who calls Trump a racist live on air. "We're hoping someone can throw Trump off his game," he says. The Guardian reports Trump earned the fury of Latinos, activists, and others when he called Mexican immigrants "rapists" and accused them of "bringing crime" to the US. “If he were to call black Americans rapists, murderers, and drug dealers, that would not fly,” Montgomery tells the Guardian. “So why is it OK that he would say that about Latinos?" While multiple groups will be protesting outside the studio, there actually is a chance that protest could bleed into the audience. According to the Reporter, protesters successfully interrupted a Sharon Stone-hosted episode of SNL in 1992 to condemn Hollywood homophobia and misogyny.
– Lady Gaga isn’t your typical pop star, and The Fame Monster isn’t your typical reissue. Critics agree that the deluxe version of 2008's The Fame may not be highly original, but it is a lot of fun: “She’s bringing eccentric couture to the masses and is certainly fun to have around—The Fame Monster is also available as a collector’s edition containing, among many other essentials, a lock of her hair and a paper doll collection,” writes Paul Lester for the BBC. “Now that’s Gaga.” “In her music videos and live shows over the past year, Gaga has worked hard to demonstrate her creative ambition and stylistic range, and that project continues on The Fame Monster, which includes the turbocharged Euro-soul of lead single ‘Bad Romance,’ the bubbly, ABBA-style pop of ‘Alejandro’ and ‘Speechless,’ and a sweeping glam-rock number seemingly modeled after David Bowie's ‘Ziggy Stardust’ phase,” writes Mikael Wood in the Los Angeles Times. “Half the disc is Madonna knock-offs, but that's part of the concept—fame monsters needn't concern themselves with originality,” writes Jon Dolan in Rolling Stone.
– A group of US Secret Service agents briefly formed a protective ring around Donald Trump at a rally Saturday in Ohio, the AP reports. The agents quickly left the stage and allowed Trump to continue his speech. A spokesperson for the Trump campaign says a man tried to breach the security buffer at the event. Four Secret Service agents then rushed onto the stage, as the audience chanted "Trump! Trump! Trump!" The agents quickly cleared. Video of the incident is here. Trump did not explain to the crowd what had happened, but said: "Thank you for the warning. I was ready for 'em, but it's much better if the cops do it, don't we agree?" Both the Secret Service and Trump campaign staff did not immediately respond to questions seeking comment. Trump was able to finish his speech and did so without apparent incident. A spokesperson says the man who tried to get past the security barrier was "removed rapidly and professionally." Trump called off a rally on Friday night in Chicago, after protesters filled the arena where he was scheduled to speak.
– The oldest-ever serving member of the House of Representatives is in the hospital following a car accident. Rep. Ralph Hall of Texas, 91, is being treated in Plano, WFAA reports. He was reportedly riding in a vehicle when another hit it; afterward, he was airlifted to the hospital, and KXII reports he is in serious condition. No one else was injured in the accident, KXII notes. After losing a primary, Hall is due to leave Congress next year, WFAA reports. He was elected in 1980.
– A judge agreed Thursday to let five additional Bill Cosby accusers testify at his April 2 sexual assault retrial, giving prosecutors a chance to portray the man once known as "America's Dad" as a serial predator who made a sadistic habit of drugging and molesting women. Judge Steven O'Neill said prosecutors could choose the witnesses from a list of eight women whose allegations date to 1982, the AP reports. Prosecutors had wanted to have as many as 19 women testify about alleged assaults over a five-decade span. Among the women who could take the witness stand: model Janice Dickinson, who suspects Cosby drugged and raped her while she was unconscious during a 1982 trip to Lake Tahoe. "We are reviewing the Judge's order and will be making some determinations," District Attorney Kevin Steele said. Cosby's lawyers went to court last week to block any additional accusers from testifying, contending they were only needed because prosecutors were desperate to bolster an otherwise weak case. They argued that jurors should only hear testimony about the alleged 2004 assault that led to the criminal charges against Cosby, not "ancient allegations" that would confuse, distract, and prejudice the jury against the 80-year-old comedian. Cosby has pleaded not guilty to charges he drugged and molested former Temple University women's basketball official Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He remains free on bail. Also Thursday, Dickinson's defamation lawsuit against Cosby was allowed to move forward after the California Supreme Court refused his appeal. Dickinson sued Cosby after he and his representatives said her allegations were false.
– Chrissy Teigen says her 6-month-old son needs a corrective helmet—but he's going to be even cuter with it. The model said Monday that young Miles needs the helmet for plagiocephaly, also known as "flat head syndrome," USA Today reports. The baby was "getting fitted for a little helmet today for his adorable slightly misshapen head so if you see pictures, don't feel bad for him because he's just fixing his flat and honestly he's probably gonna be even cuter with it somehow," she tweeted. In a follow-up tweet, she shared a photo of Miles in his new helmet. She also praised her followers for sharing photos of their own children in corrective helmets, E! Online reports. (After she had Luna, her first child with John Legend, Teigen "shamed mommy shamers.")
– Guinness World Records has officially ruled: an audio lab at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Wash., is the quietest place in the world. Though Building 87 on the Microsoft campus is home to three anechoic, or "free from echo," chambers the company uses to test audio technology, the largest is "unimaginably quiet," testers say, per Science Alert. It helps that the room is covered in "wedges" made of sound-proofed material and built on springs to cut down on vibrations. But how exactly do you decide which is the quietest place on the planet? It comes down to a sound measurement. The silence inside the chamber measures -20.6 dbA (decibels A-weighted), compared to -13 recorded at the Anechoic Test Chamber at Orfield Laboratories in Minneapolis back in 2012. A second test in the chamber—which Microsoft calls the place "where sound goes to die," per Fortune—returned a slightly less impressive -20.1 reading, but both results surpassed even the expectations of Microsoft, which had expected about -16, according to Guinness. So what does -20.6 dbA sound like? Humans can't actually hear anything below zero decibels, but "to give you a rough idea, the Brownian motion—that is, a random air particle in space—is around -23 dBA. You can't get any quieter because that's just the air particles moving," an Microsoft engineer explains in a video. "We are on the edge of what [are] the limits of physics." Thinking Building 87 would be a great place to take a nap? Sadly, you're probably out of luck. Engineers are busy using its anechoic chambers to train the Cortana digital assistant to better handle audio inputs and outputs. (Listen closely, and you can hear California's drought.)
– Witnesses say a man armed with a machete attacked students at a university in Kentucky after asking their political affiliation. The Lexington Herald-Leader reports the suspect—identified by police as 19-year-old Mitchell Adkins—entered a coffee shop on the Transylvania University campus Friday morning with a bag full of knives and a machete. Tristan Reynolds says he was in the cafe with 30 to 40 other students when the suspect announced, "The day of reckoning has come." Reynolds says the suspect asked a man in the cafe his political affiliation, telling him, "You are safe" when he identified himself as a Republican. Police say Adkins attacked two women, at least one of them with a machete, the Washington Post reports. One of the women was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries; the other was treated at the scene. Campus security quickly detained Adkins, who was hospitalized for "self-inflicted injuries." Adkins has been charged with assault and wanton endangerment. He's a former Transylvania University student, having left the school in 2015. According to WKYT, the same year he left the university he wrote a piece on BuzzFeed complaining that conservatives are discriminated against at liberal arts colleges.
– A man having dinner with his 5-year-old daughter on his lap was fatally stabbed in what appears to have been a random, unprovoked attack, police in California say. Homeless man Jamal Jackson, 49, was arrested and charged with premeditated first-degree murder after the attack on 35-year-old Anthony Mele at a seaside restaurant in Ventura, the Washington Post reports. Mele, who died after being taken off life support Thursday, was dining with his wife and daughter at the Aloha Steakhouse when Jackson walked up to the table and stabbed him in the neck, police say. The girl wasn't harmed. Jackson, a convicted felon, was arrested after customers and restaurant employees chased him to the beach. Police say a man later identified as Jackson was reported for yelling and being disruptive on the promenade near the restaurant about three hours before the attack, the Los Angeles Times reports. Officers were out on other calls, so command center staff monitored Jackson through security cameras for around 20 minutes before deciding he wasn't a threat, according to police. Jackson had at least six contacts with police earlier this year, including an arrest for fighting. Mele's father says he hopes his son's death will change how Ventura deals with its homeless population, the Ventura County Star reports. "We need to help the homeless. We need to help the mentally ill," he says. "We need to feel free to walk upon the streets, to go out to dinner, and not be assaulted or stabbed or killed."
– Lucy was not alone. Scientists have unearthed fossilized bones that they believe must have belonged to the foot of another pre-human species that walked upright around 3 million years ago, the AP reports. It's the first evidence of such a species during that era since the one made famous by the Lucy skeleton. This foot clearly comes from a different species, but like Lucy its foot was designed to both walk and grab tree branches, with an opposable toe. The bones were discovered in Ethiopia, and dated to 3.4 million years ago, according to the BBC. For now, scientists can't classify the creature further, because they haven’t found its skull. "We've kept digging," says the curator of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. "We have a few isolated teeth, but that's all." Still, even this limited find "is really exciting," one London palaeoanthropologist says. "This new foot helps elucidate the process of how the bi-pedal foot evolved."
– San Francisco police have arrested a 35-year-old man in the murders of three women and two men. The bodies were found at a home in the city amid a crime scene police called particularly grisly—and so "complex" that police couldn't say at first whether it was a murder-suicide, or whether any of the victims had been shot, the AP reports. "We had five deceased persons apparently from blunt force trauma," announced the chief of the force that arrested Binh Thai Luc. "We didn't know what we had." Luc, who had a previous criminal record, had a "relationship" with the victims that police didn't specify, the San Francisco Examiner notes. Charged with five counts of murder, he was arrested with his brother, who faces unrelated drugs and ammunition possession charges. A relative of some of the victims discovered a body in the home's entryway on Friday morning; she then found two others in the garage. Police found two more inside. Officials haven't given a motive for the killings, which occurred in what the San Francisco Chronicle calls a relatively safe neighborhood.
– Walls do so much for us. And what do they get in return? Punched. After all, writes Keith Collins at Quartz, "Walls are big, they’re imposing, and they’re almost always nearby." Collins queried the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, which keeps tabs on annual emergency room visits, to find out more about wall punchers. Some of the major findings: More than 1,200 people were treated for wall punching-related injuries in 2014. Of them, 15-year-olds are most prone to punching walls. Men punch walls more than women (931 vs. 316 in 2014). Wall punching is consistent through out the year. Motives for wall punching range from anger, such as the teen angry that he couldn't see his girlfriend, and intoxication, such as the 25-year-old man who guzzled some brandy and tequila. A Reddit thread sheds more light on anger-pain-shame cycle of punching a wall: The rage is "blinding, like you literally can't see," writes one. Upon hitting the wall, the rage turns into "extreme pain, "followed by a little shame and embarrassment." Modernman.com offers a primer for wall punching, calling the practice "totally immature," yet "totally satisfying." One important tip: Don't punch a pre-1946 wall—lathe and plaster, after all, just doesn't break like drywall. Walls aren't the only inanimate object people punch, Collins notes, just the top one. His research found that people went to the emergency room in 2014 for punching windows, doors, dumpsters, lamps, paper towel holders, and a thermostat, among many other objects. Check out the data here.
– Mitt Romney hasn't publicly said whether he plans to run for the Senate now that Utah's Sen. Orrin Hatch is retiring, but he may have provided a clue via Twitter: Hours after Hatch announced the move, Romney changed his location from "Massachusetts" to "Holladay, Utah" in what Bloomberg sees as a move to "quash questions about his residency" before a Senate run. A source close to Romney tells the Salt Lake Tribune that the former Massachusetts governor, who has close ties to Utah, felt that Tuesday was "Orrin's day" and is saving the announcement for another time. "We all know the direction this is going," the insider says. "And I think we’ll know within the next couple of weeks definitively." If Romney does decide to run, he is expected to easily win the GOP primary and the November election, the AP notes.
– The latest salvo in the ongoing sex scandal involving multiple Bay Area police officers was a one-two punch on Friday, reports NBC News. Just hours after two cops became the first to be charged in the scandal, the 19-year-old woman who says that she had sexual contact with dozens of cops—including some while she was a minor—filed a $66 million claim against the city of Oakland. Per the claim, members of the Oakland Police Department "continued to exploit her by trading money, information, and/or protection for sex. Instead of helping (her) find a way out of exploitation, they furthered and deepened her spiral down into the sex trade." The lawsuit contends that "these acts constitute unlawful forced labor," and that cops involved "either directly engaged in, stood by with a blind eye, or acted to cover up this modern-day slavery." Cops LeRoy Johnson, who is retired, and Daniel Black were charged; the latter allegedly took the woman to dinner twice before engaging in sexual activity, telling her, "Just to be clear, I'm not paying you, but I will buy you dinner." Charges are reportedly coming for five other officers. The woman returned to California this week from Florida, where she underwent drug rehab, notes the East Bay Times; while there, she was jailed after biting a rehab center employee. The Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, who has cycled rapidly through police chiefs in the mess, had no comment on pending litigation.
– The parents of Karina Vetrano, the jogger murdered in Queens last week, teamed up with others in their close-knit community, Howard Beach, to try to come up with a reward to supplement the $20,000 being offered by the NYPD to catch Vetrano's killer. The goal of their GoFundMe campaign was to raise $100,000—a goal that was met in hours, the New York Daily News reports, and, in just one day, nearly $200,000 has been raised. New fliers featuring Vetrano's picture and noting a $100,000 reward have already been put up, per an update on the fundraising page. The initial $100,000 fundraising goal, announced Wednesday morning, has been raised to $200,000, Newsday reports. Meanwhile, the Vetranos are in close contact with the NYPD and are talking to the media about their daughter. Her father, Phil, who normally jogged with her, recalled their last conversation: "I said, I don’t think it’s a good idea that you go in there. And she said, it’s OK Daddy, I’ll be all right," Vetrano tells PIX 11. Not long after that, when she failed to return home from the run, "I got a feeling. It came over me," Vetrano says. "And I got off that couch, and I went looking for her." Vetrano says the reward money is being offered with no questions asked, DNAinfo reports: "I don’t care if he turns himself in for that money. Somebody knows something, and somebody's going to say something."
– Nearly 50 years after a 3-year-old girl disappeared from an Australian beach, police may have finally cracked the case. In January 1970, Cheryl Grimmer visited Fairy Meadow beach in Wollongong with her mother and three young brothers, the BBC reports. As the visit wound down, the children went to shower off. Cheryl never returned from the girls' changing room. Her brother, Ricki Grimmer, says she was only gone for a few minutes. "It's something I still live with every day," he says. A massive search for Cheryl proved fruitless, and her body has never been found. Her parents both died without knowing what happened to her, and her brothers didn't want the same thing to happen to them, according to ABC. Then, on Wednesday, police made an arrest. The unnamed 63-year-old suspect was a "person of interest" during the original investigation. Police, who revisited the case last year, say new clues—including three witnesses who saw a teen "loitering" in the area of Cheryl's disappearance—allowed them to confirm some details of the original investigation and make the arrest. The suspect was a 16-year-old student at a reform school in 1970, the Illawarra Mercury reports. Police say he spoke about Cheryl's disappearance at the time. He's now charged with her abduction and murder. "I'm not going to get into the specifics ... but I can say that they are quite horrific," one detective tells the BBC. Cheryl's brother, Stephen Grimmer, tells the Sydney Morning Herald the arrest has been "unreal" and "really emotional." (A 1984 newspaper clip led police to missing sisters.)
– Armed militants in Afghanistan staged a coordinated assault on a key government security agency in Kabul Tuesday morning, killing at least 28 people. The Taliban has claimed responsibility. The attack appears to have targeted an agency similar to the US Secret Service, providing personal protection for high-ranking government officials, the AP reports. Kabul Police Chief Gen. Abdul Rahman Rahimi told reporters that another 327 people were wounded in the assault, which began with a powerful suicide car bomb attack on the agency compound gates. A group of armed militants then entered the compound and waged a prolonged battle with government security forces, which officials say has now ended. Dozens of civilian apartment buildings, houses, and shops, as well as several government buildings, were damaged by the car bomb blast. Taliban insurgents have stepped up their attacks since announcing the start of their spring offensive last week, though the Guardian notes that the winter was unusually violent, with multiple attacks in the capital and elsewhere. President Ashraf Ghani issued a statement condemning the latest attack, saying it "clearly shows the enemy's defeat in face-to-face battle with Afghan security forces." (The Taliban claimed to have just missed John Kerry with a rocket attack during his recent visit to Kabul.)
– A video that captures a family's escape from the California wildfires has gone viral, thanks mainly to the father's calm reassurance of his 3-year-old daughter in the back seat. Joe Allen sings to Olivia at one point, "Baby it'll be all right" as he drives through dense smoke, with embers falling on the car and fire on both sides of the road, reports KTVU. Watch it here. The Allens were among those who fled Paradise, California, with Joe and Olivia in one vehicle, and wife Whitney and 8-month-old Jordan in another. "Hey guess what, we're not going to catch on fire, OK," Joe tells Olivia as she talks about the fire. "We're going to stay away from it and we'll be just fine. We're doing alright." When she asks about returning home, he says they'll do so when it's more "Princess Poppy." And when their vehicle hits a clear point in the road, Olivia says, "You did it, you did it!" and Joe responds, "We did it together." Wife Whitney also got out safely, though "at one point we both thought we weren't going to make it," she tells KTVU. Meanwhile, the death toll from the Camp Fire that decimated Paradise rose to 23, reports the AP, and it seems certain to keep rising. The Butte County Sheriff's Department has a list of more than 100 people considered missing. Two people were killed in a separate wildfire in Southern California on Saturday, bringing the statewide total to 25.
– Plenty of people would agree comedians are a bit crazy—but are they psychotic? Not quite, but they measure as having higher levels of psychotic personality traits than those in "non-creative" professions, a new study finds. Researchers had 523 comedians, 364 actors, and 831 people in the "non-creative jobs" group answer a survey that assessed four psychotic qualities, generally: a belief in things like the paranormal, difficulty focusing, a tendency to avoid intimacy, and antisocial or impulsive behavior. Comedians' scores dwarfed those of the non-creative group in all four areas; actors scored higher than that group on three, but didn't show high levels of introverted personalities, Reuters reports. This certainly doesn't mean comedians are psychotic, says lead author Gordon Claridge. Here's his assessment: "The creative elements needed to produce humor are strikingly similar to those characterizing the cognitive style of people with psychosis—both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Although schizophrenic psychosis itself can be detrimental to humor, in its lesser form it can increase people's ability to associate odd or unusual things or to think 'outside the box'. Equally, manic thinking—which is common in people with bipolar disorder—may help people combine ideas to form new, original and humorous connections." For comedians who may have some psychotic traits, "their comedy is almost an outlet for that," Claridge tells the BBC. But a psychiatrist downplays the findings: "People with psychosis and schizophrenia have a very impaired ability to appreciate humorous material. This study tells us some interesting things about the differences between comedians and actors but not about the link with psychosis."
– As if US-German relations weren't fraught enough already, the US Treasury savaged the eurozone powerhouse in its semiannual currency report yesterday, complaining that "Germany's anemic pace of domestic demand growth and dependence on exports" have hurt the EU's struggling members, and created "a deflationary bias for the euro area as well as for the world economy." The Wall Street Journal calls the language "unusually sharp," and notes that Germany was given the prime target space normally reserved for China. Germany fired back, calling the report "incomprehensible." German employment is at a record high, one lawmaker close to Angela Merkel pointed out. "The US government should critically analyze its own economic situation," and work on reducing its debt, he argued. Quartz notes that the US is hardly alone; many analysts have said that boosting domestic demand in Germany would help its neighbors. The US has quietly voiced these concerns to German officials for years, the Journal reports, but barely mentioned them in its last currency report in April.
– Australia is in mourning for one of its top cricket players, who has died two days after being hit in the head by a ball during a match in Sydney. Phillip Hughes was felled by a ball that struck him at the base of the skull, below his helmet, causing what the Australian national team's doctor says was an "incredibly rare" kind of brain injury called a "vertebral artery dissection," which has only been caused once before by a cricket ball, the BBC reports. The batsman would have turned 26 on Sunday, and had been in a coma since he was injured. Prime Minister Tony Abbott issued a statement minutes after the death was announced, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. "For a young life to be cut short playing our national game seems a shocking aberration," he said. "He was loved, admired and respected by his teammates and by legions of cricket fans."
– A French-American man has given up his attempt to be the first to swim across the Pacific Ocean after a storm broke the mainsail of his support ship, organizers said Monday. Ben Lecomte, who had completed about 1,500 nautical miles of the more than 5,000-mile journey, called the premature end to the swim a deep disappointment, reports the AP. "We've faced treacherous winds, rain, and ocean swells that have forced us to alter our course, and the irreparable damage to the sail is an insurmountable blow," he said in a news release. The announcement was made by Seeker, a San Francisco-based online science publisher that partnered with Lecomte and has been documenting his attempt. Lecomte, of Austin, Texas, set out on June 5 from Japan's Pacific coast and was swimming an average of eight hours a day. Violent storms had already forced him to interrupt the swim after 500 nautical miles and return to Japan in late July. The mainsail broke on Nov. 10. The damaged ship and Lecomte are slowly making their way to Hawaii. They are collecting data on plastic pollution in the ocean, one of the scientific aims of the swim. In a June profile, the BBC reported the 51-year-old swam across the Atlantic 20 years ago, managing 4,000 miles in 73 days. When he reached France's shores, his first words were reportedly "never again."
– The US has confirmed the authenticity of an ISIS video featuring journalist Steven Sotloff's beheading, with President Obama asserting that the recent executions only "stiffen our resolve" against the militant group. After intelligence officials analyzed the clip, Obama discussed it today in Estonia, the New York Times reports. "Whatever these murderers think they will achieve by killing innocent Americans like Steven, they have already failed," he said. "They failed because, like people around the world, Americans are repulsed by their barbarism. We will not be intimidated," he added, per Politico. Calling Sotloff "courageous," Obama said that "his killers try to claim that they defend the oppressed, but it was Steven who traveled across the Middle East risking his life to tell the story of Muslim men and women demanding justice and dignity." He added, "We will not forget," noting that "our reach is long" and "justice will be served." Meanwhile: A tweet from the Embassy of Israel notes that Sotloff, an American, was also an Israeli citizen, Mashable reports. He received his undergraduate degree from an Israeli university, the Times of Israel notes. Sotloff wrote for publications ranging from Time magazine to the Daily Caller to Foreign Policy, ABC News notes. His most recent employer, World Affairs Journal, calls him "an honest and thoughtful journalist who strives to understand the story from local perspectives and report his findings straightforwardly." White House press secretary Josh Earnest apparently learned of the beheading during a press briefing, during which the news broke, Mediaite reports. When a journalist asked about the matter, Earnest said, "I've not seen those reports today. That may have just happened in the last few minutes as I've been standing up here."
– Many men with heart disease fear that having sex could kill them, but new research shows the danger is slight. Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute reported Sunday at an American Heart Association conference that only one in every 100 cases of sudden cardiac arrest in men occurred after sexual activity. But 94% of those victims had a history of heart disease, NBC News reports. The study, to be published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, was the first to look at whether sexual exertion can trigger a heart attack, notes Live Science. Fear of post-sex heart failure has been bolstered by plot lines on TV shows like Mad Men, but in reality, "the risk is very small," senior author Dr. Sumeet Chugh tells NBC. Chugh's team analyzed 4,557 cardiac arrests that occurred between 2002 and 2015, and found that 34 happened within one hour of sexual intercourse. Sudden cardiac arrest, which killed Tom Petty, takes place when an electrical impulse goes haywire and the heart stops beating. There are often no warning signs. Still, the danger is far greater for men: Only two of the heart attacks studied involved women. The majority of victims were middle-aged and African-American men, per the BBC. But CPR can make a life-or-death difference. CPR was performed in only one-third of cases studied, prompting Chugh to urge the "importance of (teaching) bystander CPR for sudden cardiac arrest, irrespective of the circumstance." Another study found that children as young as 6 can learn CPR, per the BBC. (A boy with an unusual condition went into cardiac arrest after biting into a hot dog.)
– The Washington Post has retracted a political cartoon featuring Ted Cruz's two daughters that caused the Republican candidate to warn his kids "are not fair game." The image, seen here, from Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes showed Cruz as an organ grinder dressed as Santa, led by two dancing monkeys, representing his daughters Catherine, 4, and Caroline, 7. "Ted Cruz uses his kids as political props," the caption read, per CBS News. Not long after it was published online, however, it was replaced by a note from editorial page editor Fred Hiatt. "It's generally been the policy of our editorial section to leave children out of it," he wrote. "I failed to look at this cartoon before it was published. I understand why Ann thought an exception to the policy was warranted in this case, but I do not agree." By late Tuesday, Cruz had launched an "emergency" fundraising appeal hoping to raise $1 million in 24 hours so he could "fight back," reports NBC News. He called the cartoon a "tasteless attack" on his children. "I knew I'd be facing attacks from day one of my campaign, but I never expected anything like this," he added, arguing the "liberal media" is trying to "attack and destroy me (and my family) by any means necessary." He was backed by Marco Rubio, who called the cartoon "disgusting." Telnaes, however, defended the cartoon on Twitter. "Ted Cruz has put his children in a political ad," she wrote. "Don't start screaming when editorial cartoonists draw them as well." NBC reports Cruz's daughters were spotted waving to the crowd from a stage at a campaign event last weekend.
– Dr. Dre is putting a lot of money straight into Compton: The rap mogul is giving back to his hometown with a $10 million donation toward a performing arts complex at the new Compton High School, reports the Los Angeles Times. "My goal is to provide kids with the kind of tools and learning they deserve," says Dre, who will lead a fundraising effort for the rest of the money needed. The new facility, which will include a 1,200-seat theater, will be available to the public as well as students. Dre, who promised in 2015 that he would donate royalties from his Compton album to fund a new performing arts facility, has also mentored young talent from the city, Rolling Stone reports.
– Hurricane Isaac was no Katrina, but it has left its mark on Louisiana all the same. It's been almost a week since the storm hit, and in that time utility companies have restored power to 92% of homes, according to Entergy—meaning nearly 57,000 homes are still without power. Residents are furious, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports; at least one 90-year-old has died of heat stroke in his powerless home. Some impatient New Orleans residents even took matters into their own hands, sneaking out at night to cut up a massive felled tree that had hit a power line—a feat that the paper says has made them "folk heroes" in their neighborhood. There has also been significant flooding, an all-too-familiar situation for some residents. One resident says that when the insurance company asked for details about the flood, "I told them, you can just use my claim from Aug. 29 seven years ago."
– The Wall Street Journal may have figured out how exactly the biggest flub in Oscars history happened Sunday night. As the paper explains, Brian Cullinan and Martha Ruiz are the two PwC partners who stand at opposite ends of the Academy Awards stage with the envelopes containing the winners, ready to hand said envelopes to the appropriate presenters—and both hold a full set of envelopes, because they don't know for certain in advance which side of the stage presenters will walk in from. Immediately prior to the Best Picture award being presented, Ruiz had handed the Best Actress envelope to presenter Leonardo DiCaprio, who then read it onstage and presented the Oscar to Emma Stone for La La Land, sources tell the Journal. Cullinan, who still had an identical Best Actress envelope in his stack, then apparently handed that envelope instead of the Best Picture envelope to presenter Warren Beatty. About three minutes before Beatty and co-presenter Faye Dunaway walked onstage to present the Best Picture award, Cullinan tweeted a photo of Stone holding her Oscar along with the caption, "Best Actress Emma Stone backstage! #PWC." The Journal says Cullinan had tweeted other photos during the awards show, but all of them, including the photo of Stone, have since been removed from his Twitter feed. (The Journal has a screenshot of the Stone tweet.) "At the end of the day, we made a human error," the US chairman and senior partner of PwC tells USA Today. He acknowledges Cullinan handed the wrong envelope to Beatty, though no mention was made of the tweeting, which TMZ says might have "distracted" Cullinan. The senior partner also tells Variety that Cullinan "feels very, very terrible and horrible. He is very upset about this mistake. And it is also my mistake, our mistake, and we all feel very bad."
– The possibility of a government shutdown looms larger today after yesterday's back-to-back meetings in Washington failed to bring a compromise. For the past week, House Republican leaders and Senate Democrat leaders have been discussing $33 billion in cuts, but John Boehner yesterday said he may seek up to $40 billion. Though his aides deflected those reports, Boehner also rejected the $33 billion figure, the Washington Post reports. The two sides must also come to an agreement on the $10 billion in one-time cuts Democrats want to make; another stumbling block is the policy riders Boehner wants to attach to the legislation. Meanwhile, Boehner is warning his fellow Republicans that if the government shuts down, the Democrats "win." At a meeting of House Republicans last night, Boehner and dozens of other GOP lawmakers, some of whom served in Congress during the 1995 shutdowns, argued that those shutdowns "guaranteed President Clinton's reelection," as one rep tells Politico. "And that’s what this would do. If you want to cede the presidential race in 2012, you shut down the government." But Tea Party reps disagree, and want Boehner to insist on the full $61 billion spending cut package the House passed in February.
– In what could someday prove to be a major step forward for people with spinal cord injuries, scientists out of Switzerland are reporting in the journal Nature that they've gotten paralyzed monkeys to walk again. NPR describes the surgery on the rhesus macaques thusly: A neurosurgeon "placed electrodes in the part of the monkey's brain that controls leg movement, and docked a wireless transmitter on the outside of his skull. Then, she put another set of electrodes along the spinal cord, below the injury." The idea is that the brain device beams instructions to the spine, which tells the legs to move. Using this "brain-spine interface," they used electrical activity they recorded in the monkeys' spinal cords prior to the injuries and "played it back" to restore movement. "That’s an approach that wouldn’t be practical after an actual spinal-cord injury," says the lead researcher. "The whole team was screaming in the room as we watched," the lead researcher, who travels between Switzerland and China (where regulations are more lenient on experimenting with primates) tells Nature News. Experts around the world have seen many failed experiments to restore walking over the years, and while the rhythm of the leg movement wasn't totally natural, the monkeys were able to support their weight enough to walk on a treadmill without dragging their feet. A small clinical trial is already underway in Switzerland for two people with spinal cord injuries to further test the interface. "It will take at least another decade in order to achieve the full translation in humans, with no guarantee whatsoever that it will be a successful endeavor," says the lead researcher. (Meanwhile, a monkey's head has been successfully transplanted.)
– Poor Rod Stewart. As if it wasn't bad enough that his Porsche got stolen years ago, he actually had to help the carjacker when the guy couldn't start the car and asked him for help—at gunpoint, the rocker revealed recently. Celebuzz rounds up 10 more celebrities who have been robbed: Thieves broke into Kirsten Dunst's hotel room in 2007, stealing credit cards, a camera, a phone, and a $13,000 purse. Can't you just picture Matthew McConaughey getting drunk in Nicaragua and losing his shoes in a ditch? After he was helped back to his villa, the Good Samaritans who found him left his door unlocked and a thief grabbed his phone and $2,000. It's not often you feel sorry for Paris Hilton, but you might get a twinge after reading that she was once robbed of $2 million worth of watches and jewelry that her grandmother gave her. While Kate Moss was sleeping at her London home, thieves broke in and stole three pieces of art. Usher had $1 million worth of Christmas gifts snatched out of his car while it was in a mall parking lot. Click for the complete list, or check out 15 celebrities who have been hacked.
– News of one scary vaping experience follows another. Days after authorities confirmed a Florida man died when his vape pen exploded, sending projectiles into his brain, a study published in the journal Pediatrics tells of an 18-year-old Pennsylvania woman who ended up in an emergency room with a cough and stabbing chest pains after trying vaping for only a few weeks. The condition of the unnamed woman with mild asthma only worsened after she was given antibiotics. She eventually suffered respiratory failure and had to be put on a breathing machine because "she was unable to get enough oxygen into her blood from her lungs," one of her doctors, Daniel Weiner of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, tells CNN. The woman also required tubes in her chest to drain fluid from her lungs—a result of hypersensitivity pneumonitis, otherwise known as wet lung. The condition is marked by an inflammation of the lungs caused by an allergen, like dust. In this case, doctors blame the chemicals in the e-cigarette the woman used, perhaps including propylene glycol, glycerin, and nicotine. Casey Sommerfeld, another of the woman's doctors, notes the immune response to such irritants "can lead to increased inflammation and 'leaky' blood vessels, which can lead to fluid accumulation in the lungs." However, the study authors note "this is the first reported case of [wet lung] and acute respiratory distress syndrome as a risk of e-cigarette use in an adolescent, and it should prompt pediatricians to discuss the potential harms of vaping with their patients," per the Sacramento Bee. Given a drug for severe allergic reactions, the woman in this case was back to breathing on her own after five days. ("Dripping" is another vape-related concern.)
– Come spring, Everest's base camp will be home to a security team designed to prevent brawls like this one. It will be made up of three officers each from Nepal's army, police, and armed police force, assisted by tourism officials, the BBC has learned. The idea of a government team was first floated last summer, and reports say officials will begin manning the post in March or April—a year after a fight broke out between climbers and Sherpas some 20,000 feet in the air. "This will make it easy to resolve any conflict," a tourism ministry official told Reuters. "The presence of security officials at the base camp will give a psychological feeling to climbers that they are safe." Reuters notes that, previously, each climbing team was assigned a government employee, but those liaisons often declined to head to the 17,550-foot base camp with their team. The government officials will also help enforce rules, rescue climbers, and clean up the garbage that's piling up. Meanwhile, National Geographic notes Nepal is dramatically lowering Everest's climbing fee from $25,000 to $11,000 per climber. The move eliminates the rule that allowed seven climbers to get a permit for just $70,000, and will be put in place in 2015 to "discourage artificially formed groups, where the leader does not even know some of the members of the team," an official told Reuters. "It will promote responsible and serious climbers."
– Moderator Elaine Quijano did her best to keep the candidates in check at Tuesday's vice presidential debate at Longwood University in Farmville, Va., and it was a night of plenty of interruptions, aggressive challenges, and spirited defenses as Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine finally met head to head, the AP reports. Some of the night's highlights: Both candidates came out of the gate ready to rumble, with each one playing the role of defender for their respective running mates. The AP notes that the "usually easygoing" Kaine went after Pence right from the get-go, to which the "unflappable" Pence did a lot of head-shaking, laughing, and lobbing accusations of a Kaine-Clinton "insult-driven campaign." Kaine did get in zingers (or what Pence at one point called an extension of the Democratic campaign's "avalanche of insults), including saying that Donald Trump "loves dictators"—"He's got like a personal Mount Rushmore: Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Moammar Gadhafi, and Saddam Hussein"—and claiming that Clinton would be a "you're hired" president, while Trump would be a "you're fired" president, tapping into Trump's oft-used line from The Apprentice. Pence dismissed Kaine's lobs as "pre-done" lines, per ABC News. Trump's tax returns were broached, with Pence noting his running mate had faced some "pretty tough times" in the mid-'90s (including apparently taking a $1B loss in 1995), but that he worked the tax code "brilliantly" to his advantage. Kaine, however, said Trump should release his tax returns, audit or no audit, noting the GOP nominee should at least meet the "Nixon standard," per CNN. (Nixon tried to keep his tax records from the public for similar auditing reasons in 1973.) Russian President Vladimir Putin also entered the conversation, with Kaine accusing Trump of calling Putin a better leader than President Obama, and Pence deflecting those accusations. "Putin's run his economy into the ground, he persecutes LGBT folks and journalists," Kaine said, per the Los Angeles Times. "If you don't know the difference between dictatorship and leadership, then you have got to go back to a fifth-grade civics class."
– Marilyn Manson may be older and mellower these days, but apparently he still knows how to get into trouble. After his Saturday night concert in Alberta, Canada, he went to Denny's around 2am, where he got into an argument with patrons at another table, according to TMZ. Manson allegedly called one guy's girlfriend a less-than-pleasant name, sources say, and the guy promptly hit Manson in the face. All police will say is that there was a disturbance that night at that location, but no charges were filed. But Manson tells TMZ he didn't start the fight, claiming two females asked to take a picture with him when the guy came over and hit him for no reason. He says he plans to press charges. In other "when celebrities are attacked" news, a fan (whom MTV calls "crazed") rushed the stage at a Maroon 5 concert in California Monday night and grabbed Adam Levine around the neck. He managed to calm her down and put his arm around her for the few moments it took security to arrive and pull her offstage, later telling the audience she managed to cut his ear with her fingernail and adding, "That was f---ing weird, right?" (Click to read about Levine's rumored feud with Pharrell Williams.)
– Good news, Gilmore Girls fans: Sookie is coming back. Melissa McCarthy revealed Thursday night to Ellen DeGeneres that she will be returning for the Gilmore Girls revival movies on Netflix. It had originally been reported that McCarthy wasn't going to be a part of the sequels, USA Today reports, and though rumors briefly flew that there was some sort of behind-the-scenes drama, series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino told Entertainment Weekly that scheduling was the only problem. But, McCarthy told Ellen, ""Literally, about an hour and a half ago, we figured out that I'm going to go and do it, and I'm so excited. Amy Sherman-Palladino is gonna squeeze me in to do it."
– When NFL owners got together last month, the Cowboys' Jerry Jones floated a provocative idea, reports NBC Sports. He suggested the league lift its prohibition on marijuana and let players indulge. If the league is smart, it will listen, writes Christopher Ingraham in the Washington Post. Jones may be worried in part about losing players to suspensions, but Ingraham has a different rationale: saving lives. As things stand now, teams are happy to dole out opioids to players, even though research has shown they do little to relieve the pain so common to the game. What's worse, opioids run the real risk of getting players hooked. Marijuana, on the other hand, has been shown to help with pain, with nothing close to the health risks of opioids. "The NFL, in other words, is pumping its players full of highly addictive and deadly substances that are of dubious use for treating the long-term, chronic pain suffered by so many players—and fining and suspending players who choose instead to self-medicate with a less-addictive and nonlethal substance," writes Ingraham. The prospects of Jones' suggestion actually happening are unclear. All would have to be worked out in labor negotiations between owners and players, and ESPN reports that players, perhaps surprisingly, may not want to do away with marijuana testing altogether. If players test above a certain level, for example, it may suggest a problem that needs to be addressed. The report sums up an idea being kicked around by the players' union thusly: "Let's still test for it, but let's do it in a constructive and less punitive way."
– The first polls have closed in Tuesday's midterm elections. Polls in most of Indiana and Kentucky closed at 6pm Eastern time, CNN reports, but parts of both states are in the Central time zone, so it will be a while before full results are in. Here are some key races to watch as those and other early results filter in. By Tuesday afternoon, the nonpartisan Election Protection hotline had received 17,500 calls from voters experiencing problems, up from 10,000 in the morning, the AP reports. (There were reports of malfunctioning machines and long lines as voting began.)
– President Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu said reassuring things about US-Israeli relations today, but Netanyahu's list of deal-breakers made clear the two leaders remain far apart on the elements of a peace deal with Palestinians, reports the New York Times. Notably, Netanyahu rejected Obama's suggestion of a return to 1967 borders. “Remember that before 1967, Israel was all of nine miles wide; it’s half the width of the Washington Beltway,” said Netanyahu. “These were not the boundaries of peace. They were the boundaries of repeated wars.” Nor will Israel negotiate with Hamas or accept Palestinian refugees on its soil. "We share your hope and vision for the spread of democracy in the Mideast," said Netanyahu, but he warned that "peace based on illusions will crash on Mideast reality," reports the Los Angeles Times. Obama did not pull back from his border proposal and said the ultimate goal is a "secure Israel state, a Jewish state, living side by side in peace and security with a contiguous, functioning and effective Palestinian state. Obviously there are some differences between us in the precise formulations and language, and that’s going to happen between friends."
– Its namesake released in 1915 has become synonymous with racism for its veneration of the Ku Klux Klan. Nate Parker's Birth of a Nation aims to tell a very different story, focusing on Nat Turner, leader of an 1831 slave rebellion in Virginia—though the media focus lately has been on Parker himself. Here's what critics are saying: This isn't "revisionist history. It's a much-needed—and beautifully realized—corrective," writes Tirdad Derakhshani at the Philadelphia Inquirer. It's "fast-moving, deeply absorbing, and thoroughly exciting." And though it's "not the most daring work of cinema … it displays a mastery of the form rare for a first film—with outstanding performances across the board." "Parker creates a grand period film that, despite its indie budget, carries the sweep of such epics as Braveheart and Spartacus," writes Sean P. Means at the Salt Lake Tribune. His starring role as Turner "is as explosive and heartfelt as his movie," adds Means, who notes one character's words—"they're killing people all over for no reason except being black"—"jump through 200 years of history to wake everyone up to horrors that have never gone away." Dana Stevens at Slate describes the film as stylish and suspenseful, but she sees one glaring problem: "There’s a deliberate mythmaking quality to Parker’s reconstruction of the real-life Nat Turner, who was a much more morally complex figure than the righteous avenger Parker writes, directs, and plays him as." After all, this is "a man who countenanced the killing of children." As Adam Graham at Detroit News puts it, "The Birth of a Nation aims for the gut and hits its target. Had it aimed a little higher, it might also have hit the mind." He argues the film is successful up until the revolt. There, "Parker makes it too easy for the audience to pull back as he revels in gorehound trash that is out of place with the tone of the film," which fails "to rise above its own thirst for revenge."
– The Justice Department says it is moving quickly with its review of "bump stock" devices after President Donald Trump directed the agency to propose regulations banning them, the AP reports. The devices allow semi-automatic rifles to fire faster and were used in last year's Las Vegas massacre. The Justice Department in December announced it was reviewing whether bump stocks are prohibited under federal law banning fully automatic weapons. The department said Tuesday it "understands this is a priority for the president and has acted quickly to move through the rulemaking process." Trump said Tuesday that he has signed a memo directing the Justice Department to propose regulations to "ban all devices" like the rapid-fire bump stocks. Seeking to show action days after a deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, Trump spoke during a White House ceremony recognizing bravery by the nation's public safety officers. "We must move past clichés and tired debates and focus on evidence based solutions and security measures that actually work," Trump said. White House officials say the president will be meeting with students, teachers and state and local officials to discuss ways of providing more school safety and address gun violence. Pressure has been mounting for action after the Parkland shooting.
– Cathie Black has resigned just three months into her tumultuous tenure as New York City schools chancellor, and city officials tell the New York Times that mayor Michael Bloomberg gave her a strong nudge out the door. Many were stunned when Bloomberg appointed Black in the first place; she’s a magazine executive with no prior experience in education. “I take full responsibility for the fact that this has not worked out,” Bloomberg said in the announcement. Black had muddled into several controversies during her short reign, such as when she seemingly mocked a crowd of parents protesting a school closure, or jokingly recommended birth control as a solution to school overcrowding. She had an approval rating of just 17%, according to the Huffington Post.
– Police are investigating a deadly shooting during the filming of a music video for Aussie hip-hop band Bliss N Eso. The actor was shot in the chest during filming Monday afternoon inside a Brisbane bar, the BBC reports. The band was not present at the time and it's not clear whether the shooting was accidental. "Several firearms were discharged during a scene by several actors," a police spokesman said, per the Sydney Morning Herald. "As result of the use of those firearms, one actor has received wounds to the chest and has subsequently died of those injuries." The spokesman added it hasn't been determined how many of the firearms in the scene were real or what kind of ammunition was being used.
– It remains to be seen whether his offline following will boost him past the Ashton Kutchers of the Twittersphere, but the Dalai Lama is well on his way after opening his Twitter account today. With @DalaiLama, the Tibetan spiritual leader is nearing 100,000 (to Kutcher’s 4.5 million)—though he laughed at the original suggestion from founder Evan Williams in a meeting yesterday. No actual tweets from his holiness yet, however.
– History buffs, take note. The Shelby County Register's office in Tennessee has released several restored videos of James Earl Ray after his arrest for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. No bombshells are in the mix, but one shows Ray being read his rights aboard a plane back to Memphis, notes the Huffington Post. (He was arrested in London two months after the 1968 killing.) See all the videos here, though the county office warns that quality is a little shaky because staffers were just learning how to use the equipment.
– The proposed mosque and Islamic center near Ground Zero continues to dominate pundit-land. Here's a sampling: Richard Cohen, Washington Post: Obama's backtracking was a shame. People will always blame the actions of a few on the many, as they are doing now with Islam. "It is the solemn obligation of elected leaders to restrain such an urge—to be moral as well as political leaders. Obama almost pulled that off, but he flinched." (At Politico, Roger Simon defends Obama with a tongue-in cheek criticism.) Jonah Goldberg, Los Angeles Times: The mosque was a dumb idea to begin with, and pragmatic politicians shouldn't have allowed it to advance this far. Also, Obama's speech was the "opposite of statesmanship. By elevating an already stupid idea and a poisonous debate, he forced everyone to take a side on a polarizing issue." Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid, Asharq Alawsat (UK): "I cannot imagine that Muslims want a mosque on this particular site, because it will be turned into an arena for promoters of hatred, and a symbol of those who committed the crime." William Kristol, Weekly Standard: "This will be over soon," he writes, citing the above column by al-Rashid (the director of director of Al-Arabiya TV) as an irrefutable argument. "There will be no thirteen-story mosque near Ground Zero."
– When you hold the iPhone in your hands and touch the outside antenna band in two spots, it can drop reception (or at least lose bars). Put the phone down and your bars return. Gizmodo has the details of this odd glitch along with reader-submitted videos of the problem. (A rubber case seems to solve it.) Read the full article. More info at Wired.
– It's Election Day—a day of reckoning not only for the candidates, but for America's pundits, including one recent lightning rod named Nate Silver. Silver's final prediction: President Obama has a 91.6% shot at winning, to Romney's 8.4%, though he emphasizes he expects a close contest. But the momentum has lately been in Obama's favor, and 19 battleground state polls yesterday showed Obama in the lead, while Mitt Romney led in just three, Silver writes in the New York Times. Silver sees Obama winning 314.6 electoral votes to Romney's 223.4, and believes the popular vote margin will be similar to George Bush's over John Kerry: two or three percentage points. Elsewhere in crystal-ball land, via the Washington Post: RealClearPolitics puts Obama up 48.8% to Romney's 48.1%; it sees Obama winning 303 electoral votes to 235 for Romney Intrade gives Obama a 72% chance of victory to Romney's 28% Jim Cramer at CNBC: Obama 440, Romney 98 (a bit of an outlier) Ross Douthat at the New York Times: Obama 277, Romney 261 Ezra Klein at the Washington Post: Obama 290, Romney 248 Drew Linzer at Emory University: Obama 326, Romney 212 Dick Morris of Fox News: Romney 325, Obama 213 Karl Rove: Romney 285, Obama 253 Larry Sabato, the University of Virginia: Obama 290, Romney 248 Sam Wang at the Princeton Election Consortium: Obama 303, Romney 235 George Will at the Washington Post: Romney 321, Obama 217 Mike Allen over at Politico, meanwhile, has a pointer for those looking to call it an early night: "Watch Prince William and Loudoun counties in Virginia's increasingly diverse DC exurbs. Old Dominion polls close at 7, and the Commonwealth tends to count pretty fast. Obama won both counties in 2008. Romney has to take back territory like that if he's going to win. Tell me who won Prince William and Loudoun, and I'll tell you whether we have President 45 or President 44, Part II."
– If she lived in the US, Zoiey Smale would wear a size 6, meaning she's far slimmer than the average American woman, who wears a size 16. But her thin frame apparently wasn't thin enough for organizers of an international beauty contest. The 28-year-old beauty queen from the UK emerged the victor in a national beauty contest in June that bestowed on her the honor to represent her country in the Miss United Continents 2017 pageant in Ecuador in September. But Smale, who wears a UK size 10, says contest organizers told her she was "too big" and needed to drop some pounds, per the BBC. Smale was "shocked," and in a Facebook post, says she opted to lose her crown rather than any weight, reports Mashable. Smale says it's depressing that "there are pageant directors who believe you must be skinny to be beautiful" when "real queens empower others, are intelligent, and help communities come together." She adds, "I don't think it is right to have my face representing a pageant ethos I do not believe in," especially when "my body has carried me through my 20+ years of being on this earth, allowed me to have a career I am very proud of, carry a child and … has never given up on me." Her advice to other women: "Love yourself" and "eat a bit of cake." If Twitter users were in charge of judging, Smale probably would've won the pageant title. They're heralding Smale as a "hero." Pageant organizers have yet to respond. (This personal trainer tried and failed to body-shame a bride-to-be.)
– If giving a thumbs up to Edward Snowden and US Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis didn't get US Investigations Services kicked off the federal government's Christmas card list, it's definitely off now. The Justice Department yesterday accused the contractor, which handles roughly 45% of federal background checks, of fraudulently submitting more than 660,000 investigations, the Wall Street Journal and New York Times report. That's roughly 40% of all the work it did for the government over a four-year stretch—and doesn't even appear to include Snowden or Alexis. In a practice known as "flushing," the company would simply mark investigations as complete when they weren't, according to the feds. "Flushed everything like a dead goldfish," one USIS official is quoted as saying in the complaint. In another email, an employee wrote, "Have a bit of a backlog building, but fortunately, most people are off this week, so no one will notice!" The Justice Department is accusing former executives of encouraging these practices, which, according to whistleblowers, were designed to meet financial quotas. The company was paid per investigation it completed. The allegations first came to light in a 2011 whistleblower suit, which the government yesterday joined. The company says it has "acted decisively to reinforce our processes" in the years since.
– Just how ancient is a newly discovered solar system? "By the time the Earth formed, the planets in this system were already older than our planet is today," University of Birmingham researcher Tiago Campante tells the BBC. The solar system—a star named Kepler-444 that's orbited by five planets—was uncovered via an analysis of data gathered by the Kepler telescope over a four-year period. The work was published yesterday in the Astrophysical Journal. Why the find is attracting so much attention: It's being described as a "replica" or "twin" solar system of our own. In terms of size, the planets fall between Mercury and Venus, making it the "oldest known system of terrestrial-sized planets," per the study. But likely not a life-sustaining one: The planets are too close to the star to permit life, with orbits about 10% of the distance Earth is from the sun. As far as age goes, the solar system came into being 11.2 billion years ago, a determination researchers made using asteroseismology (sound waves trapped within the star cause natural resonances that spur tiny changes in the star’s brightness; age is measured from these variations, reports YaleNews). And as far as distance goes, it's 117 light-years away. How the researchers frame the significance of the discovery: "We thus show that Earth-size planets have formed throughout most of the universe's 13.8 billion year history, leaving open the possibility for the existence of ancient life in the Galaxy." That leads Discovery News to ask, "Could alien life have already come and gone in our galaxy’s history?" (Another noteworthy find: the coldest spot in the universe.)
– MIA has become quite a hot topic since she flipped the bird at the Super Bowl and the subsequent revelation that her relationship with fiancé and babydaddy Benjamin Bronfman is on the skids. So is it any surprise that the Smoking Gun, which loves to air stars' diva demands, got its hands on MIA's concert rider? Many of her requirements are fairly standard: organic food, Red Bull, dried mangoes, "sour gummy candy," "quality chocolates," and Ketel One vodka. But some are a little bit obscure (she asks for one bottle of absinthe), and then there is the truly bizarre: MIA needs three extras, females between ages 20 and 25, who have "stage presence" and can "groove to the music." Why? Because they will join her during her act, "wearing full covered burkas." For more fun, click for 14 sometimes-weird food demands contained on other celebrities' riders.
– Ohio's marriage laws allowing underage teens to marry are too liberal and create potential for exploiting young girls, says an advocate for an organization that has called for ending child marriage, per the AP. Ohio requires teen girls to be at least 16 and males to be at least 18 before they can legally marry, but it allows for younger pregnant girls to wed with the permission of parents and juvenile courts, the Dayton Daily News has reported. The newspaper found more than 4,400 girls age 17 or younger were married in Ohio between 2000 and 2015, including 59 who were 15 or younger. Three were just 14. The executive director of a national nonprofit advocating for ending child marriage says Ohio's law creates situations comparable to Yemen, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. "Shame on Ohio for having 16th-century laws still on the book," says Fraidy Reiss of Unchained at Last. People younger than 18 are allowed to marry in all 50 states, though some states, including New York and Texas, have recently adopted laws increasing the minimum age. While the age of consent in Ohio is 16, an adult could be charged with unlawful sexual conduct with a minor for having sex with someone between the ages of 13 and 15; they would face rape charges for sex with anyone younger. The Daily News story highlighted a case of a pregnant Ohio 14-year-old who married a 48-year-old man in 2002. They remain married and have three kids. Tessi Siders, now 29, says in a text message interview she doesn't regret having married at such a young age but likely wouldn't allow her kids to do so. And she said Ohio should change its law to make the minimum age for marriage 18. "Yes, some get pregnant before 18, but if the father truly loves her, he [waits] the years to marry her," she wrote.
– Spotify's latest ad features a catchy popular pop tune and "a medley of horror film tropes" in the lead-up to its final tagline, per NPR: "Killer songs you can't resist." But it's just that horror theme, along with what Billboard calls a "terrifying eyeless doll," that has now prompted a UK watchdog group to ban the commercial. The minute-long ad shows a bunch of young people living in a house together, starting their mornings with a "wake-up playlist" that includes Camila Cabello's "Havana"—a song that apparently yanks the aforementioned doll out of its own deep sleep and sets it off on what appears to be a killing spree. No gore is shown (the doll just starts unnervingly showing up in unexpected places), but that it's up to murder is assumed. The Advertising Standards Authority didn't like the overall feel of the ad, especially when it comes to kids watching it. "The implied threat of violence [and] the fact the ad was set inside the home, including a bedtime setting, and featured a doll" is particularly troublesome, the group says, adding it's "likely to cause undue distress to children." The ASA got pulled into the fray after a parent complained their kids saw the ad on a YouTube video-game channel and became upset. Spotify says most of the people who saw the ad were adults (the target audience) and that viewers could opt out of it after five seconds—seven seconds before the doll makes an appearance. Still, in a statement it notes "regret" for causing distress, adding: "We take our responsibilities as a marketer very seriously." ET Canada and JOE.co note the ASA's role in keeping other ads off the air, including one for the horror film The Nun and a breast reduction ad that ran during the series Love Island. (Spotify recently muted this artist.)
– A messy car has its perks, as 85-year-old Ruby Stein discovered last week. While heading home to Akron, Colo., after a visit with her granddaughter on March 21, Stein took a wrong turn and ended up stuck 20 miles down an isolated mountain road with only her cat Nikki for company, reports 9 News. With no cell service, she honked her horn "until the battery ran down," Stein tells the Denver Post. Then the self-described "old farm girl" went to work. Using safety pins and a pile of old clothes in her backseat, she fashioned a blanket, then insulated her car's doors and windows. For each of the next five days, she ate only four bites of a Rice Krispies snack and what was left of a sweet roll, plus snow. Just when her stash of dry cat food started to look appetizing, help arrived. Dan Higbee and Katie Preston had at first planned to go skiing Saturday, but decided to go for a hike at the last minute after finding the ski area's parking lots at capacity. When they couldn't find a trail, they changed directions and suddenly came across Stein's car. "I was never so glad to see anybody in my life," Stein tells the Denver Channel. "We were meant to be there," adds Preston. The hikers took Stein back to her granddaughter's house in Gypsum and family members, who'd been searching for her along the I-70 corridor, "just cried," Stein's granddaughter says. Stein was checked by paramedics but found to be unscathed. "I was keeping myself very, very calm," she says. "I knew I either had to or it was over with. I have too many great grandkids and grandkids. I didn't want it to be over with."
– The invite promised a "spectacular sight"; the reality was a spectacular disaster. For eight days at the end of July, all was fine as tourists flocked to the Bogle Seeds sunflower seed farm in Hamilton, Ontario. They were there at the invitation of the farm's owners, who'd decided to open the farm up for two weeks to picture-taking visitors, some from as far away as Australia and Dubai, per the Globe and Mail. But on July 28—what Brad Bogle now calls "Crazy Day," per the National Post—everything went awry, when about 7,000 selfie-obsessed sightseers converged upon the farm, per Bogle's estimate. The day-trippers started showing up shortly after dawn, the parking lot that could hold 300 cars was filled before 10am, and the scene soon degenerated into "utter chaos," per the CBC. Included in that chaos: people not paying admission, littering, and enraging the farm's neighbors. "One of my neighbors told me that he caught two people going to the bathroom in his front yard in his bushes," Bogle, who runs the farm with his parents, tells the Post, adding to the New York Times: "They were knocking down sunflowers and taking flower heads with them. … [It was] a zombie apocalypse. … We went from a week of amazing to that." What had spurred the giant crowd, unbeknownst to the Bogle family: viral photos of their sunflowers that had spread on social media. Now, a huge black banner scrolls across the Bogle Seeds website declaring: "All photography of sunflowers ... [is] now closed for the season!" That hasn't stopped the curious from still trying to make their way onto the farm, yelling at Bogle or flipping him the bird when he turns them away. "I'm a farmer," he tells the Times. "I just want to be in the dirt."
– The boobs at NBC might be considering extending the network's Olympic broadcast time delay to its live feed online—after it revealed the bare breast of a water polo player. The audience watching the US-Spain match on site didn't get the benefit of the underwater cameras, but NBC watchers did, and apparently caught US player Kami Craig pulling away the swimsuit from a competitor, notes Deadspin, where you can check the shot (the video is at Mediaite). There's "a lot of suit-grabbing going on under water," gamely noted a sports announcer. Not to worry, said one snarky Deadspin commenter: "Giving airtime to a boob hasn't been an issue for NBC before." The game ended in a 9-9 tie.
– Hold your fire, troops: President Obama made his strongest case yet for a military strike on Syria today—but he also said he would seek the authority of Congress before launching it, reports AP. Obama made clear in his afternoon press conference that he believes the US must act to punish Bashar al-Assad, but "we should have this debate," he said. Congress will take up the matter when it returns the week of Sept. 9. When Obama wrapped up, a reporter asked the big question: If Congress rejects the idea, would he still order a strike? The president didn't respond. In the press conference, Obama made his case for action, asserting that Assad clearly gassed his own people. "This attack is an assault on human dignity," he said, as quoted by USA Today. "It also presents a serious danger to our national security." He said the US "cannot turn a blind eye" to what he termed the "worst chemical weapons attack in the 21st century." Earlier today, Vladimir Putin called the US allegations against Assad "utter nonsense."
– Authorities have confirmed that 15 passengers and the pilot died Saturday in what is believed to be the deadliest hot air balloon crash in American history. The victims of the crash near Lockhart in central Texas include newlyweds Matt and Sunday Rowan, who were married just six months ago, People reports. Sunday, mother of a 5-year-old son, bought the balloon ride as a birthday present for her husband. "Sunday was messaging her mom before getting on the balloon," her former partner says. "Soon after takeoff, she stopped all communication." Investigators believe the balloon hit power lines. In other coverage: Matt Rowan's brother tells NBC that the 34-year-old professor had just started working as chief of clinical trials at an Army hospital burn unit. "He was doing some amazing work and research," Joshua Rowan says. "He felt like a lot of the stuff he was doing would have benefits for soldiers and other service members who had been injured by burns." The Heart of Texas Hot Air Balloon Rides pilot has been identified as Alfred "Skip" Nichols, 49. "I knew him to be a safe, competent pilot," a fellow balloon pilot tells CNN. "He has done this for a very long time." The other victims were all in small groups rather than large parties, reports the Austin American-Statesman, which profiles several more of the deceased passengers. KVUE reports that Nichols was the owner of the balloon company as well as the pilot. Neighbors describe him as a "real happy guy" whose balloon was a familiar sight. NBC News reports that investigators are looking into several possible causes of the crash, including cloudy weather that delayed the takeoff by around 20 minutes. An NTSB spokesman says investigators have gathered 14 recording devices used by passengers and will be searching them for clues. The American-Statesman reports that investigators say the basket was found around three-quarters of a mile away from the balloon, suggesting it was severed when the balloon hit power lines. The AP reports that Nichols had a checkered history in Missouri before he moved to Texas five years ago: Police say he was arrested in 2000 on a felony driving while intoxicated charge. In 2002, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor DWI. He used to own a hot air balloon touring company in St. Louis County, which was the subject of a warning from the Better Business Bureau after repeated customer complaints.
– Border guards in Switzerland received quite a shock Monday as they watched a full-grown man emerge from inside a normal suitcase. The AP reports the 21-year-old man from Eritrea was trying to smuggle himself into Switzerland aboard a train from Italy. Guards boarded the train to check passenger documents and immediately became suspicious of the suitcase, which was traveling with the man's friend, according to the Telegraph. “It was not hard to know there was a person inside, given the weight and the movement of it,” the Telegraph quotes a border guard spokesperson as saying. Guards removed the suitcase from the train, then watched as the man started unzipping himself from inside of it. His attempted smuggling was even more impressive for the fact that he's 6 feet tall. Guards, who had to help the man fully extricate himself from his luggage, say they've never seen anything like it. After deciding not to request asylum in Switzerland, the man was promptly sent back to Italy. More than 3,400 migrants have been arrested attempting to enter the Ticino region of Switzerland from Italy since the end of May.
– With many big cities upping the minimum wage, restaurant owners have to contend with higher labor costs—which has led some to abandon the practice of tipping in favor of raising menu prices or adding a mandatory service fee. At Dirt Candy, a Manhattan eatery, a 20% administrative fee is added to the bill in lieu of tipping—and servers are paid $25 per hour. (New York will require tipped workers be paid at least $7.50 starting at the end of this year.) "I think that restaurants will have to do this," the owner tells the New York Times. "How else do you compensate for this extra money you’ll have to pay?” Plus, while tips are not shared with those who work in the kitchen, the revenue from higher prices and fees can often be shared with all employees. "We saw there was a fundamental inequity in our restaurants where the people who worked in the kitchen were paid about half as much as the people who worked with customers in front of the house," explains the co-owner of Ivar's, a Seattle restaurant that raised prices 21% and eliminated tipping after the first stage of the city's $15 minimum wage took effect. Though some restaurateurs worry that servers will be put off by the idea of no tips, a server at a San Francisco restaurant that also pays $25 per hour says she earns as much as she always did at her new rate of pay—but now she earns the same amount per shift even if a night is particularly slow. Another concern is that diners simply aren't ready for the change. At Ivar's, credit card slips now include this line: "If you INSIST on leaving a tip, write it here." Earlier this month, the AP reported that Ivar's no-tipping experiment has been a success, with some staff wages as much as 60% higher than before.
– California Gov. Jerry Brown kept up his assault on climate change Monday, pushing through a law meant to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from dairy farms and landfills. "You know, when Noah wanted to build his ark, most of the people laughed at him?" Brown said, per the Sacramento Bee, adding that that ark saved Earth's species. "We've got to build our ark, too, by stopping ... dangerous pollutants." Brown's approval of Senate Bill 1383 goes after short-lived climate pollutants, which include methane, black carbon, and HFC gases, per the AP. Although these gases don't linger in the atmosphere, they still make people sick and hasten global warming due to their heat-trapping ability, per Reuters. "We're protecting people's lungs and their health," Brown said, per Courthouse News. One of the main methane culprits: manure. Per the bill, dairy farmers have to cut methane emissions to 40% below 2013 levels by 2030. Under a cap-and-trade plan, farmers will receive aid from the $50 million or so raised via polluter fees, which they can then put toward machinery that uses methane to create energy they can in turn sell to electric companies. The state's Air Resources Board can also now regulate bovine flatulence, as long as there are practical ways to reduce the cows' belching and breaking wind. Under the bill, emissions from HFCs also must be reduced by 40% from 2013 levels by 2030, while black carbon emissions will have to get to 50% below those levels by the same year. Composting also has to go up by 50% within four years to curb methane from organic waste. The state's head of the National Federation of Independent Business rails against the "arbitrary" limits and says they're a "direct assault on California's dairy industry," per the AP.
– Bullied kids are at greater risk of a range of psychological problems years later, a study suggests. "Psychological damage doesn’t just go away because a person grew up and is no longer bullied," says a researcher. And that applies to both sexes, the study finds, challenging earlier research that suggested the long-term toll was more pronounced among girls. This study referred to "a much richer data set," researchers say. "We were actually able to say being a victim of bullying is having an effect a decade later." Children in North Carolina joined the study at age nine, 11, or 13. Researchers collected data by interviewing the kids and their parents, following 1,270 of them into adulthood, the Globe and Mail reports. Victims had "higher levels of depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, generalized anxiety, panic disorder, and agoraphobia," the study says. They suffered 4.3 times the anxiety disorder risk of children with no bullying in their pasts, the New York Times reports. Bullies themselves faced a higher risk of antisocial personality disorders, while male victims and bullies faced 18.5 times the risk of suicidal thoughts.
– One of the three suspects in the London Bridge attack was known to police. Khuram Shazad Butt, who may have had links to jihadist group Al-Muhajiroun, had been the subject of a Metropolitan Police investigation beginning in 2015. However, the investigation was "prioritized in the lower echelons" because "there was no intelligence to suggest that this attack was being planned," a rep tells the BBC. A man and a woman living in east London had both contacted police about Butt, with the woman suggesting he had tried to radicalize her children. According to the Times, Butt had links to both radical Islamic preacher Anjem Choudary and Mohammad Sidique Khan, who planned the 2005 London bombings. Khan worked at an Ilford fitness center that Butt, a 27-year-old father of two, would frequent to try and radicalize youth, the Times reports. Butt also appeared in a 2016 Channel 4 documentary about Islamist extremists with ties to Choudary. He was seen arguing with police after carrying an Islamic State flag. Yet Butt still managed to get a job with the London Underground. The UK citizen born in Pakistan served as a trainee customer service assistant for almost six months in 2016, per the BBC. "People are going to look at the front pages today and they are going to say 'how on earth could we have let this guy—or possible more—through the net,'" Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson says, per Buzzfeed. Police previously identified Rachid Redouane, 30, who claimed to be Moroccan and Libyan, as another of the attackers. On Tuesday, they named the third: Youssef Zaghba, 22, believed to an Italian national of Moroccan descent, reports the AP. Neither he nor Redouane appeared to be on police radar prior to the attack.
– Beach lovers in the Outer Banks of North Carolina got a surprise treat this season when a new island surfaced at the tip of surfing and fishing hotspot Cape Point. According to the Virginian-Pilot, an 11-year-old boy dubbed it "Shelly Island" for the abundance of seashells found in the sand, while his grandmother described the new formation as “just a little bump” in April. The "little bump" now stretches a mile long and “three football fields wide,” and the newspaper reports that OBX’s ever-shifting coast means the new island could either disappear or grow even bigger by next year depending on storms and currents. But local experts warn that getting to the island can be dangerous and that beach-goers should not attempt to walk or swim there because of unsafe rip currents. In fact, the News & Observer of Raleigh reports that such currents have claimed the lives of four people off the North Carolina coast since June 10. Other concerns include old fishing hooks lurking below the sand and sea creatures surrounding the new formation, including five-foot long sharks and enormous sting rays. “We’re worried about shark bites,” says North Carolina Beach Buggy Association president Bill Smith, “but we’re more worried about drownings.” (Another Outer Banks beach ranked third in 2017’s best list).
– Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe says he is resigning immediately and voluntarily in order to have a "smooth transfer of power" after 37 years in charge. The news came via a letter that was read out to a cheering, dancing parliament, which had been pursuing impeachment of the 93-year-old Mugabe, the world's oldest head of state, reports the AP. How big a deal is this? CNN provides context: Zimbabwe got its independence from Britain in 1980, and Mugabe has been the only ruler the people have had that entire time; he had vowed to rule until his death. USA Today reports that citizens put photos of Mugabe in the street to be run over by cars. More: Background: The resignation comes at the end of a week of extraordinary events that began with the military moving in last week, angered by Mugabe's firing of his longtime deputy and the positioning of the unpopular first lady to succeed him. Impeachment allegations against Mugabe included that he "allowed his wife to usurp constitutional power" and that he is "of advanced age" and too incapacitated to rule. Mugabe also was accused of allowing first lady Grace Mugabe to threaten to kill the recently fired Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa and other officials.
– A missed chance? Oregon mass shooter Christopher Harper-Mercer was kicked out of the military for trying to kill himself, but that didn't affect his ability to buy guns, law enforcement sources tell the Wall Street Journal. An Army spokeswoman tells the BBC that Harper-Mercer, who was 26 at the time of last week's rampage, was discharged in 2008 after less than a month in basic training, but under privacy rules, the reason cannot be disclosed. He did not receive a dishonorable discharge, which, under federal law, would have prevented him from buying firearms, the Journal reports. The six firearms Harper-Mercer was found with at Umpqua Community College were legally purchased by him or a relative. Harper-Mercer's rampage was the deadliest in the US in two years, and police say it could have been even worse if not for the heroic actions of two plainclothes officers who arrived at the scene, reports Reuters. Police say Sgt. Joe Kaney and Detective Todd Spingath, who were not wearing bulletproof vests, ran at the gunman as he stood in the doorway of a campus building, shooting at them with a handgun. Harper-Mercer was wounded in an exchange of fire and retreated before killing himself in the same classroom where he had killed a teacher and students, the New York Times reports. "These men saved lives this day," the local DA says. "They were under fire, and they ran toward it." (The gunman left behind writings complaining about his lack of a girlfriend.)
– Gallup is out with its annual rankings of "well-being" in various communities, based on surveys of residents that encompass everything from jobs to physical and emotional health to community safety. The results: Provo, Utah, comes in at No. 1, while Huntington, W. Va., finishes last among 189 cities, reports USA Today. The top 10 cities in the survey: Provo-Orem, Utah Boulder, Colo. Fort Collins-Loveland, Colo. Honolulu San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif. Ann Arbor, Mich. Naples-Marco Island, Fla. San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, Calif. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, Calif. Lincoln, Neb. The cities with the worst well-being: Huntington-Ashland, W.Va.-Ky.-Ohio Charleston, W.Va. Redding, Calif. Spartanburg, S.C. Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, N.C. Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas Columbus, Ga., Ala. Shreveport-Bossier City, La. Mobile, Ala. Evansville, Ind.-Ky. The full report is at Healthways.com.
– Hillary Clinton returned to Yale University this weekend, warning the graduating class of the "tumultuous times" that await them—and then using the school's tradition of over-the-top headwear to rib President Trump with her own unusual hat: a Russian fur cap. The audience laughed as she said, "If you can't beat them, join them," reports the AP. She also emphasized resilience in the face of failure, notes CNBC. "Everyone gets knocked down, what matters is whether you get up and keep going," Clinton said. "This may be hard for a group of Yale soon-to-be graduates to accept, but yes, you will make mistakes in life, you will even fail, it happens to all of us no matter how qualified and capable we are. Take it from me." Clinton delivered her address at Yale's Class Day, celebrated the Sunday before degrees are handed out.
– Barack Obama has been quietly meeting with a number of possible Democratic contenders for the 2020 presidential race, multiple sources tell Politico and CNN. Potential candidates including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, and Deval Patrick have had one-on-one sitdowns with the former president at his Washington office in recent months, though, sources say, the subject of the 2020 race hasn't come up in many of the conversations. Rather, Obama is eager to discuss the Democratic Party's prospects in both the midterms and the 2020 election and how those prospects can be improved in order to push back against President Trump and his policies, and is looking to act as a "sounding board" for those likely to play a large role in the party's future. Obama will, however, offer his opinion on campaigns and campaigning against Trump specifically, and his help getting donors and party VIPs to return calls. Obama has also met with Cory Booker, Eric Garcetti, Eric Holder, and lesser-known potential 2020 candidates including former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu; South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Peter Buttigieg; and former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander. Democratic leaders who aren't presidential candidates have been to his office as well, including Harry Reid and multiple senators; Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and the DNC chair have spoken to him by phone. Obama has even had conversations with Republicans including John McCain and Trump critic Jeff Flake. Politico notes that donors and others in the party have hoped Obama would take a more public anti-Trump stance, and though he has not done that yet, privately he's urging contributions to the DNC. He is also planning to campaign starting in the fall, initially focusing on down-ballot races. He is not expected to endorse a 2020 presidential candidate until a nominee has emerged.
– Mike Huckabee is throwing his hat in the ring—again. The former governor of Arkansas today announced "I am a candidate for president of the United States of America" at the University of Arkansas Community College, in his hometown of Hope—which also happens to be the birthplace of Bill Clinton, USA Today reports. "Every day in my life in politics was a fight," Huckabee says in a video set to introduce him. "But any drunken redneck can walk into a bar and start a fight. A leader only starts a fight that he's prepared to finish." The video also notes Huckabee's ability to rise above "Bill Clinton's Arkansas," includes visuals of both Bill and Hillary Clinton, and describes his plan for a "maximum wage" for workers, per the AP. How his entrance is being framed: RealClearPolitics has Huckabee currently sitting sixth out of 14 current and potential GOP presidential candidates. Writing for the Washington Post, Karen Tumulty notes a few things in Huckabee's favor (he's a "gifted communicator" with solid name recognition), but sees the path as challenging. Though he won the 2008 Iowa caucuses, his funds soon petered out, and this time he'll face "credible" opponents, some of whom "are challenging him for the financial and political support of conservative Christians." At the New York Times, Trip Gabriel frames 2008 as the easier race. "The biggest question in voters' minds about Mr. Huckabee ... may be why he has returned to the fray. Although American politics is full of stories of the ultimate triumph of also-rans, from Richard M. Nixon to Ronald Reagan, Mr. Huckabee would seem to face greater obstacles than during his first presidential campaign, when he battled only a couple of rivals for the party's conservative base." How an NPR headline puts it: "Can Huckabee Overcome the 'New Car Smell' of Other Candidates?"
– Amid the "did she or didn't she" debate surrounding Beyonce's alleged lip-syncing of the national anthem on Inauguration Day, Anderson Cooper has weighed in on the side of "so what," reports Mediaite. "I’m releasing a statement right now saying I just don’t care," the CNN host said on the "Ridiculist" portion of his show. "We got to look at Beyonce's beautiful face and hear Beyonce's beautiful voice singing the national anthem." "There is only one thing we should say today and that is thank you, Beyonce," Cooper added. "Francis Scott Key himself would send her a fruit basket." Another defender was Piers Morgan, who tweeted that Beyonce "still sang the American national anthem better than anyone I've ever heard," E! Online reports. "Beyonce still SANG it, everyone. It was HER voice," he told critics. A spokesman for the US Marine Corps Band, which first raised the issue, now says that while the band's performance was pre-recorded, he's not sure about Beyonce's.
– One more sign that when Jeb Bush says he is "actively exploring" a presidential run in 2016, it means the formal announcement is just a matter of time: He has resigned from all his boards and continues to "shed business interests" ahead of a primary fight, reports the Washington Post. “This is a natural next step that will allow him to focus his time on gauging interest for a potential run," says his spokeswoman. The Post singles out one business connection in particular that opponents might have seized upon to sully his image as an education reformer: He had been a paid adviser for Academic Partnerships, a for-profit education firm that sells online courses to public universities. As the Post writes, "some faculty members say it siphons money from the schools while asserting too much control over academic decisions." Meanwhile, Bush also rejected an invitation from Rep. Steve King to speak at the Iowa Freedom Summit later this month. Bush cited a scheduling conflict, though the AP notes it could have been politically dicey: King is a vocal critic of immigration reform, while Bush is an advocate.
– Obama continued his campaign to woo Congresspeople to his second-term agenda today, inviting Republican Senators Saxby Chambliss and Bob Corker, and Democrat Senator Mark Udall, out for a round of golf at St Andrews Air Force Base, the New York Times reports. The White House acknowledged Obama's dates weren't just chosen for their killer chip shots (though they are some of Washington's best golfers, notes the Christian Science Monitor), Politico reports. "He’s willing to try anything," said the White House press secretary. "And whether it’s a conversation on the phone or a meeting in the Oval Office or dinner in a restaurant or dinner in the residence, he's going to have the same kinds of conversations."
– It doesn't get much more down-to-the-wire than this: Warren Hill had already taken an Ativan to calm himself for his imminent death last night. But the convicted Georgia murderer was granted a stay of execution just 30 minutes before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection, the Guardian reports. Hill, 53, also saw a scheduled execution halted last year, but this time around things are different: Now every medical expert who has evaluated him agrees he is mentally retarded, including three experts who initially refused to diagnose him as such in 2000. They recanted last week, admitting their work had been sloppy. That would seem to satisfy Georgia's near-impossible and unusual requirement that a prisoner's mental retardation be proved "beyond a reasonable doubt." Still, earlier in the day, the state parole board, the Supreme Court of Georgia, and the US Supreme Court all declined to stop the execution. It was the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals whose judges agreed to further investigate Hill's mental status. Writing for the Atlantic, Andrew Cohen hopes this case reaches the high court. That's because Hill "presents the justices with an opportunity to strengthen—to save, really—the letter and the spirit" of their 2002 ruling that established that mentally retarded prisoners should not be executed, he writes. "In that case, they tried to be all things to all people. It was a mistake. Even as they announced a national standard, the justices announced that states could weasel out of the new rule by identifying for themselves who is and who is not mentally retarded."
– If you thought Julianne Moore's Sarah Palin was terrifying in the first Game Change teaser, wait until you see her in the full trailer, where she utters lines such as, "We have to win this thing. I so don’t want to go back to Alaska." Watch below, then read on for some reactions: This will clearly be "a Frankenstein-esque story about McCain’s staffers coming to regret the choice they made in bringing a little-known governor into the limelight," writes Jon Bershad at Mediaite. "The full trailer ... gives us even more famous actors getting their turn to stare in horror at the 'monster' they’ve created." "Regardless of the final outcome and how the film is received, hats off to the Game Change makeup department for making Ed Harris and Julianne Moore look so much like McCain and Palin that it's scary," writes Madeleine Davies on Jezebel. I'm With Kanye keeps it brief: "Please, go ahead and give Julianne Moore the Emmy now." Moore certainly does a good job, "but we can't shake this feeling that Woody Harrelson, as McCain campaign hand Steve Schmidt, will very quietly end up walking away with Moore's movie," writes Ray Gustini on the Atlantic Wire. HBO's second teaser is also included in the gallery. Click for the first Game Change teaser.
– The private security firm that used to be known as Blackwater is up for sale, after a recent name change to Xe Services failed to cure its dismal reputation. Founder Erik Prince has put the company on the block, saying improvements since the disastrous shootout at a Baghdad intersection in 2007 should have put the company back in the good graces of the US government, but they haven't. “Performance doesn’t matter in Washington, just politics,” he complains in a statement given to the AP. Xe is still dogged by the five former execs facing weapons charges, a Justice Department inquiry into attempts to bribe Iraqi officials, and ongoing manslaughter cases against its former guards for the 2007 shooting spree, in which 17 Iraqi civilians died, the New York Times notes. While Xe Services has already sold off its aviation division, the lucky buyer will get the company's 7,000-acre compound in North Carolina, featuring shooting ranges and other military and law enforcement training facilities.
– Stephen Bannon expressed regret Sunday for the explosive statements he made about Donald Trump Jr. that were quoted in the just-released book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. Reversing a comment he made in Michael Wolff's book that Trump Jr.'s 2016 meeting with Russians was "treasonous," Bannon begins his statement, first made to Axios, by calling the president's oldest son "both a patriot and a good man," the Washington Post reports. Bannon goes on to say that the quote was the result of "inaccurate reporting" and that he wasn't actually speaking about Trump Jr. at all, but rather former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, a "seasoned campaign professional" who should have known that the Russians are "duplicitous, cunning and not our friends." Bannon's comments have resulted in very public falling-out between the former senior White House aide and the man he helped get elected to the White House. After news of the comments broke last week, President Trump began calling Bannon "Sloppy Steve" on Twitter, and saying the Breitbart head had been "dumped like a dog by almost everyone." Bannon's apology comes just hours after his former protégé and current White House senior adviser Stephen Miller called Bannon's comments "grotesque," "out of touch," and "obviously so vindictive" on CNN.
– Robin Thicke got the cops involved in the custody dispute between himself and ex Paula Patton, TMZ reports. After the couple's 6-year-old son told his mother and his school that Thicke spanks him painfully, the LA County Department of Children and Family Services opened an investigation. Patton also filed for an emergency order asking that Thicke be limited to monitored daytime visits with Julian; on Thursday, a judge denied that request. But when Thicke tried to get a hold of Patton to take Julian for an overnight visit Thursday, she went "radio silent," per TMZ, and on Friday, Thicke, who says he has not had physical contact with Julian since Dec. 31, showed up at her Malibu home with LA County Sheriff's deputies. But, though the court custody order allows Thicke access to Julian, Patton refused to send him out and deputies didn't force him to come out. TMZ says they went inside the home and spoke to the boy, who reportedly said he was scared of Thicke and didn't want to leave with him. The incident was caught on video obtained by TMZ, though Thicke himself is out of frame and cannot be seen in the video. Deputies assure Patton that they will not take a child against his will. "Basically we had a call to respond for a civil matter," a sheriff's department rep tells Us. "No action was taken on our part, no report was written. It was completely civil." But a rep for the department does confirm to People that the incident "involved a child not wanting to go with someone." (Also in a custody battle: Uma Thurman.)
– Jaxton Leo Zanger entered the world on April 8, making Leo and Ruth Zanger the happiest grandparents in the world—for the 100th time. "The good Lord has just kept sending them," Leo Zanger says, per the Quincy Herald-Whig. "We could start our own town." Jaxton is technically their 46th great-grandchild, but the couple from Quincy, Ill., had been hoping to reach the 100 mark by adding to the clan of 53 grandkids, 45 great-grandkids, and one great-great-grandchild they already had, Today.com reports. "There was one born in March and it was kind of a race [to get to 100]," Leo tells Today.com. "We just love them all." The Zangers, who recently celebrated their 59th wedding anniversary, have 12 children ranging in age from 31 to 58; Donna Lane, one of Leo and Ruth's daughters, serves as unofficial family historian and event planner. And planning an event for the entire Zanger family is no small feat: The group congregates for five "mandatory" holidays—Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day, and Father's Day—for which they order up to 50 pounds of ham or 10 turkeys, per the Herald-Whig. Because their size could violate fire codes, they typically rent out church halls for their get-togethers, notes Fox 13 Utah. In addition to every gathering morphing into a major bash, there's another benefit of such a large family: no petty competition among brothers and sisters. "We don't have issues with sibling rivalry because our parents encouraged us to work things out and be close," Lane tells Yahoo Parenting. But even though the Zangers are celebrating Jaxton's birth, they're ready to break that nice round number. "There's always room for one more," Ruth says, per the Herald-Whig. (Things are more dramatic for this famous large family.)
– First came Dustin Moskovitz's "historically large donation" of $20 million last month to stop Donald Trump from reaching the Oval Office. Then the Facebook co-founder ponied up another $5 million in mid-October to a Hillary Clinton super PAC (as well as $10 million more to other political advocacy and nonpartisan efforts), per Forbes. This nabbed the 32-year-old billionaire the No. 1 spot on the list of Democrat mega-donors and has him now serving, as Politico frames it, as an antidote to GOP bigwigs like Sheldon Adelson. But while Moskovitz's donations have generated much excitement within the Democratic Party, others are concerned his "unicorn-type" gifts may simply be a one-time occurrence, not a signifier of a deeper trend of tech titans stepping up to help out the party. Moskovitz's sudden political interest has thrown many for a loop, with Politico noting a few Democrat officials it contacted replied "Who?" when his name was mentioned. Moskovitz himself has been publicly stoic: He wouldn't talk to Politico about his donations; the only public references he's made were in two Medium posts, including the latest one in which he noted "further investments are warranted" and that "the events of the past few weeks have only deepened my conviction that Hillary is the best choice for America." Politico adds the operatives it talked to think Moskovitz's abrupt aggressiveness on the political front may be completely Trump-driven. His recent Twitter feed alone appears to validate that—he's been retweeting pro-Hillary messages and trashing Trump, including calling him a "demagogon" in reference to the Stranger Things creature.
– Zsa Zsa Gabor is back in the hospital—this time to have her right leg amputated below the knee. The actress, who was in and out of the hospital last year after a fall that led to hip surgery, has a cancerous lesion on her leg that turned gangrenous, husband Frederic Prinz von Anhalt told Reuters. He says that when doctors told her the leg must be amputated, she started "screaming and yelling" about wanting to be home for New Year's Eve to enjoy her champagne and caviar. She was being prepped for surgery last night. Click for more, including the blood clot doctors discovered last year.
– Byron McKaig was a devoted husband until the very end. The 81-year-old Anglican priest perished alongside his 90-year-old wife, Gladys, in central California's Lake Isabella wildfire last week, and a neighbor tells the Los Angeles Times that he appears to have died trying to protect his wife. Bill Johnson found their bodies next to a fence near the burning remains of their home. "They were together, like he was blocking her from the fire," says Johnson. "It made me sick because immediately I saw and knew exactly what had happened—that they were alive and ran out of this burning inferno and got stuck, and that was where they ended." Officials say the McKaigs were overcome by smoke, and they appear to have been the only people killed by the massive blaze, which destroyed around 200 homes, KPCC reports. The fire is still only 40% contained, and authorities warn that there could be more destruction if winds blow it back toward populated areas. "There's still more threats out there," fire Chief Brian Marshall tells the AP. "This is going to go down as the most destructive wildfire in Kern County history." He says the residents of the communities surrounding Lake Isabella, including many elderly people, had little warning when the fire suddenly swept in on Thursday and some of them barely escaped with their lives. Weather.com reports that the fire, which authorities hope to have fully contained by Thursday, has become so huge that the blaze and plumes of smoke are clearly visible in images from space. (One odd new tool in the study of wildfires: rattlesnakes.)
– What would you say if you were about to be executed? There's a good chance your last words would be on the positive side. At least that was the case for 407 death row inmates executed between 1982 and 2015 in Texas, according to a new study published in Frontiers in Psychology. German researchers compared the inmates' final statements to a database of written and spoken content from more than 23,000 people, along with samples from students told to think about their own deaths and real suicide notes. The result: "The inmates’ last words contained a significantly higher proportion of positive words," New York reports. And that, according to the study authors, reflects "the emotional processes of coping with mortality" by "maintaining self-esteem and acquiring meaning in life." The findings fall within the framework of "Terror Management Theory," which claims that people use a "wide range of cognitive and behavioral efforts" to reduce anxiety in the face of impending death. For instance, one of the final statements used in the study read in part: “Even though I lay on this gurney, seconds away from my death, I am at total peace. May the Lord Jesus Christ be with me. ... I am still a proud American, Texas loud, Texas proud." Others turned to their families, who may or may not have been present at executions. "I love my family," said one, per Yahoo. "It’s my hour. It’s my hour. I love you. Stay strong." Another said he hoped his death would bring "closure or some type of peace" to family members, adding, "This has been a long journey, one of enlightenment. It’s not the end, it’s only the beginning." (A witness tries to explain what it's like to watch an execution.)
– Cooling caps are massively popular with European chemo patients and have been making inroads into the US, but two studies published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association offer some of the first clinical proof of their effectiveness. In one study, approximately two-thirds of breast cancer patients lost less than half their hair; in the other study, approximately half of breast cancer patients lost less than half their hair. The New York Times reports 5% of patients kept all their hair. The differences in effectiveness between the studies could have to do with the cooling caps being used, the medical centers applying the caps, and the chemo drugs involved, according to HealthDay News. The studies were funded by two different companies that manufacture cooling caps. Cooling caps are affixed to patients' heads before, during, and after chemo; a machine cycles cooling liquid through the caps. While researchers aren't exactly sure how the caps prevent hair loss, NPR reports, one theory is they restrict blood vessels in the scalp, reducing the amount of chemo that reaches the hair follicles. About half of breast cancer patients say hair loss is the most daunting part of chemo, and 8% say they would turn down chemo in order to keep their hair. One breast cancer survivor who used a cooling cap says it has psychological benefits. She tells the Times that losing their hair makes people "think they're sicker than they actually are." (A dose of magic mushrooms had a big effect on cancer patients.)
– Venezuela has booted two US diplomats after accusing them of espionage and plotting to destabilize the country. With Hugo Chavez clinging to life, it was Vice President Nicolas Maduro who today announced the government's move. He said one of the Americans, identified as an Air Force attache named David Delmonaco, had been meeting with military officers, spying on the military, and plotting against the government, reports the AP. Venezuela later said a second Air Force attache, still unidentified, also was being expelled on espionage charges. That wasn't all the bluster from Maduro in comments made to reporters today, notes CNN: He asserted that the "scientific proof" would one day emerge to prove that Chavez was poisoned by "the historical enemies of our heartland." He likened the poisoning to what happened to Yasser Arafat. (Update: Maduro announced the death of Chavez hours after making the accusations.)
– A “mommy blogger” made quite an Internet stir with a recent post defending her 5-year-old son’s decision to cross-dress on Halloween. She recounts how, when he showed up at his church pre-school dressed as Daphne from Scooby Doo, a group of mothers immediately “went wide-eyed and made faces as if they smelled decomp,” then made sure to air their “concerns” to her. Her bottom line: “If you think that me allowing my son to be a female character for Halloween is somehow going to ‘make’ him gay then you are an idiot.” “Firstly, what a ridiculous concept,” she continues. “Secondly, if my son is gay, OK. I will love him no less. Thirdly, I am not worried that your son will grow up to be an actual ninja so back off.” She’s gotten quite a bit of support, but the post also spurred controversy—partially because she titled it “My Son Is Gay,” even though “the post really isn’t about gayness per se,” writes Richard Lawson on Gawker. “Her critics say that she's too early, and maybe too giddily, assigning labels that really don't have any weight when your child is so young.” Click here to read a similar essay by a dad.
– Expectations were high going into Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco today, and the company didn't disappoint, rolling out a dramatic refresh of its MacBook Pro, and a new version of iOS brimming with new features. Here are the most important details: The New Macbook Pro It's just 0.71 inches thick, and lighter than all previous MacBooks, CNET reports. It'll come with a 15.4-inch Retina display—Jonathan Ive said Apple took an "entirely new approach" to building the display, according to the Wall Street Journal. Under the hood it will have quad-core processors, up to 16 GB of RAM, and up to 768 GB of Flash storage, with a 7-hour battery life. But all of that won't come cheap: It'll cost $2,199. iOS6 Siri is getting a major upgrade; it'll now be able to read you sports scores, make reservations at OpenTable, buy movie tickets at Fandango, open apps, and more, according to Gizmodo. Siri will also now be available on the iPad 2 and 3. Facebook will be fully integrated. You'll be able to access it from apps, Siri, and more. A new app called "Passbook" will handle your movie and plane tickets; go to the theater and they'll pop up on the lock screen. The maps app has been completely revamped. It now includes turn-by-turn directions, will feature anonymous, crowd-sourced traffic data, and an incredible flyover view, comprised of images from helicopters. The Journal points out that Apple bought C3's military-grade mapping tech. Facetime will now be available through cell networks, not just on WiFi. Other Tidbits OS X Mountain Lion is coming next month for $19.99. It'll make your computer act more like a phone, and have voice dictation. The Macbook Air is getting a $100 price cut, and an upgrade. Tim Cook touted it as the one true ultrabook. "Everyone's trying to copy it, but they're finding it's not so easy," he said, according to ZDNet.
– It's been a year since 8-year-old Relisha Rudd was last seen on hotel surveillance video and reported missing, and while there has been a lot of peripheral drama surrounding the case, no clear steps have been made toward finding the girl. At the time, Relisha had been living in a room with her mother, Shamika Young, her mother's longtime boyfriend, Antonio Wheeler, and her three brothers at DC General, a homeless shelter in Washington, DC. Relisha apparently disliked the shelter so much that she was allowed to stay with relatives and even a shelter janitor, Kahlil Tatum, who was the last person to see her alive and who weeks later took his own life, reports Al Jazeera. Still, detectives have found no trace of Relisha, and no evidence linking Tatum to her disappearance, though court documents show he may have been posing as a doctor to excuse her repeatedly from school. And while some have blamed the police for not doing enough to find her, or Young for raising her daughter in the environment she did, others say it's time to refocus on finding Relisha. One of Young's ardent supporters, Brenda Brown, organized a church service yesterday to "do a revival for this girl," reports the Washington Post. "People are focusing on the wrong things," she says. "People are focusing on the innocence or guilt of the mother. Let's take that energy and focus on finding that child." (Tatum shot himself in the head in a park a month after Relisha's disappearance.)
– The number of women locked up in jails around the country is increasing at a level not matched by the male jail population, according to a report released by the MacArthur Foundation and Vera Institute. The Guardian reports there were 14 times more women in US jails in 2014 than in 1970. Most of the increase comes from jails in small, rural counties, where incarceration rates for women nearly doubled between 2000 and 2014, according to the New York Times. The number of women in jail in the most populous counties actually declined during that time. One of the report's authors tells NPR the reason may be that rural counties lack resources besides jail for women with mental illnesses and other issues. The report found about one-third of jailed women have a serious mental illness—approximately double the rate for jailed men. Women are also two-thirds of the victims of sexual abuse by jail staff despite being only 13% of the jail population. For these and other reasons, the report's authors conclude jailed women are more vulnerable than their male counterparts. Furthermore, they are largely jailed for minor infractions that don't impact public safety, such as failing to appear in court for a citation. There were about 110,000 women in jail on misdemeanor charges in 2014. Meanwhile, the number of men in jail—not to mention the overall crime rate—has been declining.
– In a galaxy not far enough away... an evangelical is criticizing the gay and lesbian relationships in a Star Wars video game, Raw Story reports. Tony Perkins, who leads the Family Research Council, wrote a post condemning Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic: "In a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists! ... Star Wars gamers have already gone to the dark side" by adding "a special feature: gay relationships.” Perkins claims that some 300 posts are on the game's website, "a lot of them expressing anger that their kids will be exposed to this Star Warped way of thinking." But Raw Story couldn't find 300, and saw few if any angry ones. (One gamer wanted the option of bisexual characters "for those of us who want a lot of action.") Bioware notes that gay and lesbian relationships aren't currently in the massively multiplayer online game, but will be with future content expansions.
– George Takei and Richard Dreyfuss are the latest stars to be accused in Hollywood's sexual harassment scandal: Scott R. Brunton, a former model and actor, says when he was 23 and living in Hollywood in 1981 he met Takei at a bar. They exchanged numbers and spoke here and there, and Takei eventually invited him to dinner and a show after Brunton and his boyfriend broke up. Brunton and Takei went back to Takei's condo for drinks, and after the second one, Brunton says he felt "very disoriented and dizzy" and soon passed out. "The next thing I remember I was coming to and he had my pants down around my ankles and he was groping my crotch and trying to get my underwear off and feeling me up at the same time, trying to get his hands down my underwear," Brunton tells the Hollywood Reporter. He says he told Takei to stop and left. Four of Brunton's friends confirm he told them the story after it happened. Takei's rep said the Star Trek actor was not available for comment. LA-based writer Jessica Teich says she was a researcher and junior writer on one of Dreyfuss's projects in the mid-1980s, when she was in her 20s. Dreyfuss, 12 years her senior and married with a child, asked her to meet him in his trailer one day and she arrived to find him with his penis out and erect, "and he sort of tried to draw me close to it," she tells Vulture. She left, and over the next few years, "he created a very hostile work environment, where I felt sexualized, objectified, and unsafe." She says he made lewd comments and tried to kiss her, among other things; once, during a work trip to DC, she says he "told me he’d spent the night with his ear next to the wall, listening to my movements in my hotel room." Dreyfuss responded to Teich's story, saying he was "an asshole" back then and "flirted with all women," but he "emphatically" denies exposing himself to Teich. He says he believed they were engaging in a "consensual seduction ritual that went on and on for many years" and is "horrified" to learn otherwise. Dreyfuss's son, Harry, is one of the Kevin Spacey accusers.
– The Clay County Sheriff's Office in northern Florida has been busy in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, but one emergency call over the weekend has gotten more attention than the rest: a bald eagle stuck in the grille of a car. Local police and fire and rescue were able to remove the bird without incident and turn it over to the nearby Bird Emergency Aid and Kare Sanctuary, whose owner, Cynthia Mosling, says the 7-year-old male will be released if all looks good post-checkup, reports CNN. He's been dubbed Matthew, after the storm. Mosling, who herself had evacuated inland earlier in the week, says a driver saw a weird shape at an intersection in the grille of an oncoming car, but then noticed that it was moving and chased after the car. After telling the driver there was a bird in his grille, they called 911. Rescuers think the eagle likely flew into the parked car's grille while chasing prey, reports 6 ABC. The sheriff's office says "great job by all involved" in a Facebook post that includes several photos of the rescue. (After post-WWII pesticides sent bald eagles to the brink of extinction, one might have been born in Manhattan for the first time in a century.)
– Cancer death rates are down overall, the American Cancer Society says, falling 1.8% among men and 1.6% among women between 2004 and 2008. Rates have dropped across all ethnic groups except American Indians and Alaskan natives, the Los Angeles Times notes. But the incidence of some types of the disease is climbing, and the Wall Street Journal has details: Cancers of the oropharynx—around the back of the throat—tied to human papillomavirus are climbing, though oropharyngeal cancers unrelated to HPV are dropping, perhaps thanks to declining smoking rates. Esophageal adenocarcinoma is rising in white and Hispanic men, and pancreatic, liver, and kidney cancer are all up, with a possible link to obesity. The most dangerous skin cancer, melanoma, is rising in women of all ages and older white males, while thyroid cancer is increasing in all ethnic groups apart from American Indian and Alaska native men. Meanwhile, cancer mortality rates among young adults 15-39 haven't gotten any better, CBS News notes. "Young adults don't get cancers that are easily screened," says a survivor.
– Jason Chaffetz had a concise response to a Wednesday USA Today headline, which read "Obama's $400,000 speech could prompt Congress to go after his pension": "Yes, it will." That speech, one Obama will make at a Cantor Fitzgerald conference, is earning him some heat, prompting Chaffetz, chair of the House Oversight Committee, to pull up a bill Obama vetoed last summer that would've slashed ex-presidents' pensions once outside income hit $400,000. Chaffetz says Obama's veto of the Presidential Allowance Modernization Act, which he and Senate sponsor Joni Ernst say they'll re-up later in May, was "self-serving," and the former president's "hypocrisy ... is revealing," per USA Today. At the time, Intelligencer notes, Obama said he was opposed to suddenly leaving staffers of ex-presidents in the lurch, though he would've been open to "technical fixes" in the bill. Former presidents now take home a $207,800 pension, plus $150,000 for staff and office space; other benefits also boost costs. Chaffetz's bill strove to cap the total at $400,000: a $200,000 pension, $200,000 for expenses, and a dollar-by-dollar reduction of that total once an ex-president earns beyond $400,000. If they "want to go fishing in Utah for the rest of their lives," they'll be "well compensated," Chaffetz said in 2015, per USA Today, but if they're going to rack up big bucks, "taxpayers shouldn't have to subsidize them." No comment from a current Obama rep, though ex-White House spokesman Eric Schultz says any speech Obama gives will stay "true to his values, his vision, and his record"; President Trump has been mum. Pols on both sides of the aisle, however, seem open to such a measure, including Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, who co-sponsored the original bill. (Chaffetz is winding his governmental tenure down.)
– Robert Herweyer had much to look forward to. The 23-year-old had married in November, just moved into a new home with wife Joy, and was expecting his first child with her any day now. But a tragic accident cut all that short when the Michigan man died in a molasses tank at work late last month, per WOOD. Herweyer was helping to pump out a 12-foot-tall vat at Agri-Science Technologies in Saugatuck on the morning of July 26 when the molasses level got too low to reach the pump-out valve, a co-worker says. So Herweyer put on a pair of wading boots and a safety mask so he could descend into the tank via a forklift and straps and adjust the valve—but things started to go amiss once he had fixed the valve, MLive.com reports. The co-worker says Herweyer grabbed the straps to start the climb back out, but he suddenly stopped moving and wouldn't respond to his co-worker's yells. The co-worker ran to get their boss, who used an electric saw to cut into the tank and yank out Herweyer, who witnesses say had been submerged in the molasses. He's believed to have been under the syrupy liquid for at least four minutes. Although the sheriff's department hasn't yet issued an official cause of death, the ER physician who took Herweyer in said he had syrup in his lungs and had drowned. Michigan's OSHA is investigating the incident to make sure there were no workplace violations. Meanwhile, a GoFundMe page has raised more than $32,000 so far for Joy and their soon-to-arrive baby. (A North Carolina teen died in a wood chipper on his first day of work.)
– Tuareg rebels in Mali yesterday announced the creation of their own state called Azawad in the country's vast desert hinterland, reports the BBC, but with the African Union and neighboring countries firmly opposed to breaking up its member states, the chances of Azawad succeeding are "slim," notes the New York Times. Despite an absence of support for the Tuaregs' new country, Mali's disarray from the coup last month has left the state unable to re-take control over the Tuareg region any time soon. In a statement by the upstart Azawad government on its website (in French), the rebels proclaimed “irrevocably the independent state of Azawad, starting from this day, Friday April 6, 2012,” reports the Washington Post. But already there are signs infighting among the rebels, with one Islamist faction declaring it opposes independence because it is "not in the name of Islam." The Tuaregs, a nomadic people who have lived in the desert for hundreds of years, claim parts of Mali, Niger, and Algeria for Azawad.
– "It was like a horror movie," says a survivor of Portugal's deadliest fire on record, and like in a horror movie, she survived by finding a good hiding spot. The BBC reports Maria do Céu Silva and 11 others made it through the fearsome blaze by hiding for more than six hours in the water tank outside her home in Nodeirinho, which sits adjacent to the IC8 motorway that ended up littered with bodies of those trying to flee. Silva says the idea came to her after she was unable to get her 95-year-old disabled mother in a van to exit the area. More than 2,000 firefighters continue to battle the fires, one of which killed 62 people some 90 miles north of Lisbon, as authorities are coming under mounting criticism for not doing more to prevent the tragedy, reports the AP. Portugal's leading environmental lobby group, Quercus, issued a statement Monday blaming the blazes on "forest management errors and bad political decisions" over recent decades. The association rebuked authorities for allowing the planting of huge swathes of eucalyptus, the country's most common and most profitable species—but one that's often blamed for stoking blazes. Emergency services have been criticized for not closing a road where 47 of the deaths occurred as people fled the flames. Wildfires are an annual scourge in Portugal: Between 1993 and 2013, Portugal recorded the highest annual number of forest fires in southern Europe, per a 2016 report by the European Environment Agency. Reuters reports that police believe the blaze began when lightning hit a tree.
– Repealing a 21-year-old rule, defense secretary Ash Carter announced Thursday that all military combat positions will now be open to women, the New York Times reports. According to CNN, that includes about 220,000 jobs in reconnaissance, infantry, and more that had previously been open only to men. "Women will now be able to contribute to our mission in ways they could not before," Carter says. "They'll be able to drive tanks, give orders, lead infantry soldiers into combat." While the previous restrictions kept women from moving up the ranks as quickly as male counterparts, they often found themselves in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq anyway, the Times reports. “It’s a thrilling day for women serving in the military—and for women across the country,” the co-president of the National Women's Law Center says. Politico reports the Marine Corps was against the move, pointing to an internal study that "suggested" combat units that included women weren't as effective as entirely male units. But a Marine Corps study also found morale in integrated units was equal to all-male units, and sexual assault levels were no higher than in the Marines as a whole, according to the Times. Carter says a 50-50 gender split in combat roles is unlikely, as only a small number of women so far have met the "high physical standards" for certain units, CNN reports. He also says integration will not come at the "cost of combat effectiveness." "The military has long prided itself on being a meritocracy," Carter says.
– Three former USA Gymnastics teammates were arguing about sexual abuse and victim-shaming Thursday on Twitter, with Gabby Douglas responding and then later apologizing to Aly Raisman after being called out by Simone Biles, ET reports. "Just because a woman does a sexy photo shoot or wears a sexy outfit does not give a man the right to shame her or not believer her when she comes forward about sexual abuse," Raisman tweeted. "When a woman dresses sexy it does not give a man the right to sexually abuse her EVER." According to Sports Illustrated, Raisman opened up about being sexually abused by former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, who is currently jailed, earlier this month. Douglas replied to Raisman in a since-deleted tweet that "it is our responsibility as women to dress modestly and be classy. Dressing in a provocative/sexual way entices the wrong crowd." That earned a response tweet from Biles: "Shocks me that I’m seeing this but it doesn’t surprise me ... honestly seeing this brings me to tears [because] as your teammate I expected more from you. I support you Aly & all the other women out there!" Raisman's mother also responded, tweeting it is "devastating to see a post like that." On Friday night, Douglas apologized in a new tweet. "I didn't correctly word my reply & I am deeply sorry," the gymnast said. "Regardless of what you wear, abuse under any circumstances is never acceptable."
– Three women were allegedly found with more than $3 million worth of drugs hidden in bags of tea leaves Tuesday afternoon at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, the Chicago Sun Times reports. Authorities say nearly 70 pounds of opium and heroin were divided up into 470 tiny packets in their luggage. The three women are all US citizens from Minnesota, according to the Chicago Tribune. They arrived at O'Hare from Laos via a flight from Japan. True Thao, 52, Pa Yang, 57, and Mai Vue Vang, 58, have been charged with manufacturing or delivery of narcotics. They're currently being held on $50,000 bond.
– FBI agents and government lawyers treated Monica Lewinsky so disgracefully that even a prosecutor said it had an "unsettling effect on his own state of mind," according to a government report obtained by the Washington Post. The review conducted by government lawyers in 2000 describes how Lewinsky repeatedly asked to see a lawyer or parent after she was first confronted by authorities and was "crying, sobbing, regaining her composure, screaming" during the 12 hours in a hotel room that prosecutors spent trying to persuade her to wear a wire against Bill Clinton. They tried various strategies to discourage the "hysterical but very focused" 24-year-old from contacting her lawyer. Earlier this week, Lewinsky gave her own account of the 1998 encounter, describing how she was "ambushed" in a food court at a DC mall, how she was threatened with up to 27 years in prison if she didn't cooperate, and how authorities threatened to prosecute her mother as well. The report—which can be seen in full here—concludes that the actions of lawyers from Kenneth Starr's office fell short of professional misconduct, but the encounter "could have been handled better." It's not clear why it has been out of sight for 14 years, though most key players in the case, including Lewinsky, believed it had been sealed by the courts, the Post notes. On Monday, Lewinsky told a forum in Philadelphia that her new mission is to end cyberbullying, describing herself as "patient zero," reports CNN
– A Flint, Michigan, family is suing the city and several government officials after their young daughter tested positive for lead poisoning, NBC News reports. The family of Sophia Rodriguez Waid, who's now 2, say they moved out and spent scarce funds on remodeling their house to avoid contaminated water—but Sophia's lead level only rose. "We changed our whole life. We remodeled out home and lived in hotels and with family for months," says her dad, Luke Waid. "They threatened us with child protective services if (her lead level) didn't go down." But they say her level rose to 14 mg/dl (well past the danger line of 5) until they moved in with the sister of Luke's fiancee and drank from the sister's well. Sophia's lead level then declined, they say. But lead levels under 6 in children are known to curb development, harm organs, and cause behavioral and learning problems, the Detroit Free Press reports. "Even when these officials knew of a lead problem, they failed to act, thus resulting in an epidemic of lead poisoning," says Brian McKeen, one of the family's lawyers. "This child is but one of literally thousands of Flint residents who've been affected. ... They, like any parent have suffered tremendous anguish knowing that their child has been poisoned and faces an uncertain medical and developmental future." This is the first such lawsuit filed amid the city's ongoing water crisis, the lawyers say. Local officials and a lawyer representing Michigan haven't responded to the suit, which does not specify damages. (Even Flint-area dogs are turning up toxic.)
– At Nelson Mandela's memorial, President Obama shook hands with the Cuban president, and the media is in a tizzy about it. "The handshake between Obama and Raúl Castro makes the stomach turn," writes Mona Charen at the National Review. "The nature of the Cuban regime should be enough to cause our president to find some way to avoid a handshake." At Breitbart, Frances Martel lists activists in Cuba "whose plight President Obama willfully ignores and whose oppression he embraces as he embraces their oppressor." Republican lawmakers expressed their distaste, too, with Sen. Marco Rubio saying Obama should have asked Castro "about those basic freedoms Mandela was associated with that are denied in Cuba." John McCain pointed to Neville Chamberlain's handshake with Adolf Hitler, while Politico notes that Ted Cruz walked out of Mandela's memorial when Castro spoke. But at the Week, Jon Terbush says everyone needs to chill out about this "ridiculous faux-controversy": "The idea that the president should avoid this most basic form of decorum is absurd. Presidents routinely shake hands with world leaders with whom they disagree," he notes. The Obama-Castro handshake is hardly the only gesture riling pundits; there was also this selfie.
– If you were to pronounce Chrissy Teigen's last name as "Tie-gen," rather than "Tee-gen," there's a good chance she'd correct you, even though you're technically right. As the Lip Sync Battle host and wife of singer John Legend revealed in a Sunday tweet, people have been pronouncing her surname incorrectly for so long that she's just accepted it. While she plans to stick with the erroneous "Tee-gen" pronunciation, per Jezebel, Slate's Rachelle Hampton—whose first name is pronounced "Rae-chel, not Ra-shell"—urges people "to ask about pronunciation when even a little in doubt," seeing a larger issue faced by those with names not of Anglo-Saxon origin. They "not only have to constantly educate (or adapt, through shortening or anglicizing their names) in a society where non-Anglo names carry negative and often racist associations. They also have to choose whether to expend the extra emotional energy necessary to continually correct people when they repeatedly pronounce their name wrong—a subtle, unconscious sign of disrespect that is hard to articulate and exhausting to face," Hampton writes. Ariana Grande should understand. Last month, the singer revealed that she grew up pronouncing her surname not as "Grawn-day" but "Grand-ee," which she referred to as the "Americanized version," per E!
– CNN reporter Arwa Damon is known for venturing into war zones, but she may now be better known for her sharp teeth. Two EMTs at the US embassy in Baghdad, Tracy Lamar and Charles Simons, say in a $2 million lawsuit filed yesterday that a " seriously intoxicated" Damon bit them while they were treating her July 19, reports the New York Post. Embassy staff called the EMTs to pacify an "out of control" Damon, who had no authority to be on embassy grounds, adds the New York Daily News. Damon reportedly threatened the pair, and named-dropped herself as a "major reporter for CNN." The suit accuses CNN of continuing to employ Damon even though she’s reportedly abusive—and has a "penchant for violence even when sober," adds the Post. Damon has already apologized to embassy staff via email, which Gawker notes "begins like so many sorry-I-was-drunk-and-don't-remember-anything notes. 'Hey,' she writes. Hey." In it, Damon blames her "disastrous behavior" on a lack of "proper food all day. I clearly miscalculated how my body would handle the alcohol consumed. Needless to say, I am utterly mortified and take full responsibility for my actions, which are inexcusable." The EMTs' lawyer is already calling the email "Exhibit 1" in the suit.
– "Why does such a small mountain kill so many people?" That's the question Wes Siler, writing for Outside Online, set out to answer. The mountain is 6,288-foot-tall Mt. Washington, part of New Hampshire's White Mountain range, and since records began in 1849, some 150 people have died there. In February 2015, Kate Matrosova became one of them. Faced with winds of up to 140mph and a temperature of 35-below at the summit, the 32-year-old seasoned outdoorswoman died of exposure before rescuers could reach her. (The Boston Globe wrote about the tragedy in depth.) "God only knows why she didn't turn back," one of those rescuers, Steve Dupuis, tells Siler. The pair hiked Mt. Washington recently, and before they hit the trail, a state cop told them about Canadian Francois Carrier, who hadn't been seen since starting up the mountain earlier this month in flip-flops and a T-shirt. The search for Carrier has been suspended, WMTW reports. The day after it was called off, Siler notes, the temperature on the mountain was 20-below—and that's one part of the answer to the question of why Mt. Washington is so deadly. “Mount Washington sits at the intersection of several major stormtracks,” a weather observer says, which creates extreme, unpredictable weather. On May 16, gusts on the mountain reached 109mph, per NPR. (See video here.) The record, set in 1934, was 231mph. In addition to the weather, Siler writes, Mt. Washington consists of tough terrain, and the danger of avalanches and icefalls looms. Noting that the mountain, treacherous as it is, is easily accessible to inexperienced hikers, Siler comes to the conclusion that, "on Washington, it's lack of preparation, not the mountain, that kills." (The remains of a climber lost 16 years have been found in Tibet.)
– Bobbi Kristina Brown died as a result of having her face immersed in water, along with drug intoxication, though the official cause of death is pneumonia caused by those factors, according to a freshly unsealed autopsy report. The document—released by the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office on Friday, which would have been Brown's 23rd birthday, reports People—notes marijuana, alcohol, and sedation or anxiety drugs were a factor, per the AP and CBS News. The medical examiner couldn't determine if the death was accidental or intentional. The daughter of Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown was found unresponsive in a bathtub in her Atlanta home Jan. 31, 2015, and died in hospice care six months later. A judge ordered that the autopsy report be unsealed on Thursday after a motion by TEGNA Media, which cited the First Amendment. Authorities argued unsealing the report would reveal "sensitive information that could jeopardize the case," since police are still "actively pursuing leads," reports 11 Alive. The judge countered that authorities had months to file charges. (A lawsuit accuses Brown's boyfriend of murder.)
– On Thursday, the acting Homeland Security chief declared that federal relief efforts in Puerto Rico amounted to "a good news story in terms of our ability to reach people and the limited number of deaths that have taken place in such a devastating hurricane." On Friday, the mayor of San Juan begged to differ with Elaine Duke's assessment. "When you're drinking from a creek, it's not a good news story," Carmen Yulin Cruz told CNN, per the Hill. "When you don't have food for a baby, it's not a good news story." Cruz did praise the feds for getting "boots on the ground" and President Trump for calling, but she said the situation was increasingly dire for the 3 million Americans on the island struggling to find food and water. "Dammit, this is not a good news story," she said, per the Washington Post. "This is a people-are-dying story." Trump, meanwhile, took to Twitter Friday to defend the White House response. "Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello just stated: The Administration and the President, every time we've spoken, they've delivered," Trump wrote. The president thanked FEMA, the military, and all first responders, and added: "The fact is that Puerto Rico has been destroyed by two hurricanes. Big decisions will have to be made as to the cost of its rebuilding!" Part of the problem in Puerto Rico is that relief supplies are piling up at ports instead of being delivered as authorities deal with a blizzard of logistics.
– How's this for irony: Google+ is a Facebook competitor ... but its most popular user is none other than Mark Zuckerberg. Zuck hasn't even posted to Google+ yet, the Atlantic notes, but according to tracking service Social Statistics, he has amassed the most followers; in second is Larry Page. A peek at their Google+ profiles reveals that Zuck is nearing 35,000 followers (in Google+ lingo, 34,759 people "have Mark in circles"), while Page, who last posted on June 29, has nearly 24,000. Click for more on Google+.
– Customers love Subway's $5 Footlong deal; franchisees, not so much. That's why the chain's CEO has decided to let individual owners decide whether they want to offer the sandwich at that price to their customers, per USA Today. Trevor Haynes tells the paper that, after hearing complaints about how little franchise owners profited from selling the discounted sandwich—largely because of the high cost of the deli meats used to make them—they can now each decide if it makes economic sense in their area to hawk the Footlong for just half a sawbuck. "If you look at California, there's a very different cost of business than in Arkansas," Haynes says, adding the company wants to help each owner achieve "a value proposition that fits with their economic model." Other changes are also in the works, some of which are noted on the Subway site. Among them: a store redesign and "some more exotic tastes," including a spicier chicken sandwich. There's also a trial run for paninis underway in California. Haynes mentions one more challenge the chain faces: "Burger chains are big competitors," he says. "We need to make sure we're playing in that arena as well." For much of Sunday, in fact, Subway's Twitter feed was dedicated to bashing burgers, suggesting they're "boring" and "routine." One restaurant consultant tells USA Today the chain's revamps may be too little, too late. "Nothing has happened at Subway essentially in 10 years," he notes. "Bold flavors and spices have been a big deal in restaurants for at least five years. They totally missed that. They were asleep at the switch." (Subway announced hundreds of store closures earlier this year.)
– Washington hit the debt ceiling today, barring the Treasury Department from borrowing from the public, so it will begin borrowing from federal workers’ pensions to keep the government afloat. Treasury is legally bound to reimburse the pensions, so retirees won't be affected, notes the Washington Post, but if the debt ceiling isn’t raised by Aug. 2, secretary Timothy Geithner warned again today that the US will hit default. Republicans, however, aren't buying Dems' dire predictions, and the Wall Street Journal notes that a deal is likely far off, though both sides appear to want to avoid coming down to the wire. “There will be no debt-limit increase without serious budget reforms and significant spending cuts that are greater than any increase in the debt limit,” John Boehner said today, Politico reports. Consensus on where cuts might focus remains vague, but federal pension reform is said to be among items on the chopping block. Since 1985, the government has borrowed from special programs six times to prevent default—but this time, it needs much more money.
– Amid heavy lobbying from Israel, the FAA lifted its ban on flights to Tel Aviv's airport just before midnight, saying it had reviewed "significant new information and measures the government of Israel is taking to mitigate potential risks to civil aviation." Israeli officials had urged the US to lift the ban, calling it a victory for Hamas, but American officials say politics didn't play a role in the decision. "We didn't use the FAA to do anything," Deputy National Security Adviser Anthony Blinken tells CNN. "The FAA makes independent judgments for safety and security of our airline passengers and for our airlines. They made a judgment, and we're not in the business of second-guessing the FAA or overturning what they do." More: Ted Cruz threatened to block administration nominees in the Senate until his questions about FAA policy were answered, Time reports. He accused Obama of bringing in the flight ban to pressure Israel into accepting a cease-fire. "The facts suggest that President Obama has just used a federal regulatory agency to launch an economic boycott on Israel, in order to try to force our ally to comply with his foreign-policy demands," he said. After 16 days of fighting that has claimed more than 700 lives, the situation in Gaza is "terrible" and 44% of the territory is now a no-go zone, United Nations humanitarian chief Valerie Amos warns. She says people are running out of food and water and a cease-fire is "vital," the BBC reports. Despite the deteriorating situation in Gaza, a truce by the weekend appears unlikely, reports Reuters. Hamas leaders say they won't accept a deal that doesn't ease the economic blockade of Gaza, while Israel, which has now lost at least 32 soldiers, appears to want more time to destroy networks of tunnels under the territory. "I will oppose any cease-fire until it is clear both that the tunnels will be destroyed and what will happen in the post-cease-fire period—how we will guarantee that quiet for the residents of Israel will really be preserved in the long term," a security cabinet minister told Israel Radio. As strikes on Gaza continued, German astronaut Alexander Gerst tweeted a photo of the region from space, in which explosions and smoke were clearly visible. "My saddest photo yet," he said.
– Nate Parker hoped his drama about an 1831 slave rebellion would generate Oscar buzz. But talk about The Birth of a Nation—which Fox Searchlight bought for a record $17.5 million after its Sundance premiere—has suddenly taken a turn. As the New York Times recounts, the first-time director was accused of raping a woman while a student at Penn State in 1999, though he was eventually acquitted. It's old news, but it became big news this week when Variety revisited the case and reported for the first time that the woman involved took her own life in 2012 at age 30. The woman, who received a $17,500 settlement from Penn State, had said Parker and his roommate, Jean Celestin, raped her while she was drunk and unconscious. Parker and Celestin said the sex was consensual. Parker was acquitted in 2001, while Celestin was convicted of sexual assault, a ruling that was later overturned. Another factor in the controversy: Celestin co-wrote The Birth of a Nation, which includes a gang rape as a pivotal scene. With talk of a boycott growing, Parker is not shying away from the controversy, notes the Los Angeles Times. In a Facebook post, he expressed his "profound sorrow" upon learning of the suicide. Parker also says he welcomes discussion of the case, noting "violence against women is not taken seriously enough. And the dialogue and the discourse isn't loud enough." But "I was cleared of everything. At some point I have to ask myself, 'How often am I willing to relive it?'"
– The stakes just got even higher on the Korean Peninsula: North Korea says the missile it test-launched early Tuesday was an intercontinental ballistic missile, not the intermediate-range missile that US and South Korean authorities initially said they detected. North Korea's military described the launch of the Hwasong-14 as the "final step" in creating a "confident and powerful nuclear state that can strike anywhere on Earth," though other nations have yet to confirm that the missile really was an ICBM. The latest: Authorities in Japan and South Korea did not comment on whether they now believe the launch, thought to have been Pyongyang's most successful yet, was an ICBM, the AP reports. Confirmation may require retrieving parts of the missile, which landed in the Sea of Japan. If the missile is confirmed to have been an ICBM, Pyongyang could now be capable of striking the US and will have a much stronger hand in dealing with Washington, reports the Guardian. According to US Pacific Command, the missile flew for 37 minutes on a very high trajectory, landing in waters Japan considers to be part of its exclusive economic zone. In a look at the technical issues involved, CNN reports that Pyongyang aimed the missile high to test it without causing a major international incident. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he will ask the leaders of China and Russia to do more to help stop Pyongyang's missile program, Reuters reports. "Leaders of the world will gather at the G20 meeting. I would like to strongly call for solidarity of the international community on the North Korean issue," he said. David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists says the missile could have reached 4,160 miles on a standard trajectory, which "would not be enough to reach the lower 48 states or the large islands of Hawaii, but would allow it to reach all of Alaska." But experts believe that Pyongyang still lacks the technology to target a place accurately or miniaturize a nuclear warhead to fit on an ICBM, the BBC reports. Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, tells the New York Times that the missile appears to be the longest-range one North Korea has ever tested. "It's a very big deal—it looks like North Korea tested an ICBM," he says. "Even if this is a 7,000-km-range missile, a 10,000-km-range missile that can hit New York isn't far off." (After the launch, President Trump called for a "heavy move" from China.)
– Anwar al-Awlaki was a "detestable person" and no one mourns his killing in Yemen last week. But that doesn't change the fact that his killing was unconstitutional and "sets a dangerous new precedent," writes Ron Paul in an editorial in the New York Daily News. "Under our Constitution, American citizens, even those living abroad, must be charged with a crime before being sentenced," writes Paul. "The precedent set by the killing of Awlaki establishes the frightening legal premise that any suspected enemy of the United States—even if they are a citizen—can be taken out on the president's say-so alone." Other politicians disagree with Paul, however. Former VP Dick Cheney and former Democratic Representative Jane Harman both spoke out in favor of the Awlaki killing, reports Bloomberg. “It was a very good strike,” said Cheney on CNN yesterday. “The president ought to have that kind of authority to order that kind of strike, even when it involves an American citizen, when there is clear evidence that he’s part of al-Qaeda.” Harman agreed, saying there was evidence Awlaki was an "imminent threat" to the US.
– A new survey of those who have gotten tattoos suggests that more people than realized suffer a nasty skin reaction as a result. NYU researchers determined that 10% of people suffer short-term complications such as a rash, infection, or swelling that last for days or weeks. But the scarier stat is that 6% of the newly inked have complications that last at least four months, and sometimes for years, the researchers say in a post at Eureka Alert. "We were rather alarmed at the high rate of reported chronic complications tied to getting a tattoo," says lead investigator Marie Leger. In the study published in Contact Dermatitis, the research team suggests it's time to set up a national database and a protocol for reporting problems. Those steps could help determine what's causing the reactions, such as particular chemicals in the ink, say the researchers. One nugget from the 300-person study is that red ink was used in 44% of the tattoos that caused chronic problems, the highest percentage of any color. That didn't surprise the president of the Alliance of Professional Tattooists, who, while calling rashes "uncommon although not unheard of," tells Today.com that "some folks' bodies do not like red pigments." No federal regulations cover tattoo ink, notes CNN, and it quotes a dermatology professor not involved with the study who praises it for calling attention to the subject. He predicts that the composition of dyes used in tattoos might come under federal scrutiny. (A more bizarre side effect of tattoos: They'll mess up your Apple Watch.)
– A North Texas father charged with his 2-year-old daughter's murder has seen the case dropped after his 7-year-old son made a stunning admission, prosecutors say. Investigators—who initially believed 33-year-old Anthony Sanders suffocated his daughter, possibly when she interrupted him playing computer games on Dec. 12, 2015—say Sanders' son admitted to causing his sister's death while their father cared for them at a home in the Fort Worth suburb of Watauga, per Fox News. Sanders' son, who at the time reportedly told his father the toddler was asleep and wouldn't wake up, was then just 5 years old, reports the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Sanders, who had maintained his innocence, had been in jail since April 2016 but was released days after his Sept. 11 trial was to have commenced following a phone call between prosecutors and the mother of Sanders' kids, Cassie Wright. On Aug. 23, Wright said her son had admitted to hitting 2-year-old Ellie with a pillow with a heavy object inside. In an interview on Aug. 29, the boy told prosecutors he had rolled the pillow onto Ellie's head but couldn't get it off. It remains unclear how Ellie suffered bruises and what appeared to be adult bite marks found afterwards on her body, but Sanders' lawyer says "it's my understanding that [the case is] over; there will be no more charges coming out of it."
– An alt-right "free speech" rally went ahead in Portland, Ore. Sunday despite the mayor's objections—and was met with three separate counter-protests on three sides. Around 3,000 counter-protesters, including labor groups and black-clad antifascist activists, gathered while a few hundred people, many with pro-President Trump signs, converged on Terry D. Schrunk Plaza for the rally organized by the "Patriot Prayer" group, the Guardian reports. Alt-right celebrity Pat "Spartan" Washington told reporters that he was "willing to use violence to make sure my family is safe and my patriot family is safe." "God, I hate them," he said of the counter-protesters across the street. "I look over there and I just want to smash." A wall of police officers separated the protesters and counter-protesters, though there were isolated clashes and police made at least 14 arrests, CNN reports. Police ended up using pepper balls and flash-bang grenades to disperse anti-fascist protesters, reports the AP. Mayor Ted Wheeler had urged organizers to call off the pro-Trump rally after the fatal stabbing of two men on a train last month. The suspect, Jeremy Christian, had attended a similar rally in the city in April. At the free-speech rally, speakers distanced themselves from Christian and called the train victims heroes, the Oregonian reports. "Mayor Wheeler says I spit out hate speech," organizer Joey Gibson told the crowd. "We've got to prove them wrong."
– Acclaimed British painter Lucian Freud has died Wednesday night after a long career that saw him hailed as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. Freud, grandson of the psychiatrist Sigmund, moved to Britain from Berlin as a child when his family fled Nazi Germany. He became famous for his often unsettling portraits. His "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping," a portrait of a large naked woman on a couch, set a record for a work by a living artist when it sold for $33.6 million in 2008, the Guardian reports. "He certainly is considered one of the most important painters of the 20th and 21st centuries," a chairman of Christie's tells the AP. "He stayed with his figurative approach even when it was extremely unpopular, when abstraction was the leading concept, and as time moved on his classic approach has proven to be very important. He fought the system and basically won." Freud, who was 88, "painted until the day he died, far removed from the noise of the art world," his dealer says.
– Tangerine surprised audiences at the Sundance Film Festival by depicting the gritty life of transgender prostitutes in Hollywood. Another revelation: The acclaimed film was shot almost totally on an iPhone 5S, the Verge reports. Indie writer/director Sean Baker says it was a budgetary choice that came with other advantages. For one thing, the 5S allowed him to make easily improvised camera movements, like circling the actors while filming on his bicycle. They used "all the benefits that thing has—the size, how light it is, how inconspicuous it is," Baker tells Los Angeles Magazine. "We had to embrace it. And it quickly became an aesthetic choice." An iPhone 5S film, aesthetic? Yep, he says, if you know how to use it. What you need: an $8 app called Filmic Pro that offers careful control of color temperature, aperture, and focus; a Steadicam to keep the iPhone from shaking; and anamorphic adapter lenses, like the Moondog Labs prototypes used by Baker's team. Still, the iPhone-film concept was so new that his cast needed reassurance. "I’m like, Jesus Christ, man, I was on The Wire," says James Ransone, who plays a pimp in Tangerine. "I’ve ended up in iPhone movies!" But he came to appreciate the phone's flexibility—like shooting in public areas without permissions or restraints, Slashfilm reports. Small downside: An argument between characters appeared so real that a bus driver called the cops. (For more on iPhones, read about a guy who strapped 94 of them to his body.)
– The US will soon have a dicey decision to make in regard to the failed coup in Turkey. The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has formally requested that the US extradite the man it says is responsible for the uprising, moderate Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, reports USA Today. The 77-year-old Gulen lives in small-town Pennsylvania, 5,000 miles away from Turkey, and continues to insist he had nothing to do with the coup. So who is this cleric? Some related coverage: NPR provides some quick basics: Gulen used to be allies with Erdogan until a falling out in 2013. Erdogan apparently suspected Gulen was behind a corruption inquiry into his government. The Guardian profiles Gulen's life in tiny Saylorsburg, Pa., where he arrived in self-exile in 1999 and is seen as a friendly neighbor to the locals. He lives at a complex where his Hizmet religious movement is taught. Gulen's followers are estimated to number between 1 million and 8 million worldwide. CNN says his personal living quarters "consists of little more than a bed and bookshelves." He gave a rare interview to the Atlantic in 2013, expressing fears that democratic reforms in Turkey would be reversed. "I find it more tranquil here," he said of Pennsylvania. Turkish followers of Gulen are said to have created math and science charter schools around the world, including 160 that are publicly funded in the US. However, any official connection between the schools and Gulen is denied. The Washington Post takes a look. Education Week has more on the subject, rounding up investigations of the schools in multiple states. Critics, for example, have objected to the near-exclusive hiring of Turkish educators, even though the schools get public money.
– The Family Research Council was quick to blame the shooting at its offices on its arch-rivals at the Southern Poverty Law Center, releasing a statement accusing the SPLC of giving the attacker "a license to shoot an unarmed man" by calling the FRC a "hate group." That's going too far, writes Dana Milbank at the Washington Post, but the Council does have a point. We "need to be careful about hurling accusations that can stir up the crazies." "This shooting should remind us all … that while much of the political anger in America today lies on the right, there are unbalanced and potentially violent people of all political persuasions," Milbank writes. He doesn't agree with the FRC on gay rights, "but it's absurd to put the group, as the law center does, in the same category as ... the Ku Klux Klan." Gays and lesbians are slowly winning over the public by example. Their supporters "gain nothing by sticking inflammatory labels on their opponents." Click for Milbank's full column.
– By the end of the month, the Obama administration will have lost its top diplomats in two of its most important posts. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford and Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul both announced their impending resignations today, the AP reports. Here's what you should know about each: Ford Ford is retiring by the end of the month, the State Department confirmed. Ford has been instrumental in the administration's oft-troubled negotiations in Syria, and in attempting to unite its disparate rebel groups. A career diplomat and fluent speaker of Arabic, he was expected to land the Egypt gig, but sources tell the Washington Post that Egypt's rulers have taken the unusual step of nixing that idea. "Robert Ford has not been nominated for a new position. Beyond that, we don't have any comment," a National Security Council spokeswoman said. McFaul McFaul is widely credited as the man behind the effort to "reset" US-Russian relations, and helped design the New Start treaty, the New York Times reports. But relations with Russia have been cratering over the past two years, and Russian media has lambasted him for meeting with opposition politicians. McFaul will be leaving his post "soon after" the Sochi Olympics, he said in a blog post written in both Russian and English. He wrote that he was leaving Russia "reluctantly" but wanted to be closer to his family. "We tried to make a 9,000-kilometer commute work for our family," he said, but "it's time for us to be reunited." He'll return to his longtime gig as a professor at Stanford, the Post reports.
– Police in Namibia's capital are cracking down on a somewhat unlikely group, reports the BBC, following road accidents that are blamed not only on intoxicated motorists but on tipsy pedestrians. Police spokesman Edmund Khoaseb tells the Namibian that people who survive a run-in with a car will be given a Breathalyzer test. He said most accidents happen on the weekend, when "the victims will be coming from bars and under the influence of alcohol, which makes it difficult for them to fully concentrate on the road." There were 900 pedestrian-related accidents in Namibia last year, nearly 150 of them fatal, per the Namibian. A drunken police officer was charged in 2009 with the traffic deaths of two men. With 2.1 million inhabitants, the country has one of Africa's highest rates of alcohol consumption (though lower than in the developed world), per the World Health Organization. The Telegraph calls the capital "smart, laid back" and known for colonial-era architecture. Windhoek's "lively watering holes," the paper notes, "from now on, are perhaps best explored by taxi." (Namibia is trying radical measures to curb poaching.)
– Diners, delis, and food carts in the country's biggest city have six months to find a greener alternative to the Styrofoam cups and takeout containers many of them use. New York has become the latest US city to ban foam containers, and the ban will take effect July 1, although there will be a grace period with no fines until January 2016, NBC reports. The initiative—introduced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg before he left office—will keep 30,000 tons of waste out of landfills every year, according to the city, which brought in the ban after it was unable to find an "environmentally effective, economically feasible, and safe" way to recycle polystyrene containers, the Guardian reports. Packing peanuts are also covered by the ban, although they will still be allowed in packages sent to the city from elsewhere. Nonprofits and businesses with under $500,000 in revenue can get exemptions if they can prove the switch will cause them financial hardship, although many establishments are expected to simply raise prices to cover the cost of the more expensive containers. "The cheapest one is the foam. If we go for the plastic and other materials—paper, let's say, for the coffee cups—it's extremely, very expensive," a deli employee tells amNewYork. "It will cost you 85% higher than the foam prices. That's a huge gap. It's not 5 cents, it's not 10 cents."
– Would you like fries with your contagious liver infection? The operators of a New York McDonald's have been sued after as many as 1,000 customers were possibly exposed to hepatitis A earlier this month, Reuters reports. Last Friday, the Seneca County Health Department confirmed a worker with hepatitis A prepared food and drinks at the Waterloo restaurant during the first week of the month. The employee could have infected customers by not washing his or her hands after going to the bathroom. Now Jascor Inc., which owns that McDonald's location, is facing a class-action lawsuit brought by one of the customers who dined there while the employee was working, according to WHAM. Reuters reports it's unlikely any customers actually contracted the virus. Still, cnycentral.com reports that more than 1,000 people received hepatitis A vaccinations from the health department last Saturday, after public health officials said any potentially exposed customers not previously vaccinated should do so. "We have not had a hepatitis A outbreak before—at least a large breakout—in the 23 years since I've been here," the director of the health department says. Jascor didn't respond to requests for comment, Reuters reports. And it's unclear how much the plaintiffs are seeking in the lawsuit.
– It turns out Martin Shkreli was a little off when he predicted he would only spend a few months in a "Club Fed" prison. The New York Daily News reports the "Pharma Bro," "international villain," and "most hated person in America" was sentenced to seven years in prison for securities fraud Friday. The 34-year-old Shkreli will get credit for the six months he's already served after having his bail revoked in September for offering $5,000 for a sample of Hillary Clinton's hair, according to the Washington Post. Shkreli was found guilty in August of defrauding investors in his hedge fund. But it was hiking the price of an HIV drug by 5,000% that first garnered him headlines. Since then he's been kicked off Twitter for threatening a journalist, been the subject of a satirical musical, fought with rappers, and called federal prosecutors "imbeciles." Prior to his sentencing, a crying Shkreli, who one excused juror called "the face of corporate greed in America," begged Judge Kiyo Matsumoto for "your honor's mercy," ABC News reports. "The only person to blame for me being here is me," he said. "There is no government conspiracy to take down Martin Shkreli. I took down Martin Shkreli with my disgraceful and shameful actions." However, Shkreli's defense lawyer said he "shouldn't be sentenced simply for being Martin Shkreli," admitting "there are times I want to punch him in the face." Shkreli's seven-year sentence is about the midpoint between what the defense and prosecution was asking for. Earlier this week, Matsumoto ordered Shkreli to forfeit $7.36 million, allowing prosecutors to go after the sole copy of a Wu-Tang Clan album for which Shkreli reportedly paid millions.
– The FBI on Saturday arrested a 23-year-old man who authorities say attempted to detonate what he believed was an explosives-laden van outside an Oklahoma bank. Officials say Jerry Drake Varnell of Sayre, Okla., was arrested around 1am after he twice dialed a number on a cellphone that he believed would detonate a 1,000-pound vehicle bomb in a van he had parked in an alley alongside BancFirst in Oklahoma City, reports KOCO 5 News. Except the feds were in on it all: A federal complaint says the FBI learned in December that Varnell wanted to blow up a building and that an undercover FBI agent posed as someone who could help. The alleged motivation? Extreme hatred of the US government, reports the Washington Post. Officials say Varnell initially wanted to blow up the Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington, DC, with a device similar to one used by 1995 Oklahoma City bomber Timothy Mc­Veigh, whom he reportedly admired, reports the AP. He ultimately chose BancFirst at 101 N. Broadway as his target, assisted in building the bomb and putting it in place, and drove what he believed to be a stolen van himself, authorities say. Per the criminal complaint, he was not looking to cause mass casualties but rather to "somehow cripple the government." Varnell is scheduled to appear in federal court Monday afternoon on a charge of attempting to use explosives to destroy a building in interstate commerce. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
– Eighteen fraternity members have been charged—eight of them with manslaughter—after a 19-year-old died during a pledging party in February at Penn State, the Washington Post reports. Video from security cameras inside the Beta Theta Pi frat helped authorities piece together the final hours of Timothy Piazza's life. Those findings, which Penn State's president calls "sickening," were released Friday. According to NBC News, it started with a drinking competition called "the gauntlet" in which Piazza and other pledges drank copious amounts of alcohol—despite Beta Theta Pi supposedly being a dry frat. Videos show Piazza unable to open a door and needing help to walk. Doctors estimate he had a BAC of nearly 0.40, the AP reports. After stumbling around, Piazza falls head first down a flight of stairs. Frat members carry him to a couch and attempt to wake him up, pouring water on him, slapping him, falling on him, and putting a backpack full of books on him. Prosecutors say frat members may have made Piazza's injuries worse. When one frat member says they need to take Piazza to the hospital, he is slammed against a wall and told to leave. Over the next 12 hours, Piazza would fall twice, hitting his head at least once, before falling down the flight of stairs a second time. Upon finding him at the bottom of the stairs in the morning, frat members waited 40 minutes before calling 911. During that time they were allegedly planning how to cover up what happened. "This did not have to happen," Piazza's father said Friday.
– Comcast is about to makes its residential internet service a lot more like smartphone data plans for millions of customers, the Washington Post reports. Starting Nov. 1, Comcast will be capping the internet usage of customers in 18 markets—including 12 whole states—at 1 terabyte. According to Ars Technica, Comcast has had a data cap in place in some markets since 2012. For Comcast customers who exceed the 1TB monthly limit, Comcast will charge a $10 fee per additional 50 gigabytes up to $200. To avoid the data cap, customers can either pay an extra $50 per month for unlimited data or $300 per month for Comcast's Gigabit Pro fiber-optic service. A list of markets that will be impacted by the data cap is here. Comcast claims the data cap is "based on a principle of fairness"—the people who use the most internet will pay the most for it. But Engadget argues that doesn't make complete sense, as in only the most extreme cases does someone using more internet impact anyone else's internet usage. A Comcast executive has also acknowledged that the data cap is a "business policy," not a technical necessity. Comcast says 99% of customers don't use more than 1TB of data—enough to stream up to 700 hours of video or play 12,000 hours of online games—per month. But that may not be true for long, with the increasing prevalence of HD and 4K games and videos that use more data.
– The cause of yesterday's rocket explosion over Wallops Island, Va., remains under investigation: While a tweet from Orbital Sciences refers to a "vehicle anomaly," other reports have focused on aging rocket engines. They were built in the 1960s and 1970s to send Soviet cosmonauts to the moon, the Guardian reports. Why use them? "There are not many other options around the world in terms of using power plants of this size, certainly not in this country," says Frank Culbertson, an exec with Orbital Sciences. Concerns about the engines have previously been raised, both by Congress and rival SpaceX. "Their rocket honestly sounds like the punchline to a joke," boss Elon Musk said in 2012. A similar engine exploded during a test in May, Reuters reports, but the rocket has taken off four times before without accident. Other developments: Culbertson says things appeared to be going wrong with the 14-story rocket within about 10 seconds of liftoff—it's just not clear what. "We will understand what happened—hopefully soon—and we'll get things back on track." Though no lives were lost in the explosion, hundreds of millions of dollars in cargo was, the Guardian notes, pointing to "classified cryptographic" equipment. Nothing "absolutely critical" is gone, says a NASA official. But a meteor tracker, 32 mini-satellites, and a school experiment testing the growth of pea shoots in space were also lost, USA Today adds. Orbital Sciences was insured to the tune of more than $200 million, Culbertson tells the AP. The company's stock took an after-hours hit of 15%. And in a tragic turn of events for one Marylander aboard the ISS: The crabcakes he was supposed to get are presumably burned beyond recognition.
– The narwhal's distinctive tusk is actually a tooth, one that can grow to nearly 10 feet in length. It's almost never found on females, and researchers have a new theory as to why: It may communicate a male's fertility to its tusk-less counterparts. Researchers pored over anatomical measurements taken of 144 narwhals that were legally killed by Inuits between 1997 and 2008. What they discovered was what Phys.org terms a "very clear correlation" between the mass of their testicles and their tusk length. Quite simply, bigger testicles and bigger tusks seem to go together. As Science explains, testicle mass is an "indicator of fertility." So by extension, the narwhals with the longest tusks are likely the most fertile. The team suggests the tusk could be used to attract females, who would be able to judge which male would make the best mate. And in terms of mating, the size correlation was found only among mature males, not juveniles. As further evidence of their theory, the researchers note (via iO9) that "captive female narwhal have been observed becoming excited by the presence of a tusk-shaped object such as a pole or broom handle in their pool, butting the object, and jockeying for position close to it." Science notes that the tusk may serve other functions—it's been suggested as a sensory organ and weapon—but writes that "the fact that it is not needed by females indicates it is not critical for survival." (Scientists recently defrosted an incredible sea creature.)
– Jon Stewart returned to the Daily Show last night, but it wasn't exactly smooth sailing. In a pre-taped segment, interim host John Oliver welcomed Stewart back ... only to find he wasn't acting very American anymore. But when his Big Mac defibrillator went too far and turned Stewart into a Paula Deen-loving Tea Partier, Oliver had to try a few other methods, including a lox-filled syringe that turned Stewart into Moses, a Heineken over the head that turned him into a Nazi, and something that turned him into a very disturbing version of Miley Cyrus. So who finally saved Stewart? Stephen Colbert, of course. Upon taking his place behind the desk, Stewart went on to thank Oliver, Mediaite reports. "Remember your friend Anthony Weiner?" Oliver asked after catching Stewart up on everything he missed. "No one really calls him Anthony Weiner anymore. ... He actually does have a very real alter ego." He then broke the "Carlos Danger" news to Stewart. But then things had to get a bit more serious, as Stewart discovered the big story he'd have to cover was the possible US strike on Syria. His guest: the head of the UN refugee agency in Jordan. Hulu has the whole episode.
– Ted Wachholz couldn't believe his eyes: He opened Facebook and saw film footage of the SS Eastland disaster, which claimed 844 lives on the Chicago River in 1915, the Chicago Tribune reports. "I'm reasonably confident that this is the first opportunity that the public has had" to see footage of the disaster, says Wachholz, who heads the Eastland Disaster Historical Society. One clip (here, starting at the 1:10 minute mark) shows firefighters, volunteers, and police officers walking on the capsized ship, which was about to go to Indiana for a Western Electric employee picnic when it tipped over while tied to a dock, CBS Chicago reports. "It was a free-for-all early on," says Wachholz. "Anyone who was able to help out and contribute was jumping to the scene." A second clip (here, starting at 9:10) shows the righted ship a week later. Wachholz figures the footage was taken by a professional (considering how expensive cameras were back then) from a small boat or raft floating nearby. What's more mysterious is how the footage cropped up: A US doctoral candidate found the footage, which is housed at a Netherlands film institute, while doing online research for his dissertation on Chicago during the First World War. The clips were spliced between footage of marching soldiers and ceremonies, and it's not clear how it got there. "That's part of the intrigue, part of the mystery behind even having this footage available," says Wachholz. The student then posted his find on the historical society's Facebook page. The footage itself gives him "chills" and "goose bumps," Wachholz tells MyFox Chicago. "I don't think I've ever had an experience quite like that before." (Secrets of a 1629 mutiny and massacre were recently unearthed.)
– Still chortling over Kim Kardashian and Kanye West naming their baby North West? Well, the couple would like you to stop. They've been explaining to friends that the name has nothing to do with the direction "northwest," sources tell TMZ. Their explanation: "What's north of North? Nothing." In other words, as TMZ helpfully decodes, the baby is the highest point of their relationship and their "north star." Meanwhile, tabloids are bickering over whether Kim and Kanye are engaged. The Sun claims West proposed to Kim, sans ring, days after she gave birth and has ordered a $768,000 tiger-striped diamond engagement ring as a "push present." (Apparently a growing, delightfully named trend.) But sources tell People and Celebuzz the rumor isn't true. Though, says one source, "I can't imagine them not getting married. That's in their future!"
– On April 1, Taylor Swift shared an ad for Apple Music in which she belts out Drake and Future's "Jumpman" while running on a treadmill, then does a faceplant. (Shake it off, Swift.) AdWeek reports the video—"based on real events," says Swift—has been viewed more than 37 million times across all social channels, but that's not even the most impressive figure the ad produced. A look at the numbers: Sales of "Jumpman" are up 431% worldwide on iTunes Plays of the #gymflow playlist featured in the ad are up 325% The video has been liked 1.4 million times on Instagram It drew 544,000 reactions on Facebook Swift's tweet with the video has 68,000 retweets and 120,000 likes Apple Music is hoping that success can be repeated; two other ads featuring Swift—who will star in a larger Apple Music campaign—are on the way. (Click for 20 more celeb endorsements you can actually get behind.)
– An 18-page report that emerged days before the Boston Marathon proved chillingly accurate in its warning: It said the race's finish line was an "area of increased vulnerability," noting a threat of "small-scale bombings" by extremists, the Los Angeles Times reports. But the report, from the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, which receives Department of Homeland Security funding, said there was "no credible, specific information indicating an imminent threat." Yesterday, Boston's police chief said the FBI hadn't informed police about any concerns about Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Meanwhile, Russian locals tell the New York Times that Tsarnaev was already invested in jihad when he arrived in the country for a visit. Russian investigators on Sunday questioned Tsarnaev's cousin, himself a Salafi Islamist leader, asking if he had foisted his extremist views upon Tsarnaev. The cousin said Tsarnaev was the one pushing militancy—even as the cousin argued against it, locals noted. Indeed, in Dagestan, Tsarnaev sported oiled hair and eye makeup associated with jihadists, a friend tells the Wall Street Journal. "He was not radicalized here; there was no big change in his mentality," said the friend. "He left here the same as he came."
– Charismatic New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie last night ripped into the Democrats and the "debacle" of ObamaCare, and hailed a presidential candidate ready to "talk hard truths" and make tough decisions to cut costs to restore the nation to economic health. The Democrats "believe the American people need to be coddled by big government," and will "whistle a happy tune while they drive us off a fiscal cliff," he told a wildly enthusiastic crowd in his keynote address at the Republican National Convention. "They believe in teachers unions, we believe in teachers. Our ideas are right for America, theirs have failed America. America needs Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, and we need them right now." As his speech wound up, Christie called conventioneers to their feet, saying: "I'm here to begin with you this new era of truth telling. Tonight we stand up for Mitt Romney." Christie launched his speech with a tribute to his late mom, the second speaker—after Ann Romney—to pointedly court the female vote. In his family, "my dad was just a passenger," quipped Christie. "My mom was in the driver's seat." He repeatedly called himself "my mother's son."
– Details are emerging on Treasury secretary Tim Geithner's trek to Capitol Hill today to present the White House's wish list in the fiscal cliff talks, a move that "in some sense amounts to a formal start of negotiations," reports the Wall Street Journal. The short version seems to be that he asked for a lot—the proposal was "loaded with Democratic priorities and short on detailed spending cuts," says the New York Times—and Republicans let him know it. "No substantive progress has been made in the talks between the White House and the House over the last two weeks," complained John Boehner afterward. Added Mitch McConnell: The White House has taken a "step backward." Some highlights of what Geithner requested, from the Times, Journal, and Washington Post: No more debt ceiling—Congress would no longer need to approve an increase in the federal borrowing limit. It could try to block one, but the president would be able to veto. $1.6 trillion in tax increases over 10 years, including an immediate increase in rates for the richest Americans. (Politico says the final figure will be closer to $1.2 trillion once all the "huffing and puffing" is over.) $400 billion in savings over a decade from Medicare and other entitlement programs. $50 billion in new stimulus spending on infrastructure. Extensions of the payroll tax holiday and emergency jobless benefits.
– Yahoo just made it harder for users to switch providers after some 500 million accounts were hacked and reports surfaced that the company perused user emails for the NSA. Users say the company disabled automatic email forwarding at the start of the month so that anyone hoping to send received emails to a new address is out of luck, reports the AP. The change doesn't affect users who set up email forwarding previously. Yahoo says the feature was temporarily disabled "as part of previously planned maintenance to improve its functionality" and will be "back up and running as soon as possible," but a user hoping to switch services after 18 years couldn't help but notice the "extremely suspicious timing." The feature has been "a basic concept for 15 years," another user says. The fact that "all of a sudden it's under development, and only at Yahoo … seems extremely dubious to me." Rightly so, per TechCrunch, since email forwarding wouldn't "need to be shut down in order to be 'improved.'" Yahoo notes its service allowing users to keep track of several email accounts at once is still active, but some have decided to abandon their accounts anyway. One Yahoo user tells the AP she's using an out-of-office message to notify people of her new address. "Following recent data and privacy breaches, I will be discontinuing use of Yahoo Mail," it reads. Rather delete your account for good? Hackread describes how here.
– The swag bag handed out to this year's Academy Awards nominees is worth up to $100,000—and, in the wake of the sexual assault allegations rocking Hollywood, you may not be surprised to hear that one of the freebies included in the goodie bag is pepper spray. "This event is a unique opportunity for us to lend a helping hand in the #MeToo movement with solutions that take aim at the harassment culture that’s been pervasive most notably in the entertainment industry and in broader society," David Nance, the CEO of security systems company Sabre, tells Yahoo News. In addition to two types of pepper spray, Sabre's additions to the bags include two personal body alarms and a kit to test whether a drink has been drugged; another company is also including its pepper spray product in this year's bags. "In the aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, PepperFace is arriving in Hollywood at the perfect time," says PepperFace CEO Brian Pennington. "We want to be an awareness symbol to help end violence against women and also provide resources for those unfortunate enough to have become a victim of violence." This year's bags—which are not officially tied to the Oscars and of which the Academy is no fan, Page Six reports—also include free trips to Hawaii, Greece, and Tanzania; health and beauty products like a "gum rejuvenation" dental procedure, a "24K gold facial," an 18-minute "phobia relief session," and sessions with a celebrity trainer; food including Mexican soda and locally grown oranges; pricey pet food and a $10,000 donation to the animal shelter of the nominee's choice; and jewelry including a conflict-free diamond necklace.
– Bill Cosby was charged Wednesday with felony sexual assault, and the comedian's attorney has already started her public defense campaign. In her view, the whole case is just a game of "political football" initiated by a new Pennsylvania district attorney, Reuters reports. "What we have is the fulfillment of a campaign promise from a prosecutor who used ... the climate about the allegations against my client in order to get into office," Monique Pressley said on Good Morning America Thursday, per the news agency. The New York Daily News notes that Montgomery County DA Kevin Steele referenced the Cosby case in ads before the November elections, going after opponent Bruce Castor Jr., who didn't charge Cosby in 2005 when Castor was the county DA and Andrea Constand accused Cosby of sexual assault. Pressley also spoke on CBS This Morning and NBC's Today show, where she said Cosby won't make any plea deal. "My client is not guilty, and there will be no consideration on our part of any sort of arrangement," she said, per Reuters. Pressley was also forced to defend whisperings that the 78-year-old Cosby's supposedly feeble appearance at his arraignment Wednesday in Elkins Park, Pa., was a strategic part of his defense ploy. "I don't really understand it," Pressley said on GMA, per ABC News. "He's a tall man of sufficient girth. He's … blind, so he does use a cane so that he can know what's coming in front of him and he does require assistance because of that and that is who the DA's office has chosen to charge." She adds, per the Daily News: "That's not a defense of a crime, that's just a fact." Meanwhile, Constand, the woman behind the case that may put Cosby behind bars, posted a message early Thursday morning on Twitter, imploring, "Let's all stay classy plz! That includes anybody who may be inserting their opinion as to whether anything was fully investigated period." (Here's the rundown on some of the Cosby coverage so far.)
– Amid the horror of the Paris terror attacks, there was a response from ordinary citizens that the city can be proud of. With the hashtag #PorteOuverte, meaning "open door," Parisians offered shelter to tourists and others stranded by the chaos, Mic reports. People were desperate to find safe havens because they had been evacuated from buildings but had been told the streets and public transport were unsafe, French-Algerian journalist Nabila Ramdani tells the BBC. Taxi drivers turned off their meters and started taking people home for free, while there were "many others stuck in shuttered bars, restaurants, some even locked in kitchens," tweeted France24 correspondent Sophie Pilgrim. During the attacks, Facebook activated its new "Safety Check" feature for the fifth time ever and the first during a violent attack, reports the Wall Street Journal. The feature sends Facebook users in areas affected by a crisis a message asking whether they are safe, and then gives them the option of checking "Yes, let my friends know," to let their friends know they are OK. The feature was first activated after the Nepal earthquake earlier this year and was turned on during three subsequent natural disasters, the Journal notes. The Paris response could point the way for social media use during future crises, though Wired reports that there was one problem with the #PorteOuverte hashtag: So many people tweeted about how inspiring it was that users worried real offers of help might be crowded out.
– A "concerned whistleblower" blew long and hard by sending a video to PETA that showed a Texas high school class jumping rope with cat intestines—but the school district says it was all part of a lesson plan that wasn't meant to be cruel to animals, per KENS 5, and the teacher won't be disciplined, the AP reports. The incident happened in an anatomy class at Winston Churchill High School in San Antonio in early May, with the unidentified teacher using the technique to show how long and resilient cat intestines are (she had witnessed a similar demo when she was a student at Texas A&M University, MySanAntonio.com notes). The teacher and the juniors and seniors shown in the video, which a North East Independent School District spokeswoman says was apparently posted to a student's social media account, are "very upset" about how the incident is being portrayed. "This was not meant to be degrading or disrespectful," she says. "The idea of the lesson was to explore the tensile strength of the organs." But while the school is sticking by the teacher's good intentions, PETA isn't taking the video lightly. "Behavior that makes light of the suffering and mutilation of animals is not only disturbing but also violates leading science education organizations' guidelines, which state that classrooms must treat animals respectfully and ethically," the group said in a statement. The teacher won't be disciplined, but she'll likely be rearranging how she teaches this particular subject. "Moving forward, we will need to find a more appropriate but equally effective lesson in the future," Chancellor tells KENS 5. PETA says it's got dissection resources that can help the school move to animal-free experiments; the school isn't saying yet whether it will check out PETA's offer. (A PETA video got the owner of the Life of Pi tiger in trouble.)
– The bombshell testimony in which Bill Cosby admitted to drugging women before having sex with them might not be the last we hear from the comedian in regards to the sex-assault case. A lawyer for the plaintiff in the lawsuit—which was settled before trial in 2006—says she may ask the judge to release all of Cosby's testimony related to the suit, NBC News reports. Sources say Dolores Troiani, representing former Temple University employee Andrea Constand, is reaching out to 13 other women in the case for their approval before requesting the judge unseal the full 2005 deposition. The AP confirms that the documents that were unsealed Monday following its request "include only small portions of Cosby's September 2005 deposition testimony." It notes the deposition was never filed in court. While at least one celeb has done an about-face on Cosby, Whoopi Goldberg says Cosby is "innocent until proven guilty," per the Washington Post. "He has not been proven a rapist." However, a bronze statue of the comedian was removed from Walt Disney World's Hollywood Studios after closing yesterday. A niece of one of Cosby's alleged victims started a petition seven months ago calling on Disney to remove the bust from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame Plaza, reports WESH. It had been signed by about 250 supporters. "To not be able to walk through Disney without having that difficult encounter, it makes me sad," the woman says. "Like, wow, this person hurt a family member of mine." Disney didn't say why the bust was removed.
– A US tire company boss has no interest in reconsidering his decision not to buy a French Goodyear factory that's set to close—and he's made his reasons perfectly clear. "You can keep the so-called workers," Maurice "The Grizz" Taylor of Titan International wrote to France's industry minister, per Reuters. Despite high pay, French workers do just three hours of work per day, Taylor argued. "They get one hour for breaks and lunch, talk for three, and work for three." "I told the French union workers this to their faces," he noted. "They told me that’s the French way!" Industry minister Arnaud Montebourg had been hoping Titan might buy the Amiens factory, which employs about 1,200, Bloomberg reports. "Sir, your letter says you want Titan to start a discussion," wrote Taylor, a 1996 Republican presidential candidate who has, among other things, urged an end to sick pay for government workers. "How stupid do you think we are? Titan is the one with the money and the talent to produce tires. What does the crazy union have? It has the French government."
– The Obama administration has vetoed a ban on the import and sale of some older iPhone and iPad models, overturning a decision by the International Trade Commission for the first time since 1987, Politico reports. The ITC issued an import ban and cease-and-desist on sales for some models of the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 back in June after Samsung claimed they infringed on its patents. But in a letter to the ITC (which you can read in full at All Things Digital, but it's full of legalese), US Trade Representative Michael Froman said it was nixing the ban, as the government is concerned about patent holders gaining "undue leverage," the Wall Street Journal reports. "We applaud the administration for standing up for innovation in this landmark case," says an Apple spokesperson, per Politico. "Samsung was wrong to abuse the patent system in this way." Samsung says it is "disappointed," as "the ITC’s decision correctly recognized that Samsung has been negotiating in good faith and that Apple remains unwilling to take a license," All Things Digital reports. Froman says Samsung can still pursue its patent rights through the judicial system.
– "Live Bolder. Live Louder. Live for Now" may be the slogan Pepsi wanted everyone to remember from its new ad starring Kendall Jenner, but the phrases actually being bandied about include "shallow," "cringeworthy," and "tone deaf." The nearly three-minute video was posted Monday on Pepsi Global's YouTube channel and shows Jenner playing a bleach-blond model who's drawn into some kind of vague protest in which demonstrators are marching and holding up posters with peace signs and taglines like "Join the Conversation." There's a dramatic shot of Jenner ripping off her blond wig to join the march, a guy inexplicably lugging a cello around, and the triumphant finale of Jenner's character presenting a stone-faced police officer with a Pepsi, getting him to crack a smile. All of which, as Mediaite notes, is spurring a good amount of vitriol online. Much of the backlash centers on the appropriation of Black Lives Matter-style symbols and the minimizing of issues such as oppression by having Jenner "solve" things with a can of Pepsi. It's "a perfect example of what happens when there's no black people in the room when decisions are being made," tweeted comedian Travon Free. Per CNBC, some also note Jenner handing the cop a Pepsi resembles a protest photo of mom Ieshia Evans that went viral last year. The ad gets a bit of praise from Harper's Bazaar: It notes "Lions," the background song by Bob Marley's grandson Skip Marley, is the one "redeeming" part, "an anthemic call to arms to take action and make a difference while promoting strength and togetherness." Pepsi's response, via a statement to CNNMoney: "This is a global ad that reflects people from different walks of life coming together in a spirit of harmony."
– Are you a klutz? A new study out of Australia suggests an unexpected reason why. It found that stressful events in the latter stage of a woman's pregnancy may increase the risk of movement and coordination deficits later in the child's life. Reporting this week in the journal Child Development, researchers at the University of Notre Dame Australia say they followed 2,900 Australian mothers, testing them at 18 and 34 weeks pregnant to document stressful events during pregnancy such as divorce, death in the family, a move, or pregnancy issues. Fast-forward a decade: When these women's children were 10, 14, and 17 years old, the offspring had their motor development and general coordination—things like hand strength, walking heel-toe, and standing on one foot—tested. The more stressful events a mother experienced (particularly those who went through three or more such events), especially later in pregnancy, the worse the children performed at every age tested. But the head of the developmental and behavioral pediatrics department at a New York hospital tells Live Science that it's hard to read too much into the findings. The skills tested for "may not necessarily matter much in life," he says, as compared to, say, testing for whether the kids could button a shirt. "Those might be more real-world examples of motor deficits that affect people on a daily basis." Either way, study co-author Beth Hands says in a press release that the results suggest programs that help reduce maternal stress in pregnancy could improve outcomes for these children. (Maternal stress in pregnancy leaves its trace in children's DNA.)
– The chimaera, or so-called "ghost shark," is an elusive deep-water fish that has fascinated biologists for more than a century. Like its relative the shark, however, it's made of cartilage and thus rarely fossilizes, so little is known about its evolutionary past, reports Live Science. Now the blanks have been filled in thanks to a "remarkable" 280 million-year-old fossil found on a farm in Cape Province, South Africa, in the 1980s that was thought to be a symmoriid shark. Researchers at the University of Chicago Medical Center report in a ScienceDaily news release that the specimen—micro CT scan images of which one reviewer describes as "dripping with data"—is actually an early chimaera, not a shark. The specimen offers "a glimpse of the preconditions from which modern chimaeras evolved." Reporting in the journal Nature, the team says the fossil establishes strong links between the brains, major cranial nerves, nostrils, and inner ears of early and modern chimaeras. We're learning more about elusive modern chimaeras, too: Scientists recently said they think they've captured video of a type of ghost shark never filmed before; the Washington Post published the footage of what's believed to be a pointy-nosed blue chimaera last month. Filmed off the coast of central California, it's the first seen outside the Pacific waters of Australia and New Zealand, suggesting widespread populations. Scientists have yet to work out what chimaeras eat, how often they reproduce, or even how long they live. (Researchers who filmed the ghost shark say it came down to "dumb luck.")
– A Zimbabwe ruling party official confirms that the Central Committee has fired President Robert Mugabe as party leader and replaced him with the recently dismissed Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa. The emergency meeting also has recalled first lady Grace Mugabe as head of the women's league "forever." The meeting continues, reports the AP. Mugabe on Sunday is meeting with the army commander who put him under house arrest in a second round of negotiations on his departure as president after nearly four decades. Pressure is mounting on Mugabe to resign, reports the BBC, which notes that a motorcade has left Mugabe's home. A Zimbabwean ruling party member says there could be prosecutions of members of a party faction close to Grace Mugabe. Lawmaker Emmanuel Fundira also says he thinks it is a "fait accompli" that recently fired Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa will be reinstated and chosen to lead Zimbabwe after Mugabe's expected resignation.
– A Chihuahua, the San Francisco Bay Bridge, and the California Highway Patrol: It all adds up to one of the more entertaining police chases in a while. As the Los Angeles Times reports, one officer in a car and another on a motorcycle managed to catch the runaway dog on the bridge Sunday morning. Police had to stop traffic, and the two officers finally teamed up to safely corral and capture the pooch. "We’ve had dogs on the bridge, all sorts of animals: seals, turtles, you name it," says one of them. "We never had one that took off and took so long to get." The dog has no ID tags, and police are still trying to find the owner. For now, cops have dubbed him "Ponch," after the CHiPs character. (This dachshund went on a dolphin chase.)
– A pair of self-proclaimed “geeks” have channeled the old-school, 8-bit likes of Super Mario and Donkey Kong to create an unusual wedding invitation—and invitees only get the details if they beat the gorilla-ish villain. “We knew that we didn’t want standard paper invites,” the bride-to-be/game character (you can also play the groom) tells Offbeat Bride. “We wanted something for people to keep and remember. We are geeks. We love video games. Why not have a video game invite?” Check the video, or download the game here (invitation not included.)
– After months of creating plastic guns with 3D printers, ATF agents have confirmed that they work—a lot of the time—and can be both lethal and very hard to detect. "We downloaded files, we created firearms from those files, and we tested those firearms," said the chief of the agency's firearms technology branch after experiments with the Liberator, a plastic handgun that can be printed with blueprints posted online that were downloaded more than 100,000 times earlier this year. To comply with the soon-to-expire Undetectable Firearms Act, the Liberator design includes a few ounces of metal, but it can be removed and the weapon works perfectly without it, the Huffington Post reports. The agency also created its own 3D-printed weapon that fires shotgun shells, and it believes automatic weapons are also possible. Officials don't think many criminals plan to ditch metal guns for the printable kind, but they fear an assassin could easily smuggle one into a secure area. The weapons "create a public-safety concern ... whether we appear in court, whether we get on an airplane, whether we go to a concert—any type of venue, it presents a challenge for law enforcement," an ATF official tells the Wall Street Journal.
– The journal Nature has published a controversial paper describing how University of Wisconsin scientists created an airborne strain of H5N1—aka "bird flu"—that was transmissible in mammals. A federal panel had asked Nature not to publish the study, and a similar one from a Dutch virologist, fearing they might provide a handy DIY guide for bioterrorists, the Washington Post reports. They eventually dropped their objections, however, once they realized that the more-contagious virus was also less deadly. Researchers added two mutations to a deadly H5N1 strain, mixed in some swine flu genes, and released it on a group of ferrets. The ferrets caught the virus easily—but didn't die or even get very sick. The research was conducted to understand how the virus might mutate in nature—and indeed, scientists say the process was simple enough to occur naturally, the LA Times reports. "It's a great place to start looking for exactly what's going on," says one virologist.
– Ben Affleck was revealed as the newest Batman last night (he'll play the Dark Knight in the next Superman movie, a sequel to this year's Man of Steel expected in 2015, the Wall Street Journal reports), and let's just say the Internet is not happy. Twitter users bemoaned the choice; indeed, someone even started a Change.org petition begging Warner Bros. to change its mind. There's a mock "Ben Affleck Batman" Twitter account and, the Guardian reports, the hashtag #BetterBatmanThanBenAffleck started trending; some of the suggestions included a member of boy band One Direction, Butt-head from MTV's Beavis and Butt-head, and "ANYONE ELSE, with the exception of Ryan Reynolds." Some of our favorite Twitter reactions: @robfee: "I fell asleep & when I woke up Ben Affleck was Batman. I’m afraid if I sleep again Paul Walker will be The Hulk & Grumpy Cat will be Thor." @MIKEBLACKATTACK: "You'd think having your parents murdered before your eyes would be the worst thing that could happen to Batman." @ledjessica: "What's with the Ben-Affleck-as-Batman furor? The bottom of his face fits the bill perfectly." @LorraineELLE: "I am worried about the beard." @LifeisSavage: "They better make sure Ben Affleck's Batman suit utility belt has some acting skills in one of the pockets." @aliarikan: "Just told my girlfriend Ben Affleck is the new Batman. Her response: "You are 35 years old. I want you to think about what you just said." @billyeichner: "How dare Ben Affleck ruin the integrity of a franchise where a grown man pretends he's a bat!" @badbanana: "Be thankful Ben Affleck said yes. You know James Franco was next on that list." @GeekOutpost: "'Ben Affleck as Batman isn’t a bad idea. He was great in DareDevil!' - No one." @pattonoswalt: "'You like apples, Riddl-ah?' You can totally use that one, @BenAffleck." For more Dark Knight fun, click for the seven best Batmans as ranked by ... their chins.
– The kidnapped daughter of a wealthy German businessman was found dead earlier this week—a horrific end to a case that has stunned Germany and left her parents in the care of police psychologists, reports the Mirror. Authorities say the 17-year-old, identified as Anneli-Marie R., was kidnapped while walking her dog near Meissen around 7:30pm last Thursday. About half an hour later, her father received a phone call from Anneli-Marie's phone: It was one of her captors demanding $1.3 million in ransom. Investigators say the last sounds he heard from his daughter were reportedly her screams on the line. Though the girl's family told the kidnappers in a letter that they would "fulfill your demands in order to be able to take our child in our arms again," her body was found on a farm Monday, hours after the arrests of two men, 39 and 61, reports NBC News. Police—some 1,200 of them were involved in the case—say they found the suspects by tracking cell phones, reports NBC News. Authorities say the men, unmasked during the crime, probably killed Anneli-Marie on Friday so she wouldn't expose them to police; they found no evidence of sexual assault. Friday was the last day a kidnapper and the teen's father spoke; NBC News notes the family wanted to pay the ransom but couldn't wire it to a foreign bank as instructed in the specified time frame. Officials suspect there was a good deal of planning before the crime. "Based on the investigation so far, the younger suspect was supposedly taking walks with a dog in the area to find out at what times the girl was out and about," says a rep for the Dresden prosecutors' office. Investigators believe the captors also researched her on Facebook. (Cops are stumped by the case of a missing Connecticut couple.)
– A mysterious priest who showed up to pray at the scene of a Missouri car crash may have been heaven-sent, but he only traveled about 150 yards to get to there. It turns out the "angel" priest who prayed with Katie Lentz, 19, then seemingly disappeared last Sunday is the very earthbound Rev. Patrick Dowling of the Jefferson City Diocese. Fox News reports that Father Dowling actually revealed his identity via a comment posted to a story about the incident on the National Catholic Register website Friday, but it escaped notice until yesterday. "I had Mass in Ewing MO as the regular priest was sick," he wrote, explaining that he came upon the scene on his way back. "I parked behind a large vehicle about 150 yards from the scene. I asked the sheriff’s permission and approached the scene of the accident. I absolved and anointed Katie, and, at her request, prayed that her leg would not hurt. Then I stepped aside." But Father Dowling tells the National Catholic Register that a bit of a mystery does still persist: He says that after the anointing and absolution, "I didn't say another word. I did not say anything like the machinery would begin to work or they would succeed in getting her out of the car. That did not come from my lips, though two people heard it."
– Regardless of where you stand on the controversy surrounding Bowe Bergdahl's release—Ruth Marcus calls herself "tentatively against the (prisoner) swap"—it serves as an argument for aiding another captive American. Alan Gross, a state department subcontractor, has been in a Cuban prison for almost five years. The 65-year-old was imprisoned for bringing communications gear into the country "under the auspices of the US government," Marcus writes in the Washington Post. His goal was, reportedly, to link Cuban Jews to the Internet to help boost democracy. Cuban officials have suggested they'd let him go in exchange for three Cuban intelligence officers convicted in Miami of spying in 2001. But the US says it won't make a link between actual spies and Gross, who wasn't one. Marcus' response: "Oh, please." Unlike the Taliban figures released for Bergdahl, the Cuban agents—members of the so-called Cuban Five—wouldn't pose much of a national security risk to the US; the danger in releasing them is only political. () Incidentally, an already-released Cuban agent has also called for such a release following the Bergdahl exchange, the AP reports. (Click to read about another American seeking freedom abroad.)
– The parents of a 15-year-old girl who hanged herself Monday in Pennsylvania have a message for bullies: "Please know that it is not too late to change your ways." Fox News reports that before her death, Sadie Riggs was going to counseling and taking medication for emotional issues. But she was bullied a lot, especially on social media, and it finally became too much. Her parents say they addressed their daughter's suicide in her obituary to "debunk the rumors" surrounding her death. They also did it to show bullies the real-life consequences of making a girl—who loved reading, softball, and music—feel "worthless." “To all the bullies out there, I just want you to know that as much as we despise your actions, never, ever do we wish for you to feel the paralyzing pain that engulfs our bodies, a pain so severe that it makes the simple act of breathing difficult or the guilt that leaves us wondering what we could have done different," the obituary states. "Our hearts are beyond broken." A funeral for Sadie was held Saturday, WJAC reports. In lieu of flowers, her family only asks people to "be kind to one another." (Parents denied access to dead daughter's Facebook.)
– Twitter is celebrating the end of the year by crowning 2010’s “most powerful tweets.” What constitutes a powerful tweet? Well, here’s the list, with context in italics. AnnCurry @usairforce find a way to let Doctors without Borders planes land in Haiti: http://bit.ly/8hYZOK THE most effective at this. (Reporter Ann Curry’s tweet is said to have convinced the US Air Force to give a Doctors Without Borders plane clearance to land in Haiti following the quake.) Whitehouse Welcome to @twitter President Medvedev! RT @KremlinRussia_E: Hello everyone! I'm on Twitter, and this is my first tweet. (When Dmitry Medvedev joined Twitter, the White House was quick to congratulate him. Later, Obama said that "the Twitters" could replace the red phones.) Leigh Fazzina I've had a serious injury and NEED Help! Can somone please call Winding Trails in Farmington, CT tell them I'm stuck bike crash in woods. (Fazzina, a triathalete, had no cell reception when she crashed in the forest, but saved her own life with this tweet.) BPGlobalPR Catastrophe is a strong word, let's all agree to call it a whoopsie daisy. (See story about the BP parody site.) Presidencia_Ec Gobierno declara estado de Excepción #Ecuador #30S (Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa announced a state of emergency with this tweet, amid civil unrest over a law cutting benefits for public servants.) ClarenceHouse The Prince of Wales is delighted to announce the engagement of Prince William to Miss Catherine Middleton - www.princeofwales.gov.uk (Clarence House actually created its Twitter account just to announce this engagement.) Click here for Twitter’s full list.
– The high-stakes Paul Manafort trial is underway, and Bloomberg takes note of a particularly odd exchange Monday between US District Judge TS Ellis III and prosecutor Greg Andres. It came during a break in the testimony of former Manafort partner Rick Gates as the judge and prosecutors clashed, out of the jury's earshot, about which questions were fair game. "I understand how frustrated you are," said Ellis at one point. "In fact, there’s tears in your eyes right now." When Andres denied that, the judge responded, "Well, they're watery." At another point, the judge admonished Andres to look at him when speaking, instead of looking down. "I don't want to get in trouble for some facial expression," Andres replied. "I don't want to get yelled at again by the court for having some facial expression when I'm not doing anything wrong, but trying my case." As the Hill notes, Ellis has warned both sides not to make facial expressions in court that could sway the jury.
– Conflicting reports out of Toulouse: Though USA Today reported earlier, by way of French TV, that a 24-year-old Muslim man suspected in a series of shootings had been arrested after a raid on an apartment, reports are now saying the building remains surrounded. CNN and Reuters report that some 300 police officers have ringed the building and are trying to draw Mohammad Merah out. After severing communication in late morning, he is apparently talking with police once again. A police rep had told the AP that police would bust their way in if he didn't turn himself in this afternoon as promised; they earlier evacuated the building. An Afghanistan prison warden tells Reuters that Merah was among those freed in a mass Taliban jail break. Another chilling revelation: Nicolas Sarkozy today told a Jewish group that the gunman "had a plan to kill again ... this morning." A police source confirmed that the suspect "told investigators this morning that he had decided to kill a soldier in Toulouse on Wednesday morning and had already identified the victim."
– The first death as a result of Hurricane Harvey has been reported in Rockport, Texas. Rockport Mayor CJ Wax confirmed the fatality Saturday, the Washington Post reports. According to ABC News, the identity of the victim has not been released. An Aransas County judge says 12 to 14 people were injured in the area, the AP reports. Officials expect to find more victims as searches continue. When Hurricane Harvey hit Rockport, a city of about 10,000 people, winds were peaking at 125mph. The wind and rain prevented emergency crews from responding to distress calls. At one point Saturday morning, 22 firefighters were stuck sheltering in a fire station, forced to ignore up to 30 requests for help. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says it's too early to make any guesses as to the extent of property damage or casualties. But in Rockport, where residents who ignored a mandatory evacuation were advised to write their identities on their arm, buildings were destroyed. Wax described the situation to the Post in an email: “Widespread devastation unknown loss of life.” The area could still face serious flooding, with up to 60 inches of rain by the middle of next week. Meanwhile, some Texas residents remained unimpressed with Harvey's fury. A 56-year-old man in Galveston described his most-pressing concern: "We're running low on Corona."
– Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman needed someone to scrub all of his dirty drug money, and Mexican police say they arrested that man, known as "King Midas," while he was vacationing, the BBC reports. "Groups of elite federal police and the Mexican army arrested Juan Manuel Alvarez Inzunza, nicknamed 'El Rey Midas' ('King Midas'), in Oaxaca," a police statement read, per the AFP. The announcement was made Sunday but the date of the arrest was not given. Inzunza, 34, is suspected of laundering between $300 million to $400 million per year, for an estimated total of more than $4 billion over 10 years' time, through various currency exchange centers and other companies for Guzman's Sinaloa drug cartel. Inzunza's "transactions" were said to take place mostly in the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Jalisco, but also in Tijuana, the US, Panama, and Colombia, Courthouse News Service reports. He's likely to be extradited to the US, as is Guzman.
– Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's state visit to Washington went so smoothly that social media and even the press seem agreed that a "bromance" has bloomed. In the first such visit since Jean Chretien dined with Bill Clinton at the White House in 1997, Trudeau and President Obama discussed issues including terrorism and climate change and appeared so much in sync that the Washington Post, AFP, and the New York Times, among many others, used that bromance descriptor. It was also big on Twitter, notes CTV. Meanwhile, Canada's Globe and Mail notes that Michelle Obama introduced Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau as her "soulmate" when the spouses attended an event to promote girls' education Thursday morning. The two countries are "closer than friends," Trudeau said at the Thursday night state dinner, which was peppered with Canadian celebrities, including Ryan Reynolds and Michael J. Fox, the Post reports. "We're more like siblings, really," he said. "We have shared heritage, though we took different paths in our later years. We became the stay-at-home type. You grew to be a little more rebellious." Obama praised the "enormous energy" of the Canadian delegation and warned the new leader: "If in fact you plan to keep your dark hair, then you have to start dying it early. You hit a certain point, it's too late. You'll be caught." McClatchy notes that Trudeau would be wise to push for a close relationship with the Obama administration now, as bromance is unlikely to blossom between the liberal leader and the likes of Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.
– Mark Balelo, a businessman who starred in a handful of Storage Wars episodes, was found dead at his workplace yesterday, the Ventura County Star reports. Though officials have not yet given a cause of death, multiple sources including TMZ are reporting the 40-year-old committed suicide via carbon monoxide poisoning, and that he was found dead in his running car inside a garage at his California auction house. Balelo had been arrested Saturday on suspicion of methamphetamine possession, and was scheduled to appear in court next Tuesday. Sources say Balelo was upset when he was released from jail, and had his fiancée come over to make sure he didn't hurt himself. She left after a few hours, when he seemed better, on Sunday night; an employee found his body the next morning. Balelo's business bought the contents of storage lockers and liquidated them; he was featured on the show as a "deep-pocketed buyer," Huffington Post notes, and was best known for returning a stolen comic book worth $1 million to Nicolas Cage. Storage Wars is currently under scrutiny since a former cast member claimed the show is rigged.
– "Q WWG1WGA Trump 2020 Keep America Great! MSM is the enemy," read the sign spotted by the AP at President Trump's rally in Tampa on Tuesday night. There are plenty of letters on it, but one stands out: Q. NPR reports that other signs and T-shirts read "QAnon," a reference to a conspiracy theory that's picking up steam on the far-right and beginning to garner enough attention that it came up during the White House press briefing Wednesday. What you need to know: There actually is a Q: "Q" began posting to 4Chan in October 2017 and then shifted to "the even more fringe" 8Chan as well, per the Daily Beast. "Q" happens to be a type of high-level government security clearance, which Q claims to have. The "Anon" part is apparently a reference to both the anonymous Q (who uses the plural "we") and doubles as a reference to Q's fans: the Anons. The lingo doesn't stop there: Q is purportedly disseminating top-secret info via "breadcrumbs," which the Daily Beast characterizes as "part poem, part ransom note"; "bakers" follow the crumbs. "No name" is John McCain, "clowns" are those who try to undermine Q. A breadcrumb: The Beast gives this example, posted in June: "Think SC vote to confirm (coming). / No Name action. / Every dog has its day. / Enjoy the show. / Q" The conspiracy theory: Thanks to that government clearance, Q claims to know about a "worldwide criminal conspiracy," which NPR reports revolves around Robert Mueller—who, per Q, isn't investigating Trump's campaign or the 2016 election at all. Rather, he was put in place by Trump to investigate Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and other Democrats, with some (like Huma Abedin) supposedly being tracked via secret wearable location devices in advance of the coming "storm": when they'll all go to prison for crimes Q followers believe could be anything from participating in a pedophile ring to having a secret pact with Vladimir Putin. The conspiracy theory, II: To show how wide-ranging things get, the AP writes, "filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, the Rothschild family, and Satan also make appearances in discussions." Another element: the belief that JP Morgan was behind the sinking of the Titanic. The Tampa Bay Times cites one Q proponent as saying Trump's misspellings in his tweets are clues. CNN adds that the fact that Trump used the number "17" on a number of occasions in his speech Tuesday night fired up clue-seeking Anons, who noted Q is the alphabet's 17th letter. Background on "the storm": In an October 2017 meeting between Trump and military leaders (who, per QAnon thinking, urged Trump to run for president in order to go after the aforementioned criminals), Trump made reference to "the calm before the storm." The high-profile follower: Roseanne Barr is an "Anon," just not an anonymous one: She's tweeted about QAnon a number of times, including this in late June: "we r the army of truth-wwg1wga." The "wwg1wga," stands for "where we go one, we go all." (Side note from the AP: Valerie Jarrett, the subject of Barr's now infamous tweet, plays a role in some QAnon theories.) Why QAnon is getting more press this week: The Washington Post says Tuesday's Tampa event highlighted the fact that QAnon isn't just relegated to the corners of the internet at this point. The White House response: CNN reports QAnons have been pushing for the press to ask Sarah Sanders about Q, which apparently happened Wednesday. Her reply: "The president condemns and denounces any group that would incite violence against any individual."
– After nearly a month of quiet, an apparent serial killer appears to have struck again in Tampa, Fla. Police in the Seminole Heights neighborhood say a gunman fatally shot 60-year-old Ronald Felton as he crossed a street about 5am Tuesday, reports the Tampa Bay Times. Felton was killed in the same area as three other apparently random victims in separate incidents in October. "We've had another one," said Brian Dugan, chief of Tampa's police force. "We will hunt this person down until we find them," added Mayor Bob Buckhorn. Police previously released a video of a suspect, and this time they also have a description from a witness who saw him running from the scene, per WFLA: a black male about 6 feet tall, with a thin build and light complexion. He was dressed in all-black clothing and carrying a large pistol. "We think by their proximity and the manner it was done, they are linked," said Dugan. "We're saying it's related to the other Seminole Heights murders." Police think the killer lives in the Seminole Heights neighborhood and are asking residents not only to be cautious but to help identify him. Felton, an unemployed construction worker, is believed to have been on his way to a local church food bank, where he volunteered, reports NBC News. The previous victims—Benjamin Mitchell, 22, Monica Hoffa, 32, and Anthony Naiboa, 20—were shot on Oct. 9, 13, and 19, respectively. Felton was killed just blocks from a memorial to the first three victims. (The way the suspect flips a cellphone while walking may be a clue, say police.)
– Starbucks lovers, rejoice: The pumpkin spice latte controversy is over! The company announced today that its popular fall drink will finally be made with real pumpkin, USA Today reports. To recap, (the controversial) food blogger Vani Hari wrote a viral piece about the latte drink last year and pressed Starbucks for the ingredient list, notes the Atlantic. Turned out the drinks contained no pumpkin but did have caramel coloring, and it's been made that way for about 10 years, CBS News reports. John Oliver even joked about "the coffee that tastes like a candle" in a segment on Last Week Tonight. Now Starbucks has revealed an updated recipe that includes espresso, milk, pumpkin spice-flavored sauce (with real pumpkin puree), whipped cream, vanilla syrup, pumpkin spice topping—and no caramel coloring. "After hearing from customers and partners about ingredients, we took another look at this beverage and why we created it so many years ago," reads a blog on the Starbucks website.
– Oh, the importance of privacy settings. A Dutch girl sent out an invite via Facebook to her 16th birthday party, which ended up getting viewed by about 30,000 people. Last night, a crowd estimated at 3,000 showed up in the small town of Haren, and the ensuing vandalism, looting, and clashes with riot police left six people hurt and 20 arrested, reports the BBC and Reuters. Many sported "Project X" T-shirts, a reference to the movie about a party that gets out of hand, reports NBCNews.com. The birthday girl "posted the invitation on Facebook and sent it to friends, who then sent it to other friends and soon it spread like wildfire across the Internet," a local police official says. Facebook, though, might be able to help undo the damage: A new "Project Clean-X Haren" page sprang up after the unrest and already has more than 23,000 likes.
– Alec Baldwin got his marriage license today, but it wasn't all flowers and romance: Upon leaving New York City's Marriage License Bureau, he punched a New York Daily News photographer in the face, the paper claims (and it has photos of the encounter). Marcus Santos was "standing innocently," according to the newspaper, when an angry Baldwin approached and told him to move back. Baldwin then allegedly grabbed another photographer also standing there, Santos told him to let go, and you can imagine the rest. "He comes after me, starts shoving and punching me—one time, right in the chin," Santos says. A witness says Baldwin was indeed "crazy," but sources tell TMZ Baldwin simply pushed Santos after the photog nearly hit him with his camera; that's the story Baldwin himself gave on Twitter, before classily ending his tweet with the hashtag "#allpaparazzishouldbewaterboarded." He later tweeted, "I suppose if the offending paparazzi was wearing a hoodie and I shot him, it would all blow over..." More intrigue: Gawker implies Baldwin may actually have gotten married, rather than simply obtained his license. (Click to see which other celeb troublemaker had a more peaceful wedding yesterday.)
– Mark Zuckerberg is a much poorer billionaire than he was a few months ago, but he won't be joining the early investors selling off their Facebook shares. Those shares hit a new low of $17.73 yesterday, and the company took steps to assure investors that the slide will not continue, reports the Wall Street Journal. It promised Zuckerberg would not be selling any of his shares for at least a year, and outlined plans to protect the company share price when restricted stock units held by its staff become tradable shares later this year. Facebook's shares have lost more than 50% of their value since the company's May IPO amid concerns about its moneymaking ability, and analysts say it's time for Zuckerberg to act. "Clearly, he has to do something, having spent the last few years in flip-flops and a hoodie, pontificating about how Facebook is going to change the world," a crisis management expert tells the Los Angeles Times. "I think what people are going to need now is a road map that, among other things, answers the question: What is a reasonable expectation for this company's future?"
– Police in Turkey have arrested at least 13 people, including three foreign nationals, in raids in Istanbul and around the country after Tuesday's devastating attack on Istanbul's Ataturk airport. The death toll from the attack, which has been blamed on ISIS, has now risen to 42, with more than 230 injured, and the country has declared Thursday a day of national mourning. Authorities say the three suicide bombers opened fire after failing to get past airport security, the AP reports. "When the terrorists couldn't pass the regular security system, when they couldn't pass the scanners, police, and security controls, they returned and took their weapons out of their suitcases and opened fire at random at the security check," Prime Minister Binali Yildirim says. The Guardian reports that 23 Turks, including five police officers, several tour guides, and a taxi driver, have been identified among the dead. Six Saudis, two Iraqis, a Chinese citizen, a Ukrainian, and a Jordanian were also among those killed. Another victim was Brigadier General Fathi Bayoud, a Tunisian military doctor who had traveled to Turkey in an effort to bring home a son who had joined ISIS, Reuters reports. A security source says the son, who traveled to Syria with his girlfriend several months ago to join the militants, has now been detained by Turkish troops at the Syrian border.
– Hundreds online are fuming after professors at the University of Colorado told students that man-made climate change wouldn't be open for debate in their online course. In an email to students who complained after an initial lecture for "Medical Humanities in the Digital Age," professors Rebecca Laroche, Wendy Haggren, and Eileen Skahill explain the course is "based on the scientific premise that human induced climate change is valid and occurring. We will not, at any time, debate the science of climate change, nor will the 'other side' of the climate change debate be taught or discussed," per the College Fix. "If you believe this premise to be an issue for you, we respectfully ask that you do not take this course." The email notes students won't be allowed to debate man-made climate change in class forums and must use research materials peer-reviewed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The course syllabus also suggests only the negative impacts of fracking will be taught. Many have expressed their support, but hundreds have also objected, calling the professors "hostile control freaks." "If these professors feel they have such a case for man-made global warming, shouldn't they be able to take all comers?" an assistant professor at Missouri's Jefferson College says, per the Washington Times. A university rep says the professors have offered to discuss the course with students "who have concerns or differing opinions."
– Chelsea Manning won't be permitted to enter Australia for a speaking tour scheduled to kick off at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday after that country's Department of Home Affairs deemed the American classified document leaker failed to meet character requirements. While the Australian government won't address Manning's case specifically, per the AP, a person having a criminal record could cause them to fail the character test. Manning, a former US Army intelligence officer, was convicted of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks and served seven years in prison. Manning also has speaking dates scheduled in New Zealand. That country's government is still considering whether to grant her a "special direction" visa, which she would need due to her conviction. In a statement, Amnesty International says Australia's decision sends a "chilling message that freedom of speech is not valued."
– The 18-year-old victim of a brutal beating broadcast on Facebook Live thought he was going to a sleepover. That's what his parents thought, too, when they dropped him off at a McDonald's in the Chicago suburbs on New Year's Eve to meet up with 18-year-old Jordan Hill, who had been a classmate. The victim and Hill drove around together (in what police say was a van stolen by Hill) visiting friends for two days, with the victim sleeping in the van. On Tuesday, they ended up at a Chicago apartment where sisters Brittany and Tanishia Covington, ages 18 and 24, lived. What would ultimately turn into the shocking beating, broadcast live for 28 minutes and viewed millions of times on social media, started as a "play fight" between the victim and Hill, the Chicago Tribune reports. It escalated, and police say the Covington sisters got angry and tied the victim up. A downstairs neighbor heard noises and threatened to call police; two of the suspects left to allegedly kick down that neighbor's door, allowing the victim to escape, the AP reports. Hill, the Covington sisters, and 18-year-old Tesfaye Cooper were all charged with a hate crime due to racial slurs and comments about the victim's disability they were allegedly heard making on the video. A family spokesperson says the victim has had "profound emotional and physical disabilities throughout his life," and the missing persons report notes that he "does not like telling his parents who he's with" (his mother knew only Jordan Hill's first name, not his last). The suspects, who also face kidnapping, battery, and other charges, are in court Friday.
– Dr. Drew Pinsky's run at HLN has come to a close. The network says in a statement that CNN and Pinsky "have mutually agreed" that after six years, Dr. Drew On Call will air its final episode Sept. 22. No reason was given for the move, but when CNNMoney reported it, it painted the cancellation as just "the latest in changes at HLN," which also recently announced the cancellation of Nancy Grace's show after 12 years. Pinsky will stay "within the CNN Worldwide family" as a contributor, he said in a statement, per the AP. The Washington Post and other media note the move came a week after Pinsky went on a radio show and said he's "gravely concerned" about Hillary Clinton's health, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon at the time. There's no indication the timing was anything other than coincidence.
– Scientists may have found a way to cause lucid dreams—those experiences in which we know we're dreaming and can, in some cases, control the dream. The key, explains an expert, is electric scalp stimulation. "I never thought this would work," Harvard researcher Dr. John Allan Hobson tells LiveScience. "But it looks like it does." Researchers already knew that lucid dreamers exhibit a boost in brain activity in the frontal and temporal lobes comparable to being awake. In a study, they applied a variety of currents to the scalps of volunteers in REM sleep. Stimulation at certain frequencies—specifically, 40 Hz and 25 Hz—prompted increased activity in the frontal and temporal lobes, the Guardian reports. Some 77% of participants stimulated with 40-Hz currents reported lucid dreams. The study offers "a step in the direction of understanding how the brain manages to hallucinate and be deluded," says a researcher. It could also be beneficial in treating nightmares, the team says.
– The task was hard enough, even without complications: Forensic anthropologists were trying to identify the remains of migrants who perished in remote South Texas while trying to cross from Mexico into the US. Many of those remains ended up in a cemetery in Falfurrias, and when the volunteers made 52 exhumations, they expected to find 52 corpses. Instead, as the Corpus Christi Caller-Times reports, they found many more—but they can't say for sure given the state of burial. They discovered remains jammed into trash bags, shopping bags, and body bags; bones from multiple bodies inside the same bags; and some remains without any containers whatsoever. In short, it looked more like a dump than a cemetery, they say. “To me it’s just as shocking as the mass grave that you would picture in your head, and it’s just as disrespectful,” says one of the anthropologists, from the University of Indianapolis. The remains are in a Brooks County cemetery, and the county pays the Funeraria del Angel Howard-Williams funeral home $450 per body to handle burials. The funeral home has “certain records related to these burials, but this does not amount to confirmation that Howard-Williams was involved in depositing the remains in the manner the researchers described," says a spokesperson. Vocativ picks up on this aspect of the story: Complaints about improper burials often originate from the families of the deceased, "an issue when it comes to unidentified migrants, whose families have no way of knowing where they ended up." (Brooks County has seen a big increase in illegal immigrants trying to cross the border in recent years.)
– California legislators and labor unions have reached a tentative agreement that will take the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour, a move that would make for the largest statewide minimum in the nation by far. "Everyone's been operating in good faith and we hope to get it through the Legislature," Democratic state Sen. Mark Leno tells the AP. Gov. Jerry Brown sent the proposal to the Legislature on Monday, and it could be back on his desk as soon as Thursday. Under the proposal, the minimum wage would rise gradually, reaching $15 by 2022. After that, wages would rise with inflation, though in tough economic times the governor could delay increases. The minimum wage in California and Massachusetts is already $10 an hour, topped only by $10.50 in Washington, DC. "I'm hoping that what happens in California will not stay in California, but spread all across the country,” Brown told reporters at the state Capitol, per the Los Angeles Times. "It's a matter of economic justice. It makes sense." If the Legislature approves a minimum-wage package, it would avoid taking the issue to the ballot. One union-backed initiative has already qualified for the ballot, and a second, competing measure is also trying to qualify. (Los Angeles already plans to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2020.)
– Garrison Keillor is explaining his side of the story after Minnesota Public Radio severed ties with him. In an email to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the former host of A Prairie Home Companion says the incident in question was a case of accidental contact: "I put my hand on a woman's bare back," he writes. "I meant to pat her back after she told me about her unhappiness and her shirt was open and my hand went up it about six inches. She recoiled. I apologized. I sent her an email of apology later and she replied that she had forgiven me and not to think about it. We were friends. We continued to be friendly right up until her lawyer called." Keillor went on to say that he was "the least physically affectionate person in the building" and suggested that he had himself been the recipient of inappropriate behavior over the years. "If I had a dollar for every woman who asked to take a selfie with me and who slipped an arm around me and let it drift down below the beltline, I’d have at least a hundred dollars," he writes, calling the allegations against him "poetic irony of a high order." He added, however, that "I had a good long run and am grateful for it and for everything else.” Meanwhile, a 1994 quote from Keillor is making the rounds, as noted by a post at Hot Air: "A world in which there is no sexual harassment at all is a world in which there will not be any flirtation," he said during a speech.
– Of cancers that strike both men and women, colorectal cancer is the No. 2 killer in the US, reports the CDC, claiming more than 50,000 lives in 2013. Previous studies out of Harvard found that a common oral bacteria accelerates the cancer's growth in animals, but since the so-called fusobacteria are more prevalent in the mouth than the gut, it remained unclear how fusobacteria localize to the cancer. In a new study published in Cell Host & Microbe, researchers out of Israel and Harvard get at that mystery, finding bacteria may travel from the mouth to the gut and colon via the bloodstream. They tested this by injecting fusobacteria into the tail veins of mice with either precancerous or malignant colorectal tumors; the researchers subsequently detected fusobacteria in the tumors, per a press release. What's more, the researchers found that fusobacteria carry a protein called Fap2 that binds to a sugar called Gal-GalNac found on the surface of colorectal tumors, reports Medical News Today. While study author Wendy Garrett warns that "it may not be possible to prevent oral microbes from entering the bloodstream and reaching colorectal tumors," it's possible that drugs that target Fap2 or Gal-GalNac might impede the binding and prevent fusobacteria from contributing to tumor development. And Garrett says the research could bear other fruit: "If we know how fusobacteria localize and become enriched in colon tumors, hopefully we can utilize the same or similar mechanisms to guide and deliver cancer therapeutics to colon tumors." (One in seven colorectal cancer patients is now under this age.)
– Two skydivers were killed Saturday during a tandem jump in northern California, reports the AP. Their bodies were found in a Lodi-area vineyard after someone reported that the skydivers hit the ground without an open parachute, San Joaquin County Sheriff's Deputy Les Garcia said. It appeared the parachute did not deploy until after impact, he said. Authorities were working to identify the bodies, but it appears the victims, both males, were in their 20s. They had jumped from the Parachute Center, a popular skydiving school in the state's Central Valley whose website declares it "one of the largest and oldest drop zones in the United States," launched in 1964. Parachute Center owner Bill Dause told KCRA-TV the instructor in Saturday's deadly jump was an independent contractor who has made about 700 jumps. "The parachute failed to eject properly. We have no explanation why," Dause said. "The only thing it looks like is something may have gone out of sequence (and) that may have caused the problem." The website offers an introductory tandem jump with an instructor for $100, from 13,000 feet. The center has been in the news before. In May, a small plane carrying 17 skydivers took off from the Parachute Center and landed upside-down after clipping a pickup. The worst injuries were minor cuts and scrapes. And in February, the Lodi News-Sentinel reported that a solo skydiver had died after a parachute malfunction at the center. “I am always liable but I am not concerned. We didn’t do anything wrong,” Dause said. "It's a love of the sport. You keep going. You feel sorry for the people who can't participate any longer." An exact cause will be determined by the Federal Aviation Administration.
– The body of 7-month-old Aaden Moreno was found Tuesday night in the Connecticut River, and 21-year-old Tony Moreno, his father, has been charged in his murder after confessing to tossing him off a bridge, the AP reports. Before jumping into the water himself, Moreno made what he thought was a final phone call to his own mother, then sent a series of chilling text messages to the baby's 19-year-old mother, Adrianne Oyola, per the Hartford Courant. According to court records, Denise Moreno says she got a call from her son late Sunday asking her to come to the Arrigoni Bridge. She could hear Aaden crying in the background as her son said, "Just tell everyone I'm sorry." She called 911 and got to the bridge right before police did and just in time to see Tony jump, with an empty baby stroller nearby. Shortly before that, Oyola started getting heart-stopping texts from Moreno. "I'll text you in the morning to see when you'll be dropping off Aaden," she wrote shortly after 11:30pm, per Fox Connecticut, to which Moreno responded, "I won't be. … Enjoy your new life without us." Her texts to Moreno started to get more frantic. "Don't play around like that. Please don't try and take him from me!!!! … I'm trying to make this co parent thing work," to which she got the response: "Your [sic] not a parent anymore … He's dead … And soon I will be too." Meanwhile, a family court judge who had denied Oyola a permanent restraining order against Moreno is under fire for his decision, per the Courant. The director of a domestic violence coalition tells the paper she's frustrated to see yet another situation in which a judge insists on seeing proof of actual violence instead of taking seriously "the threat of violence." (See Fox Connecticut for an unedited transcript of the text messages.)
– The Amtrak train in Tuesday night's deadly crash was going the speed limit until just before the derailment, when it mysteriously sped up when it should have slowed down, according to National Transportation Safety Board investigators. NTSB member Robert Sumwalt says that in the space of around a minute, the train's speed jumped from 70mph to 102mph, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Sumwalt says it's not clear whether engineer Brandon Bostian—who was concussed and has "no explanation" for the derailment—accelerated manually. Sumwalt says inspection records haven't revealed any problems with the track, signals, or the Siemens "Cities Sprinter" locomotive itself, reports USA Today. Bostian has told investigators he has no memory of the crash or of engaging the emergency brake, but Sumwalt says he did so seconds before the derailment, CNN reports. He says the engineer, who's recovering from multiple injuries, has agreed to be interviewed by the NTSB and will be allowed to have a lawyer present. The "positive train control" system that could have prevented the crash was just months away from becoming a reality in the Northeast Corridor, reports the New York Times. John Boehner called a question about funding cuts contributing to the crash "stupid" yesterday, but funding problems did contribute to the delay, the Times reports. The train—and the tracks—were already equipped with the system, but it took four years to buy the rights to airwaves to switch it on. An eighth victim was found by a cadaver dog yesterday. Like many other victims, Ecolab exec Bob Gildersleeve, 45, was on his way home to his family. When he didn't make it home on Tuesday, his wife and two teenagers traveled to Philadelphia to search hospitals for him, NBC Philadelphia reports. Though there are still many questions surrounding the crash—especially the increase in speed—Amtrak says it takes full responsibility for it, the AP reports. "With truly heavy hearts, we mourn those who died. Their loss leaves holes in the lives of their families and communities," CEO Joseph Boardman said in a statement. "Amtrak takes full responsibility and deeply apologizes for our role in this tragic event." Amtrak says full service between New York and Philadelphia should resume early next week.
– America's five biggest banks have hammered out a $26 billion settlement for their role in causing the mortgage meltdown, reports the Wall Street Journal. The deal—the biggest of its kind since 1998's $206 billion settlement with the tobacco industry—was hammered out during almost a year of negotiations between the banks and all 50 state attorneys general, reports the New York Times. The money will go to some 2 million homeowners affected by the crisis. Under the settlement, some 750,000 people who lost their homes to foreclosure will receive payouts of around $2,000 each, a million people will have their mortgage debt cut, and 300,000 will be able to refinance their homes at lower rates, reports Politico. Analysts say that the deal, while small compared to the $700 billion in negative equity American homeowners are struggling with, could do a lot to turn the housing market around. Banks sought immunity from prosecution in return for the settlement, but officials will still be able to investigate any criminal wrongdoing in mortgage robo-signing and other abuses.
– Faced with the pending demise of his autistic son's beloved sippy cup, Marc Carter turned to the internet in hopes of finding a replica of the out-of-production vessel—the only one 14-year-old Ben will drink from, reports Mashable. And come through the internet did: Before long, dozens of cups were arriving from all over the world, and the hashtag #CupForBen caught the attention of the original manufacturer, Tommee Tippee. Now Carter is taking to the internet again, this time in a video on YouTube, to announce that the company has not only found its original manufacturing plans for the cup, it's also making a batch of 500 just for Ben. Tommee Tippee announced on Twitter that the "overwhelming love and support shown across social channels" is ensuring that Ben has a lifetime supply, and Carter, who cares full time for his three kids in Devon, England, tells the BBC it's better than winning the lottery. "This tiny blue cup dictates our life," he says. "Some people think I'm exaggerating, but without it he doesn't drink, so personally I'm very relieved." He adds that he hopes to continue a larger conversation about autism, and how parents and caregivers are the experts for their children. "When you've met a child of autism, you've met one child of autism," he says in the video. "You do not know every child, you do not know my son." (Nearly the same thing happened when an autistic girl needed a new shirt.)
– Don't mind searching for coyote poop, or parsing through that poop for digested food bits? Then the National Park Service (NPS) wants you. It's seeking volunteers to help find and analyze coyote excrement, called scat, across the Los Angeles area, My News LA reports. The idea is to see how urban coyotes survive by looking at their diet. "We hear plenty of anecdotal evidence about what coyotes eat, but it's actually never been studied in LA before," biologist Justin Brown tells the Los Angeles Times. This two-year project "should yield basic ecology information ... which we hope will assist residents and policymakers in making informed decisions on coyote management." Volunteers will be asked to commit for at least six months and give about a day per month to one of two teams, scat-finders or scat-sifters. Finders will help scour a wide urban range from Boyle Heights to Beverly Hills, while sifters learn how to work with scientists in identifying digested food bits in dried and sterilized scat. The hope is to move beyond research on suburban coyotes, which travel between urban and natural areas, and focus on urban coyotes—what they eat in places like small parks and vacant lots, Brown tells KPCC. "Is it fruit from people's trees, rats, possums, skunks, raccoons, people's cats?" he asks. This follows a surprising 2015 NPS study that attached GPS collars to two coyotes found near downtown LA, per a press release. The GPS data showed that the "coyotes are persisting within home ranges that have high human densities and little natural habitat, which is quite remarkable," Brown said at the time. (Officials say a mountain lion crept into a zoo and killed for a meal.)
– Paul Joseph Fronczak was abducted as an infant from a Chicago hospital in 1964; shortly afterward authorities thought they'd found him and returned a baby to Fronczak's parents. That child was raised as Paul Fronczak—but a DNA test this year shows it wasn't him. Now, the FBI is reopening the case, the Chicago Tribune reports. The man raised as Fronczak is hoping to find the kidnapping victim, not to mention his own birth parents. "I'm in this for the long haul," he says. "The perfect ending would be to find the real Paul, see that he's doing well and then on the same day find my real family," he says. In 1964, a woman posing as a nurse told mom Dora Fronczak the baby needed an exam; the "nurse" and the baby disappeared in a taxi, the Chicago Sun-Times notes. Investigators thought they'd found the baby in New Jersey, identifying an abandoned child as Fronczak partially based on the shape of his ears. Now, the FBI hopes "new witnesses come forward," and it may "subject some of the physical evidence to new and previously unavailable forensic examinations," says a rep.
– Under pressure from President Trump and many of his Republican colleagues, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that he will bring legislation to the floor as soon as this week to overhaul the nation's sentencing laws. McConnell's decision comes after more than three years of overtures from a large, bipartisan group of senators who support the criminal justice bill, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and House Speaker Paul Ryan. Trump announced his support for the legislation last month, but McConnell only cautiously said the bill was among a number of competing priorities for the lame-duck session. The key things to know, per the AP: Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican, said Trump's push for the legislation (the president tweeted about it last week) had been "critical to the outcome here ... the president was insistent that this be included." If the legislation passes, it could be a rare bipartisan policy achievement for this Congress and the largest sentencing overhaul in decades. Most Democrats support the bill, which would revise 1980s and '90s-era "tough on crime" laws to boost rehabilitation efforts for federal prisoners and give judges more discretion when sentencing nonviolent offenders, particularly for drug offenses. Supporters say the changes would make the nation's criminal justice system fairer, reduce overcrowding in federal prisons, and save taxpayer dollars. The legislation has been a priority for Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has worked behind the scenes with supportive Republican senators over the last two years and pushed Trump to support it. It was also a top issue for former President Barack Obama, who had hoped to see the bill become law before he left office. Supporters have long said that the bill would pass if McConnell would just put it on the floor. But McConnell appeared to have concerns that it would divide his caucus. One vocal GOP opponent, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, has criticized the bill as allowing for early release of serious and repeat felons. It's unclear how long it will take to move the bill. McConnell said senators should be prepared to stay in session the week following Christmas if necessary to complete their work.
– At least he didn't invoke Hitler: Newt Gingrich today accused health secretary Kathleen Sebelius of "Soviet tyranny" and said she embodies the "left-wing thought police" because of Obamacare, reports Politico. His money quote at the Values Voter summit in DC: “When Secretary Sebelius said the other day she would punish insurance companies who told the truth about Obamacare, she was behaving exactly in the spirit of the Soviet tyranny. If she is going to represent left-wing thought police about Obamacare, she should be forced to resign by the new Congress.” Gingrich was referring to this letter sent by Sebelius to insurers warning them to stop "falsely blaming premium increases" on the new health legislation. She said there would be "zero tolerance" of it. Elsewhere in his speech, Gingrich lavished praise on Sarah Palin and Jim DeMint for the Tea Party's successes. To catch up on his recent charged comments about President Obama's "Kenyan" world view, click here.
– Pretty much everyone likes to believe that art in this country is made by and for liberals. Conservatives like to believe they're the "few, proud freethinkers" fighting the mainstream narrative, and liberals like to think they're "naturally more artistic, funny, daring, and generally aesthetically awesome," observes Noah Berlatsky at Splice. One National Review columnist even recently called on conservatives to create the great right-wing American novel. But Berlatsky thinks it already exists. "I have four words for you. Gone With the Wind." Fans probably don't think of Gone as a conservative novel. "But there's no way around it; Gone With the Wind is really conservative," Berlatsky writes. "It obsessively romanticizes the past," while taking "an unyielding stance against federal intervention" and opposing government handouts. Now that's all tied up with Margaret Mitchell's support for the Confederacy and slavery, which might be uncomfortable for modern conservatives given how well it resonates with their platform otherwise. But it proves that "progressives have no copyright on imagination. … There have always been eloquent advocates for every point of view, no matter how liberals, or conservatives, might wish there weren't." Click for Berlatsky's full column.
– Is there any point in healthy people taking vitamin D supplements? New research suggests that while low levels of the "sunshine vitamin" are linked to many illnesses, the deficiency is a result, not a cause of sickness, reports Reuters. French researchers who reviewed hundreds of other studies were unable to find any link between taking vitamin D supplements and having a reduced risk of contracting illnesses including cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. The review suggests "decreases in vitamin D levels are a marker of deteriorating health," the lead researcher says. Experts not involved in the study say that while it shows that more long-term studies of the vitamin's effects are needed, it shouldn't be a reason for people ceasing to take supplements—especially among groups at risk of deficiency, including older people, pregnant and breastfeeding women, young children, and people with darker skin. The French study also failed to look at bone health, critics note. "It has been known for almost a century that vitamin D supplements given to those with deficient vitamin D levels results in improved bone health, preventing hypocalcemic seizure and rickets," a leading pediatrician tells the BBC.
– The State Department has confirmed one American was injured in the Barcelona terror attack Thursday, reports ABC News, while NBC Los Angeles reports a California woman is frantically searching for her husband; it's unclear if he might be that individual. Heidi Nunes-Tucker (her last name has also been reported as just Nunes or Nunez), 40, says she and her 42-year-old husband, Jared Tucker, were celebrating their first wedding anniversary in Barcelona when Jared left his wife to use the restroom while in the Las Ramblas district. "Within seconds after that, there was screaming and yelling and people running," Nunes-Tucker says. "I ended up on the other side of the street with a group of three people and the cops just kept pushing us away," Nunes-Tucker adds. She tells NBC News she has since seen a photograph circulating online that appears to show her husband looking "very injured." But though she's contacted hospitals, she has not yet tracked him down. The US State Department tells ABC News that "one US citizen suffered minor injuries" in Thursday's attack. That person has not been identified.
– Two government workers in Spain were fired this week when it was discovered they may not have done any actual work in 15 years despite continuing to collect their paychecks, the Independent reports. The town of Jerez de la Frontera's HR department discovered the men hadn't been to work between January 2015 and the end of this past May. But a deeper investigation revealed the problem was actually much worse. The city says the men—one a gardener, the other a driver—admitted to not working for up to 15 years. The workers' union claims the men were just taking their "accumulated days" off and the whole thing was totally legitimate, the Local reports. The union allows days off to be shared between employees and says the two men were using the days off accumulated by other workers, as well. One of the fired workers attempted to explain this in a letter to HR, but the city found it "insufficient to free him from work for the rest of the year, which was his intention.” “The municipal government only seeks to eliminate unjustified acquired habits that do considerable damage to the operation of the city council, its services, and, especially, its battered coffers,” Money quotes a statement from the city as saying. The union plans to fight the mens' firing. (Another Spanish man was discovered in February to have been skipping work for at least six years when his employer tried to give him an award.)
– Cramped airline passengers, Steve Cohen speaks for you. The representative from Tennessee plans to introduce the Seat Egress in Air Travel Act on Thursday, USA Today reports. According to Consumerist, Cohen doesn't want to see airline seats continue to get smaller. The SEAT Act would force the FAA to agree to a minimum size. “Consumers are tired of being squeezed both physically and fiscally by airlines,” Cohen said in a press release announcing the act on Monday. “Shrinking seat sizes isn’t just a matter of comfort but safety and health as well." He argues cramped seating could slow evacuation efforts in the event of emergencies and increase the risk of deep vein thrombosis in passengers. Cohen plans on pitching the SEAT Act as an amendment to the FAA Reauthorization bill, which the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is scheduled to vote on Thursday. The amendment "faces long odds" to actually becoming law, according to USA Today. Airline passengers have lost about 4 inches of leg room and 1.5 inches of butt room since the 1970s. The smaller seats have allowed airlines to fit more passengers on board while making planes lighter to save on fuel costs.
– President Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, got a restraining order against Stormy Daniels last month in an attempt to keep the adult film star from speaking out about her alleged 2006 affair with Trump, the New York Times reports. The temporary Feb. 27 order, obtained in a private arbitration meeting with a retired judge, prohibits Daniels (whose real name is Stephanie Clifford) from discussing "confidential information" related to the nondisclosure agreement she signed in Oct. 2016, NBC News reports. Daniels' lawyer tells NBC that Cohen has continued to make efforts to silence Daniels via "threats" and "intimidation" since the order was procured, warning her she is subject to damages should she talk. In her lawsuit against Trump attempting to have the NDA declared invalid, filed Tuesday, Daniels refers to a "bogus," "improper and procedurally defective arbitration proceeding hidden from public view," the AP reports. Cohen's own attorney says the NDA Daniels signed included an arbitration clause with permission to "seek an injunction in the event of a breach or threatened breach of the agreement," and that "the designated judge from the arbitration tribunal found that Ms. Clifford had violated the agreement and enjoined her from, among other things, filing [her lawsuit against Trump]." Also Wednesday, White House rep Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that Trump denies "all of these allegations"—both the affair and any knowledge of Cohen's $130,000 payment to Daniels—and that "this case [has] already been won in arbitration." Her exact meaning was not clear, as Trump is not listed as a party on the restraining order, and CNN's Chris Cillizza notes several of Sanders' "non-answers" skirt the issue of whether Trump knew about the hush money. If all of this seems a lot to wrap your head around, you're not alone; Slate calls it "convoluted to the point of paradox."
– Andrew Henderson knew he didn't have long to live due to his lymphoblastic lymphoma, which doctors told him was incurable. And so he held a "living funeral" last weekend, per the CBC, and the "Taking It to the Grave" event was a testament to the "ebullient performance-art lover," as the Toronto Star puts it. What made the pre-death memorial service for the Manitoba native especially unique: Henderson listened to complete strangers spill their deepest secrets, then had those secrets tattooed onto his body in the form of specially designated symbols. Henderson died Wednesday at the age of 28, just a few days after he was inked up with everyone's revelations. Per the Star, the show was to include a giant champagne bottle for Henderson to sit in, as well as a manicure bar and "cuddle spaces" so that visitors could "rest in peace." But the draw of the combination macabre/motivational happening was the ability to whisper one's secrets to Henderson, who then had a Toronto tattoo artist translate those secrets to symbols on his skin. A friend says Henderson had been studying up on death rituals and says she was glad to be able to help him use his performance art to prepare for the end of his life. "I've never personally seen someone engage with their own mortality in this way," Henderson's production manager adds. And all of those secrets (Henderson had planned to allow up to 100 of them on his body) now that he's gone? "I'm going to die, and my body's going to rot, and that's where those secrets will lie," he told the Metro earlier this month. (The reverse of a living funeral: posing the deceased like they're still living.)
– At least three Americans were aboard the passenger jet that crashed in the French Alps yesterday, including a mother and daughter from Virginia. Those two have been identified as Yvonne Selke, a veteran government contractor who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton in DC, and daughter Emily, a 2013 graduate of Drexel University. The third American killed has not been identified yet, reports NBC News. The Selkes are from Nokesville, Va., where Raymond Selke, husband and father to the victims, was too distraught to speak with the Washington Post. "Our entire family is deeply saddened by the losses of Yvonne and Emily Selke," the family said in a statement released later. "Two wonderful, caring, amazing people who meant so much to so many. At this difficult time we respectfully ask for privacy and your prayers." Emily Selke's sorority, Gamma Sigma Sigma, posted a note on Facebook saying she "always put others before herself" and will be "greatly missed." She was working for Carr Workplaces of Alexandria, Va., reports AP. Her mother was working with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's satellite mapping office,
– Indefatigable art experts believed they've discovered the location of a long-sought Leonardo Da Vinci masterpiece hidden behind another painting in Florence. A California team searching for the masterpiece Battle of Anghiari are convinced it's painted on a wall of the Palazzo Vecchio—behind another painting by Giorgio Vasari. They sampled the chemical content of the red, black and beige paint beneath Vasari's fresco, and discovered it matched the paint used on the Mona Lisa and Da Vinci's St. John the Baptist, reports ABC News. An unusual red lacquer typically used for oil painting is also consistent with Da Vinci's plan to do his battle painting in oil, notes researcher Maurizio Seracini, a professor at UC-San Diego. Though much work remains to be done, "the evidence suggests we are searching in the right place," he said. Other experts are not so convinced, reports the Washington Post, and call Seracini's claims "propaganda," though the mayor of Florence is certain the painting is hidden behind Vasari's. Da Vinci began painting Battle on Anghiari in 1505, but stopped a year later when he left Florence. Vasari's Battle Marciano in Val di Chiana was painted in 1563 in the Palazzo Vecchio when the Hall of the 1500s was being remodeled. Da Vinci's painting was thought to be destroyed then. But Seracini discovered spaces behind Vasari's painting, and began to suspect that the Da Vinci was still on the real wall underneath a kind of false front made for the newer fresco. Vasari himself may have left a tantalizing clue. One of his painted soldiers holds a flag reading: "He who seeks, finds."
– Veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas is dead at age 92, reports CNN. The word "trailblazing" is already in heavy use, as here in Politico's early obituary, given that Thomas achieved so many firsts for female journalists—including becoming the first woman to serve as president of the White House Correspondents' Association. She covered 10 presidents, mostly for UPI, but her career ended on a sour note in 2010 when she was caught on video saying that Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine." Washington Post: She was "unintimidated by presidents or press secretaries" and became "known as the dean of the White House press corps." The obituary notes that Thomas was the daughter Lebanese immigrants. "She routinely questioned White House officials over U.S. policies towards Israel and the Middle East, which led some to complain she was sympathetic to Palestinian and Arab viewpoints, tendencies which became more pronounced after she left straight-news reporting for opinion-writing." New York Times: Her "bottomless curiosity and unquenchable drive made her a prominent White House reporter at a time when men dominated the profession."
– Crowdfunded donations to Andrew Anglin, founder of the neo-Nazi site the Daily Stormer, have reached $150,000 to help pay for his legal defense in a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Per the Los Angeles Times, it took under two months to raise the money on the California-based site WeSearchr, which specifically champions far-right causes that won't fly on sites like GoFundMe and Kickstarter due to their hate-speech policies. The suit centers around complaints that Anglin started an anti-Semitic "troll storm" against a Jewish Montana woman and her family. NBC News reports that Anglin posted a message to his readers with Tanya Gersh's phone number, home address, and other personal information, instructing them to "tell them you are sickened by their Jew agenda." Gersh claims that hundreds of death threats and harassing messages poured in, including a tweet to her 12-year-old son that read, "Psst kid, there's a free Xbox One inside this oven." The suit says that Anglin's "campaign of terror" continued as he posted about Gersh with 30 separate Daily Stormer articles. "My friends used to joke that I was the happiest girl on the planet," Gersh says. "Overnight, my life was stolen from me. I'm in trauma therapy and the safe world I lived in inside my beautiful mountain town was changed for me." Gersh is suing Anglin for invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, malice, and violating the state's anti-discrimination act. SPLC President Richard Cohen expressed surprise over Anglin's rapid fundraising, given that his site's popularity centers around "vicious, incendiary, racist rhetoric."
– American support for the war in Afghanistan has reached an all-time low, according to the latest New York Times/CBS poll. Some 69% of those polled believe the US shouldn't be fighting in Afghanistan, up from 53% just four months ago. Support has plunged among both Democrats and Republicans, with 68% of Democrats and 60% of Republicans saying the war is going somewhat or very badly, according to the poll, which is consistent with several other recent surveys. NATO plans to hand over security to Afghan forces by the end of 2014. But 47% of those polled want the US to leave the country ahead of schedule, and only 17% believe the US should stay for as long as it takes to stabilize the country. A military expert at the Brookings Institution blames the poll numbers on a lack of awareness of the US policy of slowly turning parts of the country over to Afghan forces. "The overall image of this war is of US troops mired in quicksand and getting blown up, and arbitrarily waiting until 2014 to come home," he says. "Of course you’d be against it."
– An 88-year-old Auschwitz survivor who traveled all the way from his home in Los Angeles to Germany to testify in the trial of a former Nazi SS guard will not be allowed to do so, a judge ruled Friday. "I lost my whole family, I survived five concentration camps, and I represent the dead people." Joshua Kaufman tells NBC News. Kaufman, who had to remove bodies from the gas chambers, had planned to tell the court about how victims were killed at Auschwitz. "He will be able to tell you that the bodies looked as if they were frozen and that he could see the horror of the death fight in their faces," reads a statement from Kaufman's lawyer to the court, per NBC. But a judge ruled that German law prohibited Kaufman from testifying. According to the AP, the court stated it had already heard evidence on how the victims died. "No further evidence is needed," judge Anke Grudda said. "The court has no doubts on this aspect." Other survivors had already testified in the trial of 94-year-old Reinhold Hanning, who is accused of being an accessory to at least 170,000 murders in his role as an Auschwitz guard. Kaufman's lawyer says he's "shocked" at the judge's ruling, but Kaufman is trying to be positive. "If they don't want to hear me, I will just go home, but it is important that I came here to seek justice," Kaufman tells NBC. He says his four daughters and four grandchildren are his "revenge to the murderers."
– A recent change to the Oxford English Dictionary must have pedants ripping their hair out ... literally. It went unnoticed, but the OED added an additional meaning to the word "literally" two years ago because people use the word for exaggerated effect, the Daily Mail reports. "Our job is to describe the language people are using," said OED Senior Editor Fiona McPherson. "The only reason this sense is included is because people are using it the wrong way." But as the Telegraph points out, using "literally" for emphasis is nothing new. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain writes that his protagonist "was literally rolling in wealth." The 1769 novel The History of Emily Montague records the earliest known "wrong" use of the word, describing a character as lucky to meet "a party of fine women": "It is literally to feed among the lilies." Besides, says McPherson, word meanings change quite often: "Meat used to mean all food but now its sense has narrowed."
– Russia is hitting back at earlier reports that it had issued an ultimatum to Ukraine, with RT quoting a Defense Ministry spokesman as saying it's "total nonsense." "We’re interested in keeping friendly relations with the people of Ukraine and in preserving stability," another defense source says. Interfax first published the report—which said Russia would attack if all Ukrainian forces aren't out of the Crimea region by 5am tomorrow (meaning 10pm today EST)—citing sources in Ukraine's defense ministry, according to CNN. "If they won't surrender," the report said, "there will be a military storm on all UA (Ukraine Armed) military forces." The source said Russian troops were directly demanding surrender at various military bases in Crimea. A Ukraine Defense Ministry spokesperson also told the AP that Russian ships have trapped two Ukrainian warships in Sevastapol's harbor, and are demanding their surrender. Indeed, Ukraine's prime minister says that pro-Russian troops had surrounded or taken "virtually all" of the country's military facilities. In other developments: Russia is demanding that Ukraine reinstate a unity government negotiated on Feb. 21—which would mean re-installing Viktor Yanukovich as president. The idea appears to be a non-starter with the diplomats gathered in Brussels, however. Russia plans to press ahead with plans to build a bridge linking Russia with Crimea, Dmitry Medvedev said today, following a phone call discussing the crisis with Joe Biden, Sky News reports.
– Yahoo's high-profile CEO is gone, and it doesn't sound like a happy split. "I am very sad to tell you that I’ve just been fired over the phone by Yahoo’s Chairman of the Board," Carol Bartz wrote in a company email today, according to the AllThingsD blog. After 30 months of lackluster results, Chairman Roy Bostock and co-founder Jerry Yang apparently had enough. They did not name a permanent replacement. Bartz's reign at Yahoo has been "mostly downhill," writes Kara Swisher, noting that the company has been relatively weak in terms of financial results, advertising, and innovation of late. Still, the Yahoo brand (and impressive traffic) has several deep-pocketed investors and equity firms interested in striking some kind of deal, she writes. Yahoo shares were up 6% in after-hours trading, notes MarketWatch.
– Donald Trump has chosen a wrestling exec to head the Small Business Administration, but he's not getting Rocky to head the National Endowment for the Arts. Sylvester Stallone announced late Sunday that he isn't interested in taking the arts leadership role in the Trump administration, though he might be willing to take a post where he could help veterans. "I am incredibly flattered to have been suggested to be involved with the National Endowment of the Arts," Stallone said in a statement. "However, I believe I could be more effective by bringing national attention to returning military personnel in an effort to find gainful employment, suitable housing, and financial assistance these heroes respectfully deserve." Insiders tell the New York Times that Trump allies had spoken to the star about the arts job, though no formal offer had been made. The NEA, a federal agency currently headed by Obama appointee Jane Chu, a musician and artist, grants funding to cultural projects. Republicans have long sought to get rid of the agency, which has an annual budget of around $150 million, the Times notes. It's not clear whether there will be another role available for Stallone in the Trump administration. The New York Daily News notes that the 70-year-old actor has long been a supporter of gun control, and called for an assault weapons ban after the Sandy Hook mass shooting. (Liberal Jewish groups aren't happy about Trump's pick for US ambassador to Israel.)
– Bill Richardson's resume is a long one: He's the former New Mexico governor, US ambassador to the UN, energy secretary under Bill Clinton, and member of the Advisory Board on Rakhine State. That last role is no longer a current one, and that fact is making waves. Richardson resigned Wednesday from the international panel convened by Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi to advise on the Rohingya refugee crisis, and he had harsh words for Suu Kyi, whom Richardson has known for decades and says he likes "enormously," reports the BBC. In comments to Reuters, he called the panel a "whitewash" and a "cheerleading squad for the government." The resignation was spurred by a Monday argument that occurred as Richardson was in Myanmar. He raised the topic of the two Reuters reporters on trial—they were covering the Rohingya crisis and are accused of violating the Official Secrets Act—and got a "furious" reaction from Suu Kyi, he says, who saw the topic as outside the purview of the board. "Her face was quivering, and if she had been a little closer to me, she might have hit me," he tells the New York Times, adding she has "developed an arrogance of power." He says the argument resumed at dinner. Myanmar's response, per the BBC, is that Richardson should "review himself over his personal attack." The Los Angeles Times says the resignation of "probably the panel's most prominent member ... offers possible insight into the thinking of Suu Kyi." Richardson's take: "She blames all the problems that Myanmar is having on the international media, on the UN, on human rights groups, on other governments, and I think this is caused by the bubble that is around her, by individuals that are not giving her frank advice."
– The alleged killers of a 13-year-old Virginia girl sat in court Friday as police painted a grim portrait of them, People reports. Former Virginia Tech students Natalie Keepers, 19, and David Eisenhauer, 18, heard how Nicole Lovell was allegedly lured from her home on Jan. 27, murdered by Eisenhauer, and dumped beside a rural North Carolina road. Keepers "told us that she was part of a secret club, and it was the best club in the world because Eisenhauer understood her," testified Detective Ryan Hite. Keepers called Eisenhauer a "sociopath," per Hite, and referred to herself as "a sociopath in training." Investigators say Keepers broke into tears and gave them a detailed confession but denied involvement in the actual killing, the Roanoke Times reports. Without giving a motive, investigators say Keepers and Eisenhauer planned Nicole's murder the day before she vanished. Eisenhauer denies killing Nicole, but he allegedly threw a bloody knife in the woods, got help from Keepers relocating the body, and joined her in washing their bloody clothes at a laundromat. The pair also left a trail of electronic evidence including store surveillance footage and instant messages, the New York Times reports. "It will never be traced," Eisenhauer is said to have texted Keepers. She texted him about smelling "like cleaning supplies" after they allegedly washed Nicole's body. "I don't want to smell like that," she added. "I want to take a shower." A judge at the probable cause hearing ruled there was enough evidence against them to proceed to a grand jury, which will convene July 26. (Nicole's mom says the girl met Eisenhauer on "some off-the-wall" website.)
– Mika Brzezinski was not on the air Thursday, a day after she caused a ruckus by referring to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as a "butt boy." Her Morning Joe co-host—and husband—Joe Scarborough said Brzezinski was "off with her family, a long-planned family event," reports Mediaite. Her absence, though, seems to have only intensified the scrutiny on her over the remark seen as an anti-gay slur. President Trump, who has a history of enmity with the MSNBC hosts, joined the critics. Details: Trump: "If it was a Conservative that said what 'crazed' Mika Brzezinski stated on her show yesterday, using a certain horrible term, that person would be banned permanently from television," the president wrote. "She will probably be given a pass, despite their terrible ratings." Trump also praised Richard Grenell, the ambassador to Germany, "for having the courage to take this horrible issue on!" Grenell: The ambassador, who is gay, said Brzezinski's initial reponse to the controversy, in which she acknowledged a "SUPER BAD choice of words," didn't cut it. "I don’t see that you’ve actually apologized to gays?" he wrote. "Your words demean, mock and therefore try to control whole groups by minimizing our humanity."
– Lupe Fiasco chose an interesting venue to go on an anti-Obama rant: an Obama inauguration party. The rapper was performing at the DC party yesterday when he started playing an anti-war song that included the lyrics, "Gaza Strip was getting bombed, Obama didn't say shit. That's why I ain't vote for him, next one either." One reporter tweeted that the song went on for 30 minutes, and the rapper was asked to move on. He didn't, and video of the event shows him being escorted from the stage—but organizers say his words weren't the problem. Rather, according to Politico, one sponsor said organizers just decided to end the rapper's "bizarrely repetitive, jarring performance that left the crowd vocally dissatisfied." The statement adds that the organizers support free speech, but an earlier tweet noted that they were "disappointed" the rapper felt the need to turn his performance into "a political statement," BuzzFeed reports. Another tweet from the audience calls Lupe Fiasco's performance a "nonstop, anti-obama rap," and the Raw Story reports that the song also included 9/11 conspiracy theories.
– Jon Stewart is not happy with people using the earthquake in Haiti to advance their own agendas, and he had some words for Pat Robertson (and other offenders) last night: “Shut your piehole!” The only silver lining to the tragedy “is that whenever something this horrific happens, everyone comes together. Everyone,” he said, before pausing. “Almost everyone.” Included in his bipartisan reprimand were Rush Limbaugh and Rachel Maddow. Stewart also said he'd stumbled upon the cause of Limbaugh's heart problems: "You don't have one." Had Stewart watched last night’s other TV programs, Bill O’Reilly (who is upset about US aid money being sent to Haiti with “no accountability”) would likely have made his list, too. Keith Olbermann also ranted about Limbaugh and Robertson. Watch all the videos above.
– Oprah Winfrey, Idris Elba, George and Amal Clooney, the Beckhams, and Serena Williams were among the hundreds of celebrities, royalty, and other guests who trickled in Saturday to St. George's Chapel for Prince Harry's wedding to Meghan Markle, per the AP. And what's a party without goodie bags? Business Insider gives us a peek inside the treats the more high-profile guests are said to be leaving with, stuffed into little tote bags with bright-blue handles and dressed with an "HM" crest. Among the bonus delights: a large chocolate coin with Harry and Meghan's initials, shortbread, a bottle of water (the ceremony could be a long one), a shopping coupon, and even a fridge magnet. Also waiting for the guests allowed inside the castle: some hot coffee and bacon "butty," which is basically what we Americans call a bacon sandwich.
– The nation's intelligence chief has issued a new directive that severely clamps down on his underlings' ability to talk to reporters, reports the Federation of American Scientists. James Clapper's intent with Directive 119 is to eliminate leaks of classified information and thus make the country safer. Instead, this bone-headed directive—which makes even the discussion of non-classified information off-limits—will do just the opposite, writes Jack Shafer at Reuters. One big problem is that the move "increases the insularity of the national security state," and insularity can be a dangerous thing. Instead of healthy debates about national security, we get an ever-shrinking circle of yes-men decision-makers. "One excessively ingrown presidential administration, as you may recall, acted on its excessively ingrown intelligence information and analysis to invade a foreign land to capture diabolical biological and chemical weapons that didn’t exist," writes Shafer. If only we had "more unauthorized leaks to neutralize all the authorized leaks of bogus information to gullible reporters," we might have saved ourselves from a war. Click for his full column, which draws from lessons offered in the new book Secrets and Leaks by Rahul Sagar.
– "The worst is yet to come" in the Edward Snowden leaks, a US official warns—and it could come all at once. American and British officials are more than a little worried about a "doomsday" cache of highly classified intelligence files the NSA leaker is believed to have stored in a data cloud, Reuters finds. The material is well-protected by encryption and multiple passwords, sources say, but experts believe intelligence experts in China or Russia, where Snowden has received temporary asylum, could crack it if they found it. Some administration officials believe Snowden made off with enough material to keep the leaks coming for another two years. The unpublished material is believed to include plenty of potentially damaging information about the CIA—possibly including the names of agents. Adding insult to potential injury, intelligence workers in Washington, DC, dealing with the fallout from the leaks might be further angered to see ads thanking Snowden on the sides of city buses. An ad campaign hailing him as a hero for exposing "misinformation and lies told to us by politicians" began yesterday, funded by a free-speech advocacy group, reports Russia Today.
– "Racism is in the eye of the beholder," according to Italy's Health Ministry—and an awful lot of people are beholding just that in ads the ministry sent out to promote a national push for procreation. NBC News reports on the country's much-ballyhooed Fertility Day, an event taking place Thursday that the government hopes will boost the country's flagging birthrate, said to be the lowest in the EU. Events planned in cities around Italy (including Rome) on Fertility Day will include state-sponsored events where locals will be bombarded with baby-friendly propaganda about family planning, specifically about expanding families, per Quartz. The ads around the hot-and-heavy holiday are not only attracting claims of racism, but of sexism, too, with Fortune earlier this month calling the campaign "a sexist mess," while Quartz labeled it "an embarrassing misstep." The campaign kicked off in August, featuring a series of promos that some say are nothing more than fertility fear-mongering. One of the ads shows a woman holding an hourglass with the caption "Beauty has no age. Fertility does." And a pamphlet shows two cheerful white couples with the caption "Good habits to promote," while the caption "Bad company to leave behind" is accompanied by a photo of a black woman apparently smoking pot, while a white woman hangs out with a black man who's drinking. Critics say a) the low birthrate isn't women's problem, and b) the country isn't addressing unemployment, the real reason many people are choosing not to have kids. Even Italy's prime minister is shaking his head. "I don't know of any of my friends who had kids after they saw an [ad]," Matteo Renzi said in an early September radio interview, per Reuters. (If you do want to have a baby, though: Chill.)
– Christine O'Donnell got the most press (click here to see) but tea party favorite Carl Paladino's win in New York might have been an even bigger upset. Here's what the pundits are saying: “The Republican Party of New York is now officially dead,” writes Dan Collins of the Huffington Post. “Replace it with something better. Greens, Libertarians, Socialists, Whigs—they can't be any worse.” Paladino's "racist emails" make him the most offensive tea partier yet. “Paladino's brand of ill-informed Tea Party rage” will destroy the Republicans’ credibility in New York—“or what’s left of it anyway,” agrees Bill Hammond of the New York Daily News. His proposals are all dumb, unworkable, or outright illegal. “Maybe this train wreck will wake Republicans to the danger of self-financed candidates.” Paladino’s win won’t hurt Republican chances directly, because Rick Lazio would have lost to Andrew Cuomo by a huge margin, writes Nate Silver of the New York Times. But he will hurt Republicans down the ballot, if he motivates Democrats—or discourages Republicans. Last night also had major national implications. “If the tea party can make it in New York, it can make it anywhere,” observes Michael Muskal of the LA Times. The keys to Paladino’s success—anger at existing institutions, grass-roots shock troops, and gobs of money—are readily available elsewhere.
– The oldest tree at the White House is set to be taken down later this week, bringing to an end a piece of Americana that's been in place in DC since the mid-1800s. Per CNN, the Jackson Magnolia, one of several magnolias on the presidential grounds, has been the subject of efforts over the years to keep it strong and healthy, but federal arborists were recently brought in and found "the overall architecture and structure of the tree is greatly compromised," according to National Arboretum documents. The only thing keeping the tree erect, in fact, are the cables put in place to hold it up, and that cable system is now starting to falter. A White House official says first lady Melania Trump made the call to cut the tree down after seeing the paperwork, which says the magnolia's woes may have started as long as 50 years ago. "We believe eventually, the tree will fail," tree inspectors now write in their report. The magnolia has a love story behind it, though a bittersweet one. Just over a month after Andrew Jackson won the 1828 presidential election, his wife, Rachel, died, of an illness Jackson swore was exacerbated by attacks from his political foes. The new widower is said to have brought with him to Washington a sprout from one of Rachel's favorite magnolias on their Tennessee plantation, though when exactly it was planted at the White House is murky. Per the Oakridger, the sapling may have grown in various conservatories before arriving in DC, taking root at the White House as late as 1835. The White House plans to take a piece of the magnolia and plant it where the original stood. CNN and the Oakridger detail events that have taken place near the tree and past presidents who've enjoyed it.
– This week marked the 28th birthday of Tibet’s Panchen Lama, reinvigorating calls for his release from detention by the Chinese government. Radio Free Asia reports that at just 6 years old, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima and his family were detained when the exiled Dalai Lama named him the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama. Chinese authorities swiftly removed Nyima and installed government-backed Gyaincain Norbu to the religious and political position. The role of the Panchen Lama is the second most senior monk in Tibetan tradition, and Gyaincain Norbu remains an unsatisfactory candidate to many Tibetans who consider Nyima’s detention a tragedy. “Please know that I think about you every day, and as each year passes, my resolve to find you and restore you to your rightful role becomes stronger,” the head of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom wrote in an open letter to the missing Panchen Lama. Little has emerged about him over the last 22 years. According to the Hong Kong Free Press, Chinese officials stated in 2015 that he doesn’t want to be bothered and is “living a normal life,” including attending school. But Beijing has denied the United Nations as well as human rights group's requests to check up on him. Current law dictates that reincarnate lamas must be approved by Beijing in order to discourage a rallying call for Tibetan independence, a process that could instate a new “patriotic lama” once the current Dalai Lama, who is 81, one day passes away.
– A jury in Texas has stripped right-wing radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones of having primary custody of his children and awarded joint custody to his ex-wife, reports the AP. State District Judge Orlinda Naranjo also announced Kelly Jones will decide where their three children will live, reports the Austin American-Statesman. The Travis County jury deliberated for nine hours before returning its verdict late Thursday. In closing arguments, Kelly Jones' attorney told jurors the radio personality is a "cult leader" who's turning their children against his ex-wife, who said she was thinking of writing a book about their situation. “He’s not a stable person,” Kelly Jones said in court. “He says he wants to break Alec Baldwin’s neck. He wants J-Lo to get raped." She said that because her ex-husband broadcasts from home, their three kids, ages 14, 12, and 9, are exposed to his rants. His attorney countered that he's "playing a character." Earlier, Alex Jones' attorney told the jury the children are thriving under Jones' care and he should remain the sole caregiver; the kids have lived with him since 2015. (Jones and his site Infowars face a separate legal battle with yogurt maker Chobani.)
– It’s a moon jellyfish free-for-all on central Florida beaches. An unusually large swarm of jellyfish have stung an estimated 1,200 beach-goers over four days in Volusa County. Jellyfish are not unusual in the area. Winds and currents push them ashore once or twice a year, Volusia County spokeswoman Captain Tamra Malphurs says. But the volume is unusual. Tonya Kronk of Daytona Beach was among the unlucky. She took her body board out past a sandbar, and “it wasn't five minutes before I got stung," she tells CNN. "It just kinda stuck to my leg… and I couldn't get it off fast enough." The injuries were "pretty bad," she says. Scientists aren’t certain if jellyfish blooms, which occur about every 20 years, are becoming more common. But zoologist Allen Collins tells Fox that warmer oceans, commercial fishing, agricultural runoff, and artificial reefs may be at least partly to blame. Malphurs believes the uptick in stings on Florida beaches is probably due to the rising numbers of people using the beach rather than a change in temperature or weather. If you get stung, a marine biologist at the South Carolina Aquarium recommends applying vinegar to the tentacles before trying to remove them. And it might help to keep in mind that jellyfish serve a useful purpose. Fish, birds, and crabs feed on them, and they provide shelter for juvenile fish. (Moon jellyfish shocked scientists with this feat.)
– Forget Keystone, here's a pipeline we can all get behind. A series of underground tubes will transport beer from the De Halve Maan brewery at the center of Bruges, Belgium, to a bottling plant a couple miles away. "It all started as a joke," brewer Xavier Vanneste tells the Wall Street Journal. But, four years after work began, the pipeline is just weeks away from completion. The project was "born of environmental and quality of life concerns," Vanneste told AFP in an earlier story. Beer has been brewed at De Halve Maan's historic site for some five centuries. The bottling end of the operation was moved to an industrial area in 2010, creating traffic issues. The pipeline will eliminate some 500 truck trips through the city's narrow, cobblestone alleyways each year. Unfortunately, rumors notwithstanding, in-home taps aren't an option for locals. Once complete, the pipeline (a "Willy Wonkian approach" to the traffic problem, per the Independent) will transport 1,500 gallons of beer per hour at 12mph. The $4.5 million project was, in part, crowdfunded, with donors receiving lifetime supplies of beer (one 11 ounce bottle per day or one 25 ounce bottle per year, depending on the donation amount). A local restaurateur who contributed calculated that he would regain his investment, via beer, in 15 years. But, he tells the Journal, he would have preferred a direct tap to his establishment: "It would have saved me a lot of keg-dragging.” The mayor of Bruges is now considering pipelines to transport all kinds of things, including chocolate. As for concerns that scofflaws may try to illegally tap the beer line, which is buried at depths of six to 100 feet, Vanneste says the polyethylene tubes are stronger than steel. But, the brewer promises, the flavor of its beers will be unaffected. (Bieber's beer bong encounter ended badly.)
– Give thanks, oenophiles: An "elaborate" Thanksgiving Day wine heist has met its end, after Seattle police on Tuesday recovered most if not all of the 2,500 stolen bottles, valued at $648,000. Kindly, the thieves apparently kept the 200 cases safe in a "temperature controlled environment" at a Sodo storage facility less than a mile from where the theft took place, the Seattle Times reports. "While we are still doing an inventory to make sure it's all there" (that's no small feat; every bottle has to be photographed and entered into evidence) "the volume recovered makes us eager with anticipation," says the owner of Esquin Wine & Spirits, who called the theft "something out of Ocean's 11." Two men disabled motion detectors, painted over surveillance cameras, broke into private storage lockers where they "cherry picked" wine from France and Italy, and tampered with gas lines in a bid to start a fire after their exit, the owner tells KIRO TV. But Samuel Harris and Luke Thesing allegedly weren't Ocean's 11 enough: One of the cameras wasn't completely painted over, and staff IDed Harris, who had rented a storage unit of his own in October; a Lowe's receipt led police to video footage of Thesing shopping for supplies with Harris. The two have been charged with attempted arson, burglary, and theft, but those charges may not be all they have to worry about: A San Francisco wine consultant says he bought $100,000 worth of wine from Harris and another man this spring, a few months after a big wine theft in the area. Police are investigating if the two cases are related. (Another recent wine find: the oldest wine cellar on record.)
– The US East Coast wasn't the only place struggling with winter weather over the weekend: An unusually cold weather front has been blamed for killing 57 mostly elderly people in Taiwan's greater Taipei area. The cold wave abruptly pushed temperatures to a 16-year low of 39 degrees Fahrenheit in the subtropical capital where most homes lack central heating, causing heart trouble and shortness of breath for many of the victims, a city official says. "In our experience, it's not the actual temperature but the sudden drop that's too sudden for people's circulatory systems," a city spokesman says. The cold front also left 3.5 inches of snow on Taipei's highest peak Saturday and stranded vehicles as people headed into the mountains to see the snow. The same polar front closed schools Monday in Hong Kong, where temperatures fell to 34 degrees Fahrenheit, the lowest in nearly 60 years, the BBC reports. Over the weekend, "frost chasers" headed to the territory's highest peaks, and more than 200 of them, many suffering from hypothermia, had to be rescued by firefighters, reports the Hong Kong Free Press. (In the US, the weekend blizzard may be followed by a baby boom.)
– Archaeologists have made quite the find off the coast of Sicily: a monolith that dates back about 10,000 years. It's broken in two now and on its side, but the block would have stood nearly 40 feet tall in its heyday, before a massive flood submerged it (along with its home island) some 9,500 years ago. The find is intriguing because of its age, explains a post at Evoanth. It predates "civilization as we know it," but the monolith clearly would have required a large number of people working on it—it weighs an estimated 15 tons—suggesting "they were already shifting towards our modern way of life." Indeed, the researchers write, "The monolith found, made of a single, large block, required a cutting, extraction, transportation, and installation, which undoubtedly reveals important technical skills and great engineering." As with Stonehenge, the monolith's purpose is unclear, but archaeologists are certain it's manmade because of the work that went into it—including three holes of similar size, "one at its end which passes through from part to part, the others in two of its sides. ... There are no reasonable known natural processes that may produce these elements," they write in the Journal of Archaeological Science. One of the researchers tells Discovery it might have been part of a lighthouse or an "anchoring system" of some kind. More hunts at similar areas in the Mediterranean could shed more light on the origins of civilization there, he adds. (Another new archaeological find drawing comparisons to Stonehenge is in Britain.)
– A 26-year-old Marine reservist is free after spending seven months in Mexico jails over what he says was a wrong turn. Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, who served two tours in Afghanistan, was arrested in March because he crossed the border into Tijuana with three loaded guns in his pickup, reports ABC News. Tahmooressi says he made a wrong turn on a highway in California and never intended to go to Mexico, but authorities there cracking down on gun-running to cartels were unsympathetic. His family and a slew of high-ranking US politicians have lobbied since for his release, and a Mexican judge agreed to free him so he could be treated for his war-related PTSD. "It is with an overwhelming and humbling feeling of relief that we confirm that Andrew was released today after spending 214 days in Mexican Jail," said his family in a statement. Tahmooressi immediately boarded a plane back to the US. His lawyer had said Tahmooressi kept loaded weapons with him because they made him feel safer after his stint overseas. And his mother said her son was more traumatized by his time in jail than by the war. The AP notes that while PTSD is becoming a common subject in US courts, this is one of the first times it has been cited in a ruling in Mexico.
– Serial subject Adnan Syed moved a step closer to a new trial Thursday when Maryland's Court of Special Appeals upheld a 2016 decision to overturn his murder conviction from 2000 and grant him a retrial. Prosecutors, who objected when a lower court vacated the conviction, haven't said whether they'll appeal the decision from the state's second-highest court to its highest court, the Court of Appeals, reports the AP. The case of Syed, who was 17 years old when he was convicted of killing ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee, came to national attention with the 2014 Serial podcast, which cast doubt on the conviction. The appeals court panel decided 2-1 that Syed's lawyer in 2000 failed him by neglecting to investigate an alibi witness who said she saw him in a library around the time Lee was murdered. Syed's attorney, C. Justin Brown, tells the Baltimore Sun that the court's decision is "incredible." "It's been a really long wait, and that's been hard and it's been stressful, obviously not just for us but for Adnan, who's now been in prison for 19 years, going on 20 years," he says. "I firmly believe that he is innocent, and our goal is to get him out of prison." Syed has been in custody since his February 1999 arrest. A judge denied a request to release him on bail after the conviction was first overturned, and Brown says he plans to talk to Syed about filing a fresh request.
– Love may make the world go round, but it's not the stuff from which you make granola, at least according to the FDA. "There's little room for whimsy when it comes to FDA compliance," as Law 360 puts it in its report on a Massachusetts-based bakery that distributes to about 120 stores throughout New England. Nashoba Brook Bakery was taken to task by the agency over its inclusion of "Love" as one of the ingredients in its Nashoba Granola. In a Sept. 22 letter to CEO John Gates and Head Baker Stuart Witt that outlines a slew of violations related to sanitation, the FDA also called out the bakery's use of the word "Love" as an ingredient. It reads, "Ingredients required to be declared on the label or labeling of food must be listed by their common or usual name." And, in case you were wondering, "'Love' is not a common or usual name of an ingredient, and is considered to be intervening material because it is not part of the common or usual name of the ingredient." Gates described the situation as "just ... so George Orwell" in a call with Bloomberg. "Situations like that where the government is telling you you can't list 'love' as an ingredient, because it might be deceptive, just feels so silly." The FDA may not think it's silly, but it does think it's minor. Bloomberg reports that violation was one of its lesser concerns, with the letter noting bread-load molds that weren't cleaned between uses and an employee whose blue plastic bracelet came into contact with raw dough, among other transgressions. (The FDA once had an issue with "healthy" KIND bars.)
– Bank of America has, as expected, reached an agreement for an $8.5 billion settlement with a group of disgruntled investors who lost truckloads of money buying mortgage-backed securities from Countrywide Financial, the bank announced today. It’s the largest payoff yet from a financial services firm, the Wall Street Journal reports, and it may embolden other financial crisis victims to file suits of their own. The Bank said that the payment would “resolve nearly all” of its Countrywide obligations—BofA bought Countrywide in 2008 for $4 billion. It will hand over the money to Bank of New York Mellon Corp., which will then distribute it to other investors. The move makes the bank more likely to report a loss next quarter.
– Japan has sort of lost something—a $273M satellite just launched to monitor X-rays coming from galaxy clusters and black holes, Discovery News reports. "We're taking the situation seriously," says Saku Tsuneta, a senior official at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). "We know approximately where it is." Launched Feb. 17, the Hitomi satellite was scheduled to be online March 26, but the connection didn't happen. The US Joint Space Operations Center then found signals from five objects close to the satellite, and tracking data shows Hitomi went significantly off course, Wired reports. Did Hitomi break up? Was it hit by an asteroid? Luckily, the Japanese "tend to be very good at resurrecting things that would otherwise be dead," says US space expert Moriba Jah. Case in point: Not long ago, JAXA steered the Akatsuki satellite to orbit around Venus after it went adrift for five years. JAXA could try solving the Hitomi mystery by tracing the paths of those five space objects to see "when the collision actually occurred," says Jah, though Wired calls the idea of an asteroid striking it "on its first day of work" a "crazy coincidence" (maybe Hitomi just blew up). Sadly, the high-resolution spectrometer on board to measure X-rays was ruined on two earlier Japanese missions, damaged on launch in 2000 and crippled by a helium leak in 2005, Nature reports. (The recent discovery of gravitational waves adds to evidence that black holes exist.)
– President Barack Obama declined to join in his party's criticism of FBI Director James Comey on Monday, The Hill reports. Director Comey has faced a barrage of attacks from Democrats, some of whom accuse him of trying to meddle in the election by announcing a probe into newly uncovered Hillary Clinton emails just days before the presidential election. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid even went as far as accusing Comey of violating a federal law that prohibits government officials from using their position to impact an election, the Wall Street Journal reports. But Obama doesn't believe anything nefarious is going on, per White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, who told reporters Comey is "a man of integrity [and] good character," and that "the president doesn’t believe he’s secretly strategizing to benefit one candidate or one political party." Meanwhile, Politico looks at whether the latest email revelations could push swing states toward Trump. One expert notes, "I would not think this news is enough to push them [to one candidate] for good." And in more potentially good news for the Clinton campaign, the New York Times reports some 21 million people have already submitted their votes via mail-in ballots or early voting, meaning their votes won't be affected by any late-breaking scandals. Over at the Trump campaign, the Washington Post reports that Trump praised Comey's move Monday, saying Comey had "brought back his reputation" by being transparent about the new information.
– Frontline aired Part One of its special on Adam Lanza last night, and the tech club adviser who befriended Lanza said in an interview that the teen "had episodes" in which "he would completely withdraw." Richard Novia recounts one overnight trip when Lanza had such an episode: "He completely withdraws from the social activity that you’re involved with," Novia explains. "Will not communicate. Adam, what’s going on? No answer." It got so bad that Novia called mom Nancy Lanza to pick her son up. Novia thinks the episodes were triggered by any change from routine or "excitement." Crowds also put Lanza on edge, Novia recalls, and he tried to avoid them in the halls, which sometimes meant waiting til they passed and being late for class. But did Novia think Lanza was headed toward violence? "No. Not at that time," he says. "Not at that time he was not." Novia confirms that Lanza did, however, enjoy violent video games; he says Lanza's favorite was World of Warcraft. Frontline also obtained copies of emails Nancy Lanza sent to a close friend, including one in which she talks about her Green Beret brother teaching her how to defend herself.
– An unrepentant serial rapist believed to have attacked up to 1,000 women has finished a 24-year prison sentence in Canada, but he won't be enjoying a minute of freedom there. Instead, guards will accompany Selva Kumar Subbiah on a plane back to his native Malaysia and hand police files on him to authorities there, the Toronto Star reports. The 56-year-old, who moved to Canada in 1980, was convicted in 1992 of drugging and raping dozens of women; authorities believe there were hundreds more victims. Subbiah pretended to have exotic pets for sale or posed as a modeling agent or movie producer to lure women to the basement of his home, where he offered them drugged drinks before raping them and taking "trophy" photos. Officials say Subbiah served his sentence in full because he showed no remorse or any sign of empathy for his victims. "You are the worst offender and the highest risk that has ever come before me in my career," immigration official Andrew Laut said at a hearing Monday. Retired Toronto cop Brian Thomson tells the Toronto Sun that he and his partner spoke to more than 500 women who were attacked by Subbiah. "In a heartbeat, he will reoffend—there is no doubt in my mind," Thomson says. He adds, "He is a total, classic psychopath. I've met a lot of interesting people. He is the scariest I've ever met." The Malaysia Star reports that Malaysian police will meet Subbiah at the airport and plan to monitor him closely. (Cops looked into five sexual assaults and ended up finding 27.)
– NASA is hard at work to protect the Earth from asteroid threats, NPR reports. The agency's new "Scout" detection system scans the skies above our planet for small, nearby objects that might enter Earth's orbit. In fact, a small one between 5 and 25 meters across will come relatively close to Earth Sunday night, though there's no danger of a strike. Once an asteroid is detected, Scout coordinates data from multiple telescopes across the world in order to ascertain if the object will enter Earth's atmosphere, and if it poses any sort of a threat. While more than 15,000 Near-Earth Objects have been recorded over the course of history, astronomers say many, many more pass by undetected. This year alone, scientists have discovered more than 1,500 NEOs, the Christian Science Monitor reports. That number doesn't mean that the end of days is coming—it just means scientists are getting better at detecting and monitoring objects that come into our celestial neighborhood. While the new "Scout" system looks at smaller objects, NASA's older, heavy-duty "Sentry" system looks for big, far-away asteroids which might pose a threat to Earth. And if any are ever detected? NASA and the ESA are jointly working on a method to re-direct large asteroids.
– Australian kids today probably don't hear much late-'80s glam rock anymore, which may explain why Great White's "once bitten, twice shy" mantra didn't come into play in this story out of Queensland. Per the Brisbane Times and the AP, an 18-year-old contractor was clearing away trees and other overgrowth near Capella on Friday when a snake emerged from the scrub and bit him on the lower right leg. A Royal Automobile Club of Queensland chopper flew the man to Mackay Base Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition. But while his wounds likely weren't pleasant, the unnamed man toughed it out and headed back to the same patch of grasslands on Sunday with his chainsaw, ready to get back to his job. Which led to two more snakebites on the opposite side of the field, this time on his left forearm, and another ride in a rescue helicopter to Mackay. "This incredibly unlucky fellow wasn't very talkative, as he was in [a] great deal [of] pain when we arrived at the hospital," one of the RACQ crew notes to the Times. The injured man couldn't provide any detailed description of this particular attacker, other than it was "brown colored." A snake expert from Canberra Reptile Zoo tells the AP that the unfortunate guy was likely the victim of two separate slitherers, and that they were probably both of the eastern brown snake variety—said to be the second most toxic snake in the world, per the Billabong Sanctuary. (This poor guy has a similar story, except his involves spiders and toilets.)
– Amateur enthusiasts and kids on field trips have been flocking to a New Jersey quarry pit for years to dig up some of its many prehistoric fossils. Incredibly, this pit may also be the only known dinosaur graveyard dating back to their destruction 66 million years ago, the New York Times reports. "It sounds silly, but is it the case that this pit in South Jersey, behind Lowe's, has the one window into this pivotal moment in time?" asks Kenneth Lacovara, who teaches geology and paleontology at Rowan University. The pit, which was in a shallow sea on the dinosaurs' last day, happens to contain a host of fossils about 40 feet down—which puts it around the "extinction layer" marked by an element found in comets and asteroids called radioactive iridium. "We are in the trying-to-poke-holes-in-it phase," says Lacovara. "Certainly we have rocks that are near that time. I know we're damned close." Owned by a water treatment plant for nearly a century, it became unprofitable due to environmental regulations and was slated to become a lake—until Rowan, pressed by Lacovara, bought it for $1.95 million, the Star-Ledger reported in September. Now Lacovara wants even more school trips and fossil days so enthusiasts can search through the muck in Mantua Township, NJ. "We really want to integrate this in the community," he says. "Kids start to think of science as a process. It's a way of asking questions about your world."
– Resurrecting a legendary franchise is a daunting task—but Jason Segel, Amy Adams, and the guys behind Flight of the Conchords have done it with roaring success. In the new Muppets film, the stars track down the Muppets in puppet retirement for a whole new show. (It's got a 98% positive rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.) “The Muppets won me over, over and over and over again,” writes Christopher Orr in the Atlantic. “Equal parts tender and hilarious, heartfelt and sly,” the movie “is an utter delight, a tidal surge of joyful nostalgia cunningly repackaged and updated.” Sure, “there are a few stumbles, but not too many,” notes Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times. Once we arrive at “a showstopping number that asks the burning question—'Am I a man, or a Muppet?'— you are completely hooked.” “It should be universally acknowledged that a world with Muppets is a better place in which to live,” writes Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News. If the film can’t bring back the early days of the Muppets, it achieves “an equally worthy aim: reminding us what we’ve been missing.” In short, “the rainbow connection is a smooth, unbroken arch,” writes Stephen Holden in the New York Times.
– Just hours after being fitted for a tux for his daughter's October wedding, 62-year-old Raymond Locascio of Woodbury, NY, disappeared. Though his locked vehicle was found two days later, on July 10, parked near a hiking trail in Bear Mountain State Park, there has been no trace of the father of two daughters since then, reports the Times Herald-Record. And so daughter Suzanne Locascio has put wedding planning on the back burner amid the search for the man described as a "doting" father. "He was so excited," his wife, Barbara Locascio, tells CBS New York. "We talked about what song he would dance to with her." Friends with Raymond since kindergarten, Barbara says her husband suffers from diabetes and doesn't travel with his meds, and that disorientation is far likelier than suicide or foul play. "He hadn’t had lunch," she says. "He works crazy hours. He had been up since two in the morning." She admits there are money woes, and their house is going into foreclosure, but Suzanne says her father was not paying for the wedding. State police say they're following every lead and have conducted several searches. (The body of another missing man was just found near his job in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park.)
– Police say a 31-year-old Alabama man may have been shot dead by his 2-year-old son, NBC News reports. The boy's mother returned home from work yesterday to find Divine Chambliss lying dead on a bed, according to AL.com. NBC reports Chambliss had been shot in the head. There was no sign of an intruder, and no one else was thought to have been at the apartment at the time of the shooting. According to a statement, police in Hoover are continuing to investigate, "and detectives are not completely ruling out other possibilities." But at the moment, it appears that the toddler accidentally shot his father. Police are trying to figure out how such a young child could have fired the gun, NBC reports.
– Four beloved French cartoonists are among the dead in today's attack on the Paris office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Among them: Editor Stephane Charbonnier, or Charb. BuzzFeed reports the 47-year-old has had police protection since 2011 and was two years later added to al-Qaeda's most wanted list. In a 2012 interview with Der Spiegel, he had this to say: "If we worried about the consequences of each of our drawings in each of our 1,057 issues, then we would have had to close shop a long time ago. ... A drawing has never killed anyone." As for his own safety, he said, "I have neither a wife nor children, not even a dog. But I'm not going to hide." More: The other dead cartoonists are Jean Cabut, or Cabu, who has published cartoons in France for 60 years; Georges Wolinski, 80; and Bernard Verlhac, or Tignous, 57. The fifth journalist to be named is Bernard Maris, a 68-year-old economics professor who was the magazine’s deputy editor, reports the Guardian. The Wall Street Journal and the BBC report several of the dead were thought to have been in an editorial meeting when the attack occurred. Footage aired by French TV captures two masked attackers shouting, in French, "We have avenged Prophet Muhammad. We have killed Charlie Hebdo." The Guardian has graphic video of two gunmen shooting a police officer. Though the magazine's website was down for a period, it's now online and bears a single image with a phrase trending on social media: "Je Suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie"). John Kerry said as much today: "Each and every American stands with you today. Not just in horror or in anger or outrage ... but we stand with you in solidarity." The Week rounds up some reactions to the tragedy from cartoonists around the world who have responded in their best way: via cartoon. Another roundup: one from the Daily Beast on the magazine's 16 "most shocking" covers.
– The United States Postal Service's money woes just got $3.5 million worse, and the Statue of Liberty is to blame. A judge ruled last week that the agency did commit copyright infringement when it used an image of Robert S. Davidson's Statue of Liberty on a stamp it issued in 2011. The Lady Liberty that towers over New York Harbor was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi; Davidson's replica stands before the New York-New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, reports Fast Company. The Washington Post (which has an image of the stamp) in December 2013 reported that the USPS had obtained the image from Getty Images but didn't also seek permission from Davidson, likely because the USPS assumed what it was using was in the public domain. Not so. A stamp collector had identified the mix-up in 2011, and the USPS was made aware—but then it printed another 1.13 billion of the stamps on top of the 3.5 billion it had already made, reported Artsy in 2017. As such, the suit claimed the infringement was knowingly committed. Identical copies of works in the public domain (which the statue is) aren't covered by copyright infringement protections. But Davidson argued in his suit that he wasn't trying to create a replica but rather to craft a fresher, more feminine version. Per the ruling, "he envisioned his mother-in-law as inspiration ... and viewed her picture every night during the construction of the face of the statue." The judge ruled the "plaintiff succeeded in making the statue his own creation, particularly the face." The amount owed: $3,554,946.95 in royalties, plus interest. (The USPS has announced a new kind of stamp.)
– E! News anchor Maria Menounos is stepping away from her job at the network as she takes time to undergo treatment for a recently discovered brain tumor, Variety reports. Menounos, who had been with E! News since 2014, tells People she started feeling lightheaded, experiencing headaches, and slurring her speech in February, and an MRI soon after revealed she had a meningioma tumor the size of a golf ball—all while she was tending to her mother, who's fighting her own battle against stage 4 brain cancer. "I didn't cry. I actually laughed," Menounos says, calling it "surreal" and "crazy" that she had fallen ill at the same time as her mom, with a similar condition. Menounos had a seven-hour surgery in early June to get rid of 99.9% of the tumor, which turned out to be benign. Her doctor says there's a "6 to 7% chance that we'll see it come back," she says, adding, "I'll take those odds any day." Although she says her face is still "numb" (the tumor had been pressing against her facial nerves), Menounos is recovering with the help of her fiance, Keven Undergaro, whom she's been with for two decades. And her mother, Litsa, is now stable in her own illness. Menounos pleads with other women "caretakers" to look after themselves, noting she's glad she acknowledged her symptoms. "We put ourselves last," she says. "If your car is making a weird noise, you take it to the mechanic. How come when our body is making weird noises, we ignore it?" (A dad in Wales says Facebook helped him discover his brain tumor.)
– Two openly gay GOP candidates are still alive in the midterm congressional elections. One is Richard Tisei of Massachusetts, who ran unopposed in his primary last night and hopes to join the six current LGBT members of the House, all Democrats, reports Mother Jones. No openly gay GOP candidate has ever been elected to Congress, notes Metro Weekly. "Opinions do evolve," says Tisei. "What I could do is be a catalyst to help bring about a change within the Republican caucus." The second gay GOP candidate is California's Carl DeMaio, who won his primary in June. A third, New Hampshire's Dan Innis, lost his primary yesterday. All three made history of sorts by becoming the first candidates for federal office to feature their same-sex spouses in campaign ads, writes Patrick Caldwell of MJ. (His article spells out some of the friction they face as gay candidates from within their own party.) In other races, Democrat Maura Healey of Massachusetts won her primary last night and is expected to become the nation's first openly gay attorney general in November. In the same state, Democrat Stephen Kerrigan, also gay, won the primary to be his party's candidate for lieutenant governor.
– Only six states allow prisoners conjugal visits—and the state where the practice began roughly a century ago, Mississippi, is poised to halt (but not legally ban) those visits Feb. 1. The prison commissioner in the state, where 155 of some 22,000 inmates had such visits last year, blames budget issues as well as "the number of babies being born possibly as a result." The New York Times speaks to the spouses who treasure the time, even if it's brief and less than comfortable. "It's not romantic, but it doesn't matter," says the wife of an Arkansas inmate; she drives eight hours to see her husband, who is due for release in 2022. "Obviously they did something wrong. But they are human, too. So are we." Another spouse notes that ending the practice denies her the ability to have children in the future. "I feel like they are taking away my choice," she says. Vocativ and the Times offer the basics on how such visits work: They're still also allowed in California, Connecticut, New Mexico, New York, and Washington; that's down from 17 states in 1993. (The Times piece implies Connecticut's program is not currently active.) The practice began in the early 1900s at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, whose warden thought they would prod black inmates to toil harder in the fields; prostitutes were often brought in. Today, inmates must be married and have a clean behavior record (generally no fighting, swearing, etc., in the last six months) to qualify; they usually have to apply for the visits, which occur only in medium- to lower-security prisons; federal prisons allow no such visits. "Extended family visits" can last up to 24 hours for well-behaved prisoners nearing release. Mississippi has recently allowed only one-hour visits, the Times notes. The visits occur in private apartments inside prison walls, which are usually outfitted with sheets, soap, towels, and condoms. The prison does not provide food. California and New York allow same-sex couples to participate in the practice within marriages or civil unions. The visits are largely free; Washington state participants pay $10. Conjugal visits are permitted in some other countries—not always successfully.
– After George Zimmerman was forced to move out of his house last month, his soon-to-be-ex-wife Shellie found something ominous nailed to the wall: A shooting range target sporting 17 bullet holes, according to a report in Radar. A source sent Radar a photo of the target, saying it was the same photo "that Shellie sent to her lawyer and said, 'Look at the subliminal message George left me." Another source remarked, "It's really not that subliminal." Zimmerman's case continues to reverberate in Sanford, Florida. Police there announced yesterday that its neighborhood watch volunteers would no longer be allowed to carry guns or pursue suspicious individuals, Reuters reports. "Neighborhood watch was always intended to be a program where you observe what is going on and report it to police," a department spokeswoman explained, adding that "people in the community are nervous to join a group that was tarnished in the media and got a bad image with everything that happened."
– Various reactions to the trade that will send Denver quarterback Tim Tebow to the New York Jets: Joe Namath: "I thinks it stinks," the Jets legend tells USA Today. Mark Sanchez should be "pissed." Woody Paige, Denver Post: His column recaps all things Tebow, from a generous heart off the field, to Tebowing, to the mechanical flaws that might prevent him from becoming an elite passer. "And never again will a young man or quarterback quite like Tim Tebow run or pass this way again." Bill Smee, Slate: "We don’t want you here," the Jets fan writes of Tebow. Best case, he doesn't play and the trade means nothing. Worst case, he becomes the starter and sets "the franchise back five years," writes Smee. "Hey, as a Jet fan, at least I'm used to that sort of thing." Mike Lupica, Daily News: "The Jets go out and get themselves a rock-star backup who happens to be one of the most famous athletes on the planet, and tell their fans he’s going to pitch middle relief." Nope, no quarterback controversy here—not until Sanchez throws an incompletion. Tebow himself: AllFacebook notes some status changes: "Tim updated his current city to New York, New York; Tim added New York Jets to his work; and Tim likes New York Jets." Bleacher Report rounds up the winners and losers in the deal here.
– Special Operations for America, a new anti-Obama super PAC launched this week, accuses the president of stealing glory from the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. But it has been a little light-fingered itself, Mother Jones finds. The group's website and social media pages are plastered with the insignias of the Marines, Air Force, Navy, Army, and the US Special Operations Command, all in violation of military regulations, according to authorities. Defense officials say the logos are strictly off-limits to political groups, and SOA will be told to remove them or face legal action. The group was founded by Ryan Zinke, a former Seal Team Six commander who is now a Republican state senator in Montana. The committee is "a call of duty to take back America from a commander-in-chief that is incapable of understanding the sacrifices that have been made for the values that have made America great," he says. A spokesman says the group aims to raise $10 million, although records show that it currently has assets of just $60, USA Today notes.
– In Britain these days, it's all about "Leave" vs. "Remain." Those are the two choices voters will have in a June 23 referendum on whether the UK should exit the European Union—or Brexit, as it's known in shorthand. Some coverage: Rupert Murdoch's Sun tabloid just came out in favor of leaving the EU, and it urges readers to vote for Brexit here. A political professor now puts the odds of leaving at 33%, up from 25% less than a month ago. Bloomberg assesses. Along those lines, a major bookmaker predicts the Leave camp will become the majority by this weekend, per Business Insider. Yes, the Leave camp has momentum, but the Financial Times explains why it's not time for David Cameron and the rest of the Remain backers to panic. The Telegraph looks at six factors, including the often-overlooked group of voters in Northern Ireland, most of whom seem to want to stay in the EU. Still, US markets are starting to get worried about the ramifications of a Leave vote winning, reports CNNMoney. Global markets, too, notes the Wall Street Journal. The New York Times covers the broad strokes of the opposing sides' views in a basic primer here. Another Times story looks at the huge ramifications for foreign workers in Britain if Brexit prevails.
– Egypt banned all protest gatherings today, warning that any protesters in the street would face “immediate” arrests. But thousands took to the streets anyway, according to Reuters. By early this morning, police had used tear gas and rubber bullets to drive protesters out of a major Cairo square where they congregated yesterday, but there have been reports of smaller protests throughout the city, according to the New York Times. As many as 3,000 people gathered outside Cairo’s court complex, only to be driven out by police riot trucks. Hundreds more gathered outside a morgue in Suez, demanding the release of the three people killed yesterday. At the Egyptian Press Association, police beat back hundreds of protesters with batons, arresting eight local journalists, according to YNet News. Social media sites continue to buzz with calls for protest, but Twitter has confirmed that it’s blocked in the country, and Facebook appears to be partially blocked as well, according to the AP.
– The rumors are true: Despite some sources insisting Heidi Klum and Seal were not really splitting up, the couple issued a statement last night confirming the news. "While we have enjoyed seven very loving, loyal, and happy years of marriage, after much soul-searching we have decided to separate," reads the statement obtained by E!. But why? TMZ reports that it all comes down to Seal's temper. "It was a long time in coming," says a source, who adds that Seal can't control his anger and Klum didn't want to deal with it anymore. Another insider tells People that distance also made their relationship more difficult, and a friend tells Us that lately, "They're either madly in love or having crazy fights." Yet another tells New York Daily News that Klum is "super-friendly" and "warm," while "Seal is not." (Klum's father will probably be getting a talking-to: He also spoke to Us, revealing that the family is "very sad" about the split.)
– Critics predicted 2014's X-Men flick would be a tough act to follow—and they were right. There's plenty of explosions, plus star power from James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence, but X-Men: Apocalypse just doesn't measure up. Here's what critics are saying: Director Bryan Singer's "fourth X-Men film is not just a step down, it's a fall down the stairs," writes Colin Covert at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "Never for a moment does this X-Men revisit the issues of tribal prejudice, minority rights, and alienation that made his earlier films so compelling." "Even die-hard Comic-Con fans can take only so much of" what Covert calls a "hollow, unfocused mess." Jennifer Lawrence "may be an Oscar-winning actress, but she can't mask the look of franchise burn-out," writes Mara Reinstein at Us Weekly. The actors are generally "stuck in a meh plot" with "subpar special effects" and a clunky script. Plus it takes 90 minutes for the mutants to face off, and then "the payoff underwhelms." The one bonus: "an awesome synth-pop ‘80s soundtrack." Joe Morgenstern saw the film in 3D, "which I wouldn't recommend, but then I wouldn't recommend seeing it in any D," he writes at the Wall Street Journal. "Enormous goings on keep going on, and on, in X-Men: Apocalypse, a collection of explosions, eruptions and conflagrations that suggests the implosion of a franchise," he writes. "This is surprising, as well as disappointing." But Rafer Guzman is more forgiving. "X-Men: Apocalypse is definitely one of the series' weakest entries, but it's far from a total disaster," he writes at Newsday. At least the mutants aren't fighting aliens but "an ancient Egyptian god nicknamed Apocalypse who wakes up in the early 1980s and begins amassing followers to help him 'cleanse' the Earth." And "nearly every mutant gets his or her moment."
– Just $20 changed her plight, and his life—and now a homeless man wants to help others with his sudden good fortune. Kate McClure started a GoFundMe for 34-year-old Johnny Bobbitt Jr. after the destitute veteran used his last 20 bucks on her when her car ran out of gas on a Philly interstate earlier this month. Her crowdfunding effort on Bobbitt's behalf has since surpassed $375,000, and the new friends appeared together on Good Morning America on Sunday to talk about everything that's happened since they first met, ABC News reports. "I just got her gas to help her get back on her way," Bobbitt said. "I wasn't expecting anything in return." Wearing sunglasses on GMA due to an infection in his eye from wearing his contacts too long on the streets, Bobbitt explained it can get "lonely" in his situation, but that McClure and her boyfriend, Mark D'Amico, have just treated him "like a regular person." In an interview with the BBC, Bobbitt added he's "blown away" by the generosity from McClure, D'Amico, and everyone who's donated. Per GMA, Bobbitt actually asked the couple at one point to halt the fundraiser, which they did for all of 12 minutes before people insisted they still wanted to donate. McClure is arranging to hire a lawyer and financial adviser for Bobbitt, who says he plans to offer some of the cash that's come his way to organizations that help people in need. "Everybody out there is facing some kind of struggle, so if I can touch their life, the way mine was touched, [it'd be] an amazing feeling," he said. "I want to feel the feeling on the opposite end." His sudden windfall will also help him purchase a home, per WQAD. One thing no one should expect him to splurge on, however, is a luxury vehicle. "There won't be no brand new car," he said, because buying used is "smarter."
– Is somebody in Detroit trying to keep Canadians out? The Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit with Windsor, Ontario, was shut down last night after a bomb threat was received from the Detroit side, reports CNN. The bridge is America's busiest commercial border crossing, with more than 10,000 commercial vehicles crossing on a typical day, and a huge amount of traffic quickly built up. The tunnel between Detroit and Windsor was closed due to a bomb threat last week and authorities say yesterday's threat was "similar." Detroit police, working with assorted federal and local agencies, scoured the bridge area for explosives while the Coast Guard stopped any maritime traffic beneath the bridge, reports the Detroit Free Press. "We take any threat very seriously and set in motion the security measures the bridge has had in place since 9/11," said the president of the Detroit International Bridge Co., which operates the bridge. Traffic was allowed to cross again after the bridge had been shut down for around six hours.
– There's a family of 12 in Montgomery, Ala., that calls itself the "Brainy Bunch," and for good reason. Kip and Mona Lisa Harding's seven oldest children were all in college by the age of 12, KSL.com reports. At 22, Serennah Harding may be the youngest doctor of osteopathic medicine in the country; Rosannah became an architect at 18. Heath isn't just an entrepreneur at 17—he also has his master's degree in computer science. Then there’s the engineer, the composer, and the would-be archaeologist (a college sophomore at 13) and one-day lawyer (taking college classes at 10)… Their parents say their children aren’t geniuses, but that they simply found a way to make education quick and fun for the home-schooled kids. Mona Lisa, who is following her kids' lead by earning her bachelor's degree now, explains the family quickly broke away from the "tedious" nature of "boxed curriculum and went into just reading for pleasure and reading what the kids wanted to read." When Mona Lisa was unable to keep up with her oldest daughter in math, she enrolled her in online college courses, Mona Lisa told the Today Show, where she appeared with the family earlier this month to promote their new book, The Brainy Bunch. An online poll conducted by Today showed that 93% of respondents would not want their children to grow up like the Hardings, but the kids sound pretty pleased with their childhood experiences. "It's not really a pushing environment,'' says Rosannah. "It's finding your own inspiration, finding your passion." (Read about other prodigies here and here.)
– Providence bishop Thomas Tobin caused a bit of a stir yesterday with a post on the diocese's website responding to Rhode Island's new marriage equality law. Tobin wrote that Catholics should "examine their consciences very carefully before deciding whether or not to endorse same-sex relationships or attend same-sex ceremonies." And while he says the Church has "respect, love, and pastoral concern" for people "who have same-sex attraction," it can't "endorse or ignore immoral or destructive behavior." "It is important to affirm the teaching of the Church … that 'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,' (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2357) and always sinful," Tobin writes. At the Dish, Andrew Sullivan calls the letter "a nasty piece of divisiveness" that puts "a wedge between Catholic family members and their gay brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters." Rhode Island is a deeply Catholic state, WPRI points out; the Providence Diocese boasts around 621,000 members, which works out to be more than 60% of the state's population.
– Residents in Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish had to deal with a nasty brain-eating amoeba in their water supply last summer—and now the amoeba has made a return appearance. Water in the parish right outside New Orleans has tested positive for Naegleria fowleri, and officials say the state's Department of Health and Hospitals has ordered a "chlorine burn" to purge the system of the possibly fatal pathogen, ABC News reports. Naegleria fowleri can cause a rare, potentially deadly brain infection when contaminated water enters a person's body (usually by water going up the nose, per the CDC) and travels up to the brain. A statement from the state's Department of Health and Hospitals says two of the seven sites it tested came back positive for the amoeba; NBC News notes one of the two positive samples was of untreated water; the other was from a sampling station hit by a car, which may have caused untreated groundwater to leak into the supply. The 225-mile water system that serves the parish used to provide about 68,000 residents with water, but Hurricane Katrina whittled that number down to about 44,000—and because of that decreased population and an increase in ecofriendly water devices, less water is being treated in the same system, which could end up creating the ideal breeding ground for the amoeba, per ABC. "Use is good because it pushes new water through the system," a health department spokeswoman tells NBC. If fresh water isn't continually forced through the pipes, it can lose the chlorine that kills the amoeba and become contaminated. Despite elevated concern from this news, the health department says it's still safe to drink the water—consumers should just take special care not to get it up their noses. (A 12-year-old Florida boy died in 2013 after being infected with the amoeba.)
– The makers of Killers, the new rom-com with Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher, didn't let critics screen it. Always a great sign. From the few reviews out there: Geoff Berkshire, Metromix: "Utterly unconvincing as action, comedy or romance, it’s a colossal waste of time and a shocking choice for Heigl at this point in her career." Drew McWeeny, HitFix: "This is not a terrible, terrible, terrible movie. One terrible will probably get the job done." Genevieve Loh, TodayOnline: "Strangely, you're somewhat entertained, thanks to just-enough sporadic laugh-out-loud scenes juxtaposed with high gun action. Couple that with Heigl and Kutcher's anti-chemistry (she's his Beavis to his Butthead), and you'll surprise yourself by being not entirely bored." Lee Smith, WLTX-TV: "The comedy comes on strong in the beginning but tends to peter out. The action is heavy, in spurts, but seldomly exciting."
– Maybe they should have called it Hurricane Benedict Arnold: Independence Day plans in North Carolina and elsewhere on the East Coast are in disarray thanks to Hurricane Arthur—though as CNN reports, the state "seems to have dodged a bullet." Arthur strengthened to a Category 2 hurricane yesterday, making landfall at 11:15pm EST with 100mph winds—if it had been a little later, it would have been the first hurricane ever to make landfall on July 4. But it didn't stay long. North Carolina officials reported few issues this morning, as the National Weather Service declared Arthur had moved off land and over the Atlantic by sun-up, tracking a path over the water that runs parallel to New England's coast. At its most severe point, some 21,000 North Carolina customers were without power. Fireworks shows in New Jersey, Maine, and New Hampshire have been delayed until later in the weekend because of the storm, while Boston held its annual Boston Pops Fourth of July concert and fireworks show a day early, the AP reports. Heavy rains and lightning, however, forced organizers to end the fireworks early, and skip the performance of Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture," one of the most cherished parts of the annual show. "They took away the best part of the whole concert," one attendee complains to the Boston Globe.
– Minutes before two police officers shot and killed 41-year-old Gilbert Flores in San Antonio on Friday, a 911 dispatcher said the suspect was "threatening suicide by cop." Officers arrived at a home after reports of a 38-year-old woman with a head injury and a 2-month-old child with a black eye, reports USA Today. Police say they tried to detain a shirtless Flores, who was Latino, with non-lethal weapons, per NBC News. But a man who recorded video of the incident tells CNN that the officers, also Latino, had their guns pointed at Flores during the entire 20-minute encounter. As Flores evaded cops outside, he "acted like he was going to run back inside his house and then ran around the cars by the cop car and the cops started pursuing closer to him," Michael Thomas says. "He put his hands in the air and then he had his hands up for a few seconds and the cops shot him twice." Thomas' video shows Flores with at least one arm raised when officers opened fire; his other arm is obscured by a utility post. A district attorney says a second video, recorded by a neighbor, shows "a better view to make an assessment on what happened. It is a closer view and a better angle." It has not been shared with the public, though a lawyer for Flores' family tells the AP he may file a lawsuit pressing police to release the footage. "With everything going on in the world, with police shootings and everything, I thought I would record what was happening," says Thomas, who sold his video to KSAT for $100. KSAT says its job is to share "information in the public interest" and "it is not uncommon for news organizations to pay for video from freelancers or citizen journalists." Bexar County police say the move has "sparked threats to our deputies' lives" and "deputies are coming to work in civilian clothes because of their concern for safety."
– Three years after anesthesiology professor Dr. Khaw Kim-sun's wife and 16-year-old daughter were found unresponsive in a Mini Cooper in Hong Kong, Khaw has been convicted of their murders and was on Wednesday sentenced to life in prison. The case received international attention due to its bizarre mechanics: The women succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning, and a deflated yoga ball—one believed to have held the gas—found in the trunk was pinpointed as the murder weapon. The New York Times reports Khaw's lawyer argued that his daughter, Lily Li-ling Khaw, used the ball to commit suicide. It reports Gerard McCoy claimed the intense pressure Khaw, 53, put on her to succeed academically led the teen to use the ball, whose lethal nature she had been warned about, to take her life. The South China Morning Post reports McCoy offered a different possible explanation in his closing remarks, saying it was possible she used it to kill bugs, which frightened her, without understanding just how potent the gas was.
– Today's merger rumblings: Dish Network and T-Mobile are in talks to merge, sources tell the Wall Street Journal. Though details, including a purchase price, have yet to be finalized, the companies agree that Dish CEO Charlie Ergen would be chairman of the combined company, while T-Mobile CEO John Legere would be the new company's CEO. The deal comes amid similar ones, like AT&T-DirecTV and Charter-Time Warner-Bright House Networks. So why should you care? If you're a Dish customer: The deal would give Dish a "robust broadband Internet" offering, always a good thing for a TV company in this day and age. It would also hand Dish the cellular network it needs to use its billions of dollars worth of wireless licenses. The merger "makes perfect sense," an analyst tells USA Today, because without it, "T-Mobile and Dish were in danger of becoming the lone single-service providers left in the market, with everyone else combining TV, broadband, and wireless." If you're a T-Mobile customer: The company is still no match for AT&T or Verizon in terms of size, but its capacity would jump thanks to the aforementioned wireless licenses. The analyst continues: "T-Mobile has a growing subscriber base and network but not enough spectrum, while Dish has lots of spectrum and no network, so their assets are very complementary." Even if you're not a customer of either company: re/code offers up a pleasantly colloquial explainer that calls the deal "akin to two people who hook up because they are the last ones left in the bar at closing time," which is worth a read even if you're not usually into mergers & acquisitions. The deal is still far from a sure thing, but the Journal doesn't see a big fight from regulators, "because the companies are in different industries and because a deal could in theory create a stronger wireless competitor."
– Millions of people in Florida are still without power after Hurricane Irma, and the outage has led to more than one deadly incident. Police say three people in Orlando died from carbon monoxide poisoning Tuesday after running a generator inside their home. Another four family members were hospitalized in serious condition, the Orlando Sentinel reports. A police spokesman says two adults and a child died and it's "not looking so good" for the family members in the hospital, News 6 reports. Authorities, who say at least another dozen people in the area were sickened by generators in their garages, warn that generators should never be used indoors. At least one similar death has happened in Miami. Irma left at least 13 million people without power in Florida and the rest of the Southeast, leaving many people struggling with the heat amid one of the biggest blackouts in US history, the AP reports. "The biggest thing we've got to do for people is get their power back," says Florida Gov. Rick Scott. In the Miami area, those still without power include the 15,000-person Century Village retirement community, where residents can't plug in oxygen machines or comply with the boil-water advisory, the Miami Herald reports. The state's largest utility, Florida Power & Light, says it aims to restore power to the east coast by Sunday and the southwest part of the state within 10 days.
– Researchers have managed to produce sperm cells from embryonic stem cells—and for the first time, the sperm worked, resulting in healthy baby mice. Researchers in Japan mixed the embryonic stem cells with certain proteins and hormones. They converted the resulting cells into germ cells, which they implanted in the testes of mice. There, they developed into working sperm, Discover reports. Researchers hope the discovery will lead to male infertility treatments, notes ScienceNow. Scientists had previously created sperm-like cells, but they didn’t function. Though the experiment was a success, “very difficult” issues remain—both physical and ethical, says a researcher. For one thing, the scientists would like to generate the sperm cells in the lab, without having to involve the mice at all. They hope to generate eggs, too. But questions remain over whether the process used for mice will work on humans.
– The American Humane Association has launched an investigation and PETA is calling for a boycott over disturbing footage of a dog on the set of A Dog's Purpose. In a video released by TMZ, an apparently terrified German shepherd struggles as a handler forces it into churning water, the AP reports. The dog is then seen submerged as people rush toward him. The AHA, which monitors the treatment of animals on film sets, says it has suspended the representative who worked on the movie. The association is "disturbed and concerned by the footage," the group said in a statement to USA Today. "When the dog showed signs of resistance to jumping in the water, the scene should have been stopped." In a statement, actor Josh Gad, who provided the dog's voice, said the movie is "one of the most beautiful love letters to animals I have ever seen," but he found the video disturbing and he has asked the studio for an explanation. "I am shaken and sad to see any animal put in a situation against its will," he said. Director Lasse Hallstrom tweeted that he was also disturbed by the footage and has been told that wrongdoing will be punished. The movie is scheduled to be released by Universal Pictures on Jan. 27. Entertainment Weekly reports that the studio released a statement Wednesday evening saying Hercules, the dog in the video, didn't want to perform the stunt that day, but "great care and concern" was shown for him. The studio says it's reviewing the footage.
– Baby, it's so cold outside that the AP is throwing around the term "polar vortex," which is apparently "a counterclockwise-rotating pool of cold, dense air"—and it's got more than half the US wrapped in its icy clutches. It's not going anywhere anytime soon: The frigid temps are looking to hang out into tomorrow and Tuesday. A look around at the coldness: The mercury hit negative 31 in International Falls, Minn., negative 21 in Duluth, Minn., and 9 below in Bismarck, ND. Wind chills of 70 below are still within the real of possibility. Parts of Missouri and Illinois could get up to a foot of snow; the former is "experiencing thunder snow and whiteout conditions," according to a MoDOT spokeswoman. Thousands of flights have been delayed in the Midwest and Northeast, AccuWeather reports. Flight delays at Boston's Logan International Airport could last "days, not hours," said a Jet Blue Airways spokeswoman, the Boston Globe reports. Minnesota has canceled school tomorrow for the entire state. In Wisconsin, Milwaukee and Madison have done likewise. In Green Bay, today's playoff game between the Packers and the 49ers could prove a little chilly for the visiting team: The temperature at kickoff is supposed to be negative 2. The AP notes that doctors are advising fans to drink warm fluids that are not of the alcoholic variety. And of course, this happened at JFK Airport, which has since re-opened.
– There's been plenty of talk of "revolution" on the campaign trail this year, and now Pope Francis wants to start his own regarding marriage, divorce, sex, and family life, issuing a major document Friday that addresses these issues while calling for one's conscience, rather than hard-and-fast rules, to serve as Catholics' guiding force, the AP reports. In his 256-page "Amoris Laetitia," or "Joy of Love," the pontiff doesn't make any major overhauls to church doctrine, but instead calls for less judgment and exhorts priests to embrace those who may appear to fall short of what the Gospel preaches, welcoming everyone from single parents and gay couples to unmarried couples living together into the fold, the New York Times reports. "A pastor cannot feel that it is enough to simply apply moral laws to those living in 'irregular' situations, as if they were stones to throw at people's lives," he writes. In the document that has the pope sounding "less like a pontiff than a marriage counselor," per the Washington Post, Francis calls for more empathy, a more "attentive" church, and a "new route back for divorced Catholics," the New York Times explains in excerpts from his appeal. He advocates for rejuvenating broken marriages and continued sex education, though he denounces the "narcissism" of terms like "protection" and "safe sex," which he says epitomize a "negative attitude towards the natural procreative finality of sexuality, as if an eventual child were an enemy to be protected against." He even talks about nurturing romance within marriage, including sharing a "morning kiss" and "household chores" together—even throwing parties to "break the routine." Yet although he warns against anti-gay violence, one issue he doesn't sway on is gay marriage. "There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family," he writes. (How this new proclamation could affect families, per the New York Times.)
– Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson won't seek reelection next year, potentially harming Democratic hopes to hold onto the Senate majority, Politico reports. Though Nelson's approval ratings had struggled, they were on the rise this year, thanks in part to $1 million in national Democratic Party advertising. Meanwhile, Republicans spent hundreds of thousands criticizing Nelson's record, focusing on his support for health care reform. Analysts are mixed on the impact of the decision. Politico calls the decision "a serious blow to Democratic efforts to hold onto their majority." The Washington Post suggests the Democrats would have faced "an uphill battle either way," but notes that former Sen. Bob Kerrey could emerge as a candidate and provide hope for the party. At Hot Air, Ed Morrissey figures the decision doesn't change much in red Nebraska. "In a presidential cycle, a credible Republican candidate will be almost certain to replace Nelson, even if Nelson is no longer running."
– This one could get interesting: Transit authorities in San Francisco temporarily cut cell phone service to four subway stations yesterday to prevent protesters from organizing, reports CNET. It seemed to work: The protest—over the fatal shooting of a man by a BART police officer last month—never materialized. But the backlash is growing, with the ACLU complaining on First Amendment grounds and some hacktivists in Anonymous vowing revenge on BART. The transit agency says it made the decision after protest organizers said they would use mobile devices to coordinate things. "A civil disturbance during commute times at busy downtown San Francisco stations could lead to platform overcrowding and unsafe conditions," said a statement issued by BART defending the move. Click to read about a London teen charged with using her BlackBerry to encourage friends to join the riots there.
– The San Diego Zoo has said goodbye to its oldest creature, which may have been the oldest creature in America: Speed, a giant Galapagos tortoise who was born around the same time the Civil War ended and who came to America the same year as King Kong. The zoo says Speed, who arrived in 1933 as part of a breeding program to save the endangered species, had been suffering from arthritis and other health problems for some time and was treated with remedies including hydrotherapy and acupuncture, the Los Angeles Times reports. Unlike "Lonesome George," who died in 2012 at the age of 100, Speed leaves dozens of descendants, the BBC reports.
– For the first time in the global AIDS epidemic that has spanned four decades and killed 35 million people, more than half of all those infected with HIV are on drugs to treat the virus, the UN said Thursday. AIDS deaths are also now close to half of what they were in 2005, according to the UN AIDS agency, although those figures are based on estimates and not actual counts from countries. According to the report, about 19.5 million people with HIV were taking AIDS drugs in 2016, per the AP. About 36.7 million people had HIV last year, up slightly from 36.1 million in 2015, meaning 53% were taking drugs. AIDS deaths, meanwhile, fell to 1 million from the high of 1.9 million in 2005, reports the BBC. Experts applauded the progress, but questioned if the billions spent in the past two decades should have brought more impressive results. The UN report was released in Paris where an AIDS meeting begins this weekend. "When you think about the money that's been spent on AIDS, it could have been better," said Sophie Harman, a senior lecturer in global health politics at Queen Mary University in London. "The real test will come in five to 10 years once the funding goes down," Harman said, warning that countries might not be able to sustain the UN-funded AIDS programs on their own. The Trump administration has proposed a 31% cut in contributions to the UN starting in October.
– Russia's annexation of Crimea may seem like a done deal, but the US isn't about to recognize it, Joe Biden vowed today. The vice president is in Kiev to show support for the government there, and today he promised financial aid, help weaning Ukraine off Russia's suddenly expensive energy, and non-lethal security help, CNN reports. He admonished Russia to "stop supporting men hiding behind masks and unmarked uniforms," and warned that further sanctions could be coming if Moscow's activities in Eastern Ukraine don't stop. "No nation has the right to simply grab land from another nation," Biden said. "We will never recognize Russia's illegal occupation of Crimea." That occupation is not going well. The New York Times has a piece today detailing the "perpetual confusion" that characterizes the hastily annexed region. The banks, courts, and other institutions are shutdown, as are many companies. Seemingly unofficial "self-defense units" are conducting random inspections at train stations and other entry points. "Before we had a pretty well-organized country," one resident says, adding the Russian phrase "Eto bardak," which roughly translates to, "This is a mess."
– More details are emerging about the murder of British adventurer Emma Kelty during her trip along the Amazon in Brazil, and they're of the worst kind. But police also revealed that her killers made a dumb move that alerted authorities to the crime, reports the Telegraph. Police initially believed that Kelty herself sent out a distress signal from her GPS device, but now they say one of the bandits involved in her death accidentally pressed the button while trying to figure out how to work the device. "Stupid," says a local police official. The signal led police to a riverside village, and they were eventually able to arrest three suspects. Three more are at large, and a seventh man was shot to death, reportedly by a rival gang out to steal Kelty's gear from him. A local resident says the gang member provided details of the crime before his death. It seems that the bandits came across Kelty's remote campsite and incorrectly assumed she was a drug trafficker. "When the men saw her tent they thought it belonged to a Colombian with drugs, so they started firing from about 50 meters away," the resident tells the Telegraph. He says Kelty was hit in the arm and began screaming for help, and the bandits then moved in. According to the resident's account, the men cut off her hair, demanding to know where the drugs were, then sexually abused her, cut her throat, and dumped her body in the river. Authorities have found Kelty's kayak but not her body. The 43-year-old former school headmistress was about 40 days into a 4,000-mile trip, notes the BBC, and she planned to be on the river five or six months. The Sun has a video of Kelty getting ready to embark on the trip. "I can't wait," she says, smiling.
– When the CBS sitcom Kevin Can Wait returns next season it will manage to look very different and yet very familiar at the same time. How so? The network has made the bold decision to kill off co-star Erinn Hayes, who played the wife of Kevin James' character on season one, and give James a new love interest in the form of Leah Remini. Which means that James and Remini will essentially be resurrecting their long-running King of Queens partnership, notes USA Today. “The character will have passed away and we will be moving forward in time catching up at a later date,” CBS programming boss Thom Sherman explained to a gathering of TV critics on Tuesday, per Variety. He pushed back against the notion that the show will become a slightly different version of King of Queens, though Remini herself suggested otherwise previously. The two Kevin Can Wait characters are "literally Doug and Carrie as cops," she said, referring to their former iterations of Doug and Carrie Heffernan.
– Another detail in the case of the 13-year-old boy who was shot when police officers spotted him holding a plastic BB gun: The sheriff's deputy who shot Andy Lopez Cruz is a gun expert and firearms instructor, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Erick Gelhaus hunts; he's been to war; he teaches fellow officers at the department's gun range and also teaches gun classes for the general public; he's had special firearms training and is a "range master." In law enforcement magazines and on online forums, he frequently discusses guns and promotes officer safety. The Santa Rosa Press Democrat calls Gelhaus' stance on police use of force as "aggressive," based on those writings, but in his 24 years with the sheriff's office he never before fired on a suspect (he did accidentally shoot himself in the leg while holstering a gun in 1995). The Sonoma County assistant sheriff calls Gelhaus a "respected and solid employee." He's currently on paid administrative leave as police, the district attorney's office, and the FBI investigate the incident. A critical detail: Federal law requires that toy guns have an orange tip, and this one did not. Demonstrators are marching to the sheriff's department today, then holding a rally there, to protest the incident, Fox News reports.
– Pope Francis is back on his home continent for the first time this week, and what a reception he got. He landed in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro yesterday for a week of World Youth Day festivities to boisterous crowds, and a somewhat confused driver. The AP reports that the Fiat he was riding in from the airport took a wrong turn, missing the lanes that had been cleared for him and driving into ones packed with buses and taxis, forcing the pontiff's car to stop—at which point it was promptly rushed by thousands of people, who reached into the car's open window and snapped photos. A Vatican rep says the pope wasn't worried, and assured anyone concerned about a perceived security breach that "there are no concerns for security." Apparently not, as the pope later rode in his open-air vehicle that was also surrounded by the screaming faithful. He apparently left his bulletproof popemobile in the Vatican garage so he could better connect with people. But it hasn't been all smooth sailing thus far. NBC News reports that a crude pipe bomb was found Sunday at a shrine he is set to visit, and about 1,500 protesters burned the governor in effigy last night outside Rio's Guanabara Palace, where Francis was meeting with the president. (Experts say the ire was focused on the government, not the pope, however.) But things may be calmer today: It's a planned day of rest for the pontiff.
– With the conspiracy-theory corners of the Internet gnawing through the idea that Jay-Z’s latest video, for the single On To The Next One, is chock-full of Satanic imagery and the symbols of Freemasonry, the rapper and the vid’s director are laughing it all off. “That’s crazy to me,” Jay-Z tells MTV. “I gotta remind people I’m from Marcy Projects. I can’t get into a golf club in Palm Springs.” “I’m aware of the stir the video has caused and what people are saying,” director Sam Brown tells Vibe. “I think when you’re dealing in abstract imagery people are going to want to draw lines between things and make sense of it.” Adds rapper Swizz Beats, featured in the video: “C’mon, man. That’s silly stuff.”
– John McCain think it's great that President Obama axed his meeting with Vladimir Putin, but comparing Putin “to a kid in the back of the classroom, I think, is very indicative of the president’s lack of appreciation of who Vladimir Putin is," McCain said today. "He’s an old KGB colonel that has no illusions about our relationship, does not care about a relationship with the United States, continues to oppress his people, continues to oppress the media, and continues to act in an autocratic and unhelpful fashion.” In short, Putin "does not have the United States-Russia relationships in any priority," and we need to treat him as such. Elsewhere on your Sunday dial, as per Politico: Pete King on running for president: “This is not a game I’m playing, I’m serious. I’m serious about looking at it and we’ll see where it goes from there. I have no intention of being there just for the sake of being there, so if I think there’s any real chance and support, then we’ll move forward." King on Obama and the NSA: “I applaud the president for continuing the NSA program. What I’m very critical of him for, though, is basically he’s been silent for the last two months. He’s allowed the Edward Snowdens and the others of the world to dominate the media and now we have so many people who actually think the NSA is spying on people, is listening to our phone calls, is reading our emails. The president has the obligation to be aggressively and effectively defending this program and he really didn’t do it." Louis Gohmert on Obama's claim that GOP is trying to prevent people from getting health care: “That's a false narrative. That is an absolute, blatant lie. We're not trying to keep anybody from getting health care. And whether or not they have insurance under an exchange or not does not prevent people from getting health care." House Homeland Security chair Mike McCaul on Obama's NSA reforms: "I think when the story initially broke, the president went under cover. He just finally came out last Friday trying to come up with ways to salvage the program by window dressing.. . The problem is he's failed to explain these programs which are lawful, which have saved lives, which have stopped terrorist plots. He has not adequately explained them or defended them. "
– The firestorm continues over Megyn Kelly's controversial interview of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Connecticut's NBC affiliate has decided not to air Kelly's show Sunday night, the Hartford Courant reports. In an internal memo obtained by the paper, WVIT general manager Susan Tully tells staff the decision to nix Sunday Night was made after listening to grief-stricken Sandy Hook parents. The station "considered the deep emotions from the wounds of that day that have yet to heal." The memo says the station is planning a report on its 11pm newscast. Jones, founder of the website Infowars, has infuriated parents by calling the 2012 schoolhouse massacre a hoax. Lawyers for several parents sent a letter to NBC News chief Andy Lack threatening to sue if the interview is broadcast, charging that Kelly's talk with the right-wing firebrand "implicitly endorses" the idea that Jones' "lies are actually 'claims' that are worthy of serious debate," per the Courant. The LA Times reports that WVIT is an NBC-owned station, and provides some context for the move: "While affiliates occasionally chose to not air a network program, it’s rare for a network-owned station to opt out." CNN chief Jeff Zucker rapped NBC for teasing Kelly's segment by showing her apparently responding evenly to Jones' wild claims. "You need to hold up a picture of the dead kids at Sandy Hook and say 'How dare you?'" Zucker says, calling the marketing strategy "a big mistake." (Jones tried to "humiliate" Kelly.)
– Those not up to date on the latest Game of Thrones episode should stop reading now. But for those who saw Daenerys Targaryen escape her Dothraki captors by walking through fire and emerging "naked and unhurt," in the words of ABC News, actress Emilia Clarke has something to add: "That ain't no body double," she tells Entertainment Weekly. “I’d like to remind people the last time I took my clothes off was season 3,” she says. “That was awhile ago. It’s now season 6. But this is all me, all proud, all strong. I’m just feeling genuinely happy I said yes." Clarke sounds equally happy that the show found a way for her to gain new power as a leader by drawing on her dragon-esque ability to withstand fire. "Every season I get at least one spine-chilling moment," she tells EW. "I just stand up and I go, ‘I’m hearing what you’re all saying, but funny thing, I’m going to kill you all. I forgot that I have an ace in my back pocket and now I win.'" Meanwhile, devotees of the book think the show is taking too many liberties with this fireproof story line, notes the Independent.
– Youth in Revolt was shot in early 2008, which, Ty Burr of the Boston Globe notes, was “before some of us started getting tired of watching Michael Cera play Michael Cera.” If you aren’t tired of Cera’s adorably dorky shtick, you’ll find Youth a sharp and funny, if familiar, effort. Here’s what critics are saying: Miraculously, Youth “has enough charm to make us feel something for its shy, gangly protagonist,” writes Stephanie Zacharek for Salon, “and enough bite to keep us from wanting to kill him.” It’s “basically an absurdist ramble, but a terrifically likable ramble” writes Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal, “If you’ve been looking for a film whose hero uses the subjunctive frequently and correctly, Youth in Revolt is it.” But that was a turnoff for Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post. “The characters all seem to be speaking in the same arch, hyper-literary drone,” she complains. The story, a tired Catcher in the Rye rehash, “feels written rather than lived."
– It's not exactly bombshell news that smoking during pregnancy probably means bad news for the baby, but the CDC estimates that about 14% of pregnant women in the US still light up anyway. Researchers hope their new study shrinks that number even more, reports USA Today. Using high-definition images of fetuses, they found that those inside smokers touched their faces and moved their mouths significantly more than those in non-smokers. That kind of movement isn't a good sign, because healthy fetuses generally stop such activity over time. The study, then, suggests that "mothers who smoke may delay the development of their babies’ central nervous systems," explains the Independent. The researchers compared fetuses in 20 women, four of whom smoked, and took four sets of 4D ultrasound scans between 24 and 36 weeks. "Normal fetal behavior shows fewer movements, but the images suggest that fetuses in smokers are less mature in their behavior," says lead researcher Nadja Reissland of the UK's Durham University. The team will next use a larger sample of women to see if they can replicate the findings. Researchers also found increased movement in fetuses of women who were stressed or depressed while pregnant, but the association wasn't as strong as with smokers, reports Medical News Today. (Click to read about the bizarre case in which a girl was born pregnant.)
– Friday marks the 46th celebration of Earth Day, and there's no lack of commemorative trivia, deals, and think pieces honoring Mother Nature and the environment. Here, a roundup of our favorites: No, the Earth's not flat, but it's not exactly perfectly round, either. Discovery.com explains that, and 6 other surprising facts about our planet. Starting with 1970's "Environmental Magna Carta," National Geographic lists 46 milestones that have taken place since the first Earth Day. CNN explains why, despite "melting ice sheets, intensifying heat waves … [and] dying elephants," we're not completely doomed. Some Earth Day deals from around the Web via ABC7, including a big Best Buy sale on energy-efficient appliances. Fusion reveals why this Earth Day is different from all past Earth Days. Point: why more than 130 countries signing the Paris climate agreement at the UN Friday is a bad idea, per the Federalist. Counterpoint: why it's a "genuinely good" idea, according to Mother Jones. The Christian Science Monitor gets philosophical and wonders: Do people even care about Earth Day anymore? Check out which celebrities have been deemed the "greenest" stars in the past.
– Good news: The tar balls found on the beaches of Florida are not a result of the Gulf oil spill, authorities have proven. Bad news: It's only a matter of days before the oil hits for real. The spill has reached the Loop Current, the Miami Herald reports, which will send it shooting into the Straights of Florida within seven to 10 days. And when it does, it'll probably wash up as ... tar balls. From Florida, the oil could spread up the East Coast, according to the BBC, while the loop current ushers other oil to the pristine coral reefs of Cuba. Asked what could stop the oil's spread, a Coast Guard admiral replied, “It would take an act of God.” The worried Cuban government has contacted the US, and there have been “low, technical level” talks about the issue.
– Donald Trump may be preparing for Thursday night's GOP debate by scarfing cheeseburgers, but Ted Cruz has his own preparation strategies, he tells Politico in a look at how well the candidate is doing during the debates. While the site notes that the Texas senator's "brain trust has gathered more informally around tables to talk about expected lines of inquiry and attack" rather than hold mock debates, it's what Cruz does the day of the debate that's somewhat unexpected. Well, maybe not the Bible-reading part, or the part where he simply hangs out with his wife, Heidi, and two young daughters to "decompress," Politico notes. Instead, there's another stress reliever the self-confessed video-game addict indulges in: playing games on his iPhone, with Plants vs. Zombies 2 and TowerMadness 2 currently claiming the top spots in his game queue. (Check out what his favorite childhood video games were on the Daily Beast.)
– David von Drehle begs to differ with fellow Time writer Fareed Zakaria's gloomy view of America's future. These doomsayers have been around since the country was in diapers, and the modern ones love to "cherry-pick dismal statistics from here and there to create an overall image of decline," von Drehle writes in his rebuttal essay. "If you collect enough symptoms, you can make a strong-sounding case that the country is indeed quite sick. But fallen trees don't prove the forest is dying." He calls most of the commonly cited problems "overblown," including income inequality. That's more an "illusion" caused by changes in the tax code than anything else, he argues. Fixing the tax code will help, but not much because "the main force flattening income growth for most Americans" is the massive force of globalization. And "contrary to what you may hear, the US is doing pretty well at riding that whirlwind," he writes. "Wages may have stagnated, but the US hasn't. America's inventors, innovators, entrepreneurs, and workers have answered the sudden glut of cheap labor around the world by leading an astonishing revolution in productivity." So let the doomsayers do their thing. But with "further hard work and sacrifice (goaded by the spur of our relentless self-doubt) the US will do just fine in the world it has shaped." Full column here, or click for Zakaria's column here.
– San Diego is ramping up its battle against a deadly hepatitis A outbreak by opening up new public bathrooms around the clock and adding security cameras, per NBC7 and Newsweek. Officials announced about 20 permanent and portable bathrooms would be open citywide targeting the homeless population, Newsweek reports. They will be cleaned twice daily and monitored via security cameras. The city's homeless coordinator calls the additional bathrooms an "important step to stop the spread of hepatitis A," a liver infection transmitted when people don't wash their hands after using the bathroom. The city is also considering three new 100-bed shelters to help the homeless "transition off the street and into permanent housing," per Newsweek. About 65% of those infected have no permanent home, per CNN. The city declared a public health emergency on Sept. 1 after the epidemic sickened hundreds, with victims from ages 5 to 57, per the LA Times. So far, 16 people have died and 292 have been hospitalized. Since symptoms can take weeks to appear, the extent of the epidemic is not yet known. Workers have vaccinated 21,000 people, mostly the "at-risk population," added hand-washing stations, and began spraying streets with bleach. Mobile showers may come next, per CNN. Health authorities have identified no common sources, such as contaminated food, for the outbreak. But they issued a warning on Friday that anyone who ate at World Famous restaurant on certain days may have been exposed, per NBC. Symptoms include nausea, joint pain, fatigue, and dark urine. (Hepatitis C infections are on the rise nationwide.)
– Delta Air Lines is getting an earful from the Internet over a postgame tweet. After the US beat Ghana in yesterday's World Cup match, Delta congratulated the American team with a pair of pictures, since deleted but viewable here. One showed the Statue of Liberty with the US score; the other showed a giraffe next to Ghana's score. Trouble is, giraffes don't live in Ghana, CNET notes. Tweets accused Delta of racism and ignorance. "I remember when I was in Ghana riding my giraffe on the beach," snarked one. Another, cited at BuzzFeed, slammed the "narrow-minded nincompoops" at Delta. Added another: "You can book flights to Accra, the capital of Ghana, on @delta’s website. Do not take those flights. They will end up in the Serengeti." Delta soon apologized—but the apology contained another error, BuzzFeed notes. "We're sorry for our choice of photo in our precious tweet," it said. A follow-up tweet changed "precious" to "previous."
– "It is difficult to prevent a disease when it is not known how infection is acquired," reads a study published Monday that tracks the spread of a flesh-eating ulcer in Australia, and that's not the only mystery surrounding the rise in Buruli ulcers. The disease has historically most often struck in tropical and swampy parts of Africa, but incidents of it have surged in Victoria, which the BBC notes has a "temperate" climate—and only Victoria, with no cases reported in the neighboring Australian states of New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania. The ulcers were first reported in Victoria 70 years ago, but the surge is a recent one: 182 new cases in 2016, a 72% rise over the previous high; and though total 2017 figures weren't in, the year was shaping up to show 50% more cases than in 2016. Buruli expert Paul Johnson, who was not involved in the study, notes the oddities about how the disease appears in Victoria, telling the Guardian, "If you don’t enter an endemic area, you don’t get the disease." But "when you enter an endemic area, it looks the same as the area you just left." He suspects the bacteria that causes the ulcer is carried by mosquitoes and possums. The bacteria produces toxins that eat through fat, skin cells, and blood vessels in the fatty layer of the skin; it's only once the ulcer erupts through the skin's outer layer that a person becomes aware they are infected. The study, which appears in the Medical Journal of Australia, argues government funding needs to quickly be dedicated to studying the ulcer in order to answer six critical questions, including "why are cases becoming more severe?" (The bacteria gave this girl a "zombie leg.")
– An America's Cup sailor is dead after his team's yacht capsized during practice in San Francisco Bay this afternoon. He has been identified as Olympian Andrew Simpson of Great Britain, and authorities say he got trapped beneath the 72-foot catamaran when it flipped about a half-mile off shore, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The boat belongs to Sweden's Artemis racing team, and it's too early to say what caused the accident. "The entire team is devastated by what happened," says Artemis CEO Paul Canyard. "Our heartfelt condolences are with Andrew's wife and family." Rescuers pulled a dozen crew members from the water, and one other person suffered minor injuries, reports AP. The 36-year-old Simpson competed in the Olympics more than once and was a gold medalist.
– Lin Ming-wei says he owes his life, and that of his family, to a last-minute decision to switch seats aboard the TransAsia plane that crashed yesterday in Taipei, killing at least 31 people. Just before takeoff, Lin says he heard an odd noise that unsettled him, and he asked for permission to move with his wife and 2-year-old son from the left side of the plane to an empty row of seats on the rear right side, CNN reports. Minutes later, Lin found himself in the plane's wreckage in Keelung River; the family's new seats were next to where the fuselage broke up, allowing him to exit via the opening, Focus Taiwan reports. He escaped unscathed; of 15 survivors, he was the only one who didn't need medical attention. Lin found his son in the river—with no heartbeat. He gave the boy CPR, telling the Liberty Times, per CNN, "He is my only child. I absolutely have to save his life—I can't lose him." The boy and Lin's wife survived and are now in a hospital. Initial reports suggest the left side of the aircraft sustained the most damage—and Lin wasn't the only passenger to feel uneasy. "Shortly after taking off, I felt something was not right," says Huang Chin-shun, 72. "I thought, 'something's wrong with the engine,' because I always take this flight." NBC News reports the plane's pilot and co-pilot, hailed for apparently dodging buildings, were among those killed. Officials say 12 people are still missing.
– "Dan is gone, but his story is far from over," says the widow of Dan Johnson, a Kentucky state lawmaker who killed himself Wednesday night after he was accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl. Rebecca Johnson says she plans to run for the Republican's House seat because "these high-tech lynchings based on lies and half-truths can't be allowed to win the day," the Louisville Courier Journal reports. A special election for the seat is expected in February. Authorities say the 57-year-old lawmaker shot himself in the head at a bridge in a remote area after leaving a Facebook post denying the accusation and saying "HEAVEN IS MY HOME," reports the New York Daily News. Johnson killed himself two days after the release of a Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting report that exposed the assault allegation, along with what it called a "web of lies" from Johnson, who proclaimed himself "pope" of the Heart of Fire Church, the AP reports. The center said that after a monthslong investigation, it could find no evidence to back up Johnson's claims that he set up a morgue and gave the last rites to hundreds of people at ground zero on 9/11, that he set up "safe zones" during the 1992 LA riots, that he was White House chaplain under three presidents—and that he once raised a woman from the dead. Executive Editor Stephen George says he is "shocked and saddened" by Johnson's death, but he stands by the story.
– Authorities say the woman who took part in this week's mass shooting in San Bernardino had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State online. The details of what Tashfeen Malik wrote and when she wrote it are still developing, but NBC News quotes a source as saying that she posted a statement in support of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi "just before the attack." CNN has it a little differently, reporting that she pledged allegiance to Baghdadi "as the San Bernardino attack was happening" and that she did so under an account not bearing her name. In any event, authorities at this point don't think she and husband Syed Rizwan Farook were given any instructions prior to the attack by ISIS, reports the New York Times. "At this point, we believe they were more self-radicalized and inspired by the group than actually told to do the shooting," a federal law enforcement official tells the newspaper. The Times adds that the couple appeared to delete their "electronic information" in the days prior to the assault, firming up speculation that it was premeditated. (Just before the rampage, one co-worker asked, "Where's Syed?")
– Spain is dusting off a never-before-used emergency clause in its constitution in a bid to end the push for independence in Catalonia. How things will turn out remains very much up in the air. Specifically, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy says he is beginning the process to invoke Article 155 of the constitution, which allows Madrid to suspend Catalonia's autonomy and impose direct rule, reports CNN. Spain could theoretically remove Catalonia's current leaders and take over the police and all government institutions, notes Reuters, but much is unclear because Article 155 has never been used. It was put in place after the downfall of the dictator Francisco Franco 40 years ago, intended for use only in a crisis. This is the first such crisis in the eyes of Madrid. All this was set off when Catalonians voted overwhelmingly for independence in a referendum deemed illegal by Spain. However, Catalonian leader Carles Puigdemont immediately suspended a declaration of independence and said he wanted to negotiate. Puigdemont has since dodged two deadlines from Madrid seeking clarification, prompting Rajoy to say Wednesday: “It’s simple and it’s not that difficult. It’s answering one question. Have you or have you not declared the independence of Catalonia?" If the answer is yes, he added, "the government is obliged" to "act in a certain way.” The next steps could drag out for weeks, explains the BBC. Rajoy's Cabinet meets Saturday to formalize the decision to invoke Article 155, which then needs to go through parliament. Then Catalonia would likely be given time to issue a formal response.
– A Michigan husband and wife are beside themselves after having been warned they could face up to 93 days in jail and a $500 fine over two unreturned library books. It all started in the summer of 2014, when their son checked out a Dr. Seuss book for the couple's granddaughter at the Tecumseh District Library. It was somehow misplaced and the son, then a minor, didn't tell his parents about the notices the library was emailing to his account, reports ABC News. Catherine Duren, 44, says she first found out about the ordeal in October 2014, when the library told her the late charges would hit her credit report. Still, "we had no intent of not paying the fees," she says of herself and her husband Melvin, 63. With Catherine battling stage three kidney disease and Melvin being tested for cancer, the couple faces hefty monthly medical bills and by May 2015 had not paid the late fees. The library sent a notice asking to replace the book, and around this time the couple checked out The Rome Prophecy, and soon couldn't find it, either. Though they found and returned that book in January, they were soon being investigated by Lenawee County's Economic Crimes Unit, which is helping the library deal with an annual $10,000 worth of unreturned books, reports the Daily Telegram. When the couple finally tried to pay what Catherine says was $55 in fees in February 2016, the library refused because a $105 "diversion fee" for each book had not yet been paid to the ECU. All of this resulted in the couple appearing in court last week to plead not guilty to larceny of rental equipment. Catherine says she was treated "like a criminal"; she and her husband are due back in court May 3. (This high school library book was returned 65 years late.)
– As Emory University Hospital in Atlanta treats two patients with Ebola, health officials are taking flak for bringing the contagious disease to the US. The head nurse at Emory, however, thinks everybody should calm down. "Those fears are unfounded and reflect a lack of knowledge about Ebola and our ability to safely manage and contain it," writes Susan Grant in the Washington Post. But more than that, these critics seem to have forgotten the "foundational mission of the US medical system," she writes. Hospitals exist to care for the sick and to advance medical knowledge, and the Ebola cases hit both points, writes Grant. Should the US turn its back on two charity workers who selflessly helped others? To do so would be a breach of medical ethics. "We can either let our actions be guided by misunderstandings, fear, and self-interest, or we can lead by knowledge, science, and compassion," writes Grant. "We can fear, or we can care." Click to read her full column.
– A Colorado woman who survived for days in an overturned car was rescued Sunday, but had to have her feet amputated yesterday, USA Today reports. Kristin Hopkins, 43, a single mother of four, was driving at night when she crashed about 140 feet from a scenic highway. Her Chevrolet Malibu likely went airborne, hit several trees, and rolled down a steep embankment before stopping in a grove of aspen trees, a patrol officer told Reuters. Stuck in the car, she reportedly wrote notes on a red and white umbrella and tried using it to flag down passersby. Her notes were hard to read, but seemed to say "Please help doors won't open," "Please help, bleeding, need a doctor," and "Six days, no food, no water, please help," said firefighter Jim Cravener. A man who stopped to shoot pictures spotted the car, walked down to it, and reported finding a body inside. Firefighters came and were about to smash a window when Hopkins put a hand against the glass. "It’s really something off that Shouldn’t Be Alive show," Cravener told the Daily News. "She really had a strong will to survive." Hopkins is in critical but stable condition, and doctors expect her to live.
– A California man is accused of making violent threats against Boston Globe employees because of the newspaper's campaign to get anti-Trump editorials published across the nation. Robert D. Chain, 68, was arrested Thursday on a count making threatening communications in interstate commerce, ABC News reports. Chain allegedly made threatening phone calls to the Globe in which he referred to the paper's employees as the "enemy of the people," echoing President Trump's own words about the media. In 14 phone calls he allegedly made between Aug. 10 and Aug. 22, Chain allegedly threatened to shoot employees in the head and said he had planned an attack on the paper for Aug. 16 at 4pm. In an alleged threat received Aug. 22, Chain, who does own firearms, allegedly said he would continue his campaign against the newspaper "as long as you keep attacking the President, the duly elected President of the United States, in the continuation of your treasonous and seditious acts," according to the criminal complaint. "Everyone has a right to express their opinion, but threatening to kill people takes it over the line and will not be tolerated," an FBI special agent said in a statement. "Today's arrest of Robert Chain should serve a warning to others, that making threats is not a prank, it's a federal crime." Chain was expected in court in LA Thursday but will be transferred to Boston in the future, CBS Boston reports.
– The reviews for the Apple Watch are in, and it's clear this is no flop. Reviewers generally agree that Apple has made the best smartwatch in existence, but they also think it will take a while before smartwatches in general become necessary gadgets. Still, it seems the Apple Watch is the first big step toward that day. Some samples: Learning curve: Compared to most Apple products, this one has a learning curve, writes Farhad Manjoo in the New York Times. But he came to love it after three days, and he concludes his review with a one-sentence summary that would fit nicely on the screen: "The first Apple Watch may not be for you—but someday soon, it will change your world." Don't spend a ton: The Verge gives it a solid 7 out of 10 in its review. It's easily "the most capable smartwatch available today," writes Nilay Patel. It's also incredibly ambitious, "hoping to do and change so much about how we interact with technology. But that ambition robs it of focus: it can do tiny bits of everything, instead of a few things extraordinarily well." It is, after all, a smartwatch, and it's "not clear that anyone’s yet figured out what smartwatches are actually for." If you want to take the plunge, stick with one of the lower-priced models and wait for improvements. (Prices start at $349 and go well north of $10,000.) Style points: Users will tailor it to their own needs, writes Joanna Stern at the Wall Street Journal, and she turned hers "into a stylish watch to keep me on schedule and a workout companion to keep me moving." Yeah, you can buy a cheaper fitness tracker for the same purpose, but it will probably end up in a drawer. "After over a week of living with Apple’s latest gadget on my wrist, I realized the company isn’t just selling some wrist-worn computer, it’s selling good looks and coolness, with some bonus computer features." And that's OK: it's an accessory you'll want to wear. Want vs. need: Apple did what Apple does so well: raised the bar "for a whole new class of devices," writes Joshua Topolsky at Bloomberg. Next step: Helping people figure out why they need to wear it. "The Apple Watch is cool, it’s beautiful, it’s powerful, and it’s easy to use. But it’s not essential. Not yet."
– A clay seal found in an ancient garbage pit in Jerusalem might have belonged to the prophet Isaiah, who's described as predicting the virgin birth and Jesus' death in the Old Testament. Or, less exciting, it might have belonged to some random guy named Isaiah. At present, it's impossible to know for sure, but there are clues that point to the famous Isaiah as the seal's owner, which, if true, would mean the first evidence of the prophet's existence outside of the Bible, per the Daily Beast. Why the uncertainty? As archaeologist Eilat Mazar explains in the Biblical Archaeology Review, the 2,700-year-old seal is damaged, so only a portion of its impression is visible. While it might have once read, "Belonging to Isaiah the prophet," it now shows the name Isaiah ("Yesha'yah[u]" in Hebrew) and "nvy," reports National Geographic. If the Hebrew letter aleph appeared with "nvy"—Mazar notes it might be obscured by damage—this second word would read "prophet." "Without an aleph at the end, the word 'nvy' is most likely just a personal name," Mazar tells the Jerusalem Post. There's other evidence that keeps her interest sparked, however. Mazar notes the half-inch seal was found just 10 feet from another seal bearing the personal mark of King Hezekiah, whom the prophet Isaiah served as an adviser, according to the Hebrew Bible. The timing is right, too, as Hezekiah reigned from the late eighth to the early seventh century BC. Yet with no aleph on the seal, the prophet's ownership of it "cannot be confirmed," expert Christopher Rollston tells National Geographic. (This find may support the biblical story of King Solomon.)
– It was nearly 30 feet long and 9 feet tall when it died about 155 million years ago, and it could be yours for a cool million or two dollars. A Jurassic-era dinosaur skeleton discovered in Wyoming in 2013 is going to be auctioned off in Paris, at the Eiffel Tower, on June 4, per the Guardian. Researchers who dug up the skeleton initially thought it was a type of theropod known as an allosaurus, but it was found to have more teeth, a bigger pelvis, and differences in the bones of the skull, reports the Antiques Trade Gazette. Scientists are now content to classify it as an unknown species of theropod, which walked upright, on three-toed limbs, similar to a tyrannosaurus rex. "We can therefore confirm that this is totally new," reports fossil expert Eric Mickeler, who is handling the sale for the Paris auction house Aguttes. Aguttes recently sold a rare late Pleistocene-era mammoth skeleton from Siberia for about $515,000. But that was a shrimp in comparison, measuring 18 feet long, from tusk to tail. Whoever buys the skeleton will have naming privileges and can put it wherever they like, but Mickeler believes the buyer will want to make it available for public viewing. He’s never handled a dinosaur sale where the buyer tucked the skeleton away. "Buyers like to share their pleasure, and there’s the size to consider," he said.
– The holiday's hottest toy is so hot it sold 400,000 units in just seven weeks, outpacing the infamous Tickle Me Elmo, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. It's so hot moms in Utah braved 20-degree weather to line up outside a Target at 4:45am just in hopes of getting one, according to the New York Times. It's so hot the Christian Science Monitor reports third-party sellers are asking six times the retail the price of $59.99—and getting it. And it's so hot Toys 'R' Us is chartering its own planes to fly it directly from the manufacturer in China. They're called Hatchimals, and Fox 8 describes them as "cuddly creatures that hatch from eggs and learn to walk and talk." "By all analyses, we thought we had enough," James Martin, an executive at Hatchimals maker Spin Master, tells the Times. "We had no idea that it would be this big." Experts say the big selling point for kids is the anticipation that builds during the 30 minutes or so it takes to hatch the creature. "Nobody knows why these things happen," one toy expert says. "They're an act of God." Now parents, retailers, and third-party sellers alike are scrambling to get their hands on more Hatchimals before Christmas. But as the Monitor puts it: "If you're...desperate to find one at a reasonable price in time for Christmas, I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry." It recommends giving your kids a Hatchimal IOU instead. (New Zealand "wins Christmas" with nationwide Secret Santa.)
– You've picked on the wrong little girl, zombie! That's the message a feisty British Columbian has for a walker who aims to eat her brains in a video produced by the province to prepare its citizens for an invasion of the undead. Actually, not really. It's a clever ruse to get citizens to pay attention to advice on being prepared for emergencies, which may or may not include a zombie invasion. Preparations for any disaster are similar. As the little girl explains on the video to the zombie she finds in her house, she's not afraid because her family has followed sound emergency advice: Know the risks, come up with a plan, and have an emergency supply kit. "Ar, ar, ar, ar," says the zombie. "I've been foiled." The entire BC emergency preparedness website is peppered with zombie references, like: "Day Two: What's for dinner? Hopefully, not my brain." While "the chance of zombies a-knockin’ on your door is pretty slim," the site acknowledges, "we do believe that if you’re ready for zombies, you’re ready for any disaster." BC officials aren't the first to come up with the idea, notes Wired. The Centers for Disease Control offers a helpful graphic novella on how to survive a zombie pandemic. So take that, zombies.
– Critics think Just Go With It isn’t too memorable—a 23% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, though fans are much kinder at 79%—but they say stars Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler turn in solid performances: To AO Scott, it will forever be just “‘that one with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston in Hawaii,’” he writes in the New York Times. “Which pretty much sums up both the appeal and the limitations of this passive-aggressive, naughty but nice, sometimes obnoxious and occasionally quite funny late-winter romantic comedy." Aniston basically plays her Friends character, writes Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times. “If you're a Sandler film buff, the comedy is classic Sandler and will probably satisfy. Still, the best thing about the movie remains Aniston—she is reason enough to just go with it.” In the New York Daily News, Elizabeth Weitzman is a little harsher: the stars “do work well together, in the sense that both are charismatic pros who know how to sell a project. But frankly, it's depressing to watch two likable talents pushing such a blatantly empty experience.”
– Add this to the good-for-you, bad-for-you debate over coffee: A new study out of Cornell suggests that it might help keep your eyes healthy, reports Syracuse.com. Specifically, an antioxidant in coffee called chlorogenic acid, or CLA, staves off retinal degeneration in mice, reports Nature World News. In humans, that malady is brought on by glaucoma, aging, and diabetes. "Coffee is the most popular drink in the world, and we are understanding what benefit we can get from that," says lead author Chang Y. Lee of Cornell. Mice that had been treated with CLA showed no sign of retinal damage even after being exposed to nitric oxide, which speeds up the degenerative process. The next step is to determine whether coffee delivers CLA directly to the retina, reports AFP. If so, scientists might be able to tailor a specific brew for the eyes. (Click to read about another recent study that found coffee's reputation for dehydration is exaggerated.)
– A young New York boy is dead after workers inadvertently dumped a mountain of snow on him and his friend Tuesday, the Albany Times Union reports. Policy say the boys—13-year-old Joshua Demarest and 12-year-old Tyler Day—were playing in a snow pile on a private lot in Greenwich after school; they "burrowed" into the large pile to create forts. But the lot where they were playing is also where the Department of Public Works dumps snow cleared from sidewalks. Workers apparently dropped a massive amount of snow on top of the boys without ever realizing they were there. Hours later, Tyler's sister reported them missing and a search was launched, according to News 10. Searchers found footprints leading to the lot, and police dogs pointed to the snow pile. More than a dozen police and firefighters worked to dig the boys out. "They moved an enormous amount of snow...to recover those boys," says Bell, who the Daily Gazette reports estimated the boys were trapped under at least seven tons. Both boys were taken to the hospital after being stuck in the snow for nearly four hours. Joshua later died. Police are calling Tyler's survival a "miracle," but his father says he's struggling with the death of his friend. Also struggling are the workers, who police say couldn't have known the boys were there. "The guys are devastated," the Department of Public Works superintendent tells News 10.
– MTV debuted its new series Skins last night, an American version of a British teen drama rife with sex and drugs. Not everybody's a fan: Richard Lawson, Gawker: It goes even further than the Brit version in pushing the idea that teens are "messy jumbles of extremes with very little shading in between, lacking in kindness, decorum, and any sense of responsibility or consequence. It's a pretty bleak and unfair characterization. Teenagers are dumb, yes, but they're not monsters (not all of them at least). I wish television and movies would stop trying to tell us they are." Hank Stuever, Washington Post: It feels "fake," he writes. It's "so determined to relate to hardened kids—without sermon, theme or context—that it accidentally discovers a new frontier in phoniness and filth. Even if I could warp time and watch it as my teenaged self, I'm pretty sure I would have been bored by it back then, too—even with all the sex." James Poniewozik, Time: "What may be most shocking to an American audience is how insouciantly it defies teen TV's unwritten mandate of consequences. On US teen dramas, you can titillate the audience with bad behavior so long as, at some point, there's a pregnancy scare or a cautionary drug overdose." Not so here. Still, he adds, "for all its cheekiness and raunch, Skins has more sweetness than snarky teen soaps like Gossip Girl."
– So law enforcement officers mistakenly informed Maria and Jose Guerra that their daughter was dead—and the grieving parents believed that misinformation for a grueling six days. Is that reason to sue? The Arizona couple did sue the Department of Public Safety for negligence, only to have the state's high court rebuff their effort yesterday, Tucson.com reports. "Imposing such a duty, at a minimum, would cause officers to delay in making next-of-kin notifications," wrote Justice John Pelander for the majority in the 3-2 decision. "At worst, it may deter officers from sharing whatever information they have." But the Guerras argued that officers had a duty to ensure that victims were properly identified before informing the family. "For six days, they went through the wringer," says their lawyer, the AP reports. "But why did they have to go through such emotional turmoil? It was needless." The family's nightmare began in 2010 when officers said their daughter April, then 19, died in a car crash returning from a trip to Disneyland. April strongly resembled her friend Marlena, who died in the accident; April's face was badly bruised. Only later did the medical examiner untangle the girls' identities using dental records. April's severe injuries left her paraplegic, but she gets around in a wheelchair and is studying to become a pharmacist. The Guerras were thrilled she survived, but don't like the court's decision: "Today’s decision immunizes police officers," the couple says in a statement. "In other words, victims' families cannot trust anything police officers tell them."
– It's been 75 years since Gone With the Wind was released—and given the many hurdles to its production, it's kind of amazing that it ever was. In Entertainment Weekly, Chris Nashawaty tells the story of the film's making, which centered on producer David Selznick. He was at first reluctant to make the film, despite a glowing review of the book by one of his employees. "I am absolutely off my nut about this book," Katharine Brown wrote, finally convincing him to take action. But plenty got in the way. Among the challenges: The first writer dropped out after spending months on the script. After a number of other writers tried their hand, including Selznick himself, writer Ben Hecht took it on, but there was no time for him to read Margaret Mitchell's book. So Selznick and director Victor Fleming "stayed up all night acting out the story for him." Clark Gable was under contract to Selznick's father-in-law, who finally "loaned" him to Selznick, with plenty of strings attached—and Gable wasn't thrilled about it. Original director George Cukor didn't get along with Gable and was eventually replaced by Fleming, who didn't get along with Vivien Leigh. "Leigh hated Fleming. With a passion. Fleming hated her. Clark Gable hated David … Everybody hated David," an assistant said. Fleming quit before returning. Ultimately, the film required "125 days of photography, 37 months of preparation, half a million feet of film and a budget of $4.25 million (at a time when the average feature cost less than $1 million)," Nashawaty writes. And the trouble was far from over: Racism plagued the various premieres, with black cast members in many cases banned from attending, the Los Angeles Times reports. That prompted anger from Selznick, the AP reports; Gable, meanwhile, had already stood against segregated toilets on set, threatening to bail on the film, according to a Life magazine book cited by the Times. Ultimately, however, "Selznick kept that film together," says a film scholar, and it still holds the record for domestic box-office gross, adjusted for inflation, the Times notes (and you can bet it's a lot better than the current crop of big-grossing films).
– Prepare to be thrilled or peeved, depending on your age. The newly appointed CEO of AMC Entertainment says he's considering allowing mobile phone use, including texting, in theaters as a way to attract millennials to see a show. It's actually one of many new strategies being discussed—including more "exciting" food—as AMC prepares to become the world's largest theater operator upon its merger with Carmike, but it's likely to be the most controversial. "We need to reshape our product in some concrete ways so that millennials go to movie theaters with the same degree of intensity as baby boomers," Adam Aron tells Variety. The way to do that? "You can't tell a 22-year-old to turn off their cellphone." "When you tell a 22-year-old to turn off the phone, don't ruin the movie, they hear 'please cut off your left arm above the elbow,' " he continues. If this sounds like a terrible idea, don't freak out just yet. Aron acknowledges that "today's moviegoer doesn't want somebody sitting next to them texting or having their phone on," so he says a compromise might be to have mobile-friendly auditoriums. "IF ever, we ONLY would pursue in a way we'd be TOTALLY confident ALL our guests will fully enjoy movie-going experience," he adds on Twitter, per WNCN. Aron says a new deal with ticketing app Atom Tickets might also help attract millennials: When you buy a ticket, it will send a text to friends who can then reserve a seat next to you, Aron says. (This theater chain recently started checking bags.)
– The CDC is out with numbers from a comprehensive new survey on rape and sexual assault, and the main takeaway is grim: More than 19% of women in the US, nearly one in five, have been raped at some point in their lives, reports Bloomberg. When the definition is broadened to include other forms of sexual violence, the percentage of female victims rises to 44%. The victims include those unable to give consent because they were under the influence of alcohol or drugs, notes Salon. The CDC estimates more than 11 million women were raped in that manner in 2011. The report also says 2% of men have been raped, and 23% have been victims of sexual violence of some kind. In fact, New York highlights this paragraph from the CDC report itself: "Consistent with previous studies, the overall pattern of results suggest that women, in particular, are heavily impacted over their lifetime. However, the results also indicate that many men experience sexual violence, stalking, and, in particular, physical violence by an intimate partner. " For both genders, the abuse is most likely to have happened before age 25. (One man raped at age 14 has now been ordered to pay child support for the daughter he fathered.)
– Twelve people were hurt yesterday evening when a food truck in Philadelphia exploded in a blast so powerful its propane tank landed 150 feet away. A mother and daughter who worked on the La Parrillada Chapina truck were critically injured with third-degree burns over more than 50% of their bodies, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. Three other people burned in the explosion are in critical condition, and seven others suffered less serious injuries when flames briefly engulfed their vehicles, police say. Surveillance video captured the moment the truck's propane tank exploded, creating a huge fireball that went all the way across the street, police say. The city's fire and police departments are investigating the blast. "We want to ensure that this was an accidental explosion. We want to ensure this wasn't anything criminal," a police spokesman tells the AP. "The bomb squad is investigating to see if there is any foul play."
– Today's television news: Jerry Springer heads to another trainwreck-of-a-show, while Kelly Osbourne lands a gig trying to help trainwrecks-in-the-making. Springer—who calls himself “the crazy old uncle” that people tell secrets to—will host a dating show where contestants reveal their biggest faults then vie for a date, the AP reports. The appropriately named Baggage debuts on the Game Show Network April 19; planned suitors include a shoplifter and a control freak. Meanwhile, Kelly Osbourne will be a contributor on Dr. Phil starting today. The doc calls her “an excellent addition” since “she has dealt with drug addiction as well as addictions within her family. She’s also fought the battle with obesity.” Osbourne tells Entertainment Tonight she’s “excited” about her new job. “I really hope I can use my life experiences to do some good.”
– Efforts to find missing teen Adriana Coronado have intensified after her father was found shot to death and burned in a Texas ditch, NBC News reports. An Amber Alert noting Adriana "is believed to be in grave or immediate danger" was issued Monday for the 13-year-old, who was last seen on Saturday in Katy with her dad, Cesar Vladimir Coronado. Authorities believe Adriana was with her father when he was murdered, and the FBI has now joined the hunt for the missing girl, the New York Daily News reports. The elder Coronado's body was found on rural property a couple of counties away in Walker County, and his burned-out truck was discovered about 50 miles away from that location. "We're working it as if [Adriana] had been abducted," the Walker County sheriff says. Adriana's mom, who's recovering from surgery in Mexico, tells KHOU, "Please return my daughter back cause I'm dying with hurt. Oh my God. This is my only daughter, please return her to me." Adriana is said to be about 5 feet tall, 105 pounds, with black hair, brown eyes, and black-framed glasses. (A teen who set out for a fresh start has gone missing in the Atlanta area.)
– US Soccer is, by all appearances, the first major American sports organization to ban kneeling during the national anthem, Deadspin reports. US Soccer first addressed the issue last September after Megan Rapinoe took a knee in protest during the national anthem prior to a match. Rapinoe said she was kneeling in solidarity with San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and marginalized groups, specifically the LGBT community. "We have an expectation that our players and coaches will stand and honor our flag," the league said in a statement following Rapinoe's protest. Despite no other US Soccer player, including Rapinoe, appearing to kneel since then, the organization decided to go a step further. ESPN reports a new rule was approved by the US Soccer board of directors in February and revealed Saturday during the organization's general meeting in Hawaii. Fox Sports' Stuart Holden tweeted a photo of the new rule, which states all national team players must "stand respectfully" during the anthem. That covers kneeling, as well as turning one's back on the flag and other potentially disrespectful actions, according to Fox Sports. The rule doesn't specify any punishment for kneelers, and US Soccer president Sunil Gulati says consequences will be figured out if/when necessary. (Meanwhile, Kaepernick announced this week he'll no longer be kneeling for the anthem.)
– Those who knew Miriam Carey, the reported driver of the black Infiniti at the center of yesterday's DC chase, are struggling to believe the news. "That’s impossible. She works, she holds a job," sister Amy Carey tells the Washington Post. "She wouldn’t be in DC. She was just in Connecticut two days ago," though she does have a black car, Amy says. But Carey's mom, Idella, tells ABC News her daughter was suffering from post-partum depression. Miriam gave birth to her daughter last August, Idella Carey says, and "a few months later, she got sick. She was depressed. ... She was hospitalized." (Police confirmed a 1-year-old girl was in the car with Carey when she was killed.) A former classmate says Miriam Carey "was really just a sweet and nurturing person," and a college friend says Carey was "always very professional" and "very focused." She didn't discuss politics, and wasn't one to lose her temper. But DC police chief Cathy Lanier says the situation yesterday didn't seem to be an accident. The Connecticut Post notes that Carey had no criminal record. Now her neighborhood in Stamford, Conn., is flooded with officials: "A full investigation is underway by federal authorities," says the city's mayor. A few more details have emerged: Carey—or someone with the same name—got a BA in health and nutrition from Brooklyn College in 2007. She also had an associate degree in dental hygiene from the Bronx's Hostos Community College. She moved to Stamford in 2009 after living in Brooklyn, close to her family, for years. In 2002, she gained a dental hygiene license from New York state; in 2009, she got one from Connecticut. She ran a temping business out of her Connecticut condo called Experienced Dental Placements. Her condo association sued her last year for unknown reasons, but the suit was dropped. BuzzFeed has an account of what's known so far, with photos.
– Sharp-eyed viewers may have noticed a familiar head on a spike in the 10th episode of Season 1 of Game of Thrones—George W. Bush's. A prop head of the former president was used as one of the traitors' heads on spikes, the show's creators say in their DVD commentary, explaining that its use wasn't political, io9 reports. "George Bush's head appears in a couple of beheading scenes," they say. "It's not a choice, it's not a political statement. We just had to use whatever head we had around." But the use of the head has outraged a few Republican politicians, and the show's creators and HBO have apologized, Vulture reports. "We were deeply dismayed to see this and find it unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste," HBO said in a statement, promising to remove images of Bush's head from future DVDs. The creators explained that nobody had pointed out that the head looked like Bush's until after the scene was shot.
– Not too long ago, the profile of the typical heroin user was pretty straightforward: an inner-city male about age 16. No more, says a new study in JAMA Psychiatry. Thanks in part to the surging use of prescription painkillers such as OxyContin and Vicodin, today's typical first-time heroin user is more likely to be a white 20-something, either male or female, from the suburbs or a more rural area, reports Bloomberg. The link to the prescription drugs? People get hooked on them but can't afford to sustain the habit and so turn to cheaper, easier-to-get heroin. “The price on the street for prescription painkillers, like OxyContin, got very expensive,” says the study's author in Forbes. “It has sold for up to a dollar per milligram, so an 80 milligram tablet would cost $80. Meanwhile, they can get heroin for $10.” The result is that 90% of new heroin users in the last decade were white, with the average age of first use at 23. Three-quarters of them got started on prescription meds. The shift to heroin has become even more pronounced as the makers of the prescription drugs take steps to curb abuse, such as making their pills harder to crush. “The crackdown in prescription narcotics has pushed more people over to heroin,” an expert at the Cleveland Clinic not involved with the study tells NBC News. (Click to read how how NYPD officers are going to start carrying a heroin antidote.)
– A young mother in Michigan has been charged with first-degree murder and first-degree child abuse after allegedly strapping her 6-month-old son into a car seat for two days without food or water. Lovily Johnson, 22, had a personal protection order against the father of her 2-year-old daughter in 2016, and he pleaded guilty to aggravated domestic violence last year, reports the Detroit Free Press. Now, a Kent County judge has ordered that her toddler be placed under state supervision as officials work to unite the girl with her grandmother. But for the baby, Noah Edward Johnson, help came too late. By the time Johnson brought the boy's body to Helen DeVos Children's Hospital on July 19, a detective writes in a probable cause affidavit, "Noah was clearly deceased and had been for some time." Johnson allegedly admitted to being in sole charge of his care for the previous four days. She says she came home multiple times as the baby stayed fastened to his seat in a hot upper-story room without air conditioning, but "knowingly and intentionally deprived him of the necessities of life," the affidavit read, per People. Johnson was arrested, denied bail, and is due in court in August, reports MLive. "Let me make it really clear," the judge told Johnson when she said she didn't understand the charges, per KXTV. "They alleged you killed a young child and that you physically abused it." Johnson then said she understood. She pleaded not guilty. (This boy died in his dead mother's arms.)
– After locals spotted a body dangling from a Sacramento building yesterday morning, police have been postulating about what he was up to. Their theory: The 30-something man, who was hanging from at least nine stories up, was a graffiti artist. He had a rope tied around him, rappelling-style, and a spray paint can and etching tool were found atop the building, the Los Angeles Times reports. A fire department rep tells the Sacramento Bee that the cause of death was accidental asphyxiation. "He got pulled into a fetal position when the rope cinched up on him," explains the battalion chief, who noted the man used what the Bee describes as "an antiquated mountaineering technique" to make his way down the building. Confirms the manager of a local climbing store, "It's not used much anymore. There is equipment that is a lot more efficient, so nobody really does it." In an odd coincidence, the Bee notes that the man is the second apparent graffiti artist to die in the course of tagging in Sacramento in just 15 days; the other fell from a highway overpass.
– Authorities are investigating the death of a diver on the set of the new Lone Ranger movie starring Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer. The 48-year-old crew member, wearing scuba gear at the time, may have died of a heart attack while preparing a deep-water tank on location at a ranch north of Los Angeles. He was identified by TMZ as 20-year film crew veteran and water safety expert Mike Bridger, a favorite of mega producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who relied on him for the Pirates of the Caribbean movies before hiring him for the Lone Ranger filming. "Our hearts and thoughts are with his family, friends, and colleagues at this time," reads a statement from Walt Disney studios. A spokesman says producers "fully support" the investigation into the "terrible event," reports the BBC.
– Legendary World Wrestling Entertainment manager and commentator Bobby "The Brain" Heenan died Sunday at age 73, reports ESPN, which calls Heenan "one of the most renowned managers and commentators in the history of professional wrestling." A cause of death hasn't been confirmed, but Heenan had been fighting throat and tongue cancer since 2002. Heenan came to the WWE in 1984 after first working with other wrestling organizations; he ended up building the "Heenan Family," a group of wrestlers he managed that included such big names as Andre the Giant and Ric Flair. He also went on to have massive success as a commentator after retiring as a manager in the '90s, and WWE exec Triple H tells TMZ Heenan was also an extremely talented wrestler—he simply "wanted to be a manager," Triple H says. "That's what he wanted to do." Heenan left WWE in 1994 for World Championship Wrestling, but he returned to the WWE when Vince McMahon bought out WCW in 2001. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame three years later. McMahon and Flair were among those mourning Heenan on Twitter, with Flair calling him "The Greatest Manager, One Of The Greatest Announcers, And One Of The Best In-Ring Performers In The History Of The Business" and McMahon calling him "One of the greatest managers and announcers in WWE history." UPROXX rounds up some of Heenan's greatest quotes, including: "I know all about cheating. I've had six very successful marriages." The truth? He was married just once, in 1974. In addition to wife Cynthia Jean, he leaves behind a daughter and a grandson, the Los Angeles Times reports.
– The date for what may or may not be financial doomsday is now July 22. Both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times say the White House has figured that to be the do-or-die day to hammer out a deal with Republicans to avoid an unprecedented default on the national debt. The government has enough funds to keep operating under the debt ceiling until August 2, but it will take time to get legislation through the House and Senate before then to raise the borrowing limit. Hence the July 22 deadline. Democrats say the stakes are enormous: "If we didn't pay our bills, it would plunge the United States not into a recession, not into the so-called double-dip recession, but into a full-blown depression," maintains Harry Reid, who canceled the Senate's July 4 recess. Republicans say those claims are exaggerated: Fears of a "catastrophic collapse of the markets" are "ridiculous," says Sen. Pat Toomey.
– One of the year's biggest movies is expected to be Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, with Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role. The movie is out November 9, and it looks like a winner to Mashable based on the newly released trailer. "We could do without the overly stirring music, frequent fades-to-black, and other cliches of the movie trailer. But everything else about the clip screams early Oscar favorite," writes Chris Taylor. Though no audio recordings of Lincoln exist, Entertainment Weekly says the voice by Day-Lewis "just feels and sounds ... right."
– Driving drunk is one thing. Doing it on two bottles of vanilla extract is at least sweeter, if just as dangerous. Carolyn Kesel, 46, was pulled over for driving erratically around a Walmart parking lot in Macedon, NY, last week, and told police she had downed two bottles of extract, the Post-Standard reports. She came up .26% on a Breathalyzer test. Seem unlikely? Well, police say vanilla extract has an alcohol level of 41%. "That puts it on comparison to both vodka and gin," journalist Ron Holdracker tells WHAM. "We found out that things like orange extract and peppermint extract are up to 89% alcohol. That's 160 proof plus, that's far more than you can even find in even a liquor store." County officials are learning that people (alcoholics in particular) also drink flavored extracts to mask alcohol consumption, adds Holdracker. And the Wayne County Times notes that underage kids are known to drink extracts to get high. "I didn't know that," says a county correctional officer of extracts' alcohol level. "This blows me away. How can they sell that stuff in grocery stores." Many shops already card people who purchase "buzzy" products like spray paints, cough syrup, computer keyboard duster spray, and sometimes spice extracts. As for Kesel—who has a prior DUI—she was arraigned and remanded to jail on a $20,000 bond or $10,000 cash.
– Seniors dealing with insomnia or anxiety might want to take it easy on commonly prescribed drugs such as Ativan, Xanax, Valium, and Klonopin, a new study in the British Medical Journal suggests. Researchers in Canada found what looks to be a strong link between Alzheimer's and this class of drugs, called benzodiazepines, reports the CBC. Specifically, those who took the drugs for longer than 3 months were 51% more likely to develop the disease. The study compared 1,800 people age 65 and older recently diagnosed with about 7,100 seniors who did not have Alzheimer's. The findings don't establish definitive proof that long-term use of benzodiazepines causes Alzheimer's, "but it does strengthen such suspicions," observes the Los Angeles Times. Scientists already knew that benzodiazepines take a toll on memory and mental sharpness, and the study authors write that their findings make it crucial for doctors "to carefully balance the risks and benefits when initiating or renewing a treatment with benzodiazepines and related products in older patients." The American Geriatrics Society already considers the drugs a bad choice for seniors, writes Alice Walton at Forbes. "It may be time for doctors to listen to this recommendation." (Scratch-and-sniff tests might someday help diagnose the ailment.)
– Guatemala's highest court has chucked out the historic genocide conviction of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt. The court overturned the conviction—which brought an 80-year sentence for the 86-year-old former military strongman—and ordered for his trial to be rewound to April 19, when there was a dispute between two judges, the BBC reports. Montt, the first former leader to be found guilty of genocide by a tribunal in his own country, was found guilty of ordering the deaths of 1,700 Ixil Maya in the early 1980s, but weeks of his trial, including harrowing testimony from survivors, will now have to be redone, the Los Angeles Times reports. Montt, who maintains his innocence, is now expected to leave the military hospital where he is being held to return home under house arrest.
– There literally does appear to be an app for almost everything, and treating symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder just got its own entry. Treatment for OCD (a condition in which patients can't stop having obsessive thoughts and engaging in repetitive behaviors) has been notoriously hit or miss: UPI reports that up to 40% of patients don't respond that well to either medication or "talk therapy" in dealing specifically with symptoms like extreme phobias related to contamination and excessive hand-washing. But a new study published in Scientific Reports says subjects with strong contamination fears—for ethical reasons, the scientists didn't study actual OCD patients for fear of worsening their symptoms—who used a "brain training" app found significant relief for their symptoms after just one week of intervention. University of Cambridge researchers split 93 otherwise healthy subjects into three groups. For seven days, they were told to watch a 30-second video four times a day. Depending on which group they were in, that video was either of themselves washing their hands, touching a fake contaminated surface, or simply moving their hands around in various gestures (the control group). The subjects in the two non-control groups experienced a noticeable decrease in their OCD-like symptoms, with about a 21% jump in their Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale scores—the most commonly used gauge in assessing OCD, per a release. Although research involving actual OCD patients is needed, scientists are encouraged. (Workaholics may be prone to OCD.)
– The US has long had dicey relations with the UN cultural organization UNESCO, and those relations have just taken another sour turn. The State Department announced Thursday that the US is pulling out of the organization at the end of next year, citing what it sees as an anti-Israel bias, concern over America's mounting back dues, and the "need for fundamental reform," reports the Hill. Though it won't be a full member, the US will maintain a lesser role with "observer" status. Details: Not the first time: Ronald Reagan severed ties with UNESCO in 1984, accusing the group of having a pro-Soviet bias and of being plagued with corruption, notes Foreign Policy. George W. Bush reinstated ties in 2002, saying the organization had made the necessary reforms and corrected an anti-Israel bias. About Israel: The US stopped paying $80 million in annual dues in 2011 after UNESCO accepted Palestine as a member. And this summer, UNESCO recognized the old city of Hebron in the West Bank as a Palestinian World Heritage Site over the objections of the US and Israel. Those unpaid dues, meanwhile, now add up to about $550 million in back payments, reports the AP, and the US wants to stop the amount from growing. UNESCO mission: The organization, formed after WWII and based in Paris, is perhaps best known for the aforementioned World Heritage operation, which designates cultural sites worthy of preservation. (The Statue of Liberty and the Grand Canyon are among them.) Beyond that, the broad mission is in the name: the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. One example is improving girls' access to education. The group has 195 member nations and is currently in the process of picking a new leader, per the Washington Post. Trump pattern? Reuters sees the move as in line with the Trump administration's embrace of "America First" and its corresponding disdain of engaging with international bodies. It cites the disavowal of the TPP trade deal and the Paris climate accord, as well as the potential ditching of NAFTA. 'Profound regret': UNESCO chief Irina Bokova voiced "profound regret" at the decision in a statement. "At the time when the fight against violent extremism calls for renewed investment in education, in dialogue among cultures to prevent hatred, it is deeply regrettable that the United States should withdraw from the United Nations agency leading these issues."
– Great news from Japan: After days where a grim outcome seemed increasingly likely, the boy abandoned in a forest by his parents has been found alive and physically unharmed. On Friday, soldiers found 7-year-old Yamato Tanooka in a hut at a military drill area a few miles away from where his parents had left him by the side of a forest road as punishment, the Japan Times reports. Soldiers say he was curled up on a mattress when they found him and they gave him rice balls and bread when he told them he was hungry and thirsty, the Guardian reports. He was taken to a hospital by military helicopter and was treated for dehydration and possible hypothermia. Doctors say the boy, who had been on his own since Saturday, was unharmed apart from scratches on his arms and legs. Yamato's parents told authorities that they returned five minutes after leaving the boy and found him gone. At least 180 rescuers joined the search, combing woods on the northern island of Hokkaido, which are home to a species of brown bear. It's not clear how long the boy had been in the unheated hut during a week when overnight temperatures dropped as low as 44 degrees Fahrenheit. Police say he told his rescuers he hadn't eaten but had found water to drink. Yamato's father, Takayuki Tanooka, visited his son and apologized, the AP reports. "I told him I was so sorry for causing him such pain," the father told reporters outside the hospital. He said the boy has been "raised with love," and while the punishment for throwing rocks was supposed to be for Yamato's own good, he realizes that he went too far.
– Actor Danny Glover is among a group of celebrities and green activists seeking volunteers to risk arrest this summer in DC over a proposed oil pipeline that would run from the Canadian tar sands to the Gulf Coast. “We want you to consider doing something hard: coming to Washington in the hottest and stickiest weeks of the summer and engaging in civil disobedience that will likely get you arrested,” the activists write in a letter reprinted at Politico. The State Department is set to decide on the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline by the end of this year, and the president "can get his environmental mojo back" by rejecting it, says activist Bill McKibben. The group plans daily marches on the White House the last two weeks of August. The letter even offers a "sartorial tip" for participants: "If you wore an Obama button during the 2008 campaign, why not wear it again?" The group's website is here.
– On the fifth anniversary of President Obama's "Dreamers" program, the Trump administration included the following single line in a memo to the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday: "The June 15, 2012 memorandum that created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program will remain in effect." This was a surprise to many, as President Trump promised during the campaign to "immediately terminate" protections for Dreamers, people brought to the US illegally by their parents before turning 16, according to US News & World Report. The memo means Dreamers will continue to be able to use and apply for permits to work in the US. "This is a big victory for Dreamers amid months of draconian and mean-spirited immigration enforcement policy," an immigration lawyer tells the New York Times. But that doesn't mean Dreamers can rest easy. On Friday, White House officials said that despite the memo Trump hasn't made any decision on the future of the DACA program and may still fulfill his campaign promise. That led to disappointment from immigration advocates—including the lawyer quoted above—that Dreamers are still facing an uncertain future. Vox reports there are currently more than 750,000 Dreamers in the US. The program allows them to legally work in the US for two years without fear of deportation under a number of conditions. Many Dreamers have no connection to their homelands and some don't even speak the languages of those homelands.
– A live cat was "marinating" in oil and peppers in the trunk of a car when Buffalo cops pulled the driver over for running a red light, reports the AP. Officers noticed meowing coming from the trunk, and found a 4-year-old cat named Navarro in a cage with his fur covered in oil, crushed red peppers, and chili peppers. The 51-year-old driver, Gary Korkuc, told police he planned to cook the cat because Navarro was ill-tempered, as well as "possessive, greedy, and wasteful." He also told them that the neutered male cat was pregnant. Korkuc was charged with animal cruelty and released; Navarro was given a bath at the SPCA and adopted yesterday, reports the Buffalo News.
– Bristol Palin is all for abstinence, but she seemed to have no problem grinding, writhing around on the ground, and ripping off her partner’s shirt—in front of her parents—last night on Dancing With the Stars. “It was spicy,” she tells OK! of her performance. Spicy or not, Palin came in close to last with a score of 32, but it was The Situation who brought up the rear, with a score of 28. Click here to see his tango, which one judge called a “terrible mess.”
– A 10-year-old acrobat, juggler, and street-performing phenom has died in a mysterious hanging accident at his Washington home, leaving adoring fans stunned and bereft. Caleb "Flip" Kors was found strangled in his bedroom among his acrobatic equipment, and may have been climbing to retrieve something for a costume, reports the Los Angeles Times. "The young man died in what appears to be an accidental hanging. How he got there, we're not actually sure," said a police spokesman. "There did not appear to be anything suspicious." The boy left an indelible impression on everyone who saw him perform. "He was an amazing kid, incredible," with astounding athletic prowess and a sense of drama, said one of his teachers. "He had a way of turning an area of pavement into this special little place, a little theater." Caleb performed weekly next to his mom's jewelry stand at the local farmer's market in Bellingham, and was constantly exploring new material, notes ABC News. "This kid was fearless in what he was willing to do," said his teacher. "That's something that is innate, being willing to share yourself fully with a group of strangers—that openness and willingness to connect. This kid had that in spades." A Facebook memorial has been set up in honor of Caleb, and a donation site has been established to help his mom and two older brothers. The overwhelming outpouring of support "is the work of Caleb," said a statement from the family. "Even though he's not with us physically, he's still doing magic."
– In the grand tradition of Jobing.com Arena and the Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl, the University of North Carolina's NC Children's Specialty Clinic was just rebranded as the Krispy Kreme Challenge Children's Specialty Clinic, Gawker reports. The website points out the irony: "A place that’s designed to increase health will bear the trademark of a company that profits from destroying health." A clinic spokesperson tells Gawker that some people may see the new name and think they "sold out" to a company that makes a killing on unhealthy foods, but that criticism is overblown because the name isn't technically connected to the doughnut chain itself. According to a UNC press release, the children's specialty clinic was actually named after the Krispy Kreme Challenge—an event wherein participants eat 12 doughnuts while running five miles in an hour that was started by NC State students on a dare in 2004. The clinic spokesperson tells Gawker that Krispy Kreme has no involvement in the challenge or connection to the clinic's renaming. "We’re disappointed that a small minority of people have jumped to that conclusion," the spokesperson says. "They couldn’t be more wrong." The Krispy Kreme Challenge is run by students and has raised nearly $1 million for the clinic—which treats feeding and swallowing issues and consults on diabetes—since 2006 and plans to raise another million by 2020, according to the press release. “Anyone worried about the future of this country should spend just 30 or 40 minutes with these remarkable students," the clinic's chief physician tells WRAL. "I come away impressed after every interaction.”
– An Indonesian man died at his own mother's funeral. It wasn't a broken heart but rather death by coffin. Samen Kondorura, 40, had been helping carry his mother's coffin up a bamboo ladder to a funeral tower called a lakkian on Sulawesi island Friday when "suddenly the ladder shifted and collapsed, and the coffin fell," police commissioner Julianto Sirait says, per the Independent. Video footage appears to show the coffin striking several people, including Kondorura, who reportedly suffered a head injury. He died later at a hospital despite locals rushing to help, reports the AFP. Sirait says the ladder wasn't properly supported but the family has declined to press charges. Kondorura's body now rests next to his mother's.
– A 17-year-old Dutch girl has died while bungee-jumping in northern Spain, say Spanish authorities, marking the second fatal accident involving the sport in less than a month in the country. Emergency medical services in the northern region of Cantabria said the unnamed girl died late yesterday after falling some 130 feet from a viaduct on a highway near the town of Cabezon de la Sal. The Local reports the teen's body hit the dry riverbed below. "Apparently, she was not fully secured when she jumped," a local official told the AFP. The teen was reportedly on a camping trip with a group whose jumps yesterday were arranged by an adventure sports company. On July 21, a 23-year-old British woman died after bungee-jumping from a bridge close to the southern city of Granada. The Local notes the jump supervisor and the owner of the company that facilitated the jump have been charged with manslaughter.
– Twilight heartthrob Robert Pattinson has a movie coming out Friday, and the twist ending is already leaking out of theaters and onto the Internet. Don't keep reading if you don't want to know! Or continue to learn the secret of what Gawker blogger Richard Lawson calls "the film's exploitative gotcha! ending." New York gave away the ending last month, with plenty of spoiler warnings, and commenters still went nuts. Last chance. OK, the twist: Pattinson's character "goes up and up in an elevator and everyone in the audience is saying 'My, that's an awfully tall building, where does he work exactly?' And then, can you guess it? 9/11." Lawson continues: "It's like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close if Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close had featured just a few more vampire sexpots." So now you know.
– The looming fight between the government and Apple over encryption has been delayed again—this time after the passcode to the locked iPhone of a New York drug trafficker was simply handed over. "An individual provided the department with the passcode to the locked phone at issue," a Justice Department spokesman said in a statement. "Because we now have access to the data we sought, we notified the court of this recent development and have withdrawn our request for assistance." The DEA had obtained a search warrant to look through the iPhone 5s of meth dealer Jun Feng. Unlike newer models, it is a phone that Apple can easily crack, but the company, which had assisted authorities in scores of similar cases, refused the DEA's request for help, CNN reports. Feng—who claimed to have forgotten the passcode—pleaded guilty late last year, but the government and Apple kept the legal fight over the phone going in the hope of setting a legal precedent for such cases, the Guardian reports. The government had been about to appeal a recent ruling in favor of Apple which said officials didn't have the authority to force companies to allow investigators into devices, the Wall Street Journal reports, which makes the sudden end of the case a big setback for the government. Sources tell the Journal that the person who provided the passcode was Feng himself, who appears to have had a sudden flash of memory after recently discovering that his phone was still involved in a legal battle. (FBI Director James Comey hinted it cost more than $1 million to pay hackers to crack a phone in a similar but unrelated case.)
– When traveling to unfamiliar lands, it pays to listen to the locals—especially when you're on the island of Komodo and they're telling you to stay away from the dragons. A 50-year-old Singaporean tourist who failed to heed that advice was severely bitten on the left leg after getting too close to the animals while they were feeding, the BBC reports. Authorities on the Indonesian island say the man, Lon Lee Alle, was taking photographs of the lizards and had ignored villagers' warnings. "He must have been too close. A Komodo doesn't like to be disturbed when eating," the chief of Komodo National Park tells the Jakarta Post. The park chief says that to save money, Alle had been staying with local villagers and had been observing the Komodo dragons, the world's biggest lizards, away from the official area set up for tourists to watch the animals. The Post reports that residents were able to drag him away from the dragons, and he was rushed to a hospital on another island in a military speedboat. The animals have venomous bites and, in rare cases, have been known to kill people. The park chief says this is the first Komodo attack in five years. (A ban on treats "angered" the dragons.)
– The brother of jailed polygamous Mormon sect leader Warren Jeffs is on the run from the FBI after using "some sort of lubrication, possibly olive oil," to wriggle out of his ankle monitor, say police. Lyle Jeffs, one of 11 leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints facing fraud and money-laundering charges, had been ordered to remain at his Salt Lake City home except for work, medical appointments, and court hearings, says the FBI. However, a warrant was issued for his arrest last month when the 56-year-old leader vanished from his home. Investigators say a Ford Mustang pulled into Jeffs' garage around 10:30pm on June 18, then left later that night, reports the Salt Lake Tribune. The next day, agents found the GPS monitor but couldn't locate Jeffs. "He used a substance which may have been olive oil to lubricate the GPS tracking band and slip it off his ankle," an agent tells Fox 13. "The damage to the bracelet was not such to trigger the full array of alarms that law enforcement or the US Marshal's Service would have responded to." A judge ordered Jeffs be released from jail on June 9 when his trial for a $12 million food stamp fraud and money-laundering scheme was delayed. Prosecutors—who say food stamps were cashed at sect-owned stores and the money diverted to the church—had argued Jeffs was a flight risk. "Blame the judge for this," one of Jeffs' half-brothers tells the Tribune. "Everybody knew that he was going to do this." Jeffs, who surrendered his passport, could be hiding in FLDS havens in the US, Canada, or South America, reports the Deseret News.
– "Good evening, here we are at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner; like a porn star says when she’s about to have sex with Trump, let’s get this over with." Thus began Michelle Wolf's White House Correspondents' Dinner monologue, one that Politico terms "bruising" and Reince Priebus calls an "R/X rated spectacle that started poorly and ended up in the bottom of the canyon." While President Trump again skipped the political-media spectacle, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was at the head table to represent the White House; Wolf showed no mercy, saying, "We are graced with Sarah's presence tonight. I have to say I'm a little star struck. I love you as Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid's Tale." More burns, also via CNN: "I actually really like Sarah. I think she's very resourceful. But she burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smokey eye." "Mr. President, I don't think you're very rich. Like, you might be rich in Idaho, but in New York, you're doing fine." "It's 2018, and I'm a woman so you cannot shut me up. Unless you have Michael Cohen wire me $130,000." "Mike Pence is what happens when Anderson Cooper isn't gay." CNN has a list of everyone targeted by Wolf here.
– Jennifer Lawrence is often applauded for her funny, down-to-earth stories, but the one she told on the BBC's Graham Norton Show over the weekend fell flat, the Guardian reports. Norton asked Lawrence about an incident that occurred while she was filming The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in Hawaii in 2012 (Lawrence had told the story once already, years ago). They were filming at an area containing rocks believed to be sacred—"I dunno, they were ancestors, who knows," Lawrence said. "You're not supposed to sit on them because you're not supposed to expose your genitals to them." But to say Lawrence didn't take that idea seriously would be an understatement. "Oh my god, they were so good for butt itching," she continued, acting out the movement in her chair. One of the rocks she was using for "butt-scratchin'" came loose, she said while laughing uproariously, rolling down the mountain and "almost kill[ing] our sound guy," and "all the Hawaiians were like, 'Oh my god, it's the curse!' And I'm in the corner going, 'I'm your curse. I wedged it loose with my ass.'" The clip started getting a lot of criticism this week, the Guardian notes, with one tweet calling it "the whitest story ever told" having been liked nearly 3,000 times and retweeted nearly 1,500 times so far. Reads another critical tweet: "Jennifer Lawrence: 'i literally wiped my ass with sacred symbols of Hawaii' Everyone: 'so quirky. So relatable.'"
– With Daniel Craig set to star in his final turn as James Bond next October, Idris Elba dropped a hint that has 007 fans very definitely aflutter over Craig's potential successor: "My name's Elba, Idris Elba," he tweeted Sunday. Elba's name has been linked to the Bond franchise before, to some memorably racist reactions, but he's previously shot down those reports, notes the BBC, saying that at 45, he's too old to play the spy. Bond producer Barbara Broccoli earlier this week noted that "it will happen eventually" that a non-white actor takes on the iconic role, reports the Telegraph. Elba would be the seventh actor to play Bond, after Craig, Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton, Roger Moore, George Lazenby, and Sean Connery.
– Some in Newtown, Connecticut, weren't happy with last night's episode of Glee, in which a character brings a gun to school, and a shooting occurs. At least two warnings were issued in advance of the episode: In the Newtown Bee, Shannon Hicks wrote that the episode "may be a little much for some residents to stomach." The senior editor of TVLine.com clued in his friend, a Newtown resident, about the episode, warning him it may be too "intense" for local viewers, and that friend in turn notified the Bee. (The Atlantic Wire spotted the article.) A Newtown victims advocacy group emailed out a warning, the Huffington Post reports. The email from Newtown Action Alliance called the episode "extremely harrowing" and urged locals to either not watch, or "watch with caution." That wasn't enough for one resident, who told the Bee, "I think it’s terrible that the writers and producers of that show didn’t think to contact someone in Newtown to let us know this was coming." We won't give away the plot around the shooting, but we will share the Washington Post's take on what it produced: "long, unsettling stretches of students sitting in the darkness, hiding under tables and desks and sobbing, while leaving devastating video messages for their loved ones, as they waited to see what was going to happen." For details on the episode's plot, click here.
– Tamir Rice was one of the highest-profile examples of a person carrying a fake weapon who was gunned down by cops, but as the Washington Post reports in an exclusive, he was far from the only one. Those statistics, per the Post's internal database of US fatal police shootings, show that 43 people with "ultra-real-looking pellet guns, toy weapons, and non-functioning replicas" were killed in 2016, as well as 43 people in 2015. Of those killed, 54 were white, while 81 were male. But just because the guns were fake, they weren't obviously so—the Post points out that "almost all" of the recovered weapons in these 86 fatal shootings were "highly realistic" likenesses of the real deal, including BB and pellet guns, airsoft guns, and replicas. Sig Sauer, for example, manufactures airguns that it promotes as "carbon copies" of its actual weapons. Because these phony firearms are a) "red hot" now, per an industry consultant, and b) "virtually impossible" to identify as being fake from far away, cops are in a dilemma where they're left with "little choice but to assume the guns are lethal," the Post notes. "People don't really understand the dynamics of a police-involved situation," says Kim Jacobs, the police chief in Columbus, Ohio. "They all have families, they want to go home at the end of their shift." There have been efforts to push laws that would make airguns look noticeably different from real ones, but those efforts have been stymied by gun rights groups. And two studies done 25 years ago showed that adding markers to fake weapons didn't substantially cut down on police shootings. One sheriff in Alachua County, Fla., wants to circumvent aesthetic changes altogether. "Part of the solution is to ban the sale of toy or replica guns," he says.
– A power outage struck late this afternoon in Toronto, where Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip are visiting at the end of a 9-day swing through Canada. The prince was at a downtown hotel when the lights went out and gamely presented the Duke of Edinburgh Awards for community service to local youths in a dimly lit room, reports the Globe and Mail. Earlier, the queen visited the headquarters of Research in Motion, which makes the BlackBerry—she's a fan—and received a personalized smartphone. The visit was the first time reporters have been allowed on the floor at the RIM plant, AFP reports. The queen is scheduled to visit New York tomorrow. She will speak at the UN and visit the site of the World Trade Center, reports the New York Times.
– Researchers still don't know why the red wine-loving French have such low rates of heart disease despite their fatty diet—but they're now pretty sure it doesn't have much to do with an ingredient in the wine. Researchers tracked around 800 Italian villagers over nine years and discovered that their intake of resveratrol, a compound found in red wine and dark chocolate, made no difference at all to their risk of dying or of contracting heart disease or cancer, the BBC reports. "The thinking was that certain foods are good for you because they contain resveratrol. We didn't find that at all," the lead researcher says. "The story of resveratrol turns out to be another case where you get a lot of hype about health benefits that doesn't stand the test of time." Other studies have linked resveratrol to longevity and reduced levels of disease, but only when it is consumed in amounts much greater than that found in people's diets, the Los Angeles Times notes.
– Jamie Oliver has managed to "offend a whole nation," Stuff.co.nz reports—and he did it with pork sausage. The celebrity chef posted on Twitter what the Telegraph calls an "unorthodox" recipe for paella—a hodgepodge of rice, meats, veggies, and spices—incurring the wrath of Spanish culinary experts across the Internet. "Good Spanish food doesn't get much better than paella. My version combines chicken thighs & chorizo," Oliver cheerfully tweeted Tuesday. The Naked Chef's crime: including the chorizo, which is apparently frowned upon by many who don't consider the sausage-leaning version an authentic Spanish dish. Reaction was spicier than the meat he threw into his inadvertently insulting concoction. "Thanks for destroying our most famous recipe," one user commented, while another noted, "Your paella is an abomination," per the Telegraph. The BBC points readers to Wikipaella, a site dedicated to real-deal paella, whose founder once listed the dish's "golden rules" for the Independent, including using only Spanish rice and "No garlic. No peas. No potatoes. No stock. NO CHORIZO." (The rules also indicate that, for "ultra-authenticity," paella should only be cooked by men, specifically Spanish ones from Valencia, so take those rules for what they're worth.) MarketWatch notes that Oliver is something of a "serial offender": A couple of years back, his jollof rice recipe irritated West Africans. (The BBC offers a defense of chorizo-filled paella.)
– A K-pop superstar in South Korea whose bandmates said "loved music more than anyone" died Monday in what appears to be a suicide, the BBC reports. Police say Jonghyun (full name Kim Jong-hyun), said to be in his late 20s, was found unconscious in a Seoul residence hotel and taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, per the AP. While police haven't confirmed the death of the lead singer of SHINee was a suicide, Yonhap reports that investigators discovered incinerated coal briquettes in a frying pan in Kim's room, suggesting he died from inhaling the carbon monoxide that's emitted when coal is burned. Police ended up there after his sister called 911, worried Kim might be killing himself based on texts he'd sent her, per AFP. "This is my last farewell," one of the texts reportedly said. Another: "Please let me go. Tell me I did well." Per a separate Yonhap report, a close friend of Kim's posted on Instagram what she says was his suicide note; she says Kim's family was OK with her doing so. "I'm broken from the inside," Kim wrote. "The depression that has slowly nibbled me away has now devoured me, and I couldn't overcome it. … No one alive is more tormented nor weaker than myself." He also noted being famous likely wasn't for him, asking himself: "Why did I choose that?" The AP reports South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. The Guardian adds his note underscores the pressures of being a young entertainer in South Korea. Police say Kim's family doesn't want an autopsy, and his management company notes the family wants his funeral to be held "as quietly as possible," per CNN.
– A Baltimore woman who says she was blown off of her toilet when it exploded in November 2014, causing her physical injuries and PTSD, as well as loads of physical damage to her home, is now suing the city's mayor and City Council, as well as a couple of city contractors, for $75,000 each, or $225,000 in full, the Baltimore Sun reports. Angela Wright says in her February court filing that she was using the facilities when the system got backed up and exploded, knocking her off the toilet seat "with great force and violence" and leaving her covered in excrement and seriously wounded. "I was literally covered in feces. … Who wants that?" she told Fox45 shortly after the incident, with her lawyer adding, "She had to clean it up herself. Can you imagine doing that?" Why Wright is suing those particular parties: She says the mayor, the city, and contractors Spiniello Companies and Heitkamp fixed a sewage system next to her home in a "negligent manner," causing her toilet to back up and burst. (She says it also happened a few months before but she was lucky enough not to be sitting on the toilet.) The ABA Journal notes the suit doesn't specify if the commode itself actually exploded or if the burst of waste was caused by contractors using high-pressure hoses. Either way, Wright claims in her complaint that the incident caused her "mental anguish" and "loss of enjoyment of her usual pursuits and pastimes." Her attorney, meanwhile, notes the bathroom alone will likely cost around $14,000 to repair, and her suit mentions she's already racked up about $3,300 in medical bills. (She probably wasn't thinking about making beer out of the spewing toilet water.)
– "I know the depths of her depravity." That's what Elizabeth Smart had to say Thursday about her kidnapper, Wanda Barzee, who is set to be released from prison, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. During a press conference, Smart said Barzee is still a "danger and a threat to any vulnerable person in our community" and asked the 72-year-old's family to try to have her committed to a mental health facility, as "there does not seem like there is any viable legal recourse to this situation." Barzee will be released Sept. 19, according to KSL. "I was told she wouldn't be let out until 2024," Smart said, adding that learning of her former captor's impending release was a "very big shock." Barzee and her husband, Brian David Mitchell, kidnapped Smart from her Salt Lake City home at knifepoint in 2002, when Smart was 14 years old. Smart later testified that Mitchell raped and threatened her continuously during her nine months of captivity. Of Barzee, Smart said Thursday that the woman "saw me as her slave. She called me her handmaiden. She, in her own right, abused me just as much as [Mitchell] did."
– Just because air pollution falls below legal limits does not mean you're safe. Indeed, there is no "safe" level of air pollution as pollutants cause an increased risk of premature death even when detected at a fraction of the legal limit set by the EPA, a new study finds. "We are now providing bullet-proof evidence that we are breathing harmful air. Our air is contaminated," Francesca Dominici, the lead author of the Harvard study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, tells NPR. Researchers used a computer model to assess levels of ozone and fine particulate matter by US zip code, then determined what effect the pollutants had on one’s risk of premature death using data on 97% of Americans 65 or older, reports the Los Angeles Times. The risk of death climbed when seniors were exposed to as little as 5 micrograms of fine particulate matter per cubic meter of air, though the legal limit is 12 micrograms. Researchers found lowering the limit to 11 micrograms would save 12,000 lives per year. Similarly, the risk of death grew with exposure to ozone at 30 parts per billion; the EPA limit is 70 parts per billion. Researchers found cutting the legal limit to 69 parts per billion would save 1,900 lives annually. However, an editorial accompanying the study notes the Trump administration is favoring policies that would give us "dirtier air" which is "going to kill a lot of people." Trump ally Scott Segal counters that environmental rules can also "adversely affect public health" by increasing health care costs, per NPR. (Perhaps we need a forest city.)
– Stand-up comedian and actor Hannibal Buress was arrested last night, and there's a video going around social media documenting his heated exchange with the arresting officers. Miami police say they arrested Buress, 34, at 10:30pm on misdemeanor disorderly intoxication charges in the Wynwood neighborhood, the Miami Herald reports. Wynwood is the site of numerous events related to Art Basel, an annual arts fair that attracts numerous celebrities to the city. In the video a handcuffed Buress can be seen standing against a police car. “Am I under arrest? For what?” Buress yells. “Explain what I’m detained for. What I am detained for?” One of the officers then responds, "Trespassing." The star of Broad City and Spider-Man Homecoming was booked into the Miami-Dade jail this morning at 1:57am and released on bail just after 6am, People reports. Soon after, a #FreeHannibalBuress hashtag along with the video started appearing on Twitter. TMZ reports that Buress' bail was set at $500.
– A pastor, a rabbi, and an imam walk onto an empty lot, and ... bury their shoes. Why? Because they plan to build what may be the world's first interfaith facility with separate houses of worship for Christians, Jews, and Muslims, the BBC reports. Dubbed the "House of One," the downtown Berlin project will include separate designs for each building—with an organ in the church, a foot-washing area in the mosque, and two levels in the mosque and the synagogue (but just one in the church). It will also offer shared space where worshipers can mingle and contemplate, notes the Independent. So can they all get along? "We can," said Rabbi Tovia Ben Chorin, one of the leaders involved. "That there are people within each group who can't is our problem but you have to start somewhere and that's what we are doing," he added. They've already found an architect and launched a crowd-funding campaign; construction will start once $10 million is in the bank, Haaretz reports. The site once housed St Petri's Church, Berlin's first, which was built in the 12th century and destroyed by invading Russians during World War II. When archaeologists discovered an ancient graveyard there 6 years ago, it led to talk of a new place of worship and eventually the "House of One." Says Im am Kadir Sanci, the project's Muslim leader: "We want our children to have a future in which diversity is the norm."
– Al Franken knows how ridiculous the cost of college textbooks can be, and he want to do something about it. That's why the Minnesota senator and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin on Thursday introduced the Affordable College Textbook Act, a bill that would give grants to higher-ed institutions so they can create textbooks accessible for free online—which would, in turn, ostensibly push the costs of textbooks down, the Chicago Maroon reports. "The traditional publishing market is not providing students the materials they need at a cost they can afford," said Durbin, who introduced a similar bill in 2013 that never went anywhere. These "open textbooks" would be available for professors, students, and pretty much anyone who wanted to use and distribute them, City Pages reports. Franken noted the cost of textbooks has risen 82% (three times the inflation rate, per US PIRG) over the past 10 years and that a student coughs up an average $1,200 for books and supplies each year, Northern Public Radio notes. And, per a 2014 US PIRG report, 65% of students say they've opted not to buy a text because it was too much money; nearly half the respondents said textbook cost impacted how many and which classes they registered for. "Students would say, 'I have to pay $150 for this paperback book,' and the professor of the course—who was in the room—said, '$150?!' She didn't [even] know," Franken says, per Northern Public Radio. "Isn't that amazing?" A higher-ed advocate for US PIRG tells City Pages that "for students and families that are already struggling to afford a college education, it's not just an expensive textbook anymore. It's a serious barrier." Durbin expects opposition from at least one group, per the Maroon: textbook manufacturers. (The University of Maryland has already swapped out its books for online resources.)
– Jacintha Saldanha, the nurse who answered the now-infamous prank call asking about the health of Kate Middleton, was found hanged in her room at the hospital's nearby staff housing, Sky News reports. The contents of a suicide note she left behind still have not been revealed. London police say the autopsy results revealing Saldanha's official cause of death will be released at a Westminster Coroner's Court hearing tomorrow, the AP reports.
– The flooding of Superfund sites in and around Houston caused by Harvey has raised concerns about whether floodwaters had also washed in pollution from the sites, reports the AP, which visited several highly toxic waste sites in and around Houston. All had been inundated with water, in some cases many feet deep. On Saturday, hours after the AP published its first report, the EPA said it had reviewed aerial imagery confirming that 13 of the 41 Superfund sites in Texas were flooded by Harvey and were "experiencing possible damage" due to the storm. The agency has only been able to physically inspect two of those sites, reports the Houston Chronicle. The EPA statement says most of the sites have "not been accessible by response personnel." The AP used a boat to visit one site, and accessed others with a vehicle or on foot. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner says he wants EPA "in town to address the situation." Turner says he didn't know about the potential environmental concerns soon enough to discuss them with President Trump during the president's visit. More than a dozen Superfund sites are in the Houston metro area, which has long been a center of the petrochemical industry. Among the Superfund sites completely flooded are the San Jacinto River Waste Pits, the site of a 1960s paper mill. Soil there is contaminated with dioxins—toxic chemicals linked to birth defects and cancer.
– Dove is all about “Real Beauty”—but its next “real” campaign is only open to women with “flawless skin.” Odd, since the campaign is supposed to “make a statement about all the unrealistic images of women the world is bombarded with daily,” writes Amy Odell in New York. Dove posted an ad on Craigslist looking for “REAL WOMEN ONLY!” (reality show participants need not apply) before revealing requirements like “beautiful hair and skin,” “nice bodies,” and “no scars.” “The emphasis on being ‘real’ but also being totally flawless is somewhat hilarious and tragic,” writes Hortense on Jezebel. “There is something very gross about all of this, if this ad is legit, in that it speaks to a somewhat creepy trend of casting 'real women' to represent ‘the rest of us’ while still adhering to strict representations of what is traditionally considered beautiful.”
– Andrea Constand, the accuser at the center of Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial, told police during a 2005 interview that she is gay, though she had a boyfriend as a teen and sexual contact with a man in her 20s. It turns out that Cosby's defense team wanted to introduce her sexual orientation as evidence in the trial, but the judge denied that motion this week, NBC News reports. More on that and the developments in the trial: According to the prosecution's filing, Cosby's defense team says that Constand did not tell Cosby she was gay during their 2004 interactions, which amounts to "conceal[ment] and deceit." The DA's office's response to that? "Defendant puts a new twist on an old argument: that because Ms. Constand did not reveal this most personal detail about her life she must have been asking for defendant to drug and sexually assault her." TMZ's take on the issue of Constand's sexual orientation? Cosby should be grateful the judge denied his team's motion. "If she wasn't into guys, the prosecution could have destroyed Cosby's argument she consented to sexual contact with the comedian," and if the issue was brought into the trial as evidence, it "could have nailed Cosby's coffin shut." Thursday's proceedings involved the jury hearing that Cosby admitted to police during a deposition years ago that he fondled Constand after giving her Benadryl, though he insisted she consented to the behavior and showed no ill effects from the medication. Jezebel has an extensive rundown of a police investigator "sassing" the defense attorney who cross-examined him Thursday. There's more coming from the deposition on Friday, day five of the trial, USA Today and the New York Times report in previews of the day's proceedings. Notably, jurors will hear that Cosby admitted to obtaining quaaludes to give to women with whom he wanted to have sex. Already Friday, jurors have heard that in the deposition, Cosby feared he looked like a "dirty old man with a young girl" when Constand's mother called him in 2005, per the Washington Post. He said he apologized, "but my apology was, my God, I’m in trouble with these people because this is an old man and their young daughter," per the Philadelphia Inquirer. NBC notes that Cosby's wife has yet to make an appearance in the courtroom, but it has a list of supporters who have shown up. Forbes takes a look at the millions Cosby has lost over sexual assault accusations from Constand and others.
– A chilling photo of dead newlywed diver Tina Watson sinking near her apparently unconcerned husband has been entered into evidence in his Alabama murder trial. Prosecutors say expert diver Gabe Watson killed his wife in the waters off Australia during their 2003 honeymoon to collect $130,000 in life insurance. He turned off her air long enough to kill her, turned it back on, then let her sink to the ocean floor, they charge. Watson says his wife panicked underwater and knocked off his face mask. By the time he adjusted it, she had sunk too far away for him to help her, according to his attorney. Watson then swam to the surface for help and later "calmly" explained what happened to authorities, an Australian police officer testified yesterday, reports ABC News. But he became agitated when police refused to return his mini dive computer, which helps track a diver's activity underwater, the officer added. Other divers, one of whom apparently took the underwater photo of Watson, challenged him after the dive that he didn't help his wife, prosecutors allege. Watson has already served 18 months in an Australian prison for negligent manslaughter for failing to save his wife of 11 days. Watson, now 34 and remarried, teared up at one point during yesterday's testimony.
– "I believe he can be a good president." Those were the words from Sen. Dianne Feinstein that, per the San Francisco Chronicle, "shocked" her audience Tuesday night during an appearance in the city. Specifically, Feinstein said she thinks President Trump can be a good president if "he can learn and change." She also refused to say he should be impeached, and told the audience they'd likely be dealing with him as POTUS for the full four-year term. The Chronicle sums up the crowd's reaction thusly: "The crowd reacted with stunned silence, broken only with scattered 'No’s' and a few hisses and some nervous laughter." Responding to questions about why the Democrats aren't on the attack more, she said, "I have to work with people and a punch in the nose is not going to do it." But, as Fox News notes, after Feinstein's words made headlines and resulted in backlash, she issued a statement clarifying them: "I’ve been strongly critical of President Trump when I disagree on policy and with his behavior," she said, adding that she was "appalled" by his response to the Charlottesville violence and his pardon of Joe Arpaio. "The duty of the American president is to bring people together, not cater to one segment of a political base; to solve problems, not campaign constantly," she continued. "While I’m under no illusion that it’s likely to happen and will continue to oppose his policies, I want President Trump to change for the good of the country."
– Just how on edge is France after the Charlie Hebdo attack? This might provide a clue: Police in Nice questioned an 8-year-old boy for a half-hour because he refused to take part in a moment of silence at his school and instead praised terrorists, reports AFP. “In the current context, the principal of the school decided to report to police what had happened,” explains a regional security official. French education ministry officials say that school administrators first brought in the boy's father, and summoned police only after the father became angry, reports the Wall Street Journal. The family's lawyer disputes that and calls the entire affair "insanity." The lawyer says the boy, identified only as Ahmed, acknowledged to police that he said, "I am with the terrorists." But when police asked him what "terrorism," meant, the boy said he didn't know. A group called the Collective Against Islamophobia in France released a statement after the incident criticizing “the collective hysteria that has engulfed France since early January," reports France24. No charges have been filed in the case, but that could change: A spokesperson for the education ministry says social services are investigating allegations the boy was abused at home, and police are investigating the father's complaint that the school's director slapped him during an argument. (A French comic is in hot water over his terror remarks.)
– A few hours ahead of President Obama's prime-time address on Afghanistan, administration officials are leaking some main points to the AP, Washington Post, and the New York Times: Obama will bring home 10,000 troops this year and another 20,000 or so by the end of next summer. Those combined withdrawals will effectively mean the return home of all the "surge" troops Obama sent to Afghanistan in 2009. Another 70,000 US troops would remain in the country heading into 2013. The timeline does not please Gen. David Petraeus, who wants the surge troops to remain through the end of 2012—long enough for another season of fighting. (The Times says Petraeus did not endorse the decision, though Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton did with reluctance.) Though generals think it's too much, too fast, Obama will likely face criticism from the growing number of critics who say the US should bring home more troops even quicker. The president gives his 10-minute address at 8pm ET.
– It looks like Libyan rebels are closing in for the kill: Reuters reports heavy gunfire and explosions in Tripoli. Rebels have made swift progress this week knocking off strategic cities around the capital, and now it, too, looks in danger of falling. Residents tell the news agency that people are in the streets in some areas shouting anti-Gadhafi slogans. A government spokesman, however, took to state television to downplay the unrest: "All of Tripoli is safe and stable." Even if that's true, it probably won't be for long, a US assistant secretary of state tells the New York Times. “It is clear that the situation is moving against Gadhafi," says Jeffrey D. Feltman. "The opposition continues to make substantial gains on the ground while his forces grow weaker.” Already, rumors are circulating that Gadhafi himself has fled Tripoli, reports NBC News, but there's no confirmation. Earlier reports had him poised to leave for Tunisia.
– The feds might soon lift rules that forbid plane passengers from talking on their cell phones during flights, but the airlines themselves are balking. Delta announced today that it won't allow such calls no matter what the FCC decides, reports the LA Times. The airline joins Southwest and JetBlue in the move, while American and United have yet to make a decision. Passengers in the no-call airlines will likely be able to text or otherwise use their phones, as long as it's not to yak, reports CNBC. Generally speaking, surveys of air passengers and flight attendants find that most hate the idea of allowing the calls. One critic even suggests a fee of $100 a minute to keep them short.
– Centuries ago, bulls, rams, and other animals led into an ancient cave for religious ceremonies died of seemingly mystical causes, while the priests accompanying them suffered no such fate. Scientists say they've now figured out the secret behind this "Gate to Hell" in the ancient city of Hierapolis, per Bloomberg, and it has nothing to do with gods of the underworld. Instead: carbon dioxide. A study in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences reveals that the cave located in modern Turkey, which was rediscovered in 2013, sits over a fissure that releases the gas. Volcanologist Hardy Pfanz and his team used a portable gas analyzer to figure out the phenomenon. So how did the priests survive? Because carbon dioxide is heavier than oxygen, it sinks—meaning animals closer to the ground succumbed, while the humans were OK. Or mostly OK: Ancient accounts depict the priests sometimes emerging and struggling for breath as spectators watched from a nearby site. IFLScience explains that the old-time priests likely understood that concentrations were diluted during the daytime by sunlight and wind—and so they held sacrifices before dawn for a quicker kill—and were also smart enough to climb up on stones around the doomed animals to show off their supposed powers. "At this height they could stand for 20 [to] 40 minutes without being endangered," Pfanz says. Without the stones, he adds, "nobody could enter the Gate to Hell without getting asphyxiated." (An incredibly old human fossil was recently found in a cave in Israel.)
– Taylor Swift's new video for "Wildest Dreams" was shot partially in Africa, so of course, it features giraffes, zebras ... and lots of white people. As far as James Kassaga Arinaitwe and Viviane Rutabingwa, writing in NPR, can tell, there's not a single black actor in the video. (ETOnline points out that there are, but they're only background players and appear very briefly.) The storyline involves Swift and her male love interest, decked out in colonial-era garb, filming an old-timey movie in Africa, and the whole thing is very romantic and glamorous. The problem? As Arinaitwe and Rutabingwa point out, "Colonialism was neither romantic nor beautiful. It was exploitative and brutal. The legacy of colonialism still lives quite loudly to this day." "To those of us from the continent who had parents or grandparents who lived through colonialism (and it can be argued in some cases are still living through it), this nostalgia that privileged white people have for colonial Africa is awkwardly confusing to say the least and offensive to say the most," they continue. They're not the only ones upset: "The truth: The African continent endured unspeakable brutality under European colonial rule," writes Zak Cheney-Rice at Mic. "Millions of people were enslaved, tortured or killed under violent systems of European law enforcement, forced labor and segregationist policies, fueled by a ravenous export economy that plundered much of the continent's natural resources and left many African nations indebted to—and often financially dependent on—their white former enslavers." "Instead of the cultural appropriation that has become almost status quo in today's pop music, Swift has opted for the bolder option of actually just embodying the political exploitation of a region and its people," writes Lauren Duca at the Huffington Post. "It's brave, really." "It’s the exact African safari paradise that we were promised!" writes Madeleine Davies at Jezebel. "Lions! Elephants! Shirtless Scott Eastwood! And, bizarrely, nary a black person in sight." "Even the most casual observer would have noticed that—for a clip that’s set in Africa—it’s about as white as a Sunday morning farmer’s market," writes Nico Lang at the Daily Dot. The "accidental racism" is "sadly indicative of its star’s own shoddy racial politics." Fader's headline: "Taylor Swift Went To Africa To Film A Music Video And There’s Only White People In It"
– Johnny Depp's daughter isn't shying away from the celeb spotlight. Lily-Rose, 16, is the new face of Chanel, reports USA Today. Or at least a new face of Chanel. Lily-Rose will hawk the company's Pearl eyewear collection, and she looks pretty comfortable doing so in a new promotional video shot by Karl Lagerfeld. Her mom is French singer and model Vanessa Paradis, who appeared in her first Chanel campaign back in 1990 and has long worked with Lagerfeld, notes Vogue. "Lily-Rose is stunning," says Lagerfeld himself. "She's a young girl from a new generation with all the qualities of a star."
– A 77-year-old woman in the UK died of cancer last week, but not before a memorable last wish was granted. Sheila Marsh wanted to see Bronwen, a horse she had cared for over the last 25 years, and staff at the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary in Wigan made it happen, reports the BBC. They arranged for Bronwen and another horse to come to the hospital parking lot Monday, then wheeled down Marsh in her bed. Says one nurse present: "Sheila gently called to Bronwen, and the horse bent down tenderly and kissed her on the cheek as they said their last goodbyes." An image of the reunion is tweeted here. Adds Marsh's daughter, as quoted at the Huffington Post UK: "She had a big smile on her face and she was able to say Bronwen's name, after she had found it difficult to speak" due to her illness. "She loved her horses and she loved and adored all animals," her daughter says, according to the Telegraph. Marsh, who had six horses, three dogs, three cats, and other animals, also got a visit from one of her dogs, who curled up on a blanket next to her on her bed in the hospital ward, before she died. "The dog and the horse were really pining for her so it’s closure for them as well—when they both came home they were a bit perkier," Marsh's daughter tells Wigan Today. (Click for more uplifting news.)
– Marissa Holcomb did get her job back after Popeyes fired her for not reimbursing the fast-food restaurant for cash taken during a robbery, but that's not all the pregnant employee may get. She's seeking $5.5 million in damages for emotional distress, per a letter attorney Marc Bozeman says he crafted to let Popeyes know it's "not gonna get away with it," KHOU reports. "The idea that Popeyes demand that she reimburse the restaurant for money that was stolen, through no fault of her own, is obscene," the letter says, per Reuters. Bozeman says he's giving Popeyes and franchisee Z&H Foods 30 days to respond before he files the lawsuit. As for the amount, Holcomb says she left that all up to Bozeman and was actually expecting him to seek "thousands"; he tells KHOU he's not actually expecting $5.5 million, but wanted to get the companies' attention. Holcomb, meanwhile, is scheduled to start back at Popeyes today—at a new location, KHOU notes.
– Like 1,500 others, Sante Righini went down with the Titanic on April 15, 1912. But his was a heroic end, his sister explained at his funeral. The 28-year-old Italian-born man—who boarded the ship in France alongside the wealthy widow who employed him as a manservant in Manhattan—had been moments from safety, about to take a seat in a lifeboat, "when a woman behind him appealed to be saved and, stepping aside, he allowed her to take a place in the boat," Righini's sister said at the 1912 service, per the New York Daily News. "When last seen he was standing on the deck, waiting for the ship to sink." His body was pulled from Atlantic days later, but what became of it was lost to history—until now. After learning of Righini, British researcher Trevor Baxter received a tip earlier this year that he might've been laid to rest at Evergreens Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. An entry in a yellowed, century-old log book at Evergreens confirmed his body arrived on May 4, 1912, and was buried at the back of the cemetery. Righini's place of death was given as "Sea. SS Titanic." "It's amazing to know that there’s someone here that died on the Titanic," says a cemetery clerk. Baxter adds he's "over the moon" to have tracked Righini down. In other Titanic news, CBS News reports a first-class passenger's gold locket, recently found on the ocean floor, will go on display in Las Vegas this week to mark the 105th anniversary of the disaster. (You'll soon be able to visit the Titanic.)
– An out-of-service Chicago "L" train plowed into a parked, outbound one today at a Blue Line stop in Forest Park, sending at least 33 people to nine different area hospitals (the local mayor's office puts that number at 48 people in 10 hospitals). The train was moving the wrong way along the track, the Chicago Tribune reports. No passengers were aboard the moving train at the time, and police are investigating the possibility that it may have been stolen, according to CBS 2. None of the injuries is considered serious. One locomotive engineer who saw the collision at the Harlem stop described it to NBC 5 this way: "There was a train that was stopped at the station. Another train came through and looked like it blew the signal, because I heard beeping. I know the systems, I know the sounds. When you hear those beepings it's warning you that there is an obstruction in front of you and you need to stop."
– The antics of North Korea's Kim Jong Un are officially no longer funny in Hawaii. State officials are rolling out a civil-preparedness campaign in case of a nuclear attack by North Korea, reports Hawaii News Now. Part of that means public-service announcements about what people should do if Pyongyang launches a missile. As the Honolulu Star-Advertiser explains, the warnings wouldn't be those of the "duck and cover" variety from the Cold War era, but would be similar to those of an active-shooter situation. They would advise people to “get inside, stay inside, and stay tuned." More details are to be unveiled on Friday about the campaign, which comes in the wake of North Korea's test this month of an intercontinental ballistic missile. If the North launched one, Hawaii residents would have, at most, about 15 minutes of warning. A second part of the campaign will be once-monthly tests of a new emergency siren; the tests are slated to begin as soon as November and will take place on the first workday of each month. "We do not want to cause any undue stress for the public; however, we have a responsibility to plan for all hazards," says the director of Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency, which says the current threat assessment is low. A post earlier this month at the respected 38North.org said North Korea "has an unreliable missile that can reach Alaska or Hawaii with a single nuclear warhead," but is probably a year or two away from posing a threat to the West Coast. One group not thrilled with the state's new initiative: tourism officials. A spokeswoman for the Hawaii Tourism Agency says the chances of an attack are "very remote" and thus the new campaign sounds alarmist.
– Imagine tooling down the road in your car when, suddenly, a nefarious Dr. Strangelove is controlling the brakes, the engine, and the locks. It's not science fiction. Teams of researchers have already hacked into cars' internal computers to control various systems in order to reveal vehicles' vulnerabilities. Teams from Rutgers and the University of South Carolina intercepted internal computer signals concerning tire pressure to send false pressure readings and eventually wreck the computers. The wireless hacking could be accomplished up to 120 feet away, including from inside cars in traffic. In an earlier experiment, a "CarShark" program connected to a vehicle's computer could "adversarially control a wide range of automotive functions and completely ignore driver input—including disabling the brakes, selectively braking individual wheels on demand, stopping the engine," researchers noted. Hacker vulnerabilities increase as manufacturers boost wireless technology in their cars. "These trends suggest a wide range of vectors will be available by which an attacker might compromise a component," noted one of the studies. "Our goal is to raise awareness for consumers before this becomes an actual risk," computer engineering professor Marco Gruteser tells the Christian Science Monitor. "Hopefully, they will then request from car companies more secure devices."
– Chicago Bears tight end Zach Miller suffered an ugly-looking knee dislocation in Sunday's game against the New Orleans Saints, but according to an ESPN report, the reality is even uglier. The network reports that a "regular dislocation" would be considered "serious," but sources tell the network's Chris Mortensen the 33-year-old experienced something worse after landing weirdly on his leg after jumping to make a catch (video here): a damaged artery in the leg. Those NFL and team sources say vascular surgeons operated on Miller Sunday night "in an effort to save his injured left leg," as ESPN puts it. Tissue was reportedly grafted from the right leg. The Chicago Tribune quotes Bears right guard Kyle Long as saying of the injury, "It's brutal, gruesome. I didn't watch it after I saw it the first time." Deadspin notes such an injury wouldn't be unprecedented in the league: Raiders running back Napoleon McCallum suffered a career-ending dislocation that damaged an artery during a 1994 game.
– The tax code is rife with home ownership incentives that are both popular with voters and staunchly defended by lawmakers. But it turns out the breaks mostly just help rich people buy pricier houses, according to a new report from the right-leaning R Street Institute. They "don't encourage homeownership in any meaningful way," the study's author tells the Wall Street Journal. "People just end up buying larger homes." He estimates that in Washington, DC, the subsides have increased the average home size by 1,400 square feet. What's more, the tax breaks are mainly going to the wealthy; homeowners with incomes above $100,000 are four times as likely to claim the benefit as those earning less, because low earners rarely itemize their deductions. It's the kind of report that can anger the right and the left alike. Matt Welch at Reason calls the tax breaks an "upper class entitlement," while Hamilton Nolan at Gawker calls it a "grotesque policy outcome." Barack Obama has repeatedly called for making the benefit available only to those making less than $200,000 a year.
– Perhaps the Windy City is tired of pesky tourists, because it scared the bejeezus out of a few last night: As NBC Chicago reports, Alejandro Garibay and three members of his family stepped out on "the Ledge" at the Willis Tower—four glass balconies on the 103rd floor Skydeck that jut out four feet, allowing visitors to look down 1,353 feet through a glass floor that can allegedly hold five tons—when they heard a cracking sound and saw the glass floor cracking beneath their feet. Garibay says they scooted off the balcony and called workers. "They were totally shocked and asked us to step away and then proceeded to start calling staff and techs and I don't know who else," says Garibay. "When we pulled our phones to start recording and take pictures they asked us to leave right away." Tower officials say it's no big deal and in fact the glass was doing what it was supposed to do: "Occasionally this happens, but that’s because we designed it this way," says a rep. "Whatever happened last night is a result of the protective coating doing what it’s designed to." He says that it was that top coating that cracked, and not anything structural; regardless, the Chicago Sun-Times notes that one of the ledges was indeed roped off this morning, its floor covered with carpet. Over at Gizmodo, Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan runs down why it really wasn't a big deal, noting that the top layer of safety glass is called safety glass "because it stays intact, even when it shatters."
– Disney Channel actor Stoney Westmoreland has been fired after he was arrested in Salt Lake City for allegedly attempting to have a sexual relationship with an online acquaintance he believed was 13 years old. In a statement Saturday, Disney announced that the 48-year-old Westmoreland had been dropped from the sitcom Andi Mack, on which he plays the grandfather of the teen-age title character; the Washington Post notes it's the Disney Channel's top-rated show. It films in Utah. Salt Lake police detective Greg Wilking told the AP that Westmoreland was on his way to what he believed would be a sexual encounter when he was arrested Friday and charged with enticing a minor and sending inappropriate materials, including nude images. Fox13 reports an affidavit of probable cause states Westmoreland allegedly planned "to pick up the person who he believed to be 13 years old and take [the person] back to his hotel room in order to engage in sexual activity." A message left with Westmoreland's agent was not immediately returned. Westmoreland's other acting credits include Scandal and Breaking Bad.
– In 2009, right around the time the first section of the much-lauded High Line project opened to the public, offering New Yorkers access to an unused section of elevated railroad tracks in Manhattan that had been transformed into a green space, a couple of guys chatted one night over "too much wine" and plotted quite the opposite—an underground park. The Lowline, as it has come to be called, is the brainchild of James Ramsey, owner of the Lower East Side design firm Raad Studio, and Dan Barasch, who had been exploring installing underground art in the New York City subway system. What started off as a super-idealistic vision of the world's first subterranean park replete with filtered natural sunlight has now been given a green light by the New York City Economic Development Corporation. The park's open date is projected to be in 2021. The project technically goes back to 1908, when a 1-acre Williamsburg Bridge trolley terminal opened on Delancey Street to help transport residents of the Lower East Side to Brooklyn. By 1948 it was closed to the public and never used again, even though it's right next to the city's J/M/A subway line. At the heart of the redesign is the use of very forward-thinking solar tech that uses a "remote skylight," where sunlight is collected and passed through a glass shield, reflected and gathered to a focal point, and directed down through fiber-optic cables to a reflective surface that redistributes the collected light—just enough to enable photosynthesis. To be built in what Mother Nature Network describes as an already "tree-deprived Lower East Side," the project enjoyed two successful Kickstarter campaigns with thousands of supporters worldwide. "We're channeling sunlight the way they did in ancient Egyptian tombs, but in a supermodern way," Ramsey told New York in 2011. In fact, when the sun is shining, the entire park will be solar powered, not just the greenery. (Check out the "sidescraper" proposal for New York's Central Park.)
– A Texas man has been accused of shooting multiple female drivers because of their gender. Per BuzzFeed News, Nicholas D'Agostino was arrested Thursday after he was initially released on bond in connection with the July shooting of a Katy woman. Last week, the Harris County Sheriff's Office said they connected D'Agostino to a similar shooting the say occurred back in March. Per KTRK, the 29-year-old confessed to the July shooting while in jail and has admitted to five other similar shootings that detectives said in a court filing were motivated by his "dim view" of women and female drivers in particular. Officials say they uncovered "Facebook posts where he rants and rambles on about female motorists and how incompetent they are and that their sole purpose is to give birth to male children" per the filing. In both shootings, the women suffered non-fatal bullet wounds. However, in the July case, authorities say the bullet went clean through the woman's arm and came within inches of her heart. D'Agostino has been held on two counts of aggravated assault in lieu of $400,000 bond.
– The Fox legal analyst who claimed that a British intelligence agency helped former President Barack Obama wiretap Trump Tower won't be analyzing anything else for the network in the near future: Insiders tell the AP and the Los Angeles Times that Andrew Napolitano has been "benched" by Fox News following the controversial remarks, which were denounced as "utterly ridiculous" in a rare statement from Britain's Government Communication Headquarters intelligence agency. Napolitano, a former New Jersey Superior Court judge, claimed on air and in a Fox News column that multiple sources told him GCHQ "most likely provided Obama with transcripts of Trump's calls." Fox anchor Shepard Smith said Friday that the network didn't have any proof for Napolitano's claims, the New York Daily News reports. "Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that the now-president of the United States was surveilled at any time, in any way, full stop," he said. President Trump described Napolitano as a "very talented legal mind" when asked about the claims during a Friday news conference. "That was a statement made by a very talented lawyer on Fox, and so you shouldn't be talking to me, you should be talking to Fox," he said. On Sunday, Napolitano defended his remarks in a statement to Fox's MediaBuzz, saying he still believes what his sources told him.
– New moms and dads at Amazon have a new perk: six weeks of fully paid leave, CNNMoney reports. Birth mothers will get an additional four weeks before their due date, plus 10 weeks after the birth, for 20 weeks' total paid leave. Plus, employees can share any unused portion of their six-week paid leave with partners who don't work for Amazon. The company is also debuting an eight-week transition period that lets new birth moms and primary caregivers ease back into work using flextime. Bloomberg notes the new benefits count for births or adoptions after Oct. 1. When asked by the New York Times if these new perks are a response to the company's scathing back-and-forth with the paper, a rep simply pointed to a line in its announcement that said: "We review our benefit programs annually and began considering our leave policies in early 2015." Even more surprising, however, is the company's second bit of news: the opening Tuesday of a brick-and-mortar bookstore in Seattle's University Village mall, the Seattle Times reports. Although local booksellers are meeting this news "with some befuddlement," notes the New York Times—why would a successful online retailer take on high overhead?—Amazon Books is different from traditional bookstores in a couple of important ways. First, patrons will see each book displayed facing outward, with a customer review and rating below it, per the Seattle Times. "We felt sorry for the books that were spine out," VP of Amazon Books Jennifer Cast tells the paper. And there's another huge advantage the store wields: the "troves of data it generates from shopping patterns on its website" that it can use to display only the books it thinks will appeal to local shoppers, cutting down on unsold inventory, the Seattle Times notes. "It's data with heart," Cast says. (Amazon doesn't have to worry about the "Netflix of Books" anymore.)
– Remember how America's bourbon drinkers collectively freaked out in February over the news Maker's Mark was going to water down its alcohol? Big corporate misstep? Hardly, reports Forbes. The company did an about-face within a week in an attempt to prevent a mass exodus of fans, and it appears those fans went on a bourbon-hoarding bender during those scary few days. Maker's Mark sales exploded 44% in Q1, making it the bourbon's strongest quarter ever. Fans better hope the hoarding has stopped, however: "We won't expect to see those 44% growth rates sustained throughout the year, and in fact we can't support them," says its CEO, per the Wall Street Journal.
– Charlie Sheen's "episode" really is over: He returns to the small screen in two commercials AdWeek dubs "great," though both of them do poke fun at the "winning" tiger-blood drinker. In the first ad, Sheen touts the fun of house arrest—when you're an actor with a huge house and a Fiat you can drive through it. Then, a DirecTV ad explains how subscribing to the service will somehow keep you from a downward spiral that culminates in an encounter with Sheen at a Turkish bath house. Watch both in the gallery, or click to see which other Chuck Lorre alum will star with Sheen in Anger Management.
– If you're feeling uncomfortably thirsty, you may want to grab a La Croix, or so suggests a new study that looks at the "Perception of Drinking and Thirst Quenching in Thirsty Adults." Science Daily explains the assumption that rehydration alleviates thirst isn't really true: "In actuality thirst is relieved, and the act of drinking ceases, long before a consumed liquid is absorbed by the body." As for what does relieve our thirst, researchers with the Monell Center in Philadelphia have identified two sensory cues in our mouths: People tend to feel more quenched after they drink cold water than room temp, and carbonation enhances that effect. Reporting in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers write that they had 98 healthy participants aged 20 to 50 abstain from any food or fluid intake overnight before eating toast and jelly. At this point the subjects rated their thirst as "strong" and were allotted five minutes to drink 13.5 fluid ounces of water that was either room temperature or cold and either flat or bubbly. Five minutes later, they could drink as much plain water as they wished. Turns out those who drank the cold seltzer water felt the most quenched and required less water later, confirming that the combo provides the greatest "sensation of relief," the study's lead author says. So even though the bubbles aren't actually more hydrating, as Mashable reports, the fizz is more convincing, a trick that could prove useful in situations where thirst must be quenched with limited supply. (This boy never feels thirsty or hungry.)
– Mystery is swirling around the death of a mystery shopper earlier this month in the San Francisco Bay area. Marjorie Hillerman, 61, of Mesa, Ariz., was "one of the best in the business," as NBC Bay Area puts it, that business being mystery shopping; some colleagues called her the "Master of Disguise," the San Jose Mercury News reports. On Dec. 9, she was supposed to work at the Livermore Premium Outlets—she traveled across the country for her job—but police say she may never have made it inside. She was found in the parking lot in broad daylight with traumatic injuries to the back of her head and her face, and a week later, she died of those injuries. Baffled police are asking the public for any information. There were no witnesses and there is no surveillance footage; it's not clear whether Hillerman was assaulted or fell, but there were no signs of robbery. One of the only clues: A four-door sedan was spotted leaving the area at the time of the attack. The Independent Mystery Shoppers Coalition (Hillerman was a member and would often speak at conferences) issued a safety warning following the incident, and some of her friends and colleagues think foul play was involved. "We don't believe she just fell. She wasn't that type of person. She was just too on top of things," says the president. A GoFundMe account aims to help Hillerman's husband with the cost of returning her remains to Arizona. (Another mystery in Pittsburgh: A hospital recently saw its second death from cyanide poisoning.)
– When a girl in Ireland went with her mother to try to get an abortion last year, she was instead detained against her will in a psychiatric clinic. CNN reports that the girl, who is a minor, had said her pregnancy was making her suicidal. But instead of being granted permission to terminate her unwanted pregnancy, she was told that an abortion was "not the solution for all the child's problems at this stage," and the Mental Health Act was invoked—sending her to a mental health facility against her will. A few days later she was cleared by another psychiatrist and released after a court determined she didn't have an actual mental health disorder, per Jezebel. Ireland has the strictest anti-abortion laws in Europe. The 8th Amendment, passed in 1983, declares the life of a fetus equal to the life of a mother, and prohibits abortion in all cases—including rape, incest, and the mother's health—unless, under the 2014 Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act, the mother's life is in immediate danger. In this case, the Mental Health Act seemed to be used as "a tool to force a child into continuing an unwanted pregnancy because of ... personal beliefs," a rep for the Abortion Rights Campaign says. Parents for Choice in Pregnancy and Childbirth called the treatment "barbaric," "cruel," and "regressive," reports the Irish Mirror, while a Sinn Fein politician called it "the draconian edge of the Irish state." (The UN says Ireland's abortion ban is inhumane.)
– The bodies of three infants were found in a now-condemned, vermin-infested Massachusetts home yesterday, two weeks after the state removed four children from the place, the Boston Globe reports. "We do not have the genders of the infants yet, we don't have the manner and cause of death," District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. tells WCVB. He went on to describe a deplorable scene: "The house is filled with vermin. We have flies, we have bugs. We have used diapers, in some areas as much as a foot-and-a-half to 2 feet high." Several pets were also found dead. Resident Erika Murray, 31, will appear in court today on charges related to the condition of the house, but her connection to the children found living in the home hasn't been revealed. A rep for the Department of Children and Families says four children, ages 13, 10, 3, and 6 months, were taken from the Blackstone home after a call from a neighbor, who was told by one of the children that the baby wouldn't stop crying; the 6-month-old was found covered in feces, the AP reports. Authorities now "have to ascertain who was living in the house," Early says, noting investigators will be working at the home in hazmat suits for several days, searching for more remains. A neighbor says she believes a woman and her boyfriend lived at the home with two children, who sometimes played outside. "In seven years I've never even seen her pregnant," another neighbor adds. "I never even heard a baby cry."
– Today, the Louvre is open, a fact that is remarkable only because yesterday the museum wasn't. Some 200 workers refused to do their jobs yesterday as a protest against pickpockets, who they say have aggressively been hitting both visitors and staff. The Guardian reports that they're not imagining things: The Paris institution admitted that pickpocketing is a growing woe, and steps taken last year to mitigate the problem, like a temporary ban on known perpetrators, haven't done the trick. A union official explains that staff actually felt threatened by what the Guardian calls "organized gangs," who make use of child-thieves who can enter the museum for free—and who have reportedly added insult to injury by spitting at and kicking the staff. The AFP reports the doors have reopened to the estimated 30,000 daily visitors, who will now have an extra dose of protection in the form of 20 police newly on patrol. Interesting side note: AFP notes that Chinese tourist were hot targets, as gangs perceived them to be laden with cash; many such visitors were today spotted wearing their backpacks on their chest as a safeguard.
– Ben Carson is not enjoying the level of scrutiny he is receiving from the media—and he certainly doesn't remember Barack Obama receiving the same degree of "vetting" when he was running for president. He called the media "desperate" at a Friday conference, accusing reporters of talking to just about everybody he ever met in a quest to tarnish him. "There's got to be a scandal. There's got to be some nurse he's had an affair with. There's got to be something. They have gotten desperate," he said, per CNN. "Next week, it will be my kindergarten teacher who said I peed in my pants. It's ridiculous. But it's OK because I totally expect it," he said, adding that he remembers "quite the opposite" happening with Obama. Carson took issue with a Friday Politico report that he had "fabricated" a claim to have been offered a "full scholarship" to West Point, calling the story a "bold-faced" lie. The Politico story was later updated to soften the accusation, which centered on what Carson's campaign says was an informal offer, the Washington Post reports. "The words 'a scholarship was offered' were a big deal, but the president of the United States’ academic records being sealed is not," Carson said. He also rejected a CNN story casting doubt on violent incidents he described in biography Gifted Hands, which the Post notes has created the odd situation of "a presidential candidate insisting, in the face of skepticism, that he really did have a history of violence." (Carson's unusual theory about Egypt's great pyramids also attracted a lot of attention this week.)
– It all started with Venice. The Italian port city on the Adriatic Sea has seen its population dwindle since the 1950s as locals are forced out by what the BBC calls "hordes of cruise-ship visitors." Nowadays, the problem of cruise ship tourist invasion has spilled over to many other ancient port cities, perhaps most notably Dubrovnik in Croatia on the other side of the Adriatic. Thanks in part to Game of Thrones being set there, five or six times the number of local residents (only 1,500 people live within the Old City) storm the gates every day in the summer. And that's not counting the thousands of tourists already staying in hotels and rentals; nearly all the city's stone houses are now devoted entirely to housing tourists. France24 reports that access to the Old City may soon be restricted. "When I first got here, I'd stand back if I saw that people were taking photographs of each other," says the editor of the Dubrovnik Times. "Now there are so many people that I know if I did that, I'd never get anywhere here." A local official chimes in that "you can't fit a liter-and-a-half into a liter pot." In Barcelona, per the Local, the situation has become so dire that more locals cite tourism as a problem than unemployment and working conditions. The deputy mayor says it's not "tourist phobia," but rather that, with some 30 million visitors spending at least one night in Barcelona last year, there's a "concrete malaise caused by overcrowding." Even in a more out-of-the-way destination like Iceland, tourists far outweigh the tiny local population. (Some say tourists are physically ruining Iceland.)
– Finally, the moment many would-be cord-cutters have been waiting for: HBO says that next year, it will offer a "stand-alone, over the top" version of its service. Those are the words used by CEO Richard Plepler at an investor presentation; a press release after the fact called it a "stand-alone HBO streaming service," but the company hasn't said much beyond that. Re/code uses the words "Web-only offering" and "a digital version of its service that won’t require a pay-TV subscription" to describe what's coming. But no other details are yet known, including exactly how HBO will market and deliver the new version. Some industry sources have suggested it could partner with a service like Amazon or Hulu rather than building its own tech. Also unknown is how similar it will be to the existing HBO Go; some have suggested HBO might prefer to roll out a version that offers only new shows months after they premiere on traditional TV. (In other streaming news, click to see what's coming to Netflix.)
– Monkeys at a British zoo have developed a way of saying "leave me alone" that doesn't involve biting or flinging poop. The mandrills cover their eyes—much like in the "see no evil" gesture—when they desire solitude, and their fellow monkeys respect the signal, the Telegraph reports. Researchers believe that a member of the group invented the sign and other monkeys picked it up in a never-before-witnessed example of monkeys creating sign language within their own community. The researcher who observed the phenomenon says he has been observing mandrills for years and never seen the gesture used anywhere else. Further research is likely to turn up more monkey gestures invented for cultural reasons, suggesting that "the capacity to communicate with the hands in a meaningful way may have existed a long time before humans came on the scene," he tells Scientific American.
– So how goes British politics Monday? Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson quit, the second cabinet member to do so in 24 hours, prompting the main BBC story to include phrases such as "full-blown crisis," "meltdown," and "complete and utter chaos." The Guardian prefers "disarray," while the Wall Street Journal likes "turmoil." And so on. It all revolves around Prime Minister Theresa May's newly hashed-out Brexit strategy. Pro-Brexit hard-liners, including Johnson, think May wants to keep too-cozy ties with the European Union after Britain formally leaves the bloc. The details: On second thought: The flamboyant Johnson initially supported May's plan, which she hammered out with her cabinet late last week, though he begrudgingly referred to it as "polishing a turd," per the Guardian. After a weekend of consulting with allies, Johnson apparently decided he couldn't go along with it after all. Read his resignation letter here, in which he says the UK is "headed for the status of colony" and accuses May of flying "white flags" of surrender in the EU negotiations.
– After winning his third straight match of the Texas state tournament Saturday, wrestler Mack Beggs of Euless Trinity High School is headed to the championship match—of the girl's 110-pound weight class. The Forth Worth Star-Telegram reports Beggs was born female and is transitioning to male. The transgender teen, who has been taking testosterone for more than a year, is 55-0 this season. Some girls at the tournament have forfeited rather than wrestle against Beggs; others have left the mat in tears. After one match, a mother in the stands yelled "cheater" at Beggs while complaining about "how beefed up" he is. But most everyone seems to agree the situation isn't Beggs' fault; he says he'd rather wrestle against boys. But last year, school superintendents voted to use the gender listed on birth certificates for student athletes. And Beggs' testosterone use is permitted because its a "valid medical use" under athletic league rules, Sports Day reports. Earlier this week, an attorney filed a lawsuit against the league to keep Beggs from wrestling against girls, which he says is dangerous and unfair for the other wrestlers, according to Fox4. A transgender advocate agrees, saying it's the league's problem for not letting the 17-year-old wrestle against boys. The attorney, who calls Beggs a "great kid," says the lawsuit isn't "fueled by hate."
– A supercarrier once hailed as the "biggest ship ever built" has been sold—for a price that must rank among the smallest ever: one penny, paid by the seller. All Star Metals now owns the historic USS Forrestal after the Pentagon paid it one cent to dismantle and recycle it; the company will tow the 1,067-foot ship to its facility in Brownsville, Texas, where it will be scrapped. Though the ship has a long history—launched in 1954, it was the Navy's first supercarrier, and was the site of a Vietnam War tragedy—the Navy got no "viable applications" during its attempt to hand it to a museum or have it made into a memorial, Fox News reports. In the end, maintenance on the ship, which cost $217 million to build (more like $2 billion in today's dollars) and was decommissioned in 1993, became just too costly. The Navy was "caught between a rock and a hard place," says a USS Forrestal Association historian and survivor of the 1967 incident, which saw an A-4 Skyhawk struck by an accidentally-launched rocket, causing a chain reaction of blasts and blazes that killed 134 and injured hundreds more. A high-profile survivor? The man in the cockpit of that A-4 Skyhawk, one John McCain.
– President Obama made history today by landing in Cuba—the first visit there by a US president in almost 90 years. Obama arrived with first lady Michelle, their two daughters, his mother-in-law, and dozens of business executives seeking opportunities, but not everything went smoothly in the hours before Air Force One touched down at José Martí International Airport, the New York Times reports. Members of the dissident group Ladies in White were arrested today during their weekly march in Havana, confirming the endurance of repressive government tactics. "We thought there would be a truce, but it wasn’t to be," says Elizardo Sánchez, who heads the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation. The activists were nabbed "in the moment that Obama was flying in the air to Cuba," says Sánchez. What's more, nine of 27 Cuban migrants died of dehydration in a harrowing attempt to reach Florida, the US Coast Guard said after a cruise ship rescued the survivors on Friday, the Miami Herald reports. "It’s crazy how desperate they were to get to the US," says a videographer who shot apparent footage of the migrants. "It makes me feel so grateful for being an American." On the bright side, the Obamas plan to walk around Old Havana today (where buildings on their route have been repainted in fresh pastels) before the president visits Cardinal Jaime Ortega, who aided the rapprochement with Cuba in 2014. Obama is slated to meet President Raùl Castro on Monday and attend an exhibition baseball game Tuesday between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team, NPR reports.
– Married Victoria's Secret CEO Sharen Turney will soon have her alleged two-year affair with a Florida luxury real estate broker detailed for the world to read. The aforementioned broker, Cliff Donenfeld, is writing a tell-all in which he says he "opened a door" for Turney sexually, and she planned to leave her husband of more than two decades for him—and even perhaps adopt a baby with him—before their affair ended in 2010. Sources tell Page Six that Turney is doing all she can to stop Donenfeld, but he's determined to see the book—which he calls a memoir—released. After news of their affair broke, "Cliff noticed black SUVs outside his house," says one source. "He was then contacted by a Victoria’s Secret private eye who wanted to meet with him and their lawyer." Adds another, "They’ve been trying to shut Cliff down and convince him not to include her in his book. But he’s standing up for himself. His book has many people and many chapters. This is one chapter. He contributed to Victoria’s Secret." Indeed Donenfeld, 51, claims that Turney, 56, asked him for advice on the annual Victoria's Secret fashion show and other matters, the Daily Mail reports. They were initially friends post-split, but Donenfeld decided to reveal the affair after Turney refused to give him a professional reference for a fashion job.
– Syrian rebels have become much more organized and effective in recent weeks, and it appears the CIA deserves some of the credit. President Obama has signed a secret order, approved earlier this year, allowing the CIA and other American agencies to support rebels seeking to oust Bashar al-Assad, sources tell Reuters. It's not clear how much clandestine support the agencies are offering, but they have apparently stopped short of providing the rebels with lethal weapons. Obama signed a similar order during the Libyan conflict allowing covert support for rebels battling Moammar Gadhafi's regime. The State Department has authorized $25 million for "nonlethal" support for the rebels and another $64 million in humanitarian aid. Foreign policy experts told a Senate panel yesterday that the time has come for the US to start arming the rebels, CNN reports. "At this point, given the direction of the conflict, I think that what we need to do is assess which groups could we and should we arm at what point, and make that decision," an expert from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy testified. "I think that we're actually at that decision, given where the conflict is going."
– Maybe it's because photos of her obviously-pregnant bikini belly were recently splashed all over the Internet, but French first lady Carla Bruni has finally, finally confirmed she's with child. The big reveal comes two months after her father-in-law made the happy announcement himself. No word yet on the due date or the baby's sex, reports Us, citing an interview Bruni gave to a French newspaper. The 43-year-old calls the baby an "unexpected and unhoped for happiness." Click for one of the aforementioned photos.
– America’s top banks are expected to report yet another quarter of profits, putting them in prime position to start paying dividends again, analysts tell the New York Times. JPMorgan got things rolling today by reporting a 47% increase in profits, notes the Wall Street Journal. It will be followed by Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo next week. Analysts expect their combined 2010 profits to come in at around $70 billion, up from $12.5 billion in 2009. This week, the Fed began another round of “stress tests” on the banks. If the results are good, regulators will give banks the OK to reinstate dividends, putting money back in the pockets of investors, pension funds, and retirees. “It’s a significant milestone,” said one analyst. “The return of dividends signals the banks are back, and the Federal Reserve wants to inspire confidence in the marketplace so that banks lend more.”
– Caught laughing away and getting high on the day after a paparazzo died trying to snap shots of him, Justin Bieber semi-apologized on Twitter: "Everyday growing and learning. Trying to be better. U get knocked down, u get up," he wrote today. "I see all of u. I hear all of u. I never want to let any of you down. I love u." But in all fairness, the pop icon wasn't in his car when the photog got run down in Los Angeles, Us Weekly reports. See the happy-dope pics on TMZ, which notes that a girl ("NOT Selena") crashed with Bieber at a California hotel.
– New Moon is basking in the glow of its success, but the second Twilight film, and even the headlines about its box office records, are sexist, some say. Vampire love interest Edward is “overbearing,” and heroine Bella “quite literally lies down and takes it,” write Carmen D. Siering and Katherine Spillar in Ms. “This is a film full of gender stereotypes—testosterone-driven male aggression, females who pine away over lost loves, boys who fix motorcycles, and the girls who watch them.” And the media attention paid to the film isn’t much better, writes Rachel Simmons on her website. Headlines like “OMG New Moon Has $140 Million Opening!” use teen-girl-speak to talk about the film’s success, but Simmons doesn’t find it cute. It “feels like an attempt to both mock girl culture and detract from the very butch success of this women and girl-driven phenomenon,” signaling that Hollywood may be intimidated by a “guy-proof” film franchise.
– George HW Bush has a new look for a good cause. The former president shaved his head this week to support the young son of a member of his Secret Service detail who has leukemia, reports the Huffington Post. In fact, all members of the security detail shaved their heads in solidarity with the 2-year-old, who has lost his hair in chemo treatments. Bush's spokesperson tweeted the photo today. (The elder Bush has previously made waves with his loud socks.)
– Looks like Hugh Hefner really is going through with this whole third marriage thing: He and Crystal Harris have selected June 18 as their wedding date, a Playboy rep confirms to Us. Hef has said the wedding will be “intimate with a close number of friends” and “very personal”; apparently that just means the guest list will come in at less than 300, as an insider confirms. Click for more on the impending nuptials, including Harris’s top gown choice—and one notable invitee who will not be attending.
– The iconic kiss that symbolized America's victory in World War II? It was nothing less than sexual assault, according to a British blogger who notes that Greta Zimmer Friedman—the kissee in the classic Life photo—was grabbed and kissed against her will, reports the Daily Mail. "If there is a better symbol for how messed up our ideas about sex and romance are, I can’t think of one," writes Leopard on Crates and Ribbons. Indeed, the man who planted that kiss—George Mendonsa—was on a date with his future wife when the war ended, he popped a few drinks, and spontaneously took hold of Friedman. "I wasn’t kissing him," she later said. "He was kissing me." Leopard lays it on the line: "It seems pretty clear, then, that what George had committed was sexual assault. Yet, in an amazing feat of willful blindness, none of the articles comment on this, even as they reproduce Greta’s words for us." Click for Leopard's full blog.
– As avocado lovers prepare to ingest a massive amount of guacamole during the upcoming Cinco de Mayo holiday, Bloomberg explains why that guacamole will come at a heftier cost: The price of avocados has set a record, more than doubling since last year. This higher price tag will be reflected both at the grocery store and in US restaurants that are finding creative ways to serve the trendy fruit. We break down why you’ll be forking over a pretty penny for that tasty avocado toast: US consumption of avocados has sky-rocketed. Mexico provides 82% of the avocados consumed in the United States. Since 2000, shipments have increased from 24 million pounds to a whopping 1.76 billion pounds in 2015. This astronomical rise has raised ethical questions around the crop’s environmental and social impact. Worldwide demand is up, too. The avocado trend is going global, with European countries as well as China asking for more of the fruit. Shortages in New Zealand even sparked avocado thefts, reports the BBC, while Mexican exports to China are especially booming, growing at a rate of 250% per year. Avocado growers had a bad year. Avocado crops tend to vary, yielding more growth one year, less growth the next. A smaller crop is expected this season in Mexico as well as California, where a 44% decrease has been predicted. And a growers strike in Mexico last year did not help matters. (Here's why you might not want to eat an avocado when you're stressed.)
– The death toll is climbing and hit seven this morning after authorities say a suspected gas leak blew up two apartment buildings in Harlem yesterday, just minutes after a customer called to report the smell of gas. At least 63 are wounded, and more deaths could come as two survivors suffered life-threatening injuries and another nine are still missing, CNN reports. As authorities continue to sift through the wreckage, the fire commissioner tell ABC News that rescue dogs have not detected the scent of any other victims. A Con Ed rep confirmed a customer call came in at 9:13am and crews responded two minutes later; they arrived just after the explosion, the New York Times reports. One man said the utility company told him to leave his building, and he was in the lobby when he heard the blast. Pianos flew through the air in a store on the ground floor of one of the buildings, WABC reports. "They flew off the ground and for me to get out I had to get around them," said a technician, who somehow escaped the building—which collapsed into a pile of rubble before the Fire Department arrived around 9:33am—with just scratches. Elsewhere, people were trapped in cars encased by debris. "It felt like an earthquake had rattled my whole building," said a man nearby. "There were glass shards everywhere on the ground, and all the stores had their windows blown out." Along with the piano store, the two buildings comprised 15 apartments and one church, the Times notes.
– The inventor of a popular Spider-Man web-shooting toy can't keep reeling in royalties after his patent ran out, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 today. Stephen Kimble sold his patent on the toy to Marvel in 2001, and as the Verge explains, Marvel said it would pay him royalties indefinitely. But when it uncovered a 1964 Supreme Court decision that found royalties could cease once a patent expired, Marvel in 2010 halted payments. It's a ruling that's perhaps garnering more headlines than usual, thanks to the number of comic-book jokes Elena Kagan incorporated into the opinion she wrote for the court. Vox points out that per Supreme Court Review, Kagan is "a comic book fan and an avid fan of comic-book based action films, claiming that she has seen them all and that her favorite film is The Avengers" (she also likes frozen yogurt). A collection of her most Spider-y lines, from Slate and Vox: The parties were "apparently contemplating that [the royalties] would continue for as long as kids want to imitate Spider-Man (by doing whatever a spider can)." "Patents endow their holders with certain superpowers, but only for a limited time." "To the contrary, the decision's close relation to a whole web of precedents means that reversing it could threaten others." "As against this superpowered form of stare decisis, we would need a superspecial justification to warrant reversing [an old decision]." "What we can decide, we can undecide. But stare decisis teaches that we should exercise that authority sparingly. Cf. S. Lee and S. Ditko, Amazing Fantasy No 15: "Spider-Man," p 13 (1962): ('[I]n this world, with great power there must also come great responsibility)."
– A community in suburban Pittsburgh is grappling with the loss of a 12-year-old boy who committed suicide, his family says, because he was bullied. Evan Ziemniak of North Fayette, Pa., hanged himself on March 23 and was declared dead at a nearby hospital, the New York Daily News reports. Hundreds attended a prayer walk in his honor three days later, and teachers and police officers went to his funeral, but the spotlight has fallen on apparent bullying at West Allegheny Middle School. The suicide "was his response to stop the pain," Evan's grandmother, Debbie Long, tells the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Long says Evan was shoved and stabbed with pencils on the school bus, and others in his family say bullying continued throughout the day. They told the school about it several times, they say, to no effect. School officials admit they need a better anti-bullying policy, but an optional "Kindness Workshop" for eighth-graders in January triggered a backlash when it left some students in tears, WTAE reported at the time. The workshop had students cover their faces with multicolored masks and answer personal questions by standing in a circle; some questions involved sexual orientation and family problems. "The damage they've done to our kids," said an angry parent. "All they did was give the bullies more ammunition." Now Evan—who loved animals, Minecraft, and collecting old coins and antiques—is forcing his community to face a hard issue. The implications "are far-reaching," says Evan's father, Matt. He and his wife "are prepared to do what is necessary to make sure other parents do not have to face the worst tragedy a parent could ever face." (The family of a bullied teen sued his town when he committed suicide.)
– Yahoo and Tumblr weren't the only online properties getting into bed together today: GrubHub and Seamless, two of the largest food-delivery websites in the US, have announced a merger, combining forces to fend off an increasing number of startup rivals, Bloomberg reports. "This has nothing to do with cost savings; it has everything to do with increasing growth," says GrubHub's co-founder. "We’re totally focused on the top line and how we continue to drive more orders for our restaurants." The two companies had a combined revenue of $100 million last year, processing $875 million in food sales. The merged company will offer ordering from 20,000 restaurants across 500 cities, adds CNNMoney. The deal still has to be approved by regulators.
– Donald Trump's claim that a US-born judge is a Mexican with a conflict of interest is "inexcusable" and "one of the worst mistakes Trump has made," according to Newt Gingrich, a Trump ally so staunch he has been talked about as a VP pick. "That judge is not a Mexican. He's an American," Gingrich tells Fox News. "I hope it was sloppiness." He adds: "If a liberal were to attack Justice Clarence Thomas on the grounds that he's black, we would all go crazy." But Gingrich stresses that he's still impressed by Trump, whom he considers a far better candidate than the "much more flawed" Hillary Clinton. "I'm amazed at his speed, how fast he learns," Gingrich says. "He's a remarkable leader. We have a very good relationship." He says Trump is now at a "turning point" where he needs to run a more disciplined campaign. Gingrich isn't the only Republican who has taken exception to Trump's remarks on Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is overseeing two fraud cases against Trump University, and to Trump's suggestion Sunday that he would also consider a Muslim judge biased. "His comments are offensive and wrong and he should retract them," New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte tells the Washington Post. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have also criticized the remarks. On ABC News' This Week, Clinton denounced the remarks as a "typical Trumpism" and an attempt to deflect attention from "very serious fraud charges" by attacking a distinguished federal judge. "Judge Curiel is as American as I am and certainly as American as Donald Trump is," she said.
– Sure, having two eyes is nice, but "one eye is good enough for prison inmates." That was the policy apparently in play when the state of Nevada denied a partially blind prisoner cataract surgery—but such a policy is also "the very definition of deliberate indifference," a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. The court has allowed John Colwell's lawsuit to go forward after the convict, serving life in prison for murder, accused the state of inflicting cruel and unusual punishment, the Las Vegas Sun and San Francisco Chronicle report. Colwell says he's been blind in his right eye since 2002 but was denied cataract removal surgery despite doctors' recommendations. Though Colwell's lawsuit was initially thrown out because he couldn't prove the state was acting in "conscious disregard of an excessive risk to his health," the appeals court said yesterday that "the evidence shows the Nevada Department of Corrections denied cataract surgery on him as he had one good eye," and the state may be guilty of cruel and inhumane punishment. A judge in favor of the 2-1 decision to reinstate the lawsuit added, "although blindness in one eye is not life-threatening, it is no trifling matter." Colwell says he's suffered numerous injuries as a result of his partial blindness, including getting into fights with other prisoners after he accidentally bumped into them.
– Trailing a surging Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney needed to make a splash in last night's GOP debate to take back the momentum. Well, Romney definitely splashed, thanks to his bold $10,000 wager over his belief in an individual mandate for health insurance—but how much do you want to bet Romney wishes he could take back the big-money wager now? After trying so hard to prove to people that he is just a regular guy, multi-millionaire Romney "may have given his GOP rivals and President Obama a gold-plated gift in Saturday’s debate in Iowa," writes the LA Times. "Not a lot of 99%'ers are out there making $10,000 bets," tweeted a former Obama White House aide, adding, "If corporations were people, $10,000 bets actually wouldn't be that big of a deal." Despite pundits everywhere calling the bet a major gaffe, Romney's supporters refused to call it anything other than a victory. "Mitt Romney knew that Rick Perry wouldn't take the bet because it's a phony attack," a senior Romney advisor told Reuters. "By backing down, Perry looked weak. " But Perry's supporters did not seem worried. “If Mitt is the nominee, we’ll see that $10,000 bet offer about 10,000 more times,” tweeted one Perry supporter. Jon Huntsman's team promised that a 10Kbet.com website was on its way, and a spokesperson noted that Romney has argued for a "government-run, mandate approach ... I guess he owes Rick Perry $10,000." Democrats were pretty happy about the whole thing, too. "I'm doing an endzone dance on it," tweeted one Democratic strategist. Click for a rundown of the debate or see who won and who lost.
– While many cities would welcome 32 million annual visitors, Barcelona has had quite enough of tourists, thank you very much. Though tourism represents 14% of the Spanish city's economy, a tourism plan presented by Mayor Ada Colau this week lays out measures meant to dissuade tourists from rubbing elbows with Barcelona's 1.6 million residents, reports Fast Company. The proposals include blocking licenses for new vacation rentals and taxing those that already exist at the highest property tax rate. The city also has banned hotel construction in the city center and is seeking permission to regulate room rentals at hostels, B&Bs, and other accommodations. There are even plans to increase parking fees for tourist buses. Why are such measures necessary, according to city officials? For one, local businesses like dry cleaners and hardware stores are suffering as those catering to tourists are taking over. Jobs in these establishments are seasonal—a major issue given Spain's 43% unemployment rate for young people. Property prices and rental rates are increasing, to boot. "The number of tourist flats in the city is staggering … and has pushed long-term rental prices to stratospheric levels," one expert tells the Telegraph. All of this has spawned "anti-tourism groups," per NPR—and they aren't just on the fringe. In a 2016 survey, Barcelona residents named unemployment as the only issue of greater concern than the number of tourists.
– He's gone missing in the Istanbul airport attack and the May EgyptAir crash, as well as been named a victim of the Pulse Orlando shooting and as an official who ordered police to shoot at a group of Mexican protesters in June, but who "he" is remains a mystery—sort of. Photos of the man shown have ended up online after a bunch of recent tragedies, including in a New York Times video of the Orlando attack, and back in May, the BBC did a reverse image search to determine his likeness has been circulating since at least December 2015 and that (obviously) he doesn't keep dying or disappearing in terrorist attacks. But France 24 decided to do some further sleuthing to find out who this guy is, and why his picture is everywhere. Going on the BBC's find that social media accounts that initially posted the mystery man's pic after the EgyptAir crash had originated in Mexico, France 24 contacted some of those posters—and they all had a similar tale. Namely, that the guy was a scam artist of sorts and had cheated them out of amounts up to $1,000. Their revenge: to link his picture with high-profile news events. "He still hasn't given us back our money, [so] we decided to punish him by posting his photo online," one of the parties says. "Our goal is to ruin his reputation. We want the whole world to recognize his face." France 24 says it even managed to track down the actual guy, whose name it's not revealing, and he didn't exactly refute the stories. "My photo is everywhere because of someone who started it as a prank after a legal dispute," he says, adding that he never bothered reporting the joke "because, in Mexico, nothing ever happens in these kinds of cases." He also says he's asked the BBC and Times to dump his photo and never heard back. (His image has since been deleted from the Times video and replaced with text explaining why at the 2:32 mark.)
– India's supreme court yesterday ruled to reinstate a colonial-era law that makes gay sex illegal and punishable by up to 10 years in jail—and few actually expected that outcome. Protesters gathered in Delhi last night, armed with rainbow flags and banners reading "I am gay, punish me," and "My love is not a crime," reports the Guardian. Fueling some of the outrage: surprise. Activists had anticipated that the court—known for its "broadly progressive judgments" that tend to favor the "poor and marginalized"—would simply approve the 2009 court ruling that repealed the more than century-old gay sex ban. And it's unclear whether the government will step in. Though the Guardian explains that the ruling party has only "limited political capital," which few think it'll spend on gay rights, Law Minister Kapil Sibal tells the BBC that "all options are being considered" to reinstate the 2009 ruling. And momentum is building, with UN human rights chief Navi Pillay today issuing a statement blasting yesterday's ruling as violating "the rights to privacy and to non-discrimination enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which India has ratified." The move "represents a significant step backwards for India and a blow for human rights," she said. What she'd like to see, per Reuters: the case reheard.
– Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo's supporters say that in casting his ashes into the sea, the Chinese government hoped to deprive them of a permanent resting place to hold dear. What it did instead was create the world's biggest memorial, say those supporters, who plan to gather next to and even in the ocean Wednesday—the seventh day since Liu's death from multiple organ failure related to cancer at age 61—as part of a staging of memorials around the planet. The effort will follow water-minding acts and protests that have already occurred in New York, Boston, Melbourne, London, and Hong Kong. "The whole sea has become a place where we can be close to him," a friend tells the Guardian. Beijing's idea "backfired," adds another activist. "Now anyone can go to the sea and mourn." A report from the Canada-based Citizen Lab picked up by Quartz sees Beijing's hand in something else: It found that when users of Wechat—China's most popular messaging app—attempted to message an image of Liu to another user, the image was scrubbed and never made it to the intended recipient. (The dying Nobel Prize winner's last words were for his wife.)
– Rep. Joe Walsh is known for a few things: Being a Tea Partier, calling President Obama an "idiot," and talking—a lot—about how badly Democrats and Republicans are handling the economy (earlier this month he claimed GOP leaders are "afraid to fight for this country"). In fact, the New York Times calls him "perhaps the most visible when it comes to televised economic exposition" of all the freshmen in the House. But the Times found that Walsh may not practice the fiscal restraint he preaches. First, there's the much-ballyhooed battle over the $117,000 his ex-wife says he owes in child support. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Walsh told a judge last week that the couple verbally agreed three years ago that he could stop payments. The Times reviewed documents filed as part of the case and found the following: He has $3,000 in his single IRA, has no savings or investment accounts, had his condo foreclosed on, had his license suspended after he failed to pay his auto insurance on time, and has tussled with the IRS. Still, Walsh doesn't seem concerned. "I told people, 'If you want a building full of millionaires who all have perfect credit scores, then Joe Walsh is not your guy.'" Plus, "I didn’t go to Washington to manage anybody’s money. What I want to do is limit what they take from you, so you can manage your money."
– Everyone knows the McRib is awesome, inspiring obsessed devotees to drive 10 hours for a taste. But what would be awesomer? How about breading the "rib" meat, deep-frying it, topping it with cheese, throwing on some "spicy-sweet chili sauce" and honey mustard, and then, because that's not quite enough, adding bacon? That's exactly what Austria did when it created the McRibster, a new sandwich that will require you to book an airline ticket right now, because it's only available until March 27. Some reactions: Huffington Post: "If you've ever eaten a McRib, your first reaction probably wasn't, 'This could really use some cheese and bacon. And a dip in a deep fryer.'" Consumerist: "What in holy heck is the McRibster and why can't we get one here?" It sounds "even less rib-like than the McRib. At least that has barbecue sauce." Burger Business: "It looks good but it looks more like a pork tenderloin sandwich with its breaded and fried pork patty than like a McRib with its fabulous greasiness." In case you're wondering what that "rib" meat really is, according to the official website and Google Translate, it's pork and ham. Can't make it to Austria in time? Well, at least you can "like" the McRibster on its Facebook page. (In much more serious McRib news, click to see what McDonald's is doing to make the sandwich more humane.)
– The GOP's luminaries descended on the Sunday talk shows ahead of their abbreviated convention in Tampa, with none other than Mitt Romney leading off with an interview on Fox, reports Politico. Addressing Team Obama's effort to link him to Todd Akin, Romney said: "It's really sad, isn't it? With all the issues that America faces, for the Obama campaign to continue to stoop to such a low level." Elsewhere from Romney's interview: On RomneyCare: He's "very proud. I’m the guy who was able to get all the health care for all the women and men for my state. They were talking about it at the federal level. We actually did something and we did it without cutting Medicare and without raising taxes.” On his offshore accounts: “I could have said don’t make any investments in any foreign companies, in any foreign bonds, in any foreign currencies, only US entities. But I did live my life. And I expect by virtue of disclosing all these things, people can take a look at that and see whether that’s something they're comfortable with." On taking public funding for an 2016 campaign: "Oh, absolutely. To be competitive (now), we’re obviously following suit. But I’d far rather have a setting where we had both agreed to the federal spending limits." And elsewhere from non-presumptive nominees: Jeb Bush on Obama's Dubya-bashing: "I think it's time for him to move on. I mean, look, the guy was dealt a difficult hand, no question about it. But he's had three years, his policies have failed. Rather than blame others, maybe offer some fresh solutions to the problems that we face. But that's not going to happen between now and Election Day." Marco Rubio on Todd Akin's chances: “I believe his statements make it much more difficult, borderline impossible perhaps, for him to win that race. I think that’s been clearly communicated to him both publicly and privately by a whole host of voices so we’ll see what decision he makes going forward.” Reince Priebus on Isaac shutting down the RNC: “I think that the show is going to go on. We’re going to get the business done at the RNC. We’re going to nominate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. We’re going to have a great time in Tampa." Priebus on Romney's birth certificate crack: "I think it's a nothing. Have we really gotten to the point where we can't have any levity at all in politics? No one can say anything that's remotely humorous. The president makes jokes about this all the time." Kay Bailey Hutchison on the GOP's abortion platform: "We shouldn't put a party around an issue that is so personal and also, religious-based. I think we need to say, 'Here are our principals, and we welcome you as a Republican. We can disagree on any number of issues, but if you want to be a Republican, we welcome you.'"
– Amanda Knox's retrial began in Italy today, with Knox herself, of course, not in attendance. Raffaele Sollecito, who was also convicted of Meredith Kercher's murder in 2009 only to see the conviction overturned in 2011, is also staying away. He's in the Dominican Republic with a friend, CNN reports. Neither is required to be present, and though they could be declared in contempt of court, that carries no additional penalties. As for what will happen during these new proceedings, which could take months, the AP explains that the appellate court will likely take a fresh look at the forensic evidence. In deciding to retry the case last year, Italy's supreme court said "a uniform and global analysis of the evidence" was needed. A related narrative making headlines: Knox said in a recent interview that she'd like to be able to visit Kercher's grave, but in a statement yesterday, Kercher's family "made it clear Knox's presence would not be welcome," writes Lizzy Davies for the Guardian. "It took us as a family nearly five years to even begin to feel ready to lay Mez to rest and it is still extremely painful now," the statement reads. "However, she now has a place near to us that we and her friends can visit to take flowers and spend time … Her grave is now her safe place to sleep in peace and be with us and we hope that is respected by all."
– Donald Trump can count on a vote from Rudy Giuliani, just not a formal endorsement. A rep for the former NYC mayor says Giuliani will vote for Trump in the state's April 19 primary, reports the Wall Street Journal, which adds, "Even without an official endorsement, Mr. Giuliani’s vote is a boost for Mr. Trump." More explicitly, Giuliani tells the New York Post: "I support Trump. I'm gonna vote for Trump." A longtime friend of Trump, per the Journal, Giuliani has been informally advising the billionaire's campaign. And in February, he told attendees at an Illinois fundraiser that they should vote for the candidate who "talks about how great they are." Giuliani tells the Post that he doesn't support all of Trump's positions, but is on board when it comes to the economy, immigration, and security. "Trump is a negotiator," he says. "Threatening to withdraw from NATO will get a better deal with NATO."
– Samuel L. Jackson—he of the “motherf--ing snakes on this motherf---ing plane”—has lent his talents to another modern classic: the wildly popular “kids’” book Go the F*** to Sleep, by Adam Mansbach. He narrates the audiobook version of the story, which has also been optioned for a film by Fox 2000. You can download the soothing reading by the “bard of the F-bomb” for free at Audible.com, notes the AV Club, which also has video of the reading. (Click to hear another famous man read the book...)
– The NSA has revealed its mascot for Earth Day tomorrow, and though the fact that the agency has a recycling mascot is odd enough, Gizmodo reports it's "an anthropomorphized and oddly buff recycling bin named Dunk" that "breaks new ground creepiness-wise." The Verge, meanwhile, thinks he's the "stuff of nightmares." Dunk was created out of a partnership with Maryland schools to encourage students to limit what they throw away. The mascot also touts the NSA's recycling efforts in a lengthy video. Dunk joins the NSA's other cartoon characters, including Decipher Dog, Crypto Cat, and a language analyst fox named Rosetta Stone, the Hill reports. (Click for more creepy mascots.)
– More than two years after fatally shooting a 12-year-old boy holding a toy gun, Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann has been fired, Cleveland.com reports. According to WKYC, Loehmann wasn't fired for Tamir Rice's death but rather because the investigation into it led officials to discover he wasn't forthright on his application to join the police department. Loehmann, who'd been with the Cleveland police department for less than eight months when Tamir was shot, was allowed to resign from his previous department after six months when supervisors determined he had "an inability to emotionally function." Loehmann had an emotional breakdown at the gun range and had also failed a test to join another department years earlier. He didn't disclose any of that on his application in Cleveland. Loehmann's partner, Frank Garmback, was suspended for 10 days without pay for driving in a manner that put Loehmann at risk during the 2014 incident. Neither officer was charged in connection with Tamir's death. Constance Hollinger, a 911 operator, was suspended for eight days without pay for relaying incomplete information to police. She mentioned a "guy with a gun" at a recreation center without the added details that it was "probably a child" and the gun was "probably fake." Loehmann shot Tamir within three seconds of arriving at the scene. Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson says the disciplinary process was "exhaustive." Cleveland 19 quotes the city's police chief as adding Tuesday: "Hopefully we won't have any more incidents like this."
– Hillary Clinton spoke at a "thank you" party for donors Thursday night in New York—complete with attendees who cried as she spoke, per ABC News—and she says two "unprecedented" events led to her stunning defeat in the election, the New York Times reports. Clinton first addressed the 11th-hour letter released by FBI Director James Comey before the election that dredged up her email scandal. "Swing-state voters made their decisions in the final days breaking against me because of the FBI letter from Director Comey," she told the crowd. Clinton also blamed the hacking of Democratic emails on Vladimir Putin because of a "personal beef" between the two, stemming from her claims that Russia's parliamentary elections in 2011 were fixed. "Putin publicly blamed me for the outpouring of outrage by his own people, and that is the direct line between what he said back then and what he did in this election," she said. (CNN notes Putin pointed the finger at then-Secretary of State Clinton for protests that broke out after his country's 2011 election.) "This is an attack against our country," she said. "We are well beyond normal political concerns here. This is about the integrity of our democracy and the security of our nation." Clinton also told the supporters in the room—Vogue editor Anna Wintour and film producer Harvey Weinstein among them—to stay involved in the Democratic Party and not give up hope. (John Podesta's latest take on the FBI.)
– The bizarre death of a California boy who suffered fatal injuries days before his dad's live-in girlfriend was found hanged last year was a homicide, forensics experts have declared. The death of Max Shacknai, 6, raised suspicions. But San Diego County investigators determined it was accidental, and that Max suffered a major head injury after he fell over a railing and down the stairs while he was home alone with the girlfriend of his multimillionaire dad, Jonah Shacknai. Two days later, Shacknai's girlfriend, Rebecca Zahau, was found hanged, nude, in the same Coronado mansion, her hands and feet bound. Her death was declared a suicide. But Max's suspicious mom hired San Francisco-based forensics pathologist Dr. Judy Melinek and injury biomechanics expert Dr. Robert Bove to review the case, reports NBC. Both concluded that Max was likely beaten, and then was either forced over the railing, or jumped or fell during a desperate attempt to escape his assailant. "I can't imagine anyone in the world wanting to harm Maxie," Dina told Fox News. "He was the most sweet, loving and gentle boy." Now she's calling for the case to be reopened. "Even though nothing will bring my only child, Maxie, back, I owe it to him, as his mother, to make sure the true facts of his death are known." Police are examining Melinek's findings. Zahau's parents, backed by Jonah Shacknai, called last year on police and state officials to reexamine her death.
– Indian actress Sridevi drowned in her hotel bathtub after losing consciousness, the Dubai police said in a statement Monday, though two police officials said she was also under the influence of alcohol at the time. The 54-year-old, who for years was one of Bollywood's top actresses, died late Saturday while in Dubai for a wedding. Her brother-in-law Sanjay Kapoor had told an Indian newspaper that she died of a cardiac arrest. In a tweet, the Dubai police said that her death was "due to drowning in her hotel apartment's bathtub following loss of consciousness," the AP reports. They added that the case had been handed to the public prosecutor's office, "which will carry out regular legal procedures." Two Dubai police officials added, though, that she was under the influence of alcohol. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters. Sridevi, who was at her peak in the 1980s and '90s, was seen as the first female superstar in India's male-dominated film industry. She was known for her impeccable comic timing as well as her dancing skills—a serious asset in country where song-and-dance melodramas are a movie staple. Sridevi began acting as a child in regional cinema in India's south and made her debut in Hindi-language Bollywood films in the late '70s. She stopped acting for several years after her marriage to film producer Boney Kapoor but made a well-received comeback in 2012 with English Vinglish. Her last performance was the 2017 film Mom, where she played a woman seeking vengeance after her stepdaughter is raped. She is survived by her husband and two daughters.
– Mohamed Morsi's decision to surrender the nearly dictatorial powers he'd granted himself wasn't enough to quell the fury on the streets of Cairo today, as crowds marched on the presidential palace, the New York Times reports. Morsi has responded by placing government institutions under military protection until after next weekend's controversial constitutional referendum. That referendum is protesters' main beef. "We are against this process from start to finish," a spokesman for Egypt's main opposition group said today, calling for even more sweeping protests on Tuesday. Opponents say the proposed constitution is too heavily influenced by Islamists, and want the vote pushed back, Reuters reports. "Holding a referendum now in the absence of security reflects haste and an absence of a sense of responsibility … which risks pushing the country towards violent confrontation," the spokesman said.
– Singer, songwriter, instrumentalist, and producer Andrew Gold may not have been a household name, but the Los Angeles pop-rock style he helped shape in the '70s was heard around the world. Gold, who has died at the age of 59, joined Linda Ronstadt's backing band straight after high school. His guitar and piano work helped define the sound of musicians like James Taylor and Carly Simon, the New York Times notes. He also enjoyed solo success with pop hits like 1977's "Lonely Boy" and "Thank You for Being a Friend," which later became the theme song for Golden Girls. The son of two prominent musicians, he later went on to record with artists including Celine Dion, Cher, and every Beatle except John Lennon. "Andrew was so enormously talented it almost seemed effortless," Ronstadt tells the Los Angeles Times. "He was a real cornerstone of those early records." Gold, who is survived by his wife and his three children from an earlier marriage, died in his sleep at his Los Angeles home; he had cancer.
– It's looking more and more likely that US farmers will be getting back into the hemp-growing business. The latest hopeful sign for advocates came when the House passed an amendment that would make it legal for universities to grow hemp for research purposes—an important step if farmers ever hope to make it a successful agricultural crop, reports the Wonkblog at the Washington Post. The bad news is that the amendment was part of the larger farm bill, which unexpectedly failed. But sponsor Jared Polis of Colorado says he's so encouraged by the 225-200 vote that he will tack the hemp amendment onto some kind of agricultural bill in the near future, or even make it a standalone measure. What he and other advocates—including Mitch McConnell, from farm state Kentucky—are talking about is industrial hemp, which has low levels of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. It can be used in the manufacture of a wide variety of projects, but the DEA remains worried about its use as a drug. In fact, the Huffington Post obtained the talking points that the DEA circulated to members of Congress as it tried to kill the farm bill amendment. They seemed to fall on deaf ears.
– Ted Cruz stood before the third night of the Republican National Convention on Wednesday with an entire convention center awaiting the answer to the question: Will he endorse Donald Trump or won't he? The answer came late in a speech that was well received until the end. "We stand here tonight a nation divided," Trump's final Republican rival opened, before congratulating Trump on winning the nomination. But as Cruz's prime-time speech, which focused on freedom, neared its finish, it became clear he would not endorse the GOP nominee, proclaiming that Republican voters should not stay home in November, but rather "vote your conscience." As chants of "We want Trump!" broke out among the crowd, Cruz replied, per Politico, "I appreciate the enthusiasm of the New York delegation." Or as Andrew Sullivan put it at New York, "open war is breaking out, as the crowd is beginning to shout Cruz down." Trump himself appeared side-stage, seemingly to suck oxygen from Cruz's moment. Writes Sullivan: "Cruz leaves to a massive wall of hostile noise."
– A video taken from a police dashboard camera on Monday shows a white police officer approaching a black man, whom he accuses of jaywalking earlier in Sacramento, Calif. What the officer does next is "unacceptable" and has sparked a criminal investigation, according to the Sacramento Police Department. "For an unknown reason, the officer threw the pedestrian to the ground and began striking him in the face with his hand multiple times," police say, per the Sacramento Bee. In a statement, police add the pedestrian, who was on the sidewalk when the officer approached him, refused the officer's requests to stop, then removed his jacket, "challenging the officer to a fight," per USA Today. But Nandi Cain Jr. tells KCRA a different story, arguing he took off his jacket only to show the officer he was unarmed. "I thought I was going to be like the next Trayvon Martin," says Cain, who says the officer had his hand on his gun as he approached. "I felt like they were going to draw a gun out and shoot me in my back or try to break my arms off or something." He adds he repeatedly asked the officer "if he had any reason or probable cause for pulling me over and he wouldn't really give me a straight answer." No matter the reason for the officer's actions, the department says they "are disturbing and [do] not appear to be reasonable based upon the circumstances." The officer, a two-year veteran with the department, has been placed on administrative leave since the incident, which a witness also recorded. Cain, initially jailed on suspicion of resisting arrest, was released Tuesday due to "insufficient grounds to file a complaint," police say.
– A picture of alleged Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis, who was apparently a military contractor, has begun to emerge; now, we're learning about the 12 other people killed in the shooting, which the Washington Post calls "the single worst loss of life in the District" since a 1982 plane crash. The shooting victims were ages 46 to 73, Mayor Vincent Gray says. All were civilians or military contractors, according to the New York Times, and DC police chief Cathy Lanier says at least one was a DC resident. Eight of the victims' names have been released, and the Post has details about their lives: Michael Arnold, 59: He served in the Navy for 29 years and retired as a captain last year. He worked for a government consulting firm and was at the Navy Yard working on a design for amphibious assault ships with a team. He has three sons with his wife of more than 30 years. Arthur Daniels, 51: He was at the Naval Yard for his job installing furniture in federal government buildings. His wife, with whom he has five kids and nine grandkids, calls him "a good father and a hard worker." Sylvia Frasier, 53: Her parents and siblings waited until 10pm last night for news of Frasier, a network-security administrator with the Naval Sea Systems Command. "He killed my sister," sobbed her youngest sister. Kathleen Gaarde, 62: She worked as a financial analyst at the Navy Yard and had just started planning her retirement with her husband of 38 years, with whom she had two children. "Now none of that matters," her husband says. "I already dearly miss her." John Roger Johnson, 73: A neighbor describes him as a civilian who worked for the Navy, and says he was a "smart man" and a "delightful neighbor." Frank Kohler, 50: No comment from his family, but a neighbor describes him as married with two daughters. Vishnu Pandit, 61: No comment from his family, but a neighbor says Pandit and his wife lived in the neighborhood for at least two decades and he was "a very nice man with an Irish setter." Kenneth Bernard Proctor, 46: He had worked for the federal government for 22 years; a civilian utilities foreman at the Navy Yard, he didn't work in the building where he was killed—but he often went there for breakfast. His ex-wife says they still talked every day, and had spoken that morning. They have two teen sons. Eight people were also injured, according to Gray, including three who were shot and five who suffered stress-related injuries; two of the injured were police officers.
– No one expected President Obama to meet with Fidel Castro during his historic visit to Cuba last week. But while Obama was chatting up and taking in a baseball game with brother Raul Castro, the 89-year-old former revolutionary was penning what the AP calls a "long, bristling letter." "We don't need the empire to give us any presents," Fidel writes in the 1,500-word missive Monday in El Granma, the newspaper of Cuba's Communist Party, per Politico. In his "El Hermano Obama" ("Brother Obama") essay, Castro launches into a Cuban history primer, including Spanish colonialism, then addresses its interactions with the US, such as the doomed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, US trade embargo against Cuba, and Obama's relative youth—all in what the AP calls reminiscent of the lengthy, "all-encompassing" speeches Castro used to deliver. Going over Obama's speech with a fine-toothed comb, Castro rails against his rival's supposed insults and rolls his eyes at Obama's statement that "it is time, now, for us to leave the past behind." "I imagine that any one of us ran the risk of having a heart attack on hearing these words from the President of the United States," Castro writes. Moving onto the Bay of Pigs, he notes, "Nothing can justify this premeditated attack that cost our country hundreds of killed and wounded." And as for Obama speaking at all about Cuba and its people, Castro offers this dig: "Native populations do not exist at all in the minds of Obama. Nor does he say that racial discrimination was swept away by the Revolution; that retirement and salary of all Cubans were enacted by this before Mr. Barack Obama was 10 years old." He gives a final piece of advice to Obama: "My modest suggestion is to reflect and do not try now to develop theories about Cuban politics."
– A video has surfaced showing New York police holding a man in a chokehold just days before an unarmed Eric Garner died after police used the banned move on him, reports DNA Info. The video shows an officer holding Ronald Johns and punching him after Johns allegedly entered a subway station through an exit gate on July 14. Officers also used pepper spray to subdue him after Johns "flailed his arms and twisted his body to prevent Officer [Colin] McGuire from putting handcuffs on him," according to the criminal complaint. East Harlem activist Rev. Kelmy Rodriquez, who posted the video, says it was sent to him anonymously. "I was appalled when I saw this video, especially after the Eric Garner situation," he says. "Something like this adds more gas to the fire." The two officers involved say they were injured in the incident and are now on medical leave, New York reports. Johns was charged with turnstile-jumping, resisting arrest, and trespassing. Police are investigating the incident. Meanwhile, NYPD's police commissioner has ordered a review of training on the use of force.
– Everyone knows Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has "a very shiny nose" that even, some might say, "glows." But why? A new—and, The Local notes, tongue-in-cheek—investigation explains. Researchers in Norway and the Netherlands compared reindeer noses to human noses and found that reindeer have 25% more blood vessels in their nasal lining, which help control body temperature—an important task when you're flying all around the globe in a single evening. Researchers had reindeer walk on a treadmill, and observed that afterward, "they do indeed have red noses," MedPage Today reports. "Rudolph's nose is red because it is richly supplied with red blood cells, comprises a highly dense microcirculation, and is anatomically and physiologically adapted for reindeer to carry out their flying duties for Santa Claus," say the researchers. They also estimated that in order to get Christmas presents to everybody on time, Rudolph would have to lead Santa's team at 650 miles per second—a speed that would vaporize them, unless Rudolph could protect them with an ion shield.
– The New York Post first reported on Melania and Barron Trump's post-election plans, and now NBC News echos the newspaper: Sources say the two will not accompany Donald Trump to the White House in the immediate aftermath of his Jan. 20 inauguration, but will rather remain largely in Trump Tower until the completion of Barron's school year at Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School. He'll wrap up the fourth grade in June, per the New York Daily News. The Washington Post earlier this month speculated about which school Barron would end up attending in Washington, DC. For 35 years, the kids of presidents have enrolled in just one: Sidwell Friends. But an educational consultant thinks Trump may look south, and suggests some possible options in Virginia.
– Heads up, armchair travelers. NASA is seeking a nickname for a tiny, icy world on the edge of the solar system that's the next destination for New Horizons, the spacecraft that surveyed Pluto. New Horizons whipped past Pluto two years ago, and now it's headed for 2014 MU69—gobbledygook to even the most die-hard scientists. To lighten the mood as New Horizons aims for a 2019 flyby, the research team is holding a naming contest, the AP reports. The deadline is Dec. 1 and a nickname will be chosen by early January. MU69 is 4 billion miles away and may actually be two objects, either stuck together or orbiting one another. If so, two nicknames would be needed. The nicknames will be temporary. "We would like to use a more memorable nickname when we talk about our target body," NASA explains on the contest page, where people can both suggest nicknames and vote on the winning name. "After the flyby, once we know a lot more about this frontier world, we will work with the International Astronomical Union to assign a formal name to MU69."
– They say a counter-insurgency war is won with hearts and minds, not weapons—but the new XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System can't hurt. The US military's latest innovation is a grenade launcher that can fire explosive charges 2,300 feet—well beyond the accurate range of an AK-47 or M16 rifle—and set them to explode at precise distances, the Telegraph reports. Foes who take cover behind walls or other cover are out of luck. "This is the first time we're putting smart technology into the hands of the individual soldier," a top military official said. He reports that the weapon, already in limited use in Afghanistan, is giving soldiers "an edge" against the tactics of the insurgency, which rely heavily on using the craggy landscape for cover. Read more on the XM25 at the Week.
– Anxiety over how the absence of net neutrality rules could affect things has manifested itself in California. Ars Technica reports on a new lawsuit that includes a statement from Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden alleging Verizon throttled the fire department's data services (specifically tied to its vehicle OES 5262, which uses a Verizon SIM card to get online) while it was in the midst of fighting the state's wildfires. To make things worse, Bowden adds, "Verizon imposed these limitations despite being informed that throttling" was curtailing the department's emergency response. His declaration is an addendum to a legal challenge against the FCC filed by nearly two dozen state attorneys general and a slew of government agencies looking to overturn the repeal of net neutrality rules that went into effect in June. Ars Technica details the email back-and-forth—starting in late June and continuing as the Mendocino Complex Fire raged on—between Verizon and fire officials, including one in which a fire IT officer begs, "Please work with us." Even though the fire department had an "unlimited" data plan, Ars Technica notes big carriers sometimes slow things when a certain amount of data is exceeded. A Verizon rep eventually convinced the department to upgrade from a monthly $37.99 data plan to a $99.99 one. In a statement to the Verge, Verizon says the throttling had "nothing to do with net neutrality;" it was a "customer support mistake." "Regardless of the plan emergency responders choose, we have a practice to remove data speed restrictions when contacted in emergency situations."
– He's back. Bill Clinton will play a major role in the upcoming Democratic National Convention, and will be the one to place Barack Obama's name into nomination after an address hammering home an economic argument for the president's reelection, reports the New York Times. Clinton is expected to help skewer the GOP by underscoring his experience as a Democratic president who left a surplus for his Republican successor to squander, aides have told CNN. “There isn’t anybody on the planet who has a greater perspective on not just the last four years, but the last two decades, than Bill Clinton,” Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod tells the Times. “He can really articulate the choice that is before people.” The prime-time speech in Charlotte will mark perhaps the most significant event to date in Clinton's support for the president, who defeated Hillary Clinton for the nomination the last time around in a sometimes acrimonious race. Vice President Joe Biden will appear on the final night of the convention to make a speech for Obama before tens of thousands of people at the outdoor Bank of America Stadium, and will appear on stage with the president as they accept the nomination.
– After a week full of headlines likely to have Donald Trump's advisers tearing their hair out, there's a bright spot for his campaign: He's narrowing the fundraising gap with Hillary Clinton, helped by a Bernie Sanders-style flood of small donations, NPR reports. The Trump campaign says it and joint fundraising committees raised $82 million in July—including $2 million from Trump himself—compared to around $90 million for Clinton, who ended the month with $58 million on hand, compared to $37 million for Trump, whose campaign was $40 million behind Clinton at the beginning of June, with just $1.3 million on hand. The Trump campaign says the bulk of the cash has come from small donations, most of them made online, reports the New York Times, which notes that this is a big change for a campaign that was "largely funded by hat and T-shirt sales and by Mr. Trump's wallet" until recently. "We are extremely proud of our 69% growth in small-dollar donations, which shows the broad-based support of over 1 million donors across America," says Steven Mnuchin, Trump's finance chairman, per CNN. Small donors may be Trump's only chance of closing the fundraising gap: Major GOP donors and fundraisers have been steering clear of his campaign, including Meg Whitman, who says she will raise funds for Clinton instead.
– How long will you spend in prison for paying a judge to send thousands of kids to juvenile detention? In developer Robert Mericle's case, the answer is one year. Mericle and a lawyer paid more than $2 million in "finder's fees" to a pair of judges to send inmates to two jails Mericle built, in the infamous "Kids for Cash" scandal. But paying those fees wasn't technically illegal for Mericle; his crime was lying about them to investigators, the Wilkes Barre Times-Leader explains. Prosecutors had suggested Mericle spend only six months in jail, noting that he'd eventually cooperated with the government and testified against the corrupt judges—who got far longer sentences. A number of character witnesses also spoke up for Mericle, WNEP reports, and Mericle's lawyer cited his record of philanthropy. But Judge Edwin Kosik said Mericle was trafficking on his contributions to society, and deserved a harsh sentence. "This false information was nothing but corruption," he said.
– Just days before his death, Russell Armstrong begged a friend for anxiety drugs, telling him, "This is as bad as it gets." Armstrong was upset over his divorce and his portrayal on Real Housewives, and couldn't even afford to pay for the meal he was sharing with the friend, Russ McCullough. McCullough gave him one Xanax, but Armstrong wanted an entire bottle, TMZ reports. The gossip site adds that Armstrong's death, not surprisingly, was officially ruled a suicide by hanging. Meanwhile, his family is considering suing Bravo. The network that airs Real Housewives "is at fault and somebody needs to pay," Armstrong's stepbrother tells Radar. But one member of his family is also offering a glimpse into Armstrong's dark past, Perez Hilton notes: His sister says that, at the tender age of six, he accidentally shot her. She adds that he "had anger issues" but was trying to overcome them. He also allegedly punched a business associate, had two restraining orders filed against him by ex-partners, and pleaded guilty to battery in 1997, Radar reports. Click to read Bravo exec Andy Cohen's response to the Armstrong news.
– Apple's own audit of its supply chain turned up 106 underage workers at overseas plants last year, reports the Guardian. Most of the violations—74 of them—occurred at one China facility. The kids were ordered home, and Apple cut ties with the plant, which makes components for circuit boards. In all, 11 factories had at least one worker under age 16, often because their families worked with recruiters to forge IDs. While Apple has had high-profile problems at its Foxconn production plant in China, the facilities involved in this report are mostly lower-level parts suppliers. "We go deep in the supply chain to find it," an Apple VP tells Business Insider. "And when we do find it, we ensure that the underage workers are taken care of, the suppliers are dealt with." Foxconn has previously acknowledged hiring underage interns, and Apple says a main focus now is making sure that plants don't abuse the concept of internships.
– There was only a 50% chance the face transplant that could transform his life would work—and it was a gamble Mississippi's Pat Hardison won. Per USA Today, the ex-Senatobia firefighter received the "world's most extensive face transplant" in August 2015, after he'd been severely burned 14 years earlier while fighting a house fire. A team of more than 100 medical staff took part in the groundbreaking surgery, which took more than 24 hours, in which Hardison received the face of 26-year-old David Rodebaugh, who'd died in a cycling accident. Though he'd faced a good chance of dying from the procedure, Hardison's decision to "bet it all" paid off. On Sunday, the 43-year-old took a turn as guest speaker for an organ transplant group to express his gratitude. The transplant "gave me life," Hardison said in his speech for the Mid-South Transplant Foundation's "Celebration of Life" event. He noted he's able to go places now with his kids (they hit Disney World in 2016) and that people usually have no idea from looking at him that he's had a face transplant. "It's the first time my two little boys had been anywhere where people didn't say, 'What happened?' … They could tell something had happened, but nobody ever looked at me and said, 'He got a face transplant.' Another momentous occasion last November: Hardison met Rodebaugh's mom. After studying "every angle" of Hardison's new face, per ABC News—even finding an old chicken pox scar she remembered her son had had on his forehead—Nancy Millar told Hardison, "I am as proud of you as I was of my own son. It's not David's face, it's your face."
– Madonna proved once again that pants are optional as she bared her butt cheeks and most of her breasts on the red carpet of the Met Gala on Monday. Surprisingly, the little clothing she did wear made it "hard to pee," she told People. Keeping with the tech theme, Katy Perry appeared in a black and gold number with a Tamagotchi attached to her belt, while Claire Danes' gown lit up behind the scenes. The talk of Blake Lively and Kerry Washington's outfits: baby bumps, per Vanity Fair. See the biggest fashion hits and misses in the gallery. (Or check out the big news Kate Upton broke on the red carpet.)
– Vice presidential candidate Mike Pence appears to be trying to calm the controversy that erupted over the weekend in the wake of Donald Trump's back and forth with the parents of a fallen US Muslim soldier. "Donald Trump and I believe that Captain Humayun Khan is an American hero and his family, like all Gold Star families, should be cherished by every American," Pence wrote on Facebook. He said Khan died fighting in a region made unstable by the "disastrous decisions of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton," and asserted that Trump's policies—including a suspension of "immigration from countries that have been compromised by terrorism"—will help bring down the Islamic State and make it less likely that more American soldiers will die. The issue has been making headlines since Khan's father, Khizr, spoke at the Democratic National Convention and said Trump had "sacrificed nothing and no one," which led to a series of counter-punches from both sides over the weekend. Meanwhile, top Republicans Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan both issued statements praising Humayun Khan for his sacrifice without mentioning Trump, notes Politico. The controversy "has emerged as an unexpected and potentially pivotal flash point in the general election," observes the New York Times, while a post at the conservative Daily Caller makes the case that the "incredibly objective media" is distorting the story to fit a false narrative: "Namely, Trump hates the families of dead veterans."
– In a country ravaged by the housing crisis, a hefty chunk of homeowners—some 29.3%—have escaped the mortgage burden entirely, a new report by Zillow finds. A great deal of the 20.6 million Americans who own their homes outright are retirees: 77.6% of people 85 and older fully own their abodes, as do 62.7% of people 74 to 84. But plenty of the mortgage-free are also very young: Some 34.5% of homeowners ages 20 to 24 don't have mortgages, the according to Zillow's analysis. The big cities with the highest proportions of homeowners without mortgages are Pittsburgh, Tampa, New York, Cleveland, and Miami, the Los Angeles Times reports. The lowest proportions are found in Washington, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Denver, and Charlotte. Expect more homeowners to be mortgage-free in the future, with baby boomers getting older and the credit crisis driving "more and more people to think that the best way they can prepare for retirement is with no mortgage at all," says an expert.
– The rumors are true: Cynthia Nixon is running for governor of New York. "I love New York, and today I'm announcing my candidacy for governor," the Sex and the City actress posted Monday on Twitter, along with a link to her campaign fundraising page and a video ad in which she declares her passion for New York but decries the fact that the state is now "the most unequal state in the entire country, with both incredible wealth and extreme poverty. ... How did we let this happen?" As the video shows Nixon speaking at various public events, the actress can be heard exhorting her supporters to "turn the system upside down." Her campaign fundraising page notes that "Cynthia hasn't been bought and paid for by special interests and won't be accepting any corporate contributions in this campaign. Instead our campaign will be powered by the people." But she'll be going up against two-term incumbent Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the September Democratic primary, and he has a $30 million war chest, per NBC New York. He also has a big lead in the polls; the Democrat and Chronicle reports that a Siena College poll out Monday had Cuomo favored 66% to 19% over Nixon among registered Democrats. "While Nixon does a little better among younger and upstate Democrats, she doesn’t have the support of more than one-quarter of either group," says a Siena spokesperson.
– It was an unusual 911 call that tipped off police in Rexburg, Idaho, that Leland Ayala-Doliente and Holland Sward had entered the state with 20 pounds of marijuana—because Ayala-Doliente is the one who placed it. As the East Idaho News reports, court documents show that Ayala-Doliente, 22, and Sward, 23, were hauling pot from Las Vegas to Montana when at some point they broke the cardinal rule of dope dealing: Don't get high off your own supply. They came to believe, incorrectly, that undercover cops were following them. "Hi, uh, we’re the two dumb asses that got caught trying to bring some stuff through your border and all your cops are just driving around us like a bunch of jack wagons, and I'd just like for you guys to end it," Ayala-Doliente tells the dispatcher in audio of the call obtained by the News. The entire exchange sounds very much "like a deleted scene from Pineapple Express," notes the New York Daily News. Other highlights: Asked if they have weapons, Ayala-Doliente says no, "just a bunch of snacks and stuff." They also have "really nice" pitbull. "Oh, cool," says the dispatcher, who plays the call perfectly, at one point asking, "What was your name, man?" Speaking to Sward, Ayala-Doliente says of the dispatcher: "He’s a nice guy. Want me to jump in the air and click my heels twice or what?" Regarding the phantom undercover cops, Ayala-Doliente says, "We tried waving them down and that didn’t work." Ayala-Doliente and Sward were each charged with felony drug trafficking, given that their haul had a street value of $16,000, reports the Idaho State Journal. Sward received a five-year suspended sentence, five years of probation, and a month in jail. Ayala-Doliente, who tested positive for pot, cocaine, and oxycodone on his November sentencing day, received a year-and-a-half to eight years in prison. (This guy called 911 on himself, too.)
– Today saw the conclusion of the Conservative Political Action Conference, a gathering which a GOP strategist calls "the starting gun of the Republican primary campaign," the Los Angeles Times reports. The event saw a number of possible candidates offer their pitches, and Scott Walker was among its stars: The Wisconsin governor made a "barn-burner of a speech. He lit up the crowd," writes Rich Lowry at the National Review, noting that the event settled any doubt as to whether Walker is "up for a national race." At the New Yorker, John Cassidy adds that Walker looks "like Bush’s strongest rival. Whenever someone mentioned Bush’s name, boos rang out." Indeed, Bush faced the threat of a walkout at the very conservative event, according to a report in the Washington Times. But reports say only a few people made good on that threat, and the former Florida governor came off well. "He didn’t make any enemies, or any new ones at least. Indeed, he made a pretty convincing case that he is a committed conservative," Cassidy writes. "In entering the conservative den and emerging unscathed, he did what he needed to do." Among the other candidates: Marco Rubio, Lowry writes, is "a natural political talent," and in the Times, Doyle McManus calls the Florida senator a possibility to "rise if Walker stumbles." As for Chris Christie, he "weathered" questioning by Laura Ingraham well, but "the problem for him is that his early accomplishments in New Jersey and his personality manifestly aren’t going to be enough to get him through a Republican nomination battle," Lowry writes.
– This is not your run-of-the-mill Ivy League drug raid—this one has a torture-by-LSD component. When police gave details today about the five Columbia students arrested and charged with distributing everything from LSD to Adderall to fellow students, they also told of a crazy scheme by one of their alleged suppliers (not a student). He wanted to kidnap two rival cocaine traffickers he thought had cheated him, hold them for ransom, torture them with doses of acid, and kill them if nobody paid up. We know this because the person he enlisted to help carry out his plan was, of course, an undercover New York City cop working on the "Operation Ivy League" sting, reports Bloomberg. Says police chief Raymond Kelly: “The fact that a supplier to the Columbia students was willing to kill his rivals should demolish any argument that drugs on campus is a victimless crime. This is no way to work your way through college.” Click here for more details on the Columbia students arrested.
– A robber pulled a gun on a man in Berkeley, Calif., on Wednesday, then made off with his grandmother's car—but first, he demanded to use the guy's bathroom. Police say a resident was returning to the apartment he shares with his grandmother around 7am when a man with a gun accosted him, took his cellphone and keys, and demanded that he be allowed to relieve himself in the man's apartment, reports Bay City News. Once inside, the man forced the grandmother out of the bathroom and made his victim enter the room with him while he did his business—though the victim was kindly allowed to look the other way, say police. The man then took off in the grandmother's car. Police say Joseph Skyler, 25, was found driving it an hour later. He and passenger Harold Dennis, 24, were booked on suspicion of armed robbery, kidnapping, and carjacking, per the East Bay Times.
– Two years ago, Reshma Quereshi was permanently disfigured in an acid attack while walking to school in India. She was only 17. On Thursday, she walked in New York Fashion Week, ABC News reports. According to the Independent, Quereshi was held down by a group of men, including her sister's estranged husband, who poured sulfuric acid on her. The acid ate through the skin of her face and cost her an eye. For a year following the attack, she was suicidal. Then she became the face of Make Love Not Scars, a nonprofit fighting acid attacks. The organization's videos featuring Quereshi have been viewed by 1.3 million people, Reuters reports. Quereshi broke down in tears when she learned she was being flown to New York for Fashion Week. It was the first time she left India. "I couldn't believe it was happening to me," she tells Reuters. She was greeted by a wave of applause as the first model to hit the runway during FTL Moda's show Thursday. The fashion production firm's president says it's important to get people like Quereshi in the public eye. "We can actually stop this thing," she tells ABC. Quereshi agrees, telling the Independent: “It’s important that people hear the story about the survivors of acid attacks and to know they can lead normal lives.” There are about 1,000 acid attacks reported in India every year, though the actual number is probably much higher. (Vogue gave models fake disabilities.)
– Palestine won’t push for an immediate Security Council vote on its push for full UN membership, because it doesn’t appear to have the requisite nine votes—even if the US weren’t promising to veto the move. “We will give some time to the Security Council,” a Palestinian negotiator told reporters, according to Bloomberg. “If we fail, we will keep knocking on the door. We do not have a time limit." The US and Israel are asking council members to abstain from voting in order to spare Palestine a definitive defeat. Israel, for example, has convinced Nigeria to stay neutral, even though it recognizes Palestinian statehood bilaterally. But US opposition to the move has come at a cost: the US may have to give up its role as sole arbiter of peace in the Middle East, the New York Times observes, because it’s seen as too close to an increasingly isolated Israel.
– A capital murder trial put on hold after a literal shock will resume in Smith County, Texas, on Monday and for the first time, defendant James Calvert will not represent himself. After Calvert was accused of murdering ex-wife Jelena Sriraman and abducting their 4-year-old son in October 2012, the 45-year-old chose to represent himself. A rep for the Texas Defender Service tells NBC News Calvert is mentally ill and "people with a history of mental illness are supposed to show a much higher level of competence" than he has in order to do so. Even so, Calvert defended himself until Sept. 15, when he received a shock from the shock belt Judge Jack Skeen had ordered he wear in court for safety reasons, reports Reuters. It isn't clear who ordered the shock, but it followed several outbursts noted by Skeen, who seemed to lose patience with Calvert as the hearing progressed. At one point, Calvert laughed out loud and Skeen told him that another outburst would mean he'd be removed from court by "whatever means they have to control you," reports KLTV. When Calvert afterward refused to stand while speaking to the judge, a deputy administered a shock that caused Calvert to scream for five seconds. Skeen then ended Calvert's self-representation. "I should have done this a lot sooner," he said, per KLTV. "I don't have to take it. You're out." A Smith County sheriff's lieutenant says a shock belt is commonly put on defendants at jury trials. "It's really pretty effective when we use it. It's kind of like a Taser," he says. However, legal experts say the belt is only to be used "if the defendant poses an immediate security risk," per Reuters, which means the judge could be penalized and Calvert could be granted an appeal if he is convicted. "This is just a travesty of justice as far as I'm concerned," a lawyer says.
– The saddest moment in her life, Mel B says in new memoir Brutally Honest, was dealing with daughter Phoenix, then 15, after a suicide attempt in 2014. The Spice Girl says she woke up in the hospital to find her "furious" daughter asking "Why Mum? Why? Why?" In a memoir extract seen by the Sun, Mel B writes that all she wants "is for her to know how sorry I am, how lost I was and how I’ll never, ever abandon her again." In the memoir, the singer says she tried to take her own life by taking 200 aspirin pills because she was "emotionally battered" after years of abuse by then-husband Stephen Belafonte. She says he was threatening to release a "library" of sex tapes from their decade of marriage. "As each pill goes into my mouth, I ask myself: 'Are you sure?' And I take another one. Ten, 20, 50, 100. 'Are you sure?'" she writes. "One hundred and 20. 'Are you sure?' 150. 'Are you sure?" But after taking the last pill, she writes, she realized: "Suicide was not the answer. I had to make my life count." She says she was left with bruises to her face and shoulder after throwing her weight against a jammed door while trying to seek help, USA Today reports. She was hospitalized with liver and kidney damage but, against the advice of doctors, appeared on The X-Factor three days later—without her wedding ring on. "I needed to be seen. I needed all those bruises to be seen," she writes. (In August, she said she would seek treatment for sex and alcohol addictions before the Spice Girls reunion tour.)
– A girl was stopped by authorities at the entrance to a Nigerian market before explosives she was carrying killed her and 19 others yesterday, an official tells CNN. The bombs were attached to the girl, whose age isn't clear, CNN reports; estimates have put her as young as 10 or as old as 18. Boko Haram militants are suspected in the Maiduguri attack; a source to the news organization says the militants capture young people to "do their dirty work." The group is said to be responsible for up to 2,000 deaths in recent weeks. Today, violence continued, with two female suicide bombers killing at least four at another market, the BBC reports.
– Dzhokhar Tsarnaev may have been badly wounded, with his face swollen, hand bandaged, and throat too injured to talk, but the young bomber apparently showed no signs of fear or regret during his hospital room court hearing Monday, reports NBC News. And when told the maximum penalty he was facing was death, Tsarnaev had no reaction: The heart monitor he was hooked up to registered "no blip at all," says a source. Experts, however, caution that emotional responses aren't always picked up by such monitors, and note that he may have been medicated at the time. Meanwhile, the judge who conducted that hearing, Marianne Bowler, has been harshly criticized ever since it was revealed she informed Tsarnaev of his Miranda rights during the Monday hearing; right after that he stopped talking to investigators. "We have a long-standing tradition that the judiciary does not interfere with investigations. This sets a very dangerous precedent," said House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Rogers, who thinks the Justice Department should have intervened and forced a delay. Sources say Bowler told the DOJ on Saturday that she planned to read Tsarnaev his rights two days later, and a DOJ rep indicated that her actions were appropriate, reports the Wall Street Journal. "The rules of criminal procedure require the court to advise the defendant of his right to silence and his right to counsel during the initial appearance.''
– The shooter in today's rampage at the Fort Hood Army base has been identified as Major Malik Nadal Hasan. He is described as an Army psychiatrist, 39, who was to be sent to Iraq on Nov. 28, reports ABC. Hasan was reported killed after opening fire at a soldier processing center, killing 11 others and wounding about 30—but since said to be in custody. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison says Hasan was "upset" at the prospect of being deployed to Iraq, notes NBC. Two soldiers remain in custody as suspects, and their role, if any, is unclear. Hasan came to the Texas base after 6 years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center—where, a source tells AP, he received a poor performance evaluation. Meanwhile, Josh Marshall writes that "The fact that the primary assailant has an Arabic name and is presumably, though we don't know this yet, of Muslim extraction if not a practicing Muslim, is going to be the focus of attention." But more surprising to Marshall, he adds on Talking Points Memo, is that he's not a young soldier but an Army major.
– They've got no middle ears or eardrums, yet one of the world's smallest frog species still responds to sound—and now, scientists have figured out how. The Gardiner's frog, found in the Republic of Seychelles, picks up noises through its mouth; from there, the sounds head to its inner ear, LiveScience reports. Researchers investigating the species' hearing capacity blared frog sounds in Seychelles rain forests, and male Gardiner's frogs replied. Scientists used X-rays to figure out what was going on: Gardiner's frogs have less tissue between their mouths and inner ears than do most frogs. The animals' mouths were amplifying the sounds, whose frequencies then traveled through their skulls to reach the inner ear. "The combination of a mouth cavity and bone conduction allows Gardiner's frogs to perceive sound effectively," says a researcher. By contrast, notes the Daily Mail, most frogs have middle ears and eardrums on the surfaces of their heads. The creatures "have been living isolated in the rainforest of the Seychelles for 47 (million) to 65 million years," says the researcher, and their hearing system is likely a remnant of ancient species.
– At least four people are dead after a small plane crashed at Wichita's Mid-Continent Airport this morning, sending up "towering plumes of black smoke that could be seen for miles," in the words of AP. The twin-engine Beechcraft King Air reported losing engine power just after takeoff, according to Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Tony Molinaro, who says the plane hit a building on airport property while trying to return to the runway. KSN reports that four are dead and four others are missing. The pilot, identified as Mark Goldstein, was among those killed. “He was an air traffic controller who retired less than a year ago and became a contract pilot, and he would contract his services to different airplane owners and operators," says an acquaintance at a local aviation company. “He talked to the tower before he crashed. They knew his voice."
– The 20 children shot to death inside Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown last year account for only about a fifth of the young kids fatally shot in 2012, according to a Washington Post analysis. The survey finds that 91 children age 10 or younger were killed in deliberate shootings during the year. Of note: Mental illness played a role in two-thirds of the cases (including Newtown), stray bullets killed 22, and drugs had some connection in six deaths. Seventeen of the kids were killed by their mother and another 17 by their father. More than half were killed in their own home or in the home of a relative. The Post has a list of the young victims and more details in a graphic here.
– She may have been speaking from her home in New Jersey, but Kellyanne Conway put the focus back on NYC's Trump Tower on Sunday. In an interview with the Bergen County Record, Conway was asked about President Trump's allegations that Trump Tower was wiretapped by the Obama administration, and her response was read by the Record as a suggestion that something "broader" may have been going on. The key lines: "What I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other now ... There was an article this week that talked about how you can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets—any number of different ways, microwaves that turn into cameras, etc. We know that that is just a fact of modern life." Cue headlines like these: "Kellyanne Conway Suggests That Obama Could Have Used Microwaves to Spy on Trump" (New York Magazine) "Yes, Kellyanne Conway just suggested Trump Tower could have been monitored through TVs and microwaves" (Washington Post) On Monday, Conway hit back at such coverage, tweeting, "response to Bergen Record was about surveillance articles in news & techniques generally, not about campaign. Headline just wrong." On Good Morning America, she said she "was making a comment about the articles from this past week [like this one] ... I wasn't making a suggestion about Trump Tower. These are two separate things." The Post still faults her for linking them, with Aaron Blake writing, "Her decision to invoke these kinds of surveillance techniques when asked about alleged monitoring of Trump Tower by the Obama administration is only going to [breathe] life into the story going forward." As for any alleged wiretapping of Trump Tower, "The answer is I don’t have any evidence and I’m very happy that the House intelligence committee are investigating," Conway said on GMA.
– Lone Survivor shocked Hollywood this weekend with a blistering $38.9 million debut—the best of any war film since 9/11, says the Hollywood Reporter. Analysts tell USA Today that the Mark Wahlberg drama, about a US military mission gone wrong, fared well in the heartland thanks to a patriotic ad campaign. "Instead of focusing on the downer of a story, Universal's marketing has played up the movie's themes of courage and brotherhood," says an expert from Box Office Mojo. Filling out the top five are Frozen ($15.1 million), The Wolf of Wall Street ($9 million), newcomer The Legend of Hercules and American Hustle (both $8.6 million). Meanwhile the darkly comedic August: Osage County, starring Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts, expanded to 905 screens for about $2.2 million, Entertainment Weekly reports. "The success of the film clearly speaks to the popularity of Meryl and Julia," said a Weinstein Company executive. The well-reviewed Her, about a writer who falls for his computer's operating system, grew to an extra 1,600 theaters and banked a soft $5 million. "This isn't about today's particular result, it's about feeding the film for upcoming weeks," said a Warner Bros. executive about the company's Oscar strategy.
– In case there was any doubt, Mitt Romney says he "can't imagine" endorsing Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee. The 2012 GOP presidential candidate says Trump, "is not a Republican in any sense of the word" and has "taken this campaign into a very deep gutter." Romney spoke to CNN's State of the Union in an interview broadcast Sunday, reports the AP, after strongly criticizing Trump in a speech Thursday at the University of Utah as dangerous and a phony. Trump that night had a difficult debate in which he made a crude sexual joke and was the target of multiple attacks from rivals Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. Romney continued, per Politico: "I do know that when my grandkids say, ‘What did you do to stop Donald Trump?’ I wanted to be able to say something. At this stage, we say all right, he could easily become the nominee, probably most likely to be the Republican nominee at this point, but I think there’s a better choice out there." Romney says he's not endorsing any candidate now, but might after March 15 when voters in some candidates' delegate-rich home states go to the polls. Rubio, who is from Florida, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich have said they'll stay in the race at least through that days' votes.
– Closing arguments are scheduled to begin Wednesday morning in the trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, per the AP. US District Judge TS Ellis III made the announcement after Manafort rested his case without calling witnesses or presenting evidence. Asked by Ellis whether he wished to testify in his defense, Manafort responded: "No, sir." (The exchange marked Manafort's first words during the trial, notes Politico.) The decision came after a more than two-hour hearing that was closed from the public. The judge has not given any explanation for the sealed proceeding, only noting that a transcript of it would become public after Manafort's case concludes. Prosecutors have spent more than two weeks presenting evidence they say shows how Manafort hid millions of dollars in offshore accounts from the IRS. They also say he later defrauded banks. The decision not to have Manafort testify came after Ellis rejected a defense motion to dismiss the government's case on the theory that it failed to meet its burden of proof. Specifically, Manafort is accused of hiding millions of dollars in income he received advising Ukrainian politicians. The defense has tried to blame Manafort's financial mistakes on his former assistant, Richard Gates.
– In 1966, a man named Jakiw Palij and his wife bought a home near LaGuardia Airport from a Polish Jewish couple who had survived the Holocaust, reports the AP. It's likely they never would have sold had they known Palij's past—he served as a Nazi prison guard at a death-camp in Poland, then lied about that in order to enter the US after the war, say Justice Department officials. On Monday, immigration officials rousted the 95-year-old from his Queens residence and shipped him to Germany to face possible war crimes charges, reports ABC News. Palij is believed to be the last Nazi war crimes suspect in the US who had been facing deportation. He is now in a German nursing home as prosecutors there try to figure out if they have enough evidence to convict, reports the Washington Post. Palij's Nazi history has been long known. A fellow guard at the Trawniki camp tipped off authorities back in 1989, per the AP, and investigators first confronted him a few years later. In 2001, he finally admitted he worked as a guard, but said he did so because he feared he'd be killed otherwise. "I know what they say, but I was never a collaborator," Palij told the New York Times back in 2003, the year his US citizenship was revoked. The US tried to deport him then, but Germany, Poland, Ukraine all refused to take him. The US says Monday's deportation took place after "extensive negotiations" with Germany. "Trawniki was a camp where people were trained to round up and murder the Jews in Poland, so there's certainly a basis for some sort of prosecution," said Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
– A state visit to Britain by President Trump later this year will go ahead, the prime minister's office said Monday, despite increasing calls for it to be canceled over his temporary ban on residents of seven majority-Muslim countries from traveling to the US, the AP reports. Furor over the travel ban has tarnished what British officials had considered a highly successful trip to Washington by Prime Minister Theresa May. She met Trump at the White House on Friday and announced he'd been invited to come to Britain later this year as Queen Elizabeth II's guest. Only hours after she'd left the White House, the president signed his executive order. May's Downing St. office said Monday "an invitation has been extended and accepted," and the visit is still on. No date has been announced for the state visit, which involves lavish pomp and ceremony, generally with a stay at Buckingham Palace. Britain's three biggest opposition parties have called for the visit's cancellation, and an online petition opposing it currently has 1.3 million signatures. Per the Telegraph, it's now the second-most popular petition on the government's website, behind the 4 million people asking for a 2nd EU referendum. The petition argues "Trump should be allowed to enter the UK in his capacity as head of the US Government, but he should not be invited to make an official State Visit because it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen." Any petition with more than 100,000 signatures must be considered for a debate in Parliament, though not a binding vote. Protests against the ban are planned Monday in London.
– Gossip outlets were abuzz this week with the news that Ian McKellen, aka Gandalf and/or Magneto, has prostate cancer—but now his agent says that isn't so. McKellen apparently told the Daily Mirror, in an article published Monday, that he's had the disease "for six or seven years," adding that "if it is contained in the prostate it's no big deal." But his agent tells ABC News the actor doesn't actually have prostate cancer, and says the report "was taken out of context and from an interview from years ago." A rep for McKellen tells the Huffington Post the actor will release a statement on Twitter this afternoon to clear up the "many different versions of the story out there."
– Stocks in the US and Europe skidded as investors worried about the financial stability of Turkey and how it might affect the global financial system. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 196 points, or 0.8%, to 25,313, per the AP. The Nasdaq composite fell 52 points to 7,839, and the S&P 500 index fell 20 points to 2,833. A Turkish official, meanwhile, says President Trump's decision to double tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum imports, which he announced on Twitter, lacked "state seriousness." It's the latest development in souring relations: The US slapped sanctions on two Turkish officials earlier this month over a detained American pastor. As for the markets, investors sold stocks and bought US dollars and government bonds Friday. That sent bond yields lower, which hurts US banks by driving down rates on mortgages and other loans. JPMorgan Chase lost 1%. The dollar also rose against other currencies as the Turkish lira nosedived. Major exporters like technology, basic materials, and industrial companies sank.
– If you're drinking diet soda or consuming other products with artificial sweeteners to cut your risk of obesity and diabetes, a new study published in Nature has some bad news: You might be doing more harm than good. Researchers found that sweeteners such as saccharin, sucralose, and aspartame can interact in a complex way with bacteria in our gut and lead to higher blood-sugar levels, reports the Wall Street Journal. Scientists say studies on both mice and people back up the assertion, though the findings may not apply to all. In one of the human experiments, for example, researchers gave foods with such sweeteners to seven people who normally never consumed them and found that four of the subjects had markedly higher blood-sugar levels in just four days. "In other words: Some people are more susceptible to the effects of artificial sweetener than others," explains the Verge. It all depends, apparently, on your particular microbiome, which the Washington Post describes as the "vast and enigmatic ecosystem of bacteria in our guts." The sweetener industry is already disputing the research, but "the scope of our discovery is cause for a public reassessment of the massive and unsupervised use of artificial sweeteners," says a study co-author at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science. Far more research is needed before it's definitive, but NPR grabs this quote from the director of the Human Microbiome Program at New York University: "I can just tell you ... as a middle-aged man who's concerned about his diet and his waistline—and [as] somebody who drinks diet soda—I didn't drink any yesterday." (Meanwhile, US bellies are getting bigger.)
– A nearly unthinkable killing unfolded on the streets of Taipei, Taiwan, on Monday, when a man beheaded a 4-year-old girl in full view of her mother. It appears to have been a random attack, and the 33-year-old suspect has a history of mental issues, reports the Taipei Times. The victim has been identified only by her surname, Liu, and by her nickname, "Little Lightbulb," or "Little Lantern." She and her mom were on their way to a subway station to meet her grandfather and two siblings for lunch when the attack occurred. The girl was on a bike ahead of her mother, and she was struggling to get up on the sidewalk when the man approached her. The girl's mother assumed he was going to help, but then he began attacking the girl with a cleaver. The mother and bystanders ran to the spot but were unable to pull him away in time. “I never thought this society was so dangerous,” said the girl's mother. "I will never see her again, and she will never see her brother and sister again.” Police arrested Wang Ching-yu, who had previously sought treatment for mental illness after fights with his family and has drug-related arrests on his record, reports AFP. His father describes the unemployed man as mentally unstable, reports the South China Morning Post. A mob of people confronted Wang as police were escorting him from a local precinct with shouts of "kill him," forcing officers to return him inside. In the wake of the attack, lawmakers promised to consider legislation ensuring the death penalty for those who kill children, or at least life in prison if mental illness is involved.
– A grim work-related death out of California's Wine Country, where a Napa man working at Beaucanon Winery's Deconinck Vineyards got pulled into a grape harvesting machine with fatal results. KTVU identifies the victim as Leon Marcelo Lua, 49. The San Francisco Chronicle reports his clothing got caught in the machine on Monday afternoon and he became stuck; CBS San Francisco reports he was working on the ground next to the machine at the time of the incident. About 80% of the state's grapes were harvested by machine last year, making the use of mechanical harvesting quite common. KTVU counts it as the fourth winery worker death in the region since 2016. (This workplace accident involved a wood chipper.)
– On the same day he acted on net neutrality, California Gov. Jerry Brown made another big move. Acknowledging "potential flaws" that may prove "fatal," California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law Sunday a bill mandating publicly traded companies in his state include women on their boards of directors, the AP reports. At least one woman must be on the board of each such company by the end of 2019; by the end of July 2021, at least two women must make up each five-person board, while boards with six or more members must include at least three women directors, per the Los Angeles Times. Companies that don't adhere to the new rules face stiff penalties: $100,000 for a first-time offense, $300,000 thereafter. Per the two Democratic state senators who introduced the bill, about 25% of California's publicly traded companies currently don't have a woman on their boards. "Given all the special privileges that corporations have enjoyed for so long, it's high time corporate boards include the people who constitute more than half the 'persons' in America," Brown said in a message accompanying the signing. Legal concerns have been brought up, especially with regards to discrimination, but Brown noted in his signing message that "recent events in Washington, DC—and beyond—make it crystal clear that many are not getting the message" on gender parity. Brown cc'ed his letter to the US Senate Judiciary Committee, which the Times notes "has advanced Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court to the full Senate despite" allegations of sexual assault.
– It has been a month since Tennessee teacher Tad Cummins disappeared with 15-year-old student Elizabeth Thomas—long enough for the 50-year-old to need a refill of the medication he takes to control his blood pressure. Maury County District Attorney Brent Cooper has asked pharmacists to watch out for customers who look like Cummins or Thomas in case they surface to refill his prescription, reports ABC News. "We knew he was probably due for a refill and there was a good chance he would refill that or try to," the DA says. "If they are in Mexico, he could probably buy them without a prescription." Cummins is wanted on charges including kidnapping and sexual contact with a minor. Cooper tells WKRN that Cummins left a note for his wife the day he disappeared with the teen, saying he had a job interview and would be back later. The teacher, whose wife has filed for divorce, was apparently trying to buy himself time and throw investigators off the trail, the DA says. Cooper, who says he is willing to jeopardize the criminal case if it means getting Thomas home safely, has urged the teen to at least borrow somebody's phone and reassure people that she is OK, Fox 17 reports. "At some point, we're going to find them through good police work or a lucky break," the DA says. "We'll take either one." The only confirmed sighting of the two was at an Oklahoma City Walmart two days after they disappeared.
– Utah, Ohio, and Canada might soon be dotted with palm trees—because welcome to climate change. Following a 2007 study that found palm trees in the foothills of the Swiss Alps, an international team of researchers set out to learn how cold is too cold for palm trees. Upon surveying global data, they determined most palm species (there are 2,500) grow successfully in the wild if a region's coldest month is above 41.36 degrees Fahrenheit on average, per Atlas Obscura. A handful of cold-tolerant palms, like the windmill palm, however, can grow in areas with a coldest month temperature above 36 degrees on average. With an average temp of 34 degrees in January, Washington, DC, isn't quite there, researchers say, but they note it could warm enough "in the coming decades" to allow palms to flourish, reports Weather.com. The same goes for the Northeast, Northwest, parts of Canada, and other parts of the world that have long been too cold for palms. "In all of these areas palms in people's gardens are flowering and setting fruit," study co-author David Greenwood says, per Earther. But "just because you can grow a windmill palm or another cold-tolerant palm in your yard in Utah, British Columbia, or Ohio, doesn't mean that species can colonize the nearby woods." For that to happen, seedlings—which are less tolerant of the cold than adult plants—must be able to survive their first winter, and that will take "a little bit more warming," Greenwood says. The study in Scientific Reports also looked at palms in the fossil record, noting their presence suggests a minimum temperature of roughly 36 degrees. (Los Angeles is losing its palm trees.)
– The White House was briefly locked down yesterday after a car followed a motorcade carrying President Obama's daughters into a restricted area. It was stopped just feet away from the White House's northwest gate and the driver was arrested and charged with unlawful entry, reports the AP. The driver, identified as Mathew Evan Goldstein, had a pass for the Treasury building next door, the New York Daily News reports. The Secret Service says nothing dangerous was found in the car and it's not clear why Goldstein entered the secure area.
– A team of researchers has made a sure-to-be controversial breakthrough in both stem cell and cloning research, creating stem cells from two adults using cloning techniques. The researchers took DNA from skin cells from two men, aged 35 and 75, and injected it into unfertilized eggs whose DNA had been removed, NBC News explains. They then zapped the eggs with electricity to coax them into dividing until they became early-stage embryos, which were then used to make embryonic stem cells—with DNA identical to the donors. In theory, the technique could be used to produce tissue perfectly suited to patients. The technique has been carried out successfully once before, but using cells from infants. "If you can't do this with adult cells, it is of limited value," a study co-author tells the Wall Street Journal, because there are more diseases the therapy can treat for adults. What the research paper leaves unsaid is that this is also a breakthrough in human cloning, the Washington Post points out. While the very early-stage embryos might not be viable in a womb, the prospect is now closer.
– Netflix released the trailer today for its Mitt Romney documentary airing next month, and "we get a glimpse of the candidate his aides wish the public had gotten to see more," observes Emma Roller at Slate. That is: funny, droll, emotional, and human. It opens with a shot from election night as Romney checks his phone. "I can't believe you're going to lose," says one of his sons. "What do you think you say in a concession speech?" Romney asks. Then he breaks the tension: "By the way, does someone have the number for the president? I hadn't thought about that," he says while laughing. The trailer also shows Romney referring to himself dryly as the "flipping Mormon" and ironing a shirt he's wearing at the time. MITT, directed by family friend Greg Whiteley, debuts on Jan. 24, notes Business Insider.
– Apple might have a new version of the iPhone on store shelves this summer, reports the Wall Street Journal. The company plans to start production this quarter, though details are scarce on what, if any, major changes are in store. The iPhone 5 has been out since last September. The Journal's sources also say that Apple is separately pushing ahead with plans for a cheaper version of the iPhone—using a less expensive casing, for one thing—and that could be out in the summer as well. Both stories qualify as rumors, but the Verge notes that the Journal has a solid track record when it comes to Apple scoops.
– For years, marijuana growers have approached Anita Thompson, the widow of Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, to put her late husband's name on their weed. "I always ended up saying no because it's the same story every time: somebody wants to slap Hunter's name on their strain," she tells the Aspen Times. Well she may have sorted out a win-win for herself and weed-loving Gonzo fans; she's found what she writes on Facebook is a "legal method to extract the DNA from Hunter's personal marijuana and hashish that I saved for 12 to 15 years." Now, she says, she's working to make those strains available in states where it's legal. Working from Owl Farm, Thompson's longtime retreat in Woody Creek, Colo., his widow also has plans for major renovations, including setting up a museum and writer's retreat. She says that while she was initially trying to focus on her husband's work in the aftermath of his 2005 suicide, she now feels it's less "risky" to "talk more openly about his lifestyle." Indeed the writer did. Not only did he write openly about his own use of many different drugs, he once proclaimed, as the Guardian reports, that he had always loved marijuana: "It has been a source of joy and comfort to me for many years. And I still think of it as a basic staple of life, along with beer and ice and grapefruits—and millions of Americans agree with me." (Thompson also left his widow his sperm.)
– The United Arab Emirates has officially opened a pipeline that gives the oil-exporting Persian Gulf nation some protection from the Gulf's political woes. The 236-mile Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline cuts through rugged terrain to reach Fujairah on the UAE's Indian Ocean coast, reports the BBC. The pipeline allows the UAE to bypass the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf, which Iran has repeatedly threatened to close in retaliation for sanctions. The pipeline is designed to carry 1.5 million barrels of crude oil a day but that amount could be expanded if Iran makes good on its threat to close the strategic waterway. The US ambassador to the UAE was present at the pipeline's inauguration and called it "a historic step in establishing multiple routes for the vital flow of oil from the Arabian Peninsula," reports the AP. Saudi Arabia is also working on alternative ways to get its oil out of the country.
– Federal prosecutors have charged Theranos Inc. founder Elizabeth Holmes and former president and COO Ramesh Balwani with two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and nine counts of wire fraud, reports the Wall Street Journal. They allege Holmes and Balwani defrauded investors, doctors, and patients out of millions of dollars. The indictments are the culmination of a 2½ year investigation into the blood-testing company. Theranos is a cautionary tale for red-hot startups. Once lauded as the youngest self-made female billionaire, Holmes sold investors on unproven claims that the company’s devices could test for conditions such as cancer and cholesterol with just a pinprick of blood, reports BBC. If convicted Holmes and Balwani face up to 20 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and restitution, per CNN. The Wall Street Journal first sounded an alarm about the company in a series of articles beginning in October 2015. They found that Theranos’s much-hyped blood-testing technology was unreliable, and in fact the company relied mostly on commercial products purchased from other companies. Compounding the problem, the company altered the products they purchased in ways that compromised the accuracy of the testing results. Prosecutors say Holmes, 34, and Balwani, 53, knew their product was faulty. Eventually, the company was forced to void or correct nearly a million test results and reimburse tens of thousands of customers. Theranos is nearing the liquidation stage. Fortress Investment Group, which loaned Theranos $65 million last year, is expected to seize the company’s assets soon.
– Always check your pockets. That's the message Bob Hoffman learned the hard way after his wife donated one of his old shirts—and $8,000 he had stuffed in a pocket. The man from Long Beach, Calif., was keeping the secret stash to surprise his wife, Linda, with a dream trip to Italy after he retired in 2018, the Orange County Register reports. For six years, Hoffman, 65, had been padding the wad, which he had kept in a bank account. He withdrew the cash earlier this month with the intention of helping out a relative who had fallen on hard times. In the meantime, he tucked in an envelope in the pocket of an orange shirt deep in his closet. Then he forgot about it until he had another $100 to contribute. Hoffman remembered that two days earlier his wife was making a Goodwill run and he helpfully offered to donate a bunch of old shirts. In the pile was the cash-stuffed orange shirt. Hoffman confessed his botched romantic plan to his wife, and the pair raced to the charity shop. But there no trace of the shirt. "Bob is an extremely strong human being," Linda Hoffman tells the Register. "I don’t want to hurt his male ego ... but he was crying." They went home and prayed. The next morning at 7:30 a phone call restored their faith in humanity. A Goodwill worker searching the warehouse found a bin of men's shirts—including an orange one. The couple recovered the cash and offered a fat reward. Goodwill refused. The Hoffmanns compromised and footed a pizza party for the staff. "What touched our hearts the most is how honest they were," Linda Hoffman tells ABC 7.
– Remember the "Rape of Nanking," which saw Japanese troops kill up to 300,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians, according to Chinese numbers, in 1937? Well the word from Naoki Hyakuta—newly-appointed to the board of governors of Japan's state broadcaster, known as NHK, and a personal friend of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe—is that it ... never happened. In fact, Americans invented it to conceal their own war crimes, like the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nationalist writer said this week. And the US embassy in Tokyo is none too pleased. "We hope that people in positions of responsibility in Japan and elsewhere would seek to avoid comments that inflame tensions in the region," a spokesperson tells Time, calling Hyakuta's suggestion "preposterous." Tensions are certainly mounting. Last week, NHK's new chairman said all countries involved in World War II used a system of forced prostitution, another claim US officials quickly and firmly denied. All this, plus recent nationalist appointments of "Abe's cronies" to NHK's board, shows a concerted effort to remodel Japan as the real victim of World War II, a professor of Asian studies explains. “What they don’t realize is that the right-wing revisionists are not convincing many people in Japan, and they are not convincing people outside Japan." China's Foreign Ministry has chimed in, per Reuters, noting, "A handful of people in Japan have tried to blot out, cover up, and distort ... history. ... The international community should be highly vigilant at this."
– The Anthem hack that exposed 80 million Americans' data bears "fingerprints" of a nation-state, and investigators are chasing evidence that that nation-state is China, reports Bloomberg. And the attackers aren't necessarily after a credit-card shopping spree: Rather, security experts and government officials say that it appears to be part of an overarching strategy aimed at developing a deep catalog of the data of certain Americans—and defense contractors and government workers appear to be prime targets. "This goes well beyond trying to access health-care records," says a VP of a cybersecurity firm. "If you have a rich database of proclivities, health concerns, and other personal information, it looks, from a Chinese intelligence perspective, as a way to augment human collection." The White House's own chief adviser on cybersecurity said he was among those whose data was compromised; Anthem also insures Boeing and other defense contractors, notes Bloomberg. Sources close to the investigation—which is being run by the FBI and FireEye—say that the techniques and malicious code have near-exclusive ties to China, reports the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, the AP has a list of things hacking victims can do to protect themselves.
– An incident report from the University of Central Florida says the school has suspended a fraternity after a recording surfaced of at least one member chanting offensive statements about rape, per the Orlando Sentinel. "There's a brother yelling obscenities, like 'Let's rape some [expletives], rape some sluts' and then yelling, 'Rape' over and over again," the report indicates, noting the incident took place among four frat members on June 9 after some of them got home from a bar. In the recording, said to be acquired by Knight News, a male voice can also be heard shouting, "We're gonna rape 'em, who cares." The UCF report notes that a female who doesn't attend UCF recorded the incident while in the off-campus apartment of her boyfriend, a Sigma Nu member, the Huffington Post notes. That woman then gave it to a UCF student, who filed a complaint and said, per the report, "She sent me the videos because she felt that they may be able to help me in an open police case." That case may involve that of a UCF student who says she was sexually assaulted at the Sigma Nu frat house in October, per the Sentinel. Meanwhile, the director of the frat's national HQ issued a statement Friday about the recent recording, saying, "The words used by people in the recordings are disrespectful, despicable and vile. The Fraternity and University are investigating," the Huffington Post reports. A panel hearing will be held Thursday, where the students involved and the fraternity will find out their fate: Per the UCF student handbook, individual students could face anything from having to write a paper to expulsion, while Sigma Nu itself could receive sanctions, get kicked off campus, or even have its national charter revoked, the Huffington Post notes. (Sigma Nu was the frat Jon Hamm was in when he allegedly set a pledge's pants on fire.)
– A planned vote on Senate Republicans' overhaul of the tax code was called off Thursday night as they struggled to find 50 votes—and an extra $400 billion or so. Senators say deficit hawks led by Tennessee's Sen. Bob Corker have delayed the bill's progress by insisting it doesn't drive up the nation's deficit, Politico reports. Earlier Thursday, the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation released estimates saying that despite sweeping cuts, the tax overhaul wouldn't stimulate economic growth as much as earlier predicted, meaning it would add an estimated $1 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, reports the Washington Post. GOP leaders rewrote the $1.4 trillion tax bill behind closed doors in an effort to add $400 billion in revenue, changing it so that some tax cuts were rolled back after six years, the AP reports. Corker had suggested a "trigger" that would raise taxes if deficit targets were not met, but this was deemed to be against Senate procedural rules. Sen. Jeff Flake joined Corker as a deficit holdout while Sen. Ron Johnson demanded a better deal for "pass-through" businesses that pay tax under the individual code. With Senate leaders hoping for a final vote on the legislation Friday, Sen. Susan Collins is also seen as a potential holdout, though Sen. John McCain has given the overhaul the thumbs-up. Collins, unlike most of her colleagues, has said she is open to raising the proposed corporate tax rate above 20%. If the tax bill does make it through the Senate, the next step will be to try to reconcile with the House version in the hopes of handing President Trump a bill to sign before Christmas.
– If a proposed measure somehow makes its way into law, students in Kentucky could see a $2,500 reward for finding transgendered people in a bathroom that doesn't match their assigned sex. The bill targets school officials who allow transgendered students to use their preferred bathrooms—as well as officials who don't "take reasonable steps to prohibit the person encountered" from doing so, US News and World Report reports. In such cases, students could sue in state courts and win $2,500, plus more funds for psychological harm inflicted. The bill, sponsored by state senator CB Embry, was apparently spurred by a request from the Family Foundation of Kentucky; that group drafted it, he tells WBKO. The bill would also require "the best available accommodation" for transgendered people who are uncomfortable with single-sex bathrooms. Students, Embry says, are "certainly welcome to live their lives as they choose. If they want to dress as the opposite sex and the school is OK with that, that’s fine," he notes. The bill, he says, is aimed at preventing discomfort among other users of the bathrooms. Will it pass? It seems highly unlikely: Embry isn't aware of a single fellow lawmaker who supports the bill. What's more, notes the head of the Kentucky Fairness campaign, the bill "is in direct violation of Title IX, the law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in schools." Embry does, however, point to one person who apparently supports it. "I have a friend, and we can all say these things, who is a homosexual and she agrees that she doesn’t want men in her bathroom."
– In what the City of Tallahassee calls "a gut-wrenching act of violence," a gunman killed two people and wounded five others at a yoga studio in Florida's capital before killing himself Friday evening, officials said. Tallahassee Police Chief Michael DeLeo told reporters Friday night that the man shot six people and pistol-whipped another after walking into the studio, which is part of a small Tallahassee shopping center, per the AP. The suspect then fatally shot himself, DeLeo said. The gunman has been IDed as Scott Paul Beierle, 40, of Deltona, Fla., per CNN. The two victims who were killed have also been identified, DeLeo said: Nancy Van Vessem, 61, and Maura Binkley, 21. DeLeo noted that the shooter acted alone and authorities are investigating possible motives. He declined to say what kind of gun the shooter had. Melissa Hutchinson said she helped treat a "profusely" bleeding man who rushed into a bar after the incident. She said three people from the studio ran in, and they were told there was an active shooter. "It was a shocking moment something happened like this," Hutchinson said. The people who came in were injured, including the bleeding man who was pistol-whipped while trying to stop the shooter. They told her the shooter kept coming in and out of the studio. When he loaded his gun, people started pounding the windows of the studio to warn people. Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who's the Democratic nominee for governor, tweeted he's breaking off the campaign trail to return to Tallahassee. City Commissioner Scott Maddox was on the scene and said on Facebook, "In my public service career I have had to be on some bad scenes. This is the worst. Please pray."
– Black Friday is so 2014. That's the gist of Amazon's announcement of Prime Day, a "global shopping event, offering more deals than Black Friday" only to Prime members to celebrate its 20th anniversary next week, reports CNNMoney. "Step Aside Black Friday—Meet Prime Day" is the header of today's gently trash-talking press release, deeming July 15 the day when new and existing members in the US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Japan, Canada, and Austria will be able to take advantage of said deals starting at midnight, with new bargains popping up as often as every 10 minutes. "Members tell us every day how much they love Prime and we will keep making it better," the VP of Amazon Prime promises. TechCrunch notes that Amazon's swagger doesn't specify if by "more deals than Black Friday" it means if there will be more deals quantity-wise, if the value of the deals will surpass that of the day after Thanksgiving, or "if it hopes Prime Day eventually trumps Black Friday as each year's main celebration of consumerism." The site adds, though, that Amazon has definitely had a significant effect on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday by reducing prices on 80 million or so of its products (which, subsequently, put more pressure on competitors). If you're not a Prime member and aren't sure yet if you want to cough up the $99 yearly membership, the company is offering a free 30-day trial so you can take part in Prime Day. The big question: Is this a one-off, or is Amazon planning on celebrating Prime Day every year? A spokeswoman says the company "doesn't have any future plans to share" that information, per CNET. (Amazon is still trying to give flight to its drones plan.)
– Taylor Swift called out the Princeton Review this week for misquoting her lyrics and accusing her of using bad grammar, and yesterday the test prep company told MTV that, while it's sorry for the misquote, it stands by the poor-grammar claim. The "Fifteen" lyric, as quoted in the SAT prep book, was: "Somebody tells you they love you, you got to believe 'em." The actual lyric, "Somebody tells you they love you, you're gonna believe them," is equally wrong, says a Princeton Review rep. "If we look at the whole sentence, it starts off with 'somebody,' and ‘somebody,' as you know, is a singular pronoun and if it's singular, the rest of the sentence has to be singular," he explains. So the grammatically correct version of the lyric would be: "Somebody tells you he/she loves you, you're gonna believe him/her" or "Some people tell you they love you, you're gonna believe them." Even so, Princeton Review feels bad enough about the misquote that it tweeted yesterday, "Sorry @taylorswift13! We'll make it up to you. Pick a #grammar lover fan. 2 tickets to a U.S. show on us!" (Who's Swift's latest rumored boy toy? Click to find out.)
– BlackBerry is betting its bottom dollar on the BlackBerry Z10, the first phone to bear its radically redesigned new BlackBerry 10 OS. So how does it stack up? Critics generally like it, but worry that it's not enough to save the company. Here's what people are saying: David Pogue used to think BlackBerry was doomed. "I was wrong," he writes in today's New York Times. The Z10 is "lovely, fast, and efficient, bristling with fresh, useful ideas." It may lack Blackberry's signature physical keyboard, but its "mind-bogglingly clever typing system," which positions word predictions over the next letter you'd naturally type is "freaky and brilliant and very, very fast." The package is good enough to give BlackBerry a fighting chance. "On the other hand, wow, is this horse late to the race." "I would expect the handset to mostly appeal to the legions of BlackBerry fans that, judging by the pre-launch interest, are still out there," writes Edward Baig at USA Today. "BlackBerry very much has its bread-and-butter business customers in its sights," with excellent security features, and a pre-installed Documents to Go app that can create, edit, and view Microsoft Office and PDF files. But the new "user interface is so different that it will seem foreign to longtime BlackBerry users," warns Walt Mossberg, who seems generally unimpressed in the Wall Street Journal. "It worked fine in my tests, but I found it a work in progress," lacking its competitors' app selection, cloud ecosystems, and other features. "In the most important ways, everything comes together: a lovely HD screen, a fast processor, a camera (with tricks!) that's good enough to stand alongside the big boys," CNET's editors write. But "the Z10's unintuitive gesture paradigm creates a learning curve, and a long list of OS inefficiencies and omissions sour the experience."
– If you've wondered why you nosh like crazy after a night of tossing and turning, scientists think they've figured it out: Your brain may compensate for the lack of sleep by releasing chemicals similar to those that pot smokers breathe in, resulting in the tired person's version of the "munchies," NBC News reports. In the study published in the journal Sleep, a University of Chicago team led by Dr. Erin Hanlon found that blood levels of an endocannabinoid known as 2-arachidonoylglycerol (aka 2-AG)—a chemical produced in the brain that's similar to those found in pot and that typically appears in the blood at peak levels in the afternoon and stays low overnight—actually kept rising after the afternoon spike and remained high all evening in subjects who were sleep-deprived. Not only did the drowsy participants find it harder to resist nibbling, they chose not-so-healthy snacks. People who use marijuana and overeat also "tend to eat things that are yummy and rewarding," Hanlon says. In this admittedly small study (14 people in their 20s), the subjects camped out for four days at a time at a sleep center, with some volunteers allowed to doze for 8.5 hours a night while others only got 4.5 hours. On the fifth day, the subjects' first meal was delayed until 3pm, followed by unlimited snacks, then a second meal at 7:30pm. All subjects gorged during the first meal, taking in around 2,000 calories each, but the subjects with less shut-eye ate 1,000 more calories during the rest of the day (and mostly salty or sweet junk food); the rested subjects consumed just 600 more calories. Some of the tired subjects had trouble resisting these "reward" foods even when full, per the Guardian. "If you have a Snickers bar, and you've had enough sleep, you can control your natural response," Hanlon tells NBC. "But if you're sleep-deprived, your hedonic drive for certain foods gets stronger, and your ability to resist them may be impaired, so you are more likely to eat it. Do that again and again, and you pack on the pounds." (Here's something else that can have a similar effect.)
– Strange sounds emanating from a mysterious building in the dead of night. White cars following families as they walk their dogs nearby. Science fiction movie? No, just Apple's latest project. Residents of Sunnyvale, Calif., who live near a complex of buildings Apple started occupying in 2014 tell the San Jose Mercury News it's clear something is going on at the complex, where the sheet metal fences are 12 feet high and security is intense, but no one knows what. One local says he hears "bangs," "thumps," and beeping (like a truck when it backs up) in the wee hours; another says he hears what sounds like a person "waving around" a big piece of sheet metal. Both say there's also sometimes an odd whine or hum that increases in pitch (ABC 7 describes it as sounding like "some type of industrial machine ramping up") and is "loud enough to wake you." One family describes being followed by the aforementioned white Priuses when they walk their dogs near the complex, and say that if they get too close, they're "intercepted" by security guards who use clipboards to hide their shirt logos. What does Apple have to say? "Yeah, no, we're not going to provide an official response," says a rep. But clues, including two recent permit documents describing a "repair garage" and an "auto work area" inside the complex, suggest Apple might be working on a car, likely some sort of high-tech automobile (electric or self-driving, perhaps). Prior reports on the noises described some as sounding like "motors." Asked about the permits, the rep did confirm that Apple has, in the past, worked on projects related to cars. But the people who applied for the aforementioned permits wouldn't comment on what exactly they were for, and not much else is known. (Yeah, it's probably a car.)
– Good news for those who keep meaning to exercise, but can never seem to find the time: If you can manage a few minutes of running a day—even going slowly—you may cut your risk of death from cardiovascular disease. So suggests a new, 15-year study of more than 55,000 adults. Researchers found that the risk of death from any cause among runners in the group was 30% lower than the risk among non-runners; runners also faced a 45% lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease, according to a press release. The fascinating part: "The benefits were the same no matter how long, far, frequently, or fast participants reported running," the release notes. Nor did a person's sex, age, or body mass index matter, and even smokers saw the same benefits. Runners lived an average of three years longer than non-runners. The study prompts the researchers to suggest that running should be promoted as seriously as smoking and obesity are discouraged. Researchers do, however, note a caveat: The study doesn't prove that running causes longer life, and it's possible—despite efforts to control for outside factors—that those who run are just healthier in general, WebMD adds. (But be careful: Earlier this year, another study found that running too much could kill you sooner.)
– Some 82 elderly South Koreans, in their Sunday best, traveled by bus into North Korea today where they met with relatives they hadn't seen in 60 years, and—at an average age of 84—likely will never see again, the Washington Post reports. The event marked the start of a six-day family reunion between the two Koreas, the first since 2010. It almost didn't happen—North Korea threatened to pull out a day after the reunions were announced—but talks last week seem to have calmed concerns, allowing fathers to reunite with daughters, and brothers and sisters to exchange small gifts of clothing, medicine, and food, after having no communication since the Korean War, the BBC notes. The South Korean participants, who gathered along with 58 other family members, were chosen by computer-generated lottery from a waiting list of more than 70,000, but some were lucky to make it at all. Many were in wheelchairs and one 91-year-old man was so frail, he came in an ambulance. Upon seeing their relatives—180 North Koreans attended, according to reports—some fell to the ground and cried, others held hands and told family stories over old photographs. "It's hard for people to understand what it's like when you've been separated so long," a South Korean man told the BBC before he left. "All that was missing in my life was my brother, and now that I can see him again, I'd have no regrets whatsoever if I were to die tomorrow."
– Can a passenger with a laptop really electronically hijack a plane via its in-flight entertainment system? That's what security researcher Chris Roberts has confessed to doing, according to an FBI search warrant application, but there's little to indicate that such a thing is possible. A senior law enforcement source tells USA Today that while he won't comment on the specific case, "there is no credible information to suggest an airplane's flight control system can be accessed or manipulated from its in-flight entertainment system. Nevertheless, attempting to tamper with the flight control systems of aircraft is illegal and any such attempts will be taken seriously by law." Roberts—who allegedly claimed he was able to make the plane briefly fly sideways—tells Forbes he has been advised to stay quiet about the case, though he adds that software that can be accessed through entertainment systems is typically "for monitoring only, not influencing." Earlier, he told Wired that the information about the sideways flying was "one paragraph out of a lot of discussions, so there is context that is obviously missing, which obviously I can't say anything about." Boeing appears to agree that such a feat is impossible, at least on its aircraft: Entertainment systems are by design isolated "from the other systems on airplanes performing critical and essential functions," a rep tells CNET, which notes that Roberts has not been charged with any crime. Click for more on Roberts' claims about the sideways-flying plane.
– The asteroid Apophis, whose reported threat to our planet has attracted widespread attention, is even larger than scientists believed, according to new images. Europe's Herschel Space Observatory says the asteroid is some 1,066 feet feet wide, some 20% wider than previously thought. That "translates into a 75% increase in our estimates of the asteroid's volume or mass," says the study's leader. Fortunately, we survived yesterday's passage, and reports that there was a 2.7% chance it would hit Earth in 2029 have been debunked. But scientists are still investigating the asteroid, which will pass near us again in 2036, LiveScience notes. At that point, there remains a one-in-200,000 chance of a collision, the BBC reports. "There is a small region of space—something we call a keyhole—and if it passes through that keyhole in 2029, it will come back and hit us on 13 April in 2036," says a scientist. It would carry 100 times the energy of our biggest nuclear weapons, he adds. "While there is no cause for alarm, similarly there is no room for complacency," writes Stuart Clark at the Guardian, which has video.
– The Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs are ill-prepared to handle a looming PTSD epidemic—or even the cases they already have, according to a 300-page study released today. Experts from the Institute of Medicine, under direction from Congress, found that just 53% of veterans whose primary diagnosis was PTSD got the recommended eight sessions of psychotherapy over a 14-week stretch last year, well short of the VA's 67% target, the AP reports. The Pentagon isn't doing much better; its programs for treating active-duty PTSD sufferers are "ad hoc, incremental, and crisis-driven, with little planning devoted to the development of a long-range approach," the report concluded. What's more, neither department is effectively measuring whether their PTSD programs—which cost $3.3 billion in 2012—are actually working. "We found it surprising that no PTSD outcome measures are used consistently," one epidemiologist tells NBC News. All of which is troubling, because experts expect the steady stream of diagnoses to continue. "We are at the cusp of a wave of PTSD," the committee's chair tells USA Today.
– Based on the 13.3 million viewers who watched this week’s much-anticipated “Britney Spears episode,” everyone loves Glee—everyone, that is, except Jace Lacob. “As the show piles on the musical numbers, gimmicky guest stars, and theme episodes,” he writes in the Daily Beast, “plot, characterization, and logic fly out the window.” Forget “serialization,” “three-dimensional characters,” or “a consistent narrative experience:” Glee is simply “a music single-delivery mechanism … the very definition of mass-produced entertainment that’s intended to distract even as it asks you to hit download on iTunes.” Its “characters are still little more than archetypes”—sometimes offensively so, as in the case of one Jewish supporting character whose characterization “borders on the anti-Semitic.” The “massive musical set pieces” that distract you from the lack of character or plot development “seem like coldly calculated viral videos, designed to rapidly spread across the Internet.” But that’s probably why people love Glee, with its never-ending covers of songs that are “part of the pop-culture lexicon already.” To Lacob, it’s just “a cottage industry of mass-produced knockoffs.” (If, after reading this, you're still obsessed with all things Glee, check out Lea Michele's near-topless photo shoot for Marie Claire.)
– Police have identified the shooter at a gaming tournament in Jacksonville, Florida, Sunday as 24-year-old David Katz of Baltimore. What they don't know is what prompted Katz to open fire in the "Madden 19" qualifying tournament, fatally shooting two fellow competitors and wounding nine others before killing himself. But perhaps this is part of it: The Los Angeles Times and and Jacksonville.com both report that Katz had been knocked out of the tournament before his shooting spree. Related coverage: Intense: One thing that has emerged about Katz is that he was seen as an intense competitor. The Baltimore Sun notes that an announcer introducing Katz at the Jacksonville tournament said this of him: “David Katz keeps to himself. He’s a man of business. … He’s not here to make friends.” Competitor Shane Kivlen tells the AP that "something was off about him." Former champ: This video shows Katz, playing as "Bread," winning a 2017 tournament, along with a subsequent interview. The Washington Post writes that his "thin face is clenched in a serious look" during competition, and his "face is again drained of emotion" during the interview, "his eyes roaming the floor as he answers questions." The Buffalo Bills congratulated Katz after the 2017 win with this tweet.
– Engineers are still gingerly trying to find a 37-year-old Florida man who disappeared into a sinkhole that opened up in his bedroom yesterday. Jeffrey Bush is presumed dead, and authorities say the sinkhole is so dangerous they can't risk simply sending searchers into it, reports AP. It's about 30 feet wide and 20 feet deep, but it's growing slowly and expected to collapse even more. "This is not your typical sinkhole," says one Tampa-area official. "This is a chasm. For that reason, we're being very deliberate." Bush's family is livid, especially his brother, Jeremy, who tried in vain to pull his brother out when the sinkhole suddenly appeared Thursday night. He had to be rescued himself by a firefighter. "I could swear I heard him hollering my name to help him," Jeremy tells the Tampa Bay Times. The newspaper says this is a "cover collapse sinkhole," the rarest and most dangerous kind because there's no warning. "You can almost envision a piece of Swiss cheese," explains one geologist, referring to the region's porous limestone.
– Tom Corbett likened gay marriage to incest today—and that was his attempt to walk back an earlier comment likening it to a union of children. In an interview with WHP-TV today, the Pennsylvania governor was asked about a state attorney's comments likening same-sex marriages to marriages involving 12-year-olds. Corbett has called the remarks inappropriate, but today he helpfully clarified: "It was an inappropriate analogy. I think a much better analogy would have been brother and sister, don't you?" Corbett flashed a pleased grin, while anchor Sherry Christian responded with an awkward laugh and a sidelong glance. "I'm gonna leave the comments up to you and your team," she said. Democrats aren't being as accommodating. The head of the Democratic Governors Association pounced on the remark, USA Today reports, calling it "an absurd comparison" that is "offensive and demeaning."
– Vivienne Westwood is known for her punk and new-wave style, and now also for her hygiene habits. The Guardian reports the 76-year-old British fashion designer was in Paris over the weekend for Fashion Week, and after her show put together with husband Andreas Kronthaler, Westwood was asked by reporters how she was able to keep looking so youthful. She offered what Vogue calls some "unorthodox advice." "Don't wash too much," she said, with Kronthaler jumping in with some TMI: "She only takes a bath every week. That's why she looks so radiant." Westwood has previously delved into her hygienic process, revealing that "normally at home I'm not used to the habit of a shower" and that "I just wash my bits and rush out in the morning and more often than not get in the bath after Andreas," per the Independent. The site adds she became a vegetarian partly because she was disgusted by the amount of water the meat industry wastes. At any rate, Westwood has apparently found her soulmate in Kronthaler, 51, who boasted on his own behalf to reporters that "I only wash once a month."
– American Airlines and New York authorities are investigating after a fetus was found in the lavatory of a plane that arrived at LaGuardia Airport from Charlotte, NC, on Monday. The plane was parked overnight before a cleaner discovered the fetus around 5am Tuesday, report CNN and Time. "As we continue to learn more about this tragic and sensitive situation, we are actively cooperating with law enforcement in their investigation," American Airlines says in a statement. The Queens District Attorney is investigating.
– Mitt Romney was supposed to be the prime target at tonight's ABC debate, but it didn't quite work out that way, writes Steve Peoples at AP. His rivals took some shots at him but squabbled among each other just as often. Romney, for his part, focused most of his fire at President Obama. ("His policies have made the recovery more tepid.") Romney "never appeared flustered," writes Michael D. Shear at the New York Times, and his display of "perfect calm" was tailor-made for a front-runner. "Shots so not fired," adds Elspeth Reeve at the Atlantic blog. Some notable moments: Paul-Santorum: Ron Paul accused Rick Santorum of being a "big-government person" who also was "corrupt" for taking lobbyists' money. Santorum called the corruption charge "ridiculous" and said his record was "pretty darn good." Santorum-Romney: Santorum called Romney a manager, not a leader. "Being a president is not a CEO. You've got to lead and inspire," he said. Romney also had to defend his work years ago at Bain Capital and said he helped create 100,000 jobs overall while there. (That's a tricky figure to verify, notes the Times.) Santorum-Romney II: Santorum called Romney's economic plan "not particularly bold," reports the Washington Post. He also objected to the term "middle class," saying, “There are no classes in America. We are a country that (doesn’t) allow for titles. ... That’s not the language that I’ll use as president. I’ll use the language of bringing people together.” Paul-Gingrich: Newt Gingrich bristled at an accusation from Paul that he took a deferment to avoid war. He said he was married with a child at the time. Paul followed up: "I was married and I had two kids and I went." Romney joke: "Contraception? It's working just fine. Leave it alone." Perry-Huntsman: Jon Huntsman called for bringing home US troops from Afghanistan and elsewhere, while Rick Perry said he would return them to Iraq as fast as possible.
– A Florida teacher accused of trading gummy bears for a kiss on the lips from a 10-year-old boy pleaded guilty Thursday, WPTV reports. Surveillance video from 28-year-old Brian Kornbluth's classroom at Somerset Academy in Boca Raton shows the kiss; after reviewing the video, police talked to the student's sister, who also said Kornbluth had kissed her at school, ClickOrlando reports. The school's principal had repositioned the surveillance camera to point at Kornbluth's desk after a teacher came to him with concerns about Kornbluth requesting that certain students be moved into his class; the principal ultimately reported the incident to police and Kornbluth was arrested in February. Kornbluth's lawyer says the boy initiated the kiss because he is familiar with Kornbluth, who had babysat him. She also says it's not fair to say he "lured" the boy with gummy bears, as he simply always has snacks on hand. She says Kornbluth decided to plead guilty because it's the "safest way for him to have a right to teach." In return for his guilty plea, authorities dropped a simple battery charge against him. He will be on probation for one year and must undergo a mental health evaluation and complete any recommended treatment. He has denied kissing the boy's sister.
– Just when you thought Hillary Clinton's email brouhaha had moved on to other things, the New York Times uncovers an old letter congressional investigators sent Clinton asking about her email use. In the letter dated Dec. 13, 2012, House Oversight Committee chair Darrell Issa explicitly asks whether the then-secretary of state "or any senior agency official ever used a personal email account to conduct official business" and requests that the accounts be identified. He also asks about "alias" accounts and text messages, CNN reports. Clinton never replied and left the State Department weeks later on Feb. 1, 2013. On March 27 of that year, the department described its policies for personal email use for Issa, as he had also requested. "Employees may use personal email on personal time for matters not directly related to official business, and any employee using personal email 'should make it clear that his or her personal email is not being used for official business,'" the State Department's assistant secretary for legislative affairs wrote. A rep refused to answer questions yesterday about why it avoided mentioning Clinton's email use. However, a Clinton aide says "her usage was widely known to the over 100 department and US government colleagues she emailed, as her address was visible on every email she sent." Issa's initial letter was part of an investigation spawned when administration and EPA officials were found to be using private accounts for government business.
– Martin Luther King day inspired an Occupy march on New York and more traditional remembrances across the US today. Among the events: Hundreds of Occupiers staged an "Occupy the Dream" march on Manhattan, stopping to chant, "The banks got bailed out, we got sold out." At least two protesters were arrested, MSNBC reports. "Dr. King dedicated the last months of his life to planning a campaign for the right of all to a decent-paying job," Occupy said in a statement. Schoolchildren played "We Shall Overcome" on violins at New York's African Burial Grounds, where Occupy started its protest, the New York Daily News reports. President Obama, Michelle, and daughter Malia built a reading nook at the library of a mostly black school in Washington, Reuters reports. "For us to be able to come together as a community ... that's ultimately what makes us the strongest, most extraordinary country on earth," the president said. At South Carolina's capitol building and the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, speakers denounced voter ID laws that they said would disenfranchise black voters.
– The offices at the US Embassy in Montenegro were closed for the night late Wednesday when the attack occurred: An unidentified man threw a grenade over the compound's wall and then took his own life using a second explosive device, reports the AP. He was the only casualty, and NPR reports no motive has been disclosed, nor is it clear if the intention was to carry out a suicide attack. A State Department rep says the building, located in the capital city of Podgorica, was not affected, with Radio Free Europe reporting the damage was limited to a crater caused by the explosive. Americans have been warned to steer clear of the embassy until further notice. The New York Times calls Montenegro "one of the world's youngest nations": It was once part of Yugoslavia and declared its independence from Serbia in 2006.
– A year after the World Health Organization announced it was on "high alert" over outbreaks of bird flu, China has confirmed the first human case of strain H7N4. Health officials say a 68-year-old woman who fell ill in Jiangsu province on Dec. 25 was infected with the strain, though she recovered after being admitted to the hospital on Jan. 1 and was released Jan. 22, per the Guardian. Officials haven't said whether there's an outbreak of H7N4 affecting poultry, but they note the woman was in contact with live poultry before developing symptoms, reports the South China Morning Post. H7N4 is one of nine known subtypes of H7 viruses, but unlike H7N2, H7N3, H7N7, and H7N9, it has never before been seen in humans. Though still rare, H7N9 is among the most deadly strains for humans, having killed at least 600—about 40% of those hospitalized—since 2013, reports Reuters. Viruses H5 (with a mortality rate higher than 50%) and H9 (only one recorded death) have also been reported in humans, per the CDC. Alerted to the H7N4 case on Wednesday, Hong Kong's Center for Health Protection issued a travel alert ahead of a weeklong holiday for the Chinese Lunar Year, which begins Friday. Visitors to mainland China "must avoid visiting wet markets, live poultry markets, or farms," a rep says. "They should also avoid purchasing live or freshly slaughtered poultry, and avoid touching poultry/birds or their droppings."
– Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin has no plans to take down the 6-foot-tall stone Ten Commandments monument from state Capitol grounds—despite a state Supreme Court ruling ordering just that, reports Reuters. Fallin says her attorney general is asking the high court to reconsider its 7-2 ruling, saying, per Tulsa World, "Oklahoma is a state where we respect the rule of law, and we will not ignore the state courts or their decisions. However, we are also a state with three co-equal branches of government," with her spokesman adding she wants those other sectors of government to weigh in. Part of Fallin's argument: Taxpayers aren't paying for it, and it's not much different from annual Christmas tree lightings held there or from Native American art displayed on government property, notes the Washington Post. "It is a privately funded tribute to historical events, not a taxpayer-funded endorsement of any religion, as some have alleged," she says, per CNN. Some lawmakers are even trying to pass a constitutional amendment to get around the ruling, with one rep saying "it is clear that we have a toxic provision in our state Constitution … written with discrimination in mind, [which] … like a malignant tumor, needs to be removed completely," per KFOR. The ACLU of Oklahoma doesn't agree with this stance, or Fallin's, calling her decision "political grandstanding," the Post notes. Meanwhile, at least three other groups are now vying for space on Capitol grounds: The Universal Society of Hinduism wants a Lord Hanuman monkey-god statue, and the Satanic Temple is looking to put up a bronze likeness of the goatlike idol Baphomet, the AP notes, while PETA wants a banner depicting vegetables hung at the Arkansas Capitol. Other groups looking for their own space at the Oklahoma Capitol include the Church of the Latter-Day Dude, created as an homage to The Big Lebowski, and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
– Alex Jones and his Infowars website have seen a crackdown this week from Apple, Facebook, Spotify, and YouTube, but Twitter still won't ban Jones' conspiracy-theory-laden content, which has been labeled by some of the other tech giants as "hate speech." CNN reports that on Tuesday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tried to explain why Jones is still getting a pass, noting he got that it was "hard for many" to understand Twitter's stance, but that Jones hadn't breached any of the site's rules. "We'll enforce if he does," Dorsey added. "And we'll continue to promote a healthy conversational environment by ensuring tweets aren't artificially amplified." He conceded Twitter had been "terrible at explaining our decisions in the past," noted Twitter will "hold Jones to the same standard" as other accounts, and put the onus on journalists to combat any conspiracy theories Jones may push. "If we succumb and simply react to outside pressure, rather than straightforward principles we enforce (and evolve) impartially regardless of political viewpoints, we become a service tha'ts constructed by our personal views that can swing in any direction. That's not us," he wrote. Dorsey's remarks didn't go over well, HuffPost reports, with many noting the site had suspended their own accounts for what they said were far less controversial posts. The Independent reports Twitter has even been putting accounts on lockdown recently for users who've been changing their screen names to "Elon Musk" to poke fun at the Tesla CEO. Twitter offered a statement to the Verge on that, noting that the Musk ban was to keep spam levels down.
– On Wednesday, the Intercept declared that calls for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be dissolved are becoming "more mainstream." It points out that at least 15 Democratic congressional candidates—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez among them—have platforms that call for de-funding or getting rid of the 15-year-old agency altogether. Now, nearly 20 ICE agents have warmed to a version of the idea. In a jargony four-page letter sent to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, some 19 ICE investigators propose that ICE be done away with, and that two distinct entities emerge. The letter explains ICE is made up of two distinct components: Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI); those signing the letter work in the latter section. The letter outlines "numerous reasons" why turning those into two standalone agencies would make sense, among them the low approval ratings that have surfaced in employee surveys. But their larger point is that their work is polluted by that of ERO, which detains and deports undocumented immigrants, while HSI has an "extraordinary global reach" and focuses on "transnational criminal organizations that facilitate cross border crimes" like drug smuggling and human trafficking. They say there is misunderstanding about what HSI does, and that the "political nature" of what ERO does has led local law enforcement in some cases to refuse to work with HSI under the misguided idea that it is involved in the "politics of civil immigration"; others partner so long as "ICE" isn't referenced in any public-facing materials. A senior ICE official tells the New York Times some of the letter's points "merit some discussion."
– In what might be the most incredible iPhone testimonial ever, a Texas man has revealed that his iPhone still works—an iPhone that happened to fall out of an airplane and tumble 9,300 feet into a pasture. Ben Wilson, 74, explains that he was en route from Houston to Kickapoo Airport midday Monday when a pressure change affected a door latch on the Beechcraft Bonanza plane. He saw his Wall Street Journal fly out the gap; when they landed, he realized his phone was MIA. The Find My iPhone app revealed it was alive and well some 90 miles away outside of Joplin, and Wilson—owner of Gas Corp. of America—and his VP of sales (who is also his stepson) set off from Wichita Falls to retrieve it on Tuesday. Their journey took them down a ranch road, over a fence, past a friendly donkey, and to a mesquite tree, reports the Times Record News. Beneath that tree was the phone, "in one piece, scratched a bit on the corners but it still worked," says Wilson. He tells NBC News the screen wasn't shattered, and only one element was missing: a protective case that contained an external battery. Wilson says he confirmed the distance his iPhone fell thanks to another bit of technology: the flight-tracking site FlightAware, which provided his altitude. (Another odd iPhone-related story: A man was arrested earlier this month for charging his iPhone on a London train.)
– Alzheimer's may be well on its way to being a detectable disease by way of a blood test. The BBC reports on the "major step forward": Researchers at King's College London studied differences in the blood of 1,148 people—476 with Alzheimer's, 220 with mild cognitive impairment, and 452 healthy controls. They zeroed in on blood proteins and out of 26, found 10 that were able to predict which patients suffering from mild cognitive impairment would develop Alzheimer's within the year, New Scientist explains. The predictions were 87% accurate. These proteins could help doctors develop a blood test that will identify future sufferers more quickly, with doctors indicating that a current hurdle to treating the disease is that symptoms can take a full decade to appear. Still, there is no cure. But as researcher Simon Lovestone points out, he has no option but to tell patients who are worried about what might be happening to them to come back in a year to see if things are worse. "That's grim," he says. Still, he downplays his findings, published in Alzheimer's & Dementia, a bit: "Lots of blood tests said to be the next big thing haven't come to anything—we have to replicate these results with larger numbers." (March saw the announcement of another potential Alzheimer's blood test that makes use of blood fats.)
– New York City's first baby with a Zika-related birth defect was born earlier this month, officials announced Friday. The New York Daily News reports the unidentified baby was born with microcephaly and subsequently tested positive for Zika. Its mother had recently traveled to an area were the virus is being spread by mosquitoes. New York City's deputy mayor of health and human services says the city has been preparing for this eventuality for months due to New York's many immigrants and international travelers. "We are working diligently to help both this mom and this baby," she says. The CDC says a dozen babies with Zika-related birth defects have been born in the US so far, according to NBC New York.
– Ananda Marchildon may have been Holland's Next Top Model, but to her former modeling agency she's just a "fat ass": The "almost anorexically skinny" model is suing Elite Model Management after it called her fat, dropped her a year before the end of her three-year contract, and refused to pay $85,000 of the $99,000 she was to receive for winning Holland's Next Top Model in 2008, reports the Telegraph. Elite allegedly dumped Marchildon because her hips were bigger than their max 35.4 inches, but Marchildon says that's just her genetics and she was still super-thin. (The Telegraph notes that the European average is 40.5 inches.) According to her lawyer, a rep for Elite told Marchildon that “although she has a nice face, she has a fat ass” and that “she never had it in her to become a top model because she was unsuitable for catwalk work.” But Elite says Marchildon simply could not get modeling jobs because of her size: "Couture clothing is made in one size only: (très très) petite. This is not something agencies can change," says a lawyer. Rosalinde Kikstra, Holland's Next Top Model's 2009 winner, is considering joining Marchildon's suit, reports Dutch News.
– Back in 2011, Iran captured a US stealth drone that had moved into its airspace from Afghanistan. The country says it's made a copy of the drone, and new footage allegedly shows it in flight for the first time, the AP reports. The video, shown on state TV, reveals a black aircraft soaring over a mountainous area. Perhaps unsurprisingly, an Iranian general says the country's version of the RQ-170 Sentinel is even better than the American one. Its "weight has remarkably become less, it consumes less fuel, its speed has been increased, and the duration that it can fly has improved a lot because of its enhanced body," the head of the Revolutionary Guards' aerospace division notes. Unlike the US version, the Iranian one contains no metal, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh says: "It helps to reduce its detectability by radars." Tehran plans to make several of the drones this year, which in Iran ends March 20; next year, it aims to mass-produce them, the general says. The flight occurred a few days ago, per Iran's PressTV, which has the clip, the Jerusalem Post reports. "The mini-stroke Americans suffered will be complete by watching this footage," Hajizadeh notes.
– It's a classic story of rags to riches (serious riches) to part-time coupon blogging to yet more riches: Kate Gosselin has landed a millionaire boyfriend. She's dating Jeff Prescott, COO and co-founder of a "microstock photography agency," whatever that is, called Dreamstime. "Jeff and Kate have known each other for over a year," but only recently started dating, a source tells Us. "They like each other." Prescott is 51, divorced, a father of three, and "very respectful" of 39-year-old Gosselin and her eight kids, the source says. Another source tells the magazine Prescott has not yet met said "Plus 8," but he did give them all Christmas presents. Click to see a photo of Prescott.
– Jeff Bezos is having a pretty good month, even by the standards of stratospherically wealthy tech tycoons. Last night, just days after the Amazon.com founder celebrated the company's 20th anniversary, he made $7 billion in under 45 minutes as the company's share price soared in after-hours trading, reports the Guardian. The 18% share price gain came after the company surprised analysts by reporting a large profit and a 26% rise in North American sales year-on-year, CNBC reports. Bezos is now the fifth-richest person in the world with an estimated fortune of $50.3 billion, according to Forbes. Amazon has now passed Walmart to become the highest-valued retail company in the world, and in a press release, Bezos lists many recent successes, including Prime Day, the establishment of Amazon Business and Amazon Mexico, and new agreements for solar and wind farms. But one glaring failure for Amazon appears to be its relationship with authors, the Guardian notes. Earlier this month, a group of authors including Ursula Le Guin and Malcolm Gladwell joined the American Booksellers Association in calling for the Department of Justice to investigate the firm's "abuse of its dominance in the world of books." (Last fall, analysts wondered how the company could rein in Bezos.)
– The Citadel, South Carolina's military college, has begun suspension proceedings after a photo surfaced online showing cadets wearing white clothing and white hoods, WCIV reports. A woman posted on social media late Wednesday that she was approached by a man, who was unknown to her, on a few social media sites and that he told her, "I always wanted a black girl." She ended up coming across the photos on his Snapchat feed, and wrote that she took a screenshot and shared it "because I was so offended." Numerous commenters have pointed out the resemblance to KKK members. The Citadel Minority-Alumni Facebook page re-shared the photos on Thursday and called on the administration to deal with the situation, and the president of the college released a statement on Facebook around the same time. Though he says in the statement that the seven cadets and one upperclassman pictured were reportedly "singing Christmas carols as part of a 'Ghosts of Christmas Past' skit," he calls the photos "offensive and disturbing" and "not consistent with our core values of honor, duty, and respect." An investigation is ongoing. A source tells WCIV all of the students have been identified, and that the incident happened in one of the school's barracks. The woman who posted the pictures originally says she removed them after being "threatened, harassed, and offered money from numerous Citadel Cadets to take it offline in order to not 'ruin their lives,'" and she got scared, but she later reposted the photos. New students at the school are trained by older students, and hazing has made headlines in the past, but a spokesperson tells the AP there's no evidence this incident was hazing.
– In what authorities say is a brazen first, poachers busted into an EU zoo and attacked a live animal. NBC News reports on the slaying of Vince, a rhinoceros who was found dead in his enclosure Tuesday morning by his keepers after perps broke into France's Thoiry Zoo overnight, put three bullets into the animal's head, then chainsawed his horn off, presumably to sell on the black market, the zoo's director tells the AP. Vince was a 4-year-old African rhino, a species that's seen a record decline in numbers of late due to poachers, per the World Wildlife Fund. Hacking marks on Vince's second horn suggest the suspect or suspects tried to cut off that one as well; they may not have had time to finish the job, or the tools they were using may not have worked on that horn. The Independent reports that rhino horns can command more than $35,000 when sold underground. "The whole staff is extremely shocked," the zoo wrote in a Tuesday morning Facebook post, which adds that the other two rhinos in the enclosure, 37-year-old Gracie and 5-year-old Bruno, "escaped the massacre." (One of the world's last "big tusker" elephants was killed this week.)
– The NFL suspended Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady for four games without pay today for his role in a scheme to deflate footballs used in the AFC title game. The league also fined the Patriots $1 million and took away two draft picks, including next years' first-round choice. The NFL also indefinitely suspended the two equipment staffers who carried out the plan, including one who called himself "The Deflator." The league cited the integrity of the game in handing down the punishment five days after a report said Brady "was at least generally aware" of plans by two Patriots employees to prepare the balls to his liking, below the league-mandated minimum of 12.5 pounds per square inch. Brady's agent says the star quarterback plan to appeal, and tells TMZ that the NFL "has a well-documented history of making poor disciplinary decisions." Out of the gate: Way unfair: "The NFL took deflate-gate very seriously," writes Frank Schwab at Yahoo! Sports. "That's a huge punishment considering there was no evidence Brady was directly involved and the Wells report said Patriots ownership and coach Bill Belichick weren't involved." On the other hand: "He has to hammer Brady," writes Gregg Doyel of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell at the Indianapolis Star. "The Wells report didn't implicate Brady for cheating in a regular-season game. ... This was the AFC championship, the catapult to the Super Bowl. And Brady rigged it, or at least he tried to." See how media pundits slammed Brady or how he reacted to the Wells report.
– Scottish researchers have some good news and bad news for those who do crosswords, Suduko, and similar puzzles. Such brain-training exercises will not prevent mental decline or ward off dementia, suggests their new study in the British Medical Journal. However, the researchers do see a benefit for puzzlers, making a subtle distinction in what they call the "use it or lose it" debate: Doing puzzles regularly throughout life seems to result in people having a "higher cognitive point from which to decline." The puzzlers just shouldn't expect the decline to be any slower once it begins, reports the BBC. The study looked at nearly 500 people born in 1936 who first took an intelligence test at age 11 and have participated in followup tests over the years, per the Aberdeen Evening Express. The researchers note that theirs is an observational study, not one that proves cause and effect. And as for the common practice of working puzzles into cognitive training programs for seniors, well, they can't hurt—"the intentions appear laudable with no apparent ill effects." They also note that the holidays are coming up, and they don't want their study to ruin any gifts such as a big Sudoko book or chess board. "If family and friends give you a disappointed look on opening their Christmas present, remind them that investment in intellectual activities throughout life could provide them with a higher cognitive point from which to decline," they advise. "Surely, this is as good a gift as any!" (Changes in your speech could offer a clue into mental decline.)
– Starting tomorrow, Starbucks across the sunbelt states will offer a new drink that's—get this—carbonated, USA Today reports. Baristas will be making Fizzio Handcrafted Sodas at rather noisy machines (that add ambiance, not annoyance, apparently) in ginger ale, lemon ale, and root beer flavors. They'll be caffeine-free, without additives or preservatives or high-fructose corn syrup, and cost about $2.45 for a "tall." So what's up? "We are changing the game in terms of how to get a carbonated drink," says Fizzio's brand manager. "Like what Starbucks did to coffee 40 years ago, we think we can do in the carbonation space." Starbucks is expecting only so-so growth from Fizzio sales, but hopes to lure health-conscious Millenials and other customers beyond the morning rush into lunchtime, reports BusinessWeek. Why now? Well, homemade softdrinks are popular these days, named the No. 1 beverage trend in a national survey of top chefs last year (although actual carbonated-drink sales have fallen in the US). The move also comes as Starbucks hikes prices on some drinks by up to 20 cents, reports USA Today.
– Napoleon's hats were a big deal. The BBC explains he had a system for breaking in and wearing the "bicorne" military hats that he famously wore sideways so as to be better spotted by his troops: He introduced four new ones each year that were first worn by valets and then put into rotation. With a three-year lifespan, he had 12 "active" hats at a time, and he's thought to have had roughly 120 in total. Nineteen are said to still exist, and what's arguably one of the most famous of those went up for auction in France on Monday: the one he wore during his Waterloo defeat. And while it was expected to fetch less than $50,000, it sold for many times that: roughly $407,000, to an unnamed European private collector, reports the New York Times. AFP reports the provenance of the two-pointed hat isn't rock-solid, but records do date it back to a Dutch captain who died in 1821 and said he retrieved it from the battlefield in 1815. Auctioneer Etienne De Baecque explains other hallmarks that led to the identification of the hat: It's the correct size, had been scrubbed of the trimming that Napoleon "hated," and was reinforced "at certain points where he always held it." A hat worn by Napoleon during the Battle of Marengo in 1800 was sold for 1.9 million euros ($2.2 million in today's dollars) in 2014. As for why this hat fetched far less, it's in worse shape, with cracking and dried leather. The BBC notes the red ankle-length cloak Napoleon wore at Waterloo has been a part of the UK's Royal Collection for more than 180 years. (Here's how a neurosurgeon brought down Napoleon.)
– A new company that's betting there's a big market out there for folks who'd like to, say, enjoy a runner's high without having to, well, run are about to unleash a new device that could very well induce a dopamine high. Florida-based Nervana, a wearable tech company run by nurses, doctors, and engineers, is about to take pre-orders for its $299 electric headphones with an anticipated spring delivery, reports Discovery. But the science is still out: While Nervana reports that its proprietary earbud tech sends electrical stimulation to the vagus nerve by way of the ear canal to stimulate feel-good hormones like dopamine, the company calls it a "lifestyle and wellness" device instead of a medical device, thereby sidestepping rigorous scientific inquiry, FDA approval, and the like. Anecdotally, early reviews are somewhat divided. The folks who tried the device out for Futurism at the Consumer Electronics Show this week had only praise; the writer notes that dopamine has "special effects" for women and goes so far as to confess, "Honestly if I had one of these sets I'd be doing this every day." Engadget writer Daniel Cooper, meanwhile, describes his 15 minutes with the headphones differently, having felt only a "mild sense of elation that lasted until I shut down the device, and for the next five minutes, I was a little spaced out." He notes the elation may have simply been due to the fact that he'd been given momentary respite from the loud din of a trade show. (Check out other notable gizmos at this year's CES.)
– Jennifer Mee, whose 15 minutes of fame occurred in 2007 when she couldn’t stop hiccuping for five weeks, is back in the news—much more unpleasantly this time: She’s charged with first-degree murder. Mee, 19, allegedly lured a man to a spot in Florida where two others robbed him at gunpoint Saturday. The victim was shot four times, and all three suspects confessed, CNN reports. Mee appeared on Today several times during her hiccup ordeal, but since then she has apparently run away from home twice.
– The New York woman accused of murder in her fiance's kayaking death confessed to sabotage even before the body of Vincent Viafore was found, a police investigator testified at a pretrial hearing. Senior investigator Aniello Moscato told the hearing Monday that during a trip to lay a wreath for the missing man last April, Angelika Graswald told another investigator that she had pulled out a plug on Viafore's kayak, which capsized in the Hudson River, ABC News reports. Moscato testified that on a boat ride back to police barracks, Graswald seemed "happy-go-lucky" and joked about jumping off the boat. Viafore's body was found in the river more than a month after he disappeared. At Monday's hearing, one of the first police officers to respond to the scene said he found Graswald, whose kayak had also capsized, oddly calm and "matter-of-fact" when describing events, the Poughkeepsie Journal reports. He said he heard her cellphone ring at the scene, though she had claimed it had fallen in the water. Prosecutors say Graswald, 36, sabotaged Viafore's kayak so she could collect his life insurance policy and confessed to the killing during a police interview last year, News 12 reports. Her defense argues that the confession was coerced and police faced a language barrier when dealing with Graswald, who's from Latvia. Pretrial testimony on what statements can be admitted in court will continue this week, but her trial is not expected until next spring.
– Friends and neighbors of the Castro brothers say there is nothing about the three men that signaled they were capable of a crime as horrific as the kidnapping and decade-long imprisonment of three young women, the Cleveland Plain Dealer finds. Onil, 50; Ariel, 52; and Pedro, 54, are members of a large and well-known family who was among the first Hispanics to settle in Cleveland. Associates describe the men as smart and funny, though Ariel has a history of domestic violence and the other two were very heavy drinkers. Onil and Pedro hadn't worked in years, while Ariel was fired from his job as a school bus driver last fall. "They were all good kids," says a lifelong friend of the brothers, who have six other siblings. "That's why this news is devastating. It's not only horrifying to the families of the kidnapped girls, it's devastating to us, because these brothers were all very good kids who grew up in a very good family." Ariel, a musician who played in local Latin bands, had become more withdrawn in recent years, his uncle tells the New York Times. "It could have been because of the hiding personality. He had to have two personalities," he says. Ariel, the only brother to have lived at the home where the women were found, had a wife and three children but that marriage ended and the other two brothers never married. One of Ariel's children, 25-year-old Emily Castro, is serving a 25-years-to-life sentence for trying to murder her infant daughter in 2007, USA Today reports. In 2004, shortly before kidnap victim Gina DeJesus went missing, Ariel was investigated by police for abduction and child endangerment, the Guardian reports. A police report states that Castro kept a child on his school bus for two hours instead of dropping him off at school, at one point ordering the boy to "Lay down, b****." Police determined that no assault had taken place and no law had been broken, though Castro was suspended from his job for 60 days. During that investigation, police visited the home at which the three women were held, but after finding nobody home, they went away and didn't return.
– Now that she's a free woman, Chelsea Manning is letting the world know. "First steps of freedom!!" she tweeted Wednesday upon her release from military prison, along with a photo of her feet. Manning also issued a statement picked up by NBC News, which read in part: "Whatever is ahead of me is far more important than the past. I'm figuring things out right now—which is exciting, awkward, fun, and all new for me." Meanwhile, Pulse Films announced at the Cannes Film Festival that it was making a documentary about the 29-year-old transgender soldier called XY Chelsea, reports the AP. Manning is expected to live in Maryland.
– The former archbishop of Los Angeles has been removed from all public duties due to the central role he played in the coverup of child abuse. Tens of thousands of pages revealing the extent of the abuse crisis, now posted on the church's website, are "brutal and painful reading. The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil," said current archbishop Jose Gomez. The public action against Cardinal Roger Mahony—which comes within hours of the documents' court-ordered release—is "unprecedented" within the American Catholic Church, according to the Los Angeles Times. "To tell a cardinal he can't do confirmations, can't do things in public, that's extraordinary," says a Jesuit priest. While his confirmation schedule has been wiped, Mahony's daily life won't look much different, says an archdiocese spokesman, noting that the retired priest will stay "a priest in good standing" and can still celebrate Mass. The leading victim's group isn't happy with the outcome, USA Today notes. "Hand-slapping Cardinal Roger Mahony is a nearly meaningless gesture," says a rep. A bishop who aided in the coverup has also resigned, Gomez said.
– Someone alert Alanis Morissette because a Nigerian billionaire is apparently on the receiving end of an alleged internet scam. The Toronto Star reports the ironic situation is unfolding around two sisters from Toronto—Jyoti and Kiran Matharoo—recently arrested in Lagos, Nigeria. The sisters Matharoo were "fixtures in the nightlife scene" there, regularly getting into Instagram fights with the wives of rich Nigerian men, according to BuzzFeed. But Nigerian energy magnate Femi Otedola—reported worth: $1.8 billion—says the sisters claimed they had evidence of him cheating on his wife and threatened to expose him if he didn't pay them off. They appeared in court Dec. 23, the Daily Dot reports. Private investigators hired by Otedola say the Matheroos recorded conversations and themselves having sex with wealthy men, then threatened to put the evidence on a website they operated. They allegedly used the website and its associated social media accounts to cyberbully around 275 people "mostly based in various regions of Africa," including Otedola, his wife, Nana, and their daughter DJ Cuppy. The sisters are also accused of being escorts, and Nigerian authorities say they've admitted to having sex with 100 rich Nigerian men. The Canadian government confirms the Matheroos' arrest. (There's a reason those infamous Nigerian internet scams sound so ridiculous.)
– A new report out of the Government Accountability Office says the Department of Defense is "just beginning to grapple" with vulnerabilities in most of its new weapons systems. The upshot of the 50-page GAO analysis, per NPR: that, based on five years' worth of tests, "nearly all" of its latest weapons systems are a cybersecurity nightmare, with easy-to-guess passwords and known vulnerabilities that were never remedied, among other issues. Just as concerning is that the DOD doesn't even know "the full scale of its weapon system vulnerabilities" as the tests that were carried out "were limited in scope and sophistication," the GAO notes. The tests, conducted from 2012 to 2017, were initially prompted by a request from the Senate Armed Services Committee to look into just how secure the Pentagon was able to keep its weapons systems. The GAO notes the "widespread examples of weakness" fell under the umbrella of four cybersecurity categories: "protect, detect, respond, and recover." The results weren't great: In one case, for example, a test hacker guessed an admin password in nine seconds; in another, two testers needed just an hour to gain initial access to a weapons system. And, "once they gained initial access, test teams were often able to move throughout a system, escalating their privileges until they had taken full or partial control of a system." To make matters worse, when vulnerabilities were found, they were often neglected: One test report showed just one vulnerability remedied out of 20 identified. Staffing issues contribute to the problem, as the salaries that cybersecurity aces can command in the private sector far exceed those that the government can pay. Full eye-opening report from the GAO here.
– A fugitive suspect who allegedly kept a woman captive in a wooden box for months may have surfaced to murder her and her son, according to police in Missouri. James Barton Horn Jr. has been on the run since the end of April, when Sandra Sutton ran to a neighbor's house and said he had been locking her in the box whenever he wasn't home, the Kansas City Star reports. When police were called, they found the plywood box—100 inches long, 48 inches wide, and 52 inches tall, according to the AP—and discovered Horn had fled. Yesterday, Sutton and her 17-year-old son were found shot dead at the home of a family member, and police say Horn is a suspect, NBC News reports. The family member's home is in Clinton, nearly 50 miles away from Horn's home in Sedalia. According to the Sedalia Democrat, Sutton told police that her relationship with Horn began as consensual but then led to "you can't leave." Police warn that Horn, 47, is an "extremely dangerous, violent person," and the AP reports that he has a long and disturbing criminal past. Records show that he spent three years in prison in Tennessee in the early '90s for a kidnapping and rape; at the end of 2011, he finished a 13-year sentence for kidnapping his estranged wife in Mississippi. A police spokesman in Clinton tells the Star that authorities were unaware that Sutton was living in the city and she had apparently declined to seek a protection order—though he adds that it may not have helped, because "he'd done these things and he was on the run."
– If you've given up physical activity because you don't have the time or inclination to achieve recommended weekly exercise levels, strap on your walking shoes: A new study in JAMA Internal Medicine indicates that something's better than nothing in terms of increasing longevity. Scientists from the National Cancer Institute looked back at six studies and found individuals who followed the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines of 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise—or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity workouts—achieved "substantial" benefit, while those who doubled that baseline reaped "additional" benefit, Reuters reports. But researchers also made the significant find that those who exercised even a bit were 20% less likely to die than those who hunkered down on the couch with their remotes and did nothing. Scientists looked at 661,137 men and women (ages 21 to 98) who provided their own reports on their physical activity levels; 116,686 deaths were reported among these subjects, per the study. Those who met the guidelines saw a 31% increase in longevity over their nonactive counterparts, while participants who did three to five times the recommended levels did 39% better than the sedentary, LiveScience reports. Interestingly, exercise beyond that didn't seem to confer further benefit, but it also didn't appear to be harmful: Researchers found no link between those who worked out up to 10 times or more than the guidelines and increased death rate. A University of Florida aging specialist writes in the study's accompanying editorial that "physicians who seek out the segment of the population that performs no leisure-time physical activity could receive the most payback in their patient's health" if they recommend even a small amount of exercise. (Even a lunchtime stroll may make you feel better.)
– When in New Jersey, don't tell the cops you're "looking for New Jersey." That was apparently Karol Andino's big mistake after getting out of her car near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel and telling police officers just that. Sensing perhaps that alcohol might be at play, Port Authority police advised her that she was already in New Jersey, then gave her a sobriety test (she allegedly failed) and a Breathalyzer test (she allegedly had a blood alcohol level triple the legal limit), NBC New York reports. The 31-year-old, who also admitted to police she'd "had a few drinks," was arrested after the 2:30am Saturday incident and charged with DWI and careless driving, NJ.com reports.
– ISIS militants have rounded up hundreds of Christian hostages after storming through a chain of villages along a strategic river in northeastern Syria over the past three days, activists said today. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights puts the number of abducted Christian Assyrians at 220, many taken from more than 11 communities in Hassakeh province. The province, which borders Turkey and Iraq, has become the latest battleground in the fight against ISIS in Syria. It is predominantly Kurdish but also has populations of Arabs and predominantly Christian Assyrians and Armenians. ISIS hasn't yet owned the abductions, and the motive isn't clear; Reuters and the BBC both speculate that the militants might be looking for a prisoner swap with Kurdish forces. "These were peaceful villages that had nothing to do with the battles," says a Kurdish official in the area. ISIS began abducting the Assyrians on Monday, when militants attacked a cluster of villages along the Khabur River, sending thousands of people fleeing to safer areas. Younan Talia, a senior official with the Assyrian Democratic Organization, says ISIS had raided 33 Assyrian villages, picking up as many as 300 people along the way. It was not possible to reconcile the numbers, and the fate of the hostages remains unclear. State-run news agency SANA and an Assyrian activist group, the Assyrian Network for Human Rights in Syria, say the group has been moved to the ISIS-controlled city of Shaddadeh, a predominantly Arab town south of the city of Hassakeh. The Observatory, however, says they're still being held in nearby Mount Abdulaziz.
– Following a longer-than-usual delay, the White House will be back open for tours next month. First lady Melania Trump announced Tuesday that the tours will resume on March 7, per ABC 7. White House tours are typically halted when a new president takes office, but a seven-week interruption is out of the ordinary, reports the Washington Post. In a letter sent to the White House on Monday, about two dozen members of Congress sounded a little agitated that they haven't been able to arrange tours for constituents. "Previous administrations have been quick to reopen the White House doors to the public, even doing so the day after the Inauguration," they wrote. The message was apparently received. “I am excited to reopen the White House to the hundreds of thousands of visitors who come each year,” said a statement from the first lady, who has remained in New York while son Barron finishes the school year. “The White House is a remarkable and historic site and we are excited to share its beauty and history.” The news should please GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, who sent out a snarky tweet about the delay.
– Eminem raked in the Grammy nominations last night, leading the ranks with 10 nods including Album of the Year, Best Rap Album, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year. Next up were Bruno Mars with seven, and Lady Gaga, Lady Antebellum, and Jay-Z with six each. Of course, there were also some snubs, E! notes: Gaga didn't get nominated for Song of the Year, Susan Boyle didn't get nominated for Best New Artist, and Justin Bieber didn't get nominated for Album of the Year. Click here for the complete list of nominees.
– Married police officers in Tulsa, Okla., are in jail after the husband allegedly shot and killed their daughter's boyfriend. Shannon Kepler turned himself in not long after the shooting and was arrested on charges of first-degree murder and shooting with intent to kill, while his wife, Gina Kepler, was later arrested as an accessory to murder, reports KJRH Tulsa. Both are 24-year veterans of the Tulsa Police Department and are now on paid leave pending formal charges. In another interview with KJRH Tulsa, the couple's 18-year-old daughter, Lisa, says her parents kicked her out a week ago and dropped her off at a homeless shelter, where she met 19-year-old Jeremy Lake and the two began seeing each other. "He was my everything," she said. They spent the week at Jeremy's family's house, which is where her father tracked her down. "We were outside for five minutes and that's when my dad pulled up," she said. "There was no argument. I walked away and Jeremy tried to introduce himself and my dad shot him." Kepler allegedly fired at each teenager three times, according to the police report, killing Jeremy but leaving Lisa unharmed. (Also this week, a woman tried to steal a cop car—with the cops inside.)
– The horns and frills of dinosaurs like Triceratops and Styracosaurus weren't for defending against predators, regulating body temperature, or even attaching fearsome battle helmets, according to a study published this week in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Rather researchers found the defining features of ceratopsian dinosaurs were actually for attracting mates. "Individuals are advertising their quality or genetic make-up," researcher Andrew Knapp tells the BBC. "We see that in peacocks too, with their tail feathers." Business Insider reports there are over 70 species of ceratopsian dinosaurs, and their horns and frills vary widely. Researchers behind the recent study had set out to see if the purpose of the horns and frills was to let different species tell each other apart for mating purposes (previous research had ruled out temperature regulation and defense). After looking at 350 different traits from 46 ceratopsian species, researchers concluded that wasn't the case. In modern animals, features for species to differentiate between each other are typically subtler and more evolutionary work goes into features used to attract members of the same species. The relatively speedy evolution of horns and frills was also another clue as to their purpose. "Modern computer models have suggested that sexual selection can promote rapid speciation, adaptation, and extinction," Knapp says in a press release. As for both male and female ceratopsian dinosaurs having horns and frills, Knapp says it could "tell us a lot about how these animals lived." For example, they may have been co-parents when it came to raising their young. (The Sahara Desert revealed the "Holy Grail" of dinosaur discoveries.)
– A freak accident left the University of Connecticut reeling in October; now, six arrests may have it reeling once more. Jeffny Pally was sitting up against a garage bay door at a fire station near her dorm on the Storrs campus around 1:15am when the door opened as fire crews responded to a call. The 19-year-old sophomore fell back and was struck by a Chevy Tahoe leaving the firehouse. Why she chose to sit in front of the bay remains unknown, but police say they've pieced together what allegedly happened in the hours beforehand. On the evening of Oct. 15, Pally attended a party at the Kappa Sigma fraternity that revolved around building a homecoming parade float; now six frat members have been charged with alcohol-related offenses related to Pally's death, reports the Hartford Courant. Pally arrived around 10:30pm and stayed about two hours, during which witnesses say she had one to five beers; she reportedly drank prior to the party, and her blood alcohol content was .25. Patrick Callahan, Matthew Moll, Austin Custodio, and Dominic Godi, all 21, and Dylan Morose and Jonathan Polansky, 22, face varied charges tied to allegedly purchasing and transporting the booze and permitting a minor to illegally possess alcohol. Their arraignment is set for March 8. The 60-year-old shift commander who drove the Tahoe told police he did feel a bump as he exited, but assumed what he saw in his rearview mirror was fire equipment. Pally's body was discovered upon the fire crew's return to the station for what WTNH reports was a false alarm sparked after two students allegedly set off a stolen fire extinguisher in a dorm. They face criminal mischief and larceny charges. (Last year, a court ruled that parents could be held responsible for underage drinking.)
– Although journalists have been staking out Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport all week, no one has caught a glimpse of Edward Snowden, which means reporting on exactly what he's been doing there has been a little ... messy. Case in point: Multiple media agencies, including the New York Times and the Guardian are reporting today that Snowden has applied for political asylum in Russia, based on information from an official at the airport's consulate, who says that a WikiLeaks activist traveling with him delivered his request to the consulate last night. The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, says an anonymous Russian official claims Snowden applied for asylum to 15 different countries, but wouldn't say which countries they were. But the Russian Federal Migration Service denies that Snowden has applied for asylum, according to RT, which notes that a consular employee cannot make comments on behalf of the ministry. A presidential spokesperson also denied it had received the asylum request, RIA Novosti reports. So for now, the truth remains as elusive as Snowden himself. (Though he did just publish a statement saying Obama had left him "stateless.")
– It hasn’t been a good couple of weeks for Scott Brown: Last week, there was that unfortunate Elizabeth Warren comment; now, he's being accused of plagiarism. A liberal super PAC discovered that Brown’s website lifted a significant portion of an Elizabeth Dole speech from 2002, the Boston Globe reports. The remarks, which have since been removed, start, “I was raised to believe that there are no limits to individual achievement and no excuses to justify indifference,” and follow the rest of Dole’s comment verbatim. They do leave out a fairly important opening line, however: “I am Mary and John Hanford’s daughter.” A Brown spokesperson says it was simply an oversight, and that the language was “inadvertently transferred” from Dole’s site, which staffers used as a model for Brown’s. Gawker points to the Dole passage, which is available on Google Books, and notes that the line immediately following the cited comments was also conveniently omitted: “I am Bob Dole’s wife." Complains the super PAC president, “The fact that he can’t come up with a personal values statement of his own, that he has to steal someone else’s, I think is very instructive of what kind of politician he is."
– "I don't want to live around my community where I got to keep on hearing and hearing people keep on getting shot, people keep on getting killed," Zarriel Trotter said in a PSA filmed at Chicago's Catalyst Circle Rock Charter School last year. He is currently recovering in a hospital after being hit by a stray bullet in Chicago's Austin neighborhood on Friday. The boy's great-uncle says the 13-year-old was walking home from playing basketball with friends when he came upon two groups of youths arguing around 8:30pm, per Fox 32 and the Chicago Tribune. A male then opened fire and Zarriel was hit in the lower back, police say. He was listed in critical condition on Saturday after an emergency surgery, though authorities say he is slowly improving. "He was not the intended target," an officer tells the New York Times. "He was standing on the sidewalk." "We're all praying he stays strong," adds Zarriel's school principal, who notes the seventh-grader—with a "positive energy that's contagious"—has yet to speak. "I never think that he would get shot," says a friend of Zarriel, but "when it's night time people be shooting out here and I think if I come outside, they start shooting," he says. The Chicago Sun-Times reports Zarriel is the 71st person shot in Austin this year. In his PSA interview, he had this advice for those living a life of violence: "Can you please just stop killing people?" he says. "Handle what you got to handle with your words instead of your fists."
– Facebook rolled out some new mobile features yesterday, most notably “Facebook Deals,” a kind of mashup of Foursquare/Gowalla, and Groupon. Users can check in on Facebook Places and get location-sensitive deals from nearby merchants. The Gap, for example, will give out a free pair of jeans to the first 10,000 people who check in at one of its stores tomorrow, Fast Company reports. There will also be tools to allow third-party developers to make apps using Facebook’s location services. The features seem nifty enough, but they could utterly doom the scrappy startups that pioneered these ideas, E.B. Boyd writes. Foursquare, for example, has 4-5 million users to Facebook’s 500 million. “If you’re a national brand trying to connect with customers, which network is likely to deliver the impact you're looking for?” But the little guys are defiant. Foursquare pointed on that it was growing rapidly, and Groupon said Deals was “a different product that serves a different need.” If the smaller sites can focus on quality over quantity, they might make it.
– In a State of the Union speech short on big surprises, one of the more talked-about moments came during a presidential ad-lib. Late in the speech, Obama said, "I have no more campaigns to run." When some cheers broke out among Republicans, Obama said, "I know because I won both of them." He got a round of applause and carried on. Alan Rappeport, New York Times: "But in one off-script moment, he flashed his notoriously competitive side." Joshua Keating, Slate: "Obama responded with an ad-lib that will likely go down in State of the Union history." Chris Cillizza, Washington Post: "I have no more campaigns to run....I know because I won both of them." -- Obama. WHOA," he tweeted. Brian Stelter, CNN: "If you wanted the media coverage of this #SOTU to concentrate on policy, 'I know because I won both of them' is not what you wanted," he tweeted.
– If you don't have time to read the 528-page summary of the Senate's findings on interrogation techniques, you can get a sense of its revelations just by reading the footnotes, Vocativ reports. The site offers material from just the first 200 of the report's 38,000 footnotes: Seven of the 39 detainees who faced the techniques offered no intelligence information. Waterboarding left detainee Abu Zubaydah "completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open full mouth," according to internal CIA emails. One detainee was confined in a coffin-shaped box. One detainee, who was held wrongfully, "may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time," per the CIA. President Bush learned about waterboarding in 2006, and he "expressed discomfort” with the “image of a detainee, chained to the ceiling, clothed in a diaper, and forced to go to the bathroom on himself," according to a CIA briefing. Indeed, a bucket for toilet use was considered a reward for prisoners. It wasn't until more than six years into the interrogation program that the CIA surveyed its results. The Senate's vast findings don't even include information from some 9,400 CIA documents kept secret under White House executive privilege. Mother Jones points out that another footnote asserts that information from harsh interrogation didn't lead to Osama bin Laden, despite the CIA's argument to the contrary. Click for Vocativ's full list, read about the 13 torture techniques detailed in the report, or see what critics think the report got wrong.
– A veteran writer for The Simpsons says the show isn't based in Massachusetts despite several references to the state. The Boston Globe reports Mike Reiss recently sat down for a segment on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" to discuss the show and his new book, Springfield Confidential: Jokes, Secrets, and Outright Lies From a Lifetime Writing for The Simpsons. Reiss says the Springfield where the show is set is "nowhere." He explains the writers chose Springfield as a location because there are more than 40 cities and towns that share the name across the US, the AP reports. Fans have highlighted references to the Bay State in the show, including Mayor Quimby's New England accent. Reiss says he's proud of the success of the show, whose 30th season will premiere this fall.
– The North Koreans are generous but perplexing hosts, according to National Intelligence Director James Clapper. According to Reuters, the spy chief says that during his secret mission to Pyongyang last November to bring two Americans home, a general treated him to a "marvelous" 12-course banquet at a restaurant that sat over a bowling alley—but the next day, officials told him that he was no longer considered a presidential envoy and his group's safety could no longer be guaranteed. Clapper says he was then taken to a hotel where Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller were handed over before the group headed to the airport. For those wishing to sample North Korean hospitality, Pyongyang says it has now lifted tough travel restrictions brought in over fears of Ebola, the AP reports.
– If you find yourself too buzzed to drive home while celebrating the new year, AAA can help. Its "Tow to Go" program (which has actually been around since 1998) offers free rides tonight and tomorrow, whether you're a member or not. The service is meant to help people with no other options, so you can't schedule a ride in advance, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports. But if you find yourself in a bind, a tow truck will take your car and up to two people to a safe place within 10 miles of your location. For more information and to see whether the program is offered in your area, click here.
– A Canadian man barred from a British Columbia hotel for 17 years has successfully reversed his lifetime ban with "a pound of Brothers TNT Pepperoni as a peace offering." To understand the significance of that gift, it's necessary to know the truly insane story of how Nick Burchill got banned in the first place. It seems the Nova Scotia native brought a suitcase filled with Halifax's coveted Brothers TNT Pepperoni to Victoria's Fairmont Empress hotel during a business trip in April 2001. He'd planned to share the meat with his BC friends, per the CBC. But as there was no fridge in his room, Burchill put the pepperoni next to an open window to be cooled by the breeze and left. Returning hours later, he tells the Times Colonist he found "a tornado of seagull excrement, feathers, pepperoni chunks, and fairly large birds whipping around the room." Burchill says he eventually chased 30 to 40 seagulls out of the fourth-floor window, dropping a towel and his shoe in the process. After retrieving the shoe, he tried to dry it with a hairdryer, which fell into a sink of water, knocking out power, per the Times Colonist. That's when he contacted hotel staff, who sent a woman to the room to clean. "I still remember the look on her face when she opened the door," Burchill tells the CBC. He wasn't surprised when his employer later received a letter saying he wasn't allowed to return to the hotel. But "I didn't like the feeling of being banned from somewhere," says Burchill. During a trip back to Victoria over Easter weekend, therefore, "I just apologized. I was forgiven," he says. A hotel rep backs up Burchill's story, per HuffPost. "It's a really funny story to tell 17 years later," she says. (Dude, what's up with Canada's birds?)
– He was a star player on a star NFL team, so what could possibly have turned Aaron Hernandez into a murderer? In laying out their case against Hernandez today in a 2012 drive-by slaying that left two men dead, prosecutors offered this scene from a Boston nightclub: "Shortly thereafter, Daneil de Abreu, while dancing nearby, accidentally bumped into the defendant, causing the defendant's drink to partially spill. The defendant became angered and increasingly agitated, particularly after Mr. de Abreu smiled and did not apologize." Yes, a spilled drink, reports AP and CBS News. Prosecutors say Hernandez and a friend waited for the victims to leave the bar, then pulled up alongside their car. Hernandez allegedly said, "Yo, what's up now," opened fire, and told his friend, "I think I got one in the head and one in the chest" as they sped away. Prosecutors say he was right. Hernandez pleaded not guilty today. He also faces murder charges in the slaying of another man the following year.
– Back in April, a "caravan" of immigrants marching across Central America toward the US border drew the attention of President Trump. Now comes round two. On Tuesday, Trump issued a warning to Honduras, where most of the immigrants in the latest group are from: "The United States has strongly informed the President of Honduras that if the large Caravan of people heading to the U.S. is not stopped and brought back to Honduras, no more money or aid will be given to Honduras, effective immediately!" Background and developments: The caravan: This one started last week with about 160 people in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, which the AP calls one of the most dangerous places in one of the most dangerous countries. As the group began walking out of the country, others joined, and most estimates put the current number near 2,000. The Washington Post, however, notes that volunteers suggest it's closer to 3,000, bigger than April's group. The path: The group already has crossed the border into Guatemala, after police in the latter country didn't do much to stop them, reports the Guardian. Then it will be on to Mexico and the US, though if history holds, many of the migrants will break off and remain in Central America. Unlike in April, Mexico has warned that this time it will turn back anyone with improper visa requirements.
– According to a survey last year, nine of 10 doctors wouldn't recommend their career to others; some 300 doctors commit suicide yearly. All that's not surprising, writes Daniela Drake at the Daily Beast: "Simply put, being a doctor has become a miserable and humiliating undertaking," she notes. "Indeed, many doctors feel that America has declared war on physicians—and both physicians and patients are the losers." America's health care system is, in large part, to blame. It's expensive for doctors to process insurance forms, and that means they need to see more patients; the result "is that the average face-to-face clinic visit lasts about 12 minutes." ObamaCare has now "codified this broken system into law." On top of that, health industry bosses are obsessed with patient satisfaction data, though high scores have been linked to "worse outcomes and higher costs." "The primary care doctor doesn’t have the political power to say no to anything—so the 'to-do' list continues to lengthen," Drake writes. Meanwhile, the media constantly puts doctors in a negative light. "For America’s health to be safeguarded, the well-being of America’s caretakers is going to have to start mattering to someone," she concludes. Click for Drake's full piece.
– Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, the first openly bisexual member of Congress, has another first to her name: first sitting member of Congress to complete an Ironman triathlon, according to Triathlete magazine. The Arizona Democrat completed the grueling race (a 26.2-mile run, 112-mile bike ride, and 2.4-mile swim) in just over 15 hours yesterday, Politico reports. "Kyrsten Sinema. You. Are. An. Ironman," she tweeted, along with a picture of herself crossing the finish line. She'd been training for almost a year, and told 12 News Phoenix she sometimes awoke at 3am to do so. Making her feat even more impressive: Before she started training, Sinema did not know how to swim. She's been busy: Last week she was one of 39 House Democrats who crossed the aisle to vote with the GOP on an ObamaCare fix.
– Scientists say they've concocted a chemical that can be added to food to make people feel full and thus eat less, reports the BBC. In two small but promising studies, researchers found that people who consumed food with the powder—called inulin-propionate ester, or IPE—gained less weight than their counterparts who went IPE-free, reports Quartz. If all goes well in larger studies, the scientists from Imperial College London and the University of Glasgow say that IPE could someday be added into bread, smoothies, and all manner of foods. "This is the first time that a food ingredient has been shown to decrease weight gain," says one of the lead researchers, as quoted in HealthDay News. The BBC explains that researchers figured out a way to make sure that IPE, once ingested, goes to the colon instead of being absorbed by the intestine. Once there, it seems to trigger appetite-suppressing hormones. In one of the studies, volunteers ate 14% less food from a buffet if it contained IPE. Scientists say IPE is essentially a tweak of a naturally occurring process and is therefore safe. (Another way to control your weight? Pay attention to the clock.)
– A natural gas well is burning uncontrollably off the coast of Louisiana today, after a gas blowout caught fire yesterday, the AP reports. All 44 workers aboard evacuated when the gas leak started earlier in the day, and no one was aboard the well when it ignited at around 10:50pm local time, NBC News reports. It's unclear when or how the fire will be extinguished; personnel from Wild Well Inc. were called in last night, but determined that it wasn't safe enough to go within 200 feet of the well. A special firefighting boat has now been dispatched, a spokesman for the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said. The bureau also reported seeing "a light sheen" on the water. Walter Oil & Gas Corp. were in the process of building a "sidetrack well" at the site when the blowout hit, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. Local officials say they're watching the well closely "because if there is a natural gas cloud that continues to flow, then you run the risk of an explosion." But, says a local parish president, "nothing that I have received to date has caused me to panic in any way or form. This is not going to be another BP oil spill."
– President Obama's latest supporters: Harold and Kumar. Kal Penn and John Cho reprise their stoner characters in a new Obama campaign video, in which the president makes a very important phone call asking Penn's Kumar for some help. Turns out that help involves Penn—a former member of the Obama administration and currently a national campaign co-chair—hosting live streaming coverage of the Democratic National Convention, Mashable reports. This is the first time the DNC is using a livestream, USA Today reports, and it will be chock-full of celebrity guests including Marc Anthony, Elizabeth Banks, Olivia Wilde, and Zach Braff, among others. Penn—of whom Sasha and Malia Obama are reportedly big fans—already taped an interview with Michelle Obama at the Charlotte arena where the convention kicks off tonight. But Mitt Romney has a big celeb fan of his own: Nicki Minaj. Rapdose reports that a new song, "Mercy," from Lil Wayne's latest mixtape, includes Minaj rapping the line: "I’m a Republican voting for Mitt Romney, you lazy b****es are f***ing up the economy."
– Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohamed Morsi are fuming over the military's clampdown after Brotherhood leaders were arrested and Morsi detained. Arrest warrants are out for some 300 members of the group, the BBC reports. "What kind of national reconciliation starts with arresting people?" asks the son of a Brotherhood official, per the New York Times. "This is complete exclusion." But the army says it will allow a planned rally today: "Peaceful protest and freedom of expression are rights guaranteed to everyone, which Egyptians have earned as one of the most important gains of their glorious revolution," the army posted on Facebook. As protests have continued, so has violence. Morsi's hometown saw dozens hurt last night, Reuters reports, and the Sinai Peninsula was hit with rocket attacks by Islamist militants. A soldier was killed in the onslaught against police and military sites, though it's not certain the attacks were associated with Morsi's downfall, the BBC notes; Sinai is a frequent target of such violence.
– The creepy doll that frightened in The Conjuring (2013) and Annabelle (2014) is back in a prequel to a prequel, in which viewers meet the toy maker who created her. When tragedy strikes, Annabelle is locked away in a room in his California home—until curious orphans discover her. Critics are giving it a 69% "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Samples: Presenting Annabelle's story in reverse may sound like a "recipe for disaster," but Annabelle: Creation is not a disaster. It's "spine-tingling," writes Isaac Feldberg at the Boston Globe. He describes it as "the kind of old-school chiller that starts slow, patiently turning the screws" before "a brutal, blood-curdling crescendo of a third act." Feldberg adds most will "come away feeling spooked and satisfied." Its scenes are "cheekily effective," writes Jeannette Catsoulis at the New York Times, who reserves most of her praise for director David F. Sandberg. He "proves a master of the flash-scare, a nifty choreographer of precipitous timing and striptease visuals. But he's also adroit with more leisurely horrors, like the snap-crackle-pop of the murderous shade flexing for the kill," she writes. Julia Cooper at the Globe and Mail, however, says the film is "as lifeless as an old doll." It doesn't "concern itself with details such as motive" and features a script "full of mawkish dialogue weakly delivered by the film's child actors." To boot, "Sandberg does nothing to update his horror film from some of the genre's more damaging stereotypes," including disability as weakness, Cooper writes. For Colin Covert, though, this is "the eerie and unsettling prequel [Annabelle] deserves." He calls the film "impressively creative" and "refreshingly intelligent"—a "taut shot in the arm for a genre that badly needs it." As for frights, this Annabelle installment is "the scariest one yet," he writes at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "Buckle up your belt or this moan-inducing, female-centric supernatural thriller will scare your pants off."
– Jeff Bezos is a major Business Insider investor, so in the wake of the Washington Post buy, Henry Blodget has been fielding a lot of questions on what it's like to have the Amazon founder holding the purse strings. The answer? "It's great," Blodget writes. "Any company that cares about building great products and services and long-term value could not ask for a better backer." Unlike most financial investors, Blodget says Bezos is all about the long game, taking any chance to reinvest profits in exciting future possibilities. Bezos probably just thinks owning the Post will be cool, Blodget speculates. "This is a man who invests in rockets and atomic clocks, after all. He doesn't necessarily make these investments for the money. Or bragging rights. Or strategic synergies." Not that those don't exist: Amazon and the Post are both content creators, for starters, and Amazon is getting into the local physical deliveries business. Lydia DePillis at the Washington Post adds that the paper's brand will lend prestige to the fledgling Amazon Publishing, and that its webpage will be a high-traffic place to advertise Amazon's wares. "The Post doesn't need to generate revenue" anymore, DePillis writes. "It can complement and amplify other regions of Amazonia." Click here for Blodget's full column, or here for DePillis'.
– North Korea has publicly executed some 80 people this month, a source tells a South Korean newspaper. In the city of Wonsan, hooded victims were tied to poles in front of a stadium of 10,000 people, where they were shot with machine guns, the source says. Crimes reportedly included possessing a Bible, watching smuggled South Korean TV shows, and distributing pornography, the Los Angeles Times and AFP report. "I heard from the residents that ... the corpses were so riddled by machine-gun fire that they were hard to identify afterwards," the source told JoongAng Ilbo, one of the South's top newspapers, which wasn't able to confirm the executions, the Daily Mail notes. The punishments may have been intended to shut down dissent and pro-capitalist sentiment, the JoongAng Ilbo suggests. "The regime is obviously afraid of potential changes in people's mind-sets and is preemptively trying to scare people off," an official at a defectors' website tells AFP. The alleged executions follow a report in August claiming Kim Jong Un's ex-girlfriend was put to death.
– Michael Douglas has dropped a lot of weight during his chemo treatment for throat cancer—he reportedly went from 175 pounds to 139—but a friend tells Radar that he's now on a determined eating campaign to gain it back. The accompanying story has a photo of Douglas on a motorized scooter at Disney World, with a quote from "an onlooker" saying "he looked frail and sick ... (and) most definitely looked like he needed the wheelchair." (Click here to see the photo.) In a more upbeat image released by Universal Orlando Resort, a smiling Douglas is pictured on a ride with his family. "He looks thin, it's true, but that is because the chemo eats everything in someone's body," says friend Allen Burry.
– Celebrities have a very love-hate relationship with Twitter, evidenced by these stars rounded up by Perez Hilton. All of them have quit the social networking site—at least for a while. A sampling: Miley Cyrus quit Twitter in 2009, at the urging of her then-boyfriend Liam Hemsworth. She's back now. A feud with a fan site leaking her songs was enough to push Nicki Minaj off Twitter in 2012. She, too, is back. Alec Baldwin has quit Twitter a number of times. Most recently, he left after a controversial rant, and said he'd never return. His foundation is still on there, though. Mega-tweeter John Mayer briefly quit in 2010. Supposedly, his love of Twitter caused Jennifer Aniston to leave him. Not surprisingly, he's back. Haters and Internet trolls, sadly, drove Adele off Twitter, but she came back (or at least her official account did). Keira Knightley joined Twitter with a fake name, but only left the account open 12 hours. Chris Brown has quit Twitter more than once. But don't worry, his account is active at the moment. Click for the complete list of 15.
– On a chilly Christmas Eve, why not warm up with a hot media fight between Fox News' Tucker Carlson and Teen Vogue writer Lauren Duca. Mediaite calls Friday night's interview—video here—a "mesmerizing and fierce back and forth," while Uproxx says it was "kind of ugly" and "infuriating...no matter what side you're on." Duca was being grilled about her statements that it's right to criticize Ivanka Trump for her "sinister complicity" in supporting the "most anti-woman candidate in decades"—though Duca admits that criticism shouldn't come in the form of harassment in front of her children. Carlson takes a "mocking tone" throughout the interview and seems more interested in attacking Duca than her ideas, leading to her declaring him a "partisan hack." Carlson ends the interview by telling the Teen Vogue writer: “You should stick to the thigh-high boots. You’re better at that.”
– Facebook has bought pioneering virtual-reality headset maker Oculus for $2 billion, and Mark Zuckerberg is pretty excited about it. The startup's immersive headset for video game developers has been a big hit, but Facebook appears ready to take virtual reality beyond gaming, Business Insider finds. "After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences," Zuckerberg writes in a Facebook post. "Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face—just by putting on goggles in your home. " The headset is "different from anything I've ever experienced in my life," Zuckerberg said during a conference call following the announcement. "Today's acquisition is a long-term bet on the future of computing." But while Facebook is enthusiastic about the buy, game makers are less than thrilled about the company's move into virtual reality, Time and AdWeek report. Soon after the announcement, Minecraft creator Markus Persson said he had canceled plans for an Oculus version of the game because Facebook "creeps him out." Facebook is "not a game tech company," he explained in a blog post. It cares "about building user numbers, and nothing but building user numbers." But over at Mashable, Chris Taylor urges everyone to put their freakout on hold: "Facebook has a history of funding its big purchases well and letting them run themselves independently." So any Matrix-esque scenario "is as unreal and unlikely as anything you'd see in VR."
– Centenarians really are different than most of us. A study in the UK has revealed that the oldest of the old typically die not of the chronic illnesses that often fell the “younger” elderly, but of infections or frailty, LiveScience reports. Out of almost 36,000 centenarians who died in England between 2001 and 2010, only 8.6% succumbed to heart disease and 4.4% to cancer, Time reports. Meanwhile, among people aged 80 to 85, 19% died of heart disease and 24% of cancer. The most common causes of death for people who make it to 100 or more? Old age and pneumonia. The study also found that 88% of centenarians died in a residential care home or hospital. That so many centenarians rely on hospital care at the end of life could spell trouble as elderly populations grow. Globally, centenarians are expected to number 3.2 million by 2050, which “indicates an urgent need to ensure adequate long-term care," a study author says. So what can doctors do? Emphasize home care when centenarians are ill, and anticipate the sudden infections that lead to a decline in their health, she says. More beds in residential care homes will also help centenarians avoid expensive hospital stays, she notes. (The good news: Apparently, it’s pretty great to be 100.)
– The first step in what USA Today says would be an "audacious" therapy reportedly took place in China Friday: the world's first human head transplant, achieved with two corpses. And Sergio Canavero—the Italian doctor behind the alleged procedure, says he plans to do the same thing next on two brain-dead patients, followed by an "imminent" surgery with a living one, the Telegraph reports. Per Newsweek, Canavero described the procedure Friday at a Vienna press conference, explaining that his team had taken the head off one body and placed it on another, fusing the spine, blood vessels, and nerves. The procedure with a living patient is set to happen in China in December, mainly because the US and Europe refuse to host it. Medical experts say there haven't been enough studies or trials, and cite both ethical issues and the potential for "incredible pain." Mystery surrounds the living patient at the center of the storm, whose healthy head would be transferred to the disease-free body of a brain-dead patient—technically making this a "body transplant," not a head transplant, USA Today notes. That recipient was originally said to be 33-year-old Russian Valery Spiridonov, who suffers from a muscle-wasting disease. But an April release cited by Newsweek said a Chinese citizen would undergo the procedure, not Spiridonov, and the magazine on Friday quoted Canavero as saying a "high number" of people have volunteered. Canavero gives the procedure a 90% chance of success. Meanwhile, a Guardian columnist takes issue with Canavero's work. "The human body is not modular," writes Dean Burnett. "You can't swap bits around like you would Lego blocks." (Canavero, way back when this all started.)
– As if the Nazi photo and the cheating on his universally beloved wife weren’t bad enough…it turns out Jesse James is also a gay-basher. In a foul-mouthed and grammatically lamentable email obtained by Radar, James tells a former coworker, “Don’t worry though you 2 f***ots will be fine! Maybe Just Maybe? If you suck his (fill in the blank, clever Newser reader) real hard he might even put you guys on TV!.......” “Now you guys will be able to Suck each others (same as previous blank) without anyone giving you a hard time for it!” reads another portion of the classy correspondence. A source adds that James “uses the word f***ot all the time,” and that “it flows out of his mouth just as naturally as ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ does with most people.” And: For more proof that conducting an affair via email is pretty dumb, compliments of mistress No. 5, click here.
– A group in San Francisco has launched a petition urging the mayor to get the city's cost of living under control—and $4 toast is at the heart of it, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. This all started several weeks ago with a blog post in Venture Beat by Jolie O'Dell who complained about shelling out $6 for a piece of toast and a cup of coffee at a local eatery. O'Dell blamed the city's well-paid tech community for driving up prices at the expense of middle- and working-class families, laying out a cycle that involves the rise of "bourgie businesses." The concept of $4 toast has resonated since, and Eddie Kurtz of the group Courage Campaign said it inspired the recent petition. "It feels like there's a widening sense that this is out of control," he says. "It feels like there's just a widening gap, and regular people who often don't think about these things are having sticker shock about trying to find an apartment and pay the bills." The petition criticizes Mayor Ed Lee for not taking "meaningful action," though a spokesperson for Lee counters that his support of the tech industry will save the city, not doom it.
– Starbucks will offer free unlimited Wi-Fi at its company-owned stores starting July 1. Battered by the recession and the successful challenge mounted by McDonald's, the coffee giant will also plug its customers into customized content—including free access to pay sites like the Wall Street Journal's, Frank James blogs for NPR. The goal is to draw users in and keep them around, notes the LA Times. Cue the privacy concerns: "Each customer must log in with a unique identifier, so Starbucks won’t only know where you are, but who you are, potentially allowing for targeted messaging to offset cost further," writes Eliot Van Buskirk of Wired. The real question, James notes, is how Starbucks "will keep some customers from parking at its store's tables from opening to closing time just so they can use free wireless connection."
– A 9-year-old boy reported missing in September has been found safe—on a tiny South Pacific island more than 7,000 miles from his home in Pennsylvania. Billy Hanson's mom reported the boy missing after he didn't come back from a visit with his father in Seattle, so authorities focused on finding the yacht belonging to Jeffrey Hanson, an experienced sailor who's traveled around the South Pacific and Mexico. An international search ultimately located father and son on Niue, a coral atoll 1,500 miles northeast of New Zealand and 5,500 miles away from Seattle, the Guardian reports. The 46-year-old Hanson was arrested by the island's 15-member police force last Wednesday after a tip from a local who recognized him from a wanted poster, and he was brought back to the US Sunday to face charges of international parental kidnapping, the Seattle Times reports. Billy had been staying on the 38-foot sailboat at Seattle's Shilshole Bay Marina with his dad. The US Attorney's Office says Jeffrey Hanson is a "known drug abuser." He and Joanna Hanson are divorced, and Jeffrey had monthly visitation rights, the Times Leader reports. Billy had gone on summer visits for the past five years, and one of Jeffrey Hanson's friends told the FBI the man would abuse his son on those visits, including hitting him to "toughen" him up. As for Billy, he stayed on the island for a few days while authorities arranged to return him to his mother, and according to the editor of the Niue Star newspaper, he seemed none the worse for wear. "I saw him at a barbecue on Friday and he did not look stressed," the editor says, adding that locals were looking after him and the 9-year-old seemed to be treating the whole thing as an adventure. "He had a Niue T-shirt on and was enjoying himself." It's not clear where the boy is now; the FBI said Monday that authorities were still working to reunite him with his mom. (A New Hampshire girl was recently found after being missing for nine months.)
– The wildly gory and popular John Wick franchise will become a Starz series under the name of The Continental, reports Gizmodo, after the hotel in the movies where assassins like to pal around. For those worried that the small screen might dilute any of the dripping violence on display in John Wick and John Wick: Chapter 2, Starz's CEO says it ain't so, promising "thunderous fight scenes and intensely staged shootouts," not to mention "some new, darkly compelling characters who inhabit this underground world." Keanu Reeves will likely not reprise his role as the star, notes the Hollywood Reporter, but he has signed on as co-executive producer for the series and "is expected to make an appearance." Reeves will, however, reprise the role for the third movie, which is due out in 2019.
– In the US' indictment of FIFA officials is an allegation that an unnamed sportswear company bribed a Brazilian soccer official to get a sponsorship agreement with the Brazilian federation. Bloomberg thinks that company is Nike—the deal outlined in the documents, it notes, "mirrors" the decade-long deal Nike made with Brazil in 1996, a move that "put Nike on the global soccer map." The sportswear giant responded that it "strongly opposes any form of manipulation or bribery" and that it "[has] been cooperating, and will continue to cooperate" in the FIFA investigation. Nike did not, however, specifically comment on the bribery allegation. Since getting the Brazilian sponsorship, Nike's total sales from soccer have skyrocketed from $40 million (in 1994) to $2.27 billion last year. The company referred to in the indictment agreed to pay $160 million over the following decade for the exclusive selling rights to Brazilian national team gear (and the right to outfit the team in its gear, CNNMoney notes), and in a separate agreement, allegedly also paid $40 million—via Swiss bank account—to "an official at a firm that buys and sells marketing rights in Brazil," Bloomberg reports. A "high-ranking" FIFA and Brazilian soccer official received some of that $40 million. CNNMoney says the aforementioned "official" and "firm" are Jose Hawila and his Traffic Group; Hawila has pleaded guilty to bribing FIFA officials in order to make deals between FIFA and would-be sponsors. Though Bloomberg and outlets including the Washington Post frame the $40 million as a bribe, CNNMoney notes that the indictment does not specifically frame that payment, or an additional $30 million in fees the unnamed company paid Traffic Group between 1996 and 1999, as illegal. The documents do, however, say Hawila and his company used that money to bribe FIFA officials. (Click for a meaty FIFA corruption guide.)
– Judge Vaughn Walker’s masterfully written ruling striking down Proposition 8 “was written for a court of one,” namely Anthony Kennedy, writes Dahlia Lithwick of Slate. Walker quotes extensively from Kennedy’s own findings (see Quotes, left), and his “findings of fact” section “knits together the trial evidence … to the nerves at the very base of Justice Kennedy’s brain.” These findings are so rigorous that “it’s hard to read Judge Walker’s opinion without sensing that what really won out was science, methodology, and hard work.” That’s important, because appellate courts often ignore findings of law, but give deference to findings of fact. Walker's findings are so well reasoned that they’ll make it much harder for the Supreme Court to overturn the decision, one law professor tells the New York Times, adding, “This opinion shows why district courts matter.” But another law professor doubts it. “We’ve seen time and time again that the Supreme Court can do whatever it wants,” he said.
– President Obama’s campaign has set up a new take on its old “Fight the Smears” concept… only this time it’s a lot less friendly looking. Gone is the white-and-blue motif, replaced with an ominous red-and-black site called "Attack Watch"—and conservatives appear to find it hilarious. Seemingly every tweet using the suggested #attackwatch tag has been a conservative either mocking the site, or decrying it as a scary Big Brother exercise, the Wall Street Journal reports, offering examples: “@thorninaz I saw someone purposely squeeze the Charmin in the grocery store” “@Drill_Thrawl Hey Kids, are mommy and daddy talking bad about Obama? Be sure to report them at #attackwatch #1984" “@JLMandl I’m still using REAL LIGHT BULBS. Come get me!” The Washington Post even posted an article calling the site a “laughing stock,” to the delight of conservatives like Michelle Malkin, who posted some mock Attack Watch posters on her blog. A parody commercial (see video) is also making the rounds. The sight has also garnered serious criticism from Jack Tapper of ABC, who says it appears to be “seeking to stop criticism,” not smears. Still the site is something of a hit—Obama 2012 boasts that 100,000 people signed up in its first 24 hours.
– Foxconn may not be in the news like it once was, but not for lack of woes, it seems. The company revealed that a major fight erupted Thursday at a Foxconn campus in eastern China, and the firm says 11 people were injured. The fighting reportedly started as workers drank to mark a public holiday, the Mid-Autumn Festival. Pictures on social media show dozens of shirtless men carrying pipes and sticks, the Wall Street Journal reports. Unconfirmed reports say three people died, and ZDNet puts the number of those injured badly enough to require hospitalization at 27. The company characterized the feud as "of a personal nature," but ZDNet reports a conflict between provinces. The tech site says more than 200 armed workers from Guizhou province targeted dormitories at the Yantai campus, in Shandong province; they reportedly chanted, "Beat all that are from Shandong." Either way, labor activists are speaking out after a summer that, the Journal notes, saw 183 strikes and protests at Chinese factories in general; that's double last year's tally. "Large-scale fights simply do not break out at well-run factories with a contented and well-paid workforce," says one activist. The fight comes nearly a year to the day after a massive riot at another Foxconn factory.
– President Trump is (or was) apparently up for the Nobel Peace Prize that will be announced this fall, a surprise revelation since who's in the running is usually kept under wraps by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. But the New York Times explains Trump's candidacy was divulged because of something fishy going on with his nomination, a matter that Oslo police are looking into. It seems the person who allegedly nominated the president, when contacted, said the nomination wasn't authentic—and the forgery happened last year as well; police say the same person is behind both false nominations. The fraud regarding 2017's nomination, which was put through the same comprehensive forensic scrutiny that this year's will undergo, wasn't reported to the public until now. Trump was said to have been nominated for his "ideology of peace by force," per the BBC. The Week explains that nominations can come only from certain parties, including a head of state, someone who's already won a Nobel, or a qualified lawmaker or university professor, among others. It's reported there are 329 nominations for this year's prize: 217 individuals and 112 groups. "We receive many invalid nominations each year in the sense that they don't meet the deadline or the nominator is not in fact qualified to nominate," Olav Njolstad, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, says, per the Washington Post. "But to my knowledge this is the first example of a forged nomination where someone has stolen the identity of another person." The chief of the Oslo police's economic crimes division says that although they haven't yet been able to confirm where the forger is located, the FBI is assisting his team in investigating.
– Sarah Palin proved again yesterday why she's an NRA favorite: She won a standing ovation at the group's annual convention after a strong attack on President Obama for "exploiting" the Newtown rampage, reports Politico. In the main part of her speech, she said the media attacked President Bush when he used images of the 9/11 attacks in his re-election campaign. “That same media is now the reliable poodle-skirted cheerleader for the president that writes the book on exploiting tragedy." Palin, adorned in a "women hunt" T-shirt, also noted that son Trigg's nickname is "Trigger" and that she has a nephew whose middle name is Remington. But she got her biggest laugh going after New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, maybe the nation's biggest anti-gun advocate. At the CPAC convention in March, she mocked his big-soda ban by sipping a big gulp. Yesterday, she pulled out a can of snuff to mock his fight against tobacco products, reports CNN. "Don't make me do it," she said, before putting it away untouched. “It’s funny because Todd’s been looking for this all morning.”
– Hundreds of thousands of Americans—especially black teenage girls—have a disease that could leave them infertile but don't know it, federal health officials warn. Researchers say that around 1.7% of men and women aged 14 to 39 have chlamydia, which adds up to 1.8 million cases nationwide, but only 1.4 million cases have been reported, leaving around 400,000 undiagnosed cases of the sexually transmitted disease, reports WebMD. The disease can do serious damage to women's reproductive systems but is often symptomless, Fox notes. "Young women continue to bear a disproportionate burden," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers say in a press release, explaining that there is a chlamydia prevalence of 6.4% among sexually active adolescent girls aged between 14 and 19—but with a major racial disparity. The rate is 18.6% among black teenage girls, compared to 3.2% among white girls. The researcher says the study shows the need for regular screening of sexually active teen girls, with targeted intervention for those most at risk.
– Two young Italian aid workers kidnapped in Syria last summer plead for their lives in a chilling new video released by their captors. Greta Ramelli and Vanessa Marzullo, 20 and 21 years old, are seen wearing Islamic garb in the video, and one holds up a piece of paper with the date December 17, CNN reports. "We supplicate our government and its mediators to bring us back home before Christmas," the other woman says. "We are in big danger and we could be killed. The government and its mediators are responsible of our lives." The pair were kidnapped just days after arriving in Syria last July and had not been seen since August 1, the Telegraph reports. Italian authorities haven't publicly commented on the video, but sources say they believe it to be genuine. According to La Repubblica, the two women are being held not by ISIS, but by the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, which says it is keeping them captive because their country supports attacks against it in Syria.
– It's an otherwise ho-hum traffic alert from the town of Palm Beach, Fla., warning drivers that a new 4-by-4-foot sinkhole on Southern Boulevard might cause some headaches. Except that the sinkhole just happens to be in front of President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, aka the "Winter White House," per Time. Sinkholes aren't exactly rare occurrences in Florida, and the best guess is that the culprit in this case is a newly installed water main. Still, the Trump connection was proving too tough to resist for many of his critics on Twitter. "The swamp is draining?" asked one tweet rounded up by the Washington Post. "Sinkhole, or portal?" asked another. Others saw a connection between a different Trump topic popular on Twitter, the eerie-looking photo of him touching a glowing globe: "What in the name of all that is good is this man summoning?!" asked one tweet when the sinkhole emerged.
– Dennis Rodman is back in Pyongyang, but the family of imprisoned American Kenneth Bae shouldn't get their hopes up: The former NBA star says the five-day visit is about basketball and hanging out with his "awesome" buddy Kim Jong Un, not diplomacy. "I'm not going to North Korea to discuss freeing Kenneth Bae," Rodman told Reuters before boarding a flight in Beijing. "I'm just trying to go over there to meet my friend Kim, the Marshal. Try to start a basketball league over there, something like that." Rodman watched a basketball game with the North Korean leader during his first visit to the country earlier this year and the pair were seen laughing and joking. "I'm not a diplomat," Rodman told reporters, though he asked Kim earlier this year to "do him a solid" and free Bae, who has been moved from a prison camp to hospital. In a Huffington Post interview last week, Rodman said, "If the Marshal says, 'Dennis, you know, do you want me to let him loose?' and then if I actually got him loose—and I'm just saying this out the blue—I'd be the most powerful guy in the world." Rodman's return to Pyongyang is being sponsored by Irish betting firm Paddy Power.
– Cincinnati cops are fighting a move by city officials to outfit them with body cameras—unless their salaries change, that is. The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that some city cops began wearing cameras last week, and the police union reacted by saying it and the city need to sit down at the bargaining table; the union argues the cameras shouldn't be worn until that happens and sent the city a "cease and desist" letter to that effect. A union lawyer argued in the letter written last week that a body-camera mandate "will change several aspects of their job and regularly assigned duties." But City Manager Harry Black on Monday said he has the right to order cops to wear them and said their presence protects cops "from frivolous and fraudulent claims." Cameras are a flashpoint in the city, which WLWT reports has seen three fatal shootings this year involving police and where a white cop last year shot an unarmed black motorist after a traffic stop. University of Cincinnati Police Officer Raymond Tensing said he had no choice but to open fire after Sam DuBose, 43, tried to run him over and dragged him with his car. A body cam video of the incident revealed that story to be a lie, prosecutors said. But lawyers for Tensing insist it backs up the officer’s version. He'll stand trial in October. The push to outfit all of the city's cops with cameras has been a year-long effort. Some 700 cameras have been purchased as part of a seven-year contract. In Denver, the police union also has qualms with how the body camera program has taken shape, the Denver Post reports.
– The Senate has voted 54 to 46 to reject House amendments to the continuing resolution—including the one that would delay ObamaCare. The vote split evenly along party lines, and increases the odds of a government shutdown, the Washington Post reports. As Slate points out, this is the second time in as many weeks that the House and Senate have recited this play; the Senate last week stripped out a provision that would have defunded ObamaCare entirely. Now, it's Boehner's move once more. Earlier today, President Obama said he was "not at all resigned" to a shutdown, and urged lawmakers to "set aside the short-term politics" and make a deal, the Hill reports. The shutdown hits at midnight unless something is done to stop it. Senate Republicans have been floating the idea of passing a quick, one-week extension to give the sides more time to negotiate, but Harry Reid says he strongly opposes it. Budget Chair Patty Murray agreed, asking, "Why go through this for another five days?"
– Bullying doesn't end as we enter our golden years, apparently. The AP has uncovered incidents of cruelty at senior centers and housing complexes that highlight the surprising ways elderly people bully one another. "There's the clique system just like everywhere else," says Betsy Gran, who once ran a senior center in San Francisco. "It's like Mean Girls, but everyone is 80." Examples? One woman at a senior high-rise considers herself ruler of the parking garage and keys the cars of her enemies. Elsewhere, there are laundry rooms where detergent is stolen or clothing is tossed on the ground. And forget about Bingo rooms—new arrivals who happen to win may end up tormented by angry veterans. Some senior facilities are hosting anti-bullying programs, which at least teach people about the problem. Most senior bullying is about exclusion, rumors, and name-calling rather than physical violence, one expert says, and is perpetrated mainly by women—which highlights the changes in gender disparity as we age. Some seniors apparently bully others to overcome a feeling of lost control that comes with age. But that's little consolation to Marsha Wetzel of Niles, Illinois, who sued a senior apartment complex after she was bullied for being lesbian, the Chicago Tribune reports. "I'd just go in my room and barricade my door and just pray," says Wetzel, now 70. "I just felt like a slug, like I was nothing, like I wasn't even human."
– Shares of American Airlines stock may have jumped after news that Qatar Airways was interested in buying a 10% stake in the company, but American CEO Doug Parker threw cold water on any shareholder celebration. The announcement of interest from the airline to buy American stock worth about $808 million prompted Parker to write a letter to employees denouncing the bid, reports CNBC. "[W]e aren't particularly excited about Qatar's outreach," Parker writes, "and we find it puzzling given our extremely public stance on the illegal subsidies that Qatar, Emirates and Etihad have all received over the years from their governments," he writes, referring to two other Gulf carriers. The actual investment hasn't happened yet: Anyone trying to buy 4.75% or more of American's stock must submit a written request to the board, and that hasn't happened yet, reports Business Insider. Qatar Airways' motives were unclear, telling American only that its investment would be "passive." Quartz notes that the airline is small in comparison to US airlines and has been purchasing stakes in foreign airlines recently to beef up. In his letter Parker, attempts to allay any fear that the potential new investor could influence the airline. "Do not worry," he writes, citing a law that prohibits any foreign entity from owning 25% of a US airline. "There is no possibility that Qatar will be able to purchase enough of American to control or influence our Board, management or our strategy."
– Four of the six jurors who acquitted George Zimmerman want the world to know that the juror who went public doesn't speak for them. "We ask you to remember that we are not public officials and we did not invite this type of attention into our lives," the jurors said in a statement issued soon after the second part of a two-part interview with Juror B37 aired on CNN. "We also wish to point out that the opinions of Juror B37 ... were her own and not in any way representative" of the others, they said. The sixth juror, the only minority member on the panel, did not sign the statement, reports the Orlando Sentinel. B37 has now issued her own statement in response. "For reasons of my own, I needed to speak alone," she tells CNN, but she doesn't want to give any further interviews. She said her "prayers are with all those who have the influence and power to modify the laws that left me with no verdict option other than 'not guilty'" and that "no other family should be forced to endure what the Martin family has endured." In her original interview, B37 empathized with Zimmerman's motives and said Martin "played a huge role" in his own death. "I don't think race had anything to do with this trial," she said, "just because he was black and George was Spanish or Puerto Rican." Zimmerman is half Peruvian.
– Americans appear to have experienced better mental health during the recent recession than during the years leading up to it. So say researchers out of the University of Maryland who crunched data on depression, anxiety, and psychological disorders in a study published this week in PLoS ONE. The reason remains unclear, and the researchers say more investigation is needed in a post at EurekaAlert. On the one hand, the drop in diagnoses could be because people who are out of work have less access to mental health services. On the other hand, it could be because they're spending more time with family or on leisure activities and are happier as a result. The study used data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey of 81,313 adults between 2005 and 2011. Both men and women saw better mental health and had lower odds of being diagnosed with depression during the 2007-09 recession, though women were more likely to be diagnosed with anxiety after the recession. Unemployed or low-income women in the Northeast and Midwest were most likely to be diagnosed with anxiety, which the lead researcher says "could help policymakers craft targeted responses." The researchers think state-by-state analyses using unemployment rates could lead to better policies. (People who live in thin-air states might want to pay special attention.)
– A member of the European Parliament is facing possible punishment after stating that women "must earn less than men because they are weaker, smaller, and less intelligent," the BBC reports. According to the Huffington Post, the statement was made by 74-year-old Janusz Korwin-Mikke while the parliament was discussing the gender pay gap. Korwin-Mikke is an independent member of parliament who founded his own right-wing political party, Poland's Renewal of the Republic—Freedom and Hope, CNN reports. His statement may have broken the European Parliament's rules against racist, xenophobic, or defamatory conduct, for which Korwin-Mikke could be fined or suspended. Other parliamentary members quickly spoke out against Korwin-Mikke's statement. One member from the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party said she would defend European women against men like Korwin-Mikke. And London Labour parliamentary member Seb Dance tells the Independent that Korwin-Mikke, who he calls a nationalist and extremist, "crossed a line and must lose the right to be taken seriously on anything." Korwin-Mikke has been punished by the European Parliament in the past for likening migrants arriving in Europe to "excrement" and giving a Nazi salute in front of the parliament. He's previously said women shouldn't have the right to vote and was investigated for incitement to rape.
– If the math seems unbelievable, that's because it kind of is: A 76-year-old retired Marine lost the $197,000 Washington, DC, home he had paid for in full 20 years ago—and all of the equity he had in it—because of an unpaid $134 property tax bill. In the first of a three-part series titled "Homes for the Taking," the Washington Post investigates the evolution of a long-running DC lien program. Under it, a lien is slapped on a property belonging to a homeowner who hasn't paid taxes; investors essentially help the city "collect" by buying these liens at auction and charging interest. But where those investors were once of the "mom-and-pop" variety, they're now "well-financed, out-of-town companies" who charge interest for six months and can then foreclose on the property after that mark if the debt hasn't been paid; they can also slap on thousands in legal fees. The Post has found 509 such instances of foreclosure (about 200 homes, the rest commercial real estate, parking lots, and land) since 2005; in Bennie Coleman's case, his $134 bill grew into a $4,999 debt. And many of the victims are "vulnerable": Coleman is battling dementia; a 95-year-old woman in a nursing home with Alzheimer's lost her home over a $44.79 debt. "This is destroying lives," says an urban real estate professor. Click for the full story, or to read the second part, on suspicious bidding in lien auctions.
– An employee at Dickey's Barbecue Pit in South Jordan, Utah, appears to have mistaken lye, an odorless chemical found in drain cleaners, for sugar, and made a batch of "sweet" tea with it. Jan Harding, a 67-year-old grandmother out to lunch with her husband and friends after church Sunday, took one sip and immediately spit it out, saying, "I think I just drank acid," reports the AP. Her mouth immediately began to burn, and when her husband rushed her to a local hospital, officials there were so worried they airlifted her to the University of Utah's burn unit, reports the Los Angeles Times. Harding has been in critical condition since. She has been intubated, has limited movement of her head and neck, and isn't yet able to speak. "It's disturbing that this kind of toxic, poisonous material would be in the food-prep area and somehow find its way into the iced tea vat," her attorney says. "I don't know how something like that can happen." Harding appears to be the first and only victim, and a local police official says it's fortunate the restaurant wasn't busy: "If someone had swallowed it, it could have been potentially fatal," he says. Adds a chemistry expert, "It would start dissolving your insides." The chemical, found in products like Drano and also used to de-grease deep fryers, is also called sodium hydroxide and was added to the tea in powder form. Doctors are still trying to determine if it lacerated Harding's esophagus or stomach. The restaurant is participating in the investigation and remains open for business. (Check out what one doctor laced her lover's coffee with.)
– Babies born to overweight mothers may be at greater risk of developing cerebral palsy, new research shows. Scientists who followed 1.4 million babies born in Sweden between 1997 and 2011 found that more than 3,000 developed the disorder, which the CDC says is the most common childhood motor skills disability. Researchers reported in JAMA that they while found no significant link to babies' birth weight and cerebral palsy, they did see an association to maternal weight in full-term deliveries. The association increased as a mother's body mass index increased, per Medical Xpress. While the risk factor—2 cases out of 1,000 births—may seem low, babies born to mothers severely obese in early pregnancy were twice at risk, says lead researcher Dr. Eduardo Villamor, per HealthDay. The findings are important "due to the large proportion of women who are overweight or obese worldwide," Villamor says. In the US, half of all expectant moms are overweight at their first neonatal exam, per Medical Xpress. A Columbia University expert tells HealthDay that cerebral palsy is 30% to 40% genetic, but factors such as obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes may trigger a genetic predisposition. Although more research is needed, Villamor says losing weight before pregnancy is known to reduce ill effects on children. All the data show that "it's good to get to a healthy weight before pregnancy," an obstetrician tells HealthDay. (Fish oil during pregnancy may cut babies' asthma risk.)
– Ebola cases in West Africa could multiply sixfold, affecting up to 20,000 as the virus "continues to accelerate," the World Health Organization said today, per Reuters. Some 1,552 people have now died out of the 3,069 cases reported—though the actual number of cases could be four times that amount, the AP reports. "More than 40% of the total number of cases have occurred within the past 21 days," the UN health agency said, noting an "unprecedented" number of health workers have been hit. The latest figures do not include cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a different strain of Ebola is wreaking havoc. Though the majority of cases in the outbreak are in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, the BBC reports Nigeria has seen its sixth Ebola death, and the first outside the city of Lagos, in the oil hub of Port Harcourt. To help combat the spread, pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline notes it is working with the National Institutes of Health on a vaccine to treat Ebola and will begin human trials on healthy volunteers in the coming weeks. If effective, the company will provide 10,000 doses to WHO workers, Sky News reports. Meanwhile, the WHO has revealed a new plan to tackle the virus, which includes focusing on "stopping transmission in capital cities and major ports."
– Two people have died in South Korea and another 30 have tested positive for the virus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome, in what is now considered the largest MERS outbreak outside of the Middle East. Most of the 1,100 MERS cases reported since 2012 have come from the Middle East, where 470 have died. All confirmed cases in South Korea have been found in patients, visitors, or staff members at five hospitals the government has chosen not to name—despite a poll showing 83% of people demand they be identified, Reuters reports. Test results are pending for 99 suspected carriers, while 1,364 are being monitored for symptoms in isolation, the New York Times reports. More than 230 schools were shut down today amid fear of the virus' spread. However, a rep at a crisis management consulting firm says "a lot of fear we see now is rooted in the distrust of the government" after its response to the Sewol ferry disaster. The outbreak has been traced to a 68-year-old man who returned to the country on May 4 after traveling to Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. He visited three clinics on May 11 after developing a fever and cough but didn't disclose his trip; he wasn't properly diagnosed until May 20. A doctor, nurse, and 24 people at a hospital the man visited have since tested positive. A 58-year-old woman who had contact with the patient but was treated for asthma and released, died of MERS on Monday. "We apologize for the inappropriate initial responses," South Korea's health minister says. "We were too relaxed." Third-generation infections have been reported, meaning the initial patient infected a second patient who infected a third, and "further cases can be expected," the WHO says, per USA Today. But "there is no reason for people to panic," an infection control expert says, "and nothing so far that suggests to me that the virus has changed to become more dangerous."
– Planning a trip to the moon? You might want to think about heart health first. According to a study published in Scientific Reports, travel in deep space dramatically raises the risk of cardiovascular disease. Florida State University researchers looked at America's Apollo astronauts, who are the only people ever to have gone to deep space, and found that they were four to five times more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than other astronauts, NBC News reports. Eight of the 24 Apollo astronauts have died, and of the seven deaths looked at, three, including Neil Armstrong, were from cardiovascular disease. That works out to roughly 45%, compared with around 10% among astronauts who either remained in low Earth orbit or never went to space at all. The study suggests that leaving the Earth's protective magnetosphere, which deflects cosmic radiation, even for short periods can do long-term damage to the cardiovascular system, according to the researchers. They say that since astronauts are selected from some of the most physically fit people around, the link wasn't uncovered until the Apollo crews were compared to other astronauts instead of the general public. Former NASA astronaut Jeff Hoffman says the implications are clear: Space travel needs to be fast. "We can't shield against high-energy cosmic radiation, not with our current mass-limiting capabilities, but it does re-emphasize the importance of getting to Mars as quickly as possible," he tells the Guardian. (Last month, NASA started an experimental fire on a cargo vessel.)
– In what officials in Westchester County, NY, are calling an "unfathomable tragedy," a respected police officer appears to have completely snapped, killing two of his daughters and himself just a month after he retired. Police say Glen Hochman, 52, shot his daughters Alissa, 17, and Deanna, 13, to death in their home, along with the family's three pet dogs on Saturday before shooting himself, reports the New York Daily News. His wife, Anamarie DiPietro-Hochman, and his eldest daughter, 22-year-old Samantha, were out of town for the day, and police tell the Journal News that the wife made a domestic incident report the day before the killings about what she said was a "verbal argument only." Friends, neighbors, and colleagues describe Hochman, who served on the White Plains force for 22 years, as a normal, friendly, dependable man who never showed any sign of being troubled. Last year he received an award for saving a man's life, CBS 2 reports. "It's just devastating to a lot of people," a union lawyer who knew the officer for 25 years tells the Journal News. "He was always a quiet, reserved guy, nothing ever seemed to unsettle him. And he was wonderful with his daughters, a devoted father. That's the scary part. There was absolutely no seeing this coming." Sources tell the Daily News that Hochman left a note.
– They aren't naming names yet, but police detectives in Kansas City, Kan., say they have identified a suspect in the unsolved murder of Sarah Jo DeLeon, who was 19 when her body was found in 1989. What's more, they say the suspect is a woman from the area, and that she may be linked to two other cold cases—the murder of Diana Marie Ault in Independence, Mo., in 1994, and an unsolved abduction in Kansas City in 1987, reports the Kansas City Star. "The investigation has revealed that the suspect and an accomplice have been involved in other incidents involving the harassment and intimidation of romantic rivals," Detective Scott Howard says. "We're coming to a conclusion." The Kansas City police department reopened the case in 2014 with new DNA collection and testing technology, and have spent more than $50,000 on trying to crack the DeLeon case. The teen community college student was found along railroad tracks with a head wound and multiple stab wounds, and her car was found with its door open and hazards flashing about a mile from her home, but there was no evidence of a struggle or sexual assault. Police say the suspect and possible accomplice have a motive that may involve romantic rivalry, reports CBS News. For now, investigators are asking the public for any leads on the "abduction by deception" in 1987 that involved tricking a woman out of her home and into a limousine that took her to an American Inn. "We believe that we can show a pattern of behavior that links this to the DeLeon homicide and other crimes," Howard says. (This notorious cold case also involved a female suspect.)
– He might have claimed to be from the happiest place on Earth, but police say Stephen Urquidez was living in his own little bogus world. The California man was arrested Tuesday on burglary charges, and the story is an odd one: Police say Urquidez went by the name "Stephen Disney" (and had a license and W-2 tax forms in that name), claimed to be a "family member associated with a large, well-known corporation," and stole Disneyland tickets, reports the Los Angeles Times. The alleged ruse unraveled after Uriquidez reportedly gave a woman passes to the park to be used in a charity raffle; the winner tried to use them, only to learn they hadn't been activated. An investigation led police to the 51-year-old, who allegedly stole the tickets from a store. Urquidez was released on $20,000 bond and then ... gave an interview. "Somebody lived here before me named Disney. They're confusing me with someone else," Urquidez told KCAL9 yesterday outside his home. The Walt Disney Corporation has confirmed no affiliation with Urquidez, who police say listed income from the Walt Disney Corporation on those fake W-2s. Police are looking for others who might have been duped.
– The new head of the Today show joined the program only 10 weeks ago—sort of—and he's already been dropped, the New York Times reports. Jamie Horowitz and NBC News President Deborah Turness "have come to the conclusion that this is not the right fit," Turness said in a staff memo last night. Others at NBC News say the decision wasn't mutual; instead, they suggest, top figures at NBC News wanted the new GM out before he even formally began. Horowitz was coming to NBC from ESPN, which is owned by Disney, which barred Horowitz from officially beginning the job until Dec. 1; the Times notes he started holding meetings with his new colleagues in September. One NBC insider describes awful meetings in which producers were asked to "give him the names of other producers who should be fired." But another source tells the New York Daily News Horowitz was given the boot by those fearing change: "He knew what needed to be done to improve the show and truly compete with Good Morning America." The Today show has been struggling to regain its ratings dominance over GMA (ABC is also owned by Disney), and Horowitz's hiring was likely aimed at reclaiming the crown it lost in 2012. NBC executives tell the Times that tension surrounded his arrival. Recent reports had suggested that he was being considered as a replacement for Turness, and an insider tells the Hollywood Reporter that the pair didn't get along.
– The "only acceptable actions." That's how seventh-grade science teacher Jason Seaman described his actions in stopping a young gunman who burst into his classroom at Noblesville West Middle School in Indiana last week. Seaman was shot himself as he ran and tackled the shooter, and he spoke for the first time publicly on Monday, though he downplayed his heroism. "My actions on that day, in my mind, were the only acceptable actions I could have done," said Seaman, per CNN. "I deeply care for my students and their well-being. So that is why I did what I did." Seaman devoted the rest of his brief news conference to praising first-responders and 13-year-old Ella Whistler, the only other person shot. She remains hospitalized. Details and developments: Ella: "Her courage and strength is nothing short of remarkable," Seaman said of the girl. He said she remained calm as they waited for help, and he thanked the school resource officer and school nurse for helping her stay "alert and calm," reports the Indianapolis Star. Noblesville's school chief said Monday that Ella was improving at Riley Hospital for Children. Injuries: Seaman underwent surgery Friday for his wounds—his family says he was shot three times, in the abdomen, hip, and shoulder—and he did not elaborate on his injuries. He showed no sign of pain or those injuries at the news conference, notes the AP. Seaman did not take questions from reporters.
– A Florida woman hospitalized for a shark bite Sunday didn't need to describe the shark that bit her—because it was still attached to her arm. The 23-year-old woman had been bitten on the right arm by a small nurse shark that wouldn't let go even after a bystander killed it, the Palm Beach Post reports. A Boca Raton Regional Hospital spokesperson tells the AP the woman was treated and released on Sunday afternoon, having presumably had the 2-foot shark removed from her arm. Witnesses say before the bite, the shark had been antagonized, possibly by the woman and her companion, who were seen near a submerged rock pile where nurse sharks are known to hang out. People were "holding the shark by its tail. They were messing with it," 11-year-old Nate Pachter, who had been snorkeling nearby, tells the South Florida Sun Sentinel. The species has a strong bite and large numbers of very sharp teeth, but it is so laid-back it is "considered the 'couch potato' of the shark world," according to the National Park Service. "Attacks on humans are rare but not unknown, and a clamping bite typically results from a diver or fisherman antagonizing the shark with hook, spear, net, or hand," an NPS fact page states. "The bite reflex is such that it may be some minutes before a quietly re-immersed nurse shark will relax and release its tormentor." (On the other side of the country, countless tiny red crabs are washing up on California's beaches.)
– Did rookie cop Timothy Loehmann shout a warning before gunning down 12-year-old Tamir Rice last November? A newly released report doesn't quote Loehmann directly—he and his partner wouldn't talk to sheriff's investigators—but other officers say he did yell commands and felt he had to shoot Rice, who carried a realistic-looking BB gun in a Cleveland park, WKYC reports. "He gave me no choice," an officer quotes him as saying. "He reached for the gun and there was nothing I could do." Another says that according to Loehmann, "They arrived on scene, was yelling commands at the kid, they stopped the car, the kid went for the firearm and tried to pull it out." But no witness quoted in the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's report describes hearing any warnings before the shooting, the Guardian reports. One, a 31-year-old woman, says she heard "Freeze! Show me your hands" but only after two bullets were fired. The shooting happened just two seconds after Loehmann jumped out of his cruiser, apparently injuring his ankle, the report says. The report also describes an FBI agent happening upon the scene, giving first aid to Tamir, and saying the officers seemed unsure of what to do next. Another quirk: The emergency operator who took the original 911 call, about someone scaring people with a gun, didn't relay the caller's information that the gunman was likely a juvenile with a fake weapon—but didn't say why she held that information back, the New York Times reports. A grand jury will likely hear the evidence in the next few weeks or months and decide whether to press charges against the two officers.
– Australia’s Marie Claire took the oh-so-courageous step in the fight for positive body image of featuring a naked, unretouched woman on its February cover...a woman who just so happens to be supermodel Jennifer Hawkins. The issue will benefit an eating disorder organization that defends the choice, saying the photo reveals Hawkins’ flaws, but you may have to squint to see them, writes Amy Odell in New York. Those flaws basically boil down to a somewhat dimpled thigh and a tiny crease on her waist. "We appreciate the efforts here," writes Odell, "but when we look at this cover we don't think, Hey! She MIGHT have cellulite! I feel so much better about myself! We think, Damn, she's got a flat stomach. Why did I drink so much over the holidays?"
– While Slate's Joshua Keating argued previously that the Nobel Peace Prize should go to no one this year, he's not about to begrudge Malala Yousafzai, who was named a co-recipient today. The 17-year-old Pakistani activist is certainly worthy, he writes at the website. Just one thing, though: Can we please do away with the "irritatingly smug and condescending" coverage of her being "the bravest girl in the world," he asks. It's a disservice to her, and it belittles what she's up to these days. The good news is that the poise she has shown on the world stage, along with her willingness to challenge leaders including President Obama, suggests that she "isn’t going to let herself be reduced to a cuddly caricature." Which is the way it should be, observes Amy Davidson at the New Yorker. "It is past time to stop seeing Malala as simply the girl who survived, as a symbol," writes Davidson. "She is a girl who leads." Consider that death threats against the teen have not stopped, but nor have they silenced her. "The worst insult to Malala would be to regard her as nothing more than a child performer for peace, kept in a moment we want to keep hearing about." She became the youngest-ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize today, but it's as much about her future as her past. Click for Davidson's full post, or for Keating's full post.
– In an industry first, Whole Foods promises that all genetically modified food sold in its stores will be clearly labeled as GMO products by 2018, reports NBC News. The chain says there's a growing demand by consumers to choose, but it's difficult to do so because current law doesn't require such labeling. It's also smart business, adds President AC Gallo. “We’ve seen how our customers have responded to the products we do have labeled," he says. “Some of our manufacturers say they’ve seen a 15% increase in sales of products" certified as non-GMO. The move could prove to be a big deal, reports the New York Times. One advocate from the group Just Label It calls it a "game changer" and says it could have the same effect as Walmart's decision a while back to stop selling milk from cows injected with growth hormone. As a result of Walmart's move, relatively few dairy cows around the US now get the hormone.
– A group of squatters has seized an empty property on one of Britain's "most expensive and exclusive streets" and turned it into a homeless shelter, the Telegraph reports. According to the Guardian, the five-story, $19 million home was purchased by a Russian oligarch in 2014 but is believed to have sat unused since. The Autonomous Nation of Anarchist Libertarians, or ANAL, got into the home through an open window on Monday. They say they're currently housing 25 or so people who had been sleeping on the street. The nearly 200-year-old house features a spiral staircase, polished floors, and multiple "hand-carved" fireplaces. The squatters have added a projector for movie nights, portable cookers, and a shop with free clothes. A recent count found approximately 4,000 people sleeping on the streets of London. Another count found more than 200,000 homes that have been empty for more than half a year. ANAL calls that an "injustice." The group says it researched the home before moving in, discovering it was purchased by Russian oligarch Andrey Goncharenko, who has bought four fancy houses in London over the past three years. One squatter tells the Telegraph they "figured the damage caused to him compared to the gains for the homeless community is nothing." The squatter says the house could mean the difference between life and death for homeless people during freezing winter weather. The Mirror has photos from inside the home prior to its new life as a homeless shelter.
– A sapling grown from the chestnut tree that gave Anne Frank solace while hiding from the Nazis will be planted on the lawn of the US Capitol, reports AFP. The original tree collapsed in 2010 in Amsterdam, but it lives on in offshoots like the one that will be planted in DC on April 30. The National Journal notes a passage from Frank's diary in February 1944: ("We) looked out at the blue sky, the bare chestnut tree glistening with dew, the seagulls and other birds glinting with silver as they swooped through the air, and we were so moved and entranced that we couldn't speak." Frank would be captured about six months later and taken to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where she died at age 15.
– Tea Party candidates may have rattled the Democrats, but it's the old-line Republicans who could be in for a shellacking now. The upstarts heading to DC are already eying targets painted on the backs of GOP legislators out of step with their small government policies—such as Utah's Orrin Hatch and Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas, notes Politico. Those friendly with the Tea Partiers, on the other hand, are enjoying a huge boost in popularity. "People in the Senate have been in touch with me to try to figure out ways in which we can have a better working relationship,” said Tea Party supporter Rep. Dick Armey. "All of a sudden, I'm a matchmaker." Tea Partiers are determined to avoid being seduced by pork-barrel strategies, according to leaders. "The establishment is much more likely to try to buy off your votes than to buy into your limited-government philosophy," warned fervent Tea Party supporter Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who cruised to reelection. But, he adds: "Tea Party Republicans were elected to save the country—not be co-opted by the club. So put on your boxing gloves. The fight begins today.”
– It was Justin Timberlake's fifth time hosting Saturday Night Live last night, and the singer brought his Suit & Tie to knock it out of a star-studded park, notes the Hollywood Reporter, which calls the episode "the biggest of 2013." In his opening monologue, he was joined by fellow five-time hosts Alec Baldwin, Tom Hanks, Chevy Chase, Candace Bergen, Paul Simon, and Steve Martin—with the latter chiding Timberlake for not being able to play the banjo. Dan Akroyd and Martin Short also appeared in the sketch. Hilarity, Andy Samberg, and an appearance by the Three Amigos ensued during the show. TMZ notes, meanwhile, that Timberlake took a shot right back at Kanye West after the rapper dissed Suit & Tie. Over at Huffington Post, Mike Ryan has his scorecard for the evening.
– Realtor.com has come up with a unique twist on the usual "best cities" format. This one ranks the top cities for singles who are looking to meet a soulmate but who are also looking to buy a home in the meantime. Factors including affordability, things to do, and the city's percentage of singles come into play. The upshot? Forget huge metropolises, where the price of a home is out of reach. Think smaller, suggests CBS News: Take your date out "ice skating in Minneapolis, on an art tour in Indianapolis or to the symphony in Raleigh." Here's the top 10: Minneapolis Indianapolis Raleigh, NC Birmingham, Ala. Atlanta Denver Nashville St. Louis Orlando, Fla. Pittsburgh
– When you think "Winter Olympics," a country with the word "ice" as part of its name would seem to be a shoo-in for the event's medal podium. Yet Iceland, which has been competing in the winter version of the Games since 1948, has yet to take home a bronze, silver, or gold, per NPR. The site digs through stats on the Sports Reference site to see which other countries have come up short in the cold-weather competition over the years. Here, 10 nations that have been disappointed, as well as the year they started competing: Iceland (1948) Lithuania (1928) Mexico (1928) Morocco (1968) Turkey (1936)
– Devon James must have been out of the country for the past few months—the porn star is coming forward now to claim her spot as yet another Tiger Woods mistress. For those of you keeping track, that’s mistress No. 15 and porn star No. 3, at least according to the New York Daily News’ count. James shared details of her "dirty" first meeting with Woods, which involved a threesome, in a radio interview. “There was very little talk the first time,” says the 29-year-old, claiming the golfer paid her and the other woman $2,000 each. She says the affair continued for two and a half years. And apparently his text messages to her were just as classy as we’ve come to expect: One allegedly says, “I want you to be my whore.” How is Elin Nordegren taking all of this? Not well, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. A source says she plans to skip Tiger’s Masters comeback.
– Top Trump strategist Steve Bannon disdains the media, but he had plenty to say publicly while hosting a daily radio show for Breitbart News before joining Donald Trump's team. USA Today has listened to dozens of hours of recordings from 2015-16, and the Washington Post did a similar deep dive to get a better handle on the views of one of the president's most influential advisers. Both analyses paint a similar picture: He views Islam as a violent religion that poses a direct threat to the US and Christianity, and he pushes American "sovereignty" strongly, hoping to limit immigration and ditch multi-nation trade agreements. Some of the snippets cited: In May, he called President Bush's post-9/11 declaration that "Islam is peace" the "dumbest" comments he made during his presidency. In fact, Bannon called Islam "the most radical" religion in the world. In November 2015, when GOP Rep. Ryan Zinke said the US should stop bringing in Syrian refugees until they can be better vetted, Bannon interjected, "Why even let 'em in?" Vetting is expensive, he said, and the money could be better spent in the US. "Should we just take a pause and a hiatus for a number of years on any influx from that area of the world?" In December, he said: “I think that most people in the Middle East, at least 50%, believe in being Sharia-compliant. If you're Sharia-compliant or want to impose Sharia law, the United States is the wrong place for you." (A former NSA lawyer tells USA Today that Bannon is wrong.) In criticizing "progressive plutocrats in Silicon Valley," he said: "Engineering schools are all full of people from South Asia, and East Asia. ... They've come in here to take these jobs." In November 2015, when talking about national security, he said: "But you know what, we're in a war. We're clearly going into, I think, a major shooting war in the Middle East again." In May, wondering if the nation was ready to follow his lead: "Is that grit still there, that tenacity, that we've seen on the battlefields ... fighting for something greater than themselves?" he asked. That is "one of the biggest open questions in this country."
– The IRS scandal goes beyond the Tea Party: Documents show that over the past two years while evaluating applications for tax-exempt status, officials also zeroed in on groups that criticized the government or educated Americans about the Constitution or the Bill of Rights; as well as groups that were interested in taxes, government spending, or government debt; limiting or expanding the government; improving America; or "social economic reform." The documents show how the Cincinnati office frequently redefined the types of groups that should be targeted for increased scrutiny, even after division chief Lois Lerner objected in June 2011, the Washington Post reports. In March 2012, then-IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman testified before Congress that the IRS was not singling out conservative groups, the Wall Street Journal reports. It wasn't until May 2012 that a neutral policy was adopted, with the IRS agreeing to target any group that was significantly concerned with political campaigns. The documents don't make it clear who the decision-maker was, Reuters reports.
– By mocking John McCain's military record, Donald Trump has put his own record of draft deferments in the spotlight, and he's being pretty evasive about the last of his five Vietnam-era deferments, Politico reports. The campaign describes the 1968 medical deferment, which Trump says was for bone spurs in his heels, as "minor" and "short-term," but it appears to have kept him out of the war during the crucial 18 months before he drew a high draft number in December 1969, reports Politico, which notes that the biggest question is whether Trump got the deferment by bringing a letter from his family doctor citing the bone spur problem. Plenty of people of military age poorer than Trump with "no doctor but health issues bigger than bone spurs" were drafted, Politico notes. The Trump campaign, asked whether there was a doctor's letter, responded only with a general campaign statement that notes Trump's role in creating the "Vietnam War Memorial in lower Manhattan, for which he contributed a tremendous sum of money." Trump has been condemned by nearly all his GOP rivals, but in a USA Today op-ed, he sidesteps the Vietnam issue and continues to attack McCain, accusing him of abandoning veterans and saying he has "failed the state of Arizona and the country." He also blasts his GOP rivals as "failed politicians or people who would be unable to succeed in the private sector."
– Next up, a debate with the parole board? The Ivy League's finest debate team was defeated by a team of prisoners from a maximum-security prison in New York state. The three-man Eastern New York Correctional Facility team was declared the winner on Sept. 18 after debating for an hour with Harvard's team, which won the national title this year, the AP reports. In a Facebook post, the Harvard undergraduates said they were proud to lose to the "phenomenally intelligent and articulate team" of inmates. The prison team—which wasn't allowed to use the Internet for research—made the case against allowing undocumented children into public schools, a position with which they personally disagreed. The three inmates, who are all serving time in Napanoch, New York, for violent crimes, have been studying as part of an initiative led by nearby Bard College. Before last month's Harvard debate, they had already scored victories against West Point and a University of Vermont team, reports the Wall Street Journal, which notes that very few of the inmates who've earned degrees under the nearly 15-year-old Bard program have ended up back behind bars. "Debating has changed our lives and this confirmed how powerful a tool education and debating can be," the president of the Harvard College Debating Union tells Boston.com. Harvard didn't go easy on the inmates because that would have been "incredibly disrespectful of their talent and work," he adds. (The biggest-ever mass release of federal prisoners will happen later this month.)
– Australia's oldest scientist recently celebrated his 104th birthday, but it wasn't a joyous occasion. "I greatly regret having reached that age," David Goodall told ABC Australia in early April. "I'm not happy. I want to die." And that's exactly what Goodall, an esteemed ecologist, intends to do this month, with plans in the works to travel from Perth to a clinic in Basel, Switzerland, where staff there will help him end his life, the Guardian reports. Although Goodall doesn't have a terminal illness—a requirement for euthanasia in Victoria, the only state in Australia where assisted suicide will be legal as of June 2019—he says his quality of life has gone downhill and he doesn't want to prolong things. Switzerland is one of the few places in the world where, even though assisted suicide hasn't technically been legalized, it's not against Swiss law in "some circumstances," per the Washington Post. Goodall was in good shape into his 90s, when his vision started to fail. In 2016, Edith Cowan University, where he's an honorary research assistant, deemed him "unfit" to be on campus. Exit International, a euthanasia advocacy nonprofit that's helping organize his trip, has set up a GoFundMe page, calling the fact that he has to travel across the world to carry out his wishes a "pathetic state of affairs." "A peaceful, dignified death is the entitlement of all who want it," the group says in its latest newsletter. "And a person should not be forced to leave home to achieve it." Forbes notes Goodall—who tells the New Daily he feels "resentful" he has to go to Switzerland—has been an Exit International member for 20 years and "considering the next gradation for his own personal collection of carbon-based, life-bearing molecules for some time. Now, he's ready." (Check out this euthanasia pod.)
– The small group of friends who make up Tiger Woods' inner circle warned the golfer his extramarital shenanigans were going to cause trouble, but he ignored them—and they've stuck with him through the explosive revelations that are threatening to sink his career. "We said, 'You've got to be careful. It's really getting too raggedy,'" a longtime friend tells the New York Daily News. "He was under a lot of pressure. He thought he was just letting off steam." Meanwhile, Frank Rich argues in the New York Times that Woods, not Ben Bernanke, is the person of the year. True, "Woods will surely be back on the links once the next celebrity scandal drowns his out." But Tiger is a symbol of Americans' "bipartisan credulousness," a quality that let fans fall into "the exceptional, Enron-sized gap between this golfer’s public image as a paragon of businesslike discipline and focus and the maniacally reckless life we now know he led."
– ESPN reporter Britt McHenry won't be on the air for a week—the network has suspended her after a videotape surfaced in which she insults a cashier for a towing company in nasty fashion. Some not-so-pleasant examples, as compiled by Deadspin and Sports Illustrated. “I’m in the news sweetheart, I will f---ing sue this place.” “That’s all you care about, taking people’s money. With no education, no skill set, just wanted to clarify that." "Maybe if I was missing some teeth they would hire me, huh?” "Lose some weight, baby girl." The trouble started when McHenry's car got towed April 6 in Arlington, Va., as she was eating in a Chinese restaurant. The video was recorded when she went to pick up her car. McHenry apologized today via Twitter: "In an intense and stressful moment, I allowed my emotions to get the best of me and said some insulting and regrettable things," she wrote, adding, "I am so sorry for my actions and will learn from this mistake." The cashier, Gina Michelle, had been pushing for the story to go public since it happened, reports Busted Coverage. That didn't occur until the video, which appears to be edited, showed up on LiveLeak.
– "We want Google to end its illegal behavior," says EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, per the Guardian, and the regulator hopes a record $5.06 billion fine will compel it to do so. Described by the Wall Street Journal as the EU's "sharpest rebuke yet" to the power wielded by the upper echelon of tech companies, the bloc on Wednesday imposed the fine and ordered Google to stop pushing its apps in a way that stymies competitors. It has 90 days to comply or parent company Alphabet could be hit with additional fines of up to 5% of its average daily turnover. Google says it will appeal. The Journal explains that all but about 20% of all smartphones run on the Android operating system, and the allegation was that Google used that dominance as leverage to push its own apps. The Verge outlines the three alleged practices the regulator viewed as illegal and detrimental to competitors, two of which are allegedly still active: that Google stipulated that Android device manufacturers could only incorporate access to Google's Play store if it shipped those devices with the Google Search app and Chrome browser pre-installed, and that it barred manufacturers from using "forked" versions of Android. Bloomberg offers a very clear primer on the issue, starting with how Android became so dominant in the first place and recapping the record fine the EU hit Google with last year. The BBC notes paying the fine wouldn't be a massive blow to Alphabet should it have to pay it; its cash holdings at the end of Q1 were a hair over $100 billion.
– Iraqi special forces swept into Fallujah on Friday, recapturing most of the city as ISIS' grip crumbled after weeks of fighting. Thousands of trapped residents took advantage of the militants' retreat to flee, some swimming across the Euphrates River to safety, the AP reports. Residents described harrowing escapes even after ISIS fighters abandoned some checkpoints that had them bottled up in the city. On the river, some boats packed with people overturned in the water. Others picked their way down roads laced with hidden bombs. In some cases, ISIS allowed people to leave only if they took the jihadis' families with them. After weeks of heavy battles since the offensive began in late May, it appeared that ISIS defenses in much of the city collapsed abruptly. Aid groups estimated that 50,000 civilians were trapped inside Fallujah when the assault began several weeks ago, and they say that 30,000 to 42,000 of those have fled since then. The majority have been staying in camps in areas around the city. Iraqi government forces are now clearing mines and explosives left behind by ISIS in recently recaptured areas of Fallujah, as fighting continues in other parts of the city, an Iraqi military official says. The air force is hitting targets in the city including ISIS snipers positioned near the main hospital, Brig. Haider al-Obeidi tells the AP. Troops are advancing toward the hospital cautiously, concerned that militants stationed there may use patients as human shields, he says. (Earlier in the offensive, ISIS targeted fleeing civilians.)
– Randy Williams raised a boatload of money last month in Washington state's first recreational pot auction—$600,000, to be exact. But when he tried to spread the wealth locally, offering $14,000 to the Prosser School District and the Boys and Girls Club, his donation was refused, the AP reports. The school district—whose superintendent has been a vocal opponent of marijuana legalization in Washington—said no because it "would send an inconsistent message to … students," as the Yakima Herald-Republic puts it. The district also says there's more pot now in its schools since legalization. And the executive director of the regional Boys and Girls Club said in a press release Monday that "due to the controversial nature of the origin of these particular funds … we believe that accepting this donation will distract our community from [our] mission." Prosser residents interviewed by KBOI2 aren't sure these groups made a smart decision in turning the money down. "I thought it was kind of foolish. … They need the money in a lot of ways," a Vietnam veteran says. Another adds, "They take money from the lottery, they take money from the wineries, they take money from breweries, distilleries, and some of the marijuana tax that's going to the state is coming back to them. They should have taken [this] money." In the meantime, Williams, who owns Fireweed Farms, told the Herald-Republic on Monday that his phone was "ringing off the hook with people who want that money." He ended up donating $1,000 to the Prosser VW post and $13,000 to a local family in need that wanted to remain anonymous. (Postal workers on Long Island decided to donate pot deliveries—to themselves.)
– A lawsuit filed Tuesday claims the FCC broke federal law when it voted to repeal net neutrality rules in a move labeled "arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion," Reuters reports. As promised, a lawsuit filed by 21 state attorneys general, all Democrats, argues the FCC will allow internet service providers "to put profits over consumers while controlling what we see, what we do, and what we say online," New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman says, per the New York Times. "Every consumer has a right to access online content without interference or manipulation by their internet service provider," adds California AG Xavier Becerra. Their comments were echoed by nonprofit Mozilla and the Open Technology Institute, which filed separate suits claiming the repeal would increase internet fees for entrepreneurs. Public interest groups Free Press and Public Knowledge also filed motions Tuesday to protect Obama-era rules barring ISPs from throttling traffic, though legal challenges are technically prohibited until the FCC's new rules are entered into the federal registry; that's expected to happen in the near future. In the meantime, Senate Democrats aren't giving up hope of blocking the FCC action. All 49 Democrats, plus Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, have endorsed legislation to prevent the repeal of net neutrality rules, reports the Hill. That means Democrats need one more GOP vote to move the legislation to the House. It's unlikely to pass the House, and it would surely face President Trump's veto even if it did, Reuters notes. Still, Democrats hope their efforts will win favor among young voters ahead of the midterm elections, reports the AP.
– If by chance your GPS is acting a little weird tomorrow or Saturday, this might be why: A relatively big solar storm is coming our way, reports USA Today. Scientists say no major disruptions in the power grid are expected, but satellite operators are on alert. The sun unleashed a solar flare yesterday that registers on the "extreme" end of the forecasting scale, though the worst of it was expected to miss Earth, reports AP. Yesterday's flare followed a weaker one the day before. The result will be a geomagnetic storm classified as G2 tomorrow, followed by a more intense G3 storm on Saturday, reports the Washington Post. "G2-G3 geomagnetic storms can cause some problems for the (power) grid but are typically very manageable," says a forecaster for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "We may also see some anomalies with satellites," he adds, "and problems with the accuracy of GPS have been observed with this level of storming." A better side effect: Residents in northern states should be treated to pretty skies at night. (A massive solar flare in 2012 might have zapped us back to the Stone Age had it come a little closer to Earth.)
– Days after he confessed to cheating on his wife and an addiction to pornography, Josh Duggar has entered rehab. The ex-reality star checked himself into a long-term treatment center, according to his parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar. Their announcement today on the 19 Kids and Counting family's website did not specify the nature or duration of treatment, nor did it identify the facility. But the statement spoke of "a long journey toward wholeness and recovery." "We pray that in this he comes to complete repentance and sincere change," his parents said, adding they are "deeply grieved" by his actions, which have "brought great insult to the values and faith we hold dear." The couple also said Josh's wife, Anna, with whom he has four children, is receiving "counsel and help for her own heart and future." Last week, the 27-year-old Duggar made an online apology, calling himself "the biggest hypocrite ever" following reports that he had been a subscriber to the cheating website AshleyMadison.com, whose millions of customer records were recently hacked and made public. His admission came weeks after he acknowledged in May having molested five underage girls as a teenager, including two of his sisters. "There was always something a bit odd about Josh," a source close to Anna previously told People. But a source with ties to the Duggars told the magazine last week "divorce is not even something that will be discussed," and another source close to the family previously said Anna "doesn't get mad" because "it's not godly for a woman."
– For a Venezuelan skier who had only trained on wheels beneath a bright sun, the slopes of Finland proved a mighty challenge, per AP. Adrian Solano wobbled nervously backward as he exited the starting gate at the Lahti2017 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships this week. He fumbled into the white powder after sliding down a small hill. And he tried awkwardly walking up an incline while others raced by him. By Thursday, sports commentators circulating videos (like this one) of his near-comedic cross-country performance online had dubbed him the worst skier alive. Solano, however, teetered along, unfazed. "From here to the Olympics!" he proclaimed in an interview with Norwegian tabloid Dagbladet. Solano's saga has hit a nerve among Venezuelans and angered the country's highest officials, who are denouncing France for deporting the athlete in January while he was trying to get to Sweden to train on snow. Airport migration officials in Paris allegedly doubted his story, thinking his journey to the slopes was a ploy to leave his beleaguered country. "We will issue a strong statement to the French government for their affront against a Venezuelan athlete," tweeted Venezuela's foreign minister. Stuck back in Caracas, Solano's supporters started a GoFundMe page that brought him to Finland just in time to compete. The only problem: He hadn't practiced skiing on snow, only on wheels in Venezuela's scorching heat. In the first race, a 10-kilometer qualifying round, Solano failed to finish. In the 1.6-kilometer cross-country sprint, he finished last in 156th place.
– A messy media flap between the White House and San Francisco Chronicle: The newspaper says the White House threatened to ban its reporter because she shot video of a Bradley Manning protest during a fundraiser. Reporter Carla Marinucci was the pool reporter for the dinner, meaning she was supposed to provide a written report to other reporters. She did so, but she also shot the video, and Chronicle editor Ward Bushee says the White House threatened to retaliate against her and the Hearst chain. The video ban "is objectionable and just is not in sync with how reporters are doing their jobs these days," says Bushee. After the White House told Politico that it never threatened to revoke Marinucci's privileges, Bushee and Chronicle columnist Phil Bronstein stood by their accusations and said they came from top White House communications officials in off-the-record exchanges. "The hip, transparent and social media-loving Obama administration is showing its analog roots," writes Bronstein. "And maybe even some hypocrisy highlights."
– A 22-year-old woman was found dead this week in Nepal after being sent to a so-called menstruation hut by her family to wait out her period, the Kathmandu Post reports. Gauri Budha's family found her body after going to the hut to check on her. Her father-in-law says she had spent Sunday working on a farm "and seemed normal." He says "she had no complaints of any uneasiness." According to News18, the cause of death is not yet known, but villagers speculate Budha, a student, may have died from smoke inhalation after starting a fire in the menstruation hut to keep warm. The practice of Chhaupadi, in which women are sent into isolation during menstruation, has been illegal in Nepal since 2005, and the Himalayan Times reports it was made a criminal offense in August. The district where Budha lived was declared a "Chhaupadi-free zone" two years ago. However, the practice still persists. Two other women from Budha's district were found dead in menstruation huts last year. (An 18-year-old Nepali woman banished during her period last July died from a snake bite.)
– Presidential candidate Donald Trump and basketball superstar LeBron James took opposite sides in the divisive debate around gun control following Thursday's mass shooting at an Oregon community college. Speaking with ABC News, Trump said current or future gun laws would not have stopped a shooter from killing nine people at Umpqua Community College. "Well the gun laws have nothing to do with this," he said. "This isn't guns; this is about really mental illness. And I feel very strongly about it. And again politically correct, 'Oh we're gonna solve the problem, there'll be no problem, etc., etc.'" Meanwhile in Cleveland, a baby was killed in a drive-by shooting on Thursday, the Hill reports. She was the third child to be shot to death in the city in the past month. James addressed reporters after practice Friday. "There's no room for that. There's no room for guns," the AP quotes him as saying. "It's not just in Cleveland, it's the whole nation that goes through this as well. We all hurt from it." James took the moment to advocate in general for stronger penalties, rules, and regulations on firearms.
– A 65-year-old woman in Israel has just become a mother for the first time. The ultra-Orthodox woman gave birth to a healthy 5.9-pound baby boy this week, reports the Jerusalem Post. Haya Shahar did so thanks to IVF treatment she had outside the country, likely Russia, because Israel forbids the procedure for women older than 54. "We do not recommend this," says Dr. Tal Biron of Kfar Saba hospital. Nevertheless, he added that the baby is "very cute." Shahar's husband is 67, and they'd been trying unsuccessfully to have a baby throughout their 46-year marriage. The Post notes the sperm was either donated or bought, but the hospital won't specify; Haaretz says the couple used a donor egg. While the delivery (by C-section) makes Shahar the oldest woman to give birth in Israel, it's not a world record. Among the older verified births are one in Spain and another in Romania, both with women who delivered at age 66 after IVF treatments, notes the Mommy Files blog at the San Francisco Chronicle. The oldest woman on record to conceive naturally is a woman in the UK who gave birth at 59, it adds. Shahar and her husband credit a rabbi's blessing for their new son. "The baby is a darling and there is no despair in the world, and the chapter never ends," they said. (A 65-year-old woman in Germany is expecting quadruplets.)
– MSNBC's Joy Reid, under fire for homophobic language in old blog posts, apologized Saturday for any past comments that belittled or mocked the LGBTQ community and says she hasn't been able to verify her claim that her account was hacked, the AP reports. Reid opened her weekend show "AM Joy" by acknowledging she has said "dumb" and "hurtful" things in the past. "The person I am now is not the person I was then," she said. But she was unable to explain blog posts from a decade ago that mocked gay people and individuals who were allegedly gay. Reid has denied posting them altogether but says security experts she hired who looked into whether she had been a hacking victim found no proof. "I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things because they are completely alien to me. But I can definitely understand, based on things I have tweeted and have written in the past, why some people don't believe me," she says. "I have not been exempt for [sic] being dumb or cruel or hurtful to the very people I want to advocate for. ... And for that I am truly, truly sorry." The posts that came to light in December were written for "The Reid Report," her blog when she was covering Florida politics a decade ago. In posts, she refers to then-Florida Gov. Charlie Crist as "Miss Charlie" and suggested he was "ogling the male waiters" on his honeymoon after marrying his wife, whom he has since divorced. Click for the full story or take a deep dive with Vox into Reid's posts and hacking claims.
– "I have yet to see an anti-shark device that I, somebody who studies sharks and shark attacks, would plop down money for," ichthyologist George Burgess says. But that hasn't stopped shark experts and entrepreneurs from chasing the "holy grail" of a completely effective shark repellent, Outside reports in a story about man's quest to reduce one of nature's greatest predators to, essentially, an especially large mosquito. Take Eric Stroud, for example. The chemist got deep into shark repellents after a seeing a "Summer of the Shark" cover story in Time in 2001. "I decided to delve into it, and it just consumed me," says Stroud, who was soon conducting his own research on baby sharks in inflatable pools in his backyard. Stroud's research inadvertently led him to what he calls "death signals," chemicals present only in the decaying tissue of dead sharks. (You can imagine how he may have stumbled onto this.) Stroud replicated the death signals into synthetic repellent—housing it in a Batman-inspired aerosol can—which he claims is effective on 30 species of sharks. “Sharks will avoid the taste or smell of it like an evolutionary cue," he says. But three entrepreneurs who bought the rights to Stroud's death signals weren't satisfied, heading to South Africa to test the repellent on the notoriously hard-to-repel great white shark. “The white is a very peculiar shark,” says the man hired to conduct the tests. “They do what they want.” Read the full story here for the results ("There are easier tests to conduct," one intern was left to bemoan).
– John Oliver really made use of "HBO’s liberal profanity policy" Sunday night on Last Week Tonight, as Slate puts it. The host, who became a new dad just days ago, opened his show with a discussion of the Paris terror attacks, and he did not hold back. "It's hardly been 48 hours, and much is still unknown, but there are a few things we can say for certain," he said. "And this is when it actually helps to be on HBO, where those things can be said without restraint. Because, after the many necessary and appropriate moments of silence, I'd like to offer you a moment of premium cable profanity." Then he let the F-bombs fly: "First, as of now, we know this attack was carried out by gigantic fucking assholes," he continued. "Unconscionable flaming assholes, possibly working with other fucking assholes, definitely working in service of an ideology of pure assholery. Second, and this goes almost without saying, fuck these assholes. Fuck them, if I may say, sideways. And third, it is important to remember, nothing about what these assholes are trying to do is going to work. France is going to endure. And I'll tell you why: If you're in a war of culture and lifestyle with France, good fucking luck." The entire rant is here.
– Could exercise be—gasp!—bad for you? Well, not exactly, but there is a downside to too much of it, a new study from the British Heart Foundation has found. In mice, endurance-based exercises were linked with a drop in production for a key heart-regulating protein, resulting in lowered heart rates of the subjects, the BBC reports. The finding may explain why human fitness devotees often have lower resting heart rates—sometimes with dangerous lapses between beats—making them more likely to require a pacemaker as they age. In the past, people have believed that it's the nervous system's increased activity that tricks athlete's hearts into slowing down. "But our research shows this is not the case," says the lead author, according to the Times of India. "Actually the heart's pacemaker changes in response to training." But sorry, couch potatoes: The researchers said that overall, the benefits of working out exceed the drawbacks. (Click to read about a previous study suggesting that moderate runners live longer than those who log mega-miles.)
– The CDC is investigating eight separate multi-state outbreaks of salmonella that have sickened nearly 400 people across the country. The cause, however, isn't an unsanitary factory. Instead, blame backyard chickens, or at least owners who underestimate the risk of getting too close, reports the Fresno Bee. The growing popularity of having a home-grown source of eggs once again has federal officials issuing a warning. This year's numbers are about on par with last year's, when 895 people got sick. While three people died last year, none have died this year, though 71 have ended up in the hospital. In all, people in 47 states have fallen ill. Cuddling cute baby chicks appears to be a problem, notes the Washington Post. Last year, about half of those who got sick admitted to doing so, and about half also said they let their poultry in the house. Health officials say both practices are seriously unwise, given how easily chickens can spread germs. The hardest-hit state is Ohio, at 32 cases, with Kentucky, Tennessee, and California not far behind, reports Cleveland.com. “Chicks, ducklings, and other live poultry that look healthy and clean can still carry Salmonella bacteria,” says the CDC, which offers a fact sheet on best practices here. (Salmonella is no joke—just ask the Aztecs.)
– The Obama administration today officially issued a proposed change to its rule mandating that employers offer their female employees insurance that includes copay-free access to contraception. Under the new rule, women who work for a religiously-affiliated employer, such as a Catholic hospital, will still get free access to contraceptives, but their employers won't need to pay for it. The employer will instead notify their insurance provider of their exemption, and the insurer will notify the employee that the contraception is coming from a separate policy, USA Today explains. The rule drew praise from the executive director of Catholics United. Health and Human Services "has done the right thing," he said, according to Politico. "This is a victory not only for the Obama administration, but for the Catholic Church." But the rule hews fairly close to Obama's already announced compromise, which some Catholics had declared inadequate. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has so far only said it will review the new regulations. The administration also ruled out broadening the exemption to encompass any company whose owner had a religious objection, the Hill points out.
– Your doctor, your mom, and your shade-obsessed friends have probably all told you already about the dangers of suntanning—and now the surgeon general is jumping on the anti-bronzing bandwagon for the first time. Boris Lushniak today called skin cancer a “major public health problem,” and pointed a finger at outdoor and indoor UV light, reports USA Today. His warning cites rising skin-cancer numbers as the push behind the official warning: The report says that nearly 5 million Americans are treated for the disease annually to the tune of $8.1 billion. That includes 63,000 new cases each year and 9,000 yearly deaths, reports the Washington Post. What's more, melanoma cases are increasing as other types of cancer are decreasing. The statement posted on the Department of Health and Human Services website implores people to take the usual precautions in the sun—including wearing sunglasses, a high-SPF lotion, and other protective gear—but Lushniak, a dermatologist, also places special emphasis on “completely avoidable” ultraviolet radiation exposure from indoor tanning beds and booths. The FDA piggybacked on Lushniak’s comments with its own official take today, reminding the public about its mandate for sunlamp labels “stating that they should not be used on anyone younger than 18 years.” The Indoor Tanning Association says in a statement that UV light from both the sun and sunlamps is “healthful in moderation,” as USA Today puts it, a claim that Lushniak disputes. “Tanned skin is damaged skin,” he says in the HHS statement. “We need to shatter the myth that tanned skin is a sign of health.”
– John Paul II's fast track to sainthood gets even faster this week. A Vatican panel has concluded that the former pontiff did indeed perform a miracle—a nun says her Parkinson's disappeared after she prayed to him—and will present its findings to Pope Benedict within days, reports Reuters. Benedict is expected to approve the miracle, then set a date for beatification later this year. That would bring John Paul one step from canonization, at which point he'll need either one more miracle or a waiver from Benedict. A Guardian columnist thinks the fast pace (it usually takes decades) is a mistake.
– This much is clear: The Republican Governors Association has put out a new anti-Obama video that can be seen at RememberNovember.com. Young RGA staffers put it together, reports the Daily Caller, which calls the video's production "top notch." Most agree it's pretty slick, but then things get a little confusing: The left thinks it's a tribute to Guy Fawkes—who tried to off the king of England in 1605—and the right says no way. Time makes the case for the Fawkes connection here, noting the old rhyme of "Remember, Remember the Fifth of November." Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo finds it "bewildering" that Republicans are honoring a guy who "tried but failed to pull off a mass casualty terrorist attack." Steve Benen agrees at Washington Monthly. Still, there's no overt reference to Fawkes in the video, and Lori Ziganto at Red State thinks the left is way off base. Maybe RGA chief Haley Barbour can clear things up?
– Illinois can claim a dubious honor for the third year running: It's the state that's lost the most people for the year, the Chicago Tribune reports. US Census data published Tuesday revealed the Prairie State said goodbye to 37,508 people between July 1, 2015, and July 1, 2016, per the Chicago Sun-Times, dropping its population to 12,801,539—the lowest it's been since 2009 or so. The numbers lost by the state have increased exponentially in this most recent three-year span: In 2014, the loss was 11,961 people; in 2015, it was 28,497. And per a Simon Public Policy Institute poll in October of 1,000 registered Illinois voters, 47% of residents said they'd like to move away. "When you have a big state like Illinois … lose population for three years in a row? That's cause for alarm," a Brookings Institution demographer tells the Tribune. So what's to account for the drop? First, there's been an exodus out of state (more than 114,000 left in 2016), mostly to warmer climes like Florida, Texas, and Arizona. But it's not just the weather that's causing defections: Michael Lucci, a VP with the conservative Illinois Policy Institute, says there are also better job opportunities elsewhere. Combine that with the overall national trend of decreasing birth numbers and more deaths, as well as a decline in the number of immigrants to Illinois specifically (especially Chicago, which has traditionally welcomed Mexican immigrants), and the influx of newbies isn't keeping up with the losses. "To reverse this trend, we need structural reforms to create more jobs, lower property taxes, improve our schools, and enact term limits to fix our broken political system," a rep for Gov. Bruce Rauner tells the Sun-Times. (Other states where people want out.)
– As if there could be a crueler twist to the Jewish school shooting in Toulouse that yesterday rocked France: France's interior minister today revealed that the gunman likely filmed the killings. The school's surveillance video revealed that a video camera was attached to the killer's neck, reports Reuters. "This adds another element to the profile of the killer. It is someone who is cruel enough to record it," says Claude Gueant, "someone who is very cold, very determined, with precise gestures, and therefore very cruel." A 200-strong group of police officers is hunting the killer, who is also suspected in the deaths of three paratroopers who were gunned down in Toulouse and Montauban last week. Police believe the perpetrator many have been trained as a marksman, and used a Yamaha scooter to flee the scenes. And while there's no indication that Jews are in danger outside of Southern France, the Department of Homeland Security told CNN that US officials are keeping an eye on the situation and on the possibility that Jews could be targeted stateside. The NYPD has beefed up security at synagogues and potential targets in the city.
– A Pennsylvania man who was unexpectedly released on bail after being charged with kidnapping and beating his wife kidnapped her again, police say—and this time, she did not escape. Police say 48-year-old Tierne Ewing was found dead late Tuesday after being kidnapped for a second time by estranged husband Kevin Ewing, 47, WTAE reports. He forced his wife into a car at gunpoint Monday night, saying he "should have killed the victim and himself the first time," police say. The abandoned car was discovered Tuesday morning, sparking a massive search. Police tell WPXI that they heard gunshots as they approached a barn in West Finley Township late Tuesday. They found Tierne Ewing dead and Kevin Ewing injured from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was flown to a hospital for treatment. The AP reports that Ewing was charged with kidnapping, aggravated assault, and other crimes in July after his wife told police he had kept her captive for almost two weeks, during which he beat and pistol-whipped her, spat on her, and branded her legs with a piece of hot metal. She said she escaped after he sent her into a credit union to withdraw money and she alerted the tellers. Cops found him in the bank's parking lot with a rifle, handgun, and a knife. The local DA says he wanted Ewing to stay in jail but a judge freed him July 11 after he posted $100,000 bail. Ewing was ordered to wear an electronic ankle bracelet to confine him to his home—but probation officials say that even though the court could have called for a bracelet that provides GPS information, that didn't happen in this case.
– A great sign of hope for Malala Yousufzai: Doctors say that with help, she was able to stand for the first time since being shot in the head by the Taliban, reports ITV News. The Pakistani teen also is able to write, reports AP, though she still can't speak. She is being treated in Britain, and doctors hope to arrange to have her listen to a phone call from her father in Pakistan. The extent of her brain injuries still is not clear, but she is "well enough that she's agreed that she's happy, in fact keen, for us to share more clinical detail," says the medical director of Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. He adds that Malala is still battling an infection from the bullet, but that she has shown steady progress since coming out of her long anesthesia, reports the Los Angeles Times. “One of the first things she asked the nurses was what country she was in,” he says. "She’s closer to the edge of the woods, but she’s not out of the woods.” Since the attack, Malala has become the face of the movement for girls' education.
– The good news is that San Francisco's embrace of low-flow toilets has cut annual water consumption by 20 million gallons. The bad news is the smell. Because the water doesn't have enough oomph to push waste out of sewer pipes, a not-so-pleasant odor wafts throughout the city at times, explains the San Francisco Chronicle. As a remedy, the city plans to buy $14 million of concentrated bleach—a 3-year supply—to disinfect wastewater before it goes into the bay. That's on top of a $100 million investment to upgrade plants over 5 years to cut down on the stink. The new solution "translates into 8.5 million pounds of bleach either being poured down city drains or into the drinking water supply every year," notes the Chronicle. Adds a blogger at Cafe Mom: "For a city that believes Happy Meals are evil attempts to contribute to the childhood obesity epidemic, you’d think San Francisco would have a problem with bleach being dumped into the ground. Apparently, the most liberal city in the country only cares about the environment so long as it doesn’t smell like sewage." Click for the full column.
– Abercrombie & Fitch has long lured tons of teenage shoppers into its pricey and exclusive stores—but tastes are changing, sales are slipping, and the company is struggling to reinvent itself, writes Matthew Shaer at New York. The mastermind behind A&F's image is CEO Mike Jeffries, a "maniacal" autocrat who oversees everything from clothing design to employee fashion choices (retail workers should cuff skinny jeans at 1 1/4 inches!). Under Jeffries, the company hit annual revenue of nearly $250 million in the 1990s and created an elite, preppie look—for attractive teenagers with lots of friends. "We hire good-looking people in our stores," he said, as per the Reflector. "We want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that." Such remarks whipped up media controversy and big sales. So did outlandish A&F products like thongs for girls under 10 and a user's guide to having oral sex at the movies. The company responded with joke-apologies, but now social media has given A&F critics the upper hand (a video of A&F clothing handed out to homeless people has gotten 8 million hits on Youtube). What's more, today's teens aren't into "the elite, cool-kid thing" like before, says an observer. "This generation is about inclusiveness and valuing diversity." (They are also abandoning big clothing stores for cheaper alternatives and online sellers, the New York Times reports.) So A&F wants to update its image, but a new clothing line for young professionals was a flop, and 170 US stores have been shuttered since 2009. In response, Jeffries was stripped of his board-chairman role last month and may be on his way out. "What we’ll remember Jeffries for now is for failing to change, for all the store closures, for the way employees were treated," says a stock market analyst. "And that's unfortunate." (Click for the full article.)
– Lady Gaga hit back at claims that her love for the LGBT community is superficial—and then went even further, affirming that she considers herself a member of that community, in a new Advocate cover story. Which letter in the acronym does she associate with? "The b letter," she says with a giggle. But the giggling stops and she sounds frustrated when she continues, “To say that I would use the gay community to sell records is probably one of the most ridiculous statements anyone can make about me as a person." “My love for my gay fans is just pure, authentic love for them as supporters of me from the beginning, and me feeling connected to their struggles as someone who is a part of their fight,” Gaga says, adding that she knows what it's like to be bullied—and was once even thrown into a trash can as a child. Discussing a recent encounter with a gay serviceman who was afraid he would be discharged under DADT, she insists, "Anyone who says that I’m not genuine is not interested in overcoming this fight. That was such a pure and wonderful moment that we shared, and I remember thinking, There’s no album sale, no number 1, that could compete with this moment." Click for more from the interview.
– For the first time in Malaysia's history, three women have been caned under Islamic law for having extramarital sex. "It was carried out perfectly," the country's home minister tells Reuters. "Even though the caning did not injure them, they said it caused pain within them." Amnesty International denounced the punishment, calling it "cruel, inhumane, degrading" and tantamount to torture. The women were beaten with rattan canes at a women's prison after they were found guilty of adultery by a religious court. The action suggests Malaysia may move forward with plans to cane Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, who was sentenced to flogging for drinking beer. Her case, which caused an international outcry, has been postponed pending review, CNN notes. Malaysia, a traditionally moderate Muslim nation, has a two-track legal system with both civil and religious courts.
– Two people caught in today's avalanche in the French Alps have been found alive in the snow, CNN reports, and four others who had been deemed missing have been located, and are unscathed. Rescuers had broken off the search for the four because of weather conditions, but they eventually discovered that two had turned back early and the other two had taken a different route, according to the BBC. The total confirmed dead remains at nine. Twelve others were injured in the incident, though some so mildly that they've already left the hospital. The mayor of Charmonix said that the avalanche was a random occurrence. "We had no more reason than usual to be alarmed." Veteran mountain guides say the area is highly avalanche-prone, with slabs of snow that "can easily be set off by a passing climber."
– The body of Chelsea Bruck, the 22-year-old Michigan woman last seen at a Halloween party last year, has been found in a field in Monroe County. Bruck's mom had been tirelessly searching for her daughter for six months, and last month, police got a tip. Bruck's homemade Halloween costume was found at a vacant industrial site in Flat Rock April 5, and on Friday, a body was found at a heavily wooded site near Carleton, a few miles away, the Detroit Free Press reports. The Sheriff's Office revealed last night that the body was identified as Bruck's. An autopsy was inconclusive and a cause of death could take as long as a month to determine, but police say the case is a homicide and her body appears to have been at the site for months. "I believe [the murderer] was familiar with the railroad tracks that are there" where Bruck's body was found, 12 miles from the Halloween party, the sheriff says. "In all likelihood, the crime was committed at or near where the body was located." Her body was found on private property, but the property owner is not a suspect; the remains were discovered after a dump truck got stuck and construction crews worked to free it, MyFox Detroit reports. "I want to thank everyone for their efforts," wrote a person identifying himself as Bruck's brother on the Help Find Chelsea Bruck Facebook page. "And while this may be the end of the search, it is also a new beginning. The beginning of the search for justice for my sister."
– The creator of a much-talked-about list of men in media accused of sexual misconduct revealed herself Wednesday after Harper's Magazine was rumored to have had an article in the works naming her, reports the New York Times. In The Cut, Moira Donegan comes clean that she started the "S---ty Media Men" spreadsheet, complete with a disclaimer that the allegations were just allegations, to help women in media avoid men named as predators. She says she was shocked the list went viral (she'd only intended for it to stay within its intended audience) and that her "life changed dramatically," losing friends and her job. Then she found out about the rumored article set to appear in Harper's March issue, written by firebrand Katie Roiphe. Even though others were afraid Donegan would be "threatened, stalked, raped, or killed" if she was named, she decided to out herself before others did. Before that, though, others started advocating online against revealing Donegan's identity. It kicked off with a tweet by n+1 editor Dayna Tortorici, imploring a "legacy print magazine" not to out Donegan. Nicole Cliffe, former co-editor of The Toast, tweeted she found out it was Harper's and even offered to pay other writers to pull their pieces from the March issue (the Times says Cliffe committed to paying $19,000 to journalists who did just that). Before Donegan's essay appeared, Roiphe said she didn't know the name of the person who'd created the list and would never have outed her without Donegan's OK. But Donegan says a Harper's fact-checker sent her an email that said Roiphe "identifies you" in the article. Donegan's takeaway: "The experience of making the spreadsheet has shown me that it is still explosive, radical, and productively dangerous for women to say what we mean."
– Nothing like having to arrange childcare for your 14 children so you can go to rehab for 30 days. That’s the predicament “Octomom” Nadya Suleman now finds herself in, TMZ reports. Apparently, Suleman finds balancing life as a single mom with a thriving porn career a bit stressful, and has been taking lots of Xanax. "Nadya wanted to get off the Xanax she was prescribed by her doctor and learn to deal with her stress, exhaustion, and anxiety,” says a source. She reportedly left her kids in the care of three nannies, two friends, and a driver. According to Radar, it may not have been just Xanax helping Suleman deal with her stress. The gossip site got hold of a voicemail Suleman’s dad left for a friend who was helping with the kids. “I really worry about her," he says of his daughter. "Sometimes she starts drinking vodka, whatever, so maybe she should not be driving.” And the friend claims Suleman likes “cheap vodka and diet cranberry juice,” and sometimes gets so drunk she can’t drive her kids around. The good news: Suleman is at least, as TMZ puts it, “making a ton of money from her porn career.”
– Good news, college students: Soon you, too, may be able to afford groceries at Whole Foods. The chain will soon start adding lower-priced stores meant to appeal to people in their 20s and 30s (and anyone else who doesn't want to pony up), co-CEO Walter Robb announced yesterday. Eventually, there could be as many lower-priced stores—no name has yet been announced—as there are Whole Foods stores, he said. What exactly will they offer? A "curated" selection of items and a simpler store design, Fortune reports. "It will deliver a convenient, transparent, and values-oriented experience geared toward millennial shoppers, while appealing to anyone looking for high-quality fresh food at great prices," Robb said in a statement. Co-CEO John Mackey added that the new stores will be "hip, cool, and technology-oriented," but will cost less to operate, CNNMoney reports. The first stores will open next year, and more details will be out by September of this year.
– A Texas sinkhole claimed a life Sunday night. A car driving through standing water entered the San Antonio sinkhole; another passing car stopped, and occupants of that car helped the original driver, a man in his 60s. Both that man and a woman who stopped to help were transported to a nearby hospital, KENS5 reports. But investigators later discovered another car trapped in the sinkhole and said a person was unaccounted for; the Dallas News has since reported the sinkhole resulted in one fatality. The sinkhole, which opened as a result of a sewer line rupture, was the length of the entire street and 12 feet deep.
– A former curator of Facebook's "trending news" feature says employees often deliberately kept conservative news out of the spotlight, reports Gizmodo. “Depending on who was on shift, things would be blacklisted or trending,” says the anonymous ex-employee. For example, stories about the IRS' Lois Lerner scandal, CPAC, or topics from the Drudge Report or other conservative outlets wouldn't make the cut, even if they were clearly popular online. As a previous Gizmodo story explained, Facebook has a team of young journalists who provide human oversight to the company's news algorithm and help select which headlines qualify as "trending" in the upper right corner of Facebook pages. “I believe it had a chilling effect on conservative news,” the ex-employee says. The Guardian calls it a "bombshell confession," one that has set off a flurry of interest on the right. Drudge, for example, gave the story prominent play alongside a photo of Facebook exec Sheryl Sandberg with the headline, "Not Leaning In ... Leaning Left!” And the conservative Washington Examiner, calling Facebook the "King of News" for smartphones, says the practice could have a "huge and negative impact" on conservative media.
– A story out of Germany is sure to spur lots of lines about our future overlords: A robot killed a worker inside a Volkswagen plant, reports the Financial Times. It seems to have happened as technicians were assembling the machine. "When the robot started up, it grabbed the man and thrust him against a metal slab," explains the Local. The victim, either 21 or 22 years old, suffered major contusions to his chest and died later at a hospital in Baunatal, near Frankfurt. It's not clear how big the robot is, but a VW spokesperson says it is not one of the newer lightweight models designed to work alongside humans on the production line. The initial conclusion is that human error is to blame rather than a mechanical malfunction, reports AP, which ends its account with this line for the ages: "Prosecutors were considering whether to bring charges, and if so, against whom." (Robots have something to do with why Steve Wozniak feeds his dog filet mignon.)
– "This isn't the greedy drug company trying to gouge patients, it is us trying to stay in business. It really doesn't make sense to get any criticism for this." The "this" Martin Shkreli is referring to is the price hike his company instituted after it last month acquired Daraprim, a 62-year-old drug that the New York Times describes as "the standard of care" for treating those suffering from the potentially deadly parasitic infection toxoplasmosis. The overnight change made by start-up Turing Pharmaceuticals: from $13.50 a tablet to $750 a tablet. USA Today points out that's a 5,000% increase. Shkreli justified the move by saying the overall impact will be a minor one as there are only 12,000 or so prescriptions for the specialized drug a year, and because the proceeds will go toward developing a newer treatment with fewer side effects. A professor of infectious diseases at Emory University isn't so sure about that plan. She tells the Times that while the drug is accompanied by potentially serious side effects, they're manageable. "I certainly don't think this is one of those diseases where we have been clamoring for better therapies," says Dr. Wendy Armstrong. The Times charts the drug's price history: Its 2010 acquisition by CorePharma saw its price hiked from $1 a tablet; that raised sales of the drug from $667,000 in 2010 to $6.3 million in 2011. The most recent price increase could push those sales into the hundreds of millions. As for what Daraprim treats, the CDC describes toxoplasmosis as "a leading cause of death attributed to foodborne illness" in the US. While some 60 million Americans are thought to carry the Toxoplasma parasite, it causes illness in those with weakened immune systems.
– Instead of counting calories next time you want to lose weight, try keeping an eye on the clock. US researchers at the Salk Institute have found that restricting eating to an 8-to-12-hour window each day can help the body burn fat instead of storing it, the Telegraph reports. Mice whose eating was restricted "had a number of protective and therapeutic health benefits compared with animals allowed to eat the same number of calories from the same food source at any time," says the lead researcher in a press release. Mice who only had access to food for up to 12 hours per day gained less weight than mice who could eat whenever they wanted—regardless of the number of calories consumed or whether the diet was high in fat or sugar. And mice that gained weight by eating on an unrestricted schedule were able to reverse the effect by restricting eating to a nine-hour window: Even if they ate the same number of calories as before, they stopped gaining weight and dropped 5% of their body weight in days, Discovery News reports; by the end of the 38-week study, they weighed 25% less than mice who kept eating on an unrestricted schedule. Researchers also found that brief breaks in the routine (a "cheat day," perhaps, or a weekend during which you don't restrict your eating times) had little negative effect. And in addition to preventing obesity, the overnight fasting for 12 hours or more also had positive effects on blood sugar and cholesterol, as well as reversing the effects of diabetes, the BBC reports. (Another reason to skip that midnight snack: Late-night eating can hurt your memory.)
– It's been a whirlwind few days for fans of Amy Schumer—and probably the comedian herself, to be honest. People reports the Trainwreck star married chef Chris Fischer in a very private ceremony Tuesday in Malibu. The couple had only gone public with their relationship—via Instagram post—two days earlier. And rumors of a relationship between Schumer and Fischer only started in November. It seems the wedding was so quickly planned that some of the 80 or so guests only got an invite via text, according to the Blast. Famous attendees included Jennifer Lawrence, Jake Gyllenhaal, Larry David, David Spade, and comedian John Early, who officiated the ceremony. Schumer posted a slew of photos on Instagram, as well as a post noting "No I'm not pregnant." But she did ask well-wishers to consider donating to Everytown for Gun Safety. Fischer won a James Beard Award for his Beetlebung Farm Cookbook, and his restaurant Beach Plum is reportedly loved by the Obamas. Schumer is, as you likely know, a famous person.
– She's almost there. Opal Lee, 90, set out from her home in Fort Worth, Texas, in September with a single goal: a long walk, with a final stop in Washington, DC, where she wants to present her petition to President Obama calling for a federal holiday on June 19. That's the day—"Juneteenth"—that Union soldiers came to Texas in 1865 with the news that slavery had been abolished more than two years earlier. What started out as a stroll around Lee's church last August mushroomed into something bigger. "The people walked with me, and we've been going ever since," Lee tells NPR. "I just thought if a little, old lady in tennis shoes was out there walking, somebody would take notice." She was right. Invitations started coming, and Lee was happy to take them—in states ranging from Colorado and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Virginia, in a quest to add 100,000 signatures to her petition. "I walk wherever I’m invited," Lee told CBS Pittsburgh during a stop in November. "Two and a half miles in the morning and two and a half in the afternoon to symbolize that slaves were later told that they were free." Lee, who collects donations on GoFundMe, is due in the nation's capital next week, where she hopes to make her case to Obama and lawmakers. Although 45 states count Juneteenth as a holiday, Lee says federal recognition is important. "It would be the oldest holiday of significance for black people in these United States, so it needs to be observed and celebrated," she tells Fox4. "Slaves didn't free themselves," she adds, per NPR. "There were abolitionists and people of all persuasions that worked untiringly to have slavery abolished." And if her pitch falls short next week? There's a new president coming and Lee plans to keep pushing with him. (Dallas once voted on slavery reparations.)
– After six years and millions of miles of driving, one of Google's self-driving cars has become a self-crashing car. The company has admitted that a self-driving Lexus SUV bears some responsibility for a Feb. 14 crash in Mountain View, Calif., the Verge reports. But no people—or robots—were seriously harmed: According to the DMV's accident report, the vehicle encountered sandbags placed around a storm drain when it approached an intersection. When it moved one lane over, it hit the side of a bus that it had incorrectly assumed would yield. The car was only traveling around 2mph at the time of the collision, which damaged its left front fender, the left front wheel, and a sensor. The 15 bus passengers were transferred to another vehicle. 'We clearly bear some responsibility, because if our car hadn't moved, there wouldn't have been a collision," Google said in a statement. "That said, our test driver believed the bus was going to slow or stop to allow us to merge into the traffic, and that there would be sufficient space to do that." There have been other crashes involving Google cars, but this is the first time the company hasn't blamed them on human drivers, Reuters reports. The company says it has learned from the experience and adjusted its software so that its vehicles fully understand that buses are "less likely to yield to us than other types of vehicles, and we hope to handle situations like this more gracefully in the future."
– President Obama's rendition of "Amazing Grace" at the end of his eulogy for the Rev. Clementa Pinckney has been viewed more than 2 million times on YouTube. Had he listened to the gut reaction of those around him, it might not have happened at all. The New York Times and ABC News have the background on his decision to break out in song: Obama first shared his plan—to sing once he got "to the second part of referring to 'Amazing Grace'"—with Michelle Obama and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett while en route to Andrews Air Force Base to board his flight to South Carolina. "I think if I sing, the church will sing with me," he said, per Jarrett, who told the story during a Q&A at the Aspen Ideas Festival last week. How Jarrett says she responded: "Hmm." How Michelle put it: "Why on earth would that fit in?" Jarrett says he told them he wasn't convinced he'd go that route, but wanted to offer a warning. "We'll see how it feels at the time," she says he said. She says she and Michelle were ultimately encouraging, and as for the long pause before he began, she says that was a moment of debate ... but not about whether to go ahead. "I knew I was going to sing," he told her. "I was just trying to figure out which key to sing it."
– Apparently Brett Favre isn’t the only member of his family who can get himself embroiled in scandals: Now his younger sister, Brandi, has been arrested. The 34-year-old was nabbed yesterday during a raid on a suspected meth lab in Mississippi, at a condominium less than 10 miles from where she and Brett grew up, the Sun Herald and FanHouse report. The bathtub meth lab was found to be active, and Brandi has been charged with two felonies. Four others were also arrested. Click for more on Brandi Favre.
– In a move that both Santa and Scrooge would probably have an opinion about, the US Agriculture Department yesterday OKed a Christmas tree "tax." The 15-cent fee (which the USDA is calling a charge, not a tax) will be imposed on American growers and importers, and is expected to raise $2 million annually—which will then be used to fund an ad campaign pushing real, live trees over marketshare-grabbing fake ones. Sales of freshly cut trees have sunk from 37 million in 1991 to 31 million in 2007; in that year, 17.4 million artificial trees were sold. But some of the country's 12,000 tree farms aren't pleased with the Christmas Tree Promotion, Research, and Information Order: McClatchy/Tribune News notes that Texas and Vermont growers were opposed. Some of the country's citizens (and media outlets) aren't too pleased either, reports Gawker, which notes that the Drudge Report's top story is OBAMA'S NEW 'CHRISTMAS TREE TAX.' At MichelleMalkin.com, Doug Powers predicts that the charge will be passed on to consumers and quips, "Look for a 'cash for artificial tree clunkers' program to be introduced by next Christmas to get the faux alternatives off the streets." David Addington at the Heritage blog is particularly incensed: "The economy is barely growing and 9% of the American people have no jobs. Is a new tax on Christmas trees the best President Obama can do?" Gawker notes that the tax was first discussed at the USDA at the end of George W Bush's second term.
– When Don Smith found his son, Justin, lying in a McAdoo, Pa., snowbank on Feb. 21, 2015, after Justin had tried to walk home from a bar the night before, it was a terrible sight. "I remember holding him," the elder Smith said in tears Monday, per the Morning Call. "He was like a block of concrete." Don says his son wasn't breathing, lacked a pulse, and had limbs turned black from the cold. Doctors surmise Justin had slipped, hit his head, and blacked out, per CBS News, and he spent about 12 hours in the snow on a night that dipped to minus 4 degrees. Although ABC News says paramedics tried to revive Justin with CPR, the Morning Call notes a coroner was called and a sheet drawn over the Penn State student's head. But an ER doctor at Lehigh Valley Health Network didn't give up: He persuaded doctors to try a life-saving procedure—and thanks to that procedure, Justin, 26, was on hand with his family Monday to thank those doctors for saving his life. That procedure is called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, and it involves taking blood out of a person's body, warming it and pumping it with oxygen, then putting it back in. Dr. James Wu, the surgeon who did the procedure, says the freezing temps actually helped Justin. "Very low temperatures … can preserve the brain and other organ functions," he said at the news conference, per ABC. It took Justin 15 days to come out of his coma, per CBS, and he lost his toes and pinkies to frostbite, but he suffered no apparent brain damage. Dr. Gerald Coleman, the doctor who made the initial call to try the procedure, is thankful he did. "This case has taught me that sometimes you have to go with your gut, even when all logic demands otherwise," he said, per the Morning Call. As for Justin, he's trying to finish up his psych degree via online courses and his friends have a new nickname for him: Iceman. (A similar miracle out of Norway, where a woman's body temp dropped to 56.7 degrees.)
– Mei Xiang, the giant panda at Washington's National Zoo who lost her cub yesterday, "was a good mom who protected her cub and did not crush her," says the zoo’s chief veterinarian today. Preliminary necropsy findings did not reveal a cause of death, but did indicate that the tiny 6-day-old cub, a girl, had excess fluid in her abdomen and that parts of her liver were hard or had strange coloring, ABC News reports. She appeared to have been nursing successfully before her death. Additional tests could identify a cause of death within a week, the Washington Post adds. Mei Xiang seems to be coping, but is cradling a toy in place of her cub, which indicates she still sees herself as a mother. As for the cub's father, Tian Tian is "blissfully unaware" of the death, the chief vet says. Zookeepers had been hearing the cub's healthy squeals for a week, but when they heard Mei Xiang's distressed cries, they knew something was very wrong. They distracted Mei Xiang by splashing honey water and retrieved the cub. A vet attempted to intubate the cub, but her airway was too small, so the vet massaged her heart for 10 minutes before it became clear she would not revive. "The cub was just beautiful," says an emotional chief vet. "Beautiful little body. Beautiful face, with the markings just beginning to show around the eye. Couldn’t have been more beautiful." The zoo director says the entire staff is grieving, and calls the loss "devastating." The cub had not been given a name, in keeping with Chinese tradition, and will not be named posthumously, the AP notes.
– Astronaut Bill Pogue has died at age 84, and Space.com notes that he earned his spot in history by serving for nearly 3 months aboard the Skylab space station in the early 1970s. That stint aboard the earth-orbiting outpost earned him and his two crewmates the distinction of the longest human spaceflight up to that point. But the New York Times notes that Pogue and friends earned another distinction as well—they became the first astronauts to stage what amounted to a strike while in space. About halfway through the mission, the crew got fed up with the constant, mundane chores that ground control had them doing, and staged their job action. While NASA officials at Cape Canaveral chalked it up to possible depression, Pogue explained later that he and his crewmates simply wanted more time to enjoy the view and reflect, reports the Times. The two sides reached a compromise, making the last half of the mission more suitable for “studying the Sun, the Earth below, and ourselves," Pogue wrote in his autobiography.
– There are so many kind of creepy things about the marriage of Doug Hutchison and Courtney Alexis Stodden, it’s difficult to know where to begin. There’s the fact that Hutchison, a character actor with roles in The Green Mile and Lost, is 51 while Stodden is 16. There's the fact that Stodden, an aspiring famous person, has put out YouTube videos so awful they must be seen to be believed. Oh, we’re not done. Then there’s the fact that Stodden’s father, who had to give permission for the marriage to take place, is four years younger than her new husband. And then there’s the fact that her mom had this to say to Radar about the union: "Courtney was a virgin when she married Doug. She is a good Christian girl. … She is a beautiful girl. She has real breasts, real lips, she's not plastic." Says the happy couple: "We're aware that our vast age difference is extremely controversial, but we're very much in love and want to get the message out there that true love can be ageless." Click for more on the marriage, which took place in (where else?) Las Vegas.
– Can county clerk Kim Davis refuse to issue same-sex marriage licenses, keep her job, and avoid a contempt of court charge? She seems to think so, and the president of Kentucky's senate is on her side. Davis is due before a federal judge at 11am, and in a last-minute legal filing, she argues that it would be unfair to punish her for disobeying an order that she is "presently unable" to comply with because it "irreparably and irreversibly violates her conscience," the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. Republican Senate President Robert Stivers filed a brief asking the judge to delay his ruling until the state has had a chance to change its marriage laws to accommodate Davis. "The Supreme Court ruling has completely obliterated the definition of marriage and the process for obtaining a marriage license in Kentucky," Stivers said in a statement. He wants to pass a law exempting Davis from issuing licenses, but the state legislature isn't due in session until January and Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear doesn't want to call a special session, the AP reports. Davis, whose case has already been rejected by the Supreme Court, says it would violate her conscience to "issue a marriage license which conflicts with God’s definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate," and one of her lawyers tells NBC she is looking at options including issuing licenses that don't have her name on them. (Davis' own marital history is pretty tangled.)
– The death of a woman who succumbed to blood poisoning days after being denied an abortion has caused an outcry in Ireland, where abortion is illegal unless the life of the woman is in danger, the Guardian reports. Savtia Halappanavar, a 31-year-old dentist, was 17 weeks pregnant when she was hospitalized with severe complications. Her husband says that after she was told her fetus would not survive, she asked for a medical termination but was denied one because a fetal heartbeat was present. She spent two more days in agony before the heartbeat stopped and died of septicemia soon afterward. Halappanaver, a Hindu, was told "this is a Catholic country" despite her protestation that she was neither Catholic nor Irish, her husband tells the Irish Times. An Irish pro-choice campaigner says her death is the result of the government's failure to implement a European Court of Human Rights ruling ordering the country to bring in effective procedures to determine when a woman can have a legal abortion. "This was an obstetric emergency which should have been dealt with in a routine manner," she says. "Yet Irish doctors are restrained from making obvious medical decisions by a fear of potentially severe consequences."
– So much for that recount. Scott Walker won handily last night, and today everyone's talking about why, and what it means. Here's what pundits and strategists are saying went into, and might come out of, the win: The Democratic primary was a disaster, Democratic strategists tell Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post. Labor spent millions supporting Kathleen Falk, weakening eventual nominee Tom Barrett. Walker spent more. His campaign and outside conservative groups outspent the Democrats by 10 to 1 or more. Voters are suspicious of recalls. The strategists Cillizza talked to are convinced that the few undecideds in the race thought Walker deserved a full term before facing judgment again. A CBS exit poll found that 60% said recalls should only be used for official misconduct. Nobody likes Milwaukee. Most states dominated by one big city tend to resent that big city, which hurt Milwaukee mayor Barrett. Walker attacked the city as economically weak and crime-ridden. Walker didn't bend. This election was about Walker, who "won not despite his refusal to compromise, but because of it," argues Alex Altman of Time. "He cast himself as a politician of conviction, even when his convictions might not be popular." The truth is that voters "prefer their elected leaders to be ideologues." This wasn't about Obama. Exit polls show voters actually prefer the president to Mitt Romney 51% to 45%. But Russ Feingold worries that the vote "could have effects on the presidential race, the Senate race, sure," he told Politico. "There's always the risk of people being dispirited."
– A 54-year-old man was killed after being run over by a World War II-era tank over the weekend, but he wasn't on any kind of battlefield. Kevin Wright was attending a family reunion at the Fairfield, Calif., home of Jelly Belly Chairman Herman Rowland Sr. on Saturday when he was crushed by the 1944 M5 tank driven by Rowland's son-in-law, 62-year-old Dwayne Brasher, the Los Angeles Times reports. (Brasher is married to Rowland's daughter, Lisa Rowland Brasher, the candymaking company's CEO.) The California Highway Patrol says Brasher, who had been given permission to give people rides on the tank, was navigating the tank down a dirt hill when Wright, who was riding in the tank, lost his balance and fell into the tank's path, per CBS SF Bay Area. CBS notes there were about 50 people at the family reunion thrown by Rowland, who happens to be an avid collector of military vehicles, squirreling them away in a restoration venue he calls the "Tank Barn," Fox News reports. Drugs and alcohol don't appear to have played a part in the incident, and Rowland says family members are cooperating with authorities, the Times notes. "Our family is grieving over this tragic loss," Rowland said in a statement, per CBS. "The gentleman involved in this accident was a passionate person, always ready to lend a hand, and we shared the same deep-rooted love of history. To have him die so tragically during our family reunion is impossible to comprehend." (A WWII "Panther" tank was hidden away in an elderly man's cellar.)
– Perhaps lining up a post-White House gig, President Obama stepped in as guest editor for Wired this week, the AV Club reports. In addition to writing about why "now is the greatest time to be alive," he took the opportunity to list his favorite science fiction movies and TV shows. While his choices aren't surprising, "he's the leader of the free world, not a pop culture writer, so we'll let them slide." And for anyone who's less busy than the president, Wired has a rundown of where Obama's picks can be streamed online. Behold, Obama's top 8 sci-fi movies and TV shows: 2001: A Space Odyssey Blade Runner Close Encounters of the Third Kind Star Wars: Episode IV--A New Hope Star Trek: The Original Series The Martian The Matrix Cosmos: A Personal Voyage
– Selma Blair and Rachel McAdams have come forward to join more than 200 other women accusing director James Toback of sexual harassment. In a disturbing account to Vanity Fair, Blair says Toback lured her to a hotel room in 1999 and, after she refused to have sex with him, insisted on pleasuring himself by rubbing himself against her leg. She says he then apparently threatened her life, telling her that there had been a girl who went against him, and: "I am going to tell you, and this is a promise, if she ever tells anybody, no matter how much time she thinks went by, I have people who will pull up in a car, kidnap her, and throw her in the Hudson River with cement blocks on her feet. You understand what I'm talking about, right?" Blair says was scared for her life then and still is, but she came forward out of "pure rage" after Toback called other accusers liars. Rachel McAdams tells Vanity Fair that when she was 21, the director told her a visit to his hotel room would be her only chance to discuss her audition for Harvard Man. She says after she arrived, Toback told her he had "masturbated countless times" thinking about her that day and asked to see her pubic hair. "I was very lucky that I left and he didn't actually physically assault me in any way," she says. The Guardian reports that on Wednesday, Julianne Moore tweeted that in the '80s, Toback had approached her "with the same language" he used with other women, asking her to come back to his apartment for an audition.
– It's a huge day for labor in Michigan. Gov. Rick Snyder has signed a pair of right-to-work bills that make it illegal to require the payment of union dues in order to work, the Detroit Free Press reports. The state's House of Representatives passed the bills earlier today. Some 12,500 people were in Lansing to protest—which may be the most demonstrators the state capitol has ever seen. "This is a national attack," United Auto Workers president Bob King declared, as the crowd beat drums and chanted. "Unions built the middle class of America." Michigan was a surprise setting for the battle, the New York Times notes. Just last month, labor leaders were calling for collective bargaining to be written into the state Constitution. It seems to have backfired: Now, the UAW's home state is the 24th to ban required union dues—and a bellwether for future conservative efforts across the US. The battle comes after Snyder shifted position; the governor had once called the issue too thorny too address. Elsewhere: President Obama had weighed in yesterday: "These so-called right-to-work laws, they don’t have to do with economics," he said. "They have everything to do with politics. What they’re really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money." You can follow it all at the Free Press' live blog, or catch up on the background here.
– One thing is certain: Donald Trump has no shortage of self-esteem. In his new book, out this week, he takes credit for making Lady Gaga "a big star," hypothesizing, "maybe she became a star because I put her on the Miss Universe Pageant. It’s very possible, who knows what would have happened without it, because she caused a sensation. … I really believe I had at least something to do with it." More from Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again from Politico, the Washington Post, and USA Today: On his endorsement: "The Republican field has several good candidates in the race—most of whom have come to see me at my office in Trump Tower. The reason they come to see me isn’t just because I am a nice person but because millions of people listen to what I say and know I 'get it.' Some magazines have said I am the single most important endorsement a presidential candidate can have. I don’t know if that’s true but it wouldn’t surprise me." On Osama bin Laden: "It’s wonderful that we got him, but what sane person would have decided otherwise? Why does Obama get so much credit? I know that’s not politically correct to say, but if somebody can explain that to me, I would be very grateful. Our military deserves all the credit, not Obama." On the president's mockery of him at the White House Correspondent's Dinner: "While I shouldn’t admit this, I don’t mind being the center of attention, especially on such an evening. I loved it!" he writes. "I didn’t quite know how to react. Should I be laughing? Smiling? Frowning? I wasn’t sure so I decided to keep a straight face, with a few little smiles every once in a while because I knew the cameras were on me." On Rick Perry: "Every time I speak to him he is so forceful and strong that I have actually said to him: 'Rick, why can’t you act this way during the debates?' He said, 'Donald, the debates are just not my thing.' So I said, 'Why don’t you pretend you are someplace else? You gotta act different. You are getting killed in the debates.'" More choice quotes about himself: "I was quickly No. 1 in the polls." "I am a ratings machine." "It is very hard for a truly successful person to run for office." In interviews with all three publications, the Donald did not rule out re-entering the presidential race as an independent, and even went so far as to say he would consider an independent run if he doesn't like the Republican nominee.
– House Republicans announced yesterday that they'd only vote to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling if they could repeal or delay ObamaCare with the same votes. That's got pundits talking today, and pretty much none of those people think it's a good strategy. Here's what they're saying: At the Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove reveals Crossroads polling that shows that, while independent voters widely oppose ObamaCare, they oppose the GOP's repeal-or-shutdown tactics just as strongly. Rove also argues that a shutdown today "would have much worse fallout" than the 1995 shutdown, politically and otherwise. Besides, the repeal would need enough votes to clear the Senate and override a presidential veto. "No sentient being believes this will happen." Republicans who prefer gradually delaying and dismantling the law are winning the argument, argues Peter Roff at US News and World Report, and with good reason: "They have the president on their side." Obama's team "has made such a hash of the implementation phase of ObamaCare that 'delay' is already a reality," and it now seems inevitable to him that the whole law will "come tumbling down" and be replaced with something else. But some Republicans—displaying "all the rationality of a Justin Bieber fan riot"—argue that they must act quickly, before Americans taste ObamaCare's sweet, sweet subsidies. The law will be "worse than an invasion of giant zombies swinging nuclear-tipped crocodiles!" quips Gail Collins at the New York Times, and Americans "are going to love it so much they will never have the self-control necessary to give it up." It's not just bad politics, it's morally wrong, argues EJ Dionne at the Washington Post. "There is a thread running through the kamikaze caucus," he writes. "Almost everything it is doing is designed to keep government from acting against inequality." ObamaCare, which would help 25 million Americans get insurance "is part of this larger story."
– The children of Vicky Pelaez, the Peruvian sent to Moscow last week with the other nine accused Russian spies, are still in the US and are penniless, their aunt tells the New York Post. The Red Cross is helping 17-year-old Juan Lazaro Jr.—whose dad's name is actually Mikhail Vasenkov—and half-brother Waldo Mariscal, 38, Pelaez's lawyer says. The younger Lazaro "got tangled up in the sins of others," says an employee at the school where the talented pianist studies. The feds may seize the family home in a New York suburb, which could then be auctioned, the Daily News reports. Lazaro Jr. doesn't sound worried. "We have each other, we have a lot of people and we're going to do fine," he tells NY1. His brother says the teen "may visit his parents, maybe in Peru."
– Hmm, can anyone think of a reason Jay Leno might be unhappy with NBC? Amid rumors that he's being replaced as Tonight Show host by Jimmy Fallon, Leno has mocked his network for the past three nights, the AP reports. Late night hosts often take potshots at the hand that feeds them, but this time around the network has asked Leno to stop. He hasn't: Last night: "Scientists say they’re getting closer and closer to being able to do Jurassic Park-style cloning of extinct species. Imagine that? Things once thought to be extinct can now be brought back from the dead. So there’s hope for NBC. It could turn around." (Hat tip to Mediaite for the video.) Tuesday: Referring to a Serbian woman with a rare brain condition that causes her to see the world upside down, he quipped, "Isn't that crazy? It's unbelievable. She sees everything upside down. In fact, she thinks NBC is at the top of the ratings." Monday: "You know the whole legend of St. Patrick, right? St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland—and then they came to the United States and became NBC executives." Fallon, who has called Leno to try and smooth things over, also addressed the rumors last night, according to the Hollywood Reporter: "Before we get started, I have to talk about the rumors that came out today that I'll be moving up to 11:30—or as my parents call it, eh, too late. Actually the rumors are true; NBC is turning the Tonight Show into a diving competition," he said, a reference to new ABC reality show Splash. And in an interview for the April issue of GQ, Fallon said hosting the iconic show "would be great, sure, I guess. I'd love it, but it's not on my mind. I'm in no rush to do anything. I'm kind of a boring character in that book. I'm not in a fight with Jay or Conan, or any of them." (In the same article, Lorne Michaels says a Fallon takeover is inevitable, calling the comedian "the closest to Carson that I've seen of this generation.") Still no official word on the all-but-certain rumors, but NBC did confirm yesterday that it is creating a new New York studio for Fallon, who already hosts Late Night in the city. Leno hosts Tonight in Burbank. One analyst notes that the transition could take place during next year's Winter Olympics. "If they're going to do it, it makes sense to do it when NBC is dominating television for 17 days," and can heavily promote the switch, he says. "They could have Fallon in Sochi, talking it up."
– If you've been puzzling over ways to get more oleic acid into your body, the USDA has just come through. In a joint venture with Oklahoma State University, the agency has released a brand-new peanut that's said to boast a richer flavor, health benefits, and resistance to crop disease, Modern Farmer reports. The new legume, a type of Spanish peanut, is called OLé and is the result of a sophisticated "pedigree methodology" that tapped into an "advanced breeding line" to create a peanut that would be more resistant to Sclerotinia blight and pod rot. The diseases can devastate peanut crops unless farmers resort to using fungicides, so from a financial standpoint, OLé could be a game changer; diseases like that in a peanut field's soil can wipe out up to half the crop, per a USDA press release. "Growing a [disease-resistant] variety like the OLé could save farmers up to $150 [per] acre because they wouldn't have to use any chemicals, and that's big savings," a USDA research biologist tells the Crop Science Society of America. The new peanut is also good news from the consumer perspective: It's loaded with oleic acid—the same fatty acid found in olive oil—which doesn't turn rancid as quickly as the linoleic acid also found in peanuts, meaning a longer shelf life for peanut-based products. And oleic acid is a monounsaturated fatty acid (one of the so-called "good" fats"), linked to lower blood pressure, better heart health, and decreased symptoms in diabetes patients, per the CSSA. The peanut's high oil content also lends it a nuttier flavor; Modern Farmer notes Spanish-style nuts are generally used to make "high-quality" peanut butter. (In an extremely rare case, a boy developed a peanut allergy in an odd way.)
– On Friday, South Korea announced that 13 North Korean employees from a restaurant in China had defected into its fold, the AP reports. On Monday, the country added a pair of North Korean officials, one of whom is reportedly a spy-savvy army colonel, in what Reuters calls a "coup for Seoul." One of the new entrants, said by South Korea's defense and unification ministries to have entered South Korea last year, is reportedly a senior North Korean diplomat who was stationed in Africa. But it's the second defector, now being granted political asylum, who's of most interest, as he was linked to the North's clandestine General Reconnaissance Bureau and spent much of his time spying on the South. "He is believed to have stated details about the bureau's operations against South Korea to the authorities here," an official told Yonhap via the BBC, adding the colonel was the highest-ranking military defector there ever. What's odd isn't just the defection of such a high-level official, but also that South Korea is talking about it. Some liberal opposition members say it's a purely political move by the South's conservative president, Park Geun-hye, to nab votes in Wednesday's parliamentary elections. But South Korean officials deny that, saying they spoke up about the defection of the restaurant workers—said by CNN to be 12 women and a man who experienced "pressure from North Korean authorities" to send money home—because there were so many from the same place; the AP notes it's the largest group defection since Kim Jong Un took over in 2011. About 29,000 people have fled the North since the Korean War's 1953 ceasefire, even though the BBC notes it's "almost impossible" for North Koreans to cross the well-guarded borders. (Meanwhile, the North is demanding the South execute some of its own officials.)
– Earlier this week came the news that Kim Jong Un had reportedly given his high-ranking uncle, Jang Song Thaek, the boot; now, the Telegraph reports that his aunt—Jang's estranged wife—may be canned next. Kim Kyong Hui is Kim Jong Il's sister, and is said to be doing poorly, sick with cancer and struggling with alcoholism and depression in the wake of her daughter's 2006 suicide. The Telegraph points to South Korean reports that indicate Kim may want his little sister, Kim Yo Jong, to take his aunt's place. One Japanese expert on North Korea sees this as part of Kim's effort to "bring in a younger generation of decision-makers"—his aunt is 65—but notes that it could be a perilously high-profile move. "If she disappeared or died, the regime would be badly shaken." Speaking of high-profile, Reuters reports that North Korea could have seen "its most serious defection" in a decade and a half. South Korean media today published unconfirmed reports that Jang's unnamed money manager fled North Korea about two months ago, and is being kept safe by South Korean officials in a secret location in China. There is some speculation that the defection could have been at the root of Jang's alleged sacking; Reuters notes that the aide may be privy to information about Kim's money.
– A 22-year-old California artist whose love of tattoos is instantly obvious (she estimates she has 47) is just a few days into a brash GoFundMe campaign: to become her very own crowdsourced art installation. For $10, people can get their name or one to two words of their choosing tattooed on Illma Gore's flesh—the only requests she says she'll turn down are words of hate or discrimination, reports Dazed Digital. "Tattoo Me," as she calls it, is an experiment to be a "piece of unsellable artwork" that will culminate in an LA exhibition in late March, where some of the final tattoos will be inked on live, reports KABC-TV. "There is something absurd and beautiful about having an accumulation of absolute strangers [sic] names draped over my pale goth skin, even if half of them are 'Penis Butt,'" she writes on her GoFundMe page, which will fund the exhibition itself. Gore estimates it will take more than 60 hours to complete the tattooing, hence the desired $6,000. She's currently surpassed that goal by a few hundred dollars. "Almost every mentally stable person has told me not to do this," she says. "I understand their views. But it's my vision—they don't have to like it." (A Dutch foundation will actually remove and save the tattoos of loved ones after they die.)
– North Koreans, for the first and possibly only time, watched their nation's soccer team play on foreign soil yesterday live on TV. Censors, fearing the appearance of anti-government protesters at matches, usually slap lengthy delays on such broadcasts—17 hours in the case of North Korea's game against Brazil. No protesters appeared at yesterday's game against Portugal, although the North Korean side suffered a 7-0 hammering, the Guardian reports. "I think because they played so well against Brazil in the last game, no one in North Korea would have imagined that they'd lose so big this time," a North Korean defector living in Seoul tells the BBC, predicting that the team will be treated harshly when they return home. "The result will be blamed on their weak minds," he says. "I'm sure the players will have to go though extreme re-education and self-criticism."
– Things went from bad to worse after Lan Cai, a 20-year-old waitress working her way through nursing school at Houston Community College, was hit by a drunk driver on her way home from work at 1:30am. She'd broken two bones in her back, and she'd never been in an accident before and thus needed help with insurance and entitlement claims, reports Houston Press. She got some, but then she took to Facebook and Yelp to complain about the legal team she'd hired, alleging, among other things: "After 3 days, they didn't tell me anything about the doctor I needed to go to. I was in a lot of pain. Not only that, they didn't know where the hell my car was! And they came to my house and into my room to talk to me when I was sleeping in my underwear. Seriously, it's super unprofessional!" Before she knew it, her attorney from Tuan A. Khuu law firm, Keith Nguyen, called her and threatened to sue for between $100,000 and $200,000 if she did not remove her negative comments, reports KPRC. "We don't mind if someone writes a bad review, as long as it's true," he says, alleging that Cai's review was full of "half-truths" that she refused to remove or clarify. For instance, he says her mother invited the attorneys into her room, and they say they did know where her car was. The suit has been filed, and when asked by Houston Press about whether Nguyen feels badly about trying to take so much money from a working student, he says, "She needs to learn—people need to learn that there are consequences for their actions." (This dentist has sued five patients over four years for bad Yelp reviews.)
– Elizabeth Smart has been guarding her private life pretty well from the media, it seems—considering that the Utah activist had a baby girl named Chloe three months ago, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. "It is totally private," says her father, Ed Smart. "This is something she is keeping to herself and not trying to have out there." Ed first let the news slip about his daughter, who was kidnapped from her home in 2002 and held for nine months, while promoting a new film about child sex-trafficking called The Abolitionists. "Elizabeth is great," he told East Idaho News last week. "She just had a baby girl named Chloe about three months ago." Now 27, Elizabeth also makes appearances to advocate for girls and women trapped in the horrors of sex trafficking. She recently joined her father in speaking out for Utah woman Elizabeth Laguna-Salgado, 26, who vanished while walking in downtown Provo in April, the Tribune reports. As for the baby news, it's not a total surprise: Elizabeth Smart married her Scottish boyfriend Matthew Gilmour three years ago, and Ed Smart recently posted a photo of himself with a baby girl on social media, E! News reports. (Click to see what two of the former Cleveland captives are up to.)
– If anyone has doubts that the United Kingdom's Advertising Standards Authority reads its complaint mail, this should put that to rest. Per Fashionista, a lone detractor submitted a grievance to the British ad watchdog about a Gucci ad campaign, and now it's banned in the UK—because of two "unhealthily thin" models. The brand's already expired promotion of its Cruise 2016 collection was featured in the British Times, and models Madison Stubbington and Avery Blanchard apparently took the complainant's breath away with their slim frames, spurring a challenge against the ad for being "irresponsible" and a ban on it appearing in its "current form" anywhere in the UK, per the ASA ruling. Gucci's rebuttal, via Cosmopolitan, says the ad was geared toward an "older, sophisticated audience" and that thinness is a "subjective issue." Gucci lists reasons why the models weren't portrayed as too skinny—their "bones" weren't on display, for example, nor was heavy makeup used to make their faces look too thin. "The visual parts of their bodies appeared toned and slim," the argument reads. But the ASA didn't buy that, noting after a review that Stubbington's portrayal was OK, but Blanchard's wasn't. "Her torso and arms were quite slender and appeared to be out of proportion with her head and lower body," the ruling says, adding that her pose accentuated her long torso and skinny waist and that "her somber facial expression and dark make up, particularly around her eyes, made her face look gaunt." Cosmo points out issues with the ASA's ruling: "Even if intended to combat problematic portrayals of the female form, it's worth noting this is a pretty body-shaming statement in itself." (Models in France now need a doctor's note OKing their BMI.)
– Prepare to spend your Thursday evening sobbing into a bowl of Rocky Road, because we are here to tell you that the epic Taylor Swift-Conor Kennedy romance has come to an end. Perhaps because she was cheating on him with his cousin? Not so; a friend insists to Us that "it was just a distance thing. No hard feelings." And it happened "a while ago"—they haven't seen each other in more than a month—which is kinda sad, considering rumors of their relationship cropped up not even three months ago. Even so, the relationship apparently lasted long enough for Taylor to form such a strong bond with Ethel Kennedy that Taylor dedicated a song to Ethel on her new album.
– Infighting! We got GOP infighting here! Yahoo News reports senators Rand Paul and John McCain are having a bit of a tiff this week after McCain called Paul out on the floor of the Senate on Wednesday. McCain was seeking a vote on a Senate bill—expected to be widely supported—in favor of Montenegro's efforts to join NATO. According to Politico, 23 of 28 NATO member nations have already voted in favor of Montenegro joining—but Russia is strenuously opposed to it. McCain claimed anyone who didn't support the bill would be "carrying out the desires and ambitions of Vladimir Putin." After Paul blocked a vote on the bill and left the Senate, McCain went further, accusing Paul directly of "working for Vladimir Putin." Paul responded to McCain's comments Thursday, and he didn't pull any punches. "I think maybe he's gotten a little bit unhinged," Paul said, adding that McCain "makes a really, really strong case for term limits." And he accused McCain of possibly being "past his prime." Paul justified his opposition to the Montenegro bill by saying that the US military has enough on its plate without possibly having to support the small country, the Hill reports. He also claimed NATO membership isn't supported by a majority of Montenegro citizens. Paul said being called a traitor for opposing the bill might be "a little over the top." Paul and McCain have clashed on foreign policy before, with Paul accusing McCain of wanting "war everywhere."
– In his recent interview with NBC, Edward Snowden reiterated that he raised concerns with his superiors at the NSA and went to the media only after getting brushed off. But the NSA today is disputing that, saying that it can find only one email from Snowden, on a relatively technical matter, reports Wired. "The e-mail did not raise allegations or concerns about wrongdoing or abuse, but posed a legal question that the Office of General Counsel addressed," says an agency statement. It adds that Snowden could have aired his worries via "numerous avenues," but “we have searched for additional indications of outreach from him in those areas and to date have not discovered any engagements related to his claims.” Nonsense, says Snowden's legal adviser from the ACLU. “Snowden raised many complaints over many channels,” says Ben Wizner. “The NSA is releasing a single part of a single exchange after previously claiming that no evidence existed.” You can read the newly released email in full here. In it, Snowden asks for clarification on whether executive orders issued by the president supersede laws. A government lawyer responds that Snowden is correct in his observation that "E.O.s cannot override a statute." After addressing another matter, the lawyer ends with, "Please give me a call if you would like to discuss further," notes AP. This may not settle much of anything, but at least "Snowden's claim and the NSA's response are now good material for his next interview," observes a post at Mother Jones.
– "I always say the future is unwritten. You never know what will happen," Kaylyn Pryor said after accepting her trophy in Chicago on Sept. 25. An aspiring model, she beat out 500 applicants in a local modeling competition. Soon after, she signed with model agency Factor Women, and local media called her a rising star, reports the Chicago Tribune. Pryor, 20, hoped a job interview at a Victoria's Secret weeks later would help her get noticed, but she never got to the interview. Minutes after leaving her grandmother's house in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood on Monday, Pryor was hit by a bullet in an apparent drive-by shooting. When a neighbor told her grandmother, "I just about dropped to the floor," she says. She raced to Advocate Christ Medical Center, but Pryor "was already gone." No arrests have been made. Police say Pryor was on a sidewalk with a 15-year-old boy around 6:20pm when someone in a dark-colored SUV opened fire, hitting her. The teen—who Pryor's father says was not a close friend of his daughter—was shot in the scrotum and is in critical condition, reports NBC Chicago. Police are investigating whether the boy was the intended target—WGN reports he is "a documented gang member"—but say Pryor was an innocent bystander. "She was an inspiration," her mother says, while the sponsor of the modeling contest describes Pryor as "truly beautiful inside and out." "It's an unspeakable tragedy," a police rep adds. "It really demonstrates why we need to do something about gun violence here in Chicago. We really need to come together as a city and come up with some solutions." A 9-year-old boy was fatally shot in the city on Monday. (Chicago recently had its deadliest day in more than a decade.)
– Are we surprised that an anti-gay rally inspired a pro-gun rally? Gun-rights activists say last year's "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day" has motivated them to make Jan. 19 "Gun Appreciation Day," reports NPR. Organizers want Americans to visit gun shows, gun ranges, and gun stores that Saturday, two days before President Obama's second inauguration. They picked the date to "send a message to Washington" at a time of the "Obama administration's post-Sandy Hook assault on gun rights." And that "assault" is in the works, the Washington Post reports. Obama's team is considering a much broader approach to gun legislation than just reviving the assault-weapons ban, according to sources involved in the plan. With the support of law enforcement leaders, Joe Biden's working group is weighing universal background checks for gun buyers, weapons-tracking through a nationwide database, higher mental health barriers, and greater punishment for Americans who give guns to minors or carry them near schools.
– After 28 NCAA tournament wins and three trips to the Final Four, Rick Pitino has been "effectively fired" as the coach of the Louisville men's basketball team, his lawyer tells the AP. Pitino, a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, was technically put on administrative leave after Louisville was tied to a federal investigation that came to light Tuesday in which athletes received hundreds of thousands of dollars to choose specific schools, shoe sponsors, and more. Specifically, Adidas was accused of giving $100,000 to an unnamed high-school player's family in return for the player committing to Louisville, according to ESPN. The 65-year-old Pitino had publicly decried the influence of shoe companies in recruiting as recently as 2014. In addition to Pitino, Louisville also put athletic director Tom Jurich on administrative leave.
– Animal welfare workers say 71 beagles have been removed from "deplorable conditions" in a Pennsylvania home. Barbara Morgan, an officer with the Lehigh County Humane Society, says she expects to file charges against the owner of the home near Allentown where the dogs were discovered, the AP reports. Many of the dogs, which Morgan says range from weeks old to senior-aged, were sickly and underweight. Staffers were called to the home over noise complaints, and they were shocked by what they found. "When we first got the complaint, we were told it was 25 dogs, so when we first got out there, we were not prepared for what we saw," the humane society's executive director, Mary Shafer, tells WFMZ. "I never saw so many dogs [in] one little space in my life," Morgan adds. She notes that it's believed the dogs had been inherited from another person, and that the new owner simply became overwhelmed with their care. The Lehigh County Humane Society says in a Facebook post the dogs are being evaluated, and that information on adoption will be available in coming days. Until then, the organization is in need of donations to help care for them, including wet food, towels, sheets, and leashes. Officials say the owner may get hit with animal cruelty charges.
– The FDA's first attempt to limit antibiotic use in farm animals appears to be working: All but one of the 26 drug companies asked to curb the use of antibiotics in animals to promote growth have agreed to do so, though the plan is voluntary. The plan will see the drug companies remove claims of growth promotion from their products, which will effectively make it illegal for the drugs to be used on livestock without a valid medical reason. Only antibiotics used similarly by humans—think penicillin and tetracycline—will be affected, and the 25 companies in agreement with the plan make 99.6% of those drugs. "I think that within three years we're going to see growth promotion gone when it comes to antibiotics," one expert tells the Wall Street Journal. It's a big step forward, especially considering fears that drug makers would not come onboard, the Los Angeles Times reports. The FDA is attempting to fight the overuse of antibiotics because it is blamed for the rise of drug-resistant bacteria. But an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council says more must be done, because farms also use antibiotics to prevent sickness in animals due to crowded and unsanitary conditions. "The FDA is just limiting antibiotic use for growth promotion, but the same animals are given the same antibiotics because of the crowded conditions," he says. "Current levels of antibiotic use are likely to continue, but just with a different justification and label. That won’t do anything to protect human health."
– A key insider has finally confirmed what many suspected: Megan Fox got bounced from the Transformers series that made her famous because she compared her director to Adolf Hitler. The order to fire her came directly from producer Steven Spielberg, reports the Telegraph. The 25-year-old actress claimed last year that she was quitting—before production of the about-to-be-released Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon—in order to pursue other "acting" opportunities. But in fact she was drop-kicked by her bosses immediately after a tirade against director Michael Bay, in which she said he wants to be "like Hitler on his sets." Now Bay himself has told the Daily Mail: "You know the Hitler thing. Steven said fire her right now." Fox was immediately slammed after her comments against Bay in a blog by other crew members, who blasted her "porn star" acting and called her "dumb as a rock." Co-star Shia LaBeouf said in an interview that Fox "started s--t-talking our captain, which you can't do." Fox was replaced by British model Rosie ­Huntington-Whitley. Click here for more.
– On Thursday, a storm erupted with Gawker's publication of a story by Jordan Sargent about the CFO of a media company who allegedly planned to step out on his wife to meet a gay escort in Chicago. As Dylan Byers pointed out at Politico, "widespread condemnation" ensued, and that's possibly putting it mildly. Here are the six things you should read if you want to know what's going on: On Friday, CEO Nick Denton said the post was coming down: While "the account was true and well-reported ... Gawker is no longer the insolent blog that began in 2003. The point of this story was not in my view sufficient to offset the embarrassment to the subject and his family. Accordingly, I have had the post taken down." There was a vote: Gawker explains the nuts and bolts of the meeting in which it was decided the post would come down. "The partners who voted to remove the post were Andrew Gorenstein, who serves as the president of advertising and partnerships; chief operating officer Scott Kidder; chief strategy officer Erin Pettigrew"; and Denton. The editorial staff issues a statement: They refer to "today's unprecedented breach of the firewall, in which business executives deleted an editorial post over the objections of the entire executive editorial staff. ... We condemn the takedown in the strongest possible terms." Michael Wolff weighs in on what Denton is thinking: As the lead-in to his Hollywood Reporter piece puts it, "Weeks before the gossip outlet took down a reprehensible article amid outcry, Denton seemed to suggest to Wolff via an email apologizing for a personal attack that there is a lack of responsibility for the consequences of the site's content in the new age of after-the-fact mea culpas." Gawker's editors resign today: Gawker Media Executive Editor Tommy Craggs and Gawker.com EIC Max Read announced they're leaving over the decision. From Craggs: "All I got at the end of the day [Friday] was a workshopped email from Denton, asking me to stay on and help him unf--- the very thing he'd colluded with the partners to f--- up." Denton shares this letter with all of edit: "Were there business concerns? Absolutely. ... It was such a breach of everything Gawker stands for, actually having a post disappeared from the internet. But it was also an unprecedented misuse of the independence given to editorial. ... This is a one-time intervention, I trust."
– Working more than a standard 40-hour workweek (if that "standard" still even exists) won't only shave away at your R&R time: It may also cause you to drink more, the Guardian reports. Researchers found that individuals who put in 49 to 54 hours a week were 13% more likely to suck down "risky" amounts of alcohol than those who work 35 to 40 hours, while the poor dears who toiled away for 55 hours or more had a 12% higher risk, according to a study in the British Medical Journal. For the purposes of this study, "risky" alcohol use was considered to be more than 14 drinks a week for women or 21 drinks a week for men, the Los Angeles Times reports. The study used cross-sectional analysis of 61 studies with nearly 334,000 subjects from 14 countries, as well as additional "prospective" analysis of 20 more studies that looked at 100,000 people from nine countries. So why do those who put in so many hours put in more appearances at happy hour? A few theories: They may be decompressing from work stresses; it's built into their personalities (the same folks who work hard can't help but play hard); or those who suffer from insomnia or depression may take longer to work and be more apt to pick up the bottle, notes the Times. Although work-health expert Cassandra Okechukwu wrote in the study's accompanying editorial that those who have jobs experience lower rates of "problem alcohol consumption" and better recovery rates from alcohol abuse than the unemployed, these results warrant further examination: They indicate about 2 million people are adopting risky alcohol habits across labor forces in the participating nations. "Long working hours is an exposure that we cannot afford to ignore," Okechukwu writes. (Binge drinking could mess up your immune system.)
– Bill O'Reilly's book, Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever, has sold nearly a million copies and currently sits at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list. Only problem is, it's riddled with errors, according to a scathing review from the National Park Service bookstore at Ford’s Theatre, Salon reports. Here are a few alleged historical missteps: Killing Lincoln refers several times to the Oval Office. Little problem: The Oval Office wasn't built until 1909. O'Reilly writes of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee: “The two warriors will never meet again.” In fact, they did have a second meeting in 1865 to talk about prisoners of war. According to the book, Ford's Theatre “burned to the ground in 1863.” Sorry Bill, make that 1862. In O'Reilly's words, John Wilkes Booth used "a pen knife to carve a very small peephole" to observe Lincoln in his theater box. But one historical record says the hole was bored so guards could keep an eye on the president. Even an Amazon reviewer is taking aim at apparent inaccuracies in the book. To read more of the Salon article, click here. (Or read about O'Reilly's theological explanation for the Earth's tides.)
– If Saturday's plane crash in San Francisco had happened 25 years ago—or if passengers hadn't been wearing seat belts—the death toll would have been a lot higher than two out of the 307 passengers and crew, experts say. FAA mandates in the late 1980s forced manufacturers to bolster seat strength, and if this had happened before then, "the inside of that plane would have looked like a jigsaw puzzle dropped from a second-floor window," an aviation safety expert tells the San Francisco Chronicle. Among the survivors, there are numerous spinal injuries that are the result of being violently shaken in their seats, says the doctor overseeing the passengers' care. "They were all in the same type of seats, and they all had their seat belts on," so many of the injured have the same pattern of spinal damage caused by their upper bodies being flung over their lap belts, Dr. Geoffrey Manley, the neurosurgery chief at San Francisco General Hospital, tells NBC News. Other experts say the injuries are like those before shoulder belts in cars, though it's not clear whether shoulder belts in planes could have prevented the injuries, the AP notes. Six patients are still in critical condition and two are unable to move their legs, though Manley says remarkably few of the many children on the flight are among the seriously injured. "They have a lower center of gravity. Little kids are made to rough and tumble," he says. "They do weather injuries well."
– This lesson in diplomacy is hot on BuzzFeed: A female mayor in the Philippines city of Davao City punched out a sheriff in front of TV cameras. Mayor Sara Duterte was incensed that the sheriff insisted on demolishing a shantytown despite her request for a two-hour delay. (Fittingly, she wanted the time to keep tensions among residents. from exploding.) Duterte is taking a five-day leave while the government investigates her takedown, reports ABS-CBN News. Click here for more.
– Led Zeppelin is reissuing its first three albums in June, but ahead of that comes a little more love for fans. Actually, it's a "Whole Lotta Love" and "Keys to the Highway"—previously unreleased versions that Jimmy Page culled from the band's vault in a two-year labor of love. "I don't want to die and have somebody else do it," he tells the BBC, which has clips of the songs. "I'm authoritative about what was done in the first place," and the new music "deserves to be heard." "Keys to the Highway" was recorded in 1970, in what Robert Plant calls "a particularly prolific time where we were learning about each other's capabilities. Jimmy and I were just fooling around." The "Whole Lotta Love" track is an early version—missing some vocals, slide guitar, the middle section, and first chorus—which makes one "realize just how important all of those additional layers and the filigree work is" in the final track, Plant says. He adds a pretty frank assessment of his own skills at the time: "My enthusiasm sometimes got in the way of finesse. I listen to it and go, wow, why didn't I shut up a bit? I kind of overcooked it." He's equally blunt about any chance of a reunion: "Zero" chance, says he. Still, the new tracks alone are cause for celebration, writes Fraser McAlpine at the Anglophenia blog. "For fans of Led Zeppelin, there’s no such thing as too many remasterings and reswizzlings of those classic albums."
– Prison is coming (perhaps) for a guy who has been spilling spoilers for upcoming Game of Thrones episodes, US News reports. The man, who IDed himself in an English-speaking YouTube video as 43-year-old Jose Senaris from Spain, says he's a digestive surgeon who also writes for a well-known Spanish TV show. He's been making "predictions" about HBO's hit show and sharing them online, mostly in Spanish, on his YouTube channel, after which they're translated into English and set free on Reddit. The problem is, his supposed prognostications are really leaks from an unnamed source, he recently confessed on Reddit, a revelation that may burn him more quickly than Drogon's morning breath. "The truth is I never know when I will receive the info," the man also known as the "Spanish Spoiler" wrote on the site last week. "I just find it in my email when the source is … able or wants to send it, so I'm as nervous as everyone else." HBO Senior VP Jeff Cusson tells US News only "a very small group" of folks, including President Obama, got advance copies of the current sixth season (no press received copies due to piracy problems linked to previous seasons of the show.) "HBO aggressively protects its programming, but we find it counterproductive to publicly discuss specific anti-theft tactics," a tight-lipped statement from Cusson reads. Some say, per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, that HBO doesn't have the right to stifle the spoilers and force YouTube to take his videos down (which they've done before, though the videos appear to be back up as of this publication), mainly because he's simply speaking, not showing actual clips—which may make the case harder to prosecute under copyright law. But a UNC Law School professor tells US News that "if he's giving away detailed plot information, he definitely faces the possibility of being liable for criminal copyright infringement, no question." (Tech Insider explains the backstory of the Redditors fighting to keep the spoilers out in the open.)
– The future, as one ex-Google employee sees it, could involve cars that not only drive themselves but own themselves, too. The idea, Mike Hearn tells the BBC, is to create "the most moral, socially minded capitalist possible." The cars wouldn't actually think, he explains. Instead, in his thought experiment, you'd use your phone to log into what he calls "Tradenet," a non-proprietary system on which cars would offer their best prices for your journey. (Tradenet wouldn't just be for cars—it's a broader system for all kinds of commerce that Hearn, who is also a leading Bitcoin software developer, laid out in a 2013 video.) Once you'd chosen the car, you could pay more to use shortcuts or fast lanes. The cars would even be programmed to pay human engineers to improve their code, the BBC reports. The cars' money—paid via a digital currency like Bitcoin, which doesn't require banks—would go to fuel, insurance, and maintenance, as well, perhaps, as funding factories to make more such cars. There could also be cars putting themselves out of commission when not needed, "or you could get immigrant vehicles driving to another city looking for work." How likely is the whole scenario? "I can't see it happening," an auto industry researcher tells the BBC. "There will still be economies of scale in production and in purchasing," and "there will still be these big groups that operate fleets. And they would be able to out-compete individual self-owned vehicles." Hearn acknowledges economic hurdles, calling for a "more technology and radical decentralization" to beat out giant companies.
– Last week, Vin Diesel raised some eyebrows when he was photographed sporting a "dad bod," aka a bit of a softer gut than that to which his fans are accustomed. But Sunday while in New York to promote his latest film, 48-year-old Diesel hit back at the haters, People reports. "It is amazing the response from the journalists who I have been talking to for the last two days in New York. Today one wanted to see the dad bod. Haha. I am wondering if I should show the picture... Body-shaming is always wrong! What do you think?" he wrote on Instagram alongside a picture of him looking fit, but fully clothed. In the next shot, he is, of course, shirtless and flaunting six-pack abs. "The pic from yesterday... For those who wanted the show... For all the angels that love dad bod regardless," he wrote. Click to see the dad bod picture or Diesel's follow-up shots.
– If any Nobel Prize winners strive for the award solely for the money, Nadia Murad isn't among them. The Hill reports the 25-year-old Yazidi human rights activist, who shared this year's Peace Prize with Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege, will be giving her $500,000 portion of the Nobel cash to her Nadia's Initiative organization, which helps Iraqi women and minorities. "I commit 100% of the money, at least my share, to the goals and work we are currently doing, and that we will do in the future," the 25-year-old said at a presser. "Persecution of minorities must end," Murad said in a statement last week after hearing she'd won the prize, citing the murder at the hands of ISIS of her own mother. Murad stressed at the press conference that though she hopes her donation will help fight sexual violence around the world, more still needs to be done. "A single prize and a single person cannot accomplish these goals," she said. "We need an international effort."
– Acclaimed actor and playwright Sam Shepard is dead at age 73, reports BroadwayWorld. Shepard, who died at home in Kentucky, had been suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease. He leaves behind an impressive legacy in the arts as the author of more than 40 plays, including Buried Child, for which he won the Pulitzer in 1979. Shepard also earned an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in 1983's The Right Stuff. Most recently, he had portrayed the family patriarch in the Netflix series Bloodline. The New York Times calls Shepard "one of the most original voices of his generation," noting other plays such as Curse of the Starving Class, True West, and Fool for Love. As BroadwayWorld notes, his plays are "chiefly known for their bleak, poetic, often surrealist elements, black humor, and rootless characters living on the outskirts of American society." He is survived by three children: Jesse Mojo, 47, from his marriage to O-Lan Jones; and Hannah Jane, 31, and Samuel Walker, 30, from his long relationship with Jessica Lange, notes People.
– It turns out there's something sharks are even better at than spicing up your average made-for-TV movie about tornadoes: sensing electricity. Back in 1971, a Dutch scientist discovered sharks use tiny pores on their heads to sense the electric fields produced by other aquatic animals—and hunt those creatures, Atlas Obscura reports. These electric fields are produced by the differences in ion concentrations between animals and the water and allow sharks to close in for the kill in murky or dark water from about a foot and a half away. LiveScience in 2006 reported that the sense was "so developed" that sharks could even track down fish who had buried themselves in the sand. What's even more impressive is where sharks fall on the spectrum. According to Atlas Obscura, sharks are approximately 10,000 times more sensitive to electric fields than any other animal and are even more sensitive than the best machines made by humans. Here's how sensitive: "They can detect electric field gradients as small as a billionth of a volt across a distance of a centimeter." What does this sixth sense mean for fearful summer beach-goers? Atlas Obscura reports humans' insulating skin dampens any electric fields that would be sensed by sharks, but opening your mouth underwater could produce one by way of the mucous membranes there, leaving one biologist to advise, "Don't scream." Read the full Atlas Obscura article here.
– The story of the Louisiana middle school teacher arrested after speaking up at a school board meeting continues, now with a closer look at how women in the district are treated. When Deyshia Hargrave was carted off in handcuffs Monday after calmly questioning the $30,000 raise for Vermilion Parish School District Superintendent Jerome Puyau, Laura LeBeouf, one of the two female members of the school board, noted, "I have never seen a man removed from this room," per KATC. Critics of the school board point to footage of another recent board meeting, where a man made "an impassioned plea" about his recently deceased dad and wasn't removed as Hargrave was. Even celebrity host Sharon Osbourne backed up Hargrave on The Talk, noting: "She wasn't being violent. … They did that because she's a woman." Stoking the fire are remarks made by school board president Anthony Fontana, who told WAFB Hargrave was "the poor little woman" whom "everybody wants to side [with]." "She could have walked out and nothing would have happened," he said. (In a video of the incident, Hargrave had indeed picked up her purse and walked out, only to be handcuffed in the hall.) Fontana also says Hargrave broke rules, including keeping her speech "civilized," and refuted any gender disparity, noting a board member's husband had once been banned. "All this stuff about this is a woman's issue is BS," he said. In a video posted on the Louisiana Association of Educators Facebook page, Hargrave says, "They … tried to take away my First Amendment rights to speak, and I'm appalled at this, and you should be, too." She tells NBC News that "it's sad that a woman has to be forcibly, violently removed from a board meeting for people to start caring."
– Wayne Dyer, who wrote dozens of self-help books and was a guru of sorts for celebrities including Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres, has died at age 75. "Wayne has left his body, passing away through the night," his family wrote on Facebook yesterday. "He always said he couldn't wait for this next adventure to begin and had no fear of dying." Dyer, who spent time in orphanages and Detroit's foster system as a child, eventually served in the Navy before going to Wayne State University to study counseling. In 1976, he published his first book—Your Erroneous Zones: Step-by-Step Advice for Escaping the Trap of Negative Thinking and Taking Control of Your Life—and it went on to become one of the best-selling books of all time. Dyer discussed his "self-actualization philosophy," which the Washington Post refers to as "Christian-y" and "Buddhist-ish," on shows including Oprah's, Phil Donahue's, and Sally Jessy Raphael's. He officiated Ellen DeGeneres' and Portia de Rossi's wedding. A sample Dyer quote, per CBS News: "Take the last five minutes of your day and put your attention on everything that you would like to attract into your life. ... Then you'll marinate for eight hours, and you'll awaken and you'll begin to attract the things that are in your subconscious mind." His family did not reveal the cause of his death, but Dyer was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia in 2009; he claimed that the power of positive thinking and a Brazilian doctor's "psychic surgery" healed him. Per USA Today, Dyer once noted that such illnesses are likely "just the body's way of responding to, perhaps, psychological traumas" in a person's past.
– Mandolin player Chris Thile kept getting phone calls from the 312 area code, refusing to answer them because he assumed they were political robocalls. Finally, after listening to one of the mysterious messages—"Don't tell anyone about this call"—he had his tour manager look up the number. "It appears to be from something called the MacArthur Foundation," his manager told him. "I think I must have turned white," Thile recalls. "I thought, 'Oh my God, did I win a MacArthur?'" Yes, he had, along with the 22 other recipients of this year's "genius grants," reports the AP—which accidentally broke MacArthur's midnight embargo with its reporting of the winners, Playbook notes. The grants pay winners, who are nominated and selected in secret, $500,000 over five years to pursue creative dreams. Thile may fund a bluegrass quintet chamber music project with his. Other winners will write books, study the pre-Civil War South, and work with parasitic worms, among other things. Winner Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, reflected after winning: "It would never have dawned on me to think such a thing was possible for me" during his early years in New Jersey, "struggling with poverty, struggling with English." Click for the complete list of this year's geniuses.
– The spies have been swapped, the New York Times reports. US and Russian planes carrying their respective undercover agents landed briefly at a Vienna airport, did a passenger switch, and flew back to their homelands. In return for handing over the 10, the US got four people who had been serving time in Russia. They include arms control researcher Igor Sutyagin. The AP says the handoff was straight out of a Cold War handbook. The two planes landed within minutes of each other in a remote part of the airport and ended up nose to tail. They were there about 90 minutes before taking off. “This action was carried out in the overall context of improved Russian-American relations," says the Russian Foreign Ministry.
– Angelina Jolie's latest humanitarian project: an all-girls primary school in Afghanistan. The school is near Kabul, where the educational focus is typically trained on boys, and Jolie tells E! between 200 and 300 students are currently enrolled. Her plan is to open more of these kinds of schools, funded by the release of The Style of Jolie, a jewelry line she designed. "Beyond enjoying the artistic satisfaction of designing these jewels, we are inspired by knowing our work is also serving the mutual goal of providing for children in need," Jolie says. (Note that this is not her first foray into jewelry design.)
– Because parents don't have enough to worry about, both in the virtual and real worlds, a warning is now circulating about an online dare that could spur kids to engage in self-harm. Massachusetts' Sun Chronicle reports that school officials there emailed parents last week about the "Blue Whale Challenge," a "game" shared through social media that allegedly puts kids in touch with "an anonymous curator," who then eggs users to complete a series of challenges over 50 days. USA Today documented it in May: It often starts with a fairly innocuous task—watching a horror movie, perhaps—and moves on to increasingly dangerous ones, such as cutting, before finally asking the participants to kill themselves on the 50th day. Per the Washington Post, school districts nationwide are addressing the murky challenge, though some people claim it's just a hoax to scare parents. The challenge is said to circulate via popular online mediums such as texting, Snapchat, and Instagram. Although some say deaths caused by the game are just urban legend—the Sun Chronicle says it's "unclear" if the challenge has been tied to actual deaths—the Post notes the apparent recent suicide of 15-year-old Isaiah Gonzalez, whose family says he was a Blue Whale victim. A teen in Atlanta also took her own life after participating in the challenge, her family tells CNN. Police and school officials say the game preys on vulnerable youth, and some are fighting back by saturating #BlueWhaleChallenge hashtags with warnings. Per the Sun Chronicle, one school superintendent says parents should check out their kids' social media accounts for related hashtags or pics of blue whales, noting they need to be "policing [their kids' online] environment."
– Sarah Silverman drew one of the biggest cheers of Monday night at the Democratic National Convention when she told Bernie Sanders diehards they were "being ridiculous." But there was one line the Democratic National Committee informed the comedian she couldn't deliver during her speech, she tells the New York Times in an interview that delves into her support of Sanders, how it felt to face a riled-up audience, and the "fundamentalists" found in any group. "At the very beginning, when Al said, 'I'm Al Franken, and this past year I've been hashtag-I'm With Her' … I was going to say, 'And I'm Sarah Silverman, and this past year I've been with the possibly agnostic Jew,'" she reveals. "But they were like, no. And they are right. … But I get so indignant. At least I'm aware, and awareness brings change, so maybe I'll be less obnoxious." Read her entire interview here. (Four takes on Bill Clinton's speech Tuesday night.)
– The resignation of a Northern California town's city clerk generally wouldn't garner much in the way of press, but the drama surrounding Kim Lehmkuhl's exit from her Pleasant Hill post is just a wee bit outside the norm. Lehmkuhl was elected to the position in 2012, but things have since grown frosty between the city official and the town, with the Contra Costa Times reporting that the 34-year-old was accused of taking no minutes during city council meetings in her entire first year, and instead tweeting her way through them—under a city account, and in a very opinionated way, the city charged. Some residents called for her to step down (she refused, and the San Francisco Chronicle notes that she did later produce minutes for some meetings), and the council in March announced a November ballot item would seek to change the position to an appointed one, reports the AP. The moves, as it turns out, were unnecessary: Lehmkuhl quit on Monday, in fiery fashion, to take a job in Washington, DC. In an email to the mayor and city manager, she wrote that "this has been an atrocious, incredibly depressing, and mind-numbingly inane experience I would not wish on anyone. I wish the City the best of luck in finding some schmuck eager to transcribe every last misogynistic joke, self-indulgent anecdote, and pathetic pandering attempt by Council." She also wished the city manager "best of luck with your imminent unfunded pensions scandal, that is going to be a rough one." But Lehmkuhl wasn't the only one with blistering words. Said Pleasant Hill Mayor Tim Flaherty at Monday night's council meeting, per ABC7, "I'm paraphrasing our former President Gerald Ford in saying 'Our long municipal nightmare is now over.' Our city clerk has resigned." Her city-related Twitter account is no more as well.
– On Jan. 29, a 27-year-old Ukrainian woman living in the United Arab Emirates went to the doctor after experiencing stomach cramps. What came next: a pregnancy diagnosis—and her arrest for unmarried sex, which is illegal in the UAE. Iryna Nohai and her South African partner, Emlyn Culverwell‚ 29, have been detained without charge in Abu Dhabi since, the BBC reports. "The South African government is aware of the case, but unfortunately cannot provide legal assistance" regarding what it says is UAE law, a rep tells News24. "The only thing they did which was wrong, was to fall in love," says Linda Culverwell, who tells News24 that her son and Nohai got engaged on Jan. 27, two days before their arrest. She says the Ukrainian embassy is trying to intervene, and that it sees two alternative outcomes: They could marry or be deported. Otherwise, if charged and found guilty the pair could face time behind bars. The BBC notes that Culverwell has been working in the UAE for the past five years, and his employer reportedly told his family no charges have been filed because authorities are allegedly conducting "tests" aimed at determining how long Nohai has been sexually active. The couple's case is not an expat first: The Independent reports that an unmarried UK couple were sentenced to three-month terms in 2008 for having sex on a beach in Dubai, though their sentences were suspended upon appeal. (A woman was jailed in Dubai after reporting rape.)
– Warren Buffett has beaten a personal record—and slipped down a place to fourth on the Forbes list of the world's richest people—with a gift of shares worth $2.8 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and several other charities, topping his record $2.6 billion giveaway last year. The Berkshire Hathaway CEO's fortune has now fallen from $65.9 billion down to $63.1 billion, and the 83-year-old plans to give away almost all of it. Buffett and Bill Gates helped found the Giving Pledge, which encourages billionaires to give their fortunes to charity, Bloomberg notes. More than 100 have signed up. "I will give 99%, but the other 1% is way more than enough," Buffett said in a speech to the Edison Electric Institute last month. "I have never given a dollar that caused me to give up something I wanted to buy." Under Buffett's long-term plan to give his billions away, the number of shares he gives to the Gates Foundation decreases a little each year, but their value has been going up and the value of his donations to the charity since 2006 now stands at $23.8 billion, CNBC finds.
– People in wheelchairs now have something in common with astronauts, knights, and pirates: a Lego figure to call their own. NPR reports Lego will release its first figure with disabilities in a set called "Fun at the Park" this June. (The set and figure can be seen in a video here.) The Lego man sitting in a wheelchair was spotted at a toy fair in Germany earlier this week and confirmed by the company Thursday. "We've got genuine tears of joy right now," CNN quotes the organizers of a campaign called Toy Like Me, which received 20,000 signatures on a petition asking Lego to represent children with disabilities in its toy sets.
– The Guardian appears to be the first media outlet to have gotten its hands on Stormy Daniels' new memoir, Full Disclosure, and it reports she gets explicit in what she discloses. The Guardian reprints her fairly NSFW description of the president's genitals, which she likens to a character from the game Mario Kart. She calls that alleged 2006 encounter possibly "the least impressive sex I'd ever had." The book also treads some familiar ground: of being threatened to stay quiet about the alleged tryst while in a parking lot in 2011, of what she says was Trump's fascination with TV's Shark Week (adding that he fielded a phone call from Hillary Clinton while watching it), and her hopes of securing a slot on the Apprentice. She says she continued to take Trump's phone calls in hopes that television gig would come to pass, and quotes Trump as suggesting that once on the show, she could cheat as a way of ensuring she remained part of the cast for a while. She describes him as saying, "We'll figure out a way to get you the challenges beforehand. And we can devise your technique." The Guardian notes the book begins well before Daniels first met Trump, describing her impoverished and abuse-ridden childhood in Baton Rouge, La., her first go as a stripper while still a teen, and her entry into the porn industry. CNBC reports the book is out Oct. 2.
– Congress is getting closer to avoiding another shutdown later this week. The Senate's top leaders announced Wednesday they have sealed agreement on a two-year budget pact that would shower both the Pentagon and domestic programs with almost $300 billion above existing limits, giving wins to both GOP defense hawks and Democrats seeking billions for infrastructure projects and opioid abuse. The agreement is likely to be added to a stopgap spending bill that passed the House on Tuesday and is aimed at averting a government shutdown Thursday at midnight, per the AP. One new hurdle: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California announced she would oppose the budget measure unless her chamber's GOP leaders promised a vote on legislation to protect "Dreamer" immigrants. Senate Democratic leaders earlier dropped their strategy of using the funding fight to extract concessions on immigration, specifically on seeking extended protections for young immigrants brought to the US illegally as children. Instead, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer went with a deal that would reap tens of billions of dollars for other priorities while hoping to solve the immigration impasse later. Both he and Mitch McConnell said they were confident of avoiding a shutdown, and the White House signaled that President Trump supports the deal, reports Politico. The plan also contains almost $90 billion in overdue disaster aid for hurricane-slammed Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico. It would also increase the government's borrowing cap to prevent a first-ever default on U.S. obligations that looms in just a few weeks.
– President Obama will outline his plans for starting to get American troops out of Afghanistan in a speech to the nation tomorrow night, and officials tell the Los Angeles Times that the magic number for 2011 will be 10,000. That's more than what many were hoping to hear: Robert Gates, ahead of his retirement at the end of the month, has called for a conservative withdrawal, and the Pentagon favors withdrawing just 3,000 to 4,000 troops this year. The officials were careful to note that Obama is still "finalizing" his decision, but expect him to announce that the US has made great strides in damaging al-Qaeda's ability to attack the US, giving him the chance to begin bringing troops home. Budget woes and input from White House aides who favor a steep withdrawal were also factors, notes the LAT. Removing all the surge troops would still leave 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan, more than twice as many as when Obama took office. In tomorrow night's speech, the president is also expected to outline plans for putting Afghans in charge of their own security by 2014, notes the AP.
– Beto O'Rourke was relatively reserved in his first debate against Sen. Ted Cruz last month, the New York Times notes. In Tuesday night's debate in San Antonio, however: The congressman was "sharper and edgier," and the Hill notes that "seasoned debater" Cruz, whose Texas Senate seat is at stake, gave it right back. Some of the barbs that flew back and forth: On the possibility of impeaching President Trump if Democrats take the Senate: Cruz noted it would be "two years of a partisan circus." O'Rourke's response: "It's really interesting to hear you talk about a partisan circus, after your last six years in the US Senate." O'Rourke on Cruz's claim he has a "special relationship" with Trump: "Where is the result of that? You are all talk and no action." Cruz on O'Rourke: "Have you noticed in this debate he doesn't talk about what he has accomplished in Congress? Because he has scored political points rather than accomplishing victories for the people of Texas." During a segment on climate change and oil taxes: "Senator Cruz is not going to be honest with you," O'Rourke said. "He's dishonest, and it's why the president called him Lyin' Ted, and it's why the nickname stuck—because it's true." Cruz's retort: "It's clear Congressman O'Rourke's pollsters have told him to come out on the attack." Cruz during a discussion on civility in politics, addressing one of the moderators: "There is an anger, there is a rage on the far left," then becoming impatient when local reporter Jason Whitely tried to interject: "Don't interrupt me, Jason." A Texas Tribune fact-check of the debate tries to suss out whose insults hold water. (O'Rourke has raised a stunning amount of money, but it may not matter.)
– A cancer awareness advocate and fundraiser known as the unofficial mayor of West Seattle and who for the past decade has branded herself as a cancer patient and survivor may have faked her illness the entire time, KOMO reports. A rep from Susan G. Komen headquarters in Dallas confirmed the organization was informed by a family member that not only does Tracy Dart not have cancer now, she never did. "Komen was notified of this situation last week and has been in contact with Tracy's family," an email statement to the West Seattle Herald reads. "We are sad for Tracy and her family and hope that she, and they, will find healing in the days ahead." Dart's family reportedly found out she had lied about her cancer when she had to go to the hospital recently for a liver problem and the hospital couldn't find records of her supposed three bouts with the disease, "reliable sources" tell the paper. Members of the group Dart founded to raise money for Komen are stunned. "The first words were 'she doesn't have cancer,'" Team Tracy participant Matthew Welch tells KOMO. "'She never had cancer' were the second words, and it just blew my mind." But he notes Team Tracy, which has now been dissolved over the news, did a lot of good—and the Komen statement, which points out Dart never personally received money from the group, says Team Tracy's California and Seattle members raised more than $414,000 for Komen since 2006, while Dart herself raised more than $28,000. "I wouldn't say we're angry," Welch tells KOMO. "I would say she needs help, and I hope she gets it." A Seattle Police Department rep tells the New York Daily News that they're in the loop, but it's unclear whether an investigation has been opened to look into possible illegal activity. (A beauty queen was accused of faking leukemia.)
– UK prosecutors think they know who set off the bomb that killed four British soldiers and seven horses in London's Hyde Park in 1982, but a judge today threw out the case against 62-year-old John Downey, reports the BBC. The wrench was that Downey was one of about 190 IRA suspects who get a letter from the British government in 2007 assuring them that they were no longer wanted by the law, reports the Guardian. It was part of the Good Friday peace agreement. The Police Service of Northern Ireland now acknowledges that Downey never should have received such a letter because he had an outstanding warrant at the time, reports the Belfast Telegraph. "I wish to apologize to the families of the victims and survivors of the Hyde Park atrocity," says the PSNI's chief constable. "I deeply regret these failings which should not have happened." The families, meanwhile, criticized the "monumental blunder" and said their "torment will be ongoing."
– Sylvester Stallone was at New York Comic Con on Sunday, but if you actually wanted to get a picture with him, you had to shell out $445. Even an autograph set you back $395, Gawker reports (and the website has the event flyer to prove it). "He's flying here straight from Bulgaria," a ticket seller for Celebrity Authentics, the memorabilia company that put together the event, explained Saturday. "This is a very limited opportunity." Should you not have saved up quite enough to take a picture with Stallone, you could get a photo with Sigourney Weaver for $200 or David Duchovny for the bargain basement price of $95. (And yes, people did actually pay the price to take pictures with Stallone; TMZ has photographic evidence.)
– A big lead in the search for a woman snatched from a Philadelphia street: Bank cameras captured an unknown man using an ATM card belonging to Carlesha Freeland-Gaither less than nine hours after she was kidnapped. Police say the card was used early on Monday about 75 miles from Philadelphia near a highway exit for Aberdeen, Md., the AP reports. The missing 22-year-old's family says an ex-boyfriend from Maryland was obsessed with her and managed to track her down after she moved to Philadelphia from the state two years ago, reports ABC 7. Her grandmother says she doesn't recognize the person in the grainy security camera images, but there is a possibility it could be the ex-boyfriend. Her parents have pleaded for her safe return, NBC reports. "Please give me back my child. Please give me my baby," her mother begged, while her father urged the kidnapper to "just get in contact with me and my family. Again, not pressing no charges or nothing like that. All we want back is our daughter." Police have described the suspect as a black man in his 20s, about 5 feet 10 inches tall with a heavy build. They say he is probably driving a 2000-2002 dark gray metallic four-door Ford Taurus—the vehicle Freeland-Gaither was forced into—with an unknown Pennsylvania license number, an unknown plate on the front bumper, and both driver- and passenger-side rear windows broken out.
– There are no classes today at New London's Connecticut College, but it's not for a holiday or snow day. Instead, events to eliminate what President Katherine Bergeron calls "this ignorance and hatred" have been planned after racist graffiti was found scrawled in bathroom stalls yesterday at the college's student center, the AP reports. Bergeron sent a letter out to students last night informing them of the cancellations, writing "we must take action immediately" and that "I have decided to cancel tomorrow's classes to ensure these events receive the proper attention," NBC News Connecticut reports. That attention includes holding a campus-wide meeting tonight and scheduling tomorrow as an informal "open door" session where students can approach her with concerns, the station notes. The graffiti found in the Crozier-Williams building reportedly contained the word "No" followed by the plural version of the n-word (NBC notes it viewed photos of the writing, which reportedly has already been erased); campus officials are still investigating to find out who's responsible. The incident comes on the heels a hubbub last week, when students at the college were angered by a professor's Facebook post that compared the Gaza Strip to a "rabid pit bull," per NBC. "One thing has become extremely clear: the level of harm that incendiary language can have on a community," Bergeron wrote in last night's letter. "As your president, I will not tolerate forms of racist or hateful speech designed to demean, denigrate, or dehumanize. Even though speech may be protected does not mean that we have to approve of the odious things that people choose to say with their freedom."
– Last month, a story emerged from Florida about a 16-year-old girl allegedly raped by people she thought were her friends. Now a cell phone video of the attack has emerged, and it's horrible to see, CBS Miami reports. Prosecutors used the video in court to show how the girl had been dragged on the ground and beaten. "They don’t like this girl," a man is heard saying, and a woman responds, "I told you we were gonna f— somebody up." When the attackers give their victim a breather, a woman is heard saying they should let her go, but a man says she has to stay and perform a sex act. In court, the victim said she was smoking marijuana and drinking beer with friends on a November night when one of her girlfriends Maced and attacked her, the Sun-Sentinel reports. The victim was then beaten, forced to have sex with Jayvon Woolfork, 19, and spat on when she left the Hollywood, Fla., house. "I just don't ever want to see them again," she told police. "I thought they were my friends." All five suspects, ages ranging from 16 to 19, have pleaded not guilty on two charges of kidnapping and two charges of armed sexual battery. The lawyer of 18-year-old Lanel Singleton, who shot the video, argued that Singleton should be tried separately because he was only a "bystander," but the judge chose to rule at a later date, NBC Miami reports. Click to see the video, but be warned, it's hard to watch.
– The Dow Jones Industrial Average is ditching Hewlett-Packard, Bank of America, and Alcoa, it announced today, in what the Wall Street Journal is calling "the biggest shake-up of the 30-stock index in almost a decade." The Dow will add Nike, Visa, and Goldman Sachs to replace the three departing companies. The swaps "were prompted by the low stock price of the three companies," the company that manages the Dow said in a statement, along with "the Index Committee's desire to diversify" the index. The Dow said the swap won't actually affect its current level—which, at 15063.12 is just off the all-time high it hit in August. The Dow is price-weighted, meaning components with higher share prices affect it more. The move comes on the same day as a Bloomberg report that Bank of America is planning on cutting 2,100 jobs and closing 16 offices.
– With Conan O'Brien facing an uncertain fate at NBC, fans on Facebook have embraced an image of the comedian, switching it to their profile pictures to show support, notes Mashable. The movement, dubbed "I'm With Coco" by creator Mike Mitchell, reportedly has some employees of NBC and the Tonight Show among its supporters. The mission statement: "We are the ones who don't care where Conan goes, or what time he is on. We are the ones, who will be there regardless. GO TEAM COCO!"
– Not only do midwives, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants do as good a job as doctors, they sometimes do better—and patients would agree, according to a World Health Organization bulletin. NBC News gives an example: When it comes to delivering babies, midwives use less drugs and perform fewer episiotomies than doctors, and the mother/child death-rate was no different among the two groups. Further, patients were often reported higher satisfaction with midwives. The findings come from a review of 53 studies conducted over the last two decades that focused on the quality of care, and "debunk the myth that more extensive use of mid-level health workers might lead to services of poorer quality," the bulletin reads, per Science Codex. "The quality of care they provide is comparable to physicians." To boot, these mid-level health workers are cheaper, take less time to train, and are more willing to work in rural areas. It's a conclusion that all countries, including the US "can exploit," says the WHO; to wit, NBC News points out a shortfall of 90,000 doctors is predicted in the US by 2020.
– It's no wonder New York City traffic is so awful, with 13,600 taxis navigating the streets. But just 3,000 sedans could accomplish about as much, according to a new study. Using a computer formula, MIT researchers discovered that just 3,000 four-person vehicles could provide for 98% of the ride demands of Manhattan residents if everyone opted to share rides, while 2,000 10-passenger vans could account for 95%, reports CNNMoney. The model, particularly suited to self-driving cars since they would be able to automatically re-route themselves when necessary, used data from 3 million taxi rides taken over a week in Manhattan in March 2013 to pose real-time requests, then grouped passengers together based on destinations and sent empty vehicles to await requests in high-traffic areas, which made the system 20% faster, per Gizmodo. The result also meant less congestion and pollution. The downside was that passengers theoretically waited 2.8 minutes for a vehicle, and spent an extra 3.5 minutes traveling because of additional stops. If adopted, such a system would also put thousands of taxi drivers out of work, but "drivers will be able to make the same amount of money working shorter shifts, while the customers will get the same level of service, cities will have fewer cars on roads, the commute experience will be better for everyone ... and the air is cleaner," the study author says. Motherboard reports it could also save some $121 billion lost annually "as a result of the 5.5 billion hours people spend sitting in traffic (to say nothing of the 2.9 billion gallons of fuel that is also wasted)." (A smart traffic light might also improve traffic.)
– Katie Holmes' breakup with Tom Cruise may have made her a powerful new enemy: the Church of Scientology. Two mystery vehicles, a white Cadillac Escalade and a black Mercedes SUV, have been following the actress—who believes the church hired them to spy on her, sources say. But TMZ notes that the pursuers may have been hired by a publication to tail her. Click to see the creepy black Mercedes. Before Katie's divorce filing apparently caught Tom off-guard, both were in New York for weeks but never stayed together, TMZ says. Katie stayed at their NYC apartment while Tom shacked up at The Greenwich Hotel, where he saw her only on two unexpected visits. Meanwhile, People notes that Katie has completely moved out to a new apartment. And TMZ wonders whether Tom Cruise is the latest victim of a Rock of Ages "curse," which has so far "afflicted" Russell Brand, Mary J. Blige, and Alec Baldwin. Click for curse details.
– Michael Cohen pleaded guilty Thursday morning to lying to Congress about work he did on a Trump real estate deal in Russia. President Trump's former personal attorney made a surprise appearance in a New York courtroom to enter the plea, per the AP. He admitted to making false statements in 2017 to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow; no final deal was even made. In August, Cohen pleaded guilty to other federal charges involving his taxi businesses, bank fraud, and his campaign work for Trump. But as the New York Times notes, Thursday marks the first charges brought against Cohen by special counsel Robert Mueller. Cohen has been cooperating with Mueller's investigation since he made his first plea, and the new development suggests he's angling for a lighter sentence, per the Times. Trump himself, meanwhile, has been escalating his attacks on the Mueller inquiry of late. "Did you ever see an investigation more in search of a crime?" he tweeted Thursday, one of two tweets on the subject. (Mueller says Paul Manafort has been lying, not cooperating, after his own plea deal, and Trump says a pardon for Manafort is not "off the table.")
– President Obama has ordered US agencies abroad to use foreign aid to fight for gay rights. "I am deeply concerned by the violence and discrimination targeting LGBT persons around the world," Obama wrote in a memorandum, calling the effort "central to the United States' commitment to promoting human rights," the AP reports. It's the first time the US government has taken steps to promote gay rights abroad, the White House says. It's unclear, however, whether it means that nations which discriminate will see their aid cut off, notes the New York Times. Hillary Clinton discussed the issue in a speech in Geneva ahead of International Human Rights Day this week, noting that while gay people may commit crimes "just like straight people," "it should never be a crime to be gay." Rick Perry was quick to jump on the decision, which follows renewed parliamentary debate in Uganda over a ban on homosexuality. "This administration’s war on traditional American values must stop," the GOP candidate said.
– The latest higher education campus to see protests over racial issues: California's Occidental College, where whites make up 50.6% of the student body and minority students say the campus climate is inhospitable. Students have been protesting over diversity issues, with a list of demands including more programming and resources for "black and other marginalized students," a "fully funded and staffed Black Studies program," and more tenured faculty of color. As of Monday, students were occupying the college's administrative building, insisting that if those demands are not met, President Jonathan Veitch resign, the Los Angeles Times reports. Students are upset at how the administration has handled race-related complaints, and they say that during a demonstration last week that included a march to Veitch's home, Veitch left when students started talking about how administrators have handled sexual assault allegations. An associate VP at the school says Veitch simply "realized his presence there was no longer being constructive." As for this week's occupation, "We're not going to shut anything down," he says. "They've been conscientious and respectful. They'll be able to stay 24 hours a day." School officials are reviewing the students' demands, he adds, and a chief diversity position in the administration is already planned. But, per USA Today, during last week's protest, Veitch told students, "We simply can’t meet every demand on that list. But I can tell you that I will honor the conversation. I do not cling to this job. I’m happy to resign." One protester tells LA Weekly that if demands are not met by Friday, "we'll occupy until his [Veitch's] resignation." She says as many as 400 students are taking part, eating delivery pizza and sleeping in sleeping bags. "We're occupying all the hallways. The staff is just walking over students." Similar protests have led to officials stepping down at Mizzou and Claremont McKenna, and protests are also happening at Ithaca, Yale, and other schools.
– Pakistan is going to have to answer some tough questions about whether members of its military and intelligence services knew where Osama bin Laden was, warns Sen. Carl Levin. The Democrat, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, suggested that the security arms of the Pakistani government may have known where bin Laden was living since last summer, Politico reports. The location, the length of time bin Laden was there, and the fact that the Abbotabad compound was built specifically for bin Laden all raise suspicions, Levin said. Levin's sentiments were echoed by other top senators including Joe Lieberman, who noted that Pakistani officials had insisted for years that bin Laden was not in their country. John Brennan, President Obama's top counter-terrorism adviser, said it was "inconceivable" for bin Laden not to have had a support network inside Pakistan, but he declined to comment specifically on whether he believed the government was involved in any way, reports Reuters. Analysts predict that tensions between the US and Pakistan are set to rise. Click here for that story.
– Ouch. A study out of Columbia University suggests that Walmart deliberately runs much better stores in white neighborhoods than in minority neighborhoods. The study found that stores in lower-income neighborhoods have considerably lower customer service ratings than those in wealthier ones. More specifically, the higher the percentage of black or Latino residents in an area, the lower the Walmart rating, reports Consumerist. The researchers suggest one reason is that the chain generally doesn't staff stores in low-income neighborhoods adequately because it doesn't need to do so—Walmarts in such neighborhoods are often the only place people can shop, and thus competition and customer satisfaction aren't priorities. “When Walmart moves into the South Side of Chicago, it’s not really displacing numerous other businesses,” study author Adam Reich tells the Atlantic. “So it can shortchange investments in staff, and force people to work harder. Consumers don’t have a choice about where they’re shopping.” The authors, who published their study in the American Sociological Association journal Contexts, analyzed Yelp reviews of 2,840 stores and found that those in predominantly black areas tend to be rated with words like "nasty," "terrible," and "unorganized," while those in white areas tend to be described as "friendly," "clean," and "pleasant." A Walmart spokesperson tells Business Insider that the analysis is both "flawed" and "without merit," and the publication notes a few "holes," including that reviewer bias and outside influence can't be accounted for. (More than 200 violent crimes have been reported at Walmarts so far this year.)
– Details are still trickling out about Wednesday's terror attack in London, and the BBC and the New York Times report that the attacker was identified Thursday by Metropolitan Police as 52-year Khalid Masood, who had been convicted for a series of non-terrorism-related crimes over a span of at least 20 years. A police statement says Masood also had a "number of aliases," per Newsweek. In a speech earlier Thursday before Parliament, Prime Minister Theresa May said the attacker was born in Britain (the BBC notes Masood was born in Kent) and had been on the radar of law enforcement and intelligence agencies some time ago during a probe into violent extremism, the BBC reports. "Our working assumption is that the attacker was inspired by Islamist ideology," she said, per the New York Times. However, May added that Masood (whom she didn't identify by name), who was shot dead by cops in the attack that killed three others, was a "peripheral figure" on the Islamist extremist scene and hadn't recently been under the microscope. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, per the AP and the Telegraph, with a statement by the group's propaganda outlet stating that the attacker was a "soldier" of the Islamic State. Meanwhile, London Mayor Sadiq Khan posted a video statement of his own in which he noted, "Londoners will never be cowed by terrorism," per the Guardian. Khan also said, per journalist Christiane Amanpour's Twitter feed, he won't be commenting on the diss against him by Donald Trump Jr., noting, "I've been doing far more important things over the last 24 hours."
– North Korea trotted out an American college student it's held for two months Monday, and 21-year-old Otto Frederick Warmbier sobbed, bowed deeply, and pleaded for forgiveness from "every one of the millions of the Korean people." "Please! I made the worst mistake of my life," Warmbier told a press conference held "at his own request." A video obtained by CNN serves as the first glimpse of Warmbier since the alleged "hotel incident" that resulted in his detention as he was trying to leave the country. "I committed the crime of taking down a political slogan from the staff holding area of the Yanggakdo International Hotel," the University of Virginia student says. According to North Korean officials and his own statement, Warmbier's motive was much more sinister than the desire to return home with a unique souvenir. "I beg that you see how I was used and manipulated," he says, citing Z Society, the Friendship United Methodist Church of Wyoming, Ohio, and the US government as his manipulators. A North Korean official says Warmbier met with a "deaconess" of the church last year and was promised a $10,000 used car in return for sowing ideological disunity in the secretive state by taking "an important political slogan." A pastor tells CNN that Warmbier is not a member of the church. Warmbier also allegedly met with a member of Z Society, a secret philanthropic group at UVA that North Korea says is linked to the CIA, and was offered membership in exchange for completing the "mission." Reuters notes that, in the past, North Korea has used detained US citizens as leverage to get high-profile visits from the US. Warmbier's press conference comes as the UN considers new sanctions against North Korea.
– Sometimes screwing up a science experiment isn't such a bad thing. Case in point: Researchers in Sweden accidentally left their equipment running on an experiment over a weekend, and ended up creating something awesome—Upsalite, the world’s most efficient water absorber, reports the Independent. This substance, prohibitively expensive and difficult to produce until now, can potentially do everything from controlling moisture on a hockey rink to cleaning up toxic waste and oil spills, reports Science Blog. This "is expected to pave the way for new sustainable products in a number of industrial applications," says nanotechnology professor Maria Stromme. Scientists have been trying—and failing—to cheaply create a dry, powdered form of magnesium carbonate since the early 1900s, earning it the nickname the "impossible material." Turns out, all they needed to do was use the same process they've been attempting for more than 100 years, but at three times the atmospheric pressure. When the scientists at the University of Uppsala inadvertently did this, they returned to the lab Monday morning to find a gel had formed. When heated to more than 158 degrees, that gel "solidifies and collapses into a white and coarse powder," they report, per Phys.org. "It became clear that we had indeed synthesized the material that previously had been claimed impossible to make," says Stromme. (It's not the only amazing discovery reported this week. See the best of those here.)
– Details on the mystery suspension of an entire college cheerleading squad are now being filled in, thanks to an FOIA request. The Sun News has acquired a criminal investigation report compiled by South Carolina's Coastal Carolina University that indicates cheerleaders on its squad were working at strip clubs and also accepting between $100 and $1,500 (as well as shoes, clothes, and designer purses) per date to serve as escorts through a "sugar daddy" dating site. (The report does add the cheerleaders weren't believed to have provided sexual favors in these escort roles.) Of the 18 squad members, only seven didn't know anything about the escort service allegedly going on behind the scenes, the report adds. An anonymous letter received in mid-March by school officials was what spurred the probe; it was signed by a "concerned parent" and said to be sent by a white "heavy-set" man whose identity investigators are still looking into. The letter alleged the cheerleaders were involved in boozing it up and using drugs, stripping, prostitution, and getting other people to do their homework for them. But an attorney for five of the cheerleaders calls the accusations "outlandish" and their suspension (due to a conduct investigation) "unprecedented," calling the girls "teal-bleeding" (teal is one of the school colors) athletes who are "victims of … baseless claims from an anonymous source," per the Sun News.
– The icky, icky Justin-Bieber-is-a-babydaddy allegations live on: Lawyers for alleged babymama Mariah Yeater insist there is “credible evidence” that her child was fathered by the then-16-year-old (a claim that ironically opens 20-year-old Yeater up to statutory rape charges). Yeater's paternity suit apparently alleges that the backstage encounter only lasted 30 seconds and took place in a bathroom, the Telegraph reports. (Want to put a face to your disturbing mental image? Celebuzz has pictures of Yeater.) The Biebs spoke out about the whole thing on Twitter, tweeting, “so Im going to ignore the rumors...and focus on what is real.” Also on Twitter, not surprisingly: death threats directed at Yeater from Justin’s rabid “Beliebers.” Fox News and Gawker have highlights, like this gem: “Roses are red, violets are blue mariah yeater we are gunna kill you.” Meanwhile, you might be wondering: If this whole mess causes Bieber’s romance with Selena Gomez to go up in flames, who gets custody of the dog they adopted together last month? Well, allow Justin to clarify that for you: “I didn’t adopt a dog,” he told Ryan Seacrest yesterday, according to E!. “A friend of mine did. I don’t have anything to do with the dog.” Convinced this whole thing will bring Bieber down? Click to see who might take his place.
– A 29-year-old Wayne State University police officer who was shot in the head Tuesday night died Wednesday evening, WDIV reports. "This is a tragedy felt by all of us—Collin and his family and friends, his fiancée, and our campus and community," the Detroit Free Press quotes Wayne State president M. Roy Wilson as saying in a statement. Collin Rose is the first Wayne State officer to be killed in the line of duty. He was patrolling a neighborhood near the Detroit campus with his two police dogs when he stopped a man on a bicycle. It's unclear why Rose stopped the man, though a resident had called 911 about him earlier. According to CNN, Rose called for backup, which arrived to find him with a gunshot to the head. It's unclear exactly what happened during the shooting, and the gun used to shoot Rose still hasn't been found. Police quickly arrested a suspect who has yet to be charged. The suspect is a homeless man and regular in the area who pleaded guilty to assaulting an officer back in 2011. Rose had been on life support since surgery Tuesday. His family was with him when he died. Rose was one credit away from getting his master's degree and was supposed to get married next October. His police chief says he was an "outstanding, proactive officer." Rose was the fifth officer shot in the US in less than a week.
– A self-help author who spent nearly two years in prison for the deaths of three people following an Arizona sweat lodge ceremony is again hosting seminars in the state. Starting yesterday in the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale, James Arthur Ray is leading discussions on how to deal with personal crisis. His website says ticket holders can speak with Ray about challenges they face in their lives. Ray was convicted of three counts of negligent homicide in the October 2009 sweat lodge ceremony he led near Sedona. Kirby Brown of Westtown, NY; James Shore of Milwaukee; and Liz Neuman of Prior Lake, Minn., died. Tom McFeeley, Brown's cousin, tells KNXV-TV that it's an insult for Ray to hold his programs in the state where the deaths occurred. "The prison sentence was really just a time out for him," McFeeley said. But Ray said his experience could be of help to people, and added, "It would've been easier to do anything else, but when you find your purpose, you don't quit." A Ray seminar will run you nearly $300. (See how Ray reportedly sat in the shade while his followers roasted in a sweat lodge.)
– Need a push to start saving? You've got it, courtesy of the Employee Benefits Research Institute. A review of retirement surveys from 2010 to 2012 finds one in eight people who died at 85 or older were dead broke, with no assets to their name, reports NBC News. One in five had only a house as an asset, with average home equity of $140,000. Single? The news gets worse. One in six who died at 85 or older without a spouse were penniless. Some 10% were actually in debt, while 25% had $83,000 on average in home equity. But not all have the benefit of living to old age. About 30% of households that lost a family member between 50 and 64 left no financial assets and earned less income than older retirees. "A lot of folks really don't have much of a financial cushion by the time they get to the end," says an economist, who previously found 46% of Americans die with less than $10,000 in assets. His findings suggest those who live longer die richer, perhaps because they didn't battle expensive, life-long health issues and therefore had money to spend on better health care. A shred of good news: Retirement account balances have hit record highs, according to an analysis from Fidelity Investments, per Time. The company says the average individual retirement account balance hit a record high of $94,100 in Q1 and the average Fidelity 401(k) balance is up 3.6% from 2014, though other reports are more discouraging.
– There are fewer than a dozen dark-sky reserves on Earth—places where the skies are so "exceptionally dark" that they receive the elite designation from the International Dark-Sky Association, attracting astronomy lovers from around the world. Now Idaho hopes to be the first US state to make it onto this list, with local activists vying for nearly 20 years to keep light pollution to a minimum and achieve this esteemed star-gazing status, NPR reports. "Here, in the heart of central Idaho, we see things differently," reads the website dedicated to the in-progress Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve. "We've come to acknowledge that this pristine night sky is part of our heritage and worth preserving for our children and future generations." The resort town of Ketchum was made an IDSA Dark Sky Community in October, and since then efforts have ramped up to meet the ultimate goal of becoming the first US reserve. Toward that end, Ketchum and other nearby communities receive guidance on upping their chances via the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve site, which recommends residents reevaluate their existing lighting to make sure it's "dark sky friendly" and invite friends and neighbors to join the cause. The IDSA will reportedly decide by year's end whether the Idaho reserve is a go, but in the meantime, residents keep on keeping the lights out and the skies viewable. "Everybody seems to comply with it," says one local in Ketchum. "I think the ones who don't are people who just move here and aren't familiar with it. … When they realize how nice it is, then they're compliant."
– In what authorities describe as a "chilling" case, New York police say a 23-year-old put his mother in a headlock and drowned her in the family's pool on Long Island on Wednesday. Assistant DA Robert Biancavilla says 63-year-old Elizabeth Cullen initially argued with her son, Denis Cullen, in the shallow end of the pool over whether Denis had taken his psychiatric medication. But when she poked him, per the AP, Denis dragged her into the deep end, "waited until she stopped moving, and then carried the body out of the pool," Biancavilla tells CBS New York. Biancavilla says Denis tried to hide the body before stealing his mom's car, cash, and credit card. He then traveled to his sister's house where he reportedly confessed. Police were called to the scene and found Elizabeth Cullen dead in the backyard. Biancavilla adds that Denis—previously diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, per WABC—later confessed. "He said she struggled violently and he was surprised a woman of her stature could struggle as much as she did," says Biancavilla, calling the description "chilling." Denis, who is the nephew of former US Army Chief of Staff George Casey, is charged with second-degree murder.
– Milwaukee residents, do not panic. That's an order from officials fielding dozens of calls since Monday, when a woman spotted what she claimed was a "lion" in her backyard on the north side of the city. A cellphone video appears to show a lion-like animal that wildlife experts reportedly said was a cougar, per CBS 58. A specialist found no evidence of a large cat, though dry conditions could make it difficult to find hair or paw prints, reports the Journal Sentinel. That hasn't calmed many. Yesterday, a white pit bull was apparently mistaken for a big cat and shot in the paw, reports Reuters; the dog should make a full recovery. "It's ludicrous. It's not tall and not anywhere near the size of a lion," says an animal control rep. "We are trying to tell people not to panic." While the Milwaukee County Zoo's lions are all in their pens, the Department of Natural Resources notes cougars do roam Wisconsin and were spotted in nearby counties last year. Still, the animals are often confused with house cats, fishers, bobcats, dogs, foxes, coyotes, and wolves. They also don't tend to stray far into cities, especially in the summer. Police say they're taking the issue seriously and investigating each possible sighting, but officers so far "have found nothing. There isn't anything else to share at this point." Meanwhile, the "Milwaukee lion" has popped up on Twitter.
– The police officer in Ferguson, Mo., who shot Michael Brown has gone underground, in a big, big way. The media usually dig up information on major news figures via social media, or family and friends—but any social media accounts Darren Wilson had were scrapped before the police divulged his name, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. A few supporters have spoken in his defense, but no one very close to him, and neither his attorney nor police union officials have anything to say. "He’s had some advice to dive down a hole and take cover for now," says a crisis-management expert. "They're doing everything possible." A friend who's an aspiring cop has spoken up in Wilson's defense, saying he's "100% sure" that Wilson "feared for his life" in shooting Brown. As an aside, the Post-Dispatch notes that Chief Thomas Jackson says Wilson's face was swollen after he struggled with Brown; unnamed sources tell WJLA that Wilson suffered a "serious facial injury," and multiple reports say it was an "orbital blowout fracture," reports Opposing Views. CNN's Don Lemon, however, reported that while Wilson was treated for swelling around his eyes, he did not have a broken eye socket, notes Salon. All the conflicting reports are based on anonymous sources, and Ferguson officials have yet to offer much clarification. (Ferguson's new plan: police cameras.)
– It's being called a document that "changed world history," at least as of Nov. 8. Germany's Bild reports historian Roland Paul has uncovered the 1905 decree that banished Donald Trump's grandfather from Germany. The Guardian has the timeline: In 1885, a then 16-year-old Friedrich Trump left Germany for the US and ended up finding a fortune among the Alaska gold rush (as Bloomberg explains, it wasn't gold, but a restaurant/brothel that brought him riches). He returned to his hometown of Kallstadt in 1901, where he a year later married Elisabeth Christ. The couple's subsequent time in New York City was short-lived: Elisabeth pined for Germany, but Trump found himself unable to return permanently, done in by his having not performed mandatory military service or alerted officials to his 1885 emigration. The February 1905 decree gave Trump eight weeks to leave the Kingdom of Bavaria or else face deportation. On the 27th of that month, Trump appealed to Prince Regent Luitpold, sending the "much-loved, noble, wise and righteous sovereign and sublime ruler" a "most modest plea," reports Deutsche Welle, to no avail. In the letter, Trump explained he originally left for America after being unable to find work as a barber in his homeland. The Wall Street Journal, which obtained a copy of the letter, reports that Trump should have in 1885 left a security deposit behind; such deposits were meant to ensure people would return for their mandatory military service, and he would have had it returned upon doing his military duty. On July 1, 1905, a three-months-pregnant Elisabeth, Trump, and their daughter sailed for New York. That unborn child would be Fred, Donald Trump's father.
– "Hello. My name is Nik and I'm going to be the next school shooter of 2018." So begins one of three short cellphone videos recorded by Nikolas Cruz at some point before he killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14. "My goal is at least 20 people with an AR-15," Cruz says to the camera. He then laughs, "You're all going to die," before making gun sound effects. "Pew, pew, pew," he says. "Can't wait." In another clip, Cruz lays out his plan. "I'll go into the school campus, walk up the stairs … get my AR and shoot people down," the 19-year-old says, per the Miami Herald. A third video may have been recorded on the day of the shooting. "Today is the day," Cruz is heard saying. "All the kids in the school will run in fear and hide. From the wrath of my power they will know who I am." Andrew Pollack, whose daughter was killed in the shooting, worries the videos released Wednesday as part of the discovery phase of Cruz's case will only bring the shooter more of the publicity he apparently sought. "When you see me on the news, you'll know who I am," Cruz says in one of the videos. Still, the videos indicate premeditation, necessary for a first-degree murder conviction, and show Cruz was "competent," Pollack tells CNN and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Cruz only touches on his motives in the videos. Though he professes his undying love to a girl, he describes a "meaningless" life of "seclusion and solitude" and classmates who saw him as an "idiot and a dumb ass." Though Cruz's defense attorneys have offered a guilty plea in exchange for a life sentence, Broward County prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty.
– The "Bunny Friend Playground" might sound like one of the most harmless places on the planet, but it was the site of a shooting that left at least 16 people injured in New Orleans on Sunday evening. Police say hundreds of people were at the 9th Ward park for an unauthorized block party and music video shoot when two groups of people opened fire on each other, WDSU reports. A police spokesman says some of the injured suffered direct bullet wounds while others were grazed by bullets, the AP reports. He says all the victims are in stable condition and the cause of the incident is still unclear. Police say officers were already on their way to break up the party when the shooting began. Witnesses tell the New Orleans Times-Picayune that they saw a man with a machine gun flee the scene and gunfire continued as he made his getaway. No arrests have been made, and police have appealed for information, calling the incident a "classic case where we need citizen help." At a Sunday night press conference, Mayor Mitch Landrieu denounced the shootings and urged witnesses to come forward. "At the end of the day, it's really hard to police against a bunch of guys who decided to pull out guns and settle their disputes with 300 people in between them," he said, per the Times-Picayune. "It's not something you can tolerate in the city."
– Abby Sunderland says she's "safe and sound" aboard a French fishing ship after being rescued from her Indian Ocean misadventure. "The long and the short of it is, well, one long wave, and one short mast," the 16-year-old writes on her blog from the rescue ship. She's already getting calls from the press "eager to pounce on my story now that something bad has happened," she says. Abby also told ABC Radio she plans to try her solo round-the-world trip again, notes the Daily News. "There are plenty of things people can think of to blame for my situation; my age, the time of year and many more," she writes on her blog. "The truth is, I was in a storm and you don't sail through the Indian Ocean without getting in at least one storm. It wasn't the time of year it was just a Southern Ocean storm. Storms are part of the deal when you set out to sail around the world."
– InTrade, the Ireland-based betting site on which you could wager on the presidential election and other non-sports events, abruptly shut down yesterday, AllThingsD reports. An official statement on the website cites possible "financial irregularities" that require it to cease operations, but does not give any details. The move, which may or may not be permanent, comes after InTrade already gave US-based users the boot, the Daily Intelligencer notes. They were kicked off after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued InTrade for securities and commodity trading violations last year.
– The US military is among those tracking an object Russia recently sent into space. Object 2014-28E, which has been moving toward other Russian space objects, was at first thought to be simply debris, the Financial Times reports. It could be intended to repair satellites already in space, or it could be a sort of vacuum cleaner to get rid of space junk. Or it could have a military purpose, expert Patricia Lewis tells the paper, noting the possibility of "kinetic pellets which shoot out at another satellite" or involvement in "satellite-to-satellite cyber attack or jamming." The object entered orbit when Russia launched a rocket in May to add communications satellites to military gear already in space. After the Iron Curtain fell, the country shelved a military program known as Istrebitel Sputnikov, or "satellite killer," and Moscow has previously sought a treaty against sending weapons into space. But military officials have suggested in the past that if relations with the US were to become strained, new research into space weaponry would be a possibility, the FT notes. "There should be no war in space, but we are military people and should be ready," Russia's space commander said in 2010, as per the Washington Post. "Trust me, we would be able to respond quickly and adequately." Lewis offers a disturbing scenario to the Post: "Imagine if you were having a Katrina episode and all of your satellites suddenly got jammed."
– There's a media storm brewing between President Trump's favorite news outlet and one of his most hated, but it concerns a story that unfolded long before he took office. On Sunday, New York Times VP of Communications Danielle Rhoades Ha demanded an on-air apology from Fox and Friends and asked the Fox News morning show to retract its claim that a 2015 Times story enabled Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to elude capture by the US government, ABC News reports. Fox and Friends' segment on Saturday referred to a story on FoxNews.com the day before, in which US Special Operations Commander Tony Thomas claimed his team was close to al-Baghdadi but that their lead on him disappeared after it "was leaked in a prominent national newspaper" in 2015. The controversy took on extra weight when Trump, a devoted Fox and Friends viewer, tweeted on Saturday, "The Failing New York Times foiled U.S. attempt to kill the single most wanted terrorist,Al-Baghdadi. Their sick agenda over National Security." Politico reports that a Fox News executive contacted the site to condemn the Times for its request, and for the fact that it did not make said request until Sunday—when the original FoxNews.com story was published two days prior—and alerted other media outlets to the request at the same time. "If we notified the press every time the New York Times had to update an online story or correct something, your inbox would crash," the executive said. Rhoades Ha says the newspaper has yet to hear back from Fox about its request. She also says the Times has sought a clarification from the White House regarding Trump's tweet.
– "This is a nuclear explosion" is how an expert on Turkey puts it to the Washington Post. The country's ruling party today finds itself with few options to form a new government after it was stripped of its parliamentary majority and opposition parties ruled out joining it in a coalition pact. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP party won about 41% of the votes yesterday and was projected to take 258 seats—18 below the minimum required to rule alone and ending its 13-year single-party rule. As the New York Times reports, after more than a decade as PM, Erdogan was last year elected to the somewhat "ceremonial post" of president, and the result was a stunning rebuke to Erdogan's ambitions to expand his powers; his hopes of passing constitutional changes that would fashion more of an executive presidency, more akin to our own version, are on hold, reports the Atlantic. Turkey has 45 days in which to form a new government after final official results are confirmed, but all three opposition parties have come out against a coalition with the AKP. Turkey's main opposition party, CHP, suggested it should be given the task of forming a government. The liberal pro-Kurdish HDP party dealt the AKP its biggest setback by clearing for the first time the 10% threshold it needed to grab seats in parliament (it'll take about 80 of the chamber's 550). The Guardian frames the significance: "The results will give the Kurds—who, with 20% of Turkey's population, are the country's biggest minority—true representation in parliament. ... The 10% hurdle, dating from the military-authored constitution of 1980, had been intended in part to diminish Kurdish representation in the parliament."
– Sarah Hyland is tired of being called out for being "too skinny," she wrote in a series of tweets Wednesday. She says her weight has been "HEAVILY discussed" in comments on her Instagram photos, with people bullying her and saying things like "your head is bigger than your body and that's disgusting." Some have even accused her of promoting anorexia, she says. The truth is that she's been struggling with health issues and has "basically been on bed rest" for months, thus losing muscle mass, and has been on "life-saving" medication that causes swelling. "I am working hard to maintain my weight by eating as much protein as possible and continue to be STRONG and healthy," she writes. She points out that young girls are reading the comments about her body, and while such comments "don't affect me, they may affect others." She doesn't disclose what health issues she's struggling with, but People reports that she has talked in the past about suffering from kidney dysplasia and going through a kidney transplant in 2012.
– A river basin in southern Asia is so enormous that 750 million people rely on it for their groundwater. Now, a new study in Nature Geoscience presents an equally staggering stat: 60% of that water is unfit for drinking or farming because it's contaminated by salt or arsenic, reports the Guardian. About 23% of the groundwater in the Indo-Gangetic Basin to a depth of 650 feet is too salty—an issue perhaps caused by poor farmland irrigation or drainage—and another 37% is tainted by toxic levels of arsenic, researchers say. Like salt, arsenic is present naturally, but levels can spike with mining and the use of fertilizers. The basin, so named because it's near the Indus and Ganges rivers, serves people in Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, and it accounts for one-quarter of the world's groundwater. "Elevated arsenic is primarily a concern for drinking water, while salinity affects irrigation and also the acceptability of groundwater for drinking," the researchers say, per International Business Times. However, researchers say that "deep tube wells" could penetrate deeper into the basin to pull out non-contaminated water, per Nature World News. Perhaps the only good news from the report is that the amount of water in the basin remained relatively stable, in contrast to other groundwater sources around the world. (Testing has found issues with 2,000 US water systems.)
– Barack Obama famously and controversially weighed in on Trayvon Martin's death ("If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon"), but the president will not be getting involved in the DOJ's looming decision on whether to prosecute George Zimmerman on civil rights charges, Politico reports. Obama "has no position to express" on the matter, White House press secretary Jay Carney said today. Obama did, however, weigh in on Zimmerman's not-guilty verdict, and Carney said that's because it "was fairly big news and it was something that was being watched nationally." As for the fact that Obama got involved in the Trayvon case in the first place, the president's "interference in a local law enforcement matter was unprecedented and inappropriate, and he comes away from the case looking badly tarnished by his poor judgment," writes civil rights expert Abigail Thernstrom for CNN. Other than having the same skin color, Obama's hypothetical son would have led a life "almost as dissimilar from Trayvon's as one could imagine," full of affluence and privilege, Thernstrom points out, noting that not "all brown-skinned boys are the same." The National Bar Association, the country's oldest and biggest national association of principally African American lawyers and judges, released a statement on the Zimmerman verdict yesterday. "We are extremely disappointed," it reads. "As lawyers we respect the rule of law, but in this instance the Zimmerman verdict sadly highlights the continued injustices Black Americans face in the US legal system." The organization has scheduled a "call to action" in Miami on July 27 and 29. One of the jurors is about to get a book deal, and Gawker features a video of her questioning as a potential juror, during which she revealed her distaste for the media ("Newspapers are used in the parrot's cage, not even read. ... It's a lot better use in the parrot cage.") and, asked to describe Trayvon Martin, referred to him as "a boy of color."
– Prince Harry officially confirmed he's been dating American actress Meghan Markle for "a few months"—a confirmation accompanied by a warning that "a line has been crossed." In what Time calls an "unprecedented public statement" issued at the prince's behest, the royal's rep says "his girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment" since news of their romance broke. Reporters and photographers have tried to break into Markle's home, Markle's ex-boyfriend has been offered "substantial bribes" by the media, and almost everyone Markle knows has been bombarded in some way, the statement reads. "Nightly legal battles" have been waged "to keep defamatory stories out of papers," but that hasn't stopped "the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments." (USA Today reports the 35-year-old's mother is black and her father is Dutch and Irish.) "It is not right … Prince Harry is worried about Ms. Markle's safety and is deeply disappointed that he has not been able to protect her," it continues. "He knows commentators will say this is 'the price she has to pay' and that 'this is all part of the game.' He strongly disagrees. This is not a game—it is her life and his." Read the statement in full here, or more on their relationship here.
– The reason that drove Tony Scott to leap to his death from an LA bridge may never be known. Law enforcement sources tell the LA Times that the director left a few notes, but none of them give any motive for the suicide, including health problems. A witness who was driving across the bridge when Scott jumped says the director, a rock climber, was "clambering up [the bridge cables] in a very strong way. … He was very determined. He was not crying, he didn't look upset, he didn't look sad. He just looked very resolute." Scott had filmed parts of Unstoppable underneath the very same bridge, and in 2009 the director said he wanted to shoot part of a Warriors remake there, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The Reporter also has previously unpublished quotes from an interview it did with Scott in May, in which he called himself "a bull" and said that work was his "drug of choice." A friend of Scott's told NBC News that the director struggled with depression "throughout his life," E! reports.
– Face the Nation got a little excited today, with host Bob Schieffer provoking presidential biographer Edmund Morris to curse on air and then slam the American people. Asked during a roundtable discussion what Teddy Roosevelt would think of today’s politics, Morris responded, “You keep asking these presentist questions. As the immortal Marisa Tomei said in My Cousin Vinny, ‘That’s a f***ed up question!'” He went on to explain that “you cannot pluck people out of the past and expect them to comment on what’s happening today," Politico reports. He then criticized the American people, who “are insensitive to foreign sensibilities, who are lazy, obese, complacent, and increasingly perplexed as to why we are losing our place in the world to people who are more dynamic than us and more disciplined.”
– Southern California got a scare last night in the form of a magnitude-5.1 earthquake that struck near Los Angeles. No major damage or injuries were reported, though water main breaks, power outages, toppled store shelves, and shattered glass were seen throughout Orange and Los Angeles counties, reports AP and NBC Los Angeles. Maybe the most dramatic image came from Brea, where the quake triggered a rock slide that overturned a car. All escaped with only minor injuries. The US Geological Service says the quake struck about 9:09pm local time and was centered near Brea, about 20 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. It was relatively shallow, at 5 miles deep. At least 20 smaller aftershocks followed, including two in the 3-point range, reports the LA Times. A temblor of magnitude-3.6 preceded the bigger quake by about an hour. Disneyland halted all its rides as a precaution, though the Dodgers and the Los Angeles Philharmonic played through the shaking. "A little tremor here in the ballpark," said announcer Vin Scully during the game. "I'm not sure if the folks felt it, but we certainly felt it here in press box row." The quotes were a little scarier from La Habra, close to the epicenter. "We felt a really good jolt," says one resident. "It was a long rumble and it just didn't feel like it would end. Right in the beginning it shook really hard, so it was a little unnerving. People got quiet and started bracing themselves by holding on to each other."
– Yet more criminal trouble for Justin Bieber: He turned himself in at a Toronto police station last night, where he was charged with assault and then quickly released, CBS News reports. Police say Biebs and five other people had a limousine pick them up at a nightclub in the city in the wee hours of Dec. 30 (Bieber had earlier attended a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game, CNN reports), but there was some sort of fight as they were being driven to a hotel. One of the passengers hit the limo driver in the back of the head multiple times, police say, and then left the scene before police got there. It didn't help his case that Bieber failed to show up for a police interview after the incident, reports TMZ, which claims that Bieber, and not a member of his entourage, is the one suspected of actually assaulting the driver. His first court appearance is scheduled for March 10. The assault charge came just hours after his lawyer entered a not guilty plea for Bieber in his DUI-and-drag-racing case from last week (an arraignment is set for Valentine's Day), and he's still facing possible charges over the egging of his neighbor's house. Evidence was presented to the district attorney in that case this week, CNN reports, but prosecutors asked detectives to investigate further. A decision on whether to charge Bieber with felony vandalism could be made by next week. (Not surprisingly, lots of Americans want to see Bieber deported.)
– Think it's difficult keeping your growing child in fitting shoes? Imagine trying to do it on $1.25 a day. Some 400 million children live in such circumstances, and about 75% of them don't have shoes, Mashable reports. That struck Kenton Lee, 30, when he was working at an orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya. "Wouldn't it be great if there was a shoe that could adjust and expand—so that kids always had a pair of shoes that fit?'” he wondered, per his company's site, when he saw a girl wearing shoes so small they had been cut to let her toes peek out. Now such pairs do exist. The Shoe That Grows is a sandal equipped with various buttons and pegs to allow it to grow along with a child. It lasts five years, the company, Because International, says on its site. "I had no idea how important shoes were before I went to Kenya," Lee tells BuzzFeed. "But kids, especially in urban areas, can get infections from cuts and scrapes on their feet from going barefoot, and contract diseases that cause them to miss school." The Shoe That Grows sells for as little as $10 per pair, per the website, which notes that 50 pairs can be carried in a suitcase. You can donate to help send the shoes to countries including Ecuador, Haiti, and Kenya. Some 2,500 kids have benefited so far, BuzzFeed notes. (Another recent development in footwear: boots that literally put some spring in your step.)
– Prosecutors in France say he was the mastermind behind the "heist of the century"—though "mastermind" might not be the best word for somebody who writes a book implicating himself in an unsolved crime. Jacques Cassandri, a 74-year-old organized crime figure in Marseille, is on trial for the audacious 1976 robbery of a branch of Societe Generale in Nice, AFP reports. In the heist, a gang spent months tunneling from the sewers into a bank vault, which they raided over a weekend. On the Monday, bank staff found the vault welded shut and a message on a wall inside: "Sans arme, sans violence, et sans haine"—"Without weapons, without violence, and without hate." The haul of 29 million francs, around $10.4 million at the exchange rate of the time, was never recovered. Cassandri—who was convicted in the 1970s of involvement with the "French Connection" drug ring—was quickly identified by police eight years ago after he wrote a book under a pen name portraying himself as the heist's mastermind, the BBC reports. He said he was tired of another robber, Albert Spaggiari, getting credit for organizing the heist. Police found the manuscript on his computer and he eventually confessed to orchestrating the robbery, possibly unaware that while the statute of limitations had expired for that crime, he could still be charged with money laundering. Cassandri's fortune appears to "draw its hidden origin from the Nice heist bounty," prosecutors said in court Monday, per the Telegraph. Cassandri's lawyer argued that the novel "is not a source of proof."
– The debate on the health risks of cell phones is probably going to get noisy for a few days. A prominent new study shows that if you use the phone for about an hour, the area of your brain nearest the antenna shows increased activity, reports Wired. “We have no idea what this means yet or how it works,” said the lead researcher, Nora Volkow of the National Institutes of Health. “But this is the first reliable study showing the brain is activated by exposure to cellphone radio frequencies.” The study is in the Journal of the American Medical Association and can be read in full here. "I can't overall say this is harmful but we have to study more for long-term effects," says Volkow. In the meantime, the by-now common advice to use a headset or speaker phone—especially teens, whose brains are more vulnerable—is probably wise, she says. The Los Angeles Times notes that the study may not be definitive, but "by providing solid evidence that cellphone use has measurable effects on brain activity, it suggests that the nation's passionate attachment to its 300 million cellphones may be altering the way we think and behave in subtle ways."
– Islamic State militants donned doctor uniforms before forcing their way into a hospital not far from the US Embassy in Kabul on Wednesday, killing at least 38 people and leaving more than 50 injured, report NBC News and the Guardian. The BBC reports the attack began with an explosion at a gate to the 400-bed military hospital around 9am local time. At least three militants dressed as doctors are said to have then entered the building with guns and grenades. One staff member reported seeing a gunman "wearing a white coat holding a Kalashnikov and opening fire on everyone, including the guards, patients and doctors" as people inside fled to window ledges. The attackers then gathered on the upper floors and engaged security forces in "heavy fighting," per the Guardian. Six hours after the first explosion, a rep for Afghanistan's interior ministry reported all attackers had been killed after authorities were able to land on the roof. ISIS has since claimed responsibility for the attack, the first in which militants engaged directly with Afghan forces in Kabul, which suggests they "now have the resources and the military training to expand their attacks," per the BBC. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani says the attack "trampled all human values," noting attacking a hospital is like "attacking the whole of Afghanistan." (ISIS has recently shifted targets.)
– What do the first daughters, Pope Francis, and countless celebs have in common? They all made headlines with selfies in 2013, making it easy for Oxford Dictionaries to choose its annual word of the year. "Selfie" was a rare unanimous decision for the organization, it reports on its blog. The word was actually featured as far back as June 2012 on the dictionaries' site, but this year, "it seems like everyone who is anyone has posted a selfie somewhere on the Internet." Some selfie facts: "Selfie" has been around since at least 2002, the blog notes. That's when an Australian student wrote online about falling over while drunk at a 21st birthday party, accompanying his post with a photo of a damaged pair of lips, the Telegraph reports (it has the photo). "Sorry about the focus, it was a selfie," his post read. Though the word has existed for more than a decade, "it has only entered really common use in the past year or so," the blog points out. In fact, usage has increased 17,000% within the year, Time reports. "Given that more and more tools are created every day that encourage us to focus on ourselves—to publicly share our opinions, our whereabouts, our calorie intakes, our playlists, and our dogs’ mistakes—Oxford Dictionaries' choice certainly seems to capture the zeitgeist: 2013 was a selfie year," writes Katy Steinmetz in the magazine.. Runners-up include "twerk" and "bitcoin," the Telegraph notes. Time has this year's 11 biggest selfies, including shots of the Obamas and the pontiff—but not Kim Kardashian.
– A California woman's phone led her to her missing husband's body before the authorities could find him. The San Francisco Chronicle reports the unnamed woman reported her husband, 49-year-old Jayesh Patel, missing when he didn't come home Friday. Using a find-my-phone app, Patel's wife traced him to a field behind a building in San Mateo where she found his Mercedes about noon Saturday, according to the Mercury News. It was crushed with Patel inside. She called the police, and authorities had to use the jaws of life to extract Patel from the car. He was pronounced dead at the scene, CBS San Francisco reports. Authorities say Patel's car fell 30 feet off a highway interchange sometime after 10pm Friday. It's unclear what caused the crash; the Mercedes had to have hit a concrete barrier hard enough to jump it. It's also unclear whether drugs or alcohol played a part. Patel's car was sitting in the field for up to 14 hours before his wife found it. (This man placed a 911 call three years ago—then vanished.)
– A 9/11 defendant abruptly asked to leave a pre-trial hearing yesterday, alleging that there had been "problems between me and the guards on a daily basis" revolving around food. Ramzi bin al-Shibh was the only 9/11 defendant who had decided to attend the hearings; the other four had opted to stay in their Guantanamo Bay cells. "I cannot remain here," bin al-Shibh told the judge, according to the Christian Science Monitor. "There are problems with the food." Bin al-Shibh didn't specify what those problems were, but he did say that in some cases (such as during lunch-hour meetings with his lawyers) he hadn't been provided any lunch at all. "This is one sort of psychological torture." He said it had bothered "the brothers as well," meaning his co-defendants. A military spokesman tells the AP that bin al-Shibh got a "freshly prepared meal" every day that met his religious requirements. But "the defendant complained that his lunch did not include condiments such as olives and honey."
– Another case of stars crowdfunding cash from other stars: Entourage star Adrian Grenier has launched a Kickstarter campaign to find a mysterious whale, and it just received $50,000 from Leonardo DiCaprio's environmental nonprofit. The campaign just ended today, and the Hollywood Reporter says the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation's donation came in during the last 24 hours and was the one that pushed the campaign over its goal of $300,000. (It ended at $405,937.) With the money, Grenier will produce a documentary following his search, alongside director Josh Zeman, for "52 Hertz," a "storied" whale that emits calls at the rare, extraordinarily low 52-hertz frequency. It's not even clear what species the whale is. Since the whale's calls are too low to be heard by fellow whales, he or she travels alone and has thus been dubbed "the loneliest whale in the world." The whale has actually never been seen, but has been caught by sonar a number of times since 1989. (Read up on other celebs who have turned to Kickstarter.)
– Jon Gosselin and Hailey Glassman stirred up more heart-wrenching (retching?) drama last night, and this time they maybe—just maybe!—broke up on national television. “I don't want to do this on national TV—this is serious,” Hailey said during an extremely awkward interview yesterday, shortly before Jon got angry and stormed out (watch his exit at Entertainment Tonight). The other best moment: When Hailey admits "It's hard, because when I do try to leave, he cries." The couple was still sneaking around together as recently as Saturday, sources tell the New York Post. Jon also responded to soon-to-be-ex-wife Kate’s latest interview, tweeting yesterday that “Kate even slipped last night and admitted we split up a year ago,” the New York Daily News reports. He added, “I stand behind Hailey because she is the only person who has spoken the brutal truth about this whole mess of a trainwreck.”
– One lonely snow monkey in Japan is taking animal sexuality to strange new places. In a study published Tuesday in Primates, researchers documented a monkey having or attempting sexual relations with at least two sika deer. While one of the deer ran off, the monkey mounted another deer and ejaculated on its side, Gizmodo reports. According to the BBC, a co-author of the study says the act "included about 15 sexual movements over a period of 10 seconds." While sex between closely related species does happen, this is only the second time a sexual act between two distantly related species has been recorded, the Guardian reports. (The first was in 2006, involving an Antarctic fur seal and a penguin.) Snow monkeys and sika deer have had an up-until-now platonic relationship. Deer eat fruit dropped by the monkeys (as well as their poop), while the monkeys groom the deer and sometimes ride on their backs. In this case, however, the monkey was displaying "clearly sexual behavior," including chasing other monkeys away from the deer, notes the study. Researchers are blaming "mate deprivation," theorizing that the monkey—who has low social status—was suffering from "limited access to females." The incident happened during snow monkey breeding season. (Meanwhile, a North Korean zoo has a smoking chimp.)
– In space, nobody can hear you scream, "Oh no, there goes the shielding"—apart from Mission Control. American astronauts Peggy Whitson and Shane Kimbrough suffered a frustrating setback during a spacewalk Thursday when one of the four fabric shields they were installing on the exterior of the International Space Station drifted off into space, Reuters reports. But Mission Control came up with what the AP calls a "MacGyver-like plan for a patch" and directed the astronauts to use the cover from a relocated docking port to cover the vulnerable area. "You guys came up with a fantastic plan—on short notice. That's amazing," Whitson said. It's not clear why the shield, which was supposed to be tethered, ended up floating away. The lost debris shield is now an 18-pound piece of space debris itself—and at 5 feet across, it's one of the bigger objects lost by spacewalkers. "Sometimes bolts will go," NASA spokesman Dan Huot tells the Washington Post. "There was one spacewalk where we lost an entire bag of tools." He says Mission Control determined that the floating shield, which will eventually burn up in Earth's atmosphere, was no threat to the ISS. NASA says the seven-hour spacewalk was otherwise a success. Whitson, 57, was on her eighth spacewalk. Halfway through the mission, she broke the 50-hour, 40-minute record for accumulated time spacewalking by a female astronaut. (This summer, the coldest spot in space will be on the ISS.)
– Stocks had their best day in more than a week today, with the Dow jumping a whopping 322 points, while the Nasdaq and S&P gained 101 and 39 points respectively. Investors are betting that the Federal Reserve will heap more stimulus on the economy this week, Bloomberg reports, while a market analyst tells MarketWatch that the rally should be chalked up to “a shift in investor psychology.”
– Ted Cruz has joined his rival-turned-ally Donald Trump in tweaking China. The Texas senator met with Taiwan's president Sunday when she stopped in Houston on her way to Central America, reports the AP. Cruz made a point to show that he was defying the wishes of China in doing so, saying that he and other Texas lawmakers received a "curious letter" from the Chinese consulate asking that they avoid meeting Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen in deference to the "One China" policy, reports the Guardian. "The People's Republic of China needs to understand that in America we make decisions about meeting with visitors for ourselves," Cruz said in a statement. The meeting probably wouldn't have generated much attention if not for the recent tensions between Trump and Beijing, with Reuters noting it's not unusual for US lawmakers to meet Taiwanese leaders when they're in the US. The discussions centered on "arms sales, diplomatic exchanges, and economic relations," said Cruz. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also met with Tsai. China made clear again Monday that it's not pleased, with a foreign ministry spokesman saying that "we are firmly opposed to the Taiwan leader's engagement with US officials under the pretext of transit." And the state-run Global Times newspaper warned of "revenge" if Trump, who broke with protocol in accepting a phone call from Tsai after his election win, ditches the One China policy as president.
– The first question for lottery winners is always, "What are you going to do with the cash?" The first question for Danny Chasteen and Susan Rick, who just won $250,000 in the Illinois lottery, is "When are you going to get the cash?" Not for the foreseeable future, apparently, since the state says it can't pay them just yet, reports CNBC. The reason: The Illinois state budget hasn't yet passed, so funds for lotto winners can't be released, tying lottery officials' hands, notes CNNMoney. A lottery rep tells CNN that those who win $600 or less can cash in at a retailer, while prizes worth $601 to $25,000 can be redeemed at state lottery centers. Cash awards worth more than $25,000? Halted for now. State Rep. Jack Franks says this is just another show of how mismanaged the Illinois lottery system is. "The lottery is a contract: I pay my money, and if I win, you're obligated to pay me and you have to pay me timely," he tells the Chicago Tribune. And Rick isn't comforted by the assurance she and Chasteen will eventually get paid. "If we owed the state money, they'd come take it and [not] care whether we have a roof over our head," she tells the Tribune. "You can't say [to the state], 'Can you wait until I get my budget under control?' (A man who found $20 in the street used it buy a $1 million winning lottery ticket.)
– Almost half the world's fleet of Dreamliners has been grounded after yet another incident, this time involving an emergency landing. All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines announced they were taking the new Boeing aircraft out of service after an ANA flight was forced to land after a smoke alarm went off in the cockpit, the Guardian reports. Cockpit instruments said there had been a battery malfunction. There were several minor injuries as the 129 passengers and eight crew were evacuated from the aircraft. The ANA incident follows a host of other Dreamliner incidents in recent weeks, including a fire and two fuel leaks. The two Japanese airlines have 24 out of the 50 Dreamliners currently in service. More than 800 others have been ordered by airlines around the world, but Boeing is now facing a major image problem. "You're nearing the tipping point where they need to regard this as a serious crisis," an aviation analyst tells the BBC. "This is going to change people's perception of the aircraft if they don't act quickly."
– A Minnesota man and his unnamed girlfriend have been charged with brutally murdering and beheading a 20-year-old man the girlfriend claimed raped her, NBC News reports. According to KARE 11, the girlfriend was upset when her boyfriend, 35-year-old Joseph Thoresen, informed her David Haiman was coming to their apartment June 21. She told Thoresen that Haiman had raped her, then she broke his nose when he showed up at the apartment. Haiman apparently agreed to be tied up and beaten as punishment for raping Thoresen's girlfriend. Police say Thoresen punched Haiman multiple times while telling him he shouldn't have raped "my girl." Afterward, the three allegedly drove around in Haiman's car, smoking marijuana and meth. While they were driving, Haiman repeatedly insulted the couple until Thoresen faked car trouble. Thoresen allegedly had Haiman get out and check the oil, then beat him with a bat and stabbed him multiple times, CBS News reports. Police say Thoresen then took a machete off of Haiman's belt and used it to cut his head off, leaving both Haiman's head and torso in the nearby woods. Thoresen was arrested in Haiman's car last Friday following an unrelated traffic stop. He's now been charged with second-degree murder and faces up to 40 years in prison. His girlfriend has been charged with being an accomplice to murder and assault. She isn't being identified because she's the alleged victim of a sexual assault.
– Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave is winning widespread praise for its unflinching—and brilliantly acted—portrayal of the horrors of slavery. The film, adapted from Solomon Northup's 1853 memoir, tells the story of a free man tricked into enslavement on a Louisiana plantation. "Movie audiences have never been presented with anything quite like the intertwined beauty and savagery of 12 Years a Slave," writes Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal. "It seems certain to transcend the movie realm and become a new reference point in contemporary culture—a defining vision of what slavery looked like, and felt like, in the US before the Civil War." The film is "a nightmare in broad daylight," writes Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. "Obviously, no film can re-create the unspeakable degradation of one human being owning another, but in making the attempt, 12 Years insists we feel things in a particularly oppressive way. This is impressive filmmaking." It's "a mesmerizing period drama for the ages." Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor—whose "performance must certainly figure into the Oscar running"—as Solomon and Michael Fassbender as slaveowner Edwin Epps, alongside Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, and Lupita Nyong'o, the movie boasts "probably the finest cast of any film this year," writes Claudia Puig in USA Today. "In many respects, 12 Years a Slave works like a horror movie," though one infused with a "radiant aesthetic," observes Peter DeBruge in Variety. Audiences are forced to "confront concepts and scenes that could conceivably transform their worldview."
– A Denver police officer allegedly assaulted his fiancee—who is also a Denver officer—because he thought she was cheating on him with a firefighter, ABC 7 reports. Jennifer Jaidinger, 42, arrived home early last Friday morning to find Lane Gardner, 48, drunk and demanding to know where she had been. According to what she told police, Gardner suspected she was sleeping with a firefighter because she was wearing a Denver Fire sweatshirt at the time, CBS Denver reports. Gardner allegedly ripped the engagement ring off her finger and pushed her off the bed, knocking her unconscious. When she came to, she had a pain in her eye and thinks her fiance of 2 1/2 years hit her while she was knocked out. In her 911 call, Jaidinger described her fiance as "very unstable" and claimed he had made earlier comments about "shooting it out with officers." A SWAT team duly arrived Friday, shouted at his door, and made phone calls that went unanswered, FOX 31 reports. But SWAT backed away that day and Gardner turned himself in Monday to face a domestic-violence assault charge. Jaidinger describes him as "a heavy drinker and usually will drink a half bottle of whiskey daily," according to an affidavit. She also said he told her that if she notified police, she'd "be dead." Gardner, a 12-year Denver police veteran, is on desk duty during the investigation.
– Adorable, sloth-loving celebrity couple Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard will soon be adorable, sloth-loving celebrity parents, their rep tells People. Bell and Shepard—who have been engaged for almost three years—said this summer that babies would probably come before marriage, since they want to wait until gay marriage is legal before they get hitched. They've been together since 2007, and this baby—expected in the spring—will be their first child. "They’re so excited—they’re both ecstatic. They can’t wait to become parents," says a friend. A first baby is also on the way in April for actress Beverley Mitchell, People reports. One of the first people to hear the good news: Mitchell's Seventh Heaven co-star and best friend, Jessica Biel. "I started crying," says Mitchell. "It was really exciting to share that with Auntie Jess." Mitchell says attending Biel's recent wedding to Justin Timberlake while pregnant was "definitely an experience." And as for that wedding, in case you haven't already heard enough, click to find out where Biel and Timberlake went on their honeymoon.
– Menachem Bodner doesn't remember the horrors he suffered as an experiment subject of Dr. Josef Mengele at Auschwitz. But he knows he had a twin brother, and deep down always believed he was alive somewhere. Now, thanks to help from a genealogist, the 72-year-old has proof his brother, Jolli, survived the camp, and he's enlisting the Internet to help find him, the Daily Beast reports. The search began when Ayana KimRon spotted a post from Bodner's partner's cousin on a genealogical message board, and found a Nazi record showing a pair of twins who were "identified as having been liberated at Auschwitz." After a host of leads turned out to be dead ends, KimRon created a Facebook page titled "A7734," Bodner's brother's tattoo number. Within a day a photo of the young Bodner had been shared 23,000 times (it's now up to almost 48,000), and racked up 1.13 million views. "I'm going to maximize the Internet," KimRon promises, with a Twitter account already up and a YouTube channel in the works. So far, there have been no leads to Jolli—but KimRon has found nearly 70 of Bodner's extended family members. "I was shocked," says Bodner, who lives in a suburb of Tel Aviv. "I thought that nobody would look for me. I had a dream to find someone. It made my dreams come true."
– A cargo plane packed with 17 African elephants touched down in Texas over the weekend, CNN reports, with the pachyderms headed to zoos in Dallas, Kansas, and Nebraska. The transfer to the US was a "rescue mission," Dallas Zoo President Gregg Hudson says, because the elephants were slated to be killed to make room for rhinos at the Big Game Parks reserve in Swaziland, which is suffering a "state-of-emergency drought." Activists, however, aren't happy. Connecticut-based Friends of Animals, which had filed for a preliminary injunction, was planning to make legal arguments "to prevent a lifetime of captivity" for the elephants during a Thursday hearing. Scoffs Hudson, "There are those who would rather see elephants die than live in accredited zoos. We strongly disagree." In a statement, Friends of Animals accuses the "devious" zoos of "secretly" removing the elephants ahead of the hearing, writing, "the underhandedness of this move cannot be overstated." The group contends that confining elephants in zoos can cause depression and other psychological problems. In a statement of its own, the Dallas Zoo calls claims that the elephants were taken from Swaziland under cover of darkness "outlandish," adding that the transfer had been planned for months and "there was no subterfuge." The US Fish and Wildlife Service approved the transfer in January. Also, the zoo notes, the preliminary injunction did not prohibit the relocation from going forward. The elephants, which were sedated and put into crates for the flight, range in age from 6 years old to 25. In exchange for the animals, the zoos will donate money toward the game reserve's rhino conservation program.
– A child's best friend is the family pet, a new study suggests. Not only do kids report getting more satisfaction from relationships with the dog or cat than their brothers and sisters, they also get along better with the four-legged friend. "The fact that pets cannot understand or talk back may even be a benefit as it means they are completely non-judgmental," says lead author Matt Cassels of Cambridge University. The study is the latest to suggest that pets may have a major influence on child development, aiding kids' well-being and social skills, reports Medical XPress. For the study in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, researchers surveyed 77 12-year-olds with at least one sibling and pet at home. The kids reported stronger relationships and lower levels of conflict with the family animal, which is perhaps not surprising since only one party can talk. (RedOrbit also notes that 12-year-olds may be reticent about publicly admitting they love a sibling.) The team found that "girls reported more disclosure, companionship, and conflict with their pet than did boys, perhaps indicating that girls may interact with their pets in more nuanced ways," says Cassels. All in all, the benefits young people derive from their pets "may well support psychological well-being later in life," says co-author Dr. Nancy Gee, who adds that more research is needed. Sorry, cat people, dogs delivered the most satisfaction in the survey. (Pope Francis prefers you have kids over pets.)
– It's well past midnight in Malaysia, where the search for Flight MH370 is on hold until daylight, but developments are continuing to trickle out—though the updates are far from clarifying ones. The Financial Times follows up a report on the two men—one using an Italian passport, one Austrian—who boarded the plane using stolen passports. A Thai travel agent told the paper that the tickets were booked through an Iranian middleman who goes by "Mr. Ali." She says she has booked tickets for him for the past three years, and there is no indication that "Ali" was aware the passports were stolen; the agent says Ali often booked travel for his contacts. He had asked her to arrange for the tickets March 1, and the men were originally on different airlines: Qatar and Ethiad (they had different end destinations). But the reserved tickets ultimately expired, with Ali reaching out again on Thursday; the men were then booked on Malaysia Airlines. Now Malaysian authorities have given the US images of the two men, a US official tells CNN. Meanwhile: The Wall Street Journal reports that Malaysian authorities are looking into five people who checked into the flight but didn't board—a not uncommon occurrence. Their luggage was removed from the flight before it departed. The search area is now bigger, and includes a portion of the strait of Malacca and more of the South China Sea, per the Guardian. The director general of Malaysia's Department of Civil Aviation says that's an area with a 100-nautical-mile radius, double the previous size. China is lending space satellites to the search.
– Michael Flynn's fate was in the hands of Judge Emmet Sullivan on Tuesday, and the federal judge dished out a surprise twist: The sentencing ended up being delayed after Sullivan suggested Flynn could actually get prison time despite the prosecution's recommendation he get none. Sullivan was doing no coddling at the start. "Arguably, you sold your country out," is how he put it to President Trump's former national security adviser, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the US. Sullivan added he "can't hide my disgust, my disdain" at Flynn's misdeeds. CNBC reports Sullivan offered Flynn the option of postponing the hearing in order to cooperate further with Robert Mueller's probe. "If you want to postpone this, and come back at some later point ... that’s fine with me," Sullivan said, advising him that the sentence could be different if he went that route. "I can not assure you that if you proceed today, you will not receive a sentence of incarceration," Sullivan said. After a recess, Flynn's attorneys requested such a delay. The AP reports Sullivan scheduled a status conference for March.
– The House is moving forward with an investigation into Russia's alleged attempts to tamper with the US election, scheduling the first public hearing on the matter for March 20, Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes announced. FBI Director James Comey, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers, former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and former Attorney General Sally Yates have been invited to testify, CNN reports. Nunes also told reporters he has not seen any evidence to support President Trump's accusation that Obama wiretapped him, but that his panel will investigate the allegations, Reuters reports. On the Senate side, Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr told CNN Tuesday that he was not ruling out the possibility his panel would also look into Trump's allegations. "We're going to go anywhere there is intelligence or facts that send us," he said. "So I'm not going to limit it one way or the other. But we don't have anything today that would send us in that direction, but that's not to say that we might not find something."
– When Irv Gordon, 74, had driven his 1966 Volvo P1800 1.69 million miles, he set a record; now, he's made a new mark in the Guinness Book. The Long Island man has as of Sept. 17 driven the car 3 million miles, the highest mileage in history by a single driver in one vehicle, Discovery reports. He hit the milestone on the Seward Highway in Alaska—leaving Hawaii as the only state he has never visited in the car—to celebrate. Gordon says in a press release: "I never had a goal to get to 1 million, to 2 million. I just enjoyed driving and experiencing life through my Volvo," whether he was making his 125-mile round-trip commute or exploring Europe. To put the feat in perspective: That's like driving from New York to LA, and back, 537 times. That's not the only neat number attached to the car. AOL Autos reports that it's also been to nine countries, stopped at 800 Waffle Houses, driven in 105-degree heat in Kansas City, and been in 11 accidents in its 47 years. The former middle-school science teacher, who makes sure to keep his vehicle in top condition, tells MyFoxPhilly.com that his car has started to develop celebrity status. "If I stop for gas some place or I stop for a cup of coffee, people will pull up next to me and ask about the car. Before you know it, you've got new friends all over the country." Not to mention your own website at Volvo, which also gave him a new vehicle for each of his 1 million and 2 million milestones. Those cars currently have 460,000 and 116,000 on the odometer, respectively. (Click for the story of another wild Guinness record.)
– Now that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are finally engaged, get ready for a barrage of rumors about the where, when, who, and how. The Daily Express kicks things off, citing a source who claims the couple will fly 200 to 300 people (including George Clooney, Tom Cruise, and more big names) to their $55 million estate in the south of France for a summer wedding. Guests will enjoy wines from the vineyard at their 35-room Château Miraval as Brad and Angie tie the knot at a private chapel on the grounds; they've spent millions refurbishing the estate and have been planning the wedding for half a year already, the source adds. Yet more sources blab to the Sun, claiming that Jennifer Aniston herself may be one of the boldface names attending the nuptials. Brad's ex "couldn't be happier" for her former hubby and his new flame, since "if it weren't for Angelina, Jennifer would not have connected with" new boyfriend Justin Theroux, says one. Last but not least, People has a close-up shot of Angelina's humongous ring. "Brad had the vision" for the custom sparkler, the jeweler tells the magazine. An expert thinks it could be worth more than $1 million and weigh more than 10 carats. Of course, that's way less expensive than a number of celebrity engagement rings.
– Lots of people wouldn't want fracking-related activities taking place near their homes—but when one of those people is the CEO of Exxon Mobil, it raises some eyebrows. The Wall Street Journal last week revealed that Exxon chief Rex Tillerson has joined a lawsuit spearheaded by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey to oppose the construction of a 160-foot water tower near their respective estates in Bartonville, Texas. The suit cites many objections to the tower, but one of them is that its water will be sold to hydraulic fracking companies. In this case, the environmental concerns around fracking aren't at play; according to Courthouse News, the suit complains that selling the water for fracking will lead to "traffic with heavy trucks … creating a noise nuisance and traffic hazards." But it's still fairly ironic given that Exxon is the biggest natural gas producer in the country, and Tillerson has been a vocal public opponent of regulating fracking, Climate Progress observes. A lawyer for Tillerson says he's "never expressed" any fracking concerns, and is simply worried the tower will devalue his property—a $5 million horse ranch.
– Lindsay Lohan’s “f*** u” fingernail message might have been a “joke” to her, but it could land the troubled actress in jail for even longer than her 90-day sentence. It was a “creative” and “outrageous” way to land a contempt of court charge, two public defenders tell Fox News. One says the judge could hold LiLo three to five days “for vulgarity.” Although, financially speaking, those extra days could end up helping Lindsay—click here to find out why. Another adds that if the judge—who already bestowed a sentence upon Lohan three times longer than the prosecution requested—is “angry enough,” the extra sentence could run consecutively to her current sentence. She adds, “It's up to her lawyer to catch things like that. A bra strap that shows or a boxer line that shows is pretty bad, but this tops the cake.” No, what really tops the cake is TMZ's report that LiLo called the judge a "f***ing bitch." Well, at least she had the sense to skip her planned birthday bash.
– One of the white nationalists who has gotten the most attention after last weekend's violence in Charlottesville is New Hampshire's Christopher Cantwell, thanks to his role in a Vice News documentary about the rally. But the attention isn't necessarily turning out to be a good thing for the 36-year-old. Facebook has banned his Facebook and Instagram accounts, and removed his profile pages and a page linked to a podcast he produces, reports the AP. A spokeswoman for Facebook says they violated the company's rules on hate speech. Cantwell also says his PayPal account has been shut down. "I'm not surprised by almost any of this because the whole thing we are complaining about here is that we are trying to express our views, and everybody is going through extraordinary lengths to make sure we are not heard," he says. Cantwell also is gaining notoriety over a YouTube video he posted after the rally in Charlottesville in which he fights back tears while talking about his fear that police want to arrest him and will kill him while doing so. He later clarified to Digg that there wasn't an actual warrant out for him. In the Vice video, Cantwell blames counter-protesters for the violence, though at one point, he says, "We’re not non-violent, we’ll f------ kill these people if we have to." After the death of Heather Heyer, he is seen with assault rifles and handguns in a hotel room, per a post at Heavy.com. "These people want violence and the right is just meeting market demands." Also in the video, he faults President Trump for condoning the marriage of Ivanka Trump to the Jewish Jared Kushner. “I don’t think that you can feel about race the way I do and watch that Kushner bastard walk around with the beautiful girl."
– A temporary glitch allowed Facebook users to view others' private photos with a surprisingly easy trick, reports ZDNet. It's been fixed, but not before some of Mark Zuckerberg's own private photos got pilfered and reposted on blogs, like here at Launch. The trick: You could report an image to Facebook as inappropriate and mark the "nudity or pornography" box (even if it wasn't). At that point, Facebook would give you access to other photos in the user's private stream so you could check for more to flag. Facebook announced this afternoon that it fixed the problem, notes Gizmodo. "Earlier today, we discovered a bug in one of our reporting flows that allows people to report multiple instances of inappropriate content simultaneously," it said, calling the glitch "the result of one of our recent code pushes." The system has been disabled.
– Samuel Wurzelbacher, perhaps better known as "Joe the Plumber," has a border control solution: The US should "put a damn fence on the border going with Mexico and start shooting," he said Friday at a fundraising dinner for an Arizona state senator. Wurzelbacher, an Ohio Republican who hopes to score a House seat this November, continued: "I’m running for Congress and that should be a bad thing to say. You know what, that’s how I feel. I’m not going to hide it because I’m running for an office." "I’m not worried about being politically correct," the candidate added. "That’s one thing that’s really scared us and really hurt us as a country is everyone is afraid to open their mouths, to say a little something funny." ABC News notes that Lori Klein, the politician the fundraiser was for, has made her own waves: Last year, while talking about her prized pink handgun, she pointed it at a reporter's chest to demonstrate its laser sight. As for Wurzelbacher, earlier this summer he linked gun control to the Holocaust.
– Romantic comedy Valentine's Day is stuffed with stars and subplots, but the quantity doesn't make up for the lack of quality, say critics in mostly negative reviews. This "is a date movie from hell," writes Peter Travers at Rolling Stone, wondering how Pretty Woman director Garry Marshall persuaded "a big name cast to stuff themselves into this box of rancid heart-shaped chocolates." Only a couple of the story lines in this "silly, disorganized mess" are even close to memorable, writes Bill Goodykoontz at the Arizona Republic. "There's far too much going on in Valentine's Day," he complains, "and far too little of it is worth the trouble." "This over-iced cake" actually goes down pretty smoothly, argues Joshua Rothkopf at Time Out, praising the performances of Jessica Biel, Shirley Maclaine, and Julia Roberts. But with its 18 stars, its 10 interconnected love stories all taking place on the same day in Los Angeles, and its 57 varieties of schmaltz, "this is many lousy movies for the price of one," writes Wesley Morris at the Boston Globe.
– It's an age-old problem for parents: Shell out money for clothes that their young children quickly outgrow. Now, however, 24-year-old London designer Ryan Yasin has put his degree in aeronautical engineering to use to create origami-like pleated clothing designed to grow along with the kids, reports Quartz. The result has just won him a James Dyson Award for students in the UK. Yasin has already established a clothing line, Petit Pli, inspired by what he calls "deployed satellite panels" that can stretch outward in multiple directions. The lightweight fabric, which is waterproof and machine washable, is designed to stretch six sizes. Yasin's concept takes advantage of a principle known as auxetics already employed in stents and biomedical devices, reports the Guardian. So far, Yasin has developed more than 500 prototypes and says he'll use his $2,500 prize money to help start production, as he's in talks with a major UK retailer that might help him get the clothes on shelves in months. His main impetus, he says, was to cut down on the huge environmental waste linked to the making of clothes.
– It's been 30 years since John Lennon was shot to death outside his New York apartment, and in that time his killer has applied for parole six times. Once again, his plea for release has been rejected. Mark Chapman, now 55, was given a 20-years-to-life sentence for the December 1980 murder of the former Beatle. The Daily Mail reports that the New York State Parole Board declared that Chapman will remain in maximum security at Attica until at least August 2012. "This premeditated, senseless and selfish act of tragic consequence... leads to the conclusion that your discretionary release remains inappropriate at this time and incompatible with the welfare of the community," said the board, according to the BBC. Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, has in past years spoken out against Chapman's release.
– If regulators approve the sale of Smithfield Foods to a Chinese company, the US will soon be producing more pigs to feed China's growing appetite for all things porcine. And more pigs will produce more poop. Smithfield—America's (and the world's) largest producer of pork—already produced some 4.7 billion gallons of hog manure just last year. Adding even more to the pile could result in a slurry of health and environmental risks, reports Scientific American. The feces from Smithfield's pigs sits in a lagoon for six to 12 months before being turned into fertilizer. Emissions from the lagoons have increased respiratory problems for people living nearby. And the more crowded the pigs' living conditions get, the more antibiotics they need to stay disease-free. Researchers are worried that antibiotic-laced poop could seep into the air and water supplies, increasing drug resistance in nearby communities. Earlier this week, Smithfield's CEO stressed to Congress that the deal wouldn't affect food safety or standards. Not all were convinced, reports USA Today, while others remain worried about how it will affect Smithfield's valuable intellectual property. "They will take our technology and they will integrate it into China," says a commissioner with the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, per the National Journal. "Once they digest all of this and they get the their industry up, they'll start to try to export their pork to us."
– Joe Paterno's death caused, to put it mildly, mixed reactions: The Hollywood Reporter has a roundup, and it includes everything from George HW Bush's glowing remembrance of the Penn State coach to this zinger from a Late Show writer and producer: "Will there be a moment of silence for Joe Paterno, to honor his silence when he discovered children were being attacked?" But the most extreme reaction came, of course, from those paragons of understatement, the Westboro Baptist Church. Pastor Fred Phelps' daughter, Margie, announced on Twitter yesterday that the church would picket Paterno's funeral, TMZ reports. "'Penn State Penn Rape' rings in Joe Paterno's ears in hell. He partook of sin for fame & fortune. Worth NOTHING to him now. #PicketFuneral," she tweeted. Another gem: "Stop pimping out your kids to raping coaches @CollegeFootball! WBC must picket Paterno funeral." Click to see how Penn State reacted.
– WWII veteran Harold Jellicoe Percival died last month at age 99, leaving no close family behind. So the funeral home organizing his service put a note in the UK man's obituary asking that "any service personnel who can" come to the funeral today, the BBC reports. The obituary went viral on Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit, Gawker reports, and hundreds of people showed up at the service. Since 100 people packed the crematorium, 400 more stood outside, despite the rain. The family members who were able to attend the funeral (a nephew, great-nephew, and great-niece, per the BBC) expressed their gratitude. "He was a quiet man, he was an ordinary man who did his duty and served in the war and to see so many people turn up, it's just overwhelming," said the nephew. Another nephew, who could not attend, called his uncle "a private man" who led a "nomadic" life, including backpacking through England and living in Australia and New Zealand. He never married or had children. You can see his obit on Twitter.
– Bill Cosby's daughter insists her father "loves and respects women" in an essay published in his defense on NNPA Newsire Wednesday. Evin Cosby, the youngest of Cosby's five children, recalls how her father always wanted the family to be close and says she had a wonderful childhood. She slams the "public persecution" of her father and the media's "cruelty," insisting that the stories of sexual assault Cosby's accusers are telling don't "match up" and were never investigated, yet "they have been accepted as the truth." She says supporters who tried to defend Cosby "were pressured to shut up" and that the media didn't publish their support, and insists Cosby has been deemed guilty even though his trial for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand has not yet started. "My dad, like anyone in this country, deserves to be treated fairly under the law," she writes. "My dad broke barriers and raised the conscious [sic] of America on important topics, especially for the advancement of women." She does acknowledge he had affairs, but says he never raped anyone and those affairs are "between him and my mother," who have worked things out and moved on. In a separate interview with NNPA Newsire, which NBC News describes as "a consortium of black-owned newspapers," Cosby himself speaks out, though not much about the case specifically. He did say that his career is on hold for now due to the scandal, but that he hopes to perform again someday. Cosby, 79, also said that he is now completely blind. Jury selection in Cosby's trial begins May 22, and the trial is set to start June 5, People reports.
– A fourth-grader is being hailed as a hero for keeping his cool and saving his dad's life after a snowmobile accident, reports KTVU-TV. Bode Beirdneau, 9, and his father were snowmobiling in South Lake Tahoe when dad John Taylor lost control of his machine and ended up pinned beneath it with a broken leg. Bode couldn't dig him out and had no choice but to hop back on his snowmobile in the remote locale and try to find help. "I freaked out because I didn't know where to go," he tells the Marin Independent Journal. But he soon calmed down, riding for about 20 minutes until he came across a tourist group whose leader radioed for help. Then the tricky part: Bode led them back to his dad without a GPS device. "He showed a lot of maturity for his age," says a California Highway Patrol officer. "It's the calm and composure he had during the whole thing."
– Thousands of migrants streamed into Germany and Austria for a second day today, with Munich alone having 7,000 registered, a fraught journey that was capped with cheers, welcome signs, hot tea, and toys for their children. "I said to myself, I have to do something," one volunteer handing out drinks tells the New York Times, while a German lawmaker tells the AP that, "No decent person can remain cold and dismissive in the face of such suffering. Whoever refuses to do their part calls into question whether they can be part of Europe." German Chancellor Angela Merkel was meeting with coalition partners today to figure out what to do with the influx, reports the BBC, as her nation estimates it could open its borders to up to 800,000. Pope Francis did not sit idly by, reports the AP, calling on every Catholic parish, convent, monastery, and sanctuary in Europe to host one migrant family. He put his money where his mouth is, announcing that the Vatican's two parishes would host two such families. "This has to be an eye-opener on how messed up the situation in Europe is now," Austria's foreign minister tells the Times. “I hope that this serves as a wake-up call that this cannot continue." Hungary, which had cracked down on the stream of migrants pouring in, opened its borders yesterday.
– Julia Roberts' half-sister was found dead yesterday in a Los Angeles bathroom in what appears to be a drug overdose, CNN reports. Nancy Motes, 37, "was found in a bathtub that contained water," the chief coroner's investigator told the Daily News. "There were prescription and non-prescription drugs found at the scene." He said more toxicology tests and an autopsy would be needed to determine the cause of death. Motes was a professional dog-walker and pet-sitter who was working at a house rented by a surgeon when her fiancé found her. Motes got some attention last year when she gave an interview saying Roberts used to tease her about her weight. "When I was in high school and she was an adult, she would just let me know that I was definitely overweight," she told the Daily News. "It just makes me feel incredibly hurt and very sad." Motes weighed almost 300 pounds before getting gastric bypass surgery four years ago. She hoped that the surgery would help mend her ruptured relationship with Roberts, but said it wouldn't be "fixed overnight ... by me just getting skinny." The Roberts family released a statement saying it was "shocked and devastated" by Motes' death.
– Of things unlikely to ever be mentioned during a presidential debate, Rosie O'Donnell would be near the top, just ahead of, let's say, Moon Boots. Regardless, Donald Trump said this toward the tail end of Monday's debate: “Rosie O’Donnell, I said very tough things to her, and I think everyone would agree that she deserves it and nobody feels sorry for her." So why did he use valuable debate time to discuss the comedian? Jezebel explains their "seemingly random feud" started with a 2006 episode of The View during which O'Donnell lobbed what would, in 2016, become common attacks on Trump: that his success is due to his father, that he used bankruptcies to get out of paying debts, and that he has a history of failed marriages. Jezebel argues that because the insults came from a woman, particularly one Trump isn't attracted to, O'Donnell became his "boogeyman." He's gone on to call her fat, ugly, disgusting, and a "true loser" over the years. CBS News reports O'Donnell responded to being called out during a presidential debate, tweeting that the "orange anus ... can't seem to get over" something that happened a decade ago. According to Time, Madonna stood up for her A League of Their Own costar, posting that "cruelty never made anyone a winner" on her Instagram. Strangely, the guest on the 2006 episode of The View that started this whole thing was Hillary Clinton, NBC News reports.
– Eric Williams was an officer in the Texas Guard, a reserve Kaufman County deputy, and was elected justice of the peace in 2010—now, the Daily Beast reports, he's the prime suspect in the Texas prosecutor murders. District Attorney Mike McLelland, who was murdered along with his wife, and first victim Assistant DA Mark Hasse both prosecuted Williams when he was arrested for stealing computer equipment from the county in 2011. Williams, known for riding to work and around town on a Segway, was ultimately sentenced to two years of probation in April of last year (he also lost his law license, his bench, and his military commission, according to his lawyer). During the sentencing phase of the trial, witnesses testified about threats Williams had made in the past, including one threat to kill an attorney and his family. Williams was mentioned as a possible suspect, but not named, earlier this month; now he's been arrested and charged with making terroristic threats (authorities say they linked him to an anonymous threatening email to county officials sent in the wake of McLelland's death). But the Dallas Morning News reports he's expected to be charged with the murders as soon as tomorrow. Williams had been questioned on several occasions and submitted to gunpowder residue tests that reportedly came back negative. Since then, investigators have had him under surveillance and have searched his home, his mother-in-law's home, and a storage space—where they found 20 weapons, including the type used in the murders, as well as a Ford Crown Victoria that bears resemblance to a vehicle spotted in McLelland's neighborhood the day he was killed. The Wall Street Journal notes that Williams had considered McLelland a political enemy since 2006, long before his theft trial.
– Most of us look like this in our passport photos, but most of us are not Prince. The Internet has gone head over heels after the musician tweeted his most recent passport photo last week. A sample of the fawning reaction: "Most glamorous passport photo in history," declares the New York Post. "Prince's passport picture is so aggressively sexual it should be illegal," Mashable tweets. "Forget about Blue Steel. You need to get into this Purple Passion," says CNN. Oh, and let us not forget that Prince is 57: "Get into the skin of this almost 60-year-old man. It is as supple as if he is using a moisturizer made of unicorn tears and all our hopes and dreams." Not everyone is exactly surprised by the photo, though: Time's headline is "Prince’s Passport Photo Is the Most Prince Photo of All Time," and E!'s is "Prince's Passport Photo Is Exactly What You Think It Would Look Like." Esquire lists the US government's passport photo requirements and notes that Prince clearly exceeds all of them, "Though he might have violated one: The guidelines clearly request a 'neutral facial expression (preferred) or a natural smile.' This photo contains neither. Prince's facial expression is not neutral. In fact, it is capturing the entire spectrum of human emotion." Regular people are reacting on Twitter, too. Sample: "EYELINER GOALS."
– It's been two years since Jahi McMath's tonsil surgery went wrong, she suffered brain death, and was declared dead, and now her family wants that death certificate revoked for the now-15-year-old who remains on life support. Jahi's mom, Nailah Winkfield, is suing in federal court various entities that include the state of California to have her daughter declared legally alive, reports Courthouse News Service. She "wishes to have her daughter's basic human right, to life, restored to her so that she can return to California" from New Jersey. Jahi is currently under care in the latter state, which allows a religious exemption to rulings about brain death, notes CBS News. "I want her to have the same rights as any other disabled kid," says Winkfield, per the AP. Should Jahi leave New Jersey without such a declaration, per the suit, "she could be refused treatment, unplugged, even shot, without repercussion as she is legally dead in California." Getting the death certificate overturned would allow the family to move Jahi back to Oakland and have insurers cover her medical bills, the family attorney tells AP. Winkfield says in her lawsuit that Jahi shows signs of life, including what she calls "uncontroverted and overwhelming" evidence of brain function, and has begun to menstruate. A California state judge earlier this year upheld the death certificate; her family's lawsuit against the hospital that performed the tonsillectomy brutally detailed the surgery gone wrong.
– The 26-year-old Alaskan who says he was driving blackout drunk when he hit two Iditarod sled dog teams Saturday, killing one dog and injuring others, has been arrested and charged on suspicion of assault, reckless endangerment, reckless driving, and six counts of criminal mischief, reports the Los Angeles Times. Arnold Demoski of Nulato is speaking quite freely with media, telling KTUU that the incident was not "intentional. That's not me. I don't do stuff like that." Mushers Jeff King and Aliy Zirkle, who were hit, beg to differ, telling authorities they believe the incident was intentional. King's 3-year-old dog, Nash, was killed. "One of my dogs was killed pretty much on the spot, and a couple others I gave first aid to the best I could and loaded them into my sled," King says, per the AP. "I kind of felt like a triage ambulance." Demoski says he woke up after the morning after a night of drinking to discover that his snowmobile was missing its hood and had fresh, rust-colored stains on its sides. He called the village police officer to confess, he says. Asked whether he should face jail, Demoski tells KTUU that although he hopes to avoid it, he probably should go "for at least some time."
– In the waning minutes of the massacre at Pulse in Orlando, Omar Mateen stopped shooting to ask, "Are there any black people in here?" 20-year-old survivor Patience Carter tells CBS News. He reportedly added: "I don't have a problem with black people…You guys suffered enough." On Tuesday, Carter shared her memories of the shooting that claimed the lives of 49 people, including her 18-year-old friend, Akyra Murray. Carter, Murray, and Murray's cousin Tiara Parker were visiting Orlando from Philadelphia and went to Pulse on the recommendation of Google Maps, PBS reports. Parker had just called for an Uber to take them back to their hotel when the shooting started. “We went from having the time of our lives to the worst night of our lives in a matter of minutes,” Carter tells BuzzFeed. Carter and Murray made it out of the club but went back for Parker and ended up hiding in a bathroom. Then Mateen came in and started killing people. Carter was shot in both legs. Murray was killed. “Bodies were piled on top of each other on the toilet seat,” she tells BuzzFeed. “There were handprints on everything, and blood.” Mateen demanded the victims' cellphones. Carter says Mateen killed three more people, including a person protecting her, just as police came through the wall. "If it wasn't for that person shielding me it would've been me shot," Carter tells CBS. Carter read a poem about her struggle with being a survivor during a press conference. “The guilt of being alive is heavy," PBS quotes Carter as saying in the poem.
– Rupert Murdoch uses his Wall Street Journal today to tweak rival publisher Arthur Sulzberger of the New York Times. In a collage of photos illustrating a story on feminine-looking men, a familiar image shows up. "There is, in the bottom image of the lower quadrant of a male face, an unmistakable—if you pay attention to such things—dimple and odd right ear," writes Newser founder Michael Wolff at Vanity Fair. "Without a doubt," the Journal picked Sulzberger "as a prime example of its idea of a feminine-looking man." Murdoch has long thought of Sulzberger as "weak" and "girly," writes Wolff, and he likes to use "the editorial power of his paper to pursue his business goals." He wants to "maul" the Times, and he wants to get under Sulzberger's skin. "This is a psychological warfare side of what’s going to be a very nasty newspaper war."
– When an 8-year-old pulled up to the drive-thru window of an Ohio McDonald's on Sunday night, staff thought they were being pranked, the Morning Journal reports. But the boy and his 4-year-old sister just wanted a cheeseburger. Officer Jacob Koehler tells WFMJ the boy "looked up videos on YouTube on how to drive." Then he grabbed the keys to his dad's van, some money from his piggy bank, and headed for McDonald's. The boy drove through downtown East Palestine without incident, following all the rules of the road. “He didn’t hit a single thing on the way there," Koehler tells the Morning Journal. "It was unreal." The boy's parents were sleeping at the time, and his grandparents were called to the McDonald's to pick him up. The boy did end up getting his cheeseburger, and no charges are expected.
– Pundits handed out good grades aplenty for President Obama's new jobs proposal last night, with generally positive feedback from liberals like Paul Krugman—but also from conservatives like David Frum and Andrew Sullivan. Krugman writes in the New York Times that he was "favorably surprised by the new Obama jobs plan, which is significantly bolder and better than I expected." Still, "it's not nearly as bold as the plan I’d want in an ideal world. But if it actually became law, it would probably make a significant dent in unemployment." Of course, Krugman holds out little hope that the GOP will let it pass. It was a "cunning speech," muses David Frum on FrumForum. Economically, it's better than the 2009 stimulus, and, politically, it helps Obama's re-election chances, he adds. But the strongest aspect was using proposals Republicans had previously advocated, which "ingeniously put Republicans into an awkward spot," Frum writes. "This was a blunt, potent, confident attempt to win back the hearts of a disillusioned base, while appealing to the center in ways Republicans may feel a little leery of rejecting," writes Andrew Sullivan. "Game on, in other words." No love, though, from the Wall Street Journal. "Had Mr. Obama proposed a permanent cut in tax rates, or a major tax reform, or a moratorium on all new regulations for three years, he'd have our support," the paper notes. "But you have to really, really believe in hope and change to think that another $300 to $400 billion in new deficit spending and temporary tax cuts will do any better than the $4 trillion in debt that the Obama years have already piled up." Click for reactions to the speech from the 2012 GOP candidate crew and more. (Herman Cain: "We waited 30 months for this?")
– Tunisia's Interior Ministry says police have arrested the nephew of Berlin Christmas market attacker Anis Amri and two others—and says all three men are suspected of belonging to a terrorist cell and had contacts with Amri. The ministry says the nephew, 18-year-old Fedi, told police he was in contact with Amri encrypted communications to avoid detection. He told police that Amri had recruited him to jihad and asked him to pledge allegiance to ISIS, and that Amri sent him money to join him in Germany. The arrests occurred Saturday, the day after Amri was killed in a shootout with police in Milan, Italy. Video later surfaced of the Tunisian pledging allegiance to ISIS. The two officers who stopped Amri in Milan are being hailed as heroes in Italy, the New York Times reports. The officer who killed Amri, 29-year-old Luca Scata, had only been on the force for nine months. His colleague, 36-year-old Cristian Movio, was shot during the encounter and is recovering from non-life threatening wounds. Spain's Interior Minister, meanwhile, says police are investigating whether Amri was in contact with another possible extremist in Spain. Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoid says Spanish police are looking into a tip passed on by German authorities that Anis Amri had developed a contact in Spain. CNN reports that investigators believe Amri was part of the "Abu Walaa" extremist recruitment network, centered on a radical preacher who considers himself ISIS' representative in Germany.
– Tokyo police say they have arrested a man after finding "multiple" dismembered bodies in coolers in his apartment in a city southwest of the capital. A police spokesman said Tuesday the 27-year-old suspect confessed to cutting up the bodies and hiding them in cold-storage cases, covered with cat litter. The official said investigators found the bodies while searching for a 23-year-old woman who had disappeared, the AP reports. The national broadcaster NHK and other media said police believed the bodies of eight women and one man were hidden in the apartment. The missing woman is thought to be one of them. Police also reportedly found a toolbox and a saw that they said may have been used to dismember the bodies. The Japan Times has identified the suspect as Takahiro Shiraishi, a resident of Zama in Kanagawa Prefecture. "It's true that I tried to hide the bodies of the people I killed to destroy evidence," police quoted Shiraishi as saying. According to the Times, Shiraishi met the missing 23-year-old woman after she visited a suicide-related website and said she wanted to die. Police say security cameras captured the woman and the suspect walking together at a train station near his home.
– Amanda Bynes is back home with her parents after more than four months of rehab, and her mom's lawyer tells CNN Bynes is "excited to be home with her family" and plans to go back to school—specifically, TMZ reports, fashion school. Yes, sources say Bynes has enrolled at California's Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, though she apparently used a fake name to do so. Amusingly, she'll be escorted to and from the two classes she's taking this semester, and she'll still be attending therapy four times a week. Sources tell Radar Bynes is "doing great" and will "be a functioning member of society again" as long as she doesn't go off her meds.
– Yahoo Mail is turning 18, and it's marking the occasion with a big move: no more passwords. The company announced Thursday it's dumping what one Gartner security analyst calls the "antiquated" process of punching in a password to access messages and replacing it with a push notification sent to a user's mobile device, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Once the user gets the notification, he or she taps once to gain entry to the Yahoo Mail inbox, ABC News notes. "Passwords are usually simple to hack and easy to forget," Dylan Casey, Yahoo VP of product management, writes in a blog post describing the new "Account Key" feature. "Account Key streamlines the sign-in process … [and is] more secure than a traditional password because once you activate Account Key—even if someone gets access to your account info—they can't sign in." The optional authentication method is part of a broader revamp of Yahoo Mail, which includes faster search options of archived mail on Apple and Android devices, an email "umbrella" that allows users to access other email accounts (though not Gmail), and an organizational option for "me-mailers," or people who send themselves reminders via email, per the Mercury News. Some experts, however, feel longtime users may be freaked out without their passwords. "Consumers actually like them," the Gartner analyst tells the Mercury News, though he concedes people often forget their passwords, create weak ones, or use the same one across many accounts, setting them up for hacking. For those who feel the new authentication system isn't secure enough, Casey says it may someday use fingerprints and face recognition for an added layer of protection, Engadget notes.
– "Can you love your neighbor as yourself and at the same time knee him in the face as hard as you can?" That question is posed in Fight Church, a new documentary about churches that promote mixed martial arts fighting among pastors, Huffington Post reports. The film's directors were surprised to find hundreds of churches that attract congregants and build community with fighting. "Beyond churches that had formal or informal fight ministries, we discovered innumerable churches that included MMA as a component of a men's program," said co-director Daniel Junge. While Jesus urged followers to "turn the other cheek," advocates of MMA church fighting say Jesus of Revelation provides a tougher image, and Biblical heroes like Samson and David showed their strength of the battlefield. "We don’t fight out of meanness," a pastor featured in the movie tells ABC News. "We have no hate or bitterness in our heart." Most "fight churches" are evangelical, white, and have struggled with attendance, the New York Times reports. The Catholic Church and Southern Baptist Convention have criticized the fighting, but mainstream churches have "feminized men," says a pastor in the trailer. Says another: "Tough guys need Jesus too."
– We don't know which rulings will come when, but starting today through Monday (and perhaps beyond that), the Supreme Court is scheduled to let the hammer fall on seven major cases that will reverberate through the nation, NBC News reports. A quick rundown of what's on the docket: The court's stance on gay marriage is perhaps the most anticipated decision, and the justices have to consider two things: whether states can ban same-sex marriages, and also whether they have to recognize such unions legally carried out in other states. The fate of ObamaCare is also a high-profile case in front of the bench, which could end up costing 34 states their subsidies under the Affordable Care Act because they don't have their own health care insurance exchanges. Insurance experts warn that ObamaCare would go into a "death spiral" if the court rules against federal subsidies. The case against lethal injection, spurred by an Oklahoma man's botched execution, puts the drug midazolam on the hot seat, asking if the drug does what it should—puts a prisoner into a "coma-like state" so two other drugs can finish the job—or if it merely paralyzes the inmate and forces them to endure the pain of their own death. How the court defines redistricting rules—and whether states must count only eligible voters or the entire population when drawing congressional districts—as well as whether or not to greenlight federal violent-crime laws that impose mandatory minimum sentences for those convicted of three felonies, are being mulled. Also set to be finalized: decisions on whether to permit lawsuits under the Fair Housing Act, even if discrimination was not intended, and a trio of cases grouped together that asks the court to make the EPA consider economic costs before forcing power plants to control their emissions.
– Things aren't so easy for avocado growers in California these days. There's more competition from Mexico and less water. And the old trees just don't bear fruit like they used to. But the New York Times reports that's giving rise to a surprising new California crop: coffee. The dense foliage of old avocado trees provides perfect shade for coffee bushes, and suddenly two-dozen avocado farms between San Diego and Santa Barbara are turning to coffee crops. There are now about 14,000 coffee plants in California—about 30 times the amount there were 13 years ago. The Times reports California appears set for the first serious American attempt at homegrown coffee outside of Hawaii. There is, of course, skepticism that California can produce coffee as tasty as that from the tropical highlands of Brazil and Indonesia. But Jason Mraz points out people didn't use to think you could grow wine grapes in California either. Yes, the Grammy-winning singer is one of those farmers jumping on the coffee train. San Diego reports Mraz has been growing avocados for years and is now making the switch. Growing coffee can be labor intensive and expensive, but one expert says California growers are targeting coffee lovers "willing to pay for something unusual." The kind of people who don't blanch at paying up to $12 for a specialty cup of coffee could provide California growers with sizable profit margins. (Coffee too weak? You can now try the "world's strongest.")
– Thanks to a study in Geophysical Research Letters, we now know where the first human settlement on the moon could be built—a massive lava tube potentially extending miles below the surface. Astronauts haven't been able to spend more than three days on the moon—which lacks Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field—because spacesuits offer minimal protection from radiation, extreme temperatures, and meteorites, according to a press release. A lava tube, on the other hand... "It's important to know where and how big lunar lava tubes are if we're ever going to construct a lunar base," says a researcher at JAXA, Japan's space agency. Researchers at JAXA and Purdue University combined radar data from the SELENE spacecraft and gravitational data from GRAIL to locate what they believe are a number of intact lava tubes—formed when flowing lava forms a crust before draining away—in the Marius Hills area of the moon, the Houston Chronicle reports. Marius Hills is the moon's biggest volcanic dome field. According to Phys.org, Italian researchers recently presented findings that lava tubes on the moon could be massive compared to their counterparts on Earth due to lower gravity, stating the "results have important implications for habitability and human exploration of the moon." One model from the new study shows a lunar lava tube could be large enough to encompass the entire city of Philadelphia. (Russia and the US are building a moon base.)
– Another Starbucks, this time in California, is in trouble. A restaurant in La Canada Flintridge has acknowledged that a barista wrote “beaner” on a Latino customer’s two coffee orders. The customer, Pedro, didn’t notice the slur at the time, but when he brought the beverages back to work, a colleague did. “I asked him if he realized what they had put on his cup. He said no. So I was really upset about it, because that isn't OK," coworker Priscilla Hernandez tells CNN. When Hernandez called the store to complain, they told her the barista didn’t catch Pedro’s name, so she wrote “beaner” on the cup instead. The store reportedly offered Pedro a $50 gift card, which he declined, calling it insulting, per USA Today. Hernandez and Pedro have met with the store’s district manager who apologized and promised to look into the incident. Starbucks also tweeted an apology. Hernandez seems angrier than Pedro, who Hernandez says wishes not to comment. "Out of all the names they could've put on his coffees for 'misunderstanding' him they decide to put 'beaner,'" she said. Patrons at the La Cañada Starbucks Wednesday were dumbfounded when they heard about the incident, reports CBS. “I’m shocked,” said one woman. “I go to that Starbucks almost every day.” Starbucks is closing all 8,000 stores on May 29 to provide its 175,000 employees with racial-bias training. That decision came after two African-American men were arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks while waiting for a business meeting.
– John Ensign may have quit to avoid further scrutiny of his peccadilloes, but the Senate ethics investigation into his affair with a campaign staffer will go on, reports the Washington Post. “Senator Ensign has made the appropriate decision," said a statement from Sens. Barbara Boxer and Johnny Isakson, who are leading the inquiry. However, “The Senate Ethics Committee has worked diligently for 22 months on this matter and will complete its work in a timely fashion." Ensign will step down May 3, notes Politico, a day before he was to be deposed. The ethics panel loses jurisdiction when Ensign leaves office, notes the Post, but could still release a report of its findings—precisely the sort of further embarrassment Ensign was seeking to avoid. It could also refer the case to the Justice Department, which has been conducting a criminal investigation. Click for more on Ensign's career and scandal.
– Robert the Bruce, King of Scots from 1306 until his death in 1329 and perhaps most famous for defeating the English army at the Battle of Bannockburn, has been dead some 700 years, but we're just now getting a good idea of what he might have looked like. Without any renderings of the man from his own lifetime, any likenesses in statues and portraits were dreamed up by artists, reports the BBC. But thanks to two years of work by historians at the University of Glasgow, with help from the Liverpool John Moores University's Face Lab (best known for recreating the face of Richard the Third), experts have captured the man. They were able to do so thanks to a 200-year-old plaster cast of a skull found in a coffin buried under Dunfermline Abbey. Whether the skull actually belongs to Robert the Bruce hasn't been confirmed, because he wasn't the only leader buried at Dunfermline and the skull was long ago reinterred. A press release explains a toe bone taken from the coffin wasn't returned to it, but extracting DNA from the bone would mean its destruction. That means no verification, and no genetic information about Robert the Bruce's physical characteristics. For now, the researchers say they relied on "statistical evaluation" in giving him brown hair and light brown eyes, reports the Telegraph. He is thought to possibly have had leprosy, so one version shows him with a thick neck and build—a "match for super-athletes today," per the release, and another with "a mild representation of leprosy," which would have affected his nose and jaw. (John McCain has claimed to be related.)
– Things seem pretty cozy at the top in the world of telecommunications: Verizon has bought out its British partner Vodafone and the CEOs involved say the third-biggest corporate deal in history was forged in a San Francisco gym. "We got up early. We were both down at the gym together, we had a brief conversation on the exercise bicycle," Verizon chief Lowell McAdam tells Reuters, adding that he also chatted with Vodafone's Vittorio Colao at breakfast. "We looked at the final bit of data, and we said, 'Looks like $130 billion is about the right number and let's see if we can put a deal together around that," he says. Verizon—America's biggest wireless provider—now has full control of its wireless unit after buying Vodafone's 45% stake, but its 100 million US customers are unlikely to see any immediate change in their services, reports the New York Times. "There’s a big phase of growth in the US telecom market," McAdam says. "The timing was perfect for us." The huge deal also highlights how well banks have bounced back from the financial crisis, the Guardian notes: Verizon was able to raise the $60 billion cash it is using to finance the deal from four banks. Vodafone will also receive $60 billion in Verizon shares and around $10 billion from related transactions.
– Kal Penn has just turned lemons into lemonade—some pretty darn valuable lemonade. On Saturday the actor tweeted what looked to be an Instagram comment that read in part "you don't belong in this country you f---ing joke." Penn wrote, "To the dude who said I don't belong in America, I started a fundraising page for Syrian Refugees in your name." And the page—which states "We will turn their bigotry, along with the President's, into love"—has gone wild. As of early Monday, more than $500,000 has been raised on the CrowdRise site; the money will go to the International Rescue Committee, Mashable reports. That's way more than the original goal, as Penn, the New Jersey-born son of immigrants from India, pointed out on Twitter. He observed Sunday morning that "If we hit $250k, that's 100x more than our original goal! How's that for showing the world who we are?"
– Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles, an atmospheric period piece set behind the scenes of Welles' 1937 production of Julius Caesar, has critics gushing about Christian McKay as Orson Welles, but split on Zac Efron as a wide-eyed teen who stumbles into Welles's glamorous orbit: The "frothy" film is upstaged by its own subject, the larger-than-life Welles, writes Besty Sharkey in the LA Times. When McKay's on screen, "everyone else fades a little"—including Efron, in a role that reveals he's still "very much in the puppy-training phase." Writing in Salon, Stephanie Zacharek praises McKay's performance, which "flirts with the scary truth that arrogance can be sexy," and notes the film is set in "a long-lost time when a bold kid with a showbiz dream and a little luck could actually get somewhere. Zac Efron fits right into 1937; in 2009, he's a lost boy." The movie could use more Orson Welles, less Me and, Claudia Puig writes in USA Today. McKay's a "revelation"; Efron is "likable but lackluster"; and the combination of their stories "feels like two movies cobbled together." Mary Pols, writing for Time, has one quibble about the exceptional McKay: his age. "He's 36, and passing for Welles at 22 is more than a stretch, especially when you're up against the world's biggest teenybopper."
– If you thought the recent revelation that five new JD Salinger books are due out was juicy, well, you haven't seen anything yet. That tidbit came compliments of Salinger the book and Salinger the documentary, which were written/directed by David Shields and Shane Salerno and are both due out next week. While Jen Chaney calls that news "certainly the biggest bombshell," she drops a few of her own in the Washington Post, which got a copy of the book. Chief among them: He became a recluse in part because he only had one testicle. Shields and Salerno sourced this detail from two unnamed women and an Army pal of Salinger's; they claim it's why he tended to be with younger women (the book recounts his relationship with Jean Miller, who caught the then-30-year-old's eye when she was 14), and write that "surely one of the many reasons he stayed out of the media glare was to reduce the likelihood that this information about his anatomy would emerge." Another claim that Chaney notes is based on "speculative" evidence: That Salinger annulled his first marriage after finding out Sylvia Welter informed for the Gestapo. (Click for more tidbits.) Meanwhile, in a review for the LA Times, David Ulin gives credit to Salerno and Shields for getting "the goods, digging up information on Salinger's war buddies," but faults them for packing chapters with "a litany of names without attribution, leaving us unsure from whom we're hearing and why."
– Visiting a shooting range is not without risk, and we aren't talking about deadly accidents. Lead dust discharged by firearms is the leading cause of lead poisoning outside the workplace, the Seattle Times reported in a lengthy 2014 investigation. Each time a gun filled with lead-based ammunition is fired, a cloud of lead particles trails in the bullet's wake. The dust hangs in the air and collects on clothing, creating a hazard to anyone who comes in contact with it. The Times' conclusion: "Thousands of ... workers, shooters, and their family members have been contaminated at shooting ranges due to poor ventilation and contact with lead-coated surfaces." A 2016 Oregonian investigation backs that up, noting the ventilation system at a former National Guard Armory in Montana was clogged with "lead-laced bunnies the size of tangerines"; 20 workers fell ill. NPR takes a look at one move that has since been made: The Department of Defense in April tightened its limit for acceptable levels of lead in blood to 20 micrograms per deciliter. Bloomberg earlier this year cited a DoD rep who said roughly 1,200 DOD employees have their blood monitored for lead due to workplace exposure. The CDC adds these stats: 1.2 million law enforcement officials risk exposure as part of their weapons-training requirements; as many as 60,000 Americans work in shooting ranges, and 34 million Americans target shoot. But firearms advocates say fears of lead poisoning are "unsupported by evidence." A rep for the National Shooting Sports Foundation tells NPR he sees an effort afoot to "diminish people's participation in shooting sports or exercise their second amendment rights."
– President Obama's re-election campaign has by all accounts an impressive voter database that is getting more comprehensive by the day. But exactly how much information it is storing about supporters and what it intends to do with the cache remain big unknowns because the campaign won't talk about it, reports Lois Beckett at ProPublica. The database collects nuts-and-bolts info provided by supporters such as email addresses and ZIP codes, but it also tracks what they view on the campaign website and, via cookies from third-party ad vendors, elsewhere on the Internet. Those who log onto the website via Facebook give the campaign access to all the information they've made public there. And don't expect it all to magically disappear when the election is over. The "campaign's privacy policy reserves the right to share the personal information it collects 'with candidates, organizations, groups or causes that we believe have similar political viewpoints, principles or objectives.'" Click to read the full article here, or to read an earlier story on the the campaign's marketing strategy here.
– The hackers who bombarded the Internet with naked photos of hundreds of celebrities ranging from Jennifer Lawrence to Kim Kardashian have released their fourth round and it is notable for a couple of reasons. First, as TMZ reports, they've at last targeted their first male victim in Nick Hogan, son of Hulk Hogan. The younger Hogan's photos are "voluminous and graphic," says the website; they also portray his various then-underage girlfriends, which Hogan contends constitutes child porn. Other names on the list include Winona Ryder, Ingrid Michaelson, Erin Heatherington, Nina Dobrev, and others. Over at the Daily Beast, Marlow Stern brings us to the second point: The relative lack of A-listers would "seem to indicate that the pervy legion of hackers behind this sordid episode seem to be running out of ammo," and that this whole mess is dying down. The latest release is the first since a lawyer representing a dozen hacked celebs filed suit against Google last week, alleging that "Google has taken little or no action to stop these outrageous violations, or to limit the Images from appearing in Google search results."
– Donald Trump has come to heel, agreeing to support the eventual Republican presidential nominee and not run as a third-party candidate, the AP reports. Despite being the only candidate to publicly mull a third-party run during the August GOP primary debate, Trump signed a party loyalty pledge today. The pledge was circulated by the Republican National Committee to all candidates. Prior to Trump agreeing to the loyalty pledge, sources tell CNN, most supporters calling into his campaign about the pledge wanted Trump not to sign. While the pledge is not a legally binding document, Trump says he sees "no circumstance under which I would tear up that pledge," FOX News and NBC report. According to the AP, a third-party run would have made the path to the presidency much easier for the eventual Democratic candidate.
– Hitler became Hiller, then Stuart-Houston. The name changes allowed Adolf Hitler's last living descendants on his father's side to keep a quiet life in New York, the New York Post reports via German newspaper Bild, which recently visited Hitler's three great-nephews on Long Island. Sons of Hitler's UK-born nephew William Patrick Hitler—who reportedly received a tongue-lashing from his uncle for interviews with the press before joining the US Navy in World War II and then moving to Patchogue—Louis and Brian Stuart-Houston shooed away a reporter with eight lawn sprinklers. But eldest brother Alexander Stuart-Houston, who lives about 45 minutes away from his siblings, answered his door. Commenting on what Bild calls "the curse of the worst family name in world history," the 68-year-old said one of the three brothers was engaged to a Jewish woman, but she ended up calling it off, per AFP. Alexander, whose middle name is Adolf, appeared focused on the present, however, touting his support for German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "She's good. She seems to be an intelligent and smart person," he said. Describing himself and his siblings as steadfast Republicans, he added, "The last person I would say I admire is Donald Trump. He is definitely not one of my favorites ... I just don't like liars."
– A weird development in the investigation of the alleged robbery of Ryan Lochte and three others US swimmers in Rio: A judge there on Wednesday ordered the passports of Lochte and fellow swimmer James Feigen seized, reports the AP. The judge apparently is skeptical that the robbery actually took place and wants to question the pair over inconsistencies in their stories, including the number of robbers involved, reports TMZ. One problem: Lochte is already back in the US, says his lawyer, though the whereabouts of Feigen are unclear. "There was no effort to detain anyone, but police did have further questions this a.m.," a US Olympic Committee spokesman tells CNN, following a visit by Brazilian police to Olympic Village. "It is a matter for our consulate and US Citizen Services, and we will continue to cooperate with all involved."
– The pilot in Saturday's plane crash in San Francisco was a veteran with almost 10,000 hours of flying experience—but just 43 of them were in a Boeing 777 and the disaster that killed two people and injured 182 others was his first attempt to land that type of aircraft at the site. Asiana Airlines pilot Lee Kang-kook was still in training for the jet and was being assisted by a co-pilot with more than 3,000 hours of flight experience with the 777, Reuters reports. National Transportation Safety Board investigators haven't settled on pilot error as the cause of the crash but the investigation is focusing on why the plane came in to land at "significantly below" the right speed and why the crew didn't try to abort the landing until 1.5 seconds before the crash, the Wall Street Journal reports. The airline's chief executive says he does not believe the crash—the first fatal one involving a 777—was caused by mechanical failure.
– Former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum thinks students should learn CPR instead of "looking to someone else to solve their problem" by protesting gun violence—and a lot of doctors think Santorum should get a clue. His remarks were slammed by numerous medical professionals on social media, many of whom pointed out that CPR generally isn't enough to save people shot with AR-15-style rifles like the one used in the Parkland mass shooting, the Huffington Post reports. "I've operated on gunshot victims who've had bullets tear through their intestines, cut through their spinal cord, and pulverize their kidneys and liver," tweeted Eugene Gu, a surgeon at a Nashville hospital. "Rick Santorum telling kids to shut up and take CPR classes is simply unconscionable." Santorum was also criticized by California's Rep. Ted Lieu. "CPR is good for heart stoppage. Not good for victims of multiple AR-15 bullets, which typically impart 3 times the lethal energy upon impact than a 9mm handgun bullet," the Democrat tweeted. "AR-15 bullets obliterate organs and cause so much bleeding that victims die very quickly." Santorum made his remarks on CNN on Sunday, the day after protesters demanded tighter gun laws at March for Our Lives rallies in Washington, DC, and across the US. He said students should learn CPR or learn "to deal with situations" where they could respond to a shooter instead of seeking "phony gun laws." (This was one of the DC rally's most gripping moments.)
– AOL.com email addresses are so nineties, right? But apparently they're also a sort of weird status symbol amongst a certain set. Ben Smith first made the argument last week on Politico, noting that despite the "stigma" long associated with the AOL.com domain, there's also "a certain prestige" attached to those who have held on nonetheless. He offers up a long list of politics and media bigshots, including David Axelrod, Matt Drudge, Arianna Huffington, and Ann Coulter, who still have their accounts. And it turns out celebrities, too, often hang onto AOL.com addresses, a trend observed by Playboy and brought up in a recent interview with Paul Rudd (who, yes, has an AOL.com address). "I like AOL because it’s so embarrassing. People look at you as if you’re a fossil. Which you are. But I enjoy that embarrassment," he says. "I like being on the outside. Having an AOL address is like wearing Ocean Pacific shorts. It’s so uncool that it’s cool." Other celebs who can be reached at AOL.com include Judd Apatow, Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman—and, as noted by New York, Tilda Swinton and David Arquette.
– An Arizona woman who murdered her two children after saying she was going to take them to Disneyland will be spending the rest of her life in prison. A judge in California, where the bodies of 13-year-old Jaelen Edge and his sister Faith, 10, were found in a hotel room near the theme park, sentenced Marilyn Edge, 44, to two life sentences with no chance of parole, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She had lost custody of the children just three days before the Sept. 13, 2013 killings and had driven them across the country from Georgia, where their father lives. The bodies of the children—who were killed with a "combination of medication, drowning, and suffocation," according to the district attorney's office—were found after Edge tried to kill herself by driving into an electrical box in a parking lot. The children's father and other relatives spoke at Friday's sentencing hearing, the Los Angeles Times reports. They "shared stories about the joys and interests" of the children and "talked about the pain and loss their family has experienced due to the actions of the defendant," the DA's office said in a statement.
– The board of Wounded Warrior Project, one of the nation's largest veteran support groups, has fired two top officials amid news reports accusing the group of wasteful spending, the AP reports. According to a statement released late Thursday on behalf of the group, CEO Steve Nardizzi and COO Al Giordano are no longer with the organization. The Wounded Warrior Project's board of directors had hired outside legal counsel and forensic accounting consultants to conduct an independent review of the Jacksonville, Fla.-based organization's records and interviews with current and ex-employees. In late January, CBS News and the New York Times reported the organization spends 40% to 50% of its money on overhead—including extravagant parties—while other veterans charities have overhead costs of 10% to 15%. The review found that the group's most recent audited financial statement showed the organization spent 80.6% of donations on programming, and that an employee conference at a resort reported to have cost $3 million actually cost about $970,000, according to the board's statement. However, the organization says it will cut back on events such as the employee conference and is putting limits on employee travel and expenses; financial statements will be independently audited and posted on the group's website, the board said. A newly created Office of the CEO, led by board chairman Anthony Odierno, will oversee the Wounded Warrior Project on an interim basis. "It is now time to put the organization's focus directly back on the men and women who have so bravely fought for our country and who need our support," Odierno says.
– Flash flooding in northern India this week has killed at least 1,000 people, with the death toll expected to rise. The floods came as thousands of Hindu pilgrims were visiting shrines in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand. Around 73,000 pilgrims have been evacuated, according to local officials, but another 40,000 are still stranded in what the Indian government is calling a "national crisis," the New York Times reports. The rescue effort is particularly challenging because of the region's mountainous terrain, with some areas at least 11,000 feet above sea level. The military has sent in more than 40 helicopters, but one crashed yesterday during a rescue attempt. "I worry how any helicopters can reach those who are in narrow valleys or jungles," says a priest at one of the shrines. "They might die of hunger before the government reaches them." Google has set up a "person finder" site to help friends and relatives locate those missing in the floods.
– The parents of one of eight people killed in New York City's deadliest terrorist attack since 9/11 are planning to sue the city and three agencies for "gross negligence" that put their son at risk. Rosemarie Arnold, an attorney for the parents of 32-year-old Darren Drake, filed a notice to sue on Tuesday, USA Today reports. The notice accused the city and the Department of Parks and Recreation, Department of Transportation, and the Hudson River Park Trust of creating an unsafe environment on the bike path that alleged attacker Sayfullo Saipov drove a truck down Oct. 31, killing and injuring cyclists and pedestrians. Arnold wrote that more could have been done to keep people safe from "foreseeable harm." Drake, a Milford, NJ, resident who worked at Moody’s Investors Services in the World Trade Center, was cycling at the time of the attack. Arnold says the agencies responsible for the lower Manhattan bike path failed to install barriers at some entry points, something Saipov would have realized on his test run. "All of the above mentioned entities were aware that vehicles regularly either mistakenly or purposefully used the bike path but did nothing to curtail that problem," Arnold tells NJ Advance Media. She adds that Drake was a "well-loved, successful 32-year-old man ... who used biking as a means to stay healthy in mind and body" and his parents are heartbroken by his death, "especially since this terrible tragedy was completely preventable."
– Federal officials have discovered a North Carolina veteran isn't dead yet. The Fayetteville Observer reported that 81-year-old Charles Covell of Fayetteville was surprised to learn that he had been declared dead by the Veterans Affairs Department last month. Covell's wife realized something was wrong when a monthly disabilities payment was not deposited in their account, and the couple then learned that a death certificate for a Charles Covell was filed in January. A spokeswoman from US Rep. Richard Hudson's office said Tuesday the VA has fixed the mistake, per the AP. Covell spent 12 years in the Army, serving with the 82nd Airborne Division and the 5th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg. The Observer notes that this is not the first time Covell has been the victim of a red-tape gaffe over his service. The military tried to honor him for 1965 heroics on the battlefield in Vietnam, but the paperwork got lost for more than 40 years. Covell finally received his Bronze Star Medal for Valor in 2006.
– It might sound like a French expletive or a new musical craze sweeping the South, but "tronc" is the brand new name of Tribune Publishing, owner of newspapers including the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. The company—which is abandoning both the 169-year-old Tribune moniker and, apparently, the practice of capitalizing company names—announced on Thursday that it will now be known as "tronc Inc," an acronym for Tribune Online Content, the Wall Street Journal reports. It says it's becoming "a content curation and monetization company focused on creating and distributing premium, verified content across all channels." Michael Ferro, who became the company's chairman earlier this year and is fighting off a takeover bid from Gannett, says "tronc" is the British term for a box where restaurant tips are pooled, which is apparently how he sees the company's new direction. "Our rebranding to tronc represents the manner in which we will pool our technology and content resources to execute on our strategy," he said in a statement. The Guardian notes that online reaction to the rebrand was "swift and merciless." "If you wanted to signify the pathetic nasal honks of the last dying dinosaur, 'tronc' would be a pretty good word," tweeted Quentin Hardy, the New York Times' deputy tech editor. (In 2012, Kraft rebranded its snack business "Mondelez.")
– The death toll from last night's Taliban assault on a Kabul hotel now stands at 19, including all eight attackers, the AP reports. The 11 civilians killed include three police officers and a judge; 18 others were wounded. Afghan police are searching the hotel for other victims or security threats, the Telegraph adds, and an official says there will be an investigation into a security "loophole." Despite the attack, Afghan President Hamid Karzai vowed today that "such incidents will not stop us for transitioning security of our country" to Afghan forces.
– North Korea apparently has a "miracle" drug that cures cancer, but very little methamphetamine. In an attempt to curb defections, illegal phone calls, human trafficking, and drug smuggling, "border control has become a lot tighter, making methamphetamine harder to get," a source tells the Daily NK. "In the past, you could get meth in provincial black markets, but these days this has become more challenging, so people are seeking out places where it’s [still] being made." Some in Hyesan, on North Korea's border with China, are known to travel 360 miles round trip on foot through the mountains to Hamhung just to get their kick. As a result, the source says government officials are now patrolling the streets of Hamhung and other meth-producing cities like Sunchon. That’s an interesting change of pace from two years ago when North Korea claimed "the illegal use, trafficking, and production of drugs which reduce human beings into mental cripples do not exist," per the Guardian. Despite the strict language, North Korea has been accused of profiting from the drug trade, and officials are said to appreciate a gift of the drug "ice." Growing addictions appear to be linked to the country's faltering medical system; most people are forced to pay for medication and instead turn to crystal meth and opium. One man in North Korea says he began using opium to treat an inflammation in the gallbladder. Now, "in difficult times like this, I can't seem to get by without my drugs," he says. "I can't live with my head clear." (A drought in the country is raising fears of food shortages.)
– Newark's cash-strapped public school system is getting some help from a wealthy friend. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is planning a $100 million donation to improve the system, officials tell the New York Times. Zuckerberg, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and Newark Mayor Cory Booker will announce the donation on the Oprah Winfrey Show tomorrow. Zuckerberg—who is now richer than Steve Jobs, according to Forbes—has no strong personal connection to the New Jersey city, but insiders say that he has a long-standing interest in education. Zuckerberg has, over the last year, held a series of meetings with people involved in education and developed a relationship with Booker, who will gain some control over the state-run system in conjunction with the gift, say sources. The gift, Zuckerberg's largest charitable donation by far, will come in the form of Facebook stock that will be used to establish a foundation, the Wall Street Journal reports.
– Two 13-year-old Indiana girls had Monday off from school and were dropped off at a popular hiking spot in Delphi, but didn't show up when it was time for them to be picked up—and on Tuesday, their bodies were found. On Wednesday, police officially identified the bodies as Liberty German and Abigail Williams, the AP reports. Police say that foul play is suspected, the Indianapolis Star reports; their deaths are being investigated as homicides. The girls were dropped off around 1pm Monday and were supposed to be picked up later by family members, who searched the area when the girls didn't meet them as planned. They were reported missing at 5:30pm, and search parties set out; the bodies were found around 12:15pm the next day near Deer Creek, a half-mile or so upstream from Monon High Bridge, an abandoned railroad truss that spans the creek, where the girls had been dropped off. The bridge is a popular hiking spot—"a lot of people go out there for a little hiking, a nice day in the woods, get a little exercise," a local tells the Lafayette Journal & Courier—and Heavy notes that, even before her daughter went missing, Abigail's mother had a picture of it as her Facebook cover photo. The last known photo of the girls is a picture of Abigail walking along the bridge, which has no guard rails, that Liberty posted to her Snapchat account around 2:07pm Monday, the Indy Channel reports. Per the Logansport Pharos-Tribune, police say they suspect foul play "because of the nature of the bodies." The public information officer for the Indiana State Police says autopsies will be done Wednesday; authorities have not commented publicly on cause of death. The school district sent letters home with students Tuesday saying that counseling will be available.
– President Obama hates it, but that sentiment about the Senate Republicans' plan to replace ObamaCare isn't quite unanimous. Here's a look at what editorials are saying: Wall Street Journal: It implores Republicans to get this passed and not wilt under pressure from the media and Democrats. The measure is an "imperfect compromise" but also a "major improvement over the US health-care status quo that will worsen if the bill fails," write the editors. "It’s not too much to say this is a defining moment for whether the GOP can ever reform runaway entitlements." New York Times: This isn't a health care bill, say the editors. "It is, plain and simple, a plan to cut taxes for the wealthy by destroying critical federal programs that help provide health care to tens of millions of people." The bill's creators now have to bargain with holdouts to get it into final form, but "no amount of tinkering around the edges" can save it. If passed, it will take a "devastating toll on millions of Americans." Washington Post: The bill "includes a range of mostly unwise and ungenerous changes to the nation’s health-care system, but it might, if enacted, end up as mostly a massive, unpaid-for tax cut for wealthy people and industries with pull on Capitol Hill," says the editorial. Ditching the individual mandate in particular would inject chaos into health insurance markets. Washington Examiner: The conservative paper opposes the bill for not going far enough to dismantle ObamaCare. "The Better Care Reconciliation Act isn't a bill to reform healthcare. This is a bill to notionally repeal Obamacare while propping the insurance market up through the next election. It's an exercise in political box-checking and ass-covering." Forbes: This isn't an editorial, but an op-ed by Avik Roy that argues the Senate bill will "transform" US health care for the better. For conservatives tempted to vote no, he asks: "How many times in your life will you have the opportunity to vote for a bill that fundamentally transforms two entitlement programs? How often will you get to vote for a bill that cuts spending by hundreds of billions of dollars? How often will you get a chance to make a difference for millions of your constituents who are struggling under the weight of rising premiums and exploding deductibles?"
– A speeding train ran over a crowd watching fireworks during a religious festival in northern India on Friday evening, killing at least 60 people and injuring dozens more, police said. The train failed to stop after the accident on the outskirts of Amritsar, a city in Punjab state, according to a state lawmaker. Railway police officer Sukhwinder Singh said Saturday morning that the death toll had risen to 60, the AP reports; another 50 people have been injured and hospitalized. The Times of India reports that two trains arrived from the opposite direction on separate tracks at the same time, giving little opportunity for people to escape. The casualties were caused by one of the trains, it quoted officials as saying. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was extremely saddened by the accident. "Have asked officials to provide immediate assistance that is required," Modi said on Twitter. A witness said the train didn't even sound its whistle as it sped past the site, where hundreds were watching the burning of an effigy of demon Ravana during the Hindu festival of Dussehra. As the effigy was lit and the fireworks started, a section of the crowd started retreating toward railroad tracks while observing the event. "Why did authorities allow the fireworks display so close to the railroad track?" he asked. He told television reporters that he lost two brothers. Another witness said the victims didn't realize that a train was coming because the fireworks were too loud. (One woman woke from a bike crash and couldn't speak English.)
– Heeding the pleas of parents around the globe and across the ages who deal with cries of "Just five more minutes!" on a nightly basis, Netflix has introduced five-minute episodes of the popular kids DreamWorks TV show Dinotrux—cut down drastically from their typical 23 minutes. The reason? Kids stall at bedtime, and Netflix is marketing these short videos as win-win for parents and kids alike, reports KFOR 4. "Netflix and DreamWorks Animation engineered the new shows knowing exactly what kids love most: rewatching their favorite scenes," Netflix says in a press release. Its bedtime routine survey—of more than 7,200 parents in the US, UK, Brazil, Mexico, France, Canada, and Australia—found that American kids are especially good at employing "creative stall tactics," and that it takes parents in the US 19 minutes to put kids to bed, compared to the 17-minute average across all countries polled. Parents in France are fastest, at 12 minutes. Netflix says parents will look like the good guys when they let their kids watch a five-minute episode of Dinotrux before bed, but it remains to be seen whether it speeds or slows the typical bedtime routine or impacts a child's ability to fall asleep. And while Mashable calls it a truce, it also notes a disturbing trend found by a recent Nielson report that finds TV viewing among kids at an eight-year high, with children ages 2 to 5 spending 32 hours a week in front of a TV. (Netflix has determined the exact time at which people get hooked on certain TV shows.)
– Arthritis causes pain and suffering for millions of people around the world, but it's also the byproduct of an evolutionary mutation that allowed early humans to make the move from Africa to colder climates tens of thousands of years ago. Researchers at Stanford University have discovered that a genetic variation made humans shorter and more compact as a means of protecting them against frostbite in the colder temperatures of northern climates, Newsweek reports. In addition, their limbs got shorter, making them less vulnerable to breaking if people should, say, slip on ice. The downside of this evolutionary adaptation was an increase in the likelihood of osteoarthritis. The Stanford study, published Monday in Nature Genetics, shows how a variation in the GDF5 gene became more prevalent in humans moving out of Africa into colder climates 50,000 to 100,000 years ago. This variation doubles the chances of developing painful joint problems while also reducing height by about 0.4 inches on average, the Telegraph reports. And since arthritis generally doesn't develop until after the age of reproduction, the gene mutation was passed on from generation to generation. The Stanford researchers discovered that the genetic variation causing this increase in arthritis is common among Europeans but rare in African populations. (A Canadian woman's arthritis may qualify her for euthanasia.)
– President Obama is refusing to sign a bill that critics say would make it easier for banks to rush foreclosures on homeowners, the Wall Street Journal reports. The bill zipped through both the House and Senate when it was deemed an uncontroversial measure on interstate commerce—it centers on out-of-state notarizations—but the national scandal over thousands of rushed foreclosures has changed things. Obama has never vetoed a bill outright, and won't start with this one—he'll use the "pocket veto" process to send it back to Congress, though it's not clear what changes the president will require. A spokesman for Robert Aderholt, who sponsored the bill, said "there is absolutely no connection whatsoever between Congressman Aderholt's legislation and the recent foreclosure documentation problems." But opponents complained it would allow banks to cut even more corners in the foreclosure process, notes the Washington Post.
– If there's one thing young men find irresistible, it's a professional presentation. At least that's what 19-year-old Lizzy Fenton appeared to be banking on when she emailed her crush a PowerPoint slideshow titled "Why You Should Date Me" last month. "I wanted to win Carter over with sardonic wit, so I chose PowerPoint as my artistic medium,” the University of Minnesota student tells People. The presentation, which Fenton made in three hours at a coffee shop, includes bullet points of her attributes, including "tantalizing conversationalist" and "will look classy at Thanksgiving." She also brags that because she can pull off so many looks, dating her is like dating at least three different girls, Heavy reports. Fenton, who's double majoring in genetics and Spanish, made sure to include data to prove her point. In a slide boasting that her "boobs exhibit steady growth over time," she concludes through extrapolation that "each breast will be roughly the circumference of a human head by the year 2025." So how'd Carter take it? "This is very nice. Please stop contacting me," was his apparent response. But Fenton tells People she and Carter "get along swimmingly." Though Fenton won't say if they're dating, it does appear as if she and Carter are at least friends. And when it comes to sending someone a random PowerPoint presentation, that's got to be seen as a win.
– If you want to get people to stop boozing it up, don't show them images of glasses of healthy, sparkling water instead of beer—show them an ad that illustrates how too many cocktails can cause cancer to course through their bodies, the Guardian reports. That's the finding of a new study published in the BMJ Open journal that examined English-language alcohol ads to identify which ones proved best at inspiring drinkers to cut down. Researchers tapped a pool of 2,174 Australian adults ages 18 to 64 who drink alcohol at least one or two days a week. A total of 83 ads were shown, and the subjects were instructed to note after viewing each one how motivated they were to reduce their drinking on a scale from one to five, with "one" counting as an unmotivated "Nah, I'm good," and "five" as "Take the key to my liquor cabinet and bury it, please." The most effective ad: "Spread," a 30-second video created by the Western Australian government a few years ago that shows the cancerous mutations wrought after alcohol gets into one's bloodstream. The dud: that ad pushing water over beer. Cancer Council Victoria CEO Todd Harper tells the Guardian that "Spread" may have made an impact because folks simply don't know alcohol is a Group 1 carcinogen, the most dangerous category. Even though Fergus Taylor, the director of Alcohol Beverages Australia, calls the "Spread" ad "scaremongering," Harper notes "every drink" ups one's chance of getting cancer, including that of the mouth, liver, and bowel. What these findings should do is spur campaigns that maximize the public's awareness of alcohol so they can cut their cancer risk, Harper says, per Mumbrella. (A study says alcohol can be directly tied to seven cancers.)
– NASA says child sex slaves have not—we repeat: have not—been kidnapped and taken to Mars. NASA issued the ridiculous denial to the Daily Beast after a guest Thursday on The Alex Jones Show claimed otherwise. Robert David Steele—who Space.com notes was listed as a "CIA insider"—told Jones children are being kidnapped, forced into a 20-year mission in space, and ending up on Mars, where they are used as slave labor and killed for their blood and bone marrow. Steele claimed the children are sexually assaulted before being killed to "adrenalize their blood." Jones chimed in, calling such a process "the original growth hormone." He also claimed 90% of NASA missions are secret, adding, "Clearly they don't want us looking into what is happening." NASA spokesperson Guy Webster explained to the Daily Beast that while there are rovers on Mars, there aren't any people. He says he's shocked there's "only one stupid rumor on the Internet" he has to debunk this week. This isn't the first outlandish conspiracy theory Jones has given credence to. The Washington Post reports Jones, who has millions of listeners nationwide, claims the Sandy Hook massacre is a hoax and promoted "Pizzagate," which tied Hillary Clinton to a pedophile ring being run out of a pizza restaurant. During the campaign, President Trump said Jones' "reputation is amazing" and promised not to let him down.
– Conservative blogs are beside themselves with glee today, jumping on President Obama for using a teleprompter to talk to 6th graders last week. “It would surely be funny if he had,” says the Weekly Standard. “But it doesn’t appear that he did.” Photos of Obama’s sit-down with the kids reveal that there were no teleprompters. Obama brought them out later before speaking to the media, but videos of that speech reveal that no children were present.
– Grant Acord detailed his alleged plot to blow up his Oregon high school in handwritten journals, and the plans were revealed in an affidavit released yesterday. In one, the 17-year-old envisions arriving at the school with loud music blasting from his car. As he threw a napalm firebomb and then started shooting, he planned to announce, "The Russian grim reaper is here," according to the document. In another, Acord wrote that he would "kill myself before SWAT engages me." There's also a list of "Items I'll Take," which includes not just weapons but things like a hammer and sickle baseball cap and a skull and crossbones belt buckle. The journals also reportedly compare Acord to the Columbine High School shooters, the Oregonian reports; authorities say Acord printed out pages of information about the weapons they used. Acord's mom, Marianne Fox, says he suffers from Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal infections or PANDAS, a mental illness. According to an author who had written about PANDAS and had spoken with Fox, she was attempting to find a way to get more expensive treatment for Acord. The teen's former stepdad says Acord was also getting therapy and treatment for OCD. (In a statement, Fox called PANDAS "a rare form of OCD," and the Oregonian notes that quite a bit of controversy surrounds the condition.)
– Sunday night's MTV Movie and TV Awards is getting more attention than usual thanks to a first among major awards shows: In handing out its top acting honors, the show ditched the separate categories for male and female actors. As a result, Emma Watson won Best Actor in a Movie for her role as Belle in Beauty and the Beast, reports E! Online. She beat out the likes of James McAvoy and Hugh Jackman, notes the BBC. "The first acting award in history that doesn't separate nominees based on their sex says something about how we perceive the human experience," said Watson in her acceptance speech. (Watch it here.) The award "will mean something different to everyone," she said, "but to me, it indicates that acting is about the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes. And that doesn't need to be separated into two different categories." As the Washington Post notes, Watson thanked presenter Asia Kate Dillon of Billions, who identifies as gender-binary and publicly questioned the separate gender categories when nominated for an Emmy earlier this year. MTV also dropped gender distinctions in the TV category, awarding Best Actor in a Show to 13-year-old Millie Bobby Brown of Stranger Things from Netflix. Stranger Things also won Show of the Year, while Beauty and the Beast was Movie of the Year. See the full list of winners via the AP. (Some say the Beauty and the Beast-themed opening was awkward.)
– After three straight quarters of sales declines, Whole Foods is hoping a trendy new store format will lure millennials—and people of a "millennial mind-set," as the New Yorker was informed—away from competitors like Aldi and Trader Joe's. It's called "365 by Whole Foods Market." The first location opened in May in Silver Lake, Calif., "the hipster-est section of LA," Joel Stein reports in an exploration of that location for Bloomberg Businessweek. The fortysomething took a target-demo 27-year-old friend along with him, and the two were greeted by a "Free Air Guitars" sign outside. The store is about two-thirds the size of a Whole Foods, which can have 500 workers to 365's 100, and it's definitely cheaper: The Los Angeles Times found a gallon of milk for $2.49, a full dollar below Whole Foods' price, for instance. There's no cheesemonger or deli counter, but technology abounds: Prices appear on digital tablets, shoppers can scan a wine bottle's bar code and read user-generated comments about it, and there's the TeaBot—a contraption that lets you dial up your perfect cup of tea. There's also a café (beer and wine available), salad bar (where you pay by the container, not the pound), and a mural that is apparently a perfect Instagram backdrop. The next two locations to open this year will be in Lake Oswego, Ore., and Seattle, reports the Seattle Times. Bloomberg points out Whole Foods isn't alone in trying to create a millennial grocery store. Supermarket giant Kroger is testing a "cooler version of itself" in the form of Main & Vine, which debuted in Gig Harbor, Wash.
– Hillary Clinton tweeted "3-0" on Wednesday—and she wasn't referring to the Canucks' win over the Blue Jackets in the NHL. Clinton zinged President Trump with the tweet immediately after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reinstate Trump's travel ban, handing him a major defeat less than three weeks into his presidency, the Daily Dot reports. The Los Angeles Times reports that former Attorney General Eric Holder also tweeted "3.0." "Skill, judgment, courgage [sic]," he wrote, posting a photo of former acting AG Sally Yates, who was fired for refusing to defend the ban in court. "VINDICATED." Trump also used all caps in a tweet after the ruling, saying: "SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE."
– A Manhattan bar that previously made waves for banning people in saggy pants will now figuratively kick you out for saying the word "literally." A sign posted this week at The Continental tells patrons that "literally" is "the most overused, annoying word in the English language and we will not tolerate it," adding that scofflaws will have five minutes to finish their drink and vamoose, per Munchies. This might have gone unnoticed, had the sign not caused a bit of a stir on social media, angering some who detected sexism. But owner Trigger Smith revealed to Grub Street that while he does indeed hate the word "literally," patrons won't really be kicked out. "I literally feel sorry for anybody who would take this seriously," says Smith, whose bar will close this summer after 27 years in business, per Time Out.
– The Pentagon has dispatched a team to Niger to figure out exactly what happened in an attack two weeks ago that left four US soldiers dead and two others injured, the New York Daily News reports. Despite the deadly attack happening Oct. 4, officials tell NBC News they still have pretty much no idea about what happened. "We need to collect some very basic raw facts," one defense official says, adding the confusion surrounding the attack was "tremendous." According to CNN, we know the US soldiers were conducting an exercise in Niger when they were ambushed by 50 fighters linked to ISIS. The Defense Department review of the ambush hopes to determine if the soldiers were prepared for the attack, if they had protective equipment, if they adequately responded, and more. One person who doesn't want to wait for the Pentagon to get answers: Sen. John McCain. McCain on Wednesday said he believes the Trump administration has more information on the attack than it's sharing with Congress, and he may resort to a subpoena to get that information without waiting on the investigation. "That's not how the system works. We're coequal branches of government," McCain said Thursday. "We should be informed at all times." Jim Mattis says the military doesn't yet have the facts on the attack, Reuters reports. “We, in the Department of Defense, like to know what we are talking about before we talk and so we do not have all the accurate information yet," the Defense secretary said Thursday. He says the administration will release the information "as rapidly as we get it."
– Tap water has been declared safe to drink and bathe in again in Toledo, Ohio, but scientists warn that toxic algae blooms could be here to stay. Fertilizer from farms and cattle feedlots are partly to blame for the thick layer of algae choking Lake Erie, the most developed of the Great Lakes, reports the New York Times, which calls summertime swimming bans "so routine" in the state. But it's not just nitrogen and phosphorus feeding the algae, which is made up of bacteria called micosystis—it's also the introduction of invasive zebra and quagga mussels that eat the algae and then eject the micosystis, which builds over time, according to the Christian Science Monitor. And as the climate changes, leading to fewer but stronger spring storms, those toxins have longer periods of calm in which they grow, only to be stirred to the surface by the storms. Because the algae are found in bodies of freshwater through the US, it's unlikely that the 11 million people who live along the lake are the only ones in the country afflicted by safe water concerns. Still, experts seem to think the problem is solvable: "We have the means," one biologist tells the Monitor. "But these things cost money. Until people decide it's a high-enough priority, it's not going to get done." Meanwhile, poisonous algae have been found in lakes from California to Minnesota and even Cape Cod in Massachusetts. (In other bad water news, flesh-eating bacteria have hit a number of Southern beachgoers.)
– Two words: Moon base. AFP reports the US and Russia will work together on a NASA program to build the Deep Space Gateway, a space station in orbit around the moon. NASA and Russia's Roscosmos signed an agreement to cooperate on the station—which will be "an invaluable pit stop for human and robotic exploration of the lunar surface" and "a staging point for deep space missions" to Mars and Venus—on Wednesday at the 68th International Astronautical Congress in Australia, according to Motherboard. While the Deep Space Gateway program is being led by NASA, Roscosmos will contribute docking ports and life support systems, and Russian rockets will be used to help with construction, Engadget reports. NASA wants to start work on the Deep Space Gateway, which will be crewed by four astronauts, in the mid-2020s. It's one step toward its goal of sending humans to Mars by the 2030s. In statements, Roscosmos and NASA say they share a "common vision for human exploration." The Deep Space Gateway agreement is important for a number of reasons. It clarifies NASA's goals and how it will achieve them after years of funding issues. It also makes it less likely Congress will put the kibosh on the Deep Space Gateway at some point. Finally, the agreement will be one more thing keeping the US and Russia from—as Engadget puts it—descending "into outright hostilities." Space is so far one of the few places where tensions between the two countries haven't risen recently. (China has some big lunar ambitions, too.)
– Serious Spider-Man fans surely already know what's going on thanks to online leaks, but casual ones should stop reading now to avoid learning what's in store in the comic book's just-released 700th episode. It's a doozy of a plot twist: Peter Parker dies, and his arch-enemy Doctor Octopus takes over his body and mind. So this is the end for Parker after 50 years? The AP couches its coverage with the phrase "at least for now" and USA Today adds "possibly permanent." In fact, "the biggest challenge Marvel appears to be facing is convincing the press and fans that the changes are real," writes Scott Johnson at Comicbook.com. A Marvel press release calls this "the single most seismic shift in Spider-Man’s history—and it’s not something that will disappear any time soon," which doesn't exactly have the ring of eternity. What we do know is that episode 700 of the Amazing Spider-Man will not be followed by episode 701. Instead, expect No. 1 of Superior Spider-Man next month.
– Lessons in political decorum, Florida-style: During floor debate in the state House, Democrat Scott Randolph joked that his wife should "incorporate her uterus" if she wanted to avoid abortion restrictions, reports the St. Petersburg Times. His point was that Republicans are so reluctant to regulate businesses, they would steer clear. GOP leaders weren't amused and told Democrats that Randolph should not mention body parts on the floor. "It's not like I used slang," says Randolph. A GOP spokeswoman: "The Speaker believes it is important for all Members to be mindful of and respectful to visitors and guests, particularly the young pages and messengers who are seated in the chamber during debates." He'd like advance notice of "inappropriate language" in the future so "children and others who may be uncomfortable with the subject matter" can be asked to leave. Click for more.
– The MacArthur Foundation "genius" grants have risen from $500,000 to $625,000 this year, but for recipient Karen Russell, the real prize is time. The author wrote her Pulitzer-nominated debut novel, Swamplandia!, while working part time at a vet clinic, reports the AP, and has been traveling from city to city taking writing gigs at universities to support herself since, adds the New York Times. Now she can write full time, and stay in one place. "Just the idea of having a stretch of time where you can commit your time wholeheartedly to a project, nobody gets that," says Russell, per the AP. The $625,000 stipend is paid out over five years, and can be used in any way the winners (there are 24 of them) see fit. Dancer-choreographer Kyle Abraham, 36, who has in the past had to rely on food stamps to get by, says the money will help him pay his dancers and rent, the Times reports. Attorney Margaret Stock, 51, says the money will help continue her work advocating for US military personnel and their families who are facing immigration issues, reports the AP. Other 2013 recipients include a medieval historian, an astrophysicist, a paleobotanist, a jazz pianist, an experimental physicist, and a statistician. The AP has a full list of names.
– In the wake of the Michael Brown shooting, President Obama has taken flak for not speaking more forcefully—or more personally—about it. (Eric Holder, for instance, has recounted his own troubles with police as a black man in America.) Well, the president's critics are wrong, writes Charles Lane at the Washington Post. The last thing we need is more "emotional rhetoric." Pundits are free to say what they want, but Obama "has actual responsibilities, of which the most pressing are to keep a highly dangerous situation from getting any worse and to supervise an impartial investigation of the horrific event that led up to it." At the Root, David Swerdlick makes a similar case, arguing that the president's measured comments have been "exactly right" so far. "Although there are a lot of different voices that can underscore the racial injustice that surrounds Ferguson and the killing of Michael Brown, there’s only one person who can direct FBI resources and order the Justice Department to investigate a civil rights violation: Obama," he writes. "And I’d rather see someone who does understand black anger fulfilling that role rather than focusing on making speeches." Looking for a rebuttal? Maureen Dowd would love to see Obama flash some black anger. "Why should the president neutralize himself?" she asks in the New York Times. "Why doesn’t he do something bold and thrilling? Get his hands dirty? Stop going to Beverly Hills to raise money and go to St. Louis to raise consciousness?" Click for her full column, or Swerdlick's, or Lane's.
– The Internet is already getting pummeled with Fight Club jokes with the announcement of what may be the strangest app to come along in some time: Rumblr, "an app for recreational fighters to find, meet, and fight other brawl enthusiasts nearby," per its website. The beta version of the app, which bills itself as "Tinder for Fighting," is set to launch Monday at 5pm EST, the app's team told the New York Daily News in an email and via a tweet. The app will supposedly allow users to "get matched with others who want to throw down," scheduling fights between like-minded competitors. It will also post fights on an interactive map by location and type (e.g., girl fights or gang fights, as VentureBeat helpfully notes). Users can set up detailed profiles with their stats—height, weight, wins, losses—and even trash-talk each other using the app's "Chat" feature, per the Daily News. Which sounds intriguing, except that everything about this app screams hoax. The Washington Post lays out the most convincing argument why it's probably just "a marketing stunt, a prank or (best case!) an unsubtle parody," mainly due to the app's "questionable legality" (an assertion backed up by SportingNews.com) and the fact that the app's founders appear to be a "skinny" college junior and recent high school grad who don't seem likely to be the "lifelong recreational fighters" they claim to be. But they insist they're ready to rumble. "We have raised relatively substantial funding from private American investors and the app is fully developed," reads Rumblr's email to the Daily News. The team says the app will be on the App Store after it works out "legal issues," as the paper puts it. FightState.com, going on the premise the app is legit, asked the app's owners what will happen if someone gets killed. The response: "We're hands off after the initial matchup. Hopefully, a funeral." (The App Store took a conservative approach in recently allowing a pot app.)
– President Trump's general lambasting of the media got more specific Wednesday night when he called out journalist Carl Bernstein. The president declared that Bernstein, "a man who lives in the past and thinks like a degenerate fool, making up story after story, is being laughed at all over the country!" Bernstein then responded, writing that he has "spent my life as a journalist bringing the truth to light, through administrations of both parties" and that "no taunt will diminish my commitment to that mission." He ended by standing by a story he co-authored at CNN last month that is at the heart of the dispute. That piece, based on unnamed sources, reported that Michael Cohen says Trump knew in advance of the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russians. It's a damning allegation if true, but one of the sources is now recanting. Over the weekend, Cohen attorney Lanny Davis acknowledged that he was one of CNN sources in July, but he said he "made a mistake" and had no information that Trump knew of the meeting ahead of time, per Business Insider. However, CNN—and now Bernstein, specifically—is standing by the story, saying that other sources backed it up. "CNN is being torn apart from within based on their being caught in a major lie and refusing to admit the mistake," wrote Trump Wednesday night, and he continued the theme on Thursday morning. "I just cannot state strongly enough how totally dishonest much of the Media is," he wrote, returning to his "Enemy of the People!" slogan. "What’s going on at @CNN is happening, to different degrees, at other networks - with @NBCNews being the worst," he added.
– Many traditional fairy tales, long thought to be a somewhat recent invention, have actually been around for thousands of years, according to a new study. "Versions of Beauty and the Beast, Rumplestiltskin, and Jack and the Beanstalk have probably been around since before the existence of many modern European languages, like English, German, Russian, and French, and would have originally been told in a now extinct ancestral language from which those tongues evolved," co-author Jamshid Tehrani of Durham University tells Discovery News. He estimates that some such tales pre-date the Bible and Greek and Roman mythology, having been in existence as many as 4,000 to 6,000 years, and may have actually influenced the Bible and other religious texts. Generally, fairy tales have been believed to date back to just the 16th or 17th centuries, though the Brothers Grimm long believed the stories they transcribed and popularized were actually much older, the BBC reports. "We can come firmly down on the side of Wilhelm Grimm," Tehrani tells the BBC. "Some of these stories go back much further than the earliest literary record." Tehrani, an anthropologist, and fellow researcher Sara Graça da Silva, a folklorist, used phylogenetic methods more commonly used by biologists to come to their conclusions. Discovery reports they looked at 275 Indo-European fairy tales, narrowing those down to 76 that had likely been passed down through a closely-related group and mapping those onto a "family tree" of Indo-European languages in order to trace them back to a common ancestor. By analyzing common languages and geographical proximity, the Guardian reports, the researchers determined how far back they could trace the tales. The stories we know today evolved, much like humans, the Washington Post explains, and the tree showed that evolution. Jack and the Beanstalk, for example, is part of a group of stories the researchers called "The Boy Who Stole Ogre's Treasure," which can be traced back 5,000 years to when there was a language split, according to the Guardian. (Another recent study has bad news for Cinderella.)
– Attention, Amelia Earhart buffs. The Miami Herald has an intriguing report about how a long-forgotten photo snapped before takeoff could prove that she crash-landed on a Pacific island. The photo, taken on a runway in Miami in 1937, shows a shiny rectangular patch on the side of the plane that suggests a recent repair—a potential clue not visible in any other photos taken of her plane that day. Earhart investigator and TIGHAR Director Ric Gillespie hopes that computer analysis of the image will reveal a rivet pattern that matches up with a piece of aluminum found on the island of Nikumaroro in 1991. In fact, it was Gillespie's search team that found the 23-inch-long piece, which it dubbed Artifact 2-2-V-1, years ago, and he viewed it as a major breakthrough in solving the mystery of where the plane went down. (TIGHAR released a research bulletin on the artifact in May.) But critics soon pounced, pointing out that its rivet patterns didn't match those on Earhart's Lockheed plane. If, however, the scrap had been added in a last-minute, unrecorded repair, that could explain it. The Herald report also notes that Earhart had a rough landing in Miami, and she apparently had to patch a broken rear window as a result. The window can be seen in photos from an earlier leg of the trip, but in its place in the newly surfaced photo is that shiny aluminum patch. Click to see the image, or to read other stories on developments in the search.
– Nestle's Poland Spring bottled water does come from Maine, but its state of origin isn't the issue being raised in a class-action lawsuit against the company. In what they call a "colossal fraud," 11 plaintiffs in eight states argue the "100% Natural Spring Water" is actually "ordinary groundwater" drawn from wells "in low-lying populated areas near potential sources of contamination," including a landfill and ash pile, per Courthouse News. The FDA classifies spring water as "derived from an underground formation from which water flows naturally to the surface of the earth." But the lawsuit, seeking at least $5 million in damages, claims Nestle's wells are unconnected to a natural spring, which "has never been proven to exist," reports Consumerist. If such a spring did exist, it certainly wouldn't produce 1 billion gallons of Poland Spring water bottled each year, say the plaintiffs, who also accuse Nestle of faking springs "by causing well water to flow artificially through pipes or plastic tubes into wetlands." Consumers "would not buy, or would not pay premium prices for, Poland Spring Water products" if they knew the truth, reads the lawsuit filed Tuesday in Connecticut. According to its website, Poland Spring water is collected "before it emerges at the surface" as a spring. In a statement, Nestle adds "Poland Spring is 100% spring water" that meets FDA regulations. The Press Herald notes Nestle agree to $8 million in consumer discounts plus charitable donations in order to settle a similar suit in 2003. (This man decided to sue Kellogg's after realizing how much sugar is in its cereals.)
– If you've been ignoring Amazon's prodding to update your Kindle, you may want to start paying attention. As Quartz reports, any Kindle purchased before 2012 must be updated by Tuesday, March 22, in order to continue being able to connect to the Internet. If you miss the deadline, you'll lose access to books you've purchased and stored in Amazon's cloud, the ability to download new books, and more. You can still update after Tuesday, but the process is "more cumbersome," Quartz notes. Complete instructions and a list of impacted devices here. (This guy ordered a Kindle, but received something way more disgusting.)
– The tiny town of Nelson, Georgia, is facing a court battle after passing a law that requires all households to own a gun and ammunition. The DC-based Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence had filed a federal lawsuit against the town on the grounds that the law, which was passed in April, is unconstitutional, and violates the 1st and 14th Amendments, reports CNN. "Forcing residents to buy guns they do not want or need won’t make the City of Nelson or its people any safer, and only serves to increase gun sales and gun industry profits," said a spokesman in a statement. But town leaders say the law is largely symbolic, is not actually being enforced, and anyone who opposes gun ownership on moral or religious grounds can opt out, reports Fox News. Advocates of the law say it's more of a statement about the lax police protection offered to the 1,300-resident town, and a protest against the push toward stricter gun control at a federal level.
– Forget Justin Timberlake: Kim Jong Un just brought sexy back. The Onion named the North Korean leader "Sexiest Man Alive" earlier this month, and the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party totally bought it. People's Daily reported the happy news today, and ran a 55-picture gallery to celebrate, the Atlantic Wire reports. A South Korean paper also ran the story as fact, although without the accompanying image gallery. As a bonus, that paper lists previous winners of the Onion honor, including Bashar al-Assad and Bernie Madoff. (Click to see how the Onion once also fooled Iran.)
– Ronan Farrow, the journalist whose work helped bring down Harvey Weinstein, has another powerful figure in his sights: Leslie Moonves, the CEO of CBS. To be clear, the story in the New Yorker isn't out yet, but it's expected to be published Friday afternoon, per the Hollywood Reporter. Details are sparse so far, but THR says the piece will raise allegations against Moonves "of unwanted kissing and touching that occurred more than 20 years ago, as well as numerous claims that occurred more recently." CBS' independent board is already out with a statement, saying that it takes all such allegations seriously and is investigating the claims. "Upon the conclusion of that investigation, which involves recently reported allegations that go back several decades, the Board will promptly review the findings and take appropriate action." Moonves, 68, is "perhaps one of the most influential figures in entertainment," per Deadline, while THR calls him "one of the most powerful men in Hollywood." Even though the story has yet to publish, advance reports about it seem to be taking a toll: CBS shares were down 7%, reports CNBC. The story will publish with Moonves and CBS currently engaged in a nasty legal fight with Shari Redstone, controlling shareholder for both CBS and Viacom, who wants to merge the two companies. Both parties have sued each other in a bid for control, and while CBS shares were sinking, Viacom's were up 4.5%. As the buzz builds, Farrow tweeted this: "A quick reminder that I don’t comment on reporting I haven’t published, and if you’re reading about my work from secondary sources you’re often not getting the full or correct story—especially in cases where parties have an interest in downplaying or otherwise spinning."
– The CEO who spent $1.2 million renovating his office and arranged $3.6 billion in executive bonuses while his company, Merrill Lynch, was circling the toilet bowl, has just been named CEO of CIT Group. John Thain rises to the top of a public company again a year after he was jettisoned by Bank of America after it acquired Merrill Lynch. Thain inherits a firm struggling since former Merrill colleague and ex-CEO Jeffrey Peek immersed the company in subprime mortage lending before its bankruptcy. If Thain "can pull this off, he’s going to be the king," an analyst tells Bloomberg. CIT is still operating under conditions tied to its 2008 federal bailout, and is barred from the commercial paper market, which has traditionally been a key source of income for the firm. CIT provides business loans to more than 3,000 companies and employs some 4,500 workers. Thain will reportedly be paid a $500,000 salary and receive $5 million in shares.
– An emerging Irish author has been awarded a major literary prize by the university where she works as a cleaner. Per CBC, Caitriona Lally has won the 2018 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature for her debut novel, "Eggshells." Lally won the honor from Trinity College Dublin, where she once studied English and where she has since taken work as a member of the custodial staff. The mother-of-one told the Irish Times she was having an arduous day as a working mom, and had all but decided to give up writing her sophomore novel, when she got the news. The 39-year-old not only won a cash prize, but her book will also be published by a major press in Ireland and Britain. (CBC has an interview with Caitrona, who said she wasn't even sure what the Rooney Prize was when she learned she'd won.)
– Some Massachusetts teens hoping their prom night would be [fire emoji] got more than they bargained for when their limo burst into flames on the way to the dance, CBS Boston reports. According to ABC7, 10 teens were riding in a white stretch limo Friday on their way to the Natick High School prom. But the driver had to pull over when smoke stared pouring from between the dashboard and windshield, WCVB reports. The driver tried and failed to smother the flames with his suit jacket while students got away. And within minutes the entire limo was engulfed. "It looked like it was going to explode," one student tells CBS. It's unclear what caused the fire—which started up again after the limo was towed—though ABC7 reports the limo hit a tree. None of the students were hurt and ended up getting a ride to prom with another group. "They're going to have quite the story to tell," one student's father tells CBS.
– The head of Qatar Airways is backpedaling after saying it takes a man to do his job. Akbar Al Baker attended Tuesday's annual meeting of the International Air Transport Association in Sydney, Australia, where he was named as the organization's new chairman. But it was his response to a question about gender imbalance in the industry, a key topic of the meeting, that drew the most notice. Qatar Airways "has to be led by a man because it is a very challenging position," Al Baker said. A day later, he issued "heartfelt apologies for any offense caused," though he said his comment was "sensationalized by the media," per the BBC. "Qatar Airways is made stronger by its female employees" and "the dedication, drive, and skill they bring to their jobs tells me that no role is too tough for them," he added. Al Baker clarified that includes the role of CEO. (Females currently lead just six of IATA's 280 airline members.) Majority shareholder Air Italy "has shortlisted women to be the CEO and as a minority shareholder, we are actively encouraging that," he said, adding "it would be my pleasure if I could help develop a female candidate to be the next CEO of Qatar Airways." Al Baker also stressed that he's "known in the media for some lightheartedness at press conferences," per CNN. The BBC agrees the CEO "has a reputation for making blunt and often humorous comments, but they can also backfire." Just last year, Al Baker apologized after he was accused of ageism for referring to US flight attendants as "grandmothers." The average age of his airline's flight attendants at the time was 26, per CBS News.
– Europe's central banking system has agreed to buy huge quantities of Spanish and Italian government bonds in an attempt to stem the debt crisis overwhelming the eurozone, a source told Reuters after an ECB conference call today. “The Euro system will intervene very significantly,” the source said. He didn’t say how much the bank would pour into the spend, but it’s expected to dwarf the $115 billion spent on Greek, Irish and Portuguese bonds. One economist told the Wall Street Journal that "respectable arguments can be made for ($331 billion to $576 billion) of purchases." Debate over the matter was intense, with one French official calling the ECB out: "Guardian of the euro, she must intervene massively on the debt market to avoid the implosion of the zone." Opponents, meanwhile, questioned whether intervention even works: Despite the aforementioned bond purchases in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal, all three retain junk-bond status, with Greece still teetering on collapse.
– Disturbing details have surfaced in the case of Mariah Woods, the North Carolina 3-year-old found dead days after she disappeared from her mother's home. According to court documents seen by the Jacksonville Daily News, Earl Kimrey, the mother's live-in boyfriend, was accused of sexually abusing the girl and beating her two brothers, ages 5 and 10. Alex Woods, Mariah's biological father, provided Child Protective Services documents that state one of the boys saw Kimrey abuse the girl. The boy allegedly told CPS that mother Kristy Woods knew about the abuse, as well as Kimrey's use of drugs, including heroin and methamphetamine. Kimrey was arrested Dec. 1 in connection with the disappearance and faces charges including concealing a death, although prosecutors have yet to accuse anybody of killing the girl, the News & Observer reports. According to court documents, the two boys were placed in the care of their maternal grandmother Nov. 27, the same day Mariah was reported missing. WRIC reports that authorities confirmed Wednesday that a body found in a creek Saturday is that of the toddler. Investigators haven't disclosed how she died, though the case has been described as a homicide investigation and arrest documents accuse Kimrey of secretly disposing of the body, the New York Daily News reports.
– Tech company Zapier says San Francisco is a fantastic city—and it would like to encourage its employees to move far away from it. In a blog post, CEO Wade Foster offers a $10,000 "de-location" package to new recruits who are struggling with the cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area, which has some of the country's highest rents, but are worried about moving away because they don't want to give up tech career opportunities, ABC7 reports. All of the workplace automation company's employees work remotely, and the firm thinks "you should be able to work wherever you want and still work at a place that helps you achieve your career goals," Foster writes in the blog post. "I know there are quite a few people in the Bay Area who are new parents looking to find a better standard of living," Foster tells the San Francisco Chronicle. "It's difficult for a family of four to afford rent, a mortgage, or child care here in the Bay Area. Even if you are a two-income family this can still be difficult." The $10,000 will be used to reimburse moving expenses in the first three months, according to the fine print, and those who take Zapier up on the offer have to agree to work for the company for at least a year. Foster, who moved to the Bay Area from Missouri five years ago, says he still loves the area but is considering moving away with his wife "because there are benefits of being in a lower cost of living area and being closer to family." (Speaking of expensive things...)
– Anton Yelchin's parents are suing Fiat Chrysler over their son's death, their lawyer has announced, reports Variety. The 27-year-old Star Trek actor died in June when his Jeep Grand Cherokee rolled down his driveway, pinning him to a pillar; it turned out the vehicle was under recall at the time because of a problem with the gear shifter making it seem like the car was in 'park' when it was actually in 'neutral.' But it has been reported that recall letters may not have been sent to owners by the time Yelchin died. His parents are also suing the gear shifter manufacturer and retail chain AutoNation. Their lawyer says, per TMZ, that the family wants punitive damages "for the wrongful death of their son due to significant defects" with the vehicle. Fiat Chrysler won't comment on the specific suit since it has not yet been served, but a spokesman says the company "urges customers to follow the instructions in their owner's manuals and or the information cards sent with their recall notices," reports the New York Daily News. "These instructions include advising customers to set the parking brakes in their vehicles before exiting. Customers are urged to timely respond to their recall notices." Yelchin's parents are also filing to control his estate since he died with no will and was neither married nor had children, People reports.
– After months of protests by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and their supporters, the US Army Corps of Engineers on Sunday said it would consider alternate routes for the Dakota Access pipeline that didn't travel under North Dakota's Lake Oahe, effectively putting the brakes on the nearly finished pipeline's construction. What that means, how the news was received, and where we go from here: The Huffington Post had a photographer on the scene, and shares images of "what victory ... looks like." Mic similarly shares a dozen photos that show how the win was received. So what's next? The Argus Leader focuses on some protesters' cry to get the 92%-complete pipeline shut down for good, and looks at the challenging ways that could come to pass: via the tribe's court effort, due to the financial impact of a delay, or via a court battle somewhere else entirely—Iowa. The protesters could be dealt a blow in short order, though, reports Bustle, which looks at what's next through the lens of the Environmental Impact Study the Army has ordered. There's a court hearing this Friday related to a claim brought by the company constructing the pipeline, and one possible outcome is that the court could override the Army’s decision. At the BBC, James Cook points out that the Army Corps' memorandum "might strongly suggest that the pipeline will be re-routed but it does not actually say that will happen." He briefly digs into the language, and is pretty unequivocal in his expectation that a President Trump will try to reverse the Corps' move. The BBC also has reaction from Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics, two companies involved, who accuse the White House of attempting to "curry favor with a narrow and extreme political constituency." For deep reading, head to Mother Jones and dig into "How a Movement Was Born at Standing Rock." There, Wes Enzinna writes for the Jan/Feb issue, "Many at Standing Rock saw the threat of environmental catastrophe as inextricable from racial injustice," noting that a preliminary plan to take the pipeline through Bismark was turned down by the Army Corps over worries about that city's water supply. "Bismark's population is 92% white," notes Enzinna. More deep reading: The Minneapolis Star Tribune looks at the "long complicated road" and goes back to the start: "The dispute is rooted in the fracking revolution that transformed North Dakota."
– St. Louis police shot to death a black man today who allegedly pointed a gun at officers, raising tensions on a day when protesters were already gathering to mark the anniversary of another fatal police shooting, reports the Post-Dispatch. In today's shooting, police say they were serving a search warrant on a house when two men ran from the home. One of them turned during the chase and raised his gun, at which point the two white officers pursuing him opened fire, say police. "What I know right now is that somebody pointed a gun at police officers," says police chief Sam Dotson. Police recovered crack cocaine and guns from the home. About 200 protesters gathered near the scene after the shooting, reports KTVI. The protesters already had been out in force to mark the one-year anniversary of the fatal shooting of Kajieme Powell. Police say Powell had been waving a knife at officers when they opened fire.
– A Florida man died of a gunshot wound nearly 60 years after the bullet was fired, a medical examiner says. John Henry Barrett , 77, died in May of an infection and complications related to the gunshot wound, leading the Palm Beach County medical examiner to rule it a homicide, per the AP. At age 19, Barrett was shot by a friend during a fight, with the bullet damaging his spinal cord and leaving him partially paralyzed. He was eventually able to walk with the aid of a cane. The friend, who was not identified in the medical examiner's report, served time in prison. Court and law enforcement officials told the Palm Beach Post they could not find any records with information about the suspect or the 1958 shooting. Barrett worked for three decades as a pastor and was a former executive director of the Pahokee Housing Authority. He told the Miami Herald in 1974 that the injury kept him from working in the fields, like many of his friends did—and that might have been a blessing. "If the accident hadn't happened, I would have spent all of my life as a farm worker," he told the newspaper. His family told the Post that Barrett didn't speak often about the shooting but used it as a way to inspire others. "He never wanted to be looked upon as (being disabled)," said Terrance Lee, his great-nephew. "He wanted to be looked up to as a normal person in society. That's the way he lived his life."
– French researchers have been testing a diuretic on kids with autism, and in a study released yesterday in Science, they explain why they think the drug, a version of bumetanide they have patented, has so much promise: because of their experiments with mice. As USA Today explains, a chemical switch needs to be flipped in the brain at or near birth in order for the brain to develop normally; the "flip" changes "the chemical GABA from stimulating electrical activity in the brain to tamping it down." As LiveScience explains, the hormone oxytocin would normally cause a switch, but it seems that in some cases, a buildup of chloride prevents the flip. Bumetanide removes salt from the body, and when the researchers administered the drug to pregnant mice and rats "modeled for autism" just before delivery, the flip, which seemingly wouldn't have occurred, seemingly did. The LAT notes a pretty important facet of the study: The drug was tested on just two types of autism that amount to a minority of overall autism instances. Still, an autism expert calls it a "pretty incredible finding." The researchers caution against administering bumetanide to all pregnant mothers, as that could be dangerous, and it's not possible to prenatally know which children will eventually develop autism. But early diagnosis is key, and they're testing their drug in kids as young as 2 (diagnosis typically comes two years later, notes USA Today). At Forbes, Emily Willingham pokes holes at the study, noting that, for one, "This 'brain-protective' action of oxytocin has been established in rodents. It has not been established in humans. If it were relevant, one would expect a strong autism signal among children born via planned cesarean section, as that generally doesn't involve oxytocin influence."
– Australia already has at least one of the natural wonders of the world in the Great Barrier Reef, but it may have just added another one more than 300 feet under the sea on the other side of the continent, Mashable reports. According to a Parks Victoria announcement yesterday, scientists taking advantage of new technology sent an underwater robot equipped with cameras to explore Wilsons Promontory Marine National Park, only to discover a reef ecosystem "beyond expectations." The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports it was the first time the deeper areas of the park near Melbourne have been explored, and scientists had no idea what marine life they were going to find. According to Parks Victoria, what they found were sponges and coral that created "extensive walls, house-sized boulders, ridges, and caverns"; schools of fish living in 300-foot-deep holes; underwater dunes nearly 100 feet high; and aquatic species, such as the Australian barracuda, previously thought to be rare in the area. Mashable reports the marine park reef has just as many fish, sponges, and coral as the Great Barrier Reef, and Parks Victoria's science manager says they found "ecosystems that are comparable to Australia's better-known tropical reef areas." Now they just need a catchier name. Maybe the Just As Great Barrier Reef? (Scientists also recently discovered Earth's "older cousin.")
– Is North Korea ready to play nice? Pyongyang today invited officials and businessmen from South Korea to discuss reopening the Kaesong industrial complex, a joint venture in the North's territory that was shut down last month during Pyongyang's temper tantrum. Seoul had previously proposed government talks on reopening the factories, but North Korea had rejected that idea. But now, permission has been given for South Korean business reps to return to Kaesong to do maintenance, and the North has agreed to "discuss the shipment of products at the industrial complex" and a normalization of operations, according to the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea. South Korea's Unification Ministry was wary of the move, believing talks should be held by the governments, not businessmen, Yonhap News reports. But one expert believes the North is hoping these talks "pave the way" to government-level discussions. In other news from the Korean peninsula, operations have been halted or delayed at four South Korean nuclear reactors after it was discovered that some of the components used had fake safety certificates, the New York Times reports. It's just the latest of many problems to hit Seoul's nuclear power industry, and leaves just 13 of the country's 23 reactors online, leading to concerns of summer power shortages.
– Firefighters were expecting to find, well, flames. Instead, they discovered a man attempting to hang a woman beneath an overpass near Utah's Parleys Canyon on Friday, police say. A four-man crew responding to a report of smoke at the mouth of the canyon around 8pm found nothing troubling, so they "picked a random exit off Interstate 80 to turn their vehicle around," reports Gephardt Daily. There, they found their way blocked by a car "awkwardly positioned" beneath the underpass, says Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Randy Riches. A short distance away, they spotted a man pulling "a rope tied around the female's neck and strung from a pipe about 15 feet in the air on the side of the structure," Riches tells KSL. "The female was crying and attempting to grab at the rope that was around her neck," according to a jail report. The man then took the woman to his car in an attempt to avoid the firefighters, but "they didn't hesitate, they rushed right in," says Riches. The firefighters got the woman out of the car and into their fire engine and held the suspect until police arrived, he says. Juan Echeveste Alba, 22, of Salt Lake City, has since been charged with attempted murder and aggravated kidnapping. His relationship to the victim—who was treated for only minor cuts and bruises—is unclear, per Fox 13, though the woman told investigators that Alba had tried to hurt her previously and once cut off her air supply until she saw dots. "I guess it's better to be lucky than good sometimes," says a United Fire Authority rep. "Had it not been for the smoke call and had they gone one more exit, they never would have found her."
– WikiLeaks' US domain host terminated its account last night, making the website inaccessible for the third time in a week ... but it's already back online. EveryDNS, which had hosted the wikileaks.org domain name for 4 years, said the site has become the target of multiple denial-of-service attacks, threatening EveryDNS's infrastructure, Gawker reports. But hours after being booted, WikiLeaks announced a move to a company in Switzerland and tweeted its new URL, CNN reports. The move by EveryDNS—a subsidiary of New Hampshire-based firm Dynamic Network Services—meant WikiLeaks was briefly down, but not out, ZDNet notes. While typing wikileaks.org into a browser didn't take users to the site, much of its content could still be reached via IP addresses, and its leaked diplomatic cables have been widely distributed through file-sharing sites. Click here for more on WikiLeak's Internet woes.
– The Coast Guard is searching for three men whose fishing boat overturned off Oahu's North Shore. Authorities say Jensen Loo, Clint Oshima, and Derek Tomas—all aged 30—left Haleiwa around 5:45am Sunday and were to return by 5pm. The Coast Guard was alerted when the men still weren't back by 8:30pm, and on Monday their 20-foot fishing boat was found overturned 25 miles off Haleiwa, reports Hawaii News Now. Officials say a rescue swimmer searched the vessel but found no one on board. A helicopter, plane, and patrol boat are now searching with firefighters and the Navy, per the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. A friend says it's "surprising" the men are missing because they're avid fishermen. However, other fishermen say ocean conditions were rough and windy Sunday. "The seas are a little rough, especially out that far," says a Coast Guard rep. "Right now the visibility is great, so we're doing everything we can out there. We want to find them as soon as possible because if not, the search pattern just keeps getting bigger and bigger." Three boaters had to be rescued when their vessel capsized while towing the overturned boat, and another swam to shore, according to a release. One is now being treated for hypothermia.
– A new study published in Science Advances is being described as "horribly bleak," at least as far as rhinos, camels, and elephants are concerned: It finds that the majority of the planet's giant herbivores face the risk of extinction. The wildlife ecologists write that while about 4,000 species qualify as a "terrestrial mammalian herbivore," they zeroed in on just 74 such species whose mean adult body mass is 220 pounds. It's the "first time" just those large species have been viewed collectively, says study leader William Ripple of Oregon State University; per the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, 44 of them, or about 60%, are threatened with extinction. The researchers identified "twin threats": habitat change—25 of the 74 have lost 81% of their historical range—and hunting, with an estimated 1 billion people consuming wild meat. Their loss could have a dire ripple effect, the scientists explain: "Large herbivores are irreplaceable as seed dispersers," they write, "able to ... deliver many more seeds per defecation event over longer distances" as compared to other animals. It's one of many things they impact, from the frequency of wildfires to the creation of new channel systems in swamps. Ripple previously looked at large carnivores through the same lens and found similar issues, and he tells the BBC his latest study "adds another nail to [the carnivores'] coffin. It's no use having habitat if there's nothing left to eat in it." A press release notes that of the species reviewed, just one—the European bison—is found on the continent of the same name, and none in North America, thanks in part to "prehistoric hunting." Southeast Asia, India, and Africa are home to the bulk of the threatened giant herbivores. (Meanwhile, US zoos are letting their elephants die out.)
– High school students in Oklahoma walked out of classes yesterday in solidarity with three classmates who say they were raped by a fellow student and then bullied by the alleged attacker's friends. Hundreds of teens at Norman High School participated in the protests, which accused school officials of failing the three girls, Reuters reports. Protesters chanted slogans like "No justice, no class" and "No more bullying," the Oklahoman reports. All three of the alleged victims have stopped attending school, classmates say. "They don't want to come back because they don't feel safe to come back," says one protest organizer. She says the school suggested the girls switch high schools. A 16-year-old girl first reported the alleged attacker; afterward, two other girls said the same student had raped them. Police are investigating, they say, though the Oklahoman notes that officers weren't immediately told about the allegations. Still, a police captain says that school officials have been clear and open about the case. "The idea that we would punish a victim for being a victim is reprehensible," says one administrator. The alleged perpetrator, 18, has been suspended from school for the year, while a student said to have led the bullying has also been barred from school. Students are calling on the school's principal to implement new training programs and to install an advocate for victims.
– The second of two landmark gay rights cases is before the Supreme Court today, but supporters of marriage equality can take heart even if the decisions don't go their way, says New York Times stats whiz Nate Silver. Support for gay marriage hasn't surged recently, he finds, but it has been steadily increasing since around 2004 and supporters are almost certain to be in the majority nationwide soon. Gay marriage would probably have lost in a national referendum last year, but would narrowly win in 2016, according to Silver's projections. The steady rise in support means ballot initiatives to legalize gay marriage would succeed in 32 states by 2016 and in 44 states by 2020, with support above 48% in every state except Alabama and Mississippi, Silver projects. It is "the steadiness of the trend that makes same-sex marriage virtually unique among all major public policy issues, and which might give its supporters more confidence that the numbers will continue to break their way regardless of what the Supreme Court decides," he writes. (Click for Silver's full column.) Bill O'Reilly is also surveying the landscape, and Politico reports that he agrees that the wind is at the back of gay marriage advocates: "The compelling argument is on the side of homosexuals," he said on his show last night; they "just want to be treated like everybody else. The other side hasn’t been able to do anything but thump the Bible."
– LeBron James has pretty much decided he’ll be joining Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami, sources tell Chris Broussard of ESPN. Of course, James won’t make any announcement before his special tonight at 9pm Eastern—which just happens to be on ESPN—so there’s time for him to change his mind. Good buddy Chris Paul is urging him to stay in Cleveland, as are many others close to him. Friends say LeBron’s first choice was Cleveland, and that he’s been trying to lure players there. But with those efforts continually frustrated, he’s worried he’ll end up, as one source put it, “31-years-old, with bad knees and no title.” The sharps, at least, seem to think the Miami hype is legit. The odds have fluctuated wildly on InTrade recently, with Miami surging while the Knicks and Cavs plunge, Business Insider reports.
– Visiting Dixville Notch has paid off for John Kasich: The Ohio governor has prevailed in the northern New Hampshire village that casts the first ballots of the country's first primary, the AP reports. The Ohio governor, the only candidate to make it to the village, had 3 votes to Donald Trump's 2, while all four Dixville Notch Democrats voted for Bernie Sanders. Two other nearby towns also vote at midnight and release results immediately. In Millsfield, CNN reports that Ted Cruz beat Trump 9-3, with a few other GOP candidates getting 1 vote apiece, while Clinton beat Sanders 2-1. In Hart's Location, Sanders beat Clinton 12-7 and Kasich had 5 votes to Trump's 4, with four other GOP candidates splitting the other five votes.
– Scientists from the Marine Mammal Center in northern California believe they’ve discovered the cause of death of a female blue whale that washed up on a Marin County beach Thursday, and it's a human one. Injuries found on the 79-foot whale during a necropsy conducted Saturday—including 10 broken ribs, a fractured spine, and a damaged skull—indicate that the mammal was struck by a ship, reports SFGate. A local scientist posted a graphic photo of the researchers examining what he called "blue whale road kill," writing, "only through teamwork can researchers @calacademy find the cause of death, but looks like it was a ship." Barbie Halaska tells the Mercury News some cargo ships wouldn’t even notice a collision with a 300,000-pound blue whale because "these are huge boats." "People who have come into port with whales on the bow of their ships have told us they had no idea," she says. SFGate calls whale-ship collisions a "leading cause" of death for the creatures; the Mercury News notes another blue whale that was struck washed ashore in the area just this October, though scientists say they more often sink to the ocean floor following a ship strike. This latest blue whale was well-known to researchers, having been first identified in 1999 and seen on 11 more occasions by the scientific community. Halaska says the research being conducted around its death can help change conditions for the future when it comes to things like shipping routes and speeds. (It turns out there's a simple reason why blue whales got so huge.)
– Congressmen aren’t the only ones trading on their inside info. A lucrative practice has sprung up in Washington, in which hedge funds and other investors pay handsomely for private meetings with top lawmakers or their aides, who give them an early scoop on market-moving news, the Wall Street Journal reports. On Dec. 8, 2009, for example, several hedge funds learned of a health care reform deal that would kill the public option—and hence boost shares of private insurers—hours before the public did. That meeting was set up by JNK Securities, which until recently charged clients $10,000 each for such meetings. That ended when Insider Higher Ed confronted Sen. Tom Harkin about one sit-down last year, causing him to cancel; since then, JNK has simply insisted clients trade through it, paying it commissions, if they use info obtained in the meeting. The practice is totally legal, though Rep. Louise Slaughter has sponsored a bill to outlaw it. Some lawmakers back the bill, but others defend the practice, saying they use the meetings to gather insight from investors. Click to read the entire piece.
– Roughly 600,000 people came out to watch President Obama's inauguration this year, which is a far cry from the 1.8 million who came out for his first one, but might nonetheless set a record for a second term inauguration. A look at what all those people saw: A whole lot of celebrities, including Katy Perry, John Mayer, Nick Cannon, Eva Longoria, Cyndi Lauper. James Taylor sang "America the Beautiful," Kelly Clarkson sang "My Country 'Tis of Thee" (the New York Post catches Bill Clinton photobombing her), and Beyoncé sang the national anthem—at one point, reportedly plagued by audio problems, Gawker notes that she ripped her earpiece out on the way to an impeccable performance. A poem by Cuban immigrant Richard Blanco, who is at once the first Hispanic, the first openly gay, and the youngest poet to ever give an inaugural poem, according to the Miami Herald. You can read the poem here. Sasha Obama yawning, a moment that has, sadly for her, already become a gif, Gawker reports. The Westboro Baptist Church making an obligatory protest appearance, and sporting more protest signs (featuring hip slogans such as " GOD H8S FAGS") than people (eight), according to Daily Intel. Antonin Scalia wearing what Claire McCaskill calls a "really weird hat." Various observers on Twitter opined that it made him look like "a renaissance era painter" or a "mad medieval monk." Maybe he was just jealous of all the attention Aretha got last time out?
– Being sexist results in a double whammy on men's mental health, new research suggests. When men strongly conform to social masculine norms, they're more likely to suffer from ailments such as depression—and the more they cling to these norms, the less likely they are to seek help for those mental health problems. So find researchers with the American Psychological Association, who've published a meta analysis in the Journal of Counseling Psychology. Reviewing nearly 20,000 participants involved in more than 78 research samples, the researchers found a link between mental health and conformity to 11 norms, including the desire to win, violence, the need for emotional control, and risk-taking. Three norms in particular—self reliance, sexual promiscuity, and power over women—had a significantly strong link to negative mental health in men, reports New York magazine. "Sexism is not merely a social injustice, but may also have a detrimental effect on the mental health of those who embrace such attitudes," the lead researcher says in a Eureka Alert news release. A post at Popular Science notes the gray area involved in some of the norms: "It's not hard to see the appeal of being self-reliant, for example," but the problem is that if men put too much emphasis on this for fear of looking weak then they won't seek help in times of genuine trouble. (Boys who shun hyper-masculinity appear happier, too.)
– The New York Times has a new boss—Mark Thompson, the head executive of the BBC, reports the Boston Globe. Thompson is set to take over the Gray Lady in November as president and CEO, taking over from Janet Robinson, who was ousted from the Times last December. "It is a real privilege to be asked to join the Times Company as it embarks on the next chapter in its history," Thompson said in a statement. "They’re both news companies with incredible global authority and also both are known for being a bit of a stick in the mud," one analyst tells Bloomberg. Thompson has spent his entire career in broadcasting and his appointment is a sign that the Times is planning to shift further into the Internet and multimedia in the future, say observers. (Amusing side note: Politico dug up an old Guardian story about the time Thompson bit a colleague.)
– Standing up to China has helped Google regain some of that "don't be evil" aura lost as the company became a behemoth, writes Adam Ostrow. By telling China it will no longer censor search results, the firm has shown that it's willing to put principles before profit, Ostrow notes in Mashable. Google is now threatening to pull out of the nation entirely because of attacks on activists' email, AP reports. It's highly unlikely that China will allow Google to operate as an unfiltered search engine, so taking a stand will almost certainly hit the company's bottom line, especially if its rivals don't follow suit, Ostrow notes. The standing ovation will need to wait until we see what kind of agreement emerges, but "at least for a day or two, we can once again think of Google as a company that stands for more than a never ending quest for market share and profit."
– Saudi Arabia shut down the Twitter account of a government-linked youth group after it escalated the kingdom's dispute with Canada by appearing to threaten a 9/11-style attack on Toronto. The Infographic KSA site posted an image of an Air Canada plane flying toward the CN Tower, with the caption "As the Arabic saying goes: 'He who interferes with what doesn't concern him finds what doesn't please him,'" reports the CBC, which notes that 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis. The image also had the phrase: "Sticking one's nose where it doesn't belong," an apparent reference to the Canadian government's statements supporting detained Saudi women's rights activists. Before it was shut down pending a Saudi media ministry investigation, the youth group apologized, claiming that the image of the plane was supposed to represent Canada's expelled ambassador arriving home. Beyond kicking out the ambassador, Saudi Arabia, denouncing Canadian "interference" in its affairs, has canceled the national airline's flights to Toronto, frozen new investment in Canada, and ordered 15,000 Saudi students not to attend Canadian universities, Al Jazeera reports. But Ottawa is standing firm, with officials saying they "will continue to advocate for human rights" and call for the release of detained activists, including Samar Badawi, sister of jailed dissident Raif Badawi, reports the BBC.
– Egypt coverage is mostly celebratory today—"a new dawn," is the phrase of choice for both al-Jazeera and the Guardian, while the New York Times has it that a "new era dawned"—as attention turns to the what-comes-next question. Along those lines: The main coalition of protest groups says it will leave Tahrir Square after three weeks but called for weekly demonstrations to maintain pressure on the military for promised reform, reports AP. In a televised statement, the military pledged to hand over power to a democratically elected civilian government and to abide by all international treaties. It asked the current government, recently appointed by Hosni Mubarak, to stay in place until a transitional one can be formed. Not all the protesters are leaving, apparently. One tells the Washington Post: "This is a revolution, not a half-revolution. We need a timetable for elections. We need an interim government. We need a committee for a new constitution. Once we get all that, then we can leave the square."
– Syrian troops had vowed to shoot to kill Western reporters when an American and French journalist were targeted yesterday, according to sources. Troops pledged to "kill any journalist who set foot on Syrian soil," the press was warned, reports the Telegraph. Marie Colvin, 56, and French photographer Remi Ochlik, 28, were killed by a rocket-propelled grenade as they fled a makeshift press center that had been hit with a missile. The two were "pursued as they tried to flee the bombardment," said French Culture Minister Fredric Mitterand. Even before the building was attacked, Lebanese intelligence picked up a conversation among Syrian army officers discussing how they would claim any dead journalists were killed in a crossfire with "terrorist" groups. Shortly before the killings, reporters were warned to "leave the city urgently" because if the Syrian Army "finds you, they will kill you," said a writer for the Paris-based newspaper Liberation. He left the country with Colvin and other reporters, but Colvin returned. Colvin, a war correspondent for the Sunday Times of London, gave several interviews accusing Bashar al-Assad's regime of "murder." It's "a complete and utter lie that they are only targeting terrorists," she said. "The Syrian army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians." Syria's foreign ministry denied any involvement in the journalists' deaths, reports the Huffington Post, offering "condolences" but rejecting "statements holding Syria responsible for the deaths of journalists who sneaked into its territory at their own risk."
– Poor, ordinary, white salt. It's rapidly disappearing from restaurant tables, and Bloomberg has some theories as to why. For starters, old-fashioned iodized salt has increasingly been replaced by exotic seasonings, a trend that makes the simple salt shaker a thing of the past. "The days of those nasty little salt shakers with the ancient grains of rice are long gone," Josh Capon of Bowery Meat Co. tells Bloomberg. The rise of the celebrity chef has also hurt, with chefs feeling protective of their carefully crafted dishes made with the best ingredients. For some restaurants, it's just a matter of simplifying the table. Salt shakers clutter things up, particularly if there are many shared dishes and small plates. Plain table salt has also been muscled aside by sexy designer rivals, such as pink Himalayan salt. The exotic pink crystals, often mined in Pakistan, get their color from trace minerals, like magnesium, potassium, and calcium, which look nice in a grinder but aren’t any healthier, reports Time. Some upscale restaurants are offering exotic salts in grinders, or better still, little bowls, but the little bowls are problematic because they have to be replaced after each customer to avoid transmitting germs. "You’re not going to keep salt on the table that someone you don't know touched," says one restaurant owner. "That's gross." Another problem with the little bowls is that they tend to mysteriously vanish when the customer leaves. "People like small things," observes Capon.
– Toronto police arrested a suspected serial killer out of fear for a young man's life, sources say. The man—who was seeking a sexual encounter, per the CBC—was found restrained but unharmed in Bruce McArthur's apartment on Jan. 18; police had the 66-year-old landscaper under surveillance and observed the young man entering the 19th-floor unit, police sources tell the Toronto Star. McArthur is now charged with the murders of five men, aged 44 to 58, who disappeared between 2012 and 2017; three people's remains ended up in two concrete planters at a client's home. Police are reportedly probing some 30 properties linked to McArthur's landscaping business as part of what the Star says is "poised to become the most ambitious homicide investigation in Toronto's history." Toronto police Det. Sgt. Hank Idsinga says the investigation is "unprecedented" in scale, with the CBC reporting properties visited by McArthur are located across the Greater Toronto Area. "I have seen large-scale investigations before with dozens and dozens of officers working on them. We've never seen anything quite like this," Idsinga tells the Star. The Global News quotes him as saying on Monday that authorities will excavate "at least two sites ... where people might be buried." It's not clear how McArthur knew all of his alleged victims, but investigators say he was in a relationship with one of the men and was known in Toronto's Gay Village. He'll next appear in court Feb. 14. (McArthur also worked as a mall Santa.)
– The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are a chain of almost entirely uninhabited islands, atolls, and shoals that stretch across some 1,250 miles of the Pacific. Amid that large expanse has slumbered what's considered the largest shipwreck to have occurred in the islands: the Mission San Miguel, a naval tanker used in World War II and the Korean War. Now, a three-person dive team has finally found its resting place some 80 feet below the surface. "I turn around and [see] this giant, looming structure, so eerie," a maritime archaeologist tells Hawaii News Now of the Aug. 3 discovery. "This is a ship that wasn't a glamorous part of World War II history, but was an important part," adds the maritime heritage coordinator for the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. The tanker was responsible for transporting fuel to machines used in the wars and had been recognized a number of times for its service. It was traveling to Seattle from Guam in 1957 when it hit a reef. The crew was unharmed, but the ship was lost. The marine archaeologists had been mapping the area's coral reefs, though the group's main focus was the search for the San Miguel, which they expected to have broken into pieces. "Instead you have a largely intact structure with the steering wheel and helm still standing," the field leader of the dive team tells KITV. "We think that 20 feet of the ship is still under the sand." Though the vessel will undergo further study, it'll remain in the national monument's protected waters.
– America is home to people of all colors: White, black, and… blue? Strange but true: ABC News this week unearthed a story from 1982 about a family of blue-skinned people that once lived deep in Kentucky. The blue people first came to the fore when a baby named Benjamin Stacy was rushed to the hospital in 1975 with skin described as "as blue as Lake Louise." But the boy's grandmother was unconcerned about the disease, saying the boy looked like the "blue Fugates of Troublesome Creek." That fascinated hematologist Madison Cawein III, who, in his words, went "tromping around the hills looking for blue people." Sure enough, he found some who were "bluer'n hell," and concluded that they had a rare, hereditary disease called methemoglobinemia, which makes it difficult for hemoglobin to carry oxygen to the skin. It's a recessive trait and rare, so it's unlikely to occur often—unless there's inbreeding involved, as was the case with the Fugates. Benjamin Stacy's father once showed a reporter his family tree, remarking: "If you'll notice, I'm kin to myself."
– A Philadelphia judge has thrown out many of the charges facing Kermit Gosnell, including three first-degree murder counts, NBC Philadelphia reports. The judge also put the kibosh on five counts of abuse of a corpse and one of infanticide. The 72-year-old is hardly home free, however; he still faces four more counts of first-degree murder for babies allegedly born alive and then killed, and one of third-degree murder for the death of a 41-year-old patient. The judge didn't immediately explain his rationale in dropping the charges, the AP reports.
– Yep, he went there: In an email sent to supporters yesterday, Anthony Weiner blamed his post-resignation sexting incident on ... problems with his wife, Huma Abedin. "It was a terrible mistake that I unfortunately returned to during a rough time in our marriage," he wrote, according to the New York Post. At a press conference later, he explained, "I think that a lot of people see the resignation was the end of the challenges my wife and I, my family faced, and it wasn’t. It was part of something that needed to get resolved and frankly it hadn’t been." But now, of course, "these things are behind me," he added. And, uh, yeah, he went here as well: In a piece on NSFWcorp, Olivia Nuzzi writes that after three weeks as an intern for Weiner's mayoral campaign, Weiner decided to introduce himself to all the interns. He asked them to state their names and a fact about themselves, then he would go around the room repeating their names. He called the first two female interns, incorrectly, "Monica"—and he later ran into Nuzzi in the hallway and called her "Monica" again, she claims. "Interesting intern name to pick out of the air," she writes. "Weiner's wife, we should remember, works for Hillary Clinton." As for Weiner's latest sexting pal, she's now talking to Politico. The money quote: "He once described himself to me as an argumentative, perpetually horny middle-aged man, and that’s completely correct."
– German authorities have uncovered a third stash of artwork belonging to the late Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of a Nazi-era art dealer who died in May. An initial stash of paintings, worth $1.3 billion, was discovered in his home, followed by an even more significant hoard in Gurlitt's apartment. Now, investigators tell the AP they've found a few more works at the Munich residence, including "a sculpture that is probably by Edgar Degas and a marble sculpture that, after a first inspection, may be a work of the French artist Auguste Rodin," the task force said in a statement, per the AFP. The latest stash also includes "a small number" of other works, the statement said rather vaguely. The hoard was only discovered after Gurlitt's death, investigators said, though it isn't clear where exactly the works were hidden or why they weren't found at an earlier date. The head of the task force, however, promised "thorough research work and a transparent presentation of the new discovery" in the interest of "the victims of Nazi art theft as well as the heirs of Cornelius Gurlitt." The works will be photographed and their images published in the online inventory set up to help match the art to its rightful owners. Click for more on Gurlitt's fascinating story.
– Leanna Harris—unlike her husband—has not been charged in the death of her 22-month-old son in a hot car but investigators are puzzled by some of her behavior. Police say she had done online research on children dying in hot cars and on the day her son, Cooper, died, she calmly said, "Ross must have left him in the car. There's no other explanation," after being told he had never arrived at day care, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution finds. When she was briefly reunited with her husband at the police station, police say she asked him "Did you say too much?" Some of her remarks at her son's funeral also raised eyebrows. As her husband listened in from jail, she said she wouldn't bring Cooper back even if she could. "He's in the most peaceful, wonderful place there is," she said. The 30-year-old has shown little emotion at court hearings and legal experts aren't sure whether she will end up being charged as a co-conspirator or used as a witness against her husband, which Georgia law permits in cases involving the death of a child. In other developments: Horrifying details of the boy's death emerged at a bond hearing a few days ago, reports the New York Daily News. A police officer testified that the little boy had desperately struggled to free himself from the car seat inside the hot SUV. Scratch marks on the boy's face and abrasions on the back of his head are signs of a frantic effort to get out of the seat. Search warrants released the next day stated that the belts were at the tightest setting. At the same hearing, it emerged that Justin Ross Harris had exchanged explicit messages and photos with six women as his son baked to death. Investigators say Harris appeared to be trying to cover his tracks on all three computers he used, and they have only "scratched the surface" in their search for deleted files. "People think 'Well, this is a cell phone. Once I delete a picture or text message or my contacts, it's gone,'" a computer forensics expert tells NBC 11. "No. Even when you hit 'reset' on your phone, that information is still stored on that hard drive."
– On July 29, tourists were understandably bummed when stinky black water—a combination of wastewater and sewage—was discharged right next to the Maid of the Mist and Rainbow Bridge docks at scenic Niagara Falls, the Buffalo News reports. Now, the state of New York is fining the Niagara Falls Water Board $50,000 for the incident that Gov. Andrew Cuomo says was "inexcusable" and has tarnished the landmark's reputation around the world. In addition to the fine, the Niagara Falls Water Board must get state approval for all future discharges and complete mandatory retraining of all employees, WGRZ reports. "We can conclude the Niagara Falls Water Board is responsible for a number of operating deficiencies, which led to human errors and led to the black water discharge," says the executive deputy commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation. The Niagara Falls Water Board had blamed old equipment and a miscommunication between employees at the sewage plant for the unsightly discharge, the AP reports. But state officials say it happened because protocol wasn't followed. "To say, 'This is an old plant,' is baloney. This was operator error," Cuomo says.
– The departure of Marco Rubio makes the GOP nomination race a two-man contest, according to the Donald Trump and Ted Cruz campaigns, although the John Kasich campaign begs to differ. With a contested convention now appearing to be a real possibility, the Trump and Cruz campaigns are moving to shut out the Ohio governor, who won his home state on Tuesday and who has pinned his hopes on the convention, Politico reports. Campaign aides say the combined Trump and Cruz delegates will be able to set the rules at a contested convention—and Kasich is unlikely to meet the threshold of having won eight states or territories, a rule that was introduced at the 2012 convention. But Kasich may have an ace in the hole: Bloomberg reports that his campaign has hired veteran GOP operatives Stu Spencer and Charlie Black, who helped Gerald Ford defeat Ronald Reagan in 1976 at the last contested GOP convention. Trump, meanwhile—who won three out of five states on Tuesday and appears poised for victory in a close race in Missouri as well—might be able to amass an outright majority of delegates and avoid a contested convention if the race remains split three ways, according to the New York Times. He has split the delegates with Cruz in some close races, but in many of the "blue states" still to vote, Trump has a solid lead, with the opposition split evenly between Cruz and Kasich. (Most of Marco Rubio's delegates can't change sides.)
– Herman Cain campaigned at Florida’s Holy Land Experience (yes, really … it’s a Christian amusement park) Friday, and on Yahoo! News, Chris Moody relates one particularly interesting tidbit from his speech. While talking about his recent cancer struggle, Cain said he worried when he learned the name of one of his surgeons: Dr. Abdallah. “I said to his physician assistant, I said, ‘That sounds foreign,’” Cain recalled. “Not that I had anything against foreign doctors—but it sounded too foreign,” he continued, adding that he was particularly concerned when he learned the doctor was from Lebanon—until the assistant said, “'Don't worry, Mr. Cain, he's a Christian from Lebanon." According to Moody, the crowd laughed “uneasily” at the anecdote. On Slate, David Weigel notes that Cain has told the story before—see the video at left—and points out, “Lebanon is the most Christian nation in the Middle East. … Cain hears the last name, though, and panics. You're left to wonder what would have happened had the doctor been a Muslim or a Druze or something."
– Two weeks after climate talks started in Paris, negotiators made history and did something that will "save the world," Wired reports. According to Gizmodo, 195 countries signed a climate pact on Saturday to cut greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming. In two decades of climate conferences, this is the first to end in a successful agreement. “Our text is the best possible balance, a balance which is powerful yet delicate, which will enable each delegation, each group of countries, with his head held high, having achieved something important," French foreign minister Laurent Fabius says. After the pact—the first to legally commit all countries to reducing carbon emissions—was signed, delegates from the 195 countries rose for a standing ovation, the BBC reports. The final agreement represents a compromise between developed and developing countries. Gizmodo reports it calls for nations to keep global warming "well below" 2 degrees Celsius, with 1.5 degrees as a target. Countries "already feeling the impacts of climate change" had pushed for the lower limit. Developed countries will commit $100 billion per year to help developing countries, though that commitment isn't legally binding. According to the BBC, nations will have to report on their progress every five years. Gizmodo notes the most optimistic portion of the final agreement is a section calling for net zero carbon emissions sometime in the second half of the 21st century. Wired reports two items not included in the pact are a reduction of air travel and shipping—which account for more than 5% of greenhouse gasses—and reparations for poor countries hurt by climate change.
– When it comes to the war on cancer, it's time to lower our expectations, a new study suggests. Or as the lead author of the study in Nature puts it, "Cancer is as old as multi-cellular life on earth and will probably never be eradicated." German researchers discovered that an ancient organism similar to coral already carried cancer genes that could develop into tumors, explains the website Laboratory Equipment. In fact, one of those ancient tumors is similar to ovarian cancer in humans. Cell mistakes that result in cancer seem to be inevitable as organisms evolve, which makes the idea of "curing cancer" misguided, the study asserts. “The logic behind it was pretty naive,” researcher Thomas Bosch of Kiel University tells the Washington Post. "'We can send people to the moon, we can eradicate cancer.'" He and his team suggest we focus more on understanding how the disease occurs and treating it rather than hoping for a simple fix. "Our study also makes it unlikely that the ‘War on Cancer’ proclaimed in the 1970s can ever be won," says Bosch. "However, knowing your enemy from its origins is the best way to fight it, and win many battles."
– You probably wouldn't want to smoke the stuff, but archaeologists have discovered the most well-preserved cannabis plants one could hope for in an ancient Chinese burial. The first discovery of its kind comes from the grave of a man aged about 35—possibly a shaman, reports Discover—buried 2,400 to 2,800 years ago in Turpan, China, then a desert oasis along the Silk Road. Said to have Caucasian features, the body was found on a wooden bed with a reed pillow and an "extraordinary cache" of 13 cannabis plants placed diagonally across the chest, each almost 3 feet long, reports National Geographic. Archaeologists have found cannabis leaves and seeds in other ancient burials, but never whole plants. This is also the first time archaeologists have seen cannabis used as a burial shroud, study author Hongen Jiang explains in Economic Botany. A few flowering heads on the plants—all others had been cut off—held unripe fruit, suggesting the man was buried in late summer. Researchers believe the cannabis was also fresh, meaning it was grown locally. Why exactly was the Subeixi culture of Turpan growing cannabis? Researchers say they could have made hemp cloth or used the seeds for food. More likely, though, they extracted resin containing cannabinoids like THC from the plant's tiny "hairs" to use in medicine or in ritual, "possibly to facilitate communication between the human and spirit worlds," per NPR. (These burials aimed to ward off demons.)
– One in three humans can no longer see the Milky Way from their home, according to a paper published Friday in Science Advances. "We've lost some of our view into the cosmos," Chris Elvidge tells NPR. Elvidge, along with other researchers, created a updated "world atlas" of light pollution. When the last such atlas was created 15 years ago, the number of humans who couldn't see the Milky Way was one in five. "And it’s a shame that they can’t,” Elvidge tells USA Today. Researchers found 83% of all people live in area with light light pollution, the Los Angeles Times reports. In the US, 99% of people live under light-polluted night skies, and 80% of North Americans can't see the Milky Way. “Humanity has enveloped our planet in a luminous fog that prevents most of the Earth’s population from having the opportunity to observe our galaxy,” the paper states. Researchers found the worst light pollution in the world was in Singapore, where the sky never gets truly dark, resembling twilight even in the middle of the night. "The entire population lives under skies so bright that the eye cannot fully dark-adapt to night vision," NPR quotes the paper as saying. To really get away from light pollution, try traveling to Chad, Central African Republic, or Madagascar. Light pollution can have negative environmental effects like any other pollution, from affecting bird migration to changing the circadian rhythms of humans, contributing to obesity, depression, and more. But there are technological solutions to the problem, such as redesigning street lights, if humans ever decide they want their night skies back.
– Last we heard from Donald Trump he was embroiled in battle with a "malicious" Florida airport, but it appears he's now set his sights on a loftier goal: considering a 2016 POTUS run, the AP reports. Trump, who has hinted at running in the past, announced today that he'll be launching a presidential exploratory committee, contending in a statement that "I am the only one who can make America truly great again." He says he's already recruited political aides in Iowa, South Carolina, and New Hampshire (where he's set to make the rounds later this week) and has an advisory team set up in New York, the New Hampshire Union Leader notes. The Donald has even reportedly turned down another season of NBC's The Apprentice: "Nobody in the history of television has turned down a renewal," Trump's senior political adviser tells the Union Leader. Trump's priorities if he were to assume the US helm, per his statement: improving border security, boosting the economy, powering up the military, and rebuilding US infrastructure. "I have a great love for our country, but it is a country that is in serious trouble," he says. "Americans deserve better than what they get from their politicians—who are all talk and no action!" As the Washington Post notes, Trump will have to overcome certain perception hurdles, such as his constant Twitter fights with other luminaries and his continued insistence that President Obama prove he was born in the US (he brought it up again at last month's CPAC, per the Post). Trump retweeted messages of support today, including one fan who posted, "@realDonaldTrump the thought of you becoming president of the United States is the only thing that gives me hope for this country's future." (If he does run, will it be as an independent, a Republican, or … something else?)
– Two dangerous patients escaped from a psychiatric hospital in Washington state on Wednesday, though one of them was captured Thursday amid an intense manhunt. Anthony Garver and Mark Alexander Adams broke out of Western State Hospital around 6pm Wednesday, possibly through a loose window in their room. Police picked up Adams without incident in a town about 30 miles away, reports AP. He reportedly took a bus there and was trying to get to the airport. Garver is still at large. Both men were on 180-day court-mandated stays at the hospital and are deemed "dangerous to others," hospital staff tell ABC News. Adams, 59, was charged with domestic violence in 2014 and found unfit to stand trial. Garver, 28, is accused of stabbing a woman 24 times before fatally slashing her throat in 2013. He, too, was considered unfit for trial. A judge presiding over his case said he was "scary to say the least."
– The North Korea situation is heating up again—just in time for President Trump's visit to the region. On Thursday, two Guam-based American B-1B Lancer strategic bombers joined Japanese and South Korean jets for drills near the Korean Peninsula, Reuters reports. American authorities describe the exercises as a routine mission, but Pyongyang called it a "surprise nuclear strike drill." The move "clearly shows that the gangster-like US imperialists are the very one who is aggravating the situation of the Korean Peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war," North Korea said in a statement, per NBC News. The US military says the bombers were reconfigured decades ago to carry conventional weapons, not nuclear ones. According to South Korea's spy agency, there has been "active movement of vehicles around a missile research institute in Pyongyang," suggesting more missile or nuclear tests could be imminent, CNN reports. North Korean authorities said Thursday that a report hundreds of people died in a tunnel collapse at a nuclear site was "fake news." The AP reports that later Thursday, National Security Adviser HR McMaster told reporters that North Korea will be a main focus of talks with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines during Trump's 12-day trip to Asia, which begins Friday. He added that the president "will use whatever language he wants to use" when discussing North Korea. (White House officials say Trump will not be visiting the DMZ.)
– People are still scratching their heads about what role Roger Ailes might be playing in Donald Trump's campaign, but there's a new player in town: Sean Hannity. Writing for the New York Times, Jim Rutenberg says the Fox News host constantly gives the GOP nominee free PR by "[blaring] Mr. Trump's message relentlessly," and taking a "hyperpoliticized" approach to reporting the news. But Rutenberg says sources—or, as he calls them, "denizens of the hall of mirrors that is Trump World"—have told him Hannity has also been a candidate whisperer, serving as an adviser to Trump for months. And it's not something Hannity completely denies, telling the reporter, "Do I talk to my friend who I've known for years and speak my mind? I can't not speak my mind." Hannity adds that his blatant pro-Trump leanings make him "more honest" than other reporters. "I'm not hiding the fact that I want Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States," he says. But even Hannity concedes that how much his words have impacted Trump is questionable ("nobody controls him"), and he also shrugs off the fact that, as a TV news host, he's gone full out for Trump, flouting what Rutenberg says are "journalism's … prohibitions against, say, regularly sharing advice with political campaigns." "I never claimed to be a journalist," Hannity notes. He also scoffs at rumors he may be trying to set himself up for a plum Trump administration position. Rutenberg's take also includes a brief unpacking of a "possible reckoning" within conservative media overall, born of what conservative radio host Charlie Sykes—who's been having his own battles of conscience lately, per Politico—recently called a "demonizing [of] the liberal mainstream media" for the past two decades.
– Even at eight months old, we seem to have a desire to see evildoers punished. Researchers showed groups of babies a puppet routine in which one elephant puppet treated a duck puppet well, while another was mean to his puppet peer. In a later scene, a moose puppet rewarded the elephant for his behavior with a toy, or punished him by taking a toy away. The infants then chose their favorite moose. The five-month-olds showed a preference for the moose who had been nice to everyone—even the elephants who’d behaved badly. But most babies eight months old and older liked the moose who punished the mean elephants, ABC News reports. “It’s hard to argue that parents are teaching their children to punish at eight months. It’s a very complex idea. If they are learning it, they’re doing it on their own, suggesting that there is some kind of system for learning it,” said a researcher. Click to watch videos of the puppet situations.
– US employers added a robust 200,000 jobs in January, and wages rose at the fastest pace in more than eight years. The pay gains suggest employers are competing more fiercely for workers. Raises stemming from Republican tax cuts and minimum wage increases in 18 states also likely boosted pay. The Labor Department says the unemployment rate remained 4.1% for a fourth straight month, the lowest level since 2000, per the AP. The figures point to an economy on strong footing even in its ninth year of expansion, fueled by global economic growth and healthy consumer spending at home. Industries that saw an upswing in job growth last month included construction, health care, manufacturing, and food services and drinking establishments, per the Wall Street Journal. The pickup in hourly wages, along with a recent uptick in inflation, may make it more likely that the Federal Reserve will raise short-term interest rates more quickly in the coming months. Gold prices fell Friday morning in response to that speculation.
– Another day, another commencement gaffe. Columbia's valedictorian has apologized for lifting part of his speech—a jokey riff on attending a class called Physics for Poets—from comedian Patton Oswalt, probably best known for his King of Queens supporting role. (See videos for comparisons.) Oswalt called out Brian Corman on Twitter for plagiarism, and both the student and the school subsequently apologized, notes Gawker. “In people’s heads they think that comedians can’t possibly make up their own material,” Oswalt tells the New York Times. “They're like, 'I can just take it. He didn't make it up.'"
– New York City has its first Ebola case: A doctor who recently returned from West Africa has tested positive for the disease, reports the New York Times. Craig Spencer, who had been working in Guinea with the group Doctors Without Borders, is now in isolation at Bellevue Hospital. City health authorities are trying to get a handle on how many people may have had contact with him in the last week or so. The Daily News reports that the 33-year-old returned from Africa 10 days ago—well within the standard 21-day period in which symptoms would typically appear—and was "roaming around town" before falling ill. He reportedly went bowling in Brooklyn last night, rode the subway, and used taxis run by the service Uber. Before the diagnosis came out, Mayor Bill de Blasio sought to play down fears as news spread of Spencer's hospitalization. “Our understanding is that very few people were in direct contact with him,” he said at an evening press conference. Fire officials got a call from Spencer's address in West Harlem this morning and transported him to the hospital with a 103-degree fever and nausea, reports DNA Info. Spencer reportedly lives with his fiancee. Authorities have sealed off their apartment and were distributing informational fliers about Ebola. The CDC, meanwhile, plans to conduct another test to confirm the initial diagnosis.
– Michelle Johnson is a wedding planner outside of Indianapolis, but she had nothing to do with the biggest surprise at her own June wedding. Sgt. Joey Johnson—an Afghanistan war veteran who lost all feeling below his chest after a 2012 motorcycle accident just four months after he met Michelle—wanted to make their big day extra special, ABC7 reports. So he recruited pals to help him build a device that would allow him to ditch his wheelchair and stand up for their first dance as husband and wife. After they cut the cake, her mom and his mom made Michelle take a break in the bridal suite, and when she came back out, Joey was standing on the dance floor. "Everyone was crying in the room," she tells ABC. "It was so amazing to be eye to eye with him again, and such a dream come true." After his tour in Afghanistan, Joey dealt with his PTSD by riding motorcycles for the "rush," Michelle tells ABC News. But his accident didn't tear them apart, probably because they felt they were fated to be together from the very beginning: When they first met at a country music concert, they realized they not only shared the same last name (Michelle's maiden name was also Johnson), but also the same birthday (June 29); they had their wedding this year on the day before, June 28. "He had to learn a different way of life with him and his chair: from showering, getting dressed, and trying to function every day," Michelle says. "But we are soul mates." As for his big reveal on the big day? "If you know Joey, he cannot keep a secret," Michelle says. "But he made my dreams come true and I never knew how special our day would really be." (Last month, another paralyzed groom was able to walk down the aisle.)
– As of Thursday, a new version of House Republicans' ObamaCare repeal and replace bill is available for review by members and staffers on the House Energy and Commerce panel, but they'll have to do a bit of work to see it: There's just one copy, kept in a dedicated reading room, and no other copies are being given to lawmakers to take with them, Bloomberg reports. The new draft "is being treated a bit like a top-secret surveillance intercept," the site notes, after an outdated draft was leaked last week and quickly derided—Republicans are looking to avoid the same thing happening again. But they might be doing too good a job, as lawmakers are struggling to locate the shrouded-in-secrecy draft: Rep. Frank Pallone, the top-ranking Democrat on the above-mentioned panel, has been on a quest to find the copy of the latest draft so he can read it. So far, he's had no luck, even when he went by the room it's supposed to be kept in. NPR follows his search. Sen. Rand Paul went on his own search for the bill Thursday, tweeting about his progress and bringing along a copy machine in case he found it. More on his quest, and a look at some of the Democrats poking fun at the "Where's the bill" fiasco, at the Washington Post. It didn't help that the rumored location of the secret bill got leaked, leading reporters to join in the hunt. A ton of people showed up at the room, but none of them located the bill. Vox has more. The House Energy and Commerce committee is tentatively scheduled to vote on the secretive bill next week, reports the New York Times, which has criticism from Democrats claiming Republicans are "playing hide-and-seek" with the bill.
– With Prince Philip stepping back, Prince William is stepping up. William took off on his final flight as an air ambulance pilot Thursday as he prepares to take on more royal duties, reports NBC News. Writing in the Eastern Daily Press, per the Evening Standard, William said his experiences with East Anglian Air Ambulance "have instilled in me a profound respect for the men and women who serve in our emergency services, which I hope to continue to champion even as I leave the profession." Britain's royal family announced in January that William would leave his job in Norfolk to fulfill more royal duties. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are now expected to spend more time at Kensington Palace in London, where Prince George will start school in September. They had previously spent the majority of their time at Anmer Hall in Norfolk.
– He's said it before and he'll say it again: President Obama doesn't think voters are going to choose Donald Trump to succeed him. "I continue to believe that Mr. Trump will not be president," Obama told reporters on Tuesday at the ASEAN economic summit in California, per the BBC. "I have a lot of faith in the American people, and I think they recognize that being president is a serious job," he said. "It's not hosting a talk show or a reality show. It's not promotion. It's not marketing. It's hard. It's not a matter of pandering and doing whatever will get you in the news on a given day." Trump fired back after being asked about the remarks during a campaign event in South Carolina Tuesday night, reports the Washington Post. He said it was "actually a great compliment" to hear such comments from someone who has "set us back so far" and "done such a lousy job as president." Trump—who told Larry King in 2009 that Obama was doing a "really good job" after the "total disaster" of the Bush administration—said Obama is lucky that he didn't seek the nomination instead of Mitt Romney in 2012, "because you would have been a one-term president." (Obama also told reporters that he is going to nominate an "indisputably" qualified candidate to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court.)
– Eight people, including five children, have a 13-year-old organ donor to thank for their lives—and that donor has entered the UK record books. The Guardian reports on Jemima Layzell, who collapsed from a brain aneurysm while helping prep for her mom's birthday party in March 2012. Jemima died four days later, just a couple of weeks after she'd had a discussion with her family about organ donation following a car crash that killed a family friend. "Jemima had never heard of organ donation before and found it a little bit unsettling, but totally understood the importance of it," her mom, Sophy, says. And so when Jemima passed away, her parents made the decision to donate her kidneys to two recipients and her lungs to another; her liver was split and transplanted into two people, and her heart, pancreas, and small intestine were transplanted into three others. The NHS Blood and Transplant department says it's the largest number of solid organ recipients from a single donor ever recorded in the UK, per the Telegraph. Jemima's family had been unsure about whether to donate her organs, but a TV program on kids waiting for heart transplants—as well as their past conversation with Jemima on organ donation—changed their minds. "Every parent's instinct is to say no, as we are programmed to protect our children," Sophy Layzell says. "It's only with prior knowledge of Jemima's agreement that we were able to say yes." Other ways the Layzells are honoring her: They've set up the Jemima Layzell Trust to promote organ donation, as well as published The Draft, a compilation of her diary entries found after she died.
– A second stabbing incident with multiple victims is making headlines today. Police in Toronto say a man stabbed three men and a woman inside an office building, reports the CBC. Two of the victims, including the woman, have life-threatening injuries, reports the Globe and Mail. All worked for human resources company Ceridian. Former employee Chuang Li, 47, has been arrested, though a motive remains unclear. The Toronto Sun reports that the assailant used a pair of scissors.
– On Adrienne Kromer's first day back at work following three and a half months of maternity leave, she called her daughter's new daycare center three times to check on the baby girl. McKenna Felmly had shown no signs of illness or distress when she was dropped off at the Lehigh Township, Pa., center in the morning, her dad, Bryan Felmly, writes on GoFundMe. But Kromer was nervous, and when the daycare center told her McKenna was having trouble taking a bottle, and later said she'd fallen asleep quickly (a rarity for the infant), Kromer decided to leave work early and pick up her daughter. Just minutes after she left, the daycare center called her and told her McKenna wasn't breathing. By the time Kromer arrived, McKenna had been transported to the hospital; soon after Kromer and Felmly arrived at the hospital, doctors told them they couldn't save the couple's little girl. Per the Allentown Morning Call, daycare workers found McKenna unresponsive in her crib and attempts to revive her began at the daycare, but she was pronounced dead upon her arrival at the hospital. An autopsy showed no signs of trauma and police say the death does not appear suspicious at this time, but a cause of death won't be determined until toxicology and viral tests are completed and other aspects of the case, including the crib, are investigated. "We are continuing to conduct interviews with family, friends, and employees of the daycare," the police chief told Lehigh Valley Live Wednesday. "We still have some work to finish yet. I can't say when we will determine manner of death." The Times News says it could take as long as three months. The daycare center has a valid certificate of operation and had last been inspected in January. (Last year, a New York 3-month-old also died on his mom's first day back at work.)
– More than half of all adult Americans have diabetes or prediabetes—a condition marked by abnormally high blood sugar levels—according to a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Live Science reports survey results between 2011 and 2012 showed more than 12% of US residents over the age of 18 had diabetes—that's up from less than 10% in 1988—and another 38% had prediabetes. The numbers are worst for Americans over 65, a full one-third of whom have diabetes. Perhaps even more alarming, more than one-third of US adults with the disease—which can cause blindness, heart disease, kidney failure, and death—don't know they have it. More than half of Asian Americans and nearly half of Hispanic Americans with diabetes are undiagnosed, according to a press release from the National Institutes of Health. Live Science reports Asian Americans may have so many cases of undiagnosed diabetes because they develop it at a lower BMI than other ethnic groups, which means doctors may not be screening Asian Americans who have the disease but don't appear obese. “By learning more about who has diabetes—and who has the disease but does not know it—we can better target research and prevention efforts,” says the director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in the press release. “We have treatments to help people with diabetes, but treatments can only help those who have been diagnosed."
– They’re famed far and wide as the finest violins on the planet (one recently sold for $16 million), but do Stradivarius violins actually sound better? A study suggests they don’t, NPR reports. Researchers assembled a group of six violins—two Stradivariuses, a Guarneri, and three modern violins—and invited a group of professional violinists to try them out while wearing dark goggles that prevented them from visually identifying the instruments. They were told at least one was a Strad, and asked to guess which. The results? Only three of the 17 participants got it right. Seven got it wrong, and another seven simply admitted they couldn’t tell. “There was no evidence that people had any idea what they were playing,” said one researcher. “That really surprised me.” What’s more, when asked which violin they’d want to perform with, two-thirds picked one of the new models—indeed, one of the Strads was consistently their least favorite. (Click to hear two clips and see if you can pick out the Strad.)
– A dispute between teens ended in tragedy last weekend, when one high school senior punched another—who never got up after falling to the ground. Victim Jarom Thomas, 18, was with friends at a cabin on Lake Roesiger, Wash., on Saturday night when, witnesses say, Thomas accidentally backed into a car the suspect, another 18-year-old whom KING5 is not naming, was sitting in. After an argument, Thomas agreed to let the suspect hit him to settle things, KING5 reports. They shook hands and smoked a cigarette together first, but after the suspect hit Thomas, Thomas fell backward and hit his head on the pavement. The unconscious teen later died at a hospital, and the suspect was arrested and faces possible manslaughter charges, the Seattle Times reports. "I spoke to my son and he told me I didn't want this to happen, I didn't mean for this to happen," says the suspect's father, Michael Galen, adding that his son has no criminal history. "My son is not a bad boy. He's not a bad kid," Galen adds. "Don't drink please, because things like this can [happen]. When you don't expect it. You don't mean to. Please don't drink." Witnesses reported hearing a "cracking noise" when Thomas' head hit the pavement, and a friend took him to the hospital after others at the party carried him inside but couldn't wake him up. The two teens are said to have known each other for years. The Snohomish County Medical Examiner has declared Thomas' death a homicide, ruling blunt force injuries to the head as the cause of death, KING5 reports.
– Richard Overton is something of a celebrity in Austin, Texas, because the 112-year-old WWII veteran is the oldest living man in America. He now has a new distinction: the oldest American to be robbed of his savings, reports Newsweek. Family members recently learned that an unidentified thief used Overton's identity to buy savings bonds through the government's TreasuryDirect site over a couple of months. It appears the thief set up a fake bank account with Overton's Social Security number and then broke into his personal checking account. "It's a shock, it hurts, it hurts tremendously," says cousin Volma Overton, who discovered the theft. Volma Overton noticed the withdrawals when he went to deposit funds into the account. "I don't know how they got his Social Security number and his personal checking account number but those things they have," he tells KXAN. Overton's experience appears to be an all-too-common case of identity theft, where a thief uses someone else's personal information to apply for credit, file taxes, or, in Overton's case, drain an account. Fortunately, Overton's care, which costs $480 a day, is covered by a separate GoFundMe-linked account. Austin police are working closely with the Overton family to try to track down the culprit. "We wanted to put the word out about them using his name with stolen ID," Volma Overton says. "It might help others realize how vulnerable we all are to this.” Overton, whose age has been verified by the Gerontology Research Group, is something of a character, reports the Dallas Morning News. His favorite pastime is sitting on his porch, where he can be seen waving at honking cars and smoking one of his 12 daily cigars.
– For much of this week, Toronto residents have been on a scavenger hunt of sorts, with an odd target: a 2015 Nissan Versa, "misplaced" by a US teen who'd forgotten where he'd left it after a Metallica concert. The CBC reports on 19-year-old Gavin Strickland's parking plight, which started Sunday after the Metallica performance at the Rogers Centre. Strickland searched multiple parking garages after the show, even hitching a ride with local cops as he scoured the city for his vehicle. By Monday, he had to call his father back in Syracuse, NY, and admit he'd lost his car, at which point he took a bus back home. That's when his dad decided to post a Craigslist ad asking Toronto locals to assist his "doofy son" in the search, offering a $100 reward along with the details Strickland could remember ("nearby is allegedly a strange spiral outdoor sculpture"). Enter Madison Riddolls, who dragged her boyfriend out late Wednesday to hunt for the car. "I've been watching a lot of Criminal Minds lately," Riddolls says of her quest, which finally proved successful at a parking garage under the city's TD Centre. After confirming some identifying features provided by Strickland, Riddolls contacted him, and he showed up, to much media hullabaloo, to pick up the car. "How did I walk past this?" he mused to reporters in front of the Nissan Thursday night, per the Toronto Star. The parking garage wiped out the four days' worth of parking fees (he'll only be charged for Sunday) and gave him a Bluetooth device to help him locate his car in the future. Riddolls, meanwhile, will pocket a $100 reward, and the elder Strickland says he'll also donate money to her favorite charity. (A UK man's car went missing after a concert for six months.)
– In its description of a highly publicized exposé on Upper East Side housewives, publishing giant Simon & Schuster notes that author Wednesday Martin compares "mothers’ snobbiness at school drop-off ... to olive baboons." Now, less than a week after the publication of Primates of Park Avenue, the New York Post claims Martin's facts are the real monkey business—and the New York Times reports her publisher plans to add a "clarifying note" to future copies of the memoir. The Post outlines a number of assertions in the book that it says don't hold up. Among them: Martin writes that she lived on Park Avenue with her two children for six years; the Post contends that she lived there with one child for three-and-a-half years, selling the apartment in 2007. The book also describes Martin working out at Physique 57, but the fancy gym didn’t exist during the quoted time period. The same problem exists with references to desserts shop Ladurée and Uber, both of which came to the city in 2011. Martin tells the Post that "since the book is organized by topic (ex. real estate, social hierarchies, exercise), it is not always a straightforward chronology." Her publisher backs that up: "It is a common narrative technique in memoirs for some names, identifying characteristics, and chronologies to be adjusted or disguised," Simon & Schuster's VP tells the Times; she says future editions and e-books will get a "clarifying note." The Times reports that it ran an op-ed from Martin on her experience last month, and quotes this line from it: "I stuck to the facts."
– Hoverboards are making headlines, from bursting into flames and being banned by online retailers to causing trouble in churches and supermarkets. But the hoverboard hubbub at CES in Las Vegas Thursday was something straight out of a corporate espionage movie: Per Bloomberg, US marshals raided a booth set up by Chinese company Changzhou First International Trade. It was promoting its Trotter electronic skateboard—what Bloomberg describes as looking "like a seesaw with one big wheel in the middle." The problem: Silicon Valley startup Future Motion says the product is a knockoff of its own Onewheel skateboard, invented and designed by Kyle Doerksen. "When we got word that a company was exhibiting a knock-off product, we engaged in the formal process, which involved sending a cease and desist letter and ... getting a restraining order ... then enforced by the US marshals," Doerksen tells the BBC. The marshals who swept into the booth scooped up a Trotter, plus marketing material. A quick visual comparison of Future Motion's product and those hawked by Changzhou on Alibaba does show a marked similarity. But while Future Motion sells its version for $1,500, the knockoffs are going for around $550 each—which Doerksen says is bad news for not only his company, but the hoverboard/electric skateboard industry overall. "If customers start to view the space as full of low-quality, low-cost products, that reflects poorly on everybody," he tells Bloomberg. Future Motion, which the business site notes started the patent process for parts of its Onewheel years ago, didn't set up a booth at the consumer electronics forum this year, but Doerksen was in town meeting with possible partners. (Even Wiz Khalifa has had hoverboard issues.)
– Tomorrow is President Obama's 51st birthday, and Republicans have designed e-cards in his honor—though they don't exactly wish him the most joyous of days. Instead, the RNC is once again offering a raft of politically-themed birthday wishes ("send your free Barack Birthday Card to friends & family!" it urges) highlighting everything it can't stand or loves to mock about the president, ABC News reports. One card, for instance, features a cake with a note: "You Didn't Bake That." Another says, "I Couldn't Afford To Get You A Gift, So Here Is The Shirt Off My Back—Unemployed." A card bearing a photo of Anna Wintour reads, "The 1% Of Americans Who Read My Magazine Wish You a Happy Birthday." Joe Biden, Harry Reid, and George Clooney are also featured in the campaign; view all the e-cards here.
– When a song needs more cowbell, Will Ferrell is there to deliver. At "Will Ferrell's Best Night of Your Life" Saturday, a charity event produced by Funny or Die to raise money for cancer survivors, Chris Martin was performing an acoustic version of Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" when he got some unexpected backing instrumentation, Time reports. Namely, Ferrell, who crashed the performance with his cowbell in a nod to one of his most famous Saturday Night Live sketches. See the video in our gallery. In other Martin news, despite recent rumors, he's apparently not expecting a baby with Dakota Johnson.
– Watch where you're walking, Diddy. While rocking out on stage at the BET awards last night, the hip-hop star fell into a hole that had opened in the stage to introduce Lil' Kim during a performance in celebration of Bad Boy Records' 20th anniversary. He managed to pull himself out, with the help of fans, and continue the performance, which also featured Mase, Faith Evans, 112, and the Lox, reports the Guardian. Meanwhile, co-host Anthony Anderson provided comic relief by dressing up as Sam Smith, who won best new artist. "Sam Smith isn't here tonight because he's white and he didn't think he would win at the BET Awards," Anderson said. "But we showed him that we love him, too." There were also jabs at Rachel Dolezal, while Smokey Robinson earned a standing ovation after performing a medley of hits and accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award. Ciara, Jason Derulo, and Tinashe paid tribute to Janet Jackson, who took home the Ultimate Icon: Music Dance Visual Award, reports the AP. Nicki Minaj, who was nominated for six awards, won best female hip-hop artist for the sixth year in a row, along with a fan-voted viewers' choice award. Beyonce won three awards but didn't attend. For much more on the night's winners and performers, click here.
– After working at a 911 call center for nearly 10 years, Alisha Coleman was fired. She says it's because of her period, and the American Civil Liberties Union is arguing gender discrimination is at play. In the brief, Coleman alleges that the Bobby Dodd Institute in Fort Benning, Georgia, gave her a disciplinary write up after the "sudden onset of her menstrual period" caused her to leak fluid onto her chair in August 2015. It happened again the following April, with menstrual fluid spotting the carpet as she made her way to the bathroom. She says she cleaned the spot with bleach, but was fired four days later for failing to "practice high standards of personal hygiene and maintain a clean, neat appearance while on duty." The ACLU calls Coleman's firing "wrong and illegal under federal law," citing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bans workplace discrimination based on sex. The crux of the case is that sudden heavy menstrual flow is a symptom of pre-menopause. The New York Daily News reports that Coleman's case was first dismissed by a district court that found the law does not protect the condition of pre-menopause, but the ACLU argues that it fits under Title VII, which prohibits discrimination due to "pregnancy, childbirth and related conditions." USA Today reports that Bobby Dodd has issued a statement saying "there is more to this story than is being portrayed by those who are suing us." (One company actually gives women time off for their periods.)
– Hurricane Joaquin remains a Category 4 storm that's currently battering the Bahamas, but the East Coast may dodge one bullet this weekend if the storm keeps to its offshore path, Weather.com and CNN report. Tracking maps show Joaquin solidly out in the Atlantic and set to keep veering away from the coastline. Still, coastal states may not escape serious weather—though not entirely due to Joaquin. The Washington Post explains a "a predecessor surge of moisture [is] streaming up the eastern seaboard" right now; CNN reports Joaquin is funneling moisture into that weather system. The result: rain and flooding. The Post frames the latter as a "major concern," and CNN meteorologist Rachel Aissen predicts the flooding in South Carolina could be "historic." South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has declared a state of emergency, as have the governors of North Carolina, Virginia, and New Jersey. Aissen notes that while the storm could still shift back to shore, chances are if it keeps out to sea into Friday evening, it will stay there. (Don't be a "social media-rologist" and makes these five weather-prediction mistakes mentioned by Forbes.)
– The International Federation of Poker is making its biggest gamble yet—that poker can become a bigger game by getting rid of the gambling. “The fact is there are all these people who are attracted to poker but have stayed away from it because they didn’t want to risk money,” the president of the federation's US branch tells Forbes. After all, he notes, one of the most popular Facebook games is Zynga Poker, which has 60 million users, despite not using real money. The IFP hopes to rebrand the classic game in the vein of bridge or chess—a smart sport for strategic thinkers, notes Bleacher Report. The first big push comes this weekend in London with a "Nation's Cup" tournament featuring top players from around the world playing for their countries. (And, yes, there's a Team Zynga.) If it's a hit, the IFP hopes to land mainstream sponsors for subsequent tournaments. "It’s a different type of person being drawn to the game," says the federation official. Click for more.
– Scientists may be dubious about their actual benefits, but Sensa diet crystals are set to go global anyway, reports Slashfood. The products claims to make the scent of food—and therefore the flavor—more intense. The idea is that a more intense flavor will make dieters feel fuller after eating less. The supposedly appetite-suppressing crystals have been available in the US for two years now, but the product is set to debut in Canada, Mexico, Britain, and Germany. Dieters considering them may want to heed the words of Dr. Mark Friedman, an expert on taste and smell: "There's no scientific evidence that smelling or tasting flavors is going to suppress your intake over a nutritionally significant level." (The quote appears in Slashfood via this New York Times article.)
– Visit a town north of Vancouver and you may notice a long, blue building that appears ordinary—but it just may be leading the way in climate-change technology. Run by the Canadian company Carbon Engineering, the plant is busy capturing carbon dioxide from the Earth's atmosphere. It's also designed to process the greenhouse gas into carbon pellets that can help make fuel or just be buried underground, AFP reports. "It's now possible to take CO2 out of the atmosphere, and use it ... to produce net zero emission fuels," says company CEO Adrian Corless. "You don't have to re-tool the $30 trillion in (global) infrastructure now used to deliver fossil fuels." And he's not alone: Billionaires including Bill Gates and oil sands financier Murray Edwards are already investing, the Toronto Star reports. Running since May, the pilot plant should grab about a ton of CO2 daily—about the same as removing 100 cars from the road, the CBC reports. It works by running air through equipment that absorbs CO2 in a liquid solution and turns it into calcium-carbonate pellets (see a diagram at Quartz). The pellets are then heated in order to free pure carbon. "There's no real magic to it," says Corless. "The pieces of equipment already exist today in very large scale." Indeed, companies in California and Switzerland are also aiming to capture airborne CO2. Carbon Engineering isn't commercially viable just yet, but carbon pricing varies and could eventually hit $100 per ton. Would that be enough? "That’s getting pretty damn close," says company founder David Keith. (One study found that "global cooling" isn't such a far-fetched theory.)
– Police found rapper DMX unconscious and without a pulse Monday evening outside a Ramada Inn in Yonkers, New York, the AP reports. "Signs point to an overdose," according to TMZ. A witness reported seeing DMX taking some sort of powder before collapsing. And officers who arrived at the scene administered Narcan—a medication used to treat overdoses—in addition to performing CPR and giving oxygen. DMX was successfully revived in the parking lot and transported to an area hospital. "Short story…cops saved his life," TMZ states. The rapper, who has asthma, denies taking any drugs. He says he's been short of breath since a recent bout of bronchitis. A family member says the rapper asked for his inhaler immediately before collapsing. DMX's attorney says the rapper has recovered since Monday's incident.
– Edgar Arias Tamayo is scheduled to be executed in Texas tonight—despite a number of high-level requests that the execution be halted because Tamayo's arrest violated international law. The Mexican citizen was initially arrested after a 1994 robbery; while in the patrol car, Tamayo, now 46, shot the arresting officer in the back of the head, killing him. But authorities never notified Tamayo that he had the right to contact the Mexican Consulate, and that failure violates an international treaty, the New York Times reports. Tamayo's attorney says he was mentally ill, brain-damaged, and developmentally disabled—"just the type of person the protections of the Vienna Convention were designed to help," the Los Angeles Times reports. In 2004, the World Court ordered Tamayo's conviction and 50 others reviewed because of Vienna Convention violations, but Tamayo's never was; Texas says it's not bound by that order. John Kerry, a former governor of Texas, the Mexican government, and a human rights group have all asked Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the state attorney general to stop Tamayo's execution until the case is reviewed, but they appear unswayed. (Kerry expressed a concern that the execution "could impact the way American citizens are treated in other countries," CNN reports.) Tamayo's lawyers unsuccessfully filed for clemency and Tamayo's request for a stay of execution was denied; they're looking into appeal options.
– Canadian officials had a message for Vladimir Putin this week: Here's where Russia isn't. NATO delegates from Canada tweeted a simplified map Wednesday that delineates Russia's borders, calling Russia "Russia" and Ukraine (including the Crimean region) "not Russia," the AP reports. "Geography can be tough," reads the message, which has been retweeted more than 36,000 times as of this writing. "Here's a guide for Russian soldiers who keep getting lost and 'accidentally' enter Ukraine." Russia still insists it isn't invading Ukraine, and says the only Russian soldiers to cross over were 10 guys who did so by mistake earlier this week. In fact, Russia's NATO delegation tweeted its own map showing the Crimean peninsula as belonging to Russia: "Helping our Canadian colleagues to catch up with contemporary geography of #Europe," it reads. Yet Russia's map "conveniently left unillustrated" the part of eastern Ukraine where the 10 Russian soldiers were said to be captured, the BBC notes. So, all of this was sparked by friendly old Canada? "This is probably the most aggressive Canadian act since like 1812," cracked one tweeter. But some Americans need help even finding Ukraine, according to one study: Only 16% could spot it on a map, and over 100 of the 2,066 participants figured it was near Greenland—or, appropriately, Canada, the BBC reports. (A Bulgarian artist created maps that depict typical American stereotypes of countries across the pond.)
– A 29-year-old woman met a boy 15 years her junior at a Denver park and started a sexual relationship with him resulting in two children, prosecutors say. Authorities allege Alicia Hernandez, now 33, first met the boy in 2011 or 2012—when he was just 14, though he claims he told Hernandez he was 18, per KMGH. He told authorities the pair began having sex about a year later, per WXIA, though their relationship was only reported to police earlier this month. It isn't clear when Hernandez learned the boy had lied about his age. Hernandez—who gave birth in June 2013 and January 2015—is now charged with sexual assault on a child, a felony, and sexual assault with a 10-year age difference, a misdemeanor. She is out of jail on a $50,000 bond and is due back in court on Oct. 18. In a separate case out of Denver, authorities say Alexandra Kuisis, 41, is charged with sexual assault on a child after she befriended a family and assaulted their 8-year-old daughter, who recently spoke out, reports the Denver Post. (A teen who impregnated his teacher just won $6 million.)
– By the time you read this, Facebook shares will likely have begun trading (or not). But the hoopla around the IPO was slightly dampened today, thanks to a mammoth class-action privacy lawsuit filed against it. The case combines 21 separate suits accusing Facebook of tracking users even when they weren't logged in, the Telegraph reports. They're looking for $15 billion—almost enough to wipe out the $16 billion Facebook stands to take in today. In other IPO news: Mark Zuckerberg rang the opening bell this morning, in a remote ceremony from Facebook's Menlo Park campus, VentureBeat reports. The best part? The button he pushed was rigged so that ringing the bell would publish a status update on Zuckerberg's timeline: "Mark Zuckerberg listed a company on NASDAQ. — with Chris Cox and 4 others." How high will Facebook go? Well according to Joe Weisenthal of Business Insider, bids in Germany have hit $74 per share—a massive gain on the $38-per-share they've been priced at. One man watching that price with great interest? Bono. The Huffington Post points out that the U2 frontman owns 2.3% of Facebook, and may, after today, be the richest musician in the world.
– The Toronto Sun has a new video in which a belligerent Rob Ford threatens to murder someone, but will even that hurt the Teflon mayor? When news broke that he had definitely smoked crack, his approval rating went up by 5%. How? Because Ford, who's actually the son of a millionaire businessman/politician, "has staked his image on the illusion that he's some run-of-the-mill hoser, just like you and me," explains JB Staniforth at Salon. And part of his "costume" is "a readiness to admit that he likes to party—a cheery euphemism for his substance abuse problems." Here is a brief list of some of the things he's done in recent years: He was kicked out of a Toronto Maple Leafs game after a fan asked him to be quiet, and he drunkenly replied, "Who the fuck do you think you are? Are you a fucking teacher? Do you want your little wife to go over to Iran and get raped and shot?" A private St. Patrick's Day party kicked him out for, per a news report, "fighting and carrying on 'like an idiot,' [… and] 'storming the dance floor.'" He was once again kicked out of a ball honoring Canadian soldiers—he showed up already "rambling" and "incoherent." He once allegedly grabbed and groped opposing mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson's butt, telling her that she "should have been in Florida with him" on a recent vacation "because his wife wasn't there." She thought he was on cocaine. His wife has charged him with assault and uttering death threats, and once called the police for a domestic dispute. She dropped the charges each time. His mother-in-law once called 911 to report he was drunkenly attempting to take his kids to Florida over his wife's objections. There's much more in the full article. The thing is, "Ford’s antics, spectacular though they are, tend to distract" from his "vicious, xenophobic conservatism." Ford is all about fighting government spending and "those he perceives as the coddled poor." He's virulently anti-immigration, once remarking,"I'm telling you, the Oriental people, they're slowly taking over," and just as anti-gay. In a sense he's "Canada’s leading exemplar of the Tea Party model of identity politics; he’s a rich white guy who portrays himself as the angry little guy." For the Sun's video of Ford, click here.
– Gary Johnson complains he gets no respect in his longshot bid for the GOP nomination. Yeah, and this won't help: His campaign realized late yesterday it still hadn't filed for the New Hampshire primary, and today is the deadline, reports the Los Angeles Times. Johnson cleared his schedule to take a red-eye to the state himself and do so in person. Looks like he'll make it just ahead of a storm, notes the New York Times. "The technical term is that we screwed up," his communications director tells NBC. What's worse is that what little chance the former New Mexico governor has is predicated on doing well in the Granite State. The strategy is called "the New Hampshire Path," but it does require actually being on the ballot.
– Donald Trump is doubling down in his criticism of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, calling her "disgusting," accusing her of making a sex tape, and saying that Hillary Clinton made a big mistake in referencing her during Monday's debate. As for the sex tape, myth-busting site Snopes looked into it, along with rumors that she was an adult-film actress, and finds the allegations to be "mostly untrue." The sex-tape story stems from 2005, when Machado reportedly was filmed having sex with another member of a Spanish reality-TV show. But the grainy night-vision footage of a "covered" couple in bed is not explicit and, given that it stems from a reality show, may have been a staged stunt anyway, says Snopes. In a series of tweets Friday morning, Trump unleashed the following: First: "Wow, Crooked Hillary was duped and used by my worst Miss U. Hillary floated her as an 'angel' without checking her past, which is terrible!" Second: "Using Alicia M in the debate as a paragon of virtue just shows that Crooked Hillary suffers from BAD JUDGEMENT! Hillary was set up by a con." Third: "Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?" Also surfacing are reports that Machado was implicated in a murder as a getaway driver about 20 years ago and that she threatened a judge, but she wasn't charged over either, reports CBS News. Asked about the allegations on CNN, she said, "I'm no saint girl."
– The Western man's sperm count just isn't what it used to be. In what the Washington Post calls the largest and most comprehensive look into the matter, an international team of researchers reports in the journal Human Reproductive Update that after analyzing 185 previous studies involving 42,000 men worldwide between 1973 and 2011, they've observed a 52% drop in sperm concentration in men from North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. This is in stark contrast to men in South America, Asia, and Africa, where no such decline was found, though not nearly as much data comes out of those regions, researchers report in press release. "Given the importance of sperm counts for male fertility and human health, this study is an urgent wake-up call," the lead author says. In 1973, the researchers estimate, men had an average sperm concentration of 99 million per milliliter. The World Health Organization puts the threshold for impaired chances of conception at 40 million, and today, the average Western male's sperm concentration has dropped very close to that: 47 million. And while there isn't exactly a fertility crisis among humans, Gizmodo calls the research "admittedly scary." Having a low sperm count has been linked to a range of increased health problems and even higher mortality. It's "a signal that there's something wrong in men's health overall," one researcher tells the Post, noting that "the decline is strong and ... the decline is continuing." What's causing the drop is up for debate, and everything from chemical and pesticide exposure to smoking and stress have been blamed. (Tight underwear could be part of the problem.)
– Authorities may be closing in on an alleged murderer who escaped from a Washington state psychiatric hospital: Officials say Anthony Garver's mom called 911 around 3:30pm Thursday after her son visited his parents' home near Spokane, reports NBC News. Garver fled before SWAT officers, K-9 units, and helicopters converged on the scene. They're now "trying to contain him in the area and see if we can locate him from where he left the house," an official says. However, police fear Garver may be armed. He was previously known to possess military-style weapons and explosives and may have a stash hidden in the area, officials tell the Spokesman-Review and Seattle Times. Court documents note Garver has threatened mass shootings, studied bombs and al-Qaeda training documents, and "aspired to emulate" the Oklahoma City bomber. "He's out there among us, so not just my safety and family's safety, but everybody's safety" is at risk, says the mother of the woman Garver is accused of killing. "He's very dangerous." Garver is actually no stranger to life on the run. After a stint in prison for weapons charges, he failed to show up for a work-release program in 2009, sparking a month-long manhunt. He was found hiding in the woods near Mount Spokane. He later escaped from a halfway house. On Wednesday, Garver and his roommate—since recaptured—escaped from Western State Hospital through a locked window on which the bolts "were tampered with over several months," the hospital says in a statement. He then made it to Seattle, where authorities believe he bought a bus ticket to Spokane using the name John Anderson and money he was allowed to have at the hospital.
– Bernie Tiede, the Texas mortician-slash-murderer made famous when Jack Black portrayed him in Bernie, was released yesterday—to go live in the garage apartment of Richard Linklater, who co-wrote and directed the 2011 movie. Tiede, who in 1996 killed his longtime companion, wealthy 81-year-old widow Marjorie Nugent, was originally sentenced to life in prison. But his appeals attorney argued that his sentence should be reduced because he was sexually assaulted as a child and Nugent (played by Shirley MacLaine) was abusive toward him; her body was found 9 months after she vanished in a freezer in her garage. The DA who originally prosecuted Tiede agreed, the AP reports, and Tiede was freed on $10,000 bond. The state criminal appeals court still needs to formally sign off on the reduction. A psychiatrist who examined Tiede explained that he killed Nugent in a "brief dissociative episode," and that the murder was not planned. Tiede, now 55, "doesn't come across in examination at all as a person prone to violence," he testified yesterday. "That set of circumstances ... is not going to re-create itself." The sexual abuse Tiede suffered at the hands of an uncle between ages 12 and 18 had not been divulged during the trial—a lawyer who decided to investigate the case, with Linklater's blessing, after seeing the movie discovered Tiede had been abused, Texas Monthly explained in a January article. Linklater—who has always been adamant Tiede is no longer a threat, the Houston Chronicle notes—volunteered to take Tiede into his Austin home, and the judge ordered Tiede to get counseling for the abuse he endured.
– And you thought fans who threw beer were bad. A video is circulating on the Internet in which an Iranian soccer player finds a grenade (or something like it) lying on the pitch, picks it up, and then casually tosses it out of bounds—where it explodes, reports Opposing Views. No one appears to have been harmed in any way. The incident took place in an AFC Champions League match between Iran's Sepahan and Saudi Arabia's Al-Ahli, according to Kottke.org, which identifies the player who tosses the explosive device as Sepahan midfielder Adel Kolahkaj. The game resumed after a brief delay, notes the Washington Post.
– A bacterium that flourishes in warm, brackish water has killed two people in Florida this year and will likely take more lives—but people can easily lower their chance of infection. Florida health officials say one person picked up the bacterium, known as vibrio vulnificus, via "raw seafood exposure" and another through "multiple exposures," UPI reports. It's not unusual in Florida, where 32 vibrio vulnificus cases were reported last year and seven were fatal. People usually get infected by entering vibrio vulnificus-infected water with open wounds—even a mosquito bite can serve as a point of entry, per the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory—or eating raw seafood. Sufferers with weakened immune systems (chronic liver disease in particular) are especially at risk, according to the Florida Department of Health. Mild cases resemble stomach flu or food poisoning, CBS News reports, but vibrio vulnificus becomes life-threatening when it enters the bloodstream. Then come symptoms like blistering skin lesions, low blood pressure, chills, and fever. Sufferers sometimes endure painful skin infections and have their limbs amputated; death results in about half of life-threatening cases. As the laboratory puts it, that's "said by many experts to be the highest human fatality rate for any bacterium." The more grim results explain why vibrio vulnificus is loosely called a "flesh-eating" bacteria even though it doesn't meet the official criteria, UPI noted last year. For more, see WTVM's list of ways to avoid vibrio vulnificus, including tips on shellfish-cooking and a warning to avoid raw oysters altogether. Another vibrio vulnificus factoid: Maryland and Gulf Coast states like Florida have the worst infection rates, but the bacterium is spreading to new waters thanks to global warming, per the laboratory. (More dangers in our waters: Two teens lost limbs on Sunday in North Carolina shark attacks.)
– "We want to make what's intimate, public." So says 23-year-old Victor Hugo Prada, who is gearing up to marry the two loves of his life after Colombia agreed to legalize a three-way union between Prada and his two boyfriends—perhaps the first such legalized "throuples" union not only in the South American country, but in the world, the Guardian notes. The paperwork joining Prada, Manuel Bermudez, and John Alejandro Rodriguez, which has already been signed off on by a Medellin notary, makes them a bona fide family unit in the eyes of the law, including for inheritance purposes, per News Corp Australia. "We wanted to validate our household ... and our rights," Prada said in a video making the rounds in Colombian media on Monday. German Rincon-Perfetti, the lawyer behind the groundbreaking document, is careful to note this isn't considered a "marriage" under Colombian law. "A marriage is between two people, so we had to come up with a new word: a special patrimonial union," he says, per the Guardian. Bermudez and Rodriguez were the first to enter into the relationship 18 years ago, as well as the first male gay couple in the nation legally recognized in 2000 for their union. There was originally a fourth member in this polyamorous relationship: Alex Esneider Zabala, who started a relationship with Bermudez and Rodriguez in 2004. Zabala died of cancer three years ago, however, just one year after Prada also entered the picture. "There are a lot of throuples [around the world], but it is completely clandestine," Rincon Perfetti notes. A ceremony for the three men is being planned to take place in the next few months.
– An Afghan couple who married for love—and wound up getting arrested for it—reunited yesterday, after both were freed from custody, the New York Times reports. Mohammad Ali, 21, a Shiite Hazara, and Zakia, 18, a Sunni Tajik, eloped in March and went on the run from their families and the law, prompting the Times to dub them "the Afghan Romeo and Juliet." Zakia's father pressed charges against them for bigamy, saying Zakia had already been married to her nephew—she says she was merely engaged to him against her will. Six of Mohammad Ali's male relatives apprehended him on June 6 and took him to police, who charged him with kidnapping. Zakia then turned herself in to a women's shelter, where the Times explains she was "effectively kept under a form of house arrest." But the case attracted widespread media attention, particularly in Afghanistan, and Afghanistan's attorney general intervened, ordering Mohammad Ali's release last week; the charges against Zakia were dismissed yesterday. He also offered to file charges against Zakia's father for trying to force her to marry against her will—a crime under Afghanistan's Elimination of Violence Against Women law—but she declined. "If my family catches us, they won't leave us alive," she says, and she never expects to see her parents again. "But I don't want trouble for them."
– What happens to dogs that are kicked out of the police academy for being "too friendly"? In the case of Gavel, a German shepherd puppy in Australia, post-expulsion life is, um, not so bad. After the companionable dog was rejected by the Queensland Police Service—he "did not display the necessary aptitude for a life on the front line"—he was welcomed into the home of Queensland Gov. Paul de Jersey and has now taken on the title of "Vice-Regal Dog," reports the BBC. His main duties: greeting and playing with guests, per Time. (He's also quite the social media celebrity.) As the police service quipped earlier, "it is unlikely Gavel will be complaining any time soon."
– President Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu's relations have never been described as warm, and two developments today show they're not getting warmer: No meeting: Obama has turned down a request to meet with Netanyahu when he comes to the US later this month to address the UN. The White House says it just can't squeeze him in, which will mark the first time the prime minister has been shut out on a US trip, reports the Jerusalem Post. Fightin' words: In what the Washington Post describes as a "blistering" criticism, Netanyahu blasted the US and the West for being soft on Iran in regard to its nuclear program. "Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel." He was taking at dig at Hillary Clinton's comments over the weekend that "red lines" and "deadlines" weren't useful. Election at play? The New York Times says Netanyahu "appeared to be making maximum use of his political leverage at a time when Mr. Obama’s Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, has sought to make an issue of what he says is the administration’s lack of support for Israel."
– An 18-year-old woman in San Jose will never get to meet her baby after she was killed in a car crash Wednesday two months before her child was due, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Doctors were able to save Dulce Capetillo's unborn baby, Christopher, and he remains in critical condition. "All she ever wanted was to hold her baby in her arms," Capetillo's friend says. Capetillo, who had recently moved in with her fiance Pedro Cortes, had picked out the name Christopher before crash. Cortes was overcome by grief Wednesday after losing the mother of his child. Capetillo's 20-year-old brother picked her up from work after midnight Wednesday. Shortly before 2am, he crashed into a BMW that was parked along the side of the highway. It's unclear why he crashed into the BMW, but police don't believe drugs or alcohol were involved. Emergency responders at the scene said Capetillo only had a minor leg injury, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. But doctors at the hospital found what KRON says were "traumatic injuries to her torso." She died in the operating room, leaving her new baby boy behind. (Mom of five dies 10 days after giving birth to triplets.)
– Those hoping to repair bicycles or fight forest fires will have good luck finding work over the next decade, but home health and personal care aides will fare even better, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' list of America's fastest-growing jobs. The US is expecting 0.7% job growth annually. But thanks to an aging population, the personal care industry is expected to add 754,000 jobs for 37.4% growth by 2026, while the home health industry is expected to add 425,600 new jobs for 46.7% growth. Together, that's more jobs than projected across the eight other fastest-growing fields combined, notes the Washington Post. The problem: They're among the lowest-paying jobs in the country, per 24/7 Wall St. Personal care aides make about $21,900 annually; home health aides pull in $22,600. Some 90% of these positions are held by women, many of whom live in poverty, per the Post. "What they earn makes it hard for them to pay the rent, or get an education to move into better-paying jobs," says a labor economist. She suggests the government should supplement aides' wages, as they can help the health care system save money by keeping people out of nursing homes. Worried about artificial intelligence taking over your job? Here's some good news: In a Deloitte survey of 250 US executives who are early adopters of artificial intelligence, 69% said they expected minimal or no job loss in the next three years, while 29% said they expected job growth, per ZDNet. Forbes spotlights four jobs that might be obsolete in 10 years.
– So much for President Obama's unassailable lead: A handful of new polls are calling a close presidential race on the eve of Obama's first debate with Mitt Romney, CNN reports. CNN's latest poll found that 50% favor Obama and 47% favor Romney, a difference within the survey's margin of error. An ABC News/Washington Post poll found 49% for Obama and 47% for Romney, and the American Research Group counted 49% for Obama and 46% for Romney. These numbers are all national, of course—not swing state. But at least nationally, there is "a strong suggestion that whatever bounce President Obama received from his convention has, as expected, faded away," says a CNN pollster. "That's why they call them 'bounces.'" Among the interesting CNN poll factoids: Romney and Obama are liked equally on the economy, Obama has a 52%-45% edge on foreign policy, women prefer Obama by 53%-44%, and Romney has a 50%-47% lead among men—but that's less than he had before the conventions.
– By piecing together clues from the National Enquirer's proposal story, Gawker found the $3.5 million beach house John Edwards is supposedly buying in preparation for life with Rielle Hunter. Take a guided tour in the gallery. For more pictures, click here, or check out the real estate listing.
– Good news for procrastinators: Americans will now have an extra month and a half to get health insurance before facing a penalty under ObamaCare, meaning they won't face a fine if they sign up for a plan by March 31. The six-week delay (a change of tune for the White House) isn't because of website difficulties, but because people weren't certain when the penalty came into effect, officials tell the Washington Post. It hadn't been clear whether Americans simply had to sign up for a plan before the penalty took effect, or whether their coverage itself had to begin by that date, the Post and MarketWatch explain. Because of the way health insurance is processed, Americans would have needed to apply by Feb. 15 for coverage to kick in March 31; now, people won't be penalized as long as they've signed up by March 31, in which case their coverage would start May 1. Meanwhile, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is preparing for hearings on website issues beginning today. Four contractors will testify; Kathleen Sebelius will do the same next Wednesday. CGI Federal handled the lion's share of the project, and has already acknowledged some responsibility for the problems in a letter to lawmakers—but it asserted that the health department agency Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was ultimately responsible for the site's "end-to-end performance"; it also points the finger at contractor Quality Software Services for registration problems that have now been fixed. QSS says it's not the only one to blame. An insurance industry source tells CNN that "top health insurers" knew full well about the website's flaws before it launched.
– Japan's Kohei Uchimura, widely considered the greatest men's gymnast in history, won the gold medal over Ukraine's Oleg Verniaiev by less than one-tenth of a point Wednesday night. Their two-hour duel provided the closest call in Uchimura's run of two Olympic crowns and six world all-around championships, the AP reports. "There's only the tiniest gap, a 0.1 gap," said Uchimura, who finished with 92.365 to Verniaiev's 92.266 but was behind by nearly a point entering the final rotation. "I really have no confidence, I should say, that I can beat Oleg." The win makes Uchimura, who scored a silver in 2008, the first gymnast in 44 years to pick up back-to-back all-around Olympic titles, reports Reuters.
– You won’t find many Republicans shedding tears over John Ensign's resignation. Most seem overjoyed that the scandal-plagued congressman is out of the picture, potentially sparing heir apparent Dean Heller a messy primary battle, Politico observes. “I think he did it for his family, but it also benefits the party,” said one Nevada GOP consultant. “Ensign doing this early is, in many ways, a favor to the party because it allows time to sort it out.” Ensign, proud owner of a sub-40% approval rating, “probably would not have escaped a primary challenge, let alone gotten reelected,” writes Nate Silver of the New York Times. Heller has a strong favorability rating and should be a slight favorite in the general election. Of course, there might still be a primary—Sharron Angle’s still out there—but “many Republicans expressed buyer’s remorse after nominating Ms. Angle in 2010, so electability is liable to be the order of the day.”
– Dominique Strauss-Kahn said when he stepped naked from the shower to see the Manhattan hotel maid who later accused him of rape, their eyes met and he read an invitation to "precipitous but consensual" sex, says a new biography out today. But he still considers the encounter "stupid" because it was the beginning of the end of his political ambitions, he tells author Michel Taubmann. "That day, I opened the door to all the other affairs. I could have been in a position to be president," Strauss-Kahn is quoted as saying in excerpts from Affaires DSK in Paris Match. "Now, I'm no longer in that position." He admits that he has enjoyed an "uninhibited sex life," but adds that's not unusual in politics and business, and that he has done nothing illegal, reports Reuters. New York prosecutors eventually dropped all charges against Strauss-Kahn, and some believe he was framed as part of a conspiracy to ruin his reputation. In a separate case, French authorities decided that too much time had elapsed to levy charges for an alleged sex assault on a French writer. Now DSK is apparently part of an investigation eyeing him as a possible client of a prostitution ring. "In the press, they link my name to prostitution. It's unbearable," he says in the book. "I did go to sex parties, it's true, but usually those who came to these soirées were not prostitutes."
– It's possible the Senate will get a chance to confirm John Brennan as the next CIA chief tomorrow—unless Rand Paul's voice holds out. The Kentucky Republican began a genuine filibuster about 11:45am today, reports USA Today. That is, he's not taking advantage of the modern rule that allows him to just say he wants to filibuster—he's talking and talking and talking. "I will speak for as long as it takes," he said. "I will speak today until the president says, ‘No,’ he will not kill you at a cafe.'" The quote refers to White House policy on drone strikes against Americans on US soil. (Watch it live at CSPAN.org.) About three hours into the filibuster, Paul started getting support, reports the Hill. Republicans Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and others helped him keep the filibuster moving, as did Democrat Ron Wyden. Harry Reid is powerless to end it until Paul yields the floor because Reid failed to file the appropriate paperwork beforehand, reports Politico. Yesterday, Paul released a letter from the attorney general stating that while it would be unlikely, it's conceivable that the US might order the killing of an American citizen here to prevent a terror attack.
– Denver is set to see a bigger temperature change in the space of a day than some places experience over a year, forecasters say. "The forecast has a bit of Yin & Yang in it over the next two days," the National Weather Service tweeted Tuesday. "Near record heat tomorrow, light snow arrives Thursday." The Wednesday temperature ended up being a record 84 degrees, 4 degrees higher than the previous record for Oct. 25, which was set in 2007, CBS reports. But the winter coats will be coming out Thursday: The Denver Post reports that after a wind change, the temperature is expected to drop to the mid-30s by afternoon, followed by an overnight low of around 20. Around half an inch of snow could accumulate after lunchtime Thursday, rising to up to 5 inches at higher elevations.
– It was a good year for America's 400 richest people, who saw their net worth jump 13% to $1.7 trillion, according to Forbes' latest "Forbes 400" list. For a little context, Reuters notes that that means their combined net worth represents roughly one-eighth of the entire US economy. The top five names on the list didn't change this year—it's still Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison, and the Koch brothers, in that order. Perhaps the most notable change: Mark Zuckerberg plummeted from No. 14 to No. 36, thanks to Facebook's less-than-stellar NASDAQ debut.
– Was Marilyn Monroe a lesbian? Two new books allege that the iconic sex symbol had affairs with women: Radar talks to Tony Jerris, author of Marilyn Monroe: My Little Secret. Jerris claims Monroe met Jane Lawrence when the girl was just 12 years old and Monroe was 26. They bonded over the similarities in their troubled pasts, and Jane ended up running Monroe’s fan club. When Lawrence was 16, Monroe seduced her at the actress' home, and the pair had five more encounters, says Jerris, who is close to Lawrence. He also claims Monroe admitted to sexual encounters with Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, Marlene Dietrich, and Elizabeth Taylor. Radar has some spicy quotes. In Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox, author Lois Banner says that Marilyn "desired women, had affairs with them, and worried that she might be lesbian by nature." The feelings confused her, Banner writes: "How could she be the world’s heterosexual goddess and desire women?" An excerpt was published in the Guardian last weekend. Click for never-before-published photos of Monroe from yet another new book.
– You know all the gnashing of teeth about how terrible the global response to the Ebola outbreak has been? Maybe someone should check with Firestone. As NPR reports, the tiremaker runs a rubber plantation and basically the entire town of Harbel, outside Monrovia, Liberia. And when an employee's wife turned up with the virus on March 30, Firestone Liberia's managing director says they "went into crisis mode": Upon discovering that there was nowhere to treat her, the company turned to the Internet for help in treating Ebola itself. Within a day, they had an Ebola ward. Within two, the woman was quarantined. They handed medical workers hazmat suits to prevent the virus' spread. "None of us had any Ebola experience," says the director, but NPR notes that they did have what everywhere else in the region did not: The muscle and resources that a major corporation can harness. The woman died, but not one of Firestone's roughly 8,500 employees and 71,500 family members contracted the virus. Months passed, and when the virus rampaged through the area in August, Firestone stepped up to the plate: It expanded the isolation ward, built an annex and quarantine centers, and sent out-of-work teachers (schools had been shut down) to go door-to-door and educate. Janitors were taught how to properly bury the dead, notes the Wall Street Journal. It runs its hospital ward with military-like precision, and at present it's down to just three patients, a trio of boys whose homes are outside the plantation. As for what's needed to contain the outbreak, a CDC rep says simply: "More Firestones." (Meanwhile, Spain is planning to kill an Ebola patient's dog, and the Dallas Ebola patient's bill is rising $1,000 per hour.)
– Jerry Seinfeld is making headlines for an interview with Brian Williams of NBC in which he says he thinks he's at least mildly autistic. "I think, on a very drawn-out scale, I think I'm on the spectrum," he says. Williams presses him for details, recounts USA Today, and the comedian elaborates: "You know, never paying attention to the right things. Basic social engagement is really a struggle." "I'm very literal. When people talk to me and they use expressions, sometimes I don't know what they're saying. But I don't see it as dysfunctional. I just think of it as an alternate mindset." This appears to be a self-diagnosis, and a follow-up story at NBC quotes the president of the National Autism Association who worries that it might oversimplify the disorder. But the president of the Autistic Advocacy Network takes a different view: "Think about what this does for a closeted autistic person who goes into the workplace knowing that their co-workers have just seen somebody they know, respect, and have a positive opinion of, like Jerry Seinfeld, identify in this way—it’s a valuable and important step in building a greater tolerance for autism."
– US states have official flags and official flowers, but Oregon could become the first to have a state microbe—and a delicious microbe, at that. Oregon's microbe of choice is the Saccharomyces cerevisiae, better known as ale yeast, and the bill's sponsor hopes the measure will show appreciation for the $2.4 billion that craft-brewing brings to Oregon each year, reports Popular Science. In fact, Portland purports to have more brew houses than any other city in the world, says NPR. So far the bill has passed Orgeon's House 58-0, and now it heads to the Senate. The Oregonian is already kicking around potential names for a microbial political action committee, with SAC PAC of SIX PAC making the cut. Wisconsin, incidentally, tried to get its own state microbe in 2010—the Lactococcus lactis, the bacterium used to make cheese and buttermilk—but the measure curdled in the state Senate.
– Be careful what you like online, especially if you're in Switzerland—it may get you in trouble for defamation. In what Fortune reports could be a first, a court there has fined an unidentified man the equivalent of more than $4,000 after he liked defamatory comments on Facebook that accused an animal rights activist of racism and anti-Semitism. The activist, Erwin Kessler, had been the subject of heated Facebook conversations in 2015 about which animal welfare groups should be allowed in a vegan street festival, reports the Swiss daily Tages Anzeiger. In stark contrast, a US federal court ruled in 2013 that an online "like" is protected by the First Amendment. Kessler sued over a dozen people involved in those online exchanges, several of whom have already been convicted for comments they made, reports the Guardian, but this latest fine appears to be the first time someone has been convicted for merely pressing "like." The court, however, ruled that even though the defendant didn't write the comments, he "clearly endorsed the unseemly content and made it his own." A defense attorney says that if courts want to prosecute people for simply liking content, "we could easily need to triple the number of judges in this country," adding it could "easily become an assault on the freedom of expression." (See how Facebook likes are linked to lower self-esteem.)
– An 18-year-old Arlington, Texas, woman died Friday after being involved in a crash a week prior with a driver who police say may have been distracted by a court-ordered Breathalyzer test. The unnamed driver, 31, told police that he took his eyes off the road for three or four seconds in order to take a breath test via his ignition interlock device at 6:20pm on Nov. 10. The Fort-Worth Star Telegram describes it as a "re-test." As he was doing so, Alexis Butler was backing her Toyota Camry out of a driveway; the driver smashed into her passenger side, with NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reporting police found no tire tracks at the scene to suggest the driver applied the brakes before hitting Butler. Police say the male driver wasn't impaired during the incident; no charges have yet been filed. Lt. Chris Cook with the Arlington Police Department says they plan to review the man's original court order and to also look at the device's directions. "It's very concerning to us, as a police department, that an individual may be operating some type of ignition equipment while they're in a moving vehicle," says Cook. The Dallas News describes a "rolling retest" as one where the driver must "blow into the device to ensure he or she isn't drinking while driving." The male driver was uninjured. (A toddler who was buckled incorrectly into a car seat was the only survivor of this Michigan crash.)
– Just one week after Kim Kardashian met with President Trump to argue the case of a great-grandmother sentenced to life in prison over a first-time drug conviction, the POTUS took action. He granted clemency to Alice Marie Johnson Wednesday, commuting the life sentence of the 63-year-old Tennessee woman who was found guilty of cocaine conspiracy and money laundering charges. She has been in federal prison for more than two decades, NPR reports, during which time supporters have argued for her release, pointing out the non-violent nature of her offense and the fact that she's been a model prisoner. "BEST NEWS EVER!!!!" Kardashian tweeted Wednesday alongside a link to the news. "So grateful to @realDonaldTrump, Jared Kushner & to everyone who has showed compassion & contributed countless hours to this important moment for Ms. Alice Marie Johnson. Her commutation is inspirational & gives hope to so many others who are also deserving of a second chance," she added. In a statement, the White House said Johnson "has accepted responsibility for her past behavior." "While this administration will always be very tough on crime, it believes that those who have paid their debt to society and worked hard to better themselves while in prison deserve a second chance," the statement says. Prior to Johnson, Trump had issued five pardons and one commutation; he's considering others.
– It's now a safe bet that people have been swearing at cats for 2,000 years. Officials at the Gloucester City Museum in England have found an ancient roof tile with the telltale paw prints of a feline being somewhere it wasn't supposed to be, reports the Telegraph. They can only surmise that a cat ran across the wet tile while it was drying, sometime around 100 AD. Despite the prints, workers fired the tile, called a tegula, and popped it onto the roof of a building under construction in what is now Gloucester. The tile had been tucked away in the museum since 1969 before being spotted. “At that time the archaeologists seem to have been more interested in digging things up than looking at what they found,” the museum curator tells Discovery News. The cat may well have belonged to a Roman soldier stationed at the building site, notes the website. "Cats," observes a blogger at Jezebel. "Even the Romans couldn't keep them in line." (But if you've got one, here's the proper way to pet it.)
– We know what President Obama is reading this summer, but what is he listening to? It depends what time of day it is. The White House joined Spotify, and it says Obama came up with two separate summer playlists, one for the day and one for the night. Billboard is fairly impressed. "His tastes run deeper and wider than even previous glimpses into his iPod have hinted." Here are the first 10 on his daytime list, via the White House blog: Ain’t Too Proud to Beg – The Temptations Live It Up – Isley Brothers Memories Live – Talib Kweli & Hi Tek Tombstone Blues – Bob Dylan So Much Trouble in the World – Bob Marley Paradise – Coldplay Tengo Un Trato (Remix) – Mala Rodriguez Wang Dang Doodle – Howlin Wolf Another Star – Stevie Wonder Hot Fun in the Summertime – Sly & the Family Stone And the first 10 on his nighttime list: My Favorite Things – John Coltrane Superpower (feat. Frank Ocean) – Beyoncé Moondance – Van Morrison Is Your Love Big Enough? – Lianne La Havas How Can You Mend a Broken Heart – Al Green Red & White & Blue & Gold – Aoife O’Donovan Nothing Even Matters – Lauryn Hill The Best Is Yet to Come – Frank Sinatra You Don’t Know Me – Ray Charles I Found My Everything – Mary J Blige See the full list of 20 for each.
– New Zealand's new prime minister has a new baby on the way. Jacinda Ardern, who took office in October, says she and her partner Clarke Gayford are expecting their first child. She says Gayford will be a stay-at-home dad. "We thought 2017 was a big year! This year we'll join the many parents who wear two hats. I'll be PM & a mum while Clarke will be 'first man of fishing' & stay at home dad," she tweeted Friday. In a statement, Ardern said Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters will be acting prime minister while she is on leave for six weeks after the birth, the AP reports. "Clarke and I are privileged to be in the position where Clarke can stay home to be our primary care-giver. Knowing that so many parents juggle the care of their new babies, we consider ourselves to be very lucky," she said. "Clarke and I have always been clear we wanted to be parents but had been told we would need help for that to happen. That's made this news a fantastic surprise," Ardern added. She discovered she was pregnant on Oct. 13, just two weeks before she was sworn in as prime minister. The New Zealand Herald reports that the baby is due in June and couple know the baby's gender, but they are keeping that information private for now. After becoming Labour Party leader in August last year, Ardern was asked about her plans for children, and told reporters that while she would answer such questions, it is "unacceptable" to expect other women to answer them in the workplace. Ardern will be the first world leader to give birth while in office since Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto had a daughter, her second child, while prime minister in 1990, Quartz reports.
– For those still operating under the at-times very misguided notion that beavers are just busy little critters with eccentric tails: KBND reports that two men hiking along Oregon's Deschutes River this week came upon a beaver dam and decided to explore, ending in both being hospitalized after a resident beaver emerged to defend its territory. Clayton Mitchell, 23, told cops the beaver knocked him into the water, while 31-year-old friend John Bailey became entangled in logs. Mitchell called for help, which arrived just as Bailey freed himself. "I was just getting off shift when the report came in, and I didn't believe it," a Deschutes County Sheriff's Department rep tells Reuters, which calls the attack "virtually unprecedented" in the area. "I'm a city boy from the East Coast, and every day in Deschutes County I learn something new. This time, I learned, don't mess with a beaver." Both men's injuries were considered non-life threatening; other recent victims have been seriously mauled or killed.
– When a mail carrier found a discolored envelope among his stash of letters earlier this month, a few things stood out, the AP notes. For one, the envelope had been slit open at the top, apparently by a letter opener, quite some time ago. For another, it had been mailed from Des Moines, Iowa, in 1914 with only a 2-cent stamp. When Larry Schultz tried to deliver it to its intended recipient in Lincoln, Neb., his curiosity about how the letter ended up in the mail 103 years after it was originally sent only deepened, reports the Lincoln Journal Star. Grace Wheeler—who happened to be the first female member of the US Electoral College—died in 1947 and her home was torn down in 1965. In its place is now a parking lot. An official at the Lincoln post office doubts the letter was lost in the mail for more than a century as four names jotted on the back add to the idea that it was previously delivered and read. "Probably somebody found this either in an attic, or maybe in some boxes, and didn't know what to do with it and just dropped it in a mailbox somewhere," he says. "But boy, it would be interesting to know where it was actually located and the story behind that." While its path remains a mystery, the three-page letter sent to Wheeler by her daughter—telling of a "pleasant" excursion and a little boy who liked to pinch—will indeed get delivered. It's headed to some of Wheeler's relatives, now scattered across six states.
– The founder of PayPal has long made clear that he hates Gawker. Now Forbes reports that Peter Thiel is using his billions to fund a potentially devastating legal fight against the media group. Specifically, the report says Thiel has been secretly funding Hulk Hogan's lawsuits against Gawker over the publication of a sex tape featuring the wrestler. A jury awarded Hogan $140 million in one case, though Gawker is appealing, and Hogan has another suit in the works. Gawker chief Nick Denton had told the New York Times earlier this week that he suspected a third party was funding Hogan's fight, though he didn't name Thiel publicly. As both stories note, Gawker (via its now-shuttered Valleywag site) outed the then-closeted Thiel as gay in 2007, and Thiel subsequently likened the website to al-Qaeda. "I think they should be described as terrorists, not as writers or reporters," he told Reuters in 2009, per the Washington Post. The revelation would answer one question that has baffled legal observers: Why didn't Hogan try to settle his suit rather than risk a trial? Thiel's involvement would suggest that it's more about hurting Gawker than coming to any kind of legal settlement, notes recode.
– Being an ex-king has its drawbacks, Spain's Juan Carlos has discovered. He enjoyed immunity from prosecution during his 39 years on the throne, but since he handed the crown to his son Felipe last year, two paternity suits have made it into the courts. One from a Spanish man was rejected, but the country's Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case from a 48-year-old Belgian woman who says the former king is her father, reports the BBC. Ingrid Sartiau claims that she is the product of an affair Juan Carlos had with her mother in 1965, when he was married but still a crown prince. Her lawyer tells CNN that Sartiau's mother is still alive and is willing to testify. "We would like to reach a settlement. My client never wanted it to get to this point," he says. The 77-year-old ex-king now has 20 days to respond to the lawsuit, and the court could require a DNA test from him.
– Sarah Palin was never a big fan of Levi Johnston, but now “Mama Grizzly has had enough,” says a family friend. “She wants to kick his ass!” Adds a Palin insider, “It was bad enough that this kid everyone thinks is stupid has already caused Sarah and her family great shame, telling everyone her secrets. Now, she fears he is going to do it all over again. Who knows what family business sweet Bristol told him when they briefly got back together.” And those fears are not unfounded, PopEater reports: Johnston is reportedly shopping a $20,000 post-breakup interview where he promises to reveal more of Sarah Palin’s secret plans. Making matters worse, E! got the details of the music video he shot with Brittani Senser (listen to the song at left) about a relationship that’s broken up by the girlfriend’s controlling mom…and it seems to be inspired just a bit by his relationship with the Palins.
– An Interstate 5 bridge over a river collapsed yesterday evening, dumping two vehicles into the water and sparking a rescue effort by boats and divers who searched the chilly waterway in Skagit County, north of Seattle. Authorities said it appeared nobody was killed, but three people were injured in the bridge failure that raised the question about the safety of aging spans and cut off the main route between Seattle and Canada. "We don't think anyone else went into the water," said Marcus Deyerin, a spokesman for the Northwest Washington Incident Management Team. Three people were reported in stable condition at local hospitals. A portion of the four-lane bridge over the Skagit River collapsed about 7pm, said a state trooper. At a press conference, authorities said a semi truck struck the bridge, which was about 50 feet above the water, causing the collapse. Witnesses tell Northwest Cable News they saw the truck, which was carrying an oversize load, hit the bridge's beams shortly before the collapse. The bridge is not considered structurally deficient but is listed as being "functionally obsolete"—meaning that the design is outdated, according to a database compiled by the Federal Highway Administration. The bridge was built in 1955 and has a sufficiency rating of 57.4 out of 100, according to federal records—well below the statewide average rating of 80, per AP data.
– The world's tiniest violin might not be enough to express one man's loss, allegedly at the hands of his ex-wife. The Japan Times reports 34-year-old Midori Kawamiya was arrested Tuesday, accused of destroying her ex-husband's $950,000 violin collection in 2014 as the two were divorcing. Authorities say Kawamiya admitted to breaking into Daniel Olsen Chen's apartment in Nagoya but denied destroying his collection, which the BBC reports was comprised of 54 violins and 70 bows. Kawamiya, a Chinese national, was arrested this week—more than three years after the alleged crime—when she returned to Japan from China. The 62-year-old Chen, who both collects and builds violins, says it will probably take him the rest of his life to repair his collection, the Violin Channel reports. The most valuable of the destroyed violins—said to be worth nearly $450,000 on its own—is believed to have been a Nicola Amati instrument from Italy. (The saga of a Stradivarius stolen in 1980s ends on a high note.)
– The latest celebrity with big-time tax trouble: Dionne Warwick. The 72-year-old singer has filed for bankruptcy, TMZ reports. She owes $10.2 million in back taxes that have been accruing since 1991. Almost $7 million of that is owed to the IRS, and the rest to California, the BBC reports. She also has $20,000 in credit card debt and owes $500,000 to a former manager, Radar reports. Her rep blames the whole thing on bad financial management, and says Warwick has actually paid the taxes but still owes penalties and interest. In her filing, she claimed she makes just $10 a month after paying all her expenses. Of course, those expenses include a monthly $5,000 housekeeping bill and $4,000 per month for a personal assistant. Click for more celebs who've been in the same boat.
– The paparazzi are confounded: How in the world did Sandra Bullock manage to keep her baby boy a secret, even through months in the spotlight first as an Oscar frontrunner and then as a scorned wife? By using “decoys and dark cars” and refusing to let anyone into her house for dress fittings, reports USA Today in a look at the People scoop. Even so, there were little clues that—somehow—no one noticed. Her makeup artist never understood why she looked so tired and needed “copious amounts of concealer” before events. And when a green baby sock fell out of her bag and onto the red carpet, no one wondered why she might be carrying around a baby sock. Bullock finally decided to break the news to People—and boot Julia Roberts off the cover in the process—after learning Life & Style was about to break its own story, PopEater reports.
– A surprising statement from Courteney Cox in the wake of all her husband’s awkward oversharing: “This is not like we’re getting divorced.” In an interview with TV Week obtained by People, Cox says that their separation took “a lot of courage,” and admits she doesn’t know how things will turn out. As for all that oversharing (which got even worse the second time Arquette went on Stern’s show), Cox says her husband is simply “a kook,” and claims she didn’t find his statements “shocking.” Click here for more from the interview, including Cox’s reasoning for the split and how she feels about Howard Stern—or click here to see how the couple spent Halloween.
– Iceland's beauty attracts more than a million travelers from around the world every year, and a tourist just learned the hard way that the country doesn't mess around when it comes to protecting its turf. A Swiss woman in her 60s entered the country in her camper by ferry and snuck her cat in along with her. Under Icelandic law, pets entering the country can only pass through Keflavík International Airport, must have the proper paperwork, and must be quarantined for a month, reports the Iceland Review. Police acting on a tip arrested the woman in Höfn in southeastern Iceland within two hours of her arrival and promptly brought her cat to a vet, where it was killed. They're also billing the woman for disinfecting her camper van. Some are calling the measure extreme, though Travel and Leisure notes that Iceland has a delicate ecosystem to protect, and that many diseases found in animals all over the world have never been detected in Iceland—including rabies. The argument in favor of the tough measure is that the island's animals could be devastated by just one undeclared animal unwittingly introducing a disease for which the native population has no immunity. Iceland Magazine reports that this isn't the first time a cat has been smuggled onto the island only to be euthanized. In 2003, police put down a French couple's cat they'd hidden in their RV. (There are now about two feral cats per human in Hawaii.)
– Ramona and Beezus plays fast and loose with its source material, the classic children's books by Beverly Cleary, but the family movie—Disney tween favorite Selena Gomez's film debut—generally has the critics on its side. Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: "The overall tone of the film is sunny, with Ramona and Beezus resiliently turning life's lemons into lemonade." The flick also "boasts a daddy/daughter plotline that is very touching." Mike Russell, Portland Oregonian: "Frankly feels like three or four installments of a low-budget "Ramona" TV series stitched together. But it does have some modest charm—mostly due to the strong child performance at its center." Mike Hale, New York Times: "Parents may be happy to see a movie for children that doesn’t involve wizards, vampires or action figures that can be bought in the food court." Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: "Emphasizes childhood conflicts, confusion and emotions over slapstick—no great sin. But the movie takes too long to settle on that tone." For more on Gomez, who has a rep for being "the next Miley Cyrus"—without the revealing photos and onstage antics—click here.
– A New York City man accused of killing his 3-year-old stepdaughter for soiling her pants was arrested after his own horrified mother turned him in, sources say. Kelsey Smith is believed to have flown into a rage and savagely beaten Jeida Torres on Saturday, police sources tell the New York Daily News. He allegedly called 911 posing as a neighbor before fleeing the family's apartment in a Brooklyn homeless shelter. Cops found the dying toddler and her badly beaten 5-year-old brother, who police believe may have tried to intervene when Smith attacked his sister. Police say Smith, 20, routinely watched his new wife's two children when she was at work and there had been no previous domestic violence calls to the apartment. The 5-year-old boy is still in the hospital, as is Smith, who relatives say tried to slit his wrists in a suicide attempt before police caught up with him, reports the New York Times. He has been charged with felony assault and acting in a manner injurious to a child less than 17 years old; murder charges may follow. Neighbors say they heard loud arguments at the apartment in recent weeks, and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has promised a thorough investigation, reports CBS 2. "A person doesn't start taking the life of a child overnight, it is something that is built up to," he says. "Did we have this abuser among us and it was ignored?" (In Mexico earlier this year, police and soldiers managed to rescue hundreds of abused kids from "truly terrible conditions" in a refuge.)
– Heads up, Jeb Bush and Chris Christie: Mitt Romney said today that he may run for president in 2016, the Wall Street Journal reports. Sources say he made the announcement at a meeting with Republican donors in New York City. "Mitt told the group of 30 or so guys that were there that he is considering a run for the White House and that they could go tell their friends," a source from the meeting tells CNN. Romney cited trouble overseas and the long-term economy as motives for running, but gave no timetable for deciding. Romney had been iffy on whether to run after losing in 2008 and 2012, CNN says, but had a change of mind over the past few weeks. "I think he is serious," says the CNN source. "One of the first things he said he said was, 'People ask me, do you want to be president? Well, yes, I did run twice.'" Romney reportedly says his wife Ann is "very encouraging" but his sons are divided over a 2016 run. A Romney candidacy could "upend the emerging GOP field" just as donors are gathering around Bush, the Journal says. A GOP funder at Romney's meeting, Alex Nabab, had been "part of" a recent Bush event, and Bush allies have expressed frustration over GOP donors holding out in the hope of a Romney run, Politico reports.
– The Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that an anti-abortion group can challenge an Ohio law that bars people from making false statements about political candidates during a campaign. The high court said the Susan B. Anthony List does not have to wait until it is prosecuted under the law to claim its First Amendment rights have been infringed. The court did not directly rule on the constitutionality of the law, but the decision raises serious doubts about whether the law—and similar measures in more than a dozen other states—can survive. The case began during the 2010 election when the group planned to put up billboards ads accusing then-Rep. Steve Driehaus of supporting taxpayer-funded abortion because he supported President Barack Obama's new health care law. Driehaus, a Democrat who opposes abortion, claimed the ads misrepresented the true facts and therefore violated the false speech law. In other high court news today: A divided court sided with gun control groups and the Obama administration, by upholding the federal ban on "straw" gun purchases. The justices ruled 5-4 that a man could not buy a gun for a relative in Pennsylvania, even though that relative was legally allowed to own guns. Anthony Kennedy joined the court's liberals, who argued in their decision that allowing straw purchasing would make it too easy to evade the various restrictions on gun ownership. The court handed Argentina a double defeat in its long-running fight with holders of its defaulted bonds, rejecting without comment its appeal of judgments ordering it to pay more than $1.3 billion to hedge funds that hold some of the country's bonds. The justices ignored the South American country's pleas that its economy could be threatened if it has to pay off the old debt. The court also dealt a blow to Scottie Pippen, refusing to revive his defamation suit against NBC Universal and other media outlets that had reported that he filed for bankruptcy.
– Gold miners hoping to strike it rich in Peru appear to have inflicted the miserable side effect of mercury poisoning on an estimated 48,000 people. Peru's government declared a 60-day health emergency last month after Duke researchers analyzed hair from a sample of 3,000 Madre de Dios residents and found that 40% showed mercury levels above the maximum recommended by the WHO, reports Nature. The area has been booming, with gold production in March up 28% from a year previously. But to extract the gold, miners use a method involving mercury that results in about 40 tons of the latter being dumped into waterways annually. The Duke study suggests those with mercury poisoning—which can cause brain or kidney damage in severe cases—likely ate contaminated fish. "We now know with certainty what the source of the exposure is," says Peru's deputy health minister. "We are not going to solve this in two months, or even in a year, but the Health Ministry has to start." Under the health emergency, 25 villages spread across 33,000 square miles will receive food and medical aid, including canned fish, multivitamins to help with anemia, and perhaps quinoa, which researchers say may help lower mercury levels. Community fish farms are also planned, but Peru's presidential election on June 5 may present a hurdle. One of two top candidates is a former mining minister and both support the industry, an analyst tells AFP. Some government officials also aren't convinced that fish consumption is responsible for the poisonings and worry the emergency declaration will hurt tourism. (See how seals play a part in the mercury cycle.)
– Alarmed by the growing popularity of rap among Russian youth, President Vladimir Putin wants cultural leaders to devise a means of controlling, rather than banning, the popular music, the AP reports. Putin says "if it is impossible to stop, then we must lead it and direct it." But Putin said at a St. Petersburg meeting with cultural advisers Saturday that attempts to ban artists from performing will have an adverse effect and bolster their popularity. Putin noted that "rap is based on three pillars: sex, drugs, and protest." But he is particularly concerned with drug themes prevalent in rap, saying "this is a path to the degradation of the nation." He said "drug propaganda" is worse than cursing. Putin's comments come amid a crackdown on contemporary music that evoked Soviet-era censorship of the arts. Last month, a rapper known as Husky, whose videos have garnered more than 6 million views on YouTube, was arrested after he staged an impromptu performance when his show was shut down in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar. On Nov. 30, rapper Gone.Fludd announced two concert cancellations, citing pressure from "every police agency you can imagine," while the popular hip hop artist Allj cancelled his show in the Arctic city of Yakutsk after receiving threats of violence. Other artists have been affected as well—pop sensation Monetochka and punk band Friendzona were among those who had their concerts shut down by the authorities last month.
– President Trump, his three eldest children, and the Trump Organization defrauded thousands of consumers by persuading them to invest in phony get-rich-quick schemes, according to a new lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed in federal court Monday, accuses Trump and children Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka of failing to disclose that they were accepting "large, secret payments" from the entities they were promoting as legitimate business opportunities, the New York Times reports. The four plaintiffs say they invested in telecommunications firm ACN after watching Trump's promotional videos. They say Trump made false claims about the company's chances of success while quietly accepting millions of dollars from it. "This case is about four working-class Americans, and thousands more just like them, who were deliberately defrauded by Donald J. Trump, his family, and the corporation that bears their name," states the lawsuit. The suit accuses the Trumps of leveraging the family brand to make a "series of false and misleading statements and omissions to ensnare vulnerable consumers." The plaintiffs include a hospice caregiver named as "Jane Doe," who says she paid $499 to register with ACN and thousands more to attend company events, but only earned $38 in two years, Politico reports. The lawsuit is being funded by the Tesseract Research Center, whose chairman is Democratic donor Morris Pearl. (Trump paid $25 million to settle Trump University lawsuits.)
– Walter Becker, one half of the legendary rock duo Steely Dan, died Sunday at the age of 67, the New York Times reports. Becker, a guitarist, bassist, and vocalist, formed the band with Donald Fagen in 1972 after the two men met at Bard College in the late 1960s. Together they became one of the most successful rock acts of the 1970s, creating a sound that owed as much to jazz as rock and roll. Since forming, the band has sold more than 40 million albums worldwide and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. After breaking up for most of the 80s the band re-formed in 1993 and won the Grammy award for album of the year that year. While the cause of Becker's death has yet to be announced, he had been suffering from an undisclosed illness in recent months that kept him off recent Steely Dan shows, Vulture reports. In a statement released Sunday, Fagen says he intends to "keep the music we created together as long as I can with the Steely Dan band."
– Wednesday marked the deadliest day for Chicago in more than a decade with nine people killed by gunshots in eight different districts across the city. Such gun violence hasn't been seen in Chicago since July 5, 2003, when 10 homicides occurred, reports the Chicago Tribune. Police say the various shootings were unconnected (though two 30-something men did die in one shooting). Among the dead are two 19-year-olds; a woman in her 20s; a 25-year-old man shot in the head, chest, and groin; and a 60-year-old man, NBC Chicago reports. "It's unfortunate to have this many murders in one day," says an officer. "Is this the worst it has been? No. We've got to put it into perspective." Police say one of the nine gunshot deaths wasn't a homicide but was accidental: 11-year-old Antwone J. Price was shot by a family member who was fooling around with a gun. His father and grandfather previously died in shootings, his family says. Over 36 hours from Tuesday afternoon to early Thursday, the death toll reached 12. Homicides have now spiked 20% in Chicago over last year, with 294 as of Aug. 23, compared to 244 by that date in 2014.
– It's a criminal tale that reads like Catch Me If You Can. At its center: a thief of antique silver alleged to have burgled 500 homes over 30 years (including that of Ivanka Trump) and the retired detective who spent his career trailing him. Blane Nordahl was arrested yesterday in a small town in north Florida, thanks in part to the dogged efforts of Lonnie Mason, a former NJ detective who twice captured Nordahl and who tipped Atlanta police off to the 51-year-old after noticing a pattern of Southern burglaries via Internet reports—as many as 70 this year, reports the Athens Banner-Herald. Among them: A 1734 silver mug once sipped by George II, slipped out of an Atlanta home via a removed windowpane; and silver spoons made by Paul Revere that disappeared from a NC plantation home whose alarm system was deactivated. The descriptions of Nordahl, per the New York Times, are fascinating: At 5-feet-4, he's able to squeeze in through windowpanes or door panels, breaking in so neatly that homeowners often don't realize they've been robbed until an occasion arises that demands the good silver (in the case of the Atlanta robbery, neither the homeowner's cameras nor those of neighbor Tyler Perry spotted the thief). He is so schooled in silver, reportedly thanks to his painter father, that he'll decline to take things that might fool others—a utensil with a hollow silver handle, for instance. (The Florida Times-Union notes that during one burglary, Nordahl allegedly taunted Mason by leaving $1,000 arranged on the table.) He's been arrested more than a dozen times, first in 1983, and was last paroled in 2010. He headed to his sister's home in Florida, leading Mason to keep an eye on theft reports there. It wasn't until Mason thought to search neighboring states for reported thefts that he realized Nordahl was allegedly back at it. Mason went on to advise a team of two dozen police in six states, ultimately leading to yesterday's arrest. (Click for another wild burglary story.)
– Afraid of the people at airport security using their scary full-body scanner to see you naked? Well then the people at FlyingPasties.com have just the product for you. Just slap some peace sign stickers over your private parts, and presto: Instant peace of mind! The stickers won't actually protect you from the machine's radiation, the site warns, but hey, you'll have your dignity. But Jaunted.com is highly skeptical. The site doesn't actually mention what amazing technology these things use—they look like normal stickers, ill equipped to thwart a scanner that can see through several layers of clothing. Second, these guys don't seem to grasp that the image the scanners produce doesn't actually look like a soft-core-ready naked body. "Flying Pasties don't belong on your body," the site concludes, "they belong on FAILBlog."
– Roseanne lives on, minus Roseanne: ABC says it has ordered 10 episodes of a spinoff of the top-rated sitcom, with the working title The Conners, CNN reports. It will feature the same cast as Roseanne, minus Roseanne Barr, who was fired after sending a racist tweet last month. The show will have the same crew that had been lined up to work on Roseanne's 11th season. "The Conners' stories demonstrate that families can always find common ground through conversation, laughter and love," ABC said in a statement. "The spinoff will continue to portray contemporary issues that are as relevant today as they were 30 years ago." Sources tell the Hollywood Reporter that Barr will retain the rights to her Roseanne Conner character. ABC says the new show will debut this fall, occupying the same Tuesday 8pm time slot that Roseanne did. Cast members including Sara Gilbert and John Goodman released a statement saying they had a "tremendous amount of support from fans of our show, and it's clear that these characters not only have a place in our hearts, but in the hearts and homes of our audience." Barr was gracious about the move in a statement to US Weekly. "I regret the circumstances that have caused me to be removed from Roseanne," she said. "I agreed to the settlement in order that 200 jobs of beloved cast and crew could be saved, and I wish the best for everyone involved."
– A Catholic priest in Virginia has stepped down from his duties, at least temporarily, after publicly revealing his position as a "grand cyclops" in the Ku Klux Klan 40 years ago, the Washington Post reports. Rev. William Aitcheson wrote about his "despicable" role with the KKK in an editorial published Monday in the Arlington Catholic Herald. He says he was "an impressionable young man" at the time and has since been transformed through Jesus' mercy. The 62-year-old Aitcheson writes that the events in Charlottesville “brought back memories of a bleak period in my life that I would have preferred to forget.” But he adds: "We cannot forget, we should not forget." In 1977, when Aitcheson was a 23-year-old college student, he was charged with burning six crosses, making bomb threats, and manufacturing pipe bombs in Maryland. The AP reports Aitcheson, who served 90 day in jail, also threatened to kill Coretta Scott King. He now says “racists have polluted minds, twisted by an ideology that reinforces the false belief that they are superior to others.” Aitcheson became a priest in 1988, and the diocese in Arlington says it knew about his KKK past when he arrived in 1993. However, Bishop Michael Burbidge now calls Aitcheson's involvement with the KKK "sad and deeply troubling." The diocese notes Aitcheson "voluntarily" agreed to take a break from public ministry following his editorial.
– A Texas mother who drowned her five children in a bathtub in 2001 is ready to leave the state psychiatric hospital for picnics and other outings with fellow patients, her doctors say. Andrea Yates, 49, has been institutionalized since 2006, when a second trial found her not guilty by reason of insanity of the murders of Noah, 7; John, 5; Paul, 3; Luke 2; and Mary, 6 months, reports the Houston Chronicle. She had initially been convicted of capital murder, but medical experts testified that she had suffered from extreme postpartum depression. Yates, who was denied permission to attend church services outside the hospital in 2012, is the only patient at the facility who has never received a group-outing pass, sources tell KTRH. Her lawyer says she has been involved with arts and crafts at the minimum-security hospital, sending the proceeds from anonymous sales of greeting cards and aprons to a charity that works to improve the mental health of new mothers. "She wants to help build a legacy for those children to help prevent future tragedies like hers," he says. "Every kid deserves to be raised by a mother free of mental illness."
– Chicago is bracing for intense protests and demonstrations Tuesday evening after the city released an "extremely disturbing" video of the fatal shooting of a black teenager at the hands of a white police officer in October 2014, Slate reports. The police dashcam video of the shooting allegedly shows Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times. In the video, McDonald—who was armed with a small knife—can be seen walking away from officers when Van Dyke opens fire. Van Dyke continues to shoot McDonald as he's lying on the ground. Al Jazeera notes Van Dyke emptied his gun and prepared to reload during the incident. The city had been attempting to block the release of the video since last year, Slate reports. A judge ordered it be made public last week. Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder Tuesday in advance of the video's release. "It's really important for public safety that the citizens of Chicago know that this officer is being held responsible for his actions," a county prosecutor tells Al Jazeera. According to the Chicago Tribune, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the ACLU of Illinois have called for calm and peace in the wake of the video's release. "The anger and frustration expressed by many African-American residents of Chicago in viewing the video is understandable," the ACLU states. "We hope that we can seize this moment to improve all aspects of policing." Activists have promised demonstrations following the video's release. "Chicago is not a Ferguson, it's not a Baltimore," one activist tells the Tribune. "We're not promoting any violence, but we understand that people are going to be angry."
– It's just 18 seconds long, but a new video released by South Korean researchers makes history for the worst of reasons. The clip shows Korean "comfort women" held as sex slaves by the Japanese military, reports the BBC. It's believed to be the first such film clip known to exist, though images of "comfort women" had previously surfaced in still photographs. The good news is that the video shows the women after US and Chinese troops arrived to free them in China's Yunnan province in 1944. A research team from Seoul National University found the footage in the US National Archives after a two-year search, reports Reuters. An American soldier is believed to have filmed the scene, in which a Chinese officer talks to the women lined up in front of a building used as a brothel. Japan forced an estimated 200,000 women to work as sex slaves for its soldiers during World War II. (Earlier this year, South Korea angered Japan with a statue honoring the women.)
– Victory for Sister Roma, Lil Miss Hot Mess, and hundreds of other drag queens who had fallen afoul of Facebook's "real name" policy: The company says it will ease up on the policy and they can carry on using their stage names. The drag queens had their accounts suspended and were asked to authenticate their names, which a Facebook exec says happened after a single user reported the Facebook pages of hundreds of drag queens for violating the name policy, TechCrunch reports. "Our policy has never been to require everyone on Facebook to use their legal name," the exec said in a Facebook post. "The spirit of our policy is that everyone on Facebook uses the authentic name they use in real life." Sister Roma and other gay rights activists had argued that Facebook's insistence on using their real names could lead to harassment, CNET reports. But the Facebook exec who announced that the policy would be eased also said the real-name policy is a "very powerful force for good" when used to combat online bullying and anonymous attacks, and while the policy won't be abandoned, Facebook will take more steps to understand the situation when a user is reported for using a fake name, reports the New York Times. (Invite-only social media site Ello, meanwhile, doesn't require people use their real names and is growing fast.)
– A champion boat racer went missing after a boat crash last month, but police don't think he's dead. No, according to a flyer officers distributed, which was picked up by the Press of Atlantic City, Andrew Biddle is likely "alive and well and on the run." The 44-year-old is apparently in all kinds of trouble that might make him flee, Deadspin reports. He co-owns a company called Professional Boat Sales, and was arrested in February over the "fraudulent sale of a boat," the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. He's also been accused of selling a used motor as new and writing tens of thousands of dollars' worth of bad checks. When Biddle's boat crashed off New Jersey last month, the man who'd accompanied him managed to swim to shore. "We conducted a nearly 20-hour search, but after exhausting all resources, the chances for survival based on water temperature and time in the water is slim," a Coast Guard official told the Current. Biddle's attorney told reporters that their questions were "the first I've heard" of the story, the Press reports. Earlier this year, a banker faked his own death, and apparently managed to convince even his family.
– Everyone has skeletons in their closet of some sort, but the Japanese Consulate in Chicago actually, literally does—or did, anyway. A worker told police that a box filled with two skulls and a bunch of bones was discovered by staffers yesterday in a closet that the consulate's previous management had used, the Chicago Tribune reports. With the box was a letter postmarked in June from Rochester, Minn., informing the consulate that the bones belonged to two Japanese WWII vets and asking the consulate to return the bones to Japan for burial. The anonymous sender said in the letter that the remains were of two soldiers who had been killed on Tinian Island, which, according to the National Park Service, is the island in the Pacific's Marianas that served as the launching pad for planes that dropped the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs. Interviews with members of the former consulate staff revealed that they had sent photos of the bones to a pathologist when the box originally showed up back on June 17—but the results came back a couple of months later saying the bones "may not be of Japanese descent," according to the police report cited in the Tribune. The remains are now reportedly with the Cook County Medical Examiner's office. (This woman found 80 skeletons stuffed into Ikea bags in a Swedish church.)
– Jane Seo's second-place finish at the Fort Lauderdale half-marathon Sunday was impressive, not least because race times showed she'd kept a pace of about seven minutes per mile for the first half of the race, but managed 5:25 per mile in the second. As an internet sleuth has revealed, it was all too unbelievable to be true. Though Seo, a 24-year-old food blogger and writer for the Huffington Post, defended her time at the finish line when questioned by a timer and went on to claim a medal, her race didn't sit well with Derek Murphy of MarathonInvestigation.com, who noticed GPS data Seo later shared showing her completing the 13.1-mile route was recorded in the afternoon—well after the morning half-marathon was completed, per the Miami New Times. Murphy also believed the data, showing an even pace of about six minutes per mile at 122 steps per minute, came from a bike ride. But his biggest piece of evidence came when he zoomed in on a photo of Seo at the finish line; the running watch on her wrist showed she'd only run 11.65 miles. "After information was relayed to her," Murphy says Seo posted an apology to Instagram, since deleted, claiming she "cut the course" because she felt ill. Once at the finish line, "I got swept away in the moment and pretended I ran the entire course" then later "proceeded to BIKE the course afterward with my GPS watch to cover my wrongdoings," Seo said. She was later disqualified, per NBC Miami. Murphy, who tells NBC News he's caught 250 cheaters, says Seo's level of deceit was "unheard of." (A man ran a marathon while juggling.)
– Colorado voters have fired two clear warning shots in the gun control debate, voting to kick two Democratic state lawmakers who supported stricter firearm laws out of office. Senate president John Morse and Senator Angela Giron will both be replaced with Republicans, following a recall election yesterday, reports the Denver Post. The NRA was a significant force behind the recall, donating more than $300,000 to the effort after both Morse and Giron supported wider background checks and round limits on ammo, reports the Washington Post. "The loss of this senate seat is purely symbolic," said Morse after conceding defeat. Morse and Giron also received about $300,000 from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but it was a pittance compared to the total sum raised by gun rights advocates. "Tonight is a victory for the people of the state of Colorado, who have been subject to the overreach of a Democrat agenda on guns, taxes, and accountability to the people," says one of the activists behind the recalls. The recalls will perhaps be heard most loudly by Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who supported and signed tighter gun control laws and is now facing falling approval ratings, notes the Post.
– She married the love of her life and believes she was fired for it. Jocelyn Morffi, a first-grade teacher at Miami's Saints Peter and Paul Catholic School, was terminated Thursday, days after marrying her same-sex partner of two years, reports the Miami Herald. A friend says Morffi was told she had to resign Wednesday, her first day back at school since the Feb. 3 wedding, and was fired when she refused. Though Morffi says there's no question why she was terminated—"in their eyes I'm not the right kind of Catholic for my choice in partner," she writes on Instagram—some 20 parents arrived at the school Friday demanding answers. "We were extremely livid. They treated her like a criminal, they didn't even let her get her things out of her classroom," says one, noting Morffi "by far was one of the best teachers out there." Morffi had worked at the school for almost seven years, coached basketball, and took students to deliver meals to the homeless on weekends, a friend says. She's "made such a contribution to the school. She never imposes her personal beliefs on others. She just does everything in love," says an "outraged" parent. Nonetheless, a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Miami says Morffi violated her contract, which notes teachers may be fired for conduct "inconsistent" with Catholic teachings. Other teachers received verbal warnings simply for attending the wedding, reports ABC News. A mother tells the Herald she's withdrawing her child from the school as a result. Noting no state laws prohibit discrimination on sexual orientation, the director of a LGBT rights group says he hopes the "shocking" case will encourage people to fight for change.
– Jeffrey Tambor is continuing to deny accusations of sexual harassment—but he says he won't be back for another season of Transparent. The 73-year-old starred in four seasons of the Amazon web series as a retired professor undergoing gender transition. "Playing Maura Pfefferman on Transparent has been one of the greatest privileges and creative experiences of my life," Tambor tells Deadline. "What has become clear over the past weeks, however, is that this is no longer the job I signed up for four years ago." Last week, transgender actress Trace Lysette became the second person to accuse Tambor of harassment. "I've already made clear my deep regret if any action of mine was ever misinterpreted by anyone as being aggressive, but the idea that I would deliberately harass anyone is simply and utterly untrue," Tambor says. But "given the politicized atmosphere that seems to have afflicted our set, I don't see how I can return." Variety reports that even before Tambor announced his departure, writers were working on ways to continue the series for a fifth season without his character. Lysette, a regular guest star on the show, suggested the move last week, saying producers should "remove the problem and let the show go on."
– Authorities at the Orange County Jail won't say what time they will release their most famous inmate. Sometime Sunday is the official answer, but Casey Anthony could walk as early as midnight. Protesters already are gathering outside the jail, and not everybody is a Casey hater, notes the Orlando Sentinel. "She was tried. People need to respect that due process," said one Florida resident, holding a sign that said, "She's Not Guilty Get Over It." Anthony's defense team won't say where she will go, other than to say it won't be to her parents' home, or what she will do. Will she try to cash in? The foreman of the jury that acquitted her hopes not: "We are dealing with a child who is deceased," the foreman tells ABC News. To profit off it is not something I can imagine somebody doing, especially the mother of that child." An earlier report quoting insiders predicted she would disguise her appearance but stop short of plastic surgery.
– The White House says it didn't order British authorities to seize the partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald as he changed planes in London—but it had a "heads-up" on what was going to happen to him. The nine-hour detention and questioning of David Miranda over the Edward Snowden NSA leaks "was a decision that was made by the British government," a White House spokesman told reporters, referring all further questions to British authorities. He declined to say whether the US had been provided with information from Miranda's confiscated electronic equipment. During his detention under anti-terror laws, Miranda says he was ordered to reveal the passwords for his computer and cell phone and told he would be put in jail if his interrogators decided he wasn't being cooperative, the Guardian reports. Amid a growing outcry over the detention, British police insist their actions were "legally and procedurally sound," reports the Wall Street Journal. The UK's independent reviewer of counterterrorism legislation, however, says he wants police to explain the "unusual" detention.
– Well, that didn’t take long: Sarah and Todd Palin responded to daughter Bristol’s surprise engagement with a statement on Good Morning America. “We obviously want what's best for our children,” it reads. “Bristol believes in redemption and forgiveness to a degree most of us struggle to put in practice in our daily lives. We pray that, as a couple, Bristol and Levi's relationship matures into one that will allow Tripp to grow up graced with two loving parents in his life.” So, um…is that a “congratulations”? Meanwhile, Bristol is already talking to People—and for a newly engaged gal, she doesn’t seem all that overjoyed. She wasn’t wearing a ring—and when asked if she is marrying Levi Johnston, she said, “Yeah. I mean, I don't really want to get into detail about what's in store for our future, because who knows? But all I'd like to say about it is, hopefully we will be a family.”
– It's been quite the week of high-profile splits: Danica Patrick and her hubby, Mayim Bialik and hers, and now Kimora Lee Simmons and her babydaddy. Simmons' rep confirmed to People that Simmons and Djimon Hounsou have called it quits after five-and-a-half years together, a relationship that produced three-year-old Kenzo Lee Hounsou. Simmons herself verified the split on Twitter yesterday, tweeting, "There have been quite a few hurtful rumors circulating. The truth is Djimon + I have been separated for some time. We have remained happy, loving, co-parenting friends + family. We all have much to be thankful for." Take a look at happier days...
– The wildfire threatening Yosemite National Park is throwing so much smoke into the air that it is significantly hurting the air quality in Nevada—more than 100 miles away. Reno and Carson City issued emergency warnings over the smoke from the Rim Fire, and school children were kept inside for the second time in a week to avoid it, the AP reports. The air quality index even briefly passed the rare "hazardous" level. "It's five hours away," says one shocked resident. "I can't run. I can't breathe. It makes me sneeze." The fire is about 20% contained, but almost all of that progress has come at its southwest edge, the LA Times reports. On the east, it has a relatively flat, direct path deeper into Yosemite. "There's not a lot of real good areas to get out in there and do a lot of work," says one US Forest Service official. Meanwhile, state officials are urging residents to be wary of social media, where false rumors are spreading like, well, wildfire. Recently, for instance, "news" spread that the Groveland firehouse had burned down, which "would be a surprise to the firefighters sleeping there," a local sergeant tells the Modesto Bee.
– Free speech activists are lending support to a Fresno State professor threatened with possible disciplinary measures after referring to Barbara Bush as an "amazing racist," who is "still fabulous, thanks for checking in." Randa Jarrar on Wednesday tweeted "love to all of you who have sent support," per the Fresno Bee. And there are apparently several. In an opinion piece at the Fresno Bee, a Fresno State lecturer who says he was last year demoted for claiming President Trump "must hang" argues university President Joseph Castro should be standing up to the "fascist threat to academic freedom" rather than investigating the tenured associate English professor currently on a leave of absence. Both the ACLU of Northern California and the National Coalition Against Censorship also say the investigation of the Arab-American should be closed. Jarrar, who is to return to the university in the fall, "said bluntly what newspaper obituaries disguised when they wrote that Mrs. Bush was 'never shy about expressing her views,' or that, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, her 'candor got her into trouble,'" says Los Angeles Times book critic Laila Lalami. Guardian columnist Moustafa Bayoumi says Jarrar has "the right to express that opinion without being threatened with violence or loss of employment." Fresno writer Steven Sanchez adds "the vitriol flung at her is the epitome of white fragility." The AP reports that critics have continued to bash Jarrar for being insensitive after Bush's death. Castro said her words went "beyond free speech," per the Bee. Jarrar—who grew up in Kuwait and Egypt—has also taken flak for implying the phone number of Arizona State University's crisis hotline was her own.
– Before you get off the plane, always check the seat-back pocket for your headphones, any magazines you might want, and those super-sensitive Homeland Security documents outlining how to protect Super Bowl attendees from an anthrax attack. One government scientist apparently didn't do so, as a CNN employee found out on a recent commercial flight, the network reports. The DHS paperwork, which was found along with a boarding pass and travel itinerary linked to a microbiologist and ex-CIA worker named Michael V. Walter, was marked "for official use only" and "important for national security" and detailed two exercises (one held last July, one in November) designed to gauge response from health and emergency management officials, as well as law enforcement, to a potential biological attack in Minneapolis on the day of the big game. Noteworthy in the report were calls for improvements in certain areas, which is the point of the exercises so that officials can fix any issues beforehand, per Juliette Kayyem, a CNN national security analyst who used to work for the DHS. Still, Kayyem notes leaving the documents on the plane was a "really stupid thing," adding: "Who knows who else could have picked this up." It's not clear if Walter, who has headed up the agency's BioWatch program fighting bioterrorism for nearly a decade, was the one who left the documents on the plane. For national security reasons, government officials asked CNN to withhold certain details in the documents, as well as not to publish the story of the document gaffe until after the Super Bowl, which the network complied with. A DHS official would only say the incident is under "operational review."
– President-elect Trump has provided the first glimpse at his upcoming policies in an interview with CBS' 60 Minutes, specifically on immigration: He says his first priority will be arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal records. "What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably two million, it could be even three million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate." Trump made hardline immigration policy a big part of his campaign, calling at times for the forced deportation of all undocumented immigrants, a temporary ban on Muslim immigration, and the construction of a wall across the border with Mexico (paid for by Mexico). Asked about his plans to build the border wall (which has been estimated to cost between $12 billion and $25 billion, the International Business Times says, depending on whom you ask), the president-elect had a simple answer: "Yes." He says he is open to the idea that some sections could be simple fencing. "For certain areas I would, but certain areas, a wall is more appropriate,” Trump said. He added, “I’m very good at this, it’s called construction." Once the border is "secure," Trump promises to turn his attention to undocumented immigrants with clean records. Hedging his language, all Trump would tell 60 Minutes about potentially deporting that group is that "they’re terrific people, but we are gonna make a determination at that."
– Not even Chris Christie could block gay couples from reaching the altar. The state Supreme Court in New Jersey ruled 7-0 today to uphold a judge's decision that gay marriages can begin there on Monday, at least for now, NJ.com reports. The court will make a final ruling next year. "The state has advanced a number of arguments, but none of them overcome this reality: Same-sex couples who cannot marry are not treated equally under the law today," the court ruled, reports the AP. "The harm to them is real, not abstract or speculative." In September, a state superior court judge ruled that New Jersey's same-sex couples were losing out on federal benefits and equal rights since the US struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. Gov. Christie appealed, saying gay marriage should only be allowed by public vote. He also accused the Obama administration of denying rights to same-sex couples by not extending them to civil unions, which are considered equal in New Jersey. USA Today notes that with today's ruling, 13 states have recognized gay marriage.
– Adele graces the cover of British Vogue for the first time, and, appropriately, tackles the topic of appearances. Some highlights, as reported by Just Jared and the New York Daily News: On her weight: "I've seen people where it rules their lives, you know, who want to be thinner or have bigger boobs, and how it wears them down. And I just don't want that in my life." On pre-show jitters: "I puke quite a lot before going on stage. Though never actually on stage." On the pressures to look a certain way: "It's just never been an issue—at least, I've never hung out with the sort of horrible people who make it an issue. I have insecurities of course, but I don't hang out with anyone who points them out to me." On having kids one day: "Most of my friends are boys. Like, if I ever have children, I want five boys. Boys love their mothers whereas girls can be so mean to each other." In non-Vogue news, Adele will find out tonight if she has beat 11 other artists to win the UK's Mercury Prize. In Vogue-related news, head to the UK site to see the cover image.
– Two cases of youngsters losing their lives in hot cars are making headlines this week. Skylar Fowler, 1, became the first child to die in a hot car in Georgia this year in a June 15 incident that's emerging following mother Dijanelle Fowler's Monday arrest. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports she is charged with second-degree murder, child cruelty, and concealing the death of her daughter, whom cops say was left in Fowler's car for six hours while she got her hair done. DeKalb County police believe the death was accidental; the 25-year-old left the car running with air conditioning on, but at some point between her 10am appointment and 4pm return to the car, the car died. WXIA reports video and witness statements indicate Fowler didn't leave the salon at any point during that six-hour period. Reuters quotes a police rep who says Fowler hid the baby in some manner and called roadside assistance for help in restarting her car; other reports suggest someone from the salon helped her jump her battery. Fowler then drove to Emory University Hospital, where she parked, called 911, and said she herself was suffering from some kind of seizure. Skylar was found by the responding team. The Knoxville News Sentinel has a more vague report of a child found dead around 2pm Friday in Gatlinburg, Tenn., following a report of a child being left in a car overnight. A neighbor confirmed the home address, and a search of records revealed it belongs to Jerry Kirkman, mayor of Westmoreland, Tenn. But the Gatlinburg Police Department has not yet confirmed that or released any details about the child's age, identity, or the circumstances.
– Imagine being able to use Uber to call a copter instead of a car. Airbus is partnering with Uber to make that dream a reality, the Wall Street Journal reports. Airbus will provide helicopters to Uber for use with its "on-demand services" in what the Airbus CEO calls an "exciting" pilot project and what The Verge calls "Uber for helicopters." The service will launch at the Sundance Film Festival this week in Utah. Uber has actually tested its so-called "UberChopper" service before, such as with rides between Manhattan and the Hamptons or rides to special events like the Cannes Film Festival or the US Formula 1 Grand Prix. Clients will be picked up in a car (also from Uber) and taken to and from the helipad; anyone in the area with the Uber app can call a copter. Past tests were pretty pricey: The Verge reports rides have so far cost a minimum of several hundred bucks, with the Hamptons rides costing $3,000 each. In this case, Uber tells the Los Angeles Times that 15-minute rides to and from Park City, Utah, and the Salt Lake City airport will cost $200 per person during the day and $300 at night. It's not Uber's first foray into alternate forms of transportation; it offers rickshaw service in India and boat service in Turkey.
– Around 61% of the world's freshwater is locked up in Antarctic ice—but a new study warns that accelerating melting on the continent is helping push up the sea levels around it. Researchers found that between 1992 and 2011, sea levels rose more around Antarctica than in the Southern Ocean as a whole. "Freshwater is less dense than salt water, and so in regions where an excess of freshwater has accumulated we expect a localized rise in sea level," the author of a study published in Nature explains to the BBC. The researchers say their models suggest freshwater runoff, not natural fluctuations, is the only explanation for the 2mm-per-year rise. "We can estimate the amount of water that wind is pushing onto the continental shelf, and show with some certainty that it is very unlikely that this wind forcing is causing the sea level rise," the lead researcher says. The researchers say the freshening of the water may explain growth in sea ice in the area, though that growth comes as new satellite-produced maps show that ice sheets on land are melting at an unprecedented rate, the Guardian notes. (Last month, researchers revealed that they had found life half a mile below the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.)
– Bernie Sanders may be running for the Democratic presidential nomination, but that didn't stop him from addressing a group of Christian conservative students today. Sanders appeared at Liberty University, the Virginia evangelical college founded by Jerry Falwell, the Hill reports. "A Southern evangelical university is an unlikely place for a socialist-leaning Jew from Brooklyn to spend his Rosh Hashanah, and yet that’s how Sen. Bernie Sanders is passing his high holiday Monday," MSNBC leads off its article, which also notes that the university calls for a "total rejection of socialism." How was he received by the audience of about 12,000? The Hill reports that a "small throng" of his supporters did a lot of cheering, and mostly there was a "muted" response. But when he called for fighting back against racism and finding common ground, he earned cheers from "a much wider group." He quoted some scripture, talked at length about economic inequality (to not many cheers, the Hill notes), and took questions after his speech. One of those had to do with abortion; USA Today reports that a university senior vice president "drew loud applause" when he asked about it, but that Sanders' response also drew applause: "Very often conservatives say, 'Get the government out of my life.' ... I respect absolutely a family that says, 'No, we are not going to have an abortion.' But I would hope that other people respect the very painful and difficult choice that many women feel they have to make and don’t want the government telling them what they have to do." The New York Times reports that Sanders mentioned that he's motivated by the Golden Rule and quoted Pope Francis, and notes that he was "greeted with polite, if tepid, applause" from students, while supporters who traveled from afar to attend were much more enthusiastic. The Washington Post has his full speech.
– Just days after winning the World Series with the Houston Astros, ace pitcher Justin Verlander tied the knot with his longtime on-and-off girlfriend, supermodel Kate Upton. The couple was so eager to get married that Verlander, who pitched two games during the Astros' 4-3 series victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers, missed his team's celebration parade in Houston on Friday, ESPN reports. By that point Verlander and Upton were already in Italy, where they would get married Saturday in a medieval church in Tuscany's Montalcino valley. Upton, 25, and Verlander, 34, went on to celebrate with their guests at the Rosewood Castiglion Del Bosco resort, per US Weekly. The couple got engaged in May 2016. Verlander wasn't the only Astro whose World Series victory was accompanied by the sound of wedding bells. After Wednesday's game 7 victory, team shortstop Carlos Correa proposed to his girlfriend, Daniella Rodriguez, on the field on live television. Two big rings on one big night.
– Scary reports out of London say part of the ceiling collapsed at the Apollo Theatre during a live performance. Details are still firming up, but the BBC has an estimate of four people seriously injured and another 80 or so with less serious injuries. The good news is that police say all those who were trapped have been freed, and there are no reports of fatalities. The incident took place during a packed holiday performance of the Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time. Fire officials say that as plasterwork from the ceiling collapsed, it brought down a lighting rig, too. "The entire dome roof fell down on the audience just in front of us," says one witness. "We were protected by the balcony above and we ran. People started screaming." Another tells of hearing a "strange crackling noise" just before the collapse. The theater, built in 1901, can hold about 775 people, notes the AP. "At first we thought it was part of the show," another theater-goer tells Sky News. "Then I got hit on the head." Most of those injured were described as "walking wounded" and were able to leave the theater on their own.
– When Shona Carter-Brooks and Johnathan Brooks wed last month, the Tennessee couple wanted to include their 1-month-old daughter, Aubrey, in the ceremony. Sweet, right? Well, maybe not: Carter-Brooks somehow attached the newborn to the train of her wedding gown and then dragged her down the aisle, the Daily Mail reports. Pictures of the, er, interesting idea on social media prompted such an uproar that Carter-Brooks has released a response on Facebook, insisting, "Our 1 month old was awake and well secured on my train. Most important while yall got ya feelings in us we had our hearts in Christ which covers all!!" She also noted, "We good though we covered by the Blood which never loose its power. ... We do what we want when we want long as Jesus on our side everything worked out fine and gone continue to be fine." Of course, not all the comments have been negative—a friend of the couple who attended the ceremony wrote that seeing "the princess tagging behind you" made her get all verklempt. An amusing side note: Carter-Brooks claimed the dress was a Vera Wang (though from a presumably less-expensive line, as she says she bought it at David's Bridal), but the company tells BuzzFeed it's not from any of its collections. (At least Carter-Brooks didn't pummel her bridesmaid, like this bride-to-be did ... while on a plane.)
– An Army colonel has stepped down from a study on women in combat after she urged military spokespeople to use less-attractive women in publicity shots, the AP reports. "In general, ugly women are perceived as competent while pretty women are perceived as having used their looks to get ahead," Lynette Arnhart said in an internal email obtained by Politico. "It might behoove us to select more average-looking women for our comms strategy." She cited an ARMY Magazine piece which "shows a pretty woman, wearing make-up while on deployed duty." "Such photos undermine the rest of the message (and may even make people ask if breaking a nail is considered hazardous duty)," Arnhart wrote. She had been leading an analysis of how to bring women into new combat positions before agreeing to leave the study. A general accepted her exit "in order to protect the integrity of the ongoing work on gender integration in the Army," says an Army spokesman. Col. Christian Kubik, who reportedly forwarded Arnhart's words to fellow military PR people, has been suspended.
– In a surprise move, Bill Bratton is expected to step down as New York City's police commissioner Tuesday, city officials tell ABC News. Bratton had previously been expected to remain in his post through the mayoral election next year. James O'Neill, the current chief of the department, is expected to take Bratton's place. The Wall Street Journal reports Bratton will stay in his post until September in order to have a smooth transition. Crime has hit historic lows during Bratton's tenure, but as NBC New York notes, that tenure has also "been marred by tumultuous relations with the public and a tense standoff between the department's rank-and-file union and (Mayor Bill) de Blasio following the killings of two officers in late 2014." And, the New York Post adds, a police corruption scandal involving high-ranking officers also erupted under Bratton's watch.
– If you were hoping to become a chess master by practicing 10,000 hours, think again. Contrary to the theory that expertise at chess is based on intensive training, researchers at the University of Michigan have concluded based on a meta-analysis of 19 studies that hard work is important but not enough. In this game, if you're not smart, you're probably sunk. "When it comes to expertise, training and practice certainly are a piece of the puzzle," psychology professor Zach Hambrick says. "But this study shows that, for chess at least, intelligence is another piece of the puzzle." The researchers found that intelligence is always linked to chess skill no matter the age of the participant, though the link appears strongest in younger players or those at lower skill levels. It's possible, the team suggests, that this is because upper-echelon players are all pretty bright anyway—at that point, "They're all smart cookies," as the Huffington Post puts it. In an interview with Business Insider earlier this summer, Hambrick conceded that practice is probably important for mastery in any field, but he cautions against "thinking that anybody can accomplish anything with no limits" based solely on hard work. (The youngest ever chess grandmaster in the US has been playing since he was 5.)
– Evidence released in the wake of James Holmes' sentencing last month gives a shocking look at the deadly booby-traps the 27-year-old Aurora theater shooter had placed around his Colorado apartment. ABC News reports the apartment contained black balls filled with smokeless powder and gasoline; pickle jars containing bullets, thermite, and napalm; and soda bottles full of gasoline. A fishing line connected to the doorjamb was meant to trigger a fire by knocking a thermos of glycerin into a frying pan of potassium permanganate. Holmes left loud music playing, which drew a neighbor to the door. Fortunately, she didn't open it. He also placed a remote detonator next to an RC car near the building's dumpster in the hopes someone would play with it and blow up the apartment. "It doesn't surprise me to run across anything anywhere really," Army veteran and ATF explosives expert Gary Smith, who led the team that disarmed Holmes' apartment in the hours following his arrest, tells NBC News. "It's just a matter of time before something like that ends up here [is] kind of the way we look at it, kind of worst case scenario, you always try to think ahead." A remote-control robot was sent into the apartment to disarm most the explosives, but some had to be taken apart by hand. Five neighboring buildings were evacuated while the team worked, but in the end the apartment was cleared with no fires or explosions. Holmes was sentenced to life in prison Aug. 27 after killing 12 people during a showing of The Dark Knight Rises in 2012.
– Australia has seen a big increase in shark attacks in recent years, including a record five deaths in 2012—all of which is bad news for swimmers and now for sharks as well. The state of Western Australia has put into place an aggressive new policy to track and kill sharks spotted anywhere in the general vicinity of swimmers, reports the Australian. It's a major shift from previous policy, which allowed such hunts only after attacks. "We will always put the lives and safety of beachgoers ahead of the shark," said Premier Colin Barnett. "This is, after all, a fish—let's keep it in perspective." The change, along with Barnett's it's-just-a-fish remark, has conservation groups seething. One condemns it as a "guilty until proven innocent" policy. NBC News notes that as recently as March, after a fatal attack, Barnett rejected the idea of changing the policy: "The ocean is the domain of the shark and we go there with a risk always." The subsequent deaths ramped up political pressure to do something, however.
– A thousand pages of love letters from the man some historians say was America's most scandalous president to a mistress will see the light of day next month for the first time in around a century. The Library of Congress says the letters from Warren G. Harding to Claire Phillips, a friend of his wife's, will be released when the 50-year period of secrecy the president's nephew insisted on when he donated the letters expires, USA Today reports. The affair began in 1905, carried on throughout the years the Republican was a US senator from Ohio, and ended soon before he was elected in 1920. She successfully blackmailed the GOP over the affair, winning a monthly stipend and jobs for several relatives. But Phillips wasn't the most famous mistress of Harding, who died in office in 1923. That distinction goes to young campaign volunteer Nan Britton, who claimed in 1928 tell-all book The President's Daughter that they had sex in locations including a White House coat closet—and he fathered her child. According to a Washington Post profile, Harding had at least two other long-term mistresses, and had "assorted other flings," including with "a Washington Post employee known as Miss Allicott, and former chorus girls Maize Haywood and Blossom Jones," as well as "a string of 'New York women.'" Harding "even publicly ogled Margaret Gorman, the first Miss America, in Atlantic City, days after her crowning," the Post finds.
– Guatemalans are hoping the joker they just elected will be better than the crook they just got rid of. Jimmy Morales, a TV comedian with no political experience, has been elected president with a whopping 72% of the vote, defeating former first lady Sandra Torres, reports the BBC, which notes that one of Morales' most famous roles is that of a bumbling cowboy who accidentally becomes president. The 46-year-old told supporters Sunday night that he would make it a priority to wipe out the corruption that put his predecessor and his deputy in jail. His manifesto is a little light on details, Reuters reports, though some of his more eccentric proposals include giving smartphones to every child in the country.
– The Abortionplex, a fake business dreamed up by the Onion, has fooled quite a few naïve souls who were simply outraged when they read about it. Now you can add a Louisiana congressman to the list of people who, somehow, failed to figure out that the Abortionplex is a joke. Literally Unbelievable, a blog dedicated to people who take Onion articles as fact, has a screenshot of Rep. John Fleming's Facebook page, where he links to the Onion article with this note: "More on Planned Parenthood, abortion by the wholesale." Sadly, while Fleming's page still features an impressive number of anti-Planned Parenthood posts, this particular one appears to have been removed. Lest you have forgotten who Fleming is, in September he whined about having to survive on just $600,000 per year, leading Jon Stewart to give him some budgeting tips. (After you watch that, click for some highlights from the Abortionplex's Yelp page.)
– "Happy Birthday to You" will finally be in the public domain if a proposed settlement is approved. Warner Music has announced it won't fight a move to make rights to the song public and will spend $14 million to end a class-action lawsuit in search of royalties paid to the company over the years. A federal judge, who in September found Warner never held any copyright to the song, still needs to approve the deal, reports the Hollywood Reporter. The $14 million will likely go to those who've paid to use "Happy Birthday" since 1949 and toward legal costs, per the Los Angeles Times.
– Documents smuggled out of Syria over three years contain enough evidence to put President Bashar al-Assad and 24 senior officials in front of a war crimes tribunal, investigators say. The Commission for International Justice and Accountability, working with 50 Syrian investigators, managed to get its hands on half a million pages of reports from government offices calling for mass arrests and detentions for crimes including "discussing the events in a negative manner" during the 2011 protests that sparked the conflict, reports the Guardian. At least one investigator was killed and several others were detained and tortured while pursuing the documents, which were followed up with 400 interviews. Three prosecution cases already prepared name Assad, Interior Minister Mohammad al-Shaar, and assistant secretary of the Ba'ath party Mohammed Said Bekheitan, along with the country's Central Crisis Management Cell and National Security Bureau. "The work has caused a lot of stress in my family," says the chief investigator, identified only by a pseudonym. "There are long absences and constant fear. But I still believe in the cause of justice." Russia has so far vetoed any attempt by the UN security council to try the Assad regime in the international criminal court. However, sources say investigators have also uncovered undeclared traces of chemical weapons, including sarin and ricin, at three military locations in Syria. That may suggest Assad violated a 2013 deal negotiated by Russia and the US in which he agreed to dismantle Syria's chemical arsenal, though there is no proof that the chemicals were used after the agreement was signed, the New York Times reports. "This is a pretty strong indication they have been lying about what they did with sarin," a source tells Reuters, noting Syria has failed to provide a "satisfactory explanation about this finding." The UN is reviewing claims that the Assad regime is also using chlorine bombs.
– Trayvon Martin's friend Rachel Jeantel, the last person to speak with the teen and the witness who testified that she heard Trayvon yell at George Zimmerman to "get off," has one word for the not-guilty verdict: "BS." She tells CNN she's "disappointed, upset, angry, questioning, and mad" about the acquittal, and she says the case revolved around race: "Let's be honest ... it was racial," she told Piers Morgan last night. "If Trayvon was white and he had a hoodie on, would that happen?" She called Zimmerman "weak," saying he's not a "real man" since he didn't testify. As for his defense team, it acted "like a punk" by trying to paint Trayvon as the threat, she said. Juror B37 was also on CNN last night, and she told Anderson Cooper she didn't find Jeantel's testimony "very credible," but said she "felt very sorry for her. ... I think she felt inadequate toward everyone because of her education and her communication skills." Jeantel told Morgan that made her "angry" and "upset." As for Don West, who aggressively cross-examined her, Jeantel pointed out that she "never cussed out" the defense attorney. "The only reason I have not said nothing to Don Weston [sic] 'cause my parents taught me better. That's an adult; you don't have the right to disrespect an adult."
– One consequence of Antonin Scalia's death: Dow Chemical will be setting a class-action lawsuit for $835 million. The company made the announcement Friday, explaining that it now has less of a chance of winning its appeal at the Supreme Court, the Wall Street Journal reports. In 2013, Dow was found liable of allegedly conspiring to fix prices for an industrial chemical between 2000 and 2003, the AP reports; the company was asking the Supreme Court to overturn that decision. But now, with the high court evenly split between typically conservative and typically liberal justices, any split decision would revert back to the original opinion by the lower court, in this case the Kansas federal court that ruled against Dow. Dow's move could end up being a sign of things to come, as businesses grapple with the fact that the Supreme Court no longer has a conservative majority. "I think most corporations facing class actions regarded Justice Scalia as a friend," the president of the Center for Constitutional Litigation in Washington tells the AP. "He has been a thoroughly consistent vote on their side of the equation." Even so, the Journal notes that even with Scalia on the bench, Dow may have lost its appeal, and the company came close to settling last year. "With this changing landscape, the unknowns, we just decided to put this behind us," a Dow spokesperson says. But, the company's statement notes, Dow "continues to strongly believe that it was not part of any conspiracy and the judgment was fundamentally flawed as a matter of class action law."
– So it's not exactly the Tennessee chain saw massacre, but it does involve a crime and a chainsaw: Police arrested 27-year-old Brandon Petrey yesterday on a charge of attempted second-degree murder after a day of landscaping went awry. Petrey and a co-worker were cutting tree branches and shrubs in a subdivision in Knox County, Tenn., on Saturday, when a man asked them not to cut along his parents' property. An argument ensued, and Petrey reportedly cut the man's thumb, reports the Knoxville News Sentinel. The unnamed victim was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. Read the full article.
– It seems there's good reason why Natty Light is just one letter away from Nasty Light: The beer (officially called Natural Light) is No. 3 on RateBeer.com's list of the 50 worst beers on the planet. The beer experts write, "We provide this list in the name of beer education. We aren't picking on the fat kid as much as we're making a few big brewers accountable for their products that are more about beer hype and marketing than substance." The worst offenders: Olde English 800 3.2 Natural Ice Natural Light Milwaukee's Best Michelob Ultra Sleeman Clear Budweiser Select 55 Coors Aspen Edge Click here for the rest of the list, or here to learn how to drown out the bad taste by mixing up a beer cocktail.
– Best Buy founder Richard Schulze wants back in. Schulze, who stepped down as chairman in June after news of ex-CEO Brian Dunn's affair broke, today offered to take the struggling company private at $24 to $26 a share, reports Bloomberg. That values the company at around $8.5 billion, which is 36% more than Friday's closing price. He made the offer in a letter sent to the company's board, in which he writes that reviewing the options he has for his 20.1% ownership stake "reinforced my belief that bold and extensive changes are needed for Best Buy to return to market leadership." The 71-year-old now needs the board's OK to conduct due diligence and assemble a bidding group comprised of execs and private-equity funds that could present a full offer. Bloomberg reports that Schulze has been unsuccessfully lobbying the board for those exact permissions in recent weeks; a source says the board asked for more time to ponder the matter, as it was still looking for a CEO and felt it wasn't the best time to go private. Shares were up 22% to $21.52 in early trading at 9:15am ET.
– Los Angeles isn't exactly known for its skyline, and one reason for that is the longstanding Regulation 10, which ensured that buildings had helipads on top. Last month, however, the fire department decided to drop the rule, the New York Times reports. After all, only once in the rule's 40 years of existence has a helicopter picked people up from a roof, officials say. "The helipad regulation has hindered LA from having an iconic, memorable skyline in a city that desperately needs a stronger urban identity," says a realtor. Now, instead of flat tops, buildings of more than 75 feet must have an extra-fast firefighter elevator, a third set of stairs, and video surveillance outside each new elevator, the Times notes. Firefighters are generally approving of the change; in fact, they say LA's new skyscrapers will be America's safest, the Los Angeles Times reports. "This just made absolute sense to do this," says the city's fire chief. But an architect wonders whether we'll really see a more beautiful city: "Now that the restriction is lifted, will the result be a more elegant high rise or just another spire reaching to make a building the tallest in the West?” The West's new tallest building is, in fact, already under construction; builders wanted to put a spire on top of the 73-story Wilshire Grand Center, spurring the rule change. (A skyscraper is also appearing in the middle of the Amazon.)
– President Obama used his usual soaring rhetoric yesterday in announcing changes to the NSA surveillance program, but the journalist behind many of the Edward Snowden scoops doesn't think they'll amount to much. Sure, some of the proposals have merit—putting a public advocate on the FISA court, removing the control of metadata from the NSA—but even if all are adopted, they will do very little to end the NSA's practice of "suspicion-less spying aimed at hundreds of millions of people in the US and around the world," writes Glenn Greenwald in the Guardian. He doesn't sound surprised, though, summing up the ways of Obama with a particularly scathing passage: "He prettifies the ugly; he drapes the banner of change over systematic status quo perpetuation; he makes Americans feel better about policies they find repellent without the need to change any of them in meaningful ways. He's not an agent of change but the soothing branding packaging for it." Greenwald's silver lining: Public criticism forced this "first step," and continued pressure might eventually make it clear to DC that "cosmetic gestures are plainly inadequate." Click to read his full column. The ACLU, meanwhile, praises some of the proposals but adds that" the president should end—not mend—the government’s collection and retention of all law-abiding Americans’ data." At Bloomberg, Cass Sunstein, who was on the president's advisory panel for the reforms, lays out his seven key takeaways. He, too, emphasizes that much work remains, calling the speech a "historic step in the continuing discussion of national security, privacy and government surveillance."
– The American Health Care Act passed by House Republicans earlier this month will reduce the deficit by $119 billion over the next decade—while leaving 23 million more Americans without insurance than if ObamaCare remains in place, according to the Congressional Budget Office's score of the bill released Wednesday. NPR reports that while premiums could go down for some people under the AHCA, the CBO warns of "extremely high premiums" for people with preexisting conditions. Insurance could also be thousands of dollars more expensive for people who are pregnant or have issues with addiction or mental health. The AHCA would reduce the deficit by cutting Medicaid by $884 billion and subsidies for individual health insurance by $276 billion. Whether or not insurance premiums go up for Americans under the AHCA depends partly on what state they live in. The AHCA allows for states to get waivers that would lower premiums by allowing cheaper plans that don't cover "major medical risks." But it also largely depends on age, as Vox explains. A 64-year-old making $26,500 a year would pay between $13,600 and $16,100 for insurance under the AHCA, depending on if their state gets waivers. That's up from $1,700 under ObamaCare. A 64-year-old making $68,200 would also see their premiums increase if they live in a state that doesn't get the waivers. That's because the AHCA allows insurers to charge older people up to five times as much as younger people. The Washington Post reports the Senate is unlikely to pass the AHCA as it stands and is working on its own bill.
– An inquest has blamed the death of an American banker who underwent a routine heart valve operation in Britain on a nurse's mistaken move, reports the Telegraph. Robert Entenman died in 2015 at age 57 at one of Britain's biggest private hospitals, London Bridge. The American, who left the US in the early '80s and worked at major investment banks throughout Europe, had mitral valve disease, type 2 diabetes, and a high BMI of 42, but he had been expected to recover from the procedure. Having been on a ventilator for a week following surgery, Entenman went into cardiac arrest and suffered from a lack of oxygen to his brain after his endotracheal tube became clogged with mucus. Last week, an inquest found that his death was the result of the hospital's neglect, reports the Sun. The surgeon told the court he'd put the probability of successful heart valve repair at 99%, and that days after the operation his patient had recovered enough to shake hands, reports the Standard. But after Entenman complained about being too hot due to broken air conditioning, a nurse turned off the ventilator's humidifier, thinking it would help, the inquest was told. Unfortunately, the device helps prevent secretions from building up and has nothing to do with body temperature. It was off for 18 hours, at which point Entenman went into cardiac arrest. Hospital staff found a "dark brown solid mucus plug" depriving him of oxygen in the endotracheal tube. A CT scan revealed significant brain damage, and the father of two died days later. (Expect to get at least one serious diagnostic error in your life.)
– Maybe this helps explain why people drive into lakes because of their GPS. A study in Nature suggests that parts of our brain switch off when navigating with it. Indeed, as more and more people rely on GPS, the human ability to navigate as a whole could suffer, researchers at University College London tell Live Science. They took volunteers on a tour of London's Soho district, then recorded their brain activity as they completed 10 video simulations requiring them to navigate those streets. In five simulations the volunteers navigated alone, leading to increased activity in the parts of the brain responsible for route planning, especially when at junctions. But when they were given directions, a la GPS, these parts of the brain essentially turned off, reports New Atlas. "The hippocampus simulates journeys on future possible paths while the prefrontal cortex helps us to plan which ones will get us to our destination," study author Hugo Spiers explains. "When we have technology telling us which way to go, however, these parts of the brain simply don't respond." This study backs up research suggesting GPS causes people to ignore their surroundings. But researchers say there could be greater implications to a reliance on GPS. Spiers describes the brain as a muscle and navigating London as "bodybuilding," per Scientific American. Using GPS means the brain doesn't get its exercise, he says. A researcher theorizes that the hippocampus may begin to develop differently in humans over time. (Just hope GPS doesn't put you up a pole.)
– The US government recognizes three wolf species in North America: the red wolf, eastern wolf, and gray wolf. Two, it turns out, aren't true wolf at all. In a new genetic study, scientists at UCLA say the gray wolf is the last wolf species on the continent and all others are simply hybrids. After studying the genomes of eastern wolves, red wolves, gray wolves, and coyotes, they found "no evidence for distinct eastern or red wolf species," study author Robert Wayne tells the Los Angeles Times. In fact, the red wolf found in the southern US has about 25% gray wolf and 75% coyote ancestry, while the eastern wolf of central Ontario has about 75% gray wolf and 25% coyote ancestry. Scientists say the two species began mixing hundreds of years ago in the American South and about a century ago in the Great Lakes area. Previous research has found genetic and morphological evidence that the red and eastern wolves are unique, so this study might not have the final word, reports the New Scientist. But it could have consequences: The gray wolf is protected under the Endangered Species Act based on a traditional geographic range including the Great Lakes region and 29 Eastern states. But in 2014, the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed removing the animal's protections because it found the eastern wolf occupied that territory instead, making the gray wolf listing invalid. This study shows the gray wolf did live in the range and "should keep its endangered species status," Wayne says in a release. A decision could come this fall. The Endangered Species Act doesn't currently recognize hybrids, though Wayne says that should change. (The "golden wolf" was just discovered.)
– Today is National Coffee Day in America, and it's worth celebrating if for no other reason than chains all over the country are offering free cups of joe. Yahoo has a comprehensive list, which includes Dunkin' Donuts (free medium cup), Krispy Kreme (free cup, plus a free doughnut), and Peet's (free cup with breakfast item). Alas, no free cup at Starbucks, but the chain is launching a yearlong project to provide trees to coffee farmers, reports CNNMoney. The chain will donate 70 cents (the cost of a tree) for every bag of coffee bought in the US. Other reasons to partake: While at work: Fortune rounds up a series of studies finding, among other things, that coffee makes you more perceptive and that taking a coffee break with co-workers is a boon for all. Health: Take them with the appropriate grains of salt, but studies have claimed health benefits ranging from cleaner arteries to better vision to a reduced risk of ailments such as melanoma and multiple sclerosis.
– The name organizers hope will be on everyone's mind during the second night of the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday—besides Hillary Clinton's, of course—is that of her husband. Bill Clinton will headline the evening four years after giving what CBS News calls a better pitch for President Obama than even Obama himself gave during the 2012 DNC. “For a generation now, this has been a safe bet: If it’s a Democratic convention, Mr. Clinton will be making a speech people will remember," the New York Times states. But there's another name that could once again take center stage: Bernie Sanders. The Washington Post reports the Clinton and Sanders campaigns are working together to give Sanders a bigger role Tuesday, including Sanders possibly being the one to formally nominate Clinton, in order to calm protests. Tuesday will see the state roll call to officially nominate Clinton for president. In 2008, Clinton stopped the roll call to allow Obama to be nominated without further delay. CBS reports Sanders isn't expected to do the same. It's possible giving Sanders' delegates the chance to officially vote for him will be enough to soothe some vocal Clinton critics, according to the Times. Either way, the roll call will mark a historic moment: the first time a major party has nominated a woman for president. The official theme for Tuesday is "a lifetime of fighting for children and families," with a focus on gun violence. To that end, the mothers of Eric Garner and Trayvon Martin are scheduled to speak. Other speakers include Jimmy Carter, Nancy Pelosi, and Lena Dunham.
– The ugly allegations surrounding the cancellation of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo are getting uglier. If you missed the first round, TLC canceled the reality show after it emerged that matriarch Mama June was once again dating a man convicted of molesting one of her relatives years ago. Now, we learn from Radar that it was Mama June's own daughter who was abused by Mark McDaniel. Anna Shannon Cardwell, now 20, tells the website that McDaniel, 53, molested her back in 2002 and 2003 when he was dating Mama June. McDaniel served 10 years and was released in March, and then he and Mama June—who split from a longtime boyfriend in September—apparently rekindled their romance. She continues to deny it, but the photo evidence is tough to dispute. In the latest to emerge, TMZ has photos of her and McDaniel strolling through a home for sale in Hampton, Ga. TLC doesn't believe her, and nor does daughter Anna: “I believe she is seeing him and hanging around him,” she tells Radar. “I’m hurt.”
– He became known among fellow inmates as the "Candyman," but in Houston, Ronald O'Bryan is recalled as "the man who killed Halloween." The Houston Chronicle revisits the story of the father of two, who on the rainy Halloween of 1974 left his horrifying mark on the area when he added cyanide to Pixy Stix candy and gave them to five kids, including his 8-year-old son Timothy and 5-year-old daughter Elizabeth. The Chronicle reports O'Bryan prodded Timothy to eat his before bed and the boy was vomiting within minutes. He didn't make it to the hospital alive. O'Bryan's story that the candy came from a house they trick-or-treated at in Pasadena didn't hold up, especially as it was revealed that O'Bryan had taken out fresh life-insurance polices on his kids, unbeknownst to his wife. "I found an adding machine tape," Harold Nassif, a former detective on the case, told ABC13 last year. "It had all of his bills written out next to the numbers. It came to almost the exact amount of what he stood to collect." A previous Chronicle article notes O'Bryan's pocket knife was found to have bits of plastic and powdered candy on it; Nassif says O'Bryan hid the sticks up the sleeves of his raincoat as they trick-or-treated. O'Bryan was convicted of murder by a jury in less than an hour and was executed in 1984 by lethal injection after years of appeals, including a letter asking for a stay of execution with the underlined sentence, "I do not want to die!" The Chronicle has this somewhat incredible detail: None of the other four kids ate the candy, but one was found asleep holding it; he had apparently tried to open it, but was unable to get past the staple O'Bryan used to reseal the Pixy Stix.
– A teen swimming with a group of friends in Australia's Kakadu National Park yesterday was attacked by a crocodile and escaped—only to have the croc move on to one of his friends, a 12-year-old now believed dead. The Telegraph reports that if the younger boy was indeed taken by the saltwater crocodile, it would mark the sixth time a "saltie" has killed a child in the last 12 years, and that's led to renewed calls for a cull. Laws protecting the salties were put in place in 1971, and their ranks have swelled since, with as many as 100,000 of them occupying the Northern Territory. Sky News reports officials are going to great lengths in an effort to recover the boy's body: A trap has been set in Magela Creek, which feeds the waterhole; air, land, and boat searches have taken place; and any croc measuring more than 6.5 feet can be shot. And so far, two have, though slicing them open revealed no human remains. And the search efforts have been hampered by seasonal flooding, while has swelled the creek from a width of about 650 feet to more than 3,000 feet. The 15-year-old who was attacked was grabbed on his right arm and then his left, reports CNN. Based on the bite marks, the crocodile is believed to measure eight to nine feet. (A 26-year-old was killed by a croc in the area last year; more on that here.) Meanwhile, Australia has already launched another cull: of sharks.
– Jimmy Fallon just had to express his conflicted emotions about the paparazzi through dance last night—you know, like Kate Gosselin did on Dancing With the Stars. Watch his spot-on impression in the gallery. The Late Night host isn’t the only one attacking Gosselin for her role on DWTS—ex-hubby Jon is suing for primary custody of their eight kids, as well as spousal support, because Kate is “an absentee mom,” TMZ reports. Jon’s lawyer says it’s “ridiculous” for his (unemployed) client to pay Kate $20,000 a month in support, and he wants the support obligation reversed. Kate, however, defends her position as “a single working mom” and says she’s just providing for her kids; her lawyer tells Radar Jon’s claims are “reckless and so far from the mark, it’s offensive.” Kate does, however, have some nice-ish words for Jon in her upcoming book—to read the excerpts, click here.
– The IRS is under fire again (must be Wednesday), this time for allowing employees to expense items such as popcorn machines, Nerf footballs, and stove top hats on taxpayer-funded credit cards. A new report by the Treasury's inspector general for tax administration looking at spending over two financial years says that although "the majority of IRS cardholders appear to use their purchase cards properly," a small number of employees made "inappropriate" charges. "Inappropriate" as in the cards of two employees—one who is still with the IRS—were used to pay for online porn, reports NBC News. (In fairness, both employees reported their cards missing or compromised, though one reported five cards as lost.) One woman racked up $2,655 on things like diet pills, romance novels, steaks, and a smartphone, which were then filed as "reference books and office supplies." Other questionable spending identified in the report: a government luncheon where 41 guests drank 28 bottles of wine; and $4,000 in items intended for team-building and morale, such as Thomas the Tank Engine wristbands, kazoos, and the "world’s largest crossword puzzle." The inspector general has made 11 recommendations to increase oversight of the program.
– "When I close my eyes, I see the oxygen masks dangling in front of me." That's the lingering anxiety of a passenger on a recent Air China flight that plummeted thousands of feet after oxygen levels dropped. A senior official from the Civil Aviation Administration of China tells CNN the reason for the descent stems from a co-pilot smoking an e-cigarette. The official says the pilot tried to shut off air-recycling fans so the vapor wouldn't reach the cabin, but "toggled the wrong switches," causing air pressure to drop. After the plane fell Tuesday during a three-hour flight from Hong Kong to the Chinese city of Dalian, pilots were able to bring the plane back to around 25,000 feet, and it landed safely. Various sources are listing different numbers for how far the plane actually dropped, but flight data cited by Newsweek shows an approximately 21,000-foot decrease over 18 minutes. Per the South China Morning Post, a couple of the passengers posted pics and video on social media showing people donning the oxygen masks that came down, though the mood was relatively calm. "The announcement from the cockpit said the ability to increase oxygen in the cabin malfunctioned so the plane lost pressure," one wrote on Weibo. Reuters notes that even though China's airlines have a pretty decent safety record, pilots are sometimes accused by passengers of smoking during flights. China bars flight crews from "smoking on all phases of operation," and passengers there haven't been able to use e-cigarettes on planes since 2006. Air China says it will "adopt a zero-tolerance attitude and seriously punish those found responsible," depending on the results of the CAAC's probe.
– It's not often a new discovery has scientists sounding like a bunch of nihilists, and yet CERN physicist Christian Smorra had this to say to Cosmos regarding a study published this month in Nature: "All of our observations find a complete symmetry between matter and antimatter, which is why the universe should not actually exist." Scientific models say the Big Bang produced an equal amount of matter and antimatter. But matter and antimatter destroy each other when they come in contact; an equal amount of each means the universe should have blinked out of existence in a burst of energy. But it hasn't, which means there must be some difference between the two to allow matter to dominate to the point where there is comparatively little antimatter in the universe, according to a press release. That's where CERN researchers come in. They've spent the past decade attempting to find a difference in the magnetism of matter and antimatter (it's not easy measuring something that destroys matter). That's resulted in a new measurement of the magnetic moment of an antiproton that is 350 times more accurate than the old measurement, ZME Science reports. It turns out the magnetic moment of an antiproton is ... pretty much exactly the same as that of a regular proton. Shoot. Smorra says a difference between matter and antimatter still must exist somewhere. Next up for CERN researchers is seeing if gravity affects protons and antiprotons differently. (Far from not existing, the universe actually contains way more galaxies than we thought.)
– There's more bad news regarding the Zika virus wreaking havoc in South America and the Caribbean: The mosquito-borne virus—which can cause birth defects and has been linked to 46 infant deaths—may also cause Guillain-Barré syndrome, a potentially life-threatening condition that can cause weeks-long paralysis, reports the New York Times. The syndrome attacks a patient's immune system, and though there is no proof of a link, Guillain-Barré was thought to be rare in Brazil until last year when 554 cases were reported in areas worst hit by the Zika virus, per the Telegraph. Colombia, Venezuela, and El Salvador—where women have been warned not to get pregnant—have also seen an increase in Guillain-Barré cases as the Zika virus spreads. Many patients had symptoms of Zika one to two weeks before experiencing paralysis. "I estimate that Zika increases by about 20 times the probability that an individual can get Guillain-Barré," says a doctor who's treated the "nightmare" condition, which strikes about 1 in 100,000. "It felt like I was drowning in a sea of mud," says one patient. "I became motionless and thought I would die. All of this happened just a few days after I had Zika." Another patient had to be put on a ventilator for 40 days once the paralysis reached her breathing muscles. Most people recover from the condition, though some suffer long-term nerve damage, per the Washington Post. The condition, which has previously been associated with mosquito-borne diseases like dengue fever and the West Nile virus, can also lead to heart attacks and comas. The CDC is now researching whether Zika and Guillain-Barré are indeed linked. (A baby born in Hawaii has brain damage linked to Zika.)
– Death was apparently preferable to life on California's Death Row for serial killer Andrew Urdiales. The 54-year-old inmate was found dead in his cell at San Quentin State Prison on Friday night and authorities believe he killed himself, News 10 reports. Urdiales was sentenced to death by an Orange County judge Oct. 5 for killing five women in California between 1986 and 1995, four of them while he was stationed at Marine Corps Base Pendleton, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. It was the third time he had been sentenced to death: He was sentenced to die in 2002 for two murders in Illinois, but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, along with all other death sentences in the state, by Gov. George Ryan in 2003. Urdiales was then tried for a third Illinois murder and sentenced to death again in 2004. After Gov. Pat Quinn abolished the death penalty in Illinois in 2011, Urdiales was extradited to California. Urdiales "remained a callous coward until the end as he robbed the victims' families of the right to be present when the state put him to death," Orange County DA Tony Rackauckas said in a statement. Less than 24 hours after the death of Urdiales, a different Death Row prisoner was found dead of an apparent suicide in a different area of San Quentin. Authorities do not believe the death of 51-year-old Virendra Govin, who was sentenced to die in 2005 for killing a business rival, her two children, and her mother-in-law, is related to that of Urdiales. (California hasn't executed anybody since 2006, and San Quentin is running out of space.)
– A Syrian man who found himself stuck in an airport for months after overstaying his Malaysian visa and subsequently refusing to return to his war-torn home country has been arrested. Per CBC, Hassan Al Kontar spent the last seven months living in the Kuala Lumpur airport and documenting on Twitter his life in flux as he attempted to find a country willing to issue him a visa as a refugee. On Monday, Malaysian authorities accused the 36-year-old of being in a "forbidden zone" without a boarding pass and arrested him, per the New Straits Times. At a press conference, Malaysia's Immigration Department director-general Datuk Seri Mustafar Ali reportedly said that Al Kontar said he's unwilling to return to Syria because he fears he'll be forced to become a soldier after years spent working abroad as an insurance marketing manager. Mustafar said his agency doesn't know Al Kontar's "real reason" but cited his country's need for closure in the case. Mustafar also said Al Kontar had "shamed" Malaysia on social media. Throughout his ordeal, a human rights group out of British Columbia had been working to secure a Canadian visa for Al Kontar by putting public pressure on Canada's minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship. Malaysian officials did not say at the time of his arrest whether Al Kontar would be deported.
– Dr. Eben Alexander held a scientific worldview until, he says, he went to heaven. As a nominal Christian—and a neurosurgeon with Harvard credentials—Alexander admits he had envied "those who wanted to believe that there was a God somewhere out there who loved us unconditionally," he writes at the Daily Beast. Then he contracted meningitis and slipped into a 7-day coma that shut down "the human part of my brain, the neocortex." Incredibly, Alexander visited a realm of clouds, higher beings, and a God-like wind that told him he was "loved and cherished, dearly, forever." Now Alexander is encountering different beings—colleagues who give him "looks of polite disbelief" when he tells his story. In church, however, he "saw everything with fresh eyes," feeling again the universal love of his journey in the stained-glass windows, bass notes of the organ, and a painting of Jesus. And he is calling on scientists to paint "a new picture of reality" as an "evolving, multi-dimensional" universe with an all-knowing God. Click for the full article and its fiery comments section—or read this criticism of Alexander's science by Sam Harris.
– One of the songs on Taylor Swift's hugely popular 1989 is reportedly about Katy Perry—"Bad Blood," which includes the lyrics "Did you think we'd be fine? / Still got scars on my back from your knife," is rumored to be about Perry "stealing" three backup dancers from Swift, and Perry apparently responded by tweeting, "Watch out for the Regina George in sheep’s clothing," a Mean Girls reference. But that's far from the biggest music feud of all time—Radar rounds up 22 more. A sampling: Lil' Kim has accused Nicki Minaj of copying her—and earlier this year, Lil' Kim went so far as to release "Identity Theft," a song that includes the line, "Anything you tryna do, I done did it." And Minaj also had a beef with Mariah Carey when they were both American Idol judges, with Minaj once saying, "I told them, I’m not f---ing putting up with her f---ing highness over there" and Carey reportedly hiring extra security in response. Madonna once called Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" "reductive," after many people said it sounded like Madonna's "Express Yourself." Then, this year, Gaga hit back at Madge, saying, "If I was an established artist, I would love to help younger artists." After Chris Brown performed at the Grammys three years after beating Rihanna before the 2009 awards, Miranda Lambert tweeted, "I don’t get it. He beat on a girl..." Brown tweeted in response, "Using my name to get publicity? I love it!" For being America's Sweetheart, Swift sure has been involved in her fair share of feuds. After she allegedly wrote "Dear John" about her relationship with John Mayer, Mayer said he "didn't deserve it" and called it "a really lousy thing for her to do." Back in 1995, Blur and Oasis were rivals, even releasing competing singles on the same day. Noel Gallagher once said that he hoped two Blur members would "catch AIDS and die." Ciara told E! back in 2011 that she ran into Rihanna at a party and "she wasn't the nicest person," and their feud continued for years. Last year, Rihanna tweeted about Ciara, "Why am I still the main topic of her interviews!!" Courtney Love was in a two-decade feud with former Nirvana member Dave Grohl that had to do with the management of the band's business dealings, but they reconciled this year. Click for the complete list, including one feud that involves ... naked boobs.
– A couple born on the same day at the same Massachusetts hospital have exchanged vows more than two decades later, per the AP. The Taunton Gazette reports that Jessica Gomes and Aaron Bairos got married Sept. 9. Each was born on April 28, 1990, at the same hospital in Taunton, about 40 miles south of Boston. The two grew up in communities a few miles apart before meeting through mutual friends in high school. Gomes says she and Bairos figured out they were born on the same day "pretty early on" when they took a drivers education class together and saw the proof on their learner's permits. She says it was love at first sight.
– Archeologists say they have unearthed what is probably one of the most important prehistoric sites in America—on land in downtown Miami earmarked for a huge entertainment complex. The researchers confirm that after months of work they have found evidence of an extensive Tequesta Indian village dating back up to 2,000 years on what they believe was part of the city's original shoreline. The site where a developer plans to build movie theaters, restaurants, and a 34-story hotel has also produced thousands of artifacts. NPR in November spoke to chief archeologist Bob Carr, who gave a brief history of the Tequesta. "They probably encountered Ponce de Leon," he said, along with the founder of St. Augustine. Those meetings would have kicked off their demise; Carr believes the thousands-strong population was whittled to fewer than 300 within 200 years of encountering Europeans. But the site they left behind is "one of the earliest urban plans in eastern North America," Carr tells the Miami Herald. "You can actually see this extraordinary configuration of these buildings and structures." And it has yielded more bits of history: "Sandwiched over" the site were artifacts from Fort Dallas, which factored into two of the Seminole Indian wars of the 1800s, and from Henry Flagler’s 1897 Royal Palm Hotel, which the Herald describes as having "prompted the founding of the city of Miami." Preservation officials have called for a major redesign of the entertainment complex project to save as much of the site as possible. They note that while MDM Development Group could be out a lot of money, it was well aware of the risk it was taking when it bought the land, which falls inside a designated archeological zone. Though the true significance of the site only became clear after the last six months of work, Carr has been making discoveries there since 2005. (Click to read about another recent discovery in the heart of a major city.)
– One of the first victims to be identified from the Las Vegas mass shooting is a male nurse from Tennessee who had gone to the country music festival with his wife. What's more, his wife credits him with saving her life. "At this point, I'm in complete disbelief and despair," Heather Gulish Melton tells Nashville's Fox 17 of her late husband, Sonny Melton. He "was the most kind-hearted, loving man I have ever met," she said, adding, "He saved my life and lost his." She didn't provide further details about how her husband died. He was one of at least 58 people who were killed Sunday night when a gunman opened fire on the musical festival on the Vegas strip. Sonny Melton worked as a nurse at Jackson-Madison County General Hospital in Jackson, reports the Jackson Sun. His wife is an orthopedic surgeon, and she had previously posted a photo of the couple wearing Eric Church shirts, the headline act of the three-day festival, reports the New York Post. Gulish Melton wrote on Facebook that she "lost my true love and knight in shining armor" Sunday night. "I appreciate the prayers but I just need some time.” (The gunman's brother says the family is "dumbfounded" about the massacre.)
– President Trump blames the Senate's GOP leader for the health overhaul's failure, hints at tantalizing deals with Democrats, and watches his former strategist work to bulldoze the Republican establishment on Capitol Hill. There's no need for air conditioning at the White House with that chill in the air when Trump, a public official since January, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, first elected to Congress in 1984, meet on Monday, per the AP. A McConnell spokesman says their lunch topic will focus on the fall agenda, per Politico. That includes "completing the budget resolution, passing tax reform to help American families and workers, confirming well-qualified judicial and other nominees, and continuing to provide resources to communities affected by the recent hurricanes.” But it comes amid serious tension. Steve Bannon, back at Breitbart News after helping Trump win the presidency and serving in the West Wing, reaffirmed his commitment to dumping McConnell in a speech to religious conservatives Saturday. "This is our war," Bannon said. "The establishment started it. ...You all are gonna finish it." Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine moderate who just passed up a run for governor and was a pivotal "no" vote on health care, said Bannon's rhetoric in favor of "hyper partisanship" is exactly what the American people are tired of. "Mitch McConnell is the Senate majority leader," she said. "The president needs him. I'm glad they're working together on tax reform and a lot of other issues. And I'm glad they're meeting this week."
– “Ark Encounter,” the proposed creationist-themed amusement park where kids will be able to explore a 500-foot model of Noah’s Ark, moved a step closer to getting state funding this week, when the Kentucky Tourism Development Finance Authority approved up to $37 million in tax incentives. Those incentives, which have been a bit controversial, would finance as much as 25% of the project, Talking Points Memo reports. The park is getting those incentives because a feasibility study predicted that it would draw 1.6 million tourists to Kentucky in its first year. Of course, that feasibility study was commissioned by Ark Encounters LLC, and, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader, state officials haven’t even looked at it. But not to worry—Kentucky’s governor, a major fan of the park, promises that Kentucky will conduct its own study, as required by law, and won't "put a penny to this project until it is completed." (Click to read an argument against the tax incentives.)
– Scott Mayhew was working on a car inside his Utah garage Monday when it fell off the jack and onto his chest; trapped, he cried for help for an hour and a half to no avail. "He said he remembers he could barely breathe," wife Nicole tells Fox 13. "He didn’t know what was going to happen." What happened was that she came home, found him, called 911, and got a neighbor to help lift the vehicle using the jack. It's the why she came home that's remarkable: She was at work that morning and suddenly had a premonition. "I just said I need to go check on him working on the car, I just believe a spirit told me," she says. As she got to their Saratoga Springs home and heard her husband calling, she had a vision of what she'd find in the garage: "I thought, 'it’s on him, it'’s got to be on him, the car,' that’s what’s in my head, so I knew immediately," she says. She found the 43-year-old father of five, who says he'd been praying for her to come home, under the Ford Explorer. Paramedics responded, and though responders were concerned about possible internal bleeding, Scott is expected to make a full recovery; he broke six ribs. "I consider him extremely lucky," a paramedic tells ABC News. "He could have lost his life had he been under the car much longer." A crowdfunding campaign aims to raise money for the time he's out of work.
– The captain of Mexico's World Cup squad became one of only three athletes to play in five World Cup tournaments on Sunday. But Rafael "Rafa" Marquez's substitution in a 1-0 win over defending champions Germany, per ESPN, wasn't to be applauded by all onlookers, including in his home country. "It is incredible that the authorities are allowing a person who is accused of money laundering to go and play a World Cup as if nothing happened," a Mexico City resident tells the Los Angeles Times, referring to accusations that Marquez held assets for a Mexican drug trafficker, which prompted the US Treasury to freeze his bank accounts and block US companies from doing business with him last August. "That impunity only happens in Mexico. If you or someone who is not famous had cheated, they would put you in jail." Marquez, who has not been formally charged, is about as far from a jail cell as you can get. Two weeks before taking to Russia's open soccer pitches, Marquez visited Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto at the presidential palace. As one fan tells the Times, "Rafa is the soul of the national team, and if he is in trouble with the United States, we don't care." Still, the 39-year-old defender agreed not to be paid for his role with the team, where he's the only member forced to avoid gear featuring logos of sponsors including Coca-Cola, per the New York Times. He also had to miss a warm-up match in California. If any of that is a distraction, Marquez isn't showing it. "I feel in great shape for the rest of the tournament," he said after Sunday's win. "Back home no one thought that we could pull this off."
– Remember, oh, way back on Monday, when Owen Wilson announced he and his girlfriend were preggers? Well, they're not anymore: Us reports that Wilson and Jade Duell welcomed a son yesterday at his property in Hawaii, which apparently allowed him to keep the baby bump a secret. No name as yet, but click for other details.
– Typhoon Mangkhut, which CNN labels "the world's strongest storm this year," barreled into southern China on Sunday after lashing the northern Philippines with strong winds and heavy rain that left at least 36 people dead and dozens more feared buried in a landslide. Ahead of the massive typhoon, nearly half a million people had been evacuated from seven cities in China's Guangdong province, the gambling enclave of Macau closed casinos for the first time, and the Hong Kong Observatory warned people to stay away from the Victoria Harbour landmark, where storm surges battered the sandbag-reinforced waterfront. Mangkhut made landfall in the city of Taishan, reports the AP, packing wind speeds of 100mph. Authorities in southern China issued a red alert, the most severe warning, as the national meteorological center said the densely populated region would face a "severe test caused by wind and rain." On Sunday morning, the typhoon packed sustained winds of 96mph and gusts of up to 118mph. The Hong Kong Observatory said although Mangkhut had weakened slightly, its extensive, intense rainbands were bringing heavy downfall and frequent squalls. Hundreds of flights were canceled. All high-speed and some normal rail services in Guangdong and Hainan provinces were halted, the China Railway Guangzhou Group Co. said. In Hong Kong, a video posted by residents showed the top corner of an old building break and fall off while in another video, a tall building swayed as winds blew. The storm also broke windows, felled trees, tore bamboo scaffolding off buildings under construction, and flooded areas with sometimes waist-high waters, per the South China Morning Post. The paper said heavy rains brought storm surges of 10 feet around Hong Kong.
– Thad Cochran's camp batted down rumors last year of a romance between the senator and longtime aide Kay Webber, the New York Times reports, amid criticism that Webber had joined Cochran on 28 taxpayer-funded trips to 45 countries costing more than $150,000. Now, in a one-sentence statement, his office confirms that Cochran, 77, put a ring on it on Saturday during a private family ceremony in Gulfport, Miss., the Clarion-Ledger reports. Cochran's wife of 50 years—photographed by an anti-Cochran blogger in a nursing home last year—died in December at 73 after suffering from dementia, the Washington Post reports. A Cochran rep says Webber, 77, who joined Cochran's staff in 1981, will stay on as an executive assistant. Supporters of Chris McDaniel, Cochran's challenger in the Republican US Senate primary, argued last year that Cochran was carrying on an affair with Webber, a claim they backed up with records showing the senator rented Webber's basement apartment in Washington while his wife spent 13 years in a nursing home. At the time, Cochran's office maintained Webber was "a member of the staff and a trusted aide," who attended meetings and social functions with the senator while organizing his schedule. "Any other suggestion is silly gossip," his office said.
– Check out North Korea's computer operating system, and it feels almost like you're using a Mac. Red Star OS is a "fully featured desktop system," German researcher Niklaus Schiess tells Motherboard, complete with word processing software and a revamped Firefox browser. But like almost everything else in the totalitarian nation, something more nefarious lies underneath, per Schiess and Florian Grunow, who both scrutinized a version of the Linux-based OS that was leaked in 2014. They presented their findings Sunday to the Chaos Communication Congress—what Reuters calls "a gathering of hackers and security researchers"—in Hamburg, Germany. "We found that the features implemented in Red Star OS are the wet dream of a surveillance state dictator," the two say, describing a "fear-driven" OS that features "malicious functionality." Among the features of the OS are custom-developed encryption and the watermarking of documents and multimedia files so they can be tracked as they're transferred from computer to computer via USB sticks, Reuters notes. "It's definitely privacy invading, it's not transparent to the user," Grunow says, per the news agency. It "touches files you haven't even opened." There's also a built-in firewall, anti-virus scanner, and a program that reboots the OS or displays an error message if anyone tries to mess with the OS, per Motherboard. What made the OS particularly interesting to Grunow and Schiess is the fact that the nation is using the open source Linux OS, which can be customized for a user's particular purposes—in North Korea's case, snooping on its own, per Re/code. "North Korea abuses the principals of free software to provide an operating system that suppresses free speech," the researchers note in their CCC abstract.
– As the speculation continues into what turned the Tsarnaev brothers into alleged terrorists, a common theme is emerging in stories about Tamerlan, 26, and Dzhokhar, 19. As the Boston Globe puts it: A "picture began to emerge Friday of Tamerlan Tsarnaev as an aggres­sive, possibly radicalized immigrant who may have ­ensnared his younger brother—described almost universally as smart and sweet — into an act of terror. The New York Times has a story with a similar tack, headlined "Boy at Home in U.S., Swayed by One Who Wasn't," that plays off this paragraph: "The older one, who friends and family members said exerted a strong influence on his younger sibling—'He could manipulate him,' an uncle said—once told a photographer, 'I don’t have a single American friend. I don’t understand them.'" In its profile of the brothers, CNN writes that Dzhokhar started going to the gym at age 10 to be with his boxer brother: "Dzhokar followed Tamerlan around like a puppy. He'd be just behind him, doing calisthenics." One reason why all this might matter: If Dzhokhar's defense team makes the case that it was Tamerlan who was the driving force behind the plot, it could mean the difference between life and death for him. "If he says my intent was to please my brother, they could raise the question of federal jurisdiction," says attorney Alan Dershowitz in a separate CNN story. If the case remains under state jurisdiction as a result, Dzhokhar would escape the death penalty, which isn't in place in Massachusetts.
– Steve Jobs authorized a biography of himself so his four kids could "know him," author Walter Isaacson reveals in Time. "I wasn't always there for them, and I wanted them to know why, and to understand what I did," Jobs told Isaacson in their final interview just weeks ago at Jobs' home in Palo Alto. Jobs was curled up in pain in a ground-floor bedroom because he could no longer walk upstairs. "His mind was still sharp and his humor vibrant," wrote Isaacson, whose book will be published later this month. Jobs carefully controlled whom he saw in his final days, even though a pilgrimage of friends and fans beat a path to his home, reports the New York Times. He spent most of his time with his wife, Laurene, and children. “I once asked him if he was glad that he had kids," said preventive medicine expert Dr. Dean Ornish, who met Jobs for sushi shortly before his death. "He said, ‘It’s 10,000 times better than anything I’ve ever done.’”
– A new study finds that there's an evolutionary reason men prefer women with a "theoretically optimal angle of lumbar curvature." Another way of putting it? Even prehistoric guys probably liked a gal with a curvy backside. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin ran a two-part study, published in Evolution and Human Behavior: In the first part, men rated the attractiveness of manipulated images of spinal curves; most best liked a 45.5-degree curve from back to buttocks. In the second part, men were shown pictures of women with different buttock sizes—and they still most preferred the ones whose spinal curvature was closest to the ideal, meaning it's the lumbar curvature they like, not just "big butts," researchers say in a press release. But "men may be directing their attention to the butt and obtaining information about women's spines, even if they are unaware that that is what their minds are doing," the lead researcher explains, per Medical Daily. As for that evolutionary reason for the preference, researchers attribute it to "prehistoric influences." Explains the lead researcher, "This spinal structure would have enabled pregnant women to balance their weight over the hips. These women would have been more effective at foraging during pregnancy and less likely to suffer spinal injuries. In turn, men who preferred these women would have had mates who were better able to provide for fetus and offspring, and who would have been able to carry out multiple pregnancies without injury." Researchers note that this preference has evolved over thousands of years. "This adds to a growing body of evidence that beauty is not entirely arbitrary, or 'in the eyes of the beholder,'" says a co-author, "but rather has a coherent adaptive logic." (Another recent study uncovered the surprising reason we hate zits.)
– Take a bow, FedEx—you managed to anger the Material Girl. CNET reports on a Tuesday morning tweet by Madonna that aired her grievances with the delivery service, and the look on her face in the accompanying photo (her attempt at physical proof?) says it all. "When you've been arguing with fed-ex all week that you really are Madonna and they still won't release your package," she tweeted, adding a pic of herself looking rather disgruntled and a #bitchplease hashtag. An apparent FedEx employee's follow-up spurred even more jokes. "Hi, this is Julie. I would like to help. Please DM your delivery address, tracking & phone numbers," read a tweet from the official FedEx customer service page less than 30 minutes later. CNET debates whether Julie was just a starstruck fan looking for personal deets, and one commenter summed up that general suspicion, posting: "Nice try Julie." It's not clear what package the singer was expecting, or if she ever received it.
– Google has turned Toyotas and Lexus SUVs into self-driving vehicles, but its latest car takes the driverless project to the next level. The company built the bug-like contraption from the ground up, and it has no steering wheel, gas pedal, or—perhaps most worryingly for some—brakes (though there is an "e-stop button," the New York Times notes). But the car's also got improved sensors that allow it to "see" to a distance of two football fields, and Google says it's essentially free from blind spots. Recode dubs it "a gondola with wheels," while the Verge sees it as some kind of Fiat-Playmobil hybrid. The two-seater "is about changing the world for people who are not well-served by transportation today," says Google co-founder Sergey Brin. As for riding in it, John Markoff describes the experience in the New York Times as "a cross between riding in my office elevator … and memories of riding in the Disneyland Tomorrowland people mover as a child." Google argues that self-driving cars, with reaction speeds faster than humans', could reduce driving deaths by some 90%, the Verge reports. The benefits, per Google's blog: "Just imagine: You can take a trip downtown at lunchtime without a 20-minute buffer to find parking. Seniors can keep their freedom even if they can’t keep their car keys. And drunk and distracted driving? History."
– It's not exactly a revelation these days that JFK had an affair with Marilyn Monroe while president, but a new book is making headlines for adding a new wrinkle. The book, by journalist Christopher Andersen, says Monroe actually called Jackie Kennedy and told her that JFK planned to marry her, reports AFP. To which Jackie is said to have replied, "And you'll move into the White House and you'll assume the responsibilities of first lady, and I'll move out and you'll have all the problems," according to These Precious Few Days: The Final Year of Jack with Jackie. "Point: Jackie," writes Julie Miller at Vanity Fair, who likes the snark factor. Still, Andersen's book makes the case that while Jackie knew all about her husband's dalliances, it was only his affair with Monroe that worried her because she knew how huge the scandal would be if it became public. And Monroe seemed pretty sure she would be living in the White House someday, notes the Daily News summary of the book. “Can’t you just see me as first lady?” she is quoted as asking friend Jeanne Carmen. (In other Marilyn news, rare photos taken just six weeks before her death have entered the spotlight; click for that story.)
– While there are a bunch of studies showing that married folks seem to be happier than those who've stuck to singledom, a new study out of Bowling Green State University has found an apparent exception: older women who've never said "I do," per Live Science. The research, presented at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting in August, culled almost 40 years of data from the University of Chicago's national General Social Survey, in which more than 51,000 US adults were asked to rate their typical happiness level as "very happy," "pretty happy," or "not too happy." Researchers then compared data from various groups, including the never-marrieds, the still-marrieds, divorced people, and those who had lost their spouses. The scientists also broke it down further for people ages 60 and older, as widowed and divorced people tend to be on the older side. To their surprise, the researchers found "never-married, older women are, in a lot of years [of the survey], indistinguishable from ... married older women," co-researcher Gary Ralph Lee says, noting the same didn't hold true on the men's side—never-married males tended to have the same happiness levels as divorced and widowed men. The survey didn't allow for more insight into why the older ladies seem to be more content, though Lee mentions it could be that they've learned to adapt to being single and they instead draw satisfaction from careers, friends, and family. While not speaking specifically to the older female demographic, D'Marge does point out a few studies that have suggested singles exercise more, maintain better social networks, and may not be as vulnerable to depression as their married friends. (How happy you are depends on how you deal with conflict.)
– The results of a private autopsy on Michael Brown may escalate tensions in Ferguson, Missouri, even further: The examiner says the unarmed teenager was shot at least six times, including twice in the head, and all the bullets came from the front, reports the New York Times. Pathologist Michael Baden, New York City's former chief medical examiner, says all the bullets were fired from at least one or two feet away, and one bullet—apparently the last one fired—hit the top of the 18-year-old's head. "To have a shot that’s at a 90-degree angle from the top of his skull to the bottom of his chin, almost vertical, that sounds like an officer standing over him," a lawyer for the Brown family tells the Los Angeles Times, though Baden stresses he had no access to witness statements and more information will be needed to determine the facts of the shooting. Police have identified the officer who shot Brown as Darren Wilson, a six-year veteran of the force. The report comes as Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, spoke to Good Morning America this morning, and as MSNBC reports, she said that justice is "being fair, arresting (Wilson) and making him accountable for his actions." The Justice Department has ordered federal officials to carry out another autopsy on Brown, while Missouri has yet to make the details of its own autopsy public.
– Two of Rodney King's close friends think his fiancée, Cynthia Kelley, is lying about what happened in the hours before his death. Kelley says King, who had reportedly been drinking and smoking weed, banged on the window of their house around 5am yesterday and then she heard a splash. But friends heard her tell the story a few times and say she altered it just a bit each time, and they've told both TMZ and the police they fear she's hiding something. Meanwhile, in the Los Angeles Times, Kurt Streeter recalls his series of interviews with King this year, and writes that King was still drinking and still smoking pot (for medical reasons, he said). "What I witnessed was a man still struggling against alcohol," Streeter writes, though King always appeared in control when the two saw each other and insisted he could manage his addiction. Despite his continuing struggles, Streeter writes, King appeared to be "headed in a positive direction," with a new book coming out, hopes for a movie about his life, and a loving fiancée. Hauntingly, Streeter also recalls that in the pool where he would eventually drown, King had inscribed two dates: 3/31/91, when he was beaten by police, and 4/29/92, when the resulting LA riots occurred. "I thought of putting the number of people who died [in the riots] down there on the wall, the number 54," King once said. "But that would be too much. Just too much death." Click to read Streeter's full piece.
– A 28-year-old Iowa man got old-school in his disapproval of Donald Trump on Tuesday, allegedly tossing two tomatoes at the Republican frontrunner during a campaign stop at the University of Iowa, KCRG reports. Andrew Alemao was arrested by University of Iowa police and the Secret Service on suspicion of disorderly conduct. According to the AP, he was released Wednesday morning. Alemao wasn't alone in his Trump bashing, as KCRG notes Trump's speech was "interrupted numerous times by protesters." Alemao is facing up to $625 in fines and/or 30 days in jail. The AP reports it's unclear if anyone was hit by the flying fruit. It's also unclear if Trump will always remember the Alemao (sorry).
– A major study seems to confirm anecdotal evidence about the firefighters who responded to the World Trade Center attack: They are more likely to get cancer. The study in the Lancet finds that firefighters exposed to the toxic stew of dust in the air were 19% more likely to be diagnosed with cancer than their fellow firefighters who were not at the site, reports CNN. The findings come with the usual caveats about drawing specific cause-and-effect conclusions, but they still could make it easier for firefighters to win compensation from the government, notes the Wall Street Journal. "We've just begun to understand what's happening after the World Trade Center," says lead author David Prezant, chief medical officer of the city Fire Department. "We may find that some of our conclusions change over time, get stronger or change entirely." Prostate cancer was the most common type found, followed by melanoma, colon cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and thyroid cancer, notes the LA Times. Notably absent is lung cancer, though the disease can take 20 years to develop. "It is a major study, but it is not definitive,'' says the head of the state's Laborers' Health Fund. Still, it makes little sense to wait decades to make decisions on compensation, he adds. "We ought to give responders the benefit of the doubt."
– Russia is a dangerous place to drive, and authorities there seem to believe that getting transgender people off the roads will somehow make them safer. A new law tightens medical controls for drivers, and transgender people are among those classified with "disorders," meaning they can be refused driver's licenses, the BBC reports. Voyeurs, exhibitionists, fetishists, and others could also be banned under the law, which applies to people with "gender identity disorders, disorders of sexual preference, and psychological and behavioral disorders associated with sexual development and orientation," USA Today reports. People with schizophrenia and assorted "mood disorders" will also be banned from driving. Gays and lesbians will still be allowed on the road: "Sexual orientation by itself is not to be regarded as a disorder," the law states. Human rights groups have denounced the new law, which psychiatrists warn could prevent people from seeking help out of fear of being banned from driving. Russia's accident rate is more than four times that of the US at 55 fatalities per 100,000 vehicles a year, adding up to 28,000 deaths a year. Less controversially, the law also bans blind people from driving, reports BuzzFeed.
– Apple got some bad news out of Europe on Tuesday in the form of a massive tax bill. The European Union says Ireland has given illegal tax benefits worth up to $14.5 billion to the company and must now recover the money, plus interest. The penalty is unprecedented—Reuters reports that it's 40 times bigger than any other such fine levied by the European Commission. "Member states cannot give tax benefits to selected companies—this is illegal under EU state aid rules," said EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, per the AP. She said a three-year investigation found Ireland granted such lavish tax breaks to Apple over many years that the company's effective corporate tax rate on its European profits dropped from 1% in 2003 to practically nothing—a mere 0.0005% in 2014. Both Apple and Ireland say they will appeal. CEO Tim Cook has previously called the tax inquiry "political crap," notes the Guardian, while Ireland says it threatens to torpedo its successful strategy of using low taxes to woo international business. "Apple follows the law and pays all of the taxes we owe wherever we operate," said the company in a statement, per the BBC. "We ... are confident the decision will be overturned."
– Monday marks the 400th anniversary of Sir Walter Raleigh's beheading, and that very head is now back in the news. It's all thanks to the discovery of an etching (see it here) concealed under layers of paint in the Tower of London's Bloody Tower, where Raleigh lived before his 1618 execution. Because the etching was found on the layer of wall that dates to the early 17th century, it's possible the drawing is a self-portrait of Raleigh, Fox News reports. The Telegraph reports the head is shown in profile and is crowned with a laurel wreath, which Dr. Agnieszka Sadraei, the historic buildings curator for the charity that manages the Tower, said might be significant: "Raleigh was a poet and it is possible that he could have been represented wearing such a wreath in an Antique fashion," though wreaths were also used at the time when illustrating kings. Tourists may inadvertently be responsible for the find. Visitors are believed to have "knocked the wall," as the Telegraph puts it, and a wall-paintings specialist spotted black coloring peeking through. As for Raleigh, he bounced between favor and disgrace: Queen Elizabeth I sent him to explore North and South America, but had him imprisoned in the Tower of London when he wed one of her ladies in waiting without first seeking her approval. Two more imprisonments followed under James I, one that lasted 13 years. (Another discovery, this one toxic, was made amid a trio of rare books.)
– When it comes to a bad reaction to alcohol, it seems not everyone is created equal. Genetics, researchers suggest, could be to blame for almost half the difference among people in whether we suffer the day after drinking. In a survey, study authors asked some 4,000 people on the Australian Twin Registry about the frequency of their hangovers in the past year. They found that both hangover frequency and hangover resistance appeared to be correlated between identical twins, pointing to a possible genetic explanation behind the suffering, LiveScience reports. More specifically, genetics appeared to be 45% of the reason behind variation in women's hangover experiences, while the figure for men was 40%. A researcher's advice? Don't "try to pace your drinking to the people around you, because you might be more susceptible to hangover than the other people that you are drinking with." And if you do end up hit with a hangover, an expert suggests that the "hair of the dog" theory may actually have some basis in science. The toxin methanol, which is found in small amounts in drinks, causes an adverse reaction in your body—and the ethanol in booze fights that reaction, says Adam Rogers, author of a new book on the subject, via the Belfast Telegraph. Alternatively, to shake your hangover, you could go see this nurse.
– An Alabama lawmaker thinks it's important his state be on-record as supporting Phil Robertson (who is from Louisiana). Alabama state Sen. Jerry Fielding has written a resolution declaring that legislators "stand united" against A&E's "deplorable" decision to oust Robertson who "should be celebrated as a hero," the Daily Home reports. Fielding tells the paper that he believes A&E "bowed to pressures from liberal groups rather than respecting Robertson's biblically correct views," views he believes the "vast majority" of Alabamans hold. He'll introduce the resolution once the legislature assembles on Jan. 14. He's not the only one standing up for the embattled Duck Commander. A Facebook event has cropped up urging Robertson's supporters to dress in camouflage gear and eat at Chick-fil-A on Jan. 21, in what they're calling (wait for it) "Chick-Phil-A Day." As of this writing almost 59,000 have said they'll take part. The choice of venue is a nod to Chick-fil-A's own recent homophobia controversy—a post on the organization's page spotted by Fox Orlando urges followers to support "two of the biggest brands to have, in recent history, come under fire for sharing an opinion on personal faith-based beliefs." But the chain tells TMZ that the event "is in no way sponsored by or affiliated with Chick-fil-A." The event doesn't make clear who's behind it, but the BizPac Review reports that it's the work of LibertyNEWS co-founder Eric Odom.
– David Cameron's decision to exercise Britain's veto and sit out negotiations on a new EU treaty is being seen as a momentous move, even if the ramifications aren't quite clear yet: New York Times: The decision "has left Britain as isolated as it has ever been in postwar Europe and effectively left out of future European decisions," write Sarah Lyall and Julia Werdigier. They add, however, that "there was widespread confusion over what this all actually means." Guardian: "I do not hear the sound of champagne corks or celebration among British Eurosceptics," writes Michael White. "Beware of what you wish for, is a wise saying. Who knows what happens now? But Europe, for all its follies and failings, has become a scapegoat for weaknesses that are really our own. We may be about to rediscover that awkward truth. It was why we joined in the first place." Global Post: "Britain will not be part of the negotiations defining the new fiscal union, setting the stage for a two-tier Europe. Britain’s opt-out is a monumental development for Europe, and a significant defeat" for Cameron, writes Michael Goldfarb. Germany, France, and Britain always found a way to find a deal in the past, but this time there was no leeway "to fudge and play politics with the solutions." Telegraph: "Mr. Cameron was right to reject a deal designed by the French, for the French," blogs Benedict Brogan. "At the heart of this dispute is France's desire to see Britain out of the EU, and (London) marginalized. That was why they loaded the package with elements Britain could not accept. Downing Street officials are clear about what the French are up to, and why the Prime Minister had no choice but to say non."
– The White House has made its first remarks on the Roy Moore sexual misconduct allegations since President Trump got back from Asia—and they stopped a long way short of calling for Moore to step aside, as many senior Republicans have done. Trump believes allegations against the Senate candidate are "very troubling and should be taken seriously," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday, per NPR, but "he believes the people of Alabama should make the decision of who their next senator is going to be." She didn't say whether Trump still supports Moore, though she told reporters she doesn't think the president will campaign for him. The Alabama Republican Party, meanwhile, issued a statement in support of Moore after a meeting of its 21-person Steering Committee, AL.com reports. "Alabamians will be the ultimate jury in this election—not the media or those from afar," party Chairman Terry Lathan said in the statement. The AP reports that Moore appeared alongside more than a dozen religious leaders in Alabama Thursday. They took turns praising Moore and attacking the women who accuse him of harassing or assaulting them. "This is a man who does not lie. Compare that to his accusers," said Gordon Klingenschmitt of the group Pray in Jesus Name. (Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may be considering a "drastic" option.)
– People continue to really enjoy naming their kids Sophia and Jackson. The names sit atop the list of most popular baby names for the ninth and sixth consecutive years, respectively. The names Logan and Zoe did not fare so well, having been pushed out of the top 10 in 2018 in favor of Oliver and Layla, which both entered the top 10 for the first time. Names to keep an eye on? Everly, Isla, Leo, and Carson, which were the fastest-rising names of the year, per BabyCenter. Why do the top two rule? "Sophia is the dominant girls' name of the decade, with no signs of slowing down," says BabyCenter's global editor in chief, per SFGate. "It has worldwide appeal, it's pronounceable in multiple languages, and it's feminine and sophisticated all at once. As for Jackson, it's a modern twist on the old classic Jack." Read on for the top 10 in each category.
– Forced marriage and marital rape are under the spotlight once again, this time emerging from a case in Sudan. There, 19-year-old Noura Hussein was sentenced to death Thursday for the stabbing death of her husband, whom she says she was made to marry and who then raped her with the help of his family. The Guardian reports Hussein was married off at the age of 15 or 16 (a Change.org petition says that's merely when she was told she had to go through with the marriage), but she fled and holed up with an aunt for three years—until she was fooled into a visit to the home of her own family, who promptly returned her to the man she was made to marry. After less than a week with him, she says, his brother and two others held her down while he raped her, and the next day when he tried it again, she stabbed him and fled to her parents, who brought her to the cops. CNN notes the legal age of marriage in Sudan is 10, and that marital rape isn't against the law. Under Sharia, the husband's family could choose a pardon, financial compensation, or death for Hussein, per the Washington Post; they chose death. "When I left the court house the rapist's family were clapping with joy and had smug looks on their faces," a supporter who of Hussein's posted on Twitter. Hussein has plenty of people backing her up, and her cause has found its way online with a #JusticeForNoura hashtag and via the Change.org petition, which calls her actions self-defense. "It was a shocking moment" hearing she'd be put to death, Hussein told supporters. "I knew then that I [would] be executed, leaving my dreams unfulfilled." Her legal team has 15 days to file an appeal. (Marital rape isn't viewed the same as "normal" rape in many US states.)
– New enrollment data shows that the total number of people who have signed up for ObamaCare remains below target, but the numbers also provide some rare good news for the White House. Some of the odds and ends: January goal met: Last month, 1.1 million people signed up on either a federal or state exchange, beating the target of 1 million. That's a first, reports the Washington Post. Overall figure shy: The new numbers mean that 3.3 million people have signed up since Oct. 1, shy of the goal of 4.4 million for this point, reports the New York Times. (That goal was set before the disastrous website rollout.) More young people: People ages 18 to 34 accounted for 27% of enrollees in January, up from 24% in December, reports NPR. Overall, that means 25% of enrollees are in this crucial age group, well below the administration's goal of 40%. But health chief Kathleen Sebelius sees hope in the uptick: "The covered population is getting younger." More women: They account for 55% of total enrollees at this point. Big picture? "The biggest takeaway here, probably, is that Obamacare is starting to look more and more like the law that the White House had hoped to launch—not the one where technical glitches made it nearly impossible for shoppers to get in the door," writes Sarah Kliff at the Post.
– Two 15-year-old girls are dead in Arizona after a shooting at Independence High School in Glendale Friday morning. Details are vague—the sophomores were shot at what CNN describes as "a covered patio area near the main building" and cafeteria prior to 8am, and authorities don't believe there are any suspects at large. ABC 15 reports that there are no persons of interest and that the shooting is considered an isolated incident. "This is not an active shooter situation, and we realized that once we got on scene," a police officer tells the Arizona Republic. But authorities won't say whether the situation could be a double suicide or a murder-suicide. It's not clear what, if any, relationship existed between the two 10th-graders, who were found close to one another with a single gunshot wound each; a gun was found nearby.
– A North Carolina aquarium scientist planned to move an alligator from the side of a highway—but the gator had different ideas. As the scientist dropped a towel over the alligator's face and attempted to lift the eight-foot creature with his bare hands, the gator spun around, tripped the man and bit his arm while shaking its head violently. The scientist managed to struggle free from the giant jaws, kick out at the gator, and make his escape. The gator was later captured by a crew and moved to a swamp some 30 miles away, reports the BBC. The scientist was treated and released from a local hospital.
– The US health care system is hopelessly broken, blowing $750 billion a year—or about 30 cents of every dollar that goes into it—on unnecessary procedures, paperwork, fraud, price gouging, and other inefficiencies, a new report from the influential Institute of Medicine has concluded. "Health care in America presents a fundamental paradox," the report says. While medical knowledge and technology have taken dramatic leaps, the system "is falling short on basic dimensions of quality, outcomes, cost and equity." The report has been in the works for 18 months, the AP reports. It suggests several reforms, including changing the way doctors are paid to reward results and discourage unnecessary treatments. "We have a lot of medical care that is not helpful," one cardiologist says. But "when you talk about getting rid of any type of health care, someone yells, 'Rationing.'" The report found disturbing things about care quality as well; for example, a third of hospital patients are harmed during their stay.
– The King's Speech swept past fellow front-runner The Social Network to claim a dozen Academy Award nominations this morning, including Best Picture and three of the four acting categories. Surprisingly, True Grit also bested the Facebook film with 10 nominations, also including the top award. The Social Network finally appears third on the list, tied with Inception at eight nominations, including Best Picture for both. The rest of the Best Picture nominees: Black Swan The Fighter The Kids Are All Right 127 Hours Toy Story 3 Winter's Bone Click for the complete list of nominees, or check out which films got snubbed.
– Mitt Romney is apparently looking to turn a President Obama comment from last week—"If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen"—into a campaign theme. Romney says the comment, which the Republican candidate has focused on for three straight days, "wasn't a gaffe. It was his ideology," Yahoo News reports. "The president does, in fact, believe that people who build enterprises like this really aren't responsible for it," Romney said at a Boston-area truck repair shop. "My view, we have to celebrate people who started enterprises and employ other people," he added, according to the Hill. The Obama camp, for its part, says the president was making the point that businesses use roads, infrastructure, and other public amenities, a view that Elizabeth Warren expressed to much acclaim earlier. Meanwhile, Ann Romney says not to expect any more tax returns from her husband, the AP notes. "We've given all that people need to know," she said on ABC today, a quote that's getting plenty of traction on the left.
– Lesley Gore, the singer-songwriter who scored a huge hit as a 16-year-old with "It's My Party" in 1963, has died at the age of 68. Gore, who grew up in New Jersey and was discovered by Quincy Jones, followed up the Grammy-nominated chart-topper with hits including "She's a Fool," "Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows," and "You Don't Own Me," which became a feminist anthem, reports the Los Angeles Times. Gore and her brother Michael were nominated for an Oscar for writing "Out Here on My Own" for 1980's Fame. She released Ever Since, her first album in 30 years, in 2005 and had been working on a stage adaptation of her life, Variety reports. She also played Catwoman's sidekick Pussycat in the 1960s Batman TV series. ECR Music Group chief Blake Morgan, who produced Gore's last album, says he had known her since his childhood. "Lesley was like my rock 'n' roll godmother," he tells the Times. "It was a very courageous record for her to make, and a very defiant one." Gore came out as a lesbian when she hosted a few episodes of the PBS series In the Life, which dealt with gay and lesbian issues. "She was a wonderful human being—caring, giving, a great feminist, great woman, great human being, great humanitarian," Lois Sasson, her partner of 33 years, tells the AP. Sasson says Gore, a nonsmoker, died of lung cancer yesterday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan.
– The Baltimore riots and their underlying issues have officially become part of the 2016 race. Hillary Clinton today delivered a major speech in New York in which the takeaway sentiment is her call to end the "era of mass incarceration." As the Los Angeles Times reports, Clinton says it's time for a fundamental overhaul of sentencing, especially for nonviolent offenders. She wants less jail time for them and more treatment and rehab programs, and she thinks other alternative ideas should be investigated for young offenders in particular. She also called for police to wear body cameras in what the New York Times describes as an "unusually impassioned speech." “From Ferguson to Staten Island to Baltimore, the patterns have become unmistakable and undeniable,” said Clinton. “Not only as a mother and grandmother, but as a citizen, a human being, my heart breaks for these young men and their families. We have to come to terms with some hard truths about race and justice in America.” At Vox, Jonathan Allen notes that Bill Clinton put into place a massive crime bill in 1994 that resulted in more cops on the street and more prisons. His wife's rejection of mass incarceration, then, is "a stunning condemnation of one of the most clear-cut policy failures of Bill Clinton's presidency."
– He wouldn't fit the typical profile of a campus drug dealer, but authorities say a 64-year-old chemistry lab technician at Auburn University was just that. And they say Stephen Howard wasn't just peddling weed, but a date rape drug, reports WTVM. Howard is accused of using his lab credentials to order a chemical that is converted to GHB when ingested, and he allegedly sold 20 ounces of it to an undercover federal agent and later a gallon. In all, authorities seized two to three gallons. It's not clear whether Howard had sold any to other customers, or whether any students were victims, but an affidavit quotes him as boasting to an undercover agent that he "probably had five different girls pass out on him," reports Al.com. During the second transaction, Howard allegedly flashed a handgun. For that, he faces weapons charges along with his drug-trafficking charges. He's still got his job in the College of Engineering for now, but Auburn says it is "evaluating Mr. Howard's employment status."
– The nuclear test site that Kim Jong Un promises to shutter may be in worse shape than the world knew, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Punggye-ri site—which is couched in a mountain called Mount Mantap—apparently suffered a sizeable collapse in the hours and days after North Korea's most recent nuclear test in September. An international team of scientists reached this conclusion by combining seismic data with satellite radar images, Nature reports. "These findings make us infer that a large part of the Punggye-ri test site is inoperable," says a USC professor. Seismologists have already shown that a big part of the site was unusable after the last test caused a near-immediate collapse of a cavity in Mount Mantap. The latest study used synthetic aperture radar—which is normally used to make 3D terrain maps—to show that Mantap's slopes moved outward horizontally by nearly four yards, and the summit sank by about half a yard over the next week when "damaged rock above the cavity slowly settled in on itself," says Nature. The latest finding may add to concerns that Kim's plan to close Punggye-ri before meeting President Trump isn't much of a concession. North Korea said Saturday that it plans to dismantle Punggye-ri on May 23-25, the AP reports.
– Maybe pirates aren't as bad as they have been painted to be. Teachers and schoolkids alike were shocked when Johnny Depp, in full costume and character as Jack Sparrow, appeared in their London classroom yesterday. It turns out that 9-year-old Beatrice Delap had written recently to the actor, saying, "We are a bunch of budding young pirates and we're having trouble mutinying against the teachers!" Depp, who is in town to film the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean, entertained the children for 15 minutes, suggesting that they take over the school and eat all the candy. It's not the first time that Depp has done such a goodwill deed. On a separate occasion two years ago he donated a million dollars to a hospital after appearing in character and reading the children stories. Read the full article or click here for video of the moment.
– If nothing else, the not-so-amicable divorce negotiations between oil tycoon Harold Hamm and ex-wife Sue Ann Arnall have produced one of the most remarkable checks you'll ever see. On Jan. 5, the CEO of Continental Resources wrote one out to Arnall for $974,790,317.77, reports CNNMoney. Arnall, however, won't cash it because she says her ex amassed his much bigger fortune over the course of their 26-year marriage, and thus she is entitled to more. She has appealed the settlement, and now Hamm has filed an appeal of his own—he says plummeting oil prices have taken a toll on his net worth, reports Reuters.
– It's tough to decide which part of this story is worse: the crime or the aftermath. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that a police officer's arm became caught in a Pontiac Sunfire around 10pm last night while chasing after a man who was allegedly part of a Black Friday shoplifting scheme at a Kohl's in Romeoville. As the car dragged the officer ("quite a distance, in WLS' telling), its driver refusing commands that he stop, police fired, hitting the driver on his left side, in the shoulder area. And then there's this, per the Tribune: Apparently not bothered by the three or four shots that were fired, nor by the fact that police had marked off a store entrance as a crime scene, shoppers continued to do their thing inside, though some stopped to snap cell photos of the scene.
– More from the Not Such Shocking News Dept: Jessica Simpson is pregnant. The 31-year-old performer today made a Halloween-theme announcement, tweeting a pic of herself dressed as a mummy and rubbing her tummy: "It's true. I am going to be a mummy," she wrote. Her first baby with fiance Eric Johnson apparently isn't impeding her schedule, either: She's agreed to mentor alongside Nicole Richie on the forthcoming NBC reality show, Fashion Star, the AP reports. Click to see a family portrait, and more photos of a clearly pregnant Simpson and her babydaddy.
– The word "impeachment" is getting tossed around a lot on Capitol Hill and on political talk shows these days, but Politico takes note of a "very strange" twist: It's Democrats who keep bringing it up, while Republicans keep insisting they have no intention of going there. The thing is, Democrats aren't just whispering about it—they're sending out red-alert emails with "transparent glee," writes Jonah Goldberg at the Los Angeles Times. The reason is simple: fundraising. "We now have a shot at hitting our $2,000,000 goal to defend the President—and defeat Boehner's Republican House," reads one recent missive from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The strategy plays off Republicans' decision to try to sue the White House over perceived abuses of executive privilege, but stretching that into an impeachment threat strikes Goldberg as cynical politics from a president who constantly rails against, yes, cynicism in politics. The Obama White House is again borrowing from the playbook of Bill Clinton, who actually benefited from an impeachment threat, he writes. "The difference is that while Clinton was hardly immune to the charge of cynicism, he wasn't trying to shut down the government or get impeached for narrow political advantage." Click for Goldberg's full column.
– If there's anywhere you'll see a punk rocker with a "multicolored mohawk," New York City would be the place. But the Mandarin duck that's been hanging out in Central Park since mid-October is another story entirely. The New York Times reports the creature with brilliantly hued plumage was first spotted Oct. 10 and has since gone viral, with spectators all vying for pictures of an animal usually seen only in East Asia. For now, the duck's origins remain a mystery: None of the city's zoos have this type of duck missing from the roster, and it's illegal in NYC to keep a duck as a pet. That means the duck perhaps escaped from, say, an owner in New Jersey and made its way to the city, or maybe the owner itself got sick of the duck and unceremoniously left it and ran. Either way, the duck has been a huge hit. "It's just an incredible gift to New York," one birder tells CBS New York. Avian experts believe that based on its feeding habits—it likes bugs and vegetation skimmed from the water's surface—the duck should be able to survive just fine in the Big Apple, and park officials say they're just going to let it be unless it becomes injured. It already appears to have made friends with the park's mallards. Read more on how a pair of eager birders tried (and ultimately succeeded) to coax the duck to come closer for pictures, including with a hot pretzel from a nearby cart and, yes, quacking. (The search for a pink-headed duck in Myanmar.)
– Give someone a call on your smartphone today, and you'll be celebrating history: It's been 40 years since the first mobile phone call was made, the Guardian reports. That first call was placed by Motorola worker Martin Cooper in New York City on April 3, 1973, using a so-called "brick" of a phone: the Motorola DynaTAC. Some nine inches tall, the DynaTac let you talk for 35 minutes using its 30 circuit boards. It took 10 hours to recharge. It's not exactly known what Cooper said during that conversation in midtown Manhattan, but it was something like, "I’m ringing you just to see if my call sounds good at your end," Quartz reports. Who did Cooper call? His rival, he told the Verge in an interview last year: Bell Labs' Joel Engel. The next decade was largely devoted to research; the first cell phone for commercial use got the FCC's OK on Sept. 21, 1983—the Motorola 8000x, which sold for $3,995, reports Fox News. The Guardian has photos of the history of mobile phones.
– That Vilma Grunwald's letter even exists is extraordinary. She penned it in the minutes before she was gassed at Auschwitz, addressed it to her husband, and handed it to a Nazi guard who did the improbable—delivered it to the man, who was also imprisoned at the camp. The Washington Post reports she accompanied her eldest child, a 16-year-old named John who limped, to the gas chambers. The Indianapolis Star has the story of the July 11, 1944, letter, which has for the last four years resided at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "I'm always reluctant to say it's the only such document ever created," says the museum's chief acquisitions curator, "but to the best of our knowledge" it is the only surviving letter written at the concentration camp prior to a gassing. Grunwald's son, Misa (who now goes by Frank and lives northeast of Indianapolis) learned of the letter as an 11-year-old in 1946 but did not read it until after his father's 1967 death. Frank tells the Star that what he found most moving was the 11-sentence letter's tone: free of anger or resentment, and focused only on him and his father. It reads in part: "The famous trucks are already here and we are waiting for it to begin. ... You—my only and dearest one, do not blame yourself for what happened, it was our destiny. We did what we could. ... Take care of the little golden boy and don't spoil him too much with your love. Both of you—stay healthy, my dear ones. I will be thinking of you and Misa. Have a fabulous life, we must board the trucks." (This man buried a letter at Auschwitz; now we know what it says.)
– Diplomats from the UN's nuclear agency say they've seen satellite images of Iranian trucks and earth-moving vehicles working at Iran's Parchin site, in what they suspect is an attempt to scrub the area of radioactive traces ahead of the IAEA's visit. Diplomats tell the AP that they saw trucks hauling off soil that they suspect could have been contaminated in tests of a nuclear weapon trigger mechanism—whose only purpose, one diplomat said, would be related to a nuclear weapon. Israel touted the pictures as evidence of "what Israel has been saying all along … the Iranian nuclear program is not benign." Israel seems increasingly eager to attack Iran; one official confirms for Reuters that in his visit to the White House, Benjamin Netanyahu requested bunker-busters and refueling planes, both of which would be conspicuously useful in an attack on Iran. An Israeli newspaper reported that President Obama had agreed, in exchange for promises Israel wouldn't attack this year, but Reuters' source called that "unrealistic."
– It may feel like you've been hearing about Prince William and wife Kate for a thousand years, but they've only been married for three, as of today. And she got quite an anniversary gift, the Daily Mail reports: Wills gave her a Cartier watch that cost upward of $6,000; it's embedded with a sapphire, to match Kate's engagement ring. He reportedly gave it to her before they set off on their three-week tour of Australia and New Zealand, and Kate wore it every day they were gone. The watch has another link to Princess Diana (who, of course, was the first owner of Kate's ring): Di also wore a Cartier watch, and once had one engraved for William for his birthday. Oh, and then of course there's the fact that the queen "is encouraging Kate to build up her own collection of Cartier items," the Mail notes. As for how the royal couple is celebrating their anniversary, officials say they're doing so "privately," according to the Daily Beast; the Mirror says they're expected to spend time with Kate's family. They were apart on their second anniversary, with William on duty as an RAF pilot.
– It was an epic heist and the most Canadian crime ever, to boot: Back in 2012, thieves stole 540,000 gallons of maple syrup worth at least $13 million. It was nothing less than mind-boggling, writes Rich Cohen at Vanity Fair. "It felt less like a crime than a prank, what you might do to your brother if you were all-powerful and he had a lot of syrup." But as his long feature explains, it was indeed serious business, and at the heart of the strange tale is a group he likens to the OPEC of the syrup world: the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers. Quebec makes 72% of the world's maple syrup, and the federation keeps an "ironfisted" control over the precious stuff, he writes. How precious? At $1,300 a barrel, maple syrup is worth roughly 26 times more than oil. And while the federation's policies have kept prices high, they also may have led to what the piece calls "one of the greatest agricultural crimes in all of history." Critics liken the group not just to OPEC but, as one rogue producer puts it, to "the mafia." The federation keeps prices stable by maintaining a gigantic reserve of maple syrup and thus controlling supply. It was this reserve that thieves began stealing from in a months-long scheme. They'd remove barrels of syrup from a warehouse, siphon out the syrup, replace it with water, then replace the barrel. A warehouse worker finally noticed something was amiss in July of that year, and international headlines ensued. (The reputed ringleader was found guilty last month.) The full story has more details on the heist and the great detective work that followed, along with a primer on the world of syrup that includes this nugget: While Quebec makes 72% of maple syrup, the US has far more maple trees, meaning that "if the Americans ever make the push to self-sufficiency, French Canada is cooked." Read it here.
– If the results of a new study hold up to further research, Tylenol may have to start coming up with a new warning label: "may cause a lack of empathy." Researchers studying acetaminophen—the active painkiller in Tylenol and about 600 other medicines—found people taking it showed less empathy toward the physical and emotional pain of others, Live Science reports. This could be a big deal as nearly a quarter of American adults take some form of acetaminophen every week, notes an Ohio State press release. "If you are having an argument with your spouse and you just took acetaminophen, this research suggests you might be less understanding of what you did to hurt your spouse’s feelings," says the study's senior author, Baldwin Way. The study—published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience—consisted of multiple experiments involving stories of suffering, actual painful blasts of noise, and more, CNN reports. The results appear to confirm earlier studies of brain activity that showed empathy was somehow neurologically related to how a person processes their own pain. The results also "raise concerns about the broader social side effects of acetaminophen," says the study. “We don’t know why acetaminophen is having these effects, but it is concerning,” says Way. The researchers plan to test ibuprofen next. (Another recent study shows acetaminophen could reduce your ability to notice errors.)
– It's tough being skinny. Just ask LeAnn Rimes. The singer has been the subject of much too-thin chatter (which she has addressed on Twitter), and it doesn't show signs of letting up. The Huffington Post reports that Rimes "blew up" on Twitter following dinner with hubby Eddie Cibrian in Chicago on Friday. Apparently, a fellow diner approached her and said something about her weight. Rimes was none too pleased. "How dare someone come to me at a table w/ the boys & tell me I need to eat something," she tweeted. "What is wrong with people!? AS I'm stuffing my face....have another drink and maybe take a class in manners! Cheers!" Click to read her food-related follow-up tweet.
– The Livestrong Foundation's official name was the Lance Armstrong Foundation—until Oct. 30. That day, Texas' secretary of state approved the cancer charity's bid to change its name, in a move to further distance itself from the cyclist who recently cut ties to the group. Henceforth, the Livestrong Foundation will be the group's official name, the AP reports. "Lance doesn't want to be a distraction from the foundation's cause—serving cancer patients and survivors," a board member tells Reuters. "That's why he resigned from the foundation's board. In the spirit of that noble decision, the foundation has to make appropriate changes as well."
– The tweets are long now. CNN reports that, for the first time since launching in 2006, Twitter has expanded its character limit for most users. Beginning Tuesday evening, Twitter users will have 280 characters instead of the previous 140. "We want it to be easier and faster for everyone to express themselves," Twitter tweeted. The company tested a 280-character limit with small group of users in September and states those users spent more time on Twitter, gained more followers, and had more "engagement," according to the AV Club. (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean-speaking Twitter users will continue to be limited to 140 characters, and Quartz explains why in, obviously, 280 characters.) As is their wont, many Twitter users complained about the change Tuesday. Perhaps that's because, as the AV Club puts it, users in the test group "were quick to embrace their newfound godhood by posting unnecessarily wordy complaints and repeating the same jokes about adding a message board-style signature to every tweet." But Twitter says the change shouldn't be that noticeable in the long run. It says most test users stopped using all 280 characters once they got tired of the jokes. Only 5% of tweets from users in the test group were longer than 140 characters, and only 2% were over 190 characters, according to Twitter. Meanwhile, a few days before Twitter gave users an extra 140 characters, Gizmodo reports one intrepid user figured out a loophole for a 35,000-character tweet.
– Cleaning up after a massive hurricane is a difficult affair, but a decade after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans and claimed what Live Science reports is an estimated 1,833 lives, 30 bodies have yet to be identified. WWL-TV arrived at that number after making a public records request to the current coroner, who did not agree to be interviewed. The data comes from autopsy reports—reports that contain only a few identifying details, like the location of the body and what it was clad in or carried. One unknown black male wore black Nike tennis shoes and a black necklace with a wooden African pendant. An unknown female was wearing a yellow metal earring with the letters "RMJ" on it and a single curler in her hair. State health officials say the department spent more than $3 million trying to reunite families with the remains of the dead; the federal government ended up covering only $2.2 million of that, and there's no more money for further testing, says Dr. Louis Cataldie, who helmed the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team that helped ID the bodies. The condition of the bodies rendered fingerprints largely "useless," and so "we would take DNA from family members and relatives and try and match the family tree," he says of his work. "That's real hard to do when you've got people displaced to Texas and you're trying to get their DNA." Former Orleans Parish Coroner Frank Minyard's take: "It's ludicrous in this day and age to have people unidentified." (Ten years on, these are 10 standout reads about Katrina.)
– A charter school in Manhattan has been conducting an experiment of sorts: How do students perform if teachers are paid $125,000 a year? The results so far at the Equity Project Charter School look promising, the Atlantic reports. The fifth- through eighth-graders slowly saw test scores rise over the period studied. Four years of math at the school showed results comparable to 5.6 years at another school with demographically similar students, Vox reports. In science and English, they gained an approximately an additional half-year's worth of learning over other kids, the Wall Street Journal reports. What's more, the score gap between white and Hispanic eighth-graders shrank by 78%, Vox notes. It isn't just the high pay that sets the school apart, however. The 480-student school, called TEP, hired highly experienced teachers who underwent a day of teaching "auditions." They have extensive administrative duties in a school that cut some standard administrative positions, and they must hold up to tough scrutiny to get rehired. Turnover ended up being high across a four-year period, the Atlantic notes, with 20 out of 43 teachers working for only one year. (At city middle schools, about 27% of teachers don't do a second year.) Also worth noting: Only 43% of eighth-graders at the school passed state math tests last year—but that beats the 26% rate across New York City, the Journal notes. (Another possible education solution: 13th grade?)
– In the UK, the inquiry centered on News Corp's phone hacking has resulted in prosecutions—but in the US, it looks like Rupert Murdoch's company is off the hook. The US has announced that it won't prosecute News Corp, the BBC reports. Federal investigators had eyed News Corp "regarding possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act concerning bribes allegedly paid for news leads," but that investigation is over, barring the emergence of new information, the US says. News Corp's general counsel applauded the "fairness and professionalism of the Justice department" in the matter. But a lawyer for 9/11 victims' relatives, who believe they may have been hacking victims, raised concerns, saying that DOJ had promised to meet with his clients before releasing "any statement," the Guardian reports.
– A 1993 letter from George HW Bush to Bill Clinton is suddenly back in the news, being hailed as a great example of grace in defeat and a reminder of what a peaceful transition of power looks like. The letter, which is mentioned in autobiographies by both former presidents, was written after Clinton defeated Bush in the 1992 presidential election, according to US News & World Report. It went viral after Wednesday's presidential debate, in which Donald Trump declined to commit to accepting the election results, Time reports. "I wish you great happiness here," Bush writes, welcoming Clinton to the Oval Office. "Don't let the critics discourage you or push you off course." But perhaps the most important part of the letter is the ending, which reads: "You will be our president when you read this note. ... Your success now is our country's success. I am rooting hard for you. Good luck." The letter, currently housed in Bush's presidential library, left social media users longing for the days of political civility, the Los Angeles Times reports. "Disagreements between candidates don't have to go the way this election has," writes one Twitter user who shared a photo of the letter. "A long, long time ago, in a land far far away, politics had grace," US News & World Report quotes another Twitter user as saying. (Also going viral: Trump "book reports.")
– After 12 years and 162 deaths, Canada formally ended its involvement in Afghanistan yesterday, hauling down the Canadian flag at NATO headquarters in a low-key ceremony journalists were ordered not to report on at the time because of security concerns. Canadian soldiers joined the hunt for Osama bin Laden in late 2001 and more than 40,000 rotated through the country in the following years. The last remaining Canadian personnel, who had been training Afghan forces, will leave the country at the end of this week, reports the CBC. "Canada played a critical role in securing Kandahar Province and had a strategic impact across the country with their contribution to the NATO training mission," the top US commander in Afghanistan said at the flag-lowering ceremony. But at home, the public had long questioned Canada's involvement in what turned out to be the country's longest war, and its biggest overseas deployment since 1945. "Canadian troops fought bravely," writes Thomas Walkom at the Toronto Star. "But they were ill-served by political masters who could never quite figure out why we were in this particular war."
– The Golden Globes ended with a heartwarming surprise: A healthy-looking Michael Douglas, who presented the final award of the evening and noted that there must be "an easier way to get a standing ovation." That award, for best motion picture drama, went to the night's top winner: The Social Network, which took home four trophies, also including best director and best screenplay. Glee followed with three wins: best TV comedy or musical, best supporting actor, and best supporting actress. Other big winners, from the New York Times: Motion picture comedy or musical: The Kids Are All Right TV drama: Boardwalk Empire Actress, motion picture drama: Natalie Portman, Black Swan Actor, motion picture drama: Colin Firth, The King's Speech Actress, film comedy or musical: Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right Actor, film comedy or musical: Paul Giamatti, Barney's Version Actor, TV drama: Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire Actress, TV drama: Katey Sagal, Sons of Anarchy Actor, TV comedy or musical: Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory Actress, TV comedy or musical: Laura Linney, The Big C See the complete list of nominees and winners, or check out the night's best and worst fashion or highlights from host Ricky Gervais.
– He was famous on social media, then went silent. Now Wu Yongning's fans have learned why he stopped posting in November. The BBC reports that the Chinese daredevil, known for posting videos of himself at the top of tall buildings scaled without safety devices, is confirmed to have died in a fall from a 62-story building in Changsha on Nov. 8. The South China Morning Post describes the 26-year-old's life-ending stunt as a somewhat selfless act, saying Wu was undertaking the "rooftopping" challenge in hopes of winning $15,000 in prize money in order to pay for his sick mother's medical treatment, and also to fund a wedding with a woman that his step-uncle says he planned to propose to after the challenge was complete. The Telegraph's explanation of the money is that Wu, who had 1 million followers, was trying to secure it by filming himself promoting an unspecified sponsor. Shanghaiist reports the building was 862 feet tall. The Telegraph describes the more than 300 videos he posted as showing stomach-turning feats like him doing pull-ups from treacherous heights. Indeed, per the Daily Mail, video shows Wu doing pull-ups atop the Huayuan International Centre and then falling; he reportedly plummeted 45 feet to a terrace where a window cleaner later discovered his body. The Telegraph quotes a post from his girlfriend made Friday: "Today is December 8th. It makes me think of November 8th, the day you left us and left this world." (A daredevil who did the unthinkable at Everest also lost his life in November.)
– Just how bad are things in Camden's schools? So bad that only three students there managed a "college ready" SAT score in 2013, new superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard revealed yesterday. He called the number a "kick-in-the-stomach moment." It was one of a number of sobering assessments Rouhanifard delivered in presenting the results of his August "listening tour" to the school board, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. "It is OK if all our students don't end up with a four-year diploma," he said. "But we can do better than three students." Rouhanifard also announced that the district would do away with the $75 fee for a background check it has been charging parents who want to volunteer; the schools will now cover the checks. Camden is plagued by poverty and crime—Rolling Stone had a damning piece last week declaring it "America's most desperate town"—and only 53% of its students graduate high school. But "college ready" SAT scores are a little harder to come by than you might assume; only 43% of students hit the College Board's 1550 benchmark this year.
– Let's see, Ted Nugent said something controversial at the NRA convention. It wasn't the line about living under a government that is "wiping its ass with the Constitution," the comparison of four Supreme Court justices to a "stoned hippie," or even the plea to Republicans to "chop (Democrats') heads off in November." It was this one: ”If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” What does that mean exactly? The Daily Intel wonders whether Nugent just threatened to assassinate the president: "Were not sure how else to take this remark from the nutjob guitarist." Sure enough, the Secret Service tells the bog that it's aware of the remark and will "conduct an appropriate followup." The Hollywood Reporter has more, including Nugent's real favorite to win the Republican nomination.
– Jared Kushner will be cooperating with any probe of Russian links to his father-in-law's campaign, a lawyer confirmed Thursday after reports that investigators are focusing on the senior White House adviser surfaced. Attorney Jamie Gorelick said Kushner has already offered to tell Congress all about his meetings with Russian officials and he will do the same "if contacted in connection with any other inquiry." Sources tell the Wall Street Journal that federal investigators have been looking into Kushner's Russian contacts for months, though he has not yet been contacted by the FBI. In other coverage: Sources tell NBC News that investigators believe Kushner has information that could be very useful to the Russia investigation, though he's not personally suspected of wrongdoing. Kushner met Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Russian banker Sergey Gorkov last year. Democrats are calling for Kushner's White House security clearance to be pulled, the Hill reports. "The FBI's Russia investigation reached Trump's backyard, and now it's in his house," DNC Deputy Communications Director Adrienne Watson said in a statement. "Kushner's security clearance should be suspended until the FBI's findings are complete." Investigators are also looking into possible financial crimes, according to the Telegraph, though the Justice Department isn't providing details. "I can't confirm or deny the existence or non-existence of investigations or subjects of investigations," spokesperson Sarah Isgur Flores said. While much is still unclear, there will be plenty of people saying "I told you so" if corruption allegations involving Kushner surface, according to Aaron Blake at the Washington Post. Trump's hiring of a family member for a senior White House role was strongly criticized, and "as any expert on corrupt authoritarian regimes throughout history will tell you, those regimes' wrongdoing will often run through family members with official titles," he writes. In a separate development linked to the Russia investigation, House Oversight Committee chief Rep. Jason Chaffetz said he wants to review former FBI Director James Comey's contacts with the White House and Justice Department going all the way back to 2013, the AP reports. He told acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe that he wants to "better understand" Comey's interactions with the White House. Chaffetz announced his surprise resignation last week, and Republicans are pushing to have him replaced by somebody who will be in office for longer.
– A 63-year-old woman who lifted a railroad crossing safety gate as warning lights were flashing was struck and killed by an Amtrak train. Police in Charlotte, NC, say the woman got out of an SUV on Friday night that was stopped at the gate, which was lowered with red lights flashing, the Charlotte Observer reports. Sarah Weagba Doe lifted the arms of the gate to allow the Chevy Equinox to cross the tracks and was hit by southbound Amtrak No. 79 as she walked back to the vehicle, per Q City Metro. She was pronounced dead at the scene at 9:13pm. Police were investigating if drugs or alcohol played a role. Nobody else was injured in the accident near the UNC campus. "This is just a really scary situation," a passenger aboard the train tells WSOC. "You don't expect to travel somewhere and the train to hit someone." (Conductors who stepped off a freight train to check a problem were killed by a passing Amtrak train.)
– A struggling mom in Kansas says her heart dropped when she was caught shoplifting this week—but a police officer may have turned her life around. Sarah Robinson, who cares for six daughters by herself, tried stealing basic necessities for her 2-year-old twin girls at a Walmart in Roeland Park, Kansas, on Monday. "I had lost my house and all of our belongings, and I don't have a job," she tells ABC News. "So I went to Walmart, grabbed clothes, shoes, diapers, wipes, and I just walked out, but they caught me." That's when officer Mark Engravalle showed up and saw some of Robinson's children walking barefoot with dirty feet. "He asked her what the situation was, and she broke down crying," says a Roeland Park public information officer. Engraville saw she was only stealing necessities for the girls, so he released Robinson with a misdemeanor-theft citation and went back inside with her children. There, he bought the items Robinson wanted and let the girls choose their own shoes; it came to $300, Fox4ck reports. "What she did was wrong and against the law, but her heart was in the right place with wanting to help to take care of her children," says Engravalle, who has two children of his own. Now people are calling the police to offer support for Robinson, who is looking for a home and a job. "There isn't enough words in the world to thank [Engravalle] enough," says Robinson, whose husband died three years ago. "Me and my girls are indebted to him forever."
– The University of Oregon is investigating after as many as 1,000 students "trashed the everliving s--- out of Lake Shasta," as Deadspin puts it. Hordes of college students visit Slaughterhouse Island at the California lake during a weekend in May each year. "What was different about this one is they left behind an incredible amount of trash," says a rep for Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Some 60 houseboats carrying up to 1,000 students were docked at the island—which has no garbage facilities or bathrooms—over the weekend. Park officials later found 90 abandoned tents, sleeping bags, coolers, trash bags, and University of Oregon gear, per OregonLive. Photos posted to Facebook show everything from beer cases to flip flops, with plastic chairs and garbage strewn in the lake. The forest rep tells the Register Guard that 10 cubic yards of garbage had been removed from the site as of Monday, but it will be days before the island is clean and ready for Memorial Day visitors. UOregon's VP of student life, Robin Holmes, says the school "does not sponsor or condone" the annual trip to Slaughterhouse Island and the mess left at the site is "absolutely unacceptable and disgraceful." The school is "actively investigating the situation and will take action as appropriate." Activities at UOregon's Lambda Chi Alpha chapter have been suspended by its national organization "until the situation is addressed," Holmes adds. In one viral photo, an abandoned cooler is seen decorated with the Greek lettering for the fraternity along with the phrase, "Do you wanna do some blow man?" (The trash at this national forest resulted in a jail sentence.)
– NASA engineers have dreamed up and built a new device that could help rescuers save lots more lives after earthquakes or other disasters: It's essentially a radar gun that detects heartbeats under heaps of concrete and steel, reports Red Orbit. The FINDER device is portable at 20 pounds, and its microwaves penetrate rubble to pick up on the slightest of movements—even the breathing of an unconscious victim. But it's also smart enough to distinguish the breathing of a human from say, a rat, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, which developed the device with the Department of Homeland Security. The LA Times explains the process: "Unlike the rubble, the victim is actually moving rhythmically. The chest rises and falls as the victim breathes, and moves from heartbeats—and the head moves as the veins on the scalp fill and empty out." That movement "creates slight differences in timing when the waves bounce back, which the device can pick up." Tests this week in Virginia at a simulated disaster area went well, reports National Geographic, though it quotes one specialist as saying the device needs to provide information faster. After more tweaks, the FINDER is expected to be on the market next spring or summer for about $10,000. Another potential use cited by JPL: finding a kid lost in the woods. (Click to read about how an earthquake in Pakistan this week created a new island.)
– In 1981, Australia's Macquarie University purchased a book of bound parchment—a codex—from a Viennese antiquities dealer. How far back its origins stretch is less known, but it's believed to be about 1,300 years old and hail from Upper Egypt (it's written in Egypt's Coptic language). Now, two Australian professors have pored over its 20 pages, and describe it as "the handbook of a ritual practitioner." In their own book, A Coptic Handbook of Ritual Power, Malcolm Choat and Iain Gardner explain just what they deciphered: invocations and 27 spells designed "to cure demonic possession, various ailments, the effects of magic, or to bring success in love and business," per their publisher. LiveScience shares the codex's prescription for controlling someone: utter magic words over two nails, which should then be nailed "into his doorpost, one on the right side (and) one on the left." The codex also offers a treatment for the bacterial infection "black jaundice." As for who would have made use of the book, Choat tells LiveScience that's unclear. "It is my sense that there were ritual practitioners outside the ranks of the clergy and monks, but exactly who they were is shielded from us by the fact that people didn't really want to be labeled as a 'magician,'" he says. He suspects the invocations and spells were joined together sometime after they were written to create a "single instrument of ritual power." (Trying to cast spells in the modern world is probably not wise.)
– A teenage passenger apparently impatient for his plane to reach a gate at San Francisco International Airport opened an emergency exit, slid down the plane's wing, fell to the ground, then started running Tuesday, officials say. Passengers say the 17-year-old US citizen, who was traveling alone, had appeared "anxious" and "fidgety" throughout the Copa Airlines flight from Panama City, per KGO and the San Jose Mercury News. Still, they were shocked when he stood from his seat, busted out, and "slipped off" the wing minutes after the plane landed around 2:30pm, a passenger tells NBC Los Angeles. The man says it all happened too fast for any other passengers on board to react. "They were yelling, 'Tell the flight attendants. Relay the message back. The door's open. Someone jumped off,'" he says. "It was pretty crazy." The teen, who was uninjured, was seized by a construction crew on the tarmac and taken into custody by Customs and Border Protection, says an airport official. He was also reportedly taken to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. Meanwhile, "a Copa crew member closed the exit door, and the aircraft proceeded to the gate," the airline says in a statement, per KGO. "All other passengers and crew disembarked safely."
– Efforts to eradicate malaria are going to be hit hard by rising temperatures that open up new altitudes to the mosquitoes that carry the disease, researchers warn. Both mosquitoes and the malaria parasite struggle in chillier temperatures, and a new study has found that the disease climbs to higher elevations in warmer years, the BBC reports. In areas like the highlands of Colombia and Ethiopia, people have never been exposed to malaria, making them especially vulnerable to the spread of the disease. "We have estimated that, based on the distribution of malaria with altitude, a 1C rise in temperature could lead to an additional three million cases in under-15-year-olds per year," one of the researchers warns. Malaria infects more than 200 million people per year and kills around 600,000 of them, mainly children in Africa. But climate isn't the only factor at work in its spread, with the biggest advances in malaria control coming alongside efforts to combat poverty, Time notes.
– "Reboot the Suit" is the slogan for the Smithsonian Institution's new campaign to restore Neil Armstrong's famous moonwalk spacesuit—and the museum group has launched its first-ever Kickstarter campaign to reach its $500,000 goal, Smithsonian reports. Funds raised will go toward conserving the spacesuit so it can be preserved for the long haul and put back on display for the first time since 2006, as well as for a climate-controlled display case and digitizing the suit via 3D scanning, per a Smithsonian statement. "This is the first time we've teamed up with a museum in this way," says Kickstarter co-founder and CEO Yancey Strickler. Museum officials hope the suit will be fully restored in time for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing in 2019; space aficionados can follow the restoration's progress with the hashtag #RebootTheSuit. The suit will eventually be placed at the National Air and Space Museum in the Destination Moon exhibit, set to open sometime between 2020 and 2021. (Neil Armstrong's widow found a "purse" he brought back from the moon hidden in a closet.)
– Fiona Apple didn't learn Willie Nelson's lesson. The singer-songwriter had to spend the night in jail in Sierra Blanca, Texas, because an inspection of her tour bus yesterday turned up what police say was a "tiny amount of pot and hash," reports AP. The problem is any quantity of hash is a felony in Texas, while small amounts of pot is a misdemeanor. The Sierra Blanca checkpoint is notorious, with Nelson, Snoop Dogg, and Armand Hammer all getting arrested there in years past, reports TMZ.
– If you're shopping for school supplies at Staples this fall, you can thank Mitt Romney, the presidential candidate reminds readers in today's Wall Street Journal. Staples was "one of many businesses we helped create and expand at Bain Capital," he writes. "The lessons I learned over my 15 years at Bain Capital were valuable" in running both the 2002 Olympics and Massachusetts. Now, he thinks they'd help as president. Lessons Romney says he learned include: Good ideas aren't enough on their own. You also need "a talented team, a good business plan, and capital" to see them through. Romney says he'd help businesses along by reducing taxes, making it easier for them to draw investors. Energy costs matter. He accuses President Obama of limiting exploration "in a ways that sap economic performance, curtail growth, and kill jobs." For more on Romney's energy plan, click here. Innovation matters. Romney writes that "state-of-the-art new technology" allowed Bain to create Steel Dynamics, now one of America's largest steel producers. He says his policies, which he doesn't specify, will improve access to higher education, making such innovation possible. Problems must be tackled quickly. Curiously, Romney touts his work with medical diagnostics firm Damon, which was fined for its billing practices and saw one manager go to jail for fraud. But Romney takes credit for catching the problem early, launching an internal investigation when a rival firm had similar problems. "When you see a problem, run toward it or it will only gets worse," he writes, saying he will take the same approach to the federal budget. Click for Romney's full piece.
– Eric Cantor's defeat may have been a complete surprise, but this isn't: House Republicans have chosen Kevin McCarthy of California to be the new majority leader, reports the Hill. The 49-year-old takes over those duties on July 31. First elected to the House eight years ago, McCarthy is one of the so-called "Young Guns" behind his party's resurgence in recent years, notes the Contra Costa Times. He is known for his frequent references to the movie Fight Club to boost GOP morale, but Dana Milbank at the Washington Post writes that he has a trait far less endearing to Republicans: He often says "baffling" things in front of the cameras. And not baffling in a political sense. Just plain baffling in general. Milbank ticks off scores of examples: "One of the most important I think that can happen today, Lynn Jenkins’s bill, an idea of fairness, the idea that when you look across the street from the Capitol, you see the Supreme Court, you see the statue sitting there, blinded in the process with the weights in-between.” “This is a great strength of a change making an equalizer inside for economy throughout.” (That was about charter schools.) “We’re in the fourth year of a recovery—a recovery of this administration that put in more than 2,600 new regulations in its fourth year, more than 60 that were major rulings, compounded on growth.” It happens "almost like clockwork," writes Milbank, and the question is whether McCarthy can get things under control in his new higher-profile position, where public pronouncements will be plentiful.
– She's given some pretty emphatic denials, but Condoleezza Rice has still emerged as Mitt Romney's No. 1 choice for vice president, according to the Drudge Report. Despite her repeated statements that elected office is not for her, Rice wowed the conservative establishment with her speech at a Romney retreat in Utah a few weeks ago and intrigued with comments in a recent email to supporters. "2012 is perhaps a turning point for the United States," she wrote, saying that she is often asked to speak about foreign policy, but "we, as a country, are not going to be able to address any of those international challenges unless we first get our domestic house in order." With the close relationship between some members of the Romney campaign and Matt Drudge, analysts are wondering if the Rice story is a scoop or a trial balloon, notes the Wall Street Journal. Political observers say Rice would be a mixed VP candidate—she's respected, black, and female, but could remind voters of the Bush presidency and favors some abortion rights. That's an issue that Sarah Palin was quick to pick up on when she was interviewed by Greta van Susteren yesterday, reports Mediaite. "I would certainly prefer a presidential and vice presidential candidate who had that respect for all innocent, precious, purposeful human life, and showed that respect by being a pro-life candidate," said Palin, who was otherwise very supportive of Rice.
– Not-so-surprising news out of Baltimore: Police chief Anthony Batts is out of a job. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced his firing today, reports the Baltimore Sun. "We need a change," she said. "The people of Baltimore deserve better." Though the mayor praised the chief's nearly three years of service, she said the city's surge in violence demanded action. Batts also has taken criticism of late not only for his handling of the Freddie Gray riots but for the department's alleged culture of misconduct and brutality. (The Justice Department, for example, is investigating.) Before the mayor's announcement, the police union issued a scathing report accusing Batts and other department leaders of a "passive" response to the initial Freddie Gray unrest that led to further violence, reports CNN. Top commanders "put the image of themselves and City Hall ahead of the safety of its citizens and public servants," says the union. A spokesperson for the mayor criticized the union for "baseless" accusations like that. (This sign inside a police van probably didn't help Batts' case.)
– An Iowa man who only won $100 in 19 years of playing the same Powerball numbers has become a millionaire in his 20th year of sticking with them. Rob Winburn won $1 million of Saturday's jackpot by matching five of the numbers, which correspond to numbers he assigned to the letters in his last name, KCCI reports. He had the first five numbers of 2-9-14-21-23, but missed the Powerball number: 3. His odds of winning that $1 million prize were 1 in 5,153,633. When the winning ticket registered as such at a self-check machine the next day, "I did tell the guy next to me, 'I don't believe this,'" Winburn says. "And he leaned over and I did it again and he says, 'Sign it and get the heck out of here.'" He tells WOI-DT that he plans to pay off some bills, buy a new car, and invest the remainder. Nobody won the $330 million jackpot so tonight's jackpot is expected to be around $400 million, and it will top $500 million on Saturday if it rolls over again, the Los Angeles Times notes. (Click to read about another wild lottery win.)
– Being incredibly stupid is not a crime in Colorado—but reckless endangerment is, and a man named Adam Hirtle was charged with it after telling cops he shot himself in the foot to find out what it felt like. A police spokesman tells the Denver Post that when officers went to a hospital to investigate a report of an accidental gun discharge, the 30-year-old Colorado Springs resident told them the shooting was deliberate. He "stated he took his boot off and shot it, then placed his boot back on his foot and then intentionally shot himself in the foot," police say. "He did not sustain life-threatening injury nor was anybody else injured." He was also charged with a prohibited use of a weapon and, suggesting there may have been a minor present, child abuse, Fox31 reports.
– Some of the Radio City Rockettes have been horrified to learn that they'll be providing the entertainment at Donald Trump's inauguration next month. TheWrap reports that the famous New York City dancers have been told by their union that they have to perform at the event or risk losing their jobs. According to Perez Hilton, Rockette Phoebe Pearl said in an Instagram post that the women are "embarrassed and disappointed" to be "performing for a man that stands for everything we're against." She said the Rockettes have been "performing with tears in our eyes and heavy hearts" since getting the news. Madison Square Garden Company boss James Dolan announced Thursday that the dancers would perform at the inauguration, as they did for George W. Bush in 2001 and 2005. The Trump transition team has also confirmed that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and 16-year-old former America's Got Talent contestant Jackie Evancho will perform at the Jan. 20 event, the BBC reports, though big names like Celine Dion and Elton John have reportedly refused to perform. Trump, however, says celebrities are clamoring to come to the event—but their presence is not desired. "The so-called 'A' list celebrities are all wanting tixs to the inauguration, but look what they did for Hillary, NOTHING. I want the PEOPLE!" he tweeted Thursday. (The Trump team was rumored to be offering ambassadorships to anybody who could lure A-list performers to the inauguration.)
– Emma Morano lived across three centuries, two world wars, and more than 90 Italian governments. And on Saturday, friends and family of Morano, believed to be the oldest woman alive, reported her death at home in Italy, Reuters reports. She was 117. According to the BBC, Morano was born on Nov. 29, 1899 and was believed to be the only person born in the 19th century still alive. Morano credited her long life to genetics—a number of her sisters lived to 100—and her diet. For more than 90 years—after being diagnosed with anemia—Morano had eaten three eggs per day. Her longtime doctor says Morano subsisted on two raw eggs in the morning, an omelette for lunch, and chicken for dinner—almost never consuming fruits or vegetables.
– "Till death do us part" may have sounded good to Tini Owens in 1978, but the British woman changed her mind on that timeline years ago and has been vying to end what she calls a "loveless," deteriorated marriage. But the UK's Supreme Court has dealt her a harsh blow, unanimously ruling that just because she's unhappy in the union doesn't mean she can end it, the Guardian reports. The 68-year-old has been mulling a divorce from 80-year-old husband Hugh Owens since 2012, claiming he has behaved unreasonably, but he refuses to agree to the split, saying that any issues in their marriage are because she had an affair or is simply "bored." Per the BBC, UK law decrees a divorce can only be granted without a spouse's OK in cases of adultery, desertion, or "unreasonable behavior"; if those aren't the case, a divorce will be granted only after the spouses live apart for five years. That means Tini Owens, who moved out of their shared home in February 2015, will have to wait until 2020 to sever all legal ties, unless Hugh Owens changes his mind. A family court judge turned down her divorce request in 2016, a decision that an appeals court panel agreed with last year. The Supreme Court judges say their decision was made with reluctance—one said she agreed to the ruling with "no enthusiasm whatsoever"—but that it's up to Parliament to change the law to allow no-fault divorces so people can get out of "wretchedly unhappy marriages." Tini Owens' lawyer says she's "devastated" by the ruling and "cannot move forward with her life." The Owenses have two adult children. (A Mississippi woman fled to Washington state to get her divorce.)
– The "will he" or "won't he" debate is finally settled. Meghan Markle's father, Thomas Markle, will not attend his daughter's wedding Saturday to Prince Harry, the soon-to-be royal confirmed in a statement Thursday, per CNN. "I have always cared for my father and hope he can be given the space he needs to focus on his health," she said, prompting speculation about who will walk her down the aisle. The elder Markle, left embarrassed by a paparazzi photo scandal, says he suffered a heart attack last week. He told TMZ he was scheduled for heart surgery Wednesday. Doctors "will go in and clear blockage, repair damage and put a stent where it is needed," the former Hollywood lighting director said. He's now thought to be recovering.
– The family of Jonathon Ferrell, the unarmed man shot dead by a police officer after crashing his car in North Carolina in September, filed a wrongful death lawsuit this week. They say autopsy results show most of the 10 police bullets were shot downward, suggesting Ferrell, 24, was on the ground or on his knees when he was killed by Officer Randall Kerrick. In addition to monetary damages, the lawsuit is also seeking a subpoena forcing police to turn over records including the dash-cam video of the incident, a lawyer for the family tells NBC News. Meanwhile, the attorney general is seeking an indictment against Kerrick, who is on unpaid leave and has been charged with voluntary manslaughter, and the charges will go before a grand jury a week from today, the Charlotte Observer reports. It's still not entirely clear what happened after Ferrell walked to a nearby house after the crash looking for help. He knocked and a woman answered, assuming it was her husband, then saw Ferrell, closed the door, and called 911 to report a break-in. Police say Ferrell ran toward the three officers who responded and that one of the officers attempted to use a Taser, which didn't connect, before Ferrell was shot. But the wrongful death suit accuses Kerrick of missteps including not identifying himself, approaching Ferrell with his gun drawn and "using stealth and surprise," and not seeing that Ferrell was trying to comply with his orders. The family's lawyer suspects Ferrell was simply walking "briskly" to police because he was glad they were there to help, CNN reports.
– Google is considering what might be termed a digital deodorant. The company has obtained a patent for a device that would counteract your own BO and even keep you away from friends when you're at your smelliest, the New York Daily News reports. The "odor removing device," as the patent terms it, would theoretically note when you're giving off an odor or exerting yourself; it could then send out a pleasant fragrance to cover up your own. It could also be linked to your social networks so that it could determine whether any friends were nearby; that way, you could steer around them to minimize embarrassment. It could even potentially point you in the right direction, CNET reports: The "fragrance emission device" might offer, in the patent's words, "an alternate route for the user to take to increase the chances of avoiding an unpleasant odorous meeting with his social contacts." The thing would look a bit like a portable fan, the Daily News notes, and it would attach to your collar or the waistline of your clothes. The patent application was made in 2012 and granted this week, but an application doesn't mean Google will actually go forward with the product, the Daily News observes. If it does, perhaps the gadgetry will reduce the 20% of men who don't use deodorant.
– A real-life superhero says he's hanging up his mask after getting beat up on the streets of Manchester, England, the Telegraph reports. Roger Hayhurst, 20, who called himself Knight Warrior, had promised "to get crime off the streets" while donning a $300 costume of black-and-blue lycra. He even patrolled with his 18-year-old fiancee Rebecca Wall, who went by Knight Maiden. But "we were recognized when we were walking thorough Clifton and some lads started punching me," Hayhurst tells the Manchester Evening News. "My face was all swollen. After that I still dress up and occasionally patrol, but I mainly dress up for charity appearances." Wall has hung up her cape too. For the past few weeks they've been hosting a comedy sketch radio show, and he hopes to model Clark Kent by becoming a full-time journalist. At least his mother won't have to worry anymore—though 61-year-old Jennifer Hayhurst says the police did "keep an eye on him."
– In the small chance that Elon Musk's space-exploring Tesla Roadster comes crashing back to Earth, experts say the planet will be just fine. It's a different story with Mars, where the car could become what one scientist calls a "biothreat." The Tesla, in a large orbit around the sun, is unlikely to get too close to Mars in the distant future, and if it does, it'll likely burn up in Mars' atmosphere. But Purdue University scientists say that even traces of the vehicle could contaminate or wipe out indigenous life on the Red Planet, should it exist. That's because, unlike spacecraft intended to land on celestial bodies, the Tesla did not undergo careful sterilization overseen by NASA's Office of Planetary Protection. With New Atlas pointing out the car was driven on public roads, scientists are calling it "the largest load of earthly bacteria to ever enter space." "Even if they radiated the outside, the engine would be dirty," researcher Jay Melosh says in a release. "Cars aren't assembled clean. And even then, there's a big difference between clean and sterile." Life in space, with its extreme temperatures, low pressure, and cosmic radiation, will help kill some earthly bacteria. But some could lay dormant for millennia. Noting her office had little involvement in the launch of the Tesla, Planetary Protection Officer Lisa Pratt tells Space News that future commercial space missions will present similar problems, as it's "virtually impossible for a commercial mission to meet" current sterilization requirements for spacecraft. "We have to figure out how to work closely, how to move forward in a collaborative posture so we don't have another red Roadster up there in orbit." (Scientists are also annoyed by a fake star.)
– One of the side benefits of being engaged to Justin Timberlake: The guy who brought sexy back will be your stylist, too! In an interview with InStyle picked up by the Huffington Post, Biel reveals that Timberlake "has a real eye for design" and actually helps her get dressed. "He has better taste than I do," she says. "When I walk out of the closet after getting dressed in the morning, I’ll go like this [turns palms upwards as if to say, 'Well?']. And he goes like this [shakes head no]. Then he picks again. It’s hilarious." Click to see her on the cover.
– The bodies of 26 suspected victims of human trafficking were pulled from a mass grave deep in the Thai jungle over the weekend, and the US wants to see Thailand's government carry out a proper investigation. A State Department spokesperson says the US has been in touch with Thai authorities and has called for a "transparent, credible, and expeditious inquiry into this case," reports the Guardian, which notes that the US already ranks Thailand at its lowest level—alongside Syria and North Korea—for efforts to deal with human trafficking. Four suspects were arrested after the discovery of the mass grave, which is believed to hold Rohingya migrants from Bangladesh and Burma, reports the BBC. Three survivors, two of them children, were found at the jungle camp, and police say the witnesses have told them violence took place in the camp and there may be other mass graves—and camps—in the area, Reuters reports. Today police found a recently abandoned camp, which they say "means the traffickers are still on the run and taking people with them," the AP reports. Rights groups have long accused Thai officials of complicity in human trafficking, and a 2013 investigation found that authorities routinely handed refugees over to traffickers who kept them in "tropical gulags" until their families paid ransoms or they were sold as labor.
– If your reaction to the death of the snake-handling Kentucky pastor killed by one of his own snakes on Saturday was "he must have been delusional," WBIR digs into why the exact opposite is, in one way, the case. It spoke with a range of religion professors about Pastor Jamie Coots' death, and the consensus is clear: Coots had no illusions about the risks or potential consequences; snake handlers do not believe they will not be bitten, and know death is a possibility. As Maryville College religion professor Dr. Brian Pennington explains, "These are not irrational people. They know very well the fate that Pastor Coots suffered could be suffered by any of them who does this during a service." In fact, the man who originated the practice in Tennessee a century ago, Pastor George Hensley, himself died of a snakebite. It's one of 92 deaths attributed to snakebites during worships as counted by one study, and experts says Coots' death will do little to cool worshipers to the practice, which is illegal in Tennessee and Kentucky. Quite the opposite, "They will continue, and praise Jamie Coots as a martyr who died for his faith," says University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Professor Ralph Hood, per the Guardian. Still, Coots' son, Cody, did tell WKYT he expected his father to survive the bite—as he had on eight previous occasions.
– A federal judge today struck down a new Ohio law that forbids early voting in the three days before Election Day for non-military voters, the Toledo Blade reports. Ohio has long allowed voters to cast absentee ballots by mail or in person starting 35 days before the election, but the law, passed last year, would set a deadline of 6pm on Friday to do so, for everyone except military members. The Obama administration challenged the law, saying it arbitrarily gave the military special treatment, and the judge agreed. "Restoring in-person early voting to all Ohio voters through the Monday before Election Day does not deprive (military) voters," he wrote in his decision. "Instead, and more importantly, it places all Ohio voters on equal standing." Ohio's lawyers had argued that many laws already grant military voters special privileges, and that local boards needed the three-day respite to prepare for the election, the AP reports.
– There's an iOS6 feature you probably haven't heard of that's making some people very happy. Unfortunately, those people are advertisers. The new iPhone OS comes with a new tracking system that clues advertisers in on how you're using the phone, Business Insider reports. Tracking is turned on by default, and the option to turn it off is downright hidden—it's not, as you might expect, in your "privacy" settings, it's in your "general" settings under "about." (The site has a how-to here.) Users have been enjoying a blissful window of privacy until now, after Apple shut down its old UDID system. But unlike the old system, the new IFA (Identifier For Advertisers) is anonymous and temporary, like a browser cookie. "It's a really simple, elegant solution," gushes one ad exec, saying it gives "a really meaningful inference of behavior. We haven't had access to that information before." Another ad CEO writes that it's "great news for the mobile app advertising industry," particularly because it "addresses privacy concerns."
– "I've never seen anything like it. Her will to live is incredible," a sheriff's deputy says of a 25-year-old Alabama woman who spent 28 days lost in thousands of acres of forest before turning up on the side of a road in Bullock County on Saturday. Lisa Theris was in such bad shape—naked, dirty, with matted hair and covered in bug bites—that motorist Judy Garner initially mistook her for a deer, reports NBC News. Yet Garner believes that she happened upon Theris just in time. "I don't think she could have made it much longer," she says. "I gave her a hug and said, 'You poor thing. You’ve been through a lot.'" Theris—who told authorities she survived on berries, mushrooms, and water from puddles and creeks, per WTVY—was admitted to a hospital in critical condition, having lost some 50 pounds, her brother tells BuzzFeed News. Authorities are still piecing together what happened to Theris. However, two suspects arrested weeks ago on burglary and theft charges told officers Theris was in a vehicle with them on July 18 when she learned they planned to rob a hunt camp. The suspects said Theris wanted no part and exited the vehicle. Without a phone or even shoes, she then got lost in the woods at night, a sheriff's deputy tells WSFA. Another adds "it's a miracle" she survived so long. Her brother says Theris is now out of the hospital and recovering at her parents' home in Louisville. "She's lost at least 50 pounds and her entire body is torn up," he says. "She's in severe pain, but is slowly improving." Authorities hope to interview Theris once she's recovered. (This man survived 47 days on a ledge in Nepal.)
– There's no way to sugarcoat this: We are one shallow nation. Google today revealed its annual Zeitgeist, in which it crunches billions of Google searches "to capture the year's 10 fastest-rising global queries and the rest of the spirit of 2011." Here's what the spirit of this year was comprised of: Rebecca Black, Google+, Ryan Dunn, Casey Anthony, and Battlefield 3. And what's beyond the top 5 is only slightly more encouraging, and much more Apple-flavored: (the non-existent) iPhone 5, Adele, TEPCO, Steve Jobs, and iPad 2. Writing for Gizmodo, Sam Biddle notes that "we should all be ashamed of ourselves"—sorta. Luckily, "our zeitgeist isn't a series of persistent trends, or the truly influential. It's people and things that were tossed in the grease pit of the global consciousness, fizzed for a while, and then burned out—tablet fire sales, memes, fake weddings, Google+." So it's not what really mattered. Thank goodness. You can search the list by a ton of different categories and countries; click to dig in.
– Getting yourself or your kids to eat more veggies could be as easy as coming up with a tempting name for your dish. According to psychology researchers at Stanford, people are more likely to chow down on vegetables if they have an "indulgent" name, like "sizzlin' beans" as opposed to plain old "beans." Diners are "motivated by taste," but labels affect "how tasty and filling we think food will be," study author Bradley Turnwald tells the BBC. To discover whether they could get people to eat more vegetables simply by changing the label, Turnwald and colleagues spent a month and a half serving up veggies in a university cafeteria, per a release. Some dishes got a basic label like "carrots." Others got a label like "twisted citrus-glazed carrots." The veggies were always prepared the same way. But researchers found those with "indulgent" labels were by far the best sellers, with 25% more people choosing them than veggies with a basic label. In a sign that consumers view healthy food as less tasty, the "indulgent" veggies were also gobbled up by 35% more people than ate veggies with healthy-positive labeling ("smart-choice vitamin C citrus carrots") and 41% more people than ate veggies with healthy-restrictive labeling ("carrots with sugar-free citrus dressing"). A greater amount of indulgent veggies was also eaten, reports Time. Turnwald's conclusion: Labeling can sway us, but "emphasizing health can actually discourage diners from choosing healthy options." (What food is paired with veggies also matters.)
– Back when there were almost 20 GOP candidates, including the likes of Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, and Chris Christie, not many people would have bet on the herd being thinned down to just Donald Trump and John Kasich. But that is where the race stands after Trump's big win in Indiana Tuesday and Ted Cruz's withdrawal—and Kasich's team says it isn't over. "It's up to us to stop Trump and unify our party in time to defeat Hillary Clinton," Kasich campaign manager Beth Hansen said in an email to supporters after Cruz's exit, per CNN. "Tonight's results are not going to alter Gov. Kasich's campaign plans," reads a campaign email from Kasich chief strategist John Weaver seen by Politico. "Our strategy has been and continues to be one that involves winning the nomination at an open convention." But the Ohio governor—who was in third place in Indiana with 7.6% of the vote, behind Cruz with 36.6% and Trump with 53.3%—has just 153 delegates compared to well over 1,000 for Trump, putting him in fourth place behind both Cruz and Marco Rubio. GOP consultant Craig Stevens tells NJ.com that Kasich appears to be staying in the race because he feels there needs to be a "traditional Republican" to turn to if scandal destroys Trump's candidacy between now and the convention.
– High winds are whipping up a 90%-chance tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico today and causing oil companies to evacuate rig workers, MSNBC reports. If Tropical Storm Debby does form, the northern Gulf Coast may see tropical storm warnings, and localized flooding and heavy rain could strike Mexico, Cuba, and Florida "over the next day or two," according to the National Hurricane Center. The storm would probably move slowly west toward Texas by midweek, Weather.com reports. Or, in a less likely scenario, it could roll east over Florida and up the mid-Atlantic, or linger in the north-central Gulf and move into Louisiana-Mississippi.
– "There was this widespread assumption that if you put your child in a private school that they were in safer space." That's the reaction of a professor who consulted on a new independent report into sexual abuse at NYC's elite Horace Mann School—an investigation that found worse abuse than previously thought, per the Wall Street Journal. The report released yesterday by the Horace Mann Action Coalition, a nonprofit alumni group, says the probe found 64 students were victimized by 22 staff members from the 1960s through the 1990s, per the Washington Post. Abusers included teachers, coaches, department heads, a school chaplain, and even a headmaster, though a Coalition rep says "there was no broad conspiracy," rather, "lots of small cowardly decisions." The Bronx DA originally cited only 25 victims and 12 employees in a 2013 report, the Journal notes. The school (which, the Post notes, has posted letters about the ongoing scandal on its website) says it cooperated with earlier investigations, as well as apologized and reached settlements with some victims, per the Journal. But the attorney overseeing the new report says Horace Mann denied her access to the school's archives and employees, the New York Daily News reports. The report also says that the school pressured ex-students into accepting settlements, threatened retaliation for abuse reports, and didn't forward those claims to the police. "This report does make us feel we’ve been believed," says one alleged victim, "and it uncovers as much of the truth as could be uncovered given the obstacles that the school has put in the way."
– Mother Jones has more from the Mitt Romney fundraiser that yielded yesterday's off-the-cuff footage. This time, Romney is discussing foreign policy, particularly his feeling that "there's just no way" to establish peace between Israel and Palestine. The Palestinians, he says in the tape, have "no interest whatsoever in establishing peace, and ... the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish." How to address the problem? "We kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it." Romney did however mention that an unnamed former US secretary of state had told him there was "a prospect for a settlement" following elections in Palestine. In the video, the GOP candidate also discusses Iran's nuclear program, noting that if he were "a crazed fanatic," he'd take "fissile material" to a US city and threaten a "dirty bomb" attack. A dirty bomb, however, doesn't need such material, writer David Corn notes. Meanwhile, New York observes that these videos were dug up by none other than James Carter IV, grandson of one Jimmy Carter, who's currently unemployed and doing opposition research "for fun."
– Sharon Lewis wasn't trying to get pregnant. She certainly hadn't done any hormone or fertility treatments. Oh, and she was a 47-year-old mother of two already—including a 25-year-old daughter. So imagine the South Florida woman's surprise when she found out she was pregnant ... with triplets. Lewis gave birth March 18, at 30 weeks—early because she had developed high blood pressure and preeclampsia during her pregnancy, NBC Miami reports. The babies are "normal and healthy and fine," says Lewis' OB-GYN, according to Local 10. "It was nobody but God that blessed my womb at 47," says the school cafeteria monitor. Denere, Denard, and Dylan were each just about two pounds at birth, and were in the neonatal intensive care unit for a while—but Lewis took her now-4-pound baby boys home on Tuesday, the Ledger reports. At a press conference before she headed home, doctors called the circumstances phenomenal: "This occurs like one in somewhere between 6,000 and 500,000," said the OB-GYN, calling the whole thing "a miracle." (How's this for a surprise: In February, a 41-year-old mom expecting triplets gave birth to identical quadruplets instead.)
– Last night's game between the Denver Broncos and Indianapolis Colts was anything but an ESPN fantasy: Rather, it turned into a social media nightmare after the network's fantasy football website and app went down—somewhat inconveniently during what USA Today Sports says was the "most trafficked fantasy day of the year." As social media users are wont to do, they went bonkers, alternately railing against the network and poking fun at inconsolable fans; Mashable has some good examples of the freakout. Adding insult to injury, an error message blamed the outage on "routine maintenance," though an ESPN rep tweeted that that was simply a "default message appearing due to [a] tech issue." The servers were back up in about 20 minutes, intergalactic crisis averted.
– If you can "drink hells any amount of whiskey without getting drunk," you're an Ernest Hemingway drunk—and you're in good company. That's the finding of University of Missouri researchers who broke down the types of drunks into four distinct categories in a study published in the Addiction Research & Theory journal. Scientists surveyed 187 pairs of undergraduate "drinking buddies" from a Midwestern university about their sober and intoxicated states. The findings: the subjects were either a Hemingway, Mary Poppins, Nutty Professor, or Mr. Hyde drunk. The largest group: the Hemingways, which represented about 42% of the subjects. These subjects reported experiencing the smallest decrease in organizational and intellectual skills and are "drinkers who tend not to undergo drastic character changes or experience harms" (meaning you probably won't have to worry about getting kicked out of a bar if you're a Hemingway). Per the Guardian, about 23% could be called Mr. Hyde—or Ms. Hyde, since more than half of the subjects who fell into this category were women—meaning they became "particularly less responsible, less intellectual, and more hostile when under the influence of alcohol." One-fifth earned the honor of being labeled the Nutty Professor, meaning they were more introverted before imbibing and became much more gregarious and uninhibited afterward. The Mary Poppinses, which made up about 15% of the pool, are "particularly agreeable" after drinking—in other words, the happy, "sweet" drunks who don't cause any trouble. So what was the point of the study, other than having names to attribute to friends while bar-hopping? The researchers say it could lead to customization of alcohol intervention programs based on personality type, Time notes. (It turns out one eye color is linked to alcoholism.)
– The Oakland, Calif., jogger accused of throwing a homeless man's things into a lake has been arrested, but not in connection with that Friday incident. The suspect, who was filmed messing with the belongings of a homeless man named Drew, had become known as "Jogger Joe" online, but jail records reveal his name is Henry William Sintay and he's 30 years old, the Mercury News reports. Sintay faces a charge of robbery that appears to stem not from his alleged actions with Drew's belongings but from an incident that occurred the following day in the same location in which he allegedly grabbed a cellphone out of the hand of someone recording a conversation with him; a scuffle ensued. He was arrested Monday and is due to appear in court Wednesday, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. A GoFundMe campaign for Drew has raised more than $10,000 so far.
– Between 2002 and 2013, Adidas saw its overall market share more than quadruple—but in the US, the German company has recently struggled, with a retail market share of just 7% last year. And in the world of sneakers, that's a big problem: "The US is 40% of the world's sneaker market and 100% of the world’s sneaker culture," an analyst tells the Wall Street Journal. The No. 2 sports brand in the world is now trying to get off the sidelines in the US, where, in the 1970s, it was the star player. It was recently surpassed in the US by Under Armour; neither firm has caught up to Nike, which surpassed Adidas years ago, the Journal reported in January. The new effort is largely in the hands of Mark King, the president of North American operations since June. When it comes to sportswear, coolness is key, the Journal notes, and that means nabbing celebrity support. King has received the OK from Germany to sponsor as many as 500 pro football and baseball players in the US over the next few years, and he's also signed deals with Arizona State University and the University of Miami. Meanwhile, Adidas has been working with a celebrity who's not from the sports world: one Kanye West, whose Yeezy Boost shoes sold out in their first run. They're far from his only Adidas product, as his NSFW lookbook demonstrates, MTV News reports. And in a first, US product branding will be created mostly in the US, King notes, and that could be a big help: "If your upper management is in Germany, and they don't know Flatbush from Harlem from Virginia," says a retailer, "it's hard to have that information percolate back up to the top." (As for Nike, its famous slogan has a somewhat disturbing origin.)
– More than a dozen buildings were set ablaze in Ferguson on Monday. Among those that burned: Flood Christian Church. NBC News reports that's the church where Michael Brown's father was baptized on Sunday. The buildings around it were untouched, leading the Rev. Carlton Lee to speculate that it wasn't rioters who torched his church but white supremacists looking to target him for his support of the Brown family (he's been by their side during press conferences and says he's received 71 death threats) and his vocal calls that Officer Darren Wilson be arrested. KMOV reports the church's windows were broken and chairs were overturned. "We rebuild," says Lee. "We do not stop." More: Protesters outraged by the grand jury decision in the Michael Brown case took to the streets of cities across America for a second night last night after a day that saw dozens of rallies. One of the largest protests was in New York City, where thousands of people chanting slogans including "Black lives matter!" brought traffic in Manhattan and other parts of the city to a halt, reports the New York Daily News. There were also large protests in cities including Oakland, Calif., Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles, where protesters stopped traffic on the US 110 Freeway and police made dozens of arrests, mostly for disorderly conduct, reports the LA Times. In Ferguson itself, where police were supported by thousands of National Guard troops, the night was a lot calmer than Monday night, reports the AP, although police still used tear gas to disperse protesters, a squad car was torched, and at least 44 people were arrested, mostly for failure to disperse.
– Witnesses chased and detained a driver who tried to flee the scene on foot after a van plowed into diners outside a Los Angeles restaurant Sunday afternoon, injuring nine. Police say the driver, who was booked on suspicion of felony hit-and-run, hit people on the sidewalk after running a red light and swerving to avoid another vehicle, the Los Angeles Times reports. Police say they don't believe the driver was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The van hit several tables of diners at the Fish Spot, a popular restaurant in the Mid-Wilshire neighborhood, KTLA reports. The most seriously injured victim, a 44-year-old man, was hospitalized in critical condition.
– Police officers responding to a burglar alarm fatally shot a Pittsburgh homeowner, who had grabbed a gun when he spotted an intruder, after shots were fired in their direction as they arrived at his house. Police say they aren't sure who shot at them while they were on Christopher Thompkins' front porch. Ballistic evidence is being reviewed. Thompkins, 57, died in the gunfire before dawn Sunday. Police did not report finding a gun on the intruder, identified as Juan Brian Jeter-Clark, 23. Jeter-Clark was charged with criminal trespass but could face additional counts, the AP reports. Thompkins' ex-wife, Brenda Richmond Thompkins, says she was in bed with him when they spotted an intruder standing nearby. She says he grabbed her gun, not realizing police had already been summoned by their burglar alarm company, and then chased after the intruder down some steps to the home's front door because he was worried about his blind mother, who uses a wheelchair and lives downstairs. "He was just saying, ‘My mom, my mom,'" she says. "That's all he was worrying about." She says she doesn't believe Thompkins purposely fired at police and believes he would have dropped the gun had officers yelled out to identify themselves. "They shot the wrong guy. He didn't want to hurt no cops," she tells the Tribune-Review. "He was trying to save his mother." The two officers involved have been placed on leave while the shooting is investigated.
– An Indian businessman famous for flaunting his wealth with a shirt made entirely of gold was beaten to death in what cops believe was a dispute over money. Police say Datta Phuge, a 48-year-old moneylender in the city of Pune, was killed by a group of around a dozen men armed with sticks and stones after being lured to a fake birthday party Thursday night, AFP reports. The attackers spared Phuge's 22-year-old son, who witnessed the murder, police say. It's not clear whether Phuge, known as "gold man," was wearing his famous $250,000 shirt, which weighed 7 pounds and consisted of 14,000 pieces of 22-carat gold. "Some people ask me why I'm wearing so much gold but it was my dream. People have different aspirations," he told the BBC in 2013. "Some elite people want to own an Audi or Mercedes, and have big cars. I chose gold."
– It's cholera in the time of litigation: Haitian victims of the disease are filing a lawsuit against the UN, claiming peacekeepers are responsible for the outbreak that has killed more than 8,300 and sickened some 650,000 there since 2010. The Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, which is preparing the lawsuit, already tried to get the UN to pay compensation to victims and their families in 2011, reports Reuters, but an independent UN panel at the time found the origin of the disease was inconclusive. However, other studies have linked the outbreak to UN peacekeepers from Nepal, suggesting they carried a distinct strain of the disease, which leaked into Haitian water supplies through a bad sanitation system, the New York Times reports. "We are asking for the judge to find the United Nations liable," says an IJDH spokeswomen. "It has violated its legal obligations through reckless actions that brought cholera to Haiti." The suit will be filed at a US District Court in New York today, though it's unclear whether the court will actually accept it—one legal expert tells the Times the UN is generally immune from domestic lawsuits.
– Rick Santorum isn't on board with the Pentagon's decision to formally open up some combat roles to women, he told CNN's John King last night—but it's not because he thinks women are too emotional, as it originally seemed. Putting women in the front lines "could be a very compromising situation, where people naturally may do things that may not be in the interest of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved," Santorum said in his original comments last night. "It already happens, of course, with the camaraderie of men in combat, but I think it would be even more unique if women were in combat." But he clarified this morning, when asked about the statement on Today, explaining that his actual concern has nothing to do with women's emotions. Rather, "I think men have the emotions when you see a woman in harm’s way," he said, and that "natural inclination to not focus on the mission but to try to be in a position where you might want to protect someone" could compromise the mission. Writing for the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin called yesterday's quote Santorum's first gaffe of the campaign. (Of course, it hasn't been all smooth sailing; yesterday Politico laid out the candidate's 10 biggest problems.)
– When science journalist Carl Zimmer wrote a 2010 article in Discover magazine about English neurologist Adam Zeman's case study of a man who couldn't visualize people or things, the professor was approached by 21 people who saw themselves in the article and wanted to learn more. Now Zeman and colleagues at the University of Exeter Medical School are reporting in the journal Cortex that the condition could affect as many as 2.5% of the population. They're calling it "aphantasia," though Zeman insists in an interview with the BBC that it is not a disorder but rather a "variability of human experience" where most of us "spend our lives with imagery hovering somewhere in the mind's eye, which we inspect from time to time." Says one man of his childhood insomnia: "I couldn't see any sheep jumping over fences, there was nothing to count." Others with the condition can't visualize the faces of their friends and family. The newly described condition is something that affects some people from birth, which is different from the experience first described by Zeman in Discover about a patient who lost the ability to visualize after a heart procedure. In patients with congenital aphantasia, Zeman says that a network of regions distributed throughout the brain but implicated in visualization may function differently, not from a traumatic event but from birth. Similarly, people can be born with hyperaphantasia, or the ability to visualize in acute detail. To better understand the neurological underpinnings of this range of visual experiences, Zeman is working on a year-long project—The Eye’s Mind—that involves artist Susan Aldworth, art historian John Onians, and philosopher Fiona Macpherson. (Speaking of visualization, see why Roseanne Barr is going blind.)
– Kids have a word for it when you land face-first: "fail." As an Internet meme, it's called faceplanting. But what really happens when people use their face for brakes? At BoingBoing, Maggie Koerth-Baker looks at the physical results—which aren't pretty—and takes a glimpse at the related field of injury biomechanics. She starts with a paper by a mechanical engineer about a classic faceplant: young man tries to ride bike along a board from shoreline to dock, misses board, lands face-first. (See the video here.) He endured Le Fort II and III fractures, his face cracking in a triangle shape starting at the top of the nose and going down both sides to the upper jaw. Sadly, other researchers say this particular video won't advance the field because the frame-rate is poor; real experiments analyze the 10-20 milliseconds in which injuries occur. So Koerth-Baker delves deeper into injury biomechanics, starting with John Stapp, an Air Force flight surgeon who endured a sudden stop in a rocket sled at 46.2 g's of force in 1954. He broke nearly all the capillaries in his eyes, Ejection Site reports, but his work helped the Air Force design pilot ejector-seats. More recently, studies on NFL concussions have shown that hits from the side or back cause more concussions than hits on the crown of the helmet. Which leaves faceplanters where, exactly? Well, getting seriously injured as we laugh and learn. At least this one, at SBNation, faceplanted on purpose in an effort to help his team. (Click to check out some less painful memes.)
– "Oops, I forgot I packed that loaded gun." That's the excuse TSA agents heard more than a few times upon discovering 2,212 firearms in people's carry-on luggage at airports last year. That's 22% more than were found in 2013; just 660 firearms turned up in 2005. According to the Department of Homeland Security, agents discovered an average of six guns each day in carry-ons or on a passenger's body. More than 80% were loaded, USA Today reports. When police interviewed the travelers, who face thousands in fines, the most popular excuse was that they'd forgotten the guns were there. Denver, Phoenix, Houston, Atlanta, and Dallas international airports saw the most firearm discoveries. Passengers are allowed to pack firearms in checked baggage, provided the guns aren't loaded. Another 1,400 "dangerous objects" were also discovered last year. Among the more bizarre finds: a hand grenade, as well as an 8.5-inch knife inside an enchilada. In the case of the former, an LAX terminal was closed while a bomb squad intervened. In the latter case, the TSA determined the woman carrying the food forgot she put the knife inside. Stun guns, razors, firearm components, a pen/highlighter hiding small knives, and $1.2 billion in counterfeit goods—including $10 million worth of counterfeit Beats by Dre headphones—were also found. Three guns were spotted at Indianapolis International Airport on Wednesday alone, WTHR reports.
– This is unfortunately not a repeat of an earlier story: A football player for Florida State University faces charges of punching a woman in the face at a bar. This time it's Dalvin Cook, a 19-year-old sophomore running back, reports the Tallahassee Democrat. Police say he punched the woman multiple times outside a bar in Tallahassee on June 23 and charged him with misdemeanor battery. He has been suspended from the team. The following night, FSU quarterback De'Andre Johnson was seen on surveillance video punching a different woman at a different bar. He's been kicked off the team. The 21-year-old woman in the Cook case tells ESPN that a man, not Cook, approached her outside the bar and asked for her phone number. She refused, and she says the man returned with Cook, who punched her when a heated argument erupted. "They kept telling me they were football players," the woman says. "They kept telling me to Google them. They told me they were football players and they could buy me in two years."
– Another day, another round of meetings and threats, and still no deal on the debt ceiling. But the big news looks to be a surprise "backup plan" from Mitch McConnell that would give President Obama unprecedented power to raise the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion in three installments through the end of his term, reports Politico. Congress could theoretically reject the separate requests, but Obama's veto power makes it a virtual certainty that all would go through. (The Hill has more details.) McConnell said he reluctantly offered the plan to give the markets confidence that the US would avoid a default if no other deal is reached. Republicans would be giving up leverage but getting a "political payoff" in return, writes Ezra Klein at the Washington Post. Obama and Democrats would get "100% of the blame" for raising the ceiling, and no Republican would have to vote in favor. It's not clear yet whether the White House or even the GOP rank-and-file will go along, however. The National Review quotes a Republican aide in the House who thinks it will never fly because it means giving up too much power.
– At least 19 people, including two 10-year-old children, were injured when gunmen opened fire on marchers in a Mother's Day parade in New Orleans yesterday, the Times-Picayune reports. No fatalities have been reported, but three victims are in critical condition. Police believe three suspects and at least two different weapons were involved. The suspects—one of whom is described as 18 to 22 years old with short hair, wearing a white shirt and blue jeans—were seen fleeing after the incident and are still at large. A police spokeswoman says many of the victims, including the two children, were grazed by bullets that ricocheted. "At this point, there are no fatalities, and most of the wounds are not life-threatening," she says. "This is an extremely unusual occurrence, and we're confident that we will make swift arrests." The FBI says it believes the shootings were "street violence," not an act of terrorism, the AP reports. Investigators aren't sure if the gunmen were shooting at random or targeting particular people in the "second line" parade—a New Orleans tradition in which participants walk or dance behind the main band.
– If you're sick of "Goth Barbie" Taylor Momsen's attitude, blame her parents, says the perennially-moody 17-year-old Gossip Girl star. She holds mom and dad responsible for making her "miserable" by turning her into a kid star and destroying her childhood. "My parents signed me up with the Ford" modeling agency at the age of 2, said the raccoon-eyed blondie. "No two-year-old wants to be working, but I had no choice," she tells Us. "My whole life, I was in and out of school. I didn't have friends. I was working constantly and I didn't have a real life." Click here for more of Momsen's outrageous behavior.
– Sasquatch should be really nervous right now... First, Siberian officials announced they had proof that Yeti exists. Now a Massachusetts paleontologist says he has indirect evidence that the fearsome kraken once roamed the seas. At the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, Mark McMenamin yesterday posited that the 100-foot-long mythological sea monster was soft-bodied, which would explain the absence of bones and other fossil evidence. But he believes that the bones of nine ichthyosaurs at the Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park in Nevada point to the kraken's existence, reports LiveScience. The markings on the bones of the 45-foot ichthyosaurs at the park, along with the larger than expected number of broken ribs and the bones' "very odd configuration," led McMenamin to believe that the ichthyosaurs had likely been killed then carried to a single lair, likely by an octopus-type creature that had either drowned them or twisted their necks. Science Daily also reports that McMenamin observed that the fossils' vertebrae seem to be arranged in a way that mimics the pattern of the sucker discs on a cephalopod tentacle. LiveScience notes that plenty of people are calling his circumstantial evidence hooey. Click to read one such reaction, a Wired piece titled "The Giant, Prehistoric Squid That Ate Common Sense."
– Physicist Richard Muller co-founded the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project three years ago to debunk global warming fears, even getting a hefty grant from the conservative Koch brothers for his work. Last fall, he backtracked a bit, admitting the evidence for global warming was solid, but denying you could prove humanity was the cause. Today, however, even that last caveat is gone, he writes in the New York Times. "Call me a converted skeptic," Muller writes. "Humans are almost entirely the cause." Muller is still skeptical about alarmists, though, and thinks there is no connection between global warming and Hurricane Katrina or dying polar bears or anything like that. But he is certain that people are causing the world to heat up, a process that will go much faster in the future as China continues to develop. Not everyone is so impressed by Muller's conversion. "I am glad that Muller et al. have taken a look at the data and have come to essentially the same conclusion that nearly everyone else had come to more than a decade ago," one climatologist tells Think Progress. Click for Muller's full column.
– A close pal of British Prime Minister David Cameron has been found dead in a VIP portable toilet at the Glastonbury Music Festival in England. The corpse of Christopher Shale was discovered the same day the Sunday Mail printed an embarrassing memo by him saying that people saw little reason to join the Conservatives. Shale, 56, was the Conservative party chairman in Cameron's district. In his memo, he attributed the fall in party membership to people's suspicions that if they get involved, "we'll beg and steal from them, and they're right." It's not yet clear if Shale died of a heart attack or committed suicide, according to various press reports. Cameron called Shale a "close and valued friend." A "big rock in my life has suddenly been rolled away," he said. Shale's family is "absolutely devastated and shell-shocked," said a spokesman.
– It seems Intel has decided to put a little distance between itself and John McAfee, founder of the Intel-owned McAfee antivirus software. After a troubled year for the millionaire, Intel took to this year's Consumer Electronics Show to announce it will be immediately swapping the McAfee brand name with "Intel Security," the Verge reports; the McAfee company itself will keep its original name. But that was just one announcement from Intel yesterday: It also declared its processors are now made without minerals from mines held by armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That makes Intel the first big US tech company to tout that claim, the AP notes, amid concerns that the purchase of such minerals would only increase the conflict in the DRC. Intel spent four years figuring out where its metals used in electronics manufacturing—including tantalum, tungsten, tin, and gold—came from, but that doesn't mean all DRC minerals are out of the equation. "We are not intending to leave the region behind," Intel's "conflict minerals" program manager said, adding that minerals from mines in good hands are fair game.
– Bulgaria has been rocked by the brutal murder of journalist Viktoria Marinova, who was found dead in a park on Saturday afternoon. Police say the 30-year-old TV host was raped, beaten, and strangled in a riverside park in the town of Ruse, Balkan Insight reports. Authorities told reporters Sunday that they are trying to determine whether the murder was linked to her work, and they are considering "all versions" of events. Marinova, who was also the administrative director of the regional channel TVN, was found dead about two hours after she told friends she was going for a run to prepare for an upcoming marathon, the Monitor reports. Prosecutors say possessions including Marinova's cell phone, car keys, and most of her clothing were missing. The Guardian reports that in the most recent episode of her current affairs show Detector, Marinova spoke to investigative journalists looking into alleged fraud involving EU funds, politicians, and large infrastructure companies. The two reporters she spoke to were briefly detained after the show aired. The Committee to Protect Journalists "is shocked by the barbaric murder," spokesman Tom Gibson said in a statement. "Bulgarian authorities must employ all efforts and resources to carry out an exhaustive inquiry and bring to justice those responsible."
– Another milestone in Gabrielle Giffords' recovery: She's starting to speak for the first time since last month's shooting. As noted first by Politico, she asked for toast with breakfast earlier this week and since then has been speaking "more and more," a spokesman tells AP. “It’s huge and it’s great,” he adds to the Arizona Daily Star. "It’s very big news and we are all very excited.” Husband Mark Kelly said Giffords is eating three times a day and enjoying it, "even though it's hospital food," he wrote in a Facebook post. "The doctors say she is recovering at lightning speed considering her injury but they aren't kidding when they say this is a marathon process."
– Surprise, surprise: Los Angeles again ranked as the city with the worst traffic congestion in America in an annual survey out this week, reports Reuters. Here's a sign of how bad things are, from the LA Times: Entrepreneur Elon Musk—he of Tesla, PayPal, and SpaceX—has forked over $50,000 of his own money to speed up a massive project to widen the 405 freeway, and he's willing to give more if it puts more workers on the job. It's "a contribution to the city and my own happiness," says the commuting CEO. "If it can actually make a difference, I would gladly contribute funds and ideas. I've super had it." The 405 project in particular is behind schedule and over budget, and drivers currently put up with conditions that range from "bad to horrendous," says Musk. "I don't know why they aren't marching in the streets."
– Just one alcoholic drink per day—even a teeny one—may not bode well for women on the breast cancer front, reports the Washington Post. That's the conclusion of a large-scale review by the American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research fund that took a closer look at 119 studies involving more than 12 million women globally, and the impact of nutrition, diet, and physical activity on breast cancer risk. Although a typical alcoholic beverage contains 14 grams of alcohol, the report finds that even a small glass of wine, beer, or spirits (one with as little as 10 grams of alcohol) is tied to a 5% increased cancer risk in pre-menopausal women and 9% in post-menopausal women, indicating there may be "no level of alcohol use that is completely safe" when it comes to breast cancer, Ann McTiernan, one of the study's lead authors, tells the Post. Some good news: Researchers also found exercise plays a role in one's risk level—specifically, "vigorous" exercise on a regular basis cut the risk of breast cancer for both pre-menopausal women (a 17% reduction) and post-menopausal women (a 10% cut). So what if you like to throw one back but also often hit the gym? McTiernan notes alcohol increases estrogen levels, which has been tied to breast cancer risk, and that exercise can tamp those levels down—though that doesn't necessarily mean it will cancel out alcohol's effects. Although a healthy lifestyle doesn't offer complete assurance that cancer will stay away—McTiernan compares it to wearing a seatbelt, per the Post—the AICR estimates that a third of US breast cancer cases could be avoided if women kept to a healthy weight, exercised regularly, and didn't drink. (Alcohol has been tied to at least half a dozen types of cancer.)
– A 25-year-old woman in Maryland has delivered unto the nation the latest public-service announcement about texting and driving in dramatic fashion: Police say she lost control of her Hyundai while looking at her phone, smacked a tree, then drove 60 feet into a lake in Waldorf, reports NBC Washington. The car ended up submerged in about 5 feet of water, and the woman was able to get out through a window before emergency crews arrived. She suffered only minor injuries, but charges are pending, reports WUSA9.
– Last displayed more than a decade ago and kept mostly in storage at a small museum in Kansas City is not the treatment you'd expect for a rare painting by a Renaissance master. But the Kansas City Star reports that's exactly what's happened to The Temptation of St. Anthony, now believed to be one of only about 25 recognized paintings by the Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch. Since purchasing it from a New York gallery in 1935, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has operated under the assumption that the 15-by-10-inch, 500-year-old oil-on-wood painting was simply created by Bosch's workshop. But that changed when a team of Bosch experts came to look at it in September as part of their attempt to catalog all of Bosch's work in time for the 500th anniversary of his death this year, according to the New York Times. Those experts left the Missouri museum believing The Temptation of St. Anthony can be "ascribed to Bosch with confidence," the AP reports. The panel is believed to be part of a larger work, possibly part of a wing of a dismantled triptych. "I'm stoked," Rima Girnius, a Nelson-Atkins associate curator, tells the Star. The experts used infrared photography and reflectography to look at layers of work that had been erased or painted over while comparing its motifs and brush work, on a microscopic level, to other Bosch works. In fact, they're so confident they've uncovered a lost Bosch that The Temptation of St. Anthony went on display in Bosch's hometown in the Netherlands on Monday. “It’s the same painting, and all of a sudden you see it with more affection,” Nelson-Atkins director Julián Zugazagoitia tells the Times. (A "toy" shipped from Belgium was actually a lost Picasso.)
– A NASCAR fan was killed and nine others were injured yesterday when lightning struck the parking lot behind the grandstand of Pennsylvania's Pocono Raceway. One of the injured was in critical condition. The race was called early because of stormy weather. A witness said that he and a friend "ran into our truck during all the nasty weather. The visibility was very poor and all of a sudden I saw a bolt of lightning right in front of our windshield," he told Sporting News. "When it became a little more visible, we saw two bodies next to a destroyed tent with people scrambling." The track posted warnings on its Twitter page to more than 22,000 followers close to the end of the race urging fans to quickly seek shelter. “Hoping for the safety of all the fans that are leaving in this crazy storm," tweeted the track president. "Please seek shelter as there is a lot of cloud-to-ground lightning.” There were also warnings over loudspeakers to evacuate the grandstand—but none to leave the area as quickly as possible, track officials told AP. Attendance was estimated at close to 85,000. "Unfortunately, a member of our raceway family, a fan, has passed away," said a racetrack official. Driver Jeff Gordon, who won the race that was cut from 160 to 98 laps, said he could hear a huge crack as he walked down the pit road during the storm. "You could tell it was very close," he said.
– Madonna might've been down on her creaky old knees at the Super Bowl, but hell hath no fury like the Catholic League today over Nicki Minaj's religious-themed, stunt-laden appearance at last night's Grammy Awards. The League today issued a press release titled, "Is Nicki Minaj Possessed?" Concluding that the answer to that question is "open," the League blasted the Recording Academy for allowing the performance, saying, "Never would they allow an artist to insult Judaism or Islam." "It's bad enough that Catholics have to fight for their rights vis-a-vis a hostile administration in Washington without also having to fend off attacks in the entertainment industry," continued the release. Mainstream reactions to Minaj's performance—which featured her levitating and speaking in tongues—weren't much better, notes the Huffington Post. A typical tweet: "Stevie Wonder was the luckiest man in the crowd at the nicki minaj performance."
– The Republican presidential debate Thursday in Florida was—as Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight puts it—a "180-degree turn from the last debate" when Donald Trump famously reassured America on the size of his penis. The opening questions of the debate hit topics including trade, jobs, education, and social security. FiveThirtyEight notes it was both a "serious tone" and a "pretty stark change in tone" from the last debate, with none of the candidates particularly disagreeing with one another. "I can't believe how civil it's been up here," Trump added at the end of one of his responses. Trump even used his opening statement to call for Republican unity, as long as that's unity behind him, Politico reports. "I think frankly the Republican establishment, or whatever you want to call it, should embrace what is happening,” Trump said. It's unclear how the less combative, less crude debate tenor will play out for the candidates. "The civility may be a good thing for voters, but it's really boring television," Clare Malone at FiveThirtyEight writes.
– From the outside, Philadelphia's Roosevelt Inn may look any other motel. It's actually the city's "epicenter of human trafficking," according to prosecutors. In a lawsuit filed Friday, a 17-year-old girl details how she was "sold into sexual slavery" at the 107-room motel in 2013, held there for months at a time over two years, and forced to engage in sex acts with 1,000 men "double, triple and quadruple her age," reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. The suit is the first to be brought under a Pennsylvania law allowing sex trafficking victims to seek compensation from establishments that profited from the abuse, reports the Washington Post. However, the motel's resident manager, also named in the suit, says he was unaware anything of the kind was taking place. "I was always in the office," Yagna Patel, 72, tells CBS Philadelphia. "I didn't see anything wrong." The men responsible for forcing the teen to work as a prostitute have already been convicted, but now the teen is seeking $50,000 in damages from the motel for essentially allowing it to happen. "It is a flagrant and blatant example of a motel looking the other way," says a lawyer for the teen, who has escaped the life and is living elsewhere in the city. Law enforcement authorities do not sound surprised about the lawsuit. "Almost every trafficking investigation we have, we see the victim is at Roosevelt Inn," says an assistant DA. (Sex trafficking previously thrived in this sleepy state.)
– Indulging in coffee may lower your risk for melanoma, make for awesome naps, and even help fend off retinal degeneration. Now there's another possible health benefit: According to a study published in the Heart journal, people who drank a moderate amount of coffee (three to five cups a day) had the lowest levels of CAC (coronary artery calcium), which when built up can be an early indicator of heart disease, the Los Angeles Times reports. Individuals who drank one to three cups had somewhat higher CAC levels, followed by elevated calcium levels in both those who had one cup or less and java junkies (more than five cups a day). This research only compounds the "coffee good/coffee bad" debate, the BBC notes. Scientists tracked 28,138 male and female subjects from two South Korean cities who had a health screening complete with a CT scan to figure out their calcium levels; participants also had to fill out a food survey. The researchers controlled for other lifestyle factors as well, including smoking and exercise. The study does have its limitations: Scientists still have no clue if it's the caffeine in the coffee that does the trick or some other element, and the study may not readily translate to the general public because the South Korean diet and lifestyle is so different from ours. "While this study does highlight a potential link, more research is needed to confirm these findings and understand what the reason is for the association," Victoria Taylor of the British Heart Foundation tells the BBC. (Drinking coffee may also help reduce chances of getting MS.)
– The shorthand version of the Fast and Furious scandal goes something like this: ATF agents purposely allowed illegal guns to get into Mexico, then lost track of them, leading to horrific results. But a six-month investigation by Katherine Eban of Fortune magazine comes to a surprising conclusion: That so-called "gunwalking" strategy never existed. "Quite simply, there's a fundamental misconception at the heart of the Fast and Furious scandal," she writes. "Five law-enforcement agents directly involved in Fast and Furious tell Fortune that the ATF had no such tactic. They insist they never purposefully allowed guns to be illegally trafficked. Just the opposite: They say they seized weapons whenever they could but were hamstrung by prosecutors and weak laws, which stymied them at every turn." How the story morphed into its current version is the result of "distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies." Read the full Fortune piece here. At the National Review, Robert VerBruggen is skeptical about some of the conclusions.
– Four months ago, Long Island boy Adam Lefkowitz was a healthy, happy kid who liked to play on monkey bars and climb trees with his friends. More than 15 strokes later, the 4-year-old is barely recognizable to his parents. Diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder called primary central nervous system vasculitis, Adam has not responded to typical treatments, stumping every doc who has looked at his case, reports the New York Daily News. The strokes have left the boy's legs limp and right eye closed, and he uses a catheter to go to the bathroom, while steroids have packed on 25 pounds. "He's fighting and really trying, but it's weighing on him," Adam's father, Evan Lefkowitz, tells Today. "He's stuck in a room and wants to go out on my shoulder like he always does. It's getting tough on him." While Adam battles the mysterious source of his illness in a Philadelphia children's ICU, supporters have set up an online fundraising campaign to help cover what could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical care. As of yesterday, more than half of the $50,000 goal had been reached. (Check out why one family is more than six months into a self-imposed quarantine.)
– A nurse at a senior living facility north of Los Angeles refused to administer CPR to an 87-year-old woman who was hardly breathing—and who later died, the LA Times reports. "It’s a human being," pleaded Bakersfield fire dispatcher Tracey Halvorson on a 911 tape recorded this week. "Is there anybody that’s willing to help this lady and not let her die?" The nurse paused and said, "Um, not at this time." The nurse explained that Glenwood Gardens policy was not for staff to administer CPR. Halverson urged the nurse to hand the phone to "a passerby" to help the elderly woman, so the nurse turned to someone else: "She’s yelling at me and saying we have to have one of our residents perform CPR," the nurse said of the dispatcher. "I’m feeling stressed, and I’m not going to do that, make that call." The facility's senior administer later said the nurse had acted in accordance with policy by calling 911. Hear the tape at KGET.com.
– As of Tuesday, Donald Trump has had the chance to attend 36 daily presidential national security briefings, per Michael Moore's tally. As of a week ago, the president-elect said he had attended, at most, three. Moore joins the chorus of those who see this as a deal-breaker, and he explains why in a Facebook post titled, "Donald Trump Is Gonna Get Us Killed." Moore provides a history lesson: While vacationing in Texas, George W. Bush was handed the daily briefing on August 6, 2001. Writes Moore: "He glanced at it, set it aside and then went fishing for the rest of the day." The briefing's headline: "BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO STRIKE INSIDE US." Inside it referenced the use of planes. Bush ended his vacation four weeks later, writes Moore. "In the fifth week, bin Laden attacked the US with planes." "It's one thing to have a president who was asleep at the wheel," he continues. "But, my friends, it's a whole other thing to now have a president-elect who REFUSES TO EVEN GET BEHIND THE WHEEL!" In Moore's view, Trump's "utter neglect of duty" will result in the loss of American lives. Moore isn't the only one commenting on the topic. The AP reports that at the Arab Strategy Forum in Dubai on Wednesday, ex-CIA director Leon Panetta said he has "never seen a president who has said, 'I don't want that stuff'. Never seen it." A former world leader agreed: "It won't last," responded David Cameron. "It can't last," said Panetta. As for Moore, he last week confirmed in an email to the Hollywood Reporter that he planned to "non-violently disrupt" Trump's DC inauguration. (Trump had something to say about the briefings in 2014.)
– A welcome piece of news for an endangered species: Giant tortoises' population on the Galapagos island of Española is now "very secure," researchers say. "The global population was down to just 15 tortoises by the 1960s. Now there are some 1,000 tortoises breeding on their own," says James P. Gibbs, a professor at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and the lead author of a study on the animals, calling the success "miraculous." "It's a rare example of how biologists and managers can collaborate to recover a species from the brink of extinction." The research covers 40 years of tracking tagged tortoises, notes SUNY ESF. Feral goats were introduced to the island in the 1800s, and they munched their way through much of its vegetation. As the threat to tortoises grew, the goats were killed off by gunmen in helicopters, LiveScience reports. Tortoises bred in captivity were introduced four decades ago, and scientists are now finding animals that were born in the wild. Humans can likely step aside now, says Gibbs. But hurdles remain: Goats ate the island's grassy plants, and the vegetation that has sprung up since has tended to be more woody. They block the tortoises' cactus meals from growing, and they make moving around a challenge. "Population restoration is one thing, but ecological restoration is going to take a lot longer," Gibbs notes. (Meanwhile, closer to home, debate has raged over tortoises' iPads.)
– Mercedes-Benz is pulling some robots off the production line at its biggest plant and replacing them with … humans. The reason? Mercedes offers so many options for its vehicles (such as four types of caps for the tire valves in the case of its S-Class sedan), it's "too much ... for the machines," the company's head of production tells Bloomberg. “Robots can’t deal with the degree of individualization," Markus Schaefer continues. "We’re saving money and safeguarding our future by employing more people." The Sindelfingen, Germany, factory produces 400,000 cars annually, and while humans can make changes to a production line in a weekend, reprogramming robots tacks on weeks, which doesn't jibe with Schaefer's push to halve the time it takes to make a car from the 61 hours it took in 2005. As far as specifics of this change go, Bloomberg points to the car maker's new E-Class, which is available beginning next month. The car's speed and navigation instructions are projected onto the windshield, and the task of aligning the display will shift in some cases from two permanent robots to a worker. Gizmodo points out that Mercedes' move does not herald the reversal of the trend that half of jobs will be automated in coming decades. (Indeed, the International Federation of Robotics reports that "by 2018, around 1.3 million industrial robots will be entering service in factories around the world.") "But it’s also a timely reminder that as good as robots get, they’ve got a long way to go to beat the human machine."
– In an effort to reach a compromise in one of the two year-end battles facing Congress, Democrats have decided to drop their demand for a surtax on millionaires to finance payroll tax cuts. Without a deal, 160 million workers will face an automatic Social Security tax increase on Jan. 1, but a quick bipartisan agreement on the legislation may be out of reach despite the Democratic retreat, AP notes. "I don't think it's much of a concession," a spokesman for John Boehner says. "It never had any chance of passing the Senate, let alone the House." Lawmakers are also battling over a separate spending bill, and the squabble threatens to force a federal government shutdown by this weekend. House Republicans have unveiled a $1 trillion spending bill providing budgets for hundreds of government programs. They aim to pass the bill tomorrow, allowing them to depart for their Christmas holidays, Bloomberg reports. Some Republican lawmakers, however, are wary of passing legislation that they haven't had time to read, and as leaders squabble, rank-and file lawmakers from both parties are complaining about Congress' inability to perform its most basic tasks, Politico notes.
– After a jogger's body was found in a Philadelphia park, police told runners to be on their guard—but it seems the murder wasn't an arbitrary killing. Instead, police say Christopher Murray, husband of jogger Constance Murray, killed his wife in an argument, the AP reports. Murray confessed to the crime after failing a lie detector test, police say, per the Philadelphia Daily News. "I think it was more of a rage incident ... than premeditated," officer Philip Riehl says. Amid "some ongoing domestic discord," Murray allegedly jumped in a car and followed his wife when she went jogging; at that point, police say, they don't think he was planning to kill her, Reuters notes. The couple ended up arguing on a bench. "She went up there voluntarily to talk to him about whatever was going on and things went bad," the officer notes. Police say Christopher Murray strangled Constance and left her body nearby; he later reported her missing, the AP notes. "The reality was he became a suspect early on and remained a suspect until he confessed," Riehl says, adding that "the people [who] play and exercise in the area … can have a sigh of relief because there is not a predator lurking." The couple has two daughters, ages 12 and 15, per the Daily News.
– After decades of deadly whaling, the California blue whale population has come back with a vengeance. A study in the Marine Mammal Science journal says that the once-endangered mammal, which can be found from Alaska all the way down to Costa Rica, has bounced back to "sustainable levels," with around 2,200 of the creatures now swimming in the Pacific surf right off the West Coast, reports the BBC. That growth spurt is due to meticulous conservation efforts—but also because the Russians aren't harpooning enormous numbers of them anymore. An estimated 346,000 California blue whales were harpooned before the practice was banned in 1966; between 1905 and 1971, about 3,400 were killed in the Pacific, mostly by Russian whalers. Despite the ban, Russians kept at it illegally until 1971—and as soon as they stopped, "the population has been recovering steadily," a University of Washington researcher tells NBC News via email. One major issue that still plagues blue whales: They keep getting smashed by ships, especially near California. Some groups estimate about 11 are hit each year, although scientists believe there would have to be an "elevenfold increase in vessels" before there's even a chance of the blue-whale population dipping to dangerously low levels. Meanwhile, they remain the largest animals on Earth, notes National Geographic. (Sorry, Dreadnoughtus.) Read how many calories a blue whale consumes in one gulp.
– Get ready for an NFL first: On Monday, father and daughter Kevin Harlan and Olivia Harlan Dekker will be part of a three-person team announcing the Green Bay Packers vs. the San Francisco 49ers for the Westwood One radio network, USA Today reports. It's the first time a father-daughter duo have shared an NFL broadcast, according to a statement from the network, though Marv Albert and son, Kenny, shared several broadcasts during the 2004-05 season. On Monday, Harlan and Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner will be in the both doing play-by-play and analysis, respectively. Dekker will be the sideline reporter. In the statement, Harlan said, "This will be an incredibly proud moment for our family," with Dekker, a college football sideline reporter for ESPN, saying, "To work an NFL game together on national radio is a personal and professional highlight for me."
– New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand has lost her fight to dramatically change the way the Pentagon handles sex-assault cases, reports AP. For now, anyway. She needed 60 votes to overcome a filibuster but came up with only 55. And the Hill points out that this wasn't exactly a party-line vote: Eleven Republicans voted for the measure, including Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Mitch McConnell. But 10 Democrats voted against it, including Claire McCaskill and Carl Levin, reports Politico. Under Gillibrand's bill, military commanders would no longer be the ones to decide whether to prosecute cases from within the ranks. Instead, military lawyers would make the call. "The people who don't trust the chain of the command are the victims," said Gillibrand during debate. She and proponents say cases are going unreported because victims fear retribution. But critics such as McCaskill say that the measure would make things worse and that only the Pentagon's own commanders can get the problem under control. Gillibrand may have lost the high-profile vote, but the Washington Post lays out several ways she emerges a "big winner" nonetheless. Among other things, she has raised her stature in the Senate considerably, writes Ed O'Keefe. Gillibrand promised to bring up the proposal again and said she is confident it will pass the second time around.
– Al-Qaeda's media arm has released an audio in which the purported son of the late al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden threatens revenge against the US for assassinating his father, reports the AP. In a 21-minute speech titled "We Are All Osama" released by As-Sahab Saturday, Hamza bin Laden tells Americans that they are accountable for the decisions of their leaders. He says al-Qaeda will continue waging jihad against the US in response to its "oppression" of Muslims. "If you think that your sinful crime that you committed in Abbottabad has passed without punishment, then you thought wrong," he says. "We will continue striking you and targeting you in your country and abroad in response to your oppression of the people of Palestine, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and the rest of the Muslim lands that did not survive your oppression," he said, per the Independent. The elder bin Laden was killed in a May 2011 US raid at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. His son's whereabouts is not known. Analysts speculate that Hamza bin Laden may be preparing to take over leadership of al-Qaeda.
– Sorry, Andy Kaufman fans. The story that sounded too good to be true—he's alive!—was, in fact, a hoax, reports the Smoking Gun. A woman who came forward this week claiming to be his daughter and alleging that he had faked his own death in 1984 is actually an actress named Alexandra Tatarsky, says the website. (CinemaBlend also was quick to spot the woman's resemblance to Tatarsky's profile photos.) Her father is a New York City psychologist, and Gawker points out that her bio says she is inspired by "Russian absurdism," something Kaufman would surely appreciate. TSG reports that Tatarsky hatched the hoax with Kaufman's brother Michael, after the pair met at a gallery featuring an exhibition of the comic's life. As for Michael—who read a letter supposedly written by his late brother at the Andy Kaufman Awards on Monday night—he seems to be backtracking quickly, notes USA Today. "I think I've been misquoted, OK?" he tells the Hollywood Reporter while postponing an interview. "I never came out with, 'He's alive.' I'm as skeptical as anybody else."
– Marion "Suge" Knight pleaded not guilty this morning to murder and attempted murder, and it was apparently a stressful experience: TMZ reports that the former hip-hop music mogul suffered a panic attack and was rushed to the hospital. It's the second time he's ended up hospital-bound while in police custody; he passed out in a jail cell in November because of a blood clot. Knight was charged yesterday with murder after he struck two men with his pickup truck last week. Prosecutors allege that Knight intended to run down a friend and another man after an argument on a movie set. The friend, Terry Carter, was killed; Cle "Bone" Sloan was injured, TMZ reports. Attorney James Blatt says Knight accidentally ran over the men on Thursday as he tried to escape a vicious attack. Knight's initial bail of $2 million was revoked yesterday after a court commissioner agreed that he was a potential flight risk and could intimidate witnesses. Knight faced four felony counts including murder in the death of 55-year-old Carter; "attempted, willful, deliberate, and premeditated murder" involving 51-year-old Sloan; plus two charges of hit-and-run. Authorities say Knight had argued with Sloan, who was working at a location for Straight Outta Compton, a film about the rise of the rap group NWA. They allege the argument resumed in the parking lot where the two men were run down after Knight and Sloan exchanged punches through the pickup truck's window. A conviction could result in Knight's third serious felony under California's three strikes sentencing law, and lead to a life sentence.
– It's a gradual and cruel fate: an inherited form of vision loss that typically ends in blindness and has had no cure. But for those with mutations in a gene known as RPE65 comes a balm. The FDA in December approved Luxturna, a new gene therapy that can treat the progressive blindness, and on Wednesday, its maker revealed the staggering cost: $425,000 per eye. Pricing it was entering a bit of a brave new world: NBC News reports Luxturna is the first "true gene therapy" that's gotten the green light here for an inherited disease, and unlike other pharmaceutical companies' workhorses—drugs that patients take for weeks, months, or even a lifetime—Luxturna is expensive to create and delivered just once. And as the Washington Post explains, Luxturna isn't necessarily a cure for the up to 2,000 Americans who suffer from the disease. In trials, it has "worked" for patients for as long as four years (FierceBiotech explains patients are born with poor vision, and their vision doesn't become "normal" with Luxturna but does functionally improve), though there are indications its effects could extend beyond that mark. The Guardian reports that maker Spark Therapeutics had previously tossed out the figure $1 million when discussing the total treatment cost, saying that was a fair amount when you consider the cost of blindness. The Post says it went with the lower figure in part because insurers indicated $500,000 per eye would shrink the pool of those who qualified, and the company is discussing rebate and payment plan options. But one critic tells NBC he wants Spark to release its R&D costs so "analysts, payers, and the public have a basis to assess Spark's decision."
– French First Lady Carla Bruni Sarkozy likes to mingle with the hoi polloi in Paris—but she does does so, incognito, in a wig, she reveals. "With a wig on, no one recognizes me on the Metro," she tells the Nouvel Observateur. "Recently, I even had my bag searched at the Maritime museum"—just like any normal person. France erupted in guffaws last month when the multimillionaire heiress boasted that she and hubby Nicolas Sarkozy were just "simple, modest" folk. The image of a bewigged Carla mingling with the populace appears to be the latest effort to remake "President Bling" into a man of the people as he battles Socialist François Hollande in the French presidential election, notes the Guardian.
– The NSA would like you to know that, while it may have data on millions of phone calls from US carriers, it only sought detailed information on less than 300 phone numbers. That's according to an (unclassified) government memo making the rounds, reports Reuters, in an apparent attempt to underscore that the spying was limited in scope. But the spying apparently paid big dividends, breaking up "dozens of potential terrorist plots here in the homeland and in more than 20 countries around the world." Notable among them was a 2009 plot to bomb the New York City subway, adds Fox News. American intelligence officials say they're working to declassify more cases to prove the merit of the system.
– This Tuesday, Venus will move between the Earth and the sun—and you may want to catch it now, because you probably won't be around when it happens again in 2117. The event will be visible throughout the US shortly before sunset. On the East Coast, you'll want to be up high and facing west, because the sun will be low. Don't look directly at the sun, the New York Times reminds us: Instead, use eclipse-viewing glasses or read about projection techniques. In observing the transit, you'll be following in the footsteps of historical luminaries like Captain James Cook. He and other 18th-century investigators used the event—which happens approximately twice every century, eight years apart—to figure the distance between the sun and the Earth: about 93 million miles. "Historically speaking," the 1769 observations that took place around the globe were "the beginning of big international science," says an expert. These days, it's more of a "tourist occasion." But NASA will be watching closely, and you can, too—with the aid of a smartphone app that lets you document the transit's timing and contribute to an international database.
– Two years after he was put in a steel box and gassed with carbon monoxide, a beagle mix with a knack for survival will be proudly riding a float in Pasadena's Rose Parade. Daniel was six months old when he was placed with 17 other dogs in a gas chamber at an animal control center in Alabama. Workers were amazed with he survived—scared but unscathed—and they reached out to animal rescue groups, finding a home for him with New Jersey motivational speaker Joe Dwyer, the AP reports. Dwyer says Daniel's story of survival has helped bring laws against the use of gas chambers in animal euthanasia in 31 states, reports the Star-Ledger. The pooch will be riding the Lucy Pet Foundation's float with seven other shelter dogs in the New Year's Day parade. The foundation, which runs mobile adoption and neutering clinics across America, chose Daniel as its spokesdog. '"He's definitely one of the most joyous, happy dogs I've ever met in my life," Dwyer says. "I think his positive attitude is why he's survived."
– President Trump is no stranger to scandal, but reports that he asked former FBI director James Comey to halt the investigation of Michael Flynn may have taken things to the next level. The report may have been the last straw for congressional Republicans, who appeared to be shifting against Trump on Tuesday night, Politico reports. House Oversight Committee Rep. Jason Chaffetz says he has asked the FBI for Comey's memos on the Trump request and other interactions with the president and he is ready to issue subpoenas if necessary. Some legal analysts say there could now be an obstruction of justice case against Trump, though it could be tough to prove. The latest: Obstruction of justice. The New York Times describes obstruction of justice as a "murky" charge, the exact definition of which was being hotly debated on Capitol Hill Tuesday night. Experts say it could certainly cover asking the FBI director to drop its investigation and then firing him. Any criminal case would probably have to prove that Trump had "corrupt intentions," though if Trump is tried, it will be by Congress, not the courts. "If this were anyone other than the president, it is classic, vanilla obstruction," former federal prosecutor Jeff Cramer tells Politico. The showdown. It now appears certain that a "theatrical showdown" between Trump and Comey looms, with Americans having to decide whose word they trust more, CNN reports. Comey is expected to be called to testify before Congress about the Feb. 14 meeting with Trump. Reasons for Trump to worry. The Times' sources say Comey kept detailed memos about his meetings with Trump, which "should strike fear into the White House," according to the Washington Post. The notes may describe other times Trump allegedly crossed the line—and courts in previous cases have considered memos from FBI directors to be credible evidence. "Reasonable objections." The National Review notes that while there is "no good outcome" here, it is premature to say Trump is doomed to face impeachment proceedings: The allegation has not been proven, and the "reasonable objections" include Sen. Lindsey Graham's observation: "If this happened, the FBI director should have done something about it or quit." GOP reaction. Republican lawmakers including House Freedom Caucus chairman Rep. Frank Meadows are calling for an investigation of the "disturbing" allegation. Some have signaled that their patience is wearing out. "This weekly scandal, this weekly controversy is unhealthy for the country. It’s a major distraction for the country and it’s just bad for the psyche of every American," said Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo, per Politico. Nixon comparisons. There are many comparisons to the Watergate scandal being made. Vox notes that what ended Richard Nixon's presidency wasn't the Watergate break-in itself—his involvement was never proven—but his attempt to force the FBI to abandon its investigation. Prison for the press. CNBC notes that amid the Flynn uproar, another allegation has been overlooked: Trump also allegedly asked Comey to consider imprisoning members of the press for publishing classified allegations that had been leaked.
– As part of his ongoing attempt to appear more presidential, Donald Trump gave a speech on foreign policy Wednesday in which he called for the country to be "America first" in its dealings with the rest of the world. “Both our friends and our enemies put their countries above ours, and we—while being fair to them—must start doing the same," Trump said, per the Hill. Trump said the US has been making too many deals that hurt it and needs to have a "two-way street" in the future, CNN reports. He characterized the foreign policy of Obama and Clinton as "randomness" and "chaos" and criticized them for ignoring Islamic extremists. Here are some of the early reactions to Trump's speech: Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post, among others, knocked the speech's lack of specifics: "The 45-minute speech was heavy on what the country has done wrong under President Obama and decidedly light on the specifics of how Trump will fix things." CNN's Fareed Zakaria called the speech "bizarre" and "incoherent." But Ann Coulter was a fan. "GREATEST FOREIGN POLICY SPEECH SINCE WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS," she tweeted. Lindsey Graham's Twitter account, on the other hand, had burns for days. For example, "Are we sure the guy running the teleprompter has the pages in the right order?" and, "Not sure who is advising Trump on foreign policy but I can understand why he’s not revealing their names." David Sanger at the New York Times says Trump "left questions on the table" and included "many big, Trump-like themes" that nonetheless contradicted each other. White House press secretary Josh Earnest pounced on Trump's mispronunciation of Tanzania: "Apparently, the phonetics are not included on the teleprompter." That slip didn't bother Newt Gingrich at all. "Washington elites mock Trump for mispronouncing Tanzania," he tweeted. "They don't get it. He said the most important word correctly: America. He gets it." Finally, the New Republic's Ryu Spaeth was left unimpressed: "He declared that America is 'finally going to have a coherent foreign policy,' but literally nothing could be less coherent than the rambling, uncharacteristically telepromptered speech he gave today."
– You've probably had a burning desire to know what Chris Brown thinks about the Ebola outbreak, right? Well, the singer has finally made his theory known, and—surprise, surprise—it's a controversial one. He tweeted last night, "I don't know ... But I think this Ebola epidemic is a form of population control. S--- is getting crazy bruh." He then quickly followed that up, however, with: "Let me shut my black ass up!" (Brown recently admitted he's "made mistakes" and is "not perfect.") In other weird Ebola news ... this man is trying to make $150,000 off the outbreak.
– Looking for hot new beachwear before the summer fades away? Then you might—or, let's face it, might not—try a facekini, one of those colorful masks that started drawing attention on Chinese beaches in 2012, Global Post reports. What first looks like a pastel terrorist hood has actually been popular among middle-aged Chinese women for its UV protection. Now, a former Vogue editor has published a photo spread of women wearing facekinis in the magazine CR Fashion Book. "A tan does not signify a chic trip to Capri, but it could mean hours of hard labor spent out in the harsh sun," says the magazine. Indeed, that's the point: The Chinese have long revered white skin as a sign that someone is too wealthy to have to work outdoors, the BBC reports. "One touch of white disguises 100 kinds of ugliness," goes an old Chinese saying. But now some big-city Chinese are picking up Western notions of beauty and even going to tanning salons. Meanwhile, Western interest in facekinis inspired 12 million comments over two days on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter: "Chinese old women are at the center of the global fashion world," said one; "It looks like bank robbers are raiding the beach," said another. (Another weird new trend: socks with sandals.)
– Just days after he took office in January, President Trump put back in place the "Mexico City policy" that keeps federal funds from being funneled to international aid organizations that provide abortions, or even info about them. Now the United States has officially yanked US donations from the United Nations Population Fund (aka UNFPA), the arm of the UN that offers family-planning services in more than 150 nations, Reuters reports. The BBC notes that $32.5 million that was set to be allotted for 2017 will be rescinded, with a Monday letter from the State Department saying the withdrawal of the funds is because UNFPA "supports, or participates in the management of, a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization" in China. The US is one of UNFPA's largest benefactors, coming in fourth for 2015 with just over $75,000 in combined core and earmarked contributions. UNFPA—which relies on voluntary donations from global governments to provide its services, which include those for maternal and child health—put out a Tuesday statement noting the US decision was based on an "erroneous claim" about the group's work, which it says lets "individuals and couples ... make their own decisions, free of coercion or discrimination." The State Department letter says the money will be reallocated to the Global Health Programs account, where it will reportedly be put toward family planning, maternal health, and reproductive health in developing countries. The AP notes the UNFPA fund has traditionally seen the ax whenever the GOP is in the White House; Dems reinstate it when they take back control.
– Police are trying to identify the body of a man who washed ashore in New York City with his arms tied behind his back and his feet encased in concrete, the AP reports. At a news conference Tuesday in Queens, Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said that the body was wrapped in plastic bags and that they're dealing with what is "obviously a homicide," per the New York Times. The body was found Monday by a student at Kingsborough Community College who was taking a morning stroll on campus along Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn. Authorities hope an autopsy will help determine how long the man had been in the water and how he died. Per the Times, it's "not uncommon" for bodies to suddenly emerge from the waters of NYC, especially in the spring, when warmer weather speeds up decomposition and, hence, increases the amount of resulting gases that make corpses float to the surface. But it isn't every day that one shows up wearing what CBS New York calls "cement shoes," which the Times notes has long been said "to be a favorite of mob hit men with plenty of patience," since concrete takes a long time to dry. The victim has a large tattoo of the Virgin Mary holding a rose, which police hope will help identify him. He was wearing gray sweatpants, blue boxer shorts, and a black jacket.
– The violent crime rate in the US dropped for the fifth straight year in 2011, and is approaching a low not seen in decades, according to new FBI data. The overall violent crime rate fell 4%, with murders down 1.9%, and rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults down 4%—although murders in small towns with fewer than 10,000 people surged 18%, CNN reports. Despite the economic downturn, property crimes like burglary were down 8%, a small decline but the ninth consecutive annual one, Reuters notes. The fall in violent crime is because of a combination of factors, including better policing, an older population, and the tendency of communities to pull together when faced with a crisis like the economic downturn, a University of Maryland criminology professor tells MSNBC. "We also have a record number of immigrants, and, contrary to popular belief, immigrants have lower crime rates than the rest of society," he says. But the FBI figures show that violent crime began to edge upward toward the end of 2011, and experts warn that the low crime rate should not cause agencies to ease crime-fighting efforts.
– Chris Christie isn't expected to launch his presidential campaign until Tuesday, but that hasn't stopped him from unveiling a campaign website and slogan in advance: "Telling it like it is." Christie will be the 14th major GOP candidate in the race, notes the National Journal, which adds that the relative late start along with his all-time-low approval ratings in New Jersey add to the governor's challenge. Christie will make his announcement next week at his old high school, Livingston, then head to New Hampshire for another campaign event, reports the Wall Street Journal.
– Waterfalls are among the most reliable places to catch a rainbow, but only two on the planet offer up a regular display of its close cousin, the moonbow: Cumberland Falls in Kentucky and Victoria Falls on the Zambia-Zimbabwe border. Also called a white rainbow, a moonbow appears when moonlight (which is sunlight reflected off the moon) in the days just before, during, and after a full moon hits the mist generated by the falls. Because we can't see colors well in low light, a moonbow appears white, reports BBC Travel, though photographers can use long exposures to capture its actual colors. Moonbows are occasionally—but not regularly—seen elsewhere in the world, including at Yosemite Falls in California. What makes Cumblerland Falls and Victoria Falls so unique is that they boast just the right amount of splash along a wide enough (rather than deep and narrow) gorge so that moonlight can reach down and across the mist. CNN notes that because sunlight is much stronger than moonlight, moonbows are rainbow's fainter cousin. They're temperamental in other ways: Cloudy nights can prevent the bow from forming, and Niagara Falls on the US-Canada border has lost its moonbow thanks to light pollution. Bustle reports on one photographer who in November caught a similar fogbow, which forms in the fog, arching over a solitary tree in Scotland; it went viral on Instagram and Twitter. (Turns out rainbows are more complicated than we thought.)
– As with the Obama-Romney debate, a lot of the post-Biden-Ryan debate talk is focusing on the moderator—but this time they're saying nice things. Martha Raddatz, senior foreign affairs correspondent for ABC, "pursued each man with the vigor of a woman more accustomed to needling foreign leaders than reciting prompter text," writes Dan Zak at the Washington Post. Unlike Jim Lehrer, whose moderating was widely panned, Raddatz was assertive and asked tough follow-up questions, writes Adam Martin at New York, declaring her the real winner of the debate. Raddatz was seen as an odd choice, but her performance "should be the gold standard for future moderators," writes Josh Feldman at Mediaite. "She grilled the candidates just enough on their positions to spur them on, but struck a good balance in when she interrupted both men." A Ryan spokesman says "she was clearly more assertive," although the resulting answers were "no more disciplined," reports BuzzFeed. But not everybody was happy with Raddatz's moderating. "I miss Jim Lehrer" tweeted Karl Rove.
– Major League Baseball no longer wants to play ball with the Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith campaign. The league, which made a $5,000 donation to the Republican's US Senate campaign in Mississippi, asked for it back after it was publicized by the Popular Information blog, reports the New York Times. "The contribution was made in connection with an event that MLB lobbyists were asked to attend," a league spokesman said in a statement, adding that MLB has asked for the donation—which was of the maximum legal amount—to be returned. Hyde-Smith's campaign reported the MLB donation on Nov. 23, well after her controversial joke about a public hanging made the news, though the league says it was made earlier. Walmart, Union Pacific, and other corporate donors have also asked the campaign to return their donations. Polls show that Democratic rival Mike Espy has narrowed Hyde-Smith's lead and is gaining momentum, though the Republican is still expected to win Tuesday's runoff election. President Trump is planning to appear at two Hyde-Smith rallies Monday night. "I think Espy supporters are probably a little more energized than Hyde-Smith," former RNC committeeman Henry Barbour tells Politico. "But I do think conservative voters realize this race is going to decide if we have a conservative or liberal representing us in Washington and that is very motivating to conservative voters." (Hyde-Smith went to a "segregation academy" in the 1970s.)
– A new survey of hospital practices may make it more common for doctors to actively treat a baby born at 22 weeks, at least a week younger than the generally accepted standard for viability, reports the New York Times. The study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that hospitals that chose to treat babies at that age, rather than providing "comfort care" until they die, had at least limited success: Babies at 22 weeks did not survive without active treatment, but they had a survival rate of 23% if they received it. Of the 18 survivors, six had serious issues such as cerebral palsy, blindness, or deafness as toddlers. One of the major takeaways of the study is that hospitals vary widely in their preemie practices, with no real standard on what the treatment cutoff should be, reports the AP. "It confirms that if you don't do anything, these babies will not make it, and if you do something, some of them will make it," the chief of neonatology at the University of Florida, who was not involved with the study, tells the Times. "Many who have survived have survived with severe handicaps." This is the first major assessment of preemie care, and while it shows that most 22-week-olds don't make it, the results could raise pressure on hospitals with a higher age for treatment cutoff to lower it. "The main message is that there's potential for more babies to survive without major or severe impairment at gestational ages that physicians once thought was impossible," a researcher from the University of Alabama at Birmingham tells AL.com.
– Mad Men is one of TV's best shows, even though January Jones isn't a very good actress. Stana Katic is roughly as bad as the romantic lead on Castle, yet that show's fine, too. "Television is very kind to bad actors," observes Willa Paskin of Salon. "My point here is not to rag on Jones and Katic, so much as marvel at how little their failings have mattered to the shows they work on." Whereas movie actors must dazzle us in two hours, TV stars are in our homes every week—and that's lucky for the mediocre ones. "As a show goes on, we start to think of bad acting as a character trait, and stop seeing it as the performer’s lack of skill." To wit, Katic's Kate Beckett is stiff because she's traumatized, "not because Katic can't express feelings and wouldn't have chemistry with a bottle of peroxide." Jerry Seinfeld always laughed at his own jokes, but we've all known someone like that. "Like a friend, relative, or acquaintance who always mumbles … a TV performer is someone audiences can learn to accept, flaws and all." Click to read Paskin's entire column, which names other such lucky TV actors (here's looking at you, Mischa Barton).
– When an "abuse-deterrent" version of OxyContin was introduced in 2010, the intent was clear: "to make OxyContin more difficult to solubilize or crush, thus discouraging abuse through injection and inhalation," the New England Journal of Medicine noted in 2012. Made with special binders, the revamped pills would turn into a gooey substance instead of powder or liquid if someone tried to crush or dissolve them, making the drug extremely difficult to snort or inject, CBS News notes. But a new study published in JAMA Psychiatry that examined surveys of 11,000 drug users at 150 treatment facilities across 48 states found that hardcore addicts will either find novel ways to circumvent the pill's properties or, just as bad, turn to a cheaper street drug: heroin. Washington University School of Medicine researchers discovered that although the percentage of addicts entering rehab who had used OxyContin within the past 30 days declined since the abuse-deterrent pill was introduced (45% in 2010; 26% in 2012), addicts "have figured out how to circumvent" it, Theodore Cicero, the study's lead author, tells CBS. He adds that users go online to trade techniques on "cooking" the pill to get a stronger high, and when that doesn't work, they often turn to heroin, which is often cheaper and easier to get than prescription drugs: Almost 50% of addicts entering rehab said they had used heroin within the past 30 days. "There are people who will continue to use, no matter what the drug makers do," Cicero says. "Until we focus more on why people use these drugs, we won't be able to solve this problem." (The new face of heroin may not be what you expect.)
– In the coffee capital of the US, a one-time Starbucks competitor that was once—and possibly still is—owned by Stormy Daniels' lawyer is closing for lack of coffee, the Seattle Times reports. "At this time we have very minimal coffee left in stores," reads a memo sent to managers at Tully's Coffee. "Retail business is temporarily suspended until coffee deliveries resume." The memo was sent by the Seattle coffee chain's project director, Krystal Tonning, and said the company is unsure how long stores will be closed. Tonning hung up when reached by the Times. Tully's was founded in 1992 and had 185 US locations in 2010 before filing for bankruptcy, according to the AP. It was purchased out of bankruptcy in 2013 by Patrick Dempsey of Grey's Anatomy and Michael Avenatti, currently making headlines as an attorney for the porn star claiming an affair with President Trump. And here's where it gets interesting. A Tully's employee says Avenatti is still responsible for paying vendors and claims the lack of coffee is due to Tully's not paying its coffee-roasting company. But Suzy Quinn, a Tully's spokesperson, says Avenatti is no longer a Tully's owner (Dempsey left soon after the purchase and sued Avenatti) and claims that he's in charge of anything are "ridiculous and baseless." In fact, Quinn says the closures are for a planned rebranding that could take months. "We had to exhaust all existing inventory for the rebranding," she tells Time. But it's unclear why, if the store closures were planned, Tonning's memo described it as "an incredibly confusing, frustrating, and simply difficult time," or why a sign at one closed Tully's location blames "unforeseen circumstances." The Tully's employee says Avenatti not being the owner "is a very bizarre thing to hear."
– She may be a reality TV star, but Kylie Jenner has kept a decidedly low profile in recent months amid unconfirmed reports that she was pregnant. All that ended Sunday when the 20-year-old announced the birth of a healthy baby girl with boyfriend Travis Scott, per TMZ. “I’m sorry for keeping you in the dark through all the assumptions,” wrote Jenner in her social media post. “I understand you’re used to me bringing you along on all my journeys (but) my pregnancy was one I chose not to do in front of the world.” Jenner went on to explain that she "needed to prepare for this role of a lifetime in the most positive, stress free, and healthy way I knew how." She and Scott, a 25-year-old rapper, also released a video about the new arrival. Jenner first rose to fame with her family's TV show, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, but as USA Today notes, she has since become a big name in her own right, thanks to the spinoff Life of Kylie and her burgeoning cosmetics business.
– Some gas stations in New York and New Jersey are still without power, while others have gone dry, prompting panic among residents looking to fuel their cars and backup generators until things return to normal, reports Reuters. At least half of all service stations in NYC can't sell gas, and that figure could rise to 75%, says one expert. Some taxi companies have been forced to pull fleets off the road as a result. In Jersey, tempers are running high at the few stations that are in service. One analyst says even people who don't plan to drive "still panic and go and fill up the tank—it exacerbates the problem," reports Newsday. Police responded to eight separate scuffles at gas stations in the town of Bloomfield alone, reports NJ.com.
– A simple text saying goodbye. That was the last anyone heard from 12-year-old Jenera Roundsky, who committed suicide in Wapekeka First Nation in northern Ontario on June 13. Jenera had been part of a suicide pact made by young girls in the community of 400 Oji-Cree, which suffered the suicides of two of Jenera's 12-year-old friends, Jolyn Winter and Chantel Fox, in January, report CBC News and the Toronto Star. Community leaders learned of the pact last summer and had hoped to prevent the loss of life. Jenera, one of 40 young people deemed at risk of suicide in Wapekeka, received specialized care outside of the community, reports APTN. Three weeks after she returned home, she was found dead at an outdoor ice rink by another 12-year-old, prompting Wapekeka to declare a state of emergency Tuesday. Following the January deaths, Health Canada set aside $380,000 annually to pay for four youth mental health workers in Wapekeka until 2019. But community leaders say the money has yet to arrive and they're still floundering. "We don't have enough personnel to keep watching people on a 24/7 basis that are at high risk. We try, but we just don't have the resources," Wapekeka band manager Joshua Frogg tells the CBC. He hopes the state of emergency will trigger an immediate response. In addition to mental health workers, Frogg says a health and safety plan should be in place for at-risk youth returning to Wapekeka. No such plan was in place for Jenera, he says, adding she was allowed to return home against the advice of a psychiatrist. (The problem isn't limited to Ontario.)
– About 30 million to 40 million American adults suffer from chronic pain—but it may be all in their heads, a new study says. Researchers looked at 40 volunteers, all back pain sufferers, and found that brain scans could predict with 85% accuracy whether their pain would become chronic. At issue is the emotional response to injury and the relationship between two brain regions, the nucleus accumbens and the frontal cortex, the Telegraph reports. When these brain regions—related to motivational and emotional behavior—get to talking, the odds increase that pain will become chronic, explains PsychCentral. ''The injury itself is not enough to explain the ongoing pain,” says the study's lead researcher. "It has to do with the injury combined with the state of the brain.'' But while brain scans did connect chronic pain to communication levels in the brain, they did not establish a causal link, notes Health Day News.
– When Otto Warmbier was returned from North Korea last week after being held for more than a year, he was in a state of "unresponsive wakefulness" but otherwise stable—until he died suddenly Monday. Now NBC News reports doctors are trying to figure out what happened. One expert says Warmbier's family may have decided not to treat a medical issue—such as pneumonia, or sepsis, or a urinary tract infection—given that Warmbier was unlikely ever to recover from his vegetative state. Another says Warmbier may have suffered a pulmonary embolism, with his long flight from North Korea making a blood clot more likely. Here's what else you need to know about Warmbier and North Korea following the 22-year-old's death: We should have more details on Warmbier's death late Tuesday or Wednesday when the coroner releases initial autopsy findings, Reuters reports. The Cavalier Daily reports the University of Virginia Student Council will hold a vigil for Warmbier at 9pm Tuesday on campus. "The thoughts and prayers of the University of Virginia Student Body are with the Warmbier family and all those who loved Otto," the council said in a statement. Warmbier's funeral will be held Thursday morning at Wyoming High School in Ohio, ABC News tweets. Despite Trump's apparent willingness to sit down with Kim Jong Un, experts say Warmbier's death dramatically reduces—if not outright kills—chances for an improved relationship between the US and North Korea. "There is going to be a lot of anger," the director of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies tells the New York Times. Time reports South Korean President Moon Jae-in condemned North Korea's "unjust and cruel treatment" of Warmbier without outright accusing its government of murder. "We cannot know for sure that North Korea killed Mr. Warmbier," Moon said. "But I believe it is quite clear that they have a heavy responsibility in the process that led to Mr. Warmbier's death."
– Econ majors, dust off those textbooks. If you can come up with the best way to help the euro zone through its current mess by the end of January, you earn $400,000. That's the reward being offered by British CEO Simon Wolfson as part of the Wolfson Economics Prize, reports Business Insider. More specifically, you have to spell out how one or more countries might leave the euro in orderly fashion. The contest is aimed at top-notch academics and economists but open to all. More details here. Or click here to see the judges you'll need to schmooze.
– Yet another person has died after putting her phone's safety ahead of her own. Jenna Betti, 14, was killed by a freight train on Sunday when she tried to retrieve a phone she had dropped on the tracks in Martinez, Calif., reports the San Francisco Chronicle. She had been sitting on the tracks with her boyfriend when the train approached. A rep for the railway says the conductor sounded a whistle as the train rounded a corner, and the crew did see the pair exit the tracks, reports the Contra Costa Times. Then "one of the individuals came back on the track." "She didn't judge the approach, and the train creates a vacuum, we were told, and it sucks you in," the eighth-grader's mother says. "We are beyond devastated." Adds her brother, "I can't really put myself in her shoes, but I think she wasn't really thinking, and didn't really think twice, and she just reacted and tried to get her phone as quick as she could." Family members and friends have left flowers at a growing memorial beside the tracks, reports ABC 7. Earlier this year, two men died after trying to retrieve a phone dropped in the Chicago River, and last week, a Texas man died after going back into a burning house for his phone.
– Turkey is hardening its stance against Syria, even as NATO meets today to discuss Syria's downing of a Turkish jet last week. Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned in an address to his parliament that Syrian troops would be considered an "open threat" if they come near his border, and spoke of his country's "rage" over the attack, the BBC reports. The deputy prime minister said that the incident will "not go unpunished," although he added that Turkey has "no intention" of going to war and wants to work "within a legal framework." Turkey has accused Syrian troops of also firing on a rescue plane searching for the missing pilots. Meanwhile, NATO's North Atlantic Council issued an official statement on the incident, condemning it as "unacceptable" and calling it "another example of the Syrian authorities' disregard for international norms, peace and security, and human life." Today's meeting marks only the second time NATO has convened under Article 4 of its charter, al-Jazeera notes. That article allows for a consultation whenever one party feels its "territorial integrity, political independence, or security" has been threatened, but does not necessarily call for an armed response. Turkey had earlier described the shootdown as a "hostile act" in a letter to the UN Security Council, and that body will discuss the incident today as well.
– Tired of the online dating world? Let your friends do the searching and swiping. So says Tina Wilson, a Londoner who found after a breakup that her friends were trying to play matchmaker, but that they didn't have any good tools to find someone for her online, reports Mashable. So she started her own, an app called Wingman, which works much like many dating apps but requires the participation of both the person who will be doing the dating and the friend who will be doing the deciding. The dater can't write his or her own profile or make his or her own connections with other potential daters—only the "wingman" can. The app has been up and running in the UK for a few years now, but is just being released in the US. In practice, at least so far, mostly women are doing the matchmaking, but there is a pretty even number of men and women daters. And having a friend involved serves as a confidence-booster, too, reports the Verge. Friends tend to write lovely, flattering profiles, and they are the ones to "absorb" the rejections that the person doing the dating will never have to see. One woman describes it being a real help when her mother and sister took the reigns after she moved to a new city and didn't know anyone. (Most of the 4,500 online dating sites and apps are tiny.)
– Earlier reports suggested that about 35 people, apparently migrants seeking work, had died of thirst in a Niger desert—but the remains of more than double that number have been discovered by rescue teams, reports the AP. The 92 highly decomposed bodies appeared to have been scavenged by jackals, rescue worker Almoustapha Alhacen says. At least 48 were children or teens, the BBC reports. The group, whose vehicle broke down, may have been heading for work in Algeria, Alhacen notes. The BBC notes that some 80,000 a year are thought to attempt a similarly dangerous journey across the Sahara, ultimately aiming for Europe.
– Actor Ed Skrein has left the upcoming Hellboy movie after news of his casting led to accusations of Hollywood whitewashing, Time reports. Skrein was hired to play the role of Major Ben Daimio, who is of Asian descent in the Hellboy comic books. News that Skrein had gotten the part caused an uproar on social media—yet another example, in many people's eyes, of Hollywood casting white actors to play non-white roles. Earlier this year, critics attacked the producers of Ghost in the Shell for casting Scarlett Johansson as a Japanese character, and last year's Doctor Strange sparked controversy when Tilda Swinton took a role depicted by an Asian male in the comic book of the same name, Variety reports. In a statement released Monday, Skrein, an English actor who has appeared in Deadpool and The Transporter Refueled, wrote that he was previously unaware the character was of Asian descent, and that "it is clear that representing this character in a culturally accurate way holds significance for people, and that to neglect this responsibility would continue a worrying tendency to obscure ethnic minority stories and voices in the Arts." Later that day, the film's producers released a statement supporting Skrein's "unselfish decision" and defending their own. "It was not our intent to be insensitive to issues of authenticity and ethnicity," the statement read, per the Hollywood Reporter, "and we will look to recast the part with an actor more consistent with the character in the source material."
– Everyone in the town of Larrimah is under investigation for the disappearance of Paddy Moriarty—and that means all 11 people. Authorities are poking around this dusty Australian pitstop after Moriarty, a day laborer, vanished along with his dog one night last December, the New York Times reports. Top suspects in the presumed homicide include a pie-maker Moriarty hated, a gardener he argued with, and a bartender with a nasty tongue. "He started abusing my customers, threatening tourists and scaring them away from [my] business," said meat-pie cook Fran Hodgetts at an inquest last month, per ABC News Australia. Moriarty, 70, lived across from her Tea House eatery and got upset when her customers parked on his land. Like all players in this drama, 75-year-old Hodgetts denies guilt—but says she warned her burly gardener, Owen Laurie, "not to do anything stupid" after he argued with Moriarty about his barking dog three days before the disappearance. Laurie, 71, warned Moriarity to quiet the dog "or I'll shut it up for you," per inquest testimony. Then there's former bartender Richard Simpson, one of the last residents to see Moriarty, who criticized the man but calls people who suspect Simpson "goddamn fools." Jokes are circulating about Moriarty ending up in Hodgetts' meat pies, or fed to a hefty crocodile kept in town, but so far investigators appear stumped. "There have been a lot of problems in that community," the detective in charge tells the Guardian. "But just because people argue doesn't mean they've gone out and killed him."
– FBI Director James Comey has waded into the controversy surrounding President Trump's claim that he was wiretapped by former President Obama last fall, the New York Times reports. Officials say Comey has asked the Justice Department to publicly reject Trump's explosive claim, both because he believes it's false and because he believes it suggests the FBI was engaged in illegal behavior. The Times' sources say senior FBI officials are also worried that if the public believes there was a court-approved Trump wiretap, they might expect them to find solid evidence of Russian interference in last year's election. In other coverage: The White House has demanded a congressional investigation of its claims, though lawmakers from both parties say they want more evidence to back up Trump's allegations, NBC News reports. "I've never heard that allegation made before by anybody," GOP Sen. Marco Rubio said Sunday. Key members of Congress say they will obey Trump's request, though the AP notes that any such investigation could be risky for Trump, since Democrats will have access to evidence, including any findings that could be damaging to the president. We "will follow the evidence where it leads, and we will continue to be guided by the intelligence and facts as we compile our findings," Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday. Politico has more on the "baffled" reaction of lawmakers to Trump's claims, with even some of the president's closest allies wary about discussing the allegations. The Washington Post says it interviewed 17 White House officials and others for a report on Trump's "fury" at leaks and other setbacks in the days surrounding his Obama accusation. The New York Times looks at how the accusation took around 36 hours to go from an "unfounded conspiratorial rant" on conservative talk radio to Trump's Twitter feed. Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey says he believes there may have been surveillance of Trump Tower, but he doesn't think Obama ordered it, the Hill reports. Mukasey, who served in the George W. Bush administration, told ABC's This Week that the Justice Department could have ordered a wiretap in the belief "that somebody in Trump Tower may have been acting as an agent of the Russians for whatever purpose."
– If you enjoy cringing and missed Cara Delevingne's brief interview with Good Day Sacramento last week, it's worth a watch. The actress/model was promoting her movie Paper Towns, and the interview didn't get off on a great foot: She was introduced as Carla, and the first thing she was asked was whether she had, you know, actually read the book the movie is based on. "No, I never read the book, or the script actually, I kind of winged it," she said. Sarcasm dropped, she went on to call the book "amazing" and author John Green "incredible." The interview didn't get much better from there, with questions about whether it's easier to focus because she doesn't have downtime and why she didn't seem excited during the interview, as well as the suggestion that she should "go take a little nap, maybe get a Red Bull." After it ended, the hosts riffed on how "woo-whee! She was in a mood." The interview grabbed headline after headline: "Cara Delevingne doesn't have necessary oomph for Good Day Sacramento" (AV Club) and "Cara Delevingne Did an Interview With a Sacramento News Station, and It Was a Hilarious Train Wreck" (Slate) are two examples. Delevingne addressed it yesterday, tweeting, "Some people just don't understand sarcasm or the British sense of humour." EW points out that Zach Braff then put it a little more pointedly: "@Caradelevingne or how it's condescending to ask an actress if she's read the book." (Delevigne says modeling isn't her true passion; here's what is.)
– A mixed martial arts teacher originally from the US found out his fate in Singapore last week for having sex with two 15-year-old girls—and thousands are decrying the punishment as not being nearly as punitive as it should be, the BBC reports. Nearly 29,000 people have signed on online petition calling for a harsher sentence for 39-year-old Joshua Robinson, who received a four-year prison sentence following the 2015 bust. The Straits Times says he pleaded guilty to charges of having sex with minors, as well as to showing an obscene film to a 6-year-old. Robinson's original arrest was for having sex with one of the girls, whom he met via a dating app, but when cops raided his apartment, they also found thousands of XXX-rated films, including one that showed him having sex with the second teen, whom he'd met a couple of years earlier. Sarah Woon, who started the petition and says she knows the family of the 6-year-old, says she finds it "absolutely intolerable" that Robinson only got four years, sans caning (which the BBC notes is a typical Singaporean punishment). The South China Morning Post reports the legal age of consent in the country is 16, and that the maximum sentence for consensual sexual intercourse with minors 14 and older is a fine and/or 10 years in prison. Prosecutors say they won't appeal the sentence because Robinson wasn't charged with rape or sexual assault, and because they said the girls had consented to the sex acts, but the country's home affairs minister said Wednesday that officials will be reviewing cases like Robinson's to determine if they should be "dealt with more severely through higher penalties." (Meanwhile, two guys who spray-painted a Singapore train got a caning sentence.)
– Stephen Colbert's long-awaited takeover of The Late Show took place last night, and the critics are weighing in. The overall consensus: He may not be David Letterman's clone, but that's probably not what we want anyway. The consensus is Colbert looks to be a solid addition to the late-night lineup. Some of the reviews: "It was good, it was very, very good," was the assessment of Robert Lloyd, who concedes for the Los Angeles Times that there were a "few small glitches and creaks," but that "you don't leave a great party complaining about a crack in the bowl the potato chips were in." He adds while Colbert shares certain traits with Letterman—"curiosity, intelligence, seriousness, a sense of the absurd, a speedy mind, a nose for phoniness"—he's also "less acerbic" and "less haunted." Lloyd Grove also points out discrepancies between Colbert ("the joyful jester") and Letterman ("the great cynic") for the Daily Beast, noting there "was nary a sour whiff of the world-weary psychic struggle, the undercurrent of self-flagellating insecurity, or the deep suspicion of human motives that fueled Letterman's comic genius." Instead, Colbert offered himself up as an "all-singing, all-dancing performer with a sweetly magnetic smile" and a knack for sending up the media (Donald Trump obsession was last night's target). What Grove didn't care for: some of the prepared skits he says fell flat. James Poniewozik writes for the New York Times that the show was built "around a vibe of smart fun and an urge to show off its host's many skills," including his interviewing acumen. "The host showed he had both fastballs and changeups in his repertoire," Poniewozik says of Colbert's back-and-forth with Jeb Bush, in which Colbert "refused to let [Bush] wiggle out with a joke answer" as to how he differs politically from brother George W. It would be both "stupid" and "amateur" to give Colbert a full-fledged review based on one show, Tim Goodman writes for the Hollywood Reporter, so he gives a "first impression." "This first night seemed like an amalgamation of every piece of Colbert" and "there were some nerves"—but "how could there not be?" he writes. "There were plenty of flashes of the wickedly smart and super-fast comedic intellect he's honed over the years. Did it all work? Of course not. But what I liked most was the feeling that Colbert was going to reveal a side of himself that he didn't get to show much on The Colbert Report or even The Daily Show." Check out Colbert looking back on Trump's best campaign moments yet.
– Architect Patrick Stewart's doctoral dissertation has 149 pages, 52,438 words, and, except for a few question marks, no punctuation. As Canada's National Post reports, it also isn't much concerned with things like capitalization, paragraphs, or formatting of any kind, really. But maybe the most remarkable thing about his thesis, called Indigenous Architecture through Indigenous Knowledge, is that despite all that, examiners at the University of British Columbia passed it unanimously. So make that Dr. Patrick Stewart. “I like to say that it’s one long, run-on sentence, from cover to cover,” the 61-year-old tells the newspaper. "There’s nothing in the (UBC dissertation) rules about formats or punctuation." Stewart belongs to indigenous Nisga'a First Nation, and he says his dissertation was a protest of the “the blind acceptance of English language conventions in academia.” A sample: “in my defense my style of writing is not laziness or lack of knowledge of proper usage of the english language it is a form of grammatical resistance as a deconstructionist" The dissertation caught the attention of Inside Higher Ed, while a Gawker post likens Stewart's style to that of a 19-year-old "who has only recently discovered ee cummings."
– If you watched Alana "Honey Boo Boo" Thompson on the Tonight Show last week, you saw what you've probably come to expect from her: a sassy little girl who refused to give Jimmy Fallon a friendship bracelet and showed off her cheerleading moves. But Christy O'Shoney attended the taping, and the parts of the interview that ended up on the cutting room floor reveal something far more disturbing: Alana has clearly had "a strange, tough childhood" that has left her "visibly troubled: disrespectful, defiant, entitled," O'Shoney writes on Salon. "Of course, with a bit of editing, 'disrespectful' becomes 'precocious,' 'defiant' becomes 'sassy,' and 'entitled' becomes 'confident.'" In real life, the friendship bracelet debacle went on forever and was "kind of agonizing," with Alana eventually becoming "openly hostile." There was also increasing tension between Alana and her mother, "Mama June"—and just before the cheerleading moment, that tension culminated with Alana hitting her mom. "NEVER hit your mother!" Fallon exclaimed. Yet Alana was essentially rewarded with pom-poms as the audience was forced to go along with her cheer. The same selective editing is likely happening on Alana's reality show—and because we see her as a "spunky little cherub," that's how she probably sees herself. But "from where I was sitting, Honey Boo Boo—let’s not mince words—was a tiny, dimpled monster," O'Shoney writes, and the world would be doing her a favor if we let her grow up offscreen. Click for the full column.
– Some excerpts from today's speeches at the Lincoln Memorial honoring the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, from CNN, the AP, and NBC News. President Obama: "His words belong to the ages, possessing a power and prophecy unmatched in our time. We remember how he gave mighty voice to the quiet hopes of millions." Obama added: "Because they kept marching, America changed. Because they marched, the civil rights law was passed. Because they marched, a voting rights law was signed. Because they marched, city councils changed and state legislatures changed and Congress changed and, yes, eventually, the White House changed." Bill Clinton: "It is time to stop complaining and put our shoulders against the stubborn gates holding the American people back." Jimmy Carter: "I believe we all know how Dr. King would have reacted to the new ID requirements to exclude certain voters, especially African-Americans. I think we all know how Dr. King would have reacted to the Supreme Court striking down a crucial part of the Voting Rights Act just recently passed overwhelmingly by Congress." Rep. John Lewis: "We have come a great distance ... but there are still invisible signs, barriers in the hearts of humankind that form a gulf between us." Oprah Winfrey: "We, too, can be courageous by continuing to walk in the footsteps of the path that he forged." Also today, about 300 churches and schools around the world were ringing their bells at 3pm local time to commemorate the anniversary. A Gallup poll finds that 60% of African Americans think a white person is more likely to get a job over a black person even if they're equally qualified. Only 39% say blacks and whites have an equal chance in such cases.
– Factor this into the 2012 political calculus: Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniel says he will sign a bill that defunds Planned Parenthood and puts in place strict anti-abortion measures, reports the Indianapolis Star. Daniels, who promises to announce soon whether he's running for president, will make Indiana the first state to strip Planned Parenthood of Medicaid funds. Planned Parenthood of Indiana—which says no tax dollars have ever been used for abortions, as per federal law—plans to sue. The group would lose $2 million of the $3 million it gets in federal funds—Indiana can pull the plug only on the $2 million that gets funneled through the state but has no control over the $1 million that Planned Parenthood gets directly from the feds, explains CBS. “Any organization affected by this provision can resume receiving taxpayer dollars immediately by ceasing or separating its operations that perform abortions," said Daniels. The decision should shore up his reputation among social conservatives, who grew angry with him last year when he called for a "truce" on social issues, notes Politico.
– President Obama is unleashing the latest attack on Mitt Romney's taxes, following the candidates' dueling appearances on 60 Minutes last night, referencing his 47% comments as well as questions over his own tax rate. "Maybe instead of attacking others on taxes, he should come clean on his," intones the ad, which the AP notes begins airing today in Ohio. Highlights from 60 Minutes: Taxes were in the spotlight during Romney's interview, as he defended his own 14.1% tax rate, Politico reports. It's the "right way to encourage economic growth—to get people to invest, to start businesses, to put people to work," he said. Romney also discussed health care, pointing out that an uninsured heart attack victim isn't left to "sit in their apartment and die." Instead, there's the ER: "We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care." Interesting, notes the Huffington Post, because Romney said the opposite on Morning Joe in 2010: "Look, it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to have millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility." Obama was similarly on the defensive, notes the Los Angeles Times, as he responded to Romney's suggestion he's been weak on defense. If the former governor "is suggesting that we should start another war, he should say so," Obama said. The president acknowledged the frustrations of his job, Politico adds. His "biggest disappointment": not changing "the tone in Washington." "I’m the first one to confess that the spirit that I brought to Washington, where we weren’t constantly in a political slugfest but were focused more on problem-solving ... I haven’t fully accomplished that," he said.
– The death of 47-year-old oil heir Andrew Getty doesn't appear to have been the result of foul play, the Los Angeles Times reports. An LAPD spokesman says that while it's "very, very early in the investigation ... this does not appear immediately to be a criminal act." Instead, LA coroner's rep Ed Winter tells the AP Getty's death was from natural causes, though it's being called accidental due to prescription meds found in the home. Getty was apparently "not feeling good for the last couple months, and he supposedly had an appointment [today] with a personal physician," Winter says. A law enforcement source tells the Times that Getty's body was discovered naked from the waist down and that he suffered blunt-force trauma, though it's not clear if that was from a fall. Getty's body was found in his Hollywood Hills home yesterday by a woman officials call a "friend;" she's reportedly cooperating as a witness, per the Times. Court papers show Getty sought a restraining order against a woman two weeks ago. TMZ has a decidedly darker take: Police tell the site they're considering Getty's death as happening "under suspicious circumstances," and the woman is said to be Getty's ex-girlfriend, who's been involved in some of 30-plus domestic-disturbance incidents at Getty's house; cops say both were frequently observed on drugs. TMZ sources say she's the same woman in Getty's restraining order and that she's been accused of breaking into his home. Toxicology reports could take up to 10 weeks, per the AP.
– The Taliban is using child sex slaves as Trojan Horses to destroy Afghanistan's police forces from within, AFP reports. "Bacha bazi" is an ancient custom of having sex with young boys, and it's rampant among police commanders, for whom "boys without beards" are "objects of lustful attraction." A judge calls the police force's use of young boys as sex slaves an "addiction worse than opium," with many officers more willing to give up policing than their boys. It's an addiction the Taliban has proved willing to exploit. "The Taliban are sending boys—beautiful boys, handsome boys—to penetrate checkpoints and kill, drug, and poison policemen," says a former police chief, who calls bacha bazi the "biggest weakness of police forces." Officials say the Taliban has killed hundreds of police officers in this way over the past two years. There were at least six such attacks between January and April alone. One former police officer recalls a young sex slave opening fire in the middle of the night, killing seven other officers. The boys—between the ages of 12 and 15—are often abducted from playgrounds to be sex slaves, the poorer the better, RT reports. Many of them see the Taliban as the only escape from their police abusers. Bacha bazi, which was banned under Taliban rule, is not seen as pedophilia or homosexuality, which is illegal in Afghanistan. The director of Child Soldiers International blames the practice partly on the limited access to women in Afghan society. The Pentagon launched an investigation in February after long ignoring reports from soldiers.
– Dr. Robert Lustig has studied childhood obesity for 16 years and cross-analyzed numerous studies to come to a not-so-sweet conclusion: Sugar should be thought of along the same lines as tobacco, cocaine, or alcohol, he told the Guardian in August. Now Lustig is a member of a 12-scientist team working on SugarScience, a University of California-San Francisco initiative that hopes to showcase reputable studies on added sugars and how they impact health, a UCSF news article reports. The SugarScience group has already reviewed more than 8,000 papers and found evidence to support Lustig's previous assertions, linking excess sugar consumption to such chronic diseases as Type 2 diabetes and liver and heart disease. Laura Schmidt, the initiative's lead researcher, told the Chicago Tribune in December that the point of the project is to make these findings accessible to the public through its website and social media. The average American consumes 19.5 teaspoons of added sugar a day, significantly higher than what the American Heart Association recommends (6 teaspoons for women, 9 teaspoons for men, and 3 to 6 teaspoons for kids, according to UCSF). Schmidt notes that added sugars show up in 74% of all packaged foods and appear under at least 60 different names, making them hard to find on food labels. Though some have said that calling sugar a poison is high-fructose hyperbole—a 2013 Scientific American article noted that "many worrying fructose studies use unrealistic doses" of sugar and that rodents used as subjects process it differently than humans—not many are disputing we should eat less of it. The FDA is considering expanding its food labels to include an "Added Sugars" category to help consumers keep their sugar intake in check. (The WHO says just 5% of your calories should be from sugar.)
– The Papa John of Papa John's is stepping down as CEO of the pizza chain effective Jan. 1, CNN reports. Papa John's founder John Schnatter will stay on as chairman, the company said Thursday. No reason for Schnatter's changing role was given, but the company said he will be pursuing "his personal passion for entrepreneurship, leadership development, and education," according to Bloomberg. Schnatter will be replaced by Papa John's chief operating officer Steve Ritchie, who started at the company in 1996 as a customer-service rep making $6 an hour. Business Insider reports Schnatter, who owns about 25% of Papa John's, previously left his position in 2005 amid declining sales only to come back three years later. Not only are Papa John's sales once again declining—stock is down more than 30% this year—but the pizza chain has found itself embroiled in controversy. In November, Schnatter blamed declining sales on football players protesting the treatment of black Americans during the national anthem and the NFL not doing more to stop them. That led to an apology from the company two weeks later, but not before white supremacist website the Daily Stormer mused about Papa John's being the "official pizza of the alt-right." In response, the chain had to clarify that it didn't want "hate groups" for customers.
– TMZ has a theory on the ridiculous hairstyle Tom Brady was sporting last night at the Met Costume Institute Gala: It must have been Gisele Bundchen's idea. Or perhaps what People describes as "a freshly slicked semi faux hawk that slanted to the right" is just the kind of fashion statement one believes he can make when accompanied by a supermodel. Click for more less-than-flattering looks from the red carpet, with extra snark from the Daily Mail and The Frisky. (See The Frisky for even more looks, from the "totally WTF" to the "borrrrrring.")
– A new strain of the drug-resistant "superbug" MRSA has been found in British cows, and it appears to be spreading to people. The strain, identified in cows' milk by researchers studying udder infections, is genetically very different from the dozens of other strains of superbug identified, reports the BBC. Pasteurization kills the bug so milk drinkers shouldn't worry, the researchers say, but farm workers could be at risk of becoming carriers of the infection and could conceivably pass it on to others. Illnesses that cross the species barrier can be particularly lethal. Finding a new MRSA strain in both humans and cows is "very worrying," said one of the researchers who discovered the phenomenon. Environmental groups say the discovery of the bug shows that the problem of antibiotic overuse at farms needs to be addressed, the Guardian notes. "Dairy systems are becoming ever more antibiotic-dependent," the director of the Soil Association says. "We need to get farmers off this treadmill, even if that means that milk has to cost a few pennies more."
– Dior has taken a public hit—and buckled a little under the pressure—after featuring Jennifer Lawrence in an ad for a collection celebrating Mexican culture, the Hill reports. Critics say the French fashion house should have used a Mexican actress for a collection about Mexican horsewomen known as escaramuzas. "Sooooooooo, #Dior & #JenniferLawrence wanna celebrate traditional Mexican women ... by having a rich white woman named Jennifer be the face of this campaign?!" writes Phoebe Robinson, co-host of the HBO show 2 Dope Queens, on Instagram. "The audacity to call this ... modern because it's worn by a white woman is ignorant and gross, but unfortunately, not surprising." Some commenters on Dior's Instagram page were also pretty upset, per USA Today. "There are plenty of non-white models that could have modeled this beautifully without being appropriated! #dobetter," wrote one. Adding to the cultural-appropriation charge, the Dior photo shoot was done in California rather than Mexico. "I can't think of a better landscape to highlight this collection," said Lawrence in a video on the brand's social media. But Dior fired back: "This has nothing to do with Jennifer and the backlash, which is not at all justified," a rep tells Fox News. "Also, Dior is working with Mexican photographers and commissioned eight Mexican women photographers to shoot in Mexico..." Apropos, the fashion giant has now removed Lawrence's video from social media and replaced her pics with images of other models shot in Mexico by female Mexican photogs. (Is it fair to criticize female celebs for "flaunting" their bodies on the beach?)
– Newly released WikiLeaks cables illustrate the complex relationship between Washington and longtime ally President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, the New York Times reports. The diplomatic cables reveal that the US has privately pressured Egypt on imprisoned dissidents and other issues, though the two governments’ public relationship has improved under President Obama. The cables detail the first year of Obama’s presidency and show the two countries working together, with Mubarak a key supporter of the US against Iran; a mediator between Israel and Palestine; and a backer of Iraq’s new government. But they also detail US concerns: one from the American ambassador to Egypt points to “heavy-handed tactics against individuals and groups” during 2008’s bread riots, MSNBC notes.
– Kim Kardashian and Kanye West want a third child, despite the fact that Kim has a health condition that would make another pregnancy too risky. So, according to TMZ, the couple has hired a surrogate through an agency. Sources have confirmed the story to other outlets, including People and E!. Per TMZ, Kardashian and West will pay the surrogate $45,000, plus more for each additional child if there are multiples and still more should the surrogate lose any reproductive organs during the process. The contract also has a number of stipulations for the surrogate, including the requirement that she not dye her hair, change cat litter, or drink more than one caffeinated beverage per day while pregnant.
– A day after Algeria said it had wrapped up its mission to free hostages held by militants at a desert gas facility, the situation remains anything but wrapped up. By most accounts, dozens of hostages are still being held, with an unspecified number of Americans among them. Some developments: New demands: A news agency in Mauritania reports that the al-Qaeda-linked militants will release American hostages if the US frees two convicted terrorists, reports USA Today. The two are "blind sheik" Omar Abdel-Rahman, mastermind of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, and Aafia Siddiqui, a female Pakistani scientist convicted of trying to kill US soldiers and FBI agents while in custody. Revised numbers: The Algerian government's latest figures say that 132 foreign workers were originally abducted, far higher than thought, and that about 100 have since been freed, reports AP. Hostages' ordeals: Some of those freed have described having explosives strapped to their chests and witnessing the executions of other hostages, reports the New York Times.
– The manhunt is over. Police caught Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev tonight after finding him hiding in a boat in a Watertown backyard, reports WCVB. Tsarnaev was taken by ambulance to a hospital; the AP reports that he is in serious condition. Multiple gunshots were heard at the scene of his arrest earlier this evening, preceding a standoff of about two hours. The developments began shortly after police wrapped up a late-afternoon news conference to say the 19-year-old was still at large. NBC News spoke with a relative of the resident who found Tsarnaev, and the story is a wild one: In the relative's telling, the man was having a cigarette outside when he saw that the boat's tarp was loose; he went to fix it, saw a person and bloody clothes inside the boat, "freaked out," and called police. Helicopters used thermal imaging to confirm Tsarnaev's presence. Some other developments and revelations: “All in all, this has been a tough week, but we have seen the character of our country once more,” said President Obama after the arrest. "Tonight our nation is in debt to the people of Boston and the people of Massachusetts." Politico has more details on his comments. The FBI took two men and a woman in for questioning from a house in New Bedford, but it's not clear how serious it is. A police lieutenant says Tsarnaev may have lived in the off-campus home at some point, reports AP. Authorities lifted the "shelter in place" advisory for residents of Boston, with public transportation now open again. Dzhokhar ran over his wounded brother Tamerlan in his haste to escape last night's shootout with police, reports the Globe. Tamerlan was killed, as was one officer; another officer was wounded. One notable revision: Authorities say neither of the brothers robbed a 7-11 store in Cambridge as police previously reported. A 7-11 did get robbed, but not by them, a store exec tells USA Today. "The police or someone made a mistake. Someone was confused." Tamerlan died wearing explosives and a triggering device, CNN reports. One local auto shop owner tells the Wall Street Journal that Dzhokhar, a regular customer, came to him on Tuesday and said he needed his car "right now." The mechanic protested that the bumper and tail lights weren't on it, but Dzhokhar took it anyway. "I think he probably knew something was going to happen."
– Amazon's got a host of new gadgets on the way. Founder Jeff Bezos today announced the Kindle Fire HD, an upgraded tablet that comes in two sizes, starting at $199, USA Today reports. "We were happy last year to have the best tablet at a certain price. This year we want to have the best tablet at any price," Bezos said. The tablet is available in a 7-inch version, an 8.9-inch version, and an 8.9-inch 4G LTE version, notes the Verge. The larger machine offers a 1920x1200, 254 ppi display. Meanwhile, the original Kindle Fire is getting an update—and a price drop, to $159. Finally, there's the Paperwhite, a new e-reader. It offers a front-lit screen that's sharper than its predecessors, and comes in a $119 Wi-Fi version and a $179 3G model. According to Bezos, it's "thinner than a magazine, lighter than a paperback," reports the Verge. And sorry, there's no smartphone in sight.
– Apparently Tinder's requirement that users swipe left to reject a profile and right to make a connection is just too demanding, prompting two 24-year-olds fresh out of the University of Southern Florida to unleash a new bot, called Casanova, to do the heavy lifting for you. Users let Casanova play pickup artist, connecting to one's Tinder account, scanning profiles, and sending introductory messages to potential flings—sometimes using funny lines, sometimes romantic ones, all depending on the type of profile Casanova judges the user to be, reports Bay News 9. "When we came up with this one, we were, like, 'This one's ready to go,'" Alex Kessler tells the Daily Dot. "This has to get done. I don't even care if it makes money, it's so awesome." He and his buddy Paul Terentev decided to arm their bot with the kind of unfettered enthusiasm they felt most Tinder users lacked (both men and women can use Casanova, reports the Tampa Bay Business Journal), casting a wide net to as many potential dates as possible in one's physical area over a 20-minute period and sending messages to any matches. Example: "You're too pretty for Tinder. What are you doing here?" The goal? Get as many phone numbers as quickly as possible, and then let the Tinder user take the reins. Apparently Tinder as a program cannot distinguish Casanova from real users, and the bot's founders say they're hoping to eventually set it loose on other services, like Match.com. (Check out the Tinder CEO's painfully candid interview from earlier this year.)
– If she ever abandons acting, Kristen Stewart might have a gig in artificial intelligence. The Twilight actress has just published a research paper on a machine learning technique called "neural style transfer" and its use in film, reports Quartz. Style transfer is a "fun technique," according to Tech Crunch, though it's a bit complicated to explain. Essentially, an algorithm is used to apply the style of one thing to something else. In this case, Stewart—with help from Starlight Studios producer David Shapiro and Adobe research engineer Bhautik J Joshi—sought to transfer the look of one of her own paintings to scenes from her short film Come Swim. Using computer programs known as neural networks, the group was able to add "blocks of color and texture" to a test frame until it matched the look of the painting, which depicts "a man rousing from sleep," reports the Verge. Once they had achieved the look they wanted on the test frame, they applied the same technique to the opening and closing scenes of Come Swim, described as "a poetic, impressionistic portrait of a heartbroken man underwater," which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Thursday, per the Guardian. The Verge notes you might have used this same technique yourself: Facebook introduced a style transfer filter last year.
– President Trump's Oval Office argument with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi was the talk of the town on Tuesday, and on Wednesday the president picked up where he left off. Trump took to Twitter to continue his push for border-wall funding, this time trying to bolster his argument by citing a mass shooting Tuesday at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France. Politico notes the attack was located near the France-Germany border. Trump tweeted, "Another very bad terror attack in France. We are going to strengthen our borders even more. Chuck and Nancy must give us the votes to get additional Border Security!" Then, in a second tweet, "The Democrats and President Obama gave Iran 150 Billion Dollars and got nothing, but they can’t give 5 Billion Dollars for National Security and a Wall?" Senators are currently willing to approve $1.6 billion in funding for border security, though that money couldn't be put toward wall construction. As for Trump's $150 billion figure, it's a reference to the amount of frozen assets Iran got access to when sanctions were lifted as part of the nuclear deal; Politico reports then-Treasury Secretary Jack Lew calculated a lower impact of $56 billion. (The suspect in the Strasbourg attack may have already fled France.)
– The giant Rim fire near Yosemite National Park has now scorched an area the size of Chicago and is still growing, but firefighters are making steady progress. Officials say the fire is now around 20% contained and the 3,700 firefighters battling it are gaining ground as the blaze climbs out of steep ravines. "The fire will burn until the snow flies," a park ranger tells the Los Angeles Times. "But today, we finally had a chance to box it in." Only around 2% of the park itself has burned and though more of it will burn, authorities have vowed to do everything in their power to protect the iconic Yosemite Valley. The fire has been raining ash on the reservoir that supplies San Francisco with most of its water, but officials say it has not sunk as far as the intake valves and the city's supply should not be affected, the AP reports. As crews continue to bulldoze firebreaks and burn vegetation in the fire's path, biologists are beginning to assess the blaze's effect on wildlife. Bald eagle nests in the area are being monitored, and a group of endangered turtles has been found stranded near where their marshy habitat burned. "We're hoping to deliver some water to those turtles," a Forest Service biologist says. "We might also drag some brush in to give them cover."
– Donald Trump apparently thinks that the future presidential plane could tone it down a little. "Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!" the president-elect tweeted Tuesday morning. Asked about the tweet later that morning in New York, Trump elaborated, "The plane is totally out of control. I think it's ridiculous. I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money but not that much money." Two Boeing 747-8 planes are planned to replace the two current Air Force planes used for presidential transportation, reportedly going into service between 2020 and 2024. The Air Force has previously said $1.65 billion is earmarked for the jets, though CNNMoney reports the USAF has allocated $2.9 billion for them and the AP puts the contract figure at $3 billion so far with "costs rising." Boeing got an initial $25.8 million contract from the Air Force in January. The Week reports that Boeing's stock "immediately dropped" upon news of Trump's tweet breaking, though that figure was modest. Boeing's only response so far, to the AP: "We are going to have to get back to you after we figure out what's going on."
– President Obama is postponing his already delayed overseas trip as the health care push nears crunch time. The president wants to be in town for an expected vote this weekend, probably Sunday. He phoned the leaders of Indonesia, Australia, and Guam to let them know the trip's been pushed back to June, says Robert Gibbs. "The president is determined to see this battle through," said the White House press chief. Now that preliminary CBO figures are out—the cost is pegged at $940 billion over the next decade, reports the Washington Post—the health care bill will be posted online later today. A 72-hour period for public comment would set up a vote by mid-day Sunday at the earliest, notes Talking Points Memo.
– Justin Trudeau has posed for countless selfies in the 11 months since he became Canada's prime minister—including one with a man security experts say shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near him. A man who appears in a selfie with Trudeau taken in Montreal last December is being investigated by the Mounties amid accusations he was part of a group that kidnapped an American journalist in Syria in 2013, report La Presse and the Toronto Star. The man, who allegedly joined with the al-Qaeda-affilated Nusra Front, is believed to be on a US no-fly list and his home was raided a few months before the Trudeau photo, reports the CBC. The man has not been charged with any crime and sources say he publicly renounced radical Islam after returning to Canada in late 2013. Still, analysts say the selfie raises serious questions about both Trudeau's security and the monitoring of terror suspects. "We have a prime minister who is very open. But a guy like this should not have been able to get so close," former terrorism investigator Paul Laurier tells La Presse. "I don’t want to blame the work that was done, but it shows that there is no surveillance on this individual, that the people around the prime minister were not warned."
– Stephen Colbert is pressing the joke: He announced tonight that he's exploring a presidential run in South Carolina, reports Politico. He even turned over control of his beloved super PAC to, yes, Jon Stewart to make it legal. “I am proud to announce that I am forming an exploratory committee to lay the groundwork for my possible candidacy for president of the United States of America of South Carolina,” Colbert said. (The show airs later tonight.) Colbert had floated the possibility on last night's show, after noting that he's polling above Jon Huntsman in the state. If he goes through with it, he'd have to be a write-in candidate because he missed the filing deadline, notes the New York Times. "The stunt was part of Colbert’s continuing effort to expose what he considers absurdities in US election law," writes Politico's Mike Allen, who was a guest on the show.
– Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" came out in 1975, but it just earned a new honor. The song passed 1.6 billion global streams, according to label Universal Music Group, making it the most streamed song out of the 20th century. The count includes streams on Spotify, Apple Music, and similar services, as well as views on YouTube, reports Billboard. "Very happy that our music is still flowing to the max!" says guitarist Brian May. "Bohemian Rhapsody," included on the album A Night at the Opera, made its third appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 chart last month thanks to the release of a Freddie Mercury biopic. As the Guardian notes, you're sure to recognize other tracks rounding out the top five:
– Facing widespread protests amid 21.3% unemployment, Spain’s ruling Socialist party suffered a resounding defeat at the hands of conservatives yesterday—reportedly the party's worst-ever performance in local and regional elections. The conservative People's Party took 38% of the vote at the municipal level, compared with 28% for the Socialists, who lost control of Seville and Barcelona; they've controlled the latter since 1979, reports Bloomberg. “It is reasonable to expect that the Socialist party be punished today at the polls. We accept this and we understand it,” said PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. But it doesn’t mean he’ll set an earlier date for general elections, he said; they’re due by next March, the AP reports.
– Thousands of visitors are swarming to beaches in South Florida, but not the kind welcomed by the chamber of commerce: sharks. Their annual migration up the East Coast is taking place later than usual this year, coinciding with the start of spring break season, reports ABC News. Several beaches had to close earlier this week, reports the Palm Beach Post, though all were back open as of today. Researchers at Florida Atlantic University have counted 15,000 sharks so far, most within 200 yards of shore. The most common are blacktip and spinner sharks, about 4 to 5 feet long. But it's not all gloom and doom: "The sharks are drawing attention for their natural showmanship, as well," writes Patrik Jonsson at the Christian Science Monitor. "They're often seen making spinning jumps out of the water. And thanks to the clear water and white sands of south Florida, they're easy to spot and view, especially for lifeguards from their elevated chairs."
– The latest issue of Rolling Stone hits the newsstands today, bearing the smiling face of Barack Obama. The interview within is exhaustive, though it mainly treads familiar ground—as the writer, historian Douglas Brinkley notes, "excessive caution is a survival trait" in today's gaffe-driven campaign culture. Some highlights came out yesterday, and the full interview is now available. Here's a taste of what the president said: In one answer that's already got people talking, Obama was asked about Paul Ryan's "obsession" with Ayn Rand. Obama said he had read Rand's work. "Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we'd pick up. Then, as we got older, we realize that a world in which we're only thinking about ourselves … that's a pretty narrow vision." Asked if a Romney win would doom Roe v. Wade, Obama replied, "I don't think there's any doubt." On whether financial reform went far enough: "I've looked at some of Rolling Stone's articles that say, 'This didn't go far enough, we didn't institute Glass-Steagall' and so forth, and I pushed my economic team very hard on some of those questions." But Glass-Steagall wouldn't have prevented the meltdown. "The problem in today's financial sector can't be solved simply by reimposing models that were created­ in the 1930s." On Romney's debate policy flips: "What I think happened is that we won the battle of ideas during the course of the last year," forcing Romney to "fuzz up those positions." What did he think when he saw Romney's 47% video? "It's an indication of a story that Republicans have been telling themselves for a while, at least a sizable portion." Obama often talks about giving people a "fair shake." Brinkley asked if that might become his "new deal"-esque legacy. "I'd be comfortable with that, and hearing it from a historian, it sounds pretty good to me." For the full interview, click here.
– The Senate Intelligence Committee stepped up its investigation of alleged Russian meddling in last year's election Wednesday and subpoenaed former national security adviser Michael Flynn. A Senate historian tells NBC News that this is the first time the Intelligence Committee has used its subpoena power since the congressional investigation of the 9/11 attacks. Committee leaders Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican, and Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat, say the committee asked Flynn for documents they believe are relevant to the investigation of alleged Russian links. A day earlier, Burr described a subpoena as the "most severe" of the options on the table. The committee issued the legal order after Flynn's attorneys said they wouldn't cooperate with the investigation unless he was granted immunity from prosecution, sources tell Politico. Burr and Warner say Flynn was asked to voluntarily turn over the documents April 28 but declined. Former Trump adviser Carter Page has also been asked to provide documents. The subpoena was issued a day after Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, a move that Burr said makes the committee's work "a little bit more difficult," but not impossible, the Washington Post reports. "The timing of this and the reasoning for it doesn’t make any sense to me," Burr said of Comey's firing.
– "NEW RECORDS SET FOR THE DAY, MONTH AND ALL TIME!" tweeted the Bay Area National Weather Service Friday. And what a record San Francisco's was: The city recorded a temp of 106 degrees Fahrenheit, up three degrees over the previous all-time record set on June 14, 2000, and significantly higher than the city's previous record for Sept. 1: 90 degrees Fahrenheit, which was recorded in 1950, reports the AP. The temperature was only 10 degrees below the highest temperature recorded in America on Friday, notes the NWS, with Death Valley hitting 116 degrees. And the San Francisco Chronicle pointed out that even "those desert-dwelling folks at Burning Man" had a much cooler day, experiencing temperatures of about 94 degrees. A break is coming for San Francisco, but not the region. The AP reports temperatures could be in excess of 110 on Saturday in Sacramento, with areas inland from the San Francisco Bay Area potentially notching 115, a temperature last recorded in 1950. San Francisco, however, will see a return to its cool-and-foggy normal, with a huge temperature drop into the 80s expected, followed by days in the 70s. The National Weather Service has attributed the heat wave to high pressure over the West, and sees more heat in the cards when remnants of Tropical Storm Lidia move north from Mexico's Baja California over the weekend. (Death Valley recorded a brutal heat milestone in August.)
– Meredith Mandel paid $19 for an early morning Uber ride in Brooklyn. Later, Mandel, who had shared the ride with her boyfriend and friend, discovered that an additional $200 fee had been tacked onto the fare, recounts Gothamist. The extra money was given directly to the driver to pay to have puke cleaned out of his car, Uber customer service told Mandel, providing a photo of the purported vomit. The driver, the rep added, recalled that Mandel and the others were drunk. The only problem is that Mandel says neither she nor her fellow passengers threw up during the Feb. 21 ride from a restaurant to the trio's respective apartments. And, she says, they weren't drunk. "I was infuriated," Mandel tells the website, "because I realized that it actually is a scam." Among other things, she noticed that the alleged barf was in the front of the car's cabin, but Mandel and company had been in the back, and it was conveniently confined to easy-to-clean surfaces. Gothamist notes that similar questionable fees have surfaced before. In Tampa, Uber fired a driver after multiple passengers complained about being charged for throw-up that they never threw up, reports WFLA. In West Hollywood, a woman was charged $100 for bodily fluid cleanup after getting into an Uber car while wet from a rainstorm, CBS reports. Other instances have been documented on Reddit. Geez, wonders Fortune, "How far will someone go for a couple hundred bucks?" Ultimately, Uber refunded Mandel's money. (Some Uber drivers are distracting drunk riders with a relic of the 1990s.)
– He may hate 9-9-9, but Rick Perry is all in favor of a national flat tax. The Texas governor announced today that he will propose one as part of his economic plan next week, reports the Weekly Standard. “I want to make the tax code so simple that even Timothy Geithner can file his taxes on time,” said Perry. He offered no details on how the tax would work in his address to the Western Republican Conference, but he said the overall plan also would call for a balanced budget amendment, entitlement reform, the abolishment of earmarks, and more energy exploration. Perry recently enlisted Steve Forbes as an adviser, notes the New York Times, the same Steve Forbes who pushed for a flat tax on income in his 1996 run for the presidency. Perry didn't mention Mitt Romney in his brief speech, but he clearly had him in mind after their testy debate last night. "I am not the candidate of the establishment," he said. "You won’t hear a lot of shape-shifting nuance from me."
– The mystery of the "lion" on the loose in Essex, England, may have been solved: Ginny Murphy says the fearsome creature spotted by locals was probably just her cat, Teddy Bear. She tells the BBC that her Maine Coon cat is a regular in the town's fields where the alleged lion was spotted. You be the judge: The BBC has an image of the "lion" as snapped by quivering locals. The couple who took the photo maintain that they "still don't think it was a domestic cat."
– Houston police say the youngest son of longtime congressman John Conyers has been found safe after being reported missing this week. Carl Conyers, a 21-year-old student at the University of Houston, was found early Friday in his off-campus apartment, reports Click2Houston. After being interviewed at the police department, he was released to his family. Few other details were released. Conyers had been the subject of a search after police said he was last seen Tuesday by his roommate, reports AP. Girlfriend Daisha Lewis, also a student at U of H, said she was supposed to meet him on campus Wednesday, but he never showed. When she and friends checked his apartment, they found it in disarray. But "he left everything in his apartment," said Conyers' mother. "His cellphone, computer and laptop and the car is still there." Friends were also concerned because he'd shaved his beard, which they described as unusual behavior. John Conyers is a Detroit Democrat who was first elected to Congress in 1964 and is its longest-serving member.
– A French soldier shot and seriously wounded a man in a shopping mall beneath the Louvre Museum on Friday after he tried to attack a patrol and shouted "Allahu akbar," officials say. The man was carrying two backpacks and had two machetes, and when soldiers and police officers on patrol told the man that he couldn't come in with his bags, he attacked, a police union official says, per the AP. "That's when he got the knife out and that's when he tried to stab the soldier," he says. A soldier opened fire and the man was struck five times, once in the stomach, Paris Police Chief Michel Cadot says. The backpacks didn't contain any explosives, he says. One of the soldiers was slightly wounded on the scalp. Cadot says the suspect's "comments lead us to believe that he wished to carry out a terrorist incident," the Guardian reports. The French interior ministry says that anti-terrorism prosecutors are investigating the Louvre attack, but there are still no details about the identity of the attacker. Police have sealed off entrances around where the attack took place and closed the area to vehicles, snarling traffic in a busy part of central Paris. The situation is mainly calm, with confused tourists being gently shooed away by officers. Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet says that a second person also was arrested, but it's unclear whether that person was linked to the attack. Brandet says about 1,000 people who were inside the actual museum during the attack were held inside in safe areas.
– Some of the world's most expensive tea is grown in Darjeeling, India, but only sold to large tea houses in private weekly auctions. Next month, that 150-year-old tradition will come to an end. For the first time, Darjeeling tea will be sold online in new pan-India e-auctions beginning June 21, reports the Economic Times. India has been auctioning tea online since 2008, but Darjeeling tea has never been included, per Quartz. India's commerce secretary says "the new system will help in better price recovery," as an April crop loss caused prices to jump 15%. Anyone who registers with one of seven auction centers will be eligible to bid, but be sure to have your checkbook ready. "The teas are very fine and the bidding prices can shoot up very quickly," a tea estate manager says. "It involves a lot of money." A kilogram of Darjeeling tea sold for $1,850 in 2014. That means a single cup would've cost close to $10, reports Metro. Average prices, however, range from $8 to $9 per kilogram. Some 200 tea traders are protesting the new system over fears that it will crush small buyers, reports Bihar Prabha.
– A Texas girl who's been fighting uncontrollable hunger linked to brain-tumor surgery recently got bad news: Her tumor is back. A routine MRI spotted the regrowth in Alexis Shapiro, 13, in October, People reports. "She pulled her shirt up over her mouth, eyes watering, and said, 'I don't want to gain weight again,'" mom Jenny Shapiro recounted to People at the time. As Today explains, it was the 2011 surgery to remove the craniopharyngioma that damaged her hypothalamus and led to her hypothalamic obesity. "Alexis was so scared," Shapiro tells People of the tumor's return. "She did not want another surgery." But the 13-year-old, who gained 150 pounds over a two-and-a-half year stretch before undergoing two gastric surgeries, has found an alternative: a proton radiation study through St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Unlike typical chemo, it's "more precise and may be used to deliver a potentially higher dose of radiation to the tumor with fewer side effects," says St. Jude's website. "I'm so thankful we decided to not just have surgery," wrote Shapiro on Facebook last month alongside a photo of the mask Alexis wears during her treatments. Shapiro tells People they have an 80% chance of keeping her benign tumor away if successful. The 30-course treatment, which Alexis is currently receiving at a Jacksonville, Fla., hospital, should wrap up in mid-January. The only downside is that Alexis won't be with her family for her birthday on Dec. 11 and maybe even Christmas, though a fundraiser has been set up to send the family to Disney World for three days. Read more about Alexis' battle here.
– In what's being called the biggest indication that he's considering jumping into an already crowded presidential race, Joe Biden invited lefty darling Elizabeth Warren over to his DC residence for a lengthy and cozy lunch yesterday, reports CNN. The two talked economic policy and the Democratic and Republican primaries, and though Biden made clear he's considering a run, the New York Times notes that he did not directly ask Warren's support. Warren, who eschewed a run of her own, has yet to back any candidate, Friday telling WBZ in Boston that "I don't think anyone has been anointed." The Times notes that Warren and Hillary Clinton "are not natural allies" and have crossed swords often. Biden is expected to make a decision within a month.
– On Monday, the US will have a view of a total solar eclipse for the first time in 99 years. We know that thanks to the hard, sometimes-life-risking work of astronomers over thousands of years. In a history of eclipse predictions, BuzzFeed reports two Chinese astronomers were beheaded by the emperor after failing to predict a total solar eclipse in 2134 BCE. Their failure could perhaps be forgiven—it would be nearly 4,000 years before astronomers were able to start making reliable ground maps of eclipses. Here's what else you need to know about the upcoming celestial show: 24/7 Wall St. is warning of massive traffic jams as up to 7 million people travel to the 70-mile-wide strip stretching from Oregon to South Carolina where the total eclipse will be visible. And that can mean headaches for some small towns in that strip, the Guardian reports. "Why is God mad at us?" asks the mayor of Weiser, a tiny Idaho town of 5,500 that is expecting up to 70,000 for the eclipse but was only able to procure 70 port-a-potties for their use. But human behavior researchers tell the New York Times a total solar eclipse is worth braving the crowds to view alongside other people. It makes the experience more emotional and provides a way to connect with others, even for a few minutes. One thing that can make massive crowds more tolerable: alcohol. The Daily Beast provides a "drinker's guide" to the eclipse, including a distiller in Oregon selling 97-proof eclipse whiskey and a winery in Illinois that bottled 100 cases of eclipse wine for the 5,000 people it's expecting. Meanwhile, BuzzFeed talks to a bunch of eclipse fanatics to find out what makes total solar eclipses so special. “I feel as if I am in the presence of a deity, and I understand that in this vast universe, I am nothing," one such fanatic explains. Need a soundtrack for your eclipse viewing? Time reports Bonnie Tyler will sing her 1983 hit "Total Eclipse of the Heart" during Royal Caribbean's Total Eclipse Cruise, which will be positioned in the eclipse's path off the East Coast. At least one person in America isn't planning on viewing Monday's eclipse. According to USA Today, Lou Tomososki of Oregon still has permanent eye damage—a permanent blurry spot in his vision—from staring at a partial eclipse in 1962 without eye protection. Don't be like Lou Tomososki. NPR has a video showing how to make your own eclipse viewer so you can watch the action without burning out your retinas.
– It's generally not OK to log into Facebook during work. It's definitely not OK if you work as a burglar, and you're a little absent-minded about logging out. Police say Nicholas Wig, 26, broke into a home near Minneapolis and stole money, credit cards, and other valuables, reports ABC News. When homeowner James Wood surveyed the damage later that night, he noticed that his burglar had left behind some wet jeans and shoes (it was raining) and that his computer had been used. It was still displaying the Facebook profile of a "Nick Dub." Wood says he posted something to the page about its user being a thief and left his phone number. To his surprise, he got a text, reports CBS Minnesota. “I replied, 'You left a few things at my house last night, how can I get them back to you?" They arranged an exchange, and Wood called police as soon as he saw Wig, whose photo he recognized from Facebook, on his street. Cops charged him with second-degree burglary. “I’ve never seen this before,” says a Dakota County attorney. "Might even make the late-night television shows in terms of not being too bright.”
– Yet another casualty of Nepal's disastrous earthquake: lost wages for Sherpas. The locals who help hundreds scale Mount Everest each year will lose out on some of the $5,000 to $7,000 plus tips they typically earn from March to June since "Everest is basically closed," as the AP puts it. While some have signed contracts and will still be paid, they'll miss out on bonuses that could go a long way toward rebuilding their homes. "Financially, this is simply devastating," says the head of a climbing company. The country's annual per capita income is about $730. Nepal could also take a hit as climbing permits, at about $11,000 per person, help drive the economy. More: The death toll in the quake is climbing daily and has now reached 6,204, with 13,924 injured, per Reuters. Nepal's government says it will give $1,000 to the families of victims, plus $400 for cremation or burial. The head of the EU delegation in Nepal had a big number for reporters: 1,000. That's how many Europeans are missing, per Ambassador Rensje Teerink, though Nepal's home ministry counters that it's the first it's heard of that number. (Reuters confirmed 221 are missing from France, Spain, and Italy.) Officials say the smell of rotting flesh is becoming overpowering. "Morgues are full beyond capacity and we have been given instruction to incinerate bodies immediately after they are pulled out," an official says. Nepal's finance minister estimates at least $2 billion is needed to rebuild the 600,000 damaged or destroyed homes, plus hospitals, government offices, and historic buildings. Some 2 million will need tents and a supply of food, water, and medicine for the next three months.
– Irma moved into the Southeast on Monday as a tropical storm, not a hurricane, but it was still deadly: Authorities say there were at least three storm-related deaths in Georgia and one in South Carolina, along with flooding in cities including Jacksonville, Fla., and Charleston, SC. Police in Georgia say the storm's victims include a man killed when a tree fell in his house, a man blown from his roof, and a woman who died when a tree fell on a vehicle, the AP reports. In South Carolina, a falling tree limb killed a man. Irma has now weakened from a tropical storm to a tropical depression which is forecast to drop 5 inches to 8 inches of rain over South Carolina, northern Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi in the coming days. The latest: Irma, which put Atlanta under a tropical storm warning for the first time, gave Georgia a hammering that caused the cancellation of hundreds of flights and left at least 1.3 million people without power early Tuesday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott advised patience for evacuees anxious to return home, CNN reports. "Don't think just because this thing passed, you can run home. We've got downed power lines all across the state," he said Monday. "We've got roads that are impassible still across the state. We've got debris all over the state." The hard-hit Florida Keys will partially reopen on Tuesday to allow residents to assess damage, Reuters reports. Navy ships including the USS Abraham Lincoln have been sent to distribute food and evacuate some of the 10,000 residents who rode out the storm. Authorities say they aren't sure how many people were killed by the hurricane. The damage in most of Florida was not as catastrophic as feared, but Irma left an estimated 12 million people, or two-thirds of the state's population, without power, the Washington Post reports. Authorities warn that some customers could be without power for weeks if parts of the system need to be rebuilt. Miami and Fort Lauderdale airports will reopen Tuesday with limited service, the Miami Herald reports. Public schools in Miami, however, are closed until further notice, and Miami-Dade County is under a mandatory 7pm to 7am curfew. In Orlando, the storm claimed another victim Monday when a 51-year-old man was electrocuted by a downed power line in a park, the Orlando Sentinel reports. (Florida residents got their first look at the damage Monday.)
– Who could've given nearly 1 million classified Afghanistan war documents to WikiLeaks? The military is taking a close look at Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst already charged with leaking documents to the site. Manning would be a perfect suspect, except for one fact: He was stationed in Iraq and had no access to Afghanistan documents. Nonetheless, investigators are examining his computers to see if he could have hacked other military computers to gain the files, the Wall Street Journal reports. Manning is more commonly linked to the leak of footage of the Iraq war released to the public as a video called "Collateral Murder", but he also boasted of having given WikiLeaks 260,000 diplomatic cables. Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, said there is "no allegation as far as we can determine" that the Afghanistan leak is "connected to Bradley Manning." Click here for more on Manning.
– What came between Kelsey and Camille Grammer? Well, a 29-year-old woman, but in addition to that, Fox News. Camille talked to Joy Behar last night about the end of her 13-year marriage, and noted that part of the problem was a lack of intimacy: Not only did the couple forgo sex for more than two years, but Kelsey wouldn’t even cuddle with her, she said. "He was too busy watching FOX News. He didn't want to cuddle," she explained. Watch in the gallery, or click through to see when Kelsey and his new galpal are getting hitched.
– You won't hear Elroy's big sister laughing in the halls of Orbit High anymore. Janet Waldo, who voiced futuristic teenager Judy Jetson on the cartoon series The Jetsons, has died at the age of 96, ABC News reports. Waldo's daughter confirmed she passed away Sunday morning and that she'd had a benign but inoperable brain tumor that was diagnosed five years ago. Waldo—a Washington state native who started out as a screen actress in the late 1930s, notes the International Business Times—wasn't only the voice behind Judy, but also a slew of other Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters, including Penelope Pitstop in Wacky Races and the title character in Josie and the Pussycats, per Behind the Voice Actors. (The voice behind the Lucky Charms leprechaun died in April.)
– Reading, writing, arithmetic, and gun knowledge? Yes, a Missouri lawmaker wants students taught about guns—in first grade. GOP state Sen. Dan Brown introduced Senate Bill 75, which would require schools to use the Eddie Eagle Gunsafe Program or similar. The program was designed by the NRA, and its website says it teaches kids "important steps to take if they find a gun," as presented by mascot Eddie Eagle. But opponents of the bill say that exposing children to guns at all will get them interested in weapons. The bill assures that firearms would be prohibited while the program is being taught, and teachers can't make "value judgements about firearms" publicly, KAIT-8 reports. It would also require simulated active shooter drills, and for teachers and other school employees to receive training for how to deal with a school shooting situation.
– The son of a high-ranking House Republican has prominently come out in support of a Democrat for his father's seat. Bobby Goodlatte, son of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, tweeted Sunday that he'd given the "maximum allowed donation to Jennifer Lewis," who he notes is the Democrat running for Rep. Goodlatte's seat. The elder Goodlatte is retiring after a 13-term career. "I've also gotten 5 other folks to commit to donate the max. 2018 is the year to flip districts," the younger Goodlatte wrote. "Let's do this!" Outlets including Politico picked up the story as Bobby Goodlatte continued to tweet, fleshing out some of the reasoning behind the public move. On Monday, he tweeted: "I’m deeply embarrassed that Peter Strzok's career was ruined by my father’s political grandstanding." As Vox notes, Rep. Goodlatte presided over the June hearing in which Strzok was grilled by him and fellow members of the GOP over text messages he once sent to an FBI lawyer that appeared to show his bias against then-candidate Donald Trump. "That committee hearing was a low point for Congress," Bobby Goodlatte tweeted about the 10-hour hearing before turning his attention back to Strzok. "Thank you for your service sir. You are a patriot." According to the AP, Jennifer Lewis' campaign manager, Josh Stanfield, said more than $25,000 had come in from across the country following Bobby Goodlatte's tweet. "Everyone is sort of caught off guard," Stanfield said. "But obviously it's compelling for some reason."
– "The events of this past week have reopened wounds few can imagine." So begins a statement released Sunday by the family of Hae Min Lee, a Baltimore high school senior who was strangled to death in 1999. The letter comes as the post-conviction hearing of Adnan Syed, the ex-boyfriend convicted in her murder, is set to continue Monday, the Guardian reports. For the millions who came to know the case via the Serial podcast, the family writes: "Unlike those who learn about this case on the internet, we sat and watched every day of both trials—so many witnesses, so much evidence." Gary Proctor, an attorney for alibi witness Asia Chapman, accused the Attorney General's office, which released the family's statement, of "attempting to try this case in the court of public opinion," the Baltimore Sun reports. Syed's attorneys argue that his original defense team ignored Chapman, who says she was with Syed at the school library when the murder occurred. Of Chapman, the family, who did not appear on Serial, writes: "Whatever her personal motives, we forgive her, but we hope she will not use Hae’s name in public. … She did not know Hae, and because of Adnan she never will." They continue: "It remains hard to see so many run to defend someone who committed a horrible crime, who destroyed our family, who refuses to accept responsibility, when so few are willing to speak up for Hae." Supporters of Syed, however, are "very hopeful and very excited about what's happening," his brother, Yusuf, tells the Sun.
– “I really felt ashamed then, I really did,” King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden confessed to Swedish-language newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in an interview published Saturday, the Local reports. The source of the monarch’s shame? He took a bath. In the king’s defense, however, he had little choice. The room in which he was staying the day prior to the interview had no shower. "It took a lot of fresh water and energy," he said, and the experience seemed to him "not wise.” Hence the king's conclusion: "All bathtubs should be banned. Just imagine it!" While he conceded that his ban-the-tubs suggestion was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the king did say that such small details could have a big payoff when it comes to protecting the environment. Carl XVI Gustaf isn’t the only royal to take an interest in environmental issues, the Telegraph notes. Prince Charles is known for his environmental advocacy, and has even put "eco" toilets in his family residence. During his interview, Carl XVI Gustaf, who plans to attend the upcoming UN climate change conference in Paris, goes on to further establish his environmentalist cred: "Stockholm held the first big [UN climate change] conference” in 1972. "I have a hybrid car right now.” "I am eating less meat.” The king said he took an interest in environmental issues around the same time as Al Gore, “but he beat me to it.”
– If a University of Kentucky junior had paid a little more attention during statistics lectures, he probably wouldn't have had to try to steal the exam—and he would have been better able to judge the odds of his scheme succeeding. Henry Lynch II, a 21-year-old majoring in biosystems engineering, planned to steal the final statistics exam by crawling through the ducts of a Lexington university building and lowering himself into an instructor's office, the New York Times reports. The university says Lynch and accomplice Troy Kiphuth, who Lynch let into the room after making his way through the ducts, were caught in the act around 1:30am Wednesday after instructor John Cain unexpectedly returned from a late-night meal. A university spokesman says after Cain found the door blocked, he "yelled out that he was calling the police and then the door swung open and two young men ran down the hallway." But Lynch, worried that Cain had recognized him, returned after police got there and confessed, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. He admitted that he had made his way through the ducts to Cain's office twice before: at 6pm the previous day in a failed attempt to find the final exam, and earlier in the semester, when he managed to make off with another exam. It's unclear how he was able to get into the air-duct system. Lynch and Kiphuth, who is not in Cain's class, have both been charged with felony burglary. (The author of Freakonomics devised an algorithm to catch cheating students.)
– The Hawaiian beach where a young Barack Obama bodysurfed is keeping its name after a plan to name it President Barack Obama Sandy Beach Park instead of Sandy Beach Park met with what officials say was a "mixed" reception from the public. "Most of the comments have raised the issue of historical and cultural sensitivity, and a number of alternatives have been suggested by the public," says Honolulu City Council Chair Ernest Martin, who introduced a resolution to rename the popular Oahu beach last week, reports Reuters. A survey by a Hawaiian TV station found more than 90% of commenters were against the proposal, for reasons including dissatisfaction with Obama's record as president and worries about tourists overcrowding the beach, reports the Wall Street Journal. Martin says the council is still looking for something to name after Obama. "Since he's taken office, President Obama has been a strong supporter of Honolulu's rail transit project," he said in a statement. "Naming one of the stations after him deserves serious consideration."
– At least five people were killed in a horrific crash a few miles north of Kalamazoo, Mich., Tuesday evening when a pickup truck plowed into a group of cyclists. At least four others were seriously injured in the Cooper Township crash, which involved a group of people that goes on weekly bike rides, the Detroit Free Press reports. The pickup driver, identified only as a 50-year-old man from western Michigan, left his wrecked vehicle and took off on foot after the crash but was taken into custody near the scene, WOOD TV8 reports. Witnesses say he had been driving erratically. Markus Eberhard says he had been fishing in the area when "someone, I don't know who, told me [to] watch out and I jumped back. The truck went past my foot—almost hit my foot, and I looked, and before I could tell the bikers to move, it was too late," he says. "I already heard a bunch of bikes hit his front end." Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeffrey Getting says that 30 minutes before the crash, authorities received calls about the pickup from people with concerns "about the manner in which that vehicle was being driven," the AP reports.
– Donald Trump wasn't happy about what he calls the New York Times' "hit piece" against him, which documented his treatment of women over the years, and neither is one of the women interviewed for that article, USA Today reports. Rowanne Brewer Lane was the subject of the lead paragraph for the expose, first published online Saturday, and the tale about her involves Trump meeting her at a 1990 pool party, cajoling her to don a swimsuit, and then commenting on her appearance—what the Times referred to as a "debasing face-to-face encounter between Mr. Trump and a young woman he hardly knew." But Brewer Lane, who briefly dated Trump after that incident, appeared on Fox & Friends Monday and took issue with the newspaper's depiction of what had transpired. "[The Times] promised several times … that it would not be a hit piece and that my story would come across the way that I was telling it and honestly, and it absolutely was not," Brewer Lane said, noting the article was "very upsetting." "They did take quotes from what I said and they put a negative connotation on it. … I did not have a negative experience with Donald Trump." She added that Trump never offended her or "made me feel like I was being demeaned in any way" during their time together, that he was "very gracious" and "a gentleman," and that the mainstream liberal media is "just reaching for straws." Brewer Lane also noted she's supporting Trump in his run for president. Trump didn't fail to take advantage of Brewer Lane's appearance, firing off a series of tweets crowing about it, including one that said, "With the coming forward today of the woman central to the failing @nytimes hit piece on me, we have exposed the article as a fraud!"
– The world took a small but significant step toward an Ebola vaccine today. Results of a study involving 20 people in the US found that the vaccine worked well enough to move on to round two—a much bigger test group of thousands of people in Africa, reports USA Today. If all goes well, that means the vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline could be available in the second half of next year, reports the BBC. The National Institutes of Health reported the results today. "Whether it's a breakthrough depends on making sure that all the rest of data over the next few weeks and months is in line," says the chief executive of the drug-maker. "But this certainly gives us very significant cause for optimism." One drawback: It took high doses of the drug to trigger an immune response, which could eventually complicate mass production. One plus: The vaccine contains no live Ebola virus and can't cause the disease. A second vaccine candidate being tested does use live Ebola virus, but it's been "crippled so it can’t reproduce once it infects a person," explains Time.
– While investigators try to untangle the strange case of a 13-year-old boy found hidden behind a fake wall in a Georgia home, the people accused of hiding him aren't going anywhere: Gregory Jean, the boy's father, and his partner, Samantha Joy Davis, have been charged with false imprisonment and child cruelty and were denied bail at a hearing yesterday, WXIA reports. Three juveniles at the home near Jonesboro were also arrested after police found the boy, who was reported missing by his mother four years ago. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Davis is still on probation for a 2006 child abuse case in which she was accused of cutting her 6-year-old son's tongue with heated kitchen shears. She pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for probation. Davis is accused of beating the 13-year-old boy, who police say was found early Saturday morning after he managed to contact his mother. She alerted officers searching the home to his location in a hidden compartment. Neighbors tell WSB-TV that they had often seen the boy doing yardwork and are shocked to hear he was held captive. One neighbor, however, decided to take a video after seeing the boy doing dangerous work on the roof as the couple looked on. When the "overjoyed" boy was reunited with his mother, "he just couldn't thank us enough," a police spokesman says. Police say it's not clear why she contacted child welfare authorities instead of police when the father refused to return the boy after a 2010 visit, but they speculate it may be because she's an immigrant unfamiliar with the system.
– In an especially nasty year for ticks, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a statement about a possible method for preventing the spread of diseases carried by their bites, Live Science reports. By spraying clothing with an insecticide called permethrin, experts believe you can cause the bugs to get so-called "hot feet" and fall off before transmitting germs that cause Lyme and other tick-borne diseases like Rocky Mountain spotted fever. According to a study published in the Entomological Society of America's Journal of Medical Entomology, permethrin caused ticks of multiple species to fall off clothing and, after prolonged exposure, caused their movements to become uncoordinated. The findings are more solid evidence that covering up with clothing and applying insecticide are two vital steps to preventing tick-borne illness. Meanwhile, the number of Americans catching diseases from tiny bloodsucking creatures is going up at an alarming rate, federal authorities warn. According to the latest report from the CDC, the number of reported illnesses caused by ticks, mosquitoes, and fleas more than tripled between 2004 and 2016—and since many illnesses go unreported, the true total is probably much higher than the 642,602 cases reported over the period. In the case of Lyme disease, the number of illnesses may be up to 10 times the 36,429 cases the CDC recorded for 2016, the Washington Post reports. Analysts say other such diseases—including recently discovered ones like Powassan virus—are on the rise in the Northeast, California, and the upper Midwest and partially blame warmer weather, which is causing longer tick seasons and expanded insect ranges.
– President Donald Trump is following through on his threat to revoke the security clearance of former Obama administration CIA director John Brennan, a vocal critic of the president, the White House said Wednesday. "Mr. Brennan has recently leveraged his status as a former high-ranking official with access to highly sensitive information to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations, wild outbursts on the internet and television about this administration," press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, per the AP. Brennan has been deeply critical of Trump's conduct, calling his performance at a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland "nothing short of treasonous." Sanders said the security clearances of other current and formers officials are also "under review." They include former FBI Director James Comey; James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence; former CIA Director Michael Hayden; former national security adviser Susan Rice; and Andrew McCabe, who served as Trump's deputy FBI director until he was fired in March. Also on the list: fired FBI agent Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr. At least two of the former officials, Comey and McCabe, do not currently have security clearances. Former CIA directors and other top national security officials are typically allowed to keep their clearances, at least for some period, so they can be in a position to advise their successors and to hold certain jobs. Experts have said that stripping a security clearance in response to public criticism would be an unprecedented politicization of the clearance process, and Democrats were quick to decry Trump's move.
– A total of 456 people reached the peak of Mount Everest during this past spring climbing season. PTI reports Dinesh and Tarakeshwari Rathod were not among them. The Indian police officers, who claimed to have been the first Indian couple to climb Everest, were banned from climbing any mountain in Nepal for 10 years Tuesday after authorities ruled they made the whole thing up, according to the Guardian. The Rathods claimed to have reached the top of Everest on May 23, producing photos as evidence. Nepalese authorities verified their accomplishment based on those photos, but later rescinded that verification after complaints from other climbers. One of those climbers was Satyarup Siddhanta, an Indian man who actually did reach the summit in May and whose photos from the peak the Rathods apparently superimposed themselves over. The BBC reports other signs of fakery included the Rathods getting from base camp to the summit too quickly and appearing in two different outfits in photos from the summit. “The ban should serve as a warning for other mountaineers to follow ethics,” Nepal's chief of tourism tells PTI. It's unclear why the Rathods claimed to have conquered Everest, as no one is quite sure where they or their two sherpas are. But the BBC points out people who make Everest's summit can get good work writing or speaking about their accomplishment. (A climber abandoned the Everest peak to save a stranger.)
– It's like it's 1996 all over again. Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys says the boy band is back in the studio recording a new album—its first since 2013, per Time. There's no word on a release date, but you'll be able to hear at least one new track by August: The band is also working on a country collaboration to appear on Florida Georgia Line's new disc out Aug. 26, Carter and Brian Littrell write on Instagram. Earlier this year, the Backstreet Boys announced a nine-show deal as a residency "test run" in Las Vegas, per Entertainment Weekly.
– What a find: After receiving a tip yesterday, Harbor Patrol agents in California pulled about 160 bales of marijuana from the ocean off the coast of Orange County. That's more than 7,263 pounds, and agents say the street value is $3.6 million, CBS 2 reports. The marijuana, which was floating at least 15 miles off shore with no boat in sight, was turned over to US Border Patrol. The investigation into how exactly it got there is continuing, the Orange County Register reports. A Border Patrol rep calls the situation an odd one, noting that bales are usually dumped by boats that are being chased.
– Apple Maps may have gotten a bad rap upon release—but when it comes to monster-hunting, it beats Google. So say Loch Ness Monster hunters who have apparently detected the creature on Apple Maps' satellite imaging. A close look at the right spot in Scotland's Loch Ness, pinpointed at AppleInsider, reveals a blurred, whitish image of what might be an underwater Nessie. "It looks like a boat wake, but the boat is missing," Gary Campbell, president of the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club, tells the Daily Mail. "Whatever this is, it is under the water and heading south, so unless there have been secret submarine trials going on in the loch, the size of the object would make it likely to be Nessie," says Campbell. Two people noticed the image last year, the Mail reports. "It was a total fluke that I found it," says one. "I was looking at satellite images of my town and then just thought I’d have a look at Loch Ness. The first thing that came into my head when I saw it was, 'That’s the Loch Ness Monster.'"
– "I physically sank." That was Kristi Warner's response to news that a makeup kit used by her 6-year-old daughter tested positive for asbestos, a finding that has prompted retailer Claire's to pull at least nine products from shelves. As a lawyer at a Rhode Island law firm specializing in asbestos litigation, Warner says she has previously come across "contaminated" cosmetics and decided to check out her own daughter's makeup, purchased from a Claire's store in Providence, per WJAR and USA Today. "You just assume that a children's product would be safe," says Warner. Instead, a North Carolina lab found the product tested positive for tremolite asbestos, as did all 17 makeup products Warner later purchased from Claire's stores in nine states, per WJAR. Exposure to asbestos is linked to certain cancers, including mesothelioma. Though chrysolite asbestos is more common, AsbestosNews.com notes that "tremolite is just as toxic as chrysolite, if not more so," per the Miami Herald. "The fact that the majority of the products came from the store shelves in the last two weeks means that there are other children being exposed," Warner says. An investigation is ongoing, but Claire's has announced it will recall nine products as a "precautionary measure." They include multiple makeup sets, an eye shadow and lip gloss palette, and a glitter cell phone makeup compact. Refunds will be offered on returned items, the retailer says. (Tween retailer Justice had a similar problem.)
– After backup Washington State quarterback Tyler Hilinski missed practice, police went to his Pullman apartment Tuesday to do a welfare check. They emerged with grim news: The 21-year-old was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head, and USA Today reports a suicide note was found at the scene. The Seattle Times reports the note's contents weren't disclosed; a rifle was also discovered. Pullman Police on Tuesday night confirmed it was an apparent suicide. ESPN reports Hilinski, a native of Claremont, California, had wrapped up his redshirt sophomore season and was slated to be the Cougars' starting quarterback next season. Of the eight games he played in, KING5 describes the standout one: coming off the bench to help WSU triumph over Boise State in triple overtime, overcoming a 21-point deficit at one point. Hilinski's younger brother Ryan had this to say: "We, as a family, are grieving after receiving news that my brother, Tyler Hilinski took his own life this afternoon. We are in complete shock and disarray. Tyler was the kid that put a smile on everybody's face when they were down, especially his family. We will mourn the loss of Tyler for some time but celebrate the way he lived his life every day."
– Sen. John McCain has gone home to Arizona to recover from the side effects of chemotherapy, meaning he's likely to miss a vote on the Republican tax reform plan expected this week. After days of speculation about the 81-year-old senator's health, daughter Meghan McCain tweeted Sunday that he's doing well and will be spending Christmas in Arizona, reports the Arizona Republic. McCain, who has an aggressive form of brain cancer, was hospitalized last week at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland for what his office called "normal side effects of his ongoing cancer therapy." A source tells CNN that it was a "good sign" that McCain was able to board a plane to Arizona. McCain's office released a statement thanking well-wishers and saying he looks forward to returning to Washington in January. National Cancer Institute neuro-oncology chief Mark Gilbert said the senator is continuing to improve after being treated for a viral infection. President Trump said Sunday night that McCain was likely to miss the tax vote but would return if needed, the AP reports. "They've headed back, but I understand he'll come if we ever needed his vote, which hopefully we won't," he said. "It's too bad. He's going through a very tough time, there's no question about it. But he will come back if we need his vote." Trump also confirmed that he's not planning to fire Robert Mueller, though he said he's unhappy with how the investigation is being handled, USA Today reports.
– The culmination of Nobel week comes on Friday, when the Nobel Prize for Peace is handed to ... no one, hopes Joshua Keating. In a column for Slate, Keating writes that in the past, and "at its best," the award has shone a spotlight on important issues—like climate change in 2007, and women's right four years later. But it's not just that 2014 has been a pretty deadly year around our planet (think: ISIS, Boko Haram, Ukraine, etc.). There's an issue at hand: "The most notable eruptions of violence have been so grimly predictable, the result of years of individual and collective failures by governments and international institutions," he writes. Giving the award to nobody would be an "acknowledgment" of that. No handing out the award also wouldn't be a first. It most recently happened in 1972, marking the 19th time it wasn't bestowed on anyone (WWI and WWII years didn't see a lot of Peace prizes being doled out). Keating does acknowledge that some of the names being floated are by no means unworthy: There's Malala Yousafzai, along with Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege, who has done much for his country's many gang-rape victims. "But if the committee really wants to send a powerful message to world leaders after a not-so-peaceful year, there's only one way to do that," concludes Keating. "Give one of the world’s most famous awards to absolutely no one." Read his full column at Slate.
– The man decapitated in a freak motorcycle accident in San Bernardino, Calif., on Tuesday morning has been identified as Fabian Zepeda, a 27-year-old who'd been married for less than a year and whose wife is four months pregnant. "I am very happy to keep a little blessing from my husband," Vanessa Quintana writes on a GoFundMe page, describing her husband, whom she met in 2012, as a "caring, loving, family orientated, unique individual who always managed to care for others before himself." The San Bernardino County coroner says Zepeda was decapitated by a tension wire that had been left stretched across the roadway minutes earlier when a Ford Taurus driver slammed into a telephone pole, breaking it in two, People reports. "At that height at that time, it would have been really hard to see that wire," an investigator tells the San Bernardino Sun. The Taurus driver, who lost control of his vehicle for an unknown reason and rolled through a yard and down the street before hitting the pole, was interviewed by police and didn't appear to be under the influence of alcohol, though a blood sample has been sent for testing, says a San Bernardino police spokesman. The accident is being investigated by the California Highway Patrol as well as the San Bernardino Police Department. The GoFundMe campaign has raised $11,000 as of Friday morning; Quintana is expecting a girl. (This UConn student was killed in a freak SUV accident.)
– Alec Baldwin returned to Saturday Night Live as President Trump for the first time since his arrest Nov. 2, but included himself in the receiving end of the ribbing, reports USA Today. In character as Trump on an Argentine balcony, Baldwin lamented Robert Mueller's investigation, saying, "God, I haven’t been this upset since I flipped out over that parking space." The sketch romped through a series of visits from Cecily Strong as Melania Trump, Ben Stiller as Michael Cohen, Kate McKinnon as Rudy Giuliani, Beck Bennett as Vladimir Putin, and Fred Armisen as Mohammed bin Salman, and ended with a riff on Evita, with Baldwin singing, "Don't cry for me, Argentina/The truth is/I'm very guilty/Some little no-nos/And maybe treason/But I kept my promise/Oops, no I didn't." Meanwhile, Weekend Update paid tribute to former President George HW Bush, notes the Boston Globe, who was long portrayed on the show by Dana Carvey and invited the comedian to do his impersonation at the 1992 White House Correspondents' Dinner. Claire Foy guest-hosted the episode.
– Theresa May appears set to stay on as prime minister despite the spectacular failure of her attempt to increase the Conservative Party's majority with an early election in the UK. The BBC reports that May, whose party lost 12 seats in Parliament, leaving it without the majority needed to govern alone, is planning to form a government with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party. With 326 seats needed to form a majority, the DUP's 12 seats would give 330 or 331 votes on legislation, depending on how the final undeclared race turns out. The opposition Labour Party says it is also ready to form a minority government, though there is little chance of it forming a coalition with 326 seats. The latest: Sources tell the Guardian that May has cut a deal with the DUP and will meet with the Queen Friday afternoon to confirm her plan for a new government. "We want there to be a government. We have worked well with May. The alternative is intolerable," a DUP source says, adding that the party will try to ensure there is a Conservative prime minister as long as leftist Jeremy Corbyn leads the Labour Party. Other sources, however, tell the BBC that the DUP is still examining the "messy" situation and talk of a coalition is premature. Corbyn's Labour Party came second, but vastly outperformed expectations by picking up dozens of seats and denying May a majority, reports the Washington Post. "The prime minister called the election because she wanted a mandate," Corbyn told supporters, urging May to step down. "Well, the mandate she’s got is lost Conservative seats, lost votes, lost support, and lost confidence." The surprise result cast doubt both on the Brexit negotiations, which are scheduled to start in just 10 days, and on plans for a second referendum on Scottish independence, the AP reports. The pro-independence Scottish National Party lost 20 of its 54 seats. Paul Nuttall, leader of the pro-Brexit UKIP party, resigned after losing the party's only seat in Parliament. He told supporters the party has a "great future" as the "guard dogs of Brexit." The results in full can be shown here. UKIP's share of the vote is down more than 10% since the 2015 election, which resulted in gains for both Labour and the Conservatives. The Independent looks at the DUP and the implications of the small party holding the balance of power. In Northern Ireland, the party has fought hard to block same-sex marriage and the lifting of the ban on abortion.
– Walmart is helping customers get rid of leftover opioids by giving them packets that turn the addictive painkillers into a useless gel. The retail giant announced Wednesday that it will provide the packets free with opioid prescriptions filled at its 4,700 US pharmacies. The small packets, made by DisposeRx and described by ABC News as a "first-of-its-kind" product, contain a powder that's poured into prescription bottles. When mixed with warm water, the powder turns the pills into a biodegradable gel that can be thrown in the trash, reports the AP. ABC News says the gel ultimately solidifies and describes the end result as "inaccessible for illicit use." Research has shown that surgery patients often end up with leftover opioid painkillers and store the drugs improperly at home. Forbes cites a 2016 government survey that found 53% of people who abuse opioids get pills from relatives or friends. Walmart says the powder also works with other prescription drugs. The company says its pharmacy customers can request a free packet at any time. (Read about how a doctor prescribed this former journalist Percocet—and how it was all downhill from there.)
– The Indian Express describes banning online pornography in a country of 1.25 billion people as a "herculean task," and it is one the Indian government has decided to abandon. A pornography ban introduced this week caused outrage, with some likening the government to the Taliban, and access to 857 banned websites has now been restored, the BBC reports. A government minister says sites that "do not promote child porn will be unbanned," reports Voice of America, which notes that while Indian movies are heavily censored, porn sites abroad say they have plenty of visitors from the country. (In the only country with more Internet users, appearing in a sex video can get you arrested.)
– Oprah Winfrey was not happy when her 1998 film Beloved got trounced at the box office by, of all things, Bride of Chucky. "I didn't even know what 'Chucky' was,” she tells Piers Morgan in an outtake from their interview. “So, I asked my chef at the time to make some macaroni and cheese ... and I ate about 30 pounds worth. I'm not kidding!" Of course, being Oprah, she learned from the experience: Watch above or click here to find out how. The full interview airs on CNN Monday.
– A homepage editor for the Washington Post relays a crazy—and scary—tale of being caught up in a fast-moving case of mistaken identity online. As Doris Truong explains in the Post, it began when someone posted video of an Asian woman at the Rex Tillerson confirmation hearing on Wednesday and accused her of taking photos of the secretary of state nominee's notes. Somehow, someone then decided that the woman was Truong, who was not, in fact, even at the Tillerson hearing. Videos like this one falsely identifying her began to spread, and conservative sites were soon demanding to know why a Post editor was snooping on Tillerson. The well-trafficked Gateway Pundit picked it up, as did the Drudge Report, and even Sarah Palin tweeted about it with the word "Busted." "I’m perplexed and, honestly, shocked by how quickly the narrative went from someone trying to identify a woman in a video to another person attaching a name to hordes seizing upon that information as the truth," writes Truong. She and the person in the video have just one thing in common: they're both Asian women, but that was apparently good enough for a positive ID. Who is the actual woman? That's still unknown. Was she actually taking photos of Tillerson's notes? Also unclear. Truong, who was personally bombarded with angry accusations online, writes that she's not going to disengage from social media over the incident. "But I hope the ridiculousness of what happened to me in less than 12 hours makes others think critically before sharing something that can be easily disproved." Click for her full post.
– On the Spanish island of Minorca up to 5 million years ago, the rabbit was king. Researchers there have discovered fossils belonging to the biggest-ever member of the bunny family, LiveScience reports. Nuralagus rex, weighing in at some 26 pounds—about six times the size of modern rabbits—had largely lost the ability to hop, and had relatively small ears, researchers say. Scientists believe the rabbit reached its gargantuan size because of the "island effect," which can cause small animals to evolve into big ones because of a lack of predators. "There is an underlying assumption that rabbits appeared some 40 million years ago and have been perfectly happy to stay just about the same," a researcher tells Discovery. "This new species is interesting in that it's quite different from what we know of living or fossil rabbits."
– For 30 terrifying seconds, Christopher Jones plummeted through the air over Australia, unconscious and in free fall after suffering a seizure just seconds after jumping out of a plane, NBC News reports. Jones' video of the Nov. 14 incident, which he posted yesterday, already has nearly 4 million views. It shows him prepping, then making the jump, then turning onto his back and convulsing shortly after the one-minute mark. The text under the video says the seizure started when Jones tried to make a left-hand turn at 9,000 feet; he passed out and hurtled through the air until his instructor, Sheldon McFarlane, was able to reach him and pull the parachute rip cord. Jones says he regained consciousness at 3,000 feet and safely landed. "Possibly the scariest moment of my life," he writes under the video. Jones has epilepsy, but he had a doctor's note saying he was cleared for skydiving ("I'd been seizure-free for four years," he tells ABC Australia). However, the CEO of the Epilepsy Association of Western Australia tells the station that even though people with epilepsy are usually allowed to drive if they haven't had a seizure in a year, he wouldn't recommend skydiving for someone with the condition, since such an extreme sport could be stressful enough to trigger a seizure. The one person unfazed by the incident is McFarlane, who says even if he hadn't cloud-bounced over to Jones, a remote device would have automatically pulled Jones' rip cord. "It was fine," he tells the Guardian. "We don't do it all day every day, but part of our training is to look after students." (A teen skydiver survived a harrowing 3,500-foot fall.)
– The daughter of India's richest man is about to say "I do" and she's invited some of America's most recognizable names in business, politics, and entertainment to help her celebrate. Per USA Today, Isha Ambani's guest list includes Beyoncé, Hillary Clinton and Arianna Huffington. The wedding will take place in Mumbai, but the party has already started at pre-wedding events in the city of Udaipur, where Clinton was snapped smiling alongside the bride's billionaire father, Mukesh Ambani. And, because it's not an heiress's party without top-notch private entertainment, Beyoncé performed some of her best known hits during the festivities and posted a photo of herself on Instagram sporting an Indian-inspired ensemble. Per Reuters, the Clintons share a long history with the Ambanis and Mrs. Clinton just this past March was treated to dinner with the family at their 27-floor private residence. Mukesh Ambani is the chairman of India's most valuable company, Reliance Industries. He has a reported net worth of $47 billion. With that kind of dough, it's no shock his daughter and her guests will be treated to nothing but the best when she weds 33-year-old realty executive Anand Piramal on Wednesday. ("Very Philly wedding" had a very unexpected guest.)
– Hunting for a job? It may prove wise to avoid this list of toilsome occupations. Accounting for physical toughness, pay, stress, work environment, and hiring outlook, these are the 10 worst jobs in America, as deemed by career advice website CareerCast, and rounded up by the Huffington Post. Here's a sampling: Butcher (9): $29,156 Waiter/waitress (6): $18,088 Oil rig worker (4): $32,132 Dairy farmer (2): $33,119 Lumberjack (1): $32,114 Click here to see the whole list.
– A man's kidney failure has been linked to his excessive iced tea habit—but don't worry, you're probably not approaching the danger zone. The 56-year-old Arkansas man was drinking 16 glasses of the stuff daily, amounting to a gallon every day, the AP reports. Black tea contains a lot of a compound called oxalate, which can lead to kidney issues, LiveScience reports. "With 16 cups of tea daily, the patient's daily consumption of oxalate was more than 1500mg—a level that is higher than the average American intake by a factor of approximately three to 10," say doctors, who outline his case in the New England Journal of Medicine. The man was hospitalized last May, and his urine contained lots of the calcium oxalate crystals involved in kidney stones. He was put on dialysis and he may be on it for life, doctors note. "We are not advising against tea consumption," a researcher says. "If you are healthy and drink tea with moderation, it should not cause damage to your kidneys." In fact, past studies have suggested that a more reasonable amount of tea can actually fight kidney stones, an outside researcher tells Reuters. Still, many of us apparently consume too much oxalate, which can be found in spinach, chocolate, nuts, and wheat bran, among other foods. While experts don't recommend going beyond 50mg per day, the average American consumes 152mg to 511mg, researchers note. (In a comparable case, a woman died after drinking 2 gallons of Coke daily.)
– Caroline Kennedy is finally getting a high-profile thank-you for all the help she has given President Obama over the years: He nominated her to be the next ambassador to Japan today, reports CNN. Assuming the Senate goes along, JFK's 55-year-old daughter will become the first woman to hold the post. (The Washington Post reported a few months ago that the move was expected.) Given that the US is Japan's biggest economic partner and military ally, it's not exactly a token job, and USA Today finds a skeptic worried about Kennedy's lack of experience. "Japan is in real crisis right now," says the president of the Economic Strategic Institute. "We keep handicapping ourselves in our global diplomacy by putting people into positions who don't know anything about what they are doing." Still, she follows in the footsteps of her grandfather, Joseph, was served as ambassador to Britain.
– "Don't ask if your dreams are crazy, ask if they're crazy enough," says Colin Kaepernick, urging viewers to reach for and exceed their wildest dreams in Nike's first full-length ad of its new campaign featuring the former San Francisco 49er. In the "Dream Crazy" commercial, which Nike released on YouTube Wednesday, Kaepernick highlights the inspirational stories of other athletes, including Serena Williams and Shaquem Griffin, the Week reports. Kaepernick narrates the ad and appears midway through, with a US flag reflected on the building behind him, to say the line that appeared on the first image from the controversial campaign: "Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything." The ad is set to appear during the NFL's opening telecast Thursday and Nike says the campaign will also feature during sporting events including Major League Baseball and college football as well as on assorted online platforms, CBS reports. The choice of Kaepernick, who led NFL anthem protests, has angered some fans—as well as President Trump—but the league says it supports the decision, the Hollywood Reporter notes. "We embrace the role and responsibility of everyone involved with this game to promote meaningful, positive change in our communities," NFL Executive Vice President Jocelyn Moore says. "The social justice issues that Colin and other professional athletes have raised deserve our attention and action."
– Houston police believe they nabbed a suspected serial killer with the Tuesday morning arrest of Jose Gilberto Rodriguez. A deadly crime spree began in the area on July 9 with a home invasion and robbery followed by the murder of a 62-year-old woman whose car was stolen. On Saturday, a 28-year-old employee of a mattress store was shot dead in the store's back office. In two separate shootings Monday, a 22-year-old bus driver was left in critical condition and a 57-year-old man was killed in another mattress store. Rodriguez, 46, is suspected in all of the crimes. He was arrested after someone spotted a suspicious vehicle in the Cypress area Tuesday morning and alerted authorities, who captured him after a 14-minute chase. He was found in a car stolen from one of the victims, and a pistol was found in the car, the Houston Chronicle reports. Rodriguez has a violent history dating back to at least 1989, with felony convictions for crimes including attempted sex assault, burglary, and auto theft. He was paroled in September 2017 and deemed a high-risk sex offender. Days before the police announced the manhunt for Rodriguez Monday, he allegedly cut off his ankle monitor. "We are very relieved this morning," Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told reporters. "We're very relieved, again, very thankful, to the citizens of Harris County for calling in, being diligent and reporting this to us so that we could take action." Authorities, who believe Rodriguez was on the hunt for his next victim when he was caught, have not offered details on the evidence allegedly linking him to the crimes. They believe the victims were chosen randomly, ABC News reports. He's been hit with two capital murder charges and a third is expected.
– Sean Avery could take a page from Rob Gronkowski's book—literally. Gronkowski of the New England Patriots has raked in more than $16.3 million in signing bonuses and contract money over five seasons in the NFL and, incredibly, hasn't spent a penny of it, according to an excerpt from his autobiography It's Good to be Gronk, per theMMQB.com. "I live off my marketing money and haven't blown it on any big-money expensive cars, expensive jewelry, or tattoos and still wear my favorite pair of jeans from high school," the tight end explains. Gronkowski, who started out making $320,000 and $450,000 in his first two seasons, respectively, has counted BodyArmor SuperDrink, and Dunkin' Donuts among his endorsers, reports Business Insider. Gronkowski stuck to his financial plan after signing a six-year, $54 million contact with an $8 million signing bonus, but that isn't possible for everyone. In fact, one in six NFL players will file for bankruptcy within 12 years of leaving the league, according to a study published earlier this year, per the Washington Post. About 2% of players filed for bankruptcy two years after retirement, despite making an average of $3.2 million over their careers. "This is one group that you might think ought to be able to avoid bankruptcy. They're in a position to buy some good advice if they need it," a financial expert said. "But even for them, with all these millions, it's a challenge." The report found NFL players file for bankruptcy at about the same rate as non-athletes of the same age.
– What's wrong with giving your family hundreds of Christmas gifts? Quite a bit, according to reaction one mom received on social media. Emma Tapping, a married mother of three, posted a photo of her family Christmas tree nearly buried under more than 300 gifts. She then saw the image shared thousands of times, often with nasty comments about materialism and spoiled children, UPI reports. "The way I see it is you can buy your kids two presents or 200 presents—it's the way you bring them up," Tapping said when defending herself on the British TV show This Morning. "My kids know the difference between right and wrong, they appreciate everything they get, and they don't get spoiled throughout the year." The 35-year-old Isle of Man resident says she shopped all year, hunted for bargains, accrued no debt, and spent about $2,276, the Mirror reports. Enter the critics: "It's nearly time for all the materialistic parents to compete and broadcast how many presents their kids have on Facebook," someone wrote on a shared version of Tapping's photo, per Buzzfeed. Others believe Tapping's kids are "suffering some form of abuse because they are being paid for their love in gifts and presents," says This Morning co-host Holly Willoughby. And some call Tapping (who blogs about bargain shopping) an attention-seeker, but she sees it differently, the BBC reports. "I'm not 'insta-famous'—I've only got a couple of hundred followers and I didn't think anything of it," she says of her post. "I think how I spend my money on my children is my choice. You may not agree, but this is three little kids' Christmas tree being blasted." (Read about one family that's packing heat on their Christmas card.)
– Australian athletes and coaching staff are in hotels instead of Rio's Olympic Village because the accommodations are in terrible shape, the head of the country's delegation says. Kitty Chiller says the problems include "blocked toilets, leaking pipes, exposed wiring, darkened stairwells where no lighting has been installed, and dirty floors in need of a massive clean," the Sydney Morning Herald reports. She says workers have been trying to fix the problems in the newly built accommodation blocks, which are supposed to house 18,000 workers and coaching staff, but when they turned on taps in several apartments at once, the "stress test" failed: "Water came down walls, there was a strong smell of gas in some apartments, and there was shorting in the electrical wiring," she says. Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes scoffed at the complaints, saying the accommodations are better than what Sydney provided for the 2000 Olympics. "I am just about to put a kangaroo in front of their building so it can jump and make them feel at home," he said. The Courier Mail reports that Chiller retorted: "We've already got a kangaroo, we don't need another one. Get me a plumber, mate, get me a plumber." With less than two weeks to go until the games begin, the Australians aren't the only ones having problems. The Italians and Dutch have hired their own teams to get athlete accommodations up to scratch, the Guardian reports, though Rio authorities say hundreds of athletes from other countries moved in over the weekend without complaint.
– Those following the Edward Snowden case will probably recognize the name Glenn Greenwald as the journalist writing up all the resulting scoops. But Laura Poitras? She's a 49-year-old documentary filmmaker from the US who is working with Greenwald and is crucial to the Snowden saga, reports Peter Maass in a fascinating New York Times Magazine piece. Greenwald himself sums it up with a reference to the Kevin Spacey flick the Usual Suspects: “I keep calling her the Keyser Soze of the story, because she’s at once completely invisible and yet ubiquitous. She’s been at the center of all of this, and yet no one knows anything about her.” Turns out that Greenwald initially ignored Snowden's "annoying and complicated" emails, prompting Snowden to turn to Poitras. He knew she was making a documentary about surveillance, and she used her expertise in encryption technology to begin a dialogue with him—and eventually sell Greenwald on the story. If the name rings a bell, it's because Poitras has made a number of controversial documentaries about Iraq and Abu Ghraib, earning herself a spot on a US watch list and thus dozens of airport interrogations. (Greenwald wrote about her travails in Salon.) The full Times piece details their first meetings with Snowden (they were shocked at how young he was) and the resulting chaos when the first stories appeared. “Our lives will never be the same,” says Poitras. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to live someplace and feel like I have my privacy. That might be just completely gone.” Read the full story here.
– General Motors has been cruising along since 1908, but the automaker recently decided it would rather celebrate another birthday: July 10, 2009, making it just a tad over seven years old instead of 108. And the reason GM picked that specific date: That was the day it was "born again" as a new company in a bankruptcy reorganization, a fact it now hopes will get it out of further lawsuits for its ignition switch debacle, the Wall Street Journal reports. The company made the request via a petition Tuesday to use this shield in what Salon is calling a "Hail Mary pass" to the US Supreme Court, asking the high court to overturn an appellate court's decision that the company is fair game for legal complaints against it, even if they were from before 2009. The faulty switches caused 124 deaths and at least 275 injuries, Reuters reports. GM's main argument is that in 2009 it initiated a "363 Sale," a bankruptcy reorg that allowed a company to scoop up a debtor's assets and then be "free and clear" of all that debtor's liabilities. But GM effectively "bought" itself —"General Motors Corporation" moved its assets to the newly organized "General Motors Company"—and a Harvard Law School expert in corporate bankruptcy says this facet of the law is meant to protect third-party buyers, not a company like GM in this case. "It was General Motors selling to a reorganized version of itself," he says. "The factories were the same, the employees were the same." The Journal notes unblocked lawsuits could translate to "billions of dollars" in claims; GM has already paid up around $2 billion in settlements and penalties tied to the ignition switches. The Supreme Court is expected to address the issue next year.
– Why teach sex education in class when students prefer to text and Google about it anyway? So say some health organizations and school districts that are setting up sex-ed websites and texting services for teens, the New York Times reports. And students seem to like it: “You can ask a random question about sex and you don’t feel it was stupid,” says a Denver-area high school senior. “Even if it was, they can’t judge you because they don’t know it’s you. And it’s too gross to ask my parents.” Shrinking school budgets and ongoing controversy around sex education have inspired several sites and services, such as Sex-Ed Loop, ICYC (In Case You're Curious), Sexetc.org, and a YouTube rap video that urges students to “Sport Dat Raincoat." Critics contend that the information only promotes unsafe sex, but advocates say research shows the opposite is true. One admits she has more immediate concerns, like higher Google rankings: “How do I write content that says ‘sex’ 80,000 times," she says, "so our page will pop up in a kid’s search on Google near the top?”
– Sunday night's 60 Minutes report on screen time and kids has parents buzzing: "Heavy screen time appears to impact children's brains," reads a sample headline making the rounds. The report looked at the National Institutes of Health's Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, in which more than 11,000 9- and 10-year-olds will be followed for a decade "to see how childhood experiences impact the brain," per Bloomberg. The study began in 2013. 60 Minutes reported on the "first wave of information" from the study, which involved brain scans of 4,500 children, per AFP. Some key findings: children who spend more than seven hours per day on screens may experience premature thinning of the cortex, the outermost layer of the brain that processes sensory information, and kids who spend more than two hours per day on screens score lower on thinking and language tests. But the Telegraph notes that the second finding came from an observational study, meaning it wasn't possible to prove a link between the extra screen hours and the lower cognitive skill scores, and as for the premature cortical thinning (a natural process that typically happens in later development), "we don't know if it's being caused by the screen time," a researcher explains. "We don't know yet if it's a bad thing." Axios notes that these are preliminary results that have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and at the New York Times, science reporter and author Benedict Carey notes that the early results from the NIH study are actually a "mixed bag." Researchers, he says, have yet to find hard evidence of screen time causing "meaningful" changes to the adolescent brain. For 60 Minutes' full report, including outside experts talking about screen time, see here. (Here's one thing you may not have to worry about when it comes to screens.)
– A mysterious disease is killing seals along Alaska's Arctic coast, and officials fear it might spread to other countries—and other species. Scores of dead or severely weakened ringed seals with telltale skin lesions and hair loss have been found along the coastline over the last few months, Reuters reports. Tissue samples from the seals have been sent to labs around the country, but experts have been unable to identify the disease, or determine whether a virus or bacteria is causing it. Seal-hunting season is about to begin, and "I'm scared they might pass it on one way or another and the whole ocean could be affected," an official in the far north of the state tells the Alaska Dispatch. Walruses have been found with similar lesions, although it's not clear whether they are suffering from the same disease, and biologists have spotted polar bears preying on the weakened seals. Click to see photos of the afflicted creatures.
– Neighbors of Michael Brandon Hill, the man who allegedly walked into a Georgia elementary school wielding an AK-47 and demanded to speak to a TV station, have familiar things to say about the suspect. Hill is "just an average guy," a man who lives across the street from the home Hill shared with five other people tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Other neighbors describe him as quiet and polite and say he could often be seen taking care of three children who apparently lived at the same address. But Hill, who surrendered to officers after firing several shots at them, was no stranger to police, ABC reports. In March, he was arrested for alleged terrorist threats and acts and was sentenced to three years' probation and anger management. He now faces charges including aggravated assault on a police officer, terrorist threats, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and investigators say they're unsure of his motive. Hill lived about three miles from the school but no other ties to it have been uncovered.
– 'Tis the season of headaches for BlackBerry: Two Research in Motion executives got incredibly drunk on a flight from Toronto to Beijing on Monday night, prompting pilots to turn the plane, which was north of Alaska, around. They landed in Vancouver, where the men were arrested, Gawker reports. George Campbell, 45, and Paul Alexander Wilson, 38, “simply weren't listening to any direction that the flight crew was giving them,” a Canadian official tells the Toronto Star. The two men got suspended sentences and a year’s probation; each has to pay Air Canada $35,878 and can't fly the airline during that probation period. On top of that, they’ve both been suspended from their jobs. The other 312 passengers had it pretty rough, too, notes the Star. Because the direct flight was a 13-hour one, the interruption meant the total time to get to Beijing exceeded flight crew safety regulations—so a new crew had to be called in, during which time the travelers were put up in a hotel. They ultimately arrived 18 hours late.
– We all know what premature ejaculation is, but it turns out that until now, an agreed-upon definition of the health condition hasn't exactly existed. A committee of sexual medicine experts has changed that, formulating a new definition that for the first time speaks both to men who have experienced the condition all their lives and those who acquired it with age. In the case of the former, it's defined as men whose sexual experiences have always lasted no more than about a minute after penetration; in the case of the latter, it refers to men who almost always reach climax in fewer than three minutes of penetration. (LiveScience last year noted that men in general ejaculate in an average of four minutes.) Further, the definition notes two other components of the sexual dysfunction: an inability to delay ejaculation, and resulting "negative personal consequences." Their paper, published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, notes that it's the "first evidence-based definition for these conditions," one born from a review of scientific evidence and suggested treatments. This unified definition "will reduce errors of diagnosis and classification," a researcher tells LiveScience, which notes that, because of the nature of the studies the researchers relied on, the definition extends only to men who have heterosexual sex. (A new book argues that short sex is pretty normal.)
– The biggest Presbyterian denomination in the US made headlines last night by voting to divest from three big companies it says help Israel oppress Palestinians, reports Religion News Service. Presbyterian Church USA will sell its stock in Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola Solutions because it says Israel uses their products in its occupied territories. "In no way is this a reflection of our lack of love for our Jewish brothers and sisters," Heath Rada, the church assembly's moderator, told the assembly after the 310-303 vote.. But the American Jewish Committee said it was "driven by hatred of Israel." The AP says the decision "is expected to reverberate beyond the 1.8 million-member church" and could give momentum to a larger divestment movement known as BDS, or boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel. The measure that passed also affirms Israel's right to exist, but that did little to satisfy critics of the move, reports the Huffington Post. It makes Presbyterians the largest American church to back divestment as a way to pressure Israel.
– The trial of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman begins in Brooklyn Tuesday, and it won't include a hug between the drug kingpin and his wife. NBC News reports his lawyers had asked that he be permitted to give the former beauty queen "a brief momentary greeting to include perhaps an embrace" in advance of the proceedings, but on Thursday, Brooklyn federal court Judge Brian Cogan ruled that while Guzman has indeed "displayed considerable grace under pressure," the government had barred him from having any physical contact or communication with Emma Coronel Aispuro as a way of preventing him "from coordinating any escape from prison or directing any attack" on witnesses. And that's hardly the only interesting element of the trial. Here's what you need to know: What he's on trial for: CNN reports the 61-year-old faces charges of international drug trafficking, conspiring to murder rivals, gun violations, and money laundering. It's all tied to his alleged position as leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel, which the BBC reports is being described by prosecutors as the No. 1 supplier of drugs to the US. The trial is expected to last as long as four months, and he faces a potential life sentence if convicted.
– When the federal government's new Dietary Guidelines come out later this year, the nation's top nutritional panel wants them for the first time to include a recommendation that Americans keep the planet in mind when deciding what to eat. That's the panel's advice, at least, and its inclusion in its 571-page report, issued yesterday, is quite controversial. In December, Congress warned the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee not to touch on anything other than nutrition, but the report urges Americans to eat more plant-based foods and fewer animal-based foods in an effort to have a smaller environmental impact, the Washington Post reports. The report calls out red meat in particular as harmful to the environment, and it also notes that Americans should cut back on it for health reasons. Members of Congress and the meat industry lobby were quick to criticize the report. "Politically motivated issues such as ... environmental sustainability are outside their purview," says a spokesman for GOP Rep. Robert B. Aderholt; the head of the largest meat-trade association said the recommendations "appear to be based on ... social agendas." But the American Institute for Cancer Research applauded the report's meat advice, NBC News reports. And, National Geographic adds, the report does include the footnote that "lean red meat" can be included in a healthy diet. The Department of Health and Human Services and the Agriculture Department could simply ignore the report, which is meant to provide a scientific basis for the guidelines, when they issue the official guidelines, but the Post reports the recommendations are rarely altered. Americans can, of course, ignore the guidelines once they come out, but as they can impact things like school lunch menus, they could have an effect. (Another first: a reversal of long-standing warnings about cholesterol.)
– Dallas Cowboys nose tackle Josh Brent faces charges of manslaughter and drunken driving after an overnight car crash that killed a member of the team's practice squad, reports AP. Police say Brent was speeding when his car hit a curb and flipped at least once about 2:20am in Irving. Passenger Jerry Brown, 25, a linebacker on the Cowboys' practice squad was killed, reports the Dallas Morning News. Brent, a three-year veteran, had a previous drunk-driving arrest in 2009, reports ESPN. He was not on the team's flight to Cincinnati for tomorrow's game.
– Headlines with singer Lesley Gore's obituary most often link her to the huge 1963 hit "It's My Party." But it's another song of hers from that same year, "You Don't Own Me," that matters far more, writes Amanda Marcotte at Slate. "It's My Party" was a typical entry in the teen-heartbreak genre, but the defiant "You Don't Own Me" was ahead of its time, portraying "a narrator standing up to her controlling, possessive boyfriend." A few years later, songs such as Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walking" and Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" followed the same path as feminism became popular, writes Marcotte. The song "is a self-empowerment anthem recorded at a time when the roles women were expected to play in pop were more commonly submissive and adoring, as typified by hits like 'He's So Fine' by the Chiffons," writes Dan DeLuca at the Philadelphia Inquirer. No wonder the song has been covered so much over the decades, including a version by the cast in the movie First Wives Club. The song seemed to take on more importance to Gore herself over the years; she never went out of her way to hide her homosexuality in an era when it wasn't as accepted. "It seemed the song had become her personal mantra," writes Lindsey Bever at the Washington Post.
– Jessica Gamboa was out on a training run for a half-marathon, but she ended up faced with a far more difficult journey: walking two miles after a May 18 bear attack. Gamboa, 25, was running with her husband—a soldier at Anchorage's Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson—when she saw a bear cub on the side of a remote road. As she slowed to look for its mother, "I looked back to my left and the mama bear was already coming toward me," she says in a new interview about the attack. The grizzly knocked her down, picked her up by the thigh or buttocks, carried her across a road, then dropped her and "went to town," Gamboa says, per the Alaska Dispatch. "I paused then for a few minutes ... maybe two, laying there, and telling myself, 'I think pretty much this is how I'm going to die.'" She played dead, but when the bear finally left, "I could see blood just everywhere," Gamboa says. "I could feel pulsing out of my neck. I knew I was in bad shape." She called for her husband, but the faster runner had gotten too far ahead of her. She eventually made it to a road and met Sgt. Collin Gillikin, who thought she was a tired runner. "She didn't seem to be in distress." Once in his truck, however, he noticed how badly she was injured. "I was in pure amazement this woman was still talking," he says. Gamboa suffered gashes all over her body, a neck fracture, puncture wounds, and bruises, and "they had to reattach almost all of my ear," she says. She remains in a hospital on blood thinners due to a clot in her head. As for Gillikin, he tells the AP the experience "made me realize there's something bigger than myself out there."
– Shirley Manson, better known as the frontwoman of the band Garbage, is only happy when it rains—and, perhaps, when she's not thinking about wrinkles. The singer/former Calvin Klein model took to Facebook late last month to admit that while she's "at odds with plastic surgery, Botox, filler, and surgical enhancement," she's also "44 years old. That is ANCIENT in the world of entertainment. That is even older in the world of music. I feel like if I stay true to myself. I am screwing myself out of a job." And that led Emma Cowing to pick apart the admission in the Scotsman. Manson has spent two decades as a great example of what a confident woman is (this is the singer who "once told a journalist she bought an orange Fender Stratocaster because it matched her pubic hair"). So what turned Manson "into a nervous-sounding woman seriously considering plastic surgery in order to stay popular?" Cowing talked to Manson's friends and industry experts and contemplated the role that Manson's admitted body dysmorphia may play in all this. But after hearing plenty of "she's crazy" and "there is massive pressure now," Cowing ultimately doesn't come to any real conclusion. Manson seems equally unsure, concluding her post with, "I am confused. Deeply confused. Please help me process or understand."
– The upside to former President Obama's landmark deal to normalize relations with Cuba is that the Cuban people have benefited, says Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The downside, he says, is that they haven't benefited enough. While commending the increased commercial activity in Cuba, Tillerson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday that "we have achieved very little" in regards to how the Cuban government treats its people, per the Wall Street Journal. To fix that, President Trump is expected to unveil an updated Cuba policy Friday that will "allow as much of this continued commercial and engagement activity to go on as possible" but also encourage Cuba to end human rights violations, Tillerson says, per the Guardian. An anonymous White House official tells the AP that the US embassy in Havana will remain open but that trade with Cuban companies with ties to the military will be outlawed. The Journal also reports on a possible tightening of travel restrictions since much of Cuba's tourism industry is controlled by its military. In this way, the US is "inadvertently or directly providing financial support to the regime," Tillerson says. At the same time, "political opponents continue to be imprisoned, dissidents continue to be jailed, women continue to be harassed." The US is also expected to request the release of prisoners and the return of US fugitives from Cuba. Numerous groups have penned letters in an attempt to sway policy, reports the Miami Herald.
– Jeff Flake made big headlines Friday morning when he announced he would vote in favor of Brett Kavanaugh, making it all but certain the judge will be approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. But the Republican senator from Arizona quickly learned that his decision had angered those who oppose Kavanaugh. A CNN camera captured the scene as two women confronted Kavanaugh in an elevator as he tried to make his way to a meeting of the committee. “What you are doing is al­low­ing some­one who ac­tu­al­ly vio­lat­ed a woman to sit in the Su­preme Court,” one woman told him. “This is hor­rible. You have chil­dren in your fam­i­ly. Think a­bout them.” See the video here. The other woman, who said she was a survivor of sexual abuse, then interjected: “You’re tell­ing all women that they don’t mat­ter—that they should just stay quiet be­cause if they tell you what hap­pened to them, you’re going to ig­nore them,” she said, reports the Washington Post. Flake didn't engage, saying, "Thank you," and explaining he needed to get to his meeting. “Look at me when I’m talk­ing to you!" said the woman, identified at USA Today as Ana Maria Archila, co-executive of the liberal advocacy group the Center for Popular Democracy. "You’re tell­ing me that my as­sault doesn’t mat­ter, that what hap­pened to me doesn’t mat­ter and that you’re going to let people who do these things into pow­er! That’s what you’re tell­ing me when you vote for him!"
– Even the biggest reservoir in the US wouldn't provide enough water to replace what's been lost in California's drought. In fact, you'd need 1.5 times that much water, or 11 trillion gallons, to do so, according to NASA satellite findings. Another way to put it in perspective: It's 130,000 Rose Bowls' worth of water, USA Today notes. It's also more water than California uses every year, even with 38 million residents. This is the first time the amount of water needed to end a drought has ever been calculated, NASA reports. The study involved two satellites tracking the planet's gravitational field; small changes in the field are associated with changes in the water supply, Mashable reports. Each year since 2011, the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins have lost about 4 trillion gallons. What's more, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains is just half of what earlier estimates suggested, and it's "one of the three lowest on record and the worst since 1977, when California's population was half what it is now," a researcher says. That means less snow melt and more absorption of sunlight into the ground, helping warm the planet and leading to drier conditions that make it more difficult to get snow water to reservoirs, he adds. "It takes years to get into a drought of this severity, and it will likely take many more big storms, and years, to crawl out of it," says the water study's leader.
– More than three years after their deaths, a former Pennsylvania state trooper has been charged in the fatal shooting of his pregnant wife, which also resulted in the death of the baby she was carrying. Joseph Miller, who resigned from the state police Wednesday, told dispatchers during the 911 call in 2014 that he was preparing to clean his gun when he released the slide and pulled the trigger, not realizing there was a round in the magazine at the time. His wife was sitting on the floor nearby sorting baby clothes, per CBS Philadelphia, and was shot in the head; their daughter, who was at 24 weeks gestation, was delivered via emergency c-section. Neither survived. Miller, now 36, was initially cleared in the shooting, but subsequent investigation revealed that he lied to authorities, police say. He has been charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Tests found that Joanna Miller, 34, was shot from 3 to 6 inches away; thus, Miller "lied to police when he stated he did not know where Joanna was at the time of the shooting" and "also lied" when he told police he was 8 to 10 feet away from her, then "lied again when he changed his answer" and said he was about 2 feet away from her, per the affidavit of probable cause filed last week. "Miller should have been aware that his wife was seated right next to him, and that the muzzle was pointed directly at her head, when he pulled the trigger and shot her to death," it states, adding that he also disregarded safety measures with which, as a state trooper, he should have been familiar. The Millers had two other children together, and Joanna Miller also had two children from a previous relationship. Joseph Miller can be heard consoling children on the 911 recording, ABC News reports.
– The theme of the day is compromise—at least, politicians offering their ideas about what a compromise should look like, without deciding to actually compromise. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell came out with one of his own, in what Politico describes as "a blow to House Republicans." McConnell's idea: House Republicans OK the Senate's two-month extension, and at the same time, Senate Democrats appoint negotiators who will work to make the full-year extension a reality. "We can and should do both." His comments come on the heels of some other notables: Some 30 minutes before McConnell presented his idea, John Boehner presented his idea ... which hasn't changed. He wants a one-year extension. "The fact is, we can do better," he told reporters. "It’s time for us to sit down and have a serious negotiation and solve this problem so that American workers don’t see their taxes go up in January." GOP Rep. Dave Camp (notable in that he's one of the eight conferees Boehner picked to work things out with Dems) suggested a 90-day extension on CNBC this morning, reports Politico. "If we can’t do a year, at least do a quarter, something that matches up with what employers have to report," he said. "We’re hearing from employers that not matching up with the quarterly reporting that they’re required to do is going to cause them a tremendous burden and difficulty." Of course, what he really wants is for "the Senate to come back and join us in a conference."
– Two brothers got a major pre-Thanksgiving scare when they both believed the other to have died in an avalanche while skiing the Colorado backcountry Wednesday, 9News reports. Alex Holmes, 27, was watching as his brother Brian, 26, triggered an avalanche and was hit by the wave of snow. According to the Denver Post, Alex tried to ski down to rescue his brother but decided it was too dangerous after he triggered a second slide. A San Miguel County sheriff's deputy calls the area in the San Juan Mountains "some of the most tenuous snow conditions on the continent." Believing his brother dead, Alex went to get help. Unbeknownst to Alex, Brian was alive but mostly buried in snow 1,000 feet down the hill, the Post reports. According to 9News, it took Brian—with only his face and one arm unburied—15 minutes or so to dig himself free. "Given the circumstances and nature of the slide, this skier is extremely fortunate," the sheriff's deputy says. CBS Denver reports Brian searched for Alex while attempting to call 911 for an hour with no luck. Brian—who similarly believed his brother was dead—made it to a nearby town before the rescue team alerted by Alex could find him.
– A Maryland teenager who allegedly planned a Halloween school shooting got as far as bringing a gun to school in his backpack—but he was too drunk to actually carry out the violence, police say. Sash Nemphos, 16, intended to kill his parents, then go to school and kill the police officer stationed there, court documents say. Afterward, he planned to take the cop's gun and "kill as many teachers and students as he could." But when the boy arrived at the George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology in Towson—apparently without having killed his parents—he felt he'd had too much whiskey to follow through with his plans, and he postponed them to Monday, police say. But on Saturday, Nemphos was arrested in a different case, this time for alleged theft. Workers at a restaurant near the boy's home said items had been stolen from their cars; the trail allegedly led to Nemphos. Despite initially denying he'd stolen anything, he "broke down" and acknowledged responsibility, according to police. After his father raised concerns about a handgun stolen from his work, Nemphos told police about his attack plans, they say. They found a suicide note along with a handgun and homemade bombs, Reuters reports. The boy told police he'd been bullied, but he said teachers had done nothing about it, the Baltimore Sun reports. He's now been charged as an adult over possession of a destructive device and weapon possession at school, among other charges.
– An Australian teen who was crushed while lifting weights has died, the BBC reports. Ben Shaw, 15, was bench-pressing about 215 pounds at a Brisbane gym last Tuesday when the bar he was pumping slipped, pinning him and crushing his neck. The critically injured teen was rushed to a children's hospital and placed on life support, 7News reports. He died on Saturday. The boy was trapped under the bar for at least 30 minutes, per News.com.au. A gym member who was about to begin his workout rushed to save Ben. "There was nobody around," the man's wife says. "He looked over and saw the 15-year-old boy just lying on the bench with a bar right across his neck. … He grabbed the bar off his neck and yelled for help," she says. Two others performed CPR until paramedics arrived. Workplace safety officials are looking into the accident at the Police-Citizens Youth Club. Gym rules say members under 16 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Club chief Phil Schultz tells ABC Australia they're cooperating with authorities. "This is a terrible incident and everyone here at PCYC Queensland has been impacted by it," he says. Friends posted tributes to Ben on his rugby team's Facebook page. The Pine Central Holy Spirit Hornets writes that Ben's family donated his tissues and organs to save others. "As a club we will be assisting to see the world through Ben's eyes and ensure his legacy lives on in support of his [parents] and family," the post says. (Parents of a teen found dead in a gym mat were ordered to pay nearly $300,000 in others' legal fees.)
– “Before we get started, I need to alert @FoxNews and someone in DC that this is NOT a war on Christmas. It’s a war on everything else.” Sen. Rand Paul opened his yearly Festivus Twitter rant with this poke at Fox News, then continued to air his grievances Costanza-style. Made popular in the 1997 Seinfeld episode “The Strike,” Festivus is a parody holiday aimed at the commercialism of Christmas. The Kentucky senator has made it a Festivus tradition on December 23 to partake in the "Airing of Grievances," but with a focus on government spending. Per the Lexington Herald-Leader, the libertarian took shots at everyone from Hillary Clinton to President Trump to UFOs, but focused most of his 20-minute tweetstorm on government spending. “It may not seem like a lot of money, but we spent just under $100k to make sure Kenyan farmers knew how to use Facebook,” he wrote. Along with his takedown of spending, the Kentucky senator made time for a few playful jabs at Trump: “I want to pause to wish @realDonaldTrump a Happy Festivus. We told him to take today off, since he airs his grievances on here every day.” According to NPR, Paul also tweeted about Harry Reid ("HOW IS IT YOU NEVER TOLD ME ABOUT THE ALIENS, HARRY??!!), Hillary Clinton, and Ted Cruz. Paul capped off his rant with a link to a 42-page document detailing this year’s grievances.
– More apparent fallout from the Connecticut shooting: Sales of AR-15 magazines are so through the roof that the world's biggest firearm supplier apologized this week for delays, Raw Story reports. "It really has been unprecedented in the last 5 days," wrote a spokesman from Brownells on the AR15.com forum. In fact, 3.5 years' worth of magazines have sold over 72 hours for the AR-15, which is similar to the weapon used to murder 20 elementary school children in Newtown, Connecticut. "We’re working like crazy to get these orders to you as quickly as possible," the spokesman added. (Meanwhile Dick's Sporting Goods has stopped selling some semiautomatic rifles, which are selling fast at Walmart.)
– This summer, an Indianapolis teenager was abducted, strangled, and set on fire—a horrifying crime made all the more tragic by her story of a troubled girl gone good, the Indianapolis Star reports. Dominique Allen was 15 when someone apparently kidnapped her outside a neighbor's house, killed her on an abandoned property, and burned her body (presumably to destroy DNA evidence) in someone's backyard. Now police detectives are struggling to solve the nearly two-month-old case while people in Dominique's community march the streets, WISH-TV reports. "We're jeopardizing the community by keeping this person out there," says one of her sisters. "Somebody knows something." One thing we do know is that Allen rejected the very kind of violence that claimed her life. Distraught by her mother's death to Crohn's disease, Dominique turned angry in seventh grade and got in a fight that injured another girl. In high school, after two friends died to street violence, she turned over a new leaf and reached out to a guidance counselor for help: "Will you be my mom at school for me?" Dominique asked. Soon her algebra grades were improving and she was less downcast—but she died about a month later. "She pretty much had gone from a caterpillar to a butterfly," says her guidance counselor. Police have some sense of her killer—that he was older, knew the neighborhood, and had likely served time—but without hard evidence, the case is falling on community activists. "I know your conscience is bothering you," Dominique's uncle, a reverend, tells the killer via WXIN. "So I would ask also that you do the right thing and come forward."
– William Shakespeare was, of course, an acclaimed playwright—but according to researchers, he was also a grain hoarder, tax evader, and all-around "ruthless" businessman. "Shakespeare the grain-hoarder has been redacted from history so that Shakespeare the creative genius could be born," say the academics in a paper that will be presented at a May literary festival. They paint the picture of a grain merchant and landowner who got rich by buying and storing grain, malt, and barley, which he resold at higher prices during times of famine, the AP reports. He then "pursued those who could not (or would not) pay him in full for these staples and used the profits to further his own money-lending activities," according to the paper. Shakespeare was actually prosecuted in 1598 for hoarding grain during a food shortage, and that's not all: He was also wanted for tax evasion. He was fined for both, and threatened with jail over the tax issue, reports the Telegraph, citing the Sunday Times. The AP notes that these details weren't entirely unknown, and one of the researchers says critics and scholars tend to ignore this information because they "cannot countenance the idea of a creative genius also being motivated by self-interest." But, she adds, these details actually inform Shakespeare's work: In Coriolanus, for example, the people complain when rich merchants exploit the famine in order to maximize profits; and in King Lear, "there is a very subtle depiction of how dividing up land also involves impacts on the distribution of food."
– The Stranger has a cautionary tale about an alleged scam to dupe young women into having sex. The newspaper reports that at least six women tell a similar story: They were solicited on Facebook by a person who called herself Deja Stwalley. She told them she was a recruiter for an indie porn studio, promised big money, and suggested they meet with her photographer friend Matt for an audition. Three actually did have sex with Matt, including then-19-year-old Allysia Bishop, who slit her wrists afterward in an unsuccessful suicide attempt. Now it appears the whole thing was an elaborate hoax. After some online sleuthing that involved examining IP addresses, the women say Matt created the fake Stwalley profile and impersonated her. The Stranger identifies him as freelance tech journo Matt Hickey, who has done work for the Seattle newspaper. "I agree it's weird and also ridiculous, but I'm sorry to say that at this point I can't talk about anything specific, though I may in the future," Hickey tells the paper in an email. The women have gone to police, but the case is in murky territory: They gave consent but under false pretenses. "[The detective] said everything that I'm telling him is really f----- up, but that there are no grounds for a sexual assault case," says Bishop. The police investigation is continuing. The Stwalley profile disappeared when the women began discussing their experiences in an online forum, though the newspaper tracked down a real "Deja Stwalley"—an old middle-school classmate of Hickey's who says he had a "weirdo crush" on her. They also found the woman whose photos were used without her knowledge for the profile. She doesn't know Hickey. Click for the full story.
– Italian police say they have taken down a terror cell comprised of businessmen who financed al-Qaeda from Sardinia. Counterterrorism agents arrested 18 Pakistani and Afghan nationals in seven provinces today in "one of the most important operations we ever conducted," the lead investigator tells NBC News. "We are talking people with connections with al-Qaeda at the highest level" who police say intended to stage terror strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan and funneled money to Pakistan using an ancient trust-based transfer system called hawala. Most of the businessmen appeared to be leading normal lives, but two are believed to have once been part of Osama bin Laden's network of guards, Reuters reports. In a wiretapped conversation, another claimed bin Laden personally sent him to Italy. "We believe they were in touch with people who knew the whereabouts of bin Laden, to the point that they would frequently ask over the phone about his health while he was in hiding," the investigator says. Some members had allegedly planned an attack against Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican in 2010—which never came to fruition—while police say others were involved in a 2009 market bombing in Peshawar, Pakistan, which killed more than 100 people. The cell, headquartered in Sassari, Sardinia, reports CNN, allegedly had "an abundant amount of weapons" and wanted to support attacks that would erode the Pakistan government's support of US forces in Afghanistan. A press conference is scheduled for later today.
– Like to size up the cranium that once held the brain behind Macbeth, Hamlet, and roughly 1,500 words we still use today? Well, it's bad news for you—and anyone who believes William Shakespeare's skull is lying under a small village chapel in England, the Birmingham Mail reports. Seems a clergyman at St. Leonard's Church in Beoley, Redditch, asked to have the skull there removed for a quick DNA test and saw his request denied. "The curiosity as to the skull at Beoley has no factual base whatsoever to justify exhumation, removal, or investigation," says church lawyer Charles Mynors, who issued the denial in a nearly 7,000-word report. "The whole enterprise is entirely speculative." Shakespeare scholars are on his side, but local folklore and two mysterious articles tell a different tale. Dated 1879 and 1884, the anonymous articles claim that a doctor dug up Shakespeare's skull to win a reward offered by an art historian in 1769, the Telegraph reports. But after the doctor couldn't get his money, the skull was buried in a vault under St. Leonard's Church. With the Rev. Paul Irving's request for a DNA test now denied, area clergymen are licking their wounds: "There is this skull sitting there on its own and we would love to know who it is," says a reverend who oversees the Beoley church. "The problem for us now is that the failure to conduct a detailed investigation will result in a higher level of uninformed speculation." As it happens, Shakespeare's tombstone epitaph at Stratford-upon-Avon includes a warning against grave-robbers: "Bleste be the man that spares thes stones," it reads in part. "And curst be he that moves my bones." (Researchers have credited Shakespeare with a new play.)
– Desperate workers continued to stuff sawdust and newspapers mixed with resin and concrete into a major fissure at a Fukushima nuclear reactor as the breach threatened to continue pumping radioactive water into the ocean from months to come. Meanwhile, workers used powdered bath salts to turn the water a milky color, to trace the exact location of the worst of the leak, reports Reuters. Early reports today indicate the efforts are not working, reports the New York Times. Some seven tons an hour of radioactive water are escaping from the pit where the 6-foot crack was discovered Saturday. The pit is next to the seawater intake valves of the No. 2 reactor at Fukushima. If efforts to plug the leak continue to fail, officials said they would try to hang some sort of curtain in the ocean, to prevent the radioactive water from spreading. The radioactive water "will have a huge impact on the ocean," warned the government's chief cabinet secretary, and officials fear the problem could continue for "several" months. "We need to stop the spread into the ocean as soon as possible. With that strong determination, we are asking Tokyo Electric Power Co to act quickly," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference.
– It was just another test drive—a regular task in the daily routine of a used-car salesman. But for CarMax's Warren Smale, it turned out to be his last ride after a potential buyer crashed the red Corvette they were driving in Tuesday into a tree, killing the 43-year-old salesman in Ontario, Calif., and ending in the driver's arrest, the Los Angeles Times reports. Alex Demetro, 28, was charged with vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence of drugs after witnesses say he lost control of the car, the Ontario Police Department tells KTLA. The Corvette was seen zipping around at speeds up to 70mph, witnesses say in a police report. "Today is an incredibly sad day for the CarMax family," a company statement read. "Our hearts and prayers go out to our associate's family." One witness tells KTLA that when she heard the accident, which took place around 12:45pm just a couple of blocks away from the CarMax lot, she headed outside and saw Smale still in the passenger seat and Demetro on the ground clutching his shoulder. "I think he was probably shocked," she says. Smale was taken to a local hospital in critical condition and died there. "That guy had no idea today would be his last day when he showed up to work today," another witness told KTLA. Demetro is being detained in a San Bernardino County jail on $100,000 bail and is expected to appear in court on Thursday, per court records. (A Houston car salesman was kidnapped during a test drive.)
– Mollie Tibbetts' father confirmed the reports that emerged Tuesday morning: His daughter has been found dead. Rob Tibbetts made the confirmation to Fox News in advance of a 4pm local time news conference, at which time authorities revealed a first-degree murder charge has been filed in the case. The Des Moines Register reports the suspect is Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 24. He lives in rural Poweshiek County, where the body was found; Brooklyn, the town from which Tibbetts vanished, is in that county. Rivera has reportedly lived in the area for four to seven years and is an undocumented immigrant. CNN reports surveillance video helped authorities zero in on a suspect and that data from Tibbetts' Fitbit also provided clues. Officials say Rivera followed Tibbetts as she jogged and allegedly abducted her; they say he led them to a female body, which was in a cornfield and covered with cornstalks, per Special Agent Rick Rahn with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. "For whatever reason he chose to abduct her," Rahn said. An autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday, and should reveal more on how and when she died, though the Register notes it could take as long as six weeks to get the results. The Des Moines Register reported the property where the body was found is a roughly 15-minute drive from Brooklyn. A medical examiner vehicle and SUVs were seen at the scene, and the Register reports a no-fly restriction has been put in place by the FAA over an area that encompasses "460th Avenue near North English River just southeast of Guernsey" through early Wednesday morning.
– Using thermal cameras, researchers in Australia uncovered the science behind a habit that seems, well, cute: Koala bears hug trees to cool themselves. It turns out that tree trunks can be up to 12 degrees cooler than the air, and with Australia's recent hot spells rising well above 100 degrees, koalas get extra huggy. Conversely, in the cold of winter, the marsupials tend to climb higher into trees, closer to the leaves they eat. The scientists came to their conclusion after using thermal cameras on a particularly hot day. "If we had thermal vision, it would have been an obvious thing," a University of Melbourne researcher tells the BBC. "You could see the koala sitting on the coolest part of the tree trunk with its bottom wedged right into the coolest spot." And in doing so, koalas manage to conserve a substantial amount of water: They typically cool themselves by panting, LiveScience explains, with heat escaping their bodies by way of the moisture leaving their mouths. Modeling showed tree hugging halved the amount of water that would otherwise be lost. The study also explains why the marsupials have been spotted in acacia trees, which aren't a food source: Those trunks get cooler than eucalyptus trunks, notes Australian Geographic. As for why the trees in general are cooler, researchers say it's possibly because they pull in nearby groundwater, whose temperature doesn't fluctuate as much as air temps do. (Earlier this year, Australia's heat caused thousands of dead bats to fall from the sky.)
– American audiences have to wait another week, but the second-last installment of the Harry Potter movies premiered in London tonight. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I sets up the grand finale, which isn't out until July 2011. Not that reviews will mean a whit to devoted fans, but two early ones out of Britain are of the love-it/hate it variety: It's the "scariest" Potter film by far, writes Anita Singh in the Telegraph. "This is also the installment that takes us deepest into the emotions of the central trio" and includes "scenes of real poignancy." Details like self-filling champagne flutes are a "delight" as usual, and the special effects are "terrific." She can't wait for next July. Xan Brooks in the Guardian is not a fan. Yeah, "it looks great, in the way that a show home looks great," he writes. But it lacks soul. "It's not so much that (it) feels at times largely indistinguishable from the six outings preceding it, nor even that part one offers so little in the way of resolution. It's simply that it's hard to mourn the demise of a franchise that was never more than half-alive to begin with." The Potter films won't stand the test of time because they "are too obviously built for purpose and too lacking in wit, warmth and humanity to survive much beyond the moment."
– A snow fort nearly became a snow tomb for two boys in Newburgh, New York, yesterday. Police say the cousins, ages 9 and 11, were playing in a parking lot across the street from their apartment complex when a snow plow buried them in a mound of snow; they were trapped there for at least four hours, reports NBC New York. A frantic search began when the boys weren't home by 10pm, and they were finally found under more than 6 feet of snow at 2am after a police officer spotted a small shovel partially sticking out of the snow mound. The boys were both conscious. They were hospitalized for exposure and are now in good condition. Police say the plow driver was on the other side of the mound and wouldn't have seen the boys. They were unable to move their arms and legs while trapped, but a dome of air helped them survive in what relatives are calling a Thanksgiving miracle, CBS reports. "All I see was the feet," says a neighbor who helped dig the boys out. "When I got over there, the little boy's feet was hanging out of the thing, and he was shaking, and his mother was like, 'It's all right, he's there, he's there. He was like, 'Mommy, mommy.'" (A woman trapped in a snowbank during last week's freak storm in Buffalo wrote farewell notes to her daughters.)
– The mother of Corey Haim says the coroner found that her son had an enlarged heart and fluid in his lungs and will list the cause of death as pulmonary congestion. Judy Haim tells Access Hollywood that the coroner's office gave her a courtesy call before making the results public. What role drugs played remains unclear, but police found Valium, Vicodin, and two other prescription meds in his apartment, reports TMZ. The site isn't so sure the cause of death has been determined. His former fiancee tells People that Haim, 38, had a history of heart trouble. "Every time he would go to a doctor they'd tell him he had really bad arrhythmia, probably due to clogged arteries," she says. "They all said he should have it taken care of. But, being from Canada, his insurance was there, so he never went and got it done."
– It appears Kenneth Cole didn't learn his lesson when he sent a very questionable tweet out into the world to promote his brand back in 2011. He's done it once again, this time using the situation in Syria, rather than Egypt, for inspiration, Gawker notes. "'Boots on the ground' or not, let's not forget about sandals, pumps and loafers. #Footwear," the high-end designer tweeted yesterday. And out poured the angry responses. One Twitter user argued Cole was "mocking war to sell fashion," another accused him of being "out for cheap shock value." But this time around, Cole isn't apologizing. In an Instagram video, the designer responded by saying, "I've always used my platform to provoke dialogue about important issues including HIV/AIDS, war, and homelessness. I'm well aware of the risks that come with this approach, and if this encourages further awareness and discussion of critical issues, then all the better." But as the Atlantic Wire notes, "If Cole is genuine about the mission behind his otherwise regrettable tweets, it doesn't look like he's anywhere close to succeeding: The only subject his more controversial tweets have provoked people to discuss is Kenneth Cole himself." Click to find out why he's in teachers' bad books, too.
– Ellen Page and her girlfriend never even announced an engagement, and now they've apparently gotten secretly married, the New York Daily News reports. "Can't believe I get to call this extraordinary woman my wife," the actress posted on Instagram along with a photo of their hands and wedding rings. Her wife, dancer Emma Portner, echoed that sentiment: "I get to call this incredible woman MY WIFE!" A representative for Page, 30, confirmed the marriage, though it's unclear where or when it happened. People has more on Portner, 22, who apparently met Page after the Juno and X-Men star watched one of her dance videos on Instagram and messaged her.
– Has the capture of an al-Qaeda commander damaged relations with Libya? A statement from the Libyan government describes the Tripoli raid that nabbed Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai as a "kidnapping" and demanded answers from the US, reports the Washington Post. In response, John Kerry described the Libyan, who is known by his alias Abu Anas al-Libi, as "a key al-Qaeda figure" who is a "legal and an appropriate target for the US military" and will face trial in an American court. The US regularly consults Libya on counterterrorism issues, but "we don’t get into the specifics of our communication with foreign governments on any kind of operation of this kind," said Kerry. Despite the Libyan government's apparent anger, some witnesses, including the suspect's son, say the raid was carried out by Libyan agents, the Guardian reports. "The people who took my father were Libyan, not Americans—they spoke with Tripoli accents," the son says. The suspect, believed to have played a major role in the 1998 embassy bombings, is now believed to be on board a Navy vessel for interrogation.
– The Plague of Justinian and the Black Death arose from separate bacteria strains, researchers say—and that's not a good thing, because if distinct plagues have ravaged the human population before, they could come up again, LiveScience reports. A group of researchers came to this conclusion by digging up two victims of the Black Death in Germany and studying DNA fragments in their teeth. They reconstructed the disease's genome and compared it to more than a hundred contemporary strains of plague, but no luck—the Black Death was an evolutionary dead end. This "generates new questions," says the study's top author. "For example, why did this [Justinian] pandemic, which killed somewhere between 50 and 100 million people, die out?" Maybe people built up an immunity to the bacteria, AFP notes, or natural climate variation could have stopped the germs from spreading. Either way, plague remains a threat in some countries, like Madagascar, where people live in closer proximity to flea-carrying rodents. Even the US has a few bubonic plague infections each year. "Fortunately we now have antibiotics that could be used to effectively treat plague, which lessens the chances of another large scale human pandemic," says a co-author of the study.
– If you're tired of shelling out $19.99 for a pack of disposable razors, you might be interested in Michael Dubin's new start-up, Dollar Shave Club. And even if you're hairless or don't believe in shaving, you might be interested in Dubin's ad for the start-up, which went viral after going live Tuesday, the Huffington Post reports. Dubin, who has a background in comedy with the Upright Citizens Brigade, says 5,000 people have already signed up for Dollar Shave Club, which offers monthly shipments of razors for anywhere from $1 to $9.
– In 1936, Ernest Hemingway told a friend he'd never kill himself, the Charlotte Observer reports. The great author was dead by his own hand 25 years later. According to Smithsonian, Hemingway scholars have long blamed the writer's decade-long decline and eventual suicide on some combination of alcoholism and bipolar disorder. But a psychiatrist in North Carolina says the actual culprit is something more associated with modern football players than authors: CTE. Andrew Farah has been studying Hemingway for 20 years, Fox 8 reports. By reading Hemingway's letters, memoirs by his friends and family, and the FBI file on him, Farah was able to trace what he believes is the source of Hemingway's downfall: at least nine concussions. Those concussions came from boxing, car crashes, exploding shells during two world wars, and more. "His injuries and head traumas were frequent, random, and damaging," Farah writes in his newly published book, Hemingway's Brain. For example, following a plane crash that had likely already concussed him, Hemingway used his head to bash out a door and escape the plane. While we likely will never know for sure if Hemingway suffered from CTE, Farah says he showed symptoms in his final years, such as paranoia, anger, and violence. He also got worse following electroconvulsive therapy. "It didn't take long to connect the dots," Farah tells Smithsonian. He says he hopes his conclusion will allow the focus to shift from the "mythology" of Hemingway's death to the greatness of his work. (How sports destroyed a young man's brain.)
– Ralph Hall, already the oldest person ever to serve in the House of Representatives, is seeking a final term but the 91-year-old faces a tough challenge today from a 48-year-old opponent. John Ratcliffe is backed by conservative groups with strong Tea Party ties in the Republican primary runoff and he says he is the stronger conservative, the AP reports. But Hall, who first won his Dallas-area seat in 1980 and switched from Democrat to Republican in 2004, says the younger man is "running against my birth certificate." The contest will be a test of whether Hall's old-school, face-to-face campaigning style can hold up against his opponent's modern, digital, and data-heavy techniques, the AP noted last month. Hall—who once sold cigarettes and Coca-Cola to Bonnie and Clyde when he worked in a pharmacy as a boy—served in the Navy from 1942 to 1945 and if he does prevail, he will be the last World War II veteran in Congress, reports the New York Daily News. There are no veterans of the war still serving in the Senate and the only other World War II vet in the House is Michigan Democrat John Dingell, who is not seeking re-election.
– Steroids may give athletes a competitive edge way longer than previously thought—as long as their entire professional careers. A new study from Norway found that mice given steroids were able to regrow muscle mass more rapidly months after the drug was withdrawn. After three months "clean," the 'roided-up mice grew their muscles 30% after six days of exercise. Mice who took no drugs only gained 6% more muscle, the BBC reports. Three months may not sound like a lot, but it is 15% of a mouse's average lifespan, notes the Australian. The new research raises the question of how long athletes should be banned from competing after being caught doping. Standard doping bans are two to four years, but the leader of the study says that may not be nearly long enough. "If it is sufficient to build muscle mass, I think it would be sufficient to give you this long-term effect," he says, per the BBC. "I think it could last 10 years but I don't have the data to back that up. It would be my speculation."
– You don't have to look at the sinking Dow—which is now in negative territory for the year—to get a sense of just how bleak today's jobs report was. A glance at financial blogs offers a depressing reminder: Felix Salmon, Reuters: It's "about as bad the jobs report could possibly be." We're in a crisis, and the government's response should be clear: Borrow money at the low rates now available and re-invest in the economy through infrastructure spending, etc. Unfortunately, "Obama is bizarrely reluctant to talk about anything which rhymes with 'stimulus.' As a result, the current dysfunction—and horribly weak jobs market—is likely to persist for far too long." David Leonhardt, New York Times: The report is "terrible" and marks the third straight year of a spring slump. "What happens now? Don’t expect much action from Congress, despite the talk you will hear. The jobs numbers will certainly raise the odds of further action by the Federal Reserve, but it’s not clear by how much. Perhaps most important, the decisions of European policy makers loom even larger now." From the right: It's an "unmitigated flop," writes Ed Morrissey at Hot Air. "There is no positive spin that can be put on this report. It’s an indictment of Obama’s stagnation and incompetence at economics." From the left: "There’s no sugar-coating Friday’s report: It’s bad," writes Benjy Sarlin at Talking Points Memo. "That makes President Obama’s job that much harder as he tries to gain the upper hand against Mitt Romney on the economy." Swing states are doing better, "but it’s an open question how much of a cushion that will give him if the national recovery continues to slow down."
– Chinese firms are widely and in many cases "openly" distributing devices that can readily be used for torture, Amnesty International says in a new report. The number of companies involved has surged from 28 to more than 130 in the past decade, the activist organization notes, and most of these firms are government-owned. Pointing to "intrinsically cruel" equipment, Amnesty says that "while some of the exports are no doubt used in legitimate law enforcement operations, China has also exported equipment that has inhumane effects or poses a substantial risk of fueling human rights violations by foreign law enforcement agencies" in Africa and Asia, the BBC reports. Among the items are shock batons, which "make it easy for security officials to apply extremely painful multiple shocks by hand to sensitive areas of the body, including the genitals, throat, groin, or ears, without long-lasting physical traces." There are also spiked batons (no other country is known to make these), heavy leg cuffs, and neck shackles. Cambodia, Egypt, Ghana, Nepal, Thailand, Madagascar, and Senegal are among the recipients, notes the report, which calls on China to "fundamentally reform its trade regulations." China's foreign ministry says it has "no knowledge" of the practice, noting a "strong bias" at Amnesty against the country, CNN reports.
– Six years in the making, the Burj Dubai skyscraper opens Monday with the United Arab Emirates' fortunes in flux and the boom times that launched the world's tallest building a distant memory. Designed by American Adrian Smith, the Burj Dubai—the name means simply "Dubai Tower"—is 2,683 feet and 160 stories tall, with a nightclub on the 143rd floor and residences as high as the 108th. Developer Emaar Properties says the project is sold out despite the recession but won't say who's bought in, citing confidentiality, the Telegraph reports. "As super-tall buildings go, the Burj Dubai is elegant," writes Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne. "But the hyper-confident Dubai that Smith's tower was designed to mark and call global attention to is already dead."
– Not long ago, all the controversy surrounding magazine airbrushing seemed to focus on models and actresses being made to appear way too thin (to the point that some actually lost limbs), but not so anymore. These days, magazines are increasingly Photoshopping models to appear heavier, because that's what the public wants. "I have to airbrush clients to make them appear bigger and more womanly before I submit photographs," a talent manager tells Fox News. "Skinny doesn’t sell." Thank Beyonce, Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian, and other curvy stars like Sports Illustrated cover girl Kate Upton for the new trend of "bootylicious-ness," says a celebrity stylist. But models are still, for the most part, ultra-skinny—and thus need the "reverse retouching." "These poor girls have been forced to lose the very curves that the general public wants in order to find a woman attractive," says a model manager and publicist. Some find the practice just as controversial as slimming down models, and it gets particularly ridiculous when health and fitness magazines do it in order to make models appear healthier.
– A Marilyn Monroe nude scene that people thought had been destroyed long ago has been rediscovered—but it's not clear whether it will ever be released. The scene from 1961's The Misfits, the last movie that Monroe completed before her death, was kept by producer Frank Taylor, and his son has been keeping it in a locked cabinet since his father's 1999 death, author Charles Castillo discovered while researching new book Marilyn Monroe: The Private Life of a Public Icon. The scene, in which Monroe drops a sheet during a love scene with Clark Gable, would have been one of the first nude scenes featuring an "American actress in a major production in the sound era of film," according to Deadline. The scene was Monroe's idea, but director John Huston decided it was unnecessary and didn't include it in the final version of the film, which was written by Arthur Miller, Monroe's then-husband, reports the HuffPost. Monroe appeared in a similar scene in her next movie, Something's Got to Give, which was never completed. Curtice Taylor, the producer's son, still hasn't decided what to do with the footage. Jezebel notes that the discovery of the footage poses some "tricky issues," especially since Castillo's book recounts Monroe's grim history of sexual abuse and exploitation. (Hugh Hefner, who used Monroe's photos without her consent in the first Playboy, paid $75,000 to be buried next to her.)
– With a midnight deadline looming, Iran and the six nations it's conferring with in Switzerland have reached a deal—to continue talks for a deal on Tehran's hotly contested nuke program. The nations are expected to release a joint statement today announcing they'll enter a "new phase" of negotiations that will end with a full-fledged agreement by the end of June, according to two unnamed officials, per the AP. While headway had been made, key sticking points mean the language is being revised to say today's talks will end in an "understanding," with "technical" issues to be resolved in coming months, the AP notes. What's going on: Iran wants all UN sanctions lifted immediately; the six-country bloc is willing to make other concessions—including nixing banking limitations and getting rid of the EU oil embargo—but wants some sanctions in place until Iran makes good on its promises. That looks unlikely, with supreme leader Ali Khamenei posting yesterday, "Sanctions must be lifted in one go, not as a result of future Iranian actions," per the Guardian. Although Iran has said it will acquiesce to restrictions on its centrifuge development over the next decade, beyond that is fair game. The other countries at the negotiating table want to cut down Iran's "breakout time" (the time it would take to construct a bomb) by adding five more years onto the 10-year moratorium. Iran argues that would keep the country under the thumb of other nations' technology, the Guardian notes. The question of Iran's uranium stash remains on the table, with Tehran's main negotiator saying Iran has no intention of shipping its fuel out, and the US State Department conceding that there's still a lot of back and forth on this issue. "The bottom line is that we don't have agreement with the Iranians on the stockpile issue," a State rep said yesterday, per the New York Times.
– Warning: You may not want to read (or watch) this while eating. Alicia Silverstone has a somewhat unconventional method for feeding her 11-month-old son, Bear Blu: She chews the food for him, then lets him take it directly out of her mouth. She posted a picture and video of the practice on her website over the weekend, writing, "I fed Bear the mochi and a tiny bit of veggies from the soup … from my mouth to his. It’s his favorite ... and mine. He literally crawls across the room to attack my mouth if I’m eating." But is the practice safe? One doctor tells Fox News it may not be, since viruses and bacteria can be passed from mom to baby, and plus, "there’s a certain ick factor here that needs to be considered." The deputy editor of parenting site Babble.com notes that the video looks "like Alicia is making out with her son," and a family therapist questions whether the practice is psychologically appropriate. A nutrition specialist sums it up: "I think a food processor and a spoon are a better bet!"
– When Beth Laitkep's breast cancer spread to her brain and spine, doctors knew she didn't have much time. But what should be done with her six children? "She said to me, 'If a miracle doesn't happen and I don't make it, can you take my children as your own,'" her friend Stephanie Culley tells People. "And I immediately said yes." That's how Ace, 2, Lily, 5, Dallas, 10, Jaxson, 11, Selena, 14, and Will, 15, ended up living with Culley, her husband Donnie, and their three kids when Laitkep died in May at age 39. Luckily, Donnie is a construction worker who happened to have built their Alton, Virginia, home with enough bedrooms to fit everybody. "There was some higher power working here, everything just sort of fell into place—like us having a big enough house for nine kids," Stephanie says. "It had to be someone up above looking out for us." Laitkep was pregnant with Ace in 2014 when she got diagnosed with cancer, had an emergency C-section, and began chemotherapy, reports the Washington Post. Her children's father left the family as she grew sicker, which, ironically, made room for Stephanie and Donnie to step in and obtain temporary custody. Now the parents have a June 19 court date set to secure permanent custody; adoption could follow. And word is they do it all on their own. "She's very, very humble, she won't ask for help," a friend of Stephanie's tells WSET. "She's an angel." (This family adopts babies who are going to die.)
– The 28-year-old boyfriend of the gang-rape victim in India has given his first interviews after the attack, and he says both he and his girlfriend tried and failed to fight off their six attackers: "We tried to resist them. Even my friend fought with them; she tried to save me," he tells Zee News, in a report picked up by the BBC. "She tried to dial the police control room number 100, but the accused snatched her mobile away." The still-unidentified boyfriend suffered a fractured leg and other injuries, reports the AFP, which has an interview of its own. He recounts how they boarded a private bus with tinted windows outside a movie theater, even though he had his doubts. He quickly asked the driver to stop, but by then the assailants had locked the doors. In the interview, he criticized the initial police response as insensitive, along with what he called too-slow care at the public hospital that treated them. "What can I say? The cruelty I saw should not be seen ever. I tried to fight against the men, but later I begged them again and again to leave her." "I was not very confident about getting into the bus, but my friend was running late, so we got into it. This was the biggest mistake I made and after that everything went out of control." "They hit me with a small stick and dragged my friend to a seat near the driver's cabin." Then, the "driver and the other men raped my friend and hit her in the worst possible ways in the most private parts of her body." They were thrown from the bus after about an hour, and the boyfriend says some passersby did nothing to help.
– Hey remember that time, lo those many weeks ago, when most Americans believed a terror attack would hit the Sochi Olympics? You could hardly blame them; there were ominous reports of approaching black widows and evacuation plans as important people predicted doom. But a funny thing happened: Nothing. "It turned out that the most terrifying image from Sochi was the look of disgust" on Ashley Wagner's face, observes CNN security analyst Peter Bergen. It was just the latest example "of hyperventilating hyperbole of the doomsday terrorism prognosticators." In November, GOP Rep. Mike Rogers said al-Qaeda "poses a bigger threat" than before 9/11, a statement Bergen believes "defies common sense." The US has decimated al-Qaeda, while dramatically improving American security and intelligence capabilities. A much-discussed 2004 book argued that "a nuclear attack on America in the decade ahead is more likely than not." Looks like "not" won out. "It's relatively easy to say the sky is always falling," Bergen writes, because when it doesn't, "doomsday prognosticators are rarely held to account. … they are too busy warning of the next catastrophe." Click for his full column.
– Would you pay $2 million for an elegant dish of blowtorch-seared squirrel? Barbara Pellow might not have a choice. According to a Michigan Court of Appeals ruling last week, Pellow's boyfriend, Khek Chanthalavong, was using a blowtorch to burn fur off a squirrel he planned to eat when he left the blowtorch unattended on Pellow's wooden deck for 15 minutes in October 2012, reports WZZM. He returned to find a fire that ripped through Pellow's apartment building in Holland Township, damaging 32 units and destroying dozens of residents' personal effects. A court initially ordered Pellow to pay $15,400 in damages. However, justices ruled last Wednesday that she may have to pay up to $2 million to cover costs paid by an insurance company, per WWMT. While the, um, barbeque was banned under Pellow's rental agreement, she argued the contract was "never explained to her." The justices countered that landlords aren't required to "read and explain" rental agreements to tenants and found Pellow liable for the "fur-burning escapade," even though Chanthalavong was the one doing the cooking. (A squirrel caused $300,000 in damage in Indiana.)
– The cascade of support following Chris Stevens' death has inspired his family to start a fund for peace in the Middle East, NBC Bay Area reports. "We just had this overwhelming response," says Chris' brother, Tom Stevens. "We have received emails, texts, letters, flowers, you name it. And then Chris' Face book page, it just went worldwide." Called the J Christopher Stevens fund, it will soon have a board and forge a strategy—likely focused on groups already seeking to mend fences between Americans and people in the Middle East, Tom said. He also encouraged possible donors—or anyone with ideas for the fund—to reach the Stevens family via rememberingchrisstevens.com. Meanwhile, however, FBI agents investigating the death of Stevens and three other Americans at the US mission in Libya are struggling to deal with low security, a looted crime scene, and witnesses too fearful to speak up, the New York Times reports. "It’s a cavalcade of obstacles right now," says a US official. "It’ll be very difficult to see what evidence can be attributed to the bad guys."
– A police officer fatally shot a 13-year-old boy carrying a BB gun after he ran from officers in Columbus, Ohio, on Wednesday, authorities say. Officers were investigating an armed robbery—in which the victim said a group of people, one of whom had a gun, had demanded money from him—when they saw three males matching the descriptions of the suspects about a block away, reports the AP. As officers approached them, two suspects took off running, police say. "Officers followed the males to the alley ... and attempted to take them into custody when one suspect pulled a gun from his waistband," police say. "One officer shot and struck the suspect multiple times." Tyree King, 13—whom police later determined was carrying a BB gun with an attached laser sight—was rushed to a children's hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 8:22pm, reports NBC News. WCMH identifies the officer who shot King as a nine-year veteran of the force who had just been transferred to the zone where the shooting occurred. No one else was injured. The male suspect with Tyree was interviewed by police and released. Officers say they are still looking for other robbery suspects.
– Apple isn't the only one who has hit a rough patch—Beleaguered Netflix is also taking a drubbing after posting a 91% drop in net income for the second quarter. Shares responded by dropping almost 15% in after-hours trading yesterday. The company’s decision to separate its DVD-by-mail service from its streaming service, thus increasing the subscription fee for customers who want both, ended up costing it 850,000 DVD-only subscribers in the second quarter in the US. Meanwhile, more than half a million US streaming subscribers came on board. "Their subscriber gains just weren't impressive," an analyst tells the Wall Street Journal. Though Netflix was once again profitable, with a net income of $6.2 million after losing $4.6 million in the first quarter, a letter to shareholders warns that a number of challenges are ahead—including a return to the red in the fourth quarter. And more bad news: HBO quickly squashed the idea of a partnership that would allow Netflix customers to stream the network’s shows. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings had raised the idea of a partnership in the letter to shareholders, but HBO says no deal is in the works, Reuters reports.
– If Disneyland really is the happiest place on Earth, as it claims, then truly few people could possibly be happier than Jeff Reitz. On Thursday, the Air Force veteran made his 2,000 daily visit to the theme park—in a row, according to a press release. The impressive streak started on Jan. 1, 2012 after a friend gave Reitz a season pass to lift his spirits during a job hunt, Consumerist reports. Since then, Reitz has gotten a job and still not missed a day at Disneyland. "It’s magical," Reitz tells KABC. "I never expected that it would turn into this much when I started coming." Reitz, who lives in Huntington Beach, says his daily trips to Disneyland give him something to look forward to every day. He says he enjoys the cast members, attractions, and music. “Even doing like Walt, and sitting down and people watching–just enjoying the atmosphere,” he tells KTLA. Reitz says he plans to continue visiting Disneyland every day. “I’m still having fun with it. That’s the only reason I’m still doing this,” he says. “It wasn’t about going for records or anything like that. That’s been a bonus.” (17 people got pooped on at Disneyland.)
– Richie Havens, the folk singer who opened the 1969 Woodstock festival, died today from a sudden heart attack at home in New Jersey, Rolling Stone reports. He was 72. The Brooklyn-born musician is best known for the three-hour, partially improvised Woodstock set that brought him to prominence (and helped pad out the show until other artists arrived). He released 21 studio albums in his career. Havens also worked as an actor—appearing in the 1972 stage version of The Who's Tommy and 2007 Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There, the Wall Street Journal reports.
– True Blood's just-begun Season 5 has its roots in the Republican primaries. No, there weren't any known vampires running for office—but the policies of Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum were scary enough, says show creator Alan Ball. While watching the primaries, Ball found himself "asking what would it be like to have a theocracy in America—which is way more terrifying than any fictional monster could ever be," he tells the Wrap. The most "terrifying" thing about Santorum: "How many people agree with him," Ball notes. "Our jumping off point was 'OK, what is a vampire theocracy?' You don’t really see vampires being religious creatures," he says. "But what if there was a vampire bible? A religion? Theocracy? How would that impact our human characters, or vampire characters?" You'll have to tune in to find out, but in the meantime, you can read Ball's entire interview, which touches on sex, nudity, and why this season will be his last.
– Like Santa sneaking down the chimney, Amazon is planning to drop packages off in customers' car trunks while they're at work or otherwise unavailable for delivery, the New York Times reports. The caveat (for now): Recipients need to live in Munich, have a select Audi equipped with special technology, and be Amazon Prime members, per Mashable. The program, set to launch in May, will partner with DHL, which will get temporary access to customers' car trunks to make drop-offs; customers would also be able to place packages in their car for DHL pickup. An Audi spokesman tells the Times that the initiative is the first between an online retailer, delivery service, and carmaker; he adds it likely won't be available for most customers until next year. USA Today explains how the delivery works: An Audi owner who orders goods using Amazon Prime would greenlight delivery to her car, giving the DHL driver an electronic access code for a limited time. Using GPS, the driver finds the car, pops the trunk, and drops the package; once the trunk is closed, the code won't work again. Mashable brings up the possibility of the service being used for "nefarious purposes" (sending illegal packages, for instance), and the Times mentions the logistical matter of only being able to deliver to cars that remain in one place for a good portion of the day. Still, the service's creators hope it will cut back on deliveries thwarted when customers aren't home to receive them. (Amazon still wants to make drone delivery a widespread service.)
– It was a hot, humid day in Pasco County, Fla., on Saturday, and Gene Work was trying to beat the clock to lay down sod in his yard so he wouldn't face a fine from his homeowners association. But the 40-year-old, who was working with his brother-in-law Mark Rouco, soon wasn't feeling well—and it turned out he was having a heart attack, per ABC News. His wife, Melissa Work, called 911, and about a half-dozen firefighters arrived to rush Gene Work to the hospital. But while he was drifting in and out of consciousness, his wife says he could only focus on one thing. "He kept begging me to figure out the sod and have it put down because he didn't want it to go to waste and die," she writes in a Facebook post. "It's ALL he kept asking about literally during a massive heart attack. LOL." He relayed his same fears to the first responders on his way to the hospital, and they were obviously listening. Per the Tampa Bay Times, Rouco, who'd stayed behind in the yard to try to finish the job, suddenly saw the emergency vehicles that had just been there returning. Rouco thought they were coming to check on him, but they were there for a different reason: to help him put the rest of the sod down. All together, they got the job done in an hour. At a ceremony Tuesday honoring the first responders, Gene Work told them he cried when he was shown a picture of the finished sod job after his emergency surgery. "On paper, we've been dealt a lot of difficulties," Melissa Work, who will be receiving a bone marrow transplant next month, tells the Times. "But we teach our kids to look for the positives, and that is what this was." An extra gesture of kindness: After seeing Melissa Work's Facebook post, the sod company refunded all of the family's money. (California firefighters saved a dog, mouth to snout.)
– On Monday night, President Trump hyped his upcoming Fox & Friends interview, and Tuesday morning he delivered—his first self-administered report card. In his sit-down with the Fox crew, which Politico notes was taped Monday afternoon, Trump awarded himself an A for achievement and an A-plus for effort so far, though he conceded that "results are more important." And there's one big area where he sees need for improvement. "In terms of messaging, I'd give myself a C or a C-plus," he noted, adding, "My messaging isn't good." To illustrate, he brought up his immigration initiative to keep out undocumented immigrants with criminal records, noting the failure of his administration to effectively communicate the purpose of the plan and acknowledging "maybe that's my fault," per Fox News. Keeping on the topic of communication, Trump believes some of the leaks in his administration likely come from Obama stragglers in the White House, the New York Times reports, though he said he doesn't agree with his own press secretary's spot-check of staffers' cellphones to remedy the issue. He called Sean Spicer "a fine human being," but said he "would have done it differently" and met with people individually instead. The president also addressed his penchant for tweeting, per Politico. He said there's "no method" to how he works up his 140 or so characters, nor is it "venting." Instead, he revealed, he uses Twitter to streamline the messaging he acknowledges still needs work, noting tweets allow him to circumvent "dishonest media" (which he interjected didn't mean Fox). "Most of the people that want me to stop [tweeting] are the enemies, I'll be honest with you," he said.
– Republican candidate Greg Gianforte may have blown the race for Montana's only House seat on the eve of the election. Gianforte was charged with misdemeanor assault Wednesday evening after allegedly attacking Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs, Politico reports. In an account backed up by an audio recording and statements from a Fox News crew, Jacobs says Gianforte slammed him to the ground, breaking his glasses, after he asked him a question at a campaign event. "He took me to the ground," Jacobs says. "He got on me and I think he hit me ... This is the strangest thing that has ever happened to me in reporting on politics." In the audio, Gianforte can be heard saying, "I'm sick and tired of you guys!" and "get the hell out out of here!" Fox News reporter Alicia Acuna says after Jacobs asked Gianforte a question about the American Health Care Act, the candidate "grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him." She says she saw no aggression at all from the reporter. A Gianforte spokesman, however, blamed the incident on "aggressive behavior from a liberal journalist" before the Republican's final campaign rally. Gianforte is in a tighter race than expected with Democratic folk singer Rob Quist for the seat vacated by Ryan Zinke, the Trump administration's interior secretary. Hours before the Thursday vote, the Billings Gazette yanked its endorsement of Gianforte, saying it "simply cannot trust him."
– One moment, 13-year-old Indiana boy Noah Inman was playing basketball with friends on a summer evening. The next, he was on the ground, fatally injured by a bullet that had fallen from the sky. Noah died in a Chicago hospital on Friday, six days after he was hit by the bullet, which police believe was fired into the sky "like a firework" by somebody celebrating in a nearby community at around 9:30pm, NBC Chicago reports. People at the scene initially thought Noah had suffered a seizure. The Hammond Police Department offered its "heartfelt condolences" to the boy's family and urged the shooter, or anybody who knows somebody who was firing into the air on July 1, to come forward, ABC 7 reports. Noah played baseball in the Highland Babe Ruth League, where coach Juan Maldonado describes him as a "dream kid" to coach, the Chicago Tribune reports. He says on Saturday, during the team's last tournament of the season, players had "NI 12" on their caps, referring to Noah's jersey number, and chanted "1-2-3 Noah" after huddles. Mayor Tom McDermott Jr. describes the death as a "ridiculous fluke" and a "horrible tragedy." "I don't know what [people shooting their guns in the air] think happens—the bullet disappears into thin air?" he tells the Tribune. "The bullet could've come from Munster, Cal City, East Chicago, really anywhere close by. It's like getting struck by lightning—so senseless." A GoFundMe page set up to help the family has raised more than $22,000.
– Some Swedish workers can now enter their building without a key and make purchases at the office cafe sans card—with a chip implanted in their hand, the BBC reports. Epicenter, a new Swedish office block, is offering employees a miniscule RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip to provide various kinds of access. Not all are accepting it, but it's been offered to some 400 workers, the Independent reports. "We already interact with technology all the time," says bio-hacker Hannes Sjoblad, the "chief disruption officer" at the office block. "Today it's a bit messy—we need pin codes and passwords. Wouldn't it be easy to just touch with your hand? That's really intuitive." A BBC journalist had one inserted and said it wasn't too painful, but neither was it intuitive: His hand needed some twisting to activate an office photocopier. Yet Sjoblad and the Swedish Biohacking Group (which is behind the technology) sees this as just the beginning. They already hold chip-insertion parties at a Stockholm tattoo parlor, which the BBC depicts as part of a trend that's blending humans with technology—including smart watches, glucose-monitoring contact lenses, and the digital BioStamp tattoo that collects data on a person's health. "Some people are horrified by this," admits one advocate. But "years ago there was fear over vaccinations and now it seems perfectly normal to have cells injected into us. That is an early example of bio-hacking." (In development: A birth control chip that could last 16 years.)
– Two Florida lawmakers want to know why Beyonce and Jay-Z were celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary in Cuba—where most Americans are still forbidden to travel, CNN reports. "Numerous press reports described the couple’s trip as tourism, and the Castro regime touted it as such in its propaganda," wrote Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart, both Republicans, in a letter to the Treasury Department. The lawmakers called for a Treasury agency to investigate the visit. Mauricio Claver-Carone, the head of a PAC that promotes democracy in Cuba, added to the outcry: "There are women getting beaten on a daily basis, women who are being jailed for no reason ... people are fighting for their freedom," he told TMZ. "It’s extremely insensitive." A US embargo makes it illegal for Americans to visit Cuba without a "cultural exchange" license, but many still go there from neighboring countries, the Huffington Post reports. Maybe that's how the high-powered pair got to Havana, where they set off flashbulbs as they dined in restaurants and visited historical sites.
– When Ashley Boyle took her 3-year-old daughter to Hawaii's Island Dentistry for Children in November, she says she was told the child needed six fillings and four root canals. They returned for the root canals on Dec. 3; on Friday, Finley Boyle died, a month after suffering brain damage after the visit to Kailua dentist Dr. Lilly Geyer, reports CNN. The girl's parents plan to file a wrongful death suit, but Fox News picks up alleged details from an already filed negligence lawsuit. Per court documents, Finley was administered five sedatives and anesthetics, Demerol among them, and the "drugs given were as though given individually," reports KITV. The family's lawyer alleges that Geyer had to leave her office and run to another part of the building to seek out a pediatrician who could perform CPR after Finley began to go into cardiac arrest; he claims the child went 26 minutes without anyone monitoring her. The suit claims Finley "suffered severe and permanent brain damage" due to the medications, and was left in a vegetative state—able to breathe on her own, but unable to survive without a feeding tube, which hospice doctors removed last week. Says the family's lawyer, per KHON, "I think the parents felt that Finley wouldn't want to live. I don't think any one of us would. She didn't know she was alive basically." Island Dentistry's website says the practice is closed for good.
– A would-be kidnapper got more than he bargained for after snatching a girl from her bed Sunday. Authorities say a man broke into a home in El Cajon, Calif., through an unlocked window, then grabbed an 8-year-old girl from her upstairs bedroom. Unbeknownst to her attacker, the girl knew kung fu. She tells KGTV she awoke in the man's arms as he carried her downstairs and punched him in the neck with what's known as the leopard or cheetah paw. "It hurt him," the girl tells NBC San Diego. The man dropped the girl and fled as she ran to get her parents, per KTRK. Authorities arrived around 4am and searched the surrounding area with police dogs but didn't find the suspect, who "smelled like garbage" and may have been homeless, per KTVU. He's described as 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-10, with tanned skin and dark "fluffy" hair. Police plan to run fingerprints from a hand smear on the window of a neighboring home.
– President Obama isn't known for getting particularly personal at the podium, Politico notes, but in a speech at the US-Africa Summit, he offered up his own story. "I stand before you as the president of the United States and a proud American. I also stand before you as the son of a man from Africa," he said in a toast at a dinner last night. "The blood of Africa runs through our family. And so for us, the bonds between our countries, our continents, are deeply personal.” Obama discussed his memories of visiting Africa with his family, and he applauded "the new Africa, the Africa that is rising and so full of promise," the AP notes; the words referred to a song he heard in Senegal, Politico adds. He also referred to slavery, recalling a "painful past" and of "standing with our daughters in those doors of no return through which so many Africans passed in chains." The dinner was held on the White House's South Lawn because the crowd of 400-plus couldn't fit indoors; guests ranged from the presidents of South Africa and South Sudan to Jimmy Carter and Robert De Niro.
– Federal police executed at least 22 people on a ranch last year, then moved bodies and planted guns to corroborate the official account that the deaths happened in a gunbattle, Mexico's human rights commission says, per the AP. A total of 43 people, including one police officer, were killed in the confrontation in the western state of Michoacan on May 22, 2015. The National Human Rights Commission says five people were killed when a police Black Hawk helicopter fired 4,000 rounds at the ranch house after the officer was shot, the BBC reports. Another 22 were arbitrarily executed, while the circumstances of the other 15 deaths are still unclear, according to the commission. The lopsided death toll had led to suspicions that officers might have arbitrarily killed people during the operation against suspected members of the Jalisco New Generation cartel. Eighteen of the victims were found barefoot and one just in his underpants, leading the commission to conclude most were asleep when police arrived. Thirteen of the 22 people the commission says were executed had been shot in the back. Mexico's national security commissioner denies the accusations of what the commission called "grave human rights violations," saying federal police ordered the suspects to drop their weapons and surrender, but were answered with gunfire.
– If Rachel Dolezal gets a reality show, it won't be able to focus on her volunteer position on Spokane’s police oversight commission. Spokane City Council voted 6 to 0 yesterday to remove Dolezal from the Police Ombudsman Commission after a report found evidence of wrongdoing by Dolezal and two other commission members. An investigation following a female city employee's complaint on April 15 found Dolezal, Kevin Berkompas, and Adrian Dominguez were guilty of workplace harassment; taking on duties not assigned, like attempting to draft and adopt policies; changing official meeting minutes; criticizing the woman who filed the complaint in public; and intimidating her by suggesting she'd get a poor evaluation, KREM reports. Investigators say Dolezal, one of 20 witnesses interviewed, showed a bias against police, and her role in protests against law enforcement showed a clear conflict of interest. The report also found Dolezal didn't keep confidential the names of individuals who were participating in police misconduct probes. Spokane's mayor and city council president asked the three officials to resign prior to the meeting, which Berkompas did. The council allowed Dominguez a week to respond to the allegations. Dolezal had refused to step down, questioning both the "timing and intentions of the investigation." "I have done nothing wrong," she said in advance of the vote, per NBC News. "The level of harassment and sabotage by city government is completely undeserved and inappropriate."
– For decades, Indians have demanded that Britain return a 105.6-carat diamond that they say was taken from them when they were under colonial rule. The matter may soon be settled, and not in their favor. In a Monday appearance before India's Supreme Court, which was hearing a case on the stone, Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar said the Koh-i-Noor diamond "was neither stolen nor forcibly taken away." In recommending the government relinquish its claim, Kumar said Maharaja Ranjit Singh bestowed the gem—"the most famous diamond in the crown jewels," per its current profile on the British royal palaces website—on Queen Victoria in 1849 for Britain's help in the Sikh wars. It isn't clear what brought about the change of heart, though Kumar said pressing India's claim might result in other countries "claiming their items from us." The Telegraph notes Kumar also referenced a 1970s law that says only those items removed illegally from pre-independent India may be pursued by the government. While the royals are likely thrilled—the jewel is embedded in a crown that was worn by the Queen Mother and will be sported by Kate as queen consort—the man who petitioned the Supreme Court is less so, per Reuters: "The British rulers looted India and the government is making a mistake by not supporting our claims." The diamond is said to have surfaced in the 1300s and "passed through the hands of conquering Mughal princes, Iranian warriors, Afghan rulers," some of whom met a fate that gained the diamond a reputation as cursed and "unlucky for men to wear," writes the Guardian. The profile says it came to Britain "as the spoils of Empire." (This man bought the world's priciest gem for his 7-year-old.)
– When he was 12, Ed "Kip" Malone was on his way to the store to buy some butter when he happened upon a house on fire and heard a woman calling for someone to help her children. He ran inside and found two little girls, ages 3 and 5, and helped them out of the house. That was in 1951, and the Canadian man always wondered what happened to them. Then, this November, Malone moved into the house next door to Margaret Fowler—and while trading stories about their lives one day, they realized Fowler was one of the two little girls Malone had saved 65 years ago. He has since also been reunited with the other little girl, Fowler's sister Barbara Earle, and the trio told their story to the CBC's St. John's Morning Show this week. "She just looked at me and nearly fainted," Malone says of the moment Fowler told the story of the little girls he'd saved. He found Fowler first, but she refused to leave because her little sister was still somewhere in the house. Malone searched until he finally found Earle under a bed, then led both girls to safety, the Telegram reports. The fire killed the girls' grandmother, and left the girls, their six siblings, and their parents homeless. In the years since, their parents as well as Malone's parents have died. "It's a miracle as far as I'm concerned," Fowler says of the sisters' reunion with Malone. "I think it was meant to be. Both of our parents are dead ... something happened up in heaven that our parents got us together." Adds Earle, "How do you thank him, only to say thank you? I mean, there will always be this connection with us. And that I love you. I don't know what else to say."
– The drama between the president's wives continues: The latest excerpt to trickle out of first wife Ivana Trump's new book has to do with her feelings toward second wife Marla Maples. Let's just say those feelings aren't great: Ivana calls Marla "the showgirl" throughout Raising Trump, adding that she and her three children with her ex have "deep scars from that period of our lives, in part due to her actions." She slams Marla for choosing to get into a relationship with someone she knew was a married father and then "humiliating" Ivana in the media for months, People reports. Ivana also runs down the times Marla has publicly apologized and Ivana has, in turn, rejected those apologies. Last but not least, she slams Marla's appearance on Dancing With the Stars last year. "The showgirl appeared on DWTS when (because) her ex-husband was running for president! It was disrespectful to do the show. I never would have embarrassed Donald that way," Ivana writes. "No class!" She adds that she herself has been offered quite a bit of money to appear on the show, but she refuses to go on TV "dancing in those tiny dresses with the boobs and butt hanging out" and that the fact that Marla did so is a "disgrace." The book was released Tuesday. Also Tuesday, an Ivana interview aired on Fox News in which she said there's "absolutely no problem" between her and Donald's third wife, Melania, but that interview was recorded before Ivana called herself the "first lady" and the actual first lady hit back, Politico reports.
– Amanda Knox has once again been found guilty of the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, but will she be sent back to Italy to serve a 28-year sentence? Legal experts say any attempts to extradite the Seattle resident are unlikely to begin until the appeals process has finished, and since she was retried after being found innocent of the same offense, the American ban on "double jeopardy" convictions could help keep her out of an Italian prison. If Italy does decide to extradite her, they will have to make a formal request to the State Department, where officials will consider it. But if they choose to reject the request, there could be diplomatic consequences, a lawyer specializing in extradition tells ABC. "The US often wants Italy to extradite all kinds of people, so if the US refuses to even process the case, especially a case involving violence, that could have some adverse consequences for bilateral relations," he says. The American review of any extradition request could, however, be quite limited in scope and will focus mainly on paperwork, another expert tells the Seattle Times. "It’s not a retrial of the case, and it’s not a retrial of another country’s justice system." Knox, who has said she won't return to Italy willingly, slammed the fresh guilty verdict and said it would not be a consolation to the Kercher family, CNN reports. "This has gotten out of hand. Most troubling is that it was entirely preventable," she said in a statement. "I beseech those with the knowledge and authority to address and remediate the problems that worked to pervert the course of justice and waste the valuable resources of the system," she said. Knox's co-accused, ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, was also found guilty again and sentenced to 25 years. After the verdict, police found him at a hotel near Italy's borders with Slovenia and Austria, the AP reports. He was taken to a police station, where a stamp was put in his passport stating that he cannot leave the country.
– More than two dozen women are accusing a celebrity chef and his business partner of fostering a Mad Men-type atmosphere they say was overrun by "kitchen bros." An eight-month probe by the Times-Picayune found 25 current and past employees who document sexual harassment while working at John Besh's Besh Restaurant Group, either for one of the New Orleans chef's restaurants or for corporate. The women allege female workers were victims of unwanted touching and remarks by male colleagues, and that some co-workers tried to use their power to convince women to have sex—and that when complaints were made, they went nowhere. One woman says she was pressured into a "months-long" sexual relationship with Besh himself, and that when she tried to stop it, others retaliated. Two related EEOC complaints have been filed against the company since December. In a statement, Besh, a 49-year-old married dad, acknowledges a "consensual relationship" with a team member. "I alone am entirely responsible for my moral failings," he says, though he denies fostering sexual harassment. A BRG rep says the company never received any internal sexual harassment complaints; an HR director just started working there earlier this month. Eater reports on sexual harassment stats in the restaurant industry, with one 2014 study reporting such harassment is "widespread." In a separate statement, a BRG attorney says the company has "revamped our training, education, and procedures accordingly" after hearing the women's complaints. Other fallout: Harrah's New Orleans casino has since broken ties with Besh's company, and a top chef with Besh's group says he was fired after speaking out about the company culture (though some women say he didn't help matters).
– Last month the Internet went nuts trying to figure out Cheryl's birthday. Today, Alex Bellos is back in the Guardian with two more stumpers, what he calls the "second installment" in his let's-drive-everyone-mad puzzle series (the first was a sequel to the Cheryl's birthday puzzle). The reason it comes with the title "Are you smarter than a Hong Kong six-year-old?" is that Bellos actually took the first puzzle from an admissions test for first grade in Hong Kong. You only have 20 seconds to solve it, just like the schoolkids did. Got it? We'll direct you to the answer, but not before you head to the Guardian to view the second visual doozy. All you have to do there is figure out which shape is the odd one out. Answers to both here. (Click to read about the Internet's most mysterious puzzle.)
– Another sign of just how bad things have gotten in North Korea: Activists in the South sent balloons skyward today carrying a hot black-market item: warm socks. Members of North Korea Peace tell AFP it's not about politics. "All we want is that people in the North wear warm socks over their frozen feet," says a spokeswoman. "Warm socks are so rare and they can easily be traded for cash in the North. One pair of socks fetches about 22 pounds of corn, which is enough to sustain a person for a month." About 1,000 pairs went up over the border. On a more formal front, the North allowed in trucks from the South carrying food—even as it threatened "full-scale war" over Seoul's military exercises, notes the New York Times.
– Is the siege of Nairobi's Westgate Mall finally near an end? Kenyan authorities say they believe all the hostages have been released, but journalists from the AP and Reuters heard yet more gunfire and explosions as the Kenyan military moved through the building. Officials say the military is going from floor to floor and room to room in the darkened building searching for surviving militants, the Los Angeles Times reports. Somalia's al-Shabab militant group tweeted early today that its fighters "are still holding their ground" and their captives are "still alive, looking quite disconcerted but, nevertheless, alive." In other developments: Kenya's foreign minister told PBS Newshour last night that two or three Americans were involved in the attack. She said they were of Arab or Somali origin, 18 or 19 years old, and had lived "in Minnesota and one other place" in the US. She said a British woman who had "done this many times before" was also involved, contradicting another minister's statement that all the attackers were men. Security officials and soldiers told Reuters that a white woman was among the attackers killed, though they couldn't confirm whether she was Samantha Lewthwaite, the al-Shabab-linked widow of a British terrorist. The State Department says that it is investigating reports that Americans were involved, but "at this point we have no definitive evidence of the nationalities or identities of the perpetrators," the Washington Post reports. Witnesses say most of the attackers were young and shouted to each other in English. British officials say they will not discuss the identity of the attackers while the investigation continues, reports the BBC. Officials say at least six attackers have been killed and around 10 more captured. The civilian body count stands at 62, but the Red Cross says 63 people are still unaccounted for. In Minnesota, home to America's largest Somali community, Muslim leaders refused to comment on reports that Somali Americans were involved in the attack but spoke firmly against extremism, the Star Tribune reports. The attackers "do not represent any religion, they do not represent any community, they do not represent any nationality," one imam said. "They are an organized group of criminals who have conspired to kill and destroy innocent lives. They are nothing but criminals. They are not ­Muslims."
– Suspect you're not getting enough sleep? You can now verify whether that is indeed the case. In a study published last month in the journal Sleep, researchers claim to have determined exactly how much sleep we need: 7.6 hours for women and 7.8 hours for men. The findings arose from a quest to look at the optimal amount of sleep needed to reduce the risk of "sickness absence." To get to those findings, researchers followed 3,760 Finnish participants over a seven-year span and compared their sleep disturbances (such as early morning awakenings and use of sleeping pills) with data on illness-related work absences provided by the country's Social Insurance Institution. They then adjusted for a slew of things, like working conditions and education, and arrived at their figures, noting "direct costs due to sickness absence could decrease by up to 28% if sleep disturbances could be fully addressed." MarketWatch cites a 2013 Gallup poll that found 40% of Americans don't make it to the seven-hour mark; the average amount of sleep was 6.8 hours. That's actually slightly up from the 6.7 hours poll-takers reported to Gallup in 1990 and 2001, but a big drop from how we lived decades ago: In 1942, the average was 7.9. But other recent research suggests the magic amount of sleep might actually be closer to seven hours than eight. Which figure to go with? The CDC might be able to help; it plans to issue new guidelines, possibly as soon as next year. (In other sleep news, find out why you should nap after coffee.)
– A new legal problem has surfaced for Dennis Hastert ahead of his Wednesday sentencing on financial charges related to payment of hush money over alleged sexual abuse: He never finished the payments, and the accuser has filed a lawsuit. The plaintiff, who says he was 14 when Hastert molested him decades ago, wants the remaining $1.8 million of the $3.5 million he says the former House speaker promised him as compensation, the New York Times reports. According to the lawsuit, which refers to the accuser as "James Doe," Hastert agreed to compensate the man for "trauma he suffered as a result of the admitted sexual molestation and abuse." In the years after the molestation, Doe suffered "severe panic attacks which led to periods of unemployment, career changes, bouts of depression, hospitalization, and long-term psychiatric treatment," the suit states. The agreement was made after the former student confronted Hastert in 2008. After suspicious transactions attracted the attention of the FBI, Hastert claimed he was being extorted by a former student, but investigators recorded a conversation between him and the accuser and decided the agreement did not constitute blackmail. According to the lawsuit, the accuser even suggested bringing in lawyers to draft a formal agreement for compensation, but Hastert "preferred to keep the negotiations strictly confidential," NBC News reports. Other accusations of abuse during Hastert's days as a high school wrestling coach in Illinois will be aired at the sentencing hearing, though the statutes of limitations for sexual misconduct charges expired long ago, NPR notes. Prosecutors have recommended a prison sentence of up to six months.
– Shia LaBeouf has apologized for a racist rant after his arrest last weekend, saying he's been "struggling with addiction publicly for far too long." TMZ reports the mea culpa came after a video emerged of the out-of-control actor telling a black police officer in Savannah, Ga., who was fingerprinting him, "You're going to hell, straight to hell, brother." He adds, "You especially, deputy. That's savage as f---, man. ... Because you're a black man." When a white cop responds, "That doesn't mean he's going to hell," LaBeouf says, "It means a whole lot, bro." The Transformers star was busted early July 8 after unleashing an expletive-filled tirade on a bystander who refused to give him a cigarette, and then ignoring a cop's order to get lost, per the Hollywood Reporter. In the cruiser, LaBeouf turns his fury on the black cop, saying he was arrested only for being white, per TMZ. LaBeouf, 31, was charged with public drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and obstruction, and later released on a $7,000 bond. He tweeted on Wednesday that he had reached a "new low." He writes, "I am deeply ashamed of my behavior and make no excuse for it. I don't know if these statements are too frequent, or not shared often enough, but I am certain that my actions warrant a very sincere apology to the arresting officers, and I am grateful for their restraint. The severity of my behavior is not lost on me." He adds that he is "actively taking steps toward securing my sobriety." LaBeouf was arrested in January after he tangled with a man who disagreed with him over his art project, #HeWillNotDivideUs, per the Guardian. (A bartender who refused LeBeouf a drink is suing him for assault and defamation.)
– Police in Nevada say two teenage suspects are claiming their friend died in a game of "modified Russian roulette." Relatives of 17-year-old Matthew Minkler say the teens weren't playing Russian roulette—and they were only pretending to be his friends. Minkler's body was found Friday in an abandoned house in Henderson, 16 miles north of Las Vegas, reports Fox News. Police went to the house based on information they received after Jaiden Caruso, 16, and Kody Harlan, 17, were arrested in a stolen Mercedes in Las Vegas earlier in the day. Police say Harlan told them he had "been present at a murder" and led them to the house, where Minkler's body had been dragged to a downstairs closet. Russian roulette involves "loading a single bullet into a revolver, spinning the cylinder, and then pulling the trigger," a police report states. Harlan told police that after Caruso brought out his revolver, he "never allowed the other participants to handle the firearm or pull the trigger themselves." "We know this wasn't Russian roulette," Minkler's mother, Jamie Shanklin, tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "My kid was shot in the chin, like they were shutting him up." Police say that after Minkler was shot, the other teens didn't call 911 or attempt to render aid—and Caruso, who recorded videos of the aftermath of the shooting, used money from the teen's wallet to buy new shoes. Both teens have been charged as adults. Caruso is charged with murder with a deadly weapon and robbery, while Harlan faces charges including being an accessory to murder after the fact.
– Who could take over Jim DeMint's Senate seat at the end of the year? Conservatives are talking Rep. Tim Scott, but another South Carolinian has thrown his rather high-profile hat into the ring: one Stephen Colbert, reports the New York Post. Colbert dedicated a segment of his show last night to less-than-subtly suggesting himself, and encouraged his 4 million followers to tell Gov. Nikki Haley to pick him, noting, "I wouldn't just block legislation, I'd bodycheck it!" “Stephen is honored by the groundswell of support from the Palmetto State and looks forward to Governor Haley’s call,” says a Colbert publicist. Sure, Colbert would face a lot of resistance from more, uh, enthusiastic Republicans—Madeleine Morgenstern, for example, called Colbert a "bombastic, faux-conservative," notes the Week. But Colbert is a strong Catholic who loves Richard Nixon, says the Atlantic, which proclaims him "vastly overqualified." Even so, he shouldn't hold his breath: Nikki Haley swung back via Facebook today, reports CNN: "Stephen, thank you for your interest in South Carolina's US Senate seat and for the thousands of tweets you and your fans sent me," she said. But: "You forget one thing, my friend. You didn't know our state drink. Big, big mistake." Got milk, Stephen? Here's the exchange.
– All members of Amazon Prime now have free access to Wardrobe, Amazon's fashion service that allows users to try clothes before they buy them. Until now, the service was only offered to a group of beta users. According to recode, Wardrobe-for-all comes with a downside. The site reports that Amazon has removed the discounts it previously used to incentivize people to keep the clothes they tried on. Per GMA, the online retail behemoth wants Wardrobe to mimic the in-store clothes-buying experience in much the same way as competitors such as Trunk Club or Stitch Fix. The service allows shoppers to have between three and eight items sent to their home; they are given seven days to return what they don't want, without receiving any charges until the decision to buy.
– Opted not to sit through 210 minutes of Grammy action? No worries. Here's your cheatsheet to seven people, moments, and sartorial choices worth knowing about: Taylor Swift didn't win, but she maybe thought she did. Her Red was up for Album of the Year, and as they named the winner—not Red, but the also-starts-with-R Random Access Memories from Daft Punk—she momentarily appeared to have that "I won" look on her face, reports Fox News. More than 30 couples got married on-air, and the weddings seem to be legal. Queen Latifah officiated over the same-sex and straight marriages, and the New York Times has this: Latifah "was recently deputized by Los Angeles County to perform the weddings and will sign the marriage certificates for each couple." Katy Perry wore four dresses, and most of them were weird. One was a Valentino gown featuring a billowy skirt covered in musical notes; another placed a sort of crucifix across her chest (that was what she wore when she got burned at the stake). Tons of photos here. But Pharrell Williams' weird hat stole the show. Today reports that the "towering chapeau" is a Vivienne Westwood from the early '80s. What it was compared to on Twitter: Smokey the Bear's hat, something out of Harry Potter, and the Seinfeld "urban sombrero." And, yes, the hat already has its own Twitter account. (Runner-up fashion accessory: Madonna's grill.) Everyone thought Ozzy Osbourne was possibly wasted. Because he totally flubbed his introduction of Ringo Starr, with basically no one able to understand him (even his bandmates were laughing). He later admitted to screwing it up, but when asked what he meant to say, "his answer was yet again incoherent," reports the Los Angeles Daily News. If you missed the Grammys, you didn't miss Miley, but you did miss Beyonce. Miley's "Wrecking Ball" wasn't nominated, and she apparently "had no place" in the show, reports Today. No worries: Beyonce took the scandalous crown from Miley with her risque performance of "Drunk in Love," which she performed in a thong bodysuit that gave hubby Jay-Z the chance to pat her derriere. Show producers will ship a piano a pretty long distance if you're famous enough. Paul McCartney played a piano that usually sits in his London music room ... and has been used by him (and, briefly, Ringo) since 1967, when it was painted with a psychedelic design.
– In what would make for a decent episode of The X-Files, the Chinese government is forcing more than 9,000 residents from their homes in order to better search for alien life in the cosmos. China started work on FAST—the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope—back in 2011, Xinhua reports. It's scheduled to be completed this September. But first 9,110 residents living within three miles of the project need to be relocated in order to—in the words of one Chinese official—"create a sound electromagnetic wave environment." According to the Guardian, such relocations are a "Communist Party specialty," with millions having been moved in recent decades to make room for infrastructure projects. Relocated residents will receive a little more than $1,800 each for their trouble. Once complete, FAST will be the largest radio telescope in the world—200 meters greater in diameter than the current biggest in Puerto Rico. One scientist on the project explained its size in terms of wine, for some reason, stating that if FAST were filled with wine, all 7 billion people on Earth could each fill five bottles from it. The Chinese government hopes to use the telescope to look for signs of extraterrestrial life and study the origins of the universe. Its size will make a difficult job slightly easier. "A radio telescope is like a sensitive ear, listening to tell meaningful radio messages from white noise in the universe," the Guardian quotes a FAST scientist as saying. "It is like identifying the sound of cicadas in a thunderstorm.” Time reports FAST will cost $180 million. (Maybe we can't find aliens because they don't evolve quickly enough.)
– Glass cases being smashed during an attempted robbery at a jewelry store in a popular Texas mall on Saturday were misconstrued as gunfire and sent people running for the exits, according to the authorities and witnesses, the AP reports. All known suspects in the attempted robbery at the La Plaza Mall in McAllen were taken into custody, the city's police chief, Victor Rodriguez, says in a statement that the city government posted on Twitter. Madeline Madden, a 17-year-old from McAllen, tells the Monitor that she was inside Glitz and Glamour, a boutique just across from the mall, when she saw people rush out of the mall and into the parking lot. She says one frightened couple ran into the boutique seeking safety. "The man and his wife came in with their kids and asked if they were going to lock the door, and they told us what happened ... that there had been a shooting," Madden says. "They were trying to get away. ... Someone else came and had cuts all over them from falling." The story was initially reported as an "active shooting" at the mall near the border of Mexico. Several law enforcement agencies rushed to the scene, including officers from the McAllen Police Department, Hidalgo County sheriff's office, and Texas Department of Public Safety. Dispatchers with McAllen police and the Hidalgo County sheriff's office declined to answer questions when reached by phone. The mall is one of the primary shopping centers in the Rio Grande Valley. (See a quick video of the mall's mass hysteria here.)
– A 12-year-old boy with music in his heart finds himself transported to the Land of the Dead in Pixar's first feature film with a minority lead character, co-directed by Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina. Giving the film a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, critics are singing its praises: "Effervescent, clever and thoughtful," Coco "is Pixar's best effort since 2015's Inside Out and also one of its "most gorgeously animated outings in some time," writes Brian Truitt at USA Today. It will "makes you laugh and cry in equal doses." It might have you singing, too. Among Pixar's most musical films, Coco sees 13-year-old Anthony Gonzalez shine as main character Miguel. "The kid can sing like nobody's business," writes Truitt. Justin Chang argues the film is good, not great, missing "the sense of filmmakers boldly and brilliantly conquering new terrain" as in Inside Out. Viewers might also object to the film's "breathless velocity," he writes at the Los Angeles Times. But there are things to appreciate, too, like "a non-white human protagoninst" and "a showstopping musical climax and an ending all but guaranteed to tickle your tear ducts," Chang writes. "Progress could certainly look worse." "The action moves swiftly but still manages to picks up amusing details" in this "brilliant original creation," Peter Howell writes at the Toronto Star. He admires much, including dialogue that "blends Spanish and English as naturally as rum and Coke." But it's the sights and sounds of music that take the film to another level, says Howell. "Every step of the way in Coco is a visual and sonic delight." "Despite a slow start … Coco finds its groove" on a "delightfully nonlinear path" through "fanciful new worlds," writes Stephanie Merry at the Washington Post. The "stunning visuals" cannot be missed. "Some of the animation in Coco is so detailed that it looks photorealistic," she writes. But mostly, the film feels fresh as it celebrates "a culture that's so often overlooked by the movie industry," addresses death "in a lighthearted way," and tries its hand at dark comedy to much success, Merry writes.
– Democrat Kyrsten Sinema won Arizona's open US Senate seat Monday in a race that was among the most closely watched in the nation, beating Republican Rep. Martha McSally in the battle to replace GOP Sen. Jeff Flake. The three-term House lawmaker won after a slow vote count that dragged on for nearly a week after voters went to the polls on Nov. 6. She becomes Arizona's first Democratic US senator since 1994. Her win cemented Arizona as a swing state after years of Republican dominance, the AP reports. Sinema portrayed herself as a moderate who works across the aisle to get things done. Sinema first came to prominence as an openly bisexual Green Party activist in Phoenix. Sinema and supporters rushed to a Scottsdale resort Monday night after the latest batch of ballots showed her lead to be insurmountable. "Arizona rejected what has been far too common in our country—name calling, petty, personal attacks, and doing and saying what it takes to get elected," Sinema said. "But Arizona proved that there is a better way forward." McSally tweeted a video message. "I just called Kyrsten Sinema and congratulated her on becoming Arizona's first female senator after a hard-fought battle," McSally said. "I wish her all success as she represents Arizona in the Senate." (President Trump wants the Florida recount to be scrapped.)
– Though US markets are closed Wednesday in honor of former President George HW Bush, after Tuesday's 800-point plunge investors will be looking for hints as to what to expect Thursday morning, and all eyes are on China. Tuesday's sell-off was sparked by uncertainty over what exactly Trump and Xi Jinping agreed to do in their Saturday meeting, and President Trump championed optimism in a Wednesday tweet, expressing his belief that China will push forward with a cease fire on trade. "Very strong signals being sent by China once they returned home from their long trip, including stops, from Argentina. Not to sound naive or anything, but I believe President Xi meant every word of what he said at our long and hopefully historic meeting. ALL subjects discussed!" The latest: The AP reports China's Commerce Ministry did say on its website that it would begin "implementing specific issues on which consensus has been reached," but the vague statement included no details. Bloomberg gets a little firmer, reporting Chinese officials are getting ready to start importing soybeans and liquefied natural gas from the US again, which it sees as an indication that the administration's claims that China will "immediately" start importing some American products again are true. And "demand for those products is immense," notes the Wall Street Journal. Still, questions remain regarding timeline, whether the retaliatory tariffs on those products will be lifted, and how much China will buy. Bloomberg also notes the ministry's statement said China will indeed take part in trade talks within the 90-day "timetable and road map," marking confirmation from China that a 90-day window has been established for the negotiations. US officials say the 90 days started Saturday; China didn't specify a start date. The Journal reports on another possible concession that's moving forward: China's supreme court and relevant government agencies this week announced 38 punishments for companies that commit intellectual property theft, a pain point for the US that China has thus far not done much to address.
– Continuing his tendency to get caught on tape sounding like a crazy person, Mel Gibson is heard in newly released audio ranting at screenwriter Joe Eszterhas. Eszterhas gave the recording to The Wrap, one week after coming out swinging against Gibson, with whom he almost collaborated on a film about Judah Maccabee. The tape doesn't include any of Eszterhas' more serious claims about Gibson—like that he hates Jews and was glad when John Lennon got shot—but it does include a scary-sounding Gibson screaming, "Why don't I have a first draft of The Maccabees?" and using the F-word quite a bit. Eszterhas tells The Wrap he released the tape in order to show that Gibson "badly needs help," but apparently Gibson didn't take it so well. TMZ reports the actor may sue, because—sources say—he believes "basic human right[s]" should prevent him from being secretly taped in his home. Eszterhas' 15-year-old son reportedly made the 2.5-minute recording in December while they were all at Gibson's Costa Rica house. Listen to the rant in full at The Wrap.
– Two journalists were arrested this week in Washington, apparently for recording a public meeting—on city taxis. Pete Tucker, who reports taxi industry news, landed charges for disorderly conduct, unlawful entering, and refusing to stash his camera when asked. Then Reason TV journalist Jim Epstein was arrested after taking video of Tucker’s arrest. Epstein had also come to report on the meeting, but figured Tucker’s arrest was newsworthy, notes Mediaite via the Washington Post. It wasn’t until Epstein had finished filming that he was stopped. A police officer told a meeting attendee that the officer could “get his phone” and told Epstein to “stay put.” When he tried to leave, he was surrounded. He released his video of the event upon his release from jail. No comment yet from law enforcement—but thus far, the story echoes news of the arrest of a woman for filming police from her yard.
– Miss America won't be going to the prom with the Pennsylvania high school student who asked her to be his date—but she wants the school to reconsider its decision to suspend him for asking. "I was flattered by the gesture although I am unfortunately unable to attend due to my travel schedule. I later learned of the disciplinary action taken and reached out to the school in hopes that they will reconsider their decision," Nina Davuluri said in a statement on the pageant's Facebook page, the York Dispatch reports. Officials at Central York High School say 18-year-old Patrick Farves was handed a three-day suspension for popping the question after having been warned not to. The senior, who remains dateless, says he now feels bad about the way the stunt overshadowed the first Indian-American winner of the pageant's efforts to promote diversity. "She was trying to get across a very strong message—about how it's not about your beliefs or the color of your skin, but who you are," he tells the New York Daily News.
– Nate Silver may have cemented his reputation as a political forecaster in the last election, but he doesn't want his reading of the polls to influence flesh-and-blood voters. And if it does, he might pull the plug on his FiveThirtyEight blog, reports Student Life, the college paper at Washington University. It quotes him thusly in a lecture this week: "I hope people don’t take the forecasts too seriously. You’d rather have an experiment where you record it off from the actual voters, in a sense, but we’ll see. If it gets really weird in 2014, in 2016, then maybe I’ll stop doing it. I don’t want to influence the democratic process in a negative way.”
– New York magazine just dropped a long cover story on Hillary Clinton. We read all 5,934 words and plucked out some highlights: Hillary is "not in any hurry" to decided whether she'll run in 2016. She explains: "It's like when you meet somebody at a party and they look over your shoulder to see who else is there, and you want to talk to them about something that’s really important; in fact, maybe you came to the party to talk to that particular person, and they just want to know what’s next. I feel like that’s our political process right now. I just don’t think it is good." Though one "close confidant" says: "She’s running, but she doesn’t know it yet. It’s just like a force of history. It’s inexorable, it’s gravitational. I think she actually believes she has more say in it than she actually does." The "balance of power" in the Clinton marriage shifted during her time as secretary of State. Bill was "not a presence" in her department, says an aide. "It’s kind of jarring when she says ‘Bill,'" he says. 'Well, who’s Bill? And then you realize that she’s talking about her husband. It happened so infrequently that you were kind of like, Oh, the president." The "biggest question" in Hillary's circle right now is what will happen to Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner's wife and the Hillary's top aide. After Weiner's loss, "Huma has a choice to make," says a "close associate." “Does she go with Anthony, or does she go with Hillary?" What Hillary says she and Bill do at home now they've got more time on their hands: "We have a great time; we laugh at our dogs; we watch stupid movies; we take long walks; we go for a swim." Chelsea Clinton is now Bill's "gatekeeper." After taking over her father's foundation, she "has taken a chain saw to that organization," says a source, and she is overseeing an HBO doco Martin Scorsese is making about him. The article also suggests she might be a potential "shadow campaign manager" for Hillary. Meanwhile, on CNN's Global Public Square this morning, Bill claimed that he had no idea whether Hillary would run in 2016. "I think she would be the first to tell you that there is no such thing as a done deal, ever, by anybody," he said. "But I don't know what she's going to do."
– The latest installment in the American Pie franchise brings back Jason Biggs and Seann William Scott—but it doesn't bring anything new to the table. It's the same story of sexual anxiety, but this time with thirty-somethings. "Remember American Pie? If you do, this movie is redundant and sad. If you don’t, it’s irrelevant," writes AO Scott in the New York Times. "Everyone in the ensemble keeps pushing the woebegone nostalgia angle, pining for lost youth, eager to reactivate now-dormant sex lives," writes Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune. "Every other line, it seems, refers to 'back in the day' or 'wasn't this more fun when we were younger?'" Make it stop, begs Tom Long in the Detroit News. "The great fear here is that things are heading toward American 40th, American Retirement, and American Senility, all of which will rotate around Jim's sex problems." In short, Reunion should be the last slice of Pie. But in Rolling Stone, Peter Travers is glad to see some familiar faces. "No need to worry that these Peter Pans actually grow up. American Reunion is dedicated to the proposition that no matter how old you get, you can stay immature forever."
– A judge ordered court documents unsealed Tuesday in the fraud case being brought by former customers of Trump University who call it a scam. Donald Trump will be happy to read testimonials like this from one happy customer: “Trump University is some of the best money I ever invested!” per the Washington Post. He will be less pleased to read the testimonials of former managers who say it was business as usual to strong-arm financially vulnerable customers into classes they couldn't afford, reports the New York Times. For example: “I believe that Trump University was a fraudulent scheme, and that it preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money," wrote Ronald Schnackenberg, a sales manager for Trump University, which was active from 2005 to 2010. Trump University was "a facade, a total lie," says a former sales exec, Jason Nicholas, in his testimony. “It’s OK, just max out your credit card,” says another former employee, Corrine Sommer, referring to the advice given to customers who were worried about the cost; classes cost as much as $34,995. Another internal sales document reads, "We teach the technique of using OPM ... Other People's Money," in encouraging the use of credit cards to pay for tuition. Another scripted response for those customers, per CBS News: "[D]o you like living paycheck to paycheck? ... Do you enjoy seeing everyone else but yourself in their dream houses and driving their dreams cars with huge checking accounts. Those people saw an opportunity, and didn't make excuses, like what you're doing now. " Team Trump's response: "Trump University looks forward to using this evidence, along with much more, to win when the case is brought before a jury,” says a spokeswoman for Trump. The case is scheduled to go to trial in November, after the presidential election.
– It's not every day you get to see an iceberg flip upside down, but a tourist in Argentina did just that and posted the results on YouTube. It took place near the Upsala Glacier in Los Glaciares National Park, notes the Daily Mail. The Huffington Post says the iceberg flipped after a part of the glacier broke away.
– It isn't happening just yet, but a new scientific paper shows that it's possible, and perhaps even advantageous, to make batteries out of organic biological materials that have the added benefit of being cheap, environmentally friendly, and easy to produce, reports CNET. Engineers at the University of California, Riverside, report in the journal Scientific Reports that they've developed a new kind of lithium-ion battery anode that uses portobello mushrooms, which turn out to be so efficient (thanks largely to their porousness) that they could even replace the industry standard of synthetic graphite. The development could affect multiple industries, reports Discovery, which notes that biological materials might enable us to bring down costs and expend less energy in manufacturing, while synthetic graphite demands specific preparation and purification processes that are not only more costly but less environmentally friendly. The mushroom carbon anode tech could ultimately replace graphite anodes, the team reports in a press release: "With battery materials like this, future cell phones may see an increase in run time after many uses, rather than a decrease, due to apparent activation of blind pores within the carbon architectures as the cell charges and discharges over time," says one researcher. (Check out why some mushrooms glow in the dark.)
– China's city of Chengdu has new bragging rights with the newly opened New Century Global Center, billed as the biggest building in the world, reports the Guardian. The entrance is 18 stories high, and the building itself is 1,600 feet long and 1,300 feet wide. But even those dimensions don't seem to capture it. This is closer: Among the office buildings, ice rink, movie theater, miniature village, five-star hotels, and shopping center is a massive artificial beach, complete with sand, water, and the world's biggest LED screen (for sunrises and such). And speaking of the sun: "We have borrowed a Japanese technique," one guide told the Sydney Morning Herald for a story while construction was still underway. "There is an artificial sun that shines 24 hours a day and allows for a comfortable temperature." The Aussie paper adds some context for readers: Twenty Sydney Opera House could fit inside.
– Police in Maryland hope to track down a rapist and murderer who struck decades ago with an image crafted using his own DNA. After 42-year-old Le Bich-Thuy was raped and strangled after leaving Rockville's Twinbrook Metro station in 1994, DNA recovered from the scene was found to match DNA in the 1989 rape of a 52-year-old woman who'd departed the same station, reports the Washington Post. But "I don't think he did this just two or three times. This guy was targeting women in that area for at least five years," says Sgt. Chris Homrock, pointing to one case in which a woman escaped an attempted rapist days before Bich-Thuy's murder. To finally catch the attacker, police turned to Parabon NanoLabs, a Virginia-based company specializing in DNA phenotyping, reports Bethesda Magazine. Two computer-generated images were created using predictions of the suspect's ancestry, eye color, hair color, skin color, freckling, and face shape. Released Monday, they show how the suspect—white, with blue eyes and no freckles—might have appeared at ages 25 and 45. In a statement, per WTOP, Montgomery County police stress the composites "are scientific approximations of appearance based on DNA and are not likely to be exact replicas of appearance." Still, anyone who recognizes the man is asked to call the Major Crimes Division. "We're looking for any new information, anything these images might prompt someone to remember," says Homrock, noting "the common theme of these cases is they all start at the Twinbrook Metro." A reward of up to $10,000 is offered for information leading to an arrest, reports Fox 5. (In another cold case, police are using Twitter in a novel way.)
– Florida isn't the only state that's home to a problematic prom this year. New Jersey's Cherry Hill High School East is grabbing headlines over prom tickets that featured "inappropriate" wording. The Courier Post reports that tickets for the prom, to be held at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia this week, contained a call to "party like it's 1776"—a time in US history that not all Americans can celebrate. "We thought it would be fun to do a play on the Prince song ... because of the Constitution Center," the student body VP tells Fox 29, but not everyone found the end result so fun. "I am writing to apologize for the hurt feelings this reference caused for members of our school family," Principal Dennis Perry wrote in a letter tweeted Friday. "I especially apologize to our African American students, who I have let down by not initially recognizing the inappropriateness of this wording," he continued. He says that going forward, "a diverse group of people" will have input on communications disseminated to the entire school. As for the tickets, new commemorative ones will be printed with the offending words removed, and Perry says students won't need to hand over a ticket to gain entry, as the school has a list of those who have purchased tickets. It's not the first racial flap at the school, which is about 6% black: The VP of the Cherry Hill African American Civic Association notes the school's production of Ragtime, which includes the N-word, caused a dust-up last year. (This Utah teen's prom dress also caused an uproar.)
– Sarah Palin appears to have desecrated Old Glory at a Tea Party Express rally in Reno. Video from the event shows Palin signing a flag handed to her by a fan, thereby violating a section of the US Flag Code that states the flag "should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature," notes Salon. Despite her party's tough stance against messing with the Stars and Stripes, Palin's Old Glory "desecration" won't likely ever be punished, even if she placed herself under citizen's arrest, the Guardian notes. Another section of the code states that "the flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever" or be "printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkin or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard." (Click here for Palin's last flag-related snafu.)
– Boko Haram has a tactical advantage: The Muslim extremist group suspected of kidnapping Nigerian girls is hiding out in old military bunkers, in an enormous forest where vegetation grows as high as six feet, Fox News reports. What's more, the 23,000-square-mile Sambisa Forest is teeming with poisonous snakes (two girls have apparently died of snakebites, and 20 are ill) and hosts varied wildlife including monkeys, antelopes, and lions, reports the Guardian. The wilderness was once a grazing grounds for elephants, whose thick skin could tolerate the thorny vegetation—but without cutlasses, it can be impenetrable to human visitors. "It actually took the intelligence services a long time to discover that the game reserve had become a hideout for the sect," a source tells the Nation. Only after three years and the loss of "several lives" did services come around, but now agents "are not ready to risk their lives any more after all the frustration." National police offered a $300,000 reward today for information leading to the girls' rescue, and the US has sent a team to help, but the Guardian notes that even the use of tanks wouldn't give authorities a clear tactical advantage. Meanwhile, Boko Haram is said to be moving the girls at night, possibly to a second base outside the forest.
– Iraq's Ministry of Defense says Iraqi forces backed by a US-led coalition have liberated the last Iraqi town held by the Islamic State group, per the AP. The ministry said in a statement Friday morning that Iraqi military units and local tribal fighters entered the western neighborhoods of Rawah on the Euphrates River in the western province of Anbar. Officials then announced that forces had taken control of the town; per the Iraqi Joint Operations Command, the Iraqi national flag was raised over the city by midday Friday, CNN reports. A command spokesman says engineers placed a pontoon bridge so that Iraqi forces could cross the Euphrates. ISIS fighters swept across Iraq's north and west in the summer of 2014, capturing Iraq's second largest city of Mosul and advancing to the edges of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Later that year the US began a campaign of airstrikes against the militants that fueled Iraqi territorial gains, allowing the military to retake Mosul in July of this year. Back in August, Defense Secretary James Mattis said, "ISIS is on the run and they have been shown to be unable to stand up to our team." Per CNN, there are still some pockets of resistance, with ISIS controlling certain territory in the deserts in the western part of the country, but it no longer controls any towns or cities.
– Authorities have received 400 tips but have few leads in the disappearance of a woman in California. An apparent stranger hopes to change that. An anonymous donor has set up a website offering a $50,000 "ransom reward" if "the person who has Sherri Papini" will let her go. Papini disappeared while jogging in Redding on Nov. 2; police aren't sure if her disappearance was voluntary or involuntary but her family maintains she was abducted. According to SherriPapini.com, anyone holding the 34-year-old mother of two should contact Cameron Gamble, an apparent kidnap and ransom consultant. "We are offering this reward with no strings attached," Gamble tells the Record Searchlight, adding that he and the anonymous donor are working separately from police and Papini's family. If such a kidnapper exists, that person better act fast. According to a letter posted to the site, which KRCR reports it received on Nov. 6, the offer is only available until Wednesday when the anonymous donor, who claims to be a visitor to Redding, will leave the area "on my next business trip." Papini's husband—who passed a lie-detector test and has an alibi for the day of his wife's disappearance, per the Record Searchlight—says he has no link to SherriPapini.com, while a sheriff appears wary. "We think we or the family would have been contacted by the abductors by now if they wanted to hold her for ransom," he says.
– After wrapping up its deadliest month in 20 years, Chicago logged its 500th homicide of the year over Labor Day weekend, when 65 people were shot, including 13 fatally. Nine of those deaths and almost half of all shootings resulting in injuries or deaths occurred between 6am Monday and 3am Tuesday, possibly as individuals and gangs sought retaliation for earlier shootings, police tell the Chicago Tribune, which now counts 512 homicides in the city so far this year, compared to 491 in all of 2015. An 80-year-old man and a woman who was nine months pregnant were among the victims, reports CBS Chicago, which has a detailed breakdown of the shootings.
– President Trump's "Space Force" might need to carry some heavy-duty cleaning products. A team of astronomers has determined that the universe is a much greasier and dirtier place than once thought, with grease-like molecules known as aliphatic carbon thinly spread throughout interstellar space, the Guardian reports. As part of a project to calculate the amount of carbon—essential for the formation of planets and life—that exists between the stars, the astronomers recreated the interstellar dust generated by carbon stars and discovered that the Milky Way alone holds around 10 billion trillion trillion tons of "space grease." Solar wind keeps much of it out of our solar system, but any spacecraft travelling between the stars is likely to arrive with a sticky, dirty coating of carbon. "This space grease is not the kind of thing you'd want to spread on a slice of toast," says study co-author Tim Schmidt of the University of New South Wales. "It's dirty, likely toxic and only forms in the environment of interstellar space—and our laboratory." Schmidt tells CNN that the substance is like greasy soot. "It's not a pure substance, it's not biological," he says. "It would make things dirty like soot would." About half the carbon in space is thought to be elemental carbon. The team, whose research is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, now plans to calculate how much of the third form of interstellar carbon, aromatic "mothball" carbon, exists in our galaxy. (A black hole "farm" has been detected at the center of the Milky Way.)
– A novice hacker tells Gawker that he or she got into at least two of Mitt Romney's personal email accounts in simple fashion. It looks to be true, given the Romney campaign's statement that the "proper authorities are investigating this crime," notes AP. The trick? The hacker read a Wall Street Journal story about Romney's emails from his days as governor, which showed that he had an address of mittromney@hotmail.com. The hacker got into the account today by guessing the answer to "What is the name of your favorite pet." Ditto for his Dropbox account. The good news for the Romney campaign is that nothing embarrassing has surfaced, and it's not clear whether anything will. Gawker says it didn't go into the accounts even though it had the password, for fear of legal repercussions. The hacker claims to have no links to Anonymous, adding that "(I) have never done something like this before." (Things didn't end so well for the hacker who did something similar to Sarah Palin a while back.)
– The makers of the popular card game for "horrible people" say they've put together doomsday survival kits should Donald Trump be elected president—and they say the $25 pre-packed duffle bags sold out in less than a day, reports Time. In creating the "Donald Trump Bug-Out Bag," the folks behind Cards Against Humanity say they included not just Trump-related cards but post-apocalyptic necessities such as a compass, a space blanket, a hand-crank radio, a gas mask, and even a copy of Plato's Republic ("so that you can contemplate the ultimate folly of democracy"). Also: an application to become a permanent resident of Mexico, along with a laminated card with handy Spanish phrases including but not limited to: "I am a refugee." But anyone interested is apparently out of luck: The game creators announced all 10,000 bags have sold out. "We were inspired to make this survival kit so that our families wouldn't immediately perish after Trump seizes control and the Republic crumbles," CAH co-creator Max Temkin tells the Daily Dot via email. So how could they sell all this stuff for $25? "Our original plan to keep the costs down was to have Mexico pay for the bags," Temkin tells CNBC. "Instead we made a tremendous deal wherein we lost money on each bag we sold." Some people on CAH's Facebook page were incredulous, perhaps sniffing a publicity stunt, but the company insists the kit is legit. "It really contains all of these things and is an incredible deal," came the official response. CAH says the kit includes a deck of 25 cards for the presumptive survivors to pass the time, with one reading, "Donald Trump's first act as president was to outlaw ___." Potential answer cards include "trying to wake up from this nightmare." (CAH has also made serious cash selling nothing.)
– Megyn Kelly might now be wishing she listened to critics of her controversial choice to interview conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Claiming his comments were taken "out of context" in promos for the NBC interview airing Sunday, Jones has begun releasing what he says is secretly-recorded audio of his conversations with Kelly. As the Daily Beast puts it, some snippets "will be humiliating for Kelly." In one apparent recording of a pre-interview conversation, Kelly can be heard telling Jones, "It's not going to be some gotcha hit piece, I can promise you that." At another point when referring to Jones' custody battle, she says the media "treated you and your family as fair game, and they never would have done that [to a] mainstream-media figure." Jones claims Kelly promised to deliver a "softball profile." But "I knew that it was a fraud, that it was a lie," he says, per the Hollywood Reporter. He refers specifically to a promo in which Kelly accuses Jones of "dodging" a question about the Sandy Hook massacre. Jones, who previously claimed the shooting was a hoax, says he admitted it happened but that Kelly purposely omitted the comment. In the recording, Kelly promises she won't take Jones' comments out of context. She even says he can review all interview clips to see "whether we are taking it in context, what you are saying." Given the backlash to the interview, Page Six reports Kelly has asked families of Sandy Hook victims to appear; one father has agreed to appear.
– The GOP is pulling a West Virginia campaign ad after the casting call for "hicky" actors was made public by Politico. "No one at the NRSC, or associated with the NRSC, had anything to do with the language used in this casting call," said a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Campaign. "We do not support it, and suffice to say, we would encourage our contractors to never work with this outside agency again." The spot criticizes Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin, who's facing Republican businessman John Raese in his bid to take over Robert Byrd's Senate seat. The head of the West Virginia GOP, however, didn't view the spot as troublesome, reports the National Journal. "I have no problem with it whatsoever," said Mike Stuart. "What those folks said in that diner is what West Virginians are talking about. It's not going to be an issue here." A GOP official tells Politico the spot was due to be replaced soon anyway. "But clearly the Democrats want to use this to distract from Manchin’s record, and we have no intention of letting them."
– Ever gotten a sunburn while driving with the windows up? A new study explains why. Most vehicle windshields block harmful UV-A rays—the kind that raise the risk of everything from cataracts to skin cancer—but your side windows might not, says Brian Boxer Wachler of California's Boxer Wachler Vision Institute. He tested 29 cars made from 1990 to 2014 and found that front windshields blocked 96% of UV-A rays, reports HealthDay News. Side windows, however, blocked just 71% of rays on average. Some blocked as little as 44%. The gap in protection may be to blame for a greater occurrence of cataracts and skin cancers on US patients' left sides, Boxer Wachler says. "It had no correlation at all with the cost of the car," he adds. An expert at Louisiana State University says the difference might be that windshields are made of laminated glass to prevent shattering, while side windows are made of tempered glass, reports Reuters. "Don't assume because you are in an automobile and the window is closed that you're protected from UV light," she says. A dermatologist suggests wearing sunscreen and sunglasses while driving, and window tinting products are "a great option for those who have older cars or cars that don't have the protection already built in." (Time to count your moles.)
– What was supposed to be a surprise Kanye West show in New York City quickly turned to chaos as thousands of fans descended on the venue. More than 4,000 people swarmed Webster Hall, which only holds 1,500, early Monday morning for the pop-up show. They climbed on top of cars, dumpsters, and scaffolding and hung out of windows hoping to get a better view, the AP reports. The New York Daily News reports West hinted on social media that he was going to do the show after the Governors Ball on Sunday was canceled due to the weather. West had been scheduled to perform.The secret show was hinted to start at 2am, and, according to West's Twitter page, was sold out by 1am. Shortly before 2am, Webster Hall tweeted that there would be no show. Police then worked to disperse the crowd. (This may be the weirdest Kanye story ever.)
– Prince may have ascended to a higher plane Thursday, but that doesn't mean the world will never again hear new music from the superstar. The Week references Prince's "mythical vault" containing hundreds to thousands of unreleased songs. And Billboard states the prolific musician's "infamous 'vault' of recordings has become the stuff of legend." Back in 1996, the New York Times reported Prince had "at least a thousand" unreleased songs. And last year, composer Brent Fischer told the Guardian "over 70% of the music we've worked on for Prince is yet to come out." So exactly how much unheard Prince music is left (provided he didn't burn the vault's contents as he once said he planned to)? We may never know. "I don't think you'll ever get to hear everything in the vault because you'd have to sit down for 10 years," friend and bass player Sonny Thompson tells the Week. "There is just too much to go through." (Check out some of the other major stories and tributes flooding the Internet in the wake of Prince's death.)
– People prone to angry outbursts are more than twice as likely to be infected with a common parasite called Toxoplasma gondii, which is often spread through cat feces. So report researchers in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, who looked for circulating antibodies to the parasite in 358 adults with intermittent explosive disorder (IED), non-IED psychiatric disorders (psychiatric controls), or no evidence of any psychiatric diagnosis (healthy controls). They found the parasite in just 9% of those without IED but 22% of those with it. Toxoplasmosis has been linked to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, impulsiveness, and suicidal behavior, reports the Telegraph, but even so this finding surprised researchers. "We don't yet understand the mechanisms involved," coauthor Dr. Royce Lee of the University of Chicago tells Live Science. "It could be an increased inflammatory response, direct brain modulation by the parasite, or even reverse causation where aggressive individuals tend to have more cats or eat more undercooked meat." Indeed, the study establishes an association but not causation, and while the parasite can cause severe neurological problems and death in infants infected through pregnant mothers, it tends to cause far fewer problems in most of the 20% of Americans who've been infected by it. Researchers may next look for the parasite in the brains (instead of just bodies) of those with IED, or try treating IED patients for the infection to see if symptoms disappear. (Check out the broader range of issues the parasite is linked to in humans.)
– Thanks to Congress, pizza is still considered a vegetable—at least where school lunches are concerned. Proposed new school lunch standards from the USDA would have limited potatoes in school lunches (think French fries) and stopped counting less than a half-cup of tomato sauce as a vegetable (think pizza), but food companies complained via $5.6 million worth of lobbying, Talking Points Memo reports. A spending bill released yesterday rejects those suggestions, ensuring pizza and French fries will continue to be served. Federally-subsidized school meals must contain a certain amount of vegetables, and now pizza, with its two tablespoons of tomato sauce, can continue to be one of those vegetables. The USDA’s proposed changes also included limiting sodium and increasing whole grains, the AP reports, meaning that efforts to make lower-sodium, whole grain pizzas will also be delayed. "While it's unfortunate that some members of Congress continue to put special interests ahead of the health of America's children, USDA remains committed to practical, science-based standards for school meals," says a USDA spokesperson.
– NPR is mourning veteran photojournalist David Gilkey, who has become the first American journalist outside the military to be killed in almost 15 years of US involvement in Afghanistan. Gilkey, 50, was killed alongside 38-year-old Afghan interpreter Zabihullah Tamanna when their vehicle was hit by shellfire as they traveled in an Afghan army convoy in Helmand province on Sunday afternoon, the New York Times reports. Two other members of the NPR team, who were embedded with Afghan special forces on a monthlong assignment, were unharmed in what authorities say was a Taliban ambush. This is the first time an NPR journalist has been killed on assignment, CNN reports. James P. Hunter, a 25-year-old staff sergeant and journalist with the Army's 101st Airborne Division, was killed in an IED attack in Afghanistan in 2010. Gilkey, who had won numerous awards and was considered one of the world's best photojournalists, "chronicled pain and beauty in war and conflict," writes Eyder Peralta at NPR. Gilkey had extensive experience in Afghanistan and had also reported from South Africa, Somalia, Rwanda, the Balkans, Haiti, and Iraq, where he was embedded with the first US troops to invade. "David was one of the most intense journalists I've ever met," says Robert Huschka, executive editor of the Detroit Free Press, which employed Gilkey from 1996 to 2007. "He was committed to telling human stories—even when it meant putting his own life in harm's way. And, he was just a good guy."
– Outspoken Syrian-American blogger Amina Arraf was grabbed on the street yesterday, someone claiming to be her cousin wrote on her blog. Araff wrote a blog entitled A Gay Girl in Damascus, which had spoken out in favor of the protest movement, according to MSNBC. A post yesterday from a woman calling herself Rania Ismail said that a friend had watched three men in their 20s grab Araff. “Amina hit one of them and told the friend to go find her father. One of the men then put his hand over Amina’s mouth and they hustled her into a red Dacia Logan with a window sticker of Basel Assad,” the post reads, referring to the the late brother of President Bashar Assad. So far the blog says there’s no word on precisely who took her or where she is. The 36-year-old Arraf is a Virginia native who holds dual citizenship, reports the New York Times.
– On June 7, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo tweeted that the state of New York had $100,000 for anyone with info that would lead to the arrest of two escaped prison inmates. Now a Texas psychic wants Cuomo to pay up and has filed a lawsuit to demand the reward money, claiming the governor and New York state have violated a "tweeted written contract," Fusion reports. Eric Drake says he called the governor's office during the hunt for Richard Matt and David Sweat after their June breakout from the Clinton Correctional Facility and offered info that was "right on point," including that the "two inmates separated for some reason," that one "was heading for mountains and clear rivers," and that accomplice Joyce Mitchell "had more information than appeared," per the 31-page complaint. "The odds of someone without the gifts of the Spirit of God, guessing on the information that the Plaintiff provided to the authorities is probably less than (1) one out of 25 billion," the complaint notes. Yet Drake claims the governor's office wouldn't even tell him how to file for payment when he called. Drake says he's "foreseen the deaths of many people"—including family and President Obama's grandmother—and has healed cancer patients through prayer. He also says DC police ignored his advice while searching for snipers in 2002; that no one named Clinton, Trump, or Biden will be the next president; and that "a much deeper sorrow" looms for the Obamas. Why he needs the reward: to publish his book of prophecies "regarding the United States of America, which ... are 1000 times greater than the suffering of the great depression," he notes in the suit. (A Brazilian airline got superstitious because of a psychic.)
– Bill Maher's first show in the wake of his n-word controversy will have an interesting guest: Ice Cube. Though Al Franken dropped out, Ice Cube says he'll be there for the June 9 episode, reports the Los Angeles Times. On his last show, Maher jokingly referred to himself as a "house n-----," and he and HBO apologized afterward amid a flurry of social media criticism. Another guest will be Georgetown prof Michael Eric Dyson, who tweeted that while he has long appreciated his friend Maher's advocacy for black causes, the "n-word should be reserved for black use. Period."
– Cher is 71, but that didn't stop her from rocking nipple pasties and a thong at Sunday night's Billboard Music Awards. The pop diva first performed "Believe" wearing pasties under a "dress" that was basically made up entirely of glittery fringe. She then took to the stage a second time to sing "If I Could Turn Back Time" while wearing the same black thong bodysuit she wore in the original music video, People reports. The performances marked her first time performing at an awards show in 15 years, Page Six reports. She also received an Icon Award at the Las Vegas event. See pictures of both outfits in our gallery. (But did she lip sync the performance?)
– Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway now know how Steve Harvey felt. The latter announced the wrong Miss Universe in 2015, and at Sunday night's Oscars, the former made the same mistake during the presentation of the biggest award of the night, per the Los Angeles Times and Entertainment Weekly. Beatty goofed around and stalled for dramatic effect before handing the best picture envelope to Dunaway to read the winner, which she announced as La La Land. The team behind that movie headed up to the stage to celebrate the night's big win, and the acceptance speeches began—when suddenly an unexpected followup announcement was made. "[Actually] Moonlight is the winner ... this is not a joke," a La La Land producer said into the mic, with a sheepish-looking Beatty standing nearby, per ABC News. Beatty had apparently been given the wrong envelope (the one for best actress, Emma Stone, for La La Land), and when Dunaway was given the envelope, she simply read the movie's name aloud. The players for both movies switched spots, with Moonlight's shocked performers and crew taking the stage. "I love La La Land," Moonlight director Barry Jenkins said, while Kimmel tried to salvage the moment with: "I blame Steve Harvey."
– NASCAR driver Jason Leffler, 37, died yesterday in a racing crash, CNN reports. Leffler was driving in "Night of Wings," a New Jersey sprint car race not sponsored by NASCAR. His car flipped multiple times and hit a wall twice, a witness tells USA Today. He'd been in second place. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead. "For more than a decade, Jason was a fierce competitor in our sport and he will be missed," NASCAR said in a statement.
– It's Day 2 of the new Brexit reality, at least as far as the markets are concerned, and the Dow started the day down roughly 1%, with the drop hovering around 205 points as of this writing at 17,195. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq were down roughly the same percentage. That's thus far more modest than what we saw Friday. The British pound, which last week plunged to its lowest level since 1985, dropped another 2.4% to $1.3352, despite the British Treasury's reassurances that the economy was strong enough to withstand the uncertainty. European stock markets added to their painful losses from Friday, when concern over the vote outcome wiped out $2.1 trillion of stock value from Hong Kong to London to New York, reports the AP. Britain's FTSE 100 was down 1.3% at 6,056 while Germany's DAX shed 1.3% to 9,434 and France's CAC 40 dropped 1.3% as well to 4,053. Meanwhile, in a Monday CNBC interview Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said that the decision of British voters to leave the European Union is "an additional headwind" for the US and global economies but "there is no sense of a financial crisis developing." He continued, per the AP, "I am not saying there will not be an impact on markets but it has been an orderly impact so far."
– With the May 1 anniversary of Osama bin Laden's killing upon us, the White House is going to great lengths to remind everyone all about it. For starters, there's Joe Biden's new stock phrase: "Bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive." Then there's the ad suggesting that Mitt Romney wouldn't have had the guts to approve the raid. And it culminates with an interview of President Obama by NBC's Brian Williams that airs next week from the White House Situation Room, notes Politico. That's where the now-iconic photo was taken of top officials watching the raid. "Few presidents have talked about the killing of an individual enemy in such an expansive way," says the New York Times in a story today about the strategy. It could be a risky one. BuzzFeed, for instance, has John McCain's withering attack on the president, which begins, "Shame on Barack Obama for diminishing the memory of September 11th and the killing of Osama bin Laden by turning it into a cheap political attack ad." (ABC already pointed out that Obama accused Hillary Clinton of doing much the same in 2008.) And Daniel Halper at the conservative Weekly Standard calls out Obama for "spiking the football," turning the president's own words against him. The anniversary should be a prime topic on tomorrow's talk shows.
– As students and demonstrators began to gather at the University of California at Berkeley yesterday, a police officer shot an armed man inside a business computer lab on the other side of campus. Police say the suspect, who was taken to a local hospital for surgery, was shot after he "pulled a firearm out of his backpack and displayed it in a threatening manner" in a lab with four students present, the Los Angeles Times reports. Police aren't sure whether the man is a student or whether he is connected to the Occupy Cal demonstrations that drew thousands of protesters to the campus yesterday, the Daily Californian reports. UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau told a press conference that the "extraordinarily upsetting" incident was the first shooting incident on campus since the 1980s, when a football player was shot outside a campus pub. "Now we are there, along with Kent State and Virginia Tech," he said.
– Yelp has just issued its third ever consumer alert, this one about a dentist in Manhattan who has sued five patients since 2012 for posting negative reviews, reports BuzFeed. Nima Dayani has asked for anywhere between $50,000 and $100,000 in damages, so Yelp is warning consumers that Dayani's business is "issuing questionable legal threats against reviewers" and that reviewers "have a First Amendment right to express their opinions on Yelp." Dayani appears to have backed off the lawsuits where patients agreed to remove their negative reviews. In one pending court case, a woman accused him in her review of being unable to diagnose her problem after a two-hour-plus visit. Dayani says that's untrue and that such claims aren't just negative but defamatory. "I got hurt. You will get hurt," he claims the woman told him by phone, because she had been scolded for being gone so long by her boss, reports the New York Daily News. Yelp issued its first alert in May after a Texas pet sitting company sued a customer who violated its "gag" clause, which prevented her from speaking ill of the business; a Florida moving and storage company was issued the second alert in June after it sued a customer for defamation. Buzzfeed reports that both cases are ongoing, and notes that the alerts are being rolled out while Congress considers two bills that could protect consumers from being sued for online reviews. (That pet sitter says its business is now a "shell of its former success" and is seeking $1 million in damages.)
– Rick Santorum isn't pleased to have been left off the lineup for the first primetime GOP debate tomorrow. In fact, he says Fox News should apologize to the candidates who were overlooked and to the American public. In an interview with NBC News, he says the method of picking the top 10 candidates from five recent national polls is an "insult to voters" and shows "networks trying to influence who the nominee is." A rep for Santorum adds "the RNC deserves as much blame for sanctioning this process" as Fox does for hosting it. The other six candidates who will take part in an earlier 5pm debate with fewer viewers are putting on a brave face. Rick Perry tweets he's looking forward to "what will be a serious exchange of ideas & positive solutions to get America back on track." In a statement, Carly Fiorina says she, too, is eagerly awaiting the event and is "encouraged by the support of conservative activists and grassroots Republicans." In anticipation of the debate, the Christian Science Monitor breaks down a few tried and tested moves you're likely to see, including one called the "clubhouse turn."
– It's been so cold for such a long time in the Great Lakes region that the lakes are now almost completely covered with ice for the first time in 20 years. Ice cover has now reached 88% across the five lakes, the most since 1994, when 94% of their surface was frozen, the AP finds. Average ice cover has receded around 70% over the last four decades, so this year's deep freeze will do much to replenish lake water levels by limiting evaporation. "It has been an extraordinary winter, and the ice cover is a manifestation of that unusually cold winter," Michigan's state climatologist tells the Detroit Free Press. The ice cover record could be broken by next week if the current rate of increase continues, a meteorologist says, though Lake Ontario is "holding everyone back" with ice cover of just 40%, caused by its depth and the churn of Niagara Falls. On Lake Superior, which is almost 94% frozen over, the Apostle Island Ice Caves can be reached on foot for the first time in years.
– Two American college students have died in a tragic boating accident while studying abroad in Denmark. Linsey Malia, 21, of Easton, Mass., and Leah Bell of Covington, La., were killed Saturday when a jet ski crashed into a boat carrying them in Copenhagen Harbor, reports Mass Live. Six others, including at least five boaters, were treated for injuries at a hospital and released, reports the Copenhagen Post, which adds it's illegal to ride jet skis in the harbor. Several people were seen trying to flee the scene on jet skis after the crash, but police say nine people are now in custody, including a 24-year-old man arrested on suspicion of aggravated manslaughter, per the AP. The students were celebrating the end of the spring semester and were to return home over the next week. A relative describes Malia, an honors student at Stonehill College, as a "shining star" who "made everyone who knew her smile," per the Boston Globe. A professor adds she'd co-authored a research paper that she was to present at an August meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Christ Episcopal Church identified Bell, a student at California's Pomona College, as a crash victim on Facebook. The post noted her parents have traveled to Denmark, where a lawmaker is calling for a total ban on jet skis off the coast. Bell was studying to be a neonatal nurse, and her psychology professor describes how Bell "loved the experience of holding babies, premature babies, of helping families learn to bond with them ... It's such a beautiful aspiration that it just makes it more painful to lose her." (An American died while studying in Rome over the summer.)
– Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have both weighed in on the Michele Bachman-Jimmy Fallon incident, coming down firmly on the side of Bachmann. “She’s right, if that had been Michelle Obama or Hillary Clinton” who was introduced with a derogatory song, “NBC would have fired the entire production staff,” said Limbaugh, who accused the Fallon crew of “still joking about” the incident rather than offering serious apologies. Limbaugh’s analogy on yesterday’s show: “Imagine, here comes Michelle Obama and they play ‘I Like Big Butts’ by Sir Mix-a-Lot.” He then went on to do just that—listen in the gallery. Glenn Beck, on Tuesday, called the incident “so unbelievable” and told his staff that if they did the same thing to Michelle Obama, “I fire you. She’s a guest in my home. She’s a guest on my show.” He went on to call Fallon’s staff “two-faced liars” and Fallon himself a “despicable, reprehensible human being” and "a girl." Watch his rant, which came out before Fallon's apology, in the gallery, or click to watch the original Fallon clip.
– The anti-Donald Trump protests kicked off as the inaugural events began Thursday night, with at least one protester arrested after a rally near Trump supporters' "DeploraBall" event at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. NBC Washington reports that police used pepper spray as they clashed with protesters, some of whom let off smoke bombs and burned Trump merchandise in the street. Protesters chanted "Nazi scum" at DeploraBall attendees, threw trash, and projected slogans including "Impeach the Predatory President" onto the Press Club building, the Washington Post reports. Earlier in the evening, Michael Moore led a protest outside the Trump International Hotel in New York, with speeches from Mayor Bill de Blasio, Robert De Niro, and Alec Baldwin, among others, the Hill reports. "With a lot of work on our part, we will stop this man," Moore promised, calling Trump a "sociopath" who "will not last four years." Authorities say they have plans in place to keep pro- and anti-Trump groups separate during Friday's events. The Bikers for Trump group says it's ready to step in if protesters try to block access to the National Mall during Trump's inauguration. "We're going to be backing up law enforcement. We're on the same page," one of the group's organizers tells Reuters.
– For 12 minutes, James Stephens ranted to his wife about his boss. Then he realized that while he was ranting, he had pocket-dialed the man, Georgia Subsequent Injury Trust Fund Director Mike Coan, who heard the whole conversation. According to Stephens, who lost his job, that means Coan broke the law. In a civil lawsuit highlighted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Stephens says Coan violated his privacy and Georgia's eavesdropping law by not hanging up when he realized the call from his employee was a mistake. "Rather than simply hang up, [Coan] proceeded to violate Georgia law by intentionally acting in a clandestined manner and listening in to a private conversation between Mr. Stephens and his wife Gina inside the Stephens' private residence," his complaint states. The state law is clear on cases where a person uses recording devices to eavesdrop on a private conversation. "It's an inadvertent pocket dial where it makes the question a little more gray," a civil rights attorney tells the Journal-Constitution. Stephens' attorney says the case could reshape Georgia law. But Coan—a former state lawmaker who oversees workers' compensation claims, per the AP—is adamant he wasn't in the wrong. He heard the call as a state employee "acting within the scope of his official duties," his lawyer says. He also explains why Stephens was told to resign or be fired: "Given Stephens' opinions and criticisms of Coan," it was clear the pair "could no longer have an effective working relationship and Coan could not trust Stephens as a subordinate."
– In case you haven't heard, Lost ends its run tonight with a 2½-hour episode that carries six seasons' worth of speculation and the anticipation of pretty much the whole internet. "We feel like Lost deserved a real resolution, not a 'snow globe, waking up in bed, it’s all been a dream, cut to black' kind of ending," co-creator Carlton Cuse tells the Washington Post. To indulge your addiction: Watch cats tell the story in 1 minute. Check out TV Guide's favorite episodes. See every shirtless scene, compiled by New York (and featuring a shot of Kate with no pants). Scroll through io9's list of the best Lost memes. And it's come to this: See The Awl's list of the best lists.
– It appears a $35 million bail won't be enough to keep a murder suspect behind bars in California. Tiffany Li, a 31-year-old woman accused of killing her ex-boyfriend and the father of her two children last year, is expected to post one of the largest bails in US history Thursday, using $62 million in property and $4 million in cash, reports CBS San Francisco. In California, the value of property used as collateral must be twice the bail amount. Li, who has been in jail for about a year, comes from a wealthy family, says a San Mateo County district attorney. Her lawyer adds that the property was "put up by 15 to 20 extended family, friends, business associates," and others who believe Li is innocent. Prosecutors, however, say a custody battle over the couple's young daughters led Li to conspire with her boyfriend and friend to kill Keith Green last year. Authorities say Green was reported missing on April 29, 2016, a day after he met with Li to discuss the custody dispute in Millbrae, Calif., per the San Jose Mercury News. He was found dead of a gunshot wound two weeks later about 80 miles from Millbrae. Given prosecutors' fears that Li could "flee back to her native China," per the AP, she would be kept under house arrest and subject to electronic monitoring if the bail amount is approved by a judge. A jury trial in the case is set for September. (A judge set this man's bail at $4 billion to make a point.)
– A little-known women's charity based in California had a welcome problem this week: The website of the Fistula Foundation crashed because of an influx of visitors, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The reason? Louis CK played on behalf of the group in a celebrity Jeopardy! match that aired Wednesday and ended up donating his $50,000 in winnings to it. The foundation helps women suffering from an obstetric fistula—"a hole between the vagina and rectum or bladder that is caused by prolonged obstructed labor, leaving a woman incontinent," the website explains. Surgery can easily fix it, and it's no longer a problem in the US, but it remains a major issue for women in low-income countries. "They're modern-day lepers," the charity's CEO tells USA Today. The money will go toward training doctors and providing surgeries for more women, she says. Louis CK himself described the charity to host Alex Trebek "as a group of people who help women in poor countries who've been injured in childbirth, and it helps them get the medical attention that they need and get them back on their feet." To which Trebek responded, "That's not a well-known charity. Good for you." On the show, the comedian defeated Kate Bolduan of CNN and Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post, notes E! Online. (Check out 23 hilarious celebrity game-show fails.)
– President Obama's plan to ease the student debt problem is "simple, powerful, and long overdue," writes Jordan Weissmann at the Atlantic. It's also probably doomed. As he spelled out yesterday, Obama wants to help students figure out which schools give them the best value, factoring in things like tuition and employment after graduation. Schools with higher rankings would see more federal aid, which would theoretically spur reform and thus lower costs. "On a broad philosophical level, the proposal would fundamentally rewire the relationship between the federal government and the world of higher education, by introducing at least somewhat meaningful accountability measures for the first time across all sectors of the industry, from the Ivy League, to the University of Phoenix," writes Weissmann. The catch? The Department of Education can come up with any ranking it wants, but tying the results to federal aid needs the approval of Congress, and Republicans already seem skeptical. Marco Rubio, for instance, called such a plan a "slippery slope" that would give "Washington bureaucrats" too much sway over the private sector. The plan is an "important first step," writes Weissmann, "but it's not clear when, or if, it will lead anywhere." At Business Insider, Josh Barro is more enthusiastic. "In the case of higher education, the constituency getting its ox gored by cost control will be college professors and administrators, hardly a fixture of Republican fundraisers or Tea Party town halls," he writes. "That bodes well for bipartisan compromise on this issue." Click for Barro's full column, or Weissmann's full column.
– In a profession with little room for error, Ivan Fandino made one that cost him his life on Saturday: The 36-year-old Spanish bullfighter tripped on his cape while in the ring in France, sending him to the ground, where a bull gored him in the chest, reports Sky News. Fandino's lung was injured, and he suffered a heart attack on the way to the hospital, reports the BBC. His death is the second of a matador in the past year; Victor Barrio was gored to death on live television in July, an incident which raised renewed calls to end an ancient sport many view as barbaric. Though known for its roots in Spain, bullfighting was legalized in France in 2012; the AFP noted at the time that around 1,000 bulls are killed annually in France. Fandino, who was performing at a festival near the Spanish border, is only the second matador to die in France in nearly a century.
– The viral video of the day has a great ending. A Columbus Dispatch videographer interviewed a 53-year-old homeless man named Ted Williams whose sign asking for money promised that he had a "God-given gift of voice." (Not as a singer, but a radio pitchman.) The resulting YouTube smash has brought in scores of job offers for Williams, who says he used to work in radio until he ran into trouble with booze and drugs. He says he's been clean for two years. AOL News rounds up his job offers here, and Williams also is racking up national media appearances.
– Nazi Cpl. Heinz Schymalla, 22, and fellow captive Walter Mai, 21, were among some 200 Germans cutting timber for Minnesota's pulp industry in a prisoner-of-war camp in 1944. Both captured in Tunisia in May 1943, they gained momentary notoriety when, moved to act in part by news that Schymalla's 60-year-old father had been conscripted to join the withering Nazi forces, they managed to escape by boat. Having dug their way under a wire fence just before midnight on a Saturday in late October, they set off from Algona-Branch Camp No. 4 near Bena, Minn. Their plan: Follow Lake Winnibigoshish to the Mississippi River to New Orleans, where they hoped to catch a ride home, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune. They had a head start in their journey thanks to the lack of a Sunday-morning count; the search began more than 24 hours after their escape. In a 1994 article for Minnesota History magazine, historian George Lobdell wrote that having been in the state since February, the men knew they needn't fear "wild animals or Indians." Unfortunately, the three small maps they found in a dictionary "apparently gave no understanding of the distances involved" (as evidenced by the great number of things they packed, including shoe polish and a cigarette-rolling machine). They made it 20-odd miles south in the first few days, then hit a snowstorm and ultimately took a wrong turn into Jay Gould Lake on Friday. There they were spotted by a resort owner who called the county sheriff, and they were ultimately caught hiding in bushes. Their punishment: 30 days in confinement. The men were among 13 German POWs who escaped during WWII in Minnesota. (A "Great Escape" survivor told of his attempted WWII escape.)
– Analysts say Apple will unveil a smaller, more affordable iPhone, probably dubbed the iPhone SE, with similar features to the iPhone 6 at its Silicon Valley headquarters on Monday. Rumors are also swirling about a smaller iPad Pro, an updated iPad Air 3, and new designs for the Apple Watch, per USA Today and Wired. Yet with "no hints of any dramatic announcements"—the iPhone 7 is predicted for release in September, per the Telegraph—the event "doesn't seem to be stirring much passion," reports the AP. Experts estimate only 12 million units of a new 4-inch iPhone will sell this year, compared to 265 million units of the iPhone 6 sold in the last two years. The event kicks off at 1pm EDT.
– Prosecutors will ask a judge to drop all criminal charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn in a court hearing on Tuesday, which could allow him to go free immediately, a source tells the New York Post. The Manhattan DA will seek dismissal because Nafissatou Diallo, the maid accusing Strauss-Kahn of rape, faces credibility problems and cannot convince a jury of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The move for dismissal would likely be approved on the spot. "When it's the DA asking for dismissal, it's never denied," says one veteran defense lawyer. Lawyers for Diallo expect prosecutors to tell her tomorrow that some or all charges against Strauss-Kahn are being dropped, the Daily Beast reports. Diallo, described as "depressed" by her lawyer and feeling "abandoned by the Manhattan district attorney," will still pursue her civil suit against Strauss-Kahn, the AP adds.
– Fox is in the midst of a lawsuit over rights to its over-the-air programming—and if it loses, its broadcast network could turn to a subscription model, News Corp's president says. At issue is a lawsuit against Aereo, which offers broadcast TV on digital devices, Mashable reports. "Aereo is stealing our signal," said News Corp president and COO Chase Carey, per Variety. Without legal protection, "we will pursue business solutions. One ... would be to take the network and turn it into a subscription service." A statement from News Corp offered a similar sentiment, saying Fox's broadcast network could be converted "to a pay channel" to "ensure we continue to remain in the driver’s seat of our own destiny." Aereo weighed in with a statement, saying it offered a "simple, convenient way for consumers to utilize an antenna to access free-to-air broadcast television ... Having a television antenna is every American's right." Broadcasters sued against Aereo last year, citing copyright infringement.
– Somehow, this ends well: An SUV with three teenage girls went off a 100-foot cliff in Arizona, and the 16-year-old driver was thrown from the vehicle as it flipped and landed on top of her. It took a while for rescuers to get all three freed, but everybody came away with only minor injuries. As KPHO explains, the driver wasn't seriously hurt because the vehicle's roof got dented as it rolled, and the girl ended up in the resulting cavity of space between the roof and the ground. Rescuers got the two strapped-in passengers out of the car in an hour, but it took four hours to delicately raise the car with inflation bags to free the driver, an operation that involved passersby gathering rocks to place under the SUV. "I just remember we had gone really fast around this corner and the car started to lean over, and we all kind of had that moment of, 'Oh crap, this is going to happen,' and then the car just started rolling," says passenger Danielle Goldberg. The girls were returning home from a day of swimming, and police say there's no sign of drugs or alcohol involved in the crash in a remote desert area near Strawberry, reports AP. The driver was the only one not wearing her seat belt. (In New Jersey, two women survived going off a bridge when their SUV landed upright.)
– An AirAsia flight from Bangkok to Nanjing was forced to turn around after an irate passenger deliberately threw boiling water on a flight attendant, the airline says. According to the airline, a Chinese couple who were traveling with a tour group became furious when they were seated apart, and instead of calming down when flight attendants were able to seat them together, the woman ordered instant noodles and boiling water and then proceeded to chuck the scalding water on a flight attendant after a dispute over payment, Jalopnik reports. Witnesses say the pilot made the decision to return to Bangkok after the man threatened to blow up the plane and the woman started pounding on the plane windows and saying she was going to kill herself, the Wall Street Journal reports. Xinhua—which describes the incident as "the latest scandal to taint the image of Chinese tourists abroad"—reports that the couple and two other passengers involved were arrested after the plane landed in Bangkok and had to pay $1,500 compensation to the attendant. After the incident last Thursday was reported in state media in China over the weekend, authorities issued a statement saying the passengers had been put on a travel blacklist because they "severely tarnished the image of the Chinese people."
– A Seattle bar has ended its weekly goldfish races after PETA unleashed its fury—but other hangouts “are saying screw you to the PETA folks,” says the bar owner halting the practice. What, you ask, is a goldfish race? It means plopping fish into plastic tubes of water, then propelling them to the finish line by blowing in a straw or firing a water pistol, reports Seattle Weekly. “We'd use the little 10-cent feeder fish that would normally be fed to pets,” said the owner. “It was really, really popular. But we started getting all kinds of calls and e-mails from PETA people. It got to the point where Tuesday nights I'd get 60 or 70 emails.” For its part, PETA complains that patrons think it's funny to impale the fish with cocktail straws or swallow them alive.
– Potato/potahto. Tomato/tomahto. Dragon lady/bitch. A lawyer for FX argues the two insults are interchangeable. A lawyer for Olivia de Havilland disagrees in the 101-year-old actress' lawsuit against the producers of the miniseries Feud: Bette and Joan. Variety reports the two sides were in court Tuesday, with FX attempting to get the case tossed. De Havilland says she wasn't consulted about the project and was portrayed as "gossipy," according to USA Today. While de Havilland is on record as having once called her sister Joan Fontaine a "dragon lady," her attorney says the "honest, closed-mouthed, ladylike" actress would never have used the word "bitch," as she was portrayed as doing in Feud. "The creators of Feud not only used my identity without my consent, but they also put false words in my mouth," the Los Angeles Times quotes de Havilland as saying. FX attorney Kelly Klaus says Feud's portrayal of de Havilland was largely positive and using vulgarity isn't entirely out of character for de Havilland, who once allegedly said, "I don't like to play bitches." The network says it changed "dragon lady" to "bitch" for a modern audience, arguing the two are synonymous. De Havilland's attorney, Suzelle Smith, disagrees: “In my household, if you say the word ‘bitch,’ you get your mouth washed out.” The network is also arguing free speech. "She is a public figure and the matters discussed in Feud are of public interest," says Klaus, who also notes de Havilland would have to prove the producers acted with malice. Experts say if de Havilland wins, it could have a chilling effect on free speech and future "docudramas." A decision is expected within 90 days.
– Residents of a squalid refugee camp in the Central African Republic said yesterday that French soldiers tasked with protecting civilians had sexually abused boys as young as 9 years old, luring the children with army rations and small change when their families had nothing to feed them. The accounts given to the AP by one mother and another woman living in the camp came a day after French authorities acknowledged that investigations into the allegations had been underway for months. The children—who described to investigators last year how they were given bottles of water after being sodomized—are still living in the refugee camp, relatives said. The French government has not explained why the probe was kept quiet, though France's president promised tough punishment for any soldier found guilty. The probe came to light Wednesday in a report in the Guardian after the alleged whistleblower at the United Nations was removed from his duties. Details also emerged yesterday of similar accusations against soldiers from Chad and Equatorial Guinea. France, the former colonizer of the Central African Republic, sent several thousand additional troops to Bangui in late 2013 and in early 2014 amid sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians that prompted tens of thousands of people to seek refuge on the grounds of the capital's airport. "The children were vulnerable because they were hungry and their parents had nothing to give them, so the children were forced to ask the soldiers for food," said the mother who spoke with the AP. Added another resident of the camp, "In exchange for cookies, the soldiers demanded oral sex. They even sodomized the children." Click for more on the allegations.
– Cuba's announcement that it's looking to whack a half-million workers off the state payroll by March is a significant move toward capitalism, reports the Wall Street Journal. Bearing some 85% of the nation's 5.5 million workers on the government payroll, as well as a ravaged economy, the island nation has little choice but to offload a significant number into the private sector. "Our state can't keep maintaining bloated payrolls," said Cuba's national union yesterday. Now Cuba watchers are split on whether that private sector can absorb Castro's move: "There is so much pent-up demand on the one hand and so much skill on the other," one tells the New York Times, so the transition will happen "pretty rapidly.” Baloney, says another: "There is no private sector to absorb them." Regardless, Castro said last month: “We have to erase forever the notion that Cuba is the only country in the world where one can live without working." For Raul Castro's earlier flirtations with free markets, click here.
– Sexually transmitted diseases are staging a comeback in Rhode Island—with syphilis leading the pack, the state Department of Health reports. While HIV is up 33% from 2013 to 2014 and gonorrhea is up 30%, syphilis skyrocketed a whopping 79%. Why the sudden uptick? Officials cite better testing, but add that hookup apps like Tinder are at least partly to blame. "High-risk behaviors include using social media to arrange casual and often anonymous sexual encounters, having sex without a condom, having multiple sex partners, and having sex while under the influence of drugs or alcohol," the department said in a statement, adding that gay and bisexual men, African Americans, Hispanics, and young adults are the most affected by these growing rates. "These data send a clear signal that despite the progress we have made in reducing STDs and HIV over the years, there is more work to do," one official tells the East Greenwich Patch. Rhode Island officials say the stats are reflective of a national trend. A study from 2013 out of New York University blamed Craigslist for a 16% increase in HIV cases between 1999 and 2008 across much of the country, while the hookup app Grindr, which is primarily used by gay men, was blamed on playing a role in at least half of all syphilis cases in New Zealand in 2012, reports Fox News. (Syphilis, nearly eliminated in 2000, has increased sharply across the country, but among one group in particular.)
– An early human dropped a stone tool on a floodplain in what is now Turkey about 1.2 million years ago. Today, its discovery is helping scientists pinpoint when humans began their move from Asia to Europe. The quartzite flake, described in Quaternary Science Reviews, is "the earliest securely-dated artifact from Turkey ever recorded," and its discovery pushes back the presumed date of human migration into Europe, researcher Danielle Schreve says, per EurekAlert. Her eye just happened to be "drawn to a pinkish stone on the surface" while studying a sediment deposit in an ancient river bend near Gediz. "When I turned it over for a better look, the features of a humanly-struck artifact were immediately apparent," Schreve says. Other hominin fossils were found in Turkey in 2007, but experts aren't confident about their age. Some say an ancient skull shows humans were in Turkey as far back as 1.3 million years ago, but others date it to about 500,000 years ago, LiveScience reports. In the case of the flake, researchers used high-precision radioisotopic dating on the ancient river deposit in which the artifact was found. They also used magnetic minerals within the regions' rocks to gauge the position of the magnetic poles around the time it was left. The data revealed a "secure chronology," showing humans were in the area between 1.24 million and 1.17 million years ago, experts say. (Find out why modern humans' bones are weaker than those of their ancestors.)
– Newt Gingrich's super PAC is jumping into the Florida mudslinging contest, with an ad bashing Mitt Romney over his role in helping to devise mandate-based health care. The Winning Our Future PAC, riding high thanks to a $5 million donation from the wife of Vegas casino owner Sheldon Adelson, has bought $6 million worth of air time for a new ad tying Romney to President Obama, using past Romney quotes like, "I'm someone who is moderate. My views are progressive," CBS reports. And what's worse than being a moderate? Being faithful to your wife. In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Gingrich painted his marital problems as a plus, even turning it into a subtle dig against Romney. "I think most people can identify," he said. "It may make me more normal than somebody who wanders around seeming perfect and maybe not understanding the human condition, and the challenges of life for normal people."
– The Losers has some bright spots, but overall the new comic book adaption is a muddled mess of CIA intrigue, uneven acting, wall-to-wall violence, and Zoe Saldana in her underwear. Some critical reactions: "The film had promising roots in the comic book's band of irreverent brothers," Betsy Sharkey writes for the LA Times. "But the plot? Who decided to kill the plot?" "The Losers is another plastic thingamabob that’s been hoisted up by one of those carnival claw machines," Wesley Morris writes for the Boston Globe. "The amusement it provides is cheap, disposable, and hardly worth the number of quarters you fed into the slot." The producers' ambitions were in the right place, but a Lethal Weapon-style romp is beyond their reach. "What they've produced instead is a busy, unsatisfying comic thriller, a grab bag of new faces and franchise movie refugees," Dan Kois writes for the Village Voice. The prize in the grab bag is Chris Evans, Roger Moore writes for the Orlando Sentinel. "Now we see why Evans was selected to play Captain America in the upcoming Avengers comic book epic."
– A popular children's author had one final wish when she died Saturday after a battle with brain cancer: Instead of holding a funeral, read to a child. Today reports that 50-year-old Anna Dewdney became a household name with parents when she published her first Llama Llama book—Llama Llama Red Pajama—in 2005. The Llama Llama series—about a baby llama who's usually upset with his mama—has gone on to sell more than 10 million copies, according to Publishers Weekly. And Netflix is producing a cartoon based on the books. Dewdney, a former daycare provider and teacher, believed reading to children was the best way to teach to empathy, People reports. “When we read with a child, we are doing so much more than teaching him to read," Publishers Weekly quotes Dewdney as saying. "We are teaching that child to be human." Dewdney's publisher notes she had a "mission of putting books into as many little hands as possible." Dewdney's final book, Little Excavator, is scheduled to be published next year. (A publisher is looking for the heirs of this crime writer.)
– A bold move from the president dubbed "one of the least merciful" in US history: President Obama commuted the sentences of 22 drug offenders yesterday, more than doubling the number of commutations he has issued during his presidency, reports USA Today, which notes that it was the biggest single-day commutation since Bill Clinton commuted 40 sentences and pardoned 150 other offenders on his final day in office. All but two of the sentences commuted were for cocaine offenses, and Politico reports that all but one of the sentences were shortened to end in July, allowing a few months for transition in halfway houses. The White House has released a list of the offenders and their sentences. On the White House blog, Counsel to the President Neil Eggleston says many of the drug offenders were "convicted under an outdated sentencing regime" and have already served longer than people convicted of the same crime today would. The White House also released a letter from Obama to Terry Andre Barnes, who was sentenced in 2005 to 20 years and six months for distributing crack cocaine. "You have demonstrated the potential to turn your life around," Obama writes, telling Barnes it may be tough, but he has the capacity to make good choices, and his example will influence "the possibility that others in similar circumstances get their own second chance in the future." "I believe in your ability to prove the doubters wrong," he writes. "So good luck, and Godspeed."
– Mourners have gathered at a human rights center to remember slain Vladimir Putin critic Boris Nemtsov—but many haven't been welcome at the event, the BBC reports. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny, held for 15 days after promoting a demonstration, hasn't been allowed out of jail, while Poland's senate speaker and a Latvian official weren't allowed to enter the country. The Latvian official, a member of the European parliament, says she was stopped at the airport for two hours and ultimately turned away. "I was not coming to Russia to make political declarations and standing on the corner to offend the people," she tells UPI. The Polish official, Bogdan Borusewicz, couldn't obtain a visa amid the conflict in Ukraine: Following EU sanctions against Russia, Borusewicz's name was on a list of Polish leaders who couldn't enter, according to Russia. Putin himself didn't attend the ceremony, the BBC notes, but the deputy prime minister did. Thousands arrived for the event, with the line of mourners reaching about a mile long, Reuters reports. Among them was Boris Yeltsin's widow, Naina Yeltsina, Another government opponent spoke: "The shots were fired not only at Nemtsov but at all of us, at democracy in Russia." Added a mourner: "He was our hope … I feel like Putin killed me on the day he died."
– Look up and you might see a bird, a plane, or 200-pound chunks of China's space lab falling from the sky. Actually, the chance of that last one is remote, but technically possible, and now more than ever. China acknowledged last year that its Tiangong-1 lab, launched in 2011, was likely to plunge toward Earth this year or next. As the Orlando Sentinel explains, it's time to start keeping an eye skyward because the 9-ton craft has dropped below 185 miles in altitude, and things will only start accelerating from here. (You can actually track the craft here; the altitude level fluctuates.) China has narrowed the time frame of the final descent to somewhere between now and April 2018, and while most of the lab is expected to burn up in the atmosphere, astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell tells the Guardian that chunks weighing about 200 pounds could make it through. China says it will alert the UN when the craft begins its descent, but the astrophysicist says six or seven hours is the most notice we can expect. Still, it's all but impossible to figure out where any debris might land, given that a tiny change in atmospheric conditions could move it "from one continent to the next," McDowell says. The odds are in your favor, however. No injuries have ever been reported as a result of falling spacecraft, despite the crashing of the Soviet Union's Salyut 7 space station in 1991 and the fall of NASA's 85-ton Skylab in 1979. China might be concerned, however, with what the failure of Tiangong-1, or "Heavenly Palace," means for its progress in the "new space race," per Wired. (Still, China might be heading to the moon.)
– Hundreds gathered at a rally in Hong Kong today chanting "protect free speech—protect Snowden" and urging the government not to extradite the NSA whistleblower back to the US, reports the Guardian. The protest comes two days after Snowden told local media that the NSA has been hacking China since 2009. "It's unlawful, unjustified and unscrupulous," said a Hong Kong politician at the rally. "We demand the whole truth be disclosed by the US administration, an unconditional apology from Obama and an assurance this interference will stop." A poll commissioned by the South China Morning Post has found only 17.6% of Hong Kong people believe Snowden should be extradited, while 50% oppose the move. The poll also found 33% believe he is a "hero." Meanwhile, sources tell the Post that the US is yet to make any requests with Hong Kong over Snowden, and rejects claims that US and Hong Kong government lawyers have been working together.
– A swimmer who vanished off a Massachusetts beach was found safe and sound Tuesday after treading water for 4 1/2 hours. Randall Hackett, 58, and his 28-year-old son-in-law, Alexander Auerbach, had decided to swim part of the 4-mile distance of Crane Beach in Ipswich around 5pm Tuesday, report the Salem News and WCVB. Both are strong swimmers, and they were clad in wetsuits, but family members were nonetheless concerned when neither had returned to shore after an hour and a half, per ABC News. Shortly after family members reported the pair missing, Auerbach was found on the beach around 7:30pm, about a mile south of the men's starting point, but he said he'd lost track of Hackett because of rip currents and heavy fog. For two hours, the Coast Guard, police, and fire department combed the water before rescuers using an infrared camera aboard a helicopter spotted Hackett treading water a quarter-mile offshore, per WCVB. Hackett was plucked from the water around 9:30pm and returned to the beach, where he walked into his wife's arms. "The fog was so thick you couldn't even see your hand," says Hackett, who was taken to a hospital as a precaution. "I made the decision to try and conserve energy," he adds, noting he clung to a buoy for a time. "I thought I could survive until morning." On Facebook, police called the rescue "a tremendous effort … in difficult conditions and rough waters," while the Coast Guard warns water conditions are getting worse as temperatures drop. (This Coast Guard rescuer had to rely solely on his own muscles in another incident.)
– Potential good news for kids—and the parents who hate to watch them squirm when faced with a needle. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a technology that could allow childhood vaccines—for everything from polio to measles, mumps, and rubella—to be combined into a single injection, reports the BBC. The idea is that one shot would inject microscopic capsules of vaccine into a person, and those capsules would be designed to break down and release their contents at different times, per the Science study. A simpler application would be to deliver one vaccine and its necessary booster shots at one time. In tests on mice, researchers were able to time the release of the booster doses to exactly nine, 20, and 41 days after the initial shot. The concept has not been tested in humans yet. "For the first time, we can create a library of tiny, encased vaccine particles, each programmed to release at a precise, predictable time, so that people could potentially receive a single injection that, in effect, would have multiple boosters already built into it," MIT's Robert Langer says in a release. In the developing world especially, this "might be the difference between not getting vaccinated and receiving all of your vaccines in one shot," adds study author Kevin McHugh, whose research was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Much work remains: For one thing, scientists would need to figure out how to keep the doses, normally refrigerated, stable in a warm body, per the Guardian. They also are trying to further shrink the capsules so they can be injected directly into muscle, per New Scientist. (A vaccine for the common cold is in the works.)
– Don't expect pressure from China to have an effect on North Korea's nuclear weapons program. That was the message in an editorial published by the North's state news media Wednesday, described by an expert as the harshest critique of China to come out of the country in recent memory, per the New York Times. The commentary, with the byline "Kim Chol," said the weapons program is as precious to North Korea "as its own life" and the "line of access to nukes for the existence and development of the country can neither be changed nor shaken," no matter what China does. It adds that the program will continue even if it means the end of North Korea-China relations, though it warns China that such a scenario would bring "grave consequences." Other commentaries critical of China have appeared in North Korea's state news media recently, but none were so pointed or identified China by name. It isn't clear if North Korea would actually give up its ally, which supplies almost all of its external trade and oil imports, but one expert suggests the country could make do with stronger ties to Russia and South Korea. Now might actually be a good time: The leading candidate for president in South Korea, Moon Jae-in—who met Kim Jong Un's father a decade ago—appears willing to soften tensions, reports the Wall Street Journal. A rep for China's Foreign Ministry, however, says China remains committed to "developing friendly, good-neighborly relations with North Korea," per Reuters.
– Match.com just not doing it for you? Perhaps the type of significant other you're looking for is just a little too specific. The Week rounds up a dozen sites that cater to picky daters: Date British Guys: As the site's name implies, this is the place to find your very own Hugh Grant. Darwin Dating: No ugly people need apply to this “beautiful people only” site, which touts its "natural selection process." The Right Stuff: It’s the “Ivy League of dating,” because you have to have graduated from one of a “select group of excellent universities and colleges” to join. Purrsonals: Need to find yourself a mate who will love Fluffy as much as you do? You're in luck. For the complete list—including sites for people with STDs (yes, really)—click here.
– "Richard Murphy" is really Vladimir Guryev. "Donald Howard Heathfield" is really Andrey Bezrukov. Hottie spy Anna Chapman is really ... Anna Chapman. All 10 defendants accused of being deep-cover Russian agents pleaded guilty today under their real names, reports the Wall Street Journal. The deal allows them to avoid jail in the US and be deported to Moscow, probably within hours. In exchange, Russia is expected to release four US spies, says AP. The most prominent of that group is Russian physicist Igor Sutyagin, who is believed to have already left Russia or is about to do so. "No one has solid information," said his mother, who lives near Moscow. "Nobody has said anything officially and Igor himself hasn't called."
– If a life of crime doesn't work out for California man Jeremy Meeks—and since he's being held on felony weapons charges, it apparently isn't—a career as a model awaits. After his mugshot appeared on the Stockton Police Department's Facebook page, it attracted 30,000 likes and almost 10,000 comments from women and men dazzled by his good looks, reports News10. "Holy hell i would arrest him too ... hottest bad boy I've seen," wrote one commenter. "I would rehabilitate him so hard," cracked another. Meeks, one of four men busted in a sweep after a recent surge in shootings and robberies, faces five weapons charges and one gang charge, which some people found a bit of a turn-off, the AP notes. "He may be a tad bit cute, but with six felonies, he ain't that cute," one commenter wrote. A police department spokesman says the 30-year-old is "one of the most violent criminals in the Stockton area," though he declined to comment on his alleged crimes. Meeks is being held on $900,000 bail and will appear in court today. (Another "hot inmate" filed a lawsuit after her mugshot attracted too much attention.)
– The gist going into today's arguments on health care reform seemed to be that the law would be upheld. But the tone in coverage looks to be shifting after swing vote Anthony Kennedy voiced skepticism about the individual mandate during two hours of oral arguments at the Supreme Court. At one point, Kennedy asked whether the government could force people to buy certain types of food, reports Politico. The mandate "is a step beyond what our cases allow," he said, according to AP. To survive, Obama's reform will likely need the vote of Kennedy or one of the court's other four conservatives. "It was not clear that it had captured one," writes Adam Liptak of the New York Times. “So if I’m in any market at all, my failure to purchase subjects me to regulation?” Antonin Scalia asked, reports the Washington Post. Similarly, Chief Justice John Roberts wondered whether the government could force every citizen to buy cell phones. Ruth Bader Ginsburg defended the law: "The people who don’t participate in this market are making it much more expensive for those that do." To which Scalia responded, “You could say that about buying a car. If people don’t buy a car, the price [that car buyers] will pay will be more.” Click for more.
– Google is shutting down its long-shunned Plus social network for consumers, following its disclosure of a flaw discovered in March that could have exposed some personal information of up to 500,000 people, the AP reports. The announcement came in a Monday blog post, which marked Google's first public description of the privacy bug. Google deliberately avoided disclosing the problem at the time, in part to avoid drawing regulatory scrutiny and damaging its reputation, according to a Wall Street Journal story that cited anonymous individuals and documents. The Mountain View, Calif., company declined to comment on the Journal's report, and didn't fully explain in its blog post why it held off on revealing the bug until Monday. As for Google+, it will be shut down over the next 10 months, but will remain open for enterprise customers who use it within their companies. When Google launched Plus in 2011, it was supposed to be a challenger to Facebook's social network, which now has more than 2 billion users. But Plus flopped and quickly turned into a digital ghost town, prompting Google to start de-emphasizing it several years ago. But the company kept it open long enough to cause an embarrassing privacy gaffe that could give Congress an excuse to enact tighter controls on data collection. The Google Plus flaw could have allowed up to 438 external apps to scoop up user names, email addresses, occupations, genders, and ages without authorization. The company didn't find evidence that any of the personal information affected by the Plus breach was misused. The timeline laid out by Google indicates the company discovered the privacy lapse around the same time Facebook was under fire for a leak in its far more popular social network. Facebook's breakdown exposed the personal information of as many as 87 million users to Cambridge Analytica, a data mining firm affiliated with President Trump's 2016 campaign.
– Bridesmaids who party together, fight together. That was apparently the unspoken code at a wedding last Sunday in Palm Coast, Fla., where the New York Post reports an uninvited interloper caused a scene with a man she claimed was her boyfriend. Per WKMG, deputies say 20-year-old Shelby McDowell snuck into the Hammock Beach Resort to keep tabs on Darby Johns, who was attending a wedding there as an invited guest and who McDowell says is her romantic partner. Once there, McDowell said she saw Johns making out with a woman on the dance floor. That woman told cops McDowell rushed over to where she and Johns were, tossed a drink on the pair, then punched her face; Johns says they hadn't even made it to the dance floor yet when McDowell came onto the scene, and he denies kissing the other woman. After allegedly assaulting Johns' companion, witnesses say McDowell then ran to a resort bathroom—and that's when the wedding party apparently decided to get involved. McDowell says a bunch of bridesmaids yanked her out of a bathroom stall by her feet and started hitting her, but the resort manager told police that when he arrived on the scene to break up the brawl, McDowell was on top of the woman who'd been with Johns and was punching her. To make matters more complicated, at least for McDowell: Johns says she's not his girlfriend. McDowell was booked at the Flagler County Jail and faces misdemeanor battery charges, per WPEC. (Read about a more amusing wedding story.)
– Bulls goring humans in Pamplona isn't the only form of violence making headlines at this year's San Fermin festival. At least 15 cases of sexual assault, including four rapes and one attempted rape, and 15 arrests have been reported since the festival started July 6, drawing attention once more to the sexual violence that's been prominent on organizers' radar since the 2008 beating death of a young woman, the Guardian reports. Five of the suspects are being tied to one alleged attack: the rape of a 19-year-old woman that was reportedly filmed on a cellphone, the New York Times reports. One of the men is said to be a recent grad of Spain's military police corps, while another is also reportedly a service member. A female police officer says she was molested; a 22-year-old French woman said she was raped in a parking lot bathroom, per the Local. Thousands have already taken to the streets in protest, demonstrating against what San Fermin Mayor Joseba Asiron last year called an "intolerable … black stain on San Fermin." The Telegraph notes that last year's event saw only four sexual assault reports total, making this year's increase alarming. But the councilor of Pamplona's public safety program says that rise in numbers is only because the city is working so hard to combat sexual violence, making it easier for women to report it and therefore upping the number of attacks cited in the media. "I don't think what's happening in Pamplona is different from what's happening in other cities at festival time," he tells the Guardian. "It's just that we've opened up the channels of communication" and have 3,400 officers on the streets.
– Diane Sawyer escapes repercussions, but accusations against ABC News and reporter Jim Avila stand after a South Dakota state judge cleared the way to trial for a Beef Products lawsuit against the network for calling its meat product "pink slime." The Wall Street Journal and Reuters report that Judge Cheryle Gering rejected ABC's attempts to have the 2012 defamation complaint dismissed. Gering ruled that a jury could find "clear and convincing evidence" that Avila and the network were "reckless" and "engaged in purposeful avoidance of the truth," including not doing due diligence on iffy informants. Per MarketWatch, Gering added that a jury could also conclude that ABC wanted to put a "negative spin" on the segment even before it started digging into the story. Beef Products says hundreds of jobs disappeared when it was forced to shutter three of its four plants after the "pink slime" reports, which a company lawyer called "fake news" in front of Gering in January. Because of South Dakota's strict "veggie hate crime" laws, which offer triple damages when the safety of a food product is falsely disparaged, ABC could be slammed with nearly $6 billion in damages. The judge noted that she cleared Sawyer because, as the news anchor, she would've ostensibly not had as much to do with research as others working on the segment.
– The British Board of Film Classification describes Charlie Lyne's Paint Drying as "a film showing paint drying on a wall. It contains no material likely to offend or harm" and "should be suitable for audiences aged 4 years and over." The cost of that classification: more than $6,000. But hey, it was money "well spent," says Lyne, who created the 10-hour movie—which indeed shows nothing but paint drying on a brick wall—with the sole intention of sticking it to the man, per Sky News. Basically any film aiming for a UK release has to be reviewed by the BBFC, which charges $145 per review, plus an additional $10 and change for each minute the film runs, per the International Business Times. Because Lyne knew examiners would have to watch an entire flick to review it, he started a Kickstarter campaign with the goal of creating the longest and most boring movie possible. "About a year ago, I went to a filmmaker open day held by the BBFC," Lyne writes in a Reddit AMA. "I'd expected to see quite a lot of conflict between the BBFC examiners and the visiting filmmakers whose work was at the mercy of the board, but … most of the filmmakers—even those who'd had trouble with the BBFC in the past—seemed totally resigned to the censorship imposed by the board, even supportive of it," he says. "I think that shocked me into action." In the end, Lyne raised about $8,500 and submitted a 607-minute film for review. Two examiners had to watch the film over two days. But "examiners are required to watch a very wide variety of content every day, so this didn't phase them," a BBFC rep tells Mashable. (Boring, sure, but is it better than Fifty Shades?)
– A stolen cabin has been discovered 10 miles from where it was plucked from its foundation in northeastern Washington. A tip led authorities yesterday to a "very remote, narrow road down in a ravine" on private property, where the 200-square-foot "Hempel Hideaway" was found, owner Chris Hempel tells the Spokesman-Review. Someone "had it tucked back up in the woods on stilts" and constructed a deck around it, apparently making use of materials from now-dismantled bunk beds inside, adds Hempel, who visited the site. "It's going to be very difficult getting it out of there." She says there's some structural damage and much of the family's camping gear and equipment are gone and have been replaced with personal belongings. A Stevens County sheriff says police have a suspect but haven't made any arrests. "We believe the person who stole this cabin, or people who stole the cabin, were planning on living in it," the sheriff says, per KXLY. Hempel says the suspect is male, but "I don't think he could have done that job by himself just looking at where it was and how it was set up." The cabin was stolen from the Hempels' 20-acre property near Nine Mile Falls sometime after March 21. KREM reports a neighbor saw a trailer carrying the cabin away in broad daylight. "I was sitting here at my desk and saw the shed go by thinking that somebody got their shed repossessed and found out later that it was stolen," she says. "I didn't think anything of it" until news of the theft spread. The sheriff adds the Hempels can arrange to transfer the cabin back to their property once an investigation wraps up. (Something similar happened in Oregon this year.)
– Jonathan Martinez, the 8-year-old boy killed in Monday's San Bernardino school shooting, was "the happiest kid you'll ever meet" despite the rare genetic condition he suffered from, says teaching assistant Jennifer Downing. Jonathan was born with Williams syndrome, which affects around one in 10,000 people and causes developmental delays as well as heart problems, the AP reports. But the genetic condition, which the boy's family want to raise awareness of, also makes children friendly and sociable, qualities Jonathan was known and loved for at North Park Elementary, the San Bernardino Sun reports. Downing says Jonathan, who had already undergone heart surgery once, was also the best reader in the class. Jonathan was killed in his special-needs classroom when Cedric Anderson opened fire on his estranged wife, teacher Karen Smith. Fellow teacher Diane Abrams says the boy's sweet nature makes the violent manner of his death even harder to deal with." He was so special to teach. He was curious to learn and wanted to do his very best," she tells the Los Angeles Times. "He'd sit with his hands folded at his desk and look at me and say, 'Ms. Abrams, am I being an all-star?'" A GoFundMe page set up to help the family has so far raised more than $121,000 of its $10,000 goal. Nolan Brandy, the 9-year-old boy wounded in the shooting, was still in the hospital Wednesday but was recovering and in good spirits, his family says.
– George Soros has put himself back in the big leagues of political donors with a pair of hefty donations to pro-Democratic groups. The billionaire—who donated $23 million to groups opposing George W. Bush's re-election in 2004—has given $1 million to the advocacy group America Votes, and $1 million to the pro-Obama super PAC American Bridge, creator of an anti-Romney ad featuring OJ Simpson and the cast of Friends, reports the Wall Street Journal, which notes that Democrats are far behind the GOP in super PAC funding. "George is focusing his political giving in 2012 on grassroots organizing, and holding conservatives accountable for the flawed policies they promote,” says a Soros spokesman. “Both groups are part of a progressive infrastructure, or center left establishment, that plays an increasingly important role in elections. Soros has been critical of Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that allows him and other billionaires to spend unlimited amounts of cash on groups supporting their preferred candidates, CNN notes.
– Headlines about cars starting on fire tend to do bad things to said car company's stock prices, and investors in Tesla have gotten angry enough to sue. A class-action suit announced yesterday accuses the company of misleading investors on safety issues, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The suit follows a Model S fire on Wednesday in Tennessee, the third such fire in six weeks. The latest happened when the driver ran over a tow hitch, which punctured the electric car's battery pack. The suit says the vehicle “suffered from material defects which caused the battery pack to ignite and erupt in flames under certain driving conditions.” It seeks to cover anyone who bought stock from May 10 through Wednesday. In that span, Tesla stock went from $77 to a peak of $193 in September to its close of $138 on Friday. Of course, with the stock dropping, a Los Angeles Times article raises the question, Is it a good time to buy? The short answer from one analyst is not yet. As more Teslas hit the road and presumably get involved in more accidents, it's likely we're going to be reading about more fires until a fix is in place.
– It's been a while since the latest round of Angelina-Jolie-is-pregnant-rumors, so here we go again: "She's almost three months along" with her seventh child, a source tells OK!. "It's not something she wants to officially announce but she's at a point where she is telling a select group of people." Another insider says Jolie is dealing with morning sickness, "but says it's all worth it." A source adds that, in preparation, Jolie has redone her room in white so that it has a "Zen-like feeling" that will put her "mind at peace," the Telegraph adds. Presumably Jolie, who was looking super-sleek at the Golden Globes, will also have to start eating more. Along those lines, the Mirror also has this gem of a quote from an alleged pal: "Because Angelina sees so much starvation up close, its always hard for her to indulge in food."
– White House chief of staff John Kelly, generally viewed as the man whose mission is to keep controversy at bay, finds himself caught up in another one. Kelly is taking flak for his comments about the Civil War, made Monday night on the debut of Laura Ingraham's show on Fox, reports CNN. "The lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War," said Kelly. "And men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had to make their stand." Critics are pouncing mainly because Kelly made no mention of slavery, and the New York Times reports that the pushback arrived in fast and furious fashion. "Slavery. Slavery was what they wouldn't compromise over," read one typical tweet highlighted in the paper. Critics drew comparisons to President Trump's blame of "both sides" for the racial violence in Charlottesville, reports the Washington Post. Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., called Kelly's comments "irresponsible & dangerous, especially when white supremacists feel emboldened, to make fighting to maintain slavery sound courageous." Kelly also praised Gen. Robert E. Lee as an "honorable man" who "gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country." And he touched on the debate over Confederate monuments, saying the idea of tearing them down is "just very, very dangerous, and it shows you what, how much of a lack of appreciation of history and what history is."
– American siblings Maia and Alex Shibutani have a bronze medal to be proud of, France's Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron broke the record for the highest free-dance score, but Olympic ice dancing gold went to Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir on Tuesday, USA Today reports. The pair, who are now being called "the greatest ice dancers ever," took their second gold of the Games with a record 206.07 points total and are now the most decorated figure skaters in Olympic history, the AP reports. Papadakis and Cizeron took silver with a score of 205.28, the day after Papadakis suffered a wardrobe malfunction. Their record score was broken by the Canadians just minutes after they achieved it. In other Winter Olympics news: Hockey doping. Slovenian hockey player Ziga Jeglic has been suspended for doping and has 24 hours to get out of the Olympic Village, the BBC reports. Authorities say he tested positive for fenoterol, an asthma medication that opens up the airways. The US men's team advanced with a 5-1 win over Slovenia on Tuesday.
– A former TSA employee has written a first-person piece for Politico Magazine, that, in the words of Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, "confirms pretty much everything we suspected about the TSA." Some excerpts from the article by Jason Harrington, who had previously posted anonymously at the blog Taking Sense Away: "I hated it from the beginning. It was a job that had me patting down the crotches of children, the elderly, and even infants as part of the post-9/11 airport security show. I confiscated jars of homemade apple butter on the pretense that they could pose threats to national security." "Just as the long-suffering American public waiting on those security lines suspected, jokes about the passengers ran rampant among my TSA colleagues: Many of the images we gawked at were of overweight people, their every fold and dimple on full awful display. Piercings of every kind were visible." "Once, in 2008, I had to confiscate a bottle of alcohol from a group of Marines coming home from Afghanistan. It was celebration champagne intended for one of the men in the group—a young, decorated soldier. He was in a wheelchair, both legs lost to an IED, and it fell to me to tell this kid who would never walk again that his homecoming champagne had to be taken away in the name of national security." "We knew the full-body scanners didn’t work before they were even installed. Not long after the Underwear Bomber incident, all TSA officers at O’Hare were informed that training for the Rapiscan Systems full-body scanners would soon begin. The machines cost about $150,000 a pop." "The only people who hated the body-scanners more than the public were TSA employees themselves. Many of my co-workers felt uncomfortable even standing next to the radiation-emitting machines we were forcing members of the public to stand inside." Click for Harrington's full article. The Verge notes that Harrington is now tweeting additional stuff, like this: "One thing I left out of that Politico piece: HELL YES airport employees often drink those bottles of alcohol you surrender at the checkpoint."
– For 25 years, Ethiopia's ruling party hasn't had to call a state of emergency, but it did just that Sunday in response to recent protests against the powers that be, and it's going to be a long one: six months due to the "loss of lives and property damages occurring in the country," the prime minister said, per local media via CNN. The most recent protests started on Oct. 2 after dozens of people died in clashes with government security forces during a holy festival celebrated by the country's Oromo people. But activists say it wasn't just 52 people (the official government tally) who died during that incident, but more than 500, downed by bullets and tear gas from the authorities. Locals also say the government has been blocking the Internet to keep people from communicating and rallying, the Guardian reports. The nation's communications minister scoffs at the October protest claims, saying none of the deceased had bullet wounds and were killed by stampeding crowds instead. The Oromo and Amhara people have long protested their marginalization, even though together they make up nearly two-thirds of the nation's population, per the BBC. Al Jazeera notes protests started in November, first over land rights, then including political, cultural, and economic issues. Activists say hundreds have been killed and tens of thousands detained. The government says the state of emergency entails, per the AP, some curfews, restrictions or bans on communication and public assembly, and more lenient rules for carrying out arrests. Meanwhile, the government blamed Egypt on Monday for supporting an Oromo rebel group. (A well-known Oromo member: Olympian silver medalist and wrist-raiser Feyisa Lilesa.)
– Miley Cyrus keeps making news for all the wrong reasons. On the heels of her bong debacle, fresh racy photos of the 18-year-old have hit the Internet, compliments of The Superficial. Click here to see them, or spare yourself the visual—we'll do the painful looking for you. In one, a woman said to be her female assistant pretends to lick Miley's breast. In another, Miley poses with her shirt pulled up to show off the tattoo under her left breast. (Click to read about Miley's big plans for 2011.)
– Time on a tablet may slow speech development in young children, new research shows. Pediatricians at the Hospital for Sick Children in Canada who examined the effect of screen time on 900 children between 6 months and 2 years old found a 49% increased risk of delayed speech for every additional 30 minutes spent using a touch screen, Time reports. While previous studies have reported negative effects associated with screen time, including sleeping problems, the research presented at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies was the first to establish a link between handheld devices and expressive language delay. Expressive language refers to the ability to convey feelings and information, per the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Screen time did not affect other types of communication, such as social interaction or body language. Led by Dr. Catherine Birken, the team found that by 18 months, one-fifth of the children studied used tablets, smartphones, or other handheld devices an average of 28 minutes a day. With devices "everywhere these days," Birken says in a news release that all screen time for children under 18 months should be discouraged, a suggestion echoed by the AAP. That even goes for apps marketed as educational. One expert tells Time that the littlest ones can't understand the connection between what they see on the screen and what they see in the real world. “Symbolic thinking and memory flexibility is something that apps haven’t been able to overcome, no matter how interactive they are," says Dr. Jenny Radesky. (This app can help grown-ups get smarter.)
– Seven Republican candidates got a chance to debate without Donald Trump present on Thursday night—though the man Megyn Kelly referred to as "the elephant not in the room" still dominated media coverage, causing some to declare him the winner. Here's what the pundits are saying about people who were actually present: Jeb Bush. Bush had a great night, most analysts agree, highlighting how different the GOP race might be with no Donald. He was "more relaxed and more forceful" and "looked positively presidential" without Trump bullying him, writes Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post. He bested Marco Rubio in an exchange on immigration and got in a few jabs at Hillary Clinton—and Trump. Marco Rubio. This wasn't Rubio's greatest debate, "but he had a better night than Cruz, which is strategically important for him," writes Niall Stanage at the Hill. He did, however, struggle when the debate turned to immigration reform. Rand Paul. After missing the last debate, Paul was another candidate to thrive in a Trump-less environment, and he proved to be "willing and able to speak to issues his party has struggled to address in recent years," writes Cillizza at the Post, who notes that while it's far too late for his campaign, "at least he had a moment." Chris Christie. The New Jersey governor had a good debate, offering his usual forceful arguments about his executive experience and his strength as a general election candidate, though "familiarity robs it of some of its power," writes Stanage at the Hill. Ted Cruz. Trump's strategy all along was to "create a circular GOP fire squad—with Ted Cruz at the center. And it worked," according to Glenn Thrush at Politico. Rival candidates hit Cruz early and often, and he also managed to lose several exchanges with the moderators, Thrush notes. John Kasich. Not an awful night for the Ohio governor, but one in which he failed to have any big moments, meaning that for his campaign to go anywhere now, "there are a lot of bodies he'll have to climb over," writes Anthony Zurcher at the BBC. Ben Carson. Carson went from "barely being asked any questions to providing answers that often bordered on incoherence," writes Cillizza. Like many others, he was puzzled by Carson's comments about Russia, which included the line "Putin is a one-horse country: oil and energy." Click for the best attack lines from the debate.
– A tight Texas community grieved last night during a vigil for five children who perished in a house fire yesterday morning. Officials confirmed to ABC-13 that they found a trailer home blazing around 5am in Edna, located about 90 minutes outside of Houston, with a 32-year-old mother and 30-year-old father outside the trailer. According to USA Today, dad Johnny Hernandez Jr. managed to pull out Annabel Ortiz—her relatives say she suffered a severe cut trying to save the kids, while Hernandez wasn't injured—and their 4-year-old son, Johnny Hernandez III. But Noah Ortiz, 15; Julian Ortiz, 13; Nicholas Ortiz, 9; Arianna (spelled Ariana in some media) Hernandez, 6; and Lilianna (Liliana) Hernandez, 5, all died in the fire, devastating the town of about 5,700. While the cause hasn't yet been determined, firefighters believe it started in the kitchen. A family friend tells KHOU that the family had "some electrical issues" several months ago "with their breaker box and stuff." Witnesses tell the station that Noah, a varsity football player, may have headed back into the flames to try to save the younger children. A GoFundMe page has already raised more than $17,000 for the family; more than 100 people attended last night's candlelight vigil to remember the victims. "Us being a small community that we are, it has just devastated everybody," one resident tells ABC-13, while another adds, "I can't imagine. To me, no parent should bury their children." (These teens cut class—and saved an elderly woman from a house fire.)
– Wealthy parents, worry not—your kid no longer has to end up like Billy Madison. Not, that is, if you enroll him in Global Fellows in Social Enterprise, a new internship for the scions of the mega-rich. The idea is to teach the college-age participants how to deal with money, power, and influence gracefully when they become business bosses and philanthropists. Oh, and they'll get an early start on knowing their way around the playgrounds of the wealthy, such as the Hamptons, Cape Cod, and the Berkshires. The program, which will admit only 20 kids at a time, costs a mere $25,000—a drop in the bucket for the families being targeted—and lasts 6 weeks. It's the brainchild of media magnate Michael Loeb, reports the Wall Street Journal. "I always thought the trepidation high-net-worth people have about their kids growing up right was a Champagne problem," Loeb said at a mixer to introduce the program. "Until I found out it was really real." Click for a less-than-enthusiastic take on the program.
– An Olympic skier just got sent home from the Games in South Korea for being a little too me-centric. France's Mathieu Faivre, who happens to be the boyfriend of American skier Mikaela Shiffrin, got the boot after a reporter asked him about a race on Sunday in which he placed seventh. Three of his fellow French skiers finished ahead of him, but Faivre didn't sound too happy for them. "I'm here to race for myself only," said the 26-year-old, per the BBC. Now, when the French team competes this weekend in the Alpine team event, Faivre won't be there. "Mathieu will return to France for disciplinary reasons," the director of French men's skiing tells the AFP. Faivre has since offered a mea culpa on Facebook, explaining that he was disappointed in his own performance and a little steamed after the race. "Skiing is an individual sport that is practiced as a team," he wrote. "However, when we are in the starting gate, only our individual race and our own performance are important. So yes, when it came time to give my feelings on my race, 10 minutes after crossing the finish line, only my performance and failure were present." As for Shiffrin, she won gold last week and will try again Thursday in the Alpine combined event, reports ESPN. (Consider this gold medal the "Miracle on Snow.")
– If Trayvon Martin's death seems suspect, try Chavis Carter's: According to police, the 21-year-old killed himself while handcuffed in the back of a police car. Officers pulled over Carter last month in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and say he was carrying marijuana and little plastic bags often used to sell drugs. They checked his name on a police computer and found an outstanding warrant for shirking probation in a year-old drug case, reports the New York Daily News. That's when they put Carter in the cop car and he apparently ended it all—although Carter's parents aren't buying it. “I think they killed him,” said Teresa Carter, who notes Carter was left-handed but was shot in the right temple. There's also a Facebook page asking police to investigate the "seemingly impossible suicide." A police probe is under way, and Jonesboro's police chief is backing the official story so far—but admits the shooting "defies logic at first glance."
– A Border Patrol agent who allegedly killed four women and kidnapped another has been indicted on a capital murder charge, the AP reports. Juan David Ortiz, 35, initially faced four murder charges after authorities arrested him in the border town on Sept. 15. The charge was upgraded because, prosecutors say, Ortiz caused the death of more than one person in service of the “same scheme or course of conduct,” NBC reports, which adds that prosecutors will seek the death penalty. In this case, the Ortiz’s stated motivation for the alleged slayings was “to clean up the streets of Laredo,” Webb County DA Isidro Alaniz said Wednesday. Ortiz, a Navy veteran and 10-year Border Patrol agent, also faces charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, unlawful restraint, and evading arrest. Authorities say Ortiz picked up the victims, all of whom were sex workers or had drug problems, and shot them during a two-week period in September. Ortiz has reportedly confessed to the killings. The victims are Melissa Ramirez, 29; Claudine Ann Luera, 42; Guiselda Alicia Hernandez, 35; and Janelle Ortiz, 28. Calling the murders “horrific,” Alaniz said the women were killed “in a cold, callous, and calculating way.” (A security guard allegedly killed this tourist.)
– Former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn—who considers herself a "qualified lesbian"—isn't happy about Cynthia Nixon's Democratic primary challenge to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The former Sex and the City star supported rival Bill de Blasio when Quinn ran for mayor in 2013. Nixon "was opposed to having a qualified lesbian become mayor of New York City. Now she wants an unqualified lesbian to be the governor of New York," Quinn told the New York Post in an interview Tuesday. "You have to be qualified and have experience. She isn't qualified to be the governor,” Quinn said, calling Nixon's run a "flight of fancy." Quinn praised Nixon's support for progressive causes, but added: "Being an actress and celebrity doesn’t make you qualified for public office. This is a time to move away from celebrity and toward progressive leadership." In response, Nixon said it was time for an outsider to deal with corruption in Albany. "Her being a lesbian and my being a lesbian" is not the issue, she said. In social media posts after the Post interview ignited controversy, Quinn stressed that she was criticizing Nixon's qualifications, not her identity, NBC reports. "To be clear, Cynthia Nixon's identity has no bearing on her candidacy and it was not my intention to suggest it did," she said.
– New York City rats are big, ugly, and now apparently deadly. City health authorities are investigating three cases of poisoning by rat urine, one of them fatal, the New York Times reports. The victims of leptospirosis were all in the Bronx, the first such cluster of the rare disease reported in a city infamous for its robust rodents. The health department issued an alert on Tuesday following the death of a man in his 30s. Two of the bacterial infections occurred in December and one this month, per ABC7. All three people were hospitalized with acute kidney and liver failure, and two have recovered and been released. In the past 10 years, leptospirosis has sickened 26 people in the city, eight of them in the Bronx. The outbreak prompted the health department to take steps to curb the garbage-trolling rodents and educate residents about the risk. Infections are usually spread when rat urine comes in contact with the eyes, nose, mouth, or through a cut in the skin. People were urged to avoid contact with rats, obviously, but also to clean rodent hot spots with a bleach solution while wearing gloves, boots, mask, and protective eyewear. At an apartment building where one of the three was sickened, residents on Wednesday sought help from the city in having a court-appointed representative take over operations from their landlord, reports DNA Info. "We stand with the tenants," said a statement from Mayor DeBlasio that cited "persistent problems" at the building. (Pet rats were blamed for an outbreak of this rare virus.)
– In a case that police say lays bare the disturbing extent of the opioid crisis, a woman in Pennsylvania faces charges of assaulting her baby by overdosing on heroin while seven months pregnant. The baby was delivered by emergency C-section Saturday after 30-year-old Kasey Dischman was found unresponsive in the bathroom of her East Butler home, CBS Pittsburgh reports. She had gotten out of jail for retail theft just five days earlier, authorities say. Police, who found a needle hidden in the bathroom after obtaining a warrant and searching the apartment, say Dischman will face charges including aggravated assault of an unborn child after she is released from the hospital. The baby girl has been declared brain dead and police say the charges could include homicide if she is taken off life support. "The baby's in bad shape," police Lt. Eric Hermick tells the Butler Eagle. The opioid epidemic, he says, is "so severe it doesn't stop a mother 30-plus weeks pregnant from overdosing." WPXI reports that Dischman's boyfriend, Andrew Lucas, will be charged with interfering with the investigation because he claimed she had a seizure disorder and didn't do drugs. Hermick says things could have turned out differently if doctors had known the truth and administered the anti-overdose drug Narcan right away. Police say the couple's 6-year-old daughter was also home when Dischman overdosed.
– High fashion was on display once again at the Met Gala Monday night, and it was all about avant-garde this year, in tribute to honoree Rei Kawakubo, the 74-year-old Japanese creator of the Comme des Garcons label. Some of the most talked-about looks at one of the ritziest nights on the calendar: Kendall Jenner. She wore what USA Today calls a "visible thong": a daring La Perla Haute Couture Collection gown created from more than 80,000 crystals. Helen Lasichanh. She was one of the guests who wore a Kawakubo creation, arriving in what the AP describes as one of the designer's signature "avant-garde, bulbous, and armless jumpsuits." Cara Delevingne. Her sci-fi look included not just a brocade Chanel pantsuit, but what Vogue calls a "colored chrome" scalp: She recently shaved her head for her role in Life in a Year and arrived with her head sprayed with metallic silver paint, resembling a pixie cut. Rihanna. She was another to wear a Kawakubo creation, and US Weekly is among those declaring her "queen of the ball" for being "flawlessly on theme" in her ornate gown of petal-like pieces. Katy Perry. The co-host wowed in a custom Maison Margiela gown and headpiece, complete with a veil that appeared to bear the word "Witness," People reports. Celine Dion. The singer, attending the event for the first time, caught the eye of the New York Daily News with her black and silver Versace bodysuit with an origami-inspired headpiece. Rita Ora. She "was wrapped up like a gift in sculptural red bows over a pale pink tulle skirt," per the Hollywood Reporter. Priyanka Chopra. She wore a floor-sweeping Ralph Lauren trenchcoat gown that "took up a lot of real estate on the carpet, which is actually blue this year," the AP notes. Jaden Smith. Oddly, Delevingne's Life in a Year co-star appeared to be carrying the dreadlocks he let father Will Smith cut off weeks ago. "Perhaps this is somehow a rumination on the night's theme of Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between," suggests Hilary Weaver at Vanity Fair. Lily Collins. In what was seen as an homage to Kawakubo, she wore a frothy pink Giambattista Valli ensemble and had a bob cut that Vogue notes had an "unmistakable likeness to the trademark haircut of the night's honorary designer."
– The Justice Department will seek the death penalty in its case against alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Eric Holder announced today. "The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision," the attorney general said in a statement. The decision is not exactly a surprise, the AP observes; 17 of the 30 federal charges against the 20-year-old are potential capital offenses.
– While many people were wrapping presents and prepping for holiday dinners, the NSA did its own holiday sharing on Christmas Eve: The agency released 10 years' worth of declassified documents, Mashable reports. The materials, which covered a period from the middle of 2001 through early 2013, are the heavily redacted versions of reports presented to the president's Intelligence Oversight Board, made public after an ACLU lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. And while the executive summary released by the NSA stresses that the agency "goes to great lengths to ensure compliance with the Constitution, laws, and regulations," it also notes certain "compliance incidents" that were the result of "unintentional technical or human error," including mistaken investigations into the wrong targets and ill-trained analysts who conducted overly broad searches. "The government conducts sweeping surveillance ... that increasingly puts Americans' data in the hands of the NSA," ACLU attorney Patrick Toomey told Bloomberg in an email. “Despite that ... this spying is conducted almost entirely in secret and without legislative or judicial oversight." And not every "error" has been accidental: The NSA has previously admitted that there have been "rare instances of willful violations," including an NSA analyst who used her access to pry into her spouse's telephone directory, Raw Story notes. Other no-nos revealed by the documents include data on Americans sent via email to unauthorized parties, stored on unsecured computers, and kept after its destroy-by date, Bloomberg notes. What it all means? More checks and balances are needed from all government branches, says Toomey. (The NSA might not be able to spy on you if you have a new iPhone.)
– It appears US diplomats in Russia will be spending less time trying to smooth relations with that country and more time circling the block after Moscow revoked diplomatic parking privileges in two cities, the AP reports. According to a report from Russian state-owned TV, officials painted over parking spots outside the US Consulate in St. Petersburg, turning them into a pedestrian crossing. They also removed special parking signs from outside the US Consulate in Yekaterinburg. Vice, citing a Russian newspaper, reports Russian officials are also considering removing special diplomatic parking spaces near the US Embassy in Moscow. Moscow is said to be the third worst city in Europe for drivers, and New York reports St. Petersburg isn't far behind at seventh. The removal of diplomatic parking spots follows Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying on Monday that Russia is seeking "full parity" between Russian and US diplomatic missions. The Russian envoy in the US doesn't get reserved parking. But really this is just the latest volley in a diplomatic spat that started with Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election, following which the US seized Russian compounds in New York and Maryland and booted dozens of Russian diplomats. Russia retaliated by reducing US diplomatic staff by 755 positions. Last month the US closed a Russian consulate and two annexes. In addition to making US diplomats hunt for parking, Russia is considering domestic travel restrictions, staff reductions, and fewer points of entry into the country for US diplomats.
– Air France Flight AF066 from Paris to Los Angeles on Saturday had been going smoothly, but that all changed more than five hours into the journey, when passengers heard a loud bang, then felt the plane shake and drop before cruising back up. The cause: One of the Airbus A380's four engines had exploded, right as the plane passed over part of Greenland, the New York Times reports. The captain sounded "shaken" as he made the announcement about 20 minutes later, one passenger notes, and so were the passengers, who ended up "white-knuckling" their chairs until the plane safely made an emergency landing two hours later at Goose Bay Airport in Labrador, Canada. An Air France statement confirmed the engine had suffered "serious damage." An MSNBC reporter posted a picture on Twitter from a friend who was on the flight, showing the engine, whose protective covering had been "sheared away," per CNN, and which was spattered with a "brown substance." A CBC reporter posted a short video of the landing, which shows the damaged engine right next to a functional one. "That plane's broken," a man can be heard saying in the video. "The right motor's blown out." CNN notes that an engine failure like this is "incredibly rare," particularly at that point in the flight. Meanwhile, Air France praised its staff, noting in the statement that "the regularly trained pilots and cabin crew handled this serious incident perfectly." An investigation is in the works to discover the cause of the explosion, and the 500 or so passengers were set to be moved out of Goose Bay on new flights Sunday.
– Be careful what you tweet about Katherine Heigl: The notoriously difficult actress is suing drugstore chain Duane Reade for $6 million, all because of one little tweet, TMZ reports. Duane Reade tweeted last month, "Love a quick #DuaneReade run? Even @KatieHeigl can’t resist shopping #NYC's favorite drugstore," along with a picture of Heigl carrying two Duane Reade shopping bags and a link to an article about her shopping there. But Heigl's lawsuit points out that the photo was just "a typical 'paparazzi' shot," and that the drugstore used it—without Heigl's permission—to "imply falsely that [Heigl] endorses [Duane Reade]," reports E! Online. Should she walk away with any money, she says she'll donate it to the animal welfare-focused Jason Debus Heigl Foundation.
– Police in South Carolina say a woman has been arrested for hitting her young son after he gave a Mother's Day card to his grandmother but not to her, reports the AP. A Spartanburg Police Department report says Shontrell Murphy is charged with cruelty to children for hitting her 6-year-old son on the head Thursday. Murphy's mother, Tracey Joanne Murphy, told police she saw her daughter hitting her son; when she asked why, the younger Murphy responded "because she could," reports WYFF. The boy's sister told police Shontrell Murphy ripped the card to pieces and hit the boy "hard." He was treated and released from a local hospital. Police say Shontrell Murphy has been released from the Spartanburg County Detention Center. It wasn't clear Sunday if she has an attorney.
– Elle responded to the uproar over Melissa McCarthy's controversial covered-up cover look in no uncertain terms, Us reports: "On all of our shoots, our stylists work with the stars to choose pieces they feel good in, and this is no different: Melissa loved this look, and is gorgeous on our cover. We are thrilled to honor her as one of our Women in Hollywood this year." Critics were unhappy that McCarthy was featured in an enormous coat, while other cover stars wore tight and/or skin-baring outfits. McCarthy herself had already called the experience of posing for Elle "kind of amazing," ABC News reports, citing OMG!. And a source assures E! that the actress "loves the cover."
– A sixth woman has come forward to accuse George HW Bush of groping her, and Roslyn Corrigan says she was just 16 when it happened. It was 2003, and Corrigan's father and other intelligence officers had brought their family members to an event to meet Bush, then 79. While she was standing next to the former president for a photo, "as soon as the picture was being snapped on the one-two-three he dropped his hands from my waist down to my buttocks and gave it a nice, ripe squeeze, which would account for the fact that in the photograph my mouth is hanging wide open," Corrigan tells Time. Her mother, Sari Young, recalls that as soon as Bush walked away, her daughter told her, "'He grabbed me on the rear end.' And I said, 'What, what?' And she said, 'Yes, he grabbed me when they were taking the picture. He grabbed me on my butt.'" Sari says they weren't sure what to do because of whom they were dealing with. "You know, it's the president. What are you supposed to do? And you've got your husband's job that could be in jeopardy. I mean, you just didn't then. You should—you should have always spoken up, always—but we didn't." "I was a child," Corrigan adds. Multiple other friends and Corrigan's ex-husband also say she told them the story. "George Bush simply does not have it in his heart to knowingly cause anyone harm or distress, and he again apologizes to anyone he may have offended during a photo op," the former president's spokesperson says in a statement to Time. Bush's other accusers are an actress, another actress, an author, a former Maine Senate candidate, and a retired journalist, all of whom shared similar stories about groping that allegedly occurred during photo ops.
– A Florida woman who became lost during a half-marathon trail run was found past nightfall after wandering around a 25,000-acre park for nearly 12 hours, per the AP. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports Melissa Kitcher was in good spirits after being found Sunday evening. She says she made a wrong turn more than 3 miles into the 13.1-mile run. Race director Thierry Rouillard says he had no idea Kitcher was still on the trail until her husband called late Sunday afternoon, hours after the "Trail Hog" run had finished. Sarasota County Sheriff's Office deputies began searching soon after. Kitcher says her cellphone froze before the race, but she never really worried since she knew her family would come looking for her. She plans to run the Sarasota Half Marathon in March and finish.
– You know you have just minutes to live. What do you say? If you're about to be executed in Texas, you most often mention love, family, life, or God—and that you're "sorry." Those are the words that most frequently pop up in the farewells of inmates before they're put to death in the state. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice preserves every offender's final statement from the last 30 years on its website, and there are plenty of statements to read through, because Texas has executed nearly 500 people since 1982. The Los Angeles Times takes a look. A sampling: "Tonight we tell the world that there are no second chances in the eyes of justice," killer carjacker Napoleon Beazley said before he was executed in 2002.Tonight, we tell our children that in some instances, in some cases, killing is right. No one wins tonight. No one gets closure. No one walks away victorious." Before 54-year-old Marvin Wilson, a man with an IQ of 61, was executed last week for killing a police informant, he said: “Y'all do understand that I came here a sinner and leaving a saint. Take me home, Jesus. I love y'all. I'm ready." In 1985, cop killer Henry Porter asked: "You call me a cold-blooded murderer? I didn’t tie anyone to a stretcher. I didn’t pump any poison into anybody’s veins. I call this and your society a bunch of cold-blooded murderers.” Another cop killer, Charles William Bass, executed in 1986, was much harder on himself. "I deserve this," he said. "Tell everyone I said goodbye." Double murderer Rogelio Cannady told everyone present from his family that he loved them, then added as he faded: "I thought it was going to be harder than this. I am ready to go." But killer rapist Rodrigo Hernandez said as he was being executed earlier this year: "This stuff stings. God almighty."
– In a move seen as pushback against Pope Francis' agenda for the church, US Catholic bishops broke with tradition and elected a conservative archbishop to lead a top committee. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops voted 96 to 82 Tuesday to name Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann chief of anti-abortion activities, besting front-runner Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago. For 40 years, the job has been held by a cardinal, but Naumann's elevation suggests US church leaders are sending a message to Rome that they don't share Francis' liberal vision for the church, the Wall Street Journal reports. Cupich is seen as the "current standard-bearer" of Francis' more moderate vision, coupling anti-abortion measures with activism for poverty reduction and greater access to health care, per Crux. The surprise result was seen as a vote for Naumann's more focused position opposing abortion. Naumann appeared to reinforce that view when he promised to keep the committee primed to fight abortion and euthanasia. "I've been fortunate in my priesthood to work in the pro-life areas. I hope I can draw on that experience," Naumann said, per the Journal. A Villanova theologian tweeted that the vote demonstrates Francis' "message ... esp. on life and marriage" is "not adequate" for the US Catholic hierarchy. Other experts, however, see Naumann's slight margin of victory as signaling support for Francis. The National Review, meanwhile, says "the so-called Francis effect is a media concoction that is difficult to define." The vote, the magazine says, validates Francis' preference that local churches "know their own ecclesial experience" and tailor this mission according to those principles. (Francis ends cigarette sales in Vatican City.)
– Temper, temper: Young star Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals might miss a few games after he a hurled a bat against the dugout wall and it bounced back and hit him near the eye, reports the Washington Times. He needed 10 stitches to close the cut and had a welt the size of a golf ball afterward. "I just got caught up in the moment," said Harper, who slammed the bat after grounding out as part of an 0-for-5 night. One teammate already is calling him "Bam Bam," writes Amanda Comak. The Bleacher Report has more.
– A man has been arrested in a series of shootings in Sanford, Fla., that police say killed his girlfriend and injured her two young sons, her father, and two other people Monday, the Orlando Sentinel reports. A few hours before the 6am shooting, the suspect and his girlfriend were fighting at a gas station; she said he wouldn't return the keys to her home, while he said she had the keys to his vehicle. A police officer separated them; shortly after that, someone called police to report that the fight was continuing on the front lawn of a nearby home. An officer went to the house to talk to the couple, during which time someone else called police to report that the suspect, 31-year-old Allen Dion Cashe, had a gun. Since the officer couldn't find a gun, Cashe was allowed to leave, and the woman gave the officer a bag of Cashe's belongings—including a gun. Hours after that officer left, a shooting was reported at the house. Police say the shootings inside the home left the woman, 35-year-old Latina Herring, dead, her father in critical condition, and her two boys, ages 7 and 8, hospitalized in critical and extremely critical condition. One of the boys is "fighting for his life," per a police spokesperson. After the shootings, Cashe allegedly ran off and opened fire at bystanders near a school bus stop; a man and a high school student were injured, but are in stable condition. A police officer who heard the second set of shootings followed Cashe and took him into custody at a nearby apartment complex; a gun was found in his vehicle. A neighbor says the woman who was killed got "messed up with the wrong people" when she recently got involved with Cashe, who has a criminal record. Cashe faces multiple charges including first-degree homicide, News 13 reports.
– At last count, more than 40,000 Syrian refugees had made Canada their new home since November 2015. Now the Toronto Star reports that two of their number have thanked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for his efforts with the ultimate compliment: They named their baby after him. Justin Trudeau Adam Bilan (and the BBC notes his first name is Justin Trudeau, not just Justin) was born Thursday in a Calgary hospital, the third child of Afraa and Muhammad Bilan, who arrived in the country in February 2016, their two young children in tow. "We love this man, we appreciate him," Afraa tells the Star, adding their new little JT is the first official Canadian in their family. "He got his citizenship before us!" The Bilans, who were from war-ravaged Damascus, faced an uncertain future there when Muhammad, a barber, found himself on the Syrian army's radar. After he was detained and released, the family heard about Trudeau's initiative to welcome Syrian refugees to Canada and made their way there. Trudeau wasn't at the airport when they arrived—the Independent notes he handed out winter coats at the Toronto airport when the first Syrian refugees under his tenure touched down in December 2015—but the Bilan family still feels a connection. Although the cold weather threw them at first, as did the language barrier, Afraa has since become fluent in English, and Muhammad works part-time in a grocery store. "Canada is much more safe—there's no war, nothing," Afraa tells the BBC. "Everything is different, everything is good—nothing like Syria." Check out a photo album of baby Justin Trudeau's first day at Maclean's. (Trudeau says Canada will take the refugees rejected by the US.)
– The search for seven US Navy sailors missing after their destroyer collided with a container ship off Japan was called off Sunday after several bodies were found in the ship's flooded compartments, including sleeping quarters. Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, the commander of the Navy's 7th Fleet, described the damage and flooding as extensive, including a big puncture under the waterline. The crew had to fight to keep the ship afloat, he said, and the ship's captain is lucky to have survived, reports the AP. "The damage was significant, this was not a small collision," he said. Navy divers found "a number of" bodies in the ship Sunday, a day after it returned to the 7th Fleet's home base in Yokosuka, Japan, with the help of tug boats. Aucoin wouldn't say how many bodies were recovered, pending notification of next of kin. He said much of the crew of about 300 was asleep when the collision happened at 2:20am Saturday, and that one machinery room and two berthing areas for 116 crew members were severely damaged. "The damage is mostly underneath the waterline," he said, per the BBC. "So the water flow was tremendous, and so there wasn't a lot of time in those spaces that were open to the sea. And as you can see now the ship is still listing, so they had to fight the ship to keep it above the surface. It was traumatic." The Japanese coast guard questioned crew members of the ACX Crystal, and is treating the incident as a case of possible professional negligence, said a rep. Aucoin wouldn't speculate on the cause of the collision. He said he would order a full investigation.
– Things to look forward to in 2011: all-natural Frito-Lay chips, a bunch of truly unnecessary movie sequels, and … the world’s 7 billionth living person. That lucky baby will arrive sometime next year, according to the UN Population Reference Bureau, writes Bryan Walsh for Time. The world’s 6 billionth living person was born just 11 years ago in Bosnia, and the population is expected to exceed 9 billion by the middle of the century. Can the planet really handle that? Robert Kunzig attempts to take on that question in a very lengthy National Geographic cover story (worth a read). Walsh picks out a few highlights: Kunzig calls out attention to the fact that it took nearly all of human history to get us to the 1 billion mark, but we're set to explode from 3 billion to 7 billion in about 50 years. By 2050, we'll be somewhere between 8 billion and 10.5 billion, according to the UN. Space isn't the issue. Kunzig notes that if 9 billion people were spread throughout Earth's habitable regions, the population density would be half of that in France. The potential problems: Not enough food, water, energy. And a lot of aging people. Writes Kunzig, "Fixating on population numbers is not the best way to confront the future. The number of people does matter, of course. But how people consume resources matters a lot more ... It’s too late to keep the new middle class of 2030 from being born; it’s not too late to change how they and the rest of us will produce and consume food and energy."
– Researchers in the US and China are investigating the roots of a school-age stereotype: Why are Asian-American students more successful than their white peers? It's not a matter of innate cognitive ability, the experts find. Instead, Asian-American students often simply try harder, the study says, via Phys.org. That effort is fueled in part by "cultural beliefs" valuing hard work: "Studies show that Asian and Asian-American students tend to view cognitive abilities as qualities that can be developed through effort, whereas white Americans tend to view cognitive abilities as qualities that are inborn." What's more, Asian-American students may have "greater parental pressures to succeed than in the case of comparable white peers." As for the stereotype itself, it may actually "bolster Asian-American achievement just as negative stereotypes have been shown to hinder the achievement of African-American youth," researchers say. But the researchers suggest that Asian-American students also have less positive views of themselves and are less "socially engaged in school than their white peers." Researchers reached their conclusions through two national studies following thousands of students over several years, the Los Angeles Times reports.
– The architect of the Iraq war believes that President Obama hasn't given sufficient justification for military action against Syria. "There really hasn't been any indication from the administration as to what our national interest is" in Syria, Donald Rumsfeld tells CNN. He continues: "When you think about what’s really important in that region—it’s Iran’s nuclear program and the relationship between Iran and Syria, the Assad regime, with respect to terrorists that go around killing innocent men, women and children, including Americans." At the same time, Rumsfeld thinks the administration has said too much about what it might do. "I can’t imagine what they’re thinking," he said. "The idea of demystifying for the enemy what you're going to do is mindless." Of course, even if Rumsfeld had a point, he'd be a really terrible messenger for it, given his role in Iraq, argues Steve Benen at Rachel Maddow's blog. "If Rumsfeld is out of the penalty box and welcome to appear in public again, at an absolute minimum, he should avoid claiming any degree of credibility on the use of force," he writes.
– Marissa Mayer lounges seductively in her new Vogue photo spread, a choice of pose that is proving controversial. A debate is raging over whether the fashion shoot takes away from the actual profile of Mayer, or whether, as a successful female CEO, she should be able to pose however the heck she wants. Pepper Schwartz can see both sides, but she's somewhat "disappointed" in Mayer, she writes on CNN. "Here's a woman who has made it to the top because of her brains, does she still need to self-validate by having a beautiful fashion gig?" That sends an unfortunate message to women who are just as smart as her, but not as beautiful. Does the fact that she agreed to the shoot mean "that 'making it' and 'having it all' needs to include being publicly admired for one's allure"? That's a sad thought, Schwartz writes. "We women would like to feel that for at least some of us, sheer competence would make looks a non-issue in our lives. We would like to think that a brainiac like Marissa Mayer wouldn't need, perhaps would not want, to have a very public glamor shot as a career capstone." Click for Schwartz's full column.
– A teenager serving life for killing three students and wounding two others in a high school shooting in 2012 has been recaptured after breaking out of an Ohio prison. Officials say TJ Lane, 19, was captured by Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers around 1:20am, hiding by a church just 300 feet away from the prison, reports the AP. Lane escaped from the Allen Correctional Institution with two other inmates, both of whom have also been captured. Lane, who opened fire in the cafeteria of Chardon High School, wore a T-shirt with the word "Killer" and taunted his victims' families at his sentencing last year. After his escape, police said they would send extra patrols to guard the families of victims, CNN reports. "This was a huge case here in Ohio. So everyone in Ohio is shocked right now," Lane's attorney said after the escape. Lane, who was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, has been disciplined seven times during his 18 months in prison, reports the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Last month, he lost privileges for a week after urinating on a wall, and last year he was punished twice for prison charges of "self-mutilating, including tattoo."
– Apparently it takes a lot of women to replace Jane Fonda: In the Hollywood Reporter's latest cover story, Ted Turner reveals that he now has four girlfriends in his life, and he typically spends one week per month with each of them. The billionaire media mogul divorced Fonda, his third wife, in 2001, the Telegraph notes. A friend tells the Reporter Turner is "still in love with" Fonda, and Turner admits they talk "about once a month." Are his four girlfriends happy with the arrangement? "Sort of," Turner says. And is Turner himself lonely? "Maybe a little," he admits. Daily Intel calls the whole profile "kind of depressing," noting that it also paints a picture of a 73-year-old Turner who goes to bed after dinner, has noticeably less energy than he used to, is going deaf, and talks about his funeral a lot. Turner also admits he "thought about" suicide "and decided against it—in the past, not recently." Mediaite, however, zeroes in on a different part of the interview: Turner is not a Tea Party fan, calling the group "mean-spirited."
– It was so cluttered in a home that caught fire last night in Carlsbad, Calif., that firefighters couldn't even get inside at first—and once they did, it was too late to save the elderly woman who lived there, NBC 7 reports. The unidentified woman, said to be in her late '70s, was found unresponsive on the first floor of her condo and pronounced dead at the scene, despite the firefighters' efforts to keep her alive. The cause of the complex's two-alarm fire, which sent residents running to escape the blaze, hasn't been determined, and residents in four neighboring condo units that were damaged were vacated from their homes until at least sometime today. One neighbor tells NBC 7 that she tried to get the woman to clean her home before, but to no avail. "She's a hoarder," says the neighbor. Firefighters acknowledge they had trouble getting through the entrance and then more trouble getting around inside. But at least one other neighbor mentions the woman may have been trying to clean up her act, recently holding a garage sale. "I think maybe she was trying to clear things out and she had been trying for quite a while," he tells CBS News 8. (A Texas community was also hit hard yesterday in a fire that killed five children.)
– A potential new species—a coyote souped up with wolf and dog DNA that some are calling the "coywolf"—is spreading throughout eastern North America in a phenomenon the Economist says is "astonishing." Scientists believe coywolves got their start a century or two ago when struggling wolf populations in Canada started breeding with dogs and coyotes. The Economist reports this kind of interbreeding usually produces offspring that fail to thrive. But the mix of wolf, dog, and coyote DNA proved to be an exception. Bigger, stronger, and faster than the typical coyote, the coywolf is comfortable hunting in forests like a wolf as well as in open areas like a coyote. One scientist who studied 437 coywolves found they contain 65% coyote DNA, 25% wolf DNA, and 10% dog DNA. It's that dog DNA that is helping the coywolf thrive, even in urban areas like New York and Boston, the Economist reports. Some scientists believe the dog DNA makes coywolves more tolerant of humans and noises. They eat both produce and pets, look before crossing the street, and have even become nocturnal to adapt to urban living. Their unique mix of genetics is allowing them to succeed where both wolves and coyotes have failed. "[It's an] amazing contemporary evolution story that's happening right underneath our nose," says one researcher, who estimates there are millions of coywolves in North America by this point. But there is still debate about whether they are their own species. "They are eastern coyotes," one coyote expert, who doesn't like the term coywolf, told the Detroit Free Press earlier this year. "They aren't really different from other coyotes." (This new type of rat has odd pubic hair.)
– Remember when a cloned animal was a big deal? Welcome to the brave new world in Shenzhen, China, where the company BGI is churning out 500 cloned pigs a year, reports David Shukman at the BBC. Shukman got a tour of the facility and even watched the surgical procedure in a not-so-sanitary operating room—two sows are implanted a day, with a success rate of about 80%. "The technology involved is not particularly novel," he writes, "but what is new is the application of mass production." In fact, one company scientist uses the phrase "cloning factory" to describe what's going on. The pigs are being produced not to eat but to be the subjects of drug tests; many have had their genes modified to make them, for example, more susceptible to Alzheimer's. On the genetics front, the company has a staggering 156 gene-sequencing machines on site (Europe's largest gene-sequencing center has one-fifth that amount) and even bought a US company that makes them. What lucky animals make the cut? "If it tastes good you should sequence it," says BGI's chief executive. "You should know what's in the gene of that species." Also, "anything that looks cute: panda, polar bear, penguin, you should really sequence it." The company says it's all for the greater in good terms of food production and health care. "In many ways, that's pretty cool," writes Jamie Condliffe at Gizmodo. "This was supposed to be future, but it's happening here and now—but the sheer pace and questionable standards described by Shukman provide at least some cause for concern." (More wild cloning news: Scientists clone "unclonable" tree.)
– Authorities have taken a Nigerian man into custody after he reportedly tried to ignite a powdery substance—initially reported as firecrackers—aboard a Northwest jet that landed in Detroit from Amsterdam today. The man told federal officials he had links to al-Qaeda and wanted to blow up a plane over the US, reports ABC News, though his credibility is in question. He and two others on the plane were injured in the incident, and the 23-year-old suspect is being treated for minor burns. "The subject is claiming to have extremist affiliation and that the device was acquired in Yemen along with instructions as to when it should be used," said a federal bulletin obtained by ABC. A counter-terrorism official tells NBC that the plane's crew subdued the man when he attempted to light the powder as they were preparing to land. The suspect told authorities that he had the powder taped to his leg and tried to ignite it with a syringe of chemicals.
– Minnesota state Rep.-elect Ilhan Omar, who will soon take office as the nation's first Somali-American lawmaker, was harassed by a cab driver in Washington, DC, she revealed on Facebook. The 33-year-old was on her way from the White House, where she was learning about policy ideas, to her hotel on Tuesday when her driver "called me ISIS and threatened to remove my hijab," Omar wrote. She called his words "the most hateful, derogatory, islamophobic, sexist taunts and threats I have ever experienced" and said she was still "shaken" from the experience. In response to one of the comments on the post, Omar revealed that the driver "wasn't white," City Pages reports.
– A bad batch of illegal liquor has killed at least 102 people in villages that fringe Calcutta. Dozens more are critically ill with alcohol poisoning. Traces of highly toxic methanol were found in the victims, who were mostly poor day laborers and rickshaw-pullers who bought the hooch in pouches for some 25 cents a liter, the BBC reports. Authorities demolished makeshift distilleries and bars after the deaths, and pledged to crack down on corrupt cops involved in the illegal liquor trade. "A section of low-ranking policemen may be involved. If we find that our men are in cahoots with those trading in illicit liquor, we will take action against them," a district police officer tells the Calcutta Telegraph. The deaths are the second tragedy to hit the Indian city in the space of a week. At least 91 people were killed in a hospital fire last Friday.
– A New Hampshire family was reunited with their dog Monday after the animal fell off a ferry en route to Martha's Vineyard without anyone noticing. Passengers on a 10:30am ferry from Falmouth noticed 12-year-old Chesney swimming about a mile offshore and alerted a nearby fishing boat. A fisherman used a net to retrieve Chesney, who was "flustered and a little scared," but otherwise in good shape, per the Cape Cod Times. It turns out she had gone missing on an earlier ferry after her owner let her out of the family car for a drink, reports the Martha's Vineyard Times. A harbormaster says the owner was "relieved" to get his dog back, but "his wife and three kids were not very happy with him."
– No need to scour Amazon for hours: Kinja has already uncovered the best deal on the site this Black Friday. It's for the Amazon Fire tablet, which is normally reasonably priced at $49.99, but is now just $34.99. Want something a bit fancier? The Fire HD 6 is available for $69.99. If you're one of those people who still prefer flipping through a book by hand, you're also in luck. Simply use promo code HOLIDAY30 to get 30% off any physical book—that includes adult coloring books and collector's editions but not Kindle titles and audiobooks—up to a value of $10, Kinja notes. (Check out what deals Walmart has to offer here.)
– Are "measles parties"—where parents purposely expose unvaccinated kids to infected ones to build up immunity—a good idea? Some parents say yes, but California public health officials say absolutely not, the Los Angeles Times reports. According to a KQED blog post, Marin County mom Julie Schiffman received an invite from another mom to expose Schiffman's two unvaccinated kids to an infected child—she reportedly declined. The underlying reasoning is similar to chickenpox parties held decades ago: Some people believe it's safer for kids to build up "natural immunity" to a weaker form of the disease when they're younger than it is to introduce a vaccine into their bodies. Health officials say that claim is spotty—and dangerous. California state epidemiologist Dr. Gil Chavez says in a statement, "Measles is a serious illness that can have significant consequences," adding that 30% of those with the disease in the current outbreak have been hospitalized. Plus, Marin County Public Health Officer Matt Willis tells the Times, there's no proof immunity obtained naturally is better than vaccine-conferred immunity. Art Reingold, a UC Berkeley epidemiology professor and ex-CDC employee, points out that most "pox parties" took place years ago, before vaccines were widely available. "[Parents thought] this is my opportunity for my kid to get immune the old-fashioned way, the way God intended," Reingold tells KQED, adding, "It's looney tunes" to hold a measles party. Willis notes that while his office hasn't confirmed any measles parties taking place, he's received calls asking about the "benefits" of natural immunity. If scientific advice isn't holding sway, Willis has another suggestion: "Any parents who are considering this ... should have a look at a child who's really sick with measles, and I think they'd change their minds."
– And now Sears? Bloomberg reports that the Secret Service is investigating a possible security breach at the retailer. There's not much more to the story at this point, and so no way to tell whether this might be something on par with Target's breach. In a statement, Sears says it is "actively reviewing our systems to determine if we have been a victim of a breach," reports Fox Business. But it adds: "We have found no information based on our review of our systems to date indicating a breach." The Secret Service has been investigating the cyber-attacks on Target and other retailers such as Neiman Marcus that exposed customers' credit card data. If Sears joins the group, it won't help CEO Edward Lampert's turnaround efforts.
– A massive explosion rocked a highly secure diplomatic area of Kabul on Wednesday morning, killing at least 80 people, wounding hundreds more, and sending a huge plume of smoke over the Afghan capital. The target of the attack—which officials said was a suicide car bombing—was not immediately known but a public health ministry spokesman says most of the casualties are civilians and casualty figures are likely to rise, the AP reports. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast. Both the Taliban and ISIS have staged large-scale attacks in the Afghan capital in the past. The explosion in the Wazir Akbar Khan district took place at the peak of Kabul's rush hour, when roads are packed with commuters. The neighborhood is considered Kabul's safest area, with foreign embassies protected by dozens of 10-foot-high blast walls and government offices, guarded by police and national security forces. CNN reports that the explosion hit near the German embassy. The blast was so heavy that more than 30 vehicles were either destroyed or damaged at the site of the attack and windows were shattered up to half a mile away. Last month, the Afghan Taliban announced the beginning of their spring offensive, promising to build their political base in the country while focusing military assaults on the international coalition and Afghan security forces.
– Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy is standing by his widely condemned remarks on slavery even as most of his conservative allies hastily back away from him. "I don't think I'm wrong," Bundy, who wondered if black people were "better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life" than living "under government subsidy," tells CNN. "I think I'm right." He says he had been "just wondering" if black people are really better off now, adding that instead of slavery he really "meant to compare it with maybe life on the farm or life in the South, where they had some chickens and the gardens, and they had something to do." More: Bundy, who is embroiled in a dispute with federal authorities over grazing rights, admitted that having his cattle graze on public land might make him as much of a "welfare queen" as people who survive on government checks. "But I'll tell you I'm producing something for America and using a resource that nobody else would use or could use. I'm putting red meat on the table," he said. Despite some slight backtracking in the CNN interview, Bundy's remarks to a radio show yesterday were almost identical to the ones that first caused offense, Politico finds. "I'm wondering are they better off being slaves in that sense or better off being slaves to the United States government in the sense of the subsidy. I’m wondering. The statement was right," he said. Bundy's remarks have been strongly condemned by former allies including Sens. Dean Heller and Rand Paul and pundits including Sean Hannity, Mediaite reports. "His comments are beyond repugnant to me. They are beyond despicable to me. They are beyond ignorant to me," said the Fox host, adding that he fears the remarks overshadow the "legitimate issue" of government overreach. Conservative commentators including Crystal Wright said they feared the controversy will be yet another setback for the GOP's attempts to attract minority voters, the Washington Post finds. "My parents didn't sit-in at lunch counters so that they would be told that they would have been better off learning how to pick cotton," Wright said. "We as conservatives don't do a great job of cleaning up these racial missteps."
– Paula Deen, that bastion of moderation and recent convert to the church of Novo Nordisk after her not-so-recent diagnosis of type 2 diabetes, has a memoir out. Well, an Oprah-version of a memoir. Winfrey's magazine asks various celebs and non-celebs to succinctly sum up their lives in a "six-word memoir" in its February issue. Deen participated, and now's your chance to guess how her version reads. A Little Salad Wouldn't Kill You? Or maybe Sorry, America, for Glorifying Fatty Food? No. Deen's six-word take on life is: Might as Well Eat That Cookie. Nemesis Anthony Bourdain still isn't impressed with Deen's antics, notes TMZ, tweeting, "Thinking of getting into the leg-breaking business, so I can profitably sell crutches later." Click for more on Deen.
– A cute moment during today's early morning Emmy nominations: Melissa McCarthy, who was announcing the nominations alongside Joshua Jackson, struggled to keep her emotions in check after learning she herself had been nominated as lead actress in a comedy series for Mike & Molly. Other nominees included such familiar faces as Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin for 30 Rock and Steve Carell for his last season on The Office. Fan favorite Betty White even scored a supporting actress nod for Hot in Cleveland. Top series contenders include Glee, Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, and The Office for comedy. For drama: Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, Dexter, The Good Wife, and Friday Night Lights. Modern Family racked up a whopping 17 nominations—including all six of its adult actors nominated in the supporting category—but the biggest winner of the morning was actually a miniseries, HBO's Mildred Pierce, with 21 nominations. Other biggies: Mad Men with 19 and Boardwalk Empire with 18, E! reports. Two more fun tidbits: Despite all the drama, The Kennedys scored a nomination for best miniseries or movie, and—while Charlie Sheen was not so lucky—Two and a Half Men star Jon Cryer got a supporting actor nod for his troubles.
– Craig Stevens allegedly had what sounded like a great offer: Purchase an In-N-Out Burger franchise and bring the fast-food chain to the Middle East. That would be pretty major, considering a slim five US states are home to In-N-Out Burger locations. The only problem? The company has "adamantly" refused to franchise. But that didn't stop the 55-year-old Californian from allegedly soliciting just north of $4 million from "less than 10 investors," per CBS LA. Stevens, 55, pleaded not guilty to wire fraud in federal court yesterday, as prosecutors laid out his alleged scheme, which they say involved contacting potential investors via email beginning in January 2014. They say he priced the fake franchises at $150,000 a pop, plus $250,000 per year in royalties, reports the LA Times. The wire fraud allegedly occurred six months later when he emailed a fake In-N-Out licensing agreement to an unnamed Lebanese investor. Stevens is currently free on $10,000 bond. As for why the chain is found in so few states currently, the Week explains that it only builds locations that are within driving distance of its California and Texas distribution centers; you can get your fix in those states, Utah, Arizona, and Nevada.
– It took Serena Williams 15 years to return to the BNP Paribas Open after she was booed in 2001. She might never return again. While discussing how money is awarded in men's versus women's tennis on Sunday, tournament director Raymond Moore said female players "ride the coattails of the men. They don't make any decisions and they are lucky," per the Guardian. "If I was a lady player, I would go down every night on my knees and thank God that Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal were born, because they've carried this sport," he added, per NBC News. "There's only one way to interpret that. 'Get on your knees,' which is offensive enough, and thank a man," responded Williams, who was defeated in the final match in Indian Wells, Calif. "That is such a disservice to … every woman on this planet that has ever tried to stand up for what they believe in." A "disappointed" Billie Jean King soon tweeted that Moore was "wrong on so many levels. Every player, especially the top players, contribute to our success." The CEO of the Women's Tennis Association added the comments were "extremely disappointing and alarming." Moore apparently agreed in hindsight. The comments were "in extremely poor taste and erroneous," he said in a statement later Sunday. "I am truly sorry for those remarks, and apologize to all the players and WTA as a whole. We had a women's final today that reflects the strength of the players, especially Serena and Victoria [Azarenka], and the entire WTA." Novak Djokovic, commenting on the controversy, said female players "fought for what they deserve and they got it," but he added male players should perhaps be awarded more money because "we have much more spectators on the men's tennis matches."
– A $1.5 million project launched in Washington, DC, has one main goal: count all the cats. DC Cat Count, a collaboration by the Humane Society, Humane Rescue Alliance, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, and PetSmart Charities, aims to create an accurate estimate of the entire cat population, including pet cats, in order to better manage it. About 1,000 DC cats are trapped, spayed or neutered, and released each year by the Humane Rescue Alliance; as many as 3,000 more are adopted out, with owners pledging to keep the cats inside. But it's "impossible to say" how many cats are really out there or how effective the programs are in terms of curtailing the cat population, community programs VP Lauren Lipsey tells DCist. "We want to understand the movement and flow of cats." So far, though, "just walking around the neighborhood counting cats, we were surprised at how few cats we've seen," Lipsey tells the Washington Post. Cats—which threaten rodents like mice and rats, but also birds and protected or endangered species—are "secretive animals" and therefore "hard to see," but that doesn't mean they aren't around, conservation biologist Tyler Flockhart tells the New York Times. To ensure an accurate tally, the DC Cat Count will use 60 motion-activated cameras, shelter analyses, and household surveys, in addition to physical counts in sample locations, in an undertaking led by two full-time employees, per NPR. The effort is expected to take three years, with an app to be released by Christmas allowing locals to take part by snapping photos of the cats they see. (This judge sued over his neighbor's urinating cat.)
– If you've long lauded your powerful right brain for providing you with your artistic prowess, some University of Utah researchers have bad news for you: The whole right-brain/left-brain thing isn't true. The neuroscientists analyzed 1,011 brain scans to come to their conclusion about whether people are indeed right-brain (ie, creative) or left-brain (ie, logical) dominant, and uncovered no proof that we actually use one side of our brain more heavily or have more robust neural connections there, reports the Salt Lake Tribune. To understand how the study worked, a quick science lesson/refresher: Lateralization is no myth, and refers to mental functions that largely rely on one side of the brain; for instance, speech is a mostly left-brain function, reports LiveScience. The scientists divided the brain into 7,000 regions and looked for connections. They counted the number of connections that could be described as left- or right-lateralized, and uncovered neither a preference for one side nor a stronger neural network on one side, reports Science Daily. "We just don't see patterns where the whole left-brain network is more connected, or the whole right-brain network is more connected in some people," says one of the study's authors. (Click to read about another surprising brain-related discovery.)
– The fiscal cliff deal was the last hurrah for the 112th Congress. Now a freshly elected class is coming to Washington, with more than 90 new faces gracing Capitol Hill. Here are some of the notable names and facts you'll want to know: The Rising Star: Politico sees big things in store for freshman GOP Rep. Tom Cotton, who left his law practice in 2004 to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. He's already earned endorsements from such disparate GOP figures as John McCain, Mike Huckabee, and the Club for Growth. The Workaholic: Before coming to Congress, freshman Democrat Raul Ruiz was working as an ER doctor, running a mentorship program, opening health clinics, and running education seminars in poor areas. And he sounds ready to bring that level of dedication to Washington. "I'm a doctor, we work in teams," he says. "I'm very committed to problem solving." The Class President: Republican Luke Messer has been named president of the freshmen, and sounds like he's already got a handle on things, reports the Hill. "At our first meeting I established a rule where … no one could talk more than two minutes," he said on TV recently, "so our first meeting took 18 minutes, and everybody was very happy." The Inspiration: Expect veteran and double-amputee Tammy Duckworth to be a favorite of the Democratic leadership. She's already proven herself a prodigious fundraiser, given a well-received speech at the DNC, and landed a spot on the Armed Services Committee. The Pro: She may be a newcomer to Congress, but Ann Wagner has loads of experience, having chaired or co-chaired the Missouri Republican party, the RNC, and Roy Blunt's 2010 Senate campaign. John Boehner has already selected her to deliver the weekly GOP address. The Loudmouth: Alan Grayson is back, everybody. The Wrangler: There's a decent bet you'll see Ted Yoho on cable news. A large-animal veterinarian by trade, Yoho at one point ran an ad featuring mud-spattered politicians wrestling with and eating alongside pigs. Maybe he can hang out with fellow Republican Kerry Bentivolio, a reindeer farmer from Michigan. The Empty Seats: This Congress will be notable in part for the colorful personalities that are departing: Barney Frank, Ron Paul, and Dennis Kucinich will all be gone. The Familiar Names: There will once again be a Kennedy on Capitol Hill, as Joseph Kennedy returns to fill Frank's seat. Joaquin Castro, meanwhile, brings a familiar face—he's the twin brother of DNC keynote speaker Julian Castro. The Ladies: ABC News reports that the Senate will, as of today, be comprised of a record-setting 20 females.
– Headlines about honeybees dying off may seem to have tapered off, but that doesn't mean the problem has gone away. In fact, it appears to have gotten "drastically" worse in the last year, reports the New York Times. Commercial beekeepers say 40% to 50% of their already diminished hives were wiped out in the last months of 2012, though official federal stats won't be out until May. Beekeepers continue to blame a new class of pesticides called neonicotinoids, though conclusive proof remains elusive. The pesticide industry disputes the claim, but seems to be backing off a bit as pressure mounts. The European Union, for example, is poised to institute a ban on "neonics," prompting leading producers Syngenta and Bayer to promise a more thorough study of colony collapse disorder, reports Reuters. It's not clear whether the offer—along with other ideas such as planting more bee-friendly habitats—will forestall the expected ban. One thing is clear, however: With an estimated 25% of the US diet dependent on bee pollination, expect food prices to rise in correlation to the bee deaths.
– Scientists, apparently bored with pert, productive rats, added a little marijuana to the equation and found that, as many a teenager can tell you, laziness ensued. So report researchers at the University of British Columbia in the Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience after concluding that male lab rats given TCH experience an observable reduction in their "willingness to exert cognitive effort." To test this, researchers trained 29 rats to choose whether they wanted to perform a more difficult task to earn a larger quantity of a sugary treat or perform an easier task but earn less of the treat. Without THC, most of the rats preferred to exert themselves for the greater reward; after the dose of THC, however, they largely chose the easier path and settled for a smaller treat, even though their ability to perform the harder task was not impacted. "What’s particularly interesting is though they were less likely to do these more difficult tasks they were still able to," one researcher tells the Guardian, adding that there's a clear need for more research on how THC impacts the human brain, whether any negative side effects can be reduced, and whether marijuana compounds other than THC play a role. When the researchers gave the rats doses of the non-psychoactive compound cannabidiol, or CBD, which is thought to have medical benefits such as pain relief and doesn't cause a high, they found that it didn't impact the rats' cognitive behavior, but it also didn't help mitigate the effects of THC on motivation. (Here's what a legal pot habit will set you back just south of the border in Washington state.)
– Yes, that was a blimp towing a water skier across the surface of a Southern California lake. The Press-Enterprise reports the blimp towed skier Kari McCollum for 6.9 miles at Lake Elsinore on Tuesday. The newspaper says that's a new record, according to Philip Robertson, an adjudicator with Guinness World Records. The old mark for a water skier being towed by a blimp or airship was nearly 5 miles, the AP reports. The companies sponsoring the event included T-Mobile and AirSign, an aerial advertising company. See more photos in our gallery.
– When renowned quilt maker Joe Hadley, who lived in a small cottage on the outskirts of Warden in the UK in 1826, was found brutally stabbed to death one cold January morning, the mystery captured a nation. The crime unsolved to this day, his story was retold in the Monthly Chronicle of North-Country Lore and Legend 1887 (as recounted by the blog PieceNPeace), which notes that his cottage was finally taken down in 1872, "so that all landmarks of the mournful tragedy have vanished, leaving nothing to recall the circumstance but the silent page of the local historian." Well, not exactly nothing. The Evening Chronicle in July reported that old maps, sketches, and reports of the crime enabled the Beamish Museum in County Durham to locate the approximate location of the home. Now a team of community archaeologists has managed to unearth actual remnants of Hadley's home, reports the Evening Chronicle as spotted by the Week. "As archaeologists it's extremely rare to be working on a site inhabited by a named individual about whom we know so much," project officer John Castling said. "It's even more unusual that the individual isn't a royal or a wealthy landowner. It gives us a poignant and tangible link to the day-to-day life of an ordinary working person in the early 19th century." So far the team has found floor pieces, pottery, remnants of the cottage's fireplace, and a "silver groat coin given as Maundy money to the poor." The museum intends to recreate the cottage; "visitors will not only be able to stand in a replica of Joe’s cottage, but they can stand on the flagstones Joe would have stood on," says Castling. (Over in Ireland, these bones might help archaeologists settle a controversy.)
– The mother of an Indian engineer shot to death in a Kansas bar is not just grieving for her son but worried about his younger brother. He, too, is working in the US, and his mother, Parvatha Vardhini, wants him to come home for his own safety. “I will not allow my younger son to go back to the US again," she says, per the Hindustan Times. "I want him and his family to return to Hyderabad for good.” Her older son, 32-year-old Srinivas Kuchibhotla, was killed last week by a gunman who witnesses say shouted, "Get out of my country," in the bar in the Kansas City suburb of Olathe. Adam Purinton, 51, has been arrested in the shooting, which also injured one of Kuchibhotla's friends, also Indian, as well as a bar patron who tried to intervene. Police say Purinton drove about 70 miles to an Applebee's in Missouri afterward and confessed the shooting to the bartender. Except, he seemed to believe he had shot Iranians, reports the AP, citing a 911 call. In it, the bartender says Purinton came in, claimed to have done something "really bad," and asked to hide out. "Well, I finally got him to tell me and he said, like, that he shot and killed two Iranian people in Olathe.” The mother of Kuchibhotla, whose body was being cremated in India on Tuesday, says she had worried about him. "I had asked him to return to India if he was feeling insecure there," she recalls. "But he used to say he was safe and secure."
– A new study suggests that even toddlers know the difference between an authentic leader and a bully—and they're willing to defy the bully if they can safely do so. The study out of the University of Illinois and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences analyzed the reactions of about 100 toddlers aged 20 to 22 months to animated scenarios. The kids watched videos in which a group of characters were told to go to bed by a respected leader or a violent bully, reports CTV News. The toddlers expected the characters to follow the leader's orders and expressed surprise when they didn't, even if the leader disappeared. They also expected the characters to follow the bully's orders—but they showed no surprise when the characters disobeyed if the bully was no longer present. The study shows that "when someone beats you up, that person has some power over you in the sense that you may be afraid of them, and you may do what they say when they're around and could harm you, but of course when they leave then you'll do what you want," says lead researcher Renee Baillargeon. The researchers gauged the children's reactions by studying how long they stared, a previously documented way to understand whether an event syncs with their expectations. The more something doesn't jibe for them, the longer they'll stare, per a release at Eureka Alert. The study tested a third scenario, too, one in which the characters were told to go to bed by a nice but apparently powerless figure. "The infants expected the protagonists to disobey, most likely because the character held no power over them," says Baillargeon.
– Tense times in Baghdad: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki deployed troops at strategic locations in the Iraqi capital amid a power struggle with newly elected President Fouad Massoum. Maliki accuses Massoum of carrying out "a coup against the constitution and the political process" by failing to nominate him for a third term, despite having the largest bloc in parliament. The New York Times says Massoum will most likely appoint someone from Maliki's bloc, but not Maliki himself. (Update: He did just that.) "The risk is, if he clings to power, he will control the country by force," says an unnamed Iraqi politician of Maliki. "This would be a military coup." More: Maliki is facing many calls to step down, but "it's not in his DNA to go without a fight," a CNN analyst says. "This is a man who's really feeling besieged at the moment. He's cornered on all sides, if you like. He's got ISIS on his doorstep, in a military sense. He even had the Grand Ayatollah the other day saying politicians should not cling to their posts. But this is a guy who seizes onto power. He holds it." John Kerry says the US stands with Massoum and urges the people of Iraq to stay calm amid the political crisis. "We believe that the government formation process is critical in terms of sustaining the stability and calm in Iraq," he said in a statement. "And our hope is that Mr. Maliki will not stir those waters." In the north of the country, meanwhile, some 20,000 of the Yazidis trapped on a mountain by fighting have managed to escape as the effects of American airstrikes on ISIS militants became apparent. Kurdish fighters supported by American drones and fighter jets went on the offensive against the militants and managed to recapture two towns, the New York Times reports. Beyond air power, the US has also started directly supplying Kurdish forces with weapons instead of merely aiding deliveries from the Iraqi government, officials tell the AP. It's not clear which US agency is supplying the weapons.
– Seven-year-old Joshua Hardy is improving after a social media campaign convinced a drug company to give him an experimental drug that could save his life. But the backlash has been intense, with numerous observers expressing concern over the idea of "crowdsourcing medical decisions," the Washington Post reports. The problem? In order to help as many patients as possible, as quickly as possible, drug companies need to focus on getting their experimental drugs approved via clinical trials—not doling them out for compassionate use. (In Joshua's case, the drug company and the FDA ended up fast-tracking a new clinical trial rather than going the compassionate use route.) If something goes wrong with a patient using an experimental drug, the approval process could be delayed; it's also possible that the drug company would have to take the time to make more of the drug. Plus, there's the fact that since insurance companies usually don't pay for unapproved drugs, they could potentially be handed out only to patients who can pay. The idea of giving an experimental drug to one patient but not another, based solely on the story going viral, is an ethical quandary. "For Josh, we are glad," reads an editorial in the Herald-Sun, a newspaper in Durham, NC, where the drug company is based. "But the process leaves us pained. This is no way to make health-care decisions."
– Rick Santorum had a pretty big oops moment yesterday while campaigning in Illinois, when he boldly stated, "I don't care what the unemployment rate's going to be. Doesn't matter to me." His campaign "doesn't hinge on unemployment rates and growth rates," apparently. He explained: "We have one nominee who says he wants to run the economy. What kind of conservative says that the president runs the economy?" Santorum later backtracked a bit, Politico reports, explaining that he does "want the unemployment rate to go down." The Romney campaign was, of course, gleeful over the gaffe, and Romney quickly used it in his own Illinois speech, ABC News notes. Hours after saying it, Santorum told another crowd in the state that sometimes "you wish you had a … do-over," adding that when you don't use a "teleprompter" or "notes that someone else gave you," these things happen. "But you know what," he concluded, "I think it’s important that you get a sense of how real the candidate is, mistakes and all."
– As pundits were pronouncing Mitt Romney's chances all but gone yesterday, Politico summed up the thoughts of one skeptical Dem strategist this way: "It ain't over until Karl Rove sings." Well, Rove weighed in on the matter today, and he's not singing. The fuss over Romney's remarks on the 47% and on Libya before them "is a classic example of the commentariat investing moments with more meaning than they deserve," he writes in the Wall Street Journal. This will blow over, just as Obama's "you didn't build that" controversy did. Romney, though, better brace for lots of attacks on the issue and be deft in deflecting them. He also needs to get more specific on his plans to help the middle class, suggests Rove. Yes, Romney has big challenges, but Obama does, too, especially on the economy, so let's wait and see what the debates bring before calling the race. Romney "must reassure voters he's up to the job of being president," while the "fluid and agile" Obama "will be expected to command each encounter." If the president falls short, the polls might turn against him. Click for Rove's full column.
– A week after a man flew four B-52 sorties over Hanoi, dropping a total of 48 bombs over an unknown number of homes, he holed up in an apartment in Boston with a fifth of Tennessee rye and a Smith & Wesson Model 15, and vowed, upon returning from a final walk in the rain, to "give myself the discharge I deserved." So he writes in a Boston Craigslist Missed Connection post, titled "I met you in the rain on the last day of 1972 - m4w," which Wired is calling the first Craigslist ad "to win a Pulitzer," and Adweek reports is "so beautiful, you don't care if it's true." The man goes on to describe the woman he met taking shelter under the awning of the Old State House, in a teal ball gown with "a galaxy of freckles" dusting her shoulders. "I'd never seen anything so beautiful." After an hour-long chat at a nearby five and dime, she disappeared while he used the restroom—leaving him in a state of turmoil that overrode his desire to take his life. And though he is reaching out 43 years later, after the recent passing of both his wife and his son, he wants her to know this: "As I cast this virtual coin into the wishing well of the cosmos, it occurs to me, after a million what-ifs and a lifetime of lost sleep, that our connection wasn't missed at all.... Sometimes I can still smell the smoke over Hanoi. And then, a few dozen times a year, I'll receive a gift. The sky will glower, and the clouds will hide the sun, and the rain will begin to fall. And I'll remember." According to Reddit users, it did indeed rain in Boston on the last day of 1972. (Check out why this guy penned a missed connection.)
– A Japanese clothing company has replaced the usual sizes (think S, M, and L) with ones sure to boost shoppers' self-esteem—like Titch, Skinny, Fat, and Jumbo, the Daily Mail reports. The company, Fatyo, says on its website that it's just trying to make the word fat "cool." But Jumbo? Well, the move is getting attention, although Fatyo isn't the first Japanese brand to create unusual garment sizes. Could be Fatyo is reminding the Japanese (the slimmest people in the developed world) not to get too hefty, Yahoo notes. Japanese lawmakers were so concerned about weight gain that in 2009 they set maximum waistline sizes for citizens over 40: 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women. Per Japanese health coverage, employees get their waistlines checked annually and are sent to health counseling if the scales tip too far. So, are bigger Japanese shoppers likely to buy Fatyo? Rocket News, which broke the story, says it's "not sure" how the company "expects to drum up sales by calling out its larger customers in the least delicate way."
– The proposed bank deposit tax that has enraged Cypriots and spooked bank customers across Europe looks likely to die today, even with a last-minute tweak that would spare the smallest savers, Reuters reports. Draft legislation sent to parliament amends the previous plan by exempting accounts containing less than about $26,000 from the tax, reports the Wall Street Journal. The other levies—6.75% on all deposits under $131,000 and 9.9% over that amount—would not be raised to make up for the lost revenue, meaning the levy wouldn't generate the $7.6 billion required by the IMF and eurozone partners, notes Reuters. Still, a government rep says parliament remains unlikely to pass the levy even with the change, and could punt on a vote if it becomes clear there's no chance of passage. Meanwhile, the island's banks will not reopen until Thursday at the earliest, CNN reports. EU officials insist that there is no chance of a similar levy being imposed on other nations, but the Cyprus mess has raised fears of bank runs in other countries. "If you're a small depositor in Cyprus, you'll tell yourself that it would have been better to keep your money under the carpet than in a bank," says a French bank executive. "And if you're a Greek, a Spaniard, or an Italian, well, you'll tell yourself that you might be next." This isn't the first time European countries have moved to tax bank deposits, the AP adds. Italy imposed a tax on all bank accounts to keep its currency afloat in the '90s, but the rate was just 0.06%.
– Driving across state lines with one's mother in tow in hopes of having an unlicensed stranger inject silicone in your butt in said stranger's basement apartment was never going to end well, but it ended fatally Saturday for a Maryland woman, NYPD sources tell WUSA. Kelly Mayhew immediately began to gurgle and struggled to breathe after the unnamed suspect injected her in the Queens apartment, Mayhew's mother told cops, per the New York Daily News. Mayhew's mom screamed for the woman to call 911—police say there's "no indication" she was licensed—but she instead ran off. Mayhew's mom called 911 herself, but the 34-year-old later died at the hospital. Her mom says Mayhew was healthy and had had five previous injections. An initial autopsy proved inconclusive, notes the Daily News, and a rep for the ME says they're doing "additional studies." Police are still looking for the suspect; the landlord of the building in Queens says she wasn't the apartment's tenant. "I suspected something was going on, but I didn't know what it was," she says. Adds a neighbor: "I was in complete shock when I heard about how the lady died. I had no idea something like that was going on." (This woman, meanwhile, touted herself as the "Michelangelo of butt injections.")
– Euthanasia has been legal in Belgium for more than a decade, and 2013 saw 1,807 euthanasia cases in the country, per the Guardian. Occasionally, individual deaths garner international attention, as in the case of the pair of deaf identical twins who were euthanized in December 2012 after learning they would go blind and not see each other again. Now, another case is grabbing headlines, this time of a woman who has not yet died, but has been granted the right to do so. The Independent has the story of "Laura" by way of the local De Morgen. The 24-year-old does not have a terminal illness; rather, she suffers from depression but, as Newsweek puts it, is "otherwise healthy." She became a patient at a psychiatric facility three years ago after suffering from depression since childhood, she says. "Death feels to me not as a choice. If I had a choice, I would choose a bearable life, but I have done everything and that was unsuccessful," the Independent quotes her as telling the local paper. It hasn't yet been established when she will die. In a piece published last month that has enhanced timeliness now, Rachel Aviv asked in the New Yorker: "When should people with a non-terminal illness be helped to die?" Her article details the case of Godelieva De Troyer, who had suffered from depression since age 19 and, after meeting Wim Distelmans—a professor of palliative medicine who has had a hand in more than 100 deaths by euthanasia—died with his help at age 64 in 2012. Her son has since challenged the laws around euthanasia, laws that Aviv writes "seem to have created a new conception of suicide as a medical treatment, stripped of its tragic dimensions."
– A homeless man in Florida is an Internet star after footage of him playing the piano went viral this week. But more than that, the newfound fame may give him a chance to stop being homeless, reports People. Donald Gould, 51, who has been living on the streets of Sarasota about seven years, plays one of the city's "public pianos" every day to earn money, reports the Telegraph. His profile increased dramatically when a woman uploaded a video of him playing Styx’s "Come Sail Away" on Facebook, which has now been viewed more than 5 million times. "Just took my breath away," wrote Aroar Natasha. "Wow." The Marine vet says he formerly played in a symphonic band, and studied music education at Michigan’s Spring Arbor University, though he never got his degee. Gould says the death of his wife led to a downward spiral that included substance abuse and him losing custody of his young son. Now the video could be a way back. A GoFundMe account has been created to help Gould finish school, and to help buy him a home and a car. A local bar says it might hire him as a weekend piano player. "I was thinking I could just put my hat on the piano and make a couple dollars and get tips,” Gould tells WWSB. “I didn't expect it to jump out to this." (In Canada, a homeless man made headlines because of his generosity.)
– Krokodil—the Russian street drug with effects so horrific it makes meth look almost wholesome—may have already killed at least one person in the US, Time reports. A close friend of a man who died from drug abuse in the state last year said he had been using the drug, made from codeine mixed with ingredients like gasoline, and it "ate him from the inside out." Users of the heroin-like drug develop scaly green sores near injection sites, and in some cases, the flesh rots away to the bone. An Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics spokesman, however, says there is no proof the drug has reached the state. "We see IV drug users with horrible infections on a daily basis," he tells the Huffington Post. "Infections from bacteria and dirty needles—that doesn't mean it's" the Russian drug, he says. There have also been unconfirmed reports of the drug surfacing in Arizona, Illinois, and New York, along with a rise in Google searches on how to make it, the International Business Times reports.
– A lock of hair taken from Abraham Lincoln's head by Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes soon after the president had been assassinated sold for $25,000 at a Texas auction—$5,000 less than a buyer paid for a letter from assassin John Wilkes Booth. The sale of a gallery owner's 300-item collection of Lincoln memorabilia fetched more than $800,000 on Saturday, more than double what Heritage Auctions had predicted, although an 1862 letter in which the president admitted the Civil War was not going well remained unsold, reports the BBC. Booth boasts about his acting career in the letter he wrote to a friend in 1861, which fetched such a high price because the "public was so disgusted by Booth's atrocity that most all letters, signatures and documents mentioning him were destroyed after Lincoln's death, making any that survive 150 years later exceedingly rare and valuable," a Heritage Auctions director explains to the AP. Other items in the sale included Booth's military arrest warrant, bloodstained linen from Lincoln's deathbed, and an 1864 letter signed by Lincoln authorizing a prisoner-of-war swap involving the son of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
– Marvel's R-rated antihero smash Deadpool continued to dominate movie theaters over the weekend, reports the AP, earning an estimated $55 million and trouncing a trio of newcomers. After pulling in a massive $152.2 million in its President's Day weekend four-day debut, the comic book adaptation from 20th Century Fox starring Ryan Reynolds as a foul-mouthed mercenary again topped the North American box office. Having already grossed $235.4 million domestically, Deadpool—made for just $58 million—is likely to become one of the most successful R-rated movies ever. It's already the No. 6 highest grossing R-rated film, and needs about another $135 million to surpass the No. 1, The Passion of the Christ. "This is a movie that's on everyone's mind," a comScore analyst tells USA Today. "Everyone is trying to figure this movie out. I don't think anyone expected it to be a blockbuster of this magnitude. Any newcomer to even debut with $55 million in late February is a total winner." Among new releases, the faith-based drama Risen, starring Joseph Fiennes, debuted with $11.8 million for Sony. A24's Puritan period thriller The Witch opened with $8.7 million. The Jesse Owens biopic from Focus Features, Race, struggled to find its footing with $7.3 million.
– Last month it was amateur scuba divers stumbling upon a treasure trove of submerged coins in Israel. Now three amateur spelunkers from the Israeli Caving Club have alerted authorities to a stash of ancient coins and jewels that appear to date back 2,300 years, to the time of Alexander the Great. What's more, the Israel Antiquities Authority says that archaeologists who further explored the hard-to-reach stalactite-filled cave over the weekend found "evidence of human habitation" dating back 6,000 years to the Chalcolithic period, reports Discovery. Some of the pottery vessels found in the cave had even merged with the limestone sediments. "Presumably the cache was hidden in the hope of better days, but today we know that whoever buried the treasure never returned to collect it," said an IAA statement, speculating that someone stashed it in the chaos following Alexander's death. Among the jewels, two silver coins allowed archaeologists to date the stash to the reign of Alexander the Great; on one side is a depiction of the man, while on the other Zeus is raising his arms on a throne. Silver jewelry—including rings, bracelets, and earrings—are part of the find, which researchers say was probably initially stashed in a cloth pouch, reports CNN. The intricate and well-preserved earrings are thought to be especially valuable. An IAA official applauded the cavers' "exemplary civic behavior." (Not all spelunkers in Israel have been quite so honest of late.)
– At least 119 workers were killed and dozens more injured when fire swept through a poultry plant in northeast China early today, trapping workers inside a slaughterhouse, the AP reports. Surviving workers say the gate was locked when the fire broke out. A loud bang was heard before the fire and the surrounding area has been evacuated because of the risk of ammonia leakage. Firefighters took six hours to bring the blaze, which destroyed much of the facility, under control. "I started working at 6am along with another 100 workers in my workshop. There were two workshops in the plant," a woman who suffered burns while escaping the inferno tells Xinhua. "Soon after, someone shouted 'run away!' and we quickly ran to the exit," she says. "Suddenly, the lights inside went out and the plant got quite dark."
– Two volunteer firefighters are on administrative leave after driving an 18-month-old girl to the hospital for urgent medical care in their fire engine, Fox 5 DC reports. Capt. James Kelley and Sgt. Virgil Bloom, who volunteer in Fredericksburg, Va., found the girl partly paralyzed and were told she had just suffered a seizure. Worse, the nearest medic was apparently 15 minutes away and a second call for a medic solicited a vague answer—"southbound on Route 1"—about its location, says Kelley. "Considering all the factors ... I felt it was in the patient's best interest to transport immediately," says Kelley, per a press release issued by his fire department. The girl's father, Brian Nunamaker, says it all began on the morning of Feb. 27, when his little girl had a seizure in the car and he pulled up near a McDonald's and called 911. "As a parent, you feel extremely helpless to be unable to assist the most important person in the world (your child) during such a time of emergency," he says in an email. The firefighters came "quickly," he adds, and found his daughter limp with a pulse; she was also blue from her head to her chest, Kelley tells the Free Lance-Star. The firefighters administered oxygen and drove her to a hospital, where she was transferred to VCU and eventually discharged in good health. "The neurologists at VCU explained that timing is extremely important when reacting to seizures," the father says. But Bloom and Kelley were suspended because their fire engine is considered a "non-transport unit" and lacks medications and restraints. "I would not hesitate, I would do the exact same thing 100% 10 times out of 10," Kelley tells WUSA. A fire official declined to comment while the matter is under review. (In another case, four firefighters went on an arson spree.)
– Sherri Papini's captors put a bag over her head and kept her chained up any time she was in a vehicle, husband Keith Papini says. "She was bound" and "had a metal chain around her waist," the California woman's husband says in an interview with ABC's 20/20 that will air in full on Friday. He says his wife has told him that 22 days after she was kidnapped, she was in a vehicle when her captors stopped, cut something that was holding her, and pushed her out into the road. Papini was found Thanksgiving Day by the side of a road in Yolo County, 150 miles from her home. Her husband disclosed Wednesday that she had been physically and mentally abused and weighed just 87 pounds when she was found. In a statement released Wednesday, Keith Papini slammed online sleuths who have been expressing doubts about the case, the AP reports. "Rumors, assumptions, lies and hate have been both exhausting and disgusting," he said. Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko says investigators are working on producing a sketch of the two Hispanic women Papini says she was kidnapped by. He says police haven't found any reasons to doubt her story. The sheriff told reporters Wednesday that Papini's captors branded her with "some kind of message." He says the mother of two children is still traumatized by her ordeal, but is doing her best to work with investigators, reports the Record Searchlight. The Redding newspaper reports that residents are organizing a rally to support Papini and welcome her home on Saturday.
– Woody Allen and Mia Farrow's brainiac son has ripped his famous dad as "my brother-in-law" because of the aging director's marriage to one of Farrow's adopted daughters. The zinger came on Father's Day. "Happy father’s day—or as they call it in my family, happy brother-in-law’s day," tweeted Ronan Farrow. Mom followed it up with a one-word retweet: "BOOM." Allen and Mia Farrow had an infamous falling out after a years-long affair when Farrow discovered nude photos of her daughter Soon-Yi that had been taken by Allen. Ronan, 24, has been estranged from his pop for decades. “He’s my father married to my sister. That makes me his son and his brother-in-law," Ronan has griped in the past. "That is such a moral transgression.” Ronan, a Rhodes scholar, entered college at the age of 11 and was accepted into Yale Law School at 15. He's deferring enrollment while he serves as special adviser to the Secretary of State for Global Youth Issues and director of the State Department’s Global Youth Issues office. He was five when his parents broke up over his pop's affair with his sister. Allen, now 76, and Soon-Yi, now 41, have adopted two daughters. Click for more.
– It’s easy to see why Dina Lohan is calling her ex-hubby’s recent engagement “incestuous”: Kate Major met Michael through her position as his daughter Lindsay’s assistant. A fellow reporter who worked with Major recalls that she “was once a key member of Lindsay’s entourage,” he writes on PopEater, “serving as a driver, confidant, an all-purpose factotum.” Another mutual friend confirms the connection. And Dina has a lot to say about it (to read Major’s response, click here). “Kate dated Hailey Glassman’s ex, Jon Gosselin, then she’s best friends with Michael’s ex Erin, and now she’s engaged to Michael. It all sounds a bit incestuous to me,” Dina tells Radar. “It’s certainly a marriage made in tabloid heaven.” Making an already gross situation even more disgusting, Michael told Access Hollywood all about their plans for a baby: “Since I’m getting no younger, we practice at least four times a night.”
– Bonnie and Clyde appear to be off the hook after the most shocking moment in Oscars history—the blunder that saw La La Land announced as Best Picture, only for Moonlight to be declared the real winner when the former film's producers had almost finished their speeches. Accounting firm PwC, which oversees the ballot-counting, says Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were handed the wrong category envelope. "We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred," the company formerly known as Price Waterhouse Coopers said in a statement to the AP, apologizing to the presenters, both movies, and Oscars viewers for the fiasco. A roundup of coverage: The Guardian has photos showing moment by moment how things went wrong. Beatty can be seen carrying the red envelope for "Actress in a Leading Role," which he opens, then hands to Dunaway. He later said he was confused because it said "Emma Stone: La La Land." She reads out the movie title. With the La La Land team on stage, Oscars overseers can be seen examining the envelope. USA Today reports that as the La La Land team went on stage, a PwC accountant backstage shouted "He took the wrong envelope!" and ran onstage. "I was ecstatic, it was amazing. I thought we won an Oscar," La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz tells the Hollywood Reporter. But then, "some guys in headsets started buzzing around. It became clear that something was wrong." The New York Times has a transcript of the chaotic minutes onstage. "I'm going to be really proud to hand this to my friends from Moonlight," says Horowitz graciously. La La Land star Ryan Gosling could be seen apparently trying not to laugh during the mix-up, though the BBC's Martha Kearney says he had a "face like thunder" while waiting for a limo after the ceremony. This has never happened before in any category in Oscars history, Vox reports in a look at how PwC handles the envelopes—and at its procedure for handling mix-ups. "It was very quick, I can't talk about it. The card read that way. It was a very odd thing," Dunaway tells the Telegraph, adding: "It wasn't Warren's fault." La La Land star Stone told the media she was excited for Moonlight, which she considers one of the best movies of all time, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. But she added: "I was also holding my Best Actress in a Leading Role card that entire time. So whatever story, I don’t mean to start stuff, but whatever story that was, I had that card." Variety notes that it was also a shock to many that Moonlight had won Best Picture at all, though it had won more best film prizes from critics groups than La La Land. It turns out there was a second big fail on Sunday night.
– Just a week before the sequester kicked in, the TSA signed a deal to spend $50 million on new uniforms, reports Politico. The agency calls the uniforms a necessity, but for many on Capitol Hill it was just another sign of the TSA's cluelessness. "When we’re losing essential services and they’re closing down or threatening to close down all sorts of important government activities, to have them cut the deal on $50 million for uniforms is absolutely outrageous,” complains a Florida Republican. The TSA's recent announcement that it will allow small knives on flights—but still not full size shampoos and toiletries—is also angering many, including the families of people killed on 9/11, reports the AP. "I'm really disgusted by this latest news," said a woman whose firefighter son was killed at the World Trade Center. Given that the 9/11 hijacks used simple box cutters, others suspect the next rules were made more for TSA screeners' convenience than safety. The agency's employees "have a difficult time seeing these knives on X-ray screening, which lowers their performance testing rates," said a woman whose brother was pilot on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Also upset, according to the Consumerist: Air marshals and flight attendants, who are both appealing the decision. "Flight attendants are going to be sitting ducks," says a top air marshal.
– A surprisingly simple sniff test shows promise in detecting autism in kids—perhaps even in those who aren't yet toddlers because it doesn't involve responding to questions. Israeli researchers found that autistic kids don't react strongly to strong smells, of either the pleasant or unpleasant variety, reports CNN. In the experiment, they exposed 36 kids to nice scents such as roses and to awful ones such as rotting fish. Half the kids did not have autism, and they reacted they way you'd expect—they immediately inhaled more deeply on the pleasant odors and took shorter sniffs on the nasty ones. The other 18 kids, however, all of whom have autism, did not alter their breathing as rapidly, reports the New York Times. "The sense of smell is in fact a major component of human social interaction," says lead author Liron Rozenkrantz of the Weizmann Institute of Science, as quoted by HealthDay. "Given that olfaction is probably altered in autism, could it be that this is a part of the social challenge in autism?" Researchers, whose findings were published in the journal Current Biology, didn't know which kids had the diagnosis during the tests, but they were able to correctly identify those with autism 81% of the time. The average age of the kids in the study was 7, and Rozenkrantz says the next step will be to conduct long-term studies on younger children. (Parents with an age gap might have a greater risk for autistic kids.)
– When, where, how? A source close to Hillary Clinton's campaign tells the Guardian she will tell the world of her intention to run for president on Sunday at noon Eastern, on Twitter, while on her way from New York to Iowa. The Twitter announcement will be followed by a video and an email, says the source, and Iowa will be followed by visits to other early primary states. Clinton's rep wouldn't comment, but another source confirms to the Guardian that she'll soon be in Iowa. The New York Daily News also has a source saying Clinton will announce Sunday, and Reuters says "a variety of sources in the Clinton orbit" confirm an announcement is imminent, though none would pin it to Sunday. Clinton has been building up her operation and staff in Iowa while leasing space for what's thought to be her campaign headquarters in Brooklyn. Contender Rand Paul will be in Iowa today, along with former Democratic senator Jim Webb, who has launched a presidential exploratory committee. Ted Cruz, also an official presidential contender, was in the state yesterday. Marco Rubio is expected to announce his own presidential campaign Monday from Miami. Meanwhile, a recent Quinnipiac University poll that looks at Clinton's lead over potential big-name Republican contenders suggests her support is fading a bit, at least in Colorado and Iowa, but has grown in Virginia, the Washington Post reports.
– An Amtrak train making its first run on a new route derailed near Tacoma Monday morning, spilling train cars onto a busy interstate. A spokesman for the Pierce County sheriff's office initially reported six fatalities, all of them train passengers, per the Seattle Times. Officials later put the number of confirmed dead at three. Scores more were injured, including motorists. KOMO reports that nearly 80 people were taken to local hospitals, and some are in critical condition. The train derailed just before 8am local time Monday about 40 miles south of Seattle, closing all southbound lanes of Interstate 5, per the AP. The Washington Post reports 13 cars left the track. The cause remains under investigation. More on the accident: The route: Train 501 derailed on its inaugural run on a new route, having left Seattle for Portland at 6am; the trip was to take about 3.5 hours. The train was making use of a new bypass, and a local mayor had warned earlier this month about potential accidents, as recounted in this story at KOMO, though the AP notes Don Anderson suggested the most vulnerable points involved crossings where a train could strike a car or passenger. The bypass was intended to help trains avoid slow curves and single-track tunnels along the previous route.
– By AP's count, Hillary Clinton has just made US history: On Monday, the news service declared that she has captured commitments from the number of delegates needed to become the Democrats' presumptive nominee, the first woman to do so for either party. The Sanders camp, however, isn't convinced. The AP says Clinton reached the mark 2,383 delegates with a decisive weekend victory in Puerto Rico and a burst of last-minute support from superdelegates. Those are party officials and officeholders, many of them eager to wrap up the primary amid preference polls showing her in a tightening race with presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump. Clinton has 1,812 pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses. She also has the support of 571 superdelegates, according to an Associated Press count. The AP surveyed all 714 superdelegates repeatedly in the past seven months, and only 95 remain publicly uncommitted. While superdelegates will not formally cast their votes for Clinton until the party's July convention in Philadelphia, all those counted in her tally have unequivocally told the AP they will do so. A spokesman for Bernie Sanders isn't swayed by the math, reports Politico. “Secretary Clinton does not have and will not have the requisite number of pledged delegates to secure the nomination," said Michael Briggs. "She will be dependent on superdelegates who do not vote until July 25 and who can change their minds between now and then." The development comes on the eve of voting in California.
– Quentin Tarantino can now claim his own true romance. People confirms the 55-year-old director married 35-year-old Israeli singer and model Daniella Pick in a small ceremony Wednesday in Los Angeles. The two met nearly a decade ago while Tarantino was promoting Inglourious Basterds, broke up, then "reconnected" in 2015, People notes; they got engaged in June of last year. It's the first marriage for both, and a somewhat surprising one for those who've followed Tarantino: He famously said his work takes up too much of his time for him to settle down and tie the knot. "When I'm doing a movie, I'm not doing anything else," he said in a 2009 GQ interview, right around the time he met Pick. "It's all about the movie. I don't have a wife. I don't have a kid. Nothing can get in my way." He did concede, however, that "I'm not saying that I'll never get married or have a kid before I'm 60." Looks like he got in just under the wire. People has more on Pick, the daughter of Israeli singer and composer Svika Pick, who posted a picture of the happy couple on his Instagram after the nuptials. (Tarantino has expressed "regrets" about incidents with Uma Thurman.)
– Babies born via Cesarean section have a different microbiome than infants delivered naturally: For having skipped that trip down the birth canal, C-section babies lack bacteria that help the immune system recognize and accept other beneficial microbes; they may also be at an increased risk for obesity, asthma, allergies, and autism. "What we don't know is if the reason the risk is greater is because of the difference in the microbiome," UC San Diego scientist Rob Knight tells the Los Angeles Times. Knight and his team may have found a way to eliminate the risks with a simple swipe. First, they recruited 18 babies and their mothers. Next, immediately after birth, they swiped four C-section babies with gauze held in the mother's vagina. Over the next month, the microbiome of the four infants was found to be more similar to that of babies delivered vaginally than other C-section babies. They weren't identical, though. "For some taxa the transfer was essentially complete, but other taxa didn't really take," Knight says. A gastroenterologist not involved in the study tells Smithsonian that the babies' gut microbes "look much more like a C-section baby's than a vaginal birth baby's." Knight admits it's not clear how the transfer might affect the long-term health of the C-section babies, but an expert tells the New York Times the study is "extremely important" for the sole fact that it shows such a transfer is possible. Knight and his team are now planning a larger study that will follow a greater number of babies for a longer period. In the meantime, they warn that the mothers who took part in the study underwent "a number of tests to make sure it is a safe procedure … The take-home message would be don't do this at home." (C-sections are rampant in this country.)
– Relatives, neighbors, and even the chief of police are demanding answers after the fatal shooting of an Australian woman in Minneapolis Saturday night. Minneapolis Police Chief Janeé Harteau says she wants to know why a police officer fatally shot Justine Damond, and she has called for a speedy investigation, the Star Tribune reports. Damond, 40, was shot dead after her fiance says she called 911 to report a possible sexual assault near her home. The officer involved has been identified as Mohamed Noor, who joined the force in 2015 and has three complaints against him on file, reports KSTP. The two officers at the scene did not have their body cameras turned on and there are no other known witnesses to the shooting. Damond was reportedly shot in the abdomen after approaching the arriving squad car in her pajamas. Don Damond, her American fiance, said Monday that the family has been told almost nothing about the shooting. "Our hearts are broken and we are utterly devastated by the loss of Justine," he said, per the BBC. "Sadly her family and I have been provided with almost no additional information from law enforcement regarding what happened after police arrived." Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is handling the investigation, says more information will be released after it interviews Noor and partner Matthew Harrity, a community service officer who was reportedly speaking to Damond, who was due to be married in August, when she was shot. More here.
– Donald Trump tweeted overnight that eldest sons Don and Eric would run his business enterprise while he's in the White House, though, as the BBC notes, he makes no mention of what daughter Ivanka's role will be. That could suggest that she and husband Jared Kushner will have more of a focus on Trump's political policies, with Politico noting that the couple is considering a move to DC. Earlier, Trump canceled a press conference set for Thursday in which he was going to lay out details about his business operation, and his tweets said only that it would be rescheduled in the "near future." Trump reiterated that he would be "leaving his businesses" before the inauguration to focus on the presidency. "Two of my children, Don and Eric, plus executives, will manage them," he wrote. "No new deals will be done during my term(s) in office." That last line is a little puzzling, a former White House ethics adviser under George W. Bush tells the New York Times. "Is he going to continue to borrow money from foreign banks like Bank of China? That is a deal," says Richard Painter. "Or collect rent from foreign government-owned companies? That is a deal. Will he still be hiring people, or having people stay in his hotels?" One example of the complication he faces: Trump is part owner of a Vegas hotel whose employees are in a dispute with the National Labor Relations Board. As president, Trump would appoint members to the NLRB.
– Los Angeles will get another high-profile celebrity trial next summer: Real estate heir Robert Durst has agreed to be extradited from Louisiana to face charges that he murdered friend Susan Berman in 2000, reports the AP. The Durst case is convoluted, but he's the one who seemingly implicated himself in the deaths of Berman and two others by muttering to himself at the end of the HBO documentary, The Jinx. Investigators think Durst killed Berman to keep her from talking to detectives re-examining the disappearance of Durst's first wife in 1982. The 72-year-old also is suspected in the murder and dismemberment of a neighbor in Texas in 2001. Durst is being held on gun charges unrelated to those deaths. "Bob Durst didn't kill Susan Berman and doesn't know who did," his attorney tells the Los Angeles Times. "He's ready to get to California and prove his innocence."
– Now that Britain has voted to leave the European Union, EU leaders don't see any point in dragging things out. Foreign ministers from the bloc's six founding nations held an emergency meeting in Berlin Saturday and urged Britain to trigger Article 50 as soon as possible instead of leaving months of uncertainly before negotiations begin, the Guardian reports. "We have to turn the page, we don't want to create a vacuum," says Dutch foreign minister Bert Koenders. "It won't be business as usual." Prime Minister David Cameron is stepping down and he wants his successor, who might not be in place until October, to handle exit negotiations. In other developments: A petition urging the British government to hold a second referendum now has more than 1.5 million signatures, well above the 100,000 threshold that will require lawmakers to consider it. The petition calls for a do-over on the grounds that the vote in favor of a Brexit was less than 60%, based on a turnout less than 75%, the BBC reports. The New York Times looks at the rifts the British decision has opened up in the UK and across Europe. Far-right parties across Europe are now calling for referendums on leaving the EU, while a new Scottish referendum on leaving the UK now seems certain. The British vote also exposed tensions between young and old, richer and poorer, and London and much of the rest of the country. Does the Brexit victory signal electoral success for Donald Trump? The AP looks at reasons why it might not, including the fact that the US is a much more diverse nation than the UK. Scotland voted to stay in the EU, and Reuters reports that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is not only preparing for a fresh independence vote, she is seeking separate Scottish negotiations with the EU. "We will seek to enter into immediate discussions with the EU institutions and with other EU member states to explore all possible options to protect Scotland's place in the EU," she told reporters Saturday. UK Commissioner to the EU Jonathan Hill, the highest-ranking Brit in Brussels, is stepping down, the Wall Street Journal reports. "I don't believe it is right that I should carry on as the British commissioner as though nothing had happened," he said, expressing disappointment that Britain had voted against staying in the EU and pressing for an "outward-looking, flexible, competitive, free trade Europe." The Washington Post looks at the potential financial consequences of the British exit for Americans. It may make mortgages a little cheaper, for some, and will probably make vacations in the UK more affordable.
– Five Indonesian men have been trapped up a tree since Thursday, when they accidentally killed a tiger cub and were subsequently chased up the tree by Sumatran tigers. A sixth member of the group was killed by the tigers, the BBC reports. The group was in a national park looking for agarwood, a rare wood used to make incense, which can be sold for around $505 a kilogram. They were trying to trap deer for food, but one of the traps caught a tiger cub instead; adult tigers came to investigate and attacked the men. Those who escaped up the tree used cellphones to call for help. Local villagers tried to rescue them, but were scared off by the four large tigers still circling the tree. Thirty members of a search and rescue team arrived at the Gunung Leuser jungle Saturday, but the police chief says it could take as long as three days for the team to reach the men. "If the tigers remain under the tree, we may have to shoot or sedate them," he adds. (The Jakarta Globe indicates he's talking about shooting them with an anesthetic.) Another group had to be rescued from a similar situation recently.
– Twenty-two migrants—many of them children—drowned in two boat accidents Thursday and Friday in Greece's Aegean Sea, the BBC reports. According to NBC News, the fatal shipwrecks are part of a particularly deadly three-day stretch in Greece, with more than 50 migrants and refugees dying in the Aegean Sea. The worst accident came shortly before midnight Thursday, when 19 migrants were killed and another 138 rescued when their boat broke up near the Greek island of Kalymnos. A second accident Friday near the Greek island of Rhodes left at least three dead, CNN reports. Greek prime minister Alex Tsipras says he's ashamed of the response to the migrant crisis from European leaders, who need to stop passing off responsibility while people die, the BBC reports. Another 29 migrants drowned off the coast of Lesbos late Wednesday, according to the AP. Tsipras accused European leaders of crying "crocodile tears" for the migrant and refugee children drowning in Greek waters, NBC reports. "The waves of the Aegean are not just washing up dead refugees, dead children, but [also] the very civilization of Europe," he says. According to the BBC, the UN estimates 700,000 migrants—most of them refugees from the war in Syria—have crossed into Europe by boat this year.
– Twelve people are missing after two US military helicopters collided off the coast of Hawaii's Oahu island, reports ABC News. Coast Guard and Navy search teams have spotted the debris field—including an empty life raft—about 2 miles off the coast, reports the network and CNN. The first call of the crash came in at 11:38pm Thursday, and each of the helicopters had six people aboard.
– When President Trump called for an investigation into voter fraud Wednesday morning, he tweeted that it would include people registered to vote in two states. He might want to have a talk with top adviser Steve Bannon: The Guardian reports that Bannon is still registered in both Florida and New York. Bannon voted for Trump in New York, listing his rented apartment in Manhattan for an address. However, state records in Florida show that he remains registered there, too, with his given address the home of Breitbart News friend Andy Badolato in Sarasota County. The newspaper points out that it's not illegal to be registered in two states, only to vote in two states. "Now, no one is suggesting Bannon has knowingly broken the law or committed voter fraud," writes Chris Anderson at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. "This whole thing is probably a misunderstanding." But he notes a "strange pattern," given that Bannon had been registered in a different Florida county, Dade, before shifting to Sarasota. It doesn't appear that he voted in either locale, reports the Miami Herald. An anti-Trump group called Avaaz previously filed a complaint with the state because it suspected Bannon never lived at the Sarasota address, but the state dismissed it, saying the allegations "are neither factually sufficient or do not set out an incident of 'election fraud' as defined."
– Pope Francis made headlines last year when he said that he would like a "poor church, and for the poor." Now, after a man declined an invitation to dine with a bishop because, the man said simply, "puzzo"—or "I smell"—the pope is installing three public showers at St. Peter's Square to allow the homeless and any pilgrim or visitor to wash themselves or their clothes. Konrad Krajewski, a Polish bishop who's in charge of delivering charity to the poor, was apparently strolling down the Via della Conciliazione after hearing confessions in the Church of the Holy Spirit when he crossed paths with a homeless man. "He told me that he was turning 50 that day and that he had been living on the street for 10 years," the bishop, affectionately called "Father Konrad," tells Italian newspaper La Stampa. Though the man initially declined an invitation to dinner, the two eventually talked over Chinese food, and the man said that while he found Rome to be good about feeding the hungry, it was difficult to find a place to wash. The pope gave Konrad the go-ahead to add showers, and a construction firm volunteered to install them, including one just feet from the pope's apartment. Tenor Andrea Bocelli also pitched in with a "substantial" donation, reports ABC News. As for whether the well-heeled dislike sharing toilets with the homeless, the bishop says, "The Basilica exists in order to keep the Body of Christ, and we serve Jesus' suffering body by serving the poor." (See why Pope Francis also recently called for the end of life sentences.)
– Boko Haram appears to have taken aim at World Cup soccer fans in Nigeria. A suicide bomber triggered a blast at an open-air viewing center in the northeast city of Damaturu, reports AFP. The AP has the death toll in the immediate aftermath at "several people," but it's expected to rise given the number of casualties being brought to local hospitals. Boko Haram has set off deadly bombs at two other sports-related venues in the last several weeks, prompting authorities in some locales to close their World Cup viewing centers, reports the BBC. Leader Abubakar Shekau views the sport as a distraction from religion.
– Sounds like Alec Baldwin will soon have a regular outlet for his political views. An unnamed insider tells Mediaite that Baldwin is set to host a politically-focused MSNBC show on Fridays at 10pm. The channel hasn't confirmed the news, though the source says it's a certainty. The show would take the slot currently held by prison documentary Lockup. Baldwin has flirted with hosting at MSNBC before: He read teasers for Lawrence O'Donnell last year, the Los Angeles Times noted at the time. Meanwhile, some (also unconfirmed) changes at an MSNBC rival: Fox News host Megyn Kelly will be taking over the channel's 9pm slot, which is currently occupied by Sean Hannity. It's the first prime-time schedule change at Fox News in a decade, reports the Drudge Report, which broke the Kelly news. In an interview, the channel's chairman and CEO, Roger Ailes, wouldn't confirm or deny what he called a rumor—but he did say that "all of our stars will be back," Mediabistro reports.
– Gabrielle Giffords was moved from the Houston hospital where she's been recuperating to a nearby rehabilitation facility today, after her condition was upgraded from serious to good. Police halted traffic along the route, and construction workers draped tarps around one of the rehab center's entrances to obscure Giffords' arrival, the Houston Chronicle reports. Doctors say Giffords has made "strong progress" since arriving at the intensive care unit on Friday. Last night her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, watched President Obama's State of the Union speech from Giffords' bedside, holding his wife's hand, the Los Angeles Times reports. Arizona's congressional delegation left a seat empty in tribute to their injured colleague and most lawmakers in attendance wore black-and-white lapel ribbons in memory of the victims of the Tucson shootings.
– Smartphones can create a quandary for journalists, humanitarians, and activists in dangerous places where they are closely monitored: The devices are vital in terms of facilitating their work—and also exceptional tracking devices. It's not a plight to be taken lightly, as the Intercept makes clear with this example: A lawsuit filed by journalist Marie Colvin's family claims Syrian military intelligence used signal interception technology to trace her via her phone and bomb her makeshift media center, killing her. Whistleblower Edward Snowden, who says he hasn't been able to use a smartphone since leaking those NSA docs in 2013, intends to alter that paradigm. On Thursday he presented research via teleconference from an undisclosed location in Russia on what the Boston Globe has dubbed a "smartphone spy catcher." As the Intercept explains, a phone's cellular, Bluetooth, wifi, and GPS radios can betray a user, and the easiest way to shut down those radios—switch to airplane mode—can be rendered useless, without the user's knowledge, by malware. Snowden's partner, hardware hacker Andrew "Bunnie" Huang, says it's best to always "assume the phone is compromised," reports Wired, and their goal is to create a device that reveals whether this is the case. Though they say a prototype (for the iPhone 6) is at least a year away, their so-called "introspection engine" will be a tiny open-source computer that looks like an external battery, affixes to a smartphone, and displays radio statuses on a screen. If a status is compromised, the pair suggest an alarm could sound; the device could potentially even then activate a "kill switch."
– A long-dormant satellite is heading back toward Earth this summer after 31 years, and some "citizen scientists" want to try to wake it up and put it back to work, reports Motherboard. Cash-strapped NASA hasn't shown much interest in investing money in the idea, hence the move toward crowdfunding to get the job done. The plan revolves around a satellite launched by NASA in 1978 called the International Sun-Earth Explorer, or ISEE-3. It was supposed to permanently hang out in the orbit between the sun and Earth to monitor solar wind, but another team at NASA sort of hijacked the satellite five years later to go comet-hunting. While ISEE-3 did great in its new duty, it had to leave its old orbit to do so and has been looping around the sun ever since. But the spacecraft makes a swing by Earth in August, raising the opportunity for its reboot—assuming all the technical logistics can be addressed. "In order to interact with the spacecraft we will need to locate the original commands and then develop a software recreation of the original hardware that was used to communicate with the spacecraft," explains that crowdfunding plea at Rockethub. A blog post at Planetary.org lays out the difficulties. Still, it's worth a shot, concludes Ben Richmond at Motherboard. "Given NASA's success rate at using spacecraft beyond their mission—the Voyagers, Kepler, etc— why not try to wake up the ISEE-3 and see what it's got left?"
– China said Monday it is sending an envoy to the United States this week for talks aimed at cooling a trade dispute that threatens to upend markets from soy beans to steel, and welcomed comments by President Trump hinting at a possible easing of sanctions on embattled Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE. The Foreign Ministry says Vice Premier Liu He will visit the US from Tuesday to Saturday for consultations with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. Ministry spokesman Lu Kang also said China appreciated tweets by Trump saying he would help ZTE Corp. get "back into business" because too many jobs in China are at stake after the US government cut off access to its American suppliers. Liu's trip to Washington follows a visit by Mnuchin and other US officials to Beijing earlier this month, where they conveyed a demand that China slash its trade surplus with the US by $200 billion by the end of 2020, the AP reports. An intensifying rivalry over advanced technology has also fueled demands by Washington that China give up policies that favor domestic companies. Beijing considers such programs as fundamental to its state-driven economic model and vital for its future growth. America's trade deficit with China amounted last year to $337 billion in goods and services.
– Here's one good reason to sweat it out in the sauna on your next visit to the gym: It could reduce your risk of dementia. In the first study of its kind, Finnish researchers found that men who used a sauna four to seven times a week were 66% less likely to be diagnosed with dementia. Writing in the journal Age and Ageing, researchers said more study is needed to figure out the link between sauna bathing and memory. "It is known that cardiovascular health affects the brain as well," says lead author Jari Laukkanen, per Science Daily. "The sense of well-being and relaxation experienced during sauna bathing may also play a role." Researchers at the University of Eastern Finland divided 2,300 men between 42 and 60 years old into three groups: those who used a sauna once a week, two to three times a week, and four to seven times a week. Not only were the frequent users 66% less likely to be troubled with any form of dementia, they were 65% less likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Average temperatures in the sauna hovered around 174 degrees Fahrenheit. The men were followed for more than 20 years as part of the Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study, which has produced valuable research over the years, including last year's findings that higher egg consumption lowered the risk of type 2 diabetes. (Previous research from the same long-term study suggests the sauna can help you live longer.)
– The next time you tap out the letters OMG, take a moment to give a nod to British Admiral John Arbuthnot Fisher. The now-ubiquitous abbreviation may have first appeared in his correspondence with Winston Churchill back in 1917, reports io9.com by way of Letters of Note. It located the letter in question, in which Fisher wrote, "I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis—O.M.G. (Oh! My God!)—Shower it on the Admiralty!!" (Click to read about a more recent milestone for the abbreviation.)
– Twenty Phoenix-area men were indicted yesterday on charges of buying more than 700 guns—including AK-47 assault rifles—and conspiring to smuggle them to Mexican drug gangs. The accused acted as "straw purchasers," claiming that the weapons they bought were for their own use, when in fact they were going to a Mexican drug cartel, wrote the prosecutor. The Los Angeles Times reports that while there are no licensed gun dealers among those charged, the indictments do reveal a number of dealers that sold guns in large quantities to a single individual in a single day. In one instance, a Glendale, Ariz., dealer sold one of the defendants 26 AK-47 rifles on March 26; 10 on June 2; 16 on July 8; and 12 on Aug. 5—among other weapons. "The massive size of this operation sadly exemplifies the magnitude of the problem—Mexican drug lords go shopping for weapons of war in Arizona," read the prosecutor's statement. The indictment comes a day after Hillary Clinton visited Mexico and expressed support for its fight against the drug cartels, reports the BBC.
– When you're 2 years old, getting stuck in a pair of pants seems like an emergency—which explains one needless yet adorable 911 call in Greenville, SC, on Wednesday. Police received a report of a 911 call in which a child could be heard babbling on the other end of the line. But when Deputy Martha Lohnes arrived at the home to investigate, 2-year-old Aaliyah came "running out to the front with half a pant leg on and she's just like, 'Hey,'" Lohnes tells WSPA. The girl had apparently called because she needed help getting dressed. So Lohnes helped her out. "Then it was almost like a reward, she just wanted a hug." "Then she wouldn't let any of the police leave because she wanted hugs," adds mom Pebbles Ryan, who received a call about the incident while at work. Pebbles says she had shown Aaliyah how to call 911 in an emergency but had never expected she'd call about a fashion emergency. The little girl, who was in the care of her grandfather, had made the call without his knowledge, leaving him "completely bewildered," reports the Washington Post. But for Lohnes, "that would be the best part of my shift," she says on Facebook, per Fox Carolina. "Within the busy shift of answering call after call, just one like this will totally make your day as a deputy," the Greenville County Sheriff's Office adds. (A woman called 911 to complain about Chinese food.)
– A medieval ship believed to have been sunk deliberately some 600 years ago was pulled nearly intact from a Dutch River on Feb. 10, the NL Times reports. It's a "fantastic achievement," the project lead tells Live Science, which was the culmination of three years of meticulous planning, including building a platform and a crane and suctioning debris from the ship's frame. "The shipwreck can become a symbol of our rich maritime history, and I fully expect many people, both young and old, to be amazed by and start enjoying this ship," he says. The 65-foot, 55-ton ship was discovered in 2012 during efforts to widen the flow of the Ijssel River. It is a ship known as a cog, which were used for international trade voyages in the late medieval period, per Live Science. While the vessel was stripped down before it was sunk, researchers did find a brick oven and glazed tiles in its galley. A barge and punt (a small boat) of the same period also were found on the riverbed. Researchers believe the watercraft were sunk purposely to divert the flow of the river and improve sea traffic. Now, the ship will be transported to a preservation facility in Leylstad, where it may take as long as three years to dry out. The hope is to eventually put the ship in a museum. But there is a possibility that the drying process won't work, in which case, Live Science notes, it will be studied then destroyed. (This shipwreck yielded a condiment once popular in the Roman empire.)
– In the not-so-surprising department, the charity at the center of the Penn State rape allegations may shut down. The chief of Second Mile tells the New York Times that the charity is looking into how to transfer its money to other nonprofits that help disadvantage kids. He later tempered that by saying the organization was reaching out to its major donors to see whether there was any way to salvage it. "Look, we're facing an uphill battle, but we want these programs to survive," David Woodle the the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "If we just don't have any support, they may have to go away, but we're working hard to make sure that doesn't happen." Jerry Sandusky founded the charity in 1977 and had been the group's main fundraiser until he resigned in September 2010. Authorities say he used it to groom his victims, and Second Mile officials were reportedly notified of concerns about Sandusky's behavior in 2002. The charity has hired an outside law firm to investigate its handling of the case, and the inquiry is being led by former Philadelphia DA Lynne Abraham.
– Not only are Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher reportedly engaged ... they're also expecting a baby, according to sources who talked to Us, E!, People, and Gossip Cop. They say Kunis is pregnant—with just one child, not twins, as was rumored last week. Need more proof? She was reportedly seen at a Hollywood prenatal yoga class. "They are both very, very happy," says one source. "It’s still early." Another adds, "This is something they both wanted."
– Hip-hop lost a huge figure today, even if he's not a household name. Manager Chris Lighty apparently shot himself at his Brooklyn apartment after an argument with his ex-wife, reports the Daily News. The 44-year-old had managed the likes of 50 Cent, Sean "Diddy" Combs, and Mariah Carey, though he was apparently in deep debt to the IRS, police sources tell the newspaper. Before starting his own company, Violator, he had worked with LL Cool J and other hip-hop pioneers. The AP rounds up reaction from big names in the industry, including 50 Cent: "Chris has been an important part of my business and personal growth for a decade," he wrote in a statement. "He was a good friend and advisor who helped me develop as an artist and businessman." Fat Joe tweeted: "R.I.P. Chris Lighty. The man that saved my life!" As did Rihanna: "Rest peacefully Chris Lighty, my prayers go out to family and loved ones! Dear God please have mercy."
– As US voters and legislators are snipping workers' benefits, a nation on the other side of the pond is taking a different approach. France's new socialist president, François Hollande, is lowering the minimum retirement age by two years, reports the Telegraph. Those who begin work at the age of 18 and pay enough into the pension system can now retire with benefits at the age of 60. The move fulfills a campaign promise, and reverses the work of Nicolas Sarkozy, who raised the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62, sparking a storm of national protests. Hollande cited "social justice" as the reason for the move, which runs counter to austerity measures being taken by much of Europe. Hollande announced the change just as unemployment in France hit 10% for the first quarter—the highest in 12 years. The expected $1.37 billion cost of extra pensions is to be covered by more payroll fees for employers and workers. The leftist CGT union hailed the move, which will take effect in November, as a "striking decision that breaks with policies everywhere in Europe." The leading business lobby blasted it as "worrying for the financial future of the pension systems and for the competitiveness of businesses." France used to have one of the highest retirement ages in Europe—65. It was cut by François Mitterand to 60 in 1982, notes the AP. Pension costs are high in France, particularly because the French have one of the highest life expectancies in the world: 85 for women, and 78 for men.
– The disturbing murder of a couple in Florida is just the latest case linked to flakka to make headlines recently—but what is flakka? Also known as Alpha-PVP or "gravel," the drug looks like tiny white or pink stones—like those you might find at the bottom of a fish tank, reports Hollywood Life—and is similar to amphetamines and bath salts, running $3 to $5 per dose. If snorted, injected, eaten, or smoked, the drug can boost body temperature and cause a heart attack, kidney damage, or kidney failure. But that's nothing compared to what it does to your brain. The drug throws dopamine and serotonin—the neurotransmitters that regulate mood—out of whack, leading to hallucinations, hyperstimulation, aggression, and paranoia. The paranoia can last for months, though the high from flakka lasts only a few hours, reports Fox 25. Cannibalism and increased strength have also been reported in several cases; police say Austin Harrouff was found chewing on the face of one of his alleged murder victims on Monday, and it took a stun gun, a police dog, and several officers to detain him. Click for the more on the drug here.
– It's a tough night to be a Yankees fan. The Detroit Tigers thumped the Yanks 8-1 tonight to sweep the ALCS and advance to the World Series. How bad was it? The Yankees not only failed to win a game, they never even led one, points out the New York Times. "Mowed Down in Motown," says the headline in the New York Post, which notes that this is the first postseason sweep of the Yankees since 1976. "Motown and Out!" says the Daily News, whose story pronounces the sweep "embarrassing." Maybe worse than the hometown abuse is Tom Gage's line in the Detroit News that the Tigers "stepped over the pebble-sized obstacle the Yankees proved to be." The Tigers will face the winner of the Giants-Cardinals series, and Bleacher Report has plenty more on that series as well the Tigers-Yankees here.
– These are tense times, so it's no surprise that reports of shots fired at New York City's JFK Airport caused chaos Sunday night: Two terminals were evacuated, an NYPD anti-terror unit rushed to the airport, and flights were stopped on the ground or diverted after shots were reported at around 9:30pm, the New York Daily News reports. But authorities found no evidence that any shots had been fired, and a police source tells NBC New York that the alarm may have been raised when a woman coming off a plane mistook cheering, shouting, and banging from people watching the Olympics as a fight and gunshots. Witnesses described scenes of panic as the order to evacuate the terminals was given and even TSA staff began to run. Police sources say a few other reports of gunshots came in around the same time—which matches up with the time Usain Bolt won an amazing third Olympic gold in the 100 meters. "At this time, no firearm, rounds, shell casings, or other evidence of shots fired has been found," a Port Authority spokesman told reporters early Monday. The Guardian reports that after travel delays for thousands of people, officials gave the all-clear and flights from JFK resumed around midnight.
– It's not clear what Vladimir Putin might be up to, but reports of a possible Russian sub spotted off Sweden are now followed by those of NATO, which says it yesterday intercepted at least 19 Russian fighter jets and bombers flying in three separate directions outside Russian airspace. Eight of the planes flew in formation from Russian airspace toward the Norwegian Sea, ABC News reports. Six turned back when intercepted by Norwegian air force F-16s, but two bombers continued on above Norway's coast to the Atlantic Ocean. They were eventually intercepted by British planes and tracked by F-16s from Portugal, Reuters reports. Four Russian planes over the Black Sea were tracked by Turkish air force jets, while at least seven other planes were intercepted over the Baltic Sea for the second day in a row yesterday. While the planes didn't violate NATO airspace, the flights "represent an unusual level of air activity over European airspace" and "such flights pose a potential risk to civil aviation given that the Russian military often do not file flight plans, or use their on-board transponders," says NATO, which has performed more than 100 intercepts of Russian aircraft this year—three times more than in 2013. "We see Russian aircraft near our airspace on a regular basis, but what was unusual is that it was a large number of aircraft and pushed further south than we normally see," a Norwegian military rep adds. A NATO official tells CNN the flights may indicate the start of unannounced Russian air exercises. (Russia is also suspected of hacking the White House.)
– Tom Cruise is here today to talk to you about ... your TV settings. The actor (wearing his Top Gun: Maverick gear) filmed a PSA with director Chris McQuarrie about a feature of high-definition TVs called video interpolation or motion smoothing. It's meant to reduce motion blur when you're watching sports, but if you're watching a movie, it makes everything look ... weird. "Many people can't quite put their finger on why the movie they're watching looks strange," McQuarrie says in the video; people often refer to it as "the soap opera effect." Ars Technica explains it thusly: "Your Hollywood blockbuster movie will look like a 1970s BBC TV series." (The site has a great explainer if you want the nitty-gritty on how it works.) Cruise's plea: To make sure you're watching a movie the way the filmmaker intended, turn the setting off. The problem? Most high-def TVs come with the feature automatically turned on, and it can take a series of complicated steps to turn it off. Directors called out the same setting last year, with one noting a common series of steps: "MENU>PICTURE>ADVANCED CONTROLS>REALITY AUGMENTATION>MOTION LIQUIDITY>FLUID FRAME RESTORATION." Cruise and McQuarrie's recommendation? Just search online for "turn off motion smoothing [your brand of TV here]" and then follow the steps. People are loving the PSA: "You're doing god's work, Tom Cruise," reads one sample tweet. And at Hot Air, Allahpundit writes, "This is simultaneously the most trivial, and most useful, PSA to come out of Hollywood in decades."
– It was the kiss seen 'round the world: Russian runners Ksenia Ryzhova and Yulia Guschina seemed to touch lips twice while kissing each other on the cheek on Saturday, first after managing to beat the US team to take gold in the 400m relay at the World Athletics Championships, then again on the winners podium. Speculation erupted: The blatant kisses were a protest against Russia's anti-gay law! Now the women have spoken. Ryzhova tells the Guardian it had nothing to do with gay rights (and didn't share her thoughts on the subject). What the women focused on in their comments was the "sick fantasies" borne from their moment of joy. Says Ryzhova: "Both me and Yulia are married. If anyone cares, unfortunately, we have no relationship ... We haven't won gold for eight years and you cannot imagine what it was like when we won. If we touched our lips by accident while celebrating, then, I am sorry to say, it is someone's sick fantasies. It is not at all nice to insult us, our coaches and our bosses like that." Adds Guschina: "I guess people who think that are not quite right in the head."
– Vladimir Putin has talked about a great many subjects lately, and artificial intelligence is one of them. The Verge reported that on Friday the Russian president had this to say to students he was speaking to: "Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind. ... Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world." Elon Musk took notice. He first tweeted, "It begins," along with a link to the Verge article, and followed it up with a darker pronouncement. "China, Russia, soon all countries w strong computer science. Competition for AI superiority at national level most likely cause of WW3 imo." The Guardian's take: "The prospect clearly weighs heavily on Musk’s mind, since the SpaceX, Tesla and Boring Company chief tweeted at 2.33am Los Angeles time." Musk continued tweeting on the subject through a series of replies, writing WWIII "may be initiated not by the country leaders, but one of the AI's, if it decides that a prepemptive [sic] strike is most probable path to victory." And also: "Govts don't need to follow normal laws. They will obtain AI developed by companies at gunpoint, if necessary." He also brushed off concerns over the situation with North Korea, recommending that it "be low on our list of concerns for civilizational existential risk. NK has no entangling alliances that wd polarize world into war." Further, he sees a nuke launch as "suicide" for Kim Jong Un as the US and other powers would swoop in and end the regime.
– A woman has died hours after being dug out of an avalanche in Washington state yesterday, the Seattle Times reports. The woman was pulled alive from beneath five feet of snow by fellow hikers on a mountain near Snoqualmie Pass in the Cascade Mountains. Rescuers hiked two-and-a-half hours in blizzard-like conditions to find her, but it took another six hours to pull her off the mountain, and she was pronounced dead at the base, the Washington Post reports. The "horrific" conditions forced rescuers to indefinitely suspend the search for another hiker, missing yesterday after a separate avalanche in the same area. The 60-year-old man and two fellow snowshoers, both in their thirties, were flung over 1,200 feet down a mountain. The two younger men made it out injured but alive, but a team of about 50 rescuers could not locate their companion.
– The Chicago Cubs fired one of their two DJs for what they called an "irresponsible" choice of song—one that was apparently aimed at pitcher Aroldis Chapman, who joined the team in July. After Chapman left the mound in the ninth inning of Sunday's game against the St. Louis Cardinals, the DJ played "Smack My Bitch Up" by the Prodigy, the Chicago Tribune reports. Chapman was accused of choking his girlfriend and firing eight bullets in his garage and while no charges were filed over the 2015 incident, Major League Baseball suspended him for 30 games after he was traded to the New York Yankees later that year. "We apologize for the irresponsible music selection during our game last night," Cubs President said in a statement Monday, per NBC Chicago. "The selection of this track showed a lack of judgment and sensitivity to an important issue. We have terminated our relationship with the employee responsible for making the selection and will be implementing stronger controls to review and approve music before public broadcast during our games.” The Tribune reports that the Cubs have declined to release the name of the DJ, who is one of two who were hired after new video boards were installed in 2015.
– The women who anonymously contributed to a list of men in media accused of sexual misconduct could have their identities revealed if writer Stephen Elliott gets his way. He's one of 74 males included in the Google spreadsheet "S---ty Media Men" that circulated last October, and he filed a lawsuit Wednesday against its creator, Moira Donegan, alleging libel and emotional distress. He's seeking at least $1.5 million in damages and wants to sue anonymous contributors, too, reports The Cut. The lawsuit, describing Elliott's plan to subpoena Google metadata in order to obtain information that could identify contributors, refers to allegations of rape, coercion, and "unsolicited invitations to his apartment" as "wholly unsubstantiated" and "intentionally misleading," per the New York Times. Elliott denied the allegations in an essay late last month. "I don't like intercourse, I don't like penetrating people with objects, and I don't like receiving oral sex," he wrote, adding the allegations made him return to drugs. They "derailed my life," he said, though he acknowledged the spreadsheet was closed after 12 hours and included a disclaimer: "This document is only a collection of misconduct allegations and rumors. Take everything with a grain of salt." ("Nobody did," he wrote.) A former coworker responded to that essay on Twitter, claiming she once "hid under a table" as Elliott "hounded" her to visit his hotel room. "Later you grabbed me under the guise of taking money from mug sales out of my back pocket," she wrote. (Donegan recently spoke out about Jian Ghomeshi's return to the spotlight.)
– A woman accused of taking part in an online hate campaign against the parents of missing girl Madeleine McCann has been found dead days after she was confronted by a reporter. Brenda Leyland, a 63-year-old described by the Daily Mail as a "church-going mother," was found in a hotel room about 15 miles from her home in Leicestershire, England, Saturday, and police say they're not treating the death as suspicious. Leyland was identified last week as one of dozens of people who had abused Kate and Gerry McCann online, and when a Sky News reporter confronted her and told her evidence had been passed to the police, she said she was "entitled" to send messages attacking them, reports the Guardian. Under the Twitter name "sweepyface," Leyland accused the McCanns of being involved in the disappearance of their 3-year-old daughter, who vanished in Portugal in 2007, and said they deserved to suffer "for the rest of their miserable lives." Last week, Gerry McCann told the BBC that "something needs to be done about the abuse on the Internet" and "I think we probably need more people charged." He said that he and Kate find online comments directed at them too upsetting to read, and that he has "grave concerns" about what will happen when their twins, now 9 years old, start using the Internet as they get older. Click for the latest in the search for Maddy.
– The massive ransomware attack still reverberating around the world is the kind of thing that is going to keep happening unless rules like those governing conventional warfare are brought in for cyberspace, Microsoft says. Microsoft president Brad Smith warned in a blog post Sunday that the "stockpiling of vulnerabilities by governments" has once again caused enormous damage, USA Today reports. Smith says the "WannaCrypt" attack, also known as "WannaCry," was created with data stolen from the NSA, which had used a vulnerability it found to create cyberweapons. The equivalent scenario with conventional weapons would be the "US military having some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen," Smith said. "The governments of the world should treat this attack as a wake-up call," Smith wrote, repeating the company's call for a digital Geneva Convention. Microsoft issued a patch after the theft was discovered in March, but it was not issued to people and organizations using older versions of its system. More than 200,000 computers in 150 countries have been affected and the AP reports that there were thousands more cases early Monday as people got back to work after the weekend and booted up infected computers. The ransomware is demanding $300 to unlock user's files. The BBC says its analysis of accounts linked to the attack found that around $38,000 had been paid by early Monday.
– ISIS released a video Wednesday it claims shows a Russian jihadist beheading a Russian spy, NBC News reports. In the video—titled "You Shall be Disappointed and Humiliated O Russians"—the victim identifies himself as Magomed Khasiyev from the Chechen Republic. According to Arutz Sheva, the 23-year-old admits in the video to spying on ISIS to give the Russian government information on the more than 600 Russian citizens who have joined the terrorist organization. In the video, Khasiyev claims he was pressured into working for the Russian Foreign Ministry's security service, the AP reports. The beheading appears to be in retaliation for Russia's bombing campaign in Syria. NBC reports the executioner says in the video—while speaking Russian—that airstrikes "have done nothing but kill peaceful Muslims." He goes on to threaten both Putin and Russian citizens with further attacks, according to Arutz Sheva. "You will not find peace in your homes," CNN quotes the executioner in the video. "We will kill your sons … for each son you killed here. And we will destroy your homes for each home you destroyed here." The video has not been authenticated, nor has there been any confirmation the victim was actually a spy.
– The reviews are in for Slender Man, the faceless character's jump from the Internet to the big screen thanks to Sony Pictures and director Sylvain White, and they're nearly universally awful. Four zingers summing up critics' 11% rating on Rotten Tomatoes: "Perhaps that's one way to kill off Slender Man: make his story so dull that no one cares," writes Adam Graham at Detroit News. Bill Goodykoontz at the Arizona Republic notes "Slender Man bravely goes against the well-established notion that scary movies should be scary." "Slender Man is a fundamentally derivative and empty-headed horror film," is how Owen Gleiberman puts it at Variety. Glenn Kenny at the New York Times calls it "the most perfunctory horror picture I've seen in some time. It's not even worth making a 'thin gruel' joke about."
– Murder charges have been filed in a police shooting that sparked angry demonstrations in Albuquerque, NM, last year. Former Albuquerque police Detective Keith Sandy and SWAT team member Dominique Perez have been charged in the death of 38-year-old James Boyd, a mentally ill homeless man who was fatally shot after an hourslong standoff in the city's foothills last March, reports the Albuquerque Journal. Helmet camera video is expected to play a major role in the case. Video from an officer's camera appears to show Boyd, who was suspected of illegal camping, trying to surrender, but police say he was "unpredictably and dangerously close to a defenseless officer while he was wielding two knives," the AP reports. The district attorney says she decided to file charges via a process called criminal information instead of going to a grand jury because she wanted "total transparency" in the case, reports the New York Times. "Unlike Ferguson and New York City, people will see the evidence and hear the witnesses," she says. The murder charges are open, giving prosecutors the option of pursuing manslaughter or first- or second-degree murder charges if a judge decides there's enough evidence. The president of New Mexico's Fraternal Order of Police says the charges are part of a national trend to distrust police and "it is time to stop second-guessing police officers," although a federal probe that began before the Boyd shooting found that Albuquerque police had a pattern of using "excessive and deadly force."
– The answer to the question "Who betrayed Anne Frank" may be "Nobody," according to new research. A study released by the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam says that the hiding place of the Jewish teenager and her family may instead have been found by chance when Nazi security forces raided the building to investigate fraudulent food-ration cards or illegal employment, the BBC reports. The study, which counts police documents and Anne's famous diary among its sources, found that the German "Sicherheitsdienst" police that discovered the family usually investigated cases involving cash and securities, not hidden Jews, and they spent much longer at the Amsterdam building during the Aug. 4, 1944, raid than usually happened in cases like the arrest of the Frank family. "During their day-to-day activities, investigators from this department often came across Jews in hiding by chance," according to the study, which notes that there is no evidence that an anonymous phone call long thought to have betrayed the family actually happened. The study notes that two men who worked in the building were arrested earlier in 1944 for dealing in illegal ration cards, and Anne wrote about the arrest in her diary, the AP reports. There is also evidence that the German occupiers had been investigating people working at the address when they should have been sent for forced labor elsewhere. It is still possible that Anne, who died in the Bergen-Belsen camp in 1945, was betrayed, but the study "illustrates that other scenarios should also be considered," says Ronald Leopold, the museum's director. (The winning bid for this Anne Frank poem stunned auctioneers.)
– We're getting a look at the face of a man who lived 4,500 years ago, thanks to a visual reconstruction by scientists, reports Live Science. Forensic specialists at Liverpool John Moores University, known as Face Lab, were commissioned by the Buxton Museum to digitally re-create the face of a man whose remains were excavated in England in the 1930s and 1980s. They 3D scanned every facial bone available and assembled them on a computer screen like a "jigsaw puzzle," one of the researchers says. Though the team had to blur parts of the man's face where bones were missing, they call the end result "quite striking" and hope it will help people today feel more connected to our ancestors, as one museum rep puts it, "as people rather than a set of bones and hopefully make them interested in the way that they lived." The man's remains were dug up at a burial mound in Derbyshire, and were stored at the Buxton Museum, reports Archaeology. He was buried with a beaker-like pot and a stone pendant likely worn on his neck. Scientists say that he was 5 feet 7 inches tall, had a fracture in his left elbow that "healed poorly," and died of unknown causes between the ages of 25 and 30. The Face Lab team is now working on reconstructing the face of a 2,700-year-old female Egyptian mummy called Ta-Kesh. (The lab reconstructed the face of Robert the Bruce last year.)
– It's a project scientists say Leonardo da Vinci would have loved. Researchers plan to sequence the DNA of the Renaissance genius to discover more about his amazing abilities, and possibly even what he really looked like, the Independent reports. Da Vinci, however, wasn't trapped in amber Jurassic Park-style, so the team is going to have to do a lot of work to track down usable samples of DNA. His remains are believed to be in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert at the Chateau d'Amboise, France, but the exact location is unknown and the researchers will need to test da Vinci relatives, as well as get permission to search for his bones, the Telegraph reports. Another source of what is being called "the real da Vinci" code could be skin cells left in his artwork. The scientists are to look for DNA in the "Adoration of the Magi" painting, which is currently being restored. They may also speak to owners of his journals, including Bill Gates and Queen Elizabeth II. They hope the project will lead to advances in extracting DNA from old fingerprints and similar sources—and they plan to have findings to unveil by 2019, which will be the 500th anniversary of the master's death. "Everyone in the group believes that Leonardo, who devoted himself to advancing art and science, who delighted in puzzles, and whose diverse talents and insights continue to enrich society five centuries after his passing, would welcome the initiative of this team—indeed would likely wish to lead it were he alive today," says Leonardo Project spokesman Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller University. (Other researchers have managed to track down dozens of people they believe are living descendants of da Vinci.)
– Buckingham Palace is busy doing a little damage control, which has eyebrows at media outlets including the New York Times and the AP raised because it doesn't usually bother. At issue is Prince Andrew, his ties to American billionaire/registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and whether Queen Elizabeth's second son had sex with an underage girl named as "Jane Doe Number 3" in a lawsuit filed last week in Florida. The woman, who is being named by the Daily Mail, claims that Epstein forced her to have sex with men including the Duke of York in London, New York, and on Epstein's private Caribbean island between 1999 and 2002, beginning when she was just 17. Also named is Harvard law prof Alan Dershowitz, who yesterday "categorically and unequivocally" denied all allegations. "This relates to longstanding and ongoing civil proceedings in the United States, to which The Duke of York is not a party," said the palace statement. "As such we would not comment on the detail. However, for the avoidance of doubt, any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue." Andrew himself is cutting short a ski vacation to return and address the allegations, reports the Daily Mail, which notes that the royal may have immunity from prosecution stemming from Epstein's 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution. Andrew resigned as UK trade envoy in 2011 over his ties to Epstein.
– Twitter employees have had a chaotic go of it over the past few weeks: first the shakeup of co-founder Jack Dorsey coming on board permanently as CEO, then an unpleasant round of layoffs that purged 8% of the company's staff. Brighter news, however, has since come down their feeds, Fortune reports. "I'm giving ~1/3rd of my Twitter stock (exactly 1% of the company) to our employee equity pool to reinvest directly in our people," he tweeted Thursday evening, when he also held a staff meeting to make his announcement, per the New York Times. Using his 22 million shares as the baseline, that percentage amounts to about 7 million shares, worth roughly $200 million, dumped into the worker's equity base, Fortune notes. Those shares can then be granted to new hires, as a bonus, or as other incentives. Why exactly Dorsey donned his Santa suit a bit early is up for speculation. The Washington Post, which calls the move "quite rare" due to its value, speculates he could have done it either to make nice with employees after the morale-busting layoffs, reward workers with equity without watering down other shares' value, or generate excitement before next week's earning call. "I'd rather have a smaller part of something big than a bigger part of something small. I'm confident we can make Twitter big!" he followed up on Twitter. Don't worry that Dorsey's generosity means he'll be chowing down on ramen every night: In addition to his remaining Twitter shares, his share of the Square electronic-payments company is worth around $1.6 billion, per Fortune.
– Jerry Seinfeld made some waves by telling ESPN radio this week that he doesn't do shows on college campuses anymore because students are too politically correct. He doubled down on Seth Meyers' show last night, complaining about the "creepy PC thing out there," an atmosphere in which people are more likely to take offense than laugh at a joke, reports Time. For example, he's got a line about how someone scrolling emphatically through his phone looks like a "gay French king," but he senses audience hesitation, apparently because it's offensive to suggest that gay people "move their hands in a flourishing motion.” At the Daily News, SE Cupp is sympathetic and understands why he'd shy away from colleges— but she thinks it's "lamentable" because "these are exactly the crowds who need to be shown how infantile their uninformed twitches at self-serious activism are." Cupp complains that students today shut down debate and "often invent issues about which to be aggrieved." If not Seinfeld, "let’s hope someone else steps in to teach college students how to take themselves less seriously." One of those students, meanwhile, has penned an open letter to Seinfeld at the Huffington Post suggesting that he needs to sharpen his act. Jokes today can no longer be offensive "for the sake of being offensive"—they need to be smart and provocative, too, writes Anthony Berteaux. (He cites Amy Schumer as someone who tackles edgy subjects well.) "So, yes, Mr. Seinfeld, we college students are politically correct," he writes. "We will call out sexism and racism if we hear it. But if you're going to come to my college and perform in front of me, be prepared to write up a set that doesn't just offend me, but has something to say." (Click to see what show Seinfeld thinks is "one of the best comedies of all time.")
– Derby the dog is winning new converts to the concept of 3D printing. Derby is a husky mix who was born last year with deformed front paws, reports BuzzFeed. Lucky for him, an employee of a company called 3D Systems in Massachusetts took him in as a foster dog and eventually hit upon the idea of printing him new front legs. The result of Tara Anderson's idea has become a YouTube smash, notes the Dodo. Derby, incidentally, has been permanently adopted by a family.
– North Korea is not only continuing to defy international warnings to stop testing ballistic missiles, it's starting to get pretty good at launching them. Relatively speaking, anyway: Pyongyang launched two intermediate-range Musudan missiles in the direction of Japan on Wednesday, reports the BBC. The first one flopped almost immediately, just like four previous launches. But the second one reached an altitude of about 620 miles before plunging into the sea, raising concern in both South Korea and Japan, reports Reuters. The missile also covered about 250 miles, getting more than halfway to Japan's coast. The BBC notes the missile's range is much further; it's unclear whether it fell short due to failure or was intentionally kept from reaching Japan. "This is a very important milestone because the previous launches had blown up either very shortly after launch or possibly even right at launch," an analyst at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California tells the Voice of America. "So this is a real sign of progress." Japan's defense chief put it more succinctly: "The threat to Japan is intensifying." South Korea and the US are still assessing the test, but South Korean President Park Geun-hye denounced the "reckless provocation." UN resolutions forbid the North from working on ballistic missile technology, notes the BBC, but the launches suggest that Pyongyang is having little trouble obtaining the technology and the know-how.
– Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop, coming soon to a newsstand near you. The actress is turning her lifestyle newsletter/website into an actual print magazine, in partnership with Condé Nast, Women's Wear Daily reports. Quarterly issues of the magazine, which will also be called Goop, will be released starting in September. Topics will include health and fitness, food, fashion, travel, and more. "I’ve long known Gwyneth to have wonderful taste and vision—but with Goop she has built something remarkable, a thoroughly modern take on how we live today," says Condé Nast artistic director Anna Wintour. "Goop and Condé Nast are natural partners."
– The 17-year-old Idaho high-schooler who disappeared after his prom has been found—and is now facing a criminal charge for running away from home, KTVB reports. Kristian Perez was reported missing by his mother on Saturday when he didn't return home following his prom in Orofino. According to the Spokesman-Review, police found Perez's broken cellphone, tuxedo jacket, and one shoe near the car of a relative who had driven Perez to the dance. Police believed there was the possibility of foul play, KLEW reports. Police dogs followed Perez's scent to a parking lot near the prom but lost it there. Police found Perez shortly before 1am Tuesday at a house a few miles from the prom after receiving a tip. Authorities say he was fine and voluntarily staying with a 26-year-old man named Tyson Imel. Perez was arrested and is facing the possibility of probation in connection with his runaway charge. Idaho is one of nine states where running away from home is a crime. Imel may also face charges. Orofino's police chief says the department spent "a lot of man-hours" searching for Perez, and they're "disappointed" he didn't reach out to his family once he realized they were looking for him. (Read a more heartwarming prom story.)
– Under fire for remarks about first daughter Ivanka Trump that critics are calling sexually suggestive, Fox host Jesse Watters made the surprise announcement that he’s taking a break. The move comes just three days after his show, The Five, landed a prime-time spot, notes the Hill. "I'm going to be taking a vacation with my family, so I'm not going to be here tomorrow,” Watters said during his Wednesday night show. "I'll be back on Monday, so don't miss me too much.” Watters’ controversial comment aired Tuesday night during a segment discussing Trump’s appearance at the W20 Summit in Berlin. After criticizing people for booing Trump, he added, while smiling and gesturing with his hand, “So I don’t really get what’s going on here, but I really liked how she was speaking into that microphone.” (See a clip here, as captured by journalist Yashar Ali.) Ali’s tweet brought widespread attention to the comment, reports USA Today, and critics soon piled on, including MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski, who tweeted, “FOX, clean it up. Microphone comments? Comments on hosts dresses? Get rid of those who cannot measure up.” Before announcing his break, Watters defended his quip, saying, “During the break, we were commenting on Ivanka's voice and how it was low and steady and resonates like a smooth jazz radio DJ. This was in no way a joke about anything else.” Not everyone was buying the explanation, however. Given Fox's recent troubles over sexual harassment scandals with Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly, the New York Times notes that the timing couldn't be worse for the network.
– With 22 medals and 39 world records under his belt, swimmer Michael Phelps is set to retire (again) after Rio 2016 this summer, the Washington Post reports. So, what's next for the most decorated Olympian of all time? Phelps has signed on to be a Arizona State University volunteer assistant coach in 2016-17, reports the Arizona Republic. "I don't think I'll be able to go far from the sport because it is a part of me," Phelps says. Phelps, per the Post, moved to Tempe, Ariz., earlier this year, following longtime coach Bob Bowman, who took over as head coach at ASU. "Being able to see a clear blue sky and sun 95% of the time, it's just a good change," says Phelps, who has spent most of his career training indoors. He calls Tempe "one of the best places I've ever lived." In November, about a year after being charged with a DUI, Phelps announced his fiancée is pregnant; a son is due in May.
– The second Democratic primary debate will go on as scheduled Saturday on CBS News, but the focus has changed dramatically in the wake of the attacks that left more than 100 dead in Paris, the Los Angeles Times reports. "You've got to get into how do you handle international terrorism?" says Steve Capus, head of production for the debate. "Do voters believe you are best suited for this? Are voters concerned about how you handle the situation?" CBS had planned on sticking largely with questions about domestic issues, such as ObamaCare and gun control, for candidates Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley. The New York Times reports the emphasis now will be on security, international relations, and terrorism. Capus says the change in questions is important because in times of crisis, the world turns to the White House and the president for guidance. “This is exactly what the president is going to have to face,” he says. The debate is scheduled to take place at Drake University in Iowa.
– A measure to defund Planned Parenthood was shot down in the Senate after passing the House by a vote of 241-185. The Senate vote was 42-58, with five Republicans rejecting the stand-alone measure: Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Mark Kirk of Illinois, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, MSNBC reports. Ten Democrats backed the measure in the House. Federal laws ban spending government money for abortions unless a woman's life is in danger, but Republicans argue that providing Planned Parenthood with funding for other services frees up cash it can use to subsidize abortion services, Bloomberg notes. Planned Parenthood’s president hailed the Senate for rejecting "this extreme proposal."
– New England cornerback Malcolm Butler tonight stole Seattle's dream of a second straight championship, ESPN reports. With the Patriots leading 28-24 in the waning seconds of Super Bowl XLIX, the Seattle Seahawks drove down the field and even saw receiver Jermaine Kearse complete a miracle catch (Bleacher Report has video). But Butler intercepted a Russell Wilson pass on the goal line to snatch the game away. Seattle had grabbed a 10-point lead early in the second half with a field goal and a Wilson TD pass to wide receiver Doug Baldwin. (Weird side note: Baldwin incurred a 15-yard penalty for pretending to defecate the football after scoring, Yahoo Sports reports.) New England fired back with two Tom Brady TD passes, to wide receivers Danny Amendola and Julian Edelman. The first half was more of a see-saw battle. The Pats struck first with a Brady pass to slanting wide receiver Brandon LaFell. Seattle's initially anemic offense then came to life with a strong drive and a Marshawn Lynch rushing TD. The Pats returned fire with a 22-yard Brady pass to Rob Gronkowski. The Seahawks ended the first half by boldly foregoing a field-goal attempt in the red zone with less than 10 seconds on the clock. Russell Wilson connected with wide receiver Chris Matthews to even the game at 14-14 going into the locker room. It was a "much better game than last year," according to one comment on ESPN's Live Super Bowl Blog.
– Christopher Dorner, the ex-cop who died last week after allegedly killing four people, tried to escape to Mexico, NBC News reports. On Feb. 5, just two days after he allegedly killed his first two victims, fishermen at San Diego's Driscoll Wharf say he approached them and tried to find someone who would take him fishing in Mexico. He offered $200 to $400 but found no takers, even after he came back to the pier with fish tacos to sweeten the deal. The fishermen remembered him being kind, and talking about a "friend" who had been fired and was having problems with the police. He tried again on Feb. 6, to no avail; that same day, someone matching his description tried to steal a boat from a San Diego marina and failed, tying up an 81-year-old man on the boat in the process. That night, Dorner's description was released, and the fishermen he spoke to notified authorities. Another new tidbit from the ensuing manhunt: Turns out Dorner didn't have to exert much effort in order to find the Big Bear hiding spot where he ended up. He just found an unlocked cabin and walked right in, locking the door behind him. He stayed hidden for days, though the cabin was just 100 feet away from the police command post, until its owners came to clean it and stumbled upon him. Police had knocked on the door when the Big Bear search began, the AP reports, but upon finding it locked with no sign of a break-in, they moved on.
– Ursula Haverbeck-Wetzel says there's no proof that Auschwitz was a death camp and that that's "only a belief." Those thoughts spoken in a Hamburg court Thursday—and others, such as the "Holocaust is the biggest and most sustainable lie in history" comment she made on TV in April——are what just earned her a 10-month stay in a German prison, the Local reports. Her crime: inciting hatred. The 87-year-old extremist who's been dubbed "Nazi-Oma" ("Nazi Grandma") has been steadfast for years in her conviction that the Holocaust is a sham. And Haverbeck-Wetzel, who used to run an ultra-conservative center that was shut down for spreading Nazi propaganda, has her share of supporters: The Telegraph notes that far-right activists filled the courtroom's benches, with others outside demanding to be let in. They would have seen quite a spectacle. Haverbeck-Wetzel tried to goad the court into proving to her Auschwitz was a death camp, saying, per RT.com, "You know about it [Auschwitz] only through the grapevine—like me." This spurred Bjoern Joensson, the presiding judge, to retort, "It is pointless holding a debate with someone who can't accept any facts," adding: "Neither do I have to prove to you that the world is round." In Germany, the crime of incitement of hatred includes anyone who publicly "approves of, denies, or downplays" what the Nazis did during the Holocaust. "I will never accept this verdict!" Haverbeck-Wetzel told the court. (A California middle school decided to nix a Holocaust-denial lesson plan.)
– A hijacking attempt on a Chinese plane was foiled today by passengers and crew just after departure, the AP reports, citing state media. The Tianjin Airlines plane had taken off from the remote city of Hotan in the restive far-western region of Xinjiang, and returned there safely 22 minutes later. Six suspects were detained. Hotan has seen clashes recently between the authorities and Muslim Uighurs, who resent government control; the BBC reports that the hijackers were Uighur men. The men reportedly used a broken crutch as a weapon during their attempt to get into the cockpit. Two on-board guards were seriously injured as the hijackers were overpowered, while seven passengers and one flight attendant suffered minor injuries, Reuters reports. Pictures on Sina Weibo, China's popular microblogging site, showed one of the suspects being held down by passengers, with what appears to be blood on a nearby seat. Chinese officials say they foiled another hijacking plot by an Uighur woman in 2008.
– The first official count of suicides among veterans is grim: 7,403 veterans committed suicide in 2014, or an average of 20 per day, according to Veterans Affairs, which reviewed data from every state. The group estimated there were 22 veteran suicides per day in 2010, but had never taken an official count, reports USA Today. The decline from the 2010 estimate is nothing to celebrate, according to David Shulkin, VA's undersecretary for health, who says the most recent number is "still far too high." Veterans accounted for 18% of all suicides in the US in 2014, though they made up just 8.5% of the population. About 65% of the veterans were 50 or older and 70% were not regular recipients of VA services, reports the Military Times. Among male veterans aged 18 to 29, the suicide rate was 86 per 100,000 people; the US suicide rate as a whole is 13 per 100,000. The rate for female veterans aged 18 to 29 was 33 per 100,000. Suicide rates among American females jumped 40% from 2001 to 2014 but 85% among female veterans. "It is difficult to understand why that is happening. It is one of the things that I think will become a central research question for us," says Shulkin, who hopes to discover whether sexual trauma or combat service increases a woman's suicide risk. The VA says it is "aggressively" tackling the suicide issue, including by offering same-day service to veterans with urgent mental health needs, per ABC News. A final report on veteran deaths since 1979 is due out in the coming weeks.
– Hurricane Irma has grown into the most powerful seen in the Atlantic in more than a decade, roaring toward islands in the northeast Caribbean Tuesday on a path that could eventually take it to the United States, per the AP. The US National Hurricane Center said the Category 5 Irma was a "potentially catastrophic" storm with winds of 185mph as it bore down on the twin-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda. That makes it the most powerful Atlantic hurricane ever recorded outside the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean, notes the Miami Herald. It is also the strongest Atlantic hurricane since Rita in 2005, officials said. Evacuations along the coast in Florida's Miami-Dade County could begin as early as Wednesday, per the Herald. The hurricane center said there was a growing possibility that the storm's effects could be felt in Florida later this week and over the weekend, though it was still too early to be sure of its future track. If it stays on track and reaches the Florida Straits, the water there is warm enough that the already "intense" storm could become much worse with wind speeds potentially reaching 225mph, warned Kerry Emanuel, an MIT meteorology professor. "People who are living there (the Florida Keys) or have property there are very scared, and they should be," Emanuel said.
– Most people would prefer the matter of their therapy sessions stay private, but most people aren't Katy Perry. In an interview with Harper's Bazaar, picked up by Hollywood Life, the 29-year-old singer says she only survived her breakup with John Mayer thanks to her "oracle" of a therapist. "What I've learned is that if you don't have the foundation of self-love first, you really have nowhere to pull love from to give it away," she tells the mag. "I want to mommy everyone. I want to take care of them. I want to save them, and I forget myself in the meantime. I learned that through therapy." In case you weren't aware, John Mayer is one thing Perry has in common with her apparent "straight-up enemy" Taylor Swift—in fact, the bad blood between the singers started because of him, Page Six reports. Despite Swift's account that the feud with a certain unnamed female singer was business-related—TMZ reports that three dancers once left Swift, who apparently considered them "family," to return to Perry when she started touring again—a source tells Page Six that "Perry started making digs at Taylor" after Swift released the song "Dear John" about her breakup with Mayer following a brief affair in 2010. And so explains the Mean Girls reference.
– Facebook unveiled its new search tool today even as stats showed that the number of Americans using the site fell by 1.4 million in December, reports MarketWatch. A blip, or did the US hit a saturation point? Maybe it's those new ads and fees? Time will tell, but it's a safe bet that Mark Zuckerberg hopes his new "Graph Search"—lots of reviewers hate the abstract name—will reverse the trend by embedding Facebook further into our lives. The tech press generally seems intrigued, with many taking a wait-and-see approach in reviews. Andrew Leonard at Salon says it "looks like a big deal," with the potential to change the business models of online dating, job searches, and the like. Yelp, Craigslist, and, of course, Google, are surely taking notice. Here's his example of a potential use: "It’s Saturday night in the not too distant future. You walk into a crowded bar. At first glance, you don’t recognize anyone, so you pull out your phone and log into your Facebook app. You tap in a query: Show me the single women (or men) who are in this bar, adore Mozart, Macklemore and the TV show Community and are part of the network defined as 'friends of my Facebook friends.' ... If you’re lucky, Facebook spits back a few profile pics at you, and you’re suddenly ready to buy someone a drink who is already pre-approved for your personal checklist." Full post here. Of course, none of this works unless you and your friends, and their friends, are diligent "likers." Sure, you can theoretically find a dentist recommended by this circle, but how many people "like" their dentist right now? "Consider me," writes Danny Sullivan at SearchEngineLand. "Not only have I not liked my electrician, my plumber, my dentist, my doctor or my tax person on Facebook but I don’t even know if they have Facebook pages. I have nothing to offer to my Facebook friends in this regard." Facebook understands the challenge, he adds, "but it’s hoping the promise of what search can provide will help encourage people to build the connections they may lack now." Full post here.
– In the week since he suddenly and unexpectedly resigned as Lebanon's prime minister during a trip to Saudi Arabia, Saad Hariri has yet to return to his country—or make any sort of public statement at all, Reuters reports. According to the New York Times, on Friday Hezbollah, which is part of Hariri's governing coalition, claimed Saudi Arabia kidnapped Hariri then asked Israel to launch an attack on Lebanon. Analysts say that's an entirely possible series of events, and one that Lebanese authorities echoed on Saturday, the AP reports. Lebanese President Michel Aoun on Saturday asked Saudi Arabia to explain Hariri's absence from Lebanon. "The obscurity regarding Hariri's conditions makes anything that he says or does not reflect truth," Aoun said. Saudi Arabia has claimed to be protecting Hariri from an assassination attempt. The Times calls the situation "one in a profusion of bewildering events ... that are escalating tensions in the Middle East." Those events include Saudi Arabia arresting princes and businessmen, ordering its citizens out of Lebanon, having an undisclosed meeting with Jared Kushner, and claiming a missile that approached its capital last Saturday was orchestrated by Hezbollah and Iran. On Friday, Rex Tillerson appeared to send a warning to Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia, and Iran about using Lebanon "as a venue for proxy conflicts." And on Saturday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders asked "all states and parties to respect Lebanon's sovereignty, independence, and constitutional processes." Analysts and diplomats fear all of this is leading to a military conflict in the region.
– Just when you thought things couldn't get worse for Theranos, this: One of its major investors has sued the company and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, in an effort to get back its $96 million investment and then some. Partner Fund Management argues "the defendants engaged in securities fraud and other violations by fraudulently inducing PFM to invest and maintain its investment in the company," per the Wall Street Journal. More specifically, Theranos—which said it could conduct blood tests using a single drop—"knowingly and repeatedly lied that they had developed proprietary technologies that worked" and misled investors about its quest for FDA approval and its partnership with Walgreens, the hedge fund says, per Forbes. A Theranos rep, however, says the suit filed at the Delaware Court of Chancery on Monday "is without merit and Theranos will fight it vigorously." "Most of the company statements the plaintiff has cited in its suit were made after the time the plaintiff invested, and could not possibly have been the original basis for investment," Theranos adds in a blog post, per CNET. "This wholesale reliance on post-investment statements, therefore, negates the claim that the plaintiff was misled." The suit is just the latest hurdle for Theranos. As Holmes has been banned from running labs for two years, the company recently announced it would close its labs and lay off 340 workers to focus on commercializing mini blood-testing labs.
– The Last Stop outdoor shooting range at Bullets and Burgers in Arizona is open for business again, days after a deadly accident that made headlines around the world. A 9-year-old girl firing an Uzi accidentally killed an instructor at the range Monday, but the owner says that was the first accident in the range's 14-year history. In that time, "we've probably had 100,000 people shoot 5 million rounds of ammunition, and of those, 1,000 to 2,000 of them were children," he tells the New York Times. "We've never given out a Band-Aid; no one's never even got a scratch." He describes instructor Charles Vacca, who was fatally shot when the girl lost control of the weapon, as a highly trained veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who was still in the Army Reserve. The owner tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal he is aware the case has sparked fierce debate on gun issues, but he describes detractors as "the ones that are sitting downstairs in their mom's basement with their fuzzy slippers and bathrobe and dirty underwear ... because they just hate everything so much." Even some fellow gun-range owners are critical, however, saying they would never have allowed a petite 9-year-old girl to handle a weapon that powerful. The girl was from New Jersey, but Genghis Cohen, owner of a Las Vegas shooting range, tells the AP that many customers who want to fire automatic weapons are tourists from overseas. "They see guns as a big part of American culture, and they want to experience American culture," says Cohen, who is installing a tethering system to stop machine guns from rising up as they fire, like the Uzi did in the accident that killed Vacca.
– A Republican report on the 2012 attack in Benghazi finds Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration should have realized an attack was possible before it took place. The report from the House Benghazi Committee notes the administration failed to recognize the risks of rising crime levels and gun ownership. "It is not clear what additional intelligence would have satisfied either [aide Patrick Kennedy] or the Secretary in understanding the Benghazi mission compound was at risk—short of an attack," the report says, per CNN, adding that requests for additional security were met with silence or a resounding "no" from senior officials—though not Clinton directly. However, a separate analysis from the panel's conservative members blames a "tragic failure of leadership," per CNN. The panel says it was "shameful" of Clinton to turn her emails over to the State Department, which decided what to release, rather than to the committee itself, per Politico. It adds that State and Defense officials "consistently refused to answer questions" relating to reports that President Obama approved an operation to arm the Libyan opposition ahead of the attack, reports Politico. In their own report on Monday, Democrats say the report is "a conspiracy theory on steroids bringing back long-debunked allegations with no credible evidence whatsoever" in an attempt to hurt Clinton's presidential bid, per the AP. The State Department adds the "essential facts ... have been known for some time," thanks to numerous investigations. "We have made great progress towards making our posts safer since 2012."
– News that Rikers Island prison is investigating the alleged smuggling of drugs and weapons by guards prompts Dateline producer Dan Slepian to recount his first visit to the facility in the course of his work. Think every airport security or bank line you've ever been in, then multiply by a factor of 10 or so. "Visiting an inmate there is a lesson in both human behavior and the art of learning patience," writes Slepian at NBCNews.com. He has visited dozens of prisons to interview prisoners, but Rikers is in a category of its own, it seems. First, you park in a lot by a bridge that connects Queens to Rikers and wait for the bus. That bus takes you to the first stop, the registration building, where the lines to get in are long even at 7am. After an ID check, you'll eventually pass through airport-like security and X-rays, get questioned, fill out some forms, then get shuttled to a waiting center near the housing units. After another long wait comes another shuttle ride to the actual detention facility, along with another round of metal-detectors and X-ray machines. Then comes another security check in a private vestibule where you have to lift your tongue and fold down your waistband to prove you're not bringing stuff in. Then it's another wait of about half an hour before the actual visit. Maintaining security at a prison as huge as Rikers—figure about 10,000 prisoners on any given day—is of course a time-consuming challenge. But here, "the concept of time takes on a whole new meaning," writes Slepian. Click for his full post.
– For the first time in US history, a majority of babies are members of minority ethnic groups, according to new census figures. Of the roughly 4 million born between July 2010 and July 2011, 50.4% belonged to minority groups. The data show that the huge demographic shift under way has as much to do with the aging of the white population as it does with the growth in other groups, the Wall Street Journal notes. Births among the non-Hispanic white population dropped a full 10% in that 12-month period. Demographers say that without the growth in the Hispanic population—now America's second-largest population group—there would be a declining population and a disproportionate number of elderly citizens, as in Japan and parts of Europe. "We were already seeing a declining youth population in large parts of the country," a demographer with the Brookings Institution tells the Washington Post. "Without immigrants, we’d be essentially youthless. We had a perfect storm. We got them all coming, younger immigrants having children, at a time when we really needed them."
– An elementary school teacher is in hot water after allegedly developing a secret relationship with her 11-year-old student, WPXI reports via Gawker. Geraldine Alcorn, 28, was arraigned last week in Pittsburgh on charges that include corruption of minors and child luring, and freed on $100,000 bond. She was also warned to keep away from the child, and little wonder: The Beechwood Elementary School teacher is accused of planning to adopt and "run away" with the girl, whose mom says letters in the girl's schoolbook had labels like "Things Ms. Alcorn and I can do" and "When we can do it." Police say Alcorn hid her phone number in the girl's math worksheet (by circling the relevant numbers) and even took the child to the teacher's Bloomfield home. Pittsburgh Public Schools officials learned about an "improper attachment" and suspended Alcorn, who resigned March 2. But after Alcorn returned to school to pick up her belongings on March 13, the girl discovered "gifts and several letters, some encrypted, in her locker and desk," says a criminal complaint. "The letters, written by Alcorn, instructed the 11-year-old female to contact her." Police don't believe the relationship was sexual, and say that text messages between the two—including 2,400 in just two weeks—express a "deep love" on both sides. As for who's at fault, a local mom points to the school district: "Where are background checks of teachers?" she asks CBS Pittsburgh. "The district should better scrutinize these potential employees. It seems people just don’t care anymore." (This teacher was jailed for showing students a raunchy film.)
– Fantasy novels' focus on food has spawned a mini-industry—even if the recipes aren't always so appetizing. Last year saw the release of the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, which has sold 150,000 copies; now there's a book of recipes taken from The Hunger Games and two Game of Thrones-inspired cookbooks on their way, the Wall Street Journal reports. But eating what the characters eat means chowing down on food that ranges from bizarre to downright disgusting. On the tamer side, there's chicken and oranges in cream sauce, from the Hunger Games. It's "odd but definitely edible," says a reader of the Fictional Food blog, which garners 50,000 hits monthly. "It helps you relate to the character and understand how she was feeling." Perhaps less appealing is grilled snake and spiced honeyed locusts, from Game of Thrones; fans-turned-chefs mimic the latter using freeze-dried crickets. Now, "we're on the lookout for squirrel," says one cook. But "you kind of have to know someone."
– Diets require serious willpower, and that makes them hard to stick with—but a Cornell psychologist says you can lose weight without having to work so hard. His plan sounds a lot like one of those online ads: Lose weight with this one trick. The idea, as the Los Angeles Times reports, is to make some manageable changes to your surroundings rather than to yourself. "What we’ve found over and over is that making one small change, like eating off a smaller plate, leads to a small weight loss, and then that triggers making more changes. Within a year, a person’s lost 35 pounds without ever 'dieting,'" Dr. Brian Wansink tells Quartz. Choosing a smaller plate is just one of several options he puts forward in a new book, Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life. You might also try getting rid of that bag of chips or box of cereal on your counter and replacing it with a fruit bowl, Quartz reports. In Wansink's research, women who kept cereal on the counter weighed 21 pounds more than those who avoided doing so. Some other tips: Don't enter your home through the kitchen, and don't eat at your desk while at work. And try chewing gum while food shopping; gum chewers bought 7% less junk food than others, another study suggested. (Failing all that, you could go for the rather disturbing "fat-shaming fork.")
– A Donald Trump rally in Albany on Monday night involved a raucous crowd of more than 10,000, a lot of talk about "New York values," and at least one fight. Trump stopped speaking as protesters were ejected, saying "Send him back home to mom" in one case, the Albany Times Union reports. In another incident, a Trump supporter confronted a protester and shoved him in the face more than once before security took the protester away. "I'll snatch anybody up if they yell in my face over anything," the Trump fan told reporters after the rally. "I have my personal rights and my personal space." The protester has not been identified and police told NBC that no arrests were made at the rally. At the rally, Trump slammed the "rigged, disgusting, dirty" system in places like Colorado, where Ted Cruz won all the delegates over the weekend after, as Reuters puts it, outmaneuvering Trump "in a series of state meetings." It's a "crooked, crooked system" that leaves real voters without a voice, Trump said. He also attacked Cruz for his "New York values" comments earlier this year. "Nobody has values like us and the country loves New York," Trump said. Cruz, meanwhile, was campaigning in California, where he accused Trump of "whining" about the GOP contest being rigged, the AP reports. "As we know in the state of California, whine is something best served with cheese," Cruz told supporters in San Diego. (Two of Trump's children have discovered that they can't vote in New York's April 19 primary.)
– You might be hearing the name Joseph Kony a lot lately, and it's all part of a calculated media campaign to get the African warlord arrested. The group Invisible Children has posted a 30-minute video called "Kony 2012" whose sole purpose is to spread the word about his atrocities and raise international pressure to get him arrested. While that may not sound like your typical viral video, it has exploded in popularity over the last 24 hours, in part because it so "gripping and disturbing," notes the San Jose Mercury News. It helps, too, that Invisible Children is using a savvy campaign that enlists celebrities to help spread the anti-Kony message. NPR's Two-Way blog calls the video a "powerful piece of work" and provides more background about the campaign. That includes pointing to this Foreign Affairs article, which accuses Invisible Children and other groups of having "manipulated facts" to portray "Kony—a brutal man, to be sure—as uniquely awful, a Kurtz-like embodiment of evil." See the video in the gallery, which includes a push for a day of activism on April 20.
– More than 40 years ago, 15-year-old Martha Moxley was found beaten to death near her home in the exclusive community of Belle Haven in Greenwich, Conn. On Wednesday, the lawyer for Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel, who was convicted in 2002 of murdering her, told a panel of six Connecticut Supreme Court justices that his client "did not get a fair shake," the New York Times reports. The justices must decide whether Skakel, 55, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, was denied his right to a fair trial. "The weight of the evidence is that Tommy Skakel killed Martha Moxley," attorney Hubert Santos told the court, referring to Michael Skakel's older brother, who had been a prime suspect in the 1975 murder. It's the third time the Supreme Court has heard arguments in the case, the Hartford Courant reports. Santos contends that Skakel's previous lawyer failed to provide an adequate defense. In 2013, he convinced a lower court justice that Skakel likely would have been acquitted if not for tactical errors by Michael Sherman (who was later sent to prison for dodging federal taxes). Since then, Skakel has been free on $1.2 million bail, per the AP. On Wednesday, prosecutor Susann Gill argued that Skakel had received a "well-planned, well-thought-out defense," which included four lawyers and several investigators. “This was far from a slipshod defense,” she said. Moxley's mother, Dorthy, who was in court, says she is convinced Michael Skakel killed her daughter. "I'm sure Michael is the young man who swung the golf club," she told reporters. "There is absolutely no doubt in my mind about that," adding, "Michael got a fair trial." If the justices agree with Santos, prosecutors must decide whether to retry Skakel, per the Courant. If they rule for the prosecution, he will likely go back to prison.
– Wondering why "Phuc Dat Bich" was trending on Twitter Friday? No, it's not some crazy new spelling of a foul-mouthed slam, it's ... a guy's name. And it's making headlines because the 23-year-old is quite unhappy that Facebook keeps shutting down his account over suspicions it's a fake name, Australia's News Network reports. "I’ve been accused of using a false and misleading name of which I find very offensive," the Vietnamese-Australian wrote, alongside of a picture of his passport that he posted to the social media site. "I find it highly irritating the fact that nobody seems to believe me when I say that my full legal name is how you see it." His name is actually pronounced Phoop Dook Bic, per ANN, which notes that "Phuc Dat" is a common Vietnamese name. "He’s able to get through international airports so it is legitimate," one of the man's friends—refuting suggestions that the passport had been doctored—tells the Herald Sun. As the Huffington Post points out, the photo was originally posted in January, but for some reason surged in popularity this week, and currently has about 140,000 "likes" and has been shared more than 75,000 times. (Facebook also is making headlines for trying to make your online life a little easier after a breakup.)
– Anti-Japan protests over the disputed East China Sea islands continued for a fourth day today in China, and Christian Science Monitor Beijing Bureau Chief Peter Ford describes the almost amusing orderliness of them. "The Beijing Public Security Bureau reminds you to please express your patriotism in a rational and orderly fashion and to follow police instructions. Thank you for your cooperation," reads a text message from the Beijing police. And protesters at the Japanese embassy did just that, forming small groups and waiting their turn to march past … as they threw water bottles at the gates. Meanwhile, a loudspeaker played a message on a loop: "The Chinese government shares the people’s feelings. The government has made it clear it will not accept any territorial infringement. But once you have expressed yourself, please move on." Thousands of police guarded the embassy, a sign that China wanted to avoid protests turning violent as they did over the weekend. But, though protests remained mostly peaceful, some demonstrators were attacking Japanese companies including Toyota and Honda, leading hundreds of such businesses to temporarily shut down, the Christian Science Monitor reports. The embassy also suspended services. Meanwhile, Japan was boosting defenses around the islands as a 1,000-strong flotilla of Chinese fishing boats reportedly approached. Japan hasn't seen them yet, but did say 10 Chinese patrol boats are in the area, and added that two Japanese nationals landed on one of the islands today. China quickly complained, the Wall Street Journal reports, and also asserted that it reserves the right to "take further actions," perhaps military ones if necessary, according to the defense minister. Further complicating the situation, Taiwan also claims the disputed area, but wants to help resolve the conflict, Voice of America reports.
– Pope Francis has made headlines around the world with an interview in which he said 2% of clergy, including cardinals, are pedophiles, but the Vatican says those weren't his words—and it wasn't exactly an interview. The words attributed to the pontiff in the La Repubblica newspaper came from the journalist's memory of the conversation and "the individual expressions that were used and the manner in which they have been reported, cannot be attributed to the pope," a Vatican spokesman tells Vatican Insider. He says the interview was not recorded, and the pope never checked it for accuracy. Specifically, the spokesman says, the affirmations that cardinals are among pedophiles in the clergy and that Francis says he "will find solutions" to priestly celibacy can't be attributed to the pontiff. The published remarks raised eyebrows because "there is often a studied ambiguity in Pope Francis' off-the-cuff statements," the BBC's Rome correspondent notes. "He wants to show a more compassionate attitude towards church teaching than his predecessors, but this can sometimes cause consternation among his media advisers," he says.
– Lindsey Vonn is capping her Olympic success with another dream-come-true: a guest stint on Law & Order. The NBC procedural is her favorite show—she visited the set this winter, New York notes—and she said she “totally would” play a corpse if it meant a chance to guest star. Lucky for her, she's been cast as a jury foreman. The good news was delivered to Vonn on-air during an interview with Bob Costas, TV Guide reports.
– The megahit musical Hamilton has grabbed a record-breaking 16 Tony Award nominations, the biggest haul in Broadway history and another notch in the show's march into theatrical history. Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop-flavored biography about the first US treasury secretary broke the 15-nominations record Tuesday held by The Producers and Billy Elliot. Hamilton was nominated in virtually every category it could compete in, from acting to scenic design. Next month, it will compete for Broadway's biggest crown—best new musical—with Bright Star, School of Rock, Shuffle Along, and Waitress. The New York Times notes that those competitors probably realize they don't have much of a shot against Miranda's powerhouse production, but they know the nomination itself may help boost ticket sales for their own musicals. Deadline reports Hamilton has already brought in a never-before-seen $80 million in advance ticket sales since it began its official Great White Way run in August. Meanwhile, the best play category is composed of Eclipsed, The Father, The Humans, and King Charles III. The awards will be handed out June 12, with James Corden playing host from the Beacon Theatre in New York. (Hamilton also just won a Pulitzer.)
– Justin Timberlake was the big winner at last night's Billboard Music Awards but the real star was his idol: Michael Jackson. The singer was resurrected as a hologram that performed his "new" hit "Slave to the Rhythm" off his posthumous album in front of a thrilled crowd at Las Vegas' MGM Grand Garden Arena, reports the New York Daily News, which found the late singer's hologram to be "creepily real" as it moonwalked across the stage. Timberlake won a total of seven prizes, including top artist, NBC reports. "I want to thank everybody on Earth ... except Donald Sterling," he said, accepting his award from overseas via video. (For more from the awards, click to see the best, worst, and wackiest outfits.)
– Sixteen-year-old Shana Fisher died in the art room of Santa Fe High School on Friday, but only after "4 months of problems from this boy," the suspected shooter, Shana's mom tells the Los Angeles Times. Sadie Rodriguez says that Dimitrios Pagourtzis "kept making advances on her and she repeatedly told him no." "He continued to get more aggressive," she said, per CBS News, until, at the end of her rope, Shana publicly embarrassed Pagourtzis in front of their class. "A week later he opens fire on everyone he didn't like," Rodriguez says. "Shana being the first one." That Shana was the first victim remains uncorroborated at this point, but Breanna Quintanilla, 17, tells the AP she was in the art room on a "perfectly normal day" when Pagourtzis walked in, pointed at an unidentified person, and said, "I'm going to kill you." (The New York Times has profiles of all the shooting victims.)
– More than a year after he took his own life, Robin Williams' widow is talking about his final days. In interviews with People and Good Morning America, Susan Williams says that it was Lewy Body Dementia or DLB, an incurable brain disease commonly associated with Parkinson's, that drove her husband to take his own life, though it was not diagnosed until after his death. "It was not depression that killed Robin," she tells People. "Depression was one of let's call it 50 symptoms and it was a small one." In the year before his death, Williams had dealt with other symptoms, including anxiety and impaired movement, as the couple struggled to figure out what was going on; in his final months, the symptoms became overwhelming. "I've spent this last year trying to find out what killed Robin," Williams says. "One of the doctors said, 'Robin was very aware that he was losing his mind and there was nothing he could do about it.'" "If Robin was lucky, he would've had maybe three years left," Williams tells ABC News. "And they would've been hard years. And it's a good chance he would've been locked up." During his final months, Williams was diagnosed with the early stages of Parkinson's, and things got worse: "My best friend was sinking," she says, "just disintegrating before my eyes." "One minute, totally lucid ... and then five minutes later, he would say something that wasn't—it didn't match." During the last month of his life, "he could not" keep it together, she says, but she notes that—though he did check into rehab during his final month—he had been sober for eight years when he died. On the night before he was found dead—during a week that he was supposed to check into a facility for neurocognitive testing—his last words to her were, "Goodnight, my love. Goodnight, goodnight." (Click for more from the ABC interview or the latest on Williams' estate battle.)
– People who argue that Congress needs to be a lot more transparent about sexual harassment cases may have a new Exhibit A—the Eric Massa case. Sources tell ABC News that the Congressional Office of Compliance quietly paid around $100,000 in taxpayer funds to settle sexual harassment claims against the Democrat, who resigned from the House in 2010 after being accused of harassing and groping male staffers. Since 1995, the Office of Compliance has been able to use Treasury funds to settle workplace complaints in Congress, reports the New York Daily News. Some $17 million has been paid out by the office, which refuses to disclose how many of the 264 separate cases involved harassment claims. Sources say the claims against Massa involved at least two young male staffers. "This is exactly why there should be transparency," Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice tells ABC. "There is no reason why these settlements, these accusations should be done in secret once they're adjudicated." She is co-sponsoring legislation to end the secret payouts. Lawmakers from both parties say they support requiring Congress to disclose the names of representatives who have harassment cases settled by the Office of Compliance. (Rep. John Conyers was hospitalized for stress-related issues after being accused of sexual misconduct by multiple staffers.)
– Adweek is calling Burger King's new ad campaign "clever" and "irreverent" because of its unusual premise. It requires customers to go to McDonald's—if not inside one, at least within 600 feet of one. At that point, they open the Burger King app, which reroutes them to the nearest BK to get a Whopper for a penny (see the ad here). As Ad Age notes, it has the added bonus for the chain of giving people an incentive to download the app and actually use it. The ad is the brainchild of FCB New York, and it required Burger King to "geofence" every McDonald's in the country. That would be roughly 14,000, about double the number of Burger Kings. The offer begins Tuesday and runs through Dec. 12, reports USA Today. (Burger King trolled Kanye West last month.)
– Rupert Murdoch has never been a big fan of Mitt Romney, and the lukewarm feeling is mutual, the New York Times finds. On Romney's two visits to the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal—which printed a scathing attack on the "confused" Romney campaign yesterday—there was "zero enthusiasm, no engagement," a Journal source says. Both Murdoch and Fox News chief Roger Ailes urged New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to run because they admired his toughness and saw Romney as too soft, insiders say. Staff members present at Romney's Journal meetings say Romney left Murdoch cold by dwelling on his management experience instead of coming out with a clear conservative philosophy. Romney aides, speaking under condition of anonymity, say they would rather have Murdoch making critical tweets than praising the campaign and making it look like a tool of the conservative establishment. "To his credit, the idea that Rupert Murdoch doesn’t think something could be better run is unimaginable," one adviser says. "That’s just how he is."
– The revolt was infinitesimal: Of the 306 electors pledged to vote for Donald Trump, 304 did, officially giving him more than the 270 electoral votes needed to become president. Politico reports the two who opted for someone other than Trump were both from Texas: One cast a ballot for John Kasich, the other for Ron Paul. The New York Times reports four Democratic electors in Washington state did not vote for Hillary Clinton but instead opted for Colin Powell (3) and Faith Spotted Eagle (1). That's six total who didn't vote for their party’s nominee, which the Times reports is tied for No. 1 with the 1808 election as the most ever. The six isn't too far off from the 10 or fewer faithless electors most of the 160 Republicans and Democrats "insiders" surveyed predicted. Trump marked the milestone on Twitter with the following: "We did it! Thank you to all of my great supporters, we just officially won the election (despite all of the distorted and inaccurate media)."
– Vladimir Putin is being accused of "sabre-rattling," which isn't all that unusual, except in this case it involves nuclear weapons. The Russian leader said today that Moscow would add at least 40 ICBMs to its nuclear arsenal this year, reports Reuters. The announcement comes after the US said it planned to station tanks and heavy weaponry in NATO states in Eastern Europe on the Russian border. Putin boasted that the new ICBMs would be able to overcome the most advanced defense systems, reports the BBC. "This nuclear sabre-rattling of Russia is unjustified, it's destabilizing, and it's dangerous," says NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. He says Russia's increasing aggressions, especially in Ukraine, explain why NATO is beefing up its Eastern European defenses. But Russian deputy defense chief Anatoly Antonov, citing the US plan, says "our colleagues from NATO countries are pushing us into an arms race."
– With President Obama headed for her tornado-ravaged state, Okla. Gov. Mary Fallin told CNN's State of the Union today that while, "so far, we have had a great response" from the feds, she's also worried about the grinding wheels of bureaucracy in the days ahead. "What I need is the ability to get through red tape," she said, emphasizing the scope of the 17-mile swath of destruction. "This is a massive debris field. It's not just a couple blocks." Added the mayor of Joplin, Mo.: "There is no quick remedy for a disaster of these proportions. It does take time." Elsewhere on your Sunday dial, as per Politico: Lindsey Graham on sex assaults in the military: "I want to salute the women who serve and are putting up with way too much crap. This needs to end. Commanders who allow this to flourish, quite frankly, should be fired. The president spoke well of this problem. It is a disgrace to the United States military." Graham on Obama's speech on counterterror: "We show this lack of resolve, talking about the war being over. What do you think the Iranians are thinking? At the end of the day, this is the most tone-deaf president I ever could imagine, making such a speech at a time when our homeland is trying to be attacked literally every day." Newt Gingrich on Obama's speech: "It's just stunningly, breathtakingly naive. This stuff's going on everywhere, and we will never be in peace in the pre-1941 sense that we are never threatened. No one wants to talk honestly" about the threat. Bob Dole on his chances of making it in the modern GOP: "I doubt it. Reagan couldn't have made it. Certainly, Nixon couldn't have made it, 'cause he had ideas. We might've made it, but I doubt it. They ought to put a sign on the National Committee doors that says 'Closed for repairs,' until New Year's Day next year. And spend that time going over ideas and positive agendas." Dole on the Senate: "It's bent pretty badly. It seems almost unreal that we can't get together on budget or legislation. I mean, we weren't perfect, but at least we got the work done."
– A group of friends in Alabama filmed what they claim is the "most epic vehicle jump ever" over Labor Day weekend, and they may not be overstating that. AL.com reports a 39-second slow-motion video posted to YouTube on Tuesday shows a man jumping out of an airborne and flaming SUV just before it plunges into a lake. As of this afternoon, it was closing in on a million views. Jakob Hernig, who filmed and edited the video, tells WILX-TV the stunt took an entire afternoon to plan but the action only lasted three seconds. He says they had a safety plan in case something went wrong, and the SUV was pulled from the water afterward with a tractor. On Reddit, one of the stunt's participants explains their motivation thusly: "My buddies and I thought this would be a smart thing to do."
– Police say it's "still too early" to know how 10 family members ended up dead and hanging from the ceiling in Delhi, India, but some early details from their investigation into the deaths are dribbling out. The bodies of the 10, as well as that of an elderly woman found dead but not hanged, were discovered Sunday morning by a neighbor who went to the shop the family ran. The Times of India reports the family was allegedly hanged using cables and scarves that featured religious designs; cotton was reportedly found in their ears. Police originally said no suicide note was discovered, but a police statement now specifies that they did find handwritten notes that suggested there was involvement in "definite spiritual and mystical practices" that may be tied to the deaths, reports the BBC. The Hindustan Times has much more on the alleged writings, with an unnamed officer suggesting the family might have been participating in a religious ritual that they believed would end with God saving them from death. The notes allegedly detailed the days of the week on which the ritual could occur and specified how the bodies needed to be arranged, with certain men and women together and widows kept apart. "Almost every step mentioned in the note seems to be have been religiously followed by the family," per the officer. He added that only one woman was unrestrained, indicating she could have bound the hands of the others. Police are said to be reviewing the family's internet search history and interviewing the fiance of one of the dead, who was to be married this year.
– What a mensch: After 33 years in political office, Robert Mugabe has changed Zimbabwe's constitution to impose a limit of two five-year terms on the president. Only, the rule doesn't apply retroactively, so the 89-year-old could still serve another decade as leader, Reuters reports. More encouragingly, the new constitution also curbs the powers of the president and provides more rights for women, reports Voice of America. The new charter was part of a 2008 power-sharing deal between Mugabe and political rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, and was approved by voters in a referendum earlier this year.
– Police in Little Rock, Arkansas, say 25 people were shot inside a nightclub early Saturday—but all have survived, the AP reports. Details on what happened aren't clear, but police say the shooting appears to have been set off by a dispute inside the Power Lounge about 2:30am. "We do NOT believe this incident was an active shooter or terror related incident," said police in a tweet. More than 24 shots were fired in 11 seconds. In addition to the 25 people shot, three people suffered other injuries. One person initially listed in critical condition has been upgraded to stable, reports ABC News. None of the other injuries were believed to be life-threatening.
– President Trump heads to Capitol Hill on Tuesday for a meeting with GOP senators, but his feud with one of them in particular heated up in advance. In appearances on morning talk shows, Bob Corker said the president should leave senators alone to work on a tax plan. “I would recommend that, based on recent history and just interactions,” Corker said on Today, per the Washington Post. “I think that’s the best way for us to have success.” Trump quickly responded on Twitter. "Bob Corker, who helped President O give us the bad Iran Deal & couldn't get elected dog catcher in Tennessee, is now fighting Tax Cuts," Trump wrote. "Corker dropped out of the race in Tennesse [sic] when I refused to endorse him, and now is only negative on anything Trump," he added. "Look at his record!" After which, Corker returned fire on Twitter, criticizing the "same untruths from an utterly untruthful president" and, notably, using a hashtag of "AlertTheDaycareStaff." (The Post agrees that Trump is stretching the truth on both Iran and the endorsement issues.) Politico notes that the attacks and counter-attacks come just hours before what is supposed to be a "unity" meeting at which Trump and Republicans will talk about changes to the tax system and health care. Corker, meanwhile, doubled down on his Trump insults in a CNN interview. "I don't know why he lowers himself to such a low, low standard, and debases our country in a way that he does, but he does." In fact, he added that Trump's legacy as president will be the "debasing of our nation." CNN analyst Chris Cillizza rounds up and provides commentary on more of Corker's slams.
– Todd Courser, the Michigan lawmaker who thought starting a smear campaign against himself was a good way to cover up his affair with fellow lawmaker Cindy Gamrat, now apparently thinks he has grounds to sue the state for forcing him out of office. Courser and Gamrat have filed an "intent to sue" notice, claiming that the Michigan House of Representatives, Speaker Kevin Cotter, and their former aides conspired to end their political careers, the Detroit Free Press reports. Courser resigned and Gamrat was expelled after a marathon 16-hour hearing last September, which the legal notice now alleges was "false arrest" and "false imprisonment," reports the Detroit News. Courser and Gamrat, both Republicans, filed the notice just before the deadline to preserve their ability to sue. The notice states that they could seek $500,000 for "psychological and emotional distress" caused by their removal from office, which they allege was more to do with their opposition to a road funding package than the affair and cover-up. They claim to be victims of "undercover surveillance operations, illegal wiretapping and eavesdropping, extortion, secret meetings, threats and intimidation, identity theft, invasion of privacy, and hacking," according to legal documents. In related legal actions, former aides are suing Courser and Gamrat for firing them after they helped expose the affair, and Michigan's AG has filed felony charges against the pair for misconduct in office, lying under oath, and asking staffers to forge their signatures on official documents.
– The Louisiana town of Gardner—population 1,964—was on high alert last week after residents spotted a number of signs around town that could have contained a "terror message written in Arabic," per KALB. In reality, those signs held a much more innocent message. The station reports that several residents contacted the sheriff's office out of concern over the handwritten signs. After some investigation, the sheriff determined the signs were "not in anyway affiliated with ISIS" and actually contained a "welcome home" message written in Hebrew. Specifically, the signs read, "Welcome Home, Yamit" in what the Times of Israel describes as a "boxy Hebrew scrawl" likely done by a child or a non-native Israeli. The Lowering the Bar blog has a few pieces of advice for people to keep in mind to avoid similar sign-induced panic in the future. First: "You are not necessarily in danger just because you see something you don't recognize." Second, Gardner is "not known to be high on the list of ISIS targets." Finally, terrorists aren't likely to communicate with each other via conspicuous signage, and if the signs were meant to terrorize residents, they would probably be written in English.
– Researchers at Stanford University have discovered what a press release calls a "fast and efficient" way to stop jet lag before it starts: repeatedly flashing light into your eyes while you sleep. "If you are flying to New York tomorrow, tonight you use the light therapy," Dr. Jamie Zeitzer says. "If you normally wake up at 8am, you set the flashing light to go off at 5am. When you get to New York, your biological system is already in the process of shifting to East Coast time." A flash every 10 seconds for one hour, used toward the end of the night, will push the body's circadian rhythm forward by about two hours, the Wall Street Journal explains. Using the flashes of light at the beginning of the night, on the other hand, will delay the circadian clock and could be helpful when the aforementioned traveler heads back to the West Coast. Current in-advance methods for dealing with jet lag and sleep-cycle issues involve continuous light administered while awake. Not only did the study find flashing lights to be more effective—they change the body's circadian rhythm up to three times faster than a steady light—they don't interrupt a person's life. "Most people can sleep through the flashing light just fine," Zeitzer says in the press release. Researchers are hoping to have a light-flashing sleep mask available for consumers later this year. This same method could be used to help people who work the night shift or have seasonal affective disorder. And researchers are currently testing it on a group of teens to improve school performance. "We’re basically looking to intentionally jet lag teens so that they can go to bed at a reasonable time," Zeitzer tells the Journal. (This family of five gave itself perpetual jet lag by switching to Martian time.)
– Israel said today two of its citizens are being held in the Gaza Strip—and it believes Hamas has had its hands on one of them for almost a year, the AP reports. An Israeli defense unit says that "credible intelligence" shows Avraham Mangisto, said by Israeli media to be a 28-year-old Ethiopian-Israeli, is being held "against his will" by Hamas and that "Israel has appealed [to] international and regional interlocutors to demand his immediate release and verify his well-being," reports Fox News. Mangisto reportedly entered Gaza of his own accord from an Israeli beach on Sept. 7 last year, just a couple of weeks after a ceasefire was declared to end last summer's Gaza war. Israeli defense officials say an Arab-Israeli citizen is also being held, though details are scarce, the New York Times notes. The cases are drawing comparison to that of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was held for five years by Hamas until his release in 2011 in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. The news of the reported captives was made public only after Israeli military officials lifted a gag order this morning, though it wasn't clear why the order was suddenly lifted, NBC News reports. Mangisto's brother Ilan spoke at a press conference this morning about what he's calling "a difficult humanitarian matter," revealing that his brother isn't doing well healthwise, reports the New York Times. "I'm asking the international community to engage and use their power to free my brother," he said, per NBC. "I ask (Hamas) to take into consideration his health and to release him immediately." Meanwhile, their father told Israel's Channel 2 that Avraham often went missing for days on end and had been depressed after another brother killed himself. A Hamas spokesman says, per Fox News, "We don't have any information about it. Even if is true, we don't have instructions to talk about it." (Israeli officials said they foiled a major Hamas terror plot in November.)
– Identical twins share an identical DNA profile, and when you're an investigator examining DNA evidence, that can be a problem. The cases may be rare, but they exist, legal expert Jennifer Mnookin told the New York Times last year amid a rape case involving a suspect with a twin: "There certainly have been instances where identical twins have laid blame on the other, or each denied responsibility, and for a lack of persuasive evidence they’ve both gotten off." But new research could help prosecutors get past that hurdle, Science Daily reports. British scientists have found that by heating DNA to its "melting temperature," they can distinguish between twins. In what the researchers call "high resolution melt curve analysis," heat is applied to DNA; the melting temperature refers to the temperature at which the hydrogen bonds in our DNA break. Environmental factors can alter the number of hydrogen bonds in a DNA sequence: One twin could be a smoker, for instance, or be exposed to more sunlight. More bonds lead to a higher melting temperature. To arrive at their findings, published in Analytical Biochemistry, researchers had five sets of identical twins supply their DNA via a cheek swab; using HRMA and looking at two genetic markers, the researchers were able to distinguish between all five sets in one case, and four of the five in the case of the second marker. But some issues remain, lead researcher Dr. Graham Williams notes. One is that the process requires "a high sample quantity" of DNA that might not be available at a crime scene. (This week, a man's charges were dropped—in part thanks to DNA evidence—after he had spent 36 years in prison.)
– The ancient civilization of Rapa Nui, more commonly called Easter Island and a part of modern-day Chile, has long been thought to have been brought to its knees before Europeans arrived by violent infighting as precious resources ran out. But now anthropologists from Binghamton University in New York are publishing a new analysis of the obsidian artifacts assumed to be spearheads, and they conclude that the tools were in fact of a general nature—say, to process plants or even tattoo skin—rather than tools of war. Using a technique called morphometrics to analyze photos of 400 "mata'a" for shape variability, they found that the tools simply weren't designed to deal damage in the way that weapons must. "When you look at the shape of these things, they just don't look like weapons at all," the lead researcher says in a press release. "When there are actually objects used for warfare, they're very systematic in their shape. They have to do their job really well. Not doing well is risking death. You would cut somebody {with a mata'a], but they certainly wouldn't be lethal in any way." He adds that the so-called "collapse narrative" is more a European interpretation and not an archaeological event, reports Phys.org. (Teeth solve this Easter Island mystery.)
– As a publicly held company, Zynga, the gaming company perhaps best known for FarmVille and Words With Friends, isn't doing so hot. Its market value of $9 billion in oh-so-distant 2011 has dropped to $2 billion, and the blog Halting Problem says that after factoring in substantial cash reserves, analysts peg its real worth at closer to $500 million. That's a notable sum—it's less than what sources tell Halting Problem is the estimated real estate value of the company's San Francisco headquarters: $540 million. Zynga bought the 668,000-square-foot, seven-story building for $228 million in 2012, and the San Francisco Chronicle reported in February that it was looking to sell the building but then lease it back. As the Chronicle now puts it: "So yeah, Zynga is going from owner to renter with a building that's worth more than it is. How San Francisco." Still, all is not lost. On Thursday, Zynga's shares closed 11% higher thanks to first-quarter revenues beating expectations, reports CNBC. It's not that the earnings were all that strong—they simply broke even, which is better than the expected loss. And while Zynga boasted an increase in ad sales, its customer base declined—an ongoing problem for a company whose bread and butter dates back to the Facebook desktop era but has yet to strike gold with mobile gaming apps. The company says it has released four games this year and will release six more throughout the year, including one about Willy Wonka, reports Adweek. (Zynga once sued a hookup app.)
– They say there's no such thing as bad publicity, but a two-year community college 58 miles outside of Dallas may today be disagreeing with that phrase. Navarro College is making headlines after it was yesterday revealed that the school is reportedly turning away applicants who hail from Ebola-stricken countries. CNBC spoke with Kamorudeen Abidogun, a Texas resident who had five relatives from his native Nigeria apply to the school and use his home address for mailing purposes. "I received, last weekend, two rejection letters," explains Abidogun, "saying the reason why they were not giving admission was ... Ebola." CNBC posted an image of one of the letters, which is signed by the college's international programs director, Elizabeth Pillans. The standout paragraph: "With sincere regret, I must report that Navarro College is not able to offer you acceptance for the Spring 2015 term. Unfortunately, Navarro College is not accepting international students from countries with confirmed Ebola cases." Insider Higher Ed reports Navarro College responded with this statement: "This fall we have almost 100 students from Africa. Unfortunately, some students received incorrect information regarding their applications. ... The college restructured the international department to include focused recruitment from certain countries each year. Our focus for 2014-15 is on China and Indonesia. We apologize for any misinformation that may have been shared." CNBC asked the school's VP for Access and Accountability if an Ebola-rejection policy had been in place; he replied that the statement "speaks for the college."
– A tragedy turned horrific in South Korea on Wednesday, when a man's suicide attempt ended up killing a young girl, too. The man, described as age 38 or 39, jumped from the 11th floor of his apartment building in Busan, and landed on the five-year-old, reports CNN. He died on impact; the girl suffered a skull fracture and later died at a hospital. She had been walking with her parents, who were both uninjured. Police say the man was being treated for depression, though the AP reports he left no note.
– "I think if we just remain deeply tasteful and just put deeply tasteful people on the cover, it would be a rather boring magazine!" That was Vogue editor Anna Wintour's response ... to a question about putting Kim Kardashian and Kanye West on the magazine's cover. Or, as Fashionista puts it in its headline, "Anna Wintour Implies Kim and Kanye Are Not 'Tasteful.'" Of course, it could be argued she's "implying" the same thing about Madonna, since her answer started off: "I see the role of Vogue to reflect what’s going on in the culture. The first celebrity that I put on the cover of Vogue was Madonna, and that was considered completely controversial at the time, too." If Vogue were to be too tasteful, Wintour continued during her talk at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art Monday night, "Nobody would talk about us. It's very important that people do talk about us. ... I hope another Kim Kardashian comes along this year!" (See how Kim's latest controversial magazine cover is contributing to divorce rumors.)
– There are the routine entries of the pregnancy to-do list: Buy and safely install the car seat. Set up the crib. Stock a drawer with tiny onesies. But on Jordan Thiering's list, this odd item: Go to court to secure her right to her placenta. The Mississippi woman had determined she wanted to eat the placenta that was sustaining her unborn son after his birth. It's an age-old practice called placentophagy that WebMD points out is practiced in the animal kingdom and among tribal women—and a trendier set, with the Atlantic noting that celebs like Kourtney Kardashian and January Jones have extolled the practice. And while a 2015 analysis of 10 studies on the subject found it provided no "protection against postpartum depression" and had no positive effect on lactation, energy, or maternal bonding, Thiering didn't care. "If it does nothing, it does nothing, but it's the whole perspective of being able to kind of have what I want, rightfully so," she tells the Clarion-Ledger. But when the Brandon woman told her doctor about her plan to encapsulate the organ, which typically weighs about a pound by the baby's birth, her doctor suggested she check with the hospital. It gave her some surprising news—she needed a court order. A memo provided to the newspaper by state epidemiologist Dr. Thomas Dobbs explains the state's view: that no hospital "may release non-infectious medical waste (including placental tissue) without there first having been obtained by a court order ... which will assure proper disposal by the release." Her petition was granted by the court on May 17, and her attorney hopes Thiering has "paved the way" for other women. (The placenta may have saved this boy's life.)
– She knew you were trouble when you walked in—and so she installed facial recognition technology to flag you. Per Rolling Stone, Taylor Swift made use in May of a special kiosk at her California Rose Bowl show that secretly scanned concertgoers' faces, then shot those pictures back to a "command post" in Nashville, Tenn. There, the faces were compared with those of "hundreds" of Swift's known stalkers. Intel on the surreptitious spying kiosk, which was showing clips of the pop star rehearsing to lure spectators so their faces could then be photographed, comes via a security expert who says he was invited to watch a demo of the system at the Rose Bowl show by the kiosk manufacturer; Swift's own reps are keeping tight-lipped about it. Mashable calls it a "creepy" yet "understandable" use of the technology, considering the trouble Swift has had with alleged stalkers in the past. Still, it raises a few questions, including whether the photos will be kept, for how long, and what else they might be used for; per Quartz, it's unclear whether any stalkers were identified at the Swift event. The Verge notes that concerts are typically private events, meaning organizers can legally set up practically any kind of surveillance. Swift's fans aren't the only ones who may be undergoing Terminator-like scanning: Rolling Stone notes facial recognition technology is increasingly being used at arenas and stadiums, not only for safety, but also for efficiency—by keeping tabs on how quickly guests move through a venue, event organizers can set up systems to keep the flow streamlined. "It holds a lot of promise," says a rep for Ticketmaster, which plans on tapping the tech. "We're just being very careful about where and how we implement it." (One person who may not be attending a Swift concert anytime soon: President Trump.)
– Prepare to be shocked: Kim Kardashian’s marriage to Kris Humphries may not be the fated, destined romance it appears to be. A source tells Wetpaint Entertainment that an E! rep—the network is responsible, of course, for all the Kardashian reality shows—first approached New York Knicks player Danilo Gallinari to ask if he wanted to date Kim. Kim, you see, wanted to be involved with a New York athlete for her new show Kourtney & Kim Take New York. Sadly, Gallinari declined, but his loss was New Jersey Nets player Kris Humphries’ gain. Then again, maybe it’s not his gain: Rumors of trouble in paradise continue to swirl, with a source telling Us Kim and Kris “are not getting along at all,” partially because “Kris is not drinking the Kardashian Kool-Aid.” The New York Daily News adds more fuel to that fire, citing a Life & Style source who claims that “all Kim’s family and friends positively hate Kris.” It doesn’t help that a currently-unemployed Kris (thanks to the NBA lockout) is apparently spending his wife’s money to party. “She told him he needs to do something productive,” says a friend. “He needs to get off his ass, like, yesterday.” Kim herself recently told People that “it’s not ideal” to have cameras constantly following them around as newlyweds, Fox News adds.
– It was nearly a happy ending for James Foley. US special forces mounted a secret rescue mission in Syria this summer to free Foley and other Americans, but the hostages were nowhere to be found, reports the Washington Post. Several dozen US troops landed at the unspecified location and engaged in a firefight with militants from the Islamic State, but “while on site, it became apparent the hostages were not there,” a US official tells ABC News. One US service member was injured before the troops evacuated. “Intelligence is not a perfect science,” says a senior official. "When we got there, they weren’t there. We don’t know why that is.” The mission took place after US authorities debriefed six Western hostages who had been freed by the militants. President Obama, who promised today to "see that justice is done," authorized the mission once intelligence agencies believed they had pinpointed the site, reports AP. It's not clear how many Americans are being held, but the militants have threatened to kill freelance journalist Steven Joel Sotloff next.
– It was crime that shocked Australia: A British man shot dead in the wild outback of the Northern Territories by a man who then abducted his girlfriend. She managed to escape and hide in the scrub for hours as the killer stalked her with a dog. Now, 15 years later, Joanne Lees is back in the "untamed heart of Australia" to look for Peter Falconio's body, trailed by an Aussie TV crew. "I need to bring him home," she tells Network 9's 60 Minutes. "Pete lost his life on that night, but I lost mine, too." Bradley Murdoch, the man convicted in 2005 of killing Falconio, 28, has never revealed what he did with Falconio's body, the Guardian reports. The vacationing couple was driving on an isolated highway at night in July 2001 when Murdoch flagged down their camper van. He shot Falconio in the head, and beat Lees, then 27, and tied her up. When Murdoch left her to check Falconio, Lees bolted. She was found on the highway with her hands bound. Her calm demeanor during questioning initially led police to consider her a suspect, per the Telegraph. Flying over the remote scene in a helicopter, Lees, now 43, tells 60 Minutes, "I know that he’s somewhere here. His spirit just feels stronger." Members of the local Aboriginal community are helping scour the bleak landscape for the body and have donated artwork to help Lees pay for a memorial. She is planning to dedicate a silver falcon sculpture to Falconio's memory. (The killer of the ex-wife of a Righteous Brothers member was identified after 41 years.)
– Joe Howlett had just tapped into his extensive knowledge of knots to free yet another whale off the coast of New Brunswick on Monday, part of his job with Canada's Campobello Whale Rescue Team, and then: "Some kind of freak thing happened and the whale made a big flip," says Mackie Green, who co-founded the rescue group with Howlett, per the Canadian Press. The Guardian reports that Howlett, a lobster fisherman who died as a result of the incident, had rescued another North Atlantic right whale just days before, bringing his total over the past 15 years or so to about 24. The region has been dealing with an alarming influx of whale deaths, with seven North Atlantic right whale carcasses being found in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the past month alone—what some estimate to be about 1% of the total worldwide population. An expert from the Canadian Whale Institute tells the Canadian Press and the CBC that the 59-year-old Howlett likely wouldn't have been immersed in the water himself, as rescuers typically do their release work from inflatable rubber boats. He adds that the giant mammals can't move that much while they're tangled up in ropes, but that once a whale is freed, the rescue boat usually backs off to avoid the wrath of a possibly irate animal. Canada's fisheries department notes in a statement that it takes "immense bravery" to deal with trapped whales. And Green says his group will continue to do just that, because that's what Howlett would've wanted. "There's no better feeling than getting a whale untangled," Green says, describing Howlett to the Canadian Press as "the life of the party." (In Alaska, orcas are making off with fishermen's catch.)
– Everyone loves Batman and Superman, just apparently not when they’re trying to rip each other’s heads off. While audiences give Batman v Superman a 74% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, critics are hovering at the 30% mark, calling the film, well, a disaster. Here's what they're saying: "The film might be pretty to look at"—some scenes even come "close to high art"—but it's "a shambolic, ill-advised, white-hot mess of a movie," writes Barry Hertz in a 1.5-star review at the Globe and Mail. "There are so many baffling elements to BvS that singling out any one is to be paralyzed by choice." One example: Director Zack Snyder's "complete mishandling" of Superman as "kind of a jerk," Hertz says. Snyder also "diminishes every female character." "This is what happens when you give a bad director a quarter-billion or so dollars," writes Chris Klimek at NPR. He calls the film a "ponderous, smothering, over-pixelated zeppelin crash of a movie" that is "confusing before it gets boring, and boring before it gets bruising." About 23% of the film he liked. The rest, not so much. Andrew O'Hehir is a bit more forgiving, saying he was mostly entertained for all 151 minutes. "Snyder's OCD-level attention to the visual details," Jesse Eisenberg's portrayal of Lex Luthor, and Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman, "who brings in a badly needed dose of Dragon Tattoo-style female energy," rescue the film from being awful, he writes at Salon. Yet the film "is kind of dopey and plays out some laborious plot twists in the DC narrative at unnecessary length." Matthew Lickona at the San Diego Reader keeps his review short and not-so-sweet. The flick is "in a word, exhausting. In a few more, overblown, overstuffed, repetitive, bombastic, and sometimes just dumb. (Never mind dreary to look at and punishing to hear.)" Too bad there's "a bunch of sequel-bait," to boot. (But Ben Affleck says the movie is for fans, not critics.)
– College sports uniforms are getting seriously funky as outfitters such as Nike and Under Armor shell out big money to schools only too happy to take it, report the New York Times and Washington Post in similar stories on the trend. Both see the University of Maryland (with 32 possible uniform combinations) as a prime example of garishness this year, and both note that Army and Navy will be wearing duds from Nike's futuristic "Pro Combat" line in their December game. The main motives cited aren't all that surprising: merchandising, jersey sales, and drawing the interest of more young fans and high school recruits. “There’s the potential to alienate some boosters and alums who write the checks, sure," Paul Lukas, editor of Uni-Watch.com tells the Post. But "they think the attention, even if it’s negative, is good.” The Times story also features a quote from Lukas about how the "trend in uniform design is more toward making costumes for superheroes than uniforms for athletes."
– Donald Trump's latest is a wilder-than-usual attack on Ted Cruz: Trump says Cruz's father was in the company of Lee Harvey Oswald just months before Oswald shot John F. Kennedy in 1963. His comments are based on a National Enquirer story that claims a previously unidentified man photographed with Oswald handing out leaflets in support of Fidel Castro in New Orleans is actually Rafael Cruz. The report cites "experts" who reviewed photos of Rafael Cruz from the time period and found he "looks to be the same person" as Oswald's companion, per the Miami Herald. "What was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald?" Trump says, per Politico. "It's horrible." Though Rafael Cruz admits to once supporting Castro, he says he was "duped" and didn't know Castro was a Communist. A Cruz rep says it's "another garbage story in a tabloid full of garbage" (the Enquirer has endorsed Trump) and "that is not Rafael in the picture." Still, Trump's criticisms don't stop there. He also slams Cruz's father for urging evangelicals to vote for his son. "I exhort every member of the body of Christ to vote according to the word of God and vote for the candidate that stands on the word of God … and I am convinced that man is my son," Rafael Cruz says in a Facebook video, per the Washington Examiner. "It's disgraceful that his father can go out and do that," Trump tells Fox News. (The National Enquirer claims Cruz had five mistresses.)
– Meet Greg Packer: He’s the first person in line for an iPad at New York City’s Fifth Avenue store, and he’s been waiting since Tuesday. But he’s not necessarily a big Mac fan…just a big fan of being first in line for things, from book releases (he nabbed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince first) to product launches (he got he iPhone first, too). Business Insider goes so far as to call him, “The Same Stupid Guy Who’s First In Line For Everything.” Gawker notes the AP sent out a memo to reporters in 2003 warning them about the retired Long Island highway maintenance worker and his love of being quoted. But he’s not the only one excited about tomorrow’s iPad release: Stephen Colbert gave Apple some free product placement on last night’s show, where he demonstrated his favorite iPad app: vegetable chopper. Watch it in the gallery. ABC, which also gave the device lots of free publicity on Modern Family (clip in the gallery), will release an app that makes ad-supported episodes of 20 of its shows available for free on the iPad, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
– Clint Eastwood, Matt Damon … what’s not to like about Hereafter? But not all the critics are overly impressed with this spiritual film that touches on the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the 2005 London subway bombings: “The mostly mesmerizing but finally flawed film” mostly “plays like a smart and stylish thriller,” writes Michael O'Sullivan in the Washington Post. But the promise of three separate and “artfully-woven” plotlines coming together for “a collision—or at least a fusion,” is never realized. “The big payoff fizzles.” Mick LaSalle begs to differ: This is one of Eastwood’s best, he writes in the San Francisco Chronicle. “Every shot communicates something precise, whether it's plot detail or a thought or emotion.” The result is a “sympathetic and all-encompassing understanding of the pain and grandeur of life on earth.” In the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert concurs: The “enthralling” film “considers the idea of an afterlife with tenderness, beauty and a gentle tact.” Though the subject matter “lends itself to sensation and psychic baloney … this is a film for intelligent people who are naturally curious about what happens when the shutters close.” Another in the thumb's down camp: It tackles big topics "without having anything to say,” writes Kyle Smith in the New York Post. “The movie drags, yet it feels like it's missing an hour. It features three characters on three continents who barely interact with one another. And after 130 minutes, it stops without concluding.” Eastwood recently promoted the film, but ended up talking about his disagreements with President Obama. Watch that interview here.
– The latest document dump in the Sony hack has exposed thousands of the company's passwords for various accounts, reports BuzzFeed. The reason this came to light so quickly? The passwords were kept in a file directory called "Password." Among them are hundreds of usernames and passwords for movies' social accounts on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, but also plenty of clearly labeled passwords for everything from Amazon to Fidelity financial services. "Because who needs encryption or security or common sense or even the vaguest attempt at grade-school level online safety," snipes Gizmodo. Hackers have promised to release boatloads of more sensitive information. It's still not certain who's behind the hack, but North Korea today denied responsibility, reports USA Today. "Linking the DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea) to the Sony hacking is another fabrication targeting the country," a North Korean diplomat told Voice of America. Pyongyang is miffed at Sony for an upcoming Seth Rogen comedy about a plot to assassinate Kim Jong-Un.
– Serena Williams today did what she usually does when she makes it to a Grand Slam final—win. She beat 20th seed Garbine Muguruza of Spain at Wimbledon in straight sets, 6-4 and 6-4, reports ESPN. The victory sets up an interesting scenario, notes Bleacher Report. If Williams wins at the US Open in September, that will give her all four Grand Slams this year—the first "Calendar Slam" since Steffi Graf managed the feat in 1988. On the men's side, Roger Federer plays Novak Djokovic tomorrow. Here's a preview.
– North Korea has responded to tough new United Nations Security Council sanctions with typical defiance, calling the measures a "violent violation" of its sovereignty and promising "righteous action" in return. In statements carried by the official Korea Central News Agency on Sunday, Pyongyang rejected calls for it to return to the negotiating table over its nuclear weapons program, vowing that its nuclear deterrent would not be affected by threats from Washington, Al Jazeera reports. We "will never take a single step back from strengthening our nuclear might," Pyongyang's statement said. The sanctions are expected to slash North Korea's annual $3 billion export revenue by a third. Analysts, however, warn that even if the tough new sanctions, the eighth round passed since 2006, can be made to stick, it may not be enough to prevent North Korea from creating a nuclear missile capable of withstanding re-entry. "The problem with sanctions alone is that we don't have that kind of time," Leon Sigal, director of the New York-based Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project, tells the Wall Street Journal. "They're very close to an ICBM." Reuters reports that South Korean President Moon Jae-in spoke to President Trump on Monday and promised to apply maximum pressure to the North. (China has told Pyongyang to "be smart" and stop missile tests.)
– The feds are now on the case of a plane that crashed in Connecticut Tuesday afternoon, killing its student pilot, NBC News reports. The only other passenger aboard was the instructor, IDed by a local hospital as Arian Prevalla, who survived, per an anonymous law enforcement official. The FBI is now speaking with him to find out if the plane was intentionally downed, East Hartford police Lt. Joshua Litwin tells CBS News, and they're also checking out the background of student pilot Feras M. Freitekh, who is said to be from Jordan. East Hartford Mayor Marcia Leclerc tells CBS that the instructor told authorities the crash was intentional. The Piper PA-34 Seneca aircraft, which officials say came from a nearby flight school, slammed into a utility pole and burst into flames around 4pm EDT, injuring two people in a minivan on the ground (their injuries are said to be minor). Police say there were two separate sets of controls for the twin-engine plane, but Litwin says it's not clear who was actually piloting it at the time of the crash. He said at a Wednesday press conference that the probe is "extremely active" and "still in its infancy" and noted that every option is still on the table, including the crash being an accident. CBS reports that it discovered Freitekh is a Jordanian national who first came into the US in 2012 on a temporary M1 student visa to attend flight school, though that changed to an F1 (a longer-term study visa) when he attended a Toledo language school, then back to an M1 at some point. Prevalla is said to be in critical condition, per a hospital spokesman.
– When 29-year-old Jacob Millison vanished in Colorado nearly three years ago, friends knew exactly where to look. "Literally days before he went missing he told us if anything ever happened to him, it was his family," one friend tells CBS Denver. They're now celebrating the arrests of Millison's mother, sister, and brother-in-law, though getting to this point wasn't easy. According to police, Deborah Sue Rudibaugh, 68, initially claimed her son disappeared of his own accord in May 2015, leading her to craft a will that left the family's 700-acre ranch in Parlin to her daughter, Stephanie Jackson, 33. That story changed when authorities found Millison's body among sheep heads in a pit at the $3 million ranch in July 2017, per the Washington Post. Rudibaugh then admitted to shooting her son while he slept on May 16, 2015. Rudibaugh told police she'd actually removed Millison from a will in April, leading him to become physically and verbally abusive, per the Post. She said she killed her son in fear for her own life before moving Millison's 170-pound body to a manure pile and then to the pit. But police doubted a 70-pound woman recovering from gallbladder surgery could have managed this feat alone and discovered that Jackson deleted a text shortly after 3am on May 16, that read, "It's time to play!" Jackson and her husband allegedly eventually admitted they helped plan Millison’s murder and moved his body, reports the Denver Post. David Jackson, 34, faces charges including accessory to murder and tampering with a body, per the AP. His wife and Rudibaugh are charged with first-degree murder.
– Rebel Wilson previously said she didn't care about the damages so much as the verdict in her successful defamation case against Bauer Media. She might care now. A Victorian Supreme Court justice has determined that Bauer, publisher of Australia's Woman's Day magazine, owes the actress $3.6 million, "the highest defamation payout in Australian legal history," reports the Sydney Morning Herald. Wilson, 37, tweeted Wednesday that the sum—including $522,000 in general damages and $3.1 million in special damages, per CNN—is actually four times the Australian record. She added she's "extremely grateful" and—following up on a promise to donate any damages—said she would support charities and the film industry in her native country. The Pitch Perfect star had initially offered to settle the case for $200,000, but later sought about $5.6 million. Her lawyer said that was a "conservative" amount considering Wilson lost out on roles in at least two films because of the 2015 articles painting her as a serial liar. "Wilson's reputation as an actress of integrity was wrongly damaged in a manner that affected her marketability in a huge worldwide marketplace," Justice John Dixon said in announcing the damages Wednesday, per the BBC. "Only a very substantial sum … could convince the public that Ms. Wilson is not a dishonest person and bestow vindication of her reputation," he added, per the Herald, which notes "celebrity journalism in Australia may never be the same."
– If you’re one of those poor, sad souls who couldn’t get a friend to hook you up with a Google+ invitation, good news: It's your lucky day. As of yesterday anyone can sign up for Google’s social networking service, Ars Technica reports. Google still considers the service a work in progress, “but with the improvements we’ve made so far we’re ready to move from field trial to beta,” a senior VP wrote on the company blog. Google has also added a variety of new features, including the ability to search for specific posts and people, and a host of new features for its “Hangouts” video chat function. You’ll now be able to access Hangouts from Android phones, for example, and you’ll be able to name them, integrate them with Google Docs, and more.
– In April, a Michigan doctor was charged with performing genital mutilation on two young Minnesota girls. On Wednesday, feds dropped what the Detroit Free Press calls a "bombshell" in the case: They estimate not two but up to 100 girls had their genitals cut by Dr. Jumana Nagarwala. "The Minnesota victims were not the first victims," Assistant US Attorney Sara Woodward told a judge as part of what is the first case of its kind to be prosecuted in federal court. The government says it has evidence of eight victims (though the Detroit News notes the case at hand still just involves the two). The feds arrived at their estimate based on defendant Dr. Fakhruddin Attar's alleged statement that he gave Nagarwala use of his Livonia clinic as many as six times a year over a dozen years. The allegation came as Woodward argued Attar and his wife, who is accused of helping to calm and restrain the girls during the procedure, should not be released on bail in advance of the October trial. A judge disagreed; they'll be on house arrest going forward, and barred from using the Internet. The prosecution argues the three, members of an Indian-Muslim sect called the Dawoodi Bohra, illegally cut the girls' genitals as part of a religious rite. The defense counters they simply underwent what the News terms a "benign" procedure that involved scraping the mucous membrane of the girls' genitalia; lawyers say what was removed was then deposited on gauze pads and returned to their mothers for burial. (The first person in America to be convicted of female genital mutilation was kicked out of the country in March.)
– Conal O'Rourke says he lost his job at PriceWaterhouseCoopers because he complained about poor service from Comcast—a PwC client—and now he's suing the cable company. After O'Rourke brought his story to the media, Comcast apologized publicly for the many billing issues and other service problems he experienced, but insisted "nobody at Comcast asked for him to be fired." O'Rourke, however, says Comcast's controller did call PwC (Comcast does not deny that a call was made), and he's suing over the alleged violation of a federal law that bars cable companies from sharing personal information without a customer's consent, Consumerist reports. The big issue is what happened when O'Rourke, fed up after months of poor service, contacted Controller Lawrence Salva's office (but didn't actually speak with Salva). Comcast says that during this call, he attempted to use his job at PwC as "leverage to get better service," Consumerist notes; O'Rourke says he believes the controller simply did an online search of his name following the call and learned he worked at PwC. (O'Rourke has asked for a recording of the call in which he supposedly mentioned his employer, and Comcast has yet to release one.) O'Rourke says that after he called the controller's office, the controller contacted PwC. He's seeking more than $1 million in damages and legal costs, as well as an injunction barring Comcast from doing a slew of things—among them, overbilling customers. Click for O'Rourke's full story.
– What began as an orderly march by thousands of activists protesting the NATO summit yesterday turned bloody as clashed erupted with Chicago police. At least seven people required hospital treatment, and dozens were arrested, reports the Chicago Tribune. The confrontation lasted close to two hours, and left several protesters bloodied, said the newspaper. In other action, a number of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans threw their NATO valor medals over a fence set up by the Secret Service around the summit site at the McCormick convention center, reports ABC News. A hacking group affiliated with Anonymous also reportedly took down NATO and Chicago police websites temporarily. "We are in your harbor Chicago, and you will not forget us," said the group, antis3curityops, in a comment posted on Cyber War News. The demonstrations yesterday followed earlier arrests of five men on terrorism charges. Three were accused of building Molotov cocktails and planning attacks on President Obama's local campaign headquarters and on Mayor Rahm Emanuel's home during the summit. Two militia members from Wisconsin were also busted after police found shotguns, shells, knives and batons inside their vehicle. Police are steeling for more trouble today.
– Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that national elections will be held within three months—some eight months ahead of schedule—because he knows his conservative coalition government won't be able to agree on a budget. "For the benefit of Israel," the elections will be held "as quickly as possible," he said on national TV, reports Haaretz. Holding the elections quickly will help maintain a stability to aid Israel in maintaining a "responsible economic and defense policy," especially now when the nation is so concerned that Iran is close to developing a nuclear bomb, he noted. The "lightning-quick" elections are also likely to help him win re-election, AP reports. He's enjoying a wave of popularity, and the opposition is fragmented. Immediately after the announcement, the head of the Israel Labor Party said that Labor is the only real alternative to Netanyahu and his Likud party. The elections will be a choice "between two paths: Whether we will live in a jungle where the strong takes everything, or an enlightened and moral society," said party chief Shelly Yachimovich. The former leader of Kadima, Tzipi Livni, said on Facebook that after four "isolated, introspective" years under Netanyahu, it's time for Israel to "choose its path again."
– We're still waiting for the results of Philip Seymour Hoffman's autopsy, which will be completed later today, but a search of his home makes the prevailing heroin overdose theory look seriously likely. Authorities found nearly 50 envelopes of what they think is heroin in the apartment, along with more than 20 used syringes in a plastic cup, and several bottles of prescription drugs, law enforcement sources tell CNN. There were also eight empty bags marked with the street names for various heroin varieties, including "Ace of Spades" and "Ace of Hearts." The NYPD is using those names to hunt for Hoffman's dealer, adds the New York Post, "An internal email went out to all supervisors asking if anyone has had any experience with those brand names of drugs," says a source. Ace of Spades is particularly notorious, the Daily Beast points out, explaining its long history. There have also been a bevy of recent media reports about a deadly tainted heroin variety containing fentanyl, usually sold as "Bud Ice," "Income Tax," or "Theraflu," leadng to speculation that Hoffman might have used it.
– Andie MacDowell says that she'll no longer be doing two things: paying for first class on American Airlines and complaining on Twitter. USA Today reports that a kerfuffle began on Friday, when the Groundhog Day star tweeted "HELP" to @AmericanAir because she had been downgraded from first class to tourist after having been assigned to seat 1A, meaning there was no seat in front of her under which to place the dog she was traveling with. She also complained that while checking in for her flight in Charlotte, NC, she met "the rudest person I have ever had to deal with," though she conceded that there was "more legroom in tourist." Many Twitter users failed to be moved by her plight, with one tweeting "God bless you for tolerating the peasants," E! Online reports. But MacDowell's fans sprang to her defense, sparking a fierce debate in which the star fired off dozens of tweets to both supporters and critics, reports USA Today. "I'm very happy flying in coach I'm happy on a bus or the subway but if I [pay] for first class, that's where I want to be," she wrote. By Sunday, having apparently "learned the hard way that tweeting a complaint doesn't always get sympathy on social media," she said it was time to move on, the CBC reports. (Click to read about 13 celebrities behaving badly on planes.)
– All players targeted for drug suspensions in the Biogenesis scandal—except Alex Rodriguez—have accepted 50-game penalties from Major League Baseball, a person familiar with the negotiations tells the AP. MLB has decided to slap Rodriguez with a suspension lasting through the entire 2014 season, but he's expected to appeal, and will be allowed to keep on playing until that appeal is finished, sources tell ESPN. All-Stars Nelson Cruz of Texas, Jhonny Peralta of Detroit, and Everth Cabrera of San Diego are among the 12 who accepted penalties, the person said. Notably absent from the list are Bartolo Colon and Melky Cabrera, who according to Fox Sports are getting credit for the 50-game suspensions they each served last season after positive drug tests. Washington star Gio Gonzalez and Orioles third baseman Danny Valencia, meanwhile, were cleared of wrongdoing. The full list of suspended players is: Nelson Cruz, OF, Texas Jhonny Peralta, SS, Detroit Everth Cabrera, SS, San Diego Francisco Cervelli, C, New York Yankees Fernando Martinez; OF, New York Yankees Antonio Bastardo, P, Philadelphia Jesus Montero, C, Seattle Jordany Valdespin, IF, New York Mets Cesar Puello, OF, New York Mets Sergio Escalona, P, Houston; Fautino De Los Santos, P, San Diego Jordan Norberto, P, Free Agent
– Depending on your point of view, Taco Bell's latest creation is either culinary atrocity or genius deliciousness: It is the Cap'n Crunch Delight, which Today describes as "sweet little doughnut holes filled with creamy milk icing and enrobed in a delicious layer of Cap'n Crunch Berries cereal crumbs." The menu addition comes as something of an asterisk to Taco Bell having recently joined the trend of chain restaurants pledging to reduce or ban artificial ingredients from their menus. When it did so, the AP notes that Taco Bell exempted co-branded menu items like its Doritos Locos Tacos. The new dessert is out July 2.
– Apparently having slept on it, on Friday Donald Trump walked back the endorsement he gave to torturing terrorists and killing their families during the GOP debate Thursday night, the Wall Street Journal reports. "We should go for waterboarding, and we should go tougher than waterboarding," CNN quotes Trump as saying during the debate. The BBC points out the US has banned waterboarding, which is "widely considered" to be torture. Trump also said he would authorize the military to target the families of terrorists as a deterrent. Critics say both of those policies would violate international laws, including the Geneva Convention, and possibly lead to war crime charges. "I will not order a military officer to disobey the law," Trump said in a statement on Friday. "It is clear that as president I will be bound by laws just like all Americans.” CNN calls it a dramatic shift "in less than 24 hours." And the Journal notes Trump's reversal comes "after months of insisting that he wouldn’t back down." But he had been facing serious criticism over his statements. A former CIA director last week said the military would refuse to obey orders to torture terrorists or kill their families. Trump addressed that possibility during the debate, saying "They're not going to refuse me" and "If I say do it, they’re going to do it." A former secretary of defense said the plan to kill terrorists' families, especially, goes against "everything the United States stands for in this world."
– Not so fast, Amazon. The tech giant's $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods made headlines last week, but the Los Angeles Times reports it may not be as done a deal as previously believed. Amazon agreed to pay $42 per share for the grocery chain, but those shares closed at more than $43 Monday. That means investors expect a higher bid to come in, with one expert calling it "highly likely." Potential bidders include Kroger, Albertsons, and Walmart. And while it's unlikely anyone could outbid Amazon, its competitors have an obvious interest in making Amazon's takeover of Whole Foods as financially painful for it as possible. Here's what else you need to know: Vox reports an Amazon-operated Whole Foods could be a nightmare for other grocery chains. That's because while grocery stores have tiny profit margins, Amazon intentionally has essentially no profit margins at all: Money that comes in is reinvested in new endeavors. Amazon could immediately cut prices at the notoriously expensive Whole Foods, undercutting competitors without worry for its own bottom line. Whole Foods CEO John Mackey says the Amazon takeover started with a "blind date" six weeks ago. “We just fell in love,” the Wall Street Journal quotes Mackey as saying. “It was truly love at first sight." One economist expects Amazon's acquisition of Whole Foods to start "a supermarket war of historic proportions," and CNBC reports that would lead to plummeting prices that could kill the expected rise in inflation the Fed was hoping for. Bloomberg argues it's not grocery stores that should be most worried, but the companies that make the packaged goods that line their shelves. Amazon is already making its own diapers and batteries and could decimate the profit margins of consumer-goods companies by expanding that program through Whole Foods. Amazon could hurt packaged food companies like Kellogg and Campbell Soup in another way, CNBC reports. Customers were already turning toward fresher food options, and the acquisition of Whole Foods could accelerate that process. Finally, the acquisition of Whole Foods would increase the net worth of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos by approximately $1.8 billion, according to UPI. That would increase his wealth to $84.6 billion, bringing him within $5 billion of Bill Gates, the world's richest man.
– Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly sat down with Diane Sawyer last night to talk about their new gun control group and their emotional visit to Newtown in the wake of the school shooting there. Highlights from ABC News: Giffords and Kelly, both now retired, initially imagined a life out of the spotlight, but after the Sandy Hook shooting, Giffords says, she thought: "Enough." That was what convinced them it was time to take action. Giffords' message for Newtown was "strength," she says. "Gabby often told them, 'You got to have strength. You got to fight for something,'" Kelly adds. "Yes, a Glock," Giffords says when asked if she still owns a gun. "Gabby and I are both gun owners," says Kelly. "We are strong supporters of the Second Amendment. Why can't we just make it more difficult for criminals and the mentally ill to get guns?" They also oppose extended magazines: "An extended magazine is used to kill people," he says. "Lots of people." As for the argument that more people with guns could actually stop gun violence, Kelly says there was "a good guy with a gun" nearby when Giffords got shot, and he almost shot the wrong person. "After the shooting in Tucson, there was talk about addressing some of these issues, [and] again after [the movie theater massacre in] Aurora," Kelly says. "I'm hopeful that this time is different, and I think it is. Twenty first-graders being murdered in their classrooms is a very personal thing for everybody." The couple also talks about Giffords' progress since her injury. She calls it a "struggle," but says she is still improving. "You're walking faster, and if I tug you along, you can go even faster," Kelly says. And she plans to walk through the Capitol talking about gun control. Meanwhile, yesterday in Tucson, the second anniversary of the shooting that wounded Giffords and killed six others was marked by competing events in a police station parking lot, the AP reports. A councilman on one side of the lot gave out $50 gift cards to people who turned firearms in to police; a state senator on the other side organized an unregulated marketplace where guns were legally exchanged with no paperwork required. And Roxanna Green, mother of the youngest victim Christina-Taylor Green, released an ad calling for gun control.
– When Jason Canfield got a speeding ticket in May 2016, he didn't pull out his checkbook to pay the $234 fine: He started gathering records of national and state traffic codes to contest the charge of driving too fast in a Seattle school zone. And his efforts paid off, with a King County Superior judge tossing the camera-generated citation in May, per the Seattle Times. Canfield's winning argument centered on what he says were overly verbose road signs. He says he was driving in a 35mph zone on the day of the infraction when, just after 9am, he cruised past a K-8 school, which suddenly placed him in a 20mph zone. A speed camera caught him driving 28mph. He argued the too-wordy signage calling for a slowdown to 20mph "when children are present" (Canfield says they weren't) or "when flashing" (referring to the warning lights) was confusing enough to slow down drivers' reaction times. Further, national standards specify only one of the two signs appear. The speed cameras are part of Seattle's participation in the national Vision Zero campaign, designed to eliminate traffic deaths. A city report shows drivers may be heeding the warnings, with a significant reduction in collisions near Seattle schools with the speed cameras installed. Canfield, who spent about $800 to fight the ticket, isn't against the initiative in principle: He has an 8-year-old daughter and says, "I'm not in favor of speeding in school zones." He just wants clearer signs. An SDOT rep tells KIRO 7, "I can't imagine ... we will reduce efforts to keep students safe anytime soon."
– Let it never be said that innovation is dead. NBC Chicago reports McDonald's will soon be selling its classic French fries drizzled with two kinds of chocolate sauces. The McChoco Potato was announced Tuesday and will be debuting in Japan next week. "Customers will find McChoco Potatoes enjoyable for different occasions, as it also makes for a great dessert," according to a McDonald's press release. "The combination creates a wonderful salty and sweet harmonious taste." The McChoco Potato will only be available in Japan for the time being, probably because we still owe them for that Matthew Broderick Godzilla movie. But fret not, food adventurers living in the US. Bustle reports Cinnamon Bun Oreos hit store shelves on Monday, and apparently the "first new Oreo flavor of the year" is getting "rave reviews." The new Oreo puts cinnamon bun icing-flavored filling between cinnamon cookies. "One of my favorite parts about being an adult is being able to eat whatever I want for breakfast," writes Kathryn Kattalia at Bustle. "I have a feeling I will soon be adding this creative new twist on Nabisco's classic sandwich cookie to my morning meal lineup." Keep innovating, America!
– The debate about the GOP debates looks set to rumble on. Reps from at least 11 campaigns met at a hotel in the DC suburbs for a strategy meeting on Sunday night and emerged with a list of changes they want made after last week's widely criticized CNBC debate. The New York Times reports that the campaigns have agreed to demand 30-second or longer opening and closing statements for all candidates, an even distribution of both speaking time and the "parity and integrity" of questions asked, and vetting of any on-screen graphics about the candidates to be aired during the debates. The campaigns agreed that they, not the Republican National Committee, should take charge of negotiating terms with the networks, the Hill reports. "They'll continue to do logistics and all that kind of stuff. But they're a partner. They're not our boss," says Ben Carson's campaign manager. The campaigns were split on several issues, including reinstating the next NBC debate, which Jeb Bush's people wanted and Donald Trump's team didn't, and doing away with "undercard" debates, which reps from the Bobby Jindal, Lindsey Graham, and Rick Santorum campaigns called for, the Times reports. A source tells the Washington Post that the campaigns agreed early on that any changes can wait until after next week's Fox Business Network debate.
– A Belarus writer known for what Swedish Academy judges called "her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time," won the Nobel Prize for Literature Thursday, the Guardian reports. Svetlana Alexievich, 67, has made her name by instilling a journalistic style heavy on eyewitness accounts into literature that focuses on the "great tragedies of the Soviet Union and its collapse," including Chernobyl and the Soviet war in Afghanistan, per the AP, as well as her own website. Her first novel, War's Unwomanly Face, which documented the untold stories of multitudes of women who fought against the Nazis, was published in 1985 and sold more than 2 million copies. Also under Alexievich's belt: three plays and the screenplays for nearly two dozen documentaries. Alexievich, born in 1948 to a Belarus father and Ukrainian mother in the Ukrainian town of Ivano-Frankivsk, is the 14th woman to win a Nobel Prize for Literature, per the Guardian; Alice Munro was the last female to nab the honors in 2013. Alexievich explains her approach to writing on her site, noting that she'd been "searching for a genre that would be most adequate to my vision of the world to convey how my ear hears and my eyes see life. … Finally I chose a genre where human voices speak for themselves." One of her books, Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, involved hundreds of interviews with people affected by the 1986 nuclear meltdown, NPR notes. "I usually spend three to four years writing a book, but this time it took me more than 10 years," Alexievich told the Dalkey Archive Press. The Nobels continue Friday with the Peace Prize.
– One of the victims in the Santa Fe school shooting was Cynthia Tisdale, a 63-year-old substitute teacher who WFMY reports was killed Friday while teaching a first-period art class. But while family and friends mourn her death in this "terrible act of violence," BuzzFeed notes a glimmer of hope amid the tragedy. Tisdale's job at Santa Fe High School was just one of two she held down to help her family get by, as her husband, William Recie Tisdale, is homebound with an incurable lung disease called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. In December, William Tisdale was given just 12 to 18 months to live and was denied a lung transplant, so his family set up a GoFundMe page in March to help raise funds for a stem cell treatment, with an original goal of $30,000. Funds slowly trickled in—but Cynthia Tisdale's death changed the pace. After the story of her death and her husband's plight started to circulate, money started pouring in; the page has since raised more than $100,000, which the family says will be used for funeral costs, the stem cell treatment, and even maybe a lung transplant from a different doctor, an option the family is now able to consider. CNN notes William Tisdale is "devastated" at his wife's murder, but the kindness of strangers and their financial support have raised his spirits. "We are still in such disbelief that anything good can come out of such a horrific event," one of Cynthia Tisdale's children writes on the GoFundMe page. "My mom always made good come out of bad situations though and this is no different for her." Cynthia Tisdale's brother wrote on Facebook, via BuzzFeed: "I am sure Cynthia is rejoicing in heaven knowing her death may save her husband of 47 years."
– David Letterman is signing off after more than 30 years in the late-night business, reports TVLine.com. The host said during the taping of tonight's show that he will step down in 2015, reports AP. Bassist Mike Mills of REM, who appears on the show, first broke the news on Twitter: "Dave just announced his retirement," he wrote. Letterman has hosted CBS' Late Show for 21 years, after 11 years at NBC's Late Night. Letterman told the audience that he phoned CBS chief Leslie Moonves before the taping, "and I said, 'Leslie, it’s been great, you’ve been great, and the network has been great, but I’m retiring,'" according to the Hollywood Reporter. As the audience gave him a standing ovation, Letterman added, "We don’t have the timetable for this precisely down—I think it will be at least a year or so, but sometime in the not too distant future, 2015 for the love of God, in fact, Paul and I will be wrapping things up.” The announcement comes just weeks after Jimmy Fallon replaced Jay Leno at NBC. Business Insider reports that Craig Ferguson is believed to have the first right of refusal to replace Letterman in the 11:30 time slot. Letterman, who turns 67 next week, recently passed Johnny Carson as the longest late-night host in TV history.
– While Sarah Palin was endorsing Donald Trump in Iowa, her oldest child was facing domestic violence charges in Alaska. According to court documents obtained by Gawker, Track Palin, 26, was arrested at his parents' home on Monday night after an ugly incident in which he allegedly punched and kicked his girlfriend before threatening to shoot himself. In an affidavit, a police officer says he went to a Wasilla residence after separate 911 calls were received from the woman and from Palin, who told dispatchers the woman was drunk. The officer says that when he saw Palin outside, "his eyes were bloodshot and I detected a strong odor of alcohol on his breath and person. Upon contacting Palin, he was uncooperative, belligerent, and evasive with my initial line of questions." The officer says he handcuffed Palin, and other officers found the woman hiding under a bed in the residence. According to the affidavit, she said that after an altercation in which Palin hit her in the face and threw her phone, she went inside and "found Palin holding a gun with the barrel pointed near his face and saying, 'Do you think I won't do it?'" KTUU reports that Palin was released on bail Tuesday after pleading not guilty to fourth-degree assault, interfering with a domestic violence report, and misconduct involving a weapon. A Palin family attorney tells the AP that the family wants privacy while Track, who spent a year in Iraq while serving in the Army, "receives the help that he and many of our returning veterans need." (In 2014, Track and other Palins were involved in a huge brawl.)
– Sarah Lewis and William Cramer have been together for six years and have three children. The Ohio couple had had plans over the years to get married that never came to fruition—until yesterday, when they had a Christmas wedding in the hospital room where their 4-year-old son, Billy, is being treated for neuroblastoma, typically a children's cancer, the AP reports. A lighted arch was erected and rose petals were scattered in Billy's room at Akron Children's Hospital by employees, who've become like family to the Cramers since Billy was diagnosed in 2013, the Akron Beacon Journal reports. Billy's younger siblings, 2-year-old Mason and 1-year-old Delaney, jingled bells as Sarah's uncle, a pastor, officiated. "I think the hospital has become our second home," Sarah tells Fox 8 Cleveland. "Everyone here treats us like family and treats him like family, and that’s really important to us." By all accounts, it hasn't been an easy year for the Cramers: Billy has endured intense chemo, surgery, a bone marrow transplant, and now, a clinical immunotherapy trial, the Journal notes. William, who works for a toy company, has stayed home with the two younger kids while Sarah has taken a hiatus from nursing school to stay by Billy's side—she estimates the two of them have been in the hospital for at least six months out of the past 12. But even though the cancer had spread to Billy's bones, his oncologist says the boy is "doing great" and that "from what we can tell, there is no [longer] evidence of the disease," according to the Journal. "My son is my hero," William tells Fox 8, while Sarah notes in the Journal that the in-room ceremony "shows we're going to be together for the long haul." (An experimental leukemia treatment has had a tremendous success rate so far.)
– A big Foo Fighters fan with terminal cancer will get to scratch off one item from his wish list: meeting Dave Grohl and the band. The band was flying home from Australia when a flight attendant told Grohl about the wish of her friend, Australian Ken Powell, 56, who has late-stage melanoma, reports Yahoo News. Grohl—who had to cancel all his meet-and-greet fan sessions while in Australia because of food poisoning, dashing Powell's hopes of meeting the celeb—was apparently touched. He posed for a photo with a "Hi Ken" sign, passed along souvenirs, and set aside VIP tickets for a show in Los Angeles where Powell can meet the band. While Grohl didn't provide the airfare, the Internet is taking care of that. Powell is donating any excess funds—and more than $21,000 has been raised so far—to melanoma research. "Yes," writes Bernard Zuel at the Sydney Morning Herald, "you are allowed to say awwww, that's so sweet."
– It can be tough not to yawn when the guy next to you does—but apparently, it gets a little easier to avoid doing so as we get older. The finding comes from a study of contagious yawning among 328 subjects who were shown a three-minute clip of others yawning. Each time a participant yawned, he or she had to click a button, the BBC reports. Some 68% of subjects yawned, but the rate varied among different age groups: 82% of under-25s yawned, while 60% of 25- to 49-year-olds did. Just 41% of those older than 50 yawned. Yawning contagiousness wasn't strongly linked to empathy or intelligence, the Independent reports—a finding that appears to run counter to earlier research, the BBC points out. Still, age accounted for just 8% of the variation in the phenomenon, per the head of the study, and "the vast majority of variation in the contagious yawning response was just not explained," she says. Researchers note that those with autism and schizophrenia are thought to be less likely to "catch" a yawn; genetic research on yawning could help in finding treatments for the conditions. (In other yawning news, it turns out your dogs can catch your yawns.)
– Stephen Hawking has come out in favor of physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill, provided there are significant safeguards in place. When asked about his position on the issue in 2006, the famous cosmologist and author called it a "great mistake," noting, "While there's life, there's hope," reports the Guardian. But in a new BBC interview tied to the upcoming release of the documentary Hawking, he changes his tune. "We don't let animals suffer, so why humans?" he asks, saying that family members should be free to help end a loved one's suffering without fear of prosecution. But precautions must be in place to ensure "that the person concerned genuinely wants to end their life and they are not being pressured into it or have it done without their knowledge or consent as would have been the case with me"—Hawking was put on life support in 1985, and his wife was given the option to pull the plug. In the documentary, which Reuters notes is set for UK release on Friday, he also addresses his failed marriages.
– The NSA's massive collection of phone metadata is "almost certainly" unconstitutional, a federal judge declared in a blistering statement today. Judge Richard Leon issued an injunction banning the agency from spying on the plaintiffs in the lawsuit he was reviewing—legal analyst Larry Klayman and one of his clients—though he suspended that injunction to allow the government to appeal, Politico and the Wall Street Journal report. Leon called the program "almost Orwellian," writing, "I cannot imagine a more 'indiscriminate' and 'arbitrary invasion'" of privacy. "I have little doubt that the author of our Constitution, James Madison, who cautioned us to beware 'the abridgment of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power,' would be aghast," he added, according to the Blog of the Legal Times.
– It's not a night for political comebacks in New York City: Eliot Spitzer has lost his bid to become city comptroller. The former governor lost the Democratic primary to Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, whose campaign repeatedly brought up the prostitution scandal that brought down Spitzer in 2008. But unlike Anthony Weiner, whose name was often paired with Spitzer by late-night comics, Spitzer's loss wasn't overwhelming: He was defeated 52% to 48%, according to the New York Times. Spitzer spent around twice as much as Stringer and employed several Obama campaign veterans to assist in micro-targeting of voters and appeals to minority communities, but his rival had the backing of unions and major newspapers, as well as a superior get-out-the-vote operation. Stringer's wife was often by his side, while Spitzer's wife, Silda, who stood by him in 2008 but is now living separately from him, was absent from the campaign trail, Politico notes.
– A 14-year-old boy is facing vehicular manslaughter charges after police say he stole a Jeep and hit an 8-year-old girl who was just leaving school Thursday in Baltimore, the New York Daily News reports. According to the Baltimore Sun, police tried to stop the stolen Jeep just three blocks from the school, but it sped off. “We don't chase, school zone or not," Det. Donny Moses says. "We don't chase stolen autos." Thirty seconds later, the Jeep plowed into people and parked cars outside Steuart Hill Academy. A crossing guard, a 9-year-old boy, and another driver were injured. But 8-year-old Amirah Kinlaw was killed. "She was all smiles," Amirah's stepfather, Leon Carter, tells the Sun. "She had no worries, no cares." The driver ran off but was later identified as the 14-year-old through surveillance footage, police say. His identity has not been released. “This kid is 14, made a horrible, horrible, horrible mistake, made a horrible, horrible decision, and it’s two lives for two young people that are forever damaged,” a police spokesperson tells CBS Baltimore. In addition to vehicular manslaughter, the teen faces a variety of other charges, including auto theft. He won't be prosecuted as an adult. “He’s really remorseful,” says Redd Rodriguez, whose daughter is friends with the boy. “He’s a little boy, but he’s facing grown man charges.”
– Last summer, a team from Endurance Exploration Group used a remotely operated vehicle—or ROV—to recover a glass bottle, a chamber pot fragment, and a piece of china that had been sitting on the seabed some 1,000 feet below the Atlantic Ocean's surface for more than 150 years. It was confirmation that they had discovered the resting place of the SS Connaught, a 370-foot-long steamer that sank April 21, 1860, about 100 miles from Boston. Now, Endurance is formulating a plan to retrieve the Connaught's suspected bounty: millions of dollars in gold coins. In a lengthy BBC piece, Chris Baraniuk tells the story of Endurance CEO Micah Eldred's mission to create a profitable shipwreck salvage business, why he chose the Connaught, and the challenges Endurance faces as it undertakes "a subsea engineering job that we're trying to make respectable." Four years ago, Endurance began researching shipwrecks that both contained valuables worth salvaging and for which salvage was technically feasible. Starting with 1,500 wrecks, they whittled the number to 20. Of those, Connaught was their best bet. Using sonar to scan more than 700 square miles of ocean bottom, the team discovered the Connaught in 2013, as iO9 reported. The next year, an ROV confirmed the find. In 2015, they recovered artifacts, and they also became aware of an unanticipated problem: Thick fishing nets snagged on the wreckage rose hundreds of feet off the Connaught. As the team figures out a solution—perhaps in the form of a giant log-gripping claw adapted for maritime use— Eldred tells Baraniuk that he's not motivated by the gold involved. "The excitement, he says, "comes from building a business that’s really complicated.” (These repo men of the high seas face challenges of their own.)
– A high school music teacher in California was arrested Friday and charged with child abuse after he got into a physical fight with a 14-year-old student who verbally provoked him in class. USA Today has cellphone video of the incident at Maywood Academy High School, where 64-year-old Marston Riley can be seen calmly absorbing the remarks of the belligerent student; students tell KTLA the teen had been asked to leave the class due to a dress code violation. For about a minute and a half, Riley quietly keeps asking the student to leave, per the Los Angeles Times, as the student berates him, calls him the n-word, and finally throws a basketball at him. Then, suddenly, Riley punches the student in the face, and they scuffle for about 30 seconds as students scream, until a woman in a vest runs in and breaks it up. KTLA spoke with some students and notes most are defending Riley, with one even suggesting it was a setup. A GoFundMe started in Riley's name by a colleague, meanwhile, had raised more than $75,000 as of Tuesday morning; Riley himself put up a short video confirming the fundraiser was legit and to thank everyone who supported him. "We all may have mixed feelings about what happened," the page host notes. "But please do know that this is not the first time that Mr. Riley is [sic] attacked; physically or verbally. He is a great person and a great teacher." As for the school district, it said in a statement: "We take this matter very seriously and do not condone violence or intolerance of any kind." The boy was treated for "moderate" injuries at the hospital, per the local sheriff. Riley is set to be arraigned on Nov. 30. (A substitute teacher reportedly ran a classroom fight club.)
– Prince William and wife Kate have released new photos of Prince George, in a sweater vest no less, and the AP notes that the pics are inspiring swooning headlines the likes of "Mummy's Little Soldier Prince" and "Little Prince Charming." The third in line to the throne is pictured on the steps of Kensington Palace, and his parents say in a statement that the release is in " grateful acknowledgment of the fact that their request for Prince George to grow up without intrusion from photography has been, and continues to be, honored." (That hasn't always been the case.) Vanity Fair likens the little prince's facial expressions as a progression in which " George tells a hilarious joke, then takes a pause after delivering the punchline to assess your reaction, and then gets distracted by his mother’s glistening hair."
– James Q. Wilson, who came up with the influential "broken windows" theory of policing and crime prevention, died yesterday of leukemia at age 80. A sample of the obituaries: Los Angeles Times: He "helped launch a revolution in law enforcement" with the windows theory—"the idea that eradicating graffiti, public drunkenness and other signposts of community decay was crucial to making neighborhoods safer." New York Times: His theory "holds that when the police emphasize the maintenance of order rather than the piecemeal pursuit of rapists, murderers and carjackers, concentrating on less threatening though often illegal disturbances in the fabric of urban life like street-corner drug-dealing, graffiti and subway turnstile-jumping, the rate of more serious crime goes down." Cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and Boston embraced it. Associated Press: He "helped trigger a nationwide move toward community policing." Original 1982 article: Wilson pitched his theory in the Atlantic 30 years ago with coauthor George Kelling. A key line: "(I)f a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken. ... One unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing. (It has always been fun.)” Read it in full here.
– Whippings could soon resume for a blogger in Saudi Arabia sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for "insulting Islam," CNN reports. Raif Badawi, who advocated for secularism on his blog Saudi Arabian Liberals, has been in prison since 2012 and received the first 50 of his scheduled weekly lashes in January 2015. According to the Telegraph, an international outcry arose after the initial floggings, and the second round was delayed while Badawi healed. Now, his wife Ensaf Haidar says a trusted source told her those next 50 lashes have been approved by authorities and could happen any day. “I call on his Majesty King Salman to gracefully end my husband’s ordeal and to pardon him,” she says. She is hoping Badawi will instead be deported to Canada, where she and their children have been living.
– Casey Anthony is still a free woman, just not quite as free as she used to be. A Florida judge ruled today that she must return to Orange County before the end of the month to serve one year of probation, reports the Orlando Sentinel. Because she is the most hated person in America, at least according to this new poll noted by the Los Angeles Times, the court will make an exception and keep her address under wraps. She will have to report once a month to a local probation officer, get a job, and steer clear of drugs. The probation isn't related to her murder trial; it's for a conviction on check fraud charges that occurred before that trial began. Anthony admitted she stole checks from a friend around the time she reported her daughter missing. She has to be back in Florida no later than Aug. 26. As for that most-hated poll, Anthony beat out other luminaries such as Octomom, Spencer Pratt, and OJ Simpson.
– Online-coupon phenom Groupon has tweaked its articles of incorporation to allow it to raise up to $950 million of new capital, reports VC Experts. That financing could give the Chicago-based company a post-money valuation of $6.4 billion, says VC Experts, in excess of the $6 billion reportedly offered by Google earlier this month. Groupon had a valuation of "only" $1.3 billion in its last capital raising round in April. Revenues at Groupon for 2010 are estimated at $500 million. Click for one take on what Groupon plans to do with all that money.
– Amazon has announced what the Seattle Times is calling its "biggest philanthropic venture to date." Inside an office building at its new Seattle headquarters will be 47,000 square feet of space dedicated to a homeless shelter known as Mary's Place. Since April 2016, Amazon has allowed Mary's Place to occupy an old hotel it owns without charge, but the building will now be torn down to make way for new construction. But in a YouTube video published Tuesday—"obviously designed to create a viral video moment," observes Chris O'Brien at VentureBeat—Amazon tells the non-profit's executive director, Marty Hartman, that six floors of an Amazon building will be set aside as a permanent rent-free home for the shelter, allowing it to house more than 200 people. Amazon's head of real estate, John Schoettler, says Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos loved the idea when Schoettler first suggested it in January. He adds Amazon will cover the "tens of millions of dollars" in construction costs, plus all future utility bills "until homelessness is solved." Hartman says it's a "huge gift," though the New York Times reports it comes at a time when Amazon, Seattle's largest private employer, is shouldering some of the blame for the city's rising housing costs, which gave the area the third-largest homeless population in the country in 2016. Mary's Place, which hosts women and families until they can find permanent housing, will be located in another former hotel owned by Amazon until its new home is completed in early 2020. (In other Amazon real estate news, Bezos has purchased a former museum.)
– The French president's office says there's nothing mysterious about the disappearance of a sessile oak tree he planted on the White House lawn. It was put in quarantine, reports the AP, like other plants or animals brought into US territory. The sapling was a gift from French President Emmanuel Macron for his state visit to President Trump last week. An official in Macron's office said Monday that Trump insisted on holding a symbolic planting ceremony alongside Macron despite the quarantine requirement. The official said both sides knew all along that the tree would go later into quarantine. No word yet on when or where it might resurface. Fortune notes that US Customs and Border Protection regulations often mandate such quarantines to mitigate the risk of spreading pests; many sessile oaks in northern France have suffered from the spread of the oak processionary moth, which has not yet made it to the United States. The oak originally sprouted at the World War I Battle of Belleau Wood in northern France, where about 2,000 US troops died fighting a German offensive. A pale patch of grass now covers the spot where the presidents planted it.
– Beware those innocent-looking green beans and that mom-approved chicken noodle soup! Turns out not only plastic but canned goods—because of the coating used to protect food from corrosion and bacteria—contain disturbing levels of bisphenol A, a known carcinogen. A National Workgroup for Safe Markets test of 50 cans of fruit, vegetables, soup, beans, sodas, and milk from pantries all over the country found five times as much BPA as a similar FDA test in 1997, reports Fast Company. The chemical was present in 92% of the cans, tested by an FDA-approved lab, and the level of BPA didn't reflect age or price of the product. "It takes as little as one serving of canned foods to expose a person to levels of BPA that have been shown to cause harm in laboratory animals," one of the co-authors of the study tells AOL News, warning that it's especially dangerous for pregnant women, "because fetuses are especially vulnerable to BPA's effects."
– A disturbing study out of Bowling Green State University has found that US police officers were charged in hundreds of rapes over the course of less than a decade. Per CNN, researchers behind the findings concluded that cops were charged in 405 forcible rapes in the nine years between 2005 and 2013. In order to compile their list, which includes other charges, researchers say they took to crowdsourcing because there is no comprehensive database that exists to document crimes committed by officers. As WVLT notes, study authors say the nature of their information gathering means the number could be higher. Experts also say victims of crimes perpetrated by police are frequently reluctant to come forward. The BSU study found that even more police officers were accused of crimes classified as forcible fondling, reporting 636 instances of such charges. (In just the last week, one Maryland officer was stripped of his badge after he was charged with the rape of an undocumented immigrant during a traffic stop.)
– Teachers and other public employees are now eyeing the Supreme Court after it announced Thursday it will take on a case next summer that may have big repercussions for unions. The Los Angeles Times reports the high court will look at overruling the requirement that all public employees, not just union members, pay fees that support collective bargaining. The case, being brought on behalf of Illinois child support specialist Mark Janus, could affect unions in 22 states where those "fair share" fees are now mandated for all public employees; labor experts think many would stop paying if they weren't forced to. With conservative Neil Gorsuch now on the gavel, it's expected the ruling won't favor the unions. The country's four largest public-sector unions are blasting the complaint as "a blatantly political and well-funded plot ... to further rig the economic rules against everyday working people." The case stretches back to 2015, when Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner filed a complaint saying the mandated fees were unconstitutional, per the Chicago Tribune. Three state employees, including Janus, joined the suit, which was eventually thrown out by a federal judge and an appeals court. The ruling used as precedence was the 1977 Supreme Court case of Abood vs. Detroit Board of Education, in which it was decided all public employees, even those not in unions, must pay a portion of union dues that go toward collective bargaining efforts, as those efforts benefit all employees. Early last year, Janus penned an op-ed for the Tribune explaining why he didn't feel he should be required to pay the fees, writing: "I am not anti-union. Unions have their place. … But unions aren't a fit for everyone. And I shouldn't be forced to pay money to a union if I don't think it does a good job representing my interests."
– Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown is bringing back fictional code-breaker Robert Langdon in a new novel in May. Inferno will center on Dante, taking its name from the first part of his 14th-century work, The Divine Comedy. Brown and Doubleday announced the title today in a social media stunt done with the Today show—as people tweeted or posted about it on Facebook, a mosaic filled in revealing the title. It worked so well, the servers supporting the mosaic crashed temporarily, notes the Wall Street Journal. “Although I studied Dante’s Inferno in high school, it wasn’t until recently, while researching in Florence, that I came to appreciate the enduring influence of Dante’s work on the modern world,” Brown said in a statement. “With this new novel, I am excited to take readers deep into this mysterious realm…a landscape of codes, symbols, and more than a few secret passageways.”
– In the market for a new place to live? Five celebrities are in the news for trying to offload (or, in one case, offloading) pricey palaces: Paula Deen is selling one of her Savannah, Ga., properties for a cool $12.5 million. The 14,500-square-foot "private resort" includes a barn, two guest cottages, 5.5 acres of land, and a pool and "dive-in" theater, plus a lot of things you didn't know you needed, like a croquet court and "an ice room with a professional ice machine." Photos here. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are selling the French Quarter mansion they bought after Hurricane Katrina for $6.5 million, but a rep tells TMZ they "remain committed to and infatuated as ever with the city of New Orleans and will continue to focus on growth in the lower 9th through the Make It Right Foundation." Photos here. Or you could live in New Jersey, where Diddy is selling an $8.5 million seven-bedroom mansion complete with basketball court. (And it's a deal, because he bought it for $10 million in 2004.) Photos here. LeBron James' Miami mansion went up for sale for $17 million last year, but Page Six reported in March that it might be in the wrong neighborhood to have that high of a price tag. (It's now apparently just $15 million.) Photos here. Sean Penn succeeded in getting rid of his Malibu "bachelor pad" recently, after he moved in with Charlize Theron—but the $6.5 million home doesn't look like any "bachelor pad" we've ever visited. There's a fancy pool and a grand piano, of course. Photos here. Click for more photos of fancy homes celebs have sold.
– American Hustle was a big winner at this morning's Academy Award nominations announcement, snagging nods in seven major categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and all four of the acting categories. Fellow Best Picture nominee Gravity tied Hustle for most overall nominations, with 10 apiece, the AP reports. 12 Years a Slave, also nominated for Best Picture, followed with nine nominations. The rest of the Best Picture nominees: The Wolf of Wall Street, Nebraska, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Her, and Philomena. Click for the complete list of nominations. The ceremony airs Sunday, March 2.
– A 22-year-old security guard has been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of a Virginia grandfather whose family says he was playing Pokemon Go in an effort to connect with his grandchildren. WTKR reports Johnathan Cromwell was working as a security guard for a Chesapeake neighborhood last January when 60-year-old Jiansheng Chen, who didn't speak English, pulled up in his van. Chen's family says he was in the area to capture Pokemon. Prosecutors say Cromwell shot at Chen more than six times, striking him four times in the chest, according to WAVY. Cromwell claims he was acting in self-defense. NBC News reports an attorney for Citywide Protection Services says Chen drove his van at Cromwell. But prosecutors say Cromwell fired at Chen as he was driving away, with his first shots entering the driver's side window. They say he moved around to the front of the van and fired more shots. When police arrived at the scene, Cromwell allegedly asked a detective about the accuracy of his shooting. Cromwell was charged with second-degree murder in February. That charge was upgraded to first-degree murder Wednesday. He's also charged with the use of a firearm in commission of a felony. Cromwell's father accuses prosecutors of "trying to make an example" of his son for "political" reasons. He says "there's no ground for" the new charge.
– Chinese President Xi Jinping has made it his mission to eliminate corruption within the ruling Communist Party, and his latest target is the highest-ranking thus far. Zhou Yongkang is the former head of national security and an ex-member of the Politburo Standing Committee, which heads the party; he was among "the country's most feared leaders" before he retired in 2012, the AP notes. But he hasn't appeared publicly in months, the BBC reports, and now, state media say he's facing an investigation over a possible "serious disciplinary violation." Though unspecific, that language tends to refer to corruption, the Wall Street Journal notes. Zhou, a onetime ally of disgraced politician Bo Xilai, is the highest-ranking official to face investigation since the 1980s, when Mao Zedong's wife was among those targeted in an investigation, the BBC reports. Until now, such inquiries had avoided Politburo members, the Journal notes. Xi could face anger within the party over the probe, the paper adds, but it also points to the solidifying of his power, the BBC notes.
– The Keystone pipeline sprung a leak Saturday, and TransCanada was slightly off in its original estimate of how much oil spilled into Hutchinson County, South Dakota—by about 9,000% or so. CNN reports the oil company originally estimated that only about 187 gallons had spilled. On Thursday, it updated that estimate to about 16,800 gallons after excavating more than 100 feet of pipe, News 10 ABC reports. While TransCanada has yet to find the source of the leak, it says it's been "controlled" by shutting off a section of the pipeline. CNN quotes TransCanada as stating it hasn't "observed significant impacts to the environment" from the leak. The company claims the leak poses no threat to public health, UPI reports. The affected section of the Keystone pipeline will remain closed until early next week while workers search for the leak. While less oil will be entering the US market from Canada for the time being, analysts say consumers won't be affected as there is currently more than enough oil available. Last November, President Obama vetoed an extension of the Keystone pipeline known as Keystone XL at least partly due to environmental concerns. TransCanada is currently challenging that veto in federal court. CNN quotes the executive director of the Sierra Club as saying the current leak in South Dakota "is a stark reminder that it's not a question if a pipeline will malfunction, but rather a question of when."
– The campaign office of Michael Grimm, a Republican congressman from Staten Island, has suffered a break-in, with the windows smashed by cinderblocks and computer hard drives erased, Politico reports. Grimm claims the attack was "politically motivated. This is an attack against a federal campaign office, which is an attack on our democracy as a whole." His computers, with polling data and voter ID materials, had recently been backed up. But in a puzzling twist, police are apparently skeptical about Grimm's take on the case: They're investigating the matter as criminal mischief rather than burglary, the New York Daily News reports, saying they found no indication of forced entry.
– It's been almost eight years since Michelle Obama was able to sit in a passenger seat and sing along to the radio, so it's a good thing James Corden stopped by the White House recently. In the latest edition of Carpool Karaoke, Corden drives Obama repeatedly around the White House driveway as they belt out tunes from Beyonce, Stevie Wonder, and Missy Elliot, who makes a surprise appearance. A few takes: "It's official: we, the people, have the most viral First Lady ever," writes Laura Bradley at Vanity Fair, noting Obama knows Beyonce's "Single Ladies" "by heart, complete with hand-waving choreography." Obama "doesn’t have a bad singing voice" and "can really spit some flow too," writes Brian Moylan at the Guardian. He compares her to Jackie Kennedy and wonders what we'll all do without her come January. Meanwhile, Elliot tells CNN that she thought she was dreaming throughout. "I know for a fact that it was all over my face like, 'Wait, is she rapping this?'" she says of the moment Obama started spitting her rhymes. "But that goes to show you just how cool she is. People hold her in such a high regard—as you should—but she's so down to earth." The video—in which Obama reveals her and her hubby's Secret Service code names—even drew a shout out from the agency. "Thank you @JKCorden and the @latelateshow for bringing @FLOTUS home safe and sound after #CarpoolKaraoke. We were watching," it tweeted. (Carpool Karaoke is becoming its own show.)
– Maria Sharapova is taking the logical next step for a star athlete: Launch a line of … candy. She introduced Sugarpova this week, Bloomberg reports; the line of sweet and sour gummy candies has flavor names like Sporty, Cheeky, and Flirty. Sharapova, 25, has long been endorsing products for other companies, leading to her Forbes ranking as the highest-paid female athlete in the world for eight consecutive years. "I really wanted to be involved in something from the beginning to the end, I wanted to own it 100%," Sharapova says. Adds a business partner, "She demanded to taste the product for quality assurance, helped with the packaging design, she’s been involved from the beginning in every aspect of its creation." The candy line may eventually expand to include other products like cosmetics and fragrances.
– Mitt Romney's name has grabbed headlines lately on the heels of Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch's retirement announcement as a likely successor. Now, news of a different sort, by way of a CNN source who says the Republican was "treated surgically" for prostate cancer over the summer at UC Irvine Hospital in California. The unnamed source described the treatment as successful and the prognosis as "good." NBC News and Fox News say their sources confirm the story.
– Google is rolling out a major new change to its search engine today—the Knowledge Graph. When a user searches for a famous person, place, or thing, a box will pop up on the side of the screen offering a concise list of relevant facts, reports ABC News. Google's database for the new tool includes 500 million people, places, and things combined with 3.5 billion items of information and connections. You'll see info boxes for everything from movies to cities to roller coasters to planets to lighthouses, writes Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land. "Big change, but I don’t think it’ll be a shocking change to most Google users who will begin seeing it over the coming days on Google.com, if they’re searching in US English." Adds Liz Gannes at AllThingsD: "At least on an interface level, Microsoft is on a similar track with Bing—where it just launched custom panels for results in 150 categories. But what Google is doing goes quite a bit deeper."
– Geez, it didn't even cloud over. Harold Camping's deadline of doomsday/Rapture has arrived on the East Coast without a peep, just as it did in the world's earlier time zones. "So far it hasn't interrupted my fish & chips," read a typical tweet from Australia, one of a few of the early ones rounded up by the Guardian. No word yet from Camping, who predicted that end times would arrive at 6pm today in each time zone. And the flop hasn't stopped endoftheworldconfessions from surging on Twitter. The Christian Post takes note of the mockery and wonders if any good might come of Camping's misfire. “Maybe at least people have thought about the second coming of Christ,” says Dr. Barry Levanthal, provost at Southern Evangelical Seminary. Another theologian isn't as generous. “I don’t see any good coming from distorting Scripture," says a professor at Talbot and Biola University. "It’s tragic to me. Sadly, Christians should be the ones with the most settled confidence in the face of potential problems, but we can be the biggest alarmists and conspiracy theorists.”
– Two shootings in northern Nigeria have left nine female polio vaccinators dead, in what is thought to be the latest violence by militant Islamic group Boko Haram, reports the BBC. Both attacks were carried out by gunmen riding on a motor tricycle, though it is not clear yet if the same individuals were involved. Islamic leaders in northern Nigeria have opposed polio vaccinations since 2003, claiming they could lead to infertility and AIDS, reports Reuters. Polio is still endemic in just three countries: Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. The shootings happened in and around Kano, the area where 200 children were killed and others maimed by Pfizer's trials of its antibiotic Trovan in 1996.
– A guard at Jerusalem's Western Wall holy site shot and killed an Israeli man this morning, thinking he was a Palestinian militant. The guard heard the man yell "Allahu Akbar," or "God is greatest" in Arabic, the BBC reports. "The fact he shouted Allahu Akbar, that seems to be why the security guard drew his weapon and fired a number of shots at him," a police rep said, per Reuters. The victim was also reportedly spotted pulling something out of his pocket as he left a public restroom nearby. Hundreds were visiting the wall for morning prayers; the site closed after the shooting.
– When Felix Baumgartner jumped from the edge of space wearing prominent Red Bull logos on his spacesuit, advertising CEO Larry Woodard got excited. Could we, he asks in a column for ABC News, be on the verge of a new age of ad-sponsored science? "Red Bull stayed right on message," Woodard observes—if this isn't "giving you wings" what is?—and reaped tens of millions in free publicity. That success might look attractive to some big-time corporations. Nike says it already supports sport- and body-related research, and Coca-Cola says it supports "independent research" designed to "promote active, healthy living." Not exactly sending men to space, but it's a start. And lest you doubt the scientific merits of Baumgartner's stunt, the AP talked to NASA engineers who say it could definitely improve spacesuit design and emergency escape systems for astronauts. "It was Mach 1.24, which is really huge," says the head of Red Bull's medical team. "We learned a lot."
– The Beatles had an impressive debut week on iTunes. They sold 2 million individual songs worldwide (the top seller being Here Comes the Sun) and 450,000 albums (with Abbey Road on top) after the catalog went up for sale, reports Billboard. That amounts to more than $8 million, notes the LA Times. For a yardstick, Taylor's Swift's blockbuster Speak Now album sold 278,000 digital albums in its first week. The Beatles/iTunes mashup benefited from a huge ad blitz, and it's expected to get even heavier this week.
– A strip of Australian highway was left strewn with injured and dead kangaroos Monday morning, and animal welfare officials are trying to find out who they say ran them down intentionally, the Guardian reports. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says a driver outside Brisbane purposely mowed down the marsupials, killing 16 of them (a 17th had to be euthanized), per CNN. The officials note that other injured animals may have taken off into the bush. Tire marks helped officials determine the vehicle swerved toward the grazing animals, who reportedly don't usually fear passing cars. "You can see the person's deliberately gone right across the road to the other side and hit several, and then come back on the road and hit another four or five," an RSPCA spokesman tells CNN. Officers are looking for a suspect who would've likely been driving a large car or truck, possibly with a grille guard. (Poor kangaroos—one almost became an ISIS-themed bomb to attack the police.)
– Has Apple gotten over its porn hang-up? Hugh Heffner set off a wave of speculation by suggesting as much on Twitter today. “Big news! Playboy—both old & new—will be available on iPad beginning in March,” he tweeted, according to Apple Insider. Playboy already has a censored app, but most are assuming that this apparent full archive wouldn’t all be covered up. Apple’s app store guidelines of course forbid nudity. “You can download it, your kids can download it. That’s a place we don’t want to go,” Steve Jobs once said. Could this open those floodgates? Maybe. But Hefner didn't actually mention the app store. Playboy already offers its full archive for $300 online, New York points out, so it's possible they've simply found a way to allow iPads to download that treasure trove from their browsers, "allowing Steve Jobs to still maintain his porn-free streak when it comes to apps."
– Mass exhumations at an Austrian psychiatric hospital are expected to shed light on a lesser-known aspect of the Nazi's murderous agenda: the killing of thousands of disabled people who, regardless of race, didn't fit the Third Reich's vision of an ideal society. The "euthanasia" programs are thought to have quietly murdered patients in mental hospitals across Axis territory. Austrian officials will exhume 220 bodies buried in a hospital cemetery in the Austrian town of Hall between 1942 and 1945 to look for evidence they were murdered, the BBC reports. The exhumations won't begin until March, putting a a planned construction project on hold. "This dark chapter of history must now be carefully brought to light," says the local governor. Click here for more.
– President Trump says he wants to resolve America's differences with Pyongyang peacefully—but there is the chance we "could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea." Trump tells Reuters that the country is currently his biggest international worry. Asked whether he considers Kim Jong Un rational, Trump said it would have been tough for the leader to take over the country at 27 after his father died. "I'm not giving him credit or not giving him credit, I'm just saying that's a very hard thing to do. As to whether or not he's rational, I have no opinion on it. I hope he's rational." In other developments: Rex Tillerson told Fox News on Thursday that he believes Kim is ruthless but sane, Politico reports. "He may be a murderer. He may be someone who in many respects we would say by our standards is irrational," the secretary of state said. "But he is not insane." Tillerson also said China had threatened North Korea with sanctions if it carried out further nuclear tests. "We know that China is in communications with the regime in Pyongyang," he said. "They confirmed to us that they had requested the regime conduct no further nuclear tests." The Guardian reports that China refused to confirm or deny the claim. In the Reuters interview, Trump praised Chinese President Xi Jinping's efforts to help rein in North Korea. "I believe he is trying very hard. He certainly doesn't want to see turmoil and death," Trump said. "He is a good man. He is a very good man and I got to know him very well." Foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations issued a statement Friday calling for calm, the AP reports. They expressed "grave concern" over North Korea's nuclear tests and urged all parties to "exercise self-restraint in order to de-escalate the tension and refrain from actions that may aggravate the situation." Ministers from the 10-nation bloc will meet in Manila in the Philippines on Saturday. In a second interview Thursday, Tillerson, who will chair a UN Security Council meeting on the issue Friday, told NPR that the US is open to holding direct talks with North Korea if Pyongyang agrees to consider giving up its nuclear weapons. "We do not seek a collapse of the regime," he said. "We do not seek an accelerated reunification of the peninsula. We seek a denuclearized Korean peninsula." North Korea released a new propaganda video Thursday that showed simulated attacks on the US, with the White House and aircraft carriers in the crosshairs, the Washington Post reports. "We will show you what a strong country that leads the world in nuclear and missile technology is capable of," a caption said. (Beijing is rumored to be behind a serious gas shortage in Pyongyang.)
– He was probably in his 20s and died nearly 6,000 years ago in Egypt. Beyond that, not much is known about the mystery man—except that he has helped scientists rewrite the book on mummification. Chemical analysis reveals that whoever buried him also embalmed him, and that pushes back the start of the mummification practice about 1,500 years, reports Live Science. What's more, the "recipe" used to preserve the man is similar to the one that was in use about 2,500 years later, when the likes of King Tut and other pharaohs were laid to rest, reports National Geographic. The basic recipe, per the BBC: a plant oil such as sesame oil; a balsam-type plant or root extract; a plant-based gum, or sugar; and tree resin, which helped ward off bacteria. "Until now, we've not had a prehistoric mummy that has actually demonstrated—so perfectly through the chemistry—the origins of what would become the iconic mummification that we know all about," says archaeologist Stephen Buckley of the University of York. The mummy was discovered about a century ago and has been in the Egyptian Museum of Turin. It proved to be a perfect specimen to test because, crucially, no conservation efforts were ever used on it over the years. Live Science notes one interesting aspect of the dates involved: The man's death predated writing, meaning the formula for embalming had likely been passed down verbally from generation to generation. (Ever see a mummy tattoo?)
– A tip for anyone planning to attend a Tim McGraw concert: He does not appear to like it very much if you grab his pants. TMZ obtained two videos from a Sunday show in Atlanta—shot from different angles—that appear to show the country singer slapping a female audience member after she ripped his jeans. But, a rep insists to E!, McGraw didn't actually hit the fan: "Someone firmly grabbed onto his leg and wouldn't let go as he was moving through the crowd. He instinctively swatted to try and keep them from ripping his jeans (which they succeeded at doing!), and so he could get to more fans who were trying to slap hands with him before the end of the show. He didn't know who had grabbed him and was simply trying to keep his jeans from being torn."
– Dark Knight shooting suspect James Holmes has attempted suicide multiple times recently, sources tell CBS4 Denver, and that's why a hearing originally scheduled for today has been postponed until next month. Defense attorneys asked for the postponement yesterday, citing a vague ailment plaguing Holmes, but did not discuss any suicide attempts. "It's not as simple as a migraine," said a public defender when asked about Holmes' unspecified condition. Law enforcement sources describe the suicide attempts as "half-hearted," though at least one led to a brief hospitalization. One attempt reportedly involved Holmes running into a wall; in another, he jumped off his bed. Sources tell the Denver Post Holmes injured himself by pounding his head into the wall of his cell, and that's why he was hospitalized Tuesday. But, while ABC7 Denver's sources confirm that Holmes hit his head on the wall and floor, they say it was not a suicide attempt and that the concern is more about Holmes' strange behavior than his physical condition.
– A Canadian cameraman was one of three journalists wounded today as Thai troops fired on anti-government protesters and explosions thundered in the heart of Bangkok. An army push to clear the streets and end a two-month political standoff sparked the clashes, the AP reports. The cameraman, Nelson Rand, working for a French TV station, was "gravely wounded" when he was struck by three bullets, AFP reports. Today's unrest began when protesters captured and vandalized two military water cannon trucks at a key intersection in the business district, just outside the Red Shirt encampment. They ripped the cannon from its moorings and used its plastic barrel to shoot firecrackers from behind a sandbag bunker they had commandeered from soldiers, the AP reports. Soldiers used a loudspeaker to send a message to the Red Shirts: "We are the people's army. We are just doing our duty for the nation. Brothers and sisters, let's talk together." But a group of aggressive young protesters approached them on motorcycles and on foot, shouting obscenities and taunting them by taking off their clothes.
– A tweet from Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold offered a first glimpse to the masses Tuesday of something that's long been reported but not yet seen: the portrait of Donald Trump that Trump bought for $20,000 using money meant for his Trump Foundation charity. Artist Michael Israel, a "speed painter" who the Post says whipped up the 6-foot-tall depiction in "five or six frenzied minutes" during a 2007 charity gala at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, released the public pics of the painting for the first time Tuesday. Melania Trump initially bid $10,000 during the event's auction, then was cajoled into doubling that; half the proceeds went to Israel, half to the children's charity the event was being held for. And those well versed in tax law say if that now-elusive painting is hanging in either one of Trump's homes or businesses, he could be breaking "self-dealing" laws. The only hint as to where the painting may be: Israel's former manager, who revealed in September that he was told by Melania to send the painting to a Trump golf club in Westchester, NY, where she planned to display it in "the boardroom or the conference room." The Hill notes that Trump paid $10,000 funneled from the Trump Foundation for another portrait of himself in 2004, with an eyewitness saying that painting is on display in Trump's National Doral Miami resort. (Meanwhile, a nude painting of Trump has caused quite a ruckus.)
– ISIS has got a social media problem and it seems to think it can kill its way out of it. A Twitter account linked to the extremist group has called for the assassination of Twitter employees, apparently in response for the site's attempts to shut down ISIS accounts, reports Vocativ. "The time has arrived to respond to Twitter’s management by directly attacking their employees and physically assassinating them," read one of the threatening tweets from a Jerusalem group that has pledged allegiance to ISIS. "Every Twitter employee in San Francisco in the United States should bear in mind and watch over himself because on his doorstep there might be a lone wolf assassin," read another Arabic-language tweet from the account, which has now been shut down. A spokesperson for Twitter—which shuts down ISIS accounts as soon as they surface—tells Mashable that the company's "security team is investigating the veracity of these threats with relevant law enforcement officials." The company won't say whether it has boosted security at its headquarters in San Francisco, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
– When we think of The Iliad and The Odyssey, we shouldn't give credit to a single man, says a historian: "It's a mistake to think of Homer as a person," historian Adam Nicolson tells National Geographic. "Homer is an 'it.' A tradition. An entire culture coming up with ever more refined and ever more understanding ways of telling stories that are important to it," adds the author of Why Homer Matters. Modern readers want to know the story of individual writers, but "Homer has no biography," Nicolson says. He also argues that the works may have emerged some 1,200 years before many historians say Homer lived; he dates the epic poems to around 2000 BC. He supports his theory by noting that parts of Homeric stories "are shared among the Indo-European world as a whole, all the way from north India through Greece to Germanic and Icelandic stories." What's more, Greece, in The Iliad, is full of "barbarians," and that description "doesn't make sense any later than about 1800 to 1700 BC." The works combine the "hero-based culture of the Eurasian steppes" with the "sophisticated, authoritarian, and literate cities and palaces of the eastern Mediterranean," Nicolson writes, as Guardian reviewer Charlotte Higgins notes. Meanwhile, the Washington Post observes that questions over Homer's existence, or lack thereof, aren't new; no "reliable historical information" exists about the poet, Terrence McCoy writes. (Shakespeare, of course, is another writer whose identity has been questioned; some have said he wasn't alone in his work.)
– If you're reading this in a spot just below the crest of an ice ridge on the East Antarctic Plateau, you're probably frozen solid by now. Researchers using satellite data say the area is the coldest place on Earth, with a record low of -136 Fahrenheit (-93.2 Celsius) recorded, a "soul-crushing" low colder than the -128.6 F (-89.2 C) recorded at Antarctica's Vostok Research Station in 1983, LiveScience reports. The temperature was recorded on Aug. 10, 2010—during the Southern Hemisphere's winter. "These very low temperatures are hard to imagine, I know," a researcher from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center tells the BBC. "The way I like to put it is that it's almost as cold below freezing as boiling water is above freezing. The new low is a good 50 degrees colder than temperatures in Alaska or Siberia, and about 30 degrees colder than the summit of Greenland." Researchers say chilled air flowing into topographic lows creates a string of super-cold spots along the Antarctic ridge—all with very similar temperatures, suggesting it is about as low as temperatures on our planet can get. Though the number could get a degree or two colder; the BBC explains -136 F is a preliminary number that could be adjusted as researchers "refine" the data pulled from the satellites' thermal sensors. (Another amazing satellite find: a new highest peak in Southeast Asia.)
– Authorities are investigating whether anonymous posts in an online forum pushed Virginia firefighter Nicole Mittendorff to suicide. In a thread for emergency workers on website Fairfax Underground in December, the 31-year-old was called derogatory names including "slut," Fairfax Fire Chief Richard Bowers tells the New York Daily News. After Mittendorff was found to have died from hanging in Shenandoah National Park, the hateful posts continued. The bullies haven't been identified, but some claimed to work at the Fairfax County Fire Department, where Mittendorff was employed for three years, reports WJLA. Bowers says his department "cannot and will not tolerate bullying of any kind" and will investigate. "If in fact there is anybody responsible for any piece of this, I will hold them accountable," he tells WUSA. "I have and will continue to retain all IP addresses of Fairfax Underground posters indefinitely in case any court wishes to unmask the perpetrators of this abuse," a website moderator tells the Huffington Post. Other female firefighters and paramedics were judged on their attractiveness and accused of sleeping with their colleagues. The case "offers a chilling window into the persistent harassment women encounter on a daily basis online and at work," writes columnist Petula Dvorak at the Washington Post. "I am on the receiving end of the onslaught daily." While women are often told to ignore the bullying, "it matters, it hurts, it means something. And it has to stop," she adds. "I'd say, 'Ask Nicole Mittendorff how this feels.' But we can't." Authorities have yet to share the contents of a suicide note discovered in Mittendorff's vehicle.
– Longtime conservative columnist and commentator George Will announced Friday he's leaving the Republican Party over Donald Trump. “This is not my party," USA Today quotes Will as saying. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist officially changed his Maryland registration to "unaffiliated." The Huffington Post reports the last straw for Will was Paul Ryan's endorsement of Trump. Will is urging Republican donors to not give money to Trump, saying a Democratic presidency would be better than Trump leading the country. "Make sure he loses," USA Today quotes Will as saying. Trump calls Will a "major loser."
– The record-breaking cold continues—even penguins in Canada are taking shelter, per People—so it's a good time to share what not to leave in a cold car. A list compiled by the Detroit Free Press includes the obvious—people, for one—but also several items you might not have realized could be affected by freezing temperatures. Here are five, including one that might explode:
– If you have anti-nausea medication handy, you might want to grab it. Doctors are telling of a remarkable medical case in which they had to a remove a 6-foot-long tapeworm from a man's gut by pulling it through his mouth. Live Science explains that the 48-year-old patient from India had been having stomach pains for two months before he decided to visit PVS Memorial Hospital in Kerala. During a colonoscopy, doctors discovered a segment of a pork tapeworm, a common sign that a larger tapeworm is hiding elsewhere in the body. Doctors then maneuvered a camera into the man's upper intestine, where they found what Dr. Cyriac Philips describes as the longest tapeworm he's ever seen. The worm was curled up, but as doctors began slowly pulling it out through the patient's mouth in what must have felt like an endless scarf gag, its size became clear. In the end, it measured a little over 6 feet long, doctors write in the New England Journal of Medicine. The patient—who was kindly sedated during the 1.5-hour procedure—likely became infected after eating raw or undercooked pork, per the CDC. Those who have tapeworms often don't know it because they're typically symptom-free. (A 20-foot-long tapeworm caused a man to lose 22 pounds in three days.)
– A bizarre scene of a group of wild turkeys walking in a circle around a dead cat was caught on video by a Massachusetts man who perhaps best described it: an attempt to give the feline its 10th life. Jonathan Davis came across the fowl play in the Boston suburb of Randolph Thursday, the AP reports. He posted a video on Twitter that he says was viewed a half million times by the late afternoon. The recording shows what appears to be 17 turkeys circling the cat. Dave Scarpitti, a wildlife biologist at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, suspects the turkeys were sizing up the threat of the cat and had no intention to make a meal out of it. He says turkeys prefer bird seed and vegetation to eating other animal species.
– The Pacific Ocean is rising so quickly that it's washed up a little history—in the form of 26 dead soldiers from World War II, the BBC reports. At climate-change talks in Germany, Tony De Brum, foreign minister of the Marshall Islands, said spring tides did the damage: "There are coffins and dead people being washed away from graves, it's that serious." He said the dead were likely Japanese soldiers who occupied before US forces drove them out: "No broken bones, no indication of war, we think maybe suicide." Rising waters are also eroding roads, ruining fertile land, and washing up unexploded bombs and other military devices on the 29 atolls, the Guardian reports—which jibes with a UN report that the Pacific is rising faster than other sea levels (about half an inch annually compared to roughly a tenth of an inch). De Brum urged other ministers at the talks to "commit to commit" to carbon-emission curbs, though they still need to decide whether developed countries will bear the brunt of the changes. As for the Marshall Islands, they're facing a sea-level rise of 3 to 6 feet this century, and are only 6 feet above water as it stands, so the risk is real, the Telegraph reports. "The island is not only getting narrower—it is getting shorter," President Christopher Loeak said earlier this year. “That is our worry—the disappearing of the land." Experts point out that commercial development and poorly built sea walls play a major role in damaging the islands, but one says that doesn't diminish the risk of rising waters—which "will accelerate, and on the ground the response will not be pretty."
– Love and the lack thereof are both in the air in Hollywood. Reports of the latest make-ups, break-ups, and other romance-related happenings: News of their split broke about a month ago; now there are rumors of a reunion between Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis. Depp flew to Paradis' side in the south of France for a holiday with their kids, the Sun reports, and a source says he gave her an antique gold pendant with the words, "My heart is always with you." Another reunion: Lady Gaga and Taylor Kinney, who split in May, were recently spotted leaving Gaga's father's restaurant, where Kinney presumably met the parents, the Sun reports. But life is not so sweet for Kardashian mom Kris Jenner: In last night's episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, hubby Bruce Jenner hung around with model Angie Everhart as a jealous Kris mulled divorce—and then got together with an ex for drinks. Click to watch the video. There are also rumors of an impending split between Orlando Bloom and model Miranda Kerr, Famous magazine reports in a story picked up by the Sun. Both have been photographed recently sans wedding rings, and a source says the marriage "might be in trouble." But it's mazel tov for Cybill Shepherd, who reveals to the New York Daily News that she is engaged to psychologist Andrei Nikolajevic. "I never thought I’d get married again," says twice-married Shepherd. Meanwhile, Katie Holmes may be running back into the arms of an ex, and Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis finally gave up apparent proof of their romance.
– If you don't enjoy getting stuck behind slow walkers while shopping, you're not alone—and you might consider a trip to the UK to try out the country's first ever fast lane for pedestrians being tested this week in the Liverpool One shopping complex, reports the Telegraph. The move comes after retailer Argos announced that 47% of people it surveyed are more annoyed by slow walkers than anything else. "As the research demonstrates, a faster high street could vastly improve the overall shopping experience for British shoppers across the UK," an independent retail expert says. "With nearly 30 million Brits saying they'd like one on their own high street, the pilot [which runs through Sunday] is set to be a success." But it turns out the idea is far more popular among 16- to 24-year-olds surveyed (at 69%) than among those over the age of 55 (at 37%), reports the Independent. And while the top reason to support the fast lane was to save time, one in three surveyed said they were simply annoyed by people blocking the pavement. Other top 10 shopping annoyances, according to the Argos survey, include conversations in the middle of the street, people checking cell phones, and waiting in line, with rude staff rounding out the bottom. (See how Georgia sought to solve the problem of slow drivers in the passing lane.)
– The family of a murdered DNC staffer is fighting back against a private investigator's claims he was in contact with WikiLeaks prior to his death and may have been murdered in connection to his work at the DNC. Seth Rich, 27, was shot and killed last July during what police say appears to have been an attempted robbery. After Rich's death, WikiLeaks offered a $20,000 reward for help in solving his murder, and Julian Assange appeared to imply Rich had been passing material on to them, BuzzFeed reports. Now, according to FOX 5, a PI named Rod Wheeler says there's evidence on Rich's laptop that shows he was in contact with WikiLeaks. Wheeler says the police were "told to stand down on this case" in a cover-up he believes stems from the DNC and DC mayor's office. But Rich's family—who FOX 5 states hired Wheeler—says the PI, a Fox News contributor, is not authorized to speak for them, Fox News reports. A family spokesperson says Wheeler was hired by a "third party." Fox News states an unnamed federal investigator has backed up Wheeler's claims, adding he's read the emails between Rich and WikiLeaks and Rich forwarded more than 44,000 DNC emails to WikiLeaks. The family spokesperson says there's "no facts" and "no evidence" to support these "unsubstantiated" claims. The family says any reports to the contrary are baseless conspiracy theories. Rich's murder remains unsolved.
– Instead of unleashing a legal battle his lawyer likened to "World War III," Donald Sterling has decided to just sell the Los Angeles Clippers for a massive profit. His lawyer says Sterling has approved the sale of the team to Steve Ballmer for $2 billion and will drop a $1 billion lawsuit against the NBA, reports ESPN. The price tag is 160 times the $12.5 million Sterling paid for the team in 1980 and is nearly four times more than an NBA team has ever been sold for before, notes the Los Angeles Times. With his ownership of the team nearly at an end, it doesn't sound like Sterling will be crying on his way to the bank. The 80-year-old, who remains banned for life from the NBA, tells NBC 4 that he is ready to "move on" from the team. "I feel fabulous, I feel very good," he says. "Everything is just the way it should be, really. It may have worked out differently, but it's good. It's all good."
– And the hits just keep on coming for the Secret Service: The Washington Examiner today reports on yet another serious lapse in security involving President Obama. The latest incident occurred just two weeks ago when the president traveled to Atlanta to visit the CDC—and ended up in an elevator with an armed man who has no fewer than three convictions for assault and battery. That's a lapse on two fronts, explains the Washington Post: Anyone in such close proximity to the president is supposed to be screened for weapons and criminal history. Unbeknownst to Secret Service agents traveling with Obama, this person had both. He was reportedly a contractor from a private security firm who was operating the elevator during the presidential visit. The man drew the attention of Secret Service agents when he refused to comply with orders to stop filming the president in the elevator with his smartphone. When agents questioned him afterward and then learned he had a criminal history, they called in his supervisor. The man got fired immediately and had to turn over his weapon to his boss—which is the first time the agents learned that he was armed. “You have a convicted felon within arm’s reach of the president and they never did a background check,” says Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican. “Words aren’t strong enough for the outrage I feel for the safety of the president and his family." (The agency's director was grilled on Capitol Hill today and promised reform.)
– Words Uber would likely rather not hear in the same sentence: its name, and "kidnapping." One of the ride-sharing service's California drivers was arrested Monday on suspicion of kidnapping an intoxicated woman he was supposed to be driving home, KTLA reports. The 26-year-old woman was bar-hopping in West Hollywood Sunday night, and police say that at her last stop, the Greystone Manor nightclub, a valet asked driver Frederick Dencer, 32, to drive her home. Police point out that it wasn't an "official Uber assignment" and the woman didn't use the Uber app. She was also apparently too drunk to give him her address; police say Dencer "took advantage of the situation" and allegedly drove her to a motel, the Los Angeles Times reports. The woman woke up at 6am Monday next to a shirtless Dencer, who put his hand on her and wanted to have sex, police say. LA Weekly adds that the woman says he "fondled her over her clothes." But he let her leave, and she called police from a nearby 7-Eleven. She told them she did not remember how she had gotten to the motel. Surveillance footage showed she had been practically unable to walk and that Dencer carried her into the room. In its official response, Uber says it's "certainly unclear that this is an Uber-related incident," but that passenger safety is its top priority and Dencer has been suspended. He faces a charge of kidnapping for the purpose of sexual assault, and his bail was set at $1 million. (Earlier this year, an Uber driver was sued for hitting and killing a 6-year-old.)
– Pope Francis made an impromptu stop minutes after arriving at the Philadelphia airport this morning when he had his driver pull over so he could bless a 10-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, NBC Philadelphia reports. The pope leaned over a barricade and kissed Michael Keating, who uses a wheelchair. He also blessed others nearby, including a nun who drew his attention to Michael. The boy's mother thanked the pope through tears. KTRK reports the boy's father is the director of the marching band whose rendition of the theme from Rocky greeted the pope as he disembarked his plane.
– This year's most talked-about Super Bowl commercial was a Late Night promo featuring David Letterman, Oprah Winfrey, and an unexpected third party—Jay Leno. Oprah and Letterman appeared in a similar spot when her Chicago Bears lost to his Indianapolis Colts 3 years ago, before Leno became America's Villain. "Now this is damage control for Leno," writes Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly. The one and future Tonight Show host and the queen of all media taped the spot Tuesday at the Ed Sullivan Theater, Letterman's home turf. Leno even arrived wearing a disguise, reports the New York Times. Watch the ad, which features Letterman's take on Leno's voice, above.
– Brace yourself: All signs point to a particularly bad flu season, reports the Upshot blog at the New York Times. For one thing, the CDC says the nation has reached the epidemic stage, and while that designation usually arrives every year, it's earlier than normal. The Verge notes that we didn't hit epidemic level until mid-January in the last two flu seasons. Also not helping: The number of people getting flu shots is lower than normal, and the vaccine itself is a worse match than usual for this year's strain. The mismatch means that the shot is about one-third less effective than normal, reports CBS News. “We’re already above the peak that we saw last year, and we’re increasing,” says a flu expert at the CDC, who predicts that this season's peak probably won't arrive for weeks. The agency says 22 states are now reporting high levels of the flu, up from 13 last week. Google Flu Trends reports much the same. One last piece of the puzzle: This year's most prevalent strain is H3N2, and H3 viruses in general tend to be the most dangerous, reports the Weather Channel.
– If Louise Linton hoped to avoid future criticism for her luxury lifestyle, well, better luck next year. While touring the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, the Scottish actress posed with her husband, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, while holding a sheet of new $1 bills. The photograph was meant to celebrate the first time the signatures of Mnuchin and Treasurer Jovita Carranza appear on the bills, which are to enter circulation next month, reports CNN Money. But social media users couldn’t help but interpret it as the newlyweds continuing to flaunt their wealth—even if they were holding only $50—given the scandal over an Instagram photo that erupted in August and saw Linton likened to Marie Antoinette, per the Washington Post. The Instagram photo showed the couple leaving a government jet, Linton in head-to-toe designer clothes. When a user criticized the photo, Linton snapped back, but later apologized for being "condescending" and referred to the controversy as a wake-up call. Yet this latest photo, showing Linton in black gloves extending past her elbow, "is not going to help her reputation for being ostentatious," notes Slate, while the Post describes Linton as "(clasping) the sheet of money the way a royal might hold her hand to be kissed." "Why do Treasury Sec Mnuchin and his wife insist on posing for photos that make them look like Bond villains?" writes CNBC's Christina Wilkie. "Only way this could be worse would be if Linton and Mnuchin were lighting cigars with flaming dollar bills," adds writer James Surowiecki, per the Post. "Picking out wallpaper for the cognac-swirling room," Andy Richter captions the photo on Twitter.
– Libyan rebels just can't quite get what they want from the White House. A meeting between a delegation of rebels and US national security advisers yesterday ended with a statement from the US calling the Libyan Transitional National Council a “legitimate and credible interlocutor of the Libyan people”—but the rebels left without the words they were really hoping to hear: official recognition that they are the interim government of Libya. The US also stayed mum on any efforts to share with the rebels any of the $34 billion it holds in Libyan funds, the Christian Science Monitor reports. In another sign the White House isn't offering an open-arms embrace, Obama opted not to stop by the meeting. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday explained some of the Obama administration's reluctance stems from the fact that “we don’t know who they are.” The White House did indicate that it will continue to work with NATO to carry out air raids against Gadhafi, a campaign that ramped up this week as NATO forces bombed a compound where Gadhafi was believed to be hiding. It's rumored that Gadhafi was injured and has fled Tripoli.
– Amazon has endured less-than-glowing reports of what it's like to work at one of its warehouses. Enter the company's new "FC Ambassador" program: A number of Amazon fulfillment center employees have been put to work tweeting about how great it actually is to work at an Amazon fulfillment center, Business Insider reports. This Twitter user first pointed out the phenomenon last week, and TechCrunch followed up on it. Both speculated that the accounts tweeting cheery reports of working for Amazon were bot accounts—they all had the same "Amazon smile" as their background image, they all had "Amazon FC Ambassador" in their account name, and their bios were all structured identically, not to mention the fact that they were all tweeting things like "Did you know that Amazon pays warehouse workers 30% more than other retailers?" But Amazon assures Business Insider the accounts are all run by real employees; BI pegs them as one- to two-year veterans of the company's warehouses who are now paid the same amount as other warehouse workers but whose full-time job is finding negative tweets about Amazon warehouse work and countering them. "The most important thing is that they've been here long enough to honestly share the facts based on personal experience," an Amazon spokesperson says. "It's important that we do a good job of educating people about the actual environment inside our fulfillment centers, and the FC Ambassador program is a big part of that along with the fulfilment center tours we provide." There are apparently 14 such ambassadors, and in addition to tweeting about compensation, they also tackle such topics as the temperature inside the warehouses and bathroom breaks—spawning the hashtag #IGoWhenINeedTo.
– German authorities raided the homes of three elderly men whom they suspect played a role in a massacre on French soil while members of the Nazi SS during WWII, NBC News reports. According to the AP, the men—all around the age of 90—may have been involved in the 1944 killing of 86 people in Ascq, France. The men deny they were there. The raids took place this week, with investigators looking for "old documents, photos, and personal handwritten notes," a prosecutor tells NBC. Authorities confiscated some materials, and the AFP reports officials will be combing those documents for clues. The men—allegedly part of the 12th SS Panzer Division, known as the "Hitler Youth" division—were linked to the massacre by "recent eyewitness accounts," NBC reports. No charges have been filed, and authorities are not releasing the men's names. Even if enough evidence is found to charge the men, they may be too old to stand trial. “Our aim is to shed light on what happened—it is above all about establishing legal clarity on the Ascq massacre,” the aforementioned prosecutor, who is leading the investigation, tells AFP. (A 95-year-old Auschwitz medic will stand trial.)
– Not everybody's heaping praise on the Obama administration this week: Environmentalists are fuming that the Fish and Wildlife Service decided not to ramp up protection of polar bears by changing their status from "threatened" to "endangered." In response to a court deadline, the agency said yesterday that the bears are indeed at risk, just not the imminent risk the "endangered" label requires, reports the Washington Post. "I guess if a wrecking ball is barreling down on your house, you are just 'threatened,'" Andrew Wetzler of the Natural Resources Defense Council told AFP. The heightened status could have created a regulatory mess by requiring the Obama administration to curb greenhouse gas emissions, notes the New York Times. Click here to read about fears that climate change could create a new polar-grizzly beast.
– The Daily Mail: so bad that George Clooney is actually responding to one of its articles. The story—which has since been taken down but is still excerpted on other sites including the New York Daily News—claimed that the mother of Clooney fiancée Amal Alamuddin objected to the engagement since Clooney is not Druze. First things first—it's not true; Clooney's future mother-in-law isn't even Druze, Clooney writes in a response via USA Today. But more importantly, the article is dangerous: "It says they joke about traditions in the Druze religion that end up with the death of the bride," Clooney writes. "Let me repeat that: the death of the bride." "I'm, of course, used to the Daily Mail making up stories—they do it several times a week," Clooney writes, and he doesn't usually care. "But this lie involves larger issues. The irresponsibility, in this day and age, to exploit religious differences where none exist, is at the very least negligent and more appropriately dangerous. ... The idea that someone would inflame any part of [the] world for the sole reason of selling papers should be criminal." The Mail, he notes, has never seemed to care whether its stories are actually true. But "when they put my family and my friends in harm's way, they cross far beyond just a laughable tabloid and into the arena of inciting violence." The Mail has now apologized, the Huffington Post reports, and it says a "full investigation" has been launched.
– Could a livestream of a street in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, replace cat videos as the latest online time waste? Probably not, but for whatever reason, thousands of viewers have been clicking on webcam footage of the town’s central intersection since “See Jackson Hole” went live. While picturesque Jackson Hole, nestled in the Grand Tetons, boasts stunning views, the intersection is, well, an intersection. There are pedestrians, and cars and trucks braking at a stoplight, Time notes. The chat section offers a real-time commentary on “events” as they happen. A red truck has been repeatedly ogled and appraised on Twitter, inspiring a Red Truck Twitter account and tweets like this one: "TOO MUCH HAPPINESS FOR #redtruck CAN'T HELP BUT JUMP #JacksonHole." In an effort to boost tourism, officials in the popular mountain town set up a YouTube channel six weeks ago linking to several webcams. But it was the town square on Broadway that went viral this week. Is this a case of people with way too much time on their hands? One of them mused on Twitter: “theres a live feed of a town square on yt with 1400+ WATCHING NOBODY KNOWS WHY THEYRE HERE.” The Independent reports that the origin of the craze was likely a now-deleted post on web bulletin board 4chan that was picked up by Reddit users and spread. “At this point, many people appear to be watching as part of a collective absurdist joke,” notes the paper. (The world's slowest TV show is coming to Netflix.)
– The Komodo dragon is the only known creature on the planet today to boast teeth that are serrated, like a jagged-edged steak knife. But now researchers have discovered that the mighty T. rex not only sported serrated teeth, but also secret folds hidden toward the bottom of those teeth that both increased the size and strength of the serration and allowed the beast to shred the flesh of its prey, reports the Washington Post. "This means that teeth could last longer in the jaw, preventing gaps from occurring in the tooth row while a new tooth is developing, allowing for a more efficient bite when piercing through the flesh of its meal," says the lead author of the study, which appears this week in the journal Scientific Reports. Her team investigated the teeth of theropods, a group of primarily carnivorous and bipedal dinosaurs like T. rex and Velociraptor, to sort out why they were cracked at the bottom. It turns out the mysterious structures were deep folds that helped the mighty beasts tear apart their prey. (Previous theories suggested these structures were signs of wear and tear.) "The structure is actually in all theropods, and it's not actually a crack," the lead researcher tells LiveScience. "It's really cool that such a small, little change in the tooth structure, a small arrangement of the dental tissues, could completely change the ways these animals are living." (As if the teeth weren't enough, the T. rex's bite was likely the equivalent of this huge animal sitting on you.)
– Witnesses for the defense are again taking the stand after a 17-day break in Oscar Pistorius' murder trial. Pointing to scheduling conflicts, prosecutor Gerrie Nel called for the break; judge Thokozile Masipa supported the idea given the lengthy trial, NBC News reports. It was originally supposed to take just three weeks. What's next for the trial, in what the AP calls "a critical phase": Defense lawyer Barry Roux has said he'll call witnesses to testify that Pistorius, when stressed, screams like a woman, Eyewitness News reports. That's important because neighbors said they heard male and female voices shouting before gunshots rang out; the defense is arguing that the screams were all Pistorius'. An ex-girlfriend, however, testified that he "screams like a man"—a sound she was quite familiar with, given that he screamed at her often. The first person to testify today, neighbor Johan Stander, says Pistorius "was broken" after he shot girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, the BBC reports. Stander was the first call Pistorius made after the shooting; he quoted Pistorius as saying, "I shot Reeva. I thought she was an intruder. Please come quick." "I saw the truth that morning and I feel it," Stander said. "He was desperate to save her (and) prayed to God." The defense may call up to 17 witnesses. One, a psychologist, is expected to testify regarding Pistorius' sense of vulnerability. Despite questions over contradictory statements from Pistorius, he should be found not guilty if his team can show that Steenkamp's death was a mistake, experts tell the AP. The new testimony follows a columnist's allegation that Pistorius took acting classes to prepare for the trial.
– Paris Jackson is making her feature film debut. Michael Jackson's 19-year-old daughter will star in an untitled movie directed by Nash Edgerton for Amazon Studios. USA Today provides some tidbits: In the dark comedy, she plays an "edgy 20-year-old" alongside a "mild-mannered businessman-turned-criminal," played by David Oyelowo, who gets mixed up in the Mexican drug trade. Other big names in the film include Charlize Theron and Thandie Newton, Deadline reports. Jackson recently starred in a TV show for the first time, playing a part in the March 8 episode of Fox drama Star. That was a big month for her: She signed with IMG Models and covered the March issue of Harper's Bazaar. In a January Rolling Stone interview she described growing up with her dad.
– After five days smelly days spent disabled at sea, the Carnival Triumph cruise ship has finally docked in Mobile, Alabama, to the delight of passengers who cheered, danced, and sang "Sweet Home Alabama." Hundreds of people awaited the arrival of the biggest cruise ship ever to dock in Mobile. Passengers began exiting the boat an hour after its arrival, the AP reports; all passengers are now off the ship, according to Carnival's Twitter feed, via CNN. CEO Gerry Cahill boarded the Triumph and apologized to departing customers over the PA system. "I don’t want to hear the word 'cruise' ever again," said one passenger. Added another: "It’s like being locked in a Porta Potty for days. We've lived through two hurricanes, and this is worse." Now, Carnival must brace for a flood of potential lawsuits, though passengers' legal actions are restricted by cruise terms. What does all this mean for the soaring cruise industry? Experts are divided, the New York Times reports. "There are more ships out there, so we are seeing a higher number of incidents like this, and that is not good for the industry," says one. But another says people have simply grown accustomed to cruise-related horror stories in the news.
– Groupon has raised $700 million in the biggest initial public offering by a US Internet firm since Google's 2004 IPO. The daily deals leader floated some 5% of the firm for $20 a share, above an initial range of $16 to $18, giving the company a market value of around $12.8 billion, Reuters reports. Groupon isn't making a profit, and there have been plenty of questions raised about its accounting procedures, leading many analysts to consider it overpriced. "It's a flashback to the late '90s. We've seen this game before and we know how it's going to end," an accounting professor tells CNN. Others see Groupon, which began trading on the NASDAQ Friday under the ticker GRPN, as a good buy. Groupon "is a company with permission to market to 150 million consumers daily. No other company in the world has ever had that type of reach," said the chief executive of industry tracker DailyDealMedia.
– Detectives in Ohio have closed a 24-year-old murder case, and the outcome isn't much of a surprise to them: One furniture salesman killed another. Sam Perone, now 68, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter Tuesday, admitting that he shot 41-year-old Richard Woods in 1992, reports the Dayton Daily News. Perone had been a suspect from the start, given that Woods had visited his store on the night he disappeared on Perone's request. His body was found a month later in a ravine near Perone's store in Lebanon. Blood stains found in the store were inconclusive at the time, but detectives used more modern techniques to ID Woods' blood in both the store and at Perone's home. Perone was arrested in Arizona last year and extradited to Ohio. It's a "small measure of justice," Woods' widow and the mother of his four children told the judge, per the AP. She called Perone a "bad man" who had threatened her husband before his murder. The judge sentenced Perone to 11 years in prison, with credit for the year he's been in custody. WCPO describes Woods as having been a successful salesman who'd made his name in the furniture industry, and authorities chalked up the motive to what the Washington Post calls "professional jealousy." The newspaper notes that Perone's wife was heard on a wiretap saying to her husband, "If you go down, I go down," but under Perone's plea agreement, she won't be prosecuted. (An ex-boyfriend who is now a paraplegic is accused in a woman's 33-year-old murder.)
– Anry Fuentes seems to be finding more acceptance on her cheerleading squad than she did at home. At 18, Anry has made history by becoming the only transgender cheerleader in California and one of very few across the nation, the Daily Beast reports. "People are scared of what they don’t know," she says. "When they know what it’s about, they’ll learn to understand it." Anry still identified as male when she made the squad at Denair High School in Denair, Calif., then decided to tell her teammates that she was transitioning: "They were really nice," she tells People. "They were like, 'We support you for who you are. We love you, and it's not going to change anything. We're not going to see you any differently.'" Anry's coach supported her, and students raised $600 for her female uniform. "Gender identity and expression is protected by the law and is given unwavering support in Denair Unified," says the DUSD's superintendent, per the Turlock Journal. But it hasn't all been smooth: Anry has moved away from home over conflicts with her mother about her gender identity; she also hears from students who don't consider her female. "I’m not sugarcoating it, it was tough," she says. "But my life is given to me once and I’m going to make the most of it." And Anry's not alone: 17-year-old Landon Patterson, who came out as transgender in middle school, is cheerleading on her high school team in Kansas City, Mo., and even became homecoming queen, OutSports reported in September. "My life is cheer," Landon says. "It gave me a second family."(In Illinois, a transgender student has won a legal fight to use the girls' locker room.)
– The latest celebrity to pull off a secret wedding: Jeremy Renner. The Avengers star had a baby daughter with girlfriend Sonni Pacheco last year, and Page Six reports that "much speculation" has lately centered on whether the couple is even still together. But it turns out they're married, and getting Renner to spill the secret was as easy as asking the question, as Capitol File writer Elizabeth E. Thorp did: Thorp: Tell me about fatherhood. You have a baby daughter? Does she live with you? Are you married to her mother? Renner: Yes. [Smiling] Renner went on to say that they didn't announce the marriage because "I have tried to protect my family's privacy, my wife's privacy. I don't need her to get hammered with my life. Privacy issues are important because I want her to go about her day without being bothered. ... Paps follow me, [and] that's fine. But it's annoying being followed when I'm with my family. It's not just me—everyone [in Hollywood] has to deal with that. I've been talked about a whole lot, because the less I put out there, the less people know, and it makes it interesting, I assume." (Click to read about 11 more surprise celebrity weddings.)
– The family of Lane Graves, the 2-year-old killed by an alligator at Walt Disney World on Tuesday, released a statement Thursday, staying it's "devastated" by his death. "Words cannot describe the shock and grief our family is experiencing over the loss of our son," ABC News quotes Matt and Melissa Graves as saying in the statement. They offered their "deepest gratitude" to authorities and staff who worked to find their son after the attack. The family was hanging out on the beach at Seven Seas Lagoon near Disney World's Grand Floridian Resort when Lane was grabbed by an alligator and dragged underwater. His body was found Wednesday. On Thursday, the medical examiner announced Lane died from drowning and traumatic injuries, CNN reports. Disney also released a statement Thursday, promising to install alligator warning signs. “We are conducting a swift and thorough review of all of our processes and protocols," the Orlando Sentinel quotes the statement as saying. "This includes the number, placement, and wording of our signage and warnings." The only warning signs currently placed around the Seven Seas Lagoon read "no swimming please." Since the attack on Lane, a number of tourists have come forward about seeing alligators at Disney World. Disney was sued in 1986 after an alligator bit a child at its Fort Wilderness campground.
– Former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan was awarded $115 million by a jury Friday in his lawsuit against Gawker, which published a sex tape featuring the Hulkster in 2012, the AP reports. It's $15 million more than he was asking. According to Ars Technica, which points out punitive damages could still be added to the total, the loss in court could be a "life-threatening event" for Gawker, which has around 250 employees. Gawker published a video of Hogan having sex with the wife of his friend Todd Clem—aka Bubba the Love Sponge—made at Clem's insistence. Clem had recorded the encounter, possibly without Hogan's knowledge. Hogan cried when the jury revealed its findings after nearly six hours of deliberations, CNN reports. In their closing arguments Friday, Hogan's lawyers argued the video was a violation of his privacy. "Gawker took a secretly recorded sex tape and put it on the Internet," the AP quotes Hogan's attorneys. Gawker's attorneys argued the site had a "legitimate news reason" for publishing the video as a "commentary on the ordinariness of celebrity sex videos." One of the website's lawyers went on to warn that if Hogan's suit was successful, "the Internet as we know it will cease to exist." In addition to Gawker, the jury found founder Nick Denton and former editor Albert Daulerio (who made headlines for saying he'd consider publishing the sex tape of anyone over the age of 5) personally liable. Gawker says it only made about $11,000 from publishing the sex tape and took outside investment for the first time to cover potential costs from the trial.
– What Jawaad Jabbar didn't know when he allegedly confronted two shoppers who had just bought $200 Air Jordans and, pointing a gun at them, tried to steal the Nike shoes: One of those shoppers had a gun of his own. Police say that shopper shot the 16-year-old during the incident at Ohio's Dayton Mall Saturday morning, and the teen died from the injury yesterday, the New York Daily News reports. Police say three teens and two men were involved in the incident; all of them were at the mall in an attempt to buy the shoes, the AP reports. But the teens were unable to grab a pair before they sold out. When the teens saw the men with the shoes on the sidewalk outside the mall, Jabbar allegedly pulled out his gun and was quickly shot himself by the alleged would-be victim. That man had a permit for the gun and has not been charged; the other two teens were taken to juvenile detention. Police are still investigating. Meanwhile, in a New Hampshire Walmart yesterday, a Good Samaritan heard a woman scream that a man had just stolen her wallet. The do-gooder grabbed the suspect's arm and pinned him to the ground until police arrived, reports the AP via WMUR.
– A California doctor died after trying to enter her "on-again, off-again" boyfriend's home through the chimney and getting stuck, police say. Jacquelyn Kotarac was found dead 3 days later after a woman house-sitting noticed an odd odor coming from the fireplace, the Los Angeles Times reports. Authorities, who have deemed the death an accident, say she died from asphyxiation. Kotarac had already tried to break in through the back door, and her boyfriend, seeking to avoid confrontation, had left the house by the time she tried to slide down the chimney, according to cops. "She made an unbelievable error in judgment and nobody understands why, and unfortunately she's passed away," he tells AP. "She had her issues—she had her demons—but I never lost my respect for her."
– The House majority leader who used to cozy up to upstart Tea Party candidates has been crushed in his GOP primary by a little-known challenger from the movement, and analysts say America's political landscape is looking very different this morning. "The biggest Congressional upset in modern memory" will have far-reaching consequences, including the death of immigration reform, predicts Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post, noting that rival David Brat savaged Cantor for allegedly supporting an amnesty and other Republicans are now extremely unlikely to go out on a limb to support any elements of reform. House legislative activity is also likely to grind to a halt as Republicans become terrified of doing anything that could be used against them in primaries still to come, Cillizza writes—not that there were many "grand legislative plans" anyway. The defeat of the House majority leader isn't just rare, it's completely unprecedented in the history of the office, Alexandra Jaffe at the Hill finds. Since the office was created in 1899, there were 55 successful renomination bids before last night—and until Cantor's loss, House majority leaders were more likely to die than be defeated. With Cantor out, Tim Alberta at the National Journal predicts that Speaker John Boehner and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy could be next as conservative House GOPers push "for a wholesale change in leadership." He says that soon after Cantor's defeat, one conservative lawmaker told him, "They haven't been conservative enough. We've told them that for three years. They wouldn't listen." Cantor's defeat is a bad omen for moderates and is "mildly Shakespearian" in light of his early support for Tea Party candidates, write Jonathan Weisman and Jennifer Steinhauer at the New York Times. But they suggest there could be more than policy behind his defeat. A House political analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report says Cantor—the most senior Jewish lawmaker in congressional history—"was culturally out of step with a redrawn district that was more rural, more gun-oriented, and more conservative." Cantor's religion, he says, was "the elephant in the room." Click for more on the man who handed Cantor his stunning loss.
– Since 2014's Paddington, the cuddly bear has settled into his new home with the Brown family in London, but his adventures are by no means over. In Paddington 2, he gets a job so he can buy a rare book for his aunt but is wrongly imprisoned for its theft before the transaction can take place. According to critics—who give it a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes—this is not a film to miss. "The movie is full of bright wit and sincere joy, as Paddington's innate kindness permeates all around him, providing a weary world just what it needs right now," writes Sean P. Means at the Salt Lake Tribune. But much more than "a warm bear hug," the film delivers fun "by the bucketful" and leaves no stone unturned "if there's a clever joke to be found under it." In other words, it's "completely delightful." "What a pleasant surprise," Bruce DeMara writes at the Toronto Star. Blending "seamlessly" with its predecessor, Paddington 2 is "family-friendly fun for all ages, thanks to a marvelous script, a sterling cast and the adept, sure-handed direction of Paul King," DeMara writes. He was especially impressed with "a sublime pop-up animation scene that demonstrates King's copious attention to detail," but says the whole film is "visually lovely." "We'll be hard-pressed to find a more delightful film in all of 2018," Adam Graham puts it at the Detroit News. "The whole enterprise is so whimsical and, well, British, that it feels like being whisked away to a different place," he writes. "If you have kids, take them. If you have nieces and nephews, take them. If you don’t have kids but just want to feel like one yourself, go see it," he adds. "Two paws up." Justin Chang, too, notes this is not just a film for kids. It keeps the "gently whimsical, thoroughly British spirit of Michael Bond's original books" and "wraps you in its own warm embrace from start to finish," but is also "full of inspired blink-and-you-miss-it wordplay," he writes at the Los Angeles Times, also applauding Hugh Grant's "terrifically self-skewering" performance and the "marvelously intricate" production design.
– Think losing a toe in ancient Egypt meant you'd be forever without one? Not so, at least in one case. Egyptologists from Switzerland's University of Basel have since 2015 been studying what a press release calls an "ancient Egyptian elite cemetery" near Luxor, and one of its finds was small but big: one of the oldest prosthetic devices ever found, which served to replace the right foot's big toe and was made with incredible skill. The 3,000-year-old prosthesis was discovered in the upper-class tomb of a priest's daughter at plundered burial site Sheikh 'Abd el-Qurna and has now been re-examined. Not only is it attractive and functional, but "the mobility of the prosthetic extension and the robust structure of the belt strap" show it was made by an artisan who was "very familiar" with the human form. At the Conversation, Jane Draycott of the University of Glasgow notes prostheses have also been found in ancient Greece, and advancements in this field likely followed war as soldiers with missing extremities returned home. It isn't clear what happened to the priest's daughter, but researchers believe her toe was amputated and a pricey prosthetic fitted in its place. Using microscopy and X-rays, they determined the wooden toe was actually refitted at least three times, per UPI. It shows "she had a certain living standard," researcher Andrea Loprieno-Gnirs tells Swiss Info. Ancient Egyptians "often wore sandals, so you can imagine that a well-formed foot was important," she adds, calling the prosthetic an "extraordinary" and "sensational find." (These mummy legs might belong to a royal.)
– A German couple who's spent four decades sailing the world has apparently been abducted by pirates for a second time, with what appears to be a fatal result. Jürgen Kantner and Sabine Merz—who were held by Somali pirates for 52 days in 2008, until a six-figure ransom was reportedly paid—were seized by Abu Sayyaf militants in the southern Philippines on Saturday, the New York Times reports. Merz fired at the militants, and "our men shot back and killed her," an Abu Sayyaf spokesman told the Philippine Daily Inquirer over the phone. A man who identified himself as Kantner then came on the line claiming, "pirates took our boat and they took us." Abu Sayyaf militants also killed two Canadians earlier this year. The German Foreign Ministry says it's investigating the reports but hasn't confirmed the abduction or Merz's death. However, the Philippine military released a photo of the attacked boat, recovered on Sunday, which shows it to be the same 30-foot yacht, dubbed the Rockall, that was seized by pirates in 2008. A military rep says a woman's naked body was also found on board bearing "gunshot wounds" and signs of a sexual assault. "A shotgun was also recovered beside the woman's body," the rep says. A year after their first abduction, Kantner told the AFP that he would keep sailing, but "I pray to God that pirates won't get me again. Of course, buying a gun is an option." (An American man was held for 18 days by Dolly Parton-loving pirates.)
– Europe's parliamentary elections have resulted in big gains for those opposed to European Union power, including far-right parties in France, the UK, and Greece, the BBC reports. "The people have spoken loud and clear," said the leader of France's National Front, Marine Le Pen. "They no longer want to be led by those outside our borders … They want to be protected from globalization and take back the reins of their destiny." The party won just three seats in 2009; this time, it's poised to take 25, the most of any French party. French president Francois Hollande's party won just 14% of the vote compared to the National Front's 25%. "This is a bad day for the European Union, when the party with such an openly racist, xenophobic, and anti-Semitic program gets 25% or 24% of the vote in France," says current European Parliament president Martin Schulz. In Britain, the "Euroskeptic" UK Independence Party won 27% of the vote, winning a national vote for the first time and knocking the two main parties, Labour and Conservative, into second and third place. In Greece, the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn scored three seats, the New York Times reports. Overall, those on the center-right and center-left will stay in charge of the European Parliament, the Times notes. Still, the leading center-right bloc, the European People's Party, has lost about 60 seats, the BBC reports. Voting turnout was 43.1%.
– NASA and a biomedicine company are sending a drug-resistant superbug into outer space, where it will be researched aboard the International Space Station. And while Gizmodo notes the plan sounds like "Elon Musk's idea for a science fiction spec he's working on," it will—hopefully—have actual scientific benefits. Dr. Anita Goel tells CNN she believes MRSA—aka staph—will mutate more quickly in zero gravity. This could allow researchers to see future forms of MRSA and develop antibiotics to fight them before they happen. And that would be great news, as MRSA currently kills more people in the US every year than HIV/AIDS, Parkinson's, emphysema, and homicide combined. The well-contained MRSA sample will be hitching a ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launching Saturday in Florida.
– A school police officer is on paid leave after a video surfaced showing him body-slamming a 12-year-old girl, apparently knocking her unconscious. The video recorded March 29 opens showing San Antonio Independent School District Police Officer Joshua Kehm with his arms around sixth-grader Janissa Valdez at Rhodes Middle School. "Janissa, chill!" a bystander says before Kehm throws the girl to the ground. She doesn't move as Kehm handcuffs her hands behind her back. He then lifts her to her feet and leads her away. Janissa tells WOAI that students thought she was going to fight another girl. "I was going up to her to tell her let's go somewhere else so we could talk, but that's when the cop thought I was going at her," she says. She doesn't remember what happened next. "You could just hear where she hits the ground. And it's nothing but concrete, cement," her mother says. "She wasn't moving. She was just knocked out." Kehm said "he did what he had to do at the moment—those were his words," she adds. A district rep says, "It's very concerning. It's alarming to see this. And while we want to get all the details, I want people to know that excessive force will not be tolerated in this district." The San Antonio Express-News reports the two girls had fought previously and were told to separate. Students tell KSAT that Kehm tried to diffuse the situation peacefully but was kicked several times. Janissa, who denies she kicked the officer, was suspended for two days, while Kehm was placed on paid leave on Wednesday. School officials and police are investigating.
– Canada is planning to claim the North Pole as part of its territory, and Russia has something to say about that: Oh, heck no. President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian military to boost its presence in the Arctic, and though he's discussed the idea before, the BBC calls this "one of his most direct orders yet." The Arctic has vast resources of gas and oil, and Putin says Russia must safeguard its interests there. He gave the directive at a meeting of top military officers yesterday, and also thanked them for re-opening an abandoned Arctic airbase this summer. He promised more airbases to come, saying, "Next year, we have to complete the formation of new large units and military divisions [in the Arctic]." In addition to other airfields Russia is restoring, one Russian senator and polar explorer wants to revive a polar research institution that shut down in 1936, RT.com reports.
– Less than four years after the real-life event, director Peter Berg has brought us Hollywood's version of the Boston Marathon bombing with Patriots Day, centering on a fictional Boston police sergeant (Mark Wahlberg) whose experiences are based on the real ones of several people. Here's what critics are saying: The film can't evoke the same kind of stirring emotion as the real-life footage shown at the end, but it's still "kinetic, well cast, and technically impressive," writes Sheri Linden at the Hollywood Reporter. The "restless camerawork expertly evokes the unspeakable panic and confusion" while "Berg recreates the marathon explosions themselves with full-frontal pandemonium." In other words, it "gets the job done." It's an "absorbing and detail-rich account" that "sticks close to the facts" for the most part and includes scenes that are "appropriately frightening and disorienting," writes Chris Klimek at NPR. "While it's natural to be suspicious of these kinds of feel-good homilies," Berg delivers "a more thoughtful and restrained film than you might've been expecting." But Ty Burr offers a Bostonian's perspective, noting Patriots Day is "telling us what we've seen with our own eyes," only this version is "reshaped for maximum dramatic impact and sold back to us with famous names attached," he writes at the Boston Globe. Sure, "everyone involved with this movie believes they're acting with respect, even when they’re not." But "at best, it's unnecessary. At worst, it's vaguely insulting." Calvin Wilson couldn't disagree more. "Far from being exploitative, Patriots Day honors the Bostonians who responded to terrorism with strength," he writes at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It's "a fast-moving drama with impressive attention to detail" and a "fine ensemble cast" including Melissa Benoist, who's "a revelation" as Tamerlan Tsarnaev's wife.
– An unarmed missile capable of sending a nuclear bomb across the world was launched Wednesday from a California military base amid rising tensions between the US and North Korea. The unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile blasted off from a silo at 12:02am from Vandenberg Air Force Base and delivered a single re-entry vehicle to a target about 4,200 miles away at Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, the Air Force Global Strike Command said. The test took 10 months to plan. It was the latest aimed at checking the readiness and accuracy of a weapon system that forms part of the US nuclear force. The US has about 450 of the missiles. Each can travel about 8,000 miles. It was the second such launch in seven days, the AP reports. The launches came amid US expressions of concern about North Korea's nuclear capability. Per the Los Angeles Times, the Air Force said the purpose of Wednesday's test was to ensure the missile is reliable and can function as an "effective nuclear deterrent." New missile tests by North Korea and its progress toward developing a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the US have made it one of the top US national security concerns. The US has sent warships to the region to deter North Korea from conducting another nuclear test. But President Trump on Monday said he might be willing to meet with Kim Jong Un. "If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it," Trump told Bloomberg News.
– Hillary Clinton's personal email account may soon head for the public domain after all. Following news that a House committee on Benghazi would subpoena her emails, the former secretary of state tweeted yesterday, "I want the public to see my email. I asked State to release them. They said they will review them for release as soon as possible." That won't be instantaneous, says a State Department rep, who notes that "given the sheer volume of the document set, this review will take some time to complete." Aides for Clinton, who exclusively used a personal clintonemail.com email account while at the State Department, say she believed her emails would be collected as they were sent to government accounts, CNN reports. One adds "nine out of 10 emails that she sent over the course of her tenure went to the State Department." Others, however, have criticized her use of personal email as having made government communications vulnerable to attackers, because, as an ACLU technology expert tells Wired, "although the American people didn't know about this, it's almost certain that foreign intelligence agencies did, just as the NSA knows which Indian and Spanish officials use Gmail and Yahoo accounts." Clinton's email account was traced to a server registered to "Eric Hoteham." That's actually a typo: Former Clinton aide Eric P. Hothem now works in finance, the New York Times reports. Another former aide, Justin Cooper, registered the domain name, clintonemail.com, which expires in 2017. The Times notes having an address from clintonemail.com was "a symbol of status within the family's inner circle, conferring prestige and closeness to the secretary." Chelsea Clinton and longtime aide Huma Abedin are two within that group, though Chelsea's used a pseudonym: Diane Reynolds.
– How to describe something that can't be found in a search engine? Don't say "ungoogleable" or you'll risk the wrath of the company. The Swedish Language Council has officially removed the term from a list of newly coined words after the company objected on trademark grounds, reports the Week. (The word is actually "ogooglebar" in Swedish.) Not that the council was all that happy about the move, notes the Wall Street Journal. “We neither have the time nor the will to pursue the outdrawn process that Google is trying to start,” its president writes. "Who has authority over language? We do, the language users. If we want 'ogooglebar' in the language we will use the word, and it is our use that will determine the meaning—not the pressure of a multinational company." Click for more.
– Between semesters at Columbia University, Sasha DiGiulian is summering at the Mordwand in the Swiss Alps, which sounds like a lovely getaway until you find out "Mordwand" is German for "murder wall." Per CBS News, the 22-year-old world-class climber is trying to become the first woman to scale the 13,000-foot Eiger mountain the hard way: by ascending the dangerous north face of the peak, a sheet of limestone that's more than a mile high and that was once described by a British mountaineer as "an obsession for the mentally deranged." Even DiGiulian, who's been tweeting terrifying pics of her climb as she goes, acknowledges the task before her—one that's claimed dozens of lives—telling Sports Illustrated, "This is the hardest route up the Eiger." Not that DiGiulian's an amateur. She's been climbing since she was 6 and nabbed top honors in national and world rock-climbing championships, CBS notes. Yet she still gets discouragement on her attempt, which she hopes to complete next week. "People saying like, 'Little girls don't belong on the Eiger,'" she told CBS last night in a video chat from the mountain. Not that it's stopped her, even with unpredictable weather and 12- to 18-hour days. "I think that fear is inevitable, but I don't think that fear needs to be inhibiting," she says. She also keeps in mind her late dad's advice ("Have fun, be safe, and do your best") and her dream to be a female pioneer. "When other women open the floodgates to showing that something is possible, then all of a sudden you see progression in a sport," she notes. (Hundreds were stranded on Everest in April).
– Taco Bell confirmed back in 2011 that its beef is made up of 88% actual beef, but now the company is explaining exactly what that mysterious other 12% is. Some of the non-beef ingredients "do have weird names," but all of them are "completely safe and approved by the FDA," Taco Bell explains on a new page titled, "What Are Those Other Ingredients?" The page goes on to explain each ingredient, like so: "Isn't cellulose a fancy term for wood?" it asks, and then answers, "Cellulose is a safe carbohydrate found in the cell walls of plants and helps with water and oil binding." Other weirdly named ingredients are used to improve taste (trehalose, maltodextrin, and torula yeast), reduce sodium levels (potassium chloride, a common salt substitute), and bind the finished product together (soy lecithin), among other things. And then, of course, there are less-weird ingredients, like salt, pepper, and spices—although the Huffington Post finds it odd that one of the ingredients is "a black pepper flavor," rather than simply "black pepper." What about fillers? The company says it doesn't use any, and the oats that are included in the ingredient list simply help keep the beef moist. As for the 88% of the beef that is actually beef, no, it is not "Grade D"—in fact, Taco Bell notes, there is no such USDA beef grade. "We use the same quality beef used in all ground beef (like you'd find in the grocery store)," the page reads. So should you keep eating at Taco Bell? A chemist tells ABC News, "There's nothing on this list I have a problem eating." But Business Insider offers a caveat: The ingredients listed are still high in sodium and fat, and most of them are, of course, processed. (The news comes as Taco Bell's parent company prepares to launch a gourmet spin-off.)
– Parkland survivor David Hogg, one of the leaders of the teen activists calling for gun control in the wake of the Florida school shooting, is asking supporters to boycott sponsors of Laura Ingraham's Fox News show after Ingraham mocked him—and at least one is pulling its ads from the show. It started with an interview Hogg gave to TMZ in which he revealed he'd been rejected from four University of California colleges. While Hogg acknowledged it's been "disappointing" for him and other leaders of the movement dealing with college rejections, he told TMZ's Harvey Levin he wasn't surprised: "I think there's a lot of amazing people that don't get into college." Ingraham's Twitter take on the interview: "David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA ... totally predictable given acceptance rates.)" Both Hogg and Levin were quick to respond, CNBC reports. "David was not whining," Levin tweeted to Ingraham. "I called him about the story. He was not feeling sorry for himself in the slightest. It was my idea that colleges should consider applicants who are so committed. Did you watch the video???" Hogg tweeted, "Soooo @IngrahamAngle what are your biggest advertisers ... Asking for a friend." He followed that up with a list of what he says are the 12 biggest advertisers on Ingraham's show, asking his more than 600,000 followers to pick one and get in touch. Hogg's 14-year-old sister and fellow Parkland survivor, Lauren, simply told Ingraham to "grow up." The Washington Post, which rounds up other outraged responses to Ingraham, reports that Rachael Ray's Nutrish replied directly to Hogg as well as to others on Twitter that it's in the process of removing its ads from Ingraham's show.
– Earlier this week, Sunni militants aligned with al-Qaeda captured so much of Iraq so quickly that they seemed poised to roll into Baghdad, too. But the movement seems to have stalled about 60 miles to the north, reports the New York Times. The Iraqi army has actually won back some territory earlier claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Gen. Major-General Qassim al-Moussawi tells Reuters. And another general declares that "the security in Baghdad is 100% stable." Other developments: Volunteers: Hundreds of young volunteers in Baghdad have heeded a call from Iraq's top Shiite cleric to take up arms, reports AP. "By God's will, we will be victorious," says one. "We will not be stopped by the ISIL or any other terrorists." Iran: President Hassan Rouhani says Iran is "ready to help Iraq" as soon as Iraqi authorities request it, reports the Washington Post. US military: The Pentagon ordered an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf to give President Obama more options as he weighs an American response, reports al.com.
– In November, 16-year-old Mujey Dumbuya told Michigan police that her boyfriend's uncle, a groundskeeper employed by her school district, raped her in a school parking lot in Grand Rapids. According to court documents viewed by WWMT, Dumbuya described the incident as the latest in a string of rapes that started when she was 15. Quinn James, 42, was fired, arrested, charged with four counts of criminal sexual conduct with a minor, and released on bond on the condition that he avoid contact with Mujey, who was to testify against him at trial in April, reports BuzzFeed News. Mujey, however, disappeared on Jan. 24, the day after James learned of his trial date, per WWMT, and she was found dead in a wooded area 50 miles from home days later. James hasn't been charged, but WHTC and WWMT report that he is considered a person of interest in Mujey's death. On Feb. 1, he was arrested on suspicion of the 2014 rape of another teen, per WWMT. James now faces charges in that case including third-degree criminal sexual conduct and remains in custody, per WXMI and WOOD. He's previously been convicted of crimes including armed robbery and possession of a weapon while in prison. In her statements to police, Mujey said James preceded the November rape by saying, "There is something about you. I could stop, but I just can't." James reportedly admitted to investigators that he had sex with Mujey but said it was consensual.
– After being tipped off by a mom concerned about her daughter's Instagram activity, police busted a huge teen sexting ring in Virginia, WRIC reports. "Some guys made up an Instagram page, and they got naked pictures from all these girls, and they started posting them on the Instagram page," explains a teen at Louisa County High School. The page, which has since been taken down, had more than 1,000 pictures and videos of teens, most of them sexually explicit, and the investigation involves more than 100 teens. The chief deputy says the pictures, featuring teens aged 14 to 17, appear to have been consensual. The sheriff's office isn't planning to charge any of the kids; authorities just hope the investigation will teach them to think twice before "sexting" photos to other people. "I hope they learn how dangerous it is to do and how it can get into the wrong people's hands," the chief deputy says. Deputies took 25 phones from teens who may have been involved, and are trying to figure out who started the page. The teens involved span six counties, WWBT reports.
– "The dog ate my eyeliner" was apparently enough for YouTube's Rclbeauty101 to bust open a box of colored art pencils and improvise—in a video that's currently sitting at 1.6 million views—and she's not the only one. DIYers are posting online beauty tutorials subbing in colored pencils (softened in warm water first) for eyeliner, UPI reports, while Metro adds that others are melting brilliantly hued crayons to create homemade lipstick. But one company you might think would love the publicity is instead issuing a warning. Crayola has put out a statement on its website saying its products "are not designed, tested, or approved for this purpose" and that customers shouldn't be smearing them all over their faces in the name of beauty. Rclbeauty101 points out Crayola makes prominent on its packaging that its products are "nontoxic." "Companies literally make it so that little kids can eat it and be fine," she notes in her video; she even calls a Crayola customer service rep to make sure it's safe for a colored pencil "to touch your skin." In its statement, however, Crayola stresses, "Although our products are nontoxic, we do not recommend using them to make lipstick, eyeliner, or other make-up and strongly discourage their use in this manner." But even Crayola's warning may not scare the masses—which isn't entirely novel, according to at least one DIYer on Twitter, as noted by KMSP: "Nothing new here, I was doing it in the early 80's when my parents wouldn't let me have makeup." (This trend may be an especially bad idea if you wear contacts.)
– The single-engine turboprob plane that crashed in Costa Rica Dec. 31 did what looked a "cartwheel" maneuver before going down in a wooded area, a witness says. "It was kind of low and I looked up to see it turn. I turned away and then heard the crash. It had only been in the air a minute or so," witness Matt Wolfe tells the New York Daily News. "My wife watched the whole thing. She thought the plane was doing some kind of barrel roll acrobatic maneuver." Costa Rican investigators say they believe the crash, which killed 10 Americans and their two Costa Rican pilots, was caused by either strong winds or a mechanical issue with the Cessna 208B Caravan, the AP reports. The crash killed the Steinberg family of Scarsdale, NY: Parents Bruce and Irene and their teen sons Matthew, William, and Zachary. Florida husband and wife Mitchell and Leslie Weiss also died, along with their daughter, Hannah, 19, and 16-year-old son, Ari. The president of the Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater, Fla., where Leslie Weiss was a pediatrician and Mitchell Weiss was head of interventionist radiology, released a statement saying the facility is "forever grateful" for their work, the New York Times reports. The 10th America killed in the Nature Air crash was 33-year-old Amanda Geissler, a tour guide from Wisconsin. The names of the crew members have not been released.
– Brad Pitt’s really stepped in it now, riling up Team Jen afresh with his comments in the new issue of Parade. You see, back in the ‘90s, he “wasn’t living an interesting life,” he tells the magazine. “I think that my marriage had something to do with it. Trying to pretend the marriage was something that it wasn’t.” It also didn’t help that he was “trying to hide out, trying to duck the full celebrity cacophony … sitting on a couch, holding a joint, hiding out. It started feeling pathetic,” he says. Now Angie, on the other hand: “One of the greatest, smartest things I ever did was give my kids Angie as their mom,” he gushes. “She is such a great mom. Oh, man, I’m so happy to have her.” Predictable outrage ensued, with many people recalling the time when Aniston famously said Pitt is missing a “sensitivity chip.” In response, Pitt issued a statement to the Hollywood Reporter, insisting that he and his ex-wife remain friends: “It grieves me that this was interpreted this way. … The point I was trying to make is not that Jen was dull, but that I was becoming dull to myself—and that, I am responsible for.” Click for more.
– A child who as an infant underwent surgery aimed at assigning his gender as female but who now identifies as male will get a hefty payout in what BuzzFeed calls a "landmark" settlement. Under the deal, the Medical University of South Carolina and the state's social services department will pay $270,000 to a settlement company, and the money will buy an annuity policy that will eventually result in a $440,000 payout to MC, now 12. Pam and Mark Crawford had waged a four-year legal battle against the hospital after MC, born with male and female genitalia, had his penis and testicular tissue removed when he was just a year old. The surgery, which took place when MC was in state custody, was not only unnecessary but meant MC's gender was decided for him, his parents said. MUSC "denied all claims of negligence and any liability for the alleged claims" in the settlement. An estimated one in 2,000 babies born are intersex, with genitals not clearly male or female, and many undergo surgeries to give them exclusively male or female genitalia. But these surgeries are fraught with complications. In a report out this week, Human Rights Watch accuses doctors of performing irreversible sex assignment surgeries "based on guesswork." Last month, a report by three former US surgeons general concluded intersex surgeries "violate an individual's right to personal autonomy over their own future" and "should be deferred until children are old enough to voice their own view about whether to undergo the surgery." The American Medical Association is now considering whether to discourage such surgeries, reports the AP.
– The FBI said Wednesday that it has no evidence Hillary Clinton's private email server was compromised even though President Trump tweeted a news report that alleged the Chinese had hacked it. Trump tweeted Tuesday evening about a report in the conservative Daily Caller that said a Chinese-owned company operating in the Washington area had hacked the server Clinton had used as secretary of state and obtained nearly all of her emails. Trump's tweet stated in part: "What are the odds that the FBI and DOJ are right on top of this? Actually, a very big story. Much classified information!" FBI and Justice Department officials have said publicly that there was no evidence Clinton's server was hacked by a foreign power. A June report from the Justice Department's inspector general on the FBI's handling of the Clinton investigation said FBI specialists did not find evidence that the server had been hacked, with one forensics agent saying he felt "fairly confident that there wasn't an intrusion," reports the AP. An FBI official said Wednesday after the Daily Caller story and Trump tweet that the "FBI has not found any evidence the servers were compromised." The White House did not immediately comment on the FBI's statement.
– Tony Lara, one of the stars of Deadliest Catch, died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack, reports TMZ. Toxicology tests are pending, but there's no sign that drugs or alcohol played a role. Lara was found at a home in Sturgis, South Dakota, where he was attending the town's well-known motorcycle rally, the AP reports. The 50-year-old could be seen in the Discovery Channel reality show as the captain of the Cornelia Marie, a crab-catching vessel. His body will be returned to his hometown in Alaska. "May you RIP Captain Tony Lara," says a post on the show's Facebook page. "We know that you are up in heaven watching over the Cornelia Marie and rest of the Bering Sea fleet."
– What's more popular than pancakes, banana bread, and chocolate chip cookies? With 12 million views in the last five years alone, it appears the answer is John Chandler's lasagna. The dish, with its nearly two pounds of meat and more than two pounds of cheese, is appropriately called the "World's Best Lasagna," and it's spent more than 10 years as the No. 1 recipe on AllRecipes.com (or close to it; it seems to be No. 2 at the moment, behind Banana Crumb Muffins), reports the Washington Post. The 43-year-old Texan, whose day job is not chef but salesman, first put the lasagna, a variation of his mom's recipe, up on the site in 2001 (total number of recipes he's added to the site: two). And though AllRecipes' users—it's the most trafficked English-language food site—typically want quick and easy meals, Chandler's 21-ingredient dish, with its 3-plus-hour prep and cooking time and a cost the Post estimates at $40, has somehow persisted as the exception. With its 8,856 five-star reviews, it's certainly a big hit, though there are detractors ("Amy" described it as being "runny and not worth the trouble to make ... I'll stick to stouffer's from now on"). Many of the positive reviewers share their variations, and Chandler has some extra advice of his own: "The sauce is best when you salt it to taste and then, once you get it going, just flavor it as you go." Click for the recipe, or read about why you should add blueberries to your grocery list.
– The mother of a 12-year-old boy shot dead while brandishing a toy gun wants authorities to skip the grand jury. At a press conference in Cleveland, the attorney for Samaria Rice urged prosecutors to avoid a grand jury trial and directly charge the officer who shot Rice's son Tamir in a park last month, NBC News reports. "There is nothing written anywhere in the law that says police officers are to be treated differently than any other citizen," says Benjamin Crump, who has also worked on the Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin cases. Crump's plea comes after nationwide protests derided grand juries that declined to charge white police officers who had killed Brown and Eric Garner, both of whom were black and unarmed. Rice says her tragedy began when two boys knocked on her door Nov. 22 saying an officer had shot Tamir twice in the stomach, ABC News reports. She ran to the park where Tamir lay on the ground, unattended by police, and saw her 14-year-old daughter in the back of a squad car (the daughter later said police had tackled and handcuffed her, Samaria adds). "I knew she was crying for me, but I couldn’t see her hands," says Samaria. She asked police what had happened but was only told to "calm down." Forced to choose between being with her older daughter and younger son, Samaria "of course ... [went] with the 12-year-old." Officers made her "sit in the front of the ambulance truck like I was a passenger" on the ride to the hospital, she says, where Tamir died the next day.
– News that the government seized two months of phone records from the Associated Press has drawn blistering criticism of the White House from a wide variety of news organizations, Politico reports. Fox's Greta Van Susteren says the Justice Department's action "sounds like a dragnet to intimidate the media" instead of a criminal investigation, while CNN's John King said the move "sends a chilling message from the government to people in our business and the AP, I think, is justifiably outraged." AP chief Gary Pruitt says the seizure, which may have been related to a story about a thwarted al-Qaeda terror plot in Yemen, is "a massive and unprecedented intrusion by the Department of Justice into the newsgathering activities of the Associated Press." White House spokesman Jay Carney, meanwhile, did his best to distance President Obama from the scandal, the Hill reports. "We are not involved in decisions made in connection with criminal investigations, as those matters are handled independently by the Justice Department," he said in a statement.
– A Christian woman acquitted by Pakistan's Supreme Court eight years after being sentenced to death for blasphemy was flown Wednesday night to a facility in the capital Islamabad from an undisclosed location for security reasons, two senior government officials said. Amid tight security, Asia Bibi left a detention facility in Punjab province for the flight to the capital, the officials said. Troops guarded the roads leading to the airport from which she departed, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity Wednesday as they were not authorized to speak to media on the record. Authorities last month said they arrested two prisoners for allegedly conspiring to strangle her and since then additional police and troops have been deployed to the facility in Punjab. Officials said Bibi will be safer at the new facility in Islamabad, the AP reports. Bibi's transfer comes a week after the high court in a landmark ruling acquitted Bibi and ordered her released, a move that triggered nationwide protests. Bibi's release was put on hold Friday after authorities held talks with radical Islamists who want her publicly hanged. Bibi was arrested in 2009 on charges of insulting Islam's prophet and she was sentenced to death in 2010. Her lawyer said Wednesday she had been released from jail but was still in protective custody, per the Guardian. Her husband says the family is in danger remaining in Pakistan and is seeking asylum elsewhere, but authorities now say Bibi may not leave the country because a petition for a review of the court's ruling was filed by a radical Islamist lawyer requesting the acquittal be reversed. Pakistani courts usually take years to decide such cases. (Italy is working to help.)
– In case you haven't heard, Apple has passed Microsoft in market value. But is it really worth more? Sure, if you're feeling lucky, writes Henry Blodget for Business Insider. Microsoft's free cash flow is roughly double Apple's, so right now they're way out of whack, but Apple is growing much faster. If you think that'll continue—and based on its current product outlook, that seems reasonable—then sure, buy some AAPL. Because "for today's market values to make sense, Apple has to catch up and pass Microsoft's cash flow within, say, 5-10 years." But 10 years ago, the fact that Microsoft was worth 35 times more than Apple seemed just as reasonable. Things changed—so much so that, as Dan Nosowitz of Fast Company points out, Apple and Microsoft might not even be competitors anymore. This is a story about very different companies; it “isn't Pepsi overcoming Coke.” Right now superior marketing has put Apple on top, but the landscape's evolving even more rapidly now. “Anything can happen," Blodget warns. "So step right up and place your bets!”
– Assad's forces continue to pound Aleppo today, with state TV announcing that the regime is "cleansing the terrorist filth" from the country. Reuters reports that tanks are shelling the city as a helicopter sprays the rebels with machine-gun fire, and a correspondent there reported violent street fighting in the Salaheddine district. But things may be poised to get worse, with Reuters and CNN both hearing from rebels who say two large columns of government troops are on the march toward the city. "We know they are planning to attack using tanks and aircraft, shooting at us for three to four days and they plan to take the city," says one commander who expects the attack to come "within days." In other Syria news: The AP reports that the government yesterday claimed it was now in full control of all districts in Damascus after purging one of the last rebel-held areas. But several residents reported hearing loud explosions and gunfire from several districts of the capital throughout the night. Syria's first man in space today fled to Turkey and joined opposition forces there, reports the AP. It was Mohammed Ahmed Faris' fourth attempt to defect, says Turkey. A pan-Arab TV station aired a video today purporting to show Syrian rebels guarding a group of 48 Iranians abducted a day earlier and promising more attacks on Iranian targets. Armed men in the video claim the Iranians were on a "reconnaissance mission" in Damascus at the time they were abducted. Iran says they are pilgrims who were visiting a shrine.
– A man snorkeling in the Colorado River received quite the fright on Monday when he spotted what he thought were human remains about 40 feet below the surface near the Arizona-California border. With a little investigating, however, a diver with the Buckskin Fire Department uncovered a scene much more comical than grisly, the Arizona Republic reports: two fake skeletons wearing sunglasses, sitting peacefully in lawn chairs attached to rocks on the riverbed. In a statement, per NBC News, the La Paz County Sheriff's Office said the scene looked rather like "an underwater tea party." Officer Curtis Bagby tells the AP the stunt was probably just a practical joke. "I don't think they were trying to set up anything to scare anyone," he says. A sign with the skeletons includes the words "Bernie" and "dream in the river," which Bagby says could be a reference to the movie Weekend at Bernie's; in one scene in the film, the corpse of a man named Bernie falls into the water from a boat. The sign was also dated Aug. 16, 2014, which may indicate when the skeleton tea party began. Authorities will crash the party at some point this week, though, as they plan to remove the plastic skeletons and chairs from the river. Bagby says they may even find a new home outside the sheriff's department. "We like to show some things that are fun, some levity, too," he says. As for who left the skeletons in the water, officers say that will likely remain a mystery as they have no plans to pursue an investigation.
– The Higgs boson "God particle" may or may not exist, and physicists at the Large Hadron Collider may or may not be close to spotting it, but one thing is clear: There are some very excited scientists at CERN. Rumors that the elusive particle believed to endow matter with mass has been spotted have circulated before, but experts believe confirmation of its existence may finally be unveiled at the European research lab next week, when teams that have trawled data from 350 trillion collisions release their results, the Guardian reports. The teams have been gradually narrowing the energy range where the Higgs may lurk, and expect to see the first glimpse within days, a top CERN scientist tells the BBC. CERN's director of research is more cautious, saying only that "indications that are not consistent with its non-existence" may surface. "This hunt for the Higgs is like fishing in an ancient way," he says. "Instead of using modern tools you are removing the water from the pond. It might look tedious but it is the only way, at the end of the day, when you have removed all the water from the pond to find the smallest fish."
– The driver who left a trail of broken bodies along the Las Vegas Strip on Sunday night wasn't a terrorist, but the horrific incident was no accident, police say. "We are treating this as an intentional act," says Deputy Police Chief Brett Zimmerman, per CNN. He says the driver, who is in her 20s, drove onto the sidewalk three or four times, killing at least one person and injuring 37 more. A witness tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he saw the Oldsmobile smash into pedestrians before slowing down and accelerating again, crushing people, including a child who appeared to be around 10 years old. In other developments: The driver was taken into custody shortly after the incident. Police haven't said whether she was injured, but a 3-year-old child in her vehicle was unharmed, reports the Las Vegas Sun. At least six victims were critically injured. A University Medical Center spokeswoman says many of the injured are Canadians from Montreal who requested a French translator, reports the Review-Journal. Police say the driver, who had Oregon plates, is not from Las Vegas but has been in the area for at least a week, the Sun reports. There's no sign of any connection between the incident and the Miss Universe pageant, which was being held nearby at Planet Hollywood, reports the CBC. The driver has not yet been charged, reports KSNV, but police said early Monday morning that her blood is being tested and they expect to charge her within hours.
– A Tennessee woman has been fired from her job after reportedly calling the cops on a black man for wearing socks in a swimming pool on the 4th of July. Per CBS News, Erica Walker was working as a property manager with Trilogy Residential Management at a Memphis apartment complex when she told a black man to remove his socks or get out of the pool. The man's girlfriend, Camry Porter, took video of the incident and says she believes that Walker, who is white, singled out their group because they were black. While Walker also told the group that hats were not allowed at the pool, Porter points out in the video that white visitors were wearing them without being questioned. At some point during the dispute, Walker called the police. Rather than deal with the police, Porter said she and her group, including her godchildren, whom she brought to her complex's pool to celebrate the holiday, chose to leave. Porter posted her video to Facebook, where it's been viewed more than a million times. She told WREG that she wanted Walker held accountable, and that appears to be what has happened. On Friday, Trilogy Residential Management released a statement confirming that Walker has been fired from her job with the company. "To confirm, Ms. Walker was terminated immediately after we completed our investigation yesterday afternoon," the company wrote.
– With his plan for an “indefinite break” from golf, Tiger Woods isn’t the only celebrity to take some time out of the limelight for one reason or another. The Wall Street Journal lists some others: Michael Jordan: The Tiger pal left to try baseball after winning three titles with the Chicago Bulls. He returned in 1995, won three more, then retired. Until 2001, when he returned again for a stint with the Washington Wizards. Daniel Day-Lewis: After 1997’s The Boxer, the actor did some woodworking and was a cobbler in Florence. The break lasted until 2002, and didn’t prevent him from winning an Oscar in 2007. Kevin Spacey: In 2002, he claimed he was going to put producing over acting … but starred in at least one flick a year from 2002-09. Pat Tillman: He left a promising NFL career after 9/11 to join the US Army Rangers, and was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004. Kal Penn: Actor’s ongoing non-Hollywood gig has him as associate director in the White House’s Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs. For the full list, click the link at right.
– The narrative of the last moments of Michael Brown's life tends to begin here: With the 18-year-old allegedly stealing cigarillos from a Ferguson, Missouri, convenience store shortly before he was shot dead by Officer Darren Wilson. Now, a documentary that screened Saturday at South by Southwest in Austin uses previously unseen surveillance footage to argue that Brown did not in fact rob Ferguson Market and Liquor, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The alternate story as presented in Stranger Fruit by Jason Pollock—a Michael Moore "protege," notes the Hollywood Reporter: In the new footage, Brown is shown arriving at the shop at 1am on Aug. 9, 2014. Pollock believes Brown was there to do a trade with store clerks: some marijuana in exchange for two boxes of cigarillos. The clip shows Brown taking the boxes but then turning back and leaving them with the clerks, in Pollock's view, to retrieve later. The surveillance footage that was widely seen in the case shows Brown back at the shop just before noon, seizing the cigarillos and shoving co-owner Andy Patel when Patel asked Brown for payment (Patel wasn't working during Brown's earlier visit); a customer called 911, and Brown was dead minutes later. A lawyer for the store disputes the new chain of events, telling the New York Times, "Those folks didn’t sell him cigarillos for pot. The reason he gave [the cigarillos] back is he was walking out the door with unpaid merchandise and they wanted it back." It's unclear how Pollock obtained the footage, but his reading of police records in the case, which mentioned the earlier visit, alerted him to its possible existence. Police haven't confirmed the authenticity of the video. (Here's what Darren Wilson's life was like one year after the shooting.)
– Another public relations nightmare for operators of the Costa Concordia—though this time, no one was hurt. Concordia sister ship the Costa Allegra suffered a fire in its engine room, prompting the engines to be shut off some 260 miles from the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. Now the Allegra is largely under a blackout, with emergency battery power in the cabin. A number of vessels and a plane have been sent to help tow the ship to the Seychelles. It's due in tomorrow morning, ANSA reports. Some 636 passengers and 413 crew members were aboard the ship. "The shipboard fire-extinguishing system and procedures were promptly activated and the special fire-fighting squads intervened to extinguish the fire," the company said in a statement, according to the Guardian.
– Former four-term Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson has fought off a trio of conservative challengers to win the state's GOP Senate primary. Thompson, George W. Bush's secretary of health and human services, will compete against Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin in a race that could determine control of the Senate. Thompson's rivals tried to use his history of taking moderate positions against him, but GOP voters agreed that his centrism made him the most likely to defeat Baldwin, who aims to become the first openly gay senator, notes the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In Connecticut, meanwhile, former wrestling exec Linda McMahon crushed her rival in the Republican primary, setting up a showdown with Rep. Chris Murphy for the Senate seat being vacated by Joe Lieberman. And in Florida, veteran GOP Rep. John Mica defeated freshman Rep. Sandy Adams in a race that pitted them against each other because of redistricting. Adams lost despite having the support of Sarah Palin and much of the Tea Party. And it looks like there has been an upset in another Florida race, where 12-term Rep. Cliff Stearns is trailing Tea Party challenger Ted Yoho in their Republican primary, reports the AP. Yoho, a political novice, ran an anti-incumbent campaign with one ad depicting politicians in suits eating alongside pigs in a trough.
– Meet the new zoo superstar: Gladys the baby gorilla. When the 8-week-old western lowland gorilla's mother seemed uninterested in raising her, zookeepers took matters into their own hands, reports AP. Gladys was sent from her home zoo in Texas to the Cincinnati Zoo, where the staff has extensive experience raising gorillas. There, a team of 10 loving humans has been raising Gladys as an attentive gorilla mom would, wearing furry vests and kneepads and making gorilla sounds so she'll be prepared to eventually transition to a surrogate family of actual gorillas. "She's at the age now where she really starts growing by leaps and bounds," the zoo's primate leader tells the Cincinnati Enquirer. She's also mimicking gorilla behavior, like sleeping while clinging to zookeepers' backs. The human upbringing angle is getting Gladys plenty of attention—Good Morning America aired a piece on her today—and the Enquirer predicts her star will keep rising. Gladys is "a real charmer," says the story. "That little girl makes great eye contact."
– New Jersey won't let a favorite son run for state office. The lieutenant governor ruled today that Carl Lewis, who has nine Olympic gold medals on his mantle, doesn't meet the four-year residency requirement to run for a state Senate seat, reports the Star-Ledger. The 49-year-old Lewis plans to appeal. "The lieutenant governor has her facts wrong," says his attorney. Lewis grew up in Jersey and has owned homes there since 2005, reports AP. He also has a state driver's license and volunteers as a track coach in his hometown of Willingboro. But he also has a home and business offices in California, and he voted there as recently as 2009, prompting Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno to declare that state to be his legal home. Guadagno is a Republican, and Lewis a Democrat. He told the Philadelphia Inquirer this week that Gov. Chris Christie tried to bully him out of running by threatening to cut a physical fitness program Lewis wants to start. Christie's office called Lewis accusation "silly."
– If you weren't paying attention to last night's primary contests, you missed one of the more memorable victory speeches in a while. It came from Republican Justin Amash, a libertarian-leaning politician who defeated challenger Brian Ellis in Michigan's 3rd District. Candidates generally "kiss and make up" with their foes after even the nastiest of campaigns, notes the Washington Post, but Amash was having none of that. He even refused to take Ellis' concession call. Highlights: To Ellis: "You owe my family and this community an apology for your disgusting, despicable smear campaign. You had the audacity to try and call me today after running a campaign that was called the nastiest in the country. I ran for office to stop people like you." To former Rep. Peter Hoekstra, an Ellis backer: "You are a disgrace. And I'm glad we could hand you one more loss before you fade into total obscurity and irrelevance." Amash also mentioned a TV spot ran by the Ellis campaign that called Amash "al-Qaeda's best friend in Congress," reports Fox 17. “I’m an Arab-American, and he has the audacity to say I’m Al-Queda’s best friend in Congress. That’s pretty disgusting.” (Amash made headlines last year when he drew bipartisan support in a bid to rein in the NSA.)
– As Poland wrestles with the death of President Lech Kaczysnki and 96 others in today's plane crash, attention is turning to the pilots' actions and the Soviet-era plane involved: The pilots ignored orders not to try to land because of heavy fog, reports AP. The plane involved is a 20-year-old Soviet-era Tupelo 154 that had been overhauled in December. Wall Street Journal blogger Marcin Sobczyk notes the planes were nicknamed "flying coffins" in Poland. So why are Polish leaders using such old planes? An Economist blogger who flew in one notes that the Tu-154 "was dated, noisy and not that comfortable, but it had one great strength, I was told. A three-engined jet, it was significantly faster than the modern, two-engined airliners widely used by other governments for long-distance VIP transport. ... This speed played a role in keeping the plane in Polish government service."
– Israel angered Syria over the weekend when it coordinated the evacuation of members of the White Helmets civil defense group from the latter country. On Tuesday, things got even dicier, with Israel's military announcing that it shot down a Syrian jet that had crossed about a mile into Israeli airspace. The plane went down within the Syrian border, but it wasn't immediately clear if the pilot or pilots were able to evacuate, reports the Times of Israel. Syria, meanwhile, rejects the accusation that the jet was ever in Israeli territory. It's the first time in four years that Israel has downed a Syrian jet. The incident comes as Syrian forces seek to reclaim territory near the Israeli border from rebels and Islamic State militants, notes the AP. In fact, Syrian TV was showing footage from the fence marking the UN buffer zone between Israeli and Syrian troops in the Golan Heights just prior to the plane being shot down. Israeli captured the Golan Heights from Syria back in 1967, and this is the first time in seven years that Syrian troops have been back along the frontier.
– When Martha Stewart was released in March 2005 from West Virginia's Alderson Federal Prison Camp after a five-month stint behind bars, she emerged all the better, with the valuable experience offering her time to reflect on her white-collar crime and allowing her to grow as a person. Or … maybe not quite. People reports that the 76-year-old Stewart has an entirely different take on her incarceration, as revealed in an interview with Katie Couric for the journalist's Wednesday podcast. "[Did I feel] that 'you can make lemons out of lemonade' and 'what hurts you makes you stronger'? No. None of those adages fit at all," she tells Couric, adding that her stay at the facility was "horrifying" and a "very, very awful thing." "No one should have to go through that kind of indignity really except for murderers, and there are a few other categories, but no one should have to go through that," she adds. Although Alderson is a minimum-security prison, Stewart says there were "lots and lots of disturbing things" and that one still wasn't permitted to "walk out the gate or cross the river." She also blasts being "maligned" and mistreated and being ripped away from her family after she was sent away for lying about a stock sale, adding, "Nothing is good about it, nothing." There's also a hint on how fair she feels her sentence was, as she calls her experience "horrible … especially when one does not feel one deserves such a thing." Stewart says she's now over it, though, and isn't letting her jail stay define her, chatting with Couric for the rest of the podcast about more pleasant topics like her New Jersey childhood and working with Snoop Dogg. (The Arizona Republic also interviewed Stewart this week on everything from former President Obama to her binge-watching habit.)
– Last night, US Special Operations attempted to capture a senior ISIS commander and his wife in Syria. The rare raid didn't go as planned. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter today said that Abu Sayyaf fought back and was killed; the US troops involved were unharmed. They did manage to capture wife Umm Sayyaf, who is being held in Iraq. CNN notes that "Abu Sayyaf is not a name familiar to many ISIS watchers." Carter gave context: "Abu Sayyaf was involved in ISIL's military operations and helped direct the terrorist organization's illicit oil, gas, and financial operations as well." NBC News reports that a young Yazidi woman had apparently been enslaved by the couple; she was rescued. The raid, which took place in al-Amr, was carried out on orders of the president, which were given on the "unanimous recommendation" of his national security team. The AP notes this is only the second time troops have carried out a ground raid in Syria. A previous operation was aimed at rescuing James Foley and other Americans held hostage by the group.
– The Ivanka Trump collection is shuttering. The First Daughter had already formally separated herself from her namesake fashion line when she started to work as one of President Trump's senior advisers, but has now decided to close IT Collection LLC entirely. "After 17 months in Washington, I do not know when or if I will ever return to the business, but I do know that my focus for the foreseeable future will be the work I am doing here in Washington, so making this decision now is the only fair outcome for my team and partners," Trump said in a statement, per the AP. Both the AP and the Wall Street Journal report that Trump had grown increasingly frustrated by ethics restrictions placed on the company to avoid possible conflicts of interest while she worked in the White House; she reportedly felt the restrictions were hindering the company's ability to grow. While apparel sales at the brand were way up during the 2016 election year, it has since become fraught with controversy and hit with boycotts by those who oppose President Trump. Nordstrom and other retailers have stopped selling it, citing declining sales as the reason, and still other stores have scaled back Ivanka Trump displays. Despite the efforts of Ivanka Trump, who retained her ownership interest in the company through a trust, it was challenging to keep the brand separate from her father's administration; President Trump tweeted, for example, that Nordstrom had treated Ivanka "so unfairly," and Kellyanne Conway came under fire for suggesting people "go buy Ivanka's stuff" during an interview at the White House. And the company had been criticized for using Chinese workers abroad to make its products, as well as for being granted trademarks by foreign governments that would want to be on President Trump's good side.
– Authorities say 13 people are in custody following a violent altercation that left three people stabbed at a Ku Klux Klan gathering in Southern California, the AP reports. A spokesman with the Anaheim Police Department says six of those arrested are Klan supporters and seven counter-protesters. All three people who were stabbed are believed to be counter-protesters. One person is in critical condition and one was stabbed in the upper torso by the tip of a flagpole, the Orange County Register reports. A man wearing a "Grand Dragon" shirt was seen kicked by protesters, the LA Times reports, and Brian Levin, director of CSU San Bernardino's Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, says he pushed a Klan leader away during the violence. "How do you feel that a Jewish guy just saved your life?" Levin says he asked him. According to Levin, the man replied, "Thank you." The KKK's history in Anaheim goes way back: The hate group held four out of five seats on the City Council before being ousted during a recall effort in 1924. Almost 300 Klansmen once lived in the city, where they patrolled with masks and robes and once held a rally that drew 20,000. But recent activities have been "sporadic," says the Times, which notes two incidents of KKK fliers distributed last year.
– Ted Cruz tried to portray himself as a man who knows his hoops on Tuesday night, but he instead made himself look like a man who literally does not know what a basketball hoop is called. With no victory speeches to make elsewhere, he spent the evening in Indiana, where he tried to recreate a scene from Hoosiers during a rally in the gymnasium where much of the movie was shot, USA Today reports. After the height from the basket to the floor was measured, as in the film, Cruz said: "You know, the amazing thing is, that basketball ring here in Indiana is the same height as it is in New York City and every other place in this country," reports the Indianapolis Star, which notes that "traditionally, we call that a 'hoop' here in Indiana." Cruz was swiftly and mercilessly mocked on Twitter. "Is he going to say he's looking forward to seeing the NASCARs run the Indy 500 next," tweeted a "Will McAvoy" account. Some commentators even predicted that he had just handed the race to Donald Trump. That may be an exaggeration, but basketball is definitely a very big deal in Indiana, which explains why Cruz and Trump have been "going all-in on basketball-related pandering," the Washington Post notes. On Wednesday, famed former Indiana University basketball coach Bob Knight will join Trump for a rally at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.
– It turns out Jesus' butt has a lot to teach us about life in 18th century Spain. A wooden statue of Jesus on the cross hanging in the Church of Santa Agueda in Sotillo de la Ribera, Spain, was old and in need of fixing up, Science Alert reports. According to National Geographic, a team of preservationists were lifting the statue, Cristo del Miserere, onto a work bench when they realized there was something inside it. The team discovered the buttocks-portion of the statue was removable and concealed a document signed in 1777 by Joaquin Minguez, the chaplain of the Cathedral of the Burgo de Osma. "Although it is usual for many sculptures to be hollow, it is not so much to find handwritten documents inside," Science Alert quotes historian Efren Arroyo as saying. Over both sides of two pages of paper, Minguez describes life in Spain in the late-1700s. He talks about harvesting wheat, rye, barley, and oats and discusses the region's wine production, Gizmodo reports. He names malaria and typhoid fever as dangerous afflictions and notes that entertainment is provided by "cards, ball, bald, bar and other puerile games." He mentions the Spanish Inquisition and King Carlos III and praises Manuel Bal, sculptor of Cristo del Miserere, as a "natural scholar." According to the New York Post, Minguez's document even names popular bullfighters of the time. Arroyo says the document appears to be an early form of time capsule. It has been archived for preservation, but a copy of Minguez's writing has been reinserted into Jesus' behind for future generations. (A nightclub's time capsule caused an evacuation in New York City.)
– Maine's governor managed to make even his fellow Republicans cringe at a fundraiser last week, according to two GOP state lawmakers who were there. Paul LePage was discussing how President Obama blew his chance at being a great president by not touting his biracial heritage—which he hasn't done because, according to LePage, Obama "hates white people." The two sources heard the comment directly, but aren't revealing themselves for fear of retribution, the Portland Press Herald reports. "It was one little thing from a speech," says one, "but I think most people there thought it was totally inappropriate." Asked about it today, LePage denied making the comment, reports Politico. “No I never said that and you guys are all about gossip, goodbye,” said the governor, as quoted by WLBZ 2. Two other lawmakers who attended the Maine Republican Party fundraiser and meet-and-greet on August 12 say they didn't hear the remark; another attendee tells the Bangor Daily News LePage "said President Obama had an opportunity to unify the country on race, but didn’t do anything," but that he didn't hear the supposed "white people" comment. The governor is no stranger to controversial remarks; in 2011, he said the NAACP could "kiss my butt," and last year he compared the IRS to the Gestapo.
– The wreckage of Japan's biggest World War II warship has been discovered more than a half-mile underwater in the Sibuyan Sea, and credit for the find goes to a Microsoft co-founder, AFP reports. Paul Allen tweeted photos on Monday of the Musashi, sunk by US warplanes in 1944. Allen says he found the remains in the Philippines while exploring on his yacht, the M/Y Octopus, and describes it as the culmination of an eight-year search that relied on historical documents from four countries, a "hypsometric bathymetric survey" of the ocean floor, and his yacht's robust technology. After surveying the area, Allen and his team of researchers deployed an autonomous underwater vehicle to pinpoint the ship's location, according to a press release via CNBC that calls the Musashi "one of the two largest and most technologically advanced battleships in naval history." "The Musashi is truly an engineering marvel, and as an engineer at heart, I have a deep appreciation for the technology and effort that went into its construction," Allen says. Underwater photos show a giant chrysanthemum on the ship's bow, symbolizing Japan's royal family; an image of one of the ship's valves reveals it bears Japanese writing. A Japanese museum director says he's "90% sure" that it is indeed the Musashi, CNN reports. More than 1,000 people died in the ship's sinking. "It's fateful that the discovery was made on the 70th anniversary of [the end of] World War II," Kazushige Todaka adds. "It is [a] very meaningful discovery and a good chance for us to remind ourselves about the war and its tragedy." (A World War II "ghost ship" was recently found off Hawaii.)
– Tiger Woods’ wife joined him for five days to participate in his sex addiction treatment, and Radar wants you to know they have news exclusively. Except that People has it too, with residents of Hattiesburg, Miss., home of the Gentle Path sex addiction clinic reporting Tiger-and-Elin sightings. Elin Nordegren flew by private jet from Orlando, Radar reports, because “the marriage is not over. They both want to save it,” a source says. Now she's back in Orlando. Meanwhile, everyone from a Starbucks barista to a clerk at the local mall tells People they’ve seen Tiger or Elin around town, and rumors are flying that he rented out a local golf course. Also in the rumor department: The Daily Mail reports that mistress no. 19, according to its count, has emerged. Tiger allegedly paid Emma Rotherham, a 42-year-old mother of two, more than $484,800 to keep quiet about their 18-month affair.
– Exercise DVDs are a mostly unregulated industry, and their safety and accuracy haven't been scientifically proven—yet their promises of chiseled, bronzed bodies have us forking over $250 million for them every year. Not only do we not know whether they work, researchers at Oregon State University are going so far as to report that they could be both physically and psychologically unsafe. To arrive at that conclusion they reviewed 10 popular DVDs, and they write in the Sociology of Sport Journal that 26.9% of the words spoken during the fitness videos were motivational statements. Except one in seven of those so-called motivating statements were in fact "negative" in their view—i.e., "You should be dying right now" or "you better be sweating." Further, "there are also questions about some of the exercises, which could lead to injuries and pose a real danger to the user," says researcher Brad Cardinal. The findings "don't surprise me at all," certified personal trainer Doug Sklar, who founded the PhilanthroFIT studio in New York, tells Yahoo Health, and he sums up the problem: Those negative statements reinforce the idea that exercise is torture. For exercise pros, that can motivate; for newbies, it can have them heading for the hills. The key is making sure those new to working out "find it to be a positive experience that they are more likely to continue with," says Sklar. The researchers won't reveal which 10 videos they reviewed, but say those featuring certified trainers may have a leg up on those led by someone who just has a good body. (Check out the link between exercise and alcohol.)
– The Katy Perry-Taylor Swift feud is alive and well. Perry addressed it in late May on James Corden's Carpool Karaoke (indeed, Vanity Fair says the topic was "the centerpiece" of the segment), thanks in part to the fact that she just released a song, "Swish, Swish," that is rumored to be about Swift. (Sample lyric: "Your game is tired / You should retire / You're 'bout cute as / An old coupon expired / And karma's not a liar / She keeps receipts.") During the segment, Perry confirmed the feud's origins do indeed have to do with backup dancers who have worked for both singers, and insists she tried to talk with Swift about it but Swift responded by writing a mean song about her. Now, in a new interview with NME, Perry further explains why she decided to address the feud with Corden in the first place. "No one has asked me about my side of the story, and there are three sides of every story: one, two, and the truth," she says. She adds that, of course, she truly does want everyone to get along, "but, I mean, I’m not Buddha—things irritate me. I wish that I could turn the other cheek every single time, but I’m also not a pushover, you know? Especially when someone tries to assassinate my character with little girls. That’s so messed up!" Another interesting note on the feud: Swift, who pulled her music from streaming sites including Spotify in 2014, just put her entire catalog back on Spotify, Amazon, and Tidal on Thursday night—the same night Perry's new album, Witness, was released. Coincidence? TMZ thinks not, calling it possibly "the pettiest move—or just brilliant." Twitter went nuts over the move, with both Taylor fans and Katy fans weighing in, per Us.
– Illinois Republican Mark Kirk's chances of keeping his US Senate seat took a hit Thursday night when he made an ugly—and inaccurate—remark about his opponent's heritage during a televised debate. After Democratic US Rep. Tammy Duckworth, who was born in Bangkok to a Thai mother and an American father, said her family "has served this nation in uniform going back to the Revolution" and described herself as "a daughter of the American Revolution," Kirk responded: "I forgot that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington," reports the Hill, which describes Kirk as the most vulnerable GOP senator up for re-election. His remark was followed by several seconds of awkward silence before the moderator moved on to the next question. Duckworth's father is a World War II vet with ancestors who served in the Revolutionary War, and she is a US Army vet who lost both her legs when an RPG hit the helicopter she was piloting in Iraq in 2004, the Guardian notes. Kirk, who served as an intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve, has used a wheelchair since a stroke in 2012. One of the debate's lighter moments came when he quipped: "I think we both agree the next senator from Illinois should use a wheelchair," the Chicago Tribune reports. Kirk—who has described Donald Trump as a "malignant clown"—"unendorsed his party's presidential nominee and called him out in paid ads," Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said in a tweet gloating over the debate gaffe.
– An enterprising attorney has created a portable chair that converts to a bullet-proof vest, for use in schools and entertainment venues. Aaron Ansel came up with the idea for the CoverMeSeat following the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas. "I just thought, is there any sort of technology-based solution that could have kept people safe? There has to be something," he tells Newsweek. The chair, which looks like a stadium seat, has a quick-release mechanism that allows the user to unfold it, place it over the head, and cinch it at the waist, similar to an airplane life vest. A YouTube video shows it stopping bullets and there's a fitted compartment for optional ballistic plates. Ansel has been criticized by those who see him as capitalizing on mass shootings, but he says the device is a practical solution to a problem that shows no sign of going away. Indeed, hundreds have died in mass shootings since the Las Vegas massacre and the US has suffered 57 times more school shootings than all other industrialized nations combined since 2009, CNN reports. Ansel says his typical buyer isn't the gun enthusiast. Rather, he's marketing the product to teachers and concert-goers. "It's as apolitical as a fire extinguisher," he tells Newsweek.
– Five children perpetrated the suicide bombings that killed 15 people, including themselves, and injured at least 35 others Thursday in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri, the BBC reports. Witnesses say the child suicide bombers—four girls and one boy—were between the ages of 9 and 15. Three of the bombs exploded at a mosque just before final evening prayers. The girl with the fourth bomb intended for the mosque ran off but died when her bomb also exploded. The fifth child suicide bomber struck the house of a vigilante leader, who was not home at the time. The BBC reports Boko Haram is believed to be behind the attacks Thursday in Maiduguri, which was the Islamist militant group's original base six years ago. Boko Haram is stepping up attacks against civilians as the Nigerian military has begun seeing success in fighting them, according to Al Jazeera. A wave of attacks in Maiduguri less than two weeks ago killed at least 117 people. Earlier this week, Amnesty International called for greater protection for citizens from Boko Haram attacks. The group is believed to have killed at least 17,000 people since beginning attacks in 2009.
– Commodity brokers call it a "contango"—a situation where the current price of a commodity is lower than prices for future delivery—and it could make a lot of money for traders who can find somewhere to store huge amounts of oil. The recent plunge in oil prices has caused a scramble for storage space, and traders are increasingly turning to offshore supertankers for storage as sites on land fill up, reports the Wall Street Journal. Analysts say that major traders have now chartered tankers capable of holding more than 30 million barrels of oil, and they're expected to remain anchored for around a year. Floating storage carried more than 70 million barrels of oil after the oil price collapsed in 2009, although the Globe and Mail notes that some traders were in for a "crude awakening" after a surge in US shale output meant consumption from the Middle East didn't rise when the economy recovered. "If people think the contango is some kind of magical way to make money, they are incorrect," an analyst at Mercuria Energy Group tells the Journal. "Storing big quantities of crude oil is not an easy game. It's not a game at all."
– You might want to start your next workout at the gym with a sniff test. A new study suggests that gyms have high levels of air pollutants such as formaldehyde, airborne dust, and carbon dioxide, reports the New York Times. In fact, levels for those three substances generally exceeded accepted standards for air quality. The samples were taken at gyms in Portugal, but the gyms were similar to those commonly found in the US. Researchers found particularly high levels of carbon dioxide during aerobics classes, thanks to all that huffing and puffing. But the need for better ventilation seemed clear in all areas, especially considering the physiology involved with a workout. "When we exercise, we take in more air with each breath and most of that air goes through the mouth, bypassing the natural filtration system" of the nostrils, says the lead researcher. "The pollutants go deeper into the lungs compared to resting situations." So what to do? The researchers stress that people shouldn't stop going to gyms, notes a blog post at Shape. But they might want to sniff their gym's air, and if it has a stale or chemical odor, ask the manager about ventilation or the most recent air-quality test. Beyond that, exercisers could make a point to go at less-crowded times, suggests Men's Fitness. (Exercise might be bad for your teeth, too.)
– Stories about Connecticut shooter Adam Lanza have a familiar theme: He was a smart, quiet, polite kid who was was socially awkward and gave no sign this might happen. Samples of coverage about the 20-year-old, who attended the same elementary school where the rampage took place: Hartford Courant: Ex-classmate Kateleen Soy recalls him as "painfully shy" and a "little hard to talk to," but adds, "I wanted people to know he wasn't always a monster. He became one, but he wasn't always that way." Another, Andrew Lapple, recalls: "He was always carrying around his laptop holding onto it real tight. He walked down the halls against the wall almost like he was afraid of people. He was definitely kind of strange but you'd never think he'd do something like this." Associated Press: "Family and friends remember Adam Lanza as many things—intelligent, nerdy, goth, remote, thin." AP says police officials think he might have had some kind of personality disorder. Ex-classmate Joshua Milas from Newtown High School: "We would hang out, and he was a good kid. He was smart. He was probably one of the smartest kids I know. He was probably a genius." Danbury News-Times: "A woman who lives near the Lanza family said Lanza was a 'reserved' and shy youth who appeared to be 'troubled.'" Reuters: Tim Arnone, who went to school with Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary and at Newtown High School, said they were in the AV-club together, "the nerdiest club in the school." He said Lanza was "driven hard" by his parents, who divorced a few years ago, to do well in school. His mom in particular "pushed him really hard to be smarter and work harder in school." A local landscaper adds that she was an avid gun collector who took him target shooting.
– Outsourcing dirty emissions-producing industries to China hasn't improved America's air as much as some might think, a new study finds. Researchers say some of the rising emissions from the manufacturing of China's exports—many of which go to America—are making their way across the Pacific, sometimes pushing smog standards above federal health levels in Los Angeles and even in parts of the eastern US, reports the LA Times. The study shows that American demand for cheap exports can still cause environmental problems at home, one of its authors says. "It’s sort of a boomerang effect," he says. "We need to move beyond placing blame for who’s creating these emissions and realize that we all have a common interest in reducing the pollution." In China, meanwhile, the smog problem has become so dire that a scientist has come up with a plan to clean city air with giant sprinklers attached to skyscrapers, Gizmodo reports. (Though one China paper has argued the smog is good for national security.)
– Roseanne the show may not be dead after all, even if its namesake character is gone. TMZ reports that ABC is considering moving ahead with the show's reboot and having Sara Gilbert in the starring role as her character Darlene. Gilbert has reportedly been calling around to other cast members, with John Goodman in the "very interested" camp. Media writer Brian Stelter of CNN confirms the TMZ report. "This is true," he tweets. "The talks are preliminary, but it's a live idea." One group sure to welcome the news: The AP reports that hundreds of people were put out of work by the abrupt cancellation over Roseanne Barr's racist tweet.
– When a right-wing firebrand named Lucian Wintrich tried to give a speech titled "It's OK to Be White" last month at the University of Connecticut, things didn't end well. Wintrich, a reporter for Gateway Pundit, got into an altercation with a woman and ended up being charged with breach of the peace. Now, however, the script has been flipped: Charges against Wintrich have been dropped, while the woman he tussled with is facing larceny and disorderly conduct charges, reports the Hartford Courant. Catherine Gregory, 33, turned herself in over the weekend. Essentially, she's charged with stealing his speech. Video from the night shows her grabbing papers from Wintrich's podium, after which he runs after her, grabs her, and fights to get the papers back. "Ms. [Gregory's] reaction was measured and understandable compared [with] other people's reaction in light of Wintrich's apparent goal of inciting a violent response," says her attorney. "That, of course, would not be covered by the First Amendment." Gregory is free on $1,000 bond and due back in court Wednesday, reports the AP. Wintrich, for his part, is happy with the turn of events. "I obviously think it's wonderful that finally the system corrected itself," he said Monday outside Superior Court in Rockville, Conn., per the Washington Post. "We don't want to create a precedent that people can walk up to speeches they find disagreeable and steal them. I mean, that's really not what America is about."
– Mary Keitany ran away with her third New York City Marathon in a row, reports the AP, with the 34-year-old Kenyan logging an unofficial time Sunday of 2 hours, 24 minutes, 26 seconds to become the first woman to string together three straight victories since the 1980s. And she did so convincingly, finishing nearly four minutes ahead of her nearest rival, Joyce Chepkirui of Kenya. On Sunday, Keitany began getting a sizable lead at the 15-mile mark as the race crossed the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan. Keitany reached Manhattan in less than 90 minutes. As she began running up First Avenue, TV commentators dubbed her "The Boss of New York City," and following the 20-mile mark, Keitany led by more than two minutes. Molly Huddle placed third in her debut after setting an American record in the 10,000 meters in the Rio Olympics. Elsewhere: Eritrea's Ghirmay Ghebresiassie has won the men's field, finishing his debut in New York with an unofficial time of 2 hours, 7 minutes, 51 seconds. For most of the course, the men's field was a three-man race between Ghebresiassie, Kenya's Lucas Rotich and Ethiopia's Lelisa Desisa. By mile 20, Ghebresiassie gradually began pulling away. Tatyana McFadden has swept the four major marathons for the fourth straight year by winning the women's wheelchair race. The 27-year-old American finished Sunday with an unofficial time of 1 hour, 47 minutes, 43 seconds. She again completed the Grand Slam by winning in London, Boston, Chicago and New York, extending her record streak to 17 straight wins in major marathons. Meanwhile, Will Reeve, Christopher and Dana Reeve's son, is running the race to raise money for his parents' foundation. For a look at the history of the marathon, click here.
– A day after offering belated Chinese New Year greetings, President Trump gave Beijing something more substantial: his assurances that he respects America's long-standing "one China" policy and plans to adhere to it. Trump had his first conversation with China's President Xi Jinping late Thursday and the White House says it was an "extremely cordial" talk, the South China Morning Post reports. "The two leaders discussed numerous topics and President Trump agreed, at the request of President Xi, to honor our one-China policy," the White House said in a statement. The policy, which the US has followed for decades, accepts Beijing's view that Taiwan is a part of China. Trump infuriated China in December when, as president-elect, he spoke directly to Taiwan's president. Analysts say Trump appears to have adopted a more pragmatic approach, possibly because of the influence of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The phone call is "good news and a positive development for the relationship," Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing, tells the Guardian. "It will allow the US and China to get on to the more difficult issues that really need work, such as trade, North Korea, and the South China Sea." The AP reports that the US Pacific Command disclosed Friday that a Chinese aircraft and a US Navy patrol plane had an "unsafe" encounter over the South China Sea earlier in the week.
– Five years after Monica Burgos was found murdered in Mexico, her husband has been found guilty of the crime. Prosecutors maintained former Survivor producer Bruce Beresford-Redman killed his wife on April 5, 2010, in a room at Cancun's Moon Palace resort, then dumped her body in a cistern, and a judge yesterday sentenced Beresford-Redman to 12 years in prison. He'll be credited for four years already served, TMZ reports. A lawyer for Beresford-Redman, who must also pay a $2,791 fine, says he'll appeal the decision as it is based on circumstantial evidence, CBS News reports. A state prosecutor, who had asked for a 50-year sentence, says he may appeal the decision in an attempt to secure a lengthier prison term, the AP reports. Beresford-Redman and his lawyers maintain he is innocent and that the prosecution had no forensic evidence that pointed to him as the killer; the Hollywood Reporter notes that witnesses "backed out" or gave testimony that supported his story (read more on the doubts that clouded the trial). "Over an exhausting three-and-a-half-year period, this trial has done nothing but prove Bruce's innocence beyond any doubt," said his parents. "We are appalled and disgusted with this gross miscarriage of justice." Beresford-Redman's mom, who has custody of the couple's two children, says she has "told them that it's a farce." A lawyer for Burgos' family says, per the AP, "Not a day goes by that they don't miss her terribly and nothing will bring her back, but they can finally say that she has received the justice she deserved." Click for more on the case.
– When her cellmate asks, "How'd you get arrested?" Florida's Christina Hines, 30, has good reason to either laugh or cry. As WKMG reports, it all started when she accidentally left a $50 bill behind at a gas station. The clerk ran outside after her but was too late. A sheriff's deputy noticed the commotion, found out what happened, and decided to play Good Samaritan by catching up with Hines to return the cash, reports the Orlando Sentinel. Thinking she was being pursued for other reasons, Hines led deputies on a high-speed chase that ended only with the help of tire-flattening spikes placed on the road. Deputies found heroin and hypodermic needles in Hines' car, and it didn't help that she was driving on a suspended license. It's unclear whether she ever got that 50 bucks back.
– President Obama handed it to haters, including Donald Trump, while reading mean tweets on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Monday. "President Obama will go down as perhaps the worst president in the history of the United States," Obama quoted Trump during the segment. His reply: "Really? Well, @realDonaldTrump, at least I will go down as a president." Another Twitter user asked, "Barack Obama, bro do you even lift?" to which Obama responded, "Well, I lifted the ban on Cuban cigars. That's worth something." During his chat with Kimmel, Obama sent more insults Trump's way. He said he'd spent "most" of the presidential debates laughing at Trump, and while discussing aides waking him up in the middle of the night, he said, "What I don't do at 3am, I don't tweet about people who insulted me." Obama later described how he'd lost $5 to Bill Murray during a recent putting contest in the Oval Office in which they tried to putt into a glass. "He won repeatedly," Obama said. Then, mimicking his favorite GOP nominee, he added, "The glass was rigged."
– Anthony Weiner must report to prison by Monday, ABC News reports. The 53-year-old former congressman was sentenced to 21 to 27 months in prison after pleading guilty in May to sexting a 15-year-old girl. At the time, he told a judge that he has been "a very sick man for a very long time," according to ABC 7. The Hill notes Weiner resigned from Congress in 2011 after sending lewd photos of himself to women. In the current case, prosecutors say Weiner sent the victim pornography and asked her to take off her clothes and stimulate herself on Skype. He was facing up to 10 years in prison. Weiner is set to be incarcerated at Federal Medical Center, Devens, in Massachusetts. The facility provides mental health care and sex offender treatment to more than 1,100 inmates.
– A house-sized asteroid nicknamed "Pitbull" came close to Earth over the weekend—and appears to have taken a bite out of Nicaragua. There was a mysterious blast in the capital, Managua, late Saturday night, and government scientists believe it's connected to asteroid 2014 RC, reports Reuters. The explosion left a crater 40 feet wide and 16 feet deep on the outskirts of the city, near the airport. Government scientists say they believe it was caused by a "relatively small" meteorite and they plan to ask international experts for help, the AP reports. "It could have come off that asteroid because it is normal for that to occur. We have to study it more because it could be ice or rock," a Nicaraguan volcanologist tells the BBC. At its closest, the asteroid came within around 25,000 miles of Earth—a tenth of the distance to the moon—and "its orbit will bring it back to our planet's neighborhood in the future," according to NASA, which says "the asteroid's future motion will be closely monitored, but no future threatening Earth encounters have been identified."
– The trouble with "no touching" signs: 4-year-olds can't read them. Such was the situation in Ningbo, China, when on Sunday a boy of that age ducked under the rope encircling a sculpture of Zootopia character Nick Wilde and knocked it over, ruining the $15,000 Lego fox, reports Shanghaiist. It was crafted by a man identified only by his surname of Zhao, who the BBC reports built the piece over the course of three days and nights out of some 10,000 pieces. The "masterwork" hadn't even been on display for a full hour before it was destroyed, reports What's on Weibo. While Zhao reportedly wrote of being "depressed and frustrated" in the words of the South China Morning Post, he noted that he had accepted the family's apology and was not looking for any compensation as the destruction wasn't intentional. But in the annals of history, the child's act will appear second to another May 2016 art mess: Mashable and the BBC report that two boys visiting the Shanghai Museum of Glass on May 17 were filmed breaking the wings off "Angel in Waiting," a glass piece created by Shelly Xue over 27 months. The children were filmed by security cameras—and by the two adults accompanying them, who recorded the boys' actions on cellphones. Last August, a 12-year-old taking a guided tour with his mom at an art exhibit in Taipei tripped next to a painting worth about $1.5 million, putting his fist right through it as he tried to break his fall. He left a large gash in the bottom right of Paolo Porpora's Flowers, an oil on canvas said to be about 350 years old. The painting was said to be the only one signed by Porpora. (A Lego piece caused three years of medical issues for this boy.)
– The NRA's next president will be a familiar name: Oliver North. The group said Monday that the retired Marine who figured prominently in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s will assume the post in the next few weeks, reports CNN. “This is the most exciting news for our members since Charlton Heston became president of our association,” said NRA executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre in a statement. He called North a "warrior for American freedom," adding that "in these times, I can think of no one better suited to serve as our president.” Heston, of course, famously declared that his guns could only be taken "from my cold, dead hands," notes the AP. North is retiring from his role as a Fox News analyst, effective immediately. At the NRA, he will replace current President Pete Brownell, who is not seeking a second term. North, 74, is a member of the NRA board, and the Washington Post notes that he attended the group's prayer breakfast over the weekend during the annual convention. “I want my grandkids to say that Granddad was a person who taught me how to fight the good fight,” North said. “You see, that’s the most important lesson of all: We’re in a fight. We’re in a brutal battle to preserve the liberties that the good Lord presents us.” North first became a national figure while serving on the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan. He was convicted in 1989 of obstructing Congress and other charges for his role in the sale of weapons to Iran (despite sanctions) and the diversion of proceeds to support the right-wing Contra rebels in Nicaragua (despite a congressional ban on such aid), per the Hill. A judge eventually dismissed the convictions.
– President Trump on Monday addressed the recent New York Times report that the US used threats in an attempt to block a WHO resolution promoting breastfeeding, insisting the US was only opposed to the fact that the resolution called for limits on promoting infant formula, the AP reports. "The failing NY Times Fake News story today about breast feeding must be called out," Trump tweeted. "The U.S. strongly supports breast feeding but we don’t believe women should be denied access to formula. Many women need this option because of malnutrition and poverty." Times reporter Maggie Haberman, however, pointed out on Twitter that the president's tweet did confirm the US had opposed the resolution: "He claims the story is false and then backs it up." And Politico notes that the resolution did not bar the use of formula, just aimed to limit misleading information about it. A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, the lead agency involved in negotiations on the resolution, offered a take similar to Trump's in a statement to the Hill. "The United States was fighting to protect women’s abilities to make the best choices for the nutrition of their babies," says a spokesperson. "Many women are not able to breastfeed for a variety of reasons, these women should not be stigmatized; they should be equally supported with information and access to alternatives for the health of themselves and their babies." As for what's behind all this, in an opinion piece at the Los Angeles Times David Dayen writes, "There’s a $70-billion, deeply concentrated global industry in baby formula substitutes, which relies on misinformation and ignorance to peddle its product to the world." "We know that the trade association that represents ... infant formula manufacturers is behind this," a Democratic strategist told Hill TV Monday.
– Walmart may have some serious image problems in how it treats women, but the business behemoth is throwing around some serious money that could help change that. Under a new initiative announced today, it pledges to spend $20 billion over the next five years to buy products from women-owned businesses in the US, double its current amount, reports the Washington Post. It also promises to train and educate low-income women here and abroad, notes Reuters. The move comes just months after the Supreme Court threw out a massive class-action lawsuit brought by female employees against the company, though Walmart says its new plan has nothing to do with the case. Maybe, writes Alyce Lomax at Daily Finance. But "this initiative—while positive—does seem suspiciously like the metaphorical equivalent of bestowing the sparkling Tiffany diamond to say 'I'm sorry' after the beat-down." Regardless of motive, however, it "could help many women achieve more successful businesses and careers," she writes.
– Congrats, Sweden. The country is considered the most reputable, according to the Reputation Institute, which has produced a top 10 ranking based on how "welcoming, safe, and beautiful" a country is, according to a press release. More specifically, the rankings come from 58,000 ratings on economy, environment, and government, per the Local. Last year, Canada ranked top, while Sweden has held the third spot for the past two years. The full list: Sweden Canada Switzerland Australia Norway Finland New Zealand Denmark Ireland Netherlands See the most peaceful countries here.
– Riding in a 140-foot tall balloon filled with 350,000 cubic feet of gas, an American and a Russian have set off from Japan in the hopes of setting two balloon ride records at once. First, Troy Bradley, 50, and Leonid Tiukhtyaev, 58, hope to reach North America and break the current distance record of 5,208 miles, which was set between Japan and the US in 1981. And second, they hope to reach the West Coast in 5.5 days and then head inland another day or two, breaking the duration record of 137 hours (5.7 days) set in 1978, reports the AP. "Everything went just like a textbook," said team social media director Letitia Hill just after takeoff early yesterday. (Bad weather delayed two previous attempts earlier this month.) Mission Control, situated in a small room at a balloon museum in Albuquerque, includes balloonists, a meteorologist, a physician, and a search-and-rescue expert, who are staying in touch with the pilots via satellite phones, reports the Albuquerque Journal. The balloon, called Two Eagles, is equipped with several types of radios, a high-tech navigation system, and basics like food and a first-aid kit. The men will wear oxygen masks and stay bundled up in the 50-degree cabin as they fly at an expected altitude of at least 15,000 feet. It's possible the pilots could be in flight for as many as 10 days, the balloon's apparent outer limits, and it's not clear where they'll come down. "That’s going to keep us on the edge of our seats for this mission," says Hill. Bradley and Tiukhtyaev are also being monitored by Arizona State University researchers studying fatigue's effects on cognition. (Check out this recent balloon ride that didn't go as planned.)
– The name Jonathan Gruber should be a lot more familiar than it is right now, writes media critic Howard Kurtz. He's referring to the MIT professor and ObamaCare architect who suggested in a recently surfaced video from 2013 that the "stupidity of the American voter" helped get the law passed. First, the offending quote from Gruber: “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter, or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass." In a column at Fox News, Kurtz blasts mainstream media outlets, which usually salivate over a good hidden-video story, for ignoring this one. "This is utterly inexplicable, except as a matter of bias," he writes. "No matter what you think of ObamaCare, on what planet is this not news?" The story is getting harder to ignore, however: Gruber has conceded to MSNBC that he "spoke inappropriately," the White House today denounced the comments, and yet another video (the fourth, actually) has surfaced. In this one, Gruber is quoted as saying that President Obama "knew when he was running for president that quite frankly the American public doesn't actually care that much about the uninsured.” That's why even though the bill is "90% health insurance coverage and 10% about cost control, all you ever hear people talk about is cost control." This one is being reported by CNN, the very definition of mainstream media. Kurtz hopes the issue finally gets a "public debate," because the coverage so far has been "downright embarrassing." Read his full column.
– The Misfit Shine activity tracker is not only waterproof, but can apparently also withstand stomach acid. Doctors say a 13-year-old girl in South Korea removed the tracker from her watch band—it can also be fixed to necklaces and clipped to clothing—and popped it in her mouth while she went swimming; why she did so is unclear, as Live Science points out the tracker can be worn in a pool. At some point, she accidentally swallowed the disc, which is about an inch in diameter. A subsequent X-ray showed the device was in her stomach, and 30 hours later it still hadn't moved on. Doctors feared the lithium battery could come out of its casing and expressed "concern for obstruction at the ileocecal valve [which separates the small and large intestines]," and so they intervened. In a 72-minute procedure, they used an endoscopic snare to remove the device through the girl's esophagus. "To our knowledge, this is the first documented case of salvaging an operational watch from the stomach using an endoscopic technique," doctors wrote in the Jan. 19 issue of Case Reports in Gastrointestinal Medicine. When it was all over, the device still worked. "When synchronized to her mobile device, the [Misfit Shine] watch accurately recorded all advertised data points to include steps taken, calories burned, sleep cycles, and maintained accurate time," doctors wrote. The patient was sent home the next day. (A rare disorder keeps this women from swallowing.)
– As Malala Yousufzai continues her recovery in a UK hospital, more than 90,000 supporters hope the Pakistani teenager has a big honor in store next year: the Nobel Peace Prize. A petition at Change.org to get the 15-year-old nominated for the honor is drawing support from around the world, reports the BBC. Malala was shot in the head last month by Taliban gunmen after becoming an outspoken advocate of girls' education. "In the face of terror, Malala risked her life to speak out for the rights of girls everywhere," reads the petition.
– A now-deleted website for Christos Vasiliades described him as an "aggressive" Baltimore attorney "dedicated to client service." Authorities say he's so dedicated, in fact, that he tried to bribe an alleged rape victim so she wouldn't testify against his client, suggested that she beat him up instead, and threatened her with deportation, reports the Baltimore Sun. Vasiliades, 38, was arrested in court Tuesday after the husband of the alleged victim told authorities about an offer he'd made the couple during an April meeting. During a second meeting on May 18, during which the victim's husband wore a wire, Vasiliades allegedly said his client was "very sorry" and would pay $3,000 if the couple failed to show up to his trial for assault, rape, and other sex offenses. Referring to his client, Vasiliades said that in his home country of Greece, "we would go [expletive] him up," according to an indictment. "I think you should find him and kick his ass, personally," he reportedly added, per NBC News. Vasiliades also told the couple there was a "high risk" they would be deported if they appeared in court because immigration officials would be present, authorities say. "You know how things are with Trump's laws now; someone goes to court, and boom, they get taken away," he allegedly said. "This is terrible. This is as bad as it gets," Maryland AG Brian Frosh tells CBS Baltimore, adding to the Sun that "if you're an immigrant, you live in a climate of fear at this point, and these folks were trying to capitalize on that." Vasiliades and his interpreter were arraigned Wednesday on charges of obstruction of justice and witness intimidation. Both pleaded not guilty.
– A man's surgery for seizures had an unexpected result: When he woke up, he was no longer scared of spiders. The 44-year-old used to kill spiders with hair spray and a vacuum; now, he's fine with letting them crawl all over him, Medical Daily reports. The reasons aren't clear, but it seems to have something to do with his amygdala, part of the brain which deals with fear. Parts of it were removed in the surgery to get rid of his seizures—which also disappeared after the operation. Interestingly, other fears remained after the surgery, including the man's fear of public speaking. This could be because arachnophobia prompts a "quick-and-dirty panic response," whereas a fear of public speaking is a different, "more nuanced" kind of worry, an expert says. The surgery might only have operated on the "panic" pathway, the expert adds. On the downside, the surgery also temporarily removed the man's love for music: For a while, he was repulsed by tunes, especially one on a particular TV commercial, New Scientist reports. Fortunately, that revulsion faded; meanwhile, the man could now probably handle spiders hatching in his bananas.
– Just one day after Rob Ford's office confirmed that the former Toronto mayor was in palliative care, his family says Ford has died. He was 46. Ford dropped his 2014 bid for re-election when he was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive form of cancer. In a lengthy obituary, the Star recounts the treatment he undertook in his quest to beat pleomorphic liposarcoma over the course of 18 months, including a May 2015 surgery, chemotherapy, and a clinical trial. It also traces his political career, from his role as a "plain-spoken champion of the little guy, always eager to get a pothole fixed" to his 2010 mayoral win, which ushered in a "wild, scandal-filled term." As mayor, the headlines grew less positive: He was ordered removed from office in November 2012 over an alleged violation of conflict of interest rules (an appeal court overturned it). In May 2013 both the Toronto Star and Gawker said they had viewed a video that showed Ford smoking crack cocaine; that November he admitted that he had smoked the drug and had bought illegal drugs while in office. He was stripped of most of his powers. In October 2014, the father of two had this to say about how he would be recalled: "People know that I saved a lot of money, and people are going to know that I had a few personal struggles. So you can remember it for what you want, but they're definitely going to remember it."
– If you needed any more evidence that kale has gone mainstream, check out the menu at Chick-fil-A as of Monday. The cole slaw is gone, replaced by, yes, that ubiquitous leafy green, reports 11Alive. More specifically, the slaw has been replaced by a "Superfood Side" of kale and broccolini. (Ironic?) It's not difficult, of course, to find kale elsewhere—a food research company tells CBS News it's counted 420 products that boast about having some. And that's contributing to what the network calls a "major headache" for some kale farmers in the US—there aren't enough seeds to go around. "Seed companies are scrambling to meet demand," says an agricultural extension agent in New Jersey's Cumberland County. The shortage has forced some farmers to take the unusual step of getting seeds from overseas, reports CBS. Still, a University of Georgia professor says things are calming down from the the first few years of the kale boom, with yearly increases in acreage devoted to the crop slowing down. But there's a new normal: "Keep in mind that there is still much more kale grown now than in the past." Meanwhile, an essayist in the Washington Post has a piece headlined, "No food is healthy. Not even kale." The gist is that foods such as kale may be nutritious, but only people can be healthy. It's not mere semantics, writes Michael Ruhlman, who argues that this point speaks to the vast amount of confusion surrounding food. "The kale on your plate is not healthy, and to describe it as such obscures what is most important about that kale salad: that it’s packed with nutrients your body needs," he writes. "But this is not strictly about nomenclature. If all you ate was kale, you would become sick. Nomenclature rather shows us where to begin." Click for that full piece.
– Kevin Adorno set out from Maryland last month to complete an item from his bucket list: bicycling all the way to Florida. When he reached Miami, he planned to propose to his girlfriend. Instead, he was on the phone with her Monday night outside a Vero Beach McDonald's—less than 140 miles away—when he was fatally stabbed, allegedly by a homeless man. Rene Herrera Cruz, 59, told police who arrested him that he believed Adorno was on the phone with people who wanted to attack him, WPBF reports. But police say the attack was unprovoked and apparently random, and Cruz has been charged with first-degree murder. Cruz also admitted to hanging around at the McDonald's often, and said he worried that people were watching him there, the Hartford Courant reports; he'd called police from the same area the night before to complain that he thought someone would try to harm him. He said he'd never met or spoken to Adorno, but that he believed the 28-year-old Connecticut man was "directing the people to go after him," according to the arrest affidavit. Adorno's girlfriend told police she didn't hear an argument, just the phone dropping and then, eventually, sirens, TCPalm reports. Witnesses saw Adorno stumble inside the restaurant after being stabbed in the chest and arms and tried to help, but it was too late; police found him lying on the bathroom floor—carrying an engagement ring—and he was pronounced dead at a hospital. (Last month, a woman who beat cancer died in a freak "bucket list" fall.)
– There are some 6,909 languages spoken today, but many are on the decline, and the biggest reason, researchers find, is economic growth. Researchers studied the 649 languages for which growth and decline data was available to determine the leading factors driving the change, Science magazine reports. In order to reach their conclusions, they turned to methods typically employed to track endangered animal populations; interestingly, the study's lead author, Tatsuya Amano, is a zoologist. His team examined the relationships between a language's disappearance and a country's GDP, altitude, and other possible influences. Economic growth showed the strongest correlation to the fading of a language. "As economies develop, one language often comes to dominate a nation's political and educational spheres," Amano says, as per the BBC. "People are forced to adopt the dominant language or risk being left out in the cold—economically and politically." A quarter of the world's languages may be in danger, he notes; fewer than 25 people currently speak Upper Tanana in Alaska, for instance. (Meanwhile, the English language keeps growing.)
– Fake Apple products are common in China but some entrepreneurs have stepped it up a notch with entire fake Apple stores. Kunming-based blogger BirdAbroad stumbled across one such store, and found that its interior—and products—resembled the real thing so closely that she had to check online to make sure it wasn't a real store or at least an authorized reseller, CNET reports. "It had the classic Apple store winding staircase and weird upstairs sitting area," she writes. "The employees were even wearing those blue t-shirts with the chunky Apple name tags around their necks." Some things, however, were a little off: "The stairs were poorly made. The walls hadn’t been painted properly." Staff members she spoke to all believed they were genuine Apple employees. A walk around the neighborhood uncovered two more fake Apple stores, one with a sign reading "Apple Stoer."
– Jimmy Kimmel is once again a married man. Kimmel wed his girlfriend of four years, Molly McNearney, yesterday in Ojai, California, reports US Weekly. He is 45 and McNearney, one of two head writers on Jimmy Kimmel Live, is 35. Among the 300 or so guests were Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Emily Blunt, and John Krasinski. Kimmel has two kids from a previous marriage. In other celebrity nuptials, Halle Berry got hitched to French actor Olivier Martinez in France, reports USA Today. The 40-somethings are expecting a baby in the fall.
– John Boehner issued a statement yesterday insisting that he was dead-set on repealing the health care reform law "in its entirety," refuting a Politico report that he'd hatched a plan to keep the most popular parts of the law should the Supreme Court overturn ObamaCare. What prompted the statement? A wash of right-wing infighting. The leaked plan set off a firestorm among The Repeal Coalition, a Google email group loaded with top congressional staffers and think-tank figures, Politico reports, having obtained a transcript. "Should we change the name of this to 'partialrepealcoalition' or 'someofobamacareisprettygood'?" asked one aide to Jim DeMint. The "House GOP is going to cave after winning an election on full repeal," complained one Heritage Action staffer. "Unreal." The email chain is a vivid look at House leadership's challenges with the party's far-right wing. Listservs like the Repeal Coalition can generate group-think leadership can't control. Before long, Boehner's staff sent an email to a separate group of leadership aides, promising he'd "knock … down" the report.
– There's a good chance you bet it wouldn't last; hopefully you placed your money on the five-year mark. People exclusively reports that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are calling it quits. And it sounds like the news is indeed true, as People has a statement from Holmes' lawyer: "This is a personal and private matter for Katie and her family. Katie's primary concern remains, as it always has been, her daughter's best interest." TMZ was, unsurprisingly, quick to chime in. It verifies that Holmes filed divorce papers yesterday in New York. In them: She cited irreconcilable differences, requested sole legal and primary residential custody, and wants a "suitable amount" of child support. Its take-them-with-a-grain-of-salt scoops beyond the docs: Sources say Tom was "blindsided" and there is some "nastiness" between the pair. It was Holmes' first marriage, and Cruise's third; daughter Suri is 6.
– For years, the parents of a boy on the high-needs end of the autism spectrum have been brainstorming what to do when he enters adulthood. When he was a pre-teen, they hit on the idea of a housing complex designed specifically for adults with autism, and now that he's 19, they are about to break ground on their dream. Debra Caudy, a retired medical oncologist, and her husband Clay Heighten, a retired emergency doctor and founder of a real estate management company, invested $745,000 in 2015 to purchase 29 acres of rolling meadows and woods in Cross Roads, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, and have created the nonprofit 29 Acres as they seek to reach their fundraising goal of $12 million, reports WFAA. "We couldn't find anything, so we just decided to do it ourselves," Caudy tells the Dallas Morning News. With so many young adults like their son, she adds, "The need is enormous." Some estimates put half a million students with autism entering adulthood in the next decade. With 200 staff, the complex will include 15 homes, a community center, a "transitional" academy that teaches life and work skills to those who might be able to live independently, a bus stop, and easy access to ride-sharing for residents needing to shop, get to work, etc. The first residents are expected to move in next year. Caudy hopes her idea will prove successful in Texas and throughout the world. "This is just the beginning," she says. (This form of autism strikes fast and can result in "sharp reversals.")
– Remember the one about the guy who said the Internet will fail? Ha, ha, ha. Well, while we're waiting 15 years later for that daring prediction to come true, Asylum runs through a few other notables that fell flat: 'Portable computers:' "The portable computer is a dream machine for the few," the founder of an early computer mag wrote in the New York Times in 1985. And "no one would want to take one fishing." IPhone: "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in 2007. "No chance." Twitter: Sci-fi writer and journo Bruce Sterling told the NY Times in 2007 that "using Twitter for literate communication is about as likely as firing up a CB radio and hearing some guy recite The Iliad." Books: 15th-century monk Trithemius didn't think they had a shot, writing that "printed books will never be the equivalent of handwritten codices, especially since printed books are often deficient in spelling and appearance." To read how those Beatles will never make it and more, click here.
– Fox News host Bill O'Reilly said Saturday that he is "vulnerable to lawsuits" because of his high-profile job, in response to a New York Times report detailing payouts made to settle accusations of sexual harassment and other inappropriate behavior, the AP reports. O'Reilly posted the statement to his website after the Times report Saturday, and Fox News' parent company 21st Century Fox backed him in a statement. The newspaper reported that O'Reilly or 21st Century Fox have paid $13 million to five women since 2002 over these complaints "in exchange for agreeing to not pursue litigation or speak about their accusations against him." The story said more than 60 people were interviewed, including current and former employees of Fox News or its parent company and people who know the women behind the complaints or are close to O'Reilly. Most demanded anonymity. 21st Century Fox, which is still dealing with the legal fallout from sexual harassment charges against former Fox News head Roger Ailes, did not reply to questions about the O'Reilly payouts or whether any disciplinary action was taken against O'Reilly. But the company said in a statement that it had looked into "these matters" in the past few months and discussed them with O'Reilly. The company said O'Reilly denied the merits of "these claims" but has "resolved those he regarded as his personal responsibility." The company said it "takes matters of workplace behavior very seriously" and that "Mr. O'Reilly is fully committed to supporting our efforts to improve the environment for all our employees at Fox News." O'Reilly's statement did not deny the payments. "Just like other prominent and controversial people, I'm vulnerable to lawsuits from individuals who want me to pay them to avoid negative publicity," it said.
– A mystery involving a missing 21-year-old New Hampshire woman is now entering its 14th year, but for the family of Maura Murray, the pain of each day is fresh. "It really isn't any better than it ever was," dad Fred Murray tells the Boston Globe, determined to keep her story in the news until she's found. He, Maura's older siblings, and others have been tracking the case "with the intensity of nuclear fusion." They're hoping, even all these years later, that a clue will emerge to bring some closure as to what happened to Maura, who "vanished in what seemed like a blink of an eye," an ex-Littleton cop says. Per the Globe and Caledonian Record, Maura, a University of Massachusetts Amherst nursing student, had emailed at least one professor on Feb. 9, 2004, to say there had been a death in her family (there hadn't) and that she was taking time off. She reportedly took nearly $300 out of her bank account and was driving toward the White Mountains when her car apparently hit a curve and ended up in a snowbank. A school bus driver came by and asked Maura if she needed assistance, but she said she was OK. The driver called the cops anyway, but when they got there minutes later, there was no sign of her—including no footprints and no viable scent police dogs could pick up. Cops say wine bottles were found in her car, with indications she'd been drinking on her drive. Her family has no clue where she would've been going or why. "The likely scenario is that she got picked up by someone," her brother, Fred, tells the Globe, with his sister Julie adding, "I want some answers for my dad's sake. … Thirteen years is long enough. We need some answers." (Finally, some closure in one of the most famous missing-child cases ever.)
– Cardi B gave birth last month, and the rapper is taking maternity leave seriously. Sources close to her tell TMZ she won't leave her newborn daughter to do a show unless she's being paid at least $300,000; the performance must also be close to home. She has performed once since giving birth—she made a surprise appearance at Migos' New York show over the weekend; her husband, Offset, is a member of the group—and TMZ notes it's not clear whether she dropped the $300,000 requirement for that concert. Either way, she'll likely have no trouble getting the paycheck she wants, as the gossip site says she's getting offers in the $500,000 range. At Jezebel, Bobby Finger notes that the story is simultaneously annoying and impressive: "It’s inspiring to see a new mother make headlines for using her fame and power to return to work on her terms," but it also highlights the extreme income inequality in the US; $300,000 is about five times the median household income for a US family. "Slayyyy mamaaaaa! Yikes, how will I ever retire!"
– A month after Mohamed Morsi was driven from power in Egypt, three leading Muslim Brotherhood figures face an impending trial. A Cairo court ruling yesterday will send Brotherhood supreme guide Mohammed Badie, deputy Khairat al-Shater, and top official Mohamed Bayoumi to court on Aug. 25 for allegedly inciting the killing of rioters outside the organization's headquarters. Badie's arrest marked the first for a Brotherhood supreme guide since 1981, the New York Times notes. The trial could mark an effort to shut down continuing protests by Brotherhood backers, including a pair of sit-ins, says an expert, adding that some opponents see it as an "opportunity to destroy the Brotherhood." Meanwhile, demonstrations continue, with thousands of Morsi supporters taking to the streets in a Cairo march today, Reuters reports. "We are not terrorists," they chanted as they called for the former leader's reinstatement. Security forces didn't move to halt the protest, but a government helicopter dropped literature at the sit-ins urging protesters to leave. Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham are set to arrive in Cairo today, the BBC reports; they join other US and EU officials in a push for resolution.
– President Trump has long contended that "millions" of illegal voters marred the November election, despite no evidence to support that belief, and the commission he's approved to shake out voter fraud has been hitting some roadblocks. The latest obstacle: the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity may have broken the law in its request for nationwide voter data, the Hill reports. The commission's letter sent to all 50 states and DC apparently didn't go through the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, required of all federal agencies making requests for public information. More on that and related stories: Not following the OIRA process would be a violation of the Paperwork Reduction Act, though some say the commission isn't technically an agency and doesn't fall under the law's purview. Others disagree. "I think it shows a carelessness in their desire to come in and … do what they want and to do so with a disregard for the rules," Rutgers University professor Stuart Shapiro says. So far, 44 states and the District of Columbia (the Nation counts 45 states) have said they can't (or won't) turn over certain portions of the requested info, with some saying they won't provide any, per CNN and other sources. The Washington Post dives into why this mass rebuff is happening as states figure out what they can legally make available. The story notes that "partial data could make it all largely worthless or misleading" in trying to put together a "national picture." Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state who's the vice chair of the commission, put out an official White House statement Wednesday blasting the "fake news" that 44 states have "refused" to hand over voter info. Per Kobach's numbers, 20 states "have agreed to provide the publicly available information requested by the Commission," with another 16 mulling what data they're legally allowed to release—meaning just 14 states and DC have outright said no to the commission. Kobach doesn't categorize specific states in his remarks. One of commission member thinks the backlash coming to this request for voters' personal info, which includes party affiliations and partial Social Security numbers, should have been obvious. "The fullness of experience being what it is, we should have predicted it," Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap tells Mic. The Nation, which counts the Trump administration's initiative as a major move toward "voter suppression," says the mission is "backfiring badly," with "strong opposition" from GOP secretaries of state in a number of red states and balking from members of the commission itself. "The outpouring of bipartisan opposition shows why Trump's sham election commission should be disbanded before it does any more damage," writes Ari Berman. Trump tweeted Saturday that "numerous states are refusing" to offer up information to the "very distinguished VOTER FRAUD PANEL. What are they trying to hide?"
– Bailey Holt was one of two 15-year-olds killed in Tuesday's school shooting in Benton, Ky., and her anguished mother describes a final phone call—one that was both full of clamor and silent. Secret Holt tells WKRN that after she heard there was a shooting she started calling her daughter's phone; Bailey didn't answer. Then, the phone rang. "She called me and all I could hear was voices, chaos in the background. She couldn't say anything and I tried to call her name over and over and over and she never responded." Holt said she learned her daughter—an "amazing" kid who wanted to be a labor and delivery nurse—had been killed after waiting for her to get off the buses that took the student body to another school. Bailey never emerged, and the Marshall County High School principal approached Bailey's parents and officials broke the news. Meanwhile, the Courier Journal reports prosecutors say they will ask a judge to move the unnamed shooter's case from juvenile to adult court. In addition to the murder charges against him, the 15-year-old faces 12 counts of first-degree assault, which Assistant County Attorney Jason Darnall explains is "a little easier to prove than attempted murder" but carries the same penalty. If the teen is charged as an adult, his name would be released, reports WSMV, which highlights the oddity of his name being kept under wraps while at the same time being an "open secret" in Marshall County.
– The European Central Bank today cut its key interest rate by a quarter-point to .75%, its lowest level yet, in a move the New York Times describes as the ECB's "most aggressive" since the eurozone crisis hit. Though the move was widely expected, it does bring the benchmark rate to what was once considered the lower bound on the official rate. The action will make it cheaper for businesses and consumers to take loans. In a second, more surprising, move, the ECB also cut by a quarter-point the interest rate it pays banks on overnight deposits, bringing that to zero and giving banks reason to lend the money, rather than sock it away with the ECB. The Times notes that the moves leave the ECB with few crisis-combating tools left. The next step would probably involve a massive bond-buying spree, which could anger Germany because it doesn't want to get stuck bearing the brunt of any losses the ECB could suffer on its bond holdings. Today's other major rate news comes from China: The AP reports the People's Bank of China cut its main lending rate by 0.31 points to 6% and reduced its deposit rate by a quarter-point to 3%, moves analysts believe hint at deepening economic concern.
– ObamaCare is "dead," President Trump declared after the House narrowly passed the American Health Care Act Thursday—but before he can sign the death warrant, a bigger battle looms in the Senate. Republican senators say they're going to craft their own ObamaCare replacement bill, and with the chamber divided 52-48, they're going to have to come up with something senators with views as different as Ted Cruz, Susan Collins, Rob Portman, and Rand Paul can all agree on. A roundup of coverage: Republican senators have made it clear that they plan to write their own legislation instead of rubber-stamping the House bill, and they say they're going to take as long as they need, Politico reports. "Any bill that has been posted less than 24 hours ... needs to be viewed with suspicion," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, while Sen. Bob Corker said he "turned the volume off some time ago" and has no idea "what the House is even passing." A big sticking point will be Medicaid expansion, with senators from states that expanded the program under ObamaCare fighting rollback efforts, the Hill reports. Nevada's Sen. Dean Heller and Ohio's Sen. Rob Portman are among those who've said they cannot support the House bill in its current form. The Washington Post reports that other wild cards include moderate GOP Sens. Susan Collins and Bill Cassidy, who've already introduced an alternative plan, and the conservative trio of Sens. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Mike Lee, who, like the House Freedom Caucus, favor an aggressive repeal of ObamaCare. Republicans plan to get their bill through the Senate through budget reconciliation to avoid a filibuster to pass it with a simple majority, though Democrats warn that parts of the House bill violate the budget rules involved, the New York Times reports. "This bill is going nowhere fast in the United States Senate," Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, telling Republicans they "should refuse to follow their House colleagues over a cliff, reject repeal, and work with Democrats to improve our health care system in a bipartisan way." Some analysts predict that the Senate will be ready to vote on its bill by summertime, but senators have declined to provide a timeline. "When we get 51 senators, we'll vote," said Sen. John Cornyn. Reuters reports that unlike House lawmakers, senators will be waiting for health care legislation to be scored by the Congressional Budget Office before they vote on it. The Wall Street Journal looks at how the health care system would be affected in the unlikely event that the Senate passes the House bill as is. Winners would include health insurers and high earners, while hospitals, Medicaid users, and many people with pre-existing conditions would take a hit.
– Gunfire in a downtown Toronto mall last night has left one dead and seven injured, reports the Toronto Star. Police said the shooting appeared to be targeted, but, as it happened in one of Canada's most crowded malls, numerous bystanders were also shot in the attack and more were injured in the resulting panic as people fled. One mall worker described the shooter as a “just crazy, mentally unstable" dark-skinned man in a hoodie, reports CNews, but no arrests have yet been made. The shooter killed a 25-year-old man, put a 13-year-old girl in critical condition, and sent a pregnant woman into labor in the chaos. "I dropped to the ground so I wouldn't get hit," said a 22-year-old who was shot in the hip, but "it didn't really work." He was among many who took to social media to describe the scene, and told his family about the shooting via Facebook. "Pretty sure someone just let off a round bullets in eaton center mall .. Wow just sprinted out of the mall ... Through traffic ...," tweeted Blue Jays player Brett Lawrie. The Globe and Mail reports that the Toronto police chief addressed the media a few hours later, saying, "We will be relentless in our pursuit of the individual or individuals responsible for this violence."
– They're the most famous shoes never made—until now. They're the Nike Air Mags, the LED-covered high-tops Marty McFly wore in Back to the Future Part II. Now, as Gizmodo gushes, they can be yours for a limited time ... for the right price. Nike has made just 1,500 pairs of the Air Mags. Each day for 10 days (starting yesterday), 150 pairs will be auctioned off on eBay to raise money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation to raise money to find a cure for Parkinson's disease. So far, eBay bids have ranged from $3,350 to a staggering $9,000. The shoes may not have the famous power laces from the movie, and there have been a couple of other changes for support, but otherwise they look just like the colorful '80s boots those of a certain age remember so well. Hoverboard sold separately. For more information, check out the Back 4 the Future website.
– Shia LaBeouf's apology tour has taken to the skies. Yesterday, the actor commissioned a skywriter to write "I am sorry Daniel Clowes" in the skies over Los Angeles, according to the Hollywood Reporter, which has a photo. Clowes is the graphic novelist whose comic LaBeouf is accused of plagiarizing. Most of LaBeouf's previous apologies to Clowes were also plagiarized, but this one appears to use LaBeouf's own words, the Reporter notes. On New Year's Eve, LaBeouf addressed the plagiarized apologies on Twitter, starting off by tweeting, "2014 Resolution - I need to work on being a less controversial tweeter." He then wrote: "I am sorry for all the plagiarized tweets, they all were unintelligent, ambiguous and needlessly hurtful. ... You have my apologies for offending you for thinking I was being serious instead of accurately realizing I was mocking you." But, uh, all three of those New Year's Eve tweets were also lifted from others' words, Celebitchy notes. Then, in case we weren't all confused enough, LaBeouf tweeted today: "I am not a biter. I'm a writer for myself and others. I steal some plot points & dialogue. I'm only big'n up my brother."
– The illustrations of Melania Trump's favorite children's author are "steeped in racist propaganda, caricatures, and harmful stereotypes," according to an elementary school librarian who rejected a gift from the first lady. Trump sent 10 Dr. Seuss books to the Cambridgeport School in Cambridge, Mass., to mark "National Read a Book Day," but librarian Liz Phipps Soeiro told her the school would not be keeping them, the Washington Post reports. In an open letter, Soeiro thanked the first lady, but she then described Seuss as "a tired and worn ambassador for children’s literature" and suggested 10 alternative children's books. The Seuss books were sent to one award-winning school in each state. In her letter, Soeiro suggested Melania send books to "underfunded and underprivileged communities" struggling under Trump administration policies instead of her relatively wealthy community. Parents picking their children up outside the school told CBS News they supported the librarian. The school system, however, said Soeiro was "not authorized to accept or reject donated books" and has been reminded of policies against "public resources being used for political purposes." Hot Air notes that both Barack and Michelle Obama are big fans of Seuss and read his books to children at several White House events.
– Authorities have identified the suicide bomber at Ariana Grande's Manchester concert as 22-year-old Salman Abedi. The Telegraph reports that he is a Manchester native, though his parents are from Libya and are believed to have fled the regime of Moammar Gadhafi. UK intelligence officials are now trying to figure out the big question: Was he a lone wolf or did he get help? ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, and police have arrested another suspect in connection with it, though it could be awhile before it's clear what, if any, connections Abedi had with them. Coverage: 8 years old: The youngest victim among the 22 fatalities appears to have been Saffie Rose Roussos, who was just 8. She "was simply a beautiful little girl in every aspect of the word," says the head teacher at her school, per NBC News. Another victim was a college student previously pictured with Ariana Grande. Bogus reports: In the immediate aftermath of the bombing, a slew of false stories began circulating online. BuzzFeed debunks them, including one about a supposed gunman outside a hospital. More kids: The BBC has a Q&A on what's known about the attack so far. One detail: Of the 59 injured, 12 are under the age of 16. Chosen target? This looks like "an attack on girls and women," declares the headline on a post by Christina Cauterucci at Slate. Grande's "global brand is one of blissful, unsubdued feminine sexuality," and her audience reflects that, writes Cauterucci. The bombing is a "massive act of gender-based violence." What it was like: The New York Times has a detailed scene story based on the accounts of those who attended the concert, including at least one who thinks security checks were a little loose. Still missing: Families were still trying to track down missing loved ones, and the Manchester Evening News has their pleas and photos. One happy ending: Social media helped track down a 16-year-old girl missing after the show, and ABC News has the details. The girl's distinctive yellow top helped strangers find her at a local hotel. Hopeful thought: Stephen King, no stranger to horror, had this to say about the terror group on Twitter: "ISIS: A rogue cult that has substituted superstition and murder for spirituality. Every bombing hastens the day when they will be no more." Crowdfunding: The Manchester Evening News has set up a crowdfunding campaign for victims' families. It had raised more than $620,000 by 1pm ET on Tuesday.
– "I'm so glad Twitter exists so I could confirm that we just had an earthquake and it wasn't me just losing my mind here in suburban Atlanta," reads a sample Wednesday tweet, one of many that helped make #earthquake a trending topic. Residents of Tennessee and Georgia took to social media to express their shock shortly after 4:14am EST when the US Geological Survey recorded a 4.4-magnitude earthquake originating near Decatur, Tenn., followed by a 3.3-magnitude aftershock 13 minutes later, per USA Today. Shallow at 5.5 miles below the surface, the quake was the strongest to hit eastern Tennessee in 45 years, per the New York Times. (A 4.7-magnitude earthquake struck the region in 1973.) Weak to moderate shaking was not only felt 150 miles away in Atlanta, Ga., but also in Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Alabama, according to USGS. There have been no reports of injuries or serious damage, including at one of the nation's largest nuclear power stations. Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, two miles east of the quake epicenter, is "designed to withstand seismic events," says the Tennessee Valley Authority.
– It's just about that most wonderful time of the year: for holiday shoppers, and for Amazon, which CNN last month reported would be hiring 70,000 seasonal workers to beef up the staffing at its more than 40 US fulfillment centers. Last year, thousands of these workers were converted to full-time employees, making it a good gig if you can get it, right? Not according to a BBC investigation, which had an undercover reporter work the night shift in a UK Amazon warehouse. He showed what he filmed to Michael Marmot, a leading job stress expert. Marmot's conclusion: The working conditions were "all the bad stuff at once." He continued: "The characteristics of this type of job, the evidence shows increased risk of mental illness and physical illness." The 23-year-old reporter worked as a "picker"; a handset would flag an item for him to retrieve and place on a trolley in the 800,000-square-foot space. He was given 33 seconds per product, with his handset counting down the clock each time; it beeped if he made an error, and also sent data to his managers. The reporter said that in one 10.5-hour night shift, he walked "or hobbled" almost 11 miles, noting afterward, "I'm absolutely shattered." Amazon described the picking job as "similar to jobs in many other industries and does not increase the risk of mental and physical illness," and noted that new hires are told some positions can be physically demanding. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that German workers at two Amazon centers are today striking for better pay. (Who isn't likely to complain about Amazon? Its top reviewers, who get major freebies.)
– Seven people have now died as a result of Buffalo's freak snowstorm, reports AP, but little Lucy Hojnacki provides an antidote to the depressing stat. The Buffalo News recounts her amazing delivery story: When mom Bethany went into labor in their South Buffalo home yesterday morning, dad Jared had no chance of getting her to the hospital through all the snow. He spotted firefighters helping a stranded driver on their street, and that driver just happened to be a labor and delivery nurse. The nurse stayed with Bethany for hours until a Fire Department vehicle successfully navigated their side street, only to find the main road impassable because of abandoned cars. Instead of the hospital, firefighters took Team Hojnacki to the fire station, where a second nurse, also stranded, helped with the delivery at 9:31pm. “The baby was born, and she’s healthy,’’ says grandma Deborah Hojnacki. All finally made it to the hospital later that night. Meanwhile, lots more snow was expected though tonight, on top of the 4 or 5 feet already on the ground in some places, reports the Daily News.
– The fight to keep Asian carp from colonizing the Great Lakes could take longer than any war America has ever fought, the Army Corps of Engineers warns in a report commissioned by Congress. The report offered eight strategies to keep the invasive species from overwhelming the ecosystem and ruining a $7 billion fishing industry, the most effective of which could take up to 25 years and cost around $18 billion, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Physical separation of the Mississippi watershed from Lake Michigan was the most drastic option, but the Army engineers also looked at methods including new locks and electronic barriers to keep out the carp and other invasive species. The $18 billion plan may be a tough sell, but environmentalists fear that cheaper options won't be enough to keep the carp out. "If you really want to prevent the movement of species and keep Lake Michigan clean, it's going to cost money," the president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes tells the Chicago Tribune. "We can't just keep patching over these problems and hoping they go away."
– Cracker Barrel on Friday distanced itself from Duck Dynasty as controversy swirled over Phil Robertson's anti-gay remarks in GQ. The move didn't last long. After announcing that it was taking some Duck Dynasty gear off its shelves ("We removed selected products which we were concerned might offend some of our guests while we evaluate the situation," Cracker Barrel said in a statement), it did an about-face on Sunday, ABC News reports. Per its latest statement: "When we made the decision to remove and evaluate certain Duck Dynasty items, we offended many of our loyal customers. Our intent was to avoid offending, but that's just what we've done. You flat out told us we were wrong. We listened." Meanwhile, petitions against A&E's suspension of Robertson are gaining support. One at Change.org has nearly 115,000 signers, while the website IStandWithPhil.com has more than 190,000. The site urges the "network to immediately reinstate Mr. Robertson to Duck Dynasty, and to formally apologize to him, his family, and the millions of viewers who tune in every week," CNN reports. A&E itself, however, isn't saying much, CNN notes: Details of Robertson's future with the show—and the show itself—remain uncertain. Nor is the rest of the Robertson family sure it wants to continue working with the network.
– If you live in San Diego and plan on voting for Hillary, it's best you don't read two recent newsletters from Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. In the Oct. 16 bulletin for the Old Town church, which is used as an election polling site, a flier was inserted. Along with criticism of five political hot topics (including abortion and euthanasia) came a warning for voters, the San Diego Union-Tribune notes. "It is a mortal sin to vote Democrat … immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell," the flier read, adding GOPers don't violate any of the mentioned policies, while Dems violate them all. The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego says the flier wasn't OKed by the parish and that it doesn't know how it emerged. In its Oct. 30 edition, the bulletin specifically named Clinton in a section called "Voting Catholic," reading at one point, "We are called by politicians such as Hillary Clinton, deplorables." (It's unclear who wrote or OKed the passage.) The diocese of San Diego's response has been unequivocal: "It's not a mortal sin to vote for Democrats, number one," a rep tells the Union-Tribune. "And number two, the church doesn't take positions on this." On Thursday, Bishop Robert McElroy warned 100 parishes that "while we have a moral role to play in explaining how Catholic teaching relates to certain public policy issues, we must not and will not endorse specific candidates," per the Union-Tribune. Attorneys point out IRS rules stop tax-exempt groups like churches from maligning or supporting political candidates.
– Think the Beatles and Justin Bieber have nothing in common? Not so: They each used do/you more than any other rhyme, which isn't so odd considering that Madonna, Prince, Kanye West, Bob Dylan, and most other top-selling pop musicians between 1960 and 2013 favored it too, reports Slate. According to an in-depth analysis of rhymes in Billboard's Top 100 Songs for that period, simple rhymes with words like be, me, to, and you are the most common, and half of the top 20 rhymes include either you or me (before you cringe, Shakespeare favored it in his sonnets with me/thee). It's fascinating to click on Slate's graph and see how certain rhymes have risen and fallen in popularity. Do/you topped out in 1998-99 with songs like Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" and Britney Spears' "...Baby One More Time," while cry/goodbye was more popular in the 1960s with Elvis Presley's "Marie's the Name" and Marty Robbins' "Don't Worry About Me." Occasionally an artist or group comes along (like Queen) that rarely re-uses a rhyme, while most (like Bieber) keep drawing on the most popular ones. The Beatles may be rhyme repeaters, but Fox News argues that they'll remain popular in 50 years because of their enormous effect on pop music styles.
– After seven years of searching, archaeologists digging in Poland have found the exact location of the Sobibor death camp's gas chambers. Less had been known about this concentration camp's chambers, which were razed by the Nazis along with the rest of the site following a prisoner uprising in 1943, the Jerusalem Post reports. A road was later built over the camp's remains, and archaeologists searching beneath it uncovered rows of bricks that they believe demarcate what one archaeologist involved in the dig says were eight chambers, Reuters reports. "We were amazed at the size of the building and the well-preserved condition of the chamber walls," says a second archaeologist, whose relatives were killed at Sobibor. Being able to determine the size of the chambers is a big win for researchers, who say it will enable them to more accurately determine how many people were killed at the camp; current estimates put the figure at 250,000. As the Telegraph explains, Sobibor was not a work camp like, for example, Auschwitz; all prisoners who arrived here were sent to the gas chambers. As such, few survivor stories exist. In addition to the chambers, a well containing prisoners' personal items discarded by the Nazis was also found. The archaeologists also surfaced a wedding ring bearing a Hebrew inscription reading, "Behold, you are consecrated unto me." (There was another very significant find at Sobibor this summer.)
– A 2009 mutiny of disgruntled border guards seeking higher wages in Bangladesh resulted in 74 deaths; now far more than that are set to die. After a mass civilian trial that began in 2011 and involved 846 defendants, 152 border guards have been sentenced to execution, Reuters and the AP report. Some 161 others are getting life in prison, while 256 have been sentenced to three to 10 years. Another 277 were acquitted, though the BBC reports many of them were convicted in military tribunals and are unlikely to go free. Human Rights Watch criticized the proceedings, noting that 47 suspects died in custody. "Trying hundreds of people en masse in one giant courtroom, where the accused have little or no access to lawyers, is an affront to international legal standards." The defense plans an appeal, per the AP. The mutiny lasted 30 hours and saw 57 officers killed, with bodies tossed in sewers. "The atrocities were so heinous that even the dead bodies were not given their rights," said the judge as he read the verdicts, a process that took hours. But he did point out that the soldiers should have indeed been awarded better pay. In earlier military tribunals, some 4,000 people were found guilty and received sentences lasting up to seven years, Reuters reports.
– A rash of UFO sightings in Texas is likely caused by certain cloud formations, unless you believe that UFOs disguise themselves as clouds. Several sightings last month garnered media attention, but scientists and meteorologists identified the airborne objects as disc-shaped "lenticular clouds" caused by warm air rising in cooler areas, the Houston Chronicle reports. Then a fresh sighting appeared on the Mutual UFO Network website this week: "It looked like a cloud at first, but its appearance was circular and disappeared before there [sic] eyes," writes someone who claimed to be making the report for friends, who allegedly saw the "UFO" on May 16. Pictures were attached, but it's unclear if they're of the "UFO" in question or other similar clouds. But MUFON's volunteer chief investigator in Texas, Fletcher Gray, tells the Chronicle it's really just a cloud caused by a low pressure system, colder upper atmosphere, and recent bursts of hail and rain: "It will be cleared out as a lenticular cloud," he says. Some UFO enthusiasts, however, claim that spaceships travel disguised as lenticular clouds and are spotted when they accidentally "de-cloak," Inquisitr reports. Meanwhile, Gray is handling 56 UFO sightings submitted over the past month—including one by a guy who photographed a green garbage can lid and said it was a UFO. "You could see the handles on the lid," says Gray. (Read about UFO enthusiasts who unveiled a "Roswell alien photo.")
– Before you stuff Fido's stocking with edible treats this holiday season, you might want to check the Food and Drug Administration's latest announcement. Per Syracuse.com, the "bone treats" dog owners pick up in the supermarket or pet store could be a health hazard for our four-legged friends. This is based on reports submitted to the FDA that indicate about 90 dogs have been sickened, with at least 15 deaths, after gnawing on these commercially prepared items, which the agency didn't ID by brand. The reports, sent in by both pet owners and veterinarians, said some of the medical issues have included digestive blockages, choking, diarrhea, vomiting, and cuts and other injuries in the mouth. Seven reports focused on product issues: treats that splintered upon being chewed as well as "moldy-appearing bones." "We recommend supervising your dog with any chew toy or treat, especially one she hasn't had before," an FDA veterinarian says in the agency's warning. The agency notes these types of treats differ from regular bones in that they're often baked or smoked to dry them out, and that they may contain seasonings, preservatives, and "smoke flavorings." But it's not just store-bought bone treats dog owners should be wary of. The FDA warning says it's also important to keep pups away from chicken bones and other bones you may have cooked with, as they can cause injury as well. The notice advises to keep food dishes out of reach of curious canines sniffing around the table, as well as to make sure they don't get into the trash to dig any bones out.
– Judge Judy's newly released testimony in a legal dispute between her network (CBS) and a talent agency is just about as awesome as you'd expect from the outspoken jurist. The dispute itself has quite a few ins and outs, with Vulture summing it up nicely: The talent agency gets 5% of Judge Judy's net profits, but only after CBS pays Judy her $47 million salary, so it's claiming to be underpaid; CBS, meanwhile, says the talent agency is actually overpaid since it had nothing to do with the creation or production of the show beyond representing three of the show's early producers. But Judy's testimony from 2016, which was just obtained by the Hollywood Reporter and published for the first time, is a must-read. In it, she describes her negotiation process with CBS every few years, which isn't actually a negotiation at all—it's just Judy getting what she wants. Her contract allows her to produce the show herself if she so desires, she explains in the testimony, and if she did that she'd actually make $20 million more. She doesn't, because "I like the uncomplicated life I lead," but the option is always there. So when it's negotiation time, she sits down with a CBS exec for dinner and hands him an envelope with her demands (salary and otherwise), and each time those demands are met. The one year a different exec tried to hand her his own envelope, she refused to even look at it because "this isn't a negotiation," as she told him. "'You want [the show], fine. Otherwise, I'll produce it myself.' That's the negotiation." She added that CBS has "no choice but to pay me what I [want]" and that the network's "back [is] to the wall," because "they've tried to find another Judy," but they can't. More from the testimony at THR.
– A Washington state man suspected in his wife's disappearance pulled his two young sons away from a social service worker at his doorstep, locked her out, and exploded his gas-filled home, according to authorities. Three charred bodies found yesterday at the blackened shell are believed to be those of Josh Powell and his sons, 7-year-old Charlie, and Braden, 5. A staffer from Child Protective Services had just turned over the boys for a supervised visit when Powell grabbed the boys. She smelled gas, quickly stepped back to phone her boss, and the house exploded, reports ABC News. "The children were right in front of her as she was walking to the door," said a social services spokeswoman. "They went into the house and Josh shut the door and locked it." The house "immediately went up in flames, very quickly, very big, so we believe that Josh Powell intentionally set this fire," said a police spokesman. Just minutes before the blast, Powell sent an email to his attorney saying: "I'm sorry. Goodbye." Powell was the only suspect after his wife, Susan Powell, vanished from their Utah home in 2009. He claimed he took his toddler sons to go camping in the freezing cold, and she was gone when the three returned. The boys were being cared for by Susan Powell's parents. Powell was just denied custody again last week, and was ordered to undergo a psychosexual evaluation and polygraph if he wanted to get them back. "What happened here was an act of evil. Do not call it a tragedy because that sanitizes it," Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor told the Seattle Times. "This was a terrible act of murder involving two young children." (Click to read about a possible motive.)
– Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis may not break any new ground in Friends With Benefits, but critics are largely giving the sex-filled rom-com the thumbs up: "The jokes don't all work and the topical references can be irritably hipper-than-thou," writes Andrea Gronvall of the Chicago Reader. "But at least director and cowriter Will Gluck (Easy A) aims high." Time's Mary Pols writes, "It is elevated by energetic dialogue, the sexual chemistry between the leads and the fact that the miscommunication that keeps bliss at bay— there's always one in a rom-com, and usually it is annoyingly unbelievable—is plausible." "Friends With Benefits isn't nearly as original as it pretends to be," writes Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News. "But it's cute and funny and sweet, which—as any woman can attest—puts it way ahead of most Friday night options. But it's not just cute: it's sex-filled, notes Juliet Lapidos for Slate. "There's a lot of sex (fun sex, not weepy sex), and lots of talk about sex." But "aside from the heavy cursing and the shots of Timberlake's bare bottom in fairly graphic sex scenes—you see him clench—Friends With Benefits" is pretty generic in terms of rom-coms.
– "I wanna rewrite history." So says Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) in Steven Caple Jr.'s Creed II, in which the boxer faces a challenge from the son of the man who killed his father, Apollo Creed, in Rocky IV. Good thing he has Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) behind him—or does he? What critics are saying: This new Rocky franchise "is the only heroic Hollywood multisequel narrative worth caring about," writes AO Scott at the New York Times, hailing "a terrific movie … that honors the cherished traditions of the genre while feeling like something new and exciting." He notes "the climactic fight arrives on a tide of feelings and ends with a flood of tears." Creed II "goes the distance, but it lacks the knockout punch of its 2015 and 1985 predecessors," writes Adam Graham at Detroit News. He argues the film sticks too closely to the expected formula. Real life boxer Florian Munteanu is "all brute force and no depth" as Viktor Drago, he adds, though an "excellent" Tessa Thompson powers scenes of Creed's home life. Yes, the film is formulaic. But "investing in a formula, making it breathe—that's the challenge, and Creed II meets it," writes Mick LaSalle. Even if you can predict the plot, "you can't imagine the emotion of it," he continues at the San Francisco Chronicle, describing a theater audience in "silent awe." In short, "Creed II makes us care." Stephanie Zacharek found it "reasonably entertaining," but not on the same level as Creed. "There are too many trifling ideas, and too much plot, stuffed into Creed II to make it the sleek powerhouse that its predecessor was," she writes at Time. Still, Jordan is "effortlessly likable" and "often shirtless," while a "charming and funny" Stallone "gets you through." (Check out more movie reviews here.)
– A physician described as Sierra Leone's leading Ebola doctor is dead after contracting the illness, reports the Guardian. If the news sounds familiar, it might be because of this depressing stat: Victor Willoughby, 67, is the 11th Sierra Leone doctor to die of the virus. His death has a particularly sad twist: An experimental drug from Canada called ZMab arrived at the airport Thursday for Willoughby, but he died before it could thaw and be administered, reports NBC News. "It's extremely depressing and frustrating," says a Freetown surgeon who knew Willoughby. "You can talk to someone today and tomorrow they are Ebola-infected."
– After exposing the names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, and more of 143 million Americans in a massive data breach, Equifax is now facing a potentially billion-dollar class-action lawsuit. USA Today reports a lawsuit was filed against the credit monitoring company Thursday in Oregon on behalf of customers Mary McHill and Brook Reinhard. The lawsuit accuses Equifax of choosing money over proper data security measures. "In an attempt to increase profits, Equifax negligently failed to maintain adequate technological safeguards to protect Ms. McHill and Mr. Reinhard's information from unauthorized access by hackers," attorney Michael Fuller wrote in the complaint. An attorney connected to the lawsuit tells Bloomberg it will seek up to $70 billion in damages.
– Opioids aren't the only drugs we should be concerned about when it comes to overdoses. ODs involving common anxiety drugs like Xanax and Valium are at an all-time high, and scientists fear plenty of lives will be lost before they fully understand why. In a new study, researchers found that prescriptions for benzodiazepines—used to treat anxiety, mood disorders, and insomnia in more than 5% of US adults—tripled from 1996 to 2013, while overdoses quadrupled, reports NBC News. In 2013, "benzos" played a role in 31% of the nation's 22,000 prescription overdose deaths, reports STAT. Seeing the rise in ODs outpace the rise in prescriptions suggests "people have been taking them in a riskier way over time," says lead author Marcus Bachhuber. One theory is that the spike in deaths is linked to higher doses—the amount of benzodiazepine in prescriptions doubled over the study period, notes CNN. It's also possible that people are taking them carelessly along with alcohol or opioids, in which case their "lethality is magnified," says a doctor not involved with the study. The death rate plateaued among white people, the largest users of benzos, between 2010 and 2013, but it rose among black and Hispanic people in that same span. The authors caution that benzodiazepines are being over-prescribed in general and suggest doctors should look into alternatives drugs or treatments such as talk therapy.
– Massachusetts police have made an arrest in the case of an alleged drug mule whose body was reportedly cut open to retrieve smuggled drugs, WCVB reports. Eight days ago, residents of Duxbury, Mass., found a box giving off a strong smell—and inside discovered a man whose torso had been cut open with a 14-inch incision. Reports suggest that the man, Estuardo Perez of Guatemala, had been a drug mule. Now prosecutors have charged another Guatemalan, Jose Azurdia-Montenegro, 55, with misleading a police investigation into the case. Using a local resident's cellphone records, investigators tracked Azurdia-Montenegro and stopped him before he could board a flight at JFK Airport on Saturday, an assistant DA tells the Boston Globe. Azurdia-Montenegro initially said he'd just met the victim, but his attorney now says the two were visiting the US to buy cars for resale in Guatemala, the Boston Herald reports. Yet Azurdia-Montenegro insists he knows nothing of the murder, and authorities say a third man may be involved. Grim detail: The incision on Perez's body was a "careful cut to the stomach, presumably to access the contents of the stomach," says the assistant DA.
– The short guy doesn't always get the girl, but when he does, he usually gets to keep her. So says a new study in the National Bureau of Economic Research, which found that short guys, defined as those shorter than 5-foot-7, are about 18% less likely to marry than their taller counterparts, but when they do, they divorce at lower rates—to the tune of 32% lower, reports the New Republic. Divorce rates for tall and average guys, meanwhile, are basically the same. "This probably means that women who don't want to be in a relationship with short men are more likely to leave before they get married, rather than after," one researcher tells the Washington Post. Or more simply: "There’s something distinct about the women who marry short men." But it's not quite clear what's distinct, because shorter men appear to be the heavyweights in the relationship: Their partners tend to be younger, less educated women, who earn less than they do. Some 78% of short men out-earn their partners, as opposed to 69% of average and 71% of tall men. (More egalitarian marriages, meanwhile, often involve less sex.)
– A 5-year-old girl in Colorado was seriously injured after going outside in the middle of the night to investigate noises she thought were coming from her dog and being attacked by a bear. Kimberly Cyr's father tells NBC 11 that the Grand Junction girl will be "fine" after the attack at around 2:30am Sunday. Her mother says that after she heard screaming, she went outside to see a black bear dragging the girl away. The mother says the bear dropped her daughter after she started screaming at it. Kimberly, whose condition was upgraded from serious to fair Sunday afternoon, needed 77 stitches but suffered no life-threatening injuries, a pediatric surgeon at St. Mary’s Medical Center tells Q13 Fox. Colorado Parks and Wildlife public information officer Rebecca Ferrell tells ABC that traps have been set for the bear. She says that if it is captured, it will be euthanized and a necropsy will be carried out to determine what happened. Ferrell says Kimberly may have startled the bear, since the animals are "not expecting people to be up and about" at that time of night. Ferrell says bear encounters in Colorado are unusual, but anyone who does encounter one should stay calm and make it aware that there are people near it. "Do not ever run from a bear, don't try and climb a tree, because a bear can do both of those things much faster than we can,” she says.
– It's not often that a solicitor general's comments make international waves, but Indian Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar has managed to achieve such a feat. He told his country's Supreme Court on Monday that the Koh-i-Noor diamond, in Britain's possession since 1849, "was neither stolen nor forcibly taken away" from India, but was bestowed on Queen Victoria for Britain's help in the Sikh wars. As such, he suggested the country should relinquish its claim to the gem. Not so, now says the very government he was representing in court. The ministry of culture on Tuesday issued a statement saying India "further reiterates its resolve to make all possible efforts to bring back the Koh-i-noor diamond in an amicable manner." The diamond is said to have surfaced in the 1300s and gained a reputation as "unlucky for men to wear" as it passed from Mughal princes to Afghan rulers, writes the Guardian. The Wall Street Journal explains that an Indian NGO in March filed a petition that seeks to have the court make the country go after the gem, and the government says Kumar was communicating only the historical position the country has taken; Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru did go on record decades ago saying India didn't have a solid claim to the gem. Kumar has been tasked with "seek[ing] the views" of India, and those have yet to be conveyed to the court, per the statement. Geeta Pandey of the BBC says the culture ministry "misread the popular mood," and the swift backlash led the prime minister's office to get involved. Read more on the stone here.
– White House aide Kelly Sadler reportedly called Meghan McCain Thursday to apologize for an insensitive remark she'd made about McCain's seriously ill father—but the apology wasn't followed up by one from the White House. The New York Times has White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders' response to being asked to apologize for Sadler's comment regarding John McCain's opposition to Gina Haspel becoming the next CIA director: "It doesn't matter, he's dying anyway," Sadler said. Said Sanders: "I'm not going to validate a leak one way or the other out of an internal staff meeting." When asked why she wouldn't just offer up an apology, she replied, "I'm not going to get into a back and forth because, you know, people want to create issues of leaked staff meetings." ABC News characterizes Sanders as having had "multiple opportunities to condemn Sadler’s comments" but declining to do so. Sanders confirmed that Sadler, a special assistant to the president, did not lose her job over the comment, which was made in a room filled with about 20 people, some of whom apparently gasped at the remark. Former Vice President Joe Biden did have something definitive to say on the issue Friday. "People have wondered when decency would hit rock bottom with this administration. It happened yesterday," Biden said in a statement.
– Talk about brazen: Masked thieves smashed a stolen SUV into the site of Wells Fargo's original bank in San Francisco early this morning and made off with historic gold ore and nuggets, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Wearing hoodies and ski masks, they broke into display cases at the Wells Fargo History Museum and grabbed up to 10 ounces in nuggets worth around $10,000, notes the AP. They also held a security guard at gunpoint before driving off in a four-door getaway car. "This is terrible," says a maintenance worker across the street. "It’s a museum. People are crazy. They have no respect. This is where schools come on field trips." The robbers may struggle to profit without melting the nuggets, according to a rare coin dealer who says other dealers now know about the heist. But melting them would mean ruining possible markings about when and where each nugget was mined, and by whom, adds a mining geologist: "This is such bad news from my viewpoint," he says. On the bright side, NBC Bay Area reports that no one was hurt and historic stagecoaches at the museum weren't damaged. But the Bay Area has seen similar smash-and-grabs lately, including a U-Haul backed into a Patagonia store in January and a Pontiac Grand Am plowed into an Apple Store in May.
– It was an instantly historic speech: Hillary Clinton stood before Democratic delegates in Philadelphia Thursday night and became the first woman to accept a major party's presidential nomination. Opinions on her convention address are split, largely along partisan lines, though all agree that it was quintessential Hillary Clinton. A roundup of reactions: This was the "most consequential speech of her campaign, and of her career," and it "seemed to contain an unspoken concession," writes Michael Barbaro at the New York Times. "Besieged by lingering doubts about her honesty, Mrs. Clinton made the case for a different kind of trust," he writes. "Not the textbook definition, but a more pragmatic faith in her judgment, experience, temperament, and priorities." It was a good, not great speech that didn't reveal a new side to the candidate, but it "was exactly who Clinton is: a worker, a nose-to-the-grindstone churner who never, ever stops," writes Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post. "This was a speech that reflected the candidate—50 feet off the ground rather than 50,000, policy details over soaring political rhetoric." "The speech can be summed up simply: What you see is what you get," according to Jeff Greenfield at Politico. "You, the voters, she seemed to say, simply have to accept me as I am in all my pedestrian earnestness—especially if the choice is between me and Donald Trump," writes Greenfield, who finds "something almost admirable" about her resistance to demands to "lift the protective curtain." Editors at the conservative National Review were, unsurprisingly, not impressed. The speech was "one part It Takes a Village and eleven parts old State of the Union speeches from Barack Obama and her husband," they write, calling Clinton out for admitting that Democrats had failed to address the concerns of working people, but not explaining "exactly how and why the Obama administration failed to do what she believes it should have done." The speech wasn't exactly poetry, notes Michelle Goldberg at Slate. It "was workmanlike, more a series of bullet points than a story," she writes. Still, "if you're a feminist, it's deeply moving to see a woman in a white suit—one of the iconic colors of the suffragettes—hug her daughter and then accept her party's nomination for president of the United States."
– The Clinton campaign is going nuclear in a new ad against Donald Trump. The spot revisits the famous "Daisy" ad of 1964 in which a girl plucking a daisy is used to raise the specter of nuclear war, reports the Arizona Republic. (Here's the original.) Back then, LBJ ran the spot to depict Barry Goldwater as too unhinged to be near the nuclear codes, and now Hillary Clinton is trying to do the same in regard to Donald Trump. The new spot features Monique Luiz, the now grown-up woman who starred in the original. "This was me in 1964," Luiz says in the spot. "The fear of nuclear war that we had as children, I never thought our children would ever have to deal with that again. And to see that coming forward in this election is really scary." But a Trump spokesman calls the ad a "sad and a desperate attempt" by the Clinton camp to distract from the latest email controversy. "The fact of the matter is, the world has become a less safe place during the Obama and Clinton administration," said Jason Miller on CNN.
– Michele Bachmann's path to re-election has gotten a lot bumpier than you might expect, reports Politico. It digs into the Minnesota rep's bid to hang onto her seat against a challenge from hotel exec Jim Graves, and finds that even with "off-the-charts" name recognition, more than $12 million in campaign cash, and a freshly redrawn district that bears "an 8-point Republican registration edge," the race is far from a slam-dunk. A recent poll shows her up 51% to 45%, perhaps in part due to Graves' efforts: He's called her "distracted by her own celebrity," swung at her presidential-primary emphasis on her Iowa birthplace, and has flooded the district with pamphlets claiming she "burns bridges"—though he acknowledges he's a "serious underdog." Politico looks at other tight and "nasty" races, with a specific eye on the Senate, which could flip to GOP control if the party can achieve a net gain of four seats (three if Romney wins): In Nevada, GOP Sen. Dean Heller has called challenger Shelley Berkley the "most unethical, corrupt person I’ve ever met in my life." For her part, Berkley has run ads tying Heller to a drug trafficker. In Arizona, Rep. Jeff Flake is battling Democrat Richard Carmona in a close race for the retiring GOP Sen. Jon Kyl's seat. GOP ads note that a perk-obsessed Carmona made his staff collect his dry cleaning; Democratic ads claim Flake "voted to kick cancer patients out of the hospital." In Montana, Democrat Sen. Jon Tester is hitting at challenger Rep. Denny Rehberg by way of a report containing fresh details on a 2009 boating accident. (Rehberg was a passenger on a boat driven by former state Sen. Greg Barkus, who had a blood alcohol level of 0.16.) Rehberg has called Tester an Obama "twin." Click for more on the heated Wisconsin race between Tammy Baldwin and Tommy Thompson, who have each attacked the other's post-Sept. 11 behavior.
– Ever dreamed of seeing the sky darken and the stars twinkle in the middle of a summer's day? Then mark your calendar for Aug. 21, 2017, because if you're in the US the chances are good that you'll be among the 200 million or so people within a day's drive of the country's first total eclipse of the sun since 1979, reports Space.com. While total solar eclipses are more common than many realize, with 68 this century, this eclipse will be the first since 1918 where the moon's shadow—the so-called "path of totality"—will sweep across the US from coast to coast. It's being called the Great American Eclipse because it will be visible from no other country on the planet. Total eclipses are technically "a fluke of celestial mechanics and time," adds Space.com, because right now the moon, which is gradually moving away from Earth, happens to be the perfect distance to appear equal in size to the sun. The moon's shadow will totally block the sun for the longest duration, two minutes and 40 seconds, just outside of Hopkinsville, Ky., and is being hailed as the largest event to ever hit the town of 32,000 people, reports UPI. But the best bet for clear viewing is said to be in Oregon, where totality will only last 2 minutes but there's a 70% chance of clear skies, as opposed to just 50% from Kentucky east through South Carolina. The path of totality will average 67 miles in width, with a few notable cities in its path, including Lincoln, Neb., Columbia, Mo., and Nashville, Tenn. To those outside the path of totality but in the continental US, a partial eclipse should still be visible, though the sky will be considerably less dark. (The last total solar eclipse was in March.)
– An American tourist vacationing in the Caribbean with his family was medically evacuated to Florida Friday after being shot outside his resort in what police are investigating as an attempted robbery. According to WTVM, Kevin Newman of Alabama was found on a street near his hotel on Providenciales island in the Turks and Caicos archipelago. Newman was treated at a nearby hospital before being transported via air ambulance to Fort Lauderdale, where he was in serious condition, reports ABC News. Wife Tiffany issued a statement saying her husband had his right kidney removed. Though he is still on a ventilator, she says he is doing better. "I am so thankful and relieved he is here!" The Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force commissioner says increased police presence is out in full force around the area and across parts of the archipelago. The commissioner asked locals to come forward with any information regarding the crime, saying such offenses "are causing harm to the local community and those who visit the Islands.” Friends and family of the Newmans have set up a GoFundMe page to help alleviate medical costs. Kevin Newman is expected to be air-lifted to a hospital closer to home once he's stable enough to travel.
– Dennis Rodman wants to bring Kanye West on his next trip to North Korea. West is "doing amazing work around the world" and is welcome to join Rodman's sixth trip "if the door's open in September," the former NBA star and friend of Kim Jong Un told US Weekly on Tuesday. "If he wants to make an album about that, he'll be there for like six to seven days, and he'll see what's going on," Rodman added. It's unclear if West is on board, though he last week referred to Rodman as "one of my biggest inspirations" who's "always breaking barriers with independent thought," per Sky News. In response, Rodman proposed the pair collaborate on a track "about world peace, about leaders of love."
– NPR's popular Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me is heading for the bright lights of television. The quiz show will get a one-hour special that will air Dec. 23 on the cable channel BBC America, reports AP. The New York Times sees it as a "try-out of sorts"—if it does well, expect to see more next year. Host Peter Sagal wasn't divulging much: "No comment. (I've always wanted to say that to the New York Times.)" The shows draws 3.2 million weekly listeners on the radio.
– President Obama has said Moammar Gadhafi should go, but he apparently doesn't mean it in the most extreme sense. The president told congressional lawmakers today that the military isn't out to assassinate the Libyan leader, reports Politico. “There was a discussion of how we have other ways of regime change,” said one attendee of the briefing, Maryland Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, who couldn't resist using the new buzz word: “It’s not our role to do anything at this point from a kinetic point of view." (Click for more on that "kinetic" thing.) Hillary Clinton and top Pentagon officials joined Obama in the meeting and conference call, which included top lawmakers such as John Boehner, Eric Cantor, John Kerry, and Nancy Pelosi. In another development, NATO is expected to take over all military operations—not just the no-fly zone—in a matter of days, reports the BBC. Meanwhile, the allies got help from the Arab world, notes the New York Times. A Qatari jet flew a patrol today, and the United Arab Emirates said it would soon send warplanes to do the same. The president is expected to make a speech on the mission Monday evening.
– The hacker who stole nude photos of Scarlett Johansson and dozens of other women and posted some online has been given a 10-year sentence, TMZ reports. Christopher Chaney, 36, must also pay $76,000 to Johansson, Christina Aguilera, and actress Renee Olstead. Judge S. James Otero sentenced him in LA today after Johansson delivered a tearful statement by video, reports the AP: "I have been truly humiliated and embarrassed," she said. "I find Christopher Chaney's actions to be perverted and reprehensible." But Otero said Chaney's crimes against two women he knew were even worse than the damaged inflicted on his celebrity victims. Chaney sent nude photos of a former co-worker to her family, and letters from the women said they still suffer from anxiety, panic attacks, depression, and paranoia. "These types of crimes are as pernicious and serious as physical stalking," said Otero. Chaney pleaded guilty to nine felony counts in March, including wiretapping and identity theft, and faced a possible 121 years if convicted of all charges.
– "Our top-line growth ... was below our expectations primarily due to the slower than expected transition to the Keurig 2.0 system," Keurig Green Mountain Inc. CEO Brian Kelley explained in an earnings call yesterday, per the Wall Street Journal. Seeking Alpha sees it as the anti-iPhone scenario: "People are happy with the original and aren't interested for the most part in fixing what isn't broken." But at the Washington Post, Fred Barbash lays out a different problem: the "My K-Cup" one. The coffee packaged into each K-Cup costs customers dearly: on a per pound basis, they spend up to $60, or roughly five times what they'd pay for a bag of Starbucks coffee. Enter the My K-Cup, a refillable option that freed consumers from the expense and brand limitations of Keurig's K-Cups. The problem? The K-Cups that worked in previous models (both those made by Keurig and its competitors) lack a special ink introduced for the 2.0. Those cups no longer work, and neither do My K-Cups; no new refillable option was introduced. The complaints came in short order. As a one-star Amazon review for the K550 2.0 puts it, "If you want a machine that brews a good cup of coffee then this will work for you. If you want a machine that puts all sorts of restrictions on what type of k-cups you can use this is also the machine for you." The Post reports the company's initial line of defense was that the move was born out of safety, as the machine wouldn't know how to properly brew a coffee Keurig didn't package. Other companies introduced hacks (one competitor mailed out a free override device), and yesterday, Kelley "capitulated," as Barbash puts it, saying "we heard loud and clear from consumers"; the My K-Cup will return. (Here's why the inventor of K-Cups doesn't use them.)
– Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul all had their moments in last night's GOP debate, but it was Newt Gingrich's night thanks to his fiery first five minutes, pundits say. Rick Santorum took the fight to Gingrich and Romney and was the "central mover in the debate," but Newt's condemnation of the media was "his finest hour in the race," writes Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post. He took a potential weak spot and "turned it into a moment of considerable strength." Romney, for the first time, "found a compelling message when it came to questions about his considerable personal wealth," he notes. Some of Santorum's attacks on Gingrich's "fealty to conservative social causes were substantively correct" but they probably won't be enough to slow Newt's momentum, decides Jonathan Cohn at the New Republic. Romney's "rambling and unclear" response to tax questions he must have known were coming makes Cohn wonder if Romney's tax returns are "even more damning than speculation has suggested." The debate was a "triumph for Gingrich," writes Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Beast. Romney, however, looked flat next to "Santorum's brutal, relentless attacks, Newt's contempt," and "Paul's jocular indifference," and could now be in serious trouble, he writes.
– Bad news for the well manicured: If the cosmetics you slather yourself with contain phthalates, you may be more likely to get type 2 diabetes. A new study finds a link between the man-made chemicals—which can mimic human hormones and are found in everything from nail polish to shampoo to hairspray—and the disease. Women ages 20 to 80 were studied, and those whose urine contained the highest concentration of the chemicals were almost twice as likely to have diabetes as those with the lowest concentrations. Even those with moderately high levels had an increased risk of about 70%, the Daily Mail reports. Researchers hypothesize that phthalates might mess with the metabolism of fat tissue, thus leading to insulin resistance, often a precursor to diabetes. But your self-tanner and moisturizer may not be doing all the damage: The researchers did note that phthalates aren't exclusively used in cosmetics; you'll find them in everything from vinyl flooring to food packaging to toys. You can tell if your favorite soap contains phthalates by reading the label's ingredients list.
– A gunman opened fire inside a multiplex movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana, tonight, killing two people and himself, and injuring seven more, reports NBC News. A witness tells the Daily Advertiser that she heard gunshots about 20 minutes into a showing of Trainwreck. She describes seeing "an older white man" shooting, apparently at random. "He wasn't saying anything," she says. Police have identified the shooter only as a 58-year-old male, reports KLFY. Authorities say he used a handgun in the attack and died of a self-inflicted gunshot. "The best thing anybody can do right now is to think about them, pray for them, shower them with your love is the most important thing we will get through this," say Gov. Bobby Jindal, who went to the scene. "We will get through this. We are a resilient community. This is an awful night for Lafayette. This is an awful night for Louisiana. This is an awful night for the United States." A person in the multiplex tells CNN he saw a woman who had been shot. "She was just looking at me in complete fear." The shooting comes as jurors in Colorado debate the death penalty for Aurora theater shooter James Holmes.
– Everyone from NBA colleagues to the NAACP to President Obama is outraged over Donald Sterling's alleged racist comments—but this is a man who made the millions that allowed him to buy the LA Clippers in the first place through decades of racist rental policies, writes Kevin B Blackistone in the Guardian. In 2003, he paid $5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging he tried to force non-Korean tenants out of apartments in LA's Koreatown; in 2006, he was sued by the Justice Department for housing discrimination including allegedly telling his employees "that black and Hispanic families were not desirable tenants" and refusing to rent to them. Where was the NBA investigation and the widespread condemnation then? The New Yorker's Ben Greenman agrees, tweeting yesterday, "It's not just Donald Sterling's ignorance that's the problem. It's the decades that ignorance has been tolerated because of wealth." And on Slate, Josh Levin takes it further, delving into what he sees as a troubling truth: "Pro basketball is a business in which most of the employees are black and the vast majority of the owners are white," he writes. And that dynamic is celebrated, with NFL announcers treating owners "like royalty." Sure, most of them probably treat their players well, "but there’s something creepy about celebrating their beneficence, as if money necessarily buys virtue." In fact, that's why Sterling "has remained ensconced in the NBA penthouse" for so long despite his racism. Click for Levin's full column, or Blackistone's.
– Donald Trump has described climate change as a hoax and a fraud—but he has inadvertently done more than most to bring about worldwide agreement on the issue. The New York Times reports that fear of a Trump presidency has helped United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon persuade more countries to ratify the Paris climate pact, which is now expected to enter legal force by the end of this year. Trump has vowed to pull the US out of the pact—but President Obama has already ratified the deal, and the withdrawal process takes four years. A round-up of coverage: The AP reports that 30 more countries are expected to join the Paris deal this week, bringing it much closer to the target of 55 countries representing at least 55% of emissions. When that target is hit, the deal will officially come into force. Some 375 scientists from the National Academy of Sciences and foreign affiliates—including Stephen Hawking and almost 30 other Nobel Prize winners—signed an open letter Tuesday criticizing Trump's pledge to pull the US out of the deal, reports Reuters. The move "would send a clear signal to the rest of the world: 'The United States does not care about the global problem of human-caused climate change,'" they wrote. Climate Central reports that the deal won't be completely "Trump-proof" even if it comes into effect soon. Even if withdrawal takes years, he will be able to undermine it by abandoning plans to reduce pollution. Trump has already said he plans to get rid of the EPA. The Guardian reports that climate change hasn't been as big an election issue as some had expected: Since winning the endorsement of Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton is mentioning the issue a lot less, with roughly one mention per five speeches, compared to one in two before the endorsement.
– Never watched the Perseid meteor shower? This is the year to do it. Though Earth spins through the same ancient comet debris each August, Jupiter's gravity has pulled debris closer to Earth this year, meaning Earthlings will witness twice as many shooting stars as normal, or about 160 to 200 meteors per hour, reports NPR. The last time we had a meteor shower with so many meteors, known as an "outburst," was in 2009 and the next one isn't expected until 2027. How best to tune in to "the greatest fireworks show of your life," per Quartz? Simply head outside between midnight and dawn—after 3am local time is ideal—"find a nice dark spot, lie flat on your back and look up," NASA's Bill Cooke tells Live Science. And be patient. Your eyes may need 30 to 40 minutes to adjust to the dark before the meteors actually become visible, Cooke says. Avoid binoculars and telescopes, which narrow your field of view, and get away from the bright lights of cities, he adds. If you can't—or if it’s cloudy—a live stream will be available here. You can also tune your radio to a bunch of static and listen to bursts of music as "signals from distant FM stations, not normally receivable, bounce off meteor trails," an astronomer tells the CBC. Meteors will also be visible Friday night into Saturday morning, but the encore won't be nearly as impressive as Thursday's show.
– A Denver neighborhood known as "the Harlem of the West" isn't taking too kindly to a local coffeehouse's recent sidewalk signage. The Five Points community has long been known as an artists' enclave and home to many black and Latino families, but economic growth and an attempt by the city to bring it into the "mainstream" has forced many people out of their homes and started to change the culture, the Guardian reports. Which is why it didn't go over well when ink! put up a sandwich board boasting about gentrification and it caught the eye of local writer Ru Johnson and others Wednesday, per the Denver Post. "Happily gentrifying the neighborhood since 2014," the sign's front read; the back noted: "Nothing says gentrification like being able to order a Cortado" (a coffee drink with warm milk). "yo @inkcoffee we are not cool with this sign ... Bad decision. Bad design. BAD. W.T.F.," Johnson posted on Twitter, along with a photo. 9NEWS notes the ire of others, who commented about "white privilege" on social media and posted bad reviews on Yelp. The outside of the coffeehouse was even sprayed with "White Coffee" graffiti Wednesday night. "Hmmm. We clearly drank too much of our own product and lost sight of what makes our community great," ink! wrote on Twitter Wednesday evening, followed by a longer apology from founder Keith Herbert Thursday. "I am embarrassed to say that I did not fully appreciate the very real and troubling aspect of gentrification," he wrote. He promised to keep on top of the issue, educate himself and his staff, and "demonstrate the depths of our contrition."
– Badly damaged after four days of battle with the Japanese, "Lady Lex" was deliberately sent to the depths of the Coral Sea with a reported 216 bodies on board. It's there that one of the first US aircraft carriers slumbered undisturbed for 76 years, until a crew led by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen arrived with cameras. Finding the USS Lexington some 500 miles off Australia's eastern coast on Sunday, the crew has recorded the first video of the World War II wreckage, showing what AFP calls "remarkably preserved aircraft" that went down with the ship, as well as anti-aircraft guns with rifling visible in the barrels. Now covered in slime, the weaponry was used to fire on three Japanese aircraft carriers that hoped to catch the USS Lexington and USS Yorktown in an ambush near Papua New Guinea's Port Moresby on May 4, 1942. In the end—in what News.com.au calls "the day that decided Australia's fate"—the US aircraft carriers prevented a defeat that threatened to cut Australia off from the US. Though it meant the USS Lexington had to be scuttled, the battle also damaged two Japanese carriers, "setting the stage for an Allied victory," according to US Pacific Command. Commander Adm. Harry Harris is celebrating the discovery as "the son of a survivor of the USS Lexington," per CNN. "To pay tribute to the USS Lexington and the brave men that served on her is an honor," says Allen, who headed a six-month project to find the carrier. "As Americans, all of us owe a debt of gratitude to everyone who served and who continue to serve our country for their courage, persistence, and sacrifice." (Allen helped find the wreck of the USS Indianapolis last year.)
– Texas hasn't elected a Democrat to the US Senate in 30 years, the Austin American-Statesman reports. Beto O'Rourke wants to end that drought—by taking down Sen. Ted Cruz. The US representative from El Paso officially entered the race against the former presidential candidate Friday. O'Rourke isn't well known outside West Texas, but that's probably about to change. Politico describes him as a "44-year-old former hard rock musician and internet entrepreneur." O'Rourke used to play guitar for a punk rock band that included a future member of Grammy-winning band The Mars Volta, the Dallas Morning News reports. O'Rourke also wrote a book advocating for the legalization of marijuana and is described as "free-spirited." Democrats pretty much need O'Rourke to unseat Cruz to have any hope of taking control of the Senate in 2018. And that's a whole lot easier said than done. Texas' other GOP senator, John Cornyn, says O'Rourke is on a "suicide mission." And Texas' GOP spokesperson summed up his feelings in one word: "Who?" But O'Rourke isn't discouraged. "I’m under no illusions this will be anything but hard," he tells the Morning News. "Nothing I’ve ever done that’s amounted to anything has been easy." O'Rourke plans to win by doing what he's already been doing: traveling around, especially to Republican strongholds, and listening to voters. He tells the American-Statesman he wants to "learn from people ... everywhere because everyone deserves something better."
– Gabrielle Giffords is making a "tremendous amount of progress" in her recovery and can now speak full sentences, her doctors say. Giffords is walking, though not without assistance, and can say sentences such as "I'm tired and I want to go to bed." Also, her "upbeat" personality is coming through, and she's laughing more, doctors said in a public update of her progress, reports the Arizona Daily Star. "We can engage her for a long period of time during therapies, or between therapies," said the head of her rehabilitation team in Houston. As for the shooting: “She has been told about the event both by her husband and by us, and I think she understands,” said another of her doctors, notes Politico. To read about plans to have her attend husband Mark Kelly's shuttle launch next month, click here.
– Celebrity TV doctor and magic bean salesman Dr. Mehmet Oz also has a prestigious post at Columbia University, which some esteemed colleagues in the medical world find absurd. In a letter to the dean of the Columbia University medical school, where Oz is vice chairman of the surgery department, 10 doctors call his presence on the faculty "unacceptable," citing his "disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine," and accusing him of displaying an "egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures" for financial gain, Skepchick reports. Oz, the doctors write, is guilty of "either outrageous conflicts of interest or flawed judgements about what constitutes appropriate medical treatments, or both." Dr. Henry Miller of Stanford, the first doctor to sign the letter, tells the New York Daily News that Oz is "a quack and a fake and a charlatan." He says Columbia only has him on the faculty because "they're star-struck"—and may be "hoping Oprah will come and endow a center for homeopathic medicine." In a statement, a Columbia spokesman says, "Columbia is committed to the principle of academic freedom and to upholding faculty members' freedom of expression for statements they make in public discussion," reports the Washington Post. A recent study found that about half of what Oz says on TV is wrong, which Matt Novak at Gizmodo says proves that calling the doctor "full of s---" isn't just opinion—"it's science!" (More "down with Oz" news here, here, and here.)
– His name is Matt Haag, but he's better known by his video game identity, Nadeshot—a moniker under which he makes almost $1 million a year playing Call of Duty. Sure, the 22-year-old's job is to press buttons, but he and his team have a dietician keeping them in top form. They recently rode stationary bikes while giving blood and took yoga to better care for their wrists. Haag, who's sponsored by Red Bull, spent time with his head connected to all kinds of wires to reveal how his brain deals with virtual battle; the hope was that experts could use the data to improve his performance via various exercises, the New York Times reports. Unsurprisingly, Haag, who's from the Chicago area, grew up playing video games—a lot of them. His father calls him something of a "loner," but when it came to gaming, he would yell at fellow players to keep up. As a young teenager, he attended video game events, but it wasn't until recently that he started raking in cash; three years back, the Times notes, he was working at McDonald's. While video game competitions bring him some money, the key to his success is his online presence. Not only do fans watch him play games online; he also posts YouTube video journals that can be very personal, and he's all over social media. "What is it about me that people gravitate toward? I wish I knew," Haag told the Chicago Tribune earlier this year. "I don't consider myself to be over-the-top entertaining or someone that would be a joy to be around 24-7, but it's working for me." Fans can even buy Nadeshot merchandise. (A new Call of Duty features a star actor: Kevin Spacey.)
– Yesterday's mass shooting at the Navy Yard has brought the issue of tougher gun laws back into DC's conversation, but Josh Gerstein at Politico sums up the problem for advocates with a basic question: "If the murder of 20 first-graders in their Connecticut grade school wasn’t enough to pass a bill, how likely is it the deaths of 12 adults at a Navy base change the result?" The political reality hasn't changed since Newtown, he notes: Just ask the two legislators in Colorado who got the boot in a recall election organized by gun rights' groups. Still, some prominent Democrats are speaking out, reports the Hill. “When will enough be enough?” asked Dianne Feinstein. “Congress must stop shirking its responsibility and resume a thoughtful debate on gun violence in this country." But perhaps the most poignant plea is from Dr. Janis Orlowski of the Washington Medical Center, which treated some of yesterday's victims. From MSNBC: "There's something wrong here when we have these multiple shootings, these multiple injuries," she said. "We have to work together to get rid of it. I'd like you to put my trauma center out of business. I really would. I would like to not be an expert on gunshots and not to be an expert on this. We are. We do it well. But quite frankly, I'd rather (my surgeons) be doing their surgery on other things." As it did in the immediate aftermath of Newtown, the NRA is keeping a low profile, offering its condolences to the victims in a website message. Meanwhile, activists from Newtown were headed to Capitol Hill today as part of a previously scheduled trip to mark the nine-month anniversary of the shootings with a call for tougher background checks, notes AP.
– Critics make no bones about it: Skip Country Strong. (It's got a 17% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, though audiences are more generous at 50%.) A familiar tale of the struggle with fame, the Gwyneth Paltrow flick is pure schlock, they say: It’s “a runny-mascara melodrama” in which “the corn is as high as a mechanical bull’s eye,” writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. Paltrow’s character “is a compendium of stereotypes about women forced to choose between career and love (guess which wins), while keeping an eye on the younger competition.” “The cast is sucked dry of any juice by Shana Feste, whose script is laughably inauthentic and whose direction marshals clichés as if they were freshly minted,” notes Peter Travers in Rolling Stone. “The dialogue could sink Streep.” Roger Ebert is more tolerant in the Chicago Sun-Times: “Country Strong is one of the best movies of 1957, and I mean that sincerely as a compliment.” It’s “a throwback, a pure, heartfelt exercise in '50s social melodrama.”
– A Colorado man charged with killing his pregnant wife and two young daughters in the midst of an affair with a co-worker once gave a presentation on relationships and infidelity, specifically mentioning the idea of infidelity with a person at work. "Sometimes you find your partner no longer attractive physically or in their personality," Christopher Watts says in a 9-minute YouTube video posted in April 2012, six months before his marriage to Shanann Watts. "Even at the job, you might meet a new person and [the new relationship] could strengthen into something else," he continues, delivering a presentation titled "Communication Speech, Relationship Deterioration and Repair," which he says is for a course he was taking. At one point, Watts notes children "could help repair" a deteriorating relationship, as could listening and showing affection. "Great job Christopher! Good information!" Watts' future wife commented on the video, viewed more than 100,000 times, per CBS News. Along with recent vacation photos, other videos of the couple are racking up online views. "He's the best thing that has ever happened to me," Shanann says of her husband in one, per the Coloradan. Another viewed nearly 12 million times shows Shanann surprising Watts with news of her third pregnancy. "That's awesome," Watts says before kissing his wife. Authorities allege he killed her and daughters Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, weeks later. Watts has a different version of events, claiming he killed his wife only after she strangled their daughters following a conversation about a possible separation, according to police. He's next due in court in November.
– Paula Cooper, once the youngest death-row inmate in the US, has been found dead of a suicide two years after she was released after 27 years in prison. Police say Cooper, 45, was found dead near an ITT Technical Institute parking lot in Indianapolis on Tuesday. She suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head; a handgun was found in her lap. "It's an unusual ending to a tragic case," a lawyer tells the Indianapolis Star. "I've been involved in a lot of cases in my life, and nothing compared to this case." Armed with a 12-inch butcher knife, 15-year-old Cooper led three friends into the home of Ruth Pelke, 78, in 1985 after feigning an interest in Bible lessons. They knocked Pelke to the ground and Cooper climbed on top of her, demanding money, before stabbing her 33 times. The youths made off with just $10 and an old car, the AP reports. Sentenced to death, Cooper drew the support of millions, including Pope John Paul II, before the Indiana Supreme Court commuted her sentence. The state then raised the minimum age for a death sentence from 10 to 16, and later to 18. "She was so sorry for the crime that she committed, and she worked hard to change her life," Cooper's sister says, per the Indianapolis Star. "While in prison, my sister grew from a teenager into a strong woman, and she was trying to build a future outside of those prison walls she had come to call home." A grandson of Pelke, who visited and emailed Cooper while she was in prison, says she hoped to dedicate her life to restorative justice and helping other abuse victims "so they didn't end up like her." He last spoke to her in August. "I thought she was doing well," he says. "I have no idea what was going on in her life."
– Black leopards may owe thanks to a team of scientists at Australia’s James Cook University. The rare leopards, an endangered species living on the Malay Peninsula, have been hard to identify because each one appeared the same—until now. The researchers discovered that the big cats actually have complex designs of spotting when viewed through an infrared flash, according to a press release. "Most automatic cameras have an infrared flash, but it's only activated at night," says a researcher on the project. "However, by blocking the camera's light sensor, we can fool the camera into thinking it's night even during the day, so it always flashes." The spots make it easier for humans to identify and track black leopards, which should save more leopard lives. "Understanding how leopards are faring in an increasingly human-dominated world is vital," says lead author Laurie Hedges. Few leopards actually live on the Malay Peninsula, perhaps due to poaching, while wire snares are killing them and wildlife markets are selling leopard body parts and skins. The rapid elimination of Malaysian forests is also depriving leopards of suitable habitats. The black panther—or leopard in Asia and Africa—has long had a "mythical aura" dating back to Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book and Stan Lee's creation of the Black Panther superhero, Mongabay.com reports. Another neat fact: The black leopard is "perhaps the only known example of a wild mammal with virtually an entire population composed of black individuals," says Hedges. (See how "sexed-up bachelor birds" could save their species.)
– If you're a sergeant in the US Army, the long Fourth of July weekend might seem the perfect opportunity to get decked out in your military-grade tactical vest and have a photo taken of you holding some of your weaponry. At least, that's what Bryan Scott Wolfinger of the 82nd Airborne tells police was his plan yesterday evening, notes CBS News—except he appears to have chosen a poor way to execute it. Wolfinger was arrested at the Cross Creek Mall in Fayetteville, NC, about 10 miles outside of where Wolfinger is stationed at Fort Bragg, after panicked calls starting coming in to 911 about a man strolling through the Macy's department store with a rifle. Cops rushed over to the mall and "the male subject was detained without incident and was in the possession of an AR-15, a Kevlar vest, and multiple rifle ammunition magazines," a Fayetteville Police statement says, per CNN. "They were very panicked, actually; a lot of kids were crying," one shopper tells CBS in describing the scene. The 25-year-old Wolfinger was charged with "going armed to the terror of the public," a misdemeanor, reports WNCN, which adds he was arrested at one of the Macy's entrances; investigators tell CBS he never actually entered the mall. Police say Wolfinger told them he "was going to have photographs taken at a studio with the military equipment and rifle," notes CNN. Reports of a possible second armed man in the mall were deemed unfounded after a search. "We just feel it was an individual who made a bad decision," Fayetteville's assistant police chief tells CBS, while an Army official notes that Wolfinger used "very poor judgment" and that they'll be looking into whether he broke any organizational laws regarding storage of his AR-15 (not an Army-issued weapon).
– The band LFO might not be a household name, but anyone around in the early 1990s might recall the big hit "Summer Girls." (A memorable repeated line references Abercrombie & Fitch.) Now, the family of member of Devin Lima says he has died at age 41 after a yearlong battle with cancer, reports TMZ. The death leaves Brad Fischetti as the only surviving member of the trio—because lead singer Rich Cronin died in 2010 at age 36 of leukemia, reports US Weekly. Lima had been diagnosed with stage 4 adrenal cancer last year. See photos of Lima here. "Devin, as the world knows him, was an extraordinary talent, a doting father to his six children, and a loving partner to their mother," Fischetti says in a statement to E! News. "He was a beloved son and brother and a friend to so many. On behalf of the LFO family, thank you for the tremendous outpouring of love from friends, family, fans, media, and those in the music industry." The band's other hits included "Girl on TV" and "Every Other Time." (Cronin was a Boston native.)
– Scott Brown is on the road to becoming the first person since the 19th century to have represented more than one state in the Senate. The former Massachusetts senator comfortably won the Republican primary in New Hampshire yesterday, the AP reports, and will face incumbent Democrat Jeanne Shaheen this fall in what the Boston Globe reports has already become "a competitive and bitterly contested race" that has drawn plenty of money from outside the state. Brown "may have changed his address, but he hasn’t changed his stripes," Shaheen told a rally yesterday, slamming Brown's ties to big business. "New Hampshire is not for sale, and New Hampshire is not Scott Brown’s consolation prize," she said. Shaheen has focused on her achievements for New Hampshire, but Brown has been doing his best to tie her to President Obama, the AP reports. "Just because she's been throwing her vote away in the Senate does not mean you have to throw your vote away in November," Brown says. "If we're ever going to hold this president accountable, we have to hold this senator accountable." Brown was defeated by Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts in 2012, and if he prevails this fall, he will be just the third person to represent more than one state in the Senate, Talking Points Memo reported when he announced the New Hampshire run earlier this year. Waitman Thomas Willey, a Unionist and then a Republican, served both Virginia and West Virginia in the 1860s, while Democrat James Shields represented Illinois, Minnesota, and Missouri in a long political career interrupted by Civil War service.
– Tech pundits are still debating how big Facebook's new Timeline features will be—blogger Dan Lyons is in the it's-overhyped camp—but BuzzFeed has stumbled onto one indisputable fact: Timeline makes it really easy to see who has unfriended you over the years. Click here for the four-step process. (It involves calling up your friends' list from any given year and looking for the "add a friend" button.) "Prepare to be upset," warns Matt Stopera. (Want to get your Facebook Timeline ahead of the crowd? Click here to see a video explainer.)
– The Rob Ford saga has taken a big lurch forward with the release of police wiretap files detailing how the Toronto mayor partied and took drugs with gang members—and how his life got pretty complicated as a result. Key allegations from the police files, as detailed by the National Post, Globe and Mail, and Toronto Star: The infamous video of Ford smoking crack was apparently set up by gang members who tried to blackmail him—and the mayor offered them "$5,000 and a car" for it. The offer was rejected and the owner said he planned to ask for $150,000—which he could get from media outlets if the mayor didn't pay up. It's not clear whether he did: The original video's whereabouts are unknown, but police recovered a copy from a hard drive. (Ford denies trying to buy the video, calling the latest allegations "an outright lie.") Drug dealers may have had a lot more than the video to blackmail Ford with: One gang member boasts that there are photos of the mayor in "a lot of f---ed up situations," using drugs including heroin, crack, and marijuana. When news reports on the crack video's existence appeared, one of the mayor's top aides began a frantic search and managed to track down the house where a photo showed Ford posing with drug dealers. Unknown intruders attacked the house's occupants days later, though the wiretap files do not link the aide to the attack. After Ford apparently lost his cell phone at a crack house, a friend of the mayor's provided an unknown quantity of marijuana to secure its return. During negotiations, gang members made it clear that they didn't fear threats of police pressure because of their photos of the mayor taking drugs. In a bright spot for Ford, he does not appear to be linked to a murder: One of the gang members he posed with was gunned down outside a nightclub earlier this year, but the police report dismisses any link to the crack video. The latest allegations have left many people wondering why no charges were ever laid against the mayor. "I think any ordinary person who participated in this kind of activity, if it’s founded, would find themselves in very serious trouble," a city councilor says.
– Based on a line in a local history book, Jude Plum suspected the two-story home he purchased out of pre-foreclosure in 2013 was old. He just didn't know it was one of the oldest surviving homes in Pennsylvania. That fact, and more of the home's history, surfaced only when Plum peeled back five layers of exterior to find a hand-hewn log frame untouched since 1704, making the home one of the two oldest standing houses in Lower Merion Township, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. Located on a busy road in Bryn Mawr, the log home next to Plum's childhood home is believed to have been built by a Welsh Quaker who purchased hundreds of acres of land from William Penn in 1682. It was then covered in clapboard sometime in the late 1700s. Because of damage from water, rot, and bugs, it would've made sense to "put a match to it," says restorer Roland Cadle. Instead, Plum opted to rebuild it with Cadle's help, using vintage logs hewn by a 200-year-old broad ax. Cadle even purchased an 18th-century cabin just so the logs used would be as close as possible to the originals. He added wood from an 18th-century home in Maine and period window panes, to boot. "It's a restoration that's substantial, and should last a long, long time," says the president of the Lower Merion Historical Society. That's important, says 71-year-old Plum, because he hopes the home will one day become a museum. He also hopes to have the home included in the National Register of Historic Places, per the AP. (At Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, historians think they found the bedroom of slave Sally Hemings.)
– A Russian military aircraft was too close for comfort in the skies above Syria, forcing two US F-16s to move out of the way and scuttling their mission, CNN reports. The Pentagon made the announcement Wednesday but would only say the incident occurred in the past few days. All US pilots have been warned to keep 20 nautical miles away from any Russian plane over Syria. With Russia beginning airstrikes in country Wednesday, NBC News states there is "the greatest threat of an accidental clash between Russian and Western forces since the Cold War." According to the network, it's the first time Russian and US military aircraft are flying combat missions over the same country since WWII. CNN reports the F-16s were on their way from Turkey to a location near an ISIS stronghold, but the mission had to be called off after the Russian plane forced them to divert. The US and Russia are still working on coming up with mutual rules for flight safety over Syria. According to USA Today, the Pentagon met with Russia about flight rules last Thursday but are still waiting on a second meeting. "We will keep the channel open because it's a matter of safety and security for our pilots," Pentagon spokesperson Jeff Davis says. CNN reports Russia has a history of intercepting US aircraft, and the Pentagon wants to be extra cautious until mutual rules are in place.
– A new documentary backs OJ Simpson up in his claim that he did not murder Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Rather, the documentary alleges, Glen Rogers killed them. Who's Glen Rogers? The New York Post calls him "one of America's least-known serial killers." It seems Rogers bragged about killing 50 people, but his family didn't believe him until his brother—a major participant in the documentary My Brother the Serial Killer—found a body near the family cabin and turned Rogers in. Rogers' family also didn't believe him when he claimed to have been "partying" with Brown Simpson just before her death. He told his family she was rich and threatened that he would "take her down," and receipts from that time period do show he was in the vicinity. But according to the documentary, OJ isn't entirely innocent: He had supposedly paid Rogers to break into Brown Simpson's house and steal some pricey earrings OJ had given her, and told Rogers to kill "the bitch" if he needed to. Rogers reportedly admitted to the murders to a criminal profiler after he was already on death row for other murders. But Goldman's dad tells TMZ this is all just a publicity stunt for the documentary, and he still believes OJ killed his son. Click to watch a clip from the film.
– Maintaining the corpse of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin isn't cheap. In fact, the Russian government this year will spend about $200,000 for work of a "biomedical nature" to ensure the communist leader's body remains in "lifelike condition," the BBC reports. Lenin's preserved body, now nearly 146 years old, has been on public display in a mausoleum in Moscow for more than 90 years, according to the Atlantic. The disclosure on the cost of maintaining the body came via the country's procurement agency website. The preservation process, per a 2015 Scientific American report, includes being "reembalmed" every other year, which entails, "submerging the body in separate solutions of glycerol solution baths, formaldehyde, potassium acetate, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, acetic acid solution, and acetic sodium." Lenin also wears a rubber suit under his dress clothes to keep a layer of embalming fluid covering him while on display. In addition to the regular embalming, Lenin's eyelashes have been replaced, his nose has been re-sculpted, and artificial skin has been used to replace missing skin on his foot. Lenin reportedly wanted to be buried, CNBC reports, and plenty of Russians feel the same way. A recent poll found that 62% of 8,000 people thought the revolutionary should be given a proper burial. Some on social media decried the expense of maintaining a "mummy," but Vladimir Putin seems content to keep Lenin—who is not the only embalmed world leader on display—where he is. "The way I see it, this issue [of discussing the question of the body's reburial] should be approached with utmost care so as to avoid taking any steps that might split society," he said after the poll. (Putin had some nasty things to say about Lenin earlier this year.)
– A woman who appeared to believe that assaulting a teenager was somehow less illegal than flying a camera-equipped drone over a beach has been charged in an attack captured on video. "He's taking pictures of people on the beach with a helicopter plane," a woman identified as Andrea Mears, 23, says into her phone before allegedly attacking the 17-year-old boy, grabbing his face, calling him a "pervert," and ripping his shirt, the New Haven Register reports. His video of the incident went viral after it was posted on LiveLeak. The Westbrook, Conn., teen says he was using a quad copter with a camera attached to film the landscape from 50 feet up and has been flying electronic aircraft since he was 9 years old. Mears—who called the police about the teen's drone use—claims he assaulted her first and he edited the video to make her look like the aggressor. He says he was just trying to protect himself. "I was just holding her away so she couldn't cause severe injuries to me," he tells NBC. Mears has been charged with breach of the peace and third-degree assault.
– The last Democratic debate before Iowa and New Hampshire vote took place Sunday night in South Carolina—and Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were taking no prisoners. The pair clashed over and over again throughout the debate, while Martin O'Malley failed to make much of an impact. Here's what analysts are saying about the candidates: Bernie Sanders. It's not unanimous, but a lot of people are calling Sanders the winner. He was more aggressive than usual in dealing with Clinton and "positioned himself as the anti-status-quo candidate, a very good position to have in this electoral environment," writes Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post, praising the "passion and disruption that Sanders oozed from every pore." The senator from Vermont was at his best during the debate's first hour, where he dominated the discussion and was judged the winner by 29 out of 30 undecided voters in a Democratic focus group, Politico reports. Hillary Clinton. Clinton—faced with Sanders' "louder and bolder" vision—offered "aggressive lessons on political practicality," trying to portray herself as the more pragmatic and electable candidate, writes Rick Klein at ABC News. She scored points by attacking Sanders' changing positions on guns and taxes, "but was not seen as dealing any decisive blow," writes Alan Rappeport at the New York Times. Isaac Chotiner at Slate, however, declares her the winner, praising her ability to bring Sanders "to earth and seem like just another politician." Politico's Glenn Thrush notes that she also scored points by hugging Obama "so hard he needs new ribs." Martin O'Malley. The former Maryland governor "was most notable for his unsuccessful efforts to get a word in," according to Rappeport, though Cillizza notes that he managed to come across as likable. "He did well in an impossible situation," he writes.
– An Australian aerospace engineering student has cracked a mystery that has puzzled scientists for years. ABC Australia reports that undergraduate Amelia Fraser-McKelvie, 22, was on a scholarship program at Melbourne's Monash University when she discovered that the universe has a greater mass than is currently visible. Astrophysicists have held for decades that there was more mass in the universe than what is made up in planets and stars, but could not prove it. It had been estimated that around 50% of the mass needed to maintain the function of the universe's function was ''missing." Fraser-McKelvie's findings, achieved by targeted X-ray scans that located mass in filaments extending between galaxy clusters, could change the way we look at the cosmos. "We will be using this as part of the science drivers for some telescopes that are on the design board, that are being built right at this moment in time," says her tutor, Kevin Pimbblet. (More details on that at the Sydney Morning Herald.)
– James Hodgkinson had chosen Eugene Simpson Stadium Park in Alexandria as his target up to two months before the shooting that injured five people during a Congressional baseball practice in June and had "cased the field" for weeks prior, the Washington Post reports. A 41-page report released Friday by Alexandria Commonwealth's Attorney Bryan Porter adds new details on the Virginia shooting. The report states Hodgkinson used his phone to take pictures of the field in April. And at least one member of the Republican baseball team targeted in the June 14 shooting remembers Hodgkinson sitting in the stands and watching them practice the day before, according to Politico. The report also includes details on the actual shooting, which lasted for nine minutes. The AP reports Hodgkinson fired at least 70 rounds—62 from an assault rifle and eight from a handgun. In response, police fired at least 40 rounds. Two shots fired by Alexandria police officer Alexander Jensen hit Hodkinson in addition to a shot fired by David Bailey, a member of Rep. Steve Scalise's security detail. Bailey in particular was credited in the report as having "helped avert disaster" by running onto the field while Hodgkinson was firing. The purpose of the report was to determine if officers' killing of Hodgkinson was "legally justified," which it was found to be. "Not only were the actions of the agents and officers reasonable, they were obligatory in light of the overwhelming and determined force employed by the suspect," the report states.
– A congressional hearing called today to discuss the plight of blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng got a first-hand perspective: Chen himself called in from his hospital bed in Beijing to ask for US help in leaving the country, reports Reuters. "I want to come to the US to rest," he said. "I have not had a rest in 10 years." He requested to meet with Hillary Clinton, both to seek help and to "thank her face to face." (Earlier, Chen told the Daily Beast he hoped to leave on her plane.) Chen also said he feared for those who helped him escape house arrest and for his family. "The thing I (am) most concerned (about) right now is the safety of my mother, my brothers, and I really want to know what's going on with them." Chen left the US embassy when the US and Beijing struck an apparent deal in which he would remain in China. But Chen changed his mind upon release, citing threats to his family. Republicans now accuse the White House of rushing into a bad deal ahead of Clinton's visit. "If these reports are true, this is a dark day for freedom and it’s a day of shame for the Obama administration," said Mitt Romney, according to the New York Times.
– The condo building where fashion designer L'Wren Scott was found dead yesterday is the ninth most expensive address in New York City, an exclusive building where units sell for $10 million or more and Scott's neighbors included Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, the New York Daily News reports. Scott lived in apartment 9S at the Chelsea building, 200 Eleventh Ave., a 2,364-square-foot duplex with 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, and a floor-to-ceiling glass wall with a view of the Hudson. She owned the $5.6 million pad outright, the Daily News notes in a separate story. More details are trickling out about how she spent her last moments there: The 6'3" former model reportedly used a black satin scarf to hang herself from the L-shaped handle of a French door on her balcony (the Washington Post says the scarf was one of her own designs); she was found kneeling, with the scarf wrapped around her neck and the other end tied to the handle, Fox News reports. A law enforcement source tells the New York Post she used her own body weight to cut off oxygen to her brain, calling it a "painless" way to die. The Daily News' police source explains further: "You lean away from the door applying pressure till you pass out. After that, gravity takes over." Click for more on what may have driven Scott to suicide.
– Three London teens on their winter break are believed to have skipped town and headed to Syria to join up with ISIS, British police said today, per the BBC. Shamima Begum, 15, and two classmates—Kadiza Sultana, 16, and a 15-year-old friend whose parents asked for anonymity—reportedly got on a plane at Gatwick Airport on Tuesday and flew to Istanbul. They had given their families "plausible reasons" for disappearing for the day, police say, but Shamima and the other 15-year-old were reported missing by Tuesday night; Kadiza was called in on Wednesday morning. Their families are said to be "devastated," according to Richard Walton, head of the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command unit, but they're hoping the girls may still be in Turkey and that they'll see social media pleas for them to return. "[Syria] is an extremely dangerous place, and we have seen reports of what life is like for them and how restricted their lives become," Walton said, per the Guardian. "The choice of returning home from Syria is often taken away from those under the control of [the] Islamic State, leaving their families in the UK … with very few options to secure their safe return." To assure the girls that it's their safety that's paramount, the Metropolitan Police also tweeted a statement from Walton today that said, "This is not about criminalizing people, this is about preventing tragedies," as well as listing a number to call for the girls or anyone who knows where they may be.
– Videos showing two black men handcuffed and removed from a Philadelphia Starbucks have drawn outrage and prompted a police investigation, the AP reports. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that one clip posted Thursday on YouTube shows police talking to the men for several minutes earlier this week before handcuffing them and escorting them out of the Center City establishment. A second shorter clip shows a white man, Alan Yaffe, who says he was meeting with the two, asking police what the men did wrong. He calls their arrest "ridiculous" and says to an officer, "I wanted to get coffee for two black guys sitting and meeting with me. Does anybody else think this is ridiculous?" Attorney Lauren Wimmer, a friend of Yaffe's, says he "was meeting with the two gentlemen at the Starbucks to discuss business" when a Starbucks manager called 911 on the men for reasons "completely based on race." She says the two men—whom she would not identify—were arrested for "defiant tresspass," fingerprinted at a police station, and released due to lack of evidence. She's now representing them pro bono. Police say they are conducting an internal investigation and Starbucks is "reviewing the incident." Now outrage is flowing online, including this tweet from Black Lives Matter and one from Brittany Packnett, who writes, "This is tired. Racism is tired. What say you, @starbucks?!!"
– Pole vaulting can be an extremely dangerous sport, as a March Vice article made clear. How it summed the potential for catastrophe: "At 20 feet, a pole vault accident is like someone falling off the roof of their house, while running as fast at they can with a thick pole in their hands." Such catastrophe struck on Thursday: During a practice jump that her manager described as routine, Austria's champion female pole vaulter landed just off the mat on her head and neck. The accident, which the Sydney Morning Herald reports was witnessed by her parents, left Kira Grunberg a paraplegic. The Austrian athletics federation said in a joint statement with the University Clinic in Innsbruck on Friday that the 21-year-old suffered "a fracture of the cervical vertebrae of the spine" and underwent "emergency surgery to stabilize her spine." The statement puts it plainly: "At the moment, the continuation of her sporting career is not an option." In a post to her Facebook page, Grunberg's family notes the "tragic accident" didn't just end her career but also means a "new life" and "long and difficult" path for her. NPR reports she is now breathing on her own, and describes Europe's sporting world as in shock but rallying to support Grunberg financially. Deutsche Welle reports Grunberg holds Austria's women's record of 4.45 meters, which she set during the European Championships in Zurich in 2014. Read more about pole vaulting, its catastrophic injuries, and how the mat factors into things.
– In a case Florida officials call "deeply disturbing," two sisters allegedly colluded to shoot and kill their 16-year-old brother while their parents were away, reports WFOX. Misty "Ariel" Renee Kornegay, 15, and her 11-year-old sister, Nicole, were arrested Monday and charged with premeditated murder. "Anytime you come on scene with something this horrific, [with] children involved, it's pretty unsettling, even to seasoned law enforcement and deputies," the Columbia County sheriff tells News4Jax. Ariel told police her brother beat her and locked her in a bedroom that evening. When he fell asleep, Nicole unlocked the door, and Ariel says they got a gun from their parents' bedroom and she shot him in the living room. The sisters then left their 3-year-old sister and walked more than 3 miles to a Dollar General in town, where police were called. "The officer was very compassionate with the girls. We were mainly worried about their safety," says one detective, but Ariel soon confessed to the shooting, adds WFOX. Police learned their parents had left the children at home Monday and were three hours away when their son was shot. When they returned, police charged them with child neglect. Now the state attorney says he "may be forced to actually charge [the sisters] as adults," adds the Gainesville Sun; the 3-year-old is now in state custody, notes the Florida Times-Union. News4Jax notes the Kornegays have a history with law enforcement: a 2010 report of inappropriate behavior between Ariel and the dead brother (no charges resulted); a family member who sought a change of custody; and a domestic violence citation for the mother in 2010. All four will appear in court today. (This boy died trying to save his twin brother.)
– Susan Sarandon is using her Hollywood clout to try to save an inmate on Oklahoma's death row. In an interview with Sky News, the actress called Gov. Mary Fallin a "horrible person" for not intervening in next month's scheduled execution of Richard Glossip. He is "clearly innocent," says Sarandon, who has an Oscar for portraying anti-capital-punishment activist Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking. Prejean herself has been meeting with Glossip as a spiritual adviser, reports the Huffington Post. Glossip is on death row over the murder of his boss. The man who confessed to the killing says Glossip hired him to do it, and the actual killer is now serving a life sentence. "Richard's case is so typical," says Sarandon. "Bad representation, two trials that were ridiculous, no physical evidence. He's put there by a snitch who actually did kill the person, and then the snitch has life and this guy is being put to death on the 16th."
– In the wake of his sexist comment to a female reporter, Cam Newton has been fired ... as a yogurt spokesperson. TMZ reports Dannon will no longer be using the Carolina Panthers quarterback as the face of its Oikos Greek Yogurt brand, saying it was "shocked and disheartened" by his comment to reporter Jourdan Rodrigue, which was "disparaging to all women." "It's simply not OK to belittle anyone based on gender," the company states. Rodrigue had asked a question about the route running of one of Newton's receivers during a press conference Wednesday. The quarterback responded that "it's funny to hear a female talk about routes." Newton replaced John Stamos as Oikos spokesperson, beating out the Seattle Seahawks' Russell Wilson for the gig, per ESPN. Newton is also a spokesperson for Gatorade, Under Armour, Beats by Dre, and Buick.
– Yesterday's attack on a gas plant in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, France, was made all the more gruesome by the revelation that a severed head was found hanging from the factory's wire fence along with banners with Arabic inscriptions. That head belonged to the alleged attacker's boss, reports Reuters. French officials have named the suspect, who is in custody, as Yassin Sahli; he is a 35-year-old delivery driver, and police say the head found on the fence was that of his 54-year-old boss. The Guardian reports the remainder of the man's body was discovered inside the factory. Reuters reports that the delivery van had the authorization to enter the site, and prosecutors say Sahli made regular deliveries to the US-owned Air Products factory. After the van passed through the main gates it was filmed speeding up as it barreled toward the warehouse. Sahli was "overpowered" as he tried to open canisters containing a flammable liquid, per Reuters. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, and as the Guardian puts it, "It remained unclear whether any Islamist motivation for the attack might be mixed with personal grudges."
– The artist who has been known as Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Puffy, Diddy, and so forth appeared to have given himself yet another name change for his 48th birthday—but he's since revealed it was just a joke. The rapper and media mogul, who was born Sean Combs, tweeted Saturday that his "new name is LOVE aka Brother Love," Page Six reports. "I'm just not who I am before. I'm something different," he said, per the New York Daily News. He said he had been "praying" on the "very serious decision," which he admitted "could come off as corny to some people." He added: "I will not be answering to Puffy, Diddy, Puff Daddy, or any of my other monikers but Love or Brother Love." But after what Diddy calls an "overwhelming response from the media" to his announcement, the rapper clarified in a video Sunday that he was not actually being serious, Mashable reports. "Today I've come to the conclusion that you cannot play with the internet," he said. "Just due to there not wanting to be any confusion ... I was only joking. OK? I didn’t change my name. It’s just part of one of my alter egos. One of my alter egos is Love.” But, he assured fans, "You can address me by any of my older name. But, if you still wanna call me Love, you can call me Love, baby." (Vodka helped make Brother Love the highest-paid celebrity of 2017.)
– A new study looking at how germs are spread at hospitals has identified a surprising potential culprit: nurses' scrubs. Specifically, their pockets and sleeves were the most likely spots to be contaminated, reports WebMD. Another potential hot spot: the bed railings of patients, according to a post about the research at Eureka Alert. The study followed 40 ICU nurses caring for 167 patients at Duke University Hospital. Samples were collected from the nurses' uniforms before and after their 12-hour shifts, as well as from the patients and objects in their rooms such as supply carts and beds. Researchers did not find any instances in which nurses passed along bacteria to patients, but they found that nurses picked them up from patients or the room in multiple instances. "We know there are bad germs in hospitals, but we're just beginning to understand how they are spread," says lead author Deverick Anderson of Duke University. Of the 22 transmissions they discovered, six were from patient to nurse, six were from the room to the nurse, and 10 were from the patient to the room, reports the CBC. The researchers looked for five strains particularly vexing to hospitals because of their resistance to antibiotics. They say one takeaway is the need for stricter protocols on hand washing and the use of gloves, even if a nurse doesn't actually touch a patient while in the room. (One weird potential help in the fight against superbugs: the milk of Tasmanian devils.)
– Last week, CBS dumped a Rihanna song from the first of its Thursday night NFL broadcasts, partially thanks to the Ray Rice situation and Rihanna's own connection to domestic violence at the hands of Chris Brown. Now, apparently, the network wants to include the song in this week's broadcast—and Rihanna is having none of it, Deadspin reports. "CBS you pulled my song last week, now you wanna slide it back in this Thursday? NO, F--- you! Y'all are sad for penalizing me for this," she tweeted today, followed by, "The audacity..." New York Times television reporter Bill Carter tweets that CBS has given in and will replace Rihanna on Thursday's show with "theme music created internally." Not everyone thinks the domestic violence link was the main reason the song was pulled in the first place—as USA Today notes, "Given the simmering Ray Rice controversy, beginning a broadcast with the frivolity of a pop song would have been tone-deaf. "
– Rick Perry's busy day, one being perceived as his camp's attempt to recharge his flagging campaign, continues in South Carolina as he rolls out his flat tax plan. A key quote from his speech: “Taxes will be cut across all income groups in America, and the net benefit will be more money in Americans’ pockets with greater investment in the private economy." His "Cut, Balance, and Grow" plan puts him to the right of Mitt Romney on fiscal policy, notes the Washington Post. (He wrote about the plan in the Wall Street Journal.) In an earlier interview with the New York Times, Perry said he wasn't bothered that it benefits the rich. "What I care about is them having the dollars to invest in their companies." Other tidbits: On Romney: "I consider him to be a fat cat. I consider what Mitt’s doing kind of nibbling around the edges. I consider what we’re doing bold." On Obama's birth certificate: " It’s a good issue to keep alive. ... It’s fun to poke him a little bit and say, 'Hey, let’s see your grades and your birth certificate.' I don’t have a clue about where the president—and what this birth certificate says. But it’s also a great distraction. "
– Fox News has wiped from its website a report on a George Washington University student's suicide whose timing may have coincided with President Obama’s speech on the school's campus—and that seemed to suggest the two events were linked. "GWU officials tell Fox that police were notified about the incident around 2pm, which happens to be at the same time that President Obama was speaking,” it read. "As of this writing, Fox has not been able to obtain reaction from the White House." The article prompted a wave of criticism at Reddit, the Daily Kos, and Gawker, notes the Atlantic Wire; a GWU Facebook group railing against the piece quickly gained 600 members, the Huffington Post reports. Fox News told Politico that “we were contacted by the university and decided it would be best to take down the story, although nothing was factually inaccurate.” For a line-by-line analysis of the piece, click through to Mediaite.
– A 3-year-old Michigan boy is dead after shooting himself in the head yesterday, police say. They received a 911 call the Detroit News describes as "frantic" around 4:15pm; Damon Holbrook was found in the front bedroom of his Dundee home. The owner of the handgun involved was arrested on charges of manslaughter and gross negligence. Police say the unidentified 30-year-old man was friends with Damon's father and lived at his house, as did Damon's 10-year-old sister and 5-year-old brother, who were upstairs when the boy shot himself. Police say the friend left the loaded gun on a closet floor, in an unlocked plastic case, and Damon was playing with it within five minutes of the friend arriving home from work. Damon's father posted about the tragedy on Facebook today, the Blade reports. "Yesterday I lost my 3yrd son to a gun accident. We r all hoping to wake up from this nightmare. ... I have nothing wrong with guns it's with this country was built on. I will still support the Second Amendment," he wrote. "All I ask is that everyone please, please safety first lock it up and put it out of reach of anyone that has no business being around a gun especially kids."
– A Michigan man's pet cobra bit him earlier this month, setting off a multistate hunt for the specific type of antivenom needed to save the man. The 26-year-old started vomiting about 20 minutes after being bit by the albino monocled cobra July 14; their venom is one of the fastest-acting ones in the world, USA Today reports. The man went to a local hospital but was airlifted to Detroit Medical Center after his respiratory muscles became paralyzed and he stopped breathing, Fox 2 reports. The hospital's toxicology experts got eight vials of antivenom from the Toledo Zoo in Toledo, Ohio, and administered them to the man shortly after he got there, but he continued to get worse. As the medical center's communications manager explains, it was a generic antivenom that "covers many, but not all species of poisonous snakes." With help from the man's family to identify the species of snake he'd been bitten by, experts were then able to figure out which type of antivenom he needed; they ultimately reached out to the Miami-Dade County Venom Response Program in Florida the morning after the bite and had 20 vials of the correct type of antivenom to give the man by the afternoon. The man, who is still hospitalized, is expected to recover.
– "Tamir Rice of Cleveland would be alive today had he been a white 12-year-old playing with a toy gun in just about any middle-class neighborhood in the country." That's the assertion put forth by the New York Times editorial board as it argues that the entire case swirling around the gunned-down Cleveland boy shows "utter disregard for the lives of the city's black residents." That disregard, per the editorial, took the form of everything from the 911 call's initial "miscommunications"—word that Tamir was probably carrying a fake gun never reached the officers—to the police department's failure to check out officer Timothy Loehmann's questionable work history, to the PD's own "well-documented reputation for wanton violence and for shooting at people who posed no threat to the police or others." The editorial cites a Justice Department report it says "shows clearly why the black community viewed the Cleveland police as dangerous and profoundly out of control." It also takes to task the officers' demeanor immediately after Tamir was shot (no medical assistance was given by Loehmann or his partner, Officer Frank Garmback) and the fact that Garmback tackled Tamir's 14-year-old sister when she tried to rush to her brother's side. And as for statements made by prosecutors that seem to place the fault for Tamir's death squarely on Tamir himself? "These arguments sidestep the history of violent, discriminatory police actions that led up to this boy’s death," says the editorial. Read it in full here. (A grand jury declined to indict either officer.)
– Black Friday sales were up 7% this year over 2014 while Thanksgiving Day sales jumped 16%, according to Slice Intelligence's analysis of online sales data. Not only that, but the weeks leading up to the biggest shopping day of the year saw a 14% boost with many sales starting early, reports TechCrunch. How did individual stores fare? Amazon is clearly happy after reporting its best holiday shopping weekend ever for Amazon devices. But that's not all the site has to be cheering. Here are the five retailers with the biggest shares of online spending on Black Friday: Amazon: 35.7% Best Buy: 8.23% Macy's: 3.38% Walmart: 3.35% Nordstrom: 3.11% (Apparently people were buying a lot of guns.)
– President Trump's oldest son was slammed Wednesday for what was seen as a political attack on London's mayor within hours of a terrorist attack that left five people dead and dozens injured. "You have to be kidding me?!: Terror attacks are part of living in big city, says London Mayor Sadiq Khan," Donald Trump Jr. tweeted, linking to an Independent story from last September. Trump Jr. was accused of misrepresenting the mayor's remarks and exploiting the London attack, the BBC reports. Khan, speaking after a meeting with NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio the day after three NYC-area bombings, had been talking about the need for big cities to stay vigilant and be prepared for terrorist attacks. "You have to be vigilant, you have to support the police doing an incredibly hard job, you have to support the security services," Khan said in September. It's not clear whether Trump Jr. was aware that the article he linked to was from months ago and not the mayor's response to the attack, the Guardian notes. "You use a terrorist attack on our city to attack London’s Mayor for your own political gain. You’re a disgrace," tweeted MP Wes Streeting. CNN reports that the White House offered a more diplomatic response to the attack, with Trump tweeting that he had spoken to Prime Minister Theresa May to offer condolences, and Sean Spicer saying it would be "irresponsible" to jump to conclusions about the incident. (Secret Service agents may have taken a selfie with Donald Trump Jr.'s sleeping 8-year-old.)
– The actress daughter of Phil Collins has forgiven her father in her new book of essays. In Unfiltered, released Tuesday, Collins writes that she forgives her father for "not always being there when I needed and for not being the dad I expected," the AP reports. She adds that they can't "rewrite the past" but it's not too late for them "to move forward." Phil Collins and Lily's mother, Jill Tavelman, divorced in 1996, when Lily was seven. As People notes, Lily writes in her book that her dad was "often gone," so she "never wanted to do anything that would make him stay away even longer." Because of that, she hid her feelings, but "the truth is, I was angry. I missed him and wanted him there." Lily Collins was nominated for a Golden Globe earlier this year for her role in Warren Beatty's Rules Don't Apply.
– Shoes and handbags go together like … well, Jimmy Choo and Michael Kors, now that the latter has agreed to purchase the former for $1.2 billion, the Wall Street Journal reports. Michael Kors is looking to bolster its business with the luxury shoe brand as sales of its own handbags falter, with a Customer Growth Partners analyst noting just a 2% recent growth in the handbag market overall, as opposed to 15% growth six years ago. Reuters notes that Michael Kors has lost 65% of its market value since 2014. Michael Kors' sales may have taken a hit by the company permitting its product to be sold at a discount in outlets and department stores, making it harder to command full price in its own. The New York Times notes a big drop in shopping mall traffic as another possible contributing factor to lethargic sales. Jimmy Choo CEO Pierre Denis is expected to stay on in his current role.
– An astronaut above the International Space Station has captured a stunning image of what NASA refers to as "one of the few places on Earth where an international boundary can be seen at night." The Sept. 23 image shows the glowing, snaking border between India and Pakistan, visible because of the Indian floodlights that dot much of the way. The Wall Street Journal notes two other such borders: the boundary lines between the Koreas and between South Africa and Zimbabwe. In those cases, a dearth of electric lights on one side makes clear the difference. The India and Pakistan boundary is visible because of lights that wind their way through nearly 1,200 miles (the full border is about 2,000 miles long). Their intended purpose is to discourage militants from crossing from Pakistan into the part of Kashmir controlled by India, per the Journal. The Economic Times in March reported that due to the huge cost of lighting the border—owing to the electricity used and the diesel generators stationed there as back-up—the country intends to replace the floodlights with LED bulbs in the coming years. A pilot program along the border in Punjab will test out the LED bulbs, which can have 50 times the lifespan of regular ones. A neat note from NASA regarding distances, time, and progress: It points out that in 327 BC Alexander the Great traveled through the Indus River valley, which is identified in the image. He entered from the northwest and exited near Karachi, at which point he headed back to what is now Iraq. The journey took him "many months"; the ISS covers the same distance in three minutes. (See an incredible picture of the moon that NASA recently captured.)
– A judge in New Orleans has given the Times-Picayune website 10 days to turn over the identities of two online commenters, reports Politico. The judge agreed to the request by the lawyer for Stacey Jackson, former head of the New Orleans Affordable Homeownership program who is facing federal charges of corruption. Jackson's legal team apparently thinks the anonymous commenters were federal attorneys who posted comments about Jackson and her case on NOLA.com, possibly to pressure suspects into cooperating with them, reports AP. It's not clear whether the Times-Picayune will comply, but a news story in the paper about the judge's ruling suggests the policy is a little squishy: "It is the news organization's usual policy to keep such information private to the extent possible." If this rings a bell, it's because there's a precedent in New Orleans. US Attorney Jim Letten had to resign in 2012 after two deputies admitted that they posted comments at the site about cases. In the most high-profile example, five officers convicted in deadly bridge shootings after Hurricane Katrina were granted a new trial because of the "prosecutorial misconduct."
– Relief in San Diego: A suspect was arrested Thursday in connection with a sickening series of attacks on homeless people that left two men dead and another two seriously injured, CNN reports. Police say they believe Anthony Alexander Padgett, 36, is the suspect captured on video at a convenience store near the site of the first attack early Sunday. Padgett, who allegedly inflicted severe upper body trauma on all four victims and set two of them on fire, has been charged with two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, and one count of arson. Police didn't comment on a motive for the attacks, or on whether Padgett is homeless himself. San Diego Capt. David Nisleit says there was "probable cause" to arrest Padgett, though he added there could be other suspects and that homeless people should remain vigilant, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. Police need to consider "other recent attacks that have been happening over the past few weeks," Nisleit says. "We need to determine if Mr. Padgett is involved or if we still have another suspect out there attacking the homeless population." The Union-Tribune notes that in 2010, the Star-News reported that a 30-year-old homeless man named Anthony Padgett was sentenced to four years in prison for setting another homeless man on fire.
– Skal, Sweden! Raise a glass to the Scandinavian nation, which beat out 162 others to win the overall top spot in the "Good Country Index," a ranking of the world's countries, the Independent reports. The list is based on 35 various indicators from sources such as the World Bank and the UN, separated into the categories of culture, science and tech, prosperity and equality, world order, international peace and security, planet and climate, and health and well-being. The US just missed making the top 20, coming in at No. 21. And in last place—Libya. "A good country is one that successfully contributes to the good of humanity," British policy adviser Simon Anholt, who established the Good Country Index, tells the Independent. "Of course, it must serve the interests of its own people, but never at the expense of other populations or their natural resources: This is the new law of human survival." Here, the "goodest" 10 of the bunch: Sweden Denmark Netherlands United Kingdom Germany Finland Canada France Austria New Zealand (The entire list is here.)
– President Obama has a Tuesday op-ed on CNN, but he's not writing about Election 2016—or even anything on Earth. Instead, the president announces America's plans for a "giant leap to Mars," with a "clear goal" to get humans to the red planet by the 2030s and then safely back home, with the "ultimate ambition to one day remain there for an extended time." Obama says the government is working in tandem with private commercial firms, an initiative more carefully spelled out in a joint White House/NASA blog post. Seven companies are being funded to start working on "habitation systems" that will one day serve as spacecraft to transport astronauts on deep-space missions, including Mars trips. The second part of the initiative, starting this fall: giving private companies the chance to add their own "modules and other capabilities" onto the International Space Station. CNN notes Obama has long harbored the dream of traveling to Mars, even optimistically saying in a 2010 speech, "I expect to be around to see it." His CNN op-ed reveals that almost childlike excitement about space travel, from his memories of sitting on his grandfather's shoulders to watch astronauts coming home to Hawaii to his tenure as president, when he "vowed to return science to its rightful place"—which he notes the US has since done through expanded NASA technology, ISS innovations, and the creation of private-sector jobs devoted to space exploration. "[The space program] represents an essential part of our character—curiosity and exploration, innovation and ingenuity, pushing the boundaries of what's possible and doing it before anybody else," he writes. Catch his complete op-ed. (What's going to eventually happen to the ISS.)
– The Obama administration said Monday it had turned down Donald Trump's offer to pay for a new $100 million White House ballroom, USA Today reports. "I'm (not) sure it would be appropriate to have a shiny gold 'Trump' sign on any part of the White House," says Press Secretary Josh Earnest. "That's what most of the buildings that he offers to build include." For his part, Trump said at a rally in Sioux City that a ballroom would be better than tents on the lawn for visiting dignitaries. "No. 1, it’s not a good security thing. No 2, the guy that owns the tents is making a fortune," he says. Trump had suggested the ballroom idea before but never heard back from the White House. "He did offer to build one," David Axelrod tells Time. "I passed his offer along to the social secretary."
– The private formerly known as Bradley Manning is about to become the first person ever given gender reassignment treatment by the US military. The federal Bureau of Prisons has rejected the Army's request to transfer Chelsea Manning to a civilian prison, and defense officials say Manning will instead receive "rudimentary" gender treatment while in military custody, reports the AP, which notes that initial treatments could include allowing Manning to wear female undergarments. It's not clear when or if Manning will be transferred from an all-male prison to a female one. "It has been almost a year since we first filed our request for adequate medical care," Manning's lawyer says. "I am hopeful that when the Army says it will start a 'rudimentary level' of treatment that this means hormone replacement therapy." The treatment will raise a few issues for the military, the BBC notes. The Pentagon bans transgender people from serving openly, but Manning will not be discharged from the military until she finishes her sentence. She was sentenced to 35 years for passing classified documents to WikiLeaks and will be eligible for parole in about six years.
– As protests erupted in Ferguson, Mo., this summer, police sought a no-fly zone over the area for "safety"—but later admitted it was to keep the media out. Federal Aviation Administration officials agreed to impose flight restrictions on more than 37 square miles of airspace, but they tried to find a way to allow police helicopters and commercial traffic in while keeping news helicopters out, according to recordings obtained by the AP, which notes that the recordings raise serious questions about whether "police were trying to suppress aerial images of the demonstrations and the police response by violating the constitutional rights of journalists with tacit assistance by federal officials." In one recording, a Kansas City FAA manager says police didn't care if commercial traffic went through the restricted area all day long, they just "didn't want media in there." Police claimed they asked for restrictions after a police helicopter was shot, but an FAA manager described that as "rumors," and there's no police report on the alleged shooting. FAA Administrator Michael Huerta tells the Los Angeles Times that the agency "cannot and will never exclusively ban media from covering an event of national significance" and the media was never banned from covering events in Ferguson. On the recordings, however, FAA officials speak of the restrictions that were put in place effectively keeping the press out because "they don't understand the difference."
– A new show on the cable network TV One debuts tonight with the goal of correcting an oft-stated criticism of the national media: Missing people tend to get more coverage if they're white. Find Our Missing, hosted by Law & Order veteran S. Epatha Merkerson, will feature two cases per hour of minorities, writes Allison Samuels at the Daily Beast. At the Washington Post, Hank Stuever says the "handsomely produced" series isn't concerned with "media criticism" or the reasons behind the disparity in coverage. It just wants to find people, and it asks viewers to come forward with information a la America's Most Wanted. "The series keeps its outrage just out of view; its foremost concern is for the missing, as well as their friends and relatives."
– Jon Tester has been re-elected to the Senate. The Montana Democrat beat Republican Matt Rosendale, the state auditor, to win his third term. President Trump had taken what the AP calls a "personal interest" in defeating Tester, visiting Montana to campaign against him at four rallies, plus sending his eldest son and Vice President Pence for other appearances. CNN refers to Trump's "intense focus" on Tester. Tester, the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, helped to derail Trump's first nominee to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs. (More in midterms: Georgia candidate is hoping for a runoff; Florida candidate is calling for a recount.)
– It turns out getting in the holiday spirit can be good for your mental health. A study published last week in Clinical Psychological Science found performing small acts of kindness for others can give us an improved outlook on things and help us to better deal with stress. "Stressful days usually lead us to have a worse mood and poorer mental health, but our findings suggest that if we do small things for others, such as holding a door open for someone, we won't feel as poorly on stressful days," researcher Emily Ansell says in an Association for Psychological Science press release. The findings suggest "prosocial behavior" might someday be a useful course of treatment for people suffering from chronic stress or depression. Previous lab-based studies have shown similar results, but Ansell and her team wanted to see if they held true in the real world, CBS News reports. According to the press release, researchers had 77 adults use their smartphones to report stressful events, acts of kindness, and their emotional state every day for two weeks. CBS reports participants averaged one or two helpful acts per day. But those who logged more than that had improved well-being and were less affected by stress. "The holiday season can be a very stressful time, so think about giving directions, asking someone if they need help, or holding that elevator door over the next month," Ansell says in the press release. "It may end up helping you feel just a little bit better." (A cafe's act of kindness for grieving parents went viral.)
– A 13-year-old is suing a Los Angeles police officer who fired a gun during an off-duty altercation with teens in Anaheim last month. In his lawsuit, Christian Dorscht says officer Kevin Ferguson "became irate" when teens walked across his property on their way home from school on Feb. 21, reports the Los Angeles Times. Christian says Ferguson called a female student a "c---," per OC Weekly, prompting Christian to ask him to speak "in a nicer manner." Ferguson then grabbed Christian, and as the confrontation escalated, Christian says he threatened to "sue" Ferguson, but the officer says he heard the teen threaten to "shoot" him. The suit says Ferguson never identified himself as an officer. A video shows Ferguson holding Christian by the collar before a teen knocks into Ferguson, sending him into a hedge. Ferguson then draws a gun and fires a single shot, reportedly into the ground. Nobody was injured. Christian—who accuses Ferguson of assault, false imprisonment, and causing emotional distress—was one of two teens later arrested on suspicion of battery, but protesters have demanded "justice" since Ferguson remains on duty while police investigate, per the OC Register. The Los Angeles Police Protective League is not sympathetic. "We hope that this lawsuit determines why multiple young adults chose to physically assault a police officer and what the parents of these young adults could have done to teach their children right from wrong," it says. (A much happier story about an off-duty cop.)
– Would you pay $640 for a pair of Payless shoes? You might think the answer is "absolutely not," but you haven't been to Palessi. In a recent ad campaign/social experiment, Payless took over a former Armani storefront in Santa Monica, Calif., and set up a fake luxury shoe boutique, Palessi. Attendees of the grand opening party ("fashion influencers" invited by Palessi, er, Payless) had no idea things were not as they seemed, and yes, $640 was the top price paid for the $19.99 and $39.99 shoes on display, Adweek reports. A whopping $3,000 was spent in just a few hours on the actually cheap shoes, but Payless returned the money after the truth was revealed—and let the attendees keep the shoes they picked out. The shocked reactions of people who just found out the shoes they were calling "elegant" and "sophisticated" were actually from Payless are included in the resulting ads. The stunt "helped the brand prove that a price point doesn't dictate style," Bustle declares. But one marketing expert notes the whole thing is also "a commentary ... on the discernment—or lack thereof—among fashion influencers." (These Payless shoes reportedly burst into flames.)
– Police near Philadelphia say a psychiatric patient opened fire inside his doctor's office today, killing his caseworker and injuring the doctor—but the doctor then pulled a gun of his own and shot the patient three times, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. The patient was in critical condition, while the 52-year-old doctor was grazed in the head by a bullet and is expected to recover. "We're not sure exactly what happened," says the Delaware County DA of today's incident at the Sister Marie Lenahan Wellness Center in Darby. Witnesses and police say the patient, identified as Richard Plotts, entered the doctor's office with his 53-year-old female caseworker, and soon shouting could be heard from the room, reports NBC Philadelphia. One worker reported opening the door and seeing Plotts with a gun pointed at the doctor. Someone then called 911, but shooting erupted before officers arrived. Plotts got shot twice in the torso and once in the arm.
– Nouri al-Maliki finally took the hint: He's giving up his fight to serve a third term as prime minister of Iraq, reports the BBC. State TV says Maliki has agreed to step down in favor of Haider al-Ibadi, even though Maliki had called Ibadi's appointment unconstitutional and raised fears of a coup by deploying his elite security forces in Baghdad. “The problem is resolved," a member of Maliki’s State of Law coalition tells the Washington Post. Maliki has given Ibadi his "full backing" and "emphasized the need for unity.” Maliki was expected to address the nation tonight. Iraq's president has given Ibadi 30 days to form a government, and the US is pushing him to do what Maliki would not—establish one that includes Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds in substantive ways. That's a big reason that while Maliki has been in power for eight years, the White House is happy to see him go. With today's move, Maliki was "bowing to the inevitable," write Julian Borger and Spencer Ackerman in the Guardian. "He had lost the support of his party, of the president, the parliament, the Americans, Saudis and finally the Iranian government, his biggest foreign ally and sponsor."
– As a Canadian TV host put it, "Pigs do fly." That after last night's election in the western oil-rich province of Alberta, which saw a conservative-party dynasty come to an end after 43 years in power. Voters chose a New Democratic Party government for the province, which has garnered nicknames like the "Texas of Canada" and the "Texas of the North," per the New York Times and AP. It's an outcome that seemed unlikely a slim 28 days ago when the election was called, and initial results reported by the Times indicate huge gains: from NDP's previous four seats to 53, with the Progressive Conservative Party's hold sinking to 11. That puts it in third place, behind the right-of-center Wildrose party, which becomes the official opposition party. What the NDP promised: to hike corporate taxes and review oil and gas royalties. Incoming New Democratic Premier Rachel Notley also vowed to dump more money into schools and hospitals. How Canada is reporting it: "It's a massive shock that turns Canadian politics on its head," reports CBC News. "It's a tectonic shift in Alberta politics, which has seen government change hands only four times since ... Alberta became a province in 1905," per the Toronto Star. One Toronto political scientist's take: Though "Americans are freaked out by socialism ... The main message is a social democratic party isn't all that radical anymore." What the Times sees: "The unexpected rise of the NDP, which was partly founded by labor unions, may have implications for Alberta's oil sands, which, many critics say, enjoyed a light regulatory touch under Conservative governments." Two financial analysts' takes: "The perception from the market based on [the NDP's] comments is they're extremely dangerous," one tells Bloomberg. "If you are invested in energy stocks, you should be concerned," says another, explaining that Alberta drillers are currently saddled with higher extraction costs; bumping up royalties would further erode competitiveness.
– Police in Louisiana say a Muslim student who said she had been attacked by Donald Trump supporters hours after his election victory has admitted inventing the incident. The 18-year-old University of Louisiana student claimed she had been attacked by two white men in Trump shirts who shouted racial obscenities before stealing her headscarf and wallet, but "there was no truth to any of it," a Lafayette Police Department spokesman tells ABC News, adding that he doesn't know what her motivation was for "getting people upset and afraid." He says the student will be charged with filing a false police report but probably won't spend time in jail, since she "decided to tell the truth about not telling the truth." But the Louisiana incident aside, there have been hundreds of other reports of hate crimes against Muslims and other minorities since Trump's victory, with writer Shaun King compiling many of them on Twitter, reports Quartz. Schools in Utah and elsewhere are dealing with a rise in reports of bullying of minority students, Fox 13 reports. A similar rise in racist incidents was reported after Britain's Brexit vote. Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center tells the Guardian that there has been a spike in hate crimes, along with a rise in calls to suicide hotlines. "I think this is absolutely clearly a result of Trump's election," he says. "Donald Trump has ripped the lid off Pandora's box."
– Hail, Caesar! is the 17th film by moviemaking brothers Joel and Ethan Coen—of Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and No Country for Old Men fame— and tells the story of a studio fixer (Josh Brolin) searching for a kidnapped movie star (George Clooney) in 1950s Hollywood, though that plot is mostly an excuse for multiple movie genre parodies and song-and-dance numbers. The film is garnering mixed reviews, but as humorist John Moe tweets: "Few things make me as excited as a Coen brothers movie with mixed reviews." Hail, Caesar! also stars Scarlett Johansson, Ralph Fiennes, Channing Tatum, Tilda Swinton, and Jonah Hill. Hail, Caesar! "is perhaps the most jagged, disjointed, and ramshackle of all the Coen brothers’ movies," according to Will Leitch at the New Republic. "It is also, from start to finish, one of the funniest films the Coens have ever made." The movie delivers "scenes that will make your grin rise up over your ears," while also showcasing a "certain muted contempt" on the part of the Coens. It other words: It's "pure Coenism, for better or worse." Manohla Dargis at the New York Times calls Hail, Caesar! "a typically sly, off-center comedy" that "has more going on than there might seem." It "at times brings to mind one of those old plot-free film revues that featured a grab bag of studio talent performing in strung-together musical, comic, and dramatic scenes." Ignatiy Vishnevetsky at the AV Club is less charitable: "To all those who would characterize the Coens as smug misanthropes: Enjoy this bounty of ammunition." Hail, Caesar! "lampoons Christian and leftist dogma by pitting straw men and stuffed shirts against whatever passes for common sense in the Coensverse." At the Atlantic, Christopher Orr admits that while it might not be one of the Coens' best films, Hail, Caesar! is still an "unexpectedly sweet and utterly satisfying confection, a loving sendup of the Hollywood of yesteryear" that is "bright and genial" while lacking "the cruel edge of many of their comedies."
– Hundreds of defiant protesters took to the streets yesterday after cops stormed Occupy Portland encampments and busted 50 people. Mayor Sam Adams ordered the camps shut because of what he called unhealthy conditions and increased crime triggered by drug users and thieves drawn to the sites, reports AP. Authorities erected chain-link fences with barbed wire around adjacent downtown parks to block demonstrators from moving back in. "This is not a game," said Adams. Protesters are considering what action to take next. Some have proposed occupying foreclosed homes, others to move onto the state university campus or to the shores of the Willamette River. The Portland police action was the largest weekend crackdown on protests across the nation. Authorities also dismantled a camp in Salt Lake City, and Denver police removed mattresses, cooking grills and tents on a sidewalk, busting 17 protesters. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter yesterday boosted police patrols at his city's protest site, saying conditions were "dramatically deteriorating," Reuters reports. The movement "has changed and the people have changed," he said. "We are now at a critical point where we must reevaluate our entire relationship with this very changed group."
– Think it's OK to take a week off from working out? Think again ... if you even can. A study published last month in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience finds the benefits of exercise on the brain can fade after just 10 days. Previous studies have shown that exercise increases blood flow to the brain, which can create new neurons, increase volume in important places, and possibly even improve memory and thought, the New York Times reports. But it was unclear how long that healthy increased blood flow and its benefits would last. Now we know: Less than 10 days. Researchers looked at a dozen "exceedingly fit" seniors—ages 50 to 80—who still ran 35 or more miles per week. After 10 days of doing nothing, the seniors had less blood flow to eight regions of their brain, including significantly less to the hippocampus, which is associated with memory, Medical News Today reports. Medical Daily quotes the study's lead author, Dr. J. Carson Smith, who says the hippocampus is "one of the first brain regions to shrink in people with Alzheimer's disease." The seniors didn't perform any worse on cognitive tests after 10 days of loafing about, and more research is needed to see if a cessation of exercise actually impacts the functioning of the brain. In the meantime, keep on that workout schedule. (Eleven hours of this brain game can cut dementia risk in half.)
– "The Republican Party screwed up big time." Such is the pronouncement of Arthur Jones, who on Tuesday won a GOP primary in Illinois, becoming the party's candidate for the Third Congressional District, which encompasses part of Chicago. Except, per the New York Times, the Holocaust denier won't get an ounce of support from the party, which describes Jones as a Nazi and plans to "vehemently [oppose him] with real campaign dollars." As for why the 70-year-old thinks the party messed up, it's because he was running unopposed due to the GOP's inability to recruit a candidate, leading him to remark to the Times that "even if only myself and my wife voted for me, I'd win the primary." The Illinois GOP plans to throw its cash toward an as-yet-unselected independent candidate. As for the Holocaust views Jones espouses, the Hill reports his campaign website actually included a section called "Holocaust?" that refers to "professional concentration camp survivors"; states there is "no proof such a so-called 'Holocaust' ever took place anywhere in Europe"; and says that Jews are "directly responsible for the murder of at least 300 million people." Jones isn't expected to win the solidly blue district, where Rep. Dan Lipinski currently holds the seat. Things on the Democratic side were just as wild, though, with Lipinski narrowly edging out challenger Marie Newman—who was backed by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Bernie Sanders—with 97% of the votes tallied. The Chicago Tribune reported around midnight that Newman refused to concede at that point, saying she "would like Mr. Lipinski to have a very painful evening."
– YouTube and Netflix, watch your back: Amazon plans to stream video content for free and rise among the ranks of multimedia power players, sources tell the Wall Street Journal. If it happens, the project will include original series like Betas as well as licensed programming that Amazon could tie to its retail website (shoppers looking for Bruce Springsteen CDs might watch the video for "Born in the USA," say). The service would run on ad dollars and try to entice people into paying $99 annually for Prime, which currently offers unlimited video streaming. Other evidence something's up: Amazon paid about $1 billion last year for content and original programming, and plans to launch something new next week—likely the Roku-like box it's been building since 2012, GigaOm reports. The device will offer Prime video along with apps like Netflix and Hulu Plus, and possibly games (Amazon has been designing a wireless game controller, after all). The box may even include free streaming, but if that reduces the value of Prime, Amazon "would risk losing Prime customers," a TV analyst tells USA Today. "After all, it just raised the price."
– Black Friday sales were down year-on-year, but this year's Cyber Monday is expected to be the biggest online shopping day in history. Spending on the year's most important day for online sales is expected to top last year's $1.25 billion by around 20% to hit $1.5 billion, the chairman of digital analysis group ComScore tells MarketWatch. Online spending on the Monday after Thanksgiving has more than doubled over the last five years. But Black Friday itself saw plenty of online shopping, with sales nudging over $1 billion for the first time even as shoppers thronged brick-and-mortar stores, the AP reports. Analysts say that Cyber Monday may soon cease to be the busiest day for online sales, since fewer people now rely on computers at work to do their shopping. Online sales on Thanksgiving Day this year surged by 32% over 2011 to reach $633 million.
– The GOP is in a tizzy over President Obama's gun-control plan, with some on the right accusing him of tyranny. Well, that's going a little far, said Jon Stewart on last night's Daily Show: "When tyrants want something done, they generally don't ask their legislative bodies if that would be OK. They tend to proceed ... tyrannically." Of course, folks like Sean Hannity would oppose any executive "overreach," right? Cue clip of Hannity backing President Bush on warrantless wiretapping. "Looks like a tyrant is anyone sworn to protect the constitution that you didn't vote for," Stewart said. As for people who are comparing Obama to dictators throughout history—and say, for example, that if Jews had had guns, the Holocaust might have been averted: "I wish armed Jews in the ghetto could stop Hitler. But my feeling was, France couldn't, and I'm pretty sure they had guns. Russia had kind of a lot of guns, but they couldn't stop Hitler—until you factored in the wind chill." Seems people are confusing "tyranny with the unpleasant burning sensation of losing democratic elections."
– At least one person was killed in a helicopter crash in a residential area in Virginia, authorities say. A 911 call came in Sunday before 5pm about an aircraft crashing into a residential structure in Williamsburg near Settlement Drive, Virginia State Police say. The crash caused a massive fire at a townhouse complex, police say. Neighbors tell the Daily Press that they heard sounds resembling a helicopter crash. The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg issued a tweet Sunday warning students of the crash and urging them to avoid the area around the school's Dillard Complex, the AP reports. Peggy Weiss, who lives in the neighborhood, tells the Daily Press she saw a small, rickety helicopter crash between two buildings. Brook Sweeney, who lives across the street from a house on fire, says the whole house shook when the crash occurred. "I just heard a loud 'bam' and the whole house was on fire," Sweeney says. Donald Johnson tells the newspaper he was 10 feet away from the crash when it struck his apartment building. "I was downstairs on the first floor when that thing hit and I had never heard a noise like that in my life. I just walked out and looked and got out, I was afraid it would blow up." The FAA tweeted late Sunday that the pilot was the only person on board the R44 helicopter.
– It's Splitsville for J.Crew and the bridal business. The company—which shook up the sector in 2004 when it started competing with specialist bridal firms—has decided to get rid of its entire bridal line, including gowns and bridesmaid dresses, and replace it with an expanded collection of party dresses, Racked reports. A source says the company, which sold its bridal collection exclusively online until it opened a New York City bridal store in 2010, found that the line wasn't making it much money and they decided to ax it instead of skimping on quality. Business Insider notes that in good news for the bride on a budget, the company has slashed prices on its bridal line this week and the discounts will continue until the inventory is gone. (This bridal shop owner was spotted naked in the store window.)
– A mystery illness has claimed at least 18 lives over the past few days in Nigeria, killing victims within a mere 24 hours of infection, the BBC reports. Health officials are scrambling to identify the illness—which is not Ebola or any other known virus—but have concluded that it's not contagious. Symptoms include headaches, blurred vision, and loss of consciousness. One theory is that it's ethanol poisoning from drinking home-made booze, the Premium Times of Nigeria reports. The victims, who are "commercial motorcyclists," fell ill after stopping at "local joints to take [an] alcoholic substance," says a health official. The drink was "mixed with roots and some other local herbs on the eve of the outbreak of the disease," he adds. Officials now plan to test that theory by giving toxicology tests to the five surviving victims.
– Malaysian authorities seem to have generated nothing but confusion and ill will in the hunt for Flight MH370. Now a Colorado company offers a way for people to do more than vent frustration—they can help scan satellite images, reports the Denver Post. DigitalGlobe wants people to go to its crowdsourcing platform to look at and tag images of the ocean that look promising. An algorithm will then examine results and highlight any areas generating an unusual number of tags, explains ABC News. “We’ll say, ‘Here are our top 10 suspicious or interesting locations,’” says a company official. “Is it really an aircraft wing that’s been chopped in half or is this some other debris floating on the ocean? We may not be 100% sure, but if this is where I had to go pick a location to go looking for needles in this big haystack, this is where I’d start." Of course, the satellite images are based on authorities' best guesses on where the plane might be, and those seem to be changing daily.
– For years, guidelines regarding mammograms have been, well, all over the place. The US Preventive Services Task Force recommends women get a mammogram every two years starting at age 50. Since 2003, the American Cancer Society has recommended annual mammograms starting at age 40. The society's first mammogram guideline revisions in more than a decade are only complicating matters. A breakdown, per NBC News and CNN: Women with an average risk of breast cancer should have a mammogram every year from age 45 to 54. If a woman wants one sooner, she should be able to start at age 40, as long as she understands false positives are more common at this age. Women over 55 years can continue annual screenings or choose to have a mammogram every two years since breast cancers develop more slowly in post-menopausal women. This is part of what an ACS doctor calls "a personalized approach," per Time. Keep up with annual or biennial screenings while you remain in good health and have a life expectancy of at least 10 years. Average-risk women can opt out of routine breast checks altogether. Why fewer checks? The society's chief medical officer tells CNN that mammograms aren't always beneficial, and the stress of the procedures, plus misdiagnoses, actually cause harm. If a woman "starts screening at age 40, she increases the risk that she'll need a breast cancer biopsy that turns out with the doctor saying 'You don't have cancer, so sorry we put you through all this,'" he says. Critics, however, say the new guidelines are dangerous since experts only examined whether screening saved a woman's life, rather than led to an early diagnosis. Confused? This won't help: The American College of Radiology and the Society of Breast Imaging "continue to recommend that women get yearly mammograms starting at age 40," according to a release.
– To the surprise of possibly no one, Tiger Woods and his club-wielding Swedish model wife are officially divorced. The marriage was dissolved today in a Florida Court; he and Elin Nordegren will "share parenting" of their two kids. The divorce comes nine months after Woods' fateful Thanksgiving night encounter with a fire hydrant outside his mansion. The crash set off a cascade of sordid revelations that many are speculating will end the No. 1 golfer's career. They gave the traditional joint statement: "We are sad that our marriage is over and we wish each other the very best for the future." Read the full article.
– A humpless, snouted camel? Check. A rhino with the teeth of a rodent and head of a hippo? No problem, scientists say, after apparently figuring out, finally, where these mystery creatures sit on the mammalian family tree, Nature reports. Charles Darwin discovered fossils of these ancient creatures while visiting South America in the 1830s, but failed to classify them (and called the rhino-like animal "perhaps one of the strangest" ever discovered). Scientists continued to have no luck placing the mammals—which flourished for 60 million years and vanished around 10,000BC—in part because the fossils' DNA degraded too fast in the warm climate of South America. Now two British researchers have taken a different route, by extracting collagen protein from the fossils. "Compared to DNA, there’s absolutely tons of it," says one of the scientists, Ian Barnes. First they created a "collagen family tree," using the protein to figure out other animals' familial relationships. Then they sequenced collagen from specimens of the rhino-ish Toxodon and camel-like Macrauchenia sitting in Argentinian museums. Turns out the hoofed mammals that baffled Darwin are part of the Perissodactyla group, which includes rhinos, tapirs, and horses, the researchers say. So why care, unless you're a Darwin enthusiast? Because this method can be used to analyze other creatures going back millions of years—much further than DNA. "DNA sequencing is changing, but protein sequencing is undergoing a similar revolution in the sensitivity of the instruments," Barnes tells National Geographic. "Who's to say what we can do?" (A fascist warrior-poet's DNA was recently reconstructed with help from a "love hanky.")
– Johnson & Johnson must pay a Pennsylvania woman $57 million after internal emails revealed in court it launched a new vaginal mesh implant without a clinical trial, continued to push the implant for five years despite knowing its success rate was "way below" earlier versions, and tried to quash data that "could compromise the future" of the implant, the Guardian reports. “I’m in excruciating pain when I’m standing, it hurts when I’m sitting," Ella Ebaugh tells CBS Philadelphia. The 51-year-old had J&J's vaginal mesh device implanted to treat urinary incontinence. It cut into her urethra and entered her bladder, and she's so far had three surgeries to remove it. Some mesh is still stuck in her urethra. “My urethra is mangled and I will suffer for the rest of my life,” Ebaugh says. On Thursday, a jury awarded Ebaugh $57 million, finding J&J unit Ethicon was guilty of negligence and making a defective product. The Philadelphia Inquirer notes it was the fifth and largest verdict awarded in a vaginal mesh lawsuit. Internal J&J emails revealed employee concerns about the "spinning of data" and executives making light of a doctor's comments that having sex with a patient suffering vaginal mesh complications was "like screwing a wire brush." Documents show Ethicon was hurrying to get the new implant out, saying beating competitors to market was "priceless." J&J plans to appeal the verdict in the Ebaugh case. It's estimated thousands of women received the Ethicon implant between 2006 and 2012, and class-action lawsuits are underway in the US and Australia.
– A California woman says she has no idea how a dead body wound up in the trunk of her Lexus. The Riverside woman says she'd thought the car smelled funny as she left work yesterday, but she stopped at Walmart thinking nothing of it. When she opened the trunk to put her shopping bags inside, she made the gruesome discovery. "She was freaking out," one witness tells CBS 2. "They had to put her in a squad car and take her home." Witnesses say the woman recognized the man as a neighbor. "He was around the neighborhood last night," one witness says, "and the husband didn't like it. Told him to leave. And now she saw her neighbor in the trunk." Police initially considered the woman a person of interest and questioned her, but they now say she isn't a suspect, NBC LA reports. "It's very unusual," one police sergeant says. "I mean, we do get bodies in trunks. But to open it up and say they know him. And didn't know they were in there, that's unusual."
– Robert Mugabe isn't known for his human rights record, but is the Zimbabwean leader villainous enough to flood whole villages to create a source of cheap labor? Some 20,000 villagers were displaced from a region in southern Zimbabwe earlier this year and resettled on a ranch that just happened to be jointly owned by Mugabe's party and a businessman ally, the Christian Science Monitor reports. A Human Rights Watch investigation finds that the villagers are being forced to grow sugar cane for an ethanol project—and the flood was deliberately created to get them off their land without paying compensation. The flood was declared a "national disaster" and media reports claimed a dam wall collapse had caused the floods, but that "is false information," says a senior employee at the Italian firm that helped build the dam. "The dam wall did not collapse and was never in danger of collapsing. With sluice gates and spillways open, it would have taken at least five years for the dam to fill up to capacity, but in this case they were deliberately closed." The international community donated food aid after the flood, but villagers have been told food aid distribution depends on their work, and provincial officials have been accused of selling off some of the aid for profit.
– A hot air balloon has crashed in Texas, killing all 16 people aboard, NBC News reports. According to the ABC News, a fire started in the basket of the hot air balloon before the balloon crashed into a pasture near Lockhart, Texas, on Saturday morning. The site of the crash appears to be underneath large, high-capacity power lines, the AP reports. Their possible role in the incident is unclear. Officials are continuing to investigate the crash.
– More ominous developments in Crimea: Armed men have blockaded two airports in the peninsula, a day after pro-Russian gunmen took control of the regional parliament building. There are conflicting reports on who the airport gunmen are and whether they have actually taken control of the airports. At the airport in Simferopol, the Crimean capital, dozens of gunmen in unmarked military uniforms have been seen patrolling the area. "We are checking to make sure that no radicals come to Crimea from Kiev, from the Ukraine," one gunman told reporters. Flights there appear to be operating normally, CNN finds, but the Wall Street Journal reports that the other airport, Sevastopol's Belbek Airport, has been closed. Ukraine's interior minister blames Russian military units, calling this "a military invasion and occupation," the AP reports. More from Ukraine: Ethnic Russians are a majority in the Ukrainian region, which is home to Russia's Black Sea fleet, and the US has told Russia to show it is sincere about its promise not to intervene militarily, Reuters reports. "We believe that everybody now needs to take a step back and avoid any kind of provocations," John Kerry said. Ukraine's parliament also passed a resolution today demanding Russia cease any activity that could be considered an attack, CNN reports. Ousted Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovich, meanwhile, has surfaced in Russia, still proclaiming himself to be Ukraine's legitimate president. At a press conference today held in a Russian city near the Ukraine border, he insisted he was "not overthrown" but was forced to flee Ukraine in fear for his life, the BBC reports. He called the current parliament "illegitimate" and promised to continue fighting "against terror and fear." In Simferopol, it's not clear whether gunmen are still in control of the regional parliament building, though what the New York Times calls a "well-orchestrated power grab by pro-Russian forces" appears to have taken place across the city. Legislators held a session after the building was occupied and voted to hold a referendum this May that will decide whether to declare Crimea sovereign. CNN says the government buildings in Simferopol were still "under siege" today.
– Russia has decided to eliminate daylight saving time and will keep its clocks unchanged this October and beyond, UPI International reports. President Dmitry Medvedev said he decided to cancel the shift, which the country has practiced since 1981, because of potential "stress and illnesses" on people shifting their biological clocks. It's also a little less complicated for a country with nine time zones, notes Monsters & Critics.
– The Senate Budget Committee has advanced a sweeping tax package to the full Senate, handing GOP leaders a victory as they try to pass the nation's first tax overhaul in 31 years. The committee voted 12 to 11 to advance the bill. Two committee Republicans had said they were considering voting against the measure, but after President Trump personally lobbied Republican senators at the Capitol Tuesday, the committee passed the bill with little fanfare other than a few protesters who tried to disrupt the committee meeting, per the AP. GOP leaders hope to have the full Senate take up the bill later this week, though Politico reports that they were still scrambling to appease critics within their own ranks. The tax package blends a sharp reduction in top corporate and business tax rates with more modest relief for individuals. White House press chief Sarah Huckabee said Trump applauds the committee for "taking an important step toward passing historic tax relief and reform and clearing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act this afternoon." She added that the president "looks forward to providing tax cuts for hardworking Americans by the end of the year."
– Remember "affluenza teen"? That would be Ethan Couch of Texas, who killed four people while driving drunk at age 16. The relatively light sentence he drew—probation and treatment in rehab—drew national scorn, and this won't help: His parents have been ordered to pay $1,170 a month for his stint at a state-run rehab facility, just a fraction of the full cost of about $21,000 a month, reports the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Considering that Ethan's attorney argued that he suffered from "affluenza"—essentially that he is spoiled rich kid who never learned right from wrong—the payment isn't sitting well with victims' families. “As a taxpayer, I probably feel exactly like you do,” says an attorney who represents one of the families. He notes that the amount was set by the facility and is the maximum under its sliding-fee scale, reports NBC of Dallas-Fort Worth. But "it seems like maybe that ought to be a little different and should be addressed if there’s the ability to pay." And apparently, that ability exists: During sentencing, the family offered to send the teenager to a facility that costs $450,000 a year.
– The Senate confirmed Jeff Sessions as US Attorney General in a vote Wednesday night, Mediaite reports. Democrats put up what fight they could with late-night sessions on Monday and Tuesday—CNN reports they battled Sessions' confirmation for 30 hours on the Senate floor—but in the end it wasn't enough to block his confirmation. The vote, largely split along party lines, was 52-47, according to the AP. Every Republican senator voted for Sessions; Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia was the only Democrat to vote for him. Democrats attacked Sessions, one of President Trump's earliest backers, on his record on civil rights and immigration, arguing he wouldn't work to protect the voting rights of minorities, the rights of LGBT Americans, or the right of women to an abortion. Sessions has also been accused of being a racist, including in a 1986 letter by Coretta Scott King read by multiple Democrats during the lead-up to the vote. Shortly before Sessions was confirmed, Mitch McConnell called the senator from Alabama a "likable guy" and a "true Southern gentleman." A replacement for Sessions in the Senate is expected to be named as early as Thursday.
– Sure enough, CBS is disowning 60 Minutes' recent Benghazi story, in the wake of an FBI report that discredited its key source. "The truth is we made a mistake," Lara Logan said on CBS This Morning. Logan explained that they'd believed former security officer Dylan Davies (aka Morgan Jones), because they'd verified that he was working for the State Department in Benghazi when the attack hit. "We take the vetting of sources and stories very seriously," Logain said, "but we were misled." When the Washington Post first raised questions about Davies last week, Logan stood by him. "He never had two stories. He only had one story," she told the New York Times. Today she explained: "He was very up front about [lying to his employer] from the beginning, that was always part of his story. And it—the context of it, when he tells his story is that his boss is someone he cared about enormously. He cared about his American counterparts in the mission that night, and when his boss told him not to go, he couldn't stay back. So that was always part of the record for us. And that part didn't come as any surprise." But the recent revelations about Davies' FBI interview did.
– Denver experienced its very own Rocky Mountain high on Thursday, when thermometers hit 105 degrees, tying the city’s all-time record set on June 26, 2012, reports CBS News. Other places in Colorado were even hotter. On Thursday, Lamar, Colo., scored a sizzling 109, notes the Denver Post. The heat, winds, and low humidity increase risk of fire, and much of Colorado has been under a red flag fire warning. Forecasters predict temperatures will drop to the low 80s by Saturday, which should bring relief. Meanwhile, much of the central and eastern US can expect to bake through the weekend, reports USA Today. Heat advisories, watches, and warnings were in effect for 18 states, and cities such as Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit will likely open emergency cooling stations. The Northeast can expect to break some heat records of its own. (The people of Nawabshah, Pakistan might not be impressed by Denver's record.)
– The Pentagon has just provided every kid who brings home a lousy test score with a possible new defense: "We failed the audit, but we never expected to pass it." So says Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan in putting the best possible spin on the results of a long-awaited audit of the department—in fact, the first comprehensive one in the Pentagon's history, reports Reuters. Congress ordered the audit back in 1990, but defense officials didn't begin one until last December. "It was an audit on a $2.7 trillion dollar organization, so the fact that we did the audit is substantial," Shanahan said. Full details have not yet been released, but CNN reports that all branches of the military received "disclaimers," meaning they had problems to address. "We spent approximately $406 million on audit remediation and $153 million on financial system fixes," says a Pentagon statement. One general area mentioned as needing improvement: inventory accuracy. CNN notes that no fraud was uncovered. Shanahan said that since this was the first audit, the real test will come when next year's results provide a basis for comparison. A Pentagon spokesman, meanwhile, softened Shanahan's "we failed" comment. "To clarify, the audit is not a 'pass-fail' process," he says. "We did not receive an 'adverse' finding—the lowest possible category—in any area." He added, however, that "clearly, more work lies ahead of us."
– Though it was likely flooded with water and sand, not lava, a buried settlement discovered in southern Norway is being touted as a mini-Pompeii. Norwegian archaeologists found the site, which has slumbered untouched for some 5,500 years, beneath about three feet of sand, reports Discovery News. So far they've uncovered shards of beaker-shaped vessels, arrowheads, and stone structures; signs indicate it was buried by a catastrophic event, not abandoned over time. “The formation of the upper layer remains somewhat mysterious. Most probably the site was suddenly flooded, and covered with sand by the nearby river. There are no signs of occupation within this thick sand layer. This is a strong indication of a relatively quick process,” says the lead archaeologist . “The site is lying on top of a silt and clay layer which we know preserves wood, so we have good hopes for finding buried wood from the occupation phase later on in the excavation.” Click here for more on the find.
– "Maybe just see Rogue One again" seems to be the consensus from those who sat through holiday comedy Why Him?, which opens Friday. The Bryan Cranston and James Franco vehicle from a co-writer of Meet the Parents is currently 40% rotten on Rotten Tomatoes. Here's what critics are saying: Why Him? fails in part because it lacks Meet the Parents' patience with building comedic tension, according to Darren Franich at Entertainment Weekly. "The film wants to be a comedy of excess, but it just feels excessive ... You want toilet jokes? You got them. Dozens!" One of a handful of relatively few positive reviews, Bruce DeMara of the Toronto Star found Why Him? to be a "wildly entertaining jaunt" as long as you're "looking for light seasonal fare" packed to the gills with "ribald, gross-out humor." Richard Roeper at the Chicago Sun Times disagrees, to put it mildly, saying Why Him? is "in the bottom 1% of movies I've ever seen." It's "not funny, not funny, not funny, not funny, not funny" despite starring "two of the most gifted and versatile actors on the planet." And those actors have something to answer for. At the New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis says the film proves "definitively that slapping Mr. Franco's scenery-eating grin on any old drivel doesn't guarantee entertainment," especially when the script is "shoveling expletives into the holes where jokes ought to be." Meanwhile, Andrew Lapin at Vulture finds the film's title could rightly be asked of Cranston. "The actor, who once brilliantly crafted the slow-burning tragedy of Walter White, is forced to mug helplessly through scenes where he's sprayed in the face with toilet water. Why him?" Ending on a more positive note, John Serba at M Live recommends Why Him? "with reservations" and with an asterisk, saying he's also "reserving the right to feel, someday, probably sooner rather than later, embarrassed for laughing at it as much as I did."
– With its exceedingly deadly venom unchanged over the past 10 million years, the Australian tiger snake has essentially defeated evolution. Researcher Bryan Fry says in a press release it's "really unusual" for venom to remain unchanged over such a long period of time. Typically, predators and prey evolve as they find solutions to each other's evolutionary changes, Gizmodo reports. Not so with the tiger snake, which Fry says represents "a novel twist to the chemical arms race which most snake venoms evolve under" and "a new addition to the theory of venom evolution." A study published in the current edition of Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part C explains why. Tiger snake venom targets a protein called prothrombin, which handles heavy blood clotting. The venom's effect on prothrombin is what makes it so deadly, which means animals should be under a lot of evolutionary pressure to adjust. However, prothrombin is so important in its current form that any possible mutations to it are just as deadly. As Fry explains, animals with a prothrombin mutation "would not be able to stop bleeding." All of which is a long way of saying tiger snakes "hit the jackpot" with their venom. Surprisingly, tiger snake venom does possess one benefit to humans: Antivenom developed to combat it is effective against an unusually wide range of venomous snake bites. (Scientists found a potential new use for spider venom.)
– And they're off! Host Jimmy Kimmel opened the Emmys with jokes about Honey Boo Boo and politics ("Being a Republican in Hollywood is like being a Chick-fil-A sandwich on the snack table at Glee."), and noted that this is the first year none of the four major networks have been nominated for Best Drama. "The Academy is sending a pretty clear message," he said, "and that message is, 'Show us your boobs.'" And (some of) the awards go to: Lead Actor, Comedy: Jon Cryer, Two and a Half Men Lead Actress, Comedy: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep Reality Program: The Amazing Race Lead Actor, Drama: Damian Lewis, Homeland Lead Actress, Drama: Claire Danes, Homeland Variety Series: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Lead Actress, Miniseries or Movie: Julianne Moore, Game Change Lead Actor, Miniseries or Movie: Kevin Costner, Hatfields & McCoys Miniseries or Movie: Game Change Drama Series: Homeland Comedy Series, presented by Michael J. Fox, who got a standing ovation: Modern Family Click for the complete list of winners. For more from the night, check out the eight best and worst moments or the 10 best things winners said backstage.
– After months of dodging the question, Mitt Romney has finally said that as president, he'd support President Obama's executive order giving legal status to illegal immigrants' kids. "The people who have received the special visa that the president has put in place, which is a two-year visa, should expect that the visa would continue to be valid," he told the Denver Post. "I'm not going to take something that they've purchased." But Romney's "belated admission now that he wouldn’t repeal the executive order hardly feels like a bold stroke of leadership. It’s a faint echo," writes Steve Kornacki at Salon. And it illustrates how Obama's current political power has posed a roadblock for Romney. During the primaries, Romney veered far right on immigration, but he appeared set to use the issue "to make his pivot" toward the center for the general election, likely by endorsing Sen. Marco Rubio's "watered down Dream Act." But before he could do so, Obama "swooped in" and "stole Romney's thunder" with the executive order. In "a particularly awful spot" between the ever-more extreme GOP base and swing voters, Romney was left with "nowhere to go on immigration, and pretty much nothing to say." Click for Kornacki's full column.
– Police are looking for two men spotted installing a credit card skimmer on a point-of-sale system at a Miami Beach gas station on Wednesday. As a Digg post observes, the ease of the whole operation is "frankly terrifying." A surveillance video shows two men approach the counter of a Chevron around 9:30pm, reports CBS Miami. While one man asks the attendant to grab some items from behind the counter, a second man pulls a device from his bag and places it over the station's payment terminal. He backs away as another customer approaches, then adjusts the device. The entire installation took less than three seconds. The pair then left the store. Only when the skimmer came loose the next day did a gas station employee realize what had happened and call police. As the men weren't able to return to collect the device—which nabs debit or credit card information when a card is swiped—customers are in luck. But similar devices may go undiscovered at similar high-traffic areas. Your safest bet is to use ATMs inside a bank, though credit cards are safer than debit cards elsewhere since they have better fraud protections, advises Credit.com. (You might want to consider freezing your credit reports, too.)
– Goats aren't known for being the Einsteins of the animal kingdom, but they're highly adaptable to challenging environments—and that may be because they're a lot smarter than researchers had believed, Phys.org reports. Scientists in London and Switzerland gave goats what they called a "complex foraging task," per their paper published in Frontiers in Zoology: First, the animals had to pull on a rope to get at a lever. Next, they had to lift that lever to get a fruity snack, the Smithsonian reports. Nine of 12 goats tested were able to learn to do so within four tries. Two others tried to cheat using their horns, while one poor sap simply couldn't figure it out after 22 tries. Ten months later, the nine champs were given the task again. Seems they hadn't forgotten what they'd learned: They all got to the fruit within about a minute. "Our results challenge the common misconception that goats aren't intelligent animals; they have the ability to learn complex tasks and remember them for a long time," says the study's co-author. "This could explain why they are so successful in colonizing new environments, though we would need to perform a similar study with wild goats to be sure." Speaking of goat smarts, Smithsonian notes that some goats in Morocco are known to climb trees, and they're not the only animal to surprisingly do so.
– It's a rare but not unheard of tragedy: succumbing to carbon monoxide poisoning in a vacation rental. Canadian police feared that situation was on the brink of repeating itself in Northern Bruce Peninsula, Ontario, early Saturday. They were called to a cottage by 10 vacationers, some of whom had started to mysteriously feel unwell. But testing soon showed there was no carbon monoxide issues. Then the real culprit emerged: a brownie cake made with pot that some of the group had partaken in. The Toronto Star reports no charges were filed. (Some Canadian cops recently allegedly partook in marijuana as well, with unfortunate results.)
– Irish welfare officials aren't asleep at the switch—and they've got a wake-up call for their clients. Dubliners have been a bit too chill when they turn up to collect their welfare checks, so the agency is banning pajamas in the office. "Pajamas are not regarded as appropriate attire when attending Community Welfare Service at these offices," says a new standards-setting sign posted at the agency, reports the BBC. The increasing use of pajamas as daywear is alarming officials throughout Ireland, who have begun to ban PJs at Irish schools and shops. Even the US is going to the mattresses over the issue—a Louisiana legislator is proposing making wearing jammies in a public a crime. But Slate doesn't get the hate. "A whole lot of silly and just-plain-mean people aren’t happy about this nascent pajama craze," writes an appalled Farhad Manjoo, who hails the trend as a great equalizer in the same league as child labor laws, public education, and pants becoming acceptable for women. "Insofar as they help us escape the constantly shifting mores of modern fashion, pajamas function as a great leveler—a way to bridge the gap between rich and poor, old and young, thin and fat," he writes. "Perhaps nobody looks awesome in pajamas, but nobody looks terrible, either: You just look like you’re looking out for yourself." Click to read his entire column.
– Among the seven CIA employees and contractors killed in yesterday's suicide bombing in Afghanistan was the agency's chief officer at the post. One former intelligence official called the attack "devastating" to the CIA's operations in the country. "There was some tremendous talent lost," the official tells the Wall Street Journal. The blast marks grim milestones: It was the deadliest strike against Americans in Afghanistan since October, and it's the first time a suicide bomber struck inside a US facility there. How it happened remains unclear. The AP, quoting anonymous former officials, says the bomber may have been invited to the Chapman military base as a potential informant. He hadn't been searched when he set off the explosives. "Yesterday's tragedy reminds us that the men and women of the CIA put their lives at risk every day to protect this nation," said CIA chief Leon Panetta. Six others were wounded in the blast.
– One in 10 pregnant women admit to imbibing alcohol and—even more worrisome for health officials—one in 33 admit to binge drinking in the past month, according to a report published by the CDC. "Any alcohol use during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of birth defects and developmental disabilities," the study's author, Cheryl Tan, tells Reuters. According to the Los Angeles Times, pregnant college grads were more likely to drink than pregnant high-school dropouts, older pregnant women were more likely to drink than younger pregnant women, employed pregnant women were more likely to drink than unemployed pregnant women, and unmarried pregnant women were more likely to drink than married pregnant women. But it was the statistics about binge drinking—defined as having four or more drinks at one time—that most surprised researchers, Reuters reports. Those who do binge drink do so an average of 4.6 times a month, even more than non-pregnant women who binge drink (3.1). It's a dispiriting finding for US health officials hoping to end pregnant binge drinking by 2020, according to the Times. Tan tells Reuters she hopes the study can help combat "mixed messages" from the media on the safety of drinking while pregnant. "It's really important to remember that there is no safe amount, no safe time, and no safe type of alcohol to drink during pregnancy," she says. The data for the study comes from a national phone survey of more than 8,300 pregnant women. (Binge drinking is super bad for your immune system.)
– A Detroit inmate is on the run after stabbing a cop and holding another deputy briefly hostage, the Detroit Free Press reports. The inmate fled the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice Courthouse, where the attack occurred, Fox 2 and ABC 7 report. The man, identified as Derek White, 25, stole a van, which was later recovered in a vacant lot. Police say he took the hostage's uniform but is now thought to be wearing a white T-shirt and gray pants. He's believed to be armed and dangerous.
– Five years ago, Jamie Siminoff left the ABC show Shark Tank "in tears" after a "smart" doorbell he created was spurned. On Tuesday, Ring, the company he built around that invention, was sold to Amazon in a deal Reuters reports as being worth more than $1 billion—one of the e-commerce giant's largest buys and what CNBC says is perhaps its "smartest deal yet." The doorbells sold by Ring are hooked into a home's video cameras so users can see who's lingering on their front stoop. One Wedbush analyst tells the Los Angeles Times the acquisition "shows how serious Amazon is about privacy and security" and could boost the online retailer's efforts to make inroads in home security. It also positions Amazon better in its competition with Google, which has its own lines of smart home gadgets under the Nest brand, and could help Amazon combat some of its delivery issues, per Forbes. Siminoff, who thought up the concept after noting he couldn't hear his doorbell ring while he was toiling away in his garage, showed up on Shark Tank in 2013 with his product, which he then called Doorbot, CNBC reports. Out of all the show's judges, only Kevin "Mr. Wonderful" O'Leary made Siminoff an offer on the WiFi-enabled doorbell, and it was an unappealing one. "It was horrible. I could not believe that we had done all of that work and were walking away with nothing," Siminoff wrote on his blog in 2015. But business took off after that, with publicity from Siminoff's appearance on the show proving to be a major factor. "That drove sales to $3 million within the year," he said on a recent update for the show. One firm that's not thrilled with Ring: home security company ADT, which sued the startup for intellectual property theft over one of its products. That suit has reportedly been settled.
– Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital is renowned for face transplants, but it can do miracles with hands, too: A 65-year-old who lost his lower arms to a blood infection got a new set in a successful double-transplant, reports the Boston Globe. “It’s just like you can fly,” says patient Richard Mangino, who also lost his lower legs. “It’s like a bird that got its wings back.” A 40-person surgical team gave Mangino left and right forearms and hands from an anonymous donor, though it will take months of rehab for him to master them, notes AP. The hospital is the same one that performed a face transplant on chimpanzee-attack victim Charla Nash. Doctors also tried to give her new hands, but they had to be removed when her body rejected them.
– How to get a private plane experience at regular-plane prices: Ask Chris O'Leary. The Brooklyn man managed to fly from Cleveland to New York's LaGuardia Airport yesterday on a 76-seat plane that carried just two passengers. Initially, he was the only one. As O'Leary explains to ABC News, he was originally booked on a 7:15am Delta flight that ended up being canceled. The Brew York editor was placed on a 9:39am flight that was continually delayed, and instead of waiting it out at the airport, he remained at his hotel. He arrived at the airport to discover that everyone else had been moved to earlier flights; though Delta tried to page him to make the same arrangements for him, he wasn't there to hear them. (As the New York Daily News notes, he spent the passing hours lightly grumbling: "I’m sure @delta's doing all they can, but this still sucks.") That attitude changed once he boarded: He tweeted that he "got a personal safety briefing from my two flight attendants," along with a grinning photo of himself on the otherwise empty plane. He ultimately had to share: "The thrill is gone, you guys. Just as we were about to push back, they reconnected the jet bridge to let a second passenger on the flight," he tweeted, complete with crying emoji. But O'Leary is finding his story has legs, quipping, "Friends saying that these are my 15 minutes of fame must have forgotten about my cable-access cooking show in 7th grade." (His mom is apparently just glad he recently got a haircut.) ABC confirmed there were only two passengers aboard and suggests Delta didn't ax the nearly empty flight because the plane may have been needed in New York for a subsequent flight. (In other airline news, flight attendants feared a "devilish" image on a United plane and ended up losing their jobs.)
– Donald Trump, apparently forgetting about the time he pressured the president of the United States into producing his birth certificate, failed to correct a man at a town hall event last night who claimed President Obama is a Muslim—and not an American. The questioner at the Rochester, NH, event described Muslims as a "problem" and went on to say, "Our current president is one. We know he's not even an American. We have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That's my question: When can we get rid of them?" Trump responded: "A lot of people are saying that and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there. We're going to be looking at that and a lot of different things," Politico reports. When another man stood and said he wanted to "applaud the gentleman who stood and said Obama is a Muslim born abroad and about the military camps," Trump said, "Right" before moving on, the Hill reports. Hillary Clinton calls Trump's failure to denounce the remarks "disturbing," while DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz calls the candidate's behavior "horrendous" but "unsurprising," saying "Trump's racism knows no bounds," CNN reports. Trump's campaign manager tells CNN that Trump didn't hear the remark about Obama being Muslim, and that the real issue is the president's "war on Christianity." (A recent poll found that 43% of Republicans still think Obama is a Muslim, which rises to 66% among Trump supporters.)
– "He's obsessed with Amazon," a source says of President Trump. "Obsessed." While Congress deals with the fallout from Facebook's Cambridge Analytica fiasco, five sources tell Axios the president remains focused instead on another tech giant. Sources say Trump's friends, particularly in real estate, are complaining to him about Amazon hurting their businesses by replacing malls and other physical retail locations. Kim Hart at Axios says Trump has a "fixation with 1950s life" and "Amazon takes direct aim at some of the core components of mid-century business." "Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers," Trump tweeted in August. "Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt - many jobs being lost!" It also doesn't help that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. Sources tell Axios that Trump wants to target Amazon. “He’s wondered aloud if there may be any way to go after Amazon with antitrust or competition law," one source says. He may also look at how it pays taxes. After the Axios story was published Wednesday, Amazon stock dropped 6.4% and lost $46.6 billion in value, the Los Angeles Times. According to CNBC, it later rebounded a bit—down 4.6% and more than $33 billion—as of this story's publishing. On the other hand, sources say Trump never mentions Mark Zuckerberg or Facebook and hasn't been following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. "He doesn’t mind Facebook because it helps him reach his audience," Hart says.
– The message may seem so obvious as to not require stating, but a photo of a shirt that reads "Dads Don't Babysit (It's Called 'Parenting')" has sparked a larger conversation about parenting on Reddit and beyond. The man behind the shirt, Al Ferguson of The Dad Network, posted the shirt-with-a-message a while ago, but it surfaced again on Reddit just this week and has more than 3,000 comments, many from fathers sharing their own stories about how tired they are of being called a "babysitter" while watching their kids. One in six dads now stays at home with the kids, reports the BBC, yet dads still regularly hear comments such as, "Aww, it's so nice of you to babysit and give mom a break" or "I guess you got stuck with the kids today." The shirt itself is available on Teespring, and doesn't just come in men's sizes. (Kid versions read, "My Dad Doesn't Babysit (It's Called 'Parenting')." All proceeds go toward a scholarship fund that helps low-income fathers attend an annual at-home dads convention put on by the National At-Home Dad Network, reports the Huffington Post. The dads-as-babysitters message isn't just harmful to fathers, reports ATTN. As Ellen Kate wrote for Everyday Feminism in 2014, "We continue to have overall lower expectations for fathers than for mothers. The result is that mothers continue to be viewed more critically than fathers, who are often given credit for simply showing up." (Check out this dad's "feminist father" shirt that went viral in 2014.)
– Carlos DeLuna was executed in 1989 for the murder of Wanda Lopez, but a 400-page article in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review asserts that Texas actually put the wrong man to death, while the real killer bragged about the murder and the fact that DeLuna took the fall. Lopez, a gas station attendant, was stabbed to death in 1983 by a man who had been lurking outside the store and later came in demanding money. The journal article alleges that Carlos Hernandez, who died in prison on other charges in 1999, was the true murderer; DeLuna said the two men had been together at a strip club before the murder, and that he fled when he saw Hernandez attack Lopez. Both DeLuna and Hernandez had histories of violence and substance abuse. Witnesses gave very different descriptions of the suspect, some of which matched DeLuna and others of which matched Hernandez; the two men also happened to look similar. DeLuna was found beneath a nearby truck, with no trace of blood on his white shirt even though Lopez had bled profusely. The only witness who saw the struggle between Lopez and her murderer was only half-sure DeLuna was the right man. The article goes on to assert other problems with the allegedly shoddy investigation and equally incompetent defense assigned to DeLuna. See the Houston Chronicle and the Guardian for more.
– Men represent about two-thirds of heart disease sufferers, and a new study offers a possible hint as to why—men with a certain genetic ancestry were 50% more likely to be afflicted. The study analyzed 3,233 white UK men and examined their male Y chromosomes, which are passed down from dad. Up to 20% of the men belonged to "haplogroup I," one of 13 known ancient ancestry branches, and that group's risk was drastically higher, Scientific American reports. The findings, with their emphasis on heredity, could help explain why some men who follow all the right advice on healthy living come down with heart disease, while others who ignore all that advice skate by, notes the New York Times. Researchers caution that much more research needs to be done, but one unaffiliated with the study called the findings "exciting" because they offer "a whole different perspective on some risk factors." The results could lead to screening tests to identify those most vulnerable.
– Two key facts about billionaire Robert Mercer: He is, in the words of a recent New Yorker profile, the "reclusive hedge-fund tycoon behind the Trump presidency." Second, the IRS is going after his Renaissance Technologies fund for nearly $7 billion in back taxes. All of which sets up a dicey situation for President Trump, as a story at McClatchy News Service explains. Mercer wants IRS chief John Koskinen booted from office, and he's pushing Trump to fire him before his five-year term expires in November. The president has not tipped his hand on whether he'll do that, but it makes for "bad optics," per the chief ethics adviser in the George W. Bush White House. "The guy’s got a big case in front of the IRS," says Richard Painter. "He’s trying to put someone in there who’s going to drop the case. Is the president of the United States going to succumb to that?" Mercer, whose daughter Rebekah is a major political player on the right as well, ramped up political contributions to conservative groups after the IRS began investigating his fund's use of a complicated banking method known as "basket options" in 2010 to cut its tax bill, reports McClatchy. The method involves converting short-term gains on trades into long-term gains, which are taxed at a lower rate. The IRS does not comment on ongoing cases, but a Senate panel accused the fund of short-changing the agency of at least $6.8 billion. The company has maintained that it did nothing illegal. One thing that could work in the Mercers' favor: They have long ties to top Trump strategist Steve Bannon. Still, a Columbia professor says that even if the Mercers succeed in getting Koskinen fired, it's doubtful that would upend a years-long IRS case.
– Mohammed Emwazi, the British-Kuwaiti man who has been identified as "Jihadi John," had long been known to British security services—and according to the advocacy group Cage, the way they treated him may have contributed to his radicalization. According to the group, when he tried to travel to Tanzania for a "safari vacation" in 2009, he was detained, questioned, and returned to the UK by security officials who accused him of wanting to join militants, and he complained about harassment by security services in the years afterward. Cage says that after Emwazi moved to Kuwait later in 2009, he returned to Britain for a visit the following year and was told he could not return to Kuwait, leaving him feeling trapped and unable to return to his job and fiance. According to court papers seen by the BBC, however, authorities believed Emwazi was part of a network "involved in the provision of funds and equipment to Somalia for terrorism-related purposes and the facilitation of individuals' travel from the United Kingdom to Somalia to undertake terrorism-related activity," and had at least one associate who ended up fighting in Somalia with al-Shabab radicals. The director of Cage says Emwazi was never "somebody who ever said, ‘I hate the system, I reject the system,'" reports the New York Times. Instead, he says, "It's someone who said, 'I don't like the environment, but I'll work within the system to effect change.'" But a lot of people aren't buying the argument that harsh treatment from security services turned Emwazi into a brutal ISIS executioner. "Malcolm X and Martin Luther King got a lot more pressure from police, and neither decided that decapitating people is the right response," Brookings Institution fellow JM Berger tells the Times. After he was unable to return to Kuwait, Emwazi trained as an English teacher and changed his name to Mohammed al-Ayan in 2013, according to Cage. After another failed attempt to get to Kuwait, he left the family home in London to travel elsewhere. His parents reported him missing in August that year and were informed four months later that he was in Syria. Around where Emwazi grew up in a comfortable part of West London, people are stunned to find "Jihadi John" once lived among them. "It's a big shock to me and everyone here," a worshiper at a mosque 100 yards away from the address where Emwazi grew up tells the Washington Post. "He seems to be some sort of bogeyman for the Muslim community. We don't know who he is." Former primary school classmates describe Emwazi, who has five siblings and whose father is a taxi driver, as popular and obsessed with soccer. "He was the only Muslim [in] our class," one classmate tells the Daily Mail, recalling that Emwazi once got up in religious studies to explain his religion and spoke about fasting. Emwazi graduated from the University of Westminster in 2009 with a degree in computer science. "If these allegations are true, we are shocked and sickened by the news," the university said in a statement. "Our thoughts are with the victims and their families."
– Did Michael Kelley, a boy with Down Syndrome and autism, have his letter jacket taken off him at school? The accusation has triggered squabbling, an online petition, and debate about how to recognize special-needs children in high-school athletics in Wichita, Kansas, KSN reports. Michael's mom, Jolinda, first said a staff member asked him to remove the jacket: "Another parent, from what I am told, was upset that my son was wearing his letter jacket," she says. And while the incident did spark "a dialogue" with Wichita East High School, she says it led to no "tangible results." For his part, school principal Ken Thiessen admits that "teachers told the parents they would prefer he not wear the letter on his jacket," but he later told KSN that no staff member removed it for him, as Jolinda claimed at a press conference yesterday. So what's the big deal? Varsity athletes can wear jackets with a styled letter, while those who take part in special-needs basketball (like Michael) are awarded a letter that looks different, reports the Wichita Eagle. But Michael's parents bought him a varsity-letter jacket, which led to the incident. Now a change.org petition is arguing that special-needs kids should get varsity letters too, and has nearly 41,000 supporters as of this writing. The Twitter-verse is buzzing in support of Michael (see #givethemletters), and a nearby high-school athletic director is taking Michael's side: "It was incredible, after he got the letter jacket it just sky-rocketed him to another level," he tells Inquisitr. "We can’t be cookie cutter. We have all kinds of kids with all kinds of different needs."
– What should've been a simple maintenance project involving new water pipes in Spain has become something else entirely. Construction workers near Seville Wednesday stumbled upon about 1,300 pounds of bronze Roman coins from the third and fourth centuries crammed into 19 ancient amphoras, the AFP reports. The Washington Post reports that the workers noticed "irregular terrain" while toiling in a ditch a little more than 3 feet deep. Ana Navarro, head of the local museum that's now taken over the excavation project, didn't pin an exact number on the coins' value, simply stating they're worth "certainly several million euros" (which would equate to several million dollars) and that it's hard for her to assign a dollar amount because "the value they really have is historical and you can't calculate that." Navarro tells a local paper that "this find is extremely important," with "very few similar cases," per RT.com. The coins features images of emperors Constantine and Maximian, and their mint condition indicates they likely weren't in circulation. Navarro speculates the money was used to pay government taxes or the armed forces, and that the amphoras were buried "because of social conflicts, violence, [and other] threats" of the time. Navarro also notes that because the coin-filled containers are so heavy, it's probable they weren't placed underground by one person alone, CNN reports. The country's cultural department says no such coins exist in the Seville Archaeological Museum's collection, per the AP. (Another recent find involved coins hailing from the Nazi era.)
– An Equal Employment Opportunity Commission attorney calls it "an unusual lawsuit"—because you don't often hear about the EEOC suing on behalf of men who say they've been discriminated against. But that's what's happening in Eugene, Ore., where such a lawsuit has been filed accusing the Ruby Tuesday restaurant chain of discrimination, the Oregonian reports. As Take Part explains, the Park City, Utah, location advertised for temporary summer positions in 2013, complete with free housing and paid expenses—and then allegedly only hired women for those positions because the restaurant didn't want to deal with the hassle of coed housing. The EEOC is suing on behalf of Andrew Herrera, who worked at an Oregon Ruby Tuesday, and Joshua Bell, who worked at a Missouri one, both of whom applied for positions. The lawsuit accuses Ruby Tuesday of violating the Civil Rights Act, and the EEOC wants Ruby Tuesday to stop hiring based on gender and to pay losses to Herrera and Bell. Despite the fact that the lawsuit was brought on behalf of men, experts tell Take Part it could help to protect all workers from discrimination, plus possibly improve work conditions since, one explains, "jobs constructed as being for women pay less, have fewer promotional opportunities, and often, part of job is to be sexually available to male clients." Adds another, "The idea that a company would come up with an outright bar excluding men from applying to a job—if the EEOC didn’t take steps to stop that, what would be next?" (At least one weatherman has also sued for sex discrimination.)
– Scores were killed in Syria's Idlib province on Tuesday in what the New York Times calls "the worst chemical attack in years" in the war-torn country. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime is saying it had nothing to do with it, and Syrian ally Russia is also deflecting blame, claiming that an airstrike hit a "terrorist" chemical weapons workshop in Khan Sheikhoun, dispersing the poison, now widely believed to have been a nerve agent like sarin gas. But members of the Trump administration, as well as other US politicians, are now blasting Vladimir Putin for protecting Assad, with UN Ambassador Nikki Haley taking the lead at a UN Security Council gathering Wednesday, the Washington Post reports. "How many more children have to die before Russia cares?" she asked at the special session that was prompted by a request from Britain and France. Some are noting that just last week, Haley said removing Assad from power was no longer a US priority and that the US had to "pick and choose" its battles; Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also said last week that Assad's fate was now up to the Syrian people, per Reuters. GOP Sen. Marco Rubio voiced his opinion on the matter Wednesday, noting on an AM Tampa Bay radio program that the timeline between when Tillerson made his remarks and the attack doesn't seem to be an accident. "I don't think it's a coincidence that a few days later we see this," Rubio said, per CNN. And Sen. John McCain noted Tuesday on CNN's New Day he's positive Syria and the Russians "took note of what our secretary of state said," calling the decision to turn away from Syria's civil war "disgraceful."
– Barack Obama earned a historic victory when the House passed health care reform last night. How did he do it and what does it mean? Here’s what people are saying: “Obama didn't just work harder to clear this hurdle. He worked deeper,” writes John Dickerson of Slate. For the first time he made a cause personal, framing it in moral terms, and urging lawmakers to risk sacrificing their jobs to do the right thing. He showed a newfound “combative stubbornness,” writes Peter Nicholas of the LA Times. Republicans thought this would be his “Waterloo,” but Obama proved “that a president who picks a goal, adopts a battle plan and sticks with it” is tough to beat. The president basically schmoozed his way to victory, says Jennifer Bendery on Roll Call. Through one-on-one talks and social events, he flipped even tough votes like Dennis Kucinich. Republicans have delighted in calling Obama ineffective or incompetent, but that’s all over, writes Jonathan Chait of The New Republic; Obama has sealed his place in history. “He will never be plausibly compared with Jimmy Carter.”
– A Minneapolis bar was forced to close after it was revealed the owner donated to David Duke's 2016 Senate campaign. Outraged to learn their boss had given $500 to the ex-KKK leader, many employees at Club Jager walked off the job, reports the Star Tribune. Several performers promised to boycott the bar, with one local DJ writing on Facebook that he couldn't condone a "venue where the owner supports the likes of David Duke and his messages of hate." Former bartender Drea Kingston tells WCCO the contribution is "vile and it’s disgusting." Jack Callahan, who canceled the trivia night he hosted, says per the Tribune that employees got angry messages calling them Nazi sympathizers. A group of men followed and spit on one worker, calling her a Nazi lover. The bar was empty by mid-week save for a few white supremacists who showed up to support owner Julius DeRoma, per City Pages. By Thursday, the remaining employees decided to shut it down for good, Callahan tells theTribune, adding that they "didn’t want to keep this guy’s business operating and continue to face the harassment." He calls the episode "pretty emotional" for the racially diverse staff. "Half the people were in tears," Callahan tells City Pages, "and the other half were pretty much punching walls." Workers felt betrayed by DeRoma, who was rarely in the bar but who Callahan says, per the Tribune, seemed like a "really nice" guy. De Roma tells WCCO his Duke donation "just basically free speech." He says the controversy was "blown up beyond what it should be." (Duke's godson was heir to the throne—until he flipped.)
– In the wake of Typhoon Haiyan, President Benigno Aquino has today declared a "state of national calamity," which will speed up the release of emergency funds and set price controls on grocery staples. Outside help is beginning to reach parts of the central Philippines, as more horrific stories of the monster storm emerge—along with one of hope: The much-suffering Tacloban, where authorities fear the death toll could be as high as 10,000, experienced the smallest bit of good news today: A 21-year-old survivor gave birth to a baby girl at the city's airport. Cheers broke out when the healthy baby was delivered to Emily Ortega, who had to swim and cling to a post to survive when the storm surge flooded the emergency center she was in. The AFP reports the child has been named Bea Joy, after Ortega's mother, Beatriz, who was swept away by the waters. The US military has sent water, generators, and a contingent of around 90 Marines and sailors to Tacloban, the AP reports. They are at the forefront of a major international relief mission centered on the city, where few buildings are left standing and corpses are scattered in the streets. The Philippine military has sent soldiers to the city amid reports that desperate survivors have attacked trucks (including, reportedly, a Red Cross truck) carrying food and water. A survivor in Tacloban describes a desperate fight to stay alive after the storm flooded her home, drowning her mother and brother. "The hardest thing is ... seeing your mother floating in the flood and you don't know what to do. You just see (her) there and the only thing is you have to save yourself," Maryann Tayag tells USA Today. "I could not save her because she drowned already, and it was not just water from the sea but mixed with dirty water—black, like it came from river and smell like canal." The UN estimates 620,000 people were displaced by the typhoon, which caused a surge of debris-choked seawater that resembled a tsunami, Reuters reports. The BBC shares more numbers: Wind gusts hit 170mph, and waves reached as high as 45 feet; as much as 15.75 inches of rain fell in places. One disaster management expert has this to say: Haiyan was "probably the most intense and strongest storm of this type to make landfall." The confirmed death toll was at 942 as of this morning, reports the AP, though that number is expecting to grow much larger. With 41 of the country's 80 provinces hurting in the wake of the storm, rescue workers are struggling to reach devastated areas. Officials have been unable to contact Guiuan, a town of 40,000 people that was one of the first in the typhoon's path. Haiyan, which has now weakened to a tropical storm, still packed a punch as it made landfall in northern Vietnam today, with winds approaching 100mph, the BBC reports. Some 600,000 people have been evacuated and there are fears of widespread flooding in Hanoi. Vietnamese authorities say 11 people have been killed, including people killed during preparations for the storm.
– Native American Harry Potter fans are feeling hurt, betrayed, and angry over JK Rowling's newest entry to her magical universe. History of Magic in North America: Fourteenth Century-Seventeenth Century was published online this week and focuses on Native American wizards, the Guardian reports. According to Mashable, the short story describes how Native American wizards are experts in magic relating to plants and animals. They're also great with potions and can often turn into animals at will. Rowling discusses the Navajo belief in skin-walkers, people who take on the forms of animals, but replaces it with her own concept of "Animagi," saying skin-walkers were "derogatory rumors" started by non-magical people. The story has led to accusations of colonialism and cultural appropriation from Native American readers and others, BuzzFeed reports. "I'm broken hearted," one fan tweets. "JK Rowling, my beliefs are not fantasy." "Thanks to [Rowling], hordes of non-native adults and kids are going to completely misunderstand and assume they are experts on Native Americans," tweets another. Adrienne Keene writes on Native Appropriations that the story is exacerbating the problem of Native Americans often being seen in a fantasy or magical context. "But we’re not magical creatures, we’re contemporary peoples who are still here and still practice our spiritual traditions, traditions that are not akin to a completely imaginary wizarding world (as badass as that wizarding world is)," she says.
– Congratulations, America: You sit 103rd on a list that ranks countries by their peacefulness, in a report compiled by the Institute for Economics and Peace. The ranking is based on 23 factors including involvement in conflicts at home and abroad, crime, terrorist activity, political stability, levels of militarization, and relations with other countries in general. MarketWatch reports that latter factor dinged us, citing US-Russian relations. The fight against ISIS further dragged down America's score. The 10 most peaceful countries: Iceland Denmark Austria New Zealand Portugal Czech Republic Switzerland Canada Japan Slovenia Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, South Sudan, and Syria bring up the rear. Click for the full report or see the top 10 "good" countries.
– Dan and Fran Keller will receive $3.4 million from the state of Texas after being wrongly convicted of sexually abusing children during satanic rituals at their daycare and spending more than 21 years in prison, the Austin American-Statesman reports. According to CBS News, the Kellers were convicted in 1992 of sexually assaulting a 3-year-old girl and sentenced to 48 years in prison. They were released in 2013, had their convictions overturned in 2015, and were declared innocent in the eyes of the law in June. Since being released from prison, Fran Keller says it has been difficult to find work because of their ages—67 and 75—and wrongful imprisonment. “This means we don’t have to worry about pinching pennies ... and late bills," she says of the $3.4 million. "It means we will actually be free. We can start living." The Kellers found out they were receiving the money from a state fund for the wrongly convicted Tuesday and picked up their checks Wednesday. “They are now compensated and no longer must fear homelessness or lack of health insurance,” lawyer Keith Hampton tells KXAN. “They are buying a home and can live out their lives in peace and quiet." The Kellers were accused by three children in 1991 of dismembering babies, torturing pets, and holding orgies at their daycare. The case against them fell apart two decades later when the doctor who found the only piece of physical evidence of abuse admitted it was the result of a mistake and recanted. The alleged victim also admitted she had no actual memory of being abused. Hampton says the couple fell victim to the "satanic panic" of the early 1990s.
– It's the stuff sports dreams are made of. A hockey player who has never played professionally—he usually shows off his talents in a beer league—not only took the ice for an actual NHL game Thursday but emerged the shining star. Scott Foster, a 36-year-old accountant who played hockey for Western Michigan University in the early to mid-2000s, was acting as the emergency back-up goalie for the Chicago Blackhawks Thursday. Foster had filled this role for about a dozen other games this season, which mostly meant enjoying free food in the United Center press box. This time would be different. Starting goaltender Anton Forsberg suffered a season-ending injury during practice, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. Six minutes into the third period of Thursday's game against the Winnipeg Jets, back-up goalie Collin Delia was injured, too. "The initial shock happened when I had to dress," says Foster. "And then I think you just kind of black out after that." Apparently blacking out is a good strategy. Foster made his first save after only a minute, reports the AP. With the crowd chanting his name, the father of two went on to stop all seven shots he faced over 14 minutes and one second, for a 6-2 Blackhawks victory. "Foster emerged a hockey legend, delivering a performance that left everyone who watched it in awe," as the Washington Post puts it. For his trouble, Foster was named player of the game and No. 1 star. "Who would have thought? You just keep grinding away in men's league and eventually you get your shot," Foster said after the big game. "This is something that no one can ever take away from me." Now it's time to rest: Foster's beer-league playoffs start next week.
– The most powerful man in Egypt has thrown his military fatigues aside to run for president. Field Marshal Abdul-Fattah al-Sisi, who led the overthrow of elected President Mohamed Morsi last summer, announced on TV late yesterday that he was stepping down as military chief to answer "the demand of a wide range of Egyptians who have called on me to run for this honorable office," reports the BBC, which notes that his popularity and lack of serious rivals makes him very likely to win elections expected this summer. Morsi's year in office was the only time since 1952 that Egypt has had a leader not from a military background. Supporters say al-Sisi is the only one who can end the country's turmoil, but opponents fear he will lead the country back to authoritarianism. "His running will not achieve stability in Egypt. It's true he has many supporters who love him or even worship him. But on the other hand, there are those who hate Gen. al-Sisi and hold him responsible for the blood that has been shed," a senior member of a Muslim Brotherhood-led coalition tells the AP. The announcement came days after 529 Morsi supporters were sentenced to death and 683 more were put on trial.
– The widower of a woman killed by a shark during a swim in Australia this week says he's taking comfort in the fact that his wife died doing what she loved and likely didn't suffer much, reports Sky News. "Her friends need to know I am absolutely positively certain with all my experience that she wouldn't have even known what hit her," says Rob Armstrong of wife Christine, 63. "The shark was such a size, and it's consumed her basically completely," he adds. "She wouldn't have even known what happened." Armstrong recounts that he and his wife were swimming with four friends at Tathra Beach, about 200 miles outside Sydney, when he noticed birds swooping, then spotted a large bronze whaler shark. He and his friends swam to shore, assuming that Christine had gotten there ahead of them, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. A subsequent search by boat turned up her goggles and swimming cap, and "evidence that Chris is no more." Armstrong says he's certain his wife would not blame the shark.
– Blue Ivy Carter has already charted on Billboard—did you expect anything less from the daughter of music royalty? When dad Jay-Z released "Glory," a song for his new daughter, he also officially billed it as "featuring B.I.C.," her initials. (The song, which you can listen to at left, includes some of the baby's first sounds.) It was released within two days of her birth and debuted at No. 74 on the R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart, making Blue officially the youngest person to appear on a chart, Billboard confirms. More on the progeny of Jay-Z and Beyonce, who went home early Tuesday: State health officials did look into complaints from fellow new parents at Manhattan's Lenox Hill Hospital, some of whom claimed security for the superstars kept them from seeing their own babies. Those complaints were dismissed last night, the AP reports. The hospital is performing its own investigation, but says that the parents spoken to so far had no complaints. But there's no disputing that Beyonce gave birth in the lap of luxury. TMZ reports that she was the first patient to use a new luxury suite at the hospital, which the gossip site compares to a "Four Seasons penthouse." It includes, among other things, four flat-screen TVs, a kitchenette, and some pretty posh furnishings. Click for pictures.
– A female employee of a daycare center in Elyria, Ohio, has been arrested on two counts of rape. In court today, Heather Koon, 25, pleaded not guilty to the charges, which were brought after police say they found a video on Koon's computer of her assaulting a baby. The discovery was made while police were investigating Koon's boyfriend, who is a registered sex offender, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. A second victim was later identified, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. A police report says the video showed Koon "engaging in sexual conduct with an unknown infant," reports Fox19. The child was later identified by the baby's father by showing him photos of the video. "I still haven't wrapped my mind around it," he says. "It's every parent's worst nightmare." Koon's lawyer says she denies that she's the person in the video. "She says it is definitely not her," he says, per the Chronicle. "She's a young girl, she's 25. I just don't think it is what they (sheriff's department) are saying it is." Koon is being held on a $2 million bond, and will face court again next week.
– Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana are continuing their explanation tour after calling kids born via IVF "synthetic." In an interview today, Dolce told CNN that though he does "believe in the traditional family," he doesn't judge those who use IVF. His fashion designer partner Gabbana, for his part, said he doesn't have "anything bad" against IVF, "because the beauty of the world is freedom." Dolce, CNN notes, is the one who initially made the "synthetic" comment, as well as using terms like "chemistry children," "wombs for rent," and "sperm selected from a catalog." Gabbana, though, was the one who responded to Elton John's call for a boycott of the Dolce & Gabbana brand by calling for a counter-boycott of John because everyone should have the "freedom to speak." "Boycott Dolce & Gabbana for what?" Gabbana said to CNN. "They don't think like you? This is correct? This is not correct. We are in 2015. This is like medieval. It's not correct." But Dolce said he's not boycotting John ("I love the music of Elton John") and further explained that his views were based on his Sicilian upbringing and "it is impossible to change my culture for something different. It's me." But, he added, "I respect all the world, all the culture." Gabbana added that the designers—who are gay and were a couple until 2005—"love gay couple. We are gay. We love gay couple. We love gay adoption. We love everything. It's just an express of my private point of view." Added Dolce, "Every people [has] freedom for choosing what they want. This for me is democracy. I respect you because you choose what you want. I respect me because I choose what I want... This just my point of private view."
– Lady Gaga: Worthy of a college class? Apparently so, at least according to the University of Virginia. (For more on “GaGa for Gaga: Sex, Gender, and Identity,” click here.) The Frisky rounds up eight more college courses that sound insane…in a good way: Zombies: At the University of Baltimore, English 333 is actually a course on the undead. Students will watch 16 zombie movies and read comics, too. Wine Tasting: Really, it’s a class on wine tasting. Do you need to hear anything else? Underwater Basket Weaving: You probably thought that course was just a joke, right? Apparently the University of California at San Diego actually offers it. Comics: Oregon State University found a fun way to teach entomology: by relating it to the popular comic series The Far Side. For the complete list, including a surprising number of classes about porn, click here.
– A Somali immigrant outside Seattle took her child to the doctor this week and left with something unexpected: a card that lets her take public transit for more than 50% off. "What’s the trick in it?" asked the 27-year-old mother of two, Basro Jama. "No trick," said the guy processing her card. It's part of a new program in King County, Wash., enabling low-income people to ride ferries, trains, and buses at more affordable rates, the New York Times reports. "I would characterize this as a safety valve," says county transit executive Dow Constantine. In short, he says, officials learned that most county residents are either rich or poor—and if suburban people can't afford to commute into Seattle, where a tech boom has sent costs soaring, the economy will choke. "It’s people doing really well, and people making espresso for people who are doing really well," says Constantine. Enter the ORCA Lift program, which lets people living on up to double the federal poverty level travel for just $1.50 per ride. It's part of a bigger issue in US public transit, which is hugely government-subsidized but has still cut back services and boosted fares since the recession (King County just raised fares by 25 cents today, the Seattle Times reports). San Francisco and places in Ohio and Pennsylvania have already created low-fare programs for those in need. But why, you ask, did Jama get her card at the doctor? Because organizations and health clinics that enrolled people in ObamaCare were brought in to enroll for ORCA Lift. "What Seattle has done is what others might consider," says an analyst. "Everyone is watching."
– US Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning was released Wednesday from military prison after serving seven years of a 35-year-sentence for sharing classified documents with WikiLeaks. On Thursday, she shared the first photo of herself since she was locked up, People reports. "Okay, so here I am everyone!!" Manning captioned the photo on Instagram. According to NBC News, it's the only public photo of Manning—who was born Bradley Manning—presenting as a woman besides a low-quality selfie taken immediately before she started her prison term. The ACLU says the photo was taken by a filmmaker working on a documentary about Manning.
– James Mattis, seeking to calm world leaders Saturday following President Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement, urged them to "bear with us," the Guardian reports. The Defense secretary, paraphrasing Winston Churchill, said Americans will do the right thing "once we have exhausted all possible alternatives." Mattis was speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, according to the Hill. The conference is a major forum on security and the main topic was North Korea, but Mattis was repeatedly asked about the US' commitment to the rest of the world following Trump's decision on the Paris climate agreement and earlier decision to leave the Trans-Pacific trade agreement. While Mattis explained that some Americans think the US bears an "inordinate burden" on the global stage, he said American isolationism is a thing of the past. "Like it or not, we are a part of the world," Reuters quotes the Defense secretary as saying. "What a crummy world if we all retreat inside our borders." Mattis assured international leaders that Trump leaving the Paris climate agreement "does not mean we are turning our back" on the world. "We will still be there with you," he said. It's unclear if the forum's attendees believed him, pointing out that he appeared to be saying the opposite of the American president.
– "It was either do something or die," says US Airman Spencer Stone in his first public comments on stopping a gunman from rampaging through a French train. He describes waking from "a deep sleep" to see the gunman holding an AK-47, reports ABC News, his first thought going to "survival, to survive and for everyone on the train to make it." The gunman "seemed like he was ready to fight to the end," Stone said, per the AP. "So were we." Stone, along with longtime friends Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos, spoke about the attack today from the US Embassy in Paris; Stone was released from the hospital yesterday after surgery to reattach his thumb, which was severed with a boxcutter. "In the beginning it was mostly gut instinct, survival," added Skarlatos, a National Guardsman. "Our training kicked in after the struggle." The threesome credit each other: "The gunman would have been successful if my friend Spencer had not gotten up," says Sadler, while Stone says simply, "I trust both my friends very much. If it wasn't for them I would be dead." US Ambassador Jane Hartley pointed to Americans' penchant for throwing around the word hero" but said, "in this case I know that word has never been more appropriate. They are truly heroes. When most of us would run away, Spencer, Alek, and Anthony ran into the line of fire, saying 'Let's go.' Those words changed the fate of many." The guys are getting some serious praise, and next meet with a grateful Francois Hollande.
– When he first read about a petition demanding habeas corpus for a chimp named Tommy, Danny Cevallos thought what many people would: "Are. You. Kidding. Me?" Animals are, legally speaking, "chattel," meaning property, no different than a potted plant. But then the CNN legal analyst actually read the petition, "and I have to grudgingly admit: Their arguments are persuasive." They include: Habeas corpus petitions have been filed on behalf of chattel in the past—namely slaves, in the infamous Dred Scott case. The law kind of recognizes animals as people already: You can leave a trust to your pet, for example. Some things that aren't even alive are already recognized as people—namely corporations. It all leaves us with the "deep philosophical question" of how to define personhood. The petition argues that it should be based on cognitive ability, including things like empathy, self-knowing, sequential learning, "and a host of other sophisticated attributes that I'm quite certain some members of my own family do not exhibit," and, on a serious note, that many people in comas do not exhibit. Are they people? How about goldfish? "Where do you draw the line for personhood?" (Click for his full column.)
– President Obama interrupted his vacation today to condemn the violence in Egypt and announce that the US is canceling joint military exercises with the nation, reports CNN. "Our traditional cooperation cannot continue as usual while civilians are being killed in the streets," said Obama in his brief address this morning. The move likely won't do much to appease critics who think the White House should be far more aggressive and, say, cut off its $1.3 billion in US military aid. But this is the "first concrete American response," notes the New York Times. "We appreciate the complexity of the situation," said Obama. While conceding that Mohamed Morsi's government wasn't exactly a pillar of democracy, Obama said the military should not have used force to oust him. A peaceful political solution was still possible immediately after the ouster, but yesterday's violence shows that military leaders instead chose a "more dangerous path." The president called for the newly declared state of emergency to be lifted and asked "people who are protesting to do so peacefully." He spoke as the official death toll passed the 500 milestone, a figure certain to rise. The AP reports that Morsi supporters set fire to two government buildings today in Giza, home to the pyramids. The city is next to Cairo.
– Jurassic Park had us all fooled: Outstripping a Tyrannosaurus rex in a Jeep would've been easy-peasy because, well, T. rex couldn't run. After much debate about how fast T. rex moved—previous estimates suggested up to 45 miles per hour—scientists at the University of Manchester used advanced computer simulations to come up with the most accurate assessment yet. Taking into account the beast's muscles and skeleton, they discovered running would've been "impossible" without a T. rex's legs buckling under its 7-ton weight, per the BBC. Study author William Sellers says T. rex instead walked at a pace of up to 12 miles per hour—a fast jog for humans and less than half of Usain Bolt's top speed of 27.8mph, report Reuters and Buzzfeed. As a researcher not involved in the study tells National Geographic, there's "no way T. rex could have chased down that Jeep in Jurassic Park if it was going at highway speeds. Maybe if it was in first gear, but even that's a big if." While it's a welcome discovery for anyone who might find themselves transported back in time, it also provides insight into how T. rex hunted. Juveniles may have been faster moving, but an adult T. rex "certainly would not have been able to chase down faster-moving prey animals," Sellers says. That means T. rex might have hid in forested areas and launched ambush attacks, or it might have dined mostly on slow-moving dinosaurs like Triceratops, reports Gizmodo. (T. rex sure had a nasty bite.)
– The Department of Justice is condemning a judge's ruling that blocks the Trump administration from ending protections for 300,000 immigrants living and working in the United States. A federal judge in San Francisco issued a temporary injunction Wednesday that bars the administration from ending a program that allowed people from Haiti, Sudan, Nicaragua, and El Salvador to stay in the US temporarily, the AP reports. The Temporary Protected Status program, or TPS, granted temporary protection to people because of war, epidemics, or natural disasters in their home countries, per CNN. The ruling comes in a lawsuit that contends the administration improperly changed the rules for the program out of racism. DOJ spokesman Devin O'Malley says the ruling "usurps the role of the executive branch" and that the administration did nothing improper. In the ruling, Judge Edward Chen said ending the protections could cause great suffering and harm to families. He also noted there's evidence that President Trump harbors animus toward "non-white, non-European" aliens. He cited Trump's remarks disparaging Mexicans, Muslims, and certain nations. "The issues are at least serious enough to preserve the status quo," Chen wrote in his ruling.
– ABC News on Friday night aired what it says is Melania Trump's "first extensive sit-down interview since becoming first lady." It had already released excerpts where she discussed her husband's alleged infidelity, her distrust of some White House staffers, and her thoughts on the #MeToo movement. One of the portions of the full interview (see video here) garnering attention concerns the jacket she wore in June when traveling to the US-Mexico border; it read, "I really don't care, do U?" "Let's talk about the jacket," Tom Llamas began, asking her why she wore it. "It's obvious I didn't wear the jacket for the children," she answered. "I wore the jacket to go on the plane and off the plane. And it was for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me. And I wanna show them that I don't care. You could criticize whatever you wanna say, but it will not stop me to do what I feel is right." Llamas pressed her: "Your office had to release a statement during this time saying the jacket is just a jacket. So you were sending a message with the jacket?" Melania replied, "It ... it was kind of a message, yes. I would prefer that they would focus on what I do and on my initiatives than what I wear." Her answer echoes President Trump's explanation of the jacket at the time.
– The mother of a 19-month-old who died a horrific death after being left at home with three siblings may be in jail when her next baby arrives. Racqual Thompson, who is 8 1/2 months pregnant, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with child endangerment, along with boyfriend Cornell Malone, reports Click2Houston. Prosecutors say the couple left four children—two 3-year-olds, a 5-year-old, and 19-month-old J'Zyra Thompson—alone in their Houston apartment while they went out to get pizza and visit Malone's brother, ABC13 reports. They returned to find three of the children crying, with J'Zyra dead and "extremely burned" in the tipped-over oven, which had been turned on "all the way," according to court documents. Earlier court records, which have now been sealed, according to the AP, stated the 3-year-olds told authorities they had put J'Zyra in the oven and turned it on. A neighbor tells Click2Houston that the couple had bragged about not facing charges over the Nov. 16 death. "They were saying that it wasn't their fault, and that they're gonna get away with it, and they weren't there and this and that," he says. Thompson and Malone are being held on $36,000 bond and the other children are now in the custody of Child Protective Services, the Houston Chronicle reports. Authorities tell Click2Houston that in cases like Thompson's, they'll wait for the mother to give birth before deciding whether to request CPS custody. (In New Hampshire, two 9-year-olds were left home alone—for four months.)
– The Bible suggests the Canaanites were wiped out by the ancient Israelites, but a new study says otherwise, claiming the people survived and went on to be the ancestors of those who today live in Lebanon, ScienceDaily reports. Per a study in the American Journal of Human Genetics, researchers from the UK's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute sequenced the genomes of five 4,000-year-old Canaanites, as well as 99 people now residing in Lebanon—DNA evidence that enabled the scientists to establish ancestry. The study results show an overwhelming majority of the genetic makeup (93%) of today's Lebanese can be traced back to the Canaanites, per the Times of Israel. Study co-author Chris Tyler-Smith calls that percentage "quite surprising," given the "enormously complex history of this region," per ScienceDaily. The Bible's Book of Deuteronomy lays out what was to happen to the Canaanites: "Completely destroy them ... as the Lord your God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do." But some Bible verses contradict the story of total annihilation, and the researchers write that "no archaeological evidence has so far been found to support widespread destruction of Canaanite cities between the Bronze and Iron Ages." The Canaanites made a major cultural impact during the Bronze Age, including introducing what's believed to have been the first alphabet. This new discovery sheds a bit more light on the rather mysterious group, who didn't leave much in the way of written records. (This find could reveal the truth about Goliath's people.)
– Watch the trailer for Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, and you might find yourself thinking, "Wait, are they serious?" The answer is no, they're not—the movie, co-produced by Will Ferrell, is consciously campy—but that doesn't mean it's good. Here's a taste of the disdain critics are tossing at the Brothers Grimm update: "Nothing makes a whole lot of sense in this incoherent movie, whose director's philosophy seems to be: When in doubt, cut somebody's head off," writes Lou Lumenick in a no-star New York Post review. Jeremy Renner (Hansel) "looks vaguely embarrassed throughout," and Famke Janssen (the "Great Witch") is on record as saying she did this "to pay off her mortgage." "With a running time of under 90 minutes, the film is smart enough not to wear out its welcome. But that’s the only sign of true intelligence in this juvenile caper," writes Stephen Farber at the Hollywood Reporter. "The picture was never intended to be taken seriously" but it's "missing a genuine sense of wit." Andrew Barker at Variety tries to come up with some bright spots, and winds up saying that it's "not outrageously dumber" than similar movies like Van Helsing, and that it "boasts a nice title credit sequence." Yeah, not high praise. "A film with a concept this strange has no right to be so dully formulaic," he writes. "Viewers may be surprised to find themselves yawning as yet another witch is ripped apart limb from limb." "Look closely at Hansel & Gretel and you’ll see faint traces of what could have been (and perhaps once was) a clever satire," like Hansel's "sugar sickness" (aka diabetes) brought on by his days of eating candy-covered houses, writes Matt Singer at Screen Crush. But Renner and Gemma Arterton (Gretel) take their characters just a bit too seriously. "The result: a movie that's a joke, instead of a comedy."
– Jennifer Lawrence—Hollywood's highest-paid actress—is teaming up with Amy Schumer—legally declared hot enough to be on TV, barely—to write a comedy in which the duo plan to star as sisters, the New York Times reports. Lawrence spilled the news to the Times, telling the paper the two are almost done with the script. "Amy and I were creatively made for each other," the once-and-future Katniss Everdeen says. "It's been the most fun experience of my life." Lawrence and Schumer have only known each other for a few months, so it's been a productive friendship. "We really hit it off, to say the least," says Lawrence. Lawrence tells the Times she first met Schumer after emailing her to tell her she loved Trainwreck, this summer's successful comedy written by and starring Schumer. "We started emailing, and then emailing turned to texting." Then texting apparently turned to jet-skiing. Vanity Fair reports that Lawrence crashed Schumer's annual vacation with her friends from high school earlier this month, and the two were photographed riding a jet-ski and making a human pyramid. When Schumer recounted the story on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart suggested she star in a comedy with Lawrence. Thanks, Jon!
– Hillary Clinton offered a less-than-ringing endorsement of the Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap yesterday, calling the administration's no-man-left-behind ideal "noble," but adding, "I think we have a long way to go before we really know how this is going to play out." Which isn't surprising, sources tell the Daily Beast, because while Clinton actively led negotiations for Bergdahl's release in 2011 and 2012, she was "very skeptical" about a prisoner swap deal, and might not have signed off on any final agreement. She "felt that the Haqqani network were really bad guys," Congressman Jim Moran explains. Clinton was negotiating a tougher version of the deal that would have staggered the release of the Taliban detainees, and subjected them to more restrictions, like monitoring and travel bans. At the time, people like Adm. Mike Mullen and Leon Panetta were advocating a rescue operation instead of a prisoner swap, the Washington Post reports. Obama hoped a swap would help along the Afghan-Taliban peace process, but Clinton, Robert Gates, and James Clapper all believed that releasing the detainees was too risky. A spokesman for Clapper confirmed that he'd had doubts, but added that "circumstances have changed dramatically" since then.
– Unicorns are real, and they're a lot younger than we thought. Researchers from Russia's Tomsk State University were digging at a fossil site in Kazakhstan when they found bones belonging to the Elasmotherium sibiricum, otherwise known as the "Siberian unicorn," Huffington Post reports. According to IFL Science, this ancient giant rhinoceros, which has a horn protruding from the middle of its head, is thought to be the basis for modern tales of unicorns. The Siberian unicorn is believed to have been about 20 feet long with a 7-foot horn, National Geographic reports. But it wasn't the existence of Elasmotherium sibiricum that caught researchers off guard; it was the age of the bones. Radiocarbon dating found one of the skulls to be only about 29,000 years old, according to a press release. Scientists had long believed the Siberian unicorn went extinct 350,000 years ago. If the team's research—which was published in the American Journal of Applied Sciences—holds up, it means unicorns and humans walked the Earth at the same time, though in different places. Humans are believed to have evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago. (A unicorn is convincing people to squat to poop.)
– A skydiving instructor who fell to his death during a tandem jump in Maine in September intentionally loosened his harness in what authorities now say was a suicide. Brett Bickford, an instructor at Skydive New England for 10 years, was doing a tandem jump with a student in Lebanon on Sept. 27 when the 41-year-old fell a mile, landing about 750 feet from the Lebanon Airport runway, while his student landed safely. The head of the US Parachute Association, of which Bickford was a member, later said it was "unheard of" for an instructor to become untied from a tandem system, which includes separate but attached harnesses, per the Portland Press Herald. The association's director of sport promotion says she's since learned Bickford loosened securing straps, including on his legs, after the tandem parachute he wore was opened. "State police interviews with other skydivers and industry officials concluded that no experienced skydiver would loosen a parachute harness by mistake … It was an intentional act," a Maine Department of Public Safety rep tells the Bangor Daily News. He notes no suicide note was left behind, per the Press Herald. Bickford's brother paid tribute to the instructor on Facebook a month after his death, on what would've been his 42nd birthday, per People. "He was the most unique person I have ever known, one who made [a] choice because it was what he wanted, never because it was what someone else wanted or expected and I will envy that part of Brett for the rest of my life," Jason Bickford wrote on Oct. 26. "You are missed every day, and will be loved forever," he added. (An army sergeant tried to kill his wife on a skydiving trip.)
– A big win for animal rights activists—and a bigger win for dogs and cats—in Taiwan. With the legislature's approval of an amendment to the country's Animal Protection Act, Taiwan appears on track to become the first country in Asia to ban the possession, sale, purchase, and consumption of cat and dog meat, reports the Guardian. The amendment that passed Tuesday, which includes fines of up to $8,100 for offenders, still needs to be signed by the president, but Tsai Ing-wen is known to be an animal lover and is expected to do so by the end of the month. The measure also doubles the maximum penalty for animal cruelty to up to two years in prison and a $65,000 fine. Though dog and cat meat were once popular in Taiwan, the animals are now most often viewed as pets and family members. Tsai even brought her two adopted cats along on the campaign trail prior to her election last year, while promising to do more to protect animals, reports the Telegraph. She also has three retired guide dogs, which she adopted. Animal activists hope China and South Korea, where the consumption of dog meat is more common, will follow Taiwan's lead, per CNN. However, China's infamous Yulin Dog Meat Festival, where 10,000 dogs are slaughtered and eaten each year, is expected to kick off without a hitch on June 21—even with 675,000 signatures on a petition calling for its end. (In Moscow, orange-toothed river rat is now a popular meal.)
– Oscar-winning actor and director Richard Attenborough died today in a London nursing home at the age of 90, his son tells the BBC. Attenborough amassed 74 acting credits over 60 years, starring in acclaimed films like Brighton Rock, The Great Escape, and Miracle on 34th Street, and later the Steven Spielberg blockbuster Jurassic Park, the Daily Mail reports. He also took home the Best Director Oscar for Gandhi, which won eight Academy Awards including Best Film. Confined to a wheelchair for years, Attenborough's health declined in 2013 after a stroke put him in a temporary coma, the Guardian reports. Born in England, Attenborough began acting at age 12, debuted professionally at 18, and was knighted in 1976.
– Media outlets have had the better part of a day to pore over thousands of newly released emails and texts related to the Chris Christie traffic mess, and if the New Jersey governor can take one bit of good news from the coverage, it's that none of the documents directly implicate him as having a role in the shutdown of two lanes on the George Washington Bridge. But the trove also means that the story won't be dying down anytime soon. Some of the common angles being emphasized are that Port Authority staffers were warned in advance that the lane closures would be a "potential disaster" for emergency responders and others; Christie-appointed staffers sought to suppress media coverage; and there was nasty infighting between New York and New Jersey port officials. A look at some headlines: Bergen Record: "Vulgarity-laced emails show attempts to silence GWB story" Star-Ledger: "Documents show Port Authority chairman blasting executive director" New York Times: "Bridge Scandal Papers Point to Cover-Up by Chris Christie Allies" New York Post: "Christie appointee ordered officials' silence on Bridgegate" Los Angeles Times: "Bridge emails show Chris Christie aides ignored public safety" Wall Street Journal: "'Disaster' Predicted Before Lane Closures" Sample email, from Patrick Foye, executive director of the Port Authority and an appointee of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo: “I will get to the bottom of this abusive decision which violates everything this agency stands for; I intend to learn how PA [Port Authority] process was wrongfully subverted and the public interest damaged to say nothing of the credibility of this agency." Christie appointees accused him of grandstanding.
– Democrats accuse Republicans of trying to dupe Hispanic voters into staying home on Election Day with a new ad slated to run in Nevada, Florida, and other states with large Latino populations. The ad, by a group called Latinos for Reform, makes the case that President Obama and Democrats haven't fulfilled promises on immigration reform and that Hispanics should punish them by not voting. The president of the group is conservative political consultant Robert Deposada, reports Ben Smith of Politico. Democrats, including Harry Reid and President Obama, called it a ploy to boost Republican candidates. "Listen to her latest, running ads on Hispanic television telling people not to vote," Reid said of Sharron Angle. "She is trying to keep people from voting." This afternoon, Univision said it was pulling the ad and Telemundo said it wouldn't air it, either, reports AP. See the video gallery for the Spanish and English versions.
– An explosive video of Texas cops chasing, handcuffing, and cursing at black teenagers has led to one officer being placed on administrative leave, the Dallas Morning News reports. According to police in McKinney, Texas, it began with calls Friday night about teens using a community pool without permission and "actively fighting." Brandon Brooks, who posted the YouTube video, tells Buzzfeed that "a bunch of white parents were angry that a bunch of black kids who don’t live in the neighborhood were in the pool." A white teen girl says a woman there turned violent when teenagers objected to her disparaging remarks about public housing. However it started, three officers showed up and failed to disperse the teenagers, so nine more cops were dispatched. The video shows officers running down a residential street, chasing teenagers, handcuffing them, shouting profanities, and warning bystanders to move across the street or face jail time. "Everyone who was getting put on the ground was black, Mexican, Arabic," says Brooks, who is white. "[An officer] didn’t even look at me. It was kind of like I was invisible." An officer can be seen grabbing a black 14-year-old girl in a bikini by the hair, slamming her to the ground, and screaming, "On your face!" When two teenage boys run up, the officer draws what appears to be a gun and the boys run off, only to be apprehended by other officers. The girl—who wept and called for her mother during the incident—was later handed over to her parents, and an unidentified adult was arrested for interfering with police, KHOU reports. McKinney police have launched a formal investigation.
– Emily Blunt is pregnant with her first child, her rep confirms to Us. She and husband John Krasinski, married in 2010, will welcome the baby in "just a few months," according to the magazine. "They both couldn't be more excited," says a source. In related news, Us also reported yesterday that Maya Rudolph has given birth to her fourth child with husband Paul Thomas Anderson (no word on its gender) and that Jordana Brewster welcomed her first baby, a boy named Julian who was born via surrogate, with husband Andrew Form.
– Negative reviews are like Energon Cubes to Michael Bay—they only make him stronger. His first two Transformers movies were universally trashed by critics, and the latest—Transformers: Dark Of The Moon—is no different according to its 37% rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But it's not like Optimus Prime will ever give Colin Firth competition at the Oscars. While some members of the press see the movie as a popcorn flick that's at least better than Revenge Of The Fallen, others wish it would have changed into something more interesting. John Anderson of the Wall Street Journal calls it "a black hole of technology, talent and time. Transformers: Dark Of The Moon is a symptom of many things, chief among them the fact that summer blockbuster movies don't really matter anymore." Slate's Dana Stevens sees a glimmer of a silver-plated lining. "There is something awe-inspiring about Bay's sheer commitment to scale—augmented now by that state-of-the-art anti-audience weapon, 3-D," Stevens writes. "But marveling at its grotesque gigantism doesn't make this two-and-a-half-hour-long movie any less dull." Richard Corliss of Time is a bit more accepting. "T3 is the movie equivalent of an '80s thrash-metal concert (not Megadeth but Megatron), with bits of spoken exposition inserted into the action scenes like the lead singer's mumbled comments between songs." Tom Charity of CNN might be the most realistic in his resignation. "It's a lousy movie, but at least it's a lousy movie with a serviceable story, killer CGI and an action climax that goes on forever," he writes. "An awful lot of people like that kind of thing—my kids included."
– We have met the future and it is a tinny-voiced giant green hologram performing at sold-out concerts in Japan. Crypton Future Media has launched a pop tour of holographic singing sensation Hatsune Miku, backed by a band of real human beings, notes the Los Angeles Times. The pig-tailed child-vamp is an anime creation using Yamaha's Vocaloid software, which presents songs in synthesized voices. Even better than other concert stars, this avatar can be purchased and will march to any tune you choose. For more on "Vocaloidism," click here.
– The fight for Egypt's future ahead of parliamentary elections is taking familiar form here in the form of protests in Tahrir Square. But a volatile debate also is taking place in unfamiliar territory: over a political blogger's posting of nude photos of herself. As the AP and New York Times explain, 20-year-old Aliaa Magda Elmahdy posted photos in which she's wearing only stockings and red shoes. She called them "screams against a society of violence, racism, sexism, sexual harassment, and hypocrisy." Conservative Islamist groups predictably condemned the images, but Elmahdy also is taking heat from liberal and secular groups, especially because the images come only a week before elections. “Many movements in Egypt, particularly Islamist movements, are trying to benefit,” says one left-leaning candidate. “They say, ‘We have to protect our society from things like this, and if the liberals win then this woman will become a model for all Egyptian women.’" Elmahdy, whose blogger boyfriend was jailed for four years for insulting Islam and Hosni Mubarak, hasn't given any interviews since the photos went viral. Click for more at The Stir, including a link to Elmahdy's blog.
– Coca-Cola may be fun to drink, but is it healthy? Despite warnings linking sugary drinks to illness, several nutrition and fitness experts suggested last month that it's OK to down a mini-can of Coke or other soda. These experts also work with and may be paid by Coca-Cola, the AP reports. "We have a network of dietitians we work with," says a Coca-Cola spokesman. "Every big brand works with bloggers or has paid talent." Indeed: Kellogg and General Mills have funded studies that portray their products as healthy, while dietitians working with PepsiCo have suggested its products (think Tostitos, Frito-Lay) on TV. A recent report by Eat, Drink, Politics revealed close links between America's biggest professional-nutritionist group and food and beverage companies, including Coca-Cola, as reported by Forbes. Experts spoke well of Coca-Cola's 7.5 ounce mini-cans in connection "Heart Health & Black History Month." One online post called a Coca-Cola mini-can a "refreshing beverage option," while another proposed "portion-controlled versions of your favorites, like Coca-Cola mini cans." Most of the posts refer to the writer as a Coca-Cola "consultant" and one called itself a "sponsored article." Dietician Robyn Flipse, who wrote one of the pieces, says she would back Coke mini-cans even if Coca-Cola wasn't paying her—but admits she doesn't drink them herself. Meanwhile, the group Dieticians for Professional Integrity is seeking clearer lines between companies and health experts, while one analyst calls last month's article spree "an example of opaque sponsored content." (According to one study, soda ages our cells as much as smoking.)
– A Chinese woman's virginity is worth $5,000, at least in this instance. A woman referred to only by her surname Chen was awarded that amount yesterday by a Chinese court after she sued a man she was dating (and later learned was married) for "violating her right to virginity." She alleged that he pretended to be single, vowed to marry her, and bedded her, according to Shanghai media via AFP; one outlet goes so far as to specify that they consummated the relationship while on a trip to Singapore late last year. The South China Morning Post reports "Li" ended things soon after the trip. Looking to talk to him, Chen went to his home in February and discovered his wife. The suit followed. Chen sought medical costs of $250 and $81,000 in psychological damages, a figure the court deemed "excessive." But it did determine that virginity was a civil right, and "violating the right to virginity might lead to harm to a person's body, health, freedom, and reputation ... it ought to be compensated," in this case, in the form of $5,000. Chen also wanted a written apology from Li; though the court ruled Li should apologize, the Post doesn't specify how. The court didn't share its reasoning for the figure, which was far greater than the symbolic 1 yuan another married Chinese man was ordered to pay in 2013 to a woman he had a one-night stand with. Li's lawyer maintains the couple did not have sex. (It's not the only unusual sex-related case to make it to court this year.)
– Krishna Maharaj has maintained his innocence over the 30 years he's spent in a Florida prison. Now he'll get the chance to prove it. Based on fresh evidence, an appeals court has granted a new hearing for the British businessman convicted of the 1986 killings of Derrick and Duane Moo Young in a Miami hotel room, reports the AP. Maharaj, whose fingerprints were found inside the hotel room, has claimed he was framed for the murders of the father and son, who owed him $400,000 from a property deal, the Guardian reported in January. He says the killings were actually ordered by Pablo Escobar after members of his Medellin drug cartel caught the Moo Youngs embezzling laundered money, reports the BBC. Maharaj's lawyer now says six cartel associates—including one of Escobar's favorite hit men, John Jairo "Popeye" Velasque—claim responsibility for the murders, per the Sun. However, a rep for the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office says a judge previously "found these witnesses and/or claims to not be credible or have any merit." Earlier this year, Maharaj's lawyer said the 78-year-old was near death, suffering from a "flesh eating bacteria" as a result of "horrific" conditions at South Florida Reception Center, where he's serving a life sentence. Says Maharaj's wife of 41 years: "I know God will bring him home. We are coming to the end of our lives and we need some time together." (Colombia got pretty annoyed with this rapper after his stunt at Escobar's tomb.)
– How's this for a bleak tech warning: "In the next 30 years, the world will see much more pain than happiness." It comes from Jack Ma, founder of the online Chinese retailing behemoth Alibaba, as quoted by Bloomberg. "Social conflicts in the next three decades will have an impact on all sorts of industries and walks of life," he added. Ma was speaking about how the rise of the internet and technology will affect societies around the world as traditional industries undergo profound change. He warned that education systems and business leaders must keep up, because the speed of change in fields such as artificial intelligence and robotics is only going to increase. "In 30 years, a robot will likely be on the cover of Time magazine as the best CEO," Ma said, per CNN. He also predicted that in 20 years or so, most people will work fewer hours, perhaps four hours a day, three days a week. Whether that's good or bad might depend on how the shift to robotics is managed, he said. "Machines should only do what humans cannot," becoming partners rather than replacements, he advised. And in this area, Ma sounded optimistic: "Machines will partner and cooperate with humans, rather than become mankind's biggest enemy."
– Some said it was nothing more than "masochistic nostalgia," while others predicted it was going to provide the "ultimate Hollywood ending." That would be Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty making a repeat appearance Sunday night to present the award for best picture—after famously announcing the wrong winner last year—with host Jimmy Kimmel introducing them with a "nothing could possibly go wrong." "It's so nice seeing you again," Beatty quipped, with Dunaway adding, "As they say, presenting is lovelier the second time around." And the top prize went to ... The Shape of Water, with director Guillermo Del Toro, who also won best director Sunday night, accepting the prize with his cast and team. "I was a kid enamored with movies," he said. "Growing up in Mexico, I thought this could never happen. It happens. I want to tell you, everyone that is dreaming of a parable of using genre fantasy to tell the stories about the things that are real in the world today, you can do it. This is a door—kick it open and come in."
– Seinfeld is about to strike it rich again. The Wall Street Journal reports that suitors are lining up to acquire the streaming rights in a deal that could exceed $100 million. Netflix has dropped out of the running, reports the Journal, which says that Amazon, Hulu, and Yahoo are the leaders to wrap up a deal in the next few weeks. Friends recently got $500,000 an episode from Netflix, and Seinfeld will likely go higher. The deal is expected to encompass all 180 episodes. Variety notes that this an ideal time for Seinfeld to be on the market, given the Friends deal and another lucrative one in which Hulu scooped up CSI.
– Stormy Daniels' interview with 60 Minutes is set to air Sunday night and the adult film star is gearing up to share her story with the world. Per the Guardian, a record audience is expected to tune in for the sit-down with Anderson Cooper as Daniels discusses her alleged affair with President Trump. In the pre-taped interview, CBS says Daniels talks to Cooper about the relationship she says lasted from 2006 to 2007. "It is the first and only television interview in which she speaks about the alleged relationship," CBS says. The segment is also expected to touch on the legal battle brewing between Daniels and the president, whose attorney, Michael Cohen, says he paid the porn star $130,000 of his own funds in return for her signing an NDA. An apparent inside look at the tactics being used in that battle was offered up Thursday by Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti, when he tweeted a photo of a CD or DVD with the caption: "If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is this worth???? #60minutes #pleasedenyit #basta." The attorney told CNN it was "a warning shot" at Trump and his supporters. Trump has denied the affair ever took place while also claiming that Daniels has violated the NDA multiple times and could owe some $20 million. Trump attorneys are trying to get the case moved into federal court. Daniels' reps argue the NDA was never valid to begin with because Trump never signed it.
– Where there's smoke, there's usually fire—and when it comes to marijuana smoke, scientists are once again fanning the embers of a long-suspected theory that the drug is linked to cardiovascular issues. According to a case study published last month in the Journal of Emergency Medicine, a 21-year-old man who was a regular pot user suffered a heart attack—and doctors identified cannabis "as the most significant precipitant of his acute coronary syndrome," LiveScience reports. It's not the first time marijuana has been tied to heart problems. Reportedly, the first documented link between the two was shown in 2000, when a Boston study indicated that a middle-aged person's risk of having a heart attack rose five times in the first hour after lighting up, the New York Times reported that year. And earlier this year, a French study cited by LiveScience noted that of 2,000 reported marijuana complications, 2% of them were heart issues (including nine people who died). But a cause-and-effect relationship has yet to be established: Even in the recent case study, researchers admit the man's high cholesterol and cigarette smoking may have also played a role in causing his heart attack. But a cardiologist at NYU's Langone Medical Center tells LiveScience that "the case report adds to the growing body of evidence about the potential deleterious effects of marijuana use on the heart." (Pot was recently implicated in the deaths of two young men who died of complications from heart arrhythmias.)
– Alleged LAX gunman Paul Ciancia told investigators he had acted alone after being dropped off by a friend in a black Hyundai, a police official tells the AP; that friend, officials believe, didn't know what Ciancia had planned. The accused shooter is currently under heavy sedation—and 24-hour armed guard—in the hospital, after being shot four times, the insider says. Ciancia was charged yesterday with murder of a federal officer and committing violence at an international airport, and he could face the death penalty, the AP notes. Meanwhile, more details of the attack and its aftermath are emerging. After the gunman shot Gerardo Hernandez several times at point-blank range with a .223-caliber M&P-15 assault rifle, he began to walk away—but then, video suggests, Hernandez moved. That's when Ciancia "returned to shoot the wounded officer again," says the criminal complaint filed yesterday, as noted at NBC News. The note he carried—which was similar to a suicide note—made his anti-TSA "intent ... very clear," says an FBI rep, per the Los Angeles Times. The note said he hoped to "instill fear into (TSA workers') traitorous minds," but didn't seek to hurt anyone "innocent." Contrary to prior reports, Ciancia, an out-of-work motorcycle mechanic, wasn't a ticketed passenger, the AP notes. Two other TSA officers injured in the shooting are now out of the hospital.
– OMG, did your star sign change? Probably, and you didn't even know it. A controversy erupted on social media this month after Cosmopolitan picked up on a NASA post aimed at kids about how the signs of the zodiac came to be, reports the Christian Science Monitor. Because the sky has changed over the eons, the constellations no longer line up as the ancient Babylonians first mapped them 3,000 years ago, explained NASA. That means the astrological signs are now about a month off—theoretically ruining tattoos across the globe—and that "a whopping 86% of us now have a different sign," wrote Charlotte Warwick in Cosmo. (Her post provides the new dates.) What's more, the space agency noted a 13th star sign at the end of the calendar: Ophiuchus (tucked between Scorpio and Sagittarius). OK, so what does that mean for those who faithfully follow their horoscope? Nothing, says NASA, because astrology is fake. "Astronomy is not astrology," the space agency writes on Tumblr. "We didn't change any zodiac signs, we just did the math." Tell that to hot-headed Scorpios (now Nov. 23-Nov. 29) who have been told they are gentle-souled Libras (Oct. 20-Nov. 23). Or to those under the new impossible-to-pronounce sign Ophiuchus (Nov. 29-Dec. 17). "Your new talents include architecture and snake-bearing," writes Ben Guarino in the Washington Post. He explains that the Babylonians ditched the 13th constellation, unable to fit them all into 12 months. At least there's some good news for those under Ophiuchus: serpents make very cool tats. (This might blow over: The Minnesota Planetarium Society discussed the issue years ago.)
– Fox is following NBC into the live musical game with a three-hour adaption of Grease set to air some time next year. The event will feature a young ensemble cast and will be based on the 1971 Broadway musical, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The musical's "iconic characters and addictive songs make it the perfect fit for Fox, and we’re going to give it the kind of star power and production quality to make every Sandy, Danny, Rizzo, and Kenickie out there want to get up and sing along," gushes a network exec. NBC may cry "copycat" after the huge success of its live version of The Sound of Music last year, though Fox could counter that its own Glee series brought musicals back to prime time, notes Entertainment Weekly. In other TV news, Yahoo announced last night that indeed it will enter the world of original video, reports the New York Times. The company has commissioned two comedy series that will be aired exclusively on its website and apps. A spokeswoman says the company plans to at least break even on the venture, which will cost up to $1 million per episode.
– Osan Air Base may not be a name you're familiar with, but it's a US Air Force base that sits in a prime location: fewer than 50 miles from the Demilitarized Zone that separates North and South Korea. If that's not enough to get your attention, this line from NBC News might change that: "It's a facility so critical that war planners believe it's the North's No. 1 target should hostilities break out," and thousands of US military personnel are stationed there. The network reports on its exclusive visit to the base, which is home to the US Air Force's 51st Fighter Wing. There, air crews and patriot missile batteries are at the ready in the event of ballistic missiles or chemical attacks. When North Korea launched four ballistic missiles toward Japan in March, the Washington Post noted the launch site was fewer than 300 miles from the Osan base. An F-16 pilot describes the state of constant alert as not just readiness, but the ability to "win tonight." Thae Yong Ho, a recent high-profile defector, tells the network that North Korea's Kim Jong Un is "desperate" and prepared to use nuclear force, and a lieutenant colonel at Osan says it's "the busiest we have ever been in this airplane," referring to a U-2 spy plane. Meanwhile, the US Air Force reported in a press release on a two-week command and control exercise held across the Korean Peninsula in March that saw 12,800 US forces join 10,000 South Korean military personnel and others from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France and Great Britain. It took place just as the US sent part of a controversial missile defense system called THAAD to Osan, reports NPR. (Japan weighs in on this week's "extremely problematic" test.)
– There are differing accounts of what happened at a Sanford, Fla., restaurant Sunday evening, but three things are clear: George Zimmerman discussed shooting Trayvon Martin, he was punched in the face, and he is no longer welcome at Gators Riverside Grille. WKMG reports that Zimmerman called 911 and said that he had been explaining how he had killed Martin in self-defense when he was punched by a man who accused him of bragging about shooting the teenager. "We were standing right here eating," Zimmerman told a 911 operator. "This man punched me in the face. He said he's gonna kill me. You need to send three or four cops." Witnesses say Zimmerman approached a table, told a man called Joseph Whitmer that he liked his Confederate flag tattoos, and then pulled out his ID to prove who he was, the Orlando Sentinel reports. Whitmer's wife told police that Zimmerman said, "Hey, I like your racist tattoos," and another witness who was at the table says he asked Zimmerman to go away after he started boasting about the Martin killing. A friend of Zimmerman's told police a different story, saying they had been eating when five men approached them and started yelling at them. Restaurant owner Ed Winters says there was shoving but no punching after one man approached Zimmerman, who has been asked not to come back. "Everywhere this guy goes he causes controversy," Winters says. "You'd think he'd keep a low profile."
– A Florida Atlantic University professor has been making waves for years with his conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook massacre, and now the school is taking action. James Tracy has been claiming on his blog since 2013 that the Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooting was staged, and FAU has reprimanded him at least once, but ultimately determined he couldn't be fired for expressing his own views on a private blog. But, in the wake of a Sun-Sentinel op-ed by the parents of one Sandy Hook victim—who claim Tracy has been harassing them—FAU gave Tracy a letter Wednesday saying he's been recommended for termination, the Sun-Sentinel reports. Tracy has discussed victim Noah Pozner numerous times on his blog, and the feud apparently has to do with the Pozners filing a copyright infringement claim against him for publishing Noah's image on the blog. In the op-ed, Veronique and Lenny Pozner say that Tracy has "publicly demoniz[ed] our attempts to keep cherished photos of our slain son from falling into the hands of conspiracy theorists" and "sent us a certified letter demanding proof that Noah once lived, that we were his parents, and that we were the rightful owner of his photographic image," after which they filed a police report for harassment. They called on FAU to do something about Tracy. He responded on a "Sandy Hook Hoax" Facebook page, claiming that the Pozners and other "alleged parents" of victims "have made out very well financially, soliciting contributions from generous yet misinformed Americans." He can respond to his termination recommendation within 10 days, "after which final action may be taken," per a university statement. Tracy has also claimed that other attacks, including ones in Paris and San Bernardino, were staged, PIX-11 reports. (Truthers hijacked the online reviews of a book by the mother of another Sandy Hook victim.)
– A 26-year-old member of the Navy who was shot in this week's attack in Chattanooga has died of his injuries, making him the fifth fatality, reports AP. He has been identified as Petty Officer Randall Smith, a native of Ohio. The logistics specialist had been fighting for survival since getting shot multiple times in Thursday's assault. "He was shot once under the right arm, once in the stomach, and once in the back,” a cousin tells Tribune News Service. She adds that Smith and his wife have three daughters age 6 or younger. His step-grandmother tells Indiana's WANE that Smith had been a promising baseball player who received a college scholarship but joined the Navy after hurting his shoulder. Darlene Proxmire adds that she never worried about Smith's safety even though he was in the military, "because he was never shipped over there where, you know, the fighting and all that was at." (Authorities are looking into a long overseas trip made last year by gunman Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez.)
– Today's children are the most sedentary generation in history and they would be easily trounced in a race with younger versions of their parents, a new study finds. Researchers—who looked at data involving millions of children in 20 countries over more than 40 years—found that today's young people run a mile around 90 seconds slower than their counterparts did 30 years ago, reports the BBC. Children are, on average, 15% less fit than their parents were, and the decline is seen for both boys and girls and for all ages between 9 and 17, the AP notes. Fitness has been dropping by around 5% a decade, the study found, and while the decline is slowly leveling off in Europe and North America, fitness is still going downhill fast in China and other parts of east Asia. Researchers say obesity and sedentary lifestyles are probably playing the biggest role in the fall in fitness—and they warn that unfit young people will be unhealthier later in life. Experts recommend that children over 6 get at least an hour of moderately vigorous activity throughout the day, but the World Health Organization estimates as many as 80% of the world's young people aren't getting the necessary exercise.
– Maya Angelou has died at age 86. The former poet laureate and author's caretaker found her this morning at her home in Winston-Salem, NC, WGHP reports; the town's mayor confirming the news. Angelou's health had been failing recently; last week she cited health reasons in bowing out of an appearance this Friday at which she was to be awarded the MLB Beacon of Life award. Angelou had a fascinating life. She began writing following a traumatic childhood incident in which she was raped by her mother's boyfriend, who was then beaten to death by a mob after she testified against him, according to CNN. She never went to college, but holds more than 50 honorary degrees. She spoke at least six languages, and once worked as a newspaper editor in Egypt and Ghana, where she wrote her famous autobiographical work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. As a prominent member of the Civil Rights movement, she counted Martin Luther King Jr. as a friend; in December, she paid tribute to friend Nelson Mandela. "I created myself," she once said. "I have taught myself so much."
– Companies that sell over-the-counter antibacterial soaps will have a year to clean up their acts—namely, to remove those products from shelves and stop marketing them, or take certain ingredients out of their products that the FDA now says are essentially ineffective, NBC News reports. Products containing 19 active ingredients—including triclosan (typically used in liquid soaps) and triclocarban (added to bar soaps)—can't be marketed after Sept. 6, 2017, according to the new ruling, as they haven't been proven by manufacturers to be any better than regular soap and water at keeping illnesses and infections at bay. "In fact, some data suggests that antibacterial ingredients may do more harm than good over the long-term," Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, says, per an FDA release. The affected ingredients are all designed to be used with water and then rinsed off—meaning hand sanitizers and wipes are still good to go for now, as are products used in health care settings. The FDA had been looking into antibacterials hard-core since at least December 2013, when it announced that consumer groups and scientific studies had raised major red flags about the ingredients' effectiveness and safety, with some being linked to hormonal issues and bacterial resistance. But concerns about triclosan have dated back to the late '70s, and even the CDC says soap doesn't need an antibacterial boost, NBC notes. Three of the ingredients—benzalkonium chloride, benzethonium chloride, and chloroxylenol (PCMX)—get an extra year's buffer beyond the 2017 deadline "to allow for the development and submission of new safety and effectiveness data for these ingredients," the release states. (You were probably using antibacterial soaps all wrong anyway.)
– Amazon has made its first delivery by drone. The inaugural "Amazon Prime Air" delivery took place last week, but was just reported by the company Wednesday. The long-anticipated air delivery took just 13 minutes, CNET reports. Amazon's goal for Prime Air is for deliveries to take 30 minutes or less. A customer in England ordered an Amazon Fire TV stick and a bag of popcorn, and a GPS-guided drone dropped it off in his backyard. TechCrunch calls it "a major step for Prime Air, which looked like little more than an early April Fools’ joke when Amazon first announced" it. The private UK beta program, which allows for deliveries of certain items during daylight hours as long as weather permits, is so far serving just two customers, but will eventually expand to dozens and then hundreds more in the Cambridge area, Ars Technica reports. In the US, however, drone deliveries are essentially banned for now, since FAA regulations require a drone operator to be able to see the drone while it's flying. As Fortune points out, there are other hurdles, including the fact that drones can so far carry packages weighing only up to five pounds, and can only deliver to customers within a relatively small area around a fulfillment center.
– A very honest mountain climber in the French Alps has stumbled upon an amazing find: a small box crammed with emeralds, sapphires, and other gems, reports the AP. The loot has been valued at about $330,000, but the anonymous climber handed it over to police upon his descent from Mont Blanc, reports the Guardian. Authorities speculate the jewels belonged to a passenger aboard one of two Air India flights that crashed decades ago—one in 1950 and the other in 1966. They will now try to figure out who that was so they can give the treasure to relatives. The climber found the box, labeled "Made in India," while scaling one of the mountain's glaciers. "He saw very well that what he had in his hands was something very valuable, realizing straight away that it was precious stones that had been very carefully wrapped," says a local police official. "Maybe he didn't want to keep something that had belonged to someone who died." If police can't trace the original owner, the jewels could go back to the French climber, reports AFP. (Closer to home, an explorer says there's sunken treasure off Massachusetts.)
– Hosni Mubarak today gave his first public message since being ousted from the Egyptian presidency, defending himself and his family against “unjust” allegations of corruption. He agreed to cooperate with Egypt’s general prosecutor during the corruption investigation, but called the campaign against him “distortions, lies, and incitement,” Al Jazeera reports. Also today, Egypt’s public prosecutor summoned Mubarak and his sons as part of the investigation into alleged embezzlement and killings of protesters. Meanwhile, protests in Egypt once again turned violent, with security forces killing at least two protesters and wounding dozens more yesterday in Tahrir Square, the New York Times reports. Also yesterday, at least one protester was killed in Yemen, the Times adds. In Syria, a human rights organization says 28 were killed when security forces fired on peaceful gatherings. That report comes on the heels of reports from Friday that 37 were killed, Sky News notes.
– It’s official: Greece’s parliament has approved a wave of sweeping—and wildly unpopular—austerity measures, paving the way for it to receive bailout loans from Europe to avoid defaulting on its debt, the AP reports. The bill passed 155-138, garnering even the support of Alexandros Athanassiadis, a Socialist deputy who had promised to vote nay. The package will move the country roughly $40 million closer to the black with a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes. "We must avoid the country's collapse at all costs. Now is not the time to step back.," Prime Minister George Papandreou said ahead of the vote, according to the BBC. The head of the country's central bank had earlier today warned that a "no" vote would be "suicide" for the country. The euro rose 0.2% in the minutes following the news, the Wall Street Journal reports. Click for more on the riotous protests the bill has sparked in Athens.
– There are the oops moments that every parent has, and then there is the case of 24-year-old Kelsey McMurtry: Nashville police say McMurtry left her 13-month-old daughter locked in her vehicle on a 72-degree day—clad in a heavy coat, with the windows closed—while she auditioned at a strip club called Deja Vu Showgirls, reports WSBV-TV. Passersby noticed the child and called police, who estimate that temperatures inside the car had surpassed 100 degrees, who found her soaked in sweat. McMurtry's friend, Summer Taylor, 19, said she was keeping an eye on the child, but police and witnesses say Taylor was inside the club watching the audition, reports WKRN. Both women were charged with child neglect; McMurtry was additionally charged with criminal impersonation for lying to cops about her identity so as to avoid a previous warrant. The child was taken to the hospital and is in the hands of Department of Children’s Services. (A man allegedly left his 4-month-old in the car so he could go into a strip club.)
– Being home to one of the world's largest malls is apparently not enough for the rulers of the United Arab Emirates, even just five years after Dubai was crippled by a massive debt crisis. The nation’s ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, says his planned Mall of the World will, at 8 million square feet, be twice as large as Minnesota's Mall of America, and include a theme park covered in the summer, 100 hotels and apartments, and yes, an entire street network that is climate-controlled. This is, after all, the desert. Dubai is expecting a surge in visitors when it hosts the World Expo in 2020, reports Al Jazeera, which authorities say will cost $8.4 billion to organize but generate $23 billion. The mall should accommodate 180 million visitors a year—more than four times the current record-holder, the Las Vegas Strip, which pulls in 40 million visitors a year. The project is the world’s first “temperature-controlled (pedestrian) city," covering 48 million square feet, according to Gulf News. Though the announcement indicated that construction is imminent, it didn't include a timeline or cost, adds Reuters. (Click to read about China's plans for the world's tallest tower, rising a kilometer into the sky.)
– A dad who created a blog called "The Psycho Ex-Wife" to document his bitter divorce and custody battle is balking at a court order to take down the site or risk losing joint custody of his two sons. Anthony Morelli—whose descriptions of his ex-wife on the blog include "Jabba The Hutt, with less personality"—says the judge's order is a clear violation of his First Amendment rights, reports the New York Daily News. Morelli says the blog has become a forum where people experiencing similar issues can share their experiences. The judge, however, decided that Morelli had gone beyond venting to "outright cruelty" that was likely to have a negative effect on the couple's sons, ages 10 and 12. "This is about children,” she said. “You may say anything that you would like to say. You may publish it. You may put it on a billboard. But you will not have your children, because that is abusive."
– Republican strategists who had spoken of a smooth nomination process just a few months ago are now braced for a battle royal at the Quicken Loans Arena. Insiders tell the Washington Post that GOP bigwigs gathered Monday and discussed the possibility of a brokered convention in Cleveland in July. The party hasn't entered a convention without a clear nominee since 1976, when Gerald Ford narrowly defeated conservative insurgent Ronald Reagan on the first ballot. The Post's sources say the GOP leaders discussed strategies in case there is no clear nominee this time around and no winner on the first ballot, allowing delegates to shift allegiances in what Reuters reports would be the first brokered GOP convention since Thomas Dewey was nominated in 1948. A source tells the Post that some GOP strategists argued for a strategy to make sure there was a clear alternative to Donald Trump in the event of a brokered convention, though another official present at the meeting tells Reuters that Trump wasn't the focus of the discussion. "It was more logistical in nature, not strategic," he says. "It was more like 'are you planning for a hurricane?'" A former Mitt Romney adviser agrees that with the field still crowded, talk of a brokered convention goes beyond Trump. "What you're seeing is the party bracing for a potential Hunger Games scenario where you have a different person win each of the first four primaries and they all have the resources to slug it out until the convention," he tells the Post.
– Wendy Davis officially announced her candidacy for governor of Texas yesterday, and Judith Warner thinks she's exactly what Democrats need—and not just because of her filibuster-generated fame. "Blonde, strikingly pretty, outspoken, and female, Davis is, to put it bluntly, invaluable as bait," Warner writes at Time. "In her short tenure on the national scene, she has elicited an almost Pavlovian response from anti-woman blowhards." Erick Erickson, for example, once called her "Abortion Barbie." "As a misogyny magnet," Warner thinks Davis will be "the gift that keeps on giving." Her hair, clothes, and pink sneakers, coupled with her abortion stance and unmarried status, "sexualize her to a degree that's unusual for female politician" and "open her up to a very specific, very ugly form of woman-hate." And that's great for Democrats, who rode "a consistent pattern of gender-based disrespect" to victory last year. Barack Obama won among women by 12 points. "Message: we Barbies are no dummies." Click for the full column.
– Kurt Cobain might have had good reason for writing a nasty note about Courtney Love around the time of his death, at least if Love's dad is to be believed. Hank Harrison—who, it should be noted, is estranged from Love—tells Radar, "No doubt she was capable. I can’t prove she pulled the trigger, but I can prove her involvement to a high degree of certainty." Of course, to find out exactly what proof he has, you'll have to buy his forthcoming book, Love Kills: The Assassination of Kurt Cobain. But he will say that the aforementioned note, found in Cobain's wallet when he died, plays into his theory: "If you read the true meaning of this small note," which accused Love of being a "b----" who "siphon[ed]" away all Cobain's money, "and place it in conjunction with the rest of the evidence, anyone with even half a wit will see that something dire and awful took place," Harrison says. Click for more from Harrison, who claims his daughter "always said she was going to kill herself a rock star."
– Carrie Russell apparently thought little of shipping her Adderall to Japan before moving there to teach English. But Japanese police saw it differently, arresting the 26-year-old American last month for allegedly smuggling illegal amphetamines into Japan, the Oregonian reports. "We're left in a state of disbelief," says her dad, a Portland teacher. "We would never imagine something like this assaulting us from a civilized country like Japan." But Adderall is strictly illegal there, and police can hold Russell for up to 23 days without charging her. Meanwhile, her family, US politicians, and even her doctor are trying to get her out of a possible years-long prison sentence—for carrying a drug that's one of America's most widely prescribed, NPR reports. Trouble is, Japan's drug laws are among the world's toughest. The country routinely announces busts of amphetamines, which Yakuza crime syndicates smuggle into Japan for those who pull long hours, like white-collar workers, students, and truck drivers. Another problem: Russell's mom sent her the prescription in an old Tylenol bottle, which created the appearance of smuggling. She says she did it to ward off thieves and avoid identifying Russell's illness—attention deficit disorder—in a country where mental illness is stigmatized. But warnings against taking Adderall to Japan do exist online, and so far Japanese authorities haven't budged. "She made a mistake," her stepfather wrote Japanese prosecutors. "Carrie has been humiliated and punished enough for that mistake, which she will never make again." (A tourist was once jailed in Dubai after reporting a rape.)
– The Federal Eye blog at the Washington Post picks up on two memos to government employees not of the usual variety (we hope): Nap time: Census Bureau officials fielding increased complaints about workers "sleeping in public areas" of its Maryland headquarters cracked down: “Sleeping on the premises is not acceptable behavior. It is manifestly unprofessional and creates an impression of carelessness, which unfairly impugns the hard work of the entire Census community. Moreover, such behavior can lead to safety problems in the event of an emergency." It also urged workers to seek medical help if they feel drowsy. Full post here. Exploding toilets: After a toilet exploded and sent a female employee of the General Services Administration to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, GSA workers got this warning: “DO NOT flush toilets or use any domestic water. Due to a mechanical failure, there is high air pressure in the domestic water system that resulted in damage to toilets.” Full post here.
– Cocaine may no longer be the drug that fuels Wall Street. Instead, traders and start-up entrepreneurs looking to work hard rather than party hard are increasingly turning to a Modafinil—a "smart drug" said to have inspired the film Limitless, in which a writer pops a pill that allows him to tap into 100% of his brain capacity. The drug is intended to treat narcolepsy, but time-poor traders use it to stay awake and hyper-alert for long periods of work, reports New York. "I would describe it as being very much like Adderall, but without the speediness,” says Peter Borden, a former user. Prescriptions for Modafinil in the US have increased almost tenfold over the past decade, mostly for off-label use, according to a study published in Internal Medicine. It was originally believed to be non-addictive, but a 2009 study found that may not be the case. Borden says that for him, withdrawals were so bad he had to quit the drug: "It was sort of like being thrust into dirty, messy reality, as opposed to a clean, neatly organized place. It was like crashing."
– A second bystander's video has emerged showing two white police officers involved in the shooting death of a black man outside of a Louisiana convenience store, the AP reports. The owner of the Baton Rouge store, Abdullah Muflahi, says he shot the cellphone video and released it to the media Wednesday night. It shows the shooting of Alton Sterling from a slightly different angle than another video that was taken by a community activist and widely circulated on the internet. PBS has a copy of the new video, which contains graphic footage. Sterling was selling CDs outside the shop with the permission of Muflahi at the time of the shooting. Muflahi's video shows the officers on top of Sterling and the shots being fired. The camera moves away at one point and when it returns, Sterling can be seen lying on the ground with what appears to be blood on his chest. One officer is lying on the ground on his side with his weapon pointed toward Sterling, who appears to still be alive as his arm moves up to his chest. A voice can be heard saying "Shots fired! Shots fired!" The video then shows a second officer reaching into Sterling's pocket and pulling out an object. It's not clear from the murky video what it is, but the store owner says it was Sterling's gun. Federal authorities are investigating the shooting.
– It was said to be a "near-suicide mission," and a previous attempt saw dozens of men killed and captured by the Nazis. But the "Operation Gunnerside" raid in World War II on a Norwegian plant making heavy water—a hydrogen-filled substance that could eventually have been used by Germany to make atomic bombs—was a successful one, led by 23-year-old Joachim Roenneberg, the youngest member of the five-man operation. The plant was blown up that day in February 1943, becoming what Norway Prime Minister Erna Solberg calls "the most successful sabotage campaign on Norwegian soil during the war," per the New York Post. Tributes are once more being paid to Roenneberg as Norwegian officials on Sunday announced his death at age 99, Reuters reports. The raid on the Norsk Hydro plant, which was surrounded by guards, is one of legend that's since been the subject of books, movies, and a TV series. The team put together by a British espionage and sabotage agency parachuted onto a mountain near the plant, joined up with some commandos, skied their way to their target, and broke into the plant, where they blew up the heavy-water production line. Making the raid especially notable was that not a single gunshot was fired; in a 2014 documentary, Roenneberg said the attack went off "like a dream," per the AP. The team then fled on their skis, with Roenneberg escaping over the border to neutral Sweden. "He was one of our top insurgents during the war," Solberg posted on Facebook, adding to the NTB news agency, via Reuters: "He is one of our great heroes." (A Soviet officer may have saved the world from nuclear war.)
– Election 2018 is not quite over yet: A House race in North Carolina remains uncalled amid some fishy business regarding absentee ballots. In the race, Republican Mark Harris is leading Democrat Dan McReady by just 905 votes, but the bipartisan state board of elections has declined to certify the results as it investigates. One possibility: The board could call for a new election. Another: House Democrats could refuse to seat Harris next year, if they think there's still enough doubt about his win. The details: The key figure: The controversy centers on a man named Leslie McCrae Dowless, an independent contractor who worked for the Harris campaign, reports the Raleigh News & Observer. In fact, he also worked for Harris in the candidate's narrow primary win. Dowless, who denies any wrongdoing, has prior convictions for felony perjury and insurance fraud. The first step: Dowless hired people to encourage voters, particularly low-income voters in Bladen County, to cast absentee ballots. "He gets workers to go get people to sign up on a sheet of paper for an absentee ballot," a man who describes himself as a former friend tells CNN. "Say you live in a Section 8 housing area, they will collect these requests. He says you don't have to leave your house, you can just vote at home." The problem: Dowless' crew allegedly picked up those absentee ballots from the voters, some of them still unsealed, and returned them to Dowless. One woman tells reporter Joe Bruno WSOC-TV that Dowless paid her up to $100 to collect and return ballots to him, and she has no idea what happened to them after that. Under state law, only the voters themselves or designated relatives are allowed to mail in their ballots, reports the Washington Post. The allegations: State investigators are looking into claims that the absentee ballots were tampered with or simply not turned in. Investigators have turned up numerous people, mostly minorities, whose absentee ballots were never turned in to be counted. Typically, these would be voters who support Democrats.
– Is the UK on the road to Splitsville? Scotland votes on independence on Sept. 18, and one poll has put the pro-independence "Yes" camp in the lead with 51% for the first time, the BBC reports. The "No" side was 22 points ahead less than a month ago, and Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond accused British leaders of panicking as they unveiled proposals to give the Scottish parliament more powers if voters reject independence. Chancellor George Osborne promised that Scotland would be given more powers over things like tax rates and spending, the Guardian reports, but Salmond called the offer a bribe and said there is already a "radical new deal on the constitution—it's called independence." Yes campaigners have accused the No side of stepping up scare tactics in the lead-up to the vote, with Labour Party leader Ed Miliband warning that manned posts might be introduced along the border if Scotland decides to go it alone. "If you don't want borders, vote to stay in the United Kingdom," he told the Daily Mail yesterday.
– "The world didn't understand this man, but I did." That heartbreaking statement appeared on Ricki Lake's Instagram feed on Tuesday in which she announced the death of ex-husband Christian Evans, who Page Six reported died after struggling with mental illness. The 48-year-old former talk-show host, who called Evans her "beloved soulmate" in her post, eloped with Evans in April 2012 and split with him in October 2014 due to irreconcilable differences, Us Weekly reports. But despite the end of their marriage, Lake's love for Evans persisted. She noted in her Instagram message that Evans had long battled bipolar disorder and said she was a "greater person for having known him." "What mends my heart today is knowing he is finally at peace and his spirit is free," she wrote, adding, "Rest in peace, my love." People looks back on their love story. (Lake was once in the news for promoting home births.)
– Two of the world's top tech CEOs disagree about how to ease homelessness in San Francisco—a city where extreme wealth glitters alongside roughly 7,500 living on the streets, the Guardian reports. At issue is a proposed tax on wealthy city businesses that Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff supports and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey opposes. "I want to help fix the homeless problem in SF and California," tweeted Dorsey on Friday, but this tax isn't "the best way to do it." Retorts Benioff: "Which homeless programs in our city are you supporting? Can you tell me what Twitter and Square & you are in for & at what financial levels?" Dorsey calls Benioff's questions "distracting," while the Salesforce CEO scolds his fellow exec for fighting "a relatively small tax." Called Proposition C, the ballot measure would tax big-city companies by varying amounts—roughly 0.5% on the gross receipts of businesses making over $50 million a year, per CNN. The goal: Raise up to $300 million annually for shelter beds, mental health treatment, and housing, which would double current city funding. But San Francisco's new mayor, London Breed, also opposes Prop C, citing accountability and oversight issues as well as possible layoffs or companies fleeing the city. Meanwhile,Twitter is among companies benefiting from the so-called "Twitter Tax Break" for having offices in rougher neighborhoods, per CNBC. Now Benioff, Dorsey, and Breed are apparently huddling: "We're all talking now and aligned to fix this issue..." tweeted Dorsey later Friday. "Will keep everyone updated." (This homeless man charging a phone at Dunkin' got a rude surprise.)
– A 13-year-old boy fishing with his father on a New Jersey beach has reeled in a 200-pound shark, the AP reports. A video posted on Facebook on Sunday shows Gianni Mandile pulling the fish most of the way in before dad Joseph Mandile grabs the shark's tail and pulls it onto the sand while taking care not to get bit. The Mandiles posed for a quick photo with the shark before Joseph dragged it back into the water and sent it on its way. The Mandiles use a catch-and-release fishing policy, but Gianni tells New York's WABC-TV that he'll still have bragging rights because he's caught a bigger fish than all his friends.
– All hail Suyash Dixit, first king of the Kingdom of Dixit. The Times of India reports 24-year-old Dixit, CEO of an Indian tech firm, was traveling to Egypt for a software developers' conference earlier this month when he read about Bir Tawil. The 800-square-mile Bir Tawil is located between Egypt and Sudan but has been claimed by neither country and is uninhabited. As the Telegraph puts it, Bir Tawil is "the only place on Earth where humans can live and survive that is not part of any state or country." Dixit decided to do something about that. In a Facebook post, he says he drove six hours and braved the Egyptian military, which has "'shoot at sight' orders" due to terrorists in the area, to establish his new kingdom. Dixit brought a flag of his own design and planted sunflower seeds in Bir Tawil. “Following the early civilization ethics and rules, if you want to claim a land then you need to grow crops on it," he says. "I have added a seed and poured some water on it today. It is mine." While Dixit insists it's "no joke, I own a country now" and hundreds of people have signed his petition to the UN seeking recognition, the Kingdom of Dixit is likely to remain unofficial. In 2014, a legal expert at Georgetown University told the Washington Post that "under international law, only states can assert sovereignty over territory." That was the same year a father from Virginia tried to claim Bir Tawil for himself and make his daughter princess of the "Kingdom of North Sudan." (This famous person became the first citizen of the "Trash Isles.")
– Last month, an Alabama judge gave a courtroom full of offenders a choice: donate blood or go to jail, the New York Times reports. “For your consideration, there’s a blood drive outside," Judge Marvin Wiggins told the offenders, who were there because they owed fees and fines. "If you don’t have any money, go out there and give blood and bring in a receipt indicating you gave blood.” The offenders were promised they would then not be sent to jail, plus they'd get a $100 credit toward what they owed. “I don’t know whether it’s legal or not," one lawyer who was present tells the Times. "I don’t know if that violates half the Constitution." Legal and health experts are more certain, calling the judge's ultimatum "improper" and "wrong in about 3,000 ways." “You’re basically sentencing someone to an invasive procedure that doesn’t benefit them," a medical ethics professor says. Dozens of offenders ended up donating blood. The Birmingham News reports a recording of the blood drive catches them saying things like, "I don't like being told I have to or I'm going to jail," and, "Don't thank me, thank the judge." The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a complaint against Wiggins Monday. It's not the first against him. He was reprimanded in 2009 for not recusing himself from a case involving his relatives, and he was removed from the Alabama State University board of trustees over a conflict of interest in 2014. According to the Times, the blood bank eventually threw out most of the blood collected following a complaint. And the SPLC claims none of the offenders whose claims they've reviewed actually got the promised $100 credit.
– In the overnight hours of Feb. 7, a man knocked Marques Gaines unconscious with a punch to the head. He fell into the street, where a second man took Gaines' cellphone and debit card. After the pair fled the scene, Gaines was struck and killed by a cab whose driver never saw him lying in front of Mother Hubbard's Sports Pub in Chicago. Some two weeks later, police have not made any arrests in the death of the 32-year-old, the Chicago Tribune reports. The medical examiner has put off classifying the death as a homicide or accident pending the investigation, which involves analysis of surveillance video. The cab driver remained at the scene and wasn't ticketed. Gaines, who was from Georgia, had lived in Chicago for several years and worked as a bartender at the downtown Marriott Hotel at the time of his death. Friends remember the usually well-dressed Gaines as a positive force and balk at speculation that he had been involved in an argument with his assailants. "I've never even seen him exchange words with someone," one tells DNAinfo. "The maddest I've ever seen him was … when I didn't know all the words to 'Trap Queen.'" A funeral for Gaines is set for Saturday in Georgia.
– Seahawks fans jumped to their feet Saturday night during Marshawn Lynch's electrifying touchdown run against the New Orleans Saints—and their screaming and stomping caused a small earthquake. That sentence was true on Jan. 8, 2011 ... and on Jan. 11, 2014. In the weirdest kind of deja vu, seismologists with the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network say they believe Saturday's fan-generated quake was bigger than that of 2011, whose energy a nearby seismometer registered in line with a 1- or 2-magnitude quake at the time. "This signal looks bigger than the one three years ago," the PNSN's director tells the Seattle Times, but it'll be a few days before the network knows for sure. But the PNSN was ready for this one: MyNorthwest.com reports it installed two seismometers in CenturyLink Field (one of the NFL's loudest stadiums, per the Times) in advance of the game, one on the field and one in the stands. There may just be something about the Seahawks-Saints match-up: The Times notes that a low-level temblor was recorded Dec. 2, 2013, after Michael Bennett scored a touchdown off a fumble—against the Saints.
– With trouble already brewing around the event—the Washington Post reports there were calls for news outlets to boycott, and several had already dropped out, according to the Hill—President Trump announced Saturday he wouldn't be attending the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner. "Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!" he tweeted Saturday. The event for the political press is typically headlined by the president. The tension leading up to this year's dinner, to be held on April 29, is not exactly shocking given Trump's ongoing war with the media. The Hollywood Reporter reports both Bloomberg and Vanity Fair had already canceled the afterparty they typically host following the event. (Meanwhile, comedian Samantha Bee is counter-programming the White House Correspondents' Dinner with an epic Trump roast.)
– No injuries or illnesses have yet been reported, but Sargent Art isn't taking any chances after finding that 13 different types of its craft paint may be contaminated with a harmful bacteria, Consumerist reports. Per a notice on the art supplier's site and one from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a recall has been announced for 2.8 million bottles of paint—including various washable, tempera, and finger paints—sold at retailers such as Walmart, Amazon, and Hobby Lobby from May 2015 through this past June. Although most healthy people won't have an issue with the unspecified bacteria, which was found during regular testing, the recall notes that exposure to it "can have adverse health effects in immunocompromised individuals, posing a risk of serious illness including a bacterial infection." Sargent Art advises people who already have the paints to stop using them and request a full refund. (You might need to dump that cake mix in your pantry, too.)
– The oldest hippo in America—and possibly the world—has celebrated his last Bertday. Bertie, a 58-year-old male, was euthanized at Denver Zoo yesterday after keepers noticed a steep decline in the aging animal's quality of life, the Denver Post reports. Hippos don't usually make it much past 40 in the wild or 50 in captivity, the zoo says, and Bertie had been showing little interest in taking part in training sessions, leaving his pool, or even eating. Bertie had been at the zoo since the Eisenhower administration, having been transferred as a 2-year-old in 1958 from New York's Central Park Zoo. The zoo had long celebrated the hippo's "Bertday" with a party in August, and at last year's celebration, a keeper noted that "58 in hippo years is like a man being 110," CBS Denver reports. Bert had two mates over the decades and fathered a total of 29 hippos, including Mahali, a 12-year-old male who is now the zoo's only hippo. "This is a very sad loss for Denver Zoo and our community. Bert was a member of our family for more than 50 years," the zoo's president said in a statement. "He will be missed by all of us, including the many families and children who visited him and came to know his charismatic personality over the years." (Meanwhile, in Colombia, a drug lord's hippos are breeding out of control.)
– Paging John Kerry: Susan Rice is withdrawing her name from consideration to be the next secretary of state, reports NBC News. The move makes Senator Kerry the leading candidate to replace Hillary Clinton. Rice, the current US ambassador to the UN, has been on the defensive over her initial comments in the wake of the Benghazi attack, with critics accusing her of trying to downplay any link to terrorism. “If nominated, I am now convinced that the confirmation process would be lengthy, disruptive and costly—to you and to our most pressing national and international priorities,” Rice wrote to President Obama. (Full text via Politico here.) “That trade-off is simply not worth it to our country. ...Therefore, I respectfully request that you no longer consider my candidacy at this time." Obama accepted her decision but criticized what he termed the "unfair and misleading attacks against her," reports the Wall Street Journal. It might not have helped Rice's case on Capitol Hill that she has the reputation of being an "undiplomatic diplomat."
– Think a "Divine Creator" belongs in science? Well, a peer-reviewed paper that mentions "the Creator" sparked such an outcry that it's been retracted with an apology, the Guardian reports. The paper, about the human hand's design and dexterity, mentions the "Creator" more than once. "Hand coordination should indicate the mystery of the Creator’s invention," write co-authors Ming-Jin Liu, Cai-Hua Xiong, Le Xiong, and Xiao-Lin Huang in one instance. They also maintain that the hand's grasping ability is "the proper design by the Creator to perform a multitude of daily tasks in a comfortable way." Published in PLoS ONE, the paper drew such condemning remarks on its comments page and Twitter that the work was retracted. Among the tweets: Plos One is now a joke. "....proper design of the Creator" absolute joke of a journal — James McInerney "Someone at PLOS ONE dropped the ball. Which is weird because the Creator made hands really good at grabbing stuff." — T. Ryan Gregory Some say the fracas illustrates the value of post-publication peer review, while others point out that PLoS ONE isn't the first scientific journal to publish problematic articles, Nature reports. A comment apparently posted by a study co-author says they used "Creator" by mistake because they aren't native English speakers, and will change it to "nature" in a new version. But in its apology and retraction, PLoS ONE identified deeper concerns "with the scientific rationale, presentation, and language" of the paper.
– In Italy, the average nurse earns about $30,000 a year. A high school teacher typically brings home about the same, PayScale.com reports. The barbers who snip the hair of Italy's members of parliament? Well, they rake in just a bit more: $125,000 a year—and that's after a pay cut. Following a report last year that found barbers on the parliamentary payroll make up to $170,000 per year, they're being included in an "austerity drive," the BBC reports, citing Italian paper Quotidiano Libero. Apparently even barbers think the pay is a bit much, the Local reports. "It's excessive," says Domenico Lotorto, who claims Italian President Giorgio Napolitano is a customer at his private shop in Rome. "They should earn the same as a normal worker there, with a salary based on the tariff from the national association of barbers."
– Remember when Gwyneth Paltrow enraged working moms everywhere when she appeared to say that her life as a rich and famous actress is so much harder than that of a mom with a regular 9-to-5 job? Well, she's finally addressing it, and she says that's not what she meant at all. "I was asked why I have only worked on one film a year since having children. My answer was this: Film work takes one away from home and requires 12-14 hours a day, making it difficult to be the one to make the kids their lunch, drive them to school, and put them to bed," Paltrow writes on Goop. "So I have found it easier on my family life to make a film the exception, and my 9-5 job the rule." She goes on to bemoan the fact that her out-of-context quote incited so much anger. "As the mommy wars rage on, I am constantly perplexed and amazed by how little slack we cut each other as women," she writes. "Is it not hard enough to attempt to raise children thoughtfully, while contributing something, or bringing home some (or more) of the bacon? Why do we feel so entitled to opine, often so negatively, on the choices of other women?" (If you need more Gwyneth-related controversy in your life, click to read about how she may have dissed the Met costume gala.)
– With Roger Clinton apparently unavailable, Donald Trump has decided to invite another troublesome presidential sibling to Wednesday night's final presidential debate in Las Vegas: Malik Obama, President Obama's Trump-supporting half-brother. "I'm excited to be at the debate. Trump can make America great again," Malik, who divides his time between Kenya and Washington, DC, tells Page Six. More on the final presidential debate, which analysts suspect will make next month's Manny Pacquiao-Jesse Vargas fight in Vegas seem gentle by comparison: "Tomorrow night's going to be interesting," Trump told a rally in Colorado Tuesday night. "Now she’s home sleeping and I'm working so—it's the way it’s going to be in the White House, too. She'd be sleeping, I’d be working." The Las Vegas Sun reports that Hillary Clinton's debate guests will include Nevadans Kelly Ortiz, an 11-year-old who told the Democratic National Convention how she fears coming home to find that her parents have been deported, and pro-union Trump International Hotel housekeeper Ofelia Diaz Cardenas. Sources tell ABC that Trump has done a lot more prep for this debate than the first two, spending much of Sunday and Monday working with top aides and advisers including Chris Christie, who was Trump's sparring partner during a rapid-fire question session. With both candidates trying to land knockout blows after two ugly debates, analysts are not expecting the evening to be dominated by dry discussions of fiscal policy. "The first two debates were just warm-ups for what might be the most raucous and wild debate in American history," Jake Thompson, an associate professor and debate coach at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where the 90-minute debate will be held, tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The Hill lists five things to watch out for in the debate, including whether the candidates shake hands, whether Trump has any wild cards left to play—and whether Clinton will play it safe or "go for the kill." The New York Times looks at how the debate is also a huge night for Fox News in the wake of a troubled year. Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace will become the first journalist from his network to moderate a general-election debate. The Los Angeles Times reports that before the debate, the Culinary Union plans to put a "wall" of at least five taco trucks outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas.
– The front car of a commuter train plunged into a swollen creek after a fallen tree reportedly derailed the train Monday night in central California, injuring nine people, authorities say. Crews had to fight the creek's fast-moving currents to pull riders from the partially submerged rail car, Alameda County Sheriff's Sgt. Ray Kelly says. "It was dark, wet, it was raining. It was very chaotic," Kelly tells the AP. "This is an absolute miracle that no one was killed, no passengers or first responders." Four people were seriously hurt while at least five others had minor injuries, authorities say. The Altamont Corridor Express commuter train was traveling from San Jose to Stockton when the first two cars went off the tracks near Niles Canyon Road in Sunol, a rural area of Alameda County about 45 miles east of San Francisco. An Altamont Corridor Express train official says the first car was carrying six passengers and one crew member when it fell into Alameda Creek. He says the second car also derailed but remained upright. Passengers described a harrowing scene of panic and confusion. "We were all just panicking," one passenger tells KNTV. "There were two people hurt, pretty badly. One was just under the mudslide so we were trying to dig her out while the train was hanging, so it was a pretty crazy experience."
– Contradicting parenting websites and books—and probably a bunch of overly proud new parents—researchers have concluded that infants in the first weeks of life actually don't imitate facial expressions or hand gestures. In fact, the study suggests that it's the adults who are imitating the babies, reports Australia's ABC. Over the past decades, some studies have suggested that infants imitate people, while others found no proof. "We wanted to clear up the confusion because the 'fact' that newborns imitate is widely cited ... in popular sources for parents," researcher Virginia Slaughter says in a press release. She says the problem with earlier studies is that they looked only at a few gestures, mostly just sticking out the tongue and opening the mouth. "If infants also increase their tongue protrusions when an adult models a happy face or finger pointing, then it's not a case of imitation, but probably excitement at seeing an adult do something interesting," Slaughter says. "We eliminated this problem by assessing infants' responses to a wide range of different models." The new study, published Thursday, tested 11 gestures on 106 infants between 1 and 9 weeks old. What researchers call the "most comprehensive longitudinal study" of imitation in infants found no, well, imitation in infants. On the other hand, researchers found that parents imitate their baby every two minutes or so. (Playing with babies helps them learn to pay attention.)
– A heartbroken New York family is mourning a 3-year-old boy whose death they say was completely preventable. Elijah Silvera was given a grilled cheese sandwich at a Harlem daycare on Nov. 3 "despite them knowing and having documented that he has a severe allergy to dairy," family members write on a GoFundMe page. He went into anaphylactic shock and doctors were unable to save him. The New York Times reports that a cousin says that instead of calling an ambulance, the school called the boy's mother, who took him to the hospital. The FDNY has confirmed that no ambulances were called to the Seventh Avenue Center for Family Services that day. Christopher Miller, a spokesman for the New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said the facility has been closed and they are continuing to "aggressively investigate what happened and whether the facility could have done something differently to prevent this tragedy," ABC reports. He says there was a safety plan in place, as required by law, but did not comment on whether the daycare had an EpiPen that could have treated Elijah. On the GoFundMe page, relatives say the family is "only beginning the long and painful process of adjusting to a world that does not include Elijah in it." They say they are raising funds for expenses including a second autopsy to determine whether the school or the hospital failed to follow protocols.
– "Sarah Jackson" is apparently the name of a pornographic model. If you weren't previously aware of that, well, neither was Keaton Wahlbon, and his ignorance of that fact just got him into hot water at the University of Tennessee. Wahlbon is a student in Professor Bill Deane's earth science class, and on a recent quiz, there was a question reading: "What is your lab instructor's name? (if you don't remember, make something good up)." Wahlbon couldn't remember, so he wrote in "a random generic name," he tells Reason. But that name was Sarah Jackson, and when Wahlbon got his quiz back, he'd received a score of zero and his answer to that question was marked "inappropriate," TotalFratMove reports. After speaking to the teaching assistant who graded the quiz, who told him the grade would not be changed, Wahlbon emailed Deane—and the professor doubled down on the TA's decision. Despite Wahlbon explaining that he had "zero intention of trying to be funny or rude" since he had no idea Sarah Jackson was the name of a porn star, Deane responded to him, "I have no way of determining your intention. I can only consider the result. The result is that you gave the name of Sarah Jackson, who is a lingerie and nude model. That result meets with Title IX definition of sexual harassment. The grade of zero stands and will not be changed." Wahlbon told Reason on Oct. 4 he planned to appeal to the head of the natural sciences department. But on Friday, a university spokesperson told the Knoxville News Sentinel that neither Wahlbon nor the teaching assistant had filed a complaint, and that the department actually brought up the issue after reading about the incident online. University officials are now investigating. (A Berkeley professor accused of sexual harassment is suing his accusers.)
– An American teacher has been killed in Libya, medical and security sources tell Reuters. The US citizen, a man from Texas, was working as a chemistry teacher at an international school in Benghazi, and the AP reports he was shot while jogging near the US consulate. No one has yet claimed responsibility. The former principal of the school and current head of the International School of Benghazi's board of governors confirms the report to NBC News.
– A Japanese lawmaker has baffled the world—and provided the latest viral video—with his screaming, weeping apology. Ryutaro Nonomura, 47, a Hyogo Prefectural assemblyman, held a press conference Tuesday after a newspaper raised questions about why he visited hot springs 106 times last year using public money, the AP reports. Though the visits cost $30,000, they aren't illegal, but many called for an explanation—leading to Tuesday's spectacle, which also included Nonomura banging on the desk and shouting strange things like, "I'm putting my life on the line." In total, Nonomura took 195 day trips—Hyogo lawmakers receive $5,000 per month for expenses including travel, but the travel is supposed to be for official business, and the trips he took to the hot springs resort town were outside his precinct. (He also may not have had the proper receipts, the Washington Post notes.) As the AP explains, the video—which has been viewed more than 2 million times so far—is also notable because Japanese politicians are typically reserved. "Many people are starting to demand that he resign," says a member of the Hyogo Prefectural assembly office. "He is usually not that emotional."
– President Donald Trump will sign executive orders this week aimed at expanding offshore oil drilling and reviewing national monument designations made by his predecessors, continuing the Republican's assault on Democratic President Barack Obama's environmental legacy. The orders could expand oil drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans and upend public lands protections put in place in Utah, Maine, and other states, the AP reports. The Antiquities Act of 1906 authorizes the president to declare federal lands of historic or scientific value to be "national monuments" and restrict how the lands can be used. Obama used his power under the Antiquities Act to permanently preserve more land and water using national monument designations than any other president. The land is generally off limits to timber harvesting, mining and pipelines, and commercial development. Utah Republicans were infuriated when Obama created the Bears Ears National Monument in December on more than 1 million acres of land that's sacred to Native Americans and home to tens of thousands of archaeological sites, including ancient cliff dwellings. Republicans also objected when Obama created the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine last summer on 87,500 acres of donated forestland. The expanse includes part of the Penobscot River and stunning views of Mount Katahdin, Maine's tallest mountain. Republicans have asked Trump to reverse the two designations, saying they add an unnecessary layer of federal control and could stymie commercial development. Trump's staff has been reviewing the decisions to determine economic impacts, whether the law was followed, and whether there was appropriate consultation with local officials. Sources tell the Salt Lake Tribune the review Trump will order was prompted by the Bears Ears designation but will look at designations as far back as Bill Clinton's presidency.
– Contract details leaked to Mashable show there's no gender pay gap in Westeros—at least not among two of its most famous citizens. The contracts for Lena Headey and Kit Harington—two of the biggest stars on Game of Thrones—are apparently "identical" when it comes to episode salaries and bonuses, which are handed out for award wins and nominations, as well as show profitability. The contracts for Harington and Headey, who are considered "principal" actors on the show, stipulate that no other actors can get more money. It remains a matter of speculation which other Game of Thrones actors are considered "principal" in order to qualify for the top-tier contract. However, a report from Variety could shed some light on that. While Mashable is keeping mum on the exact numbers included in the leaked contracts, Variety estimated earlier this week that Harington and Headey, along with Emilia Clarke, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Peter Dinklage, earn $500,000 per episode. And that makes one thing very clear: The White Walkers need better agents.
– Spain's conservatives won a decisive victory yesterday, grabbing a clear majority of the parliament and returning to power for the first time since losing to the socialists in 2004, reports the Washington Post. The People's Party won 186 of 350 seats in the lower house, giving it the power to take strong action to reform the economy in the face of soaring debt and 22.6% unemployment, the highest in Europe. “Countries like Spain are on the brink,” said one economist. “This government will have the moral authority” to make changes, he added. But others pointed out that the Popular Party's victory did not come from gaining support—it had just 500,000 more votes than 2008—as much as from the socialists losing it, as leftist voters fled for a host of minor parties. "There aren’t going to be any miracles, but we didn’t promise them," said PP leader Mariano Rajoy, now the incoming prime minister who is expected to introduce heavy cuts in spending in an attempt to win over international investors. "Spain's voice must be respected again in Brussels and Frankfurt. We will stop being part of the problem and will be part of the solution."
– Across the United States, people gathered Sunday night at vigils honoring the victims of a shooting attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., that left 50 people dead and 53 wounded. In Miami Beach, mourners lit candles, embraced, and waved rainbow flags, the AP reports. Members of LGBT groups and their supporters met in the Boystown neighborhood of Chicago. Among them was Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, who said the city has stepped up security in gay communities. Also there in solidarity were mothers who have lost their children to gun violence. Hundreds of people in Austin, Texas, attended an evening vigil at the Capitol that included Muslim leaders and a Christian pastor, the Austin American-Statesman reports. Investigators are still trying to determine the motives of gunman Omar Mateen, but LGBT activists had no doubt that their community was the intended target. "Our practices and institutions may change in light of this tragedy—LGBT gathering places may have more security now," Rev. Alisan Rowland, pastor of the LGBT-welcoming Metropolitan Community Church of New Orleans, tells the AP. "But we will never, ever go away. We will never be cowed." WHNT reports that a GoFundMe page has been set up to help victims and families affected by the mass shooting. In 20 hours, it raised more than $1.3 million.
– Lyle Jeffs' lawyer really wishes she could consult with him regarding a food stamp fraud trial involving 11 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Fox 13 reports. But the polygamist leader of the FLDS, who the New York Daily News notes had been under house arrest for allegedly stealing and laundering $12 million in government benefits, has been missing from home confinement since June, and said attorney is now offering some interesting possible explanations for his vanishing. In a Utah court filing Monday, Kathryn Nester concedes Jeffs may indeed be guilty of "absconding"—the FBI believes he may have used something slippery like olive oil to weasel his way out from under a GPS monitoring device—but she also threw out some other ideas. Nester said in the filing she's unsure if he fled of his own accord, whether he was kidnapped, or "whether he experienced the miracle of rapture." Both Fox 13 and the Daily News note her theories appear to be a joke and that she informed the judge she'd be OK with delaying the fraud trial, apparently even if her client has ascended into the clouds to meet the Lord.
– They got married in a firehouse, a fitting locale given groom Jeremy Bourasa's role as a volunteer firefighter in St. Paul Park, Minn. They'd even discussed a worst-case scenario in advance, reports KARE 11. "We talked about it, 'What if there’s a call?'" says Krista Bourasa. "I was like, 'You can let the other guys go; you’re not leaving our wedding.'" But a call did indeed come in, just after the ceremony ended as the couple was taking their wedding photos. (See one here.) And it soon became apparent the house fire was a major one, with the call for help going out to all local departments. The couple looked at each and knew what had to be done. "I took off my wedding clothes, put on my turnout gear, and stepped on the first truck that was heading out," says Jeremy. And Krista was fine with it. "I kept hearing how bad it was and they needed more men," she says. "I just said, 'Go ahead and go babe, you’re fine. Just go help them and come back when you can.'" He made it to the reception a little more than two hours later, and the couple had their first dance before understanding guests, reports the Twin Cities Pioneer Press. The family knows first-hand what was at stake in the fire call: In 2016, Krista's sister and her boyfriend lost their home to a fire, and the year before that, the boyfriend's two children, ages 11 and 9, died in a fire. "I've got the rest of my life with him," Krista says of the wedding-day glitch. "They needed him for that moment." The house fire was indeed bad, as a photo from a GuFundMe page for the affected family shows.
– After two young people lost their left arms in an extremely rare pair of shark attacks on Sunday, there were ATVs patrolling the beach, and helicopters and boats searching the waters off Oak Island, NC, yesterday—but no lifeguards. Town officials say they'll keep looking for sharks, but they have neither the ability nor the authority to keep people out of the water, despite recommendations from shark experts. More: The town's fire chief says the beach stayed open because "there's no way for us to control" sharks near the shore. "We have 9 miles of beach and more entry points [than] we can man," he tells the Charlotte Observer. "What we can do is just advise beach-goers to be careful if they do enter the water. We can't stop them from entering." The town's manager says there's no money for lifeguards, and it's not clear whether they would have made a difference. University of Florida shark expert George Burgess, however, tells the Guardian that officials "should consider closing the beach" for at least a couple of days, getting extra lifeguards in the area," and teaching people that to enter the ocean is to enter a wilderness. Burgess adds that while it was probably the same shark in both attacks, the chances of identifying it are "slim to none" and it could be 40 miles away by now. The town's manager tells the Los Angeles Times that if any sharks are seen displaying "aggressive" behavior—like coming within 100 feet of the shore—they may be killed, though shark experts say this is a "foolhardy" approach that didn't reduce shark attacks when it was tried in Australia. Both victims, a 12-year-old girl whose age was initially reported as 13 and a 16-year-old boy, are now in fair condition, reports the AP, which notes that they were both swimming around 20 yards offshore in waist-deep water—and authorities didn't warn beachgoers until after the first attack. If the girl had been attacked at another part of the beach, she might not have survived, according to another Charlotte Observer story. After the bite, the girl was taken onto the beach just yards away from the rental cottage of Marie Hildreth, an experienced Charlotte paramedic who ran to help and was able to stanch the bleeding with a rope cut from a surfing bodyboard. And there was more help at hand: Hildreth was on vacation with relatives, including her fire captain husband, her police officer brother-in-law, her firefighter brother, and her mother, who warned people to get out of the water.
– The chairman of the House Oversight Committee was met by frequent, deafening boos at a Thursday town hall in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, as constituents grilled him on everything from investigating President Trump's tax returns to Planned Parenthood, reports the AP. A young girl asked Rep. Jason Chaffetz about his plans to protect the air and water and the crowd booed when he replied that he supports an all-of-the-above energy strategy, which includes mining for coal. Another exchange that brought cries of "do your job," per NBC News: He was asked about a potential conflict between the presidency and Trump's businesses, something that would fall under the purview of the House Oversight Committee. "You're really not going to like this part: The President, under the law, is exempt from the conflict of interest laws," Chaffetz said. His assertion that Kellyanne Conway was "wrong, wrong, wrong" for plugging Ivanka Trump's clothing line was well received, however. But more jeers greeted his comment that while he believes "if you're going to run for president, you should have to release your tax returns ... it's not required by law," reports the Daily Herald. Chaffetz repeatedly said, "hold on," and "give me a second," as the audience members reacted negatively to nearly all of his statements. Outside, hundreds of people were holding signs and chanting, "Vote him out," while one woman was arrested. Chaffetz said earlier in the day that he hopes Trump will repeal the Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah, something he discussed with the president during a Tuesday meeting. A CNN correspondent tweeted that the town hall ended an hour early.
– Hilary Swank is superlative as Amelia Earhart, say critics, but the too-conventional movie around her never really engages in what made the aviatrix tick and stays earthbound as a result. Swank is "strangely mesmerizing as Earhart," writes Connie Ogle in the Miami Herald, but director Mira Nair's biopic "never—unlike the famous aviatrix—takes chances." It's "big-hearted yet by-the-numbers." The audience never sees the "steely force that drives grand ambition, the fears, the flaws," complains Betsy Sharkey at the Los Angeles Times. "Mostly we see Amelia in flight, touching down around the world like a History Channel travelogue, or seeing small slices of her life unfold like a fashion spread, gorgeous but vacuous." At frustratingly infrequent intervals, Mick LaSalle writes in the San Francisco Chronicle, "we get a hint of the movie they wanted to make and hoped they were making: One about the thrill of early aviation and the promise of a young century."
– Martha Kunkle signed thousands of affidavits for a large debt collector … after her death in 1995. Portfolio Recovery Associates says her signature hasn’t been used since 2008, when its invalidity was first questioned—well, uh, except in one case last July that a rep claims was “inadvertent”—but Kunkle’s name now symbolizes the rash of robo-signing and sloppy documentation that plagues the debt collection business, reports the Wall Street Journal. Robo-signing, according to some judges, is even more common in the debt collection industry than it is in foreclosures. "I've watched and wanted to tell defendants in these suits to demand proof of the underlying debt because that proof is so often flimsy," says one. At least one state attorney general is investigating a number of debt collectors for falsifying affidavits, and notes that the amount of corner-cutting is “alarming.” Click for more, including just how Kunkle’s signature got on all those documents.
– What Yahya Abu Hassan has described as the "best day of his life" involved sneaking his emaciated, pregnant wife and three sick young kids through a barbed-wire fence over the Syrian border to Turkey, where he didn't even say goodbye before they were whisked to safety. That day in September 2013 was the day Hassan ditched his family to devote himself to helping ISIS set up a caliphate, his story told in a preview for a longer article by Graeme Wood appearing in the Atlantic's next issue. Wood details Hassan's reputation as one of the most revered "teachers" among jihadist circles, known for his "staggering mastery of Islamic law and classical Arabic language and literature," as well as his fluency in English. When Wood first heard about Hassan in 2014 while researching a previous Atlantic article about ISIS, he was curious about his origin story and started poking around. First he found links to Hassan and his extreme views, but further detective work involving nomenclature and Google searches led to an astonishing discovery: a DOJ release about the 2006 conviction of data technician John Georgelas, who used to live in Texas not far from Wood, and who Wood determined was Hassan. What Wood found out next about the Greek-American is fascinating. An in-person conversation Wood had with Georgelas' father, Tim, about John—who Tim describes as once an easily swayed "follower" who experimented with psychedelic drugs—is especially revealing, as is Wood's scrutiny of Georgelas' relationship with his ex-wife, once a fellow jihadist. Most chilling is Georgelas' current ISIS role, in which it's speculated he may now hold the second most-powerful position. "He knows how to speak to Americans, how to scare them, how to recruit them—how to make the Islamic State's war theirs," Wood writes. Read the deep dive at the Atlantic.
– Hurricane, er, Tropical Storm Irene proved to be no Katrina, and that's partly because the resulting Federal Emergency Management Agency overhaul actually worked, says FEMA administrator Craig Fugate. "We've learned to really work as one team, not as separate levels of government, and to put everything together early before the storm hits," he told This Week. "We shouldn't have to wait until a state is overwhelmed to begin getting ready, have supplies ready, have our teams in the state and work as one team, not waiting for damages to occur and that formal request to come." Elsewhere on the Sunday dial, as per Politico: Chris Christie on evacuation: "We got a million people off the Jersey Shore in 24 hours. Your No. 1 goal as a governor is the saving of human life. It was my call that we were just not going to have people on those barrier islands on the coastline." Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley on FEMA: "This is a much better FEMA than the olden days. They have been with us since Day One." Ron Paul on FEMA: "It's a system of bureaucratic central economic planning, which is a fallacy that is deeply flawed. FEMA has been around since 1978. It has one of the worst reputations for a bureaucracy ever." Colin Powel on Dick Cheney: Many of the ex-veep's reveals were "cheap shots. Cheney may forget that I'm the one who said to President Bush, 'If you break it, you own it.' And you have got to understand that if we have to go to war in Iraq, we have to be prepared for the whole war. And Mr. Cheney did not prepare for what happened after the fall of Baghdad."
– Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ song “Empire State of Mind” is everywhere, even at the World Series. But do you know what the lyrics mean? If not, Rap Genius (formerly Rap Exegesis) can clue you in the way it educated Nick Antosca of the Huffington Post. Some of the explanations the site offers: Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, “Empire State of Mind”: “Catch me in the kitchen like a Simmons whipping pastry” refers first to cooking up crack, second to fellow rapper Rev. Run’s daughters and their clothing line. Lil Wayne, “A Milli”: “Got the Maserati dancing on the bridge, pussy poppin’” refers to a dance move involving a woman standing on her head or hands and “popping her pussy.” Ghostface Killah, “Big Girl”: “Toney with the Montana, I came to play” uses the rapper’s nickname (“Pretty Toney”) and slang for cocaine (“Montana”), while also referencing Al Pacino’s Tony Montana character from Scarface. The Notorious BIG, “10 Crack Commandments”: “Your wig pushed back” refers to a scalp being shot off a person’s head.
– Turns out, Bo didn't know football, and if he had, he never would have played. Bo Jackson, who starred at the pro level in both football and baseball decades ago, tells USA Today that he would not have played football had he known about the concussion risks. "Never," says the 54-year-old. "I wish I had known about all of those head injuries, but no one knew that. And the people that did know that, they wouldn’t tell anybody." He adds that he would never let his kids play football today. (In his heyday, Bo famously starred in a series of "Bo Knows" commercials for Nike, as seen here.) One other interview nugget: Jackson says he planned to retire from football after the 1991 season to concentrate on baseball. His NFL career ended prematurely in a playoff game that year when a hit fractured and dislocated his hip.
– The piece of plane wing confirmed to be from MH370 has company. In addition to a suitcase, Malaysia's transportation minister says "many items," including seat cushions, aluminum foil, and a window, have washed up on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, but experts have yet to prove the items are from the vanished jet, reports Deutsche Welle. "I can only ascertain that it's plane debris," he says. Malaysia yesterday confirmed the wing part, or flaperon, belonged to MH370 based on its paint color and a seal matching a maintenance record, reports Reuters. French experts who are continuing to study the flaperon, however, say there is simply a "very strong supposition" that it came from MH370. Malaysia has now asked neighboring areas, including Mauritius and Madagascar, to search for potential debris. Rather than bring closure, the find has incensed some Chinese relatives of those on board the Boeing 777 who streamed to the Beijing headquarters of Malaysia Airlines today, the Guardian reports. One woman says Prime Minister Najib Razak, who broke the news, was speaking "nonsense. I just want to kill him." "I don't believe it," says another, adding 515 days is "enough time for them to have produced fake debris." The Australian agency leading the search for MH370 says it will continue to focus on 46,000 square miles of seabed west of Australia, noting the debris is consistent with a crash site in that area. What's next for the flaperon? Investigators will likely analyze thin pieces under a microscope to see how it was broken, then "open it up to see if there's any internal damage," an expert says. The study could take "a month or months."
– It's been 10 years since International Atomic Energy Agency reps have visited Iran's Parchin military site, but they were there yesterday to inspect a building and take environmental samples as part of their quest to keep a sharp eye on the country's nuclear machinations, Reuters reports. Yukiya Amano, the director general of the watchdog group, and the head of the IAEA's Department of Safeguards were on site to check out the unidentified building, which Amano says was devoid of equipment and showed "indications of recent renovation work," per the news agency. Environmental samples were also taken and sent to Vienna for analysis, which the IAEA notes counts as "significant progress" in monitoring a site whose only oversight by the IAEA has been via satellite over the past decade. The group is due to offer a report on "possible military dimensions" of the site, long suspected of carrying out tests related to nuclear weapon detonations, by year's end. The environmental samples, however, are already controversial thanks to the IAEA's confidential deal with Iran that lets the country hold sway over those inspections, the news agency notes. Amano acknowledged that "the Iranian side played a part in the sample-taking process by swiping samples," though he told reporters at a Vienna news conference today the samples' "authenticity" was ensured via an "established verification process." Amano also said IAEA monitored the sample-gathering, though a statement given by an Iranian atomic energy agency rep to the IRNA state news agency said the samples were taken "without IAEA inspectors being present." At today's news conference, IAEA's deputy director general explained that away, noting there was "invasive monitoring" via video and still cameras, as well as GPS tracking and review by "unspecified peers," as Fox News puts it.
– It has 10 rooms, a strong rental history, and a terrace that overlooks a picturesque valley in Perugia, Italy. But those aren't the reasons the real estate listing for this house is drawing so much attention, reports the Daily Beast. It happens to be the home where Meredith Kercher was murdered in 2007, a crime for which Amanda Knox was convicted, then acquitted. A retrial is currently underway. The listing currently has the house up for 460,000 euro, or $625,000. “It is obviously a property with a difficult history,” the estate agent for the property tells the DB. “Those types of houses are never easy to sell.” The owner remodeled the place in 2009, making changes that essentially eliminated the room where the murder took place. If it doesn't sell, the owner plans to tear it down and sell the land to a developer. "Who would want to live in a place like that?" wonders a blogger at the Stir.
– "Two presidents walk into a Twitter feed" is just like it sounds, and it happened yesterday online, MarketWatch reports. Even though President Obama has been occasionally tweeting from the @BarackObama handle run by Organizing for Action, @POTUS is all his own, and yesterday saw that account's very first message. Enter the perpetually winking Bill Clinton, who replied, "Welcome to @Twitter, @POTUS! One question: Does that username stay with the office? #askingforafriend." POTUS' retort: "Good question, @billclinton. The handle comes with the house. Know anyone interested in @FLOTUS?" Meanwhile, Mother Jones is trying to figure out who owned the @POTUS handle before the White House nabbed it—and who the heck "Roy", mentioned in a 2008 tweet, is. (Obama's staff went a little nuts with the @BarackObama handle a few years back.)
– A spokesman says a Michigan judge wasn't aware of a sex offender's criminal background when he granted the man joint legal custody of a child born to a woman who said the man raped her when she was 12. Michigan Supreme Court spokesman John Nevin told the AP on Wednesday that Sanilac County Judge Gregory Ross didn't know 27-year-old Christopher Mirasolo had two criminal sexual conduct convictions, including one concerning the woman. Nevin says the judge put the order on hold Tuesday after learning of Mirasolo's criminal past. A hearing is scheduled for this month. The case started when the 21-year-old mother sought state assistance for her 8-year-old son. Ross issued an order last month granting the woman sole physical custody and Mirasolo joint legal custody after DNA tests showed he was the child's biological father. Mirasolo's lawyer says Mirasolo never sought the order. "I don't understand why they thought they needed to give him joint legal custody. He was my rapist," the mother told CBS News Wednesday. "I was receiving government assistance and they told me if I did not tell them who the father was of my child, that they would take that away from me." Mirasolo ultimately served six and a half months on a plea deal. He went back to jail after being convicted of raping another young girl in 2010.
– The maximum-security Utah State Prison sits about 20 miles outside of Salt Lake City, in Draper, Utah. Within its walls, in the Uinta 2 housing unit, live what's referred to as the Special Threat Group, or STG. These inmates, who have been branded violent, say they're kept in a cell for 47 of 48 hours with one cellmate, with no access to rehabilitative or educational programs. Now, dozens of them are on a hunger strike aimed at changing the conditions. The ACLU's Utah chapter yesterday said more than 40 prisoners have been refusing food since Friday. Prison officials back this up, sort of: They count 42 hunger strikers, but say some of the men have been accepting juice packets or seen eating food purchased from the commissary, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. The ACLU of Utah cites inmate complaints about "squalid living conditions" and inadequate meals, and the Utah Department of Corrections confirms that the 42 inmates on Friday handed over a letter containing six demands, reports the Los Angeles Times. One of the demands calls for the relocation of a number of gang members within the maximum security area (the Deseret News reports that the 42 are all known gang members, per the prison), but the ACLU says the strike's true purpose is to put an end to the extreme isolation. "These highly isolated conditions are closely akin to solitary confinement, but with the added problems inherent to spending all of one’s time in the same cramped quarters with another person," says the ACLU in a statement. Officials say some of the men's demands were under consideration long before the strike began.
– "OMG. This cop is talking to the freaking groundhog." So begins a video posted to Facebook that shows a Maryland sheriff's deputy trying to get a groundhog out of a roadway, where it was backing up traffic on Monday. Justyna Olkowska, the woman talking over the video, soon turns from a giggling OMG to a gasping one as she films the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office deputy eventually shoot and kill the animal as it advances toward him. The Baltimore Sun reports the first shot didn't stop the animal from moving, so the deputy fired a second one and then returned to his car. WBAL reports the Humane Society later retrieved the remains but does not plan to test them for disease. CBS Baltimore has a statement from the sheriff's office, which explains the deputy "realized that it was not responding as expected for an animal that was not being cornered or trapped. Believing the groundhog to be either sick or injured, the deputy then put the animal down for the public’s safety." In her video post, Olkowska isn't as calm. "This just happened. And I’m soooo distraught!!!! Like I cannot believe I just witnessed this. ... I may be wrong and he might have been doing his job but all I kept thinking was what if my little niece and nephew were in the car with me seeing this." Her video has been viewed 100,000 times.
– Two University of Oklahoma students accused of leading the racist chant that emerged on video this week now aren't just homeless, they're school-less. University President David Boren announced today that the two unidentified students have been expelled, reports KOCO.com. "I have emphasized that there is zero tolerance for this kind of threatening racist behavior at the University of Oklahoma," he said. "I hope that the entire nation will join us in having zero tolerance of such racism when it raises its ugly head in other situations across our country." The expulsions follow the closing of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon frat, meaning members have until tonight to clear the frat house. The students can appeal Boren's decision, and a story in the Oklahoma Daily, the campus newspaper, suggest they might have a case if they decide to do so on freedom-of-speech grounds. “If the extent of it is what we see in those 11 seconds of video, I don’t see a constitutional basis for [expulsion],” the executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education tells the newspaper. The frat's house mother has a video problem of her own.
– Authorities say a 27-year-old Florida man was charged with multiple drug store robberies this week after his mom recognized him on the news, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reports. According to CBS Miami, police were looking for a man responsible for robbing four Walgreens locations between June 11 and June 25. The suspect would act like he was going to pay for an item, then punch or push the cashier when they opened the cash register, grabbing cash and running off. The Broward County Sheriff's Office released surveillance footage from the robberies, and the mother of Keith Knowles Jr. saw the videos on the news. She confronted her son, who she believed was the man in the footage, and authorities say he confessed to her before turning himself in Sunday. Knowles has been charged with four counts of robbery, one count of theft, and one count of battery on a person over 65. Authorities believe he may be responsible for two additional robberies as well.
– Around the Great Recession years, wealthy Americans are giving less of their income to charity while middle- and low-earners give more—and those who supported Mitt Romney for president give the most of all, the Christian Science Monitor reports. According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Americans who make over $200,000 gave 4.6% less of their income to charity between 2006 and 2012, and those banking under $100,000 gave charitable causes 4.5% more of their income. Yet the 4.6% less given by the wealthy still amounts to $4.6 billion more annually when adjusted for inflation (perhaps evidence that the rich are getting richer?). Using IRS data, the report found that all 17 states giving the highest income percentage to charity voted for Romney in the last presidential election. Utah tops the list, with a rate of 6.6%, ahead of Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia. Chronicle editor Stacy Palmer says church attendance plays a role in people's inclination to donate: Mormons, for example, make up about 62% of Utah's population and are told to give at least 10% to charity. "Religion has always played an important role in giving," Palmer says, adding that secular people are also giving more in Bible Belt states. What hasn't changed: Americans are donating an average of 3% of their income to charity, as they have for decades, Reuters reports.
– Nearly 36 years after he shot John Lennon dead, Mark David Chapman is still trying to get out of prison—and an upstate New York parole board is still denying him that chance, per the Hollywood Reporter. The 61-year-old, who's said to have learned how to fix wheelchairs during his prison stint, was denied parole for the ninth time by a three-person panel, an official from the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision tells the New York Daily News, declining to elaborate on what factors led to the decision. That means Chapman, who killed Lennon in NYC on Dec. 8, 1980, will have to spend at least two more years in the Wende Correctional Facility before he's up for parole again. Per previous reports in the Daily News, five people since his last parole hearing (2014) are said to have sent letters supporting his release, while two letters—including one from Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, who has said, "He did it once, he could do it again"—reportedly asked for the parole board to keep him behind bars.
– Can you answer the question that not only stumped all three Jeopardy! contestants Monday night but resulted in the rarity of having no winner? Here it is, per Fox: "A 1957 event led to the creation of a national historic site in this city, signed into law by a president whose library is now there too." All three contestants—two with $13,800 and one with $6,000—got it wrong after betting everything they had. "So sorry folks," said Alex Trebek. The last time all three contestants were wiped out was a 2013 match during a teen tournament. Monday night's correct answer? Little Rock, Arkansas. "Of course," observes arkansasonline.
– The FBI busted a South Carolina man after he bought a gun with the alleged intent to pull off a massacre "in the spirit of Dylann Roof." Agents arrested Benjamin McDowell, 29, at a sting in which he thought he was getting a weapon from someone affiliated with the white supremacist Aryan Nations, reports NBC News. McDowell had come to the attention of the feds after a series of online posts in which he ranted against Jews and minorities. Before the arrest, he allegedly professed his admiration for Roof to an undercover agent. "I seen what Dylann Roof did and in my heart I reckon I got a little bit of hatred and ... I want to do that s---," McDowell said, per the federal complaint He added that he wanted to do a "big-scale" attack and then write his ode to Roof's spirit on the wall. He didn't seem to have settled on any specifics for where and when, however. For now, he faces felony charges for possession of a firearm—a previous string of arrests for burglary and other crimes, detailed at WMBF, bar him from owning a gun. The Daily News has examples of his online rants, often riddled with misspellings: "All they wanne do is stay loaded on drugs the Jews put here to destory white man and they fest on the drugs," he wrote on Jan. 5, per the FBI complaint.
– The Pirate Bay is down for the count after a raid on one of the file-sharing company's server rooms in Sweden yesterday, Reuters reports. "We had a crackdown on a server room in Greater Stockholm because of a copyright infringement, and yes it was Pirate Bay," an intellectual property crime coordinator for local police says. According to sources for TorrentFreak, computers, servers, and other equipment were seized. It's the first time in years the site has actually been taken offline instead of just blocked, the BBC notes. Other file-sharing sites such as EZTV, Zoink, and Torrage were also offline, Reuters notes. An interesting theory that's been floated for the seemingly sudden raid, said by TorrentFreak to have taken place at a "data center in Nacka which is built into a 'mountain'": downloads of movies stolen during the recent Sony leak, though Wired notes no one's sure yet if that was the impetus. Peter Sunde, a TPB founder busted in Sweden this summer after two years on the lam, is jumping ship, writing yesterday in a blog post that "I've not been a fan of what TPB has become," and that the site "was ugly, full of bugs, old code and old design" and teeming with "distasteful" ads. The Pirate Bay briefly popped up again last night using a .cr domain (for Costa Rica), but it's currently offline again, RT.com reports. (TPB was invited by North Korea to route its service through that country.)
– Alexis, Brandon, Joel, Kelsey, Kenny Jr., Natalie, and Nathan have graduated from high school, NPR reports. If their first names don't ring a bell, perhaps their last name will: They're the McCaughey kids, the world's first known set of surviving septuplets, and they accepted their diplomas from Carlisle High School on Sunday, per the Des Moines Register. The septuplets made international headlines when they were born on Nov. 19, 1997, not only because of their number, but because their mom, Bobbi, had taken fertility drugs to help conceive and then refused to abort any of the fetuses to help boost survival chances for the others. "God gave us those kids," dad Kenny McCaughey said at the time, per the New York Times. "He wants us to raise them." The siblings, who also have a 20-year-old sister, Mikayla, all plan to head in different directions, with some attending college, some joining the military, and others going straight to the 9-to-5, KCCI reports. (The Register has a photo gallery showing the McCaughey clan "from diapers to diplomas," as well as a timeline of their family life through the years.)
– The Twin Peaks reboot is chugging along, and Showtime announced the cast Monday, the AP reports. The new series, premiering on an as-yet-unannounced date in 2017, takes place 25 years after the original series, and fans of the original will be happy to know that original cast members Kyle MacLachlan, Sherilyn Fenn, David Duchovny, Mädchen Amick, and Harry Dean Stanton are returning and that series creator David Lynch is also listed as part of the cast. The newbies include Naomi Watts, Richard Chamberlain, Jim Belushi, Michael Cera, Amanda Seyfried, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ashley Judd, Laura Dern, Ernie Hudson, and Tom Sizemore. And there are more—a lot more. As the Hollywood Reporter notes, the full cast list has 217 names on it. But it's missing other veteran cast members, including Lara Flynn Boyle (Donna), Piper Laurie (Catherine), and Michael Ontkean (the sheriff). The Verge notes that some of the 217 cast members listed are pretty strange (they also include "Trent Reznor, his wife Mariqueen Reznor, Eddie Vedder, Jim Belushi, Monica Bellucci, Robert Forster, and pretty much every random person you could possibly think of") and that many of them have played roles in other Lynch projects: "Is there a multi-layered David Lynch metaverse in play?" Principal photography on the series has wrapped.
– President Obama's next chief of staff isn't exactly a household name, but he's long been a trusted adviser to the president: Politico and the New York Times say Obama will name Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough to replace Jack Lew. The Times describes him as an "intense, ascetic 43-year-old," adding: "A fervent Obama loyalist, Mr. McDonough has been immersed in every major foreign policy crisis and debate of the president’s first term, enjoying a degree of access and level of trust that goes far beyond his age or job title." Politico has a similar take: "McDonough has been involved in just about every major national security decision made by Obama since he took office, from the surge in US troops in Afghanistan to the launching of the commando raid that killed al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden." The National Journal says the pick will reinforce criticism "that Obama's governing style is too insular," given that it's yet another longtime insider moving into a key position.
– The crash of a Russian jet during a demonstration flight in Indonesia last week may have been caused by pilot bravado, Der Spiegel finds. The flight was all about offering a spectacular show to journalists and potential buyers, and the captain of the Sukhoi SuperJet-100, despite his inexperience, appears to have attempted a foolhardy move before crashing into the side of a mountain, experts say. Steep mountain ridges and chaotic air circulation patterns make the area tricky even for local pilots, but the Sukhoi pilot "had absolutely no experience with the area's unique topographical traits," a flight safety expert says. Authorities say they were surprised by the pilot's request to approach Mount Salak, which has been the site of seven other plane crashes over the last decade. The crash has put the spotlight on manufacturer demonstration flights, dubbed "joy flights" for their informal atmosphere, notes AP. "The purpose of these flights, obviously, is to show off the aircraft to potential customers," says an aviation expert who has gone on many such trips. "If they are flying over a landmark, they might circle around it so the passengers can get a better look. They might fly a little lower or show the rate of climb of the aircraft." All 45 people on the Sukhoi flight are presumed dead, and investigators will know more about the cause of the crash when its black box is recovered.
– The Trump-Kim summit has been called off—but it's still a historic event for coin collectors. A commemorative coin produced by the White House Communications Agency to mark the summit between Trump and "Supreme Leader" Kim Jong Un is now in high demand and is expected to became a valuable collector's item. BBC correspondent Anthony Zurcher says it could become the "1804 dollar" of commemorative coins, referring to extremely rare and valuable coins that were used as American diplomatic gifts in the 19th century. The White House says the issuing of the coin by the WHCA, a military detachment tasked with securing presidential communications, was a routine event and it was not involved. Another coin, with silhouettes of Trump, Kim, and South Korea's President Moon Jae-in, was still available from the White House Gift Shop on Thursday, discounted from $24.95 to $19.95, but high demand apparently crashed the website. After the summit was called off, Trump's critics were quick to poke fun at the WHCA coin, with former Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod quipping that they would be on eBay soon, NBC reports. Some critics said they had been in dubious taste to begin with. "This is just gross. Whose personality cult exactly is this summit legitimizing?" asked North Korea analyst Robert Kelly. "This is un-American." (North Korea says it is still willing to proceed with the summit.)
– If you're planning on scarfing down turkey on Thanksgiving, you may want to stick with the traditional full bird instead of the ground variety. KHOU reports Jennie-O has recalled more than 91,000 pounds of raw ground turkey shipped to stores around the US, and the USDA notes it's due to a potential link to a 35-state salmonella outbreak. The packages were produced on Sept. 11, and all have a "P-190" establishment number in the USDA inspection mark, as well as a "use by" date of either Oct. 1 or Oct. 2, 2018, in case you recently stuck some ground turkey in your freezer (more specific packaging info can be found on the USDA site). Per KTRK, 164 people have been sickened so far by the outbreak, with 63 hospitalizations and one death in California. Before the recall was announced, the USDA had come under fire for not announcing which ground turkey brands might be tied to the issue, Fox News reports. It was determined the Wisconsin-based company "may be associated" with the contamination after a package of Jennie-O ground turkey in a patient's home tested positive for salmonella. (Stick with pumpkin pie instead of cake?)
– Support for Julia Louis-Dreyfus is pouring in after the actress revealed she has breast cancer. One person to show his support: Joe Biden. "We Veeps stick together. Jill and I, and all of the Bidens, are with you, Julia," Biden tweeted Thursday, alongside a photo of the pair taken from a video shown at the 2014 White House Correspondents Dinner, per People. "@JoeBiden yes we do. Love back to all of you," Louis-Dreyfus responded. Louis-Dreyfus' Seinfeld costars Jason Alexander and Michael Richards also expressed their support, reports People. "So sorry you have to go thru this, pal, but I know you will prevail. We are here if/when you need and we love you," Alexander tweeted.
– Body camera and helicopter footage of Sacramento police officers firing some 20 rounds at a 22-year-old father of two holding only a cellphone is out—and the reaction is intense. A day after the videos and 911 call audio were released, protesters blocked the entrance to Sacramento's Golden 1 Center Thursday, shouting "Stephon Clark" and "Black Lives Matter," reports CNN. Initially delayed, an NBA game between the Sacramento Kings and Atlanta Hawks went on to be played in front of the relatively few fans who could get inside before the doors were closed to everyone else. (This photo shows an empty upper deck along with empty sections in the lower part of the arena.) Earlier Thursday, protesters shut down Interstate 5 following a march to City Hall, calling for the arrest of two officers involved in Sunday's shooting. Video shows both firing at Clark after one officer says, "Show me your hands! Gun! Gun! Gun!" per NPR. It's another five minutes before the officers approach Clark and discuss life-saving measures. One officer then asks for the camera's sound to be muted. "It is vital that we give voice to the pain in our community, especially the African-American community," Mayor Darrell Steinberg said Thursday, urging protesters to remain peaceful. "I feel the community's anguish." Police say the protesters began to disperse later Thursday. No arrests were made, per CNN.
– The story of Hugh Hefner’s Christmas Eve proposal to 60-years-younger galpal Crystal Harris just keeps getting more and more romantic. Turns out he didn’t actually ask her to marry him, he just handed her a Little Mermaid music box (yep, really) that was holding the ring, and said, “I hope it fits.” It actually ended up being too big, Harris tells E!, but fortunately she can wear the symbol of their not-at-all-creepy love now that it’s been resized. Making the story ever more swoony: Harris wasn’t even surprised, having designed the ring herself after picking out the diamond … with Hef’s secretary. Click to see a picture of Harris’s rock.
– As far as anxiety-fueling tests, here's one that tops the SAT: the SAT do-over. At least 100 high schoolers in Loudoun County, Va., have been told they may have to take the SAT all over again because their tests have gone missing (some reports say 100 kids; WJLA puts the number of students at 300). The College Board, which administers the exam, says "every effort is being made to locate the [missing] shipment" of tests, which were taken by students on May 2 at Broad Run High School and sent via UPS. But it has also scheduled a June 20 makeup date. NBC Washington points out that date roughly coincides with the students' final exams. One student who spent more than 100 hours and $1,000 to prep for the test sounds predictably annoyed: "It's been over a month since I've done all my studying. It's going to affect my scores."
– President Trump marked the eve of the Charlottesville-riot anniversary with a tweet that—surprise, surprise—may be dividing the nation, USA Today reports. "The riots in Charlottesville a year ago resulted in senseless death and division," the president tweeted Saturday. "We must come together as a nation. I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence. Peace to ALL Americans!" For some, Trump's tweet recalled his remarks after fighting broke out in Charlottesville, Va., last year and three people were killed: "You had some very bad people in that group," he said at the time, referring to white nationalists, "but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides." "'All types.' 'Both sides.' Continuing to advance a narrative of moral equivalency between racists and those opposed to racism, so as not to tick off his white supremacist supporters," NAACP official Sherrilyn Ifill tweeted. Richard Cohen, head of the South Poverty Law Center, said white people think "they're the ones being targeted for racism and a lot of these people are Trump supporters so when the president makes a comment like this with 'all types' it's hard not to be suspicious." Meanwhile, white nationalist Jason Kessler—who organized last year's Charlottesville demonstration—was refused a permit there this year but has been allowed to hold a rally Sunday across the street from the White House, Reuters reports.
– A week after the uproar erupted over the trailer for his upcoming movie, Vince Vaughn issued a statement—not an apology—for The Dilemma’s gay joke, Deadline reports. Though he is “outraged by the bullying and persecution of people for their differences,” Vaughn says, he believes “comedy and joking about our differences breaks tension and brings us together. Drawing dividing lines over what we can and cannot joke about does exactly that; it divides us. Most importantly, where does it stop.” Click here to watch the original trailer or here to see the new trailer with the joke removed.
– Amid talk of a comeback, Jeb Bush's campaign has abruptly changed strategy—and some staffers at its Miami headquarters have had to go shopping for winter clothes. The Des Moines Register reports that the Bush campaign has canceled $3 million in TV ads in Iowa and South Carolina and is using the money to send dozens of staffers to those states and to New Hampshire and Nevada to contact voters directly. Sources tell Politico that campaign manager Danny Diaz told dozens of campaign workers in Florida that "damn near everybody"—including himself—would soon be leaving for early-voting states. Bush was at a campaign event in South Carolina on Wednesday night, and CNN reports that he downplayed the strategy change. "We have a super PAC that is advertising on television at a rate that is comparable to any other campaign, if not more," he said. "And we are reallocating our resources to voter contact and a ground game that will be second to none. It already is. Having the best organization on the ground is how you win." Bush's chief strategist tells the Register that far from giving up in Iowa, the candidate will now have "the largest paid ground operation in the first four states"—and will have more to spend on TV alternatives like digital ads and ads on conservative radio shows. The Register notes that since the pro-Bush super PAC Right to Rise has booked $3.9 million in ads in Iowa alone, Iowans will still be seeing plenty of Jeb ads.
– Fitbit devices may have sold like hotcakes around the holidays, but the company is off to a miserable start in 2016. Just how bad has the past week been? Well, on Tuesday, Fitbit revealed Blaze, its new "smart" fitness watch. Immediately the company's stock fell 18%, reports Fortune. Some on social media say the watch is too big. Others say it's a knockoff of the Apple Watch, per the Verge, which admits it's "not a very attractive watch." Forbes jokes that Fitbit "appears to have shown up to a Swiss Army knife fight with a spork." Also on Tuesday, Fitbit was hit with a class-action lawsuit alleging that heart rate tracking in its Charge HR and Surge devices is way off. One plaintiff says a trainer counted her heart rate at 160 beats per minute, while her Charge HR read only 82 beats per minute. Fitbit says it "plans to vigorously defend the lawsuit," per the Verge. In the meantime, it's battling a third blow. On Wednesday, news broke that fraudsters had gained entry to Fitbit accounts using leaked email addresses and passwords from third-party sites. BuzzFeed reports at least 24 cases where fraudsters gained access to a user's GPS history, which includes past locations and sleep cycles, and attempted to defraud the company by requesting replacement items under warranties. Fitbit says only a "small proportion" of users were affected, but some tell BuzzFeed that Fitbit blamed them for using the same passwords across multiple sites. Fitbit says it's working on two-step verification for account changes but is "vigilant in identifying, blocking, and addressing this type of malicious nefarious activity."
– The NRA's Wayne LaPierre is taking on renewed debate over gun control in wake of the Navy Yard shooting, telling NBC today that the "outrage" of "the elite media and the politicians trying to stir this toward firearms ... ought to be placed on an unprotected naval base. On a criminal justice system in Chicago that doesn't even enforce the federal gun laws when we could dramatically cut violence, on a mental health system that is completely broken, on a check system that is a complete joke in terms of stopping the bad guys." A further rundown of his comments, as per Politico: "The whole country knows the problem was there weren't enough good guys with guns. When the good guys with guns got there, it stopped." The mental health system is broken down, LaPierre says, and people like Aaron Alexis "need to be committed, and if they're committed they're not at the Naval Yard. So the Aurora shooter in Colorado gets checked, and is cleared. The Tucson shooter gets checked and gets cleared. Aaron Alexis goes through the federal and state check and gets cleared." Elsewhere on the Sunday dial, also as per Politico: Joe Manchin on whether he would renew his failed gun control effort: "Not unless there’s a movement. I’m not gonna go out there and just beat the drum for the sake of beating the drum. There has to be people willing to move off the position they've taken." Henry Kissenger on Syria: "There could be quite a good outcome because if we get the chemical weapons, it then becomes a basis for a transition in Syria that leads to relative peace. Then at the end of the day, however tortuously we arrived at this conclusion, it will have served the interest of the world." Nancy Pelosi on GOP demands for spending cuts: "The cupboard is bare. There's no more cuts to make. We all want to reduce the deficit. Put everything on the table, review it, but you cannot have any more cuts just for the sake of cuts. Right now you’re taking trophies." Claire McCaskill on a potential government shutdown: "I don't think in America we should throw tantrums when we lose elections and threaten to shut down the government and refuse to pay the bills. The American people had a choice last November. They had a choice between someone who said repeal ObamaCare, and President Obama."
– Amazon is creating 100,000 new full-time jobs in the US, mostly for positions answering phones or working in warehouses, over the next year and a half, CNN reports. That will bring the company's total workforce up to 280,000. Amazon made the announcement Thursday, and the Trump team quickly moved to take some credit for it, with incoming press secretary Sean Spicer says Trump "was pleased to have played a role" in the decision. Amazon would likely have added the jobs regardless of who's moving into the White House: It's growing rapidly and building new warehouses in Florida, Texas, New Jersey, and California, according to USA Today. The company grew from 30,000 employees in 2011 to 180,000 employees in 2016.
– You’re supposed to be helping the NYPD, Spider-Man and friends—not giving them grief. Junior Bishop, aka Spidey, was arrested this weekend in Times Square on charges involving drug possession and slugging a cop in the face, but he was soon joined by Captain America, the Naked Black Cowboy, Toy Story’s Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl, and another Spider-Man. They were all busted Saturday night for charging tourists exorbitant prices for meet-and-greet pics and/or disorderly conduct, reports the New York Post. "They’re like little terrorists preying on all the tourists," a law enforcement source says. A recent New York Times article delved into how the Big Apple has been cracking down on the city’s aggressive panhandlers, which even include men dressed as Buddhist monks and women as Taoist nuns. The nonprofit Times Square Alliance is calling for more stringent licensing for street characters it calls "violent and aggressive" with "troubling criminal records," says CBS New York. Some of the costumed racketeers bemoan the cops’ interference: A man dressed as Batman nemesis Bane tells the Post that officers "are on top of us all the time, telling people to not give us tips, which is not fair." But people on the street seem to be relieved the NYPD is taking care of business. "You don’t want someone who’s just come from jail to take a picture with your kid," one mom says.
– The Pentagon's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy concerning gays might be dead, but don't be too quick to come out of the military closet, advocates are warning gays. "While the immediate impact of this bill may inspire folks from across the nation, it is important to note that full implementation has yet to take place, and that it's not yet safe for service members to disclose their sexual orientation," wrote the Human Rights Campaign on its website. Even after President Obama signs the measure, as he is expected to do, the Pentagon must issue a certification stating that it's prepared to implement the measure in a way that won't damage its readiness, effectiveness, or recruiting. Until then, service members can still be investigated and discharged for being gay. Gay rights groups, however, have asked than any discharges over sexual orientation be suspended during the transition period. But a Defense Department spokesman told the Huffington Post that the "current law remains in effect until certification takes place." And Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he'll agree to certification "only after careful consultation" with military officials and "when I am satisfied that conditions have been met for all the services, commands and units."
– A woman with mysterious chest pains was in a prickly situation thanks to the porcupine quill she unwittingly swallowed, and which in turn poked a hole in her aorta. Live Science reports the 49-year-old woman went to the ER with shortness of breath and chest pains that worsened when she would lie down. Doctors thought she was just having a panic attack and sent her home. But her symptoms continued, and she went to a different ER a week later. This time doctors found fluid around her heart and a defect on the wall of her aorta. They admitted her for treatment. The fluid around her heart had to be drained every few days because it kept building up, and the defect on her aorta appeared to be growing. Doctors decided to operate on the woman and discovered a "black, sharp object" that "appeared to be a quill" stuck in her aorta. Tests confirmed it was a porcupine quill. That's when the woman revealed her dog had a run-in with a porcupine a few weeks before her symptoms started. She must have accidentally eaten one of the quills while removing them from her dog. The quill then poked through her esophagus and into her aorta. "Sharp foreign body ingestion is extremely rare but poses devastating complications and should be considered in the differential diagnosis of patients with otherwise unexplained chest pain," a report published recently in the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants concluded.
– It's not quite accurate to say that a "long-lost" manuscript by Nobel laureate Pearl Buck has turned up 40 years after her death, because nobody knew the thing existed in the first place. Buck, who also won the Pulitzer for her 1931 novel the Good Earth, apparently wrote Eternal Wonder shortly before she died in 1973, and it somehow made its way to a storage unit in Texas, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. A woman who found it recently turned it over to Buck's foundation for a "small fee," and it will be published in October. Buck was incredibly prolific—critics think maybe a little too prolific, notes the New York Times—so it's not a huge shock that she managed to crank out an entire novel late in life without anyone noticing. The publisher's description of the upcoming book: It's a "coming-of-age story of Randolph Colfax, an extraordinarily gifted young man whose search for meaning and purpose leads him to New York, England, Paris and on a mission patrolling the DMZ in Korea that will change his life forever—and, ultimately, to love.”
– The head of US Customs and Border Protection told reporters Monday that he has temporarily stopped referring adults for criminal prosecution if they cross the border illegally with children. Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said the referrals were suspended after President Trump issued an executive order last week halting the practice of separating families that cross the border illegally. The Trump administration's zero tolerance policy, in which anyone who crosses the border illegally is prosecuted, is still in effect, but McAleenan said parents can't currently be prosecuted since they can no longer be separated from their children. He said he is working on a plan to resume referrals of parents. After his comments, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders quickly reiterated the halting of referrals for prosecution is only temporary, the AP reports. She also spoke at the press briefing about the executive order, noting that it "will only last a short amount of time because we'll run out of space, we're going to run out of resources in order to keep people together," CNN reports. She said the administration is calling on Congress to change immigration laws and has asked the Pentagon to provide space for families who cross the border without documentation. Meanwhile, Trump on Monday called for ending due process for those who cross the border illegally, Politico reports. He said the US should implement a "nice, simple system" in which anyone in the country illegally is sent back over the border without appearing before a judge; at the press briefing, Sanders defended that idea: "Virtually all Americans agree that it makes no sense that an illegal alien sets one foot on American soil and then they would go through a three- to five-year judicial process to be removed from the country. ... Just because you don't see a judge doesn't mean you aren't receiving due process."
– In the new Atlantic cover story, one of the nation's most prominent black voices provides a lengthy assessment of the nation's first black president. The 17,000-word piece by Ta-Nehisi Coates makes clear that Coates considers Obama a man worthy of high esteem. After noting that Obama's rise to national prominence began with his 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention, Coates writes: "Over the next 12 years, I came to regard Obama as a skilled politician, a deeply moral human being, and one of the greatest presidents in American history." He adds that Obama was "the most agile interpreter and navigator of the color line I had ever seen," able to connect to black people while not alienating white people. That was due in part to his own upbringing with a Kansas-born white mother. Obama recalls that in the 2008 race, he gave himself maybe a 25% chance of winning—but he never doubted his ability to win over white voters. Why? "Obama was able to offer white America...something very few African Americans could—trust," writes Coates. But he adds that Obama had something of a blind spot here as well. As he tells NPR, he thinks the president "deeply underestimated the force of white supremacy in American life." In the Atlantic piece, he takes issue with Obama's "overriding trust in color-blind policy and his embrace of 'personal responsibility' rhetoric when speaking to African-Americans," which Coates views as insensitive to the realities of many black youth. But the overall tone is deep respect for what Obama was able to accomplish despite overt obstructionism. His "victories in 2008 and 2012 were dismissed by some of his critics as merely symbolic for African Americans," writes Coates. "But there is nothing 'mere' about symbols." Click to read the full piece.
– Another school lesson has ended poorly, this time in Texas. Houston's Ed White Elementary School held a Multicultural Day earlier this month, with the school explaining via email that the kids would learn about cultures in places ranging from Spain to Israel. The email, in parentheses, stated that the children "will be doing henna," a plant-based dye that's traditionally painted on the body in India, reports Click2Houston. Tammy Samour's husband read the email and didn't know what henna was. He does now. Tammy Samour, who didn't read the email, says she's outraged after her 7-year-old Leah came home from school with henna tattoos on her hands. "Somebody tattooed my daughter without my permission." Samour is particularly incensed because the activity occurred the week before Christmas week. "We have family photos, opening presents, church, and she is going to be wearing that on her hands throughout the holiday." KHOU reports the Clear Creek Independent School District offered to Photoshop Leah's hands in those holiday photos, but that wasn't enough to appease Samour. "Exploring other cultures is a wonderful thing. But tattooing another culture's expressions on my daughter is not acceptable. It's upsetting to go through Christmas with another religion's celebratory symbolism all over my daughter's hands." The district says it regrets not spelling out what henna is in the email, and says it will "certainly will do a better job in the future to make sure that parents are informed."
– President Trump himself hasn't addressed Monday's miserable day for the stock market, but two White House officials made a point to downplay the trouble and emphasize perspective. "Look markets do fluctuate," said deputy White House press secretary Raj Shah. "But the fundamentals of this economy are very strong." Press chief Sarah Huckabee Sanders said similarly that the "president's focus is on our long-term economic fundamentals, which remain exceptionally strong." As many outlets are now pointing out, Trump has repeatedly boasted of the booming stock market. In his recent State of the Union address, for example, he spoke of it smashing "one record after the other," notes USA Today, which rounds up several tweets from Trump with a similar sentiment. Despite Monday's 1,175-point loss, the Dow is still up 23% since Trump took office, reports Business Insider. But the rough day illustrates the danger of the president taking too much credit for the market's performance, notes Politico. “This is a risk that the president clearly set himself up for,” Charles Gabriel of Capital Alpha Partners tells the news site. “Until now, Trump’s had kind of a free ride in this market and taken so much credit for it, even though so much of it was due to easy-money policies from Janet Yellen and the Fed." Monday may have seen the biggest single-day point loss in the Dow's history, but in terms of percentage, the 4.46% loss is well below the 7% single-day drop of Sept. 29, 2008.
– Ariel Winter, the 14-year-old who plays Alex Dunphy on Modern Family, has been granted a restraining order against her mom after alleging abuse. Ariel's court papers allege some very disturbing behavior by her mom, Chris Workman: "ongoing physical abuse (slapping, hitting, pushing) and emotional abuse (vile name-calling, personal insults about minor and minor's weight, attempts to 'sexualize' minor, deprivation of food, etc.) for an extended period of time." But Workman tells People the allegations are not true, and that she has letters from doctors and stylists who are on her side. For the time being, a judge granted Ariel's older sister guardianship until a Nov. 20 hearing. That sister, actress Shanelle Gray, was also reportedly removed from her mother's home almost two decades ago after similar claims. But their brother, Jimmy Workman (who played Pugsley Addams in the Addams Family movies), defends his mother against both sisters. "There is no truth to these allegations," he tells Us. "The allegations made 20 years ago are not true and the ones today are not true. This is a mother who does everything for her kids."
– "I deal with answers and questions," Jeopardy host Alex Trebek told the crowd at the National Geographic World Championship after hobbling onstage on crutches. "Today I'm going to start with the answer to a question on many of your minds right now. The answer is: 'At 2:30 yesterday morning, chasing a burglar down the hall ... until my Achilles tendon ruptured and I fell in an ignominious heap, bruising my other leg in the process." A 56-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of burglary in connection with the chase at the San Francisco hotel where Trebek, 71, and his wife were staying, CNN reports. Trebek woke when the burglar entered his room and he gave chase while his wife called security, who caught the suspect, according to cops. Cash, a bracelet, and other items were taken from the couple's room. Trebek is scheduled for surgery tomorrow and is expected to be in a cast for some six weeks, AP reports.
– Joe Lieberman, who was at one point considered the front-runner for FBI director, has dropped out of the running. The former senator said he wanted to avoid the "appearance of a conflict of interest" after President Trump hired Marc Kasowitz, who works at the same law firm as Lieberman, to help the White House deal with the Russia investigation, reports the Wall Street Journal. Other candidates, including former Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher, have also withdrawn from consideration, but the Justice Department has continued to interview candidates while Trump is on his foreign trip, including former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers, reports the Washington Post. Lieberman told MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace Thursday that it wouldn't have looked good if he had taken the job, NBC News reports. "With everything swirling in Washington, you can't have a director of the FBI coming from the same law firm as the president's private lawyer. It looks terrible," he said.
– They took on the swamps, and they won. Two female soldiers have made US military history by passing Army Ranger training and will graduate at Fort Benning this Friday, the military says. They were among 19 women and 381 men in the first Ranger School class to allow females and will graduate alongside 94 men who also made it through the 62-day course, reports Reuters. Calling the training "tough" would be an understatement: The military says it includes a "physical fitness test consisting of 49 push-ups, 59 sit-ups, a five-mile run in 40 minutes, and six chin-ups; a swim test; a land navigation test; a 12-mile foot march in three hours; several obstacle courses; four days of military mountaineering; three parachute jumps; four air assaults on helicopters; multiple rubber boat movements; and 27 days of mock combat patrols." The milestone comes as the military debates which roles will still be off-limits to women now that combat roles have been opened up, the New York Times reports. The services have until Jan. 1 to make their case. Getting the Rangers badge is seen as a key step toward leading troops, especially in the infantry, but while Army Secretary John McHugh says "each Ranger School graduate has shown the physical and mental toughness to successfully lead organizations at any level," many roles remain closed to women, including membership in the Ranger regiment, USA Today reports. (The Marine Corps infantry training course had its first female graduates in 2013.)
– Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes have pulled off what TMZ calls "the biggest cover-up in Hollywood baby history." The couple welcomed their second daughter, Amada Lee Gosling, on April 29 at Providence St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, according to a leaked birth certificate. Amada was the name of Mendes' late grandmother and is the middle name of 20-month-old sister Esmeralda. The couple managed to keep the pregnancy under wraps until a month ago, when sources confirmed the news to Us Weekly; Mendes hasn't been photographed at a public event since December. "They've settled so well into their new family of three," a source tells E! "Ryan is very hands on and has been taking the baby after the early morning feed so Eva can sleep in a bit. He sings the baby songs—they are both madly in love with this child."
– Syria's official news agency says voters are "flocking" to the polls to vote in today's local elections—but with activists calling for a voting boycott, the actual turnout is likely to be small. Some 43,000 candidates are running for more than 17,500 seats, al-Jazeera reports. Meanwhile, clashes between protesters and government forces continue: One reporter saw "tens of tanks mounted with machine guns" open fire yesterday in an attempt to end a general strike planned by the opposition. At least 31 people, including five soldiers, were reported killed. Government forces also reportedly burned down at least 178 stores to get revenge on those who shut down their shops in observance of the strike, which is "part of our desperate action to get the attention of the international community to look at us," said an activist. The opposition hopes to keep the strike in force until the regime pulls the army out of cities and releases thousands of detainees, and AP reports that it is apparently being widely observed in certain areas, with most shops and schools closed today in the city of Homs and parts of the southern province of Daraa. But the violence continues, with at least five killed in northern Syria today, activists tell Haaretz.
– A Japanese city activated its emergency broadcast system Monday not for a missile alert, but for a warning about the country's deadliest delicacy. Emergency system loudspeakers in Gamagori, central Japan, warned residents that a supermarket had sold packages of fugu without removing the liver, one of the deadliest parts of the notorious fish, SBS reports. The livers, ovaries, and skin of the fugu, or blowfish, contain tetrodotoxin, a nerve poison that authorities say can cause a "rapid and violent" death after a single bite, reports the BBC. Incorrectly prepared fugu kills several people in Japan every year. Regional heath officials say the supermarket sold five packages of assorted fugu meat, all of which could have been contaminated by the liver, the AP reports. Asahi Shimbun reports that after the emergency broadcast, which urged citizens who had bought the packages to return them to the Super Tatsuya supermarket, all five packages were accounted for. Four were returned unopened and the supermarket president says it was contacted by a fifth person who had consumed the fugu but had suffered no ill effects. "I'm very sorry," says the supermarket president, who has promised not to sell fugu again. (In a previous incident, seven people were sickened when an unauthorized chef served fugu testicles.)
– A 35-year-old woman died after a botched breast procedure in which a Chinese tourist gave her a lethal dose of anesthesia, police said. Jean Huang went into cardiac arrest during the procedure on Wednesday, ABC News Australia reports, and died two days later. Jie Shao, 33, who had been in Australia for five days, administered breast fillers and the fatal dose of anesthesia, police said. She was charged with recklessly inflicting bodily harm and using poison to endanger life, and police said she may face more charges. Neither Shao nor Yuegiong Fu, who was working as nurse, had any medical qualifications in Australia, 9 News reports. Fu is also under investigation. Huang underwent the procedure, which does not require surgery, at Medi Beauty Laser and Contour Clinic in Sydney, where she worked as a manager. Shao's lawyer told a judge that she was a graduate of a medical university in China and was a specialist in dermatology. Shao, who was denied bail, had a return plane ticket to China. Her case was continued until Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Australasian College of Cosmetic Surgery called for tighter regulations against clinics administering cosmetic fillers, Botox, and other injections. (A West Virginia mom died during a 'butt lift.')
– Cathy McCulloch writes that as of last week, she hadn't read Fifty Shades of Grey ("honest!"). The barrister is intimately familiar with portions of it now, however, due to a case that she describes as "exceptional" in a blog post spotted by the Independent. Her client was a father charged with eight counts of incestuous rape that allegedly occurred over a six-year period; he "had absolutely no real defense other than 'I did not do it.'" His daughter, on the other hand, had given a "compelling interview" to police, explaining in detail what had allegedly occurred. There was just one thing that nagged at McCulloch: "the use of certain words, phrases, and descriptions of how she felt which seemed beyond her years." Then her client mentioned his daughter's favorite book (which he was unfamiliar with): Fifty Shades of Grey. An instructing solicitor on the case who also had not previously read it picked up a copy and uncovered "too many striking similarities" between the girl's statement and the novel. In all, the team discovered 17 examples that "appeared to have been lifted from the book," per a more technical description of the case. McCulloch analyzed the passages and the girl's interview as part of her cross-examination preparations. On the trial's third day, the girl took the stand, and McCulloch began "gently." Just seven minutes later—during which McCulloch brought up those striking similarities—"we were finished." The girl admitted she had made up the allegations to teach her "strict" father a lesson. The prosecutor re-examined the girl and she confirmed that it had all been a lie. An immediate acquittal followed. (This Fifty Shades "re-enactment" landed a student in jail.)
– Saturday Night Live ran a funny sketch in its last show in which Louis CK plays a down-in-the-dumps guy who hires a clown to put on a show solely for him. One person not laughing is fellow comedian Tig Notaro—because she used the premise first in her short film Clown Service. You can see the SNL sketch here and Notaro's 13-minute video here. "While I don’t know how all this actually happened, I did find it extremely disappointing," says Notaro in a statement released to Entertainment Weekly. She doesn't appear to be blaming Louis CK, saying that a "writer/director" who was aware of Clown Service—it's been out for a year and is currently part of her national tour—worked on the SNL sketch. "I never gave anyone permission to use anything from my film," says Notaro. While she and Louis CK have long ties—he hosted her standup on his website and is an executive producer of her show One Mississippi, notes Jezebel—she says they have not communicated in any way in more than a year. "I hesitated to even address any of this, but I think it is only right to defend my work," she writes. No word yet from Louis CK, who was in a famous tiff with comedian Dane Cook over alleged plagiarism years ago. After Cook was accused of stealing Louis CK's material, the incident made it into an episode of his show Louie.
– Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert's new book, Committed, has our heroine coming to terms with marriage after swearing off the institution, with the aid of a lot of research. Some critics aren't convinced: "One generally doesn’t indulge another person’s emotional processing at this length unless the jabbering is likely to conclude with sex," Ariel Levy writes in the New Yorker. And that's not where the book goes—rather, it ends with "suspicious" "peace and contentment." The author "seems, at times, in her own uncomfortable, self-deprecating way, to be trying for a history or analysis of the institution of marriage," Katie Roiphe writes for DoubleX. "Her new status as bestselling author seems to have endowed her with some responsibility to write about the larger culture, which is the central problem with the book." That old Gilbert is still there, Malena Watrous writes in the San Francisco Chronicle, but "heavily researched chapters like 'Marriage and History' feel more academic, which would be OK except that she is not making a coherent argument about marriage so much as trying to talk herself into it." Yeah, it's not Eat, Pray, Love, rites Eryn Loeb of Bookslut. But it is good. Gilbert is "open about the fuzziness of it all, making Committed one of the wisest and most sensitive explorations of marriage—or really, relationships in general—I’ve read."
– Simultaneously battling driving rain, gale-force winds, freezing temperatures, flames, and smoke, Italian and Greek rescuers have painstakingly plucked all of more than 400 passengers and crew from a blazing ferry in the Adriatic Sea, reports CNN. In the course of the daylong rescue, they came upon four more bodies from the Norman Atlantic in the water, reports the AP; two more bodies were recovered after that, bringing the death toll to seven. One man died yesterday after becoming trapped in a lifeboat chute. Passengers, who were in communication with media via telephone, described a hellish scene as they awaited an arduous rescue via helicopter: "Our feet were burning, and from the feet up we were soaked," one passenger tells the AP, adding that people were "trampling on each other to get onto the helicopter." Echoes another, per CNN: Those aboard were "dying of cold and suffocating from the smoke." Says yet another passenger, "We experienced the Titanic. The only thing missing was that we didn't sink." Some 150 passengers were able to escape in the first hours after the fire broke out on the ferry's car deck, notes CNN; subsequent lifeboats couldn't be deployed when the boat lost power, rendering the electronic arms that moved the vessels useless. Survivors, some limping or with bandaged feet, were being brought to shore in Italy. Several have been treated for hypothermia and carbon monoxide poisoning, notes the AP. A total of 414 people were rescued, with the captain being the last to leave. The ferry is expected to eventually be towed to Italy.
– How to make an already-existing cruise ship bigger? Cut it in half, of course. That's what Silversea Cruises is doing to its Silver Spirit ship, which has been sailing since 2009. The 642-foot-long vessel was halved earlier this month so that a new 49-foot-long segment can be added, USA Today reports. The new and improved version of the ship will feature more restaurants and cabins, a larger pool area, and upgraded spa, fitness, and entertainment areas. "A rarely performed feat of maritime architecture, this type of lengthening has never before been employed for the extension of a luxury cruise ship," says Silversea in a press release. More than 500 workers will be involved in the process, which is happening at an Italy shipyard and expected to take 450,000 worker hours and use 846 tons of steel, 360,892 feet of cabling, and 26,247 feet of piping. It will also cost $100 million, Travel + Leisure reports—a lot less than the $1 billion or more an entirely new ship can cost. Wexas Travel reports that 10 decks had to be cut through before the ship's two halves could be pulled apart to make room for the new section. The Spirit, which will have a 12% expanded passenger capacity after the renovation, will sail its first post-expansion cruise out of Italy starting May 6. (A cruise ship will carry you through the perilous Northwest Passage.)
– A mother whose son was killed in the Orlando, Fla., shooting has shared the terrifying final text messages she received. Mina Justice, who spoke to the AP before her 30-year-old son, Eddie, was confirmed dead, says she was woken up at 2:06am by the messages: "Mommy I love you" and "In club they shooting." He told her he was trapped in the bathroom of the Pulse nightclub and urged her to call police. She called 911 and exchanged more messages with her son as she spoke to the dispatcher. "He's coming. I'm gonna die," Eddie texted at 2:39am. "Hurry," he wrote minutes later. "He's in the bathroom with us." She asked him, "Is the man in the bathroom wit u?" At 2:50am, he wrote "He's a terror," and then sent his final message: "Yes." It would be more than two hours until police stormed the club, killing gunman Omar Mateen after the deadliest mass shooting in US history. Eddie Justice was on a partial list of victims released by police Sunday night, the Guardian reports. His mother says he was an accountant who was generally a homebody but who loved to make people laugh. The Orlando Sentinel has the names and stories of more of the 50 victims, almost all of whom were in their 20s or 30s. (On Sunday night, vigils were held across the US.)
– In a potentially groundbreaking first, doctors say they detected chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease associated with repeated head injuries, in a living patient. Just weeks after Boston University researchers announced CCL11 proteins in the brain could indicate CTE in living patients, researchers in Chicago say they identified CTE in a retired NFL player before he died by detecting different proteins. Initially, they performed brain exams on 14 former NFL players in 2012 while all were living. Over damaged neural cells, they found clumps of tau proteins—which are believed to kill brain cells, per ABC News—with a "specific topographic signature" doctors believed indicated a CTE finding, lead author Bennet Omalu tells CNN. Their suspicion was confirmed when former Minnesota Vikings linebacker Fred McNeill, who played football for 22 years but suffered only one reported concussion, died in 2015, allowing doctors to formally diagnose CTE during an autopsy, reports the Chicago Tribune. McNeill's wife later told researchers he'd started having trouble with simple motor skills two years after his brain was initially scanned. He was soon unable to feed himself and suffered from ALS, slurred speech, progressive dysphagia, and other health issues at his time of death, researchers write in the Neurosurgery journal. Though more work is needed to confirm the link between tau proteins and CTE, Omalu is optimistic and hopes a commercial test for CTE might be available in "less than five years." (Here's what Aaron Hernandez's brain revealed.)
– An Arkansas real estate agent has gone missing in the vicinity of Little Rock after going to show a home on Thursday. Some 200 volunteers searched for 49-year-old Beverly Carter yesterday and will continue the effort today, CNN reports. Police have arrested Arron Lewis, 33, on kidnapping charges, reports ABC, though the link between the two hasn't been made clear. Police were at the site of a single-car accident yesterday morning that sent Lewis to the hospital. As he awaited a CT scan, however, he left the hospital; a warrant was later issued and he was taken into custody this morning. Lewis' criminal record includes felony property theft, and he's on parole through 2017, ArkansasOnline notes. Carter called her husband on Thursday to tell him the address of the property she'd be showing in Scott, Ark. Afterward, he didn't hear from her for hours and became concerned. He called police after finding her vehicle at the property with her purse inside it; the door to the home was open. ABC13 reports her cellphone was missing and describes it as "key to the case." A number of texts were sent from the phone to her husband in the early hours of Friday morning. Among them: "Having drinks right now." That further alarmed Carl Carter, who says his wife isn't much of a drinker. (Another weekend mystery surrounds the deaths of a family of five in Utah.)
– Though the world has lost Robin Williams, his work lives on—including a fair bit we haven't seen yet. The actor has four movies due out relatively soon, showcasing his comic and dramatic range—not to mention some voice acting. First up is Merry Friggin' Christmas, with Wendi McLendon-Covey, Lauren Graham, and Oliver Platt. The road-trip film about a dysfunctional family features Williams as a dad and Joel McHale as his son, the Los Angeles Times reports. It's due out Nov. 7, per Entertainment Weekly. After that, there's Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. Williams will be back playing Teddy Roosevelt with "a sense of that old Williams mojo," as the Times puts it. It arrives in theaters Dec. 19. The drama Boulevard, which has appeared at the Tribeca Film Festival already, tells the tale of a married man's involvement with a street hustler. The film features Bob Odenkirk and Kathy Baker and is directed by Dito Montiel; its release date isn't certain. Williams will lend his voice to a dog in a new comedy directed by Monty Python alum Terry Jones. Also starring Simon Pegg and Kate Beckinsale, Absolutely Anything is the story of a teacher who gets supernatural powers from aliens. Its release is set for 2015, Entertainment Weekly notes. As for another project in the works, Mrs. Doubtfire 2, it looks likely to be dropped without Williams, Variety reports. Meanwhile, Hollywood is paying tribute to Williams.
– How did eight Chinese tourists rack up a tab worth about $4,400 at an Israeli hummus restaurant? That's what the Israeli Foreign Ministry is asking after the group was charged a hefty 16,500 shekels for dinner, the New York Daily News reports. "By behaving this way we are destroying with our own hands the budding potential of the Chinese market for Israel," complained an Israeli tourism group to Globes. Some 47,000 Chinese visit Israel each year, and the Israel Incoming Tour Operators Association said it chose to go public with the bill in order to chide the restaurant and dissuade others from following in the restaurant's allegedly unfair footsteps. The bill at the popular Abu Ghosh Restaurant included: $1,064 for a private room $173 for hors d'oeuvres and salads $1,569 for booze $838 for main courses $400 service charge $359 for desserts Restaurant owner Jawdat Ibrahim defended the bill and said the Chinese asked him to close the eatery on one of his busiest nights. "They sat there from 3pm on Friday until midnight, and became rowdy and drunk," he said, noting that the group added a 10% tip. He says he got a thanks from the diners, only to find them "trying to besmirch us ... two weeks later.” The Association disputes that account, saying the Chinese arrived at 7pm, never asked Ibrahim to close the place, and arrived to find the alcohol pre-ordered and on the table. HummusGate has prompted an inquiry by the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Israeli Embassy in China, which is trying to track down the tourists, the Washington Post notes. (This drunk diner accidentally tipped 1,800%.)
– Everyone's talking about Hillary Clinton in 2016—but the next time the Dems are choosing a candidate, Clinton's Senate successor might be their best bet. Kirsten Gillibrand has a reputation as a moderate, but as a senator since 2009, she's managed to win over skeptical lefties, too, writes Maggie Haberman at Politico. Just ask Howard Dean, who calls her "a first-class political mind." She's a Blue Dog Democrat who has carved a political career that gives her firm footing for a national run. During the 2012 election, Gillibrand fought for women candidates via her Off the Sidelines PAC, which pulled in $1 million to back women candidates. Meanwhile, she easily won election to a full term. Her work on both women's rights and against Don't Ask, Don't Tell "appeal to a huge swath of the Democratic primary electorate," notes Haberman. Meanwhile, despite some position changes, "she has remained center-left" on issues like business. "If Hillary doesn’t run, I think there’s going to be a legitimate woman candidate, and it’s likely to be Kirsten Gillibrand," Dean says. Click for the full piece.
– Running for the White House, Jeb Bush portrays himself as a man who has "worked his tail off" to get ahead in life. But in his business dealings—which involved such diverse fields as real estate, credit card services, and water pumps—the candidate seemed to benefit from his father's political power and worked with people who turned out to be criminals, the Washington Post reports. Bush's business outlook in his early years was "a little bit of damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead," says a professor who wrote about him. "His judgment on who to associate with is lacking." Unlike his father and brother George, who each made fortunes as young men, Jeb jumped from one business venture to another, at times with unsavory characters. When Jeb's dad was vice-president, Jeb lobbied the federal government for the owner of a Miami health-maintenance organization who was later charged with $200 million in Medicare fraud and fled the US. In another case, Jeb pitched water pumps in Nigeria for a Florida company while Bush Sr. was president; the company was later found guilty of falsifying claims that cost the US government $7.5 million in damages. In all, five of Jeb's associates have been convicted. "At the time, I didn’t feel I was doing business with a crook," he told the Miami Herald after the Medicare case. "Unfortunately, I didn’t give it a whole lot of thought." Today, his camp says a few dubious characters took advantage of Jeb's naiveté, but "he has always operated with the highest level of integrity throughout his business career." Read more at the Post.
– The Navy SEAL team that captured and killed Osama bin Laden arrived back in the US yesterday and it's safe to say that they'd never have to buy another beer in their lives—if people knew who they were. The team member's identities are being kept secret in order to protect them, frustrating millions who want to thank them, the AP reports. "I think this entire community, the entire country, is so proud of the crowd," the mayor of Virginia Beach, where the SEALs unit is based, tells the Virginian-Pilot. "But you've got to hold back." Virginia Beach's mayor had earlier proposed a parade, as have several aldermen in Chicago. The Navy says that while it appreciates the offers, the elite force would rather avoid the attention—the SEALs involved will likely be awarded medals in a very private ceremony. But the Navy SEAL Foundation, which helps the families of SEALs, says donations have surged over the last week. "We don't go around beating our chest," says a spokesman. "You're the dad and the neighbor. Life goes on."
– Authorities have warned of no end in sight to volcanic activity responsible for hundreds of earthquakes and the destruction of dozens of homes on Hawaii's Big Island. Case in point: After a 24-hour lull, two new volcano fissures opened up in the Lanipuna Gardens area Tuesday afternoon—at least one home was destroyed—prompting a warning for the area's 250 residents to "evacuate now," report Hawaii News Now and Reuters. The fissures join 12 other vents, covering 2.5 miles, in the Leilani Estates neighborhood, where 1,700 were evacuated. Though activity has calmed there, Kilauea's ongoing eruption "could last days, weeks, years," a volcanologist tells NPR. "As long as there's magma supplying the system we're expecting more of the same," adds USGS volcanologist Wendy Stovall. At CNN, geologist Einat Lev explains that Kilauea's "effusive fissure eruption" is resulting in lava flows that are slow-moving but threatening nonetheless. "While we cannot tell how long this eruption will last, we can do our best to predict where the lava will go," Lev says. Using constantly updated maps and heat cameras, experts are tracking magma as it flows beneath communities, trying to determine where pressure will force a new fissure to open and how much lava and ash might escape. Other concerns include sulfur dioxide gas, which could turn to acid rain with precipitation expected Thursday or Friday, reports KTLA, and the possibility of explosive eruptions that send boulders flying through the air, which geologists warned about Wednesday, per the AP. Scientists are trying to look on the bright side, though. "The things that we will learn in the wake of this eruption will change the way we see volcanoes for the future," Stovall says.
– As expected, President Trump signed off on steel and aluminum tariffs Thursday at the White House, CNBC reports. Trump says a 25% tax will apply to steel imports, and 10% will be added to aluminum brought into the US, the AP reports. Trump says the excess of imported steel and aluminum is a "travesty" and hurts American workers and industry and that the US industry has been "ravaged by aggressive foreign trade practices. ... It's really an assault on our country." The tariffs will take effect in 15 days, with Canada and Mexico indefinitely exempted. Trump, who announced the tariffs while surrounded by steelworkers, says he is fulfilling a key campaign promise. American steel and aluminum workers have been betrayed, he said, but "that betrayal is now over."
– In case you missed it, Snooki launched her own news show this week (watch the entire awe-inspiring three minutes here), and she already has one very high-profile fan: Anderson Cooper. The CNN host called out "every news station in the world" last night on the Ridiculist for missing out on the opportunity to put Snooki behind the anchor desk. "I have always known that Snooki is a Renaissance woman," says Cooper (who calls her, among other things, "Cutie Couric" and "a really buzzed, pint-sized Sanjay Gupta.") "She's so much more than what you see on the Jersey Shore. Yes, she drinks, she dances, she parties and smooshes. But she also philosophizes, she also writes best-selling books. She also ... holds the key to my heart."
– Canada has rejected Chris Brown. The singer tweeted yesterday, "The good people of the Canadian government wouldn't allow me entry," the New York Daily News reports, though that tweet has since been deleted. Concert promoter Live Nation later announced that "due to immigration issues," Brown's concerts (last night in Montreal and tonight in Toronto) have been canceled, the AP reports. Canada Border Services wouldn't comment on Brown's case specifically, but a spokesman said immigration officials use several factors to decide whether to allow entry, and criminal activity is one of those factors. Brown, of course, spent almost three months in jail last year for violating his probation, which he was on after assaulting Rihanna in 2009. The Canadian government says Brown can apply to enter the country at a later date, and in his tweet, Brown noted that he has plans to return this summer. Brown's criminal record has previously gotten him barred from the UK, a snafu that forced him to cancel four concerts. (What's going on between Brown and Kendall Jenner?)
– It's common knowledge that a healthy person shouldn't sit around all day, but new research on running is emphasizing the opposite danger. Running too much can be just as bad for you as being sedentary, the study suggests. Researchers tracked some 1,100 healthy runners and 413 sedentary folks over a period of more than 12 years, HealthDay reports via Medical Xpress. People ranged in age from 20 to 95. The risk of dying during the study turned out to be approximately the same among heavy runners—those who ran quickly more than three days a week for a total of more than four hours—and sedentary people who rarely exercised, Time reports. The best plan, according to the study, was to run lightly: The group that had the best results ran at a slow-ish pace (about 5mph) less than three times each week, going for an hour to 2.4 hours total. Even a group that ran a bit more often and longer saw a slight increase in death risk, Time notes. The findings could perhaps relate to cardiovascular problems previously observed in the most die-hard runners and cyclists. "If you want to do something good for yourself, you don’t have to be extreme," says a study author. But another researcher points to a number of possible flaws in the findings, including the fact that the hardest-running group was quite small. (Another recent study has a warning on exercise: It could hurt your teeth.)
– Niacin sure sounds like a safe drug—it's a B vitamin; you can get it over the counter and in your cereal. And for years, doctors have been prescribing it in the hopes of cutting LDL, or "bad cholesterol," while increasing HDL, or "good cholesterol." But two reports released yesterday indicate that it doesn't reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke at all—but does carry other dangers. One study found that patients who had niacin added to their cholesterol treatments saw their diabetes risk spike 32% over four years, NBC News reports. That's on top of already recognized side effects like stomach ulcers, heartburn, and diarrhea. "I think we've wasted a lot of money, caused a certain amount of harm," by prescribing niacin, one cardiologist said; from 2002 to 2009, niacin prescriptions tripled to 700,000 a month in the US, with sales hitting about $800 million a year. Cardiologists had, however, already begun shying away from the drug in light of earlier research—a 2011 study, for example, indicated that it may increase certain stroke risks. But the Mayo Clinic still recommends niacin, and many doctors agree, Dr. Harlan Krumholz at the New York Times reports. Some doctors point out that the studies focused on high-risk patients, and that niacin could be useful for other patients.
– Proving that he knows what the kids are listening to these days, President Barack Obama tells People magazine his favorite song of the year is Kendrick Lamar's How Much a Dollar Cost. "If there was any doubt Obama was our hippest president, let it be immediately dispelled," Jeremy Gordon writes for Pitchfork. Meanwhile, Michelle Obama claimed the inescapable Uptown Funk by Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson as her top song of 2015. The president wasn't alone in his appreciation for Lamar, who was recently nominated for 11 Grammys, including album of the year.
– Lynda Alsip got an unexpected Christmas present this year: the 1967 Ford Mustang she had stolen from her 28 years ago. Alsip had last seen her first car, purchased for $800 in 1985, at her apartment complex in Salinas, Calif., before it vanished in 1986 while she was out with friends, the Salinas Californian reports. It turns out that it didn't go far. A man who says he purchased it from storage in 1991 kept it in his garage in Salinas and did some work on it before attempting to register it with the DMV. The California Highway Patrol soon traced it to Alsip's mother. When an officer called asking Alsip if her car had been stolen, "I said, 'Oh my God, you found my green '67 Mustang!'" Alsip was reunited with the car on Monday after officers decked it out with a bright red bow. "It is sort of a Christmas miracle, and we are really happy to give her her car back," an officer tells NBC Bay Area. Alsip says her husband and son will work on getting the Mustang running again, but "it's an amazing blessing," she says. "I couldn't ask for a better Christmas present." She's already made one small adjustment: She's added the personalized plates she bought years ago—reading "LYNDA67" for the year she was born—which arrived after the car disappeared. Officials are investigating whether the man who had it all these years knew it was stolen, adds the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
– When Bill Owens went to collect the body of his son at Dover Air Force Base, he found out that the president of the United States was also on his way to pay his respects as the casket of Chief Special Warfare Officer William "Ryan" Owens was unloaded. But he told the chaplain, "I'm sorry, I don't want to see him. I told them I don't want to meet the president." The elder Owens, himself a military veteran, tells the Miami Herald that more than shunning President Trump, "I want an investigation" into the death of his son, the only American casualty in a botched raid in Yemen, and the first American combat death of Trump's term. "The government owes my son an investigation." Owens says he's been troubled by Trump since he went after a Gold Star family while on the campaign trail. Says a White House rep, per the AP: "I can't imagine what this father is going through. His son is a true American hero, and we should forever be in his son's debt." But Owens questions the very purpose of the mission: "Why at this time did there have to be this stupid mission when it wasn't even barely a week into his administration? Why? For two years prior, there were no boots on the ground in Yemen—everything was missiles and drones—because there was not a target worth one American life. Now, all of a sudden we had to make this grand display?" The entire Herald article, which profiles 37-year-old Ryan Owens extensively, is worth a read.
– Police arrested hundreds of "Occupy Wall Street" protesters today who endured chilly nights outdoors in Chicago, New York, Denver, and Arizona, the New York Daily News reports. As the Chicago Tribune has it, officers rounded up about 175 demonstrators who refused to clear Congress Plaza after 1am. The arrests were mostly non-violent, but demonstrators called the police "instruments of the one percent" and chanted "the whole world is watching," repeating the call of protesters at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. In the Big Apple, 14 were arrested for sitting in an empty fountain in Washington Square Park, adding to 78 arrested yesterday, CNN reports. In London, protesters continued marching for a second day after sleeping overnight in tents outside the St. Paul's Cathedral, the Washington Post reports. Authorities in Rome tallied the cost after riots yesterday sent cars and offices ablaze and injured 135 people, including 105 police officers. Describing rioters as "animals," Rome's mayor estimated the cost at $1 million. (See photos from overnight and yesterday in the grid.)
– One of Stephen Breyer's Supreme Court clerks might gently suggest that it's time to put away the bike: Breyer broke his shoulder today after taking a spill in DC near the Korean War memorial, reports the Los Angeles Times. It's actually his third major bike accident, notes NPR. He broke a collarbone in 2011 and suffered a punctured lung and broken ribs after getting hit by a car in 1993. The 74-year-old had shoulder-replacement surgery this morning and is expected to make a full recovery, reports AP. (Why yes, this is the same justice who got robbed by machete last year.)
– Oscar Pistorius' murder trial continued today and up for discussion again were those "bloodcurdling screams" neighbor Michelle Burger said she heard the morning of Reeva Steenkamp's death. Her husband, Charl Johnson, took the stand to dispute what Pistorius' lawyer had said were perhaps screams from the athlete himself, noting the woman's screams were filled with fear, while the man's voice sounded monotone, NBC News reports via a correspondent's tweets. When he heard a man call for help, it sounded "embarrassed," said Johnson, who read from notes. The most dramatic testimony, however, came from another neighbor and doctor, Johan Stipp, who was first on the scene following the shooting. "I was awakened by three loud bangs," heard a female's screams, three more bangs, then a man shout "help, help, help," Stipp said, via a second correspondent, noting he also saw the bathroom light on from his balcony; that contradicts Pistorius' claim that the lights were off. When he arrived at the house, Pistorius told him he had mistaken Steenkamp for a burglar and shot her. "He was praying, saying he would dedicate his life to God if she did not die. I saw that I could not do anything for her," Stipp said. The doctor also gave "graphic testimony" about Steenkamp's wounds, including that her "brain tissue" was matted with hair. During that testimony, Pistorius appeared to cover his ears and later "started dry heaving," the Telegraph reports.
– Police in southern Arizona are at odds with a small Indiana town over a Tommy gun taken from notorious gangster John Dillinger during an arrest more than 80 years ago, reports AP. Officials in Peru, Indiana, want the Colt Thompson submachine gun that Tucson police confiscated in 1934 when they took Dillinger into custody and now display at police headquarters, the Arizona Daily Star reports. Peru officials say they believe the weapon was stolen from police there in 1933 when a Dillinger accomplice posed as an insurance agent and asked police to lay out their guns so he could give them a quote. Dillinger, accomplice Harry Pierpont, and others returned to the police station that night and held officers at gunpoint while stealing several items, including the Tommy gun, said Peru City Attorney Pat Roberts, whose father was one of the officers on duty. After other robberies nationwide, the outlaws were caught in Tucson. "We understand it's a big part of their history," Tucson police Sgt. Pete Dugan said of the request for the gun. "But it's also a big part of Tucson's history." Dillinger and his accomplices had several weapons when they were arrested, and it can be difficult to determine the origin of each, Dugan said. Peru officials say the gun's serial number can prove their claim.
– The pilot of a Cessna 421 and all five passengers were killed early Saturday when the aircraft crashed in a forest in northern Wisconsin, authorities say. National Transportation Safety Board investigators say the pilot mentioned a "weather phenomenon" to air traffic controllers shortly before the plane dropped off the radar near the town of Phillips, USA Today reports. The Price County Sheriff's Office says the plane was carrying a group of men heading from Chicago to Canada for a fishing trip, the AP reports. The Tioga Elementary School in Bensenville, Ill., has identified two of the victims as physical education teacher Thomas DeMauro and maintenance director Charles Tomlitz. Price County Sheriff's Lt. Gabe Lind says a volunteer who owned a helicopter helped rescue workers locate the wreckage, reports the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Volunteers spent the night searching an area that included thick woods and swamp, the Chicago Tribune reports. Sheriff Brian Schmidt says local bar owner Sandy Jensen went "above and beyond" when she heard about the hungry volunteers and sent over dozens of cheeseburgers, along with candy from the Fourth of July parade. "That's what the world's all about is people helping people," she tells WSAW. (On Friday, a Cessna crashed on a California freeway.)
– The water in Flint, Michigan, still hasn't been tested for the bacteria that causes Legionnaires' disease despite being the likely source of an outbreak that killed nine people and sickened another 78 between May 2014 and November 2015, the Detroit News reports. The New York Times alleges the deadly outbreak was handled the same way the larger Flint water crisis was: through "a failure to act swiftly to address a dangerous problem or warn the public." In fact, state officials didn't even let the public know about the outbreak of Legionnaires' until last month. The outbreak started six months after Flint switched to the Flint River as its water source. Genesee County raised concerns about the water being a likely source of Legionnaires' in 2014, and five government agencies—including the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, and the EPA—were aware of it. Not one of them followed through by actually testing the water. One Flint resident who contracted Legionnaires' tells the Times he believes the state doesn't want to know if the water caused the outbreak because it doesn't want to be tied to the deaths.
– Amazingly no one was killed when a Chicago bus driver passed out at the wheel yesterday and plowed into at least 20 cars and a laundromat, CBS Chicago reports. "Literally looked like a scene out of a movie," said a tow truck driver who estimated the damage at over $250,000. Residents rushed outside to witness the wreckage at the 2800 block of North Kedzie Avenue, where cars were piled on top of each other and a laundromat wall was damaged. "I’m just more grateful for my life," said the owner of a damaged car. "A car you can always get back." Only the driver and a bus passenger were reported injured, and both were hospitalized in fair-to-serious condition, DNAInfo reports; a medical emergency was said to cause the driver's blackout. Incredibly, it wasn't the only bus-gone-wild story this month: A 12-year-old girl in Lake Elmo, Minn., stopped a bus full of school kids by pressing her hand on the brake after the driver lost consciousness, reports CBS Minnesota.
– Responding to the boycott of his company, Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel apologized to employees for donating to political group MN Forward, which supports right-wing politician Tom Emmer. The intent “was to support economic growth and job creation,” he wrote, but the “decision affected many of you in a way I did not anticipate”—because of Emmer’s anti-gay-marriage stance—“and for that I am genuinely sorry.” Steinhafel insisted Target, which has been known to promote LGBT issues, remains “fully committed to fostering an environment that supports and respects the rights and beliefs of all individuals,” and promised to do a review of Target’s “decision-making process for financial contributions in the public policy arena.” Still, the letter “isn’t exactly an about-face,” writes Max Read on Gawker. “It's also a signal, basically, that Target doesn't have any real plans to donate to pro-gay marriage candidates, or renounce their PAC's support of Emmer.”
– Japan is grappling with a mysterious problem among young people. Some 500,000 to 2 million are affected by a condition that leaves them unable to leave the house—or even their rooms—for years at a time. It's called hikikomori, a word that has been commonplace in Japan since the 1990s, though a few cases have also been seen in the US and other countries. "If you ask people in Japan about hikikomori, almost everyone will say, 'I know somebody like that,'" a psychologist said in the Japan Times last year. It's considered by many to be one of the country's top health issues, but what is going on, and whether those considered to be hikikomori are living with a mental illness, remains unclear, the Wall Street Journal reports. Treatment of the condition, which often affects young men, has been elusive. Every prefecture is legally required to have a treatment center, but few hikikomori actually visit them, and even when they do, few receive successful care. Now, international researchers are trying to understand the condition in the city of Fukuoka. As it stands, just half of hikikomori would likely receive a psychiatric diagnosis in the US, but a US researcher working with the Fukuoka team developed new criteria for the condition in 2010, the Journal notes. Experts are using that criteria to help develop a better understanding of the situation in a country where, the Times noted, mental illness remains highly stigmatized. (Another strange case: five siblings who walk on all fours.)
– If Mitt Romney wasn't actually Bain Capital's CEO in 2002, there could be "very, very serious legal consequences," an Obama campaign lawyer told reporters yesterday. Romney has said publicly that he left Bain in 1999, but the Boston Globe yesterday reported that Bain SEC filings indicate he controlled the company until 2002. If he wasn't actually in charge, which his campaign continues to insist, then he would appear to have committed a felony by misrepresenting his position to the SEC, Raw Story reports. "[It's] very, very serious," Obama lawyer Robert Bauer said on a conference call. "And in the normal course would subject somebody in this position to every manner of investigation with all the consequences that you can imagine." Politico also notes that while running for governor in 2002, Romney said he often returned to Massachusetts for "business trips" and "board meetings." At the time, that was in Romney's best interests because there were questions about his residency and eligibility to run for governor.
– The "father of modern gynecology" is a man some people would now prefer to forget—but police in Alabama still won't let you smear ketchup on his statue. A 74-year-old activist was arrested on Confederate Memorial Day—that's April 23—for "criminal tampering" after leaving the condiment on a monument to 19th-century doctor J. Marion Sims, who experimented on enslaved women without anesthesia, AL.com reports. Jon Broadway performed a skit in front of the statue with a black woman who played the role of one of Sims' patients; the ketchup was a stand-in for blood. Sims "was a butcher. He didn't try to save black babies, he just used us like guinea pigs," the woman says in the skit. It's not clear whether the women Sims experimented on consented to the surgery. Broadway, who played Sims in the skit, is part of a group of Montgomery citizens who want to spark discussion of racial issues. "How do you get white people to acknowledge there are deep wounds that have not been addressed?" he says. He spent eight hours in jail after the arrest—and had to leave in his long johns because the ketchup-splattered scrubs he had been wearing were confiscated as evidence. Broadway has a September trial date. Alabama Public Radio reports that activists want Sims' statue removed from the grounds of the Alabama Capitol, but removal is blocked under a 2017 state law requiring a committee to approve the relocation of monuments that have been in public places for more than 40 years. (The statue of Sims in New York's Central Park came down last month.)
– Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo points out what he sees a change in the "national conversation" about the economy: It's all about jobs now instead of the debt and deficit. Witness the Republican senators who unveiled a jobs plan of their own, along with John Boehner giving an "earful" to President Obama about how Republicans are in fact serious about creating employment, according to Politico. "I don't suggest that the president's political fortunes have shifted dramatically," writes Marshall. "Yet despite the fact that Senate Republicans were able to block a vote on his jobs bill, it seems to have gone with relatively little notice—probably because it's right there in plain sight—how much the president's day in and day out push on jobs has simply shifted the national conversation, the focus on what the issue is that requires solving. I think this is a bigger deal than we realize."
– A British man who's made his living as a part-time English teacher in Spain for decades is suddenly the hottest name in economics, because he got it right. Blogger Edward Hugh correctly predicted the current Eurozone crisis, pinpointing the reason as the difference in demographics between Germany and countries like Greece, where a younger population has borrowed heavily to buy property. He warned that it would eventually prove impossible for the Eurozone countries to coexist under the same currency, the Independent notes. The IMF, international banks, and even the White House have been seeking Hugh's advice lately, and Paul Krugman tells CNN that "I wish he posted more." The 59-year-old says he's been getting plenty of job offers but he has no plans to give up his life in the countryside outside Barcelona. "I moved here to get way from the office. All these offers I'm getting, really, they can go and jump in the lake as far as I'm concerned." He did agree to attend a conference of Spanish businessmen and economists discussing the crisis last month, although he had to borrow money from friends to buy a suit.
– When the Natural Environment Research Council in the UK put the naming of its $300 million Antarctic survey vessel to a public vote online, well, the Internet had a little fun. NERC asked for "an inspirational name that exemplifies the work" the ship will do, and suggestions ranged from the, yes, inspirational ("Henry Worsley," the former British Army officer and explorer who died in January trying to cross Antarctica without aid) to the literal ("It's bloody cold out here") and the snarky ("Notthetitanic"). But the current front-runner is "Boaty McBoatface," reports the Independent. The name has garnered 21,000-plus votes, nearly 10 times as many as the second highest "Henry Worsley." The NERC has set April 16 as a deadline and noted that it will choose the name. Meanwhile, the communications manager who submitted Boaty McBoatface has since apologized, though it's not likely to disappear—it's even got its own Twitter hashtag. Still, in the realm of Internet silliness and snark, things could be worse. People once responded to Mountain Dew's call for a new flavor name with "Hitler did nothing wrong" and "Fapple," notes Mashable. And even though Boaty McBoatface is far from the "inspirational name" that NERC called for, it's become popular enough to have caused multiple traffic outages and brought attention to a ship that may otherwise have gone under the radar. (The other big Internet hit of the last week: "Sad Papaw.")
– News that might interest those whose favorite pantry staples are ketchup and mac and cheese: Kraft Foods Group Inc. and H.J. Heinz Co. have announced they will merge in a deal that will create the Kraft Heinz Co.—the third largest food and beverage company on the continent and one that will be No. 5 in the world. Reuters reports Heinz shareholders will own 51% of the new company to Kraft shareholders's 49%. The Wall Street Journal explains the environment for the deal: one in which big-name makers of packaged, processed foods are struggling. To wit, Bloomberg Business notes that Kraft's recent history involves a 2012 spinoff from Mondelez International (which retained Kraft's snack foods) and subsequent difficultly in "[reigniting] sales growth"; top execs have exited since December. The deal will see Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and Brazilian private-equity firm 3G Capital acquire Kraft and merge it with Heinz, which the two purchased in 2013. If 3G Capital isn't known to you ... it probably actually is: It acquired Burger King in 2010, and, through Burger King, Tim Hortons last year. The Journal describes 3G as "an acquisitive firm known for buying consumer companies it considers bloated and aggressively slashing costs." The AP reports the boards of both companies have unanimously approved the deal, which is slated to close in the second half of the year. It still needs approval from Kraft shareholders, who will receive stock in the combined company and a special cash dividend of approximately $10 billion, or $16.50 per share.
– Still on the mend after a brief hospitalization, Queen Elizabeth won't make it to a celebration of the British Commonwealth today, CNN reports. Still, her health issues are "nothing to fret about," says a Buckingham Palace insider, and in another ceremony tonight, she'll sign a historic document opposing discrimination throughout the Commonwealth's 54 countries. "We are implacably opposed to all forms of discrimination, whether rooted in gender, race, colour, creed, political belief, or other grounds," reads the charter, which the Daily Mail notes that some are taking as a nod to gay rights. It also comes as the UK looks to tweak ascension law to allow firstborn girls to take the throne, of particular relevance if Prince William and Kate have a daughter. But lest anyone get carried away, "The Queen is apolitical and is signing the document in her capacity as head of the Commonwealth," says a palace insider. Still, she has recorded a message to be played at today's Westminster Abbey event citing "shared values of peace, democracy, development, justice, and human rights." The charter could face challenges in places like Uganda, which bans homosexual acts, notes ABC News.
– Jeff Sessions spoke with Russia's ambassador to the US twice in 2016, but he didn't disclose those communications during his confirmation hearing to become attorney general. When asked about possible contact between Moscow representatives and Trump campaign members, Sessions specifically said he "did not have communications with the Russians" during the campaign and that he was "not aware of" any other campaign members doing so. Per the Washington Post, the revelation from Justice Department officials could spark more calls from Congress to appoint a special prosecutor to look into Russia's alleged attempts to interfere with the 2016 election. Sources tell the Wall Street Journal US investigators have looked into the newly released contacts between Sessions and Russia, though it's not clear whether the investigation has concluded. Following the disclosure of the conversations, Sessions said he "never met with any Russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign," per the AP. One of the conversations between Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak happened in September, when Sessions, then a senator, was a senior member of the Armed Services Committee and one of Trump's top advisers; officials say Sessions didn't remember the details of his conversations with Kislyak by the time his confirmation hearing came around, and that the meeting was related to Sessions' work on the armed services panel, not the Trump campaign. Sessions' spokesperson says there was nothing "misleading" about his answers at the confirmation hearing because he was only asked about communications related to the campaign, not to his work as a senator. Following the latest revelations, top Democrats have called for Sessions to step down as AG, Mediaite reports. Republicans are split on whether Sessions should lead any potential probe into Russia's alleged election tampering. A conversation with Kislyak is also what forced Michael Flynn to step down as Trump's national security adviser.
– East Coasters, this might be the best use of that extra hour you'll gain overnight by setting the clocks back: Get up at sunrise and check out the sky. (NBC News advises how to do so safely.) Weather permitting, you'll be treated to a solar eclipse. This one is what's known as a hybrid solar eclipse: "That is, the eclipse appears fleetingly as an annular—or ring eclipse—at its start in the Atlantic Ocean and becomes a brief total eclipse later on," explains EarthSky. Those on the East Coast can expect to see it as a partial eclipse. (You can dig into worldwide viewing maps at Universe Today, or plan to watch online coverage here.)
– The California prison system illegally had dozens of women sterilized, possibly without their consent, according to a new report from the state auditor. Of the 144 inmates given tubal ligations from fiscal years 2005-06 to 2012-13, at least 39 were done without lawful consent, with physicians either failing to sign forms confirming that patients understood and consented to the procedures, failing to wait the requisite number of days to perform the procedure, or both, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting. The "true number" might be even higher, the report adds, because auditors found seven cases in which health records had been lost entirely. The procedures were performed at hospitals, not at the prisons, and the federal receiver’s office, which oversees medical care in the state’s prisons, says it had no legal duty to ensure consent procedures were followed. "That is a ludicrous argument," one state senator says, according to the Desert Sun. "It made me sick to my stomach." The audit recommends that the doctors involved be reported to the state licensing board, the LA Times reports; officials say they'll follow all recommendations. Pending legislation would prohibit prison sterilizations altogether unless they are medically necessary. The audit came in response to an earlier investigation from the CIR that found that the procedures were all carried out without getting the necessary clearance from a state panel of medical experts. For more on that story, click here.
– When Orson Welles died in 1985, he left behind a film he'd been fighting to finish for 15 years. But The Other Side of the Wind never saw the light of day, and it has since become a bit of an obsession for movie buffs, who "consider it the most famous movie never released," the New York Times reports. Now, after decades of attempts by others to grab rights to the film, LA production company Royal Road Entertainment says it has an agreement to buy those rights—and producers plan to have the film ready for screening by May 6, which would be Welles' 100th birthday. As for the plot? It "(quite fittingly) tells the story of a director attempting to finish a masterpiece while clashing with the Hollywood system," according to the Hollywood Reporter. Welles ran into problems, including financing struggles (he took on TV roles to help and also gathered investors) and even the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the Republican reports. One of the aforementioned investors was Mehdi Bushehri, the brother-in-law of the Shah of Iran, and when he and Welles fought over spending, Bushehri took control of the 1,083 negative reels. The reels then stayed stashed in a Paris-area warehouse for years (and were lost briefly when the storage company went bankrupt last summer). But Welles did manage to get a 45-minute edited work print to California in 1975. Now Royal Road—which had to negotiate for the rights with Welles' daughter, his longtime companion, and a production company—will assemble the film from the negative reels with the help of Peter Bogdanovich, who stars in it, as well as notes Welles left behind. Click for the full story, or check out more of the best films that never got made.
– One of the hot topics among journalists in the wake of President Trump's visit to Pope Francis on Wednesday isn't about policy differences. Instead, it's about the president's perceived snub to Sean Spicer. CNN reports that the press secretary, who is a practicing Catholic, is seething that he was left off the short list for the visit. Some expected names accompanied the president: Melania and Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, HR McMaster, and Rex Tillerson. But lesser-known aides Hope Hicks, Keith Schiller, and Dan Scavino were selected over Spicer. "Wow, that's all he wanted," a White House source tells the network, which adds that meeting the pope had been a "bucket list" item for the press chief. Spicer has not commented publicly about the decision, but the Washington Post notes that an odd thing has happened: Journalists he dickers with on an almost daily basis were openly expressing sympathy for him. A typical sentiment: "This seems needlessly harsh," tweeted Maggie Haberman of the New York Times. "When else is Spicer likely to meet the Pope, and it mattered to him?" By all accounts, it mattered to him a great deal: Politico describes Spicer as a "devout" Catholic, noting that he took flak last year when he appeared on CNN with ashes on his forehead for Ash Wednesday. But it may be in line with an apparently diminished new role for the press secretary.
– Answers might finally be at hand for the family of Natalee Holloway, 12 years after the 18-year-old American student disappeared while on a graduation trip to the Caribbean island of Aruba. Father Dave Holloway says that in one of many trips to the island with private investigator TJ Ward over the last 18 months, they received a tip that led to unidentified human remains behind a house, People reports. "We’ve chased a lot of leads and this one is by far the most credible lead I've seen in the last 12 years," Holloway told the Today show on Wednesday. Holloway says the tip came from someone who claims to have helped Dutchman Joran Van der Sloot, long suspected of playing a role in the disappearance, dispose of his daughter's remains. Holloway says DNA testing is being carried out on the bones and they should know within a month whether they belong to Natalee. Ward and Holloway's search is documented in the Oxygen series The Search for Natalee Holloway, which premieres on Saturday. Van der Sloot is serving a 28-year sentence in Peru for the 2010 murder of Stephany Flores.
– Robin Williams was struggling with his Parkinson's diagnosis, which he reportedly received five months before his death—but multiple sources tell TMZ that the diagnosis wasn't the reason for his suicide, though it did "exacerbate" the chronic depression he'd lived with for so long. Parkinson's itself is also thought to trigger depression physiologically, and the drugs Williams was taking also had a negative effect on his emotions. But a bigger trigger for Williams' suicide? According to TMZ's sources, the cancellation of Williams' TV show, The Crazy Ones, after just one season. He was "devastated" when the series was canceled, they say, and went into a tailspin that ultimately led to his death. He entered the Hazelden Addiction Treatment Center last month to try to deal with the depression, not substance abuse, they say. "My face is all over town [on billboards] and it's all on my back," Williams reportedly told one friend about the show. Sources say he saw the cancellation as a "personal failure," and was also depressed about how difficult it was to find work in Hollywood at his age. (Michael J. Fox said he was "stunned" to learn Williams also suffered from Parkinson's.)
– A West Virginia girl sprung into action last Tuesday when a lightning-struck tree landed on her family's porch, trapping her father and his two friends, ABC News reports. "I was scared," said 10-year-old Brianna Vance. "I needed help. My dad needed help." There was no landline in the house, and the storm had knocked out cellphone signals, but somehow she got online anyway. Fighting back tears, she posted a video message on Facebook: "The lightning crashed and hit a tree by our porch and my dad’s almost dead. He needs an ambulance please. Please call one for us if you have a signal. We live in a yellow house, a trailer." Soon firefighters showed up and rescued Brianna's dad, Gregory Vance, who was hospitalized with several broken bones, WOWK-TV reports. Luckily he was able to come home Saturday and spend Father's Day with his children as he continued his recovery, reports MyFox Philly. "If she would have been there [on the porch] a little bit longer and it would have hit her," he said. "The pain of burying one of my children, I could not bear that, but I can handle this pain." A fire department official calls her "the real hero," but Inquisitr reports that some are wondering how she got online when communication lines were down. (For social media's downside, read about a woman who met a guy on Facebook—who then buried her alive.)
– If you were waiting with bated breath for John Boehner to announce a new deal framework today in an effort to avert panic in the Asian markets and stop the US from defaulting ... tough luck. Boehner spoke with House Republicans on a conference call this afternoon, and word is the details of a new proposal to raise the debt ceiling—and, of course, cut spending—will come tomorrow, not today. During the call, Boehner said that a "grand deal" with President Obama isn't possible, the Wall Street Journal reports. Harry Reid is working on his own "back-up plan," rumored to include $2.5 trillion in spending cuts, a $2.5 trillion debt ceiling increase, and no new taxes. Reid and Nancy Pelosi are planning to meet with Obama at 6pm, a source says. Meanwhile, the dollar was trading down against the yen and the Swiss franc, but the Journal notes it's still early. Need something to keep you occupied while you wait? Politico has a list of "myths and realities" of the deficit negotiations.
– A Republican South Dakota legislator under fire for a Facebook post has apologized for a "lack of judgment." State Rep. Lynne DiSanto of Box Elder shared a meme Sept. 7 depicting stick-figure protesters being hit by an SUV. It was posted less than a month after a driver hit counter-protesters at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing a woman. DiSanto told the Rapid City Journal she should have taken that into consideration, and doesn't condone protesters being hit by vehicles. The Journal reports the image, which was taken down Tuesday, bore three phrases: "All Lives Splatter," "Nobody cares about your protest" and "Keep your (expletive) out of the road." DiSanto tacked on her own comment: "I think this is a movement we can all support. #alllivessplatter." She tells the Journal that she's "sorry if people took offense to it," because in her view, it wasn't offensive. "I perceived it differently. I perceived it as encouraging people to stay out of the street." Keller Williams Realty Black Hills, the real estate company that apparently employed DiSanto, posted on Facebook she's no longer with the firm. House Majority Leader Lee Qualm tells the AP the incident won't affect DiSanto's position as House majority whip.
– If you were planning to see Kevin Smith's Yoga Hosers this weekend, keep in mind that critics almost universally hate it. The movie has a low 22% rating at Rotten Tomatoes, though audiences are much kinder, at 63%. The movie is actually a family affair: Smith's daughter stars alongside Johnny Depp's daughter, and both sets of parents have roles. Here's what critics are saying: "I don't give a s--- about the audience anymore," Smith said at the Sundance Film Festival. His proof is this movie, writes AA Dowd at AV Club. Lily-Rose Depp and Harley Quinn Smith make it "possible to see why the writer-director thought their chemistry would be enough to carry a movie." But "Yoga Hosers isn't really a movie. … It's a corny Canuck joke, told for 88 surreally unfunny minutes." "Some of Mr. Smith's prior work made me laugh so hard that I cried; Yoga Hosers made me want to cry for different reasons," writes Glenn Kenny at the New York Times. "It all seems like something that was hatched during a particularly neuron-impaired free-association game." And Johnny Depp comes across as "more disturbingly peculiar than funny." Lily-Rose Depp "demonstrates a charismatic presence that jumps off the screen," but "the entire film has the strange feel of watching an elaborately produced home movie to be played at a holiday party rather than a movie theater," writes Katie Walsh at the Los Angeles Times. It also boasts "a clearly first-draft script, terrible editing, and continuity errors." "To shackle two lovely and promising teenage actresses to material this dreadful could be reasonably construed as an awfully expensive form of child abuse," as Justin Chang puts it at Variety. The plot, centering on "Manitoban Nazis who take the form of sodomy-inclined sausages," seems "to have been written down on index cards and pulled randomly out of a toque." "Even fans who've stuck with Smith for two decades may draw the line at this outing," writes John DeFore at the Hollywood Reporter.
– A Good Samaritan who lost both her legs while helping a crashed motorist now has one less expense to worry about. Certified prosthetist Joshua Ryder of Island Coast Orthopedics in Lee County, Fla., has offered to donate two prosthetic legs to 30-year-old Danielle Hagmann as soon as she's ready, reports the News-Press. Hagmann, who has five children and no health insurance, lost both her legs in an accident Sunday. While she was assisting at the scene of a crash, a car struck the crashed vehicle, pinning Hagmann against a guardrail. At Lee Memorial Hospital, she had one leg amputated just above the knee and the other at mid-thigh. But, according to Ryder, that's no reason Hagmann shouldn't be up and walking within a year. Once Hagmann is properly healed, a "shrink sock" can be used to shape her limbs, he says. At that point, he can begin to build two custom artificial limbs, which would normally cost between $13,000 and $85,000, Ryder says. He expects Hagmann—who must wait for an investigation report before seeking treatment funds through auto insurance—could be using the prosthetics to get around within a year. Hagmann's father says he's thankful for donations like Ryder's that have flooded in since Sunday, including to two GoFundMe pages. A church group in Missouri has also offered to pay for a powered wheelchair, per the News-Press. "We intend to reach out and contact all of those [who] made an offer," says Hagmann's dad.
– Team Romney came out of the gate swinging at President Obama's "Romnesia" jab, his handling of Libya, and the whole "binders full of women" flap, with surrogate Marco Rubio blasting away at all three. Addressing Romnesia, Rubio said, "that fires up his base," but for Americans "trying to make up their minds who to vote for, what they're wondering is, 'Well, that’s very cute, Mr. President,' but what are you going to do for the future?" He dismissed the binders outrage as "silly outrage, it's not even real outrage." Romney campaign adviser Kevin Madden piled on, saying, "I don't think the message to voters right now ought to be playing Scrabble with your opponent's name" and that the Obama campaign, for lack of vision, has reduced itself "to very small attacks like ‘Romnesia’, along with this talk about binders, this talk about Big Bird." Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter defended talk of Big Bird as important "because that’s the only thing Mitt Romney could point to as to how he’s going to reduce the deficit." A look around your Sunday dial, as per Politico: David Axelrod on NBC's latest poll: "You guys also issued polls in the last week that showed us with an 8-point lead in Iowa, I think we had a lead in Ohio, you’ve showed us having a lead in Florida. I don’t know how to square all the polling that NBC is releasing." Lindsay Graham on Iran talks: "As we talk with the Iranians, whether it’s bilaterally or unilaterally, they continue to enrich, and the vice president and the president have said we will do nothing without coordinating with Israel. I think it’s pretty obvious they are trying to continue a dialogue using our election cycle in a pretty clever way." Gallup editor Frank Newport on his methodology: “People come at you from either side if they don't like the results. Our methodology is extremely solid. We’re very open about how we do it." Graham on Libya: "The Benghazi consulate was becoming a death trap. The British left, the Red Cross left. We should have closed that consulate long before Sept. 11, and I put that on the president of the United States.” Dick Durbin on GOP and Libya: "Darrell Issa does a document dump with sensitive information about those in Libya who are helping keep America safe. It shows the lengths many will go to politicize this tragic situation." Newt Gingrich on Libya: “Should Ronald Reagan not have talked about (the Iran hostage crisis) for 444 days? The fact is, we're in the middle of a mess in the Middle East, the mess keeps evolving, there continue to be incidents. If that offends the president, then that’s his problem and he ought to get over it."
– The father of Ibragim Todashev, Tamerlan Tsarnaev's friend killed during FBI questioning this week, says he thinks authorities "tortured my son and that he suffered a painful death," he tells Reuters. Abdulbaki Todashev, who works for the mayor of Grozny, Chechnya's main city, plans to visit the US "and get to the truth." After traveling to the US in 2008, the younger Todashev was supposed to have come home today. "He shouldn't have left," his father says. Ibragim Todashev met the Tsarnaevs during his time in the US, where he went to learn English, his father says. "Chechens have a power in their unity and interest in what happens in their homeland. It unites them. That's the reason my son became an acquaintance of the Tsarnaevs." Recently, FBI agents had been following Ibragim's movements for weeks, says a friend. Meanwhile: Boston locals recall Todashev via the Herald. Says a fellow mixed martial arts fighter: "His only way to resolve a lot of conflicts was violence." FBI agents are in Orlando investigating Todashev's death. An autopsy was set to be finished yesterday, though the results may not emerge for months amid the probe, the Sentinel reports.
– There's a reason Q-tips come with a warning to never use them in your ears—and it's about time we heeded the advice, says the American Academy of Otolaryngology. The academy's new guidelines for dealing with earwax, the first in almost a decade, stress that the wax is as beneficial as nose mucus or eyelashes and should be left alone as much as possible. While it might seem icky, earwax traps dirt, dust, and other stuff that might get into our ears; the wax is slowly pushed outward by new skin growth and jaw movement and washed away with normal bathing, reports Reuters and CNN. That means there's no reason to get rid of earwax with cotton swabs, your finger, or any other tool. Doing so is actually a really bad idea. You might "push the wax in further, and there also is the potential for damage to the ear drum," says Dr. Seth Schwartz, who helped draft the new guidelines. You might also scratch the ear canal, which "can lead to pain and infection," he says. "Wiping away any excess wax when it comes to the outside of the ear is enough to keep it clean." Doctors say you should seek medical help if your ear feels full, painful, itchy, or if you're experiencing hearing loss, drainage, ringing in the ears, or bleeding, rather than using a cotton swab to poke around. In fact, they say you shouldn't put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear—including ear candles, which are supposed to remove wax with heat, though there's no evidence they really work, per Quartz. (It turns out your earwax says a lot about you.)
– The NBA today came down hard on Clippers owner Donald Sterling after audio surfaced of his racist comments, with the league banning him for life from games and personnel decisions and making it likely he'll be forced to sell the team. Two of the more common sentiments in the immediate aftermath: Bravo: It's "the most spectacular slam dunk in professional basketball history," writes Bill Plaschke in the Los Angeles Times. Sterling has "poisoned" the franchise with his bigotry for 30 years, and it's a relief to be done with him. Given his deep pockets and penchant for legal fights, this could still get seriously messy, but for now, it's cause of celebration. "With one dazzling, devastating move, the NBA has thrown down against evil." Yes, but: Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe has zero sympathy for Sterling and isn't out to defend his racism. But he reminds everyone that Sterling's downfall arrived because a girlfriend secretly recorded a private conversation. Doesn't this deserve a little outrage, too, or are we already too accustomed to a no-privacy world? Remember "that it isn’t only other people’s dirty laundry that the whole world can get a good look at," he writes. "It is yours and mine, too. Once our privacy is gone, don’t count on getting it back."
– President Trump doubled down on Saturday's widely criticized "many sides" statement during a press conference Tuesday at Trump Tower, claiming "there is blame on both sides" in regards to the fatal white supremacist and neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, the New York Times reports. Trump had tried to walk back his original statement on Monday, but on Tuesday he called it "excellent" and a "fine statement," according to USA Today. He said he didn't condemn white supremacists on Saturday "because I didn't know all the facts." "I wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what I said was correct," the president said. On Tuesday, Trump went ever further in his "many sides" argument, condemning the "alt-left" groups that were "very, very violent." He went on to say both sides—including the side that counts neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the KKK as members—contain some "very fine people," ABC News reports. "Not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me," Trump said. "Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch." He said many of the people in Charlottesville just didn't want to see a statue get torn down, pointing out that both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. "This week, it is Robert E. Lee and this week, Stonewall Jackson," Trump said. "Is it George Washington next?" Splinter notes the press conference was originally supposed to be about infrastructure.
– With each Republican presidential candidate sharing the stage with nine others—and sharing the GOP field with 13 rivals—Wednesday night's debate participants needed to get tough, be bold, and say something that would help them stay at the top, or claw their way there. Here's how they did that, via the Washington Post and AP: Donald Trump set his sights on a new target, John Kasich: "John got lucky [in Ohio] with a thing called 'fracking.' He hit oil. Believe me, that is why Ohio is doing well. ... He was so nice. He was such a nice guy, and then his poll numbers tanked. That’s why he’s (standing) on the end.” Jeb Bush on Marco Rubio's record of missed votes: "Marco, when you signed up for this, this is a six-year term, and you should be showing up to work. I mean, literally, the Senate—what is it, like a French work week? You get, like, three days where you have to show up? Or just resign, and let somebody else take the job." Rubio's retort: “Someone has convinced you that attacking me is going to help you.” Bush's kiss: "You find a Democrat that's for cutting spending $10? I'll give him a warm kiss." Kasich on his rivals' tax plans: "Why don't we just give a chicken in every pot, while we're, you know, coming up—coming up with these fantasy tax schemes. ... Folks, we gotta wake up. We cannot elect somebody that doesn’t know how to do the job. " Ted Cruz on how the CNBC moderators are doing: "This is not a cage match. And, you look at the questions: 'Donald Trump, are you a comic-book villain?' 'Ben Carson, can you do math?' ' John Kasich, will you insult two people over here?' ' Marco Rubio, why don't you resign?' 'Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?' How about talking about the substantive issues the people care about?" Rubio on the media: "The Democrats have the ultimate SuperPac. It's called the mainstream media." Chris Christie on a question posed about fantasy football: "We have a government involved in fantasy football? We have ISIS and al-Qaeda attacking us and we’re talking about fantasy football? Enough on fantasy football. Let people play! Who cares?" Mike Huckabee: "You know, everybody has an 'only guy'—'I'm the only guy this; I'm the only guy that.' Well, let me tell you one thing that I am the only guy: The only guy that has consistently fought the Clinton machine every election I was ever in over the past 26 years. And not only did I fight them, but I beat them." Carly Fiorina: "I’m Hillary Clinton’s worst nightmare. In your heart of hearts, you want to see a debate between Carly Fiorina and Hillary Clinton." Ben Carson stayed true to form: "I do, however, believe in Reagan's 11th commandment, and will not be engaging in awful things about my compatriots here." Rand Paul on the budget deal: "I will spend every ounce of energy to stop it. I will begin tomorrow to filibuster it."
– Bad news for Americans who consume food, specifically of the meat variety: California-based Rancho Feeding Corporation is recalling some 8.7 million pounds of beef and veal products after feds determined that it "processed diseased and unsound animals and carried out these activities without the benefit or full benefit of federal inspection." As per the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service's press release: "The products are adulterated, because they are unsound, unwholesome, or otherwise are unfit for human food and must be removed from commerce." The time range is striking: The recall affects products produced and shipped between January 1, 2013, and January 7, 2014, notes CNN. The products include beef carcasses and parts like livers, feet, and tongues; they shipped to distribution centers and retail locations in California, Florida, Illinois, and Texas. No illnesses have been linked to the recalled meat. Click for the full recall.
– As the Boston Marathon bombing investigation continues, the FBI is really zeroing in on dead suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev's six-month trip to Russia last year, the New York Times reports. The elder of the Tsarnaev brothers visited two predominantly Muslim republics in the country's north Caucasus region—Chechnya and Dagestan—both of which are home to strong militant separatist movements. Russia had warned the FBI that Tsarnaev was a "follower of radical Islam" back in 2011, but law enforcement officials did not deem him a security risk; now some members of Congress are unhappy at the way the tip was handled in advance of Tsarnaev's overseas trip, considering he may have had connections to extremist groups in the area. It was after that trip that he started posting jihadist videos. As federal investigators rush to review the trip (which Tsarnaev's father says was simply to renew his son's Russian passport) and any extremists Tsarnaev may have connected with in Russia, one former senior FBI official calls it "a key thread for investigators and the intelligence community to pull on." But at the time, the FBI never followed up on Tsarnaev after he returned to the US, because it did not have the legal authority to do so after uncovering nothing of note in its initial investigation. The FBI investigation did, however, prevent Tsarnaev from becoming a US citizen; the Department of Homeland Security opted to hold his petition for further review. Sources tell Fox News that investigators are looking into possible connections between Tsarnaev and the Caucasus Emirate, a separatist and extremist Islamic group whose Chechen leader is known as "Russia's Osama bin Laden." And today on Meet the Press, Rep. Mike Rogers, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said Tsarnaev may have made the Russia trip under an alias.
– This might be why President Obama didn't seem overly concerned earlier this month when his bid for fast-track authority—seen as a major goal of his second term—seemed to be dead: It's not only not dead, it is now heading to the president's desk for his signature. The Senate today passed the measure by a vote of 60-38, thanks to some legislative maneuvering. The vote means that Obama has a much better chance of reaching a deal with other foreign leaders on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is opposed by many Democrats as a job-killer, reports the Hill. Because of fast-track, Congress will able to cast an up-or-down vote on the deal, but it won't be able to amend it. “Achieving this positive outcome was never going to be easy, but it proves that the power of a good idea, no matter where it comes from, can win out over the stasis of gridlock,” says Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who formed a rare alliance with Obama. The Senate is next expected to approve a companion measure called TAA that would provide help for Americans who lose their jobs because of the deal. TAA would then go to the House, and Nancy Pelosi greatly improved its chances by supporting it today, reports the Washington Post. Even if it fails, however, fast-track authority lives. Last time around, the two measures were linked, making it easier for Democrats to torpedo the entire thing.
– It hasn't happened in more than a century, but next year, just one state in the US will have a divided legislature. That state is Minnesota, where Republicans retained control of the state Senate in Tuesday's elections while Democrats flipped the House; all the other state legislatures will be under single-party control. That's a first since 1914, the National Conference of State Legislatures announced on Twitter. Five state legislative chambers flipped from Republican to Democratic Tuesday. Next year, 18 state legislatures will be controlled entirely by Democrats, while 31 will be controlled by Republicans, the Week reports. (Tuesday's blue wave "hit a red wall.")
– Apparently Zimmerman does not have a friend in his local police chief. Steve Bracknell, who heads the department in Lake Mary, Florida, where Zimmerman lives, agreed with some pretty intense criticisms of the acquitted killer contained in two angry emails he received Tuesday about Zimmerman's recent altercation with his wife. "Zimmerman is a Sandy Hook, Aurora waiting to happen," the emailer, Santiago Rodriguez, asserted, in an email posted online. "Your job is to protect the communities you serve, and you are failing big time." Bracknell responded with a lengthy defense of his department, but then threw in, "Your reference to Sandy Hook..............I agree." (Ellipses his.) Bracknell confirmed the emails' authenticity for Think Progress, but later backpedaled from the remarks, telling WTSP that he only meant that Zimmerman "seems to be involved in incidents" involving guns. In the followup email, Rodriguez called Zimmerman a "ticking time bomb." Think Progress reports that Bracknell replied, "on a personal note....I agree," but that email doesn't appear to be posted online. And on Monday, Bracknell had this to say to an LA reporter, per the Los Angeles Times: "Man, it would be fantastic if you have an apartment out there [in California] for George Zimmerman. This guy is killing me."
– A coming safety feature for cars aims to protect drivers and passengers in a novel way: to save their hearing in a crash. The idea is that when a smartcar senses an imminent collision, the sound system sends out a burst of "pink noise" inside the car. That causes a muscle inside the ear to contract and thus protect the eardrum from the louder noise of the crash about to come, explains IEEE Spectrum. Mercedes-Benz is marketing it as "Pre-Safe Sound" in its newest E-class fleet. When a car crashes, the decibel level can easily reach 145, which is enough to damage the human ear. And that doesn't count the noise of the airbag deploying, which is even higher at around 165 decibels. The so-called pink noise is a safe 80 decibels, and it's enough to trigger what's known as the "acoustic reflex" to protect the ear. "Hearing loss is far from the worst damage a person can suffer from a car accident, but this is a cheap and simple way to reduce some of the human impact of road trauma, and a very cool idea," writes a blogger at New Atlas. Normally, the acoustic reflex takes about one-tenth of a second to kick in after a noise, not enough time to protect the ear from an instantaneous loud boom. The idea here is to trigger it early and safely. "A frequency spectrum known in physics as pink noise is ideally suited for this purpose," explains Mercedes in its own post on the feature. "It sounds like a bit like diffuse traffic noise, the breaking of waves or a waterfall." It's promising, but we'll have to wait for crash data to see whether it works as advertised, notes a post at BGR. (See Volvo's bold safety pledge.)
– Pope Francis says that when he was 42 he had sessions weekly with a psychoanalyst who was female and Jewish to "clarify some things." It wasn't specified what the future pontiff wanted to explore, the AP notes. The revelation came in a dozen conversations Francis had with French sociologist Dominique Wolton, who is writing a soon-to-be-published book called Pope Francis: Politics and Society, per the Guardian. Italian daily La Stampa quoted some of the conversations on Friday, noting Francis went to the analyst's home. He was quoted as saying: "One day, when she was about to die, she called me. Not to receive the sacraments, since she was Jewish, but for a spiritual dialogue." He added, "She was a good person. For six months she helped me a lot." At the time of his psychoanalysis sessions, Francis was a Jesuit official in his native Argentina, which was then ruled by military dictatorship. Robert Mickens, the English-language editor of the Catholic daily La Croix, tells the Guardian that Francis has offered a thumbs-up in the past to the social sciences and their effect on human development, and that the Roman Catholic Church has slowly come around to the concept of psychotherapy since the '70s. For those wondering if Francis got the clarification he needed, the 80-year-old pontiff told Wolton he now feels free. "I'm in a cage at the Vatican, but not spiritually," he said. "Nothing frightens me." He also took aim at priests who are "rigid and afraid to communicate."
– A Delaware family poisoned by a toxic pesticide during their 2015 Virgin Islands vacation will receive an $87 million settlement from the parent company of Terminix, which admitted using the banned chemical at the resort where they stayed, CBS News reports. Per the New York Daily News, a ServiceMaster Global Holdings earnings report released Thursday first made mention of the payout "to settle all civil claims of the affected family related to the US Virgin Islands matter." The company has already paid $3 million to cover the insurance deductible for the Esmonds, who were severely injured after Terminix workers sprayed methyl bromide—banned for indoor residential use since 1984—in the St. John condo unit below their own, per the Philadelphia Inquirer. A September CNN report documented the horrifying consequences of the neurotoxin suffered by the Esmonds. Dad Stephen Esmond could barely speak at the time, was unable to turn the pages of a book, and suffered from tremors, while his two teen sons, former athletes who were in medically induced comas for weeks after the incident, were barely able to move. "Neurologically, it's like being in a torture chamber," a family attorney said. Mom Theresa Devine recovered more quickly and was looking after her family. (The Daily News and Inquirer note that no further word on their progress has been made available.) ServiceMaster has also agreed to pay up to $10 million in "fines, community service, and government costs" as part of the settlement, which is subject to court approval at an Aug. 25 hearing. An investigation by the DOJ is also in the works.
– There will be no vote on Senate Republican's health care bill this week. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided Tuesday to delay a vote on the bill until after the July 4 break, CNN reports. "We're still working toward getting at least 50 people in a comfortable place," CBS News quotes McConnell as saying. While he says he's still "optimistic" about the bill, he wants to make changes to it and get a new Congressional Budget Office score. The bill was estimated to leave 22 million more people without insurance, and five Republican senators had publicly expressed concern with it. A senior Senate Republican aide tells CNN the plan is to have a new version of the bill ready by the end of the week for senators to mull over during the July 4 recess. "We know what everyone needs," the aide says. "Now we just need to make it work." Reuters reports Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer is warning the bill's opponents that "the fight is not over." But, he says regardless of the delay Democrats have a good shot at defeating the bill "a week from now, a month from now, a year from now."
– For the third time in less than a month, a Muslim man has been killed over beef. In the most recent incident, an 18-year-old truck driver was burned in the cab of his truck in an Indian-controlled part of Kashmir Oct. 9 because he was suspected of transporting beef; he died of his injuries Sunday. The teen was actually carrying coal, the Los Angeles Times reports. Hindu militants are suspected in the gasoline bomb attack—Hindus consider cows sacred for religious reasons, while Muslims eat beef. Two thousand demonstrators flooded the streets in Kashmir Monday to protest the attack, and violent clashes broke out between them and security forces. A curfew has been instituted. The first recent murder took place late last month when a Muslim man in India's Uttar Pradesh state was lynched by a mob over rumors (apparently untrue) that he'd eaten beef. Then, last week, a Muslim man was killed by members of a radical Hindu group because he had allegedly smuggled cattle from another Indian state. Also today, Hindu militants threw ink on a Muslim lawmaker who recently served beef at a party he hosted. They reportedly shouted, "India will not tolerate any disrespect to cows." Nine people have been arrested in connection to the latest death, the AP reports.
– A young man from Australia got into it with his dad Tuesday night and ended up placing a phone call that has police shaking their heads, the Guardian reports. When cops showed up at the Humpty Doo home in the Northern Territory, the "indignant and enraged" son threw his dad under the bus for what he saw as the ultimate crime: chucking his "prized cannabis plants" into a bonfire after they'd argued. "He seemed to believe that the destruction of the [pot] was far worse than the possession," officer Louise Jorgensen says. Per ABC Australia, the son collected some belongings and went to stay with other family members, but he's not expected to face charges, even though it's illegal to grow or possess pot. "The evidence has been destroyed, as has the son's reputation," Jorgensen notes. (Perhaps he was growing it to help Alzheimer's patients.)
– Sexual abuse of children is a "plague and a scourge" that the Catholic Church has been fighting effectively over the last 10 years, the Vatican's ambassador to Geneva told the United Nations Committee on Torture yesterday. Archbishop Silvano Tomasi told the committee that 848 priests who abused children have been defrocked over the last decade and another 2,572 have received lesser punishments like a lifetime of penance and prayers, reports the Wall Street Journal. He said around 3,400 credible cases of abuse have been referred to the Vatican since 2004. After the committee grilled him on the Vatican's record, the archbishop insisted that there is no "climate of impunity" in the church and the Vatican is working hard to prevent further abuse, Voice of America reports. He said the Vatican's fight against sexual abuse over the last decade could even be "something worth probably looking at for good practices other institutions and states could copy." The UN committee is monitoring implementation of the UN treaty against torture and while Tomasi said the Vatican was only obliged to abide by the treaty inside its own tiny territory, he acknowledged that sexual abuse could be considered torture, the AP notes. That could open the Church up to a slew of lawsuits, as most torture cases don't have a statute of limitations. Another UN panel slammed the Vatican earlier this year for failing to take the necessary measures to deal with child abuse.
– The official illness tally from the Royal Caribbean cruise ship that returned to New Jersey yesterday, two days ahead of schedule: 630 passengers and 54 employees. That's a 20-year cruise ship record, according to CDC data, and passengers tell CNN the true number is probably much higher, since some sick people didn't bother going to the infirmary—or purposely hid their illness to avoid being quarantined. Royal Caribbean itself suspects the true number could be as high as 900, the New York Daily News reports. Here are the worst details passengers related—warning, do not read while eating: One passenger says that when she arrived at the infirmary, sick people were throwing up in buckets, bags, and basically everywhere, and she had to wait three hours to be seen. Another says the infirmary was so crowded that sick people were cramming the stairwells nearby. "People were puking into their barf bags while waiting," he says. (A different passenger estimates that, at one point, there were at least 200 people in the infirmary; she chose to disembark at a port and go to a pharmacy instead, she tells the Los Angeles Times.) Another passenger gets even more explicit: On the second night of the cruise, "I was in the dining room and a woman was vomiting into her napkin," she says. "There were people walking around in their pajamas with vomit and diarrhea on them. People were barfing all over the place." "Another passenger we became friends with said he went into the men's room and someone had gotten sick right in the floor and he stepped in it. It was bad," a passenger tells Reuters. Another tells CBS News, "The sick were in the hot tubs and the pools so people were getting sick that way by being near other people. They were throwing up in the hallways, the pool deck, everyone is trying to jump over it, walk through it." The ship will undergo a "thorough 'barrier' sanitization program," but another not-at-all-comforting CNN article notes that a Princess cruise ship experienced outbreaks on two consecutive sailings in 2012, and a Celebrity ship once saw three consecutive outbreaks. Should the passengers ever want to set foot on a ship again, Royal Caribbean is offering them all 50% refunds and 50% off a future cruise. Those quarantined to their rooms will get even bigger discounts on future cruises. Woo hoo?
– Five months after nine people were killed and 18 were injured in a shootout between rival biker gangs and police in Waco, Texas, leaked surveillance video released by CNN—and previously described by the AP—shows the chaos at the scene. Members of the Cossacks Motorcycle Club are seen gathering on the patio of the Waco Twin Peaks restaurant; a fight involving some men from the Bandidos Motorcycle Club begins in the parking lot, according to NBC Dallas Forth-Worth. Suddenly, the patio begins to empty. One man can be seen pulling a gun and aiming it toward the parking lot. Another is seen running onto the patio while firing a gun behind him. Bikers are shown dragging the body of one man onto the patio; another biker is seen leaving the patio with his face and chest covered in blood. Lawyers for both biker clubs say they did not release the video to the media. The Waco Police Department likewise denies doing so, saying it remains under a gag order. The individuals who made the video public could be "subject to ethical and legal issues," the department says, while police and prosecutors tell ABC News that the leak could affect the pending cases. Waco police detained 239 people in the aftermath of the shooting. Of those, 177 were arrested on charges of engaging in organized criminal activity, though none were ever indicted. A grand jury is now considering their cases.
– "I don't mean to be unkind, but he's so unattractive it's unbelievable," Republican Sen. Susan Collins said Tuesday. Collins was caught on a hot mic discussing Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold after a Senate subcommittee hearing. Last week, Farenthold blamed "female senators" for defeating the GOP health care bill, Business Insider reports. Farenthold said that if they were men, he'd challenge them to a duel. According to the Hill, Collins has been one of the most outspoken Republican opponents of the bill. On Tuesday's hot mic, which Collins had failed to turn off, she called Farenthold "huge" and referenced a photo of him in his pajamas posing with a Playboy bunny. Democratic Sen. Jack Reed was caught on the mic telling Collins she "could beat the s--- out of" Farenthold. The hot mic also caught Collins and Reed discussing the upcoming budget battle and the unpreparedness of President Trump, the Washington Post reports. Collins said she's "worried" about Trump and the possibility the government will be "paralyzed" when no budget deal can be reached. "I think he's crazy," Reed said, apparently about Trump, adding, "I don't say that lightly." Collins called the Trump administration's handling of the federal budget "incredibly irresponsible." She said it seems like whenever the budget includes the word "grant," the administration would "just X it out with no measurement, no thinking about it, no metrics, no nothing."
– A man entered a San Diego bank on May 13 and demanded money from a teller, saying, "You're being robbed. Don't make a mistake." He's probably kicking himself over his own gaffe, which helped send him to prison for three years and 10 months as part of a plea deal on Tuesday, per Fox 5. Before he'd made his demands, the robber had swiped his debit card at the teller window, which made it easy for police to track him down, reports the San Diego Union Tribune. Alvin Lee Neal, 56, a registered sex offender, later admitted to the robbery and was ordered Tuesday to repay the $565 he was handed by the teller.
– France has launched a ground operation in Mali, and its troops should be in direct combat with radical Islamists "within hours," military officials tell the AP. The incursion began overnight, with troops pressing from the capital into rebel-held northern territory. France also announced yesterday that it was boosting its troop presence from 800 to 2,500, another sign that it's leading an offensive that was originally to be led by Mali's African neighbors. West African troops are set to arrive within a week, France's prime minister said yesterday. "France is in the vanguard, but within a week African forces will start to deploy on the ground," he said, according to al-Jazeera. Germany is providing military aircraft to transport those African troops, along with $1.3 million in humanitarian aid. The US has offered to help as well, though Leon Panetta said it won't send troops—direct military aid to Mali's coup-installed government is illegal, the Washington Post points out. The militants, meanwhile, have actually seized more territory despite the assault, with their fighters embedding themselves in the civilian population, a French military spokesman said. Today they also attacked a BP natural gas field in neighboring Algeria, kidnapping eight people.
– Kris Jenner’s ex-husband, Robert Kardashian, famously defended OJ Simpson when he was accused of murdering Nicole Brown Simpson—but Jenner "never believed OJ, not for a second," she writes in a new tell-all previewed by Radar. Nicole, Jenner’s best friend, feared OJ was going to kill her and "get away with it," Jenner recalls. On the morning of her murder, Nicole even called Jenner and asked her to come over to discuss something "really important," Radar reports. Jenner, busy with her kids (these kids) asked to meet the following day instead—and says she now believes she possibly could have saved her friend had they met. She says she later found out that Nicole had wanted to show her photographs and other evidence of her abuse at the hands of OJ. When she heard about Nicole’s murder, Jenner "instinctively knew that in some way OJ had something to do with her death." When he was acquitted, "We couldn't believe it," she writes. "Not guilty! 'Wow, there is no justice for her,' I thought. … We were all so devastated." Kardashian himself admitted "doubts" about OJ’s innocence in 1996, and Jezebel notes that some believe he represented his friend so that he would not have to testify against him. Kris Jenner … and All Things Kardashian comes out tomorrow.
– The elite club of movies that have grossed at least $1 billion worldwide gained a new member yesterday. Furious 7 became the 20th film to have ever passed the threshold, per BoxOfficeMojo's stats. And as Variety reports, it did so pretty fast and furiously: in a record 17 days. Though Universal has put out such successes as Jurassic Park and the Bourne series, it's the first film in the studio's 103-year history to make the list, notes Ron Meyer, the vice chairman of studio parent NBCUniversal, in a congrats letter. That list is topped by Avatar and its $2.79 billion take. All told, the Furious franchise has raked in $3.39 billion. Vanity Fair's response to the news? "The rumored Furious 8 is probably a go." (Cool side story: Fast & Furious all started thanks to a 1998 magazine article.)
– President Obama's surprise comments yesterday on the George Zimmerman verdict—"Trayvon Martin could have been me"—continue to resonate today. Examples: New York Times editorial: It lavishes high praise on Obama for "laying bare his personal anguish and experience" to explain why black Americans were so frustrated by the acquittal. His important, eloquent words went beyond the specifics of the trial and "crystallized the dissonance around this case." It's great we have a president who can do that, but it's "sad that we still need him to do it." Jonathan Chait, New York: It was "instantly historic," he writes. "Obama understands that interjecting himself into a racialized controversy carries risks, but he also believes that the electorate of the future is on his side. His remarks are probably aimed not at the present but at posterity." John Kass, Chicago Tribune: All the people praising the speech are missing something, Kass argues. Obama "played the race card and they didn't see it coming. He attributed racial motive to a homicide even though the race angle was never established in court." His "silky rhetoric" helped him get away it—the president "bypassed the evidence and established his own motive. Only a maestro could accomplish this." Rich Benjamin, Salon: He calls the speech a "dramatic anti-climax," arguing that Obama didn't say anything "insightful or profound." But Benjamin, who is black, raised a ruckus when he compared Obama's response unfavorably to Eric Holder's "trenchant" remarks. "Some of us have an Inner Child. Others have an Inner Nigger. Is Holder the president’s conscience? Or his Inner Nigger?" The comment drew so much reaction that Benjamin later addressed the issue in his post, saying that he used the term "with deep understanding of its long, complicated existence." CBS has the full transcript of the president's remarks.
– Ukraine's interim president gave pro-Russia militants occupying government buildings in Slaviansk and other eastern Ukraine areas until this morning to get out, or be forced out by the Ukrainian military—and the deadline has passed without the militants leaving. So far, Oleksandr Turchinov has not sent in the army, but clashes between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russia gunmen on the outskirts of the city left at least one Ukrainian dead yesterday, the BBC reports. Today, at least 100 pro-Russia separatists attacked a police station in another eastern Ukraine city, Reuters reports. At yesterday's emergency UN Security Council meeting, Russia's ambassador urged the Ukrainian government to "start a genuine dialogue" with protesters in eastern Ukraine rather than using force, while Ukraine's ambassador accused Russia of being behind the "separatist operation" in the first place. If Kiev follows through on its threat to bring in the military, Russia, which has 40,000 troops on Ukraine's eastern border, could push back; the US has compared the events in eastern Ukraine to the ones that led up to Russia's annexation of Crimea. But the Wall Street Journal reports that Turchinov also said today he's open to holding a referendum on the possibility of giving certain regions more autonomy, which is one of the rebels' demands.
– Jessica Rush was scared to see a man following her into a Texas hospital bathroom last Thursday. That's when she confronted him—and learned he thought she was a he, NBC Dallas/Forth Worth reports. "You didn't look like a girl when I saw you enter, I thought it was..." the man is recorded as saying on her phone. "A boy?" asks Rush. "Yeah, it was kind of confusing," he says. "You dress like a man." (See the video here.) Rush, who was wearing basketball shorts and a T-shirt and sports a bleach-blond faux-hawk, recorded another chat with the man later at Baylor Medical Center in Frisco, the Dallas Morning News reports. "The point is, I was helping my mom," he says. "I was confused when I see someone entering the woman’s bathroom looking like a man." Rush and her wife were still mad about it, and worse, it's happened before. At a Hobby Lobby, a woman tried to stop Rush from entering a restroom used by the woman's granddaughter, and woman at 24 Hour Fitness once criticized her for trying to use the women's restroom before realizing Rush was female and apologizing, the Dallas Observer reports. Rush's story breaks as national battle lines are hardening over transgender bathroom use, and another Dallas suburb, Rockwall, may limit bathroom use to the gender on a person's birth certificate. "I do feel for the transgenders because this happened to me," Rush tells WFAA. "I just think everybody just needs to kind of stay to themselves and don’t be the bathroom police." (Meanwhile, Target has sided with the transgender community.)
– At least three people are dead in Cairo after security forces opened fire on supporters of the freshly-ousted president Mohamed Morsi, security sources tell Reuters. While an army spokesman says the military did not use live rounds, the BBC reports that forces fired at a crowd of Muslim Brotherhood supporters as they gathered outside the Republican Guard barracks where Morsi is being held. Other violent clashes have been reported in cities across Egypt as thousands of Morsi supporters gathered to protest the military coup that removed the country's first democratically elected leader from power. Across the country, 10 people have been killed and 210 wounded in the clashes, the AP reports, citing a Health Ministry official. Earlier, the army had said it would support the planned rally, citing the rights of "peaceful protest and freedom of expression." Click for more of today's developments.
– "If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting," President Trump tweeted early Thursday. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who reiterated Wednesday that Mexico wouldn't be funding the wall, wasted little time in doing just that, canceling a meeting set for next Tuesday, CNN reports. Mexican citizens, political analysts, and politicians were surprisingly united in their desire for Peña Nieto to skip the meeting with Trump, reports the Los Angeles Times. In encouraging Peña Nieto to distance himself from Trump, one Mexican senator called the US president an "arrogant and ignorant despot," while a Mexican political analyst said Trump "is a madman who will probably destroy himself."
– Sure, you can support the presidential candidate of your choice—but wouldn't it be more fun if you could make President Obama and Mitt Romney smack each other around a bit? Download "VOTE!!!" on your Apple device this week and you can do just that. The mobile app sees cartoon versions of the political opponents bashing each other with everything from microphones to Statue of Liberty light sabers to politically-hued Popsicles, all the while racking up votes the more points they score. The Obama and Romney characters can also be customized with outfits like an Uncle Sam costume or boxing shorts and accessories like a powdered wig or handlebar mustache, as they fight in locations from a debate stage to the Oval Office. And they each have their own catchphrases, like, "Oh yeah. That's what Barack is cooking!" But the game is more than just silliness: Maker Epic Games partnered with Rock the Vote to build a "fun PSA" into the game encouraging users to vote. The free app is out today, CNN reports.
– A 13-year-old girl traveling Wednesday as an unaccompanied minor from Dallas to Portland says she spent the first part of her flight "frightened and trapped" and the remainder of it too scared to even use the bathroom after a 26-year-old Oregon man seated next to her allegedly groped her, KOIN reports. Chad Cameron Camp was arrested by police and FBI agents after the American Airlines flight touched down in Portland Wednesday evening, CNN reports. Although Camp had reportedly been informed by flight attendants of other empty seats with more room, he chose to stay put in a middle seat right next to the teen. "I'm fine," he said, per the complaint seen by the Washington Post. And after he engaged the girl in a bit of conversation, she says she had to push herself up against the window to try to get away from physical contact including, per the complaint, Camp nudging and elbowing her, then placing his hand on her knee and inching it up her thigh. Only when a flight attendant came around for drink-and-snack service 30 minutes later did she notice Camp's hand near the tearful girl's crotch and demanded Camp move further back on the plane, the complaint says. The flight attendant told the pilot about the situation, and law enforcement was waiting for Camp when the plane landed, arresting him on one count of abusive sexual contact—but Brent Goodfellow, the girl's attorney, says that wasn't enough. "This was 30 minutes of hell for this young lady," he tells the Post. "If I have my tray table down or my seat back 2 inches during the improper time, those guys are going to be on me immediately. This girl got abused for 30 minutes and no one was to be found." He adds that her family, which paid $300 to the airline in unaccompanied minor fees, is planning a civil suit against American, saying it could have prevented the situation. (Two TSA screeners were fired over groping allegations.)
– After some early bumps, more than half of Florida's 67 counties began recounting votes Sunday in the razor-thin Senate and gubernatorial races, bringing back memories of the 2000 presidential fiasco, the AP reports. In Democratic-leaning Broward County, the scheduled start of the recount was delayed Sunday because of a problem with one of the tabulation machines. The Republican Party attacked Broward's supervisor of elections, Brenda Snipes, of "incompetence and gross mismanagement" following the delay, which was resolved within two hours. The county, the state's second-most populous, is emerging as the epicenter of controversy in the recount. Broward officials say they mistakenly counted 22 absentee ballots that had been rejected, mostly because the signature on the return envelope did not match the one on file. It is a problem that appears impossible to fix because the ballots were mixed in with 205 legal ballots. Snipes said it would be unfair to throw out all the ballots. Palm Beach County, another Democratic stronghold, could also present challenges. The county's supervisor of elections says she doesn't believe her department will be able to meet the state's Thursday recount deadline: "It's impossible," Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher tells CNN. The recount in most other major population centers, including Miami-Dade and Pinellas and Hillsborough counties in the Tampa Bay area, was ongoing without incident on Sunday. Smaller counties are expected to begin their reviews Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. (See why Florida's recount decision was "unprecedented.")
– The Syrian government and the opposition have blamed each other for reported poison gas attacks in the rebel-controlled village of Kfar Zeita; now, the opposition says it has images that point the finger at the regime. Activists released images and video of an unexploded canister marked with the chemical symbol for chlorine. They say the canister turned up in Kfar Zeita, though Reuters notes it can't verify the report. A UK-based expert isn't certain, but he tells Reuters that "It looks like (the government has) taken an industrial chlorine cylinder, put it in (an) improvised barrel bomb, and dropped it out of a helicopter." The government, for its part, is blaming an al-Qaeda-linked group, the Nusra Front. Both sides agree that chlorine gas was used. The chemical isn't among those Bashar al-Assad declared to international officials in a deal to destroy toxic weapons, Reuters notes. In other news from Syria: A 13th batch of chemical weapons was shipped today from Syria, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons says, per the AP. That means 65% of the declared substances have left the country. But "the frequency and volumes of deliveries have to increase significantly" if Syria is to meet a June 30 deadline to destroy the full stockpile, says the watchdog's director. Assad says the war has reached a "turning point"—"both militarily in terms of the army's achievements in the war against terror, and socially in terms of national reconciliation processes and growing awareness of the truth behind the (attacks) targeting the country," AFP notes, via the Guardian. Syrian warplane attacks yesterday on the edge of Damascus killed 13, says the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
– A Malaysia Airlines passenger plane crashed in Ukraine this morning, and all 283 passengers and 15 crew are feared dead, reports Reuters. A Ukrainian interior ministry official says the Boeing 777 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile, though it's too early to confirm the claim. (US intelligence agrees that a missile is to blame.) The plane, which originated in Amsterdam and was bound for Kuala Lumpur, was flying at 33,000 feet when it "began to drop; afterwards it was found burning on the ground on Ukrainian territory," a witness tells Interfax. It came down over territory held by separatists about 25 miles short of the Russian border, near the city of Donetsk, reports the LA Times. The region has seen fierce fighting in recent days. Immediately afterward, Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko said his troops "did not take action against any airborne targets," and pro-Russian separatists also denied responsibility. The plane appeared to have broken apart before hitting the ground, reports the AP, with one of its reporters counting at least 22 bodies at the crash site. President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone about the disaster, though no details about the discussion were immediately released. Malaysia Airlines, still reeling from the disappearance of another passenger jet, confirmed via Twitter that it "has lost contact of MH17 from Amsterdam. The last known position was over Ukrainian airspace." The airline's initial statement is here.
– Before you break out the snow shovel this season, doctors say there are a couple of things to keep in mind lest clearing your walk turn deadly. At least two people died from heart problems while shoveling snow this week in Buffalo and about 100 Americans meet the same fate each year, the BBC reports, as a boosted heart rate and artery-constricting cold air make "a perfect storm for a heart attack," a doctor explains. If you're over 55 or "habitually sedentary," he says you shouldn't pick up a shovel at all. Shoveling snow is also risky for smokers and people with coronary disease. But if you have to shovel, remember to breathe during the exercise. Push the snow, don't lift it, and avoid the 6am to 10am window if possible as hormone levels make people particularly prone to heart attacks at that time. Dress warmly and take regular breaks inside, the doctor advises. The American Heart Association chimes in with a few additional tips: Skip big meals right before or after shoveling, as a heavy meal can tax the heart. And in terms of your shovel, use a smaller one; the less snow you move at once, the safer you'll be. And if you're looking to warm up, avoid alcohol, a doctor tells ABC News. "It puts the heart at more risk." The advice, which also applies to those who use snow blowers, will come in handy if you're planning to help out the Buffalo Bills. (Click for more shoveling tips.)
– Today anchor Tamron Hall is quitting NBC and MSNBC amid the upheaval caused by the hiring of Megyn Kelly. Hall co-hosted Today's 9am hour with Al Roker, a slot that's now expected to be given to the former Fox News star. "Tamron is an exceptional journalist, we valued and enjoyed her work at Today and MSNBC and hoped that she would decide to stay," NBC News said in a statement, per the Hollywood Reporter. Hall, who joined MSNBC in 2007 and still hosted an hour of news programming there each morning, had her last day at both networks on Tuesday. "The last 10 years have been beyond anything I could have imagined, and I'm grateful," Hall said in a statement. "I’m also very excited about the next chapter." According to the AP, NBC is considering either giving Today's 9am hour to Kelly or shifting Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb to 9am and giving Kelly their 10am slot. The Reporter notes that Hall's Today exit follows those of Natalie Morales, Willie Geist, and Billy Bush, who was fired in October after tape of a lewd conversation with Donald Trump in 2005 surfaced. (Fox has revealed Kelly's replacement.)
– New Yorkers are preparing for "doomsday" in a way that doesn't involve guns, bunkers, or earmarked pages in Revelations, LiveScience reports. Survivalists at one group, NYC Preppers, are planning to safely flee the city in case of a natural disaster or terrorist attack. "They simply don't have the space to build a bunker," says sociologist Anna Bounds, who is studying the survivalists. She says they devise escape routes (including by kayak), keep the car filled with gas, and figure out which home appliances are likely to work in different emergencies. They also take long walks to practice carrying a "bug-out" bag, which weighs between 20 and 25 pounds and contains survival gear like water, food, face masks, compasses, duct tape, and water filtration systems. Just who are these people? Their political views vary, but they tend to be people of color who have seen disasters like Hurricane Katrina and know how slowly governments can respond to emergencies. They're often into sustainability and local foods, which Bounds admits is a far cry from survival in nature: "What you have to understand about New Yorkers is we're used to convenience and we're used to immediate gratification," she says. "Roughing it, for us, is not having takeout." By contrast, the FBI says a Doomsday prepper in Florida has admitted to stockpiling weapons and creating boobytraps in preparation for a Biblical apocalypse, the Tampa Bay Times reports. In exchange for turning himself in, Martin Winters received Gatorade, fries, cheeseburgers, and dry shoes, says another Times article.
– Barring some kind of last-minute diplomatic magic trick, Mahmoud Abbas will ask the UN Security Council for membership next week, the Palestinian foreign minister said today—even as US diplomats traveled to the West Bank for last-ditch negotiating efforts. “We will see if anyone carries … any credible offer,” he said, according to the AP. “Otherwise, on the 23rd the president will submit the application.” Benjamin Netanyahu today announced that he’d lead Israel’s UN delegation to oppose the move. The gambit puts the US in the uncomfortable position of vetoing one of its stated policy objectives. Most other countries support Palestinian statehood, so Abbas is at least likely to win “non-member observer state” status from the General Assembly. None of this will change realities on the ground, but it’s energized Palestinians, the New York Times reports, even if many fear Israeli reprisals. “We have to do it,” one said. “The consequences cannot be worse than losing all of Palestine.”
– If you're shocked Adele is up for seven MTV Video Music Awards this year, you're probably less surprised than she is. "Flabbergasted about the VMA nominations," the British singer blogged today. Her hit "Rolling In The Deep" helped her tie Kanye West with the second-most nominations this year—behind only Katy Perry's nine, reports MTV. Adele added that she might find an unconventional way to revel in the honor, writing, "I'm thinking about releasing a range of chairs to celebrate!" Click to read about another reason for Adele to celebrate.
– The "gentle giant" is going back to his family. Improved DNA testing has identified the remains of another of the firefighters killed in the 9/11 attacks, reports the Staten Island Advance. Lt. Jeffrey Walz died in the north tower nearly a dozen years ago. “My family always felt at some point we would get a phone call,” his widow, Rani Walz, tells the New York Post. “I wasn’t so sure. This has reopened old wounds.” Walz was 37 when he died, leaving behind Rani and their 3-year-old son, Bradley. He managed to call his wife and parents from the tower before it collapsed, says his sister. As for that "gentle giant" nickname: “It was obviously because of his height and because he was such a good person," explains his wife. "He was a saint with me.” A city official says the remains of 1,637 World Trade Center victims have now been identified, leaving 1,116 unidentified. “At least we can say he’s not missing anymore,” mom Jennie Walz tells the Journal News. (This news follows an announcement made two weeks ago that the remains of a 43-year-old 9/11 victim had been identified.)
– With an unprecedented double recount underway in Florida, Gov. Rick Scott is fighting to get state police involved. The Republican governor—who is clinging to a slim lead in his Senate race with Democratic rival Bill Nelson—filed lawsuits Sunday calling for elections officials in Palm Beach and Broward counties to turn ballots, voting machines, and vote-counting machines over to law enforcement at times when votes aren't being counted, reports Reuters. Scott has claimed that "unethical liberals" in the two heavily Democratic counties are trying to steal the election, in which he currently has a lead of just 12,562 votes over Nelson, the Miami Herald reports. One of Scott's lawsuits warned that Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes could "destroy evidence of any errors, accidents, or unlawful conduct" if she had "unsupervised, unaccountable, and unfettered access to the ballot boxes." Florida Democrats reacted angrily, calling the move to involve police an "abuse of power," the Herald reports. State police and election officials say they have found no evidence of fraud, though protesters, some of them holding pro-Trump signs or chanting "Lock her up," still gathered outside Snipes' office on Sunday, the AP reports. A recount is also happening in the governor's race. (Palm Beach County officials say it will be "impossible" to meet the Thursday recount deadline.)
– The tech world is lousy with impressive employee perks, but this is certainly a unique entry in the category: Twitter employees will soon be able to eat lunch in one of two century-old Montana log cabins. As the San Francisco Chronicle explains, the cabins were taken apart and shipped this week to Vallejo, Calif., where they're being "refurbished and re-sized" in advance of their installation in Twitter's new San Francisco headquarters. Designer Olle Lundberg, whose firm is handling the project, explained that "we've always had this sort of notion of the forest being a source of inspiration for design at Twitter," and the forest connection provided a "nice story." But it was the awkwardness of the new dining area that led to the decision. "The problem is all the floors are 10-foot ceilings," explains Lundberg. "That’s really a miserable space. How do you subdivide the space without making it a series of rooms?" Enter the 20-foot by 20-foot log cabins, which were purchased for an undisclosed price and will be erected without any roofs and with 7-foot-wide entrances on each of their four sides; booths will be built in. It's not the only perk workers in the new office will have access to, per the Marin Independent Journal. Among the others: a yoga studio, arcade, and rooftop garden.
– Cat got your tongue—or maybe a bear? No one would have pointed the finger at one particular Asiatic black bear (also known as a moon bear) holed up in a Myanmar monastery: He had too much of his own tongue to handle, let alone anyone else's. The Guardian reports on the plight of Nyan htoo, who recently underwent emergency surgery to remove 7 pounds of tissue from a tongue so large he couldn't keep it in his mouth. Instead, Nyan htoo dragged it on the floor, and the BBC reports the weight of the tongue fatigued him so much that he often had to rest his head against the side of his cage. "I've worked with bears for over 10 years and I've never seen anything like it," says Heather Bacon, a University of Edinburgh veterinarian who was part of the team that operated on Nyan htoo, whose name means "bright." She adds his malady was "pretty astonishing." Nyan htoo—who'd ended up at the monastery with his brother after they were abducted by Burmese traffickers, then rescued by monks—also couldn't close his mouth. Bacon and others heard about his condition, which they speculate was either a genetic issue or a form of elephantiasis, swelling brought about by a mosquito-carried parasite that causes infection. The Telegraph notes that vets had taken excess tissue from Nyan htoo's tongue last year, but before long the swelling came back in full force. The surgery this time around took about four hours. Per Stuff.co.nz, Nyan htoo is now playing with his brother again, though he'll have a learning curve in adapting to day-to-day tasks without his giant tongue. "We have been able to make a tangible improvement in the quality of Nyan htoo's life," Bacon says. (This bear made 200 sheep leap to their deaths.)
– A school bus driver was killed and up to 20 of her passengers were hospitalized after a bizarre crash at Denver International Airport Sunday afternoon. Cops say the driver had picked up 28 members of the Legacy High School football team and four coaches when she inexplicably circled back to the airport, veered off a roadway, and crashed into a concrete pillar, the AP reports. Officials say the driver died at the scene and around 20 of her passengers were taken to local hospitals, including at least two in critical condition and two in serious condition. The Adams 12 Five Star Schools district school bus was one of three that had been picking up passengers who had joined the team's trip to a tournament in California. "The bus driver circled back around to this level. We don't know why," a police spokesman tells the Denver Post. "The early information from the other bus drivers is that it was quite curious to them. They really don't know why." (There have long been strange stories surrounding the airport.)
– Barack and Michelle Obama have book deals. The former president and first lady have signed with Penguin Random House, the publisher announced Tuesday. Financial terms were not disclosed for the books, which several publishers had competed for, although the deals are likely in the tens of millions of dollars, the AP reports. (Sources tell Politico the auction for rights to the books went higher than $60 million.) Both Obamas have published through Crown, a Penguin Random House imprint. But Penguin Random House declined comment on which imprint or imprints the books would be released through. "We are absolutely thrilled to continue our publishing partnership with President and Mrs. Obama," Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle said in a statement. "With their words and their leadership, they changed the world." The Obamas plans to donate a "significant portion" of their author proceeds to charity, including to the Obama Foundation. Barack Obama's book is a strong contender to attract the largest advance for any ex-president; the previous record is believed to be $15 million for Bill Clinton's My Life. Titles and release dates for the Obamas' books were not immediately available. They will reflect on the Obamas' White House years, although Penguin Random House declined to give further details. A publishing official with knowledge of the negotiations said that Barack Obama's book will be a straightforward memoir about his presidency, while Michelle Obama plans to write an inspirational work for young people that will draw upon her life story.
– Ricky Martin finally came out, and the world said, “Duh.” On Gawker, Brian Moylan lists 10 more public figures who really need to admit they’re gay already—after all, the rest of us know. View the list in the gallery—or, for 10 more celebrities who also came out to a chorus of “Obviously!” click here.
– Walmart is doing away with hourly doorbusters and will instead make all of its Black Friday deals available immediately at 6pm on Thanksgiving—the same time sales kicked off last year, reports NorthJersey.com. The company says its strategy will simplify holiday shopping, which can get a little crazy. All deals will also be available online beginning at 12:01am PST on Nov. 26. One promotion that's back from last year: Walmart's one-hour guarantee, meaning anyone lined up during the first hour in a specific spot will be guaranteed an iPad Air 2 for $399, Beats headphones for $169, an Xbox One for $300, an HP touch-screen laptop for $250, and a 55-inch LG TV for $698, per USA Today and Yahoo. Find more deals here.
– More disturbing details are emerging about this week's huge child-porn bust in the New York City area, including these: a dad secretly filmed his son's friend, 9, when she changed to go swimming; a nurse had 19 videos of kids under 13 having sex with adults, authorities say. Another man, whose father was deported in 2008 after flying to Chicago in hopes of having sex with a 14-year-old girl, is charged with having images of girls as young as six, the Journal News reports. As for the Boy Scout leader and Little League coach, Jonathan Silber, 42, authorities say an IP address connected to the father of two was used to distribute child pornography online. "Surprised? I was shocked," said one of Silber's neighbors. "He's always got kids at his house. He's very active in the community … I would never have any suspicion that anything wasn't normal." Others charged in "Operation Caireen" (a nod to the protector and patron of kids in Celtic mythology) include a mother charged with producing pornography involving her own child, USA Today reports.
– At least 75 people are now confirmed dead in the eruption of Guatemala's "Volcano of Fire" and authorities fear the true death toll could be in the hundreds. At least 192 people are missing and one village, El Rodeo, has been almost completely wiped off the map by a river of lava, the BBC reports. Rescue work was badly disrupted Tuesday when strong explosions sent fresh ash, rock, and gases streaming down the Fuego volcano, which is around 25 miles away from Guatemala City, reports CNN. Authorities say only 23 victims have been identified so far, including two young girls, ages 3 and 6. Around 3,000 people have been evacuated and the US Air Force is taking six badly burned children to Texas for treatment. In the village of Escuintla, survivor Lilian Hernandez listed no fewer than 36 missing family members, the AP reports. "My cousins Ingrid, Yomira, Paola, Jennifer, Michael, Andrea, and Silvia, who was just 2 years old," the distraught woman said. In El Rodeo, rescuers dug through ash-covered homes and found one sign of life: A dog that somehow survived in a home where four people died. "Animals have a different sort of resistance ... and different behavior when it comes to finding refuge," says Julio Sanchez, a spokesman for the country's disaster agency.
– For centuries, a remote island in southwestern Japan has been deemed too sacred for women to visit, and even the men who do must strip naked for a ritual cleansing, as well as never discuss the details of their trip. Okinoshima, an ancient religious site that is home to the Munakata Taisha Okitsumiya shrine—which somewhat ironically honors a sea goddess—is being recommended by a UNESCO advisory board to be added to the exclusive World Heritage list, reports the Japan Times. If it goes through, it would be Japan's 17th cultural asset granted World Heritage status. The recommendation is expected to be endorsed at a UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting in July, and the ban on women isn't looking like it's going to be lifted anytime soon. "We'll continue to strictly regulate visits to the island," one officials tells the Mainichi Daily. How tourism will be handled remains to be seen, but the BBC notes that there is a strict ban on souvenirs; you currently can't get so much as a blade of grass off the island. (The "Garden of Eden" in Iraq was added last year.)
– There's the slim chance of being hit by lightning, and then there's the almost nonexistent chance of being hit by a meteorite. A man in India, however, was apparently killed by the latter, which would likely make him the first person recorded killed by an object that fell from outer space, Mashable reports. V. Kamaraj, a 40-year-old bus driver for Bharathidasan Engineering College in Tamil Nadu, was reportedly walking on campus when the meteorite smashed down around 12:30pm Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reports; he suffered severe injuries and died, while two gardeners and a student were injured. "There was a noise like a big explosion," the college principal says. "It was an abnormal sound that could be heard … about 2 miles away." Students were sent home, and classes are nixed until Wednesday. NASA says there's no record "in modern times of any person being killed by a meteorite," and an astronomer pegged the odds of being killed by an asteroid (a meteorite is a piece of an asteroid that survives entry into Earth's atmosphere and lands) within one's lifetime as 1 in 700,000—a chance Discover notes is rare but still higher than getting killed by a terrorist (though the Discover article is from 2008). This particular meteorite was powerful enough to shatter window panes and car windshields, as well as leave a 4-foot-deep crater where it landed and what the principal describes as "blue-ish black" rock particles. The government has confirmed the deceased died from being hit by a meteorite, but some scientists are calling for further analysis of the rock, the Times of India notes. "You have a better chance of getting hit by a tornado and a bolt of lightning and a hurricane all at the same time," one astronomer says. (International Comet Quarterly lists "some interesting meteorite falls of the last two centuries," noting it was "possible" a man was killed in 1825.)
– A growing amount of evidence points toward Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi having been brutally murdered and dismembered inside Saudi Arabia's Istanbul consulate, officials say. A senior official tells the New York Times that a team of 15 Saudi agents arrived on charter planes the day Khashoggi vanished, including an autopsy expert suspected of having dismembered the Saudi journalist with a bone saw inside the consulate, which he had visited to obtain marriage paperwork. "It is like Pulp Fiction," the official says. The AP reports that Turkish media have released images of the alleged "assassination squad." One pro-Turkish government newspaper, however, suggests that Khashoggi may have been smuggled out of the country alive. State-run Turkish broadcaster TRT also aired video of a black van leaving the consulate around two hours after Khashoggi arrived and traveling to the consul general's home 1.2 miles away. Investigators believe that the 15 agents spent several hours at the home before traveling to the airport in a convoy of six cars, one of which allegedly carried Khashoggi's remains, the Guardian reports. They left Turkey the same day they arrived, and investigators believed they may have taken CCTV footage from the embassy with them. Saudi officials, who insist that Khashoggi left their consulate without incident, have said they will allow Turkish police to search the building.
– A legal defense fund created for fired FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe will no longer accept donations after raising more than a half-million dollars in four days, the AP reports. The fund is to defray costs for McCabe, who was fired after FBI disciplinary officials and the Justice Department concluded he hadn't been candid during an inspector general investigation. The firing came less than two days before he was to retire. The fund will stop accepting donations at 7 p.m. Monday after more than tripling the original goal. McCabe said Monday he's grateful and that the contributions reflect donors' "acknowledgement that something in this situation is not fair or just." He has denied wrongdoing. His supporters said the fund was needed for McCabe to respond to congressional inquiries and the inspector general report. The GoFundMe page was updated Monday with a statement of gratitude from McCabe, who called the fund's success an "acknowledgement that something in this situation is not fair or just." The page also claims the money will soon go into a formal legal trust. “The outpouring of support on GoFundMe has been simply overwhelming," McCabe wrote. Despite its success, some have called the ethics of such a campaign into question. As ABC News reports, Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept pointed out McCabe's apparent personal wealth while calling the campaign "obscene," and a pundit on Fox noted that thousands donated despite the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility investigation on McCabe being unreleased.
– The FBI has pulled the plug at least temporarily on a website accused of serving as a sort of Amazon.com for illegal drugs, reports the Verge. Undercover agents reportedly made dozens of purchases on the Silk Road website since late 2011, and the FBI today announced the arrest of Ross William Ulbricht, aka "Dread Pirate Roberts," reports Reuters. He faces a slew of charges, including narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy. Anyone who manages to reach the site is now greeted with an FBI notice announcing that it's been seized. So what is, or was, Silk Road exactly? Last week, Winston Ross at the Daily Beast provided an in-depth primer. "Silk Road, for the uninitiated, is the eBay of illicit substances, from MDMA to LSD," he writes. It offers legal merchandise, too, but drugs are the main attraction. "Because you have to travel through an encrypted wormhole to get there, and because you have to use a difficult-to-trace, encrypted currency to pay for anything, it’s a relatively safe place to buy drugs." And, a la eBay, sellers are ranked, "a relatively certain way to ensure that the drugs on offer aren’t cut with crap and aren’t going to kill you." Click for his full post.
– Kate Moss has drawn fire from public health groups for saying she lives by the motto "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” The phrase is common on pro-anorexia websites. Advocates slammed the comment as “dangerous” and “unhelpful," the BBC reports. A Moss representative says the remark to fashion website WWD was "taken out of context and completely misrepresented. For the record, Kate does not support this as a lifestyle choice." Here's the exchange in the printed interview: Question: "Do you have a motto?" Answer: "There are loads. There’s 'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.' That’s one of them. You try and remember, but it never works."
– Ben Carson and Chris Christie are apparently Donald Trump fans (and Paul Ryan's still not sure), but count Stephen King, Amy Tan, and Junot Diaz among those who definitely fall into the "Dump Trump" camp. They're among the hundreds of writers who've signed an "Open Letter to the American People" on Lit Hub, listing all of the reasons why they "as a matter of conscience, oppose, unequivocally, the candidacy of Donald J. Trump for the Presidency of the United States." And those reasons are many, including "because, as writers, we are particularly aware of the many ways that language can be abused in the name of power"; "because neither wealth nor celebrity qualifies anyone to speak for the United States, to lead its military, to maintain its alliances, or to represent its people"; and "because we believe that knowledge, experience, flexibility, and historical awareness are indispensable in a leader." The public missive's final dig is the longest and most cutting: The literati are against the idea of a President Trump "because the rise of a political candidate who deliberately appeals to the basest and most violent elements in society, who encourages aggression among his followers, shouts down opponents, intimidates dissenters, and denigrates women and minorities, demands, from each of us, an immediate and forceful response." The movement even has its own @WritersOnTrump Twitter handle and hashtag, and a petition encouraging others to join the list that currently has 6,800 signatures (you apparently don't have to be a writer to sign, based on this tweet). Many on Twitter are lending their support (and signatures), though some are skeptical what, if anything, this initiative will prove. "My question is what will the #WritersOnTrump petition accomplish besides making those who sign it feel more gratifyingly disgusted by Trump?" one author writes. And the Daily Beast's Olivia Nuzzi snarks, "Surely the big bad writers will stop him."
– He thought he was getting banana bread, but instead he got news he was going to be a dad. Spencer Pratt, who used to star in MTV's The Hills along with wife Heidi Montag, reveals in the latest issue of Us Weekly how he found out Montag is carrying their first child, due in mid-October. Pratt, 33, said he woke up at home to find his 30-year-old wife standing there "glowing," and he thought she was going to say she'd just baked something. "I'm pregnant," she announced instead. People cites a September 2016 interview with Faithwire in which Montag, who's been married to Pratt since 2009, said she was "getting ready to be a mom," with hopes for a due date sometime in 2017. But while Pratt, now an online crystal vendor, tells Us that "Heidi has wanted to be a mom since the day I met her," he was, as she puts it, "a little hesitant." They say they're both ready now, though Montag admits: "I've read every pregnancy book and ... realize I don't know anything." An excerpt of the full Us Weekly interview here, which includes Heidi's pregnancy cravings. (We hope they've saved up some money for nursery supplies.)
– Arkansas Razorbacks football coach Bobby Petrino has been canned after the married dad of four confessed to having a volleyball-playing lover half his age whom he put on the college payroll. Petrino's secret life came to light following a motorcycle accident earlier this month while he was riding with lover Jessica Dorrell, 25. Petrino, 51, suffered broken ribs, abrasions, and a cracked vertebrae in his neck. He didn't tell his bosses that Dorrell was with him at the time, but they quickly found out—and connected him to her hiring and a $20,000 payment to her. Athletic director Jeff Long slammed the coach, hired four years ago, for misleading his superiors and the public, and damaging the reputation of the football program. "Coach Petrino abused his authority when he made a staff hire that benefited himself and jeopardized the integrity of the football program,” said Long. Petrino, a former coach of the Atlanta Falcons, hired Dorrell, who used to play volleyball for the Razorbacks, as a student-athlete development coordinator last year, reports the New York Daily News. He apologized after his firing, and said he is now trying to "heal" his family, according to AP. "All I have been able to think about is the number of people I've let down by making selfish decisions," he said. "I chose to engage in an improper relationship. I also made several poor decisions following the end of that relationship and in the aftermath of the accident."
– Searchers in an Oregon lake recovered four bodies in what seems to have been a tragic accident: Three generations of the same family apparently drowned. People fishing in Henry Hagg Lake, located in a Washington County park that, police say, draws up to 10,000 people per day, first noticed an unconscious 3-year-old boy near the shore Monday. Despite their efforts to perform CPR and the arrival of fire crews, Jeremy Scholl died, the Oregonian reports. But he didn't appear to have been alone: Officials found four pairs of shoes at the edge of the lake and a dog wandering nearby, no owners in sight. Other abandoned items including a towel, a cooler, and a phone also hinted there were other people to be found. An initial search revealed no one in the woods or water. But a call to the boy's aunt revealed that relatives had gone to the lake and hadn't been heard from since, and the following day, divers recovered three more bodies: those of the boy's mother, Gabriela Garcia-Ixtacua, 25; his uncle, Michael Garcia-Ixtacua, 13; and his grandmother, Jova Ixtacua-Castano, 42. Authorities saw no indication of foul play. "This appears to be a tragic incident where someone likely got into trouble in the water and others attempted to help them," an officer says, per KGW. "Detectives are still searching for any answers." (In a happier turn of events this year, another child was underwater in a Utah river for 20 minutes—and survived.)
– Fifteen months after the death of his wife of 11 years, Patton Oswalt is engaged, People reports. The comedian and his new fiancee, actress Meredith Salenger, confirmed their engagement on social media. "I put the ring in a marzipan Slave I replica and said, 'Will you be my Padawan of Love?' She maced me but said yes later," Oswalt tweeted. Salenger went with an equally dorky joke, posting on Instagram: "I don't wanna brag ... but check out the size of The Rock on my finger!," along with a photo of Dwayne Johnson digitally placed over her engagement ring. Flirting via social media isn't anything new for the couple, who went public with their relationship last month at the premiere of Baby Driver. Oswalt's public expressions of happiness follow his equally public explorations of grief in the wake of wife Michelle McNamara's death, the New York Daily News reports. Oswalt has written about grief ("102 days at the mercy of grief and loss feels like 102 years and you have s--- to show for it") and raising his 8-year-old daughter without McNamara ("I'm moving forward—clumsily, stupidly, blindly") and addressed the loss of his wife in his stand-up sets. McNamara died suddenly in her sleep in April 2016 due to a mix of prescription drugs and an unknown heart condition. A source tells People Oswalt and Salenger met through mutual friend Martha Plimpton and are "very happy."
– As Mitt Romney heads to New Hampshire following his razor-thin win in Iowa, he can expect an endorsement from the man who trounced him there four years ago. John McCain plans to endorse Romney and will travel with him on his campaign bus through the state, a campaign insider tells the New York Times. Romney endorsed McCain after dropping out of the race in 2008. Rick Santorum—who endorsed Romney in 2008, as a way, he said this week, to stop McCain's bid for the nomination—said that while McCain is a great man with whom it was an honor to serve in the Senate, he was surprised that the Romney endorsement hadn't come sooner. "John is a more moderate member of the Republican team, and I think he fits in with Newt's—excuse me, with Mitt's—view of the world," he told CNN.
– Katie Couric, the first woman to be solo anchor of an evening network news show, has officially signed off on her 5-year stint at CBS. Couric's final CBS Evening News broadcast included an interview with Hillary Clinton and a "5 years in 5 minutes" retrospective of her time as anchor, Reuters reports. "It's been an extraordinary privilege to sit in this chair," she said before the segment, which included interviews with George W. Bush, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and, of course, Sarah Palin. She thanked viewers "for coming along with me on this incredible journey." 60 Minutes reporter Scott Pelley will succeed Couric, who is believed to be close to a deal for a daytime talk show on ABC.
– Sarah Palin, star of the 2008 Republican National Convention, wasn't happy when Fox News cut her out of this year's coverage. "I’m sorry Fox canceled all my scheduled interviews tonight," she wrote on her Facebook page yesterday, because with former running mate John McCain speaking at the convention, she wanted to honor his "positive contributions to America, to honor him, and to reflect on what a biased media unfairly put him through four years ago tonight." Palin is a regular Fox contributor, but it's not clear how much air time she had been allotted. Fox was quick to respond to Palin, Mediaite reports. "Our plans changed based on the fact that the RNC condensed the schedule of speeches from four nights to three," a spokesman said. "We look forward to having Governor Palin back as soon as we can." On her Facebook page Palin said she was looking forward to McCain's words "more than any of the other convention speeches," making her more interested in McCain than in this year's candidates, or in many others like Chris Christie and Scott Walker, "who have replaced her as the GOP's hottest brand names," notes John Rainey at the Los Angeles Times.
– Before he can marry his fiancee, a Saudi man must provide her with a phone that's not even on the market yet, according to her brother. The brother has set an iPhone 6 as the price of marriage, Gulf News reports, though the would-be bride's father had earlier asked only for money. The site notes that such exchanges—known as dowries when provided by a wife's family to a husband—are firmly established in certain Arab and Asian cultures, with some families seeking hefty gifts. "We have heard about quite a few ... things, but an iPhone 6 that has not even hit the markets here is a bit bizarre,” notes a Bahraini office worker. As to when the phone might be available in Saudi Arabia, the Independent notes no date has been announced for the country.
– A Calgary mother has been sentenced to three years in prison for failing to medically treat the strep throat that caused her seven-year-old son’s death. Per CBC News, Tamara Lovett was found guilty of criminal negligence in January after treating her son Ryan’s illness with home remedies in 2013. Believing he had a cold or the flu, Lovett said she administered Ryan dandelion tea and oil of oregano and didn’t take him to the doctor. Ryan remained bedridden for 10 days before Lovett found him on the floor of their home. She called 911, but Ryan was dead when the paramedics arrived. During the sentencing, Justice Kristine Eidsvik called Ryan’s death “senseless” and said the decision to give Lovett prison time is meant to send a warning to parents. “Ryan suffered terribly from this inaction. He died an excruciating, unnecessary death,” she said. Eidsvik also expressed sympathy for Lovett and noted that she believes the mother’s thinking around medicine has evolved since the tragedy. "Her remorse, I believe, is genuine," she said, per CTV News. Lovett’s defense lawyer Alain Hepner had argued for a shorter sentence of one year with an additional year of probation. "She's received a life sentence already for being responsible for the death of her child," he said after the hearing. Hepner attempted to get Lovett’s case dismissed due to the long time frame between her arrest and conviction, but was denied. (A new Canadian law limits superior court cases to 30 months; this one took 38.)
– Germany prides itself on the (legally mandated) purity of its beers, and brewers refuse to mess that up for a little thing like cheap energy. The Association of German Breweries is coming out in force against fracking, arguing that it should be banned until the government can be completely sure that it won't contaminate Germany's vital groundwater, Bloomberg reports. "Fracking endangers the brewing water that more than half of Germany's breweries take from private wells," a group spokesman said. Water is one of only four ingredients Germans are allowed to brew beer with, thanks to its famous (or infamous, depending on the beer snob you consult) 497-year-old Reinheitsgebot, or purity law, making good sources especially important. Angela Merkel has already promised legislation banning fracking in some places, but in letters sent to six government ministers, the brewers say the legislation isn't enough to guarantee clean water, and doesn't "take into account the requirements of the Reinheitsgebot," der Spiegel reports. (Those other three OKed ingredients? Malt, hops, and yeast.)
– Cindy Murray and Robert Williamson share the same father, but lost touch in the late 1970s, when they moved about 20 miles apart; Williamson was just 6, Murray eight years older, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. Murray, 51, went on to spend years searching for her little brother and only sibling, but unlike other such similar stories, Facebook, and the Internet in general, proved to be of little help. Says Murray: "I tried looking on Facebook, but there are a million Robert Williamsons. There are a million Bobby Williamsons. ... I wouldn't have known what he looked like anyway." But a call to her father—who she also hadn't seen or spoken to in decades—revealed a surprise: Her brother was in the Navy, where he's known as Chief Aviation Ordnanceman Robert Williamson). Thing is, so is Cmdr. Cindy Murray. Crazier still, the two were both serving in California, roughly 300 miles away from each other, reports NBC San Diego. (At one previous point they were also stationed near each other in Maryland.) Murray handed her brother's Navy info to her chief petty officer. Within 15 minutes, Williamson explains, he got a phone call from him. "He said, 'Well, I’m pretty sure my boss is your sister. Do you have a sister named Cindy?' I went silent and said, 'Yes, I do.'" That led to many phone calls, and some tears. Two months later, the two reconnected at the Naval Medical Center San Diego yesterday. Upon seeing him, Murray screamed, "This is my brother!'" Williamson gave her a Navy salute ... and then a hug.
– Her lawyer says it was "discipline that went a little too far." Police say it was a felony. Houston woman Whitney White, 27, has been charged with felony injury to a child for abuse that included abusing her son with a stun gun when he was 5 years old, the New York Daily News reports. The boy told police it happened last fall after he got into trouble at school. "From zero to 10, it hurt 10," he said, according to court documents seen by the Houston Chronicle. White is also accused of hitting the boy, now 6, with a belt last month. "My anger management class told me not to Tase him, but we didn't go into what else to do," White told police, according to court documents. The boy and his sibling, a 2-week-old baby, have been placed in a relative's care by Child Protective Services. "This is a CPS issue, not a criminal law issue," White's attorney tells the Chronicle. "It's discipline that went a little too far." He says he expects the case to be dismissed after White completes parenting and anger management courses.
– China easily took the gold medal in the men's gymnastics final today, but who got silver was a matter of some controversy. When the event was first concluded, Britain stood at an astonishing second place, followed by the Ukraine. But Japan, sitting in fourth, launched an appeal, complaining that their pommel horse score was too low—and the judges ultimately agreed, bumping them all the way up to silver, the BBC reports. Even a bronze medal represented a huge upset for Britain—before the event "nobody would talk in more than hushed tones of a bronze medal, let alone beating Japan," writes Ollie Williams of the BBC. But boos rained down on the Japanese as they accepted their medals anyway, the Guardian reports. The highly-touted US squad, incidentally, finished a disappointing fifth, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
– It's long been thought that napping is an important part of a baby's growth—both physically and mentally. Now new research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that naps help babies form new memories, and that when a nap directly follows a new activity the baby is far likelier to recall it the next day than if that child doesn't nap until four hours after the activity, reports the Los Angeles Times. "In both of our experiments, only those infants who took an extended nap for at least half an hour within four hours after learning remembered the information," the study's lead author tells HealthDay News. To test a baby's recall, researchers studied 216 babies ages 6 months and 12 months. They demonstrated how to remove mittens from animal puppets, and found that those who then took naps at least 30 minutes long (and typically more like 80) were better able to recall how to remove the mittens 24 hours later than those who didn't nap until four hours later. Whether a baby napped just before the experiment made no difference. The authors also hypothesize that because the hippocampal region—key to memory formation—is so small in babies, it may only be able to store smaller chunks of information, hence the need for frequent sleep early in life. (Other research shows a newborn's brain grows 1% a day.)
– A Pennsylvania man was arrested Tuesday when he allegedly decided to skip out on his duties as an election judge and instead earn some extra cash by giving people rides, the AP reports. According to WTAE, 55-year-old Darrin Farmer was paid at least $125 to set up voting equipment and oversee voting on Election Day at the North Versailles Township Senior Center polling place. Instead, he allegedly dropped his wife at Walmart to get drinks for volunteers and took off. WTAE reports the Allegheny County sheriff's office arrested Farmer later that day. He was driving his wife's car and had two passengers who claimed they paid Farmer to give them a ride. Also inside the car, according to the sheriff's office: ballots, lists of registered voters, and other voting equipment. The AP reports Farmer's polling place had to open three hours late because those materials weren't there. Farmer has been charged with tampering with public records and obstructing a government function. According to CBS Pittsburgh, he was also arrested in 2011 on suspicion of impersonating a police officer and sexually assaulting a woman.
– Aniya Wolf has always felt "more masculine" than other girls. That wasn't an issue during her three years at Bishop McDevitt High School in Harrisburg, Pa., where she dressed in pants. But a similar outfit got her kicked out of her prom on Friday. Aniya, who identifies as lesbian, says she had already bought a suit for the event when her mom got a last-minute email saying girls had to wear formal dresses. "I told [the school] that I had read the dress code … and I didn't think that it precluded her from wearing a suit. I said that this was very unfair, particularly at the last minute," her mom tells WHTM. Aniya decided to wear her suit anyway and her mom says she looked "beautiful." But when Aniya arrived at the prom, she says the principal threatened to call police, and so she went home. "We love, respect, and cherish all of our students," the school says in a Facebook post. But the dress code—which the school says it sent to parents three months ago—"specified girls must wear formal dresses. It also stated that students who failed to follow the dress code would not be admitted." Bishop McDevitt student Jacklyn Motter responded to the post with a lengthy comment, per the Daily Dot; in it, she says the experience left her ashamed of her school, particularly since students who fail classes and show up high or drunk "get admitted to prom WITHOUT A PROBLEM. ... What a terrible memory to take with me as I prepare to graduate." (A Louisiana student had a similar experience.)
– FBI Director James Comey testifies before the House Intelligence Committee on Monday and there may be some angry tweets from the White House soon afterward: Comey is widely expected to tell lawmakers that there is no evidence to support President Trump's claim that former President Obama had him wiretapped, CNN reports. Rep. Devin Nunes, the committee's GOP chairman, said Sunday that documents received from the Justice Department on Friday indicated there was no wiretapping, the Washington Post reports. "Was there a physical wiretap of Trump Tower? No, but there never was, and the information we got on Friday continues to lead us in that direction," he told Fox. Nunes also called for an investigation of leaks to the news media, reports Reuters. The hearing, scheduled from 10am to 1pm, will focus on allegations of Russian interference in last year's election, and Nunes say he has seen no evidence of collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign. Comey is expected to be asked to confirm or deny the existence of Russia-related criminal investigations of Trump or his staffers, reports Politico, which notes that he might decline to comment to avoid jeopardizing active investigations, a move that would bring accusations of hypocrisy from Democrats still angry about Comey's decision to release information on the Hillary Clinton email investigation days before the election.
– Huge quantities of walrus tusks and a pair of polar bear hides were among the illegal goods sold by two Alaskans who have pleaded guilty to violating federal marine mammal laws. A third person is expected to plead guilty next week. Authorities say two of the three spent years traveling back and forth to Saint Lawrence Island to trade cigarettes, guns, and snowmobiles with Eskimo villagers in exchange for federally protected animal parts, the Anchorage Daily News reports. The third accomplice then helped sell the parts online. All face serious jail time for illegally trafficking in hundreds of pounds of raw walrus ivory in what Reuters calls the biggest such case in Alaska in 20 years. The Eskimo villagers can legally hunt walrus, and it's not clear yet whether any will face charges for supplying the ivory. When asked by the judge if he understood the implications of his guilty plea, Jesse James LeBoeuf responded, "Sir, I just did what I did to get along in life."
– Florida Gov. Rick Scott almost called off his debate with Democratic challenger Charlie Crist last night over a fan—and not the kind that would want the Republican's autograph. At the start of the debate, Scott refused to come out for at least six minutes because Crist had an electric fan at his podium, which Scott's campaign claimed was a violation of the rules, reports the Miami Herald. "This is remarkable over a trivial issue no matter what side you're on," said one of the moderators before Scott relented and emerged for what turned out to be a heated and ill-tempered debate with the formerly Republican former governor, reports the Wall Street Journal. After the debate—which touched on issues including same-sex marriage, climate change, and Medicaid funding—the Crist campaign released a copy of the debate rules, which showed that fans were allowed, and accused Scott of throwing a "temper tantrum," reports the Washington Post. The Scott campaign fired back, saying "Crist can bring his fan, microwave, and toaster to debates—none of that will cover up how sad his record as governor was compared to the success of Rick Scott. Crist should buy a fan for the 832,000 Floridians who lost their jobs while he was governor." The latest polls show the two in a dead heat.
– Particle physicists are closer than ever to confirming the existence of the Higgs boson, thanks to a report this morning from Illinois' Fermilab. Two teams of physicists that used Fermilab's now-closed Tevatron particle collider and reviewed data provided by their experiments over the last few years say they've spotted events between 115 and 135 GeV that could indicate the presence of the so-called God Particle, Wired reports. That corresponds nicely with CERN's December findings that the Higgs was somewhere between 115 and 127 GeV. Neither lab's findings amount to proof of the particle's existence. "A worldwide picture is starting to form that is making us excited at some level," said a physicist from one of the two experiments. "We see some tantalizing evidence but not significant enough to make a stronger statement." The signal could just be a random data fluctuation, though scientists pegged the odds of that at just one in 100, according to the New York Times. A Fermilab physicist tells the AP that because the Tevatron closed in September, the final discovery of the Higgs will likely happen in Europe.
– The "world is better" now that the worst serial killer in Alaskan history has died, says a state trooper who helped track down Robert Hansen. The 75-year-old had been in prison since 1984 after he admitted murdering at least 17 women and raping 30 more over a 12-year period, the AP reports. Hansen—who had a wife and children and owned a bakery in Anchorage—was nicknamed the "Butcher Baker" after his crimes emerged. He kidnapped his victims, most of whom were strippers or prostitutes, and flew them in his private plane to remote locations, sometimes letting them go in the wilderness and hunting them down. Hansen was caught after a victim escaped and investigators discovered a map in his home marked with the locations of 17 bodies. "Good riddance to him," the assistant district attorney who tried the case tells the Anchorage Daily News. "He's one of those kind of guys that you kind of hope every breath he takes in his life, there’s some pain associated with it, because he caused such pain." Hansen was played by John Cusack in the 2013 movie The Frozen Ground, which also starred Nicolas Cage as an Alaska state trooper.
– A high school science lesson got a little too graphic for some students and parents in Idaho: A 10th-grade biology teacher has apologized after bringing a rabbit into class, breaking its neck, and then skinning it in front of the class, reports KTVB. The teacher didn't clear the lesson in advance with the Nampa School District near Boise, and district officials have since called it inappropriate for 10th-graders. The teacher also happens to be a farmer who raises rabbits and other animals for food, and he gave students advance warning to leave if they wished, reports Reuters. “That is not part of the biology curriculum,” a spokesperson for the district tells the Idaho Statesman. She says the teacher, who faces unspecified disciplinary action, apologized to his Columbia High School class this week after complaints started coming in. The teacher says students had asked him more than once to demonstrate how a rabbit would be butchered, and he eventually agreed. Nampa was once a mostly rural district, but its proximity to Boise has changed that in recent years, says the spokesperson. (A teacher elsewhere is in hot water over her "Wheel of Misfortune" method of discipline.)
– It was a long and bloody weekend in Chicago, where police say at least 102 people were shot between Friday afternoon and early Wednesday, 15 of them fatally. Police say they're "perplexed" and "frustrated" by the scale of the gun violence, which comes after a relatively peaceful Memorial Day weekend, reports the Chicago Tribune. Almost half the shootings happened in the last 12 hours of the long weekend, between 3:30pm Tuesday and 3:30am Wednesday. According to Tribune data, 72 people were shot over the Fourth of July weekend in 2013, which was the last time it spanned four full days. The deployment of an extra 1,300 police officers in the city failed to stop the violence, the BBC reports. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi says many of the shootings happened when petty disputes escalated into somebody pulling a gun. "People drinking all day and then things escalating ... It's just enormously frustrating," he says. Guglielmi says a review of the weekend will include a look at whether the new "ShotSpotter" system, which tries to quickly deploy officers when shots are heard, might have been affected by fireworks. (President Trump has sent more federal agents to the city.)
– It's eight inches long with a painful bite, long legs, and "a horrible dark, greenish-black color." It's also bound to make you avoid all lakes and streams for the near future. Gregory Edgecombe of London's Natural History Museum says he's discovered a new species of centipede belonging to the giant centipede family Scolopendra that's not only horrible, but the first amphibious centipede species ever found. Edgecombe found two specimens of Scolopendra cataracta—named after the Latin word for "waterfall"—in Laos and a DNA test proved they were unique. However, the "horrific-looking" species, described in journal ZooKeys, had also been found by Edgecombe's colleague while on his honeymoon in Thailand back in 2001, reports National Geographic. George Beccaloni explains he was searching for bugs when he found a centipede hiding under a rock. Upon discovery, it escaped into a stream instead of onto land, as a normal centipede would. When Beccaloni finally captured the centipede, he noted it was a powerful swimmer with a body impervious to water, per Nature World News. But as no centipedes were known to be amphibious, he simply left the centipede in the Natural History Museum's collection. Unbeknownst to scientists, another S. cataracta was there—collected from Vietnam in 1928—but wrongly classified. Edgecombe notes S. cataracta is only found in Southeast Asia, is carnivorous, and "can deliver a painful bite," but it wouldn't kill a human. It's more likely to come in handy if the species "goes into the water at night to hunt aquatic or amphibious invertebrates," Beccaloni says. "People tend to study streams in the tropics during the day, but there is probably a whole other range of interesting amphibious things that come out at night," he adds ominously. (Meet this "centipede from hell.")
– Cops in a small Prince Edward Island town have warned that drunk drivers will be punished with the music of some fellow Canadians: Nickelback. In a Facebook post, the Kensington force warns that they'll be out this holiday season "looking for those dumb enough to feel they can drink and drive," the Toronto Star reports. "When we catch you, and we will catch you, on top of a hefty fine, a criminal charge, and a year's driving suspension, we will also provide you with a bonus gift of playing the office's copy of Nickelback in the cruiser on the way to jail," says the post, which has a photo of an unopened cassette copy of the Alberta band's 2001 "Silver Side Up" album. "We figure if you are foolish enough to get behind the wheel after drinking, then a little Chad Kroeger and the boys is the perfect gift for you," the post says. "What we were trying to do is put a little humor into a very serious matter of drinking and driving" to spark conversations, Const. Robb Hartlen tells the CBC. "Poor Nickelback. They take the brunt of a nation's joke, and I'm sure they're crying all the way to the bank," he says, adding that the band was chosen partly because frontman Chad Kroeger was arrested for drunk driving in 2006. (Police in Australia issued a "Wanted" poster for the band. The crime: "impersonating musicians.")
– Twenty-six vehicles piled up early yesterday amid a dangerous mix of black ice, wind, and fog on an Oregon highway—a dozen of those vehicles were semis, and two of them combined to make what the Oregonian is likening to a "panini" out of Kaleb Whitby's Chevy Silverado. Whitby plowed into the back of a jack-knifed semi as the wreck was unfolding, and flipped. Then he looked up. "When I saw those lights coming, I knew he was going to hit me," he tells CNN. "And then I closed my eyes and prayed that everything turned out OK. That was all I could do." Somebody was listening, because after the tractor-trailer slammed into Whitby's truck and the other semi—"It was just metal crunching and glass. It was just all fast and loud"—two things remained. The shell of Whitby's cab, and Whitby himself; the 27-year-old farmer walked away with two Band-Aids. The other miracle? While 12 people were injured in the wreck, as one state police sergeant puts it: "It's surprising no one died in this." Highway 84 was shut while officials cleaned up diesel spilled from the tractor-trailers, but the AP notes that two trucks carrying hazardous materials did not spill. As for Whitby, he gets to return to his home in Washington, his wife, 2-year-old son, and baby on the way. "Thank God that I'm still alive," he tells the Oregonian. "Now I've got to go figure out why." Click through to the Oregonian for pictures of Whitby in his mutilated cab.
– A professor who got fed up with a student surfing the Internet instead of taking notes has been arrested and suspended for closing her laptop. Frank Rybicki, a professor of mass media at Valdosta State University, was arrested for battery after the student complained that her finger had been hurt when he closed the computer. The professor tells Inside Higher Ed that the Georgia university has told him not to discuss the incident, although he stresses that he has never harmed a student. Other students say the student who filed charges had been warned to stop looking at Facebook and other sites during lectures. They described Rybicki as an outstanding professor who cares deeply about his students and their grades. Rybicki "is one of the best teachers in the mass media system,” one student tells the VSU Spectator. “The school should stand behind him. It’s a disgrace that we’ll lose a great teacher that I don’t think we should lose.”
– Brunei's "playboy prince" doesn't want a New York court to hear about the life-size statues he had made of himself having sex with a member of his harem, or about the harem itself. Jefri Bolkiah—who used to keep the statues on his 28-acre Long Island estate—is trying to persuade a judge that the statues and his polygamous lifestyle shouldn't be mentioned in his lawsuit against financial advisers whom he accuses of mismanaging his money, the Telegraph reports. "Polygamy is offensive to many Americans, and trial testimony about Prince Jefri’s personal life may be prejudicial to him," his lawyers told the judge. The prince, the younger brother of the Sultan of Brunei, gave up much of his wealth to settle a lawsuit from the sultan accusing him of embezzling $15 billion. The judge in the New York case issued a gag order after the prince's lawyers complained that photos of the raunchy statues had been handed out to the press, the New York Daily News reports.
– Because everything Sandra Bullock does is basically fantastic, it should come as no surprise to you that the actress can also rap in a manner that will not make you cringe. Appearing on the Jonathan Ross Show recently, Bullock revealed that she knows all the lyrics to Sugarhill Gang's epic classic "Rapper's Delight," USA Today reports. She learned them to impress a boy, she explained, before Ross convinced her to rap the first part of the song. The Internet was delighted, with a few bloggers joking that Bullock is much better than Gwyneth Paltrow at rapping.
– A California woman says she was Woody Allen's secret teenage lover—and is telling her story of adoration, disillusion, and threesomes with Woody and Mia Farrow. Babi Christina Engelhardt was apparently just 16 when she dropped a note at Allen's restaurant table in 1976 with her phone number: "Since you've signed enough autographs, here's mine!" Responding to his call, she began an affair at his Fifth Avenue penthouse but played by the 41-year-old's rules: no talk about his work and no meeting outside his place. "Knowing he was a director, I didn't argue," she tells the Hollywood Reporter. "I was coming from a place of devotion." Yet she was shocked four years later to learn he was dating Mia Farrow, who joined Allen and Engelhardt for a "handful" of threesomes. Unfulfilled after eight years, Engelhardt joined filmmaker Frederico Fellini's circle in Rome and later moved to Beverly Hills, where she's now a divorced mother of two daughters. At 59, she has no regrets despite the rise of #MeToo: "This is not 'bring down this man,'" she says. But she was hurt to become "little more than a plaything" and cried when his film Manhattan seemed to portray their relationship as "just a fling." She was also shocked by his marriage to Farrow's adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn: "Now he had no barriers. It was total disrespect." Allen later offered to visit her with Previn, but Engelhardt declined what seemed like an amorous proposal. "I used to dream of making love to Woody," she says. "Now I'm dreaming of him dying in my arms." Allen is yet to comment on the story, per the Boston Herald. (See what Previn has to say about her husband's controversies.)
– A Utah realtor born with the unassuming name of Herbert Streicher died this week of pancreatic cancer at age 65, but it's what he did before real estate that makes the obit notable. Streicher took the acting name of Harry Reems and starred in more than 100 adult films, none more memorable than 1972's Deep Throat, reports the New York Daily News. In fact, it was that film that led to Reems' other claim to fame: The feds went after him on obscenity charges—along with the mobsters reputed to have financed the film—and won a conviction. That made Reems the only actor to be convicted of obscenity charges, though famed attorney Alan Dershowitz later got it overturned, notes the Huffington Post. After his porn career, Reems turned into an alcoholic but eventually found sobriety, and his wife, in Park City, Utah, where he became a successful realtor. New York magazine did a profile in 2005 that many of the obituaries on the wires are pulling information from.
– Two New York lawmakers want to outlaw anonymous comments from websites based in the state. Their proposed legislation is now in both legislative houses, though no votes have been taken, reports Wired. The idea is to reduce cyberbullying and "baseless political attacks," and bring "some accountability to the Internet age," they explain. Just one problem, adds David Kravets of Wired: the Constitution. "Unless the First Amendment is repealed, they stand no chance of surviving any constitutional scrutiny even if they were approved," he writes of the bills. At the Above the Law blog, Christopher Danzig is even more incredulous. "I’m not even mad. I’m just impressed that a group of state legislators managed to draft this with a straight face."
– More than three dozen Republican lawmakers either rescinded their endorsements of Donald Trump or urged their supporters not to vote for him Saturday, reports Deadspin, which is keeping a running tally. Notable names include Sen. Kelly Ayotte, Sen. Mike Lee, Gov. John Kasich, and Sen. John McCain. "Donald Trump's behavior this week, concluding with the disclosure of his demeaning comments about women and his boasts about sexual assaults, make it impossible to continue to offer even conditional support for his candidacy," the Arizona Republic quotes McCain as saying in a statement. On Friday, a 2005 video was released showing Trump endorsing sexual assault and otherwise speaking lewdly about women. "Nothing that has happened in the last 48 hours is surprising to me," Politico quotes a statement from Kasich, who says he won't be voting for Trump. And Carly Fiorina is calling for Trump to drop out of the race, the New York Times reports. Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, decried Trump's statements, saying he was unable to defend them. And Trump's replacement on Celebrity Apprentice, Arnold Schwarzenegger, says he won't be voting for a Republican presidential candidate for the first time in 33 years, according to the Hill. But Trump is far from losing all support. Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and others are still sticking by their endorsements for the time being. And Rep. Joe Heck of Nevada was booed and heckled at an event when he took back his Trump endorsement. Trump has said he will remain in the race.
– What should have been a generous charity event turned deadly today when hundreds of people stormed a free clothing giveaway, leaving at least 23 dead and dozens injured in Bangladesh, the AP reports. A senior police official says that toll could rise, since "some people had taken the bodies of their relatives before police arrived," AFP reports. Based on witness and police reports cited in the AP and BBC, between 1,000 and 1,500 people had gathered before sunrise outside of where the handout was set to take place. Some reports say the site was a chewing tobacco factory compound, while the AP reports it was the home of a tobacco businessman. It's also unclear based on various reports whether the crowd forced their way through the gates or if the rush happened when the gates were opened. What is clear is the devastation that took place once the stampede started. The BBC notes TV images showed "hundreds of blood-spattered sandals lying at the factory gate," while AFP reports of relatives rushing through the entrance to find the bodies of loved ones. Such giveaways are common during the holy month of Ramadan, when wealthy families offer up their hand-me-downs to the less fortunate, and similar stampedes have happened in the past, the Guardian notes. PM Sheikh Hasina offered prayers and "profound sympathy" to the victims' families, while the country's religious affairs ministry said it would be giving around $125 each to the families of the deceased for funeral costs. Officials told the news agency the factory owner and at least five others have been arrested for not arranging for public safety. (Bangladesh factories have been plagued with issues.)
– Chances are you've heard about the decision by Rolling Stone to put Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the cover. Critics have been in a rage all day, and stores including CVS say they won't even stock it. It's offensive, exploitative, and glorifies violence are the more common refrains. At Slate, Mark Joseph Stern has a different word: Brilliant. "By depicting a terrorist as sweet and handsome rather than ugly and terrifying, Rolling Stone has subverted our expectations and hinted at a larger truth," he writes. Instead of seeing a monster, we see "a boy who looks like someone we might know." This is great journalism, writes Stern, and he argues that Rolling Stone is getting unfairly slammed by critics. Where was the outrage when the New York Times ran the same photo on its front page? Or when Time put the Columbine shooters on its cover? Rolling Stone isn't glorifying Tsarnaev, it's exploring the contradictions about him. "We may want the media to reconfirm for us that psychopaths are crazed, nutty, creepy recluses whom we can easily identify and thus avoid. But, as this cover reminds us, that simply isn’t the case." Click for the full post. (Meanwhile, USA Today notes that Rolling Stone put none other than Charles Manson on its cover 40 years ago—and won a National Magazine award for the interview.)
– Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley has apologized to the government of India for "the unfortunate use of excessive force" that left an Indian man partially paralyzed and in need of spinal surgery, AL.com reports. Officer Eric Parker allegedly slammed Sureshbhai Patel, 57, to the ground while he walked in Madison, where he was visiting his son and helping look after his grandson. "I deeply regret" the action and "the injuries sustained by Mr. Patel," Bentley wrote in a letter to Consul General Ajit Kumar in Atlanta. "I sincerely hope that Mr. Patel continues to improve and that he will regain full use of his legs." Parker, 26, who was fired following the incident, pleaded not guilty to third-degree assault in writing yesterday. A bench trial is scheduled for April, AL.com reports. "We will see that justice is done arising from the use of excessive force under color of state law upon a citizen of India," Bentley continued in the letter. Though the FBI is already investigating, Bentley also called on the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency to review the incident. Patel has since been moved from a hospital to a rehabilitation center, where his lawyer says he is recovering but still unable to walk, the Times of India reports. A GoFundMe page has raised more than $190,000 for his recovery. Meanwhile, Patel's lawyer has filed a federal lawsuit claiming Madison police used excessive force and weren't authorized to search Patel. He says the incident wasn't race related but is instead "about police abuse of power and police accountability."
– Between seven to 10 bald eagles call Staten Island their home, but there may be one who can stake a special residency claim, per NBC New York. Although it's only circumstantial evidence so far, birders have recently spotted a young eagle with two adult birds and chowing down on food from their beaks—behavior the New York City Audubon says suggests it may have been the Big Apple's first eagle birth in over a century, per the New York Times. The president of a local park preservation group notes the sight of the young bird feeding leads him to think there's "probable nesting" going on, with an Audubon conservation biologist calling the possibility "exciting." But not everyone's so sure this eagle can pick up its resident sticker just yet: No nest has been found, and the city's Department of Environmental Conservation speculates the eagles could have ended up on SI from nesting sites in nearby Jersey. The Times notes that bald eagles, whose numbers were pared down nearly to the point of extinction by post-WWII pesticides, are making a comeback, not only in Manhattan, but in other cities as well. An apparently active nest populated by a pair of eagles named Vito (after Vito Corleone in The Godfather) and Linda was spotted in April 2015 on Staten Island's south shore, per DNAinfo, but the DEC says their breeding efforts failed. Enthusiasts say it's possible the nest of this fowl family may be hidden somewhere deep in the island's woods, which would explain why it hasn't yet been found. "The way I grew up, we knew about the national bird, but we never saw it," a local who's taken thousands of photos of the island's eagles tells the Times. "Now they're here. I mean, they're right here." (Meanwhile, eagles have been dying in Delaware and Maryland.)
– Not surprising: that a 30-something man who appears to have recently gained weight, smokes heartily, and is probably perpetually stressed out from his dictatorial duties might have physical issues. Surprising: that that man is Kim Jong Un—and that state media showed him apparently exhibiting one of those physical issues today. Footage aired on state television showed North Korea's "supreme leader" limping onto the stage at a 20th anniversary tribute for his deceased grandfather, Kim Il Sung. The footage is unusual in that North Korea carefully controls all state media and rarely shows its leaders showing any defects or sign of weakness. Kim Il Sung, for example, reportedly forbade the media from taking any pictures of him that showed a large growth on the back of his neck, reports Reuters. While so far it's not clear why Kim appeared to be limping as he entered the Pyongyang ceremony and took his place onstage in front of a giant, smiling portrait of his grandfather, the founder of North Korea, what is clear is that it jump-started media speculation about his health. His well-being, or lack thereof, is a source of constant speculation among the press in general and the South Korean press in particular. Yonhap notes it was Kim's first appearance at an official quinquennium memorial, which it reports is held as a way to keep Kim Il Sung's memory alive and bolster the country's allegiance to the Kims.
– Preventing an outpouring of grief we're sure would've rivaled those for Muhammad Ali and Prince, reports of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's death Tuesday turned out to be a hoax. “We regret to inform our fans that our commissioner, Roger Goodell, has passed away. He was 57. #RIP," CBS New York quotes a since-deleted tweet posted by the NFL's Twitter account. The tweet was retweeted more than 2,000 times. CNBC took the bait, reporting Goodell's death on air, the Wrap reports. But the NFL quickly announced its Twitter account had been hacked and Goodell was alive and well. Even after the hack was announced and the tweet deleted, the hacker apparently still had control, tweeting: “Oi, I said Roger Goodell has died. Don’t delete that tweet.” Deadspin reports the hacker posted a third tweet that read: “OK, OK, you amateur detectives win. Good job.” The NFL's Twitter account followed a single Twitter account during the hack—@IDissEverything. That account has since been suspended and is possibly the person responsible for the Goodell death hoax. The league is investigating.
– Make room, GOPers: Scott Walker is running for president. "I'm in. I'm running for president because Americans deserve a leader who will fight and win for them," he tweeted (this time for real) today. But for the Wisconsin governor—who dropped a "barn-burner of a speech" on February's CPAC and boasted he can take on ISIS—there are, as the Hill puts it, both "high expectations and doubts." What could boost his run: his record in Wisconsin on cutting taxes and unemployment, his strong stance against organized labor, and the potential to win Iowa's caucuses based on "high polling numbers and plenty of grassroots enthusiasm," per the Hill. He's not a shoe-in, though. "He's clearly the frontrunner and there’s a lot of interest in him here,” a former Iowa Republican Party official tells the paper. "But he still has a lot of work to do." Part of that work will involve breaking away from what the Hill calls his image "as a vanilla candidate from the Midwest who lacks the 'wow' factor" to compete with more engaging candidates. Other issues: The Hill notes that critics will go after his foreign policy weaknesses, as well as lob accusations that he's "flip-flopped" on immigration. He'll also have to defend fiscal problems back in Wisconsin, adds Washington Post, including an embarrassingly late budget and financing for a new stadium for the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks—a deal that's been called a "hot mess." Finally, Walker may need to break from what some see as a one-platform campaign focused on unions. "You can't run solely on your biography, and so far, he’s been almost solely focused on that," the ex-IRP official tells the Hill. (Then there's Walker's lack of a college degree.)
– The first report on the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is out, and it reveals that Malaysian officials didn't notice the plane had disappeared from radar for 17 minutes—and they took four hours to muster an official rescue operation. CNN reports that the plane went off radar at 1:21am on March 8; at 1:38am, air traffic control in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, asked Malaysian air traffic control about the plane's whereabouts. More: As for the four-hour gap that followed, the preliminary report details no activities taken during that time beyond noting that Kuala Lumpur was in touch with Singapore, Hong Kong, and Cambodia. In fact, the five-page report doesn't detail much, notes CNN, which points out the preliminary report on Air France 447's 2009 disappearance numbered 128 pages. Mashable has the full report here. The report includes a sole safety recommendation, which was also made after the Air France disaster: that real-time tracking of commercial flights be required. Today's update was preceded by another, from Malaysia Airlines, directed to the families of the flight's passengers: Go home. The airline says it will shut down the support centers it has been operating "around the world" by Wednesday; the center at the Lido Hotel in Beijing will close tomorrow. Relatives had been receiving daily briefings at these locations, reports CNN. Now, the airline's CEO says in a statement that they will instead be updated "within the comfort of their own homes, with the support and care of their families and friends." The AP notes that the airline, which has been putting the relatives up in hotels, plans to establish "family support centers" in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.
– Talk about braving the storm. The AP reports a North Carolina man and his fiancee are riding out Hurricane Matthew on top of an old Coast Guard light station more than 30 miles off the Atlantic coast. Richard Neal is the owner of Frying Pan Tower, a platform that is about 100 or so feet above the ocean and only reachable by helicopter or boat. Neal purchased the light station from the government after the Coast Guard abandoned it 2004. Neal rents the tower out as a vacation home, touting the mild weather and good fishing in the Gulf Stream below. "I can honestly say that this is a solid old beast," Neal said Saturday. "We are getting some amazingly huge waves that make it shake and tremor...But steel is amazingly tough." Neal said he believed the tower would be safe because he "accidentally" rode out Hurricane Arthur on it two years ago. That time he and his guests got trapped by the storm and couldn't leave. "We knew all the tower would do is shake and leak," he said. Neal said he coordinated with the Coast Guard and acknowledged he would be on his own should anything happen to the tower. Neal said he and his fiancee talked about going back to the mainland two or three times but made the decision to stay. "You know she really must love me if she came out with me," he said. Meanwhile back on the mainland, the US death toll from Hurricane Matthew has increased to 10, the AP reports.
– “I thought he called in sick this morning, but unfortunately my partner was arrested,” former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason told listeners of WFAN's Boomer & Carton show Wednesday. The New York Daily News reports New York morning show host Craig Carton was arrested Wednesday and charged with securities fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy for allegedly scamming investors out of $5.6 million to pay off gambling debts. According to court filings, Carton had racked up millions in losses at two casinos and owed $825,000 to an unidentified person. In an email exchange released by the court, an accomplice suggested Carton could flee to Costa Rica or change his identity and start a new life to escape his debt, Bloomberg reports. Instead, Carton allegedly started a fake ticket reselling business. He allegedly told investors he would use their money to buy blocks of tickets for major music events through agreements with promoters and venues then resell those tickets, NBC New York reports. But: "Carton ... had no deals to purchase any tickets at all," US Attorney Joon Kim says. Kim says Carton was actually running "a sham, designed to fleece investors out of millions." Carton's alleged operation is described by authorities as "Ponzi-like." Carton, who has been co-hosting Boomer & Carton for a decade and reportedly earns $250,000 a year, is facing up to 45 years in jail and millions in fines. He's also facing a civil suit for fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
– Details of Lindsay Lohan's nightclub fight are coming out, with alleged victim Tiffany Mitchell telling TMZ her side of the story. Mitchell, who is, in the words of the gossip site, a "well-known psychic," says she had a premonition involving Lindsay. When she saw the actress walk into the club, she went up and offered to do a free reading. That's when LiLo rejected the idea and said, "Give me my space," but as she was walking away, Mitchell's friend claimed to hear Lohan call Mitchell a "f--king Gypsy." The friend reacted as you might expect, that is, by immediately calling Linds a "whore" and making fun of her latest movie. That's when Lohan allegedly hit Mitchell in the eye. "We are not Gypsies," Mitchell's husband notes. "It was a racist comment." Lindsay had been drinking all day, sources tell TMZ, and was "sloppy" drunk by the time she had her run-in with Mitchell. The actress has been drinking heavily due to stress over her money and legal problems, and sometimes drinks two liters of vodka per day, the sources add. Radar claims Lohan had been doing cocaine before the altercation, while the New York Post has her drunk for even longer—on "a two-day bender." Also yesterday, Lohan was charged with three other misdemeanors, including lying to police, related to her June Porsche accident, the AP reports.
– Donald Trump is a deadbeat boss who regards paying workers and contracting companies as optional, according to a USA Today review of some of the 3,500 or so lawsuits from the last 30 years involving Trump. Scores of lawsuits and hundreds of liens came from waiters, bartenders, plumbers, real estate brokers, and even lawyers who say Trump never paid them for their work. On a single project, Atlantic City's Taj Mahal casino, records show 253 subcontractors didn't receive full payment on time. Trump—who told Reuters last year that he "renegotiates" with around 15% of contractors—says that's just how he operates. "Let's say that they do a job that's not good, or a job that they didn't finish, or a job that was way late. I'll deduct from their contract, absolutely," he says. "That's what the country should be doing." USA Today, however, notes that the volume of lawsuits suggests that either Trump and his businesses are being unscrupulous, or he's terrible at choosing contractors. In many cases, Trump organizations appear to have used their legal might to overpower those claiming they were stiffed, sometimes leaving them bankrupt. One firm to go bust was that of cabinetmaker Edward J. Friel, which never received the $83,600 it billed Trump for work at the Harrah's at Trump Plaza casino in 1984. "That began the demise of the Edward J. Friel Company," says Friel's son Paul, who was the company's accountant. He says Trump told his father he wouldn't be getting paid because the work was inferior—and then, bizarrely, told him that he could work on future Trump projects. (Step aside, Jesus toast, here comes the Trump tile.)
– An intriguing medical breakthrough out of Canada—doctors say they have been able for the first time to communicate with a patient who has severe brain damage. Better yet, the message delivered by the patient was a great one: I'm not in pain. The Canadian Press and the BBC explain that doctors studied the patient's brain waves as they voiced a command: he should think about playing tennis if he were not in pain or about walking around the house if he were. The activities trigger different parts of the brain—motor skills vs. visual associations—and the man's brain waves suggested he was pain-free. "Scott has been able to show he has a conscious, thinking mind," says a British neuroscientist, referring to 39-year-old Scott Routley. "We have scanned him several times and his pattern of brain activity shows he is clearly choosing to answer our questions. We believe he knows who and where he is." Routley has been in a vegetative state since a car accident 12 years ago.
– First the Marines came to support Occupy Wall Street, then the labor unions. Next up: corporations? Ben & Jerry’s has posted a statement of support on its website—and though you may think of it as a hippie-flavored ice cream company, it’s actually a subsidiary of the Unilever corporation, Gawker points out. “To those who Occupy: We stand with you,” reads the message, underneath an image of a Ben & Jerry’s cow holding an “Occupy” sign. The statement, signed by the board of directors, notes that “the inequity that exists between classes in our country is simply immoral.” It points out that “we are in an unemployment crisis,” but “corporations are permitted to spend unlimited resources to influence elections while stockpiling a trillion dollars rather than hiring people.” It also identifies its board members and some of its favorite causes, and proclaims that "we are honored to join you in this call to take back our nation and democracy." Despite the fact that no ice cream was promised to protesters, “the seal has been broken,” writes Seth Abramovitch. "Who will be the next corporation to side with the 99%?”
– Kerry Kennedy may have appeared to be high on drugs when she was busted last week after crashing her Lexus into a tractor-trailer rig, but she was actually suffering a "partial seizure," she has explained to a judge. Kennedy, daughter of Bobby Kennedy and ex-wife of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, failed a number of field sobriety tests following the Westchester highway wreck, according to local cops. She was found slumped over the steering wheel, was unable to stand on one leg, slurred her words, and had difficulty following instructions to walk and turn, according to a police report. She told officers at the time that she may have mixed up the sedative Ambien with thyroid medication. But yesterday, the 52-year-old mom of three explained outside court that docs told her a "problem" with her brain caused by an undisclosed old injury triggered a "complex partial seizure" and caused her to drive erratically and pass out, reports AP. She made the statement after pleading not guilty to charges that she was driving while impaired by drugs. Results from blood tests are pending. She said after treatment she should be "symptom free." The driver of the truck Kennedy plowed into said he spotted her swerving and drifting into his lane. He honked his horn, but she was "unresponsive" and appeared to be "nodding off," he told the New York Daily News. She revived, slightly, after she slammed into his truck, and tried to flee the scene, he said. "She didn't realize the lug nuts from my tractor tore off her right front tire. She didn't get more than 25 feet before her tire blew," he explained.
– Is the NFL ready for its first openly gay player? All-American defensive lineman Michael Sam is set to make history after announcing that he is an "openly, proud gay man." Sam, whose coaches and teammates at the University of Missouri were already aware of his sexual orientation, is eligible for the NFL draft this May, though coming out before the draft may hurt his career in a league with an "overtly macho culture," the New York Times finds. Says Sam: "I'm not afraid to tell the world who I am. I'm Michael Sam: I'm a college graduate. I'm African American, and I'm gay. I'm comfortable in my skin." "I understand how big this is," Sam tells ESPN. "It's a big deal. No one has done this before. And it's kind of a nervous process, but I know what I want to be ... I want to be a football player in the NFL." Draft forecasters predict that Sam—the AP's SEC Defensive Player of the Year—will be chosen in the third round and he believes he won't have trouble being accepted in the locker room, despite homophobic comments some current NFL players have made. "If you've ever been in a Division I or pro locker room, it's a business place," Sam says. "You want to act professional." The NFL has issued a statement supporting Sam and praising his honesty and courage.
– A twin-engine Cessna Citation jet smashed into a hangar at Santa Monica Airport last night in a crash and fire officials say was "unsurvivable." The jet, arriving from an elite skiing area in Idaho, veered off the runway and crashed into a storage hangar, sparking a blaze that collapsed the hangar and damaged two other buildings, reports the Los Angeles Times. It's not clear how many people were on board the jet, which can carry a maximum of eight passengers and two crew members, the AP reports. The flames have been extinguished.
– The chances of life existing on Jupiter's ice-covered moon Europa—and of Earthlings being able to find it—are looking a lot stronger, NASA scientists say. A vast ocean is believed to lie beneath as much as 20 miles of ice on Europa, but new research suggests that huge lakes exist a lot closer to the surface. A suspected interchange of water between the lakes and the ocean means that nutrients could be transferred from near the surface to life far below, the BBC reports. The research team examined bumps known as "chaos terrain" on Europa's surface and developed models based on the way ice moves around on Earth. If the researchers are right, "you've moved from a system that checks one of the requirements for life to a system that checks two requirements for life," an astrobiologist tells the Christian Science Monitor. The only way to confirm the findings would be to send a spacecraft to Europa to investigate. A mission is on the drawing board but NASA hasn't approved anything yet, CNN notes.
– Google has honored synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog with a doodle fans are calling its best ever. To mark what would have been Moog's 73rd birthday, Google's homepage features a fully playable version of his famous synth, complete with 19 knobs and a recording device. "We had a terrific blueprint," chief doodler Ryan Germick tells Mashable, describing the doodle as Google's most technically ambitious yet. "The synthesizers that Moog made were really works of art in and of themselves." Tips on how to play are available in a Google blog post.
– Using your phone while driving in the UK? Expect a warning from a smart road sign, at least if you're in Norfolk. The county is introducing road signs that use scanners to electronically detect the radio signals transmitted when mobile phones are connected to a call—and then flash a symbol (on a sign further down the road) showing a cellphone with a line through it to the offending driver to remind him or her such behavior is a no-no. The scanners differentiate between radio signals from cellphones and Bluetooth signals, so drivers using a hands-free Bluetooth connection to talk on their phones won't get a warning, the Telegraph reports. But some phone users may get through, as the scanners won't pick up data connections from drivers using internet service on their phones. Though the signs won't record any footage, meaning no fines will be issued based on the data they collect, the data will be shared with police to arrange possible crackdowns in the future in the areas where cellphone use is most prevalent. And a road safety spokesperson tells the BBC the signs may be enough to at least make drivers "think twice" before using their phone while driving. New Zealand, Argentina, and Slovenia are considering similar technology. (Time for police to have "textalyzer" powers?)
– An Illinois man is suing PepsiCo after allegedly finding a mouse in his Mountain Dew, and the details just keep getting weirder. In 2009, the man says, he got sick after drinking a can of the soda. After he complained to Pepsi, it sent someone to collect the mouse, and reportedly wouldn't give it back until it had decomposed—thereby apparently preventing the man from using it for "additional testing," as the Alton Telegraph put it back then. But it gets crazier: Pepsi recently called for a dismissal of the case, notes the Madison St. Clair Record. The company pointed to expert testimony that a mouse in a soda would turn into a "jelly-like" material before the soda reached the customer. In other words, Gizmodo notes, Pepsi is essentially saying that "you'd never know if there was a mouse in your soda." Well, that's a relief.
– What do you get when you mix Clint Eastwood and a Tony Award-winning musical? That would be Jersey Boys, the film version of the Broadway show starring John Lloyd Young as Frankie Valli and Christopher Walken as a mobster. So will you be singing along or dozing in your seat? Critics aren't wildly impressed, with the movie scoring a 57% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 54 on Metacritic. "As deliberately, consciously old-fashioned as it sometimes is, Clint Eastwood's Jersey Boys is also often fresh, with a self-aware sense of fun," writes Stephen Whitty at the Star-Ledger. While there are "one or two off notes," he adds that Broadway star Young "does another fine job making Valli warmly, audibly real." Seen the Broadway version? You'll find that the film "adds dialogue and subtracts music," writes Mark Jenkins at NPR. It may be "undercooked," with "little sense of context, either social or musical," but Jersey Boys is also "engagingly lively, if not always graceful, and often surprisingly comic," Jenkins notes. At the Globe and Mail, Geoff Pevere calls it a "flat-as-a-platter adaptation." Granted, it's not all bad. "The movie perks up somewhat during the musical numbers" and the cast is "pitch perfect." But "trust me, you've watched condominium lobby channels that are more exciting than this." Oh, and the hair pieces "look like freshly fallen squirrel pelts." So is Eastwood entirely to blame? Well, according to Joe Williams at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "the worst thing about this multifaceted failure is the Oscar winner behind the camera." Taking a stab at Eastwood's empty chair gag, he notes, "Where there ought to be a director, there's nothing but an empty chair." If you were planning on seeing Jersey Boys, "Fuhgeddaboudit."
– Sprint has been the punching bag of the mobile world for a while now, but that may be changing thanks to its lightning-fast 4G WiMax network—and the spiffy new Android smartphones that use it. First there was the HTC EVO, and now comes the Epic, part of Samsung’s Galaxy S line. It’s bulky, thanks to its full QWERTY keyboard, but it’s also so packed with features that most reviewers are in love. “The Epic 4G is a great device. Killer, even,” raves Engadget. Together with the EVO and Pre, the Epic makes Sprint “perhaps the most gadget-savvy carrier in the US today.” “I am in love with this keyboard,” says Jason Chen of Gizmodo, who thinks the Epic is the “clear choice” over the EVO, thanks to a better screen and longer battery life—though the latter still isn’t great. And Fortune calls the phone “a Blackberry upgrader’s dream,” because it’s got “probably one of the top keyboards on any phone, ever.” Samsung’s Android modifications aren’t great, and the GPS has some problems, but those are software issues that will likely be fixed quickly.
– The US got its first openly gay male federal judge last night. J. Paul Oetken, a former lawyer for the Clinton administration, was confirmed by the Senate on an 80-13 vote and could take his Manhattan seat this week, the New York Times reports. "The old barriers that existed in society are crumbling. That’s what this will say," declares Sen. Charles Schumer, who recommended Oetken's appointment to President Obama last year. Dana Milbank agrees: "The remarkable thing about what happened on the Senate floor Monday night was that it was utterly unremarkable," he writes in the Washington Post, noting that Oetken's confirmation included not a single word of objection, even from "ardent social conservatives"—nor any reaction when the "lopsided vote tally" was read. "It would be premature to believe that Oetken’s easy confirmation heralds some new post-sexual era in American politics," he continues. "But it was a signal moment nonetheless."
– Barack Obama may have exited the White House, but some of his administration staffers are unexpectedly sticking around. New White House press secretary Sean Spicer says 50 State Department and national security officials who served under Obama will stay at their posts temporarily, while Obama appointee Thomas A. Shannon Jr. has been named as acting secretary of State pending Rex Tillerson's confirmation, the New York Times reports. The goal is to ensure "continuity of government" as just 30 of 660 executive appointments have been filled, according to the Partnership for Public Service. Politico has reviewed the last five administrations and says the last time a Cabinet was filled this slowly (only 2 of 15 nominees have gotten the OK from congressional committees) was in 1989 under George HW Bush. Politico quotes one Democratic senator as saying Trump's choice to go with "billionaires with enormously complicated financial situations, and people who have enormous conflicts of interests" has hampered things. Republicans have instead accused Democrats of dragging out the confirmation process, while some transition officials have put the blame on Chris Christie, who headed Trump's transition team before he was fired in November. The Times, however, says it has viewed the transition plan created by Christie and details what it saw, including guidelines to complete Cabinet and ambassador appointments in December. Despite the delay, one transition official doesn't get all the fuss. The transition has "gone pretty well and this is the best you can expect," he tells the Daily Beast. "If anybody expects this to be a frictionless process, they're kind of nuts."
– A dying woman who had just been shot called 911 on Saturday night in Raleigh, NC, and said just enough to save her unborn baby, WNCN reports. Kimberly Richardson, 25, who was six months pregnant, made the chilling call behind the Triangle Town Center where she worked: "Help," she says. "I've been shot." Asked to give her phone number, she says, "I can't ... I can't talk." Between long silences, WRAL reports, Richardson added the key words: "He shot me." Richardson later died in hospital, and her daughter was saved by an emergency cesarean section. Richardson's boyfriend, 25-year-old Daniel Steele, was arrested at his home that night and promptly charged with first-degree murder. No motive was given, and it's not clear whether Steele is the baby's father, though one of Richardson's friends tells the News & Observer he is. We do know he once worked as a security guard at the Town Center, but quit in October. As for Richardson, "she was really, really happy" about being pregnant, says a friend, who describes her as devoted to faith and music. But the friend declined to say more: "I'd rather focus more on who she was as a person and how much she pursued the Lord and I want to focus on the good of that baby," she says. The baby is still hospitalized, her condition under wraps. Meanwhile, a fundraising account has raised nearly $9,000 as of this writing to help the family with funeral costs and possible medical bills for the daughter, who Richardson had already named Lacy Grey: She "was born premature due to the tragic loss of her mother," the account says. (A father of seven died last week while bringing his pregnant wife to the hospital to deliver their eighth child.)
– Gable Tostee has been acquitted of murder charges stemming from the 2014 death of 26-year-old tourist Warriena Wright, who fell to her death from his balcony after meeting the Australian 30-year-old on Tinder. After a long night of drinking, the pair ended up on less-than-friendly terms, and Tostee locked Wright on the balcony. Drunk and locked out of his apartment, Wright, who was visiting from New Zealand, tried to climb down the fire escape, but fell. Prosecutors argued Tostee was guilty of murder or manslaughter because he had intimidated Wright to the point that she feared for her own safety. But, as the BBC reports, a Queensland jury didn't buy that argument, acquitting Tostee of all charges after four days of deliberations. The piece of evidence at the heart of the case is an hours-long recording Tostee secretly made of the conversation between the two. The recording shows a charged night that included consensual sex, multiple arguments and bouts of physical violence, and several instances of discussing death, even including the idea of falling off the balcony. Minutes before locking her out on the balcony, Tostee can be heard on the recording claiming that Wright had attacked him. "You're lucky I haven't chucked you off my balcony," he says. "If you try to pull anything, I'll knock you out." The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has other relevant excerpts from the recording. Prosecutors argued the recording proved that Tostee had terrified Wright to the point that she tried to run away from him, while defense attorneys argued Tostee was trying to protect himself from a drunk and unstable woman.
– Do you remember “Officer Bubbles?” Toronto constable Adam Josephs earned the nickname when a YouTube video was posted of him threatening to arrest a girl at the G20 Summit for blowing bubbles. Josephs didn't find the girl's bubble-blowing funny, and he's now suing for $1.2 million dollars—not for the video of the incident, but for the mean comments and cartoons that depicted him arresting everyone from Santa Claus to President Obama. The Toronto Star notes that Josephs' lawsuit involves 24 users whose comments were “devastatingly defamatory.” Read the full article.
– Two scientists first isolated graphene in 2004 and went on to win a Nobel prize for bringing to the world's attention a "wonder material" that conducts electricity better than anything else and has the potential to revolutionize fields from computing to travel, recounts the Guardian. It's a safe bet they never foresaw this application: This super thin and strong form of carbon is entering the world of fashion—in the form of a little black dress with tiny LED lights that change color in time with the model's breath. (See a video here.) Graphene powered the lights and functioned as a sensor, while nylon fabric helped fill out the dress itself. The team behind it says it suggests dresses of the future could change color on the fly, notes Smithsonian. The dress was created by high-tech clothing expert Francesca Rosella for tech-fashion company Cute Circuit, and Britain's Next Top Model finalist Bethan Sowerby took it for a spin on the catwalk in Manchester, reports the Manchester Evening News. Because graphene is, as the BBC describes it, stronger than diamonds yet stretchable like rubber, researchers say it is still in its "infancy" in terms of its use in real-world applications. The Silicon Republic reports that among several recent breakthroughs, graphene has been shown to transmit massive amounts of electric current at the nano level, which could have far-reaching effects on electronics. (Graphene's structure has even inspired a new condom.)
– Pictures of Tiger Woods—or, at least, photos of the body part that got him in trouble—may be coming to Playgirl soon. A magazine rep confirmed to Life & Style that editors are trying to authenticate pictures supposedly of the golfer. The pics in question are cell phone shots of Tiger's privates supplied by one of his mistresses, according to Perez Hilton.
– You could do better than She’s Out of My League, the latest romantic comedy about a hot girl dating a dweeb. But some critics give it a passing grade. Here’s what they’re saying. “If you're hungry to see a romantic comedy that makes Knocked Up look like the quintessence of plausible human mating, then by all means subject yourself” to this “one-joke sub-Judd Apatow snark-athon,” writes Owen Gleiberman of EW. There’s simply nothing remotely datable about Jay Baruchel’s male lead. “I laughed here and there,” says Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune. “But I kind of hated everything it had to say.” Alice Eve’s character in particular is just a male fantasy. “If this were "Alice in Wonderland," she'd be the Cheshire Cleavage.” But Roger Ebert liked it OK. “It’s not a comedy classic,” he admits. “But in a genre where so many movies struggle to lift themselves from zero to one, it's about, oh, a six point five.” Peter Travers of Rolling Stone agrees. Sure, you’ve seen this a hundred times before, but “the spiky young cast treats the played-out script like virgin territory. That’s acting!”
– If nothing else can get you to cut back on trans fats, maybe the threat of death will do it. Researchers who analyzed 123 observational studies on saturated and trans fats published in the last 30 years found people who consumed a diet high in saturated fats saw no increased risk of ischemic stroke, Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, cardiovascular disease, or death from all causes—though the certainty was "very low" and researchers say they may pose other health risks, per New Scientist. People who consumed a diet high in trans fats, however, saw a 34% boost in their risk of death from any cause, a 21% increased risk of CHD, and a 28% higher risk of death from CHD, per a press release. They found no link between trans fats and ischemic stroke and couldn't confirm an association between trans fats and Type 2 diabetes based on inconsistencies in the studies reviewed. Saturated fats generally come from animal products, like butter, meat, and egg yolks, and some plant products, like chocolate and palm oils. "Ruminant" trans fats also occur naturally in some of those foods. But it's the "industrially produced" trans fats in margarine and processed food that consumers should limit, lead author Russell de Souza tells LiveScience. Made from plant oils, these fats—to be phased out within three years—are more harmful. However, "there is no one nutrient or food that's responsible for all heart disease, diabetes, or death," de Souza says. "The whole diet matters." That means when cutting back on fats, people should be careful not to replace them with other poor choices, like sugars and starches. Instead, choose fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans, peas, nuts, and unsaturated fats like olive and canola oils, de Souza says. (You might also want to steer clear of Southern food.)
– Despite spending $100,000 on polling last month, Anthony Weiner still hasn't thrown his hat into the ring for New York's next mayoral election. But if he did today, he'd enter the race for the Democratic slot in second place, behind confirmed candidate Christine Quinn, a new poll by NBC New York and Marist College has found. Weiner had 15% of the vote among Democrats to Quinn's 26%, and his favorability rating increased from 34% to 45% over the last two months. The news comes on the back of a splashy New York Times Magazine feature, in which Weiner admitted, "I want to ask people to give me a second chance," but said his polling had established him as the underdog. But these latest poll numbers are still notable for a disgraced former politician who hasn't actually mounted a campaign. "[Weiner’s] numbers make him viable even if he hasn’t established a credible candidacy yet," the pollster told the New York Daily News. At the very least, he could be popular enough to prevent Quinn from obtaining the 40% vote she needs to avoid a runoff election. Nevertheless, 41% of respondents still have an unfavorable opinion of Weiner. "I would not vote for him at all," says one 70-year-old Brooklyn resident. "I speak with my neighbors, and they say, 'What is he, a joke?'" (Click for Weiner's wife's thoughts on his sexting scandal.)
– Monday is the first official day on the job for John Bolton, President Trump's "hawkish" new national security adviser. Bolton takes over for HR McMaster just as the Trump administration is facing one of its biggest foreign policy decisions yet—how to respond to an apparent chemical attack on civilians in Syria. Trump himself already has suggested that Syria and ally Russia will pay a "big price," and Bolton's first big task will be to help determine what that might be, reports CNN. Details and developments: Days away: Any such decision is likely a "few days" away as investigators determine exactly what kind of chemical weapons were used, reports the Wall Street Journal. Bolton's immediate job is to gather assessments from the military, civilian, and intelligence components of the US national security operation to find common ground on a response, per CNN.
– President Trump isn't just doubling down on his claims that voter fraud cost him the popular vote, he says he plans to call for an investigation. In two tweets Wednesday morning, Trump wrote: "I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and...even, those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time). Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures!" Earlier this week, the president repeated his claim that 3 million to 5 million "illegals" voted, and he says that's the only reason Hillary Clinton beat him in the popular vote by about 3 million ballots. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer backed up his boss. Trump "has believed that for a while based on studies and information he has," said Spicer, per CNN. The problem is that no news service can find any such studies. The New York Times notes that a post on the discredited InfoWars website made the claim about millions of fraudulent voters in November, and Trump has appeared on the show with host Alex Jones. Spicer did reference a Pew study, but that study's own author says there's "zero evidence" of fraud in the 2016 vote. The Washington Post fact checker blog digs into the particulars and remains unswayed: "Spicer cited repeatedly debunked research," it says, adding that "these studies do not support Trump’s Four-Pinocchio claims of 'millions' of people voting illegally."
– Don’t be surprised if this beast appears in your nightmares tonight. Shark expert Mauricio Hoyos Padilla has released footage of a massive, 20-foot-long great white shark that might just be the largest ever caught on camera, reports ABC News. Though Padilla says he first found the shark near Guadalupe Island off the Mexican coast in 2013, it isn't clear when this video was recorded; an earlier video of the shark appearing to high-five a diver was released in June. Nicknamed "Deep Blue," the female shark is estimated to weigh 5,000 pounds and was believed to have been pregnant when the footage was taken. It shows Deep Blue approaching a cage of divers before swimming toward a camera—seemingly with a smile on her face. "A shark of that size is at least 50 years old and that tells me protection and conservation efforts are really working," says Padilla of nonprofit marine research organization Pelagios-Kakunjá. "Deep Blue has been spared from longlines and the inherent dangers of being in the wild, and somehow she has found her way in the vast ocean." Though great white sharks often visit Guadalupe Island to feed on seals in November and December, Padilla says they head to shallow waters to give birth. "These areas are close to shore and very vulnerable to several human threats," he says, per the Washington Post. The video of Deep Blue, who is tagged, has tallied 2.7 million views since it was posted on Facebook on Monday. (This heartwarming video shows a great white rescue.)
– A historic win in Georgia has put Stacey Abrams on course to become the first black female governor in American history. Abrams—the former minority leader of the state House—defeated former state Rep. Stacey Evans by a large margin to secure the Democratic nomination, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Abrams, who has written eight romantic suspense novels under the name Selena Montgomery, had the support of national figures including Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in her bid to be the nation's first black female nominee for governor, the BBC reports. In November, she will face either Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle or Secretary of State Brian Kemp, depending on the result of a July 24 runoff vote for the GOP nomination. In other races: Newcomer wins in Kentucky. Retired Marine pilot Amy McGrath, one of several political newcomers to have big wins Tuesday, defeated Lexington Mayor Jim Gray in the Democratic primary for a House seat in Kentucky, CNN reports. Democrats hope to flip the seat in November. A shift right in Texas. Conservatives won four out of five runoff GOP primaries in Texas, meaning one of the most conservative House delegations is likely to shift even further right, Politico reports. Among the winners was Chip Roy, Sen. Ted Cruz's former chief of staff. Political consultant Bunni Pounds, however, failed to defeat state Rep. Lance Gooden in the 5th District, despite support from Mike Pence and the Tea Party Express. Democratic outsider wins in Texas. In what the Washington Post describes as part of "an ongoing embrace by Democratic voters of non-politicians, women, veterans and nonwhite candidates," former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez won the Democratic nomination for Texas governor. Valdez, who is openly lesbian, would be the first Latina in the position. Air Force veteran Gina Ortiz Jones won the Democratic nomination for a House seat, and would be the first openly lesbian congresswoman from the state if elected. Score one for the establishment. The AP reports that national Democrats were relieved when activist Laura Moser, seen as too liberal to win a general election, lost a Texas primary runoff to former Planned Parenthood board member Lizzie Fletcher. The House seat she will compete for is one of 24 that Democrats aim to flip in November. Key win in Arkansas. State Rep. Clarke Tucker defeated three challengers for the Democratic nomination for a House seat, Roll Call reports. Tucker, a cancer survivor, has promised to expand Medicaid. He will face GOP Rep. French Hill, a hardline ObamaCare opponent, in November.
– The "World's Most Desirable Man" is, for the first time, Asian. Rohit Khandelwal, a 26-year-old from Hyderabad, India, was last Tuesday crowned Mr. World, besting 45 other contestants in the process. The Wall Street Journal reports that three years ago he left a job providing technical support for Dell to head to Mumbai, where he was pursuing his MBA and trying his hand at acting. "I was living in a single room with five other people who wanted to make it," he tells the Deccan Chronicle. His path toward Mr. World began when he saw an ad for the Mr. India competition—and initially shrugged it off. "Then I read the description: The person should have a unique charm and should be good-natured. That is when I felt that I could do it." And he did, winning the title in 2015. Speaking of that good nature, the Journal reports Khandelwal enjoys visiting with his grandmother and volunteering. Other desirable hobbies include cooking and table tennis, reports the India Times. A press release explains the 46 would-be Mr. Worlds were chosen from thousands of applicants and subjected to 12 days of "fierce competition" from which Khandelwal emerged victorious and was handed the $50,000 prize. The Times of India reports he'll donate some and "invest" the rest in himself. As for his desirable physique (plenty of Instagram evidence here), he tells the Hans India that he makes sure to sleep a minimum of eight hours a night and follows a particular diet: "carbs and high fiber until 6pm and then it's salads, sprouts, eggs, brown bread." Fernando Alvarez, 21, of Puerto Rico, was the runner-up, with Aldo Esparza Ramirez, 26, of Mexico taking third. (The World's Most Interesting Man is having a rough go of it.)
– While you're spending October planning what candy you'll hand out on Halloween, Fabien Cousteau will be spending the month underwater. He's aiming to spend a record-breaking 31 days in the deep blue, surfacing on October 31, on the 50th anniversary of his grandfather Jacques Cousteau's record-setting 30 days underwater in the Red Sea. The third-generation oceanographer and a team of five others will stay at NOAA's Aquarius habitat, a 43-foot cylindrical lab off the Florida Keys that sits 50 to 60 feet below the surface—the last undersea lab still in operation, Reuters reports. The adventure, which will take place twice as deep as the elder Cousteau's, will be broadcast 24 hours a day, the Tampa Tribune adds. While there, the "Mission 31" team will go diving outside the lab and will also explore on underwater motorcycles, collecting information about the ocean's health as well as the impact living underwater has on their bodies. "We get to see things in the way you would if you were immersed like a fish," Cousteau says. They'll look for evidence of climate change and test new equipment, the Florida Keys Keynoter reports. They'll also Skype with school children, the Weather Channel, and International Space Station astronauts; make a 3D IMAX documentary; and entertain VIP guests including Richard Branson and, tentatively, will.i.am. As for the nitty-gritty, Aquarius does have a shower, bathroom, and air conditioning in addition to six bunks, where they'll sleep just five to six hours per night.
– Donald Trump's campaign rallies have made headlines because of violence, but he suggests we haven't seen anything yet if the GOP somehow deprives him of the nomination at the convention. "I think you'd have riots," he said on CNN Wednesday, per USA Today and the Washington Post. "I'm representing many, many millions of people." Trump predicted he'd lock up the necessary number of delegates to secure the nomination anyway—"I'm a closer"—but he warned that the party will be flirting with trouble if it moves toward a brokered convention in the event he comes up shy. "If you disenfranchise those people, and you say, 'I'm sorry, you're 100 votes short' ... I think you'd have problems like you've never seen before. I think bad things would happen."
– MIT has released its own internal report on the suicide of hacker activist Aaron Swartz, and the Verge highlights one anonymous quote it contains that seems to sum things up: "MIT didn't do anything wrong; but we didn't do ourselves proud." The report, by well-regarded computer science professor Hal Abelson, found that the school tried to maintain a neutral stance in the criminal case against Swartz, who had downloaded millions of scholarly articles from MIT's online archive, reports the New York Times. Critics say federal prosecutors went after Swartz too aggressively and were bent on locking him up for decades as an example, with MIT's help. But the school says the report shows it didn't "seek federal prosecution, punishment, or jail time" for Swartz. The report, however, faults "the MIT community's apparent lack of attention to the ruinous collision of hacker ethics, open-source ideals, questionable laws, and aggressive prosecutions that was playing out in its midst." Basically, it says this wasn't just a simple case of a hacker caught red-handed; bigger principles were at play, and the school seemed ignorant of them. Swartz's girlfriend calls the report a "whitewash," adds the Atlantic Wire. "This report claims that MIT was 'neutral'—but MIT’s lawyers gave prosecutors total access to witnesses and evidence, while refusing access to Aaron’s lawyers to the exact same witnesses and evidence. That’s not neutral." Swartz's father, Robert, has a similar take: "MIT claimed it was neutral, and it was not—and besides, should have advocated on Aaron's behalf."
– Big Bang Theory star Kaley Cuoco is engaged, and she shared her own tearful reaction in this Instagram video. "We're engaged!" the 32-year-old says while fiance Karl Cook, 26, shoots the video. (He also has to remind her that she hasn't actually said "yes," and she happily complies through laughter and tears.) This is marriage No. 2 for Cuoco, who had previously been wed to Ryan Sweeting, notes US Weekly. She has been with Cook for about two years. One thing that brought them together: horses. Cuoco loves them, and Cook is a professional equestrian, notes People.
– An unthinkable honeymoon accident: A newlywed Israeli man crashed into his wife while ziplining in Honduras, killing him and leaving his wife seriously injured, reports the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. "The girl stayed halfway on the cable and the guy came from behind and hit her up there," local fire chief Wilmer Guerrero is quoted as saying in the Spanish-language La Prensa. Egael Tishman, 24, and Shif Fanken, 27, were on a cruise that stopped in Roatan, and they decided to go for a zipline adventure over the treetops Thursday afternoon. Fanken got stuck about halfway through, and her husband soon slammed into her, the fire chief tells the Washington Post. Both were conscious at the hospital despite suffering multiple serious injuries, but Tishman eventually died, perhaps of a brain hemorrhage. His body was being flown back to Israel for burial. Fanken, meanwhile, has been airlifted to a hospital in Fort Lauderdale, reports the Forward.
– Senior yearbook quotes are by and large boring inspirational sayings gleaned from a quick Google search. But Tori DiPaolo, a senior at West Milford High School in New Jersey, wanted to make a point: That what she (and all the other girls) at her school were asked to wear for the photo broke the school dress code, and that the code itself is ridiculous. "I'm sorry, did my shoulders distract you from reading this quote?" she had printed, and then sent out a photo of the page on Twitter with the words: "Tori: 1. Dress code: 0." As Mashable reports, "Twitter was here for it," with hundreds of retweets and likes and mostly supportive comments. DiPaolo tells HuffPost that she chose the quote because she finds it "ironic that the classic robes we take pictures in technically violated dress code." Plus, she said, "I just wanted to get a few laughs" because "no one is distracted by shoulders." She tells Yahoo that the dress code is not enforced equally at her school, with boys prohibited from wearing muscle shirts but not getting punished for it. "I'm an AP student, in academic clubs, and on the tennis team—I'm not exactly a delinquent—but I've spent hours sitting in principal's offices because 40-year-old men were offended by my back showing." Reactions range from, "This is honestly the best thing I've ever seen" to, "Not sure about the hair, though. You could do more with it." (This outfit got this college student kicked out of a mall.)
– Luckless USC cornerback Josh Shaw not only has two sprained ankles, his pants are on fire: The Trojans captain has been suspended indefinitely after admitting that he made up a story about suffering ankle injuries while rescuing his 7-year-old nephew from a pool on Saturday, reports the Los Angeles Times. "We are extremely disappointed in Josh," USC coach Steve Sarkisian said in a statement that didn't address the cause of Shaw's injuries. "Nothing in his background led us to doubt him when he told us of his injuries, nor did anything after our initial vetting of his story." Shaw claimed he leaped from a balcony and landed on concrete after seeing his nephew in distress, and told reporters, "I would do it again for whatever kid it was, it did not have to be my nephew." He issued a brief statement through his lawyer apologizing for fabricating the story. So how did he really hurt his ankles? A man named Joshua Shaw was mentioned in an LAPD report of a break-in Saturday night, though not as a suspect, the AP notes. Officers who responded to a report of screaming in a third-floor apartment say a woman who said she was in "a relationship" with Shaw told them someone had pried open her window and entered her apartment before fleeing.
– Leah Remini's eight-part A&E docu-series, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, premiered Tuesday, and brought with it the expected accusations of statutory rape and physical abuse against the church, USA Today reports. Tidbits from the premiere episode, which featured Remini interviewing ex-Scientologists, as well as new interviews Remini has done to promote the premiere: Ex-member Amy Scobee says her married 35-year-old boss at the church's Celebrity Centre took advantage of her. "He had me stay back when everybody else left, and basically we had sex. This was statutory rape, and I was too afraid to tell anyone about it." The incident was never reported to police. Scobee also alleged Scientology leader David Miscavige is abusive: "If you said something that didn’t please him ... if you were a man he would likely hit you, punch you, knock you down, choke you." Scobee says members who misbehave are sent to something called Rehabilitation Project Force, and she herself was sent there before ultimately leaving the church. "You run everywhere you go. You do hard manual labor. You call everybody 'sir.' You have no communication in and no communication out within that group." Security guards keep members from fleeing. Remini tells the Hollywood Reporter that when she was still in the church, and appearing on King of Queens, church officials pressured her on various things. "It’s always, 'Why are you not getting Kevin James in? You’re not setting a good example.' ... There was always pressure to make a Scientologist out of the people you were working with." She also says Tom Cruise pressured her to call Les Moonves and attempt to get a 60 Minutes report on Scientology canceled. The Daily Beast notes, "The majority of Remini’s accusations are still jarring but nothing new. The stronger focus of the first episode is on the different kind of violence that Remini & Co. argue their church committed against its own: destroying families in order to protect Scientology." Remini delves into the process of "disconnection," in which the church forbids members from having relationships with ex-members, even their own children, in the show. According to the Huffington Post, Remini says she herself paid $3 million "if not more" to the church over the years, but that even an "average person" is expected to pay at least $250,000 for their "religious freedom."
– Madonna's big halftime show is over, and the peanut gallery is fairly evenly split—but the topic of the evening is clearly age. Plenty of people are giving her the thumbs up for looking so great at 53. Others think the cheerleader/pom-pom bit was a little ... young. She was joined by LMFAO, Nicki Minaj, MIA, and Cee Lo, and ran through classics like "Vogue" and "Like a Prayer," along with new single "Give Me All Your Luvin." Highlights from the Twitterverse: Some ladies in Hollywood (and ladies in general) are impressed with her appearance. For example, @kirstiealley: "Could Madonna look any more gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!!?????? Jeez!!!!!!! This is AWESOME !!!!!!!!!!!! Genius!!!" And then, the age digs. A sample: @phil_rosenthal: "Did Madonna just sing, 'I'm 60 and I know it'?" @RyanLoco: "Fun fact: Cheerleading wasn't even invented when Madonna was in high school." @BlameTelford: "We used to just have wardrobe malfunctions, I think Madonna just had a hip malfunction." @GPollowitz: "Cheerleader Madonna. I had this dream in 1985." Check out Huffington Post for more, including reports that she slipped. Or click here to watch MIA's obscene moment.
– Tiger Woods was admitted to the hospital listed as an overdose after his SUV crash, according to sources at Florida's Health Central Hospital. Woods—whose wife handed paramedics bottles of Ambien and Vicodin—was having trouble breathing and doctors used a respiration tube to help him, the sources tell TMZ. The hospital's fifth floor was locked down after Woods arrived, according to the sources, who say the alias he used—William Smith—was changed to another after he had been there few hours. The trooper who investigated the crash sought a subpoena for Woods' medical records because he believed the golfer had been drinking and using prescription drugs, according to Radar.
– Just days after a judge ruled that Porsche is not liable for Paul Walker's death in a 2013 crash, bittersweet news for the actor's daughter: Meadow Walker has been awarded a $10.1 million settlement from the estate of Roger Rodas, who was driving the Porsche Carrera GT that crashed, killing both Rodas and Walker. The lawyer for Meadow, 17, says the amount is just "a fraction of what her father would have earned as an international movie star had his life not tragically been cut short," People reports. Meadow has filed her own lawsuit against Porsche, which is continuing. (Click to see Meadow's touching tribute to her dad.)
– The University of Northern New Jersey looked like any other school: It had a website, a Facebook page, and a crest. Unlike other colleges, however, it was staffed entirely by Homeland Security agents. The Department of Justice announced this week it had indicted 21 people for visa fraud in a sting operation that centered on the fake school, invented in 2013 as a tool to catch those seeking fraudulent student visas to remain in the US. Agents say brokers purchased forged paperwork from UNNJ to obtain visas for 1,076 clients, knowing they would never attend any classes. Some acquired work visas, allowing clients to get jobs at Apple, Facebook, Morgan Stanley, and join the US Army, per ABC News and the New York Times. In exchange, the brokers took home thousands of dollars in commissions. "The University of Northern New Jersey was just another stop on the pay-to-stay tour," says the US attorney for New Jersey. Authorities describe the defendants are mainly naturalized citizens and legal permanent residents. One Chinese national allegedly enrolled dozens of students at UNNJ. "You know that none of these people are going to class?" an undercover agent asked him, per BuzzFeed. "We've been doing this for years, no worries," he replied, according to an indictment. An immigration rep says the 1,076 "students"—many of whom are Indian or Chinese—have had their visas revoked and will be investigated by immigration authorities, reports NJ.com.
– "Hello everyone from Luzhniki field, it's cool here!" So tweeted Pussy Riot after claiming responsibility for four people who rushed the World Cup final field Sunday in Moscow, the Washington Post reports. The one man and three women briefly stopped play by appearing in police uniforms, with one getting France forward Kylian Mbappe to give her a high-five. It's unclear why they wore police uniforms—to sneak onto the field unnoticed or protest Russian police—but a Pussy Riot Facebook post includes criticism of Russian police officers, per Rolling Stone: "Today is 11 years since the death of the great Russian poet, Dmitriy Prigov," they write, who "created an image of a policeman, a carrier of the heavenly nationhood, in the Russian culture." But while the "heavenly policeman" communicates with God, protects babies, and "rises as an example of nationhood," they write, real officers hurt people and disperse rallies. The protest group, which achieved renown in 2012 for criticizing Vladimir Putin, goes on to make a list of demands: Let all political prisoners free. Not imprison for "likes." Stop Illegal arrests at rallies. Allow political competition in the country. Not fabricate criminal accusations and not keep people in jails for no reason. Turn the earthly policeman into the heavenly policeman. Moscow officials said the "citizens in question were taken to the local police station." FIFA briefly showed their protest on the field but hasn't responded to calls from reporters.
– “If you’re going to be put under nitrous, then you think twice about taking your gun into the dental office." Solid advice from an Ohio resident living near a dental office where a bizarre incident played on Wednesday, WCMH reports. James White, 72, was at the dental office for a procedure and was under the influence of nitrous oxide when he thought he heard his phone ringing. He then mistook his gun for his phone, grabbed the pistol, and fired it. The bullet struck White in the hand and grazed his stomach. No one else was injured, but employees were "shaken up." White, who has a concealed carry permit, was treated at a hospital and is expected to be fine, at least physically. He could still face possible charges for using a weapon while intoxicated, the Springfield News-Sun reports. And while the dental office doesn't specifically ask patients not to bring their guns with them to a procedure, the local sheriff's office doesn't think it's a very good idea. “Think of your safety and the safety of those around you," one sergeant tells WCMH.
– Hosting the Emmys, or any awards show, can lead to an invite back the next year or to comedy pariah status (sorry, Bryant Gumbel). But from initial reaction, Andy Samberg seems to have pulled off a solid performance tonight, with plenty of audience-pleasing knee-slappers, sketches, and celebrity interaction. What's getting buzz: Mashable says the Brooklyn Nine-Nine star gave a "perfectly edgy" opening monologue and a decent musical genuflection to TV binge-watching, complete with star appearances by Jon Hamm, Kerry Washington, and Will Forte. Riffing on the 1971 "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" ad, Samberg led a group of singers in a verdant setting in his "I'd like to give the world an Emmy" parody, though it didn't end quite as pleasantly as the Coke spot. (Hint: Someone gets impaled.) Saturday Night Live alums Andy Samberg and Seth Meyers presented a "World's Best Boss" mug to SNL king Lorne Michaels, citing the fact that, by their count, 40 of the night's nominees owed their start to their former boss. Of course, Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes was revealed to be the real winner, but Michaels took it in stride. There were many more jokes, including at the expense of Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, Bill Cosby, and Robert Durst. BuzzFeed compiled its 23 favorite moments.
– President Obama has a "Dear Friends" op-ed in the Telegraph Friday in which he makes his case that Britain should remain in the European Union. After stressing the long-held ties between the US and the UK—"the tens of thousands of Americans who rest in Europe’s cemeteries are a silent testament to just how intertwined our prosperity and security truly are"—Obama writes that "now is a time for friends and allies to stick together." One person clearly not on board is London Mayor Boris Johnson, who wrote a blistering response in the Sun newspaper. He says he admires the US and has "respect" for Obama, but thinks the White House view is off base. "It is incoherent. It is inconsistent, and yes it is downright hypocritical," writes the mayor. "The Americans would never contemplate anything like the EU, for themselves or for their neighbors in their own hemisphere. Why should they think it right for us?" In revving up his argument, Johnson also complains that a bust of Winston Churchill displayed in the Oval Office for nearly 10 years was removed from its perch "on day one of the Obama administration" and given back to the British embassy in Washington. He writes that it's unclear whether Obama was to blame but adds, "Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire." (The Washington Post in 2015 dug into the "complicated story" of the bust.) See Obama's full op-ed here, and Johnson's here.
– In sad but utterly inevitable news, the northern white rhino has taken another big step toward extinction with the death of Nola, a beloved 41-year-old female who had been at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park since 1989. She was one of the last four remaining members of the doomed species, and the park decided to euthanize her on Sunday because of an infection and other chronic age-related health problems, reports the New York Times. "It's tough. It's like having your 90-year-old aunt get sick, and there is nothing you can do except give her basic care and keep her comfortable," the lead zookeeper told the San Diego Union-Tribune last month. Another female died at a Czech zoo in July, and the final three survivors are all at a conservancy in Kenya. "Let this be a warning of what is happening to wildlife everywhere," the park wrote in a Facebook post. But hope for the species lives on: The zoo's "frozen" section now has genetic material from at least a dozen northern whites, and scientists hope to bring back the species with embryos that can be carried by southern white rhinos, six of which recently arrived at the park, the Union-Tribune reports. "The white rhinos represent the wild places and prehistoric animals that are still with us," a park curator tells the Union-Tribune. "It is devastating to think that in just a few hundred years, we can wipe that out. That is just wrong, and we need to do something about it." (For now, the only living northern white rhinos are two infertile females and the loneliest guy in the world.)
– Women have almost achieved equality with men … when it comes to tying one on. Looking back on the imbibing habits of more than 4 million people globally over the last 100 years or so, Aussie researchers say the ladies have closed the drinking gap with men, partly due to marketing efforts and products geared toward young women, the Guardian reports. The University of New South Wales mega-study in BMJ Open journal looked at 68 studies covering the drinking habits of subjects born between 1891 and 2001. While guys born between 1891 and 1910 were twice as likely as women to drink alcohol and three times as likely to abuse it or experience booze-related "harms", all three aspects had reached near-equal status by the time scientists got to individuals born between 1991 and 2000. A press release calls that phenomenon "sex convergence." The study points to a bunch of cultural and economic reasons for the shift, including cheap wine and beer being readily accessible, more women working outside of the home and participating in workplace drinking events, and what the director of UK nonprofit Alcohol Concern calls a "concerted effort" by the alcohol industry to push products and brands on women. What all of this means, per the study's authors: Prevention and treatment programs need to start targeting the gals. "Women are now drinking as much as men ... and we need to be thinking about what will happen to their health as they get older," says lead author Tim Slade, per the New York Times. (Are women drinking more because of … sexism?)
– Lindsay Lohan posted a topless photo to Instagram over the weekend, baring the PG-13 portion of her breasts alongside a male friend at the Cannes Film Festival. It wasn't her first time posting topless photos online—and she's not alone. These 10 other celebrities have also shown some serious skin on social media: James Franco recently posted a picture of himself, shirtless, with his hand down his underwear. It was quickly deleted, but you can see it here. Courtney Love bared her butt (more than once) in a series of racy pictures she tweeted in 2010. Miley Cyrus has also bared her butt (though hers wasn't bare) in this shot of her in a bra she tweeted recently. (But hey, she's been tweeting suggestive selfies since 2009.) Rihanna posted a picture of one of her tattoos, the goddess Isis, on Instagram in 2012—and, oh, it just happens to be located under her breasts. (She's also tweeted a topless picture before.) Geraldo Rivera tweeted a picture of himself wearing nothing but a terrifyingly low-slung towel in 2013 to prove that "70 is the new 50." Lenny Kravitz once graced Twitter with an image of his tattooed butt as he showered. Ashton Kutcher once tweeted a TMI photo of now-ex-wife Demi Moore's bikini-clad butt. Similarly, a picture of Tori Spelling's boobs once got tweeted, perhaps by accident, by her husband. Katy Perry tweeted a picture of herself, naked in a bath tub ... but with pizza covering her naughty bits. Kim Kardashian bared quite a bit of butt and side-boob in a swimsuit selfie she called a "big middle finger" to everyone who snarked about weight she gained while pregnant. For more, click to see 40 super-revealing Twitter pictures and celebrity selfies.
– Oscar Pistorius will know next month whether he's going to prison for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Closing arguments finished today, and Judge Thokozile Masipa said she would announce her verdict on Sept. 11, the AP reports. After prosecutor Gerrie Nel ripped into the defense's case yesterday, Pistorius' lawyer took to the floor today to describe the double-amputee athlete as vulnerable and insecure because of his lifelong disability. Attorney Barry Roux went so far as to compare him to a wife who kills her partner after years of abuse, reports the Telegraph. The "slow burn of insecurities," paired with his athletic training, caused him to snap when he felt his life was in danger, said Roux. Prosecutors are pushing for 25 years to life for premeditated murder, though the judge has a range of lesser penalties at her disposal, along with exoneration. Roux also said that Pistorius' behavior following the shooting—including calling for help—shows that it was a tragic mistake, not a murder. As for his poor memory on the stand? Roux linked it to Pistorius' "severe depression." And though the prosecution argued Steenkamp's stomach contents indicated the couple stayed up arguing after Pistorius said they went to bed, Roux said the judge "cannot exclude" the possibility that Steenkamp woke up for a late-night snack. He also said that a security guard who passed Pistorius' house and heard no argument when the prosecution said it took place is "fatal to the state's case." Roux did, however, admit Pistorius is guilty of a gun charge related to an incident at a Johannesburg restaurant.
– We put a man on the moon, yet somehow we're still cutting our own carrot sticks? Well not anymore! Fortune reports a new Whole Foods location in New York City's Bryant Park has a "produce butcher" on staff. The produce butcher will "cut, slice, dice, julienne, chop, and grate" your fruits and vegetables on demand, according to a press release. Gothamist reports the service costs $1 per pound for bulk fruits and veggies and $1 for individual items, such as cantaloupe. There's a 5-pound limit on items you can have another human being cut up for you. According to Business Insider, "luxury ... seems to reign supreme" at the new Whole Foods store, which opened last week and features, among many other things, "artisanal" avocado toast and food from local celebrity chefs. (There was outrage after Whole Foods packaged peeled oranges in plastic.)
– The Senate voted 98 to 2 to approve new sanctions on Russia early Friday, and payback was swift: Russia's Foreign Ministry announced within hours that it is reducing the number of US diplomats in Russia as of Sept 1. and shutting down the US Embassy's recreational retreat, near Moscow, the AP reports. At a press conference before the retaliatory measures were announced, Vladimir Putin said Russia had behaved in a very "restrained and patient" way, but would have to respond to sanctions at some point, reports the Guardian. "It's impossible to endlessly tolerate this kind of insolence towards our country," Putin said. "This practice is unacceptable—it destroys international relations and international law." The Senate sanctions measure followed the House's passing of sanctions by an overwhelming 419-3 margin. The sanctions target Russia for interfering in the 2016 US election and for military aggression in Ukraine and Syria. The measure will severely limit President Trump's ability to suspend sanctions, and it's not clear whether he will sign it, though fellow Republicans including Sen. John McCain have urged him not to reject a measure with veto-proof bipartisan support, reports the New York Times. "We will not tolerate attacks on our democracy. That’s what this bill is all about," McCain said. "We must take our own side in this fight, not as Republicans, not as Democrats, but as Americans."
– If migrants—for example, Muslim women on spousal visas—haven't learned at least some English within two-and-a-half years of moving to the UK, they could face deportation, the Guardian reports. It's part of a plan backed by prime minister David Cameron, who says the segregation and isolation of Britain's Muslim communities invites things like forced marriage, genital mutilation, and radicalization, according to the BBC. "If you're not able to speak English, you're not able to integrate," he says. "You may find, therefore, that you have challenges understanding what your identity is and you could be more susceptible to the extremist message that comes from [ISIS]." Cameron says there are 38,000 Muslim women in the UK who can't speak English and another 190,000 with limited English, according to the Guardian. In addition to language tests, the government is also considering banning face veils in certain places, such as schools and courts, and banning gender segregation in Muslim meetings, the Telegraph reports. "People coming to our country have responsibilities too," the Guardian quotes Cameron. According to the BBC, critics of the plan say there are bigger issues affecting Muslim women, that connecting language skills and radicalization isn't helpful, and that it's wrong to focus on Muslims instead of all migrants. Cameron says he'll be putting more than $28 million toward a program to teach Muslim women English, and that starting in October, people entering the UK on five-year spousal visas will be tested on their English skills after two and a half years. If they're not improving, they may not be allowed to stay.
– The least suspenseful primary of the 2016 election year is in the books, with Hillary Clinton cruising to an easy win over Bernie Sanders in South Carolina. The AP and CNN called the race as soon as the polls closed at 7pm. Strong turnout by African-Americans sealed the victory for Clinton, who dominated among those voters and was up by nearly 50 points overall with most of the vote counted. The win bodes well for her in several Super Tuesday states with similar demographics. Sanders had essentially given up on the state this week, not even mentioning South Carolina in a campaign appearance earlier Saturday in Texas, notes Politico. "Tomorrow this campaign goes national," said Clinton after the race was called. "We are not taking anything, and we are not taking anyone, for granted."
– Another woman is filing a complaint of sexual assault against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF chief currently being held in New York on charges of sexually assaulting a hotel maid. French writer Tristane Banon says Strauss-Kahn did the same to her nine years ago, and described Strauss-Kahn as acting like a "rutting chimpanzee," the Guardian reports. Banon, who was in her 20s at the time of the attack, says she was persuaded not to take action by her mother, who was a friend of the Strauss-Kahn family and a Socialist regional counselor. "We are planning to make a complaint," says her lawyer. "I am working with her." Banon is Strauss-Kahn's second wife's goddaughter. Back in New York, Strauss-Kahn today pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bail until his next court hearing, reports the AP. Until his arrest in New York, Strauss-Kahn was regarded by the French Socialist party as their main hope for unseating Nicolas Sarkozy as president. Click for more on the NYC case.
– President Trump marked the 17th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on Tuesday with a speech at the memorial where one of the planes went down in Shanksville, Pa. "America's future is not written by our enemies," said Trump, per CBS News. "America's future is written by our heroes. As long as this monument stands, as long as this memorial endures, brave patriots will rise up in America's hours of need and they, too, will fight back." The president, who was accompanied by first lady Melania, called it a "monument to American defiance." Elsewhere: In New York City: The city paused at 8:46am, the moment the first plane struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Thousands gathered at the memorial at Ground Zero to pay their respects, and the Daily News has details. The ceremony included the annual recitation of victims' names, along with recollections of loved ones. At the Pentagon: VP Mike Pence spoke to families of the 184 killed at the Pentagon in the attacks, saying the terrorists "hoped to break our spirit and they failed," per the AP. Praising Rudy: In the morning, Trump tweeted praise of an ally. "Rudy Giuliani did a GREAT job as Mayor of NYC during the period of September 11th," wrote the president. "His leadership, bravery and skill must never be forgotten. Rudy is a TRUE WARRIOR!" Trump also retweeted an image of him signing a proclamation calling Tuesday "Patriot Day 2018" in honor of the approximately 3,000 people who died in the attacks.
– Meet the most badass frog in the pond: The Japanese Otton frog has what amounts to spiked thumbs, reports LiveScience. The scientist who made the discovery says the extra bony digit is used to help the male hang on during mating but also for fighting other males. It's apparently not a lethal weapon, because the boys seem to take care not to poke each other in the eye or ear drums. Discover has a great photo here—and it also uses the term "flick-knives" to describe the weaponry. "While the pseudo-thumb may have evolved for mating, it is clear that they're now used for combat," says the University of Tokyo scientist who made the find. "The males demonstrated a jabbing response with the thumb when they were picked up, and the many scars on the male spines provided evidence of fighting." A group of African frogs has retractable claws, but those frogs don't have the extra "psuedo-thumb." Advantage, Otton.
– Drinking vinegar for weight loss? The fad may be appearing all over social media, but it's "as gross as it sounds," and sipping vinegar is not the weight-loss miracle it's purported to be, reports Glamour after talking to dietitians. While drinking vinegar may aid in weight loss, "it is not magic," says one of them, author Beth Warren. Another says drinking vinegar could cause stomach discomfort and acid reflux. (Some researchers think it's those adverse effects that actually curb the appetite.) The recent hubbub about vinegar seems to stem from a 2009 Japanese study, in which obese adults dropped two to four pounds in 12 weeks after taking up to two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar daily. Other outlets echo Glamour's findings. Nutritionist Carol Johnston tells the New York Times that vinegar can help you shed pounds "if you're a very, very patient person," but, she adds in a now-common refrain, it's not a "magic bullet." Vinegar may help, Johnston tells the Washington Post, by inhibiting enzymes that help digest starch. The less starch you digest, the less your blood sugar spikes after eating carbs. Over time, those undigested calories may add up to "very modest" weight loss. To those who want to give vinegar a shot, experts advise ingesting just one tablespoon in eight ounces of water during the first bites of a meal. And Johnston notes, it needn't be apple cider vinegar—red wine vinegar or white vinegar will do. But take with caution: Consumption of vinegar, per the Times, has been linked to vocal cord spasms, fainting, damage to the esophagus, and tooth erosion. (Capsules filled with freeze-dried poop may some day help people lose weight.)
– Elizabeth Holmes dropped out of college when she was 19; now, she's just 30. She's also the founder of a $9 billion company that's making medical treatment more accessible, and she's the youngest female billionaire in the US, reports Forbes. (She's the third-youngest billionaire overall.) Her company, Theranos, got its start when she dropped out of college in the belief that her tuition money could be used to make the world a better place, Elite Daily reports. Holmes focused on blood tests: "I have a big fear of needles. As do a lot of people. It's right up there with spiders and snakes," she told USA Today earlier this year. Many people are so repulsed by the testing process that they risk not receiving essential health information, Elite Daily notes; Holmes offers an alternative. She developed a testing system that requires only a single finger prick rather than the collection of multiple vials of blood. Not only is it painless, it's cheaper than the typical test: the Daily Mail reports a $30 cost. One drop of blood is enough for 30 different tests, Theranos says, and the procedure can be conducted at a pharmacy, with results arriving within four hours. The company is now partnering with Walgreens, and Holmes is hoping to get Theranos tests available in every store in the US—all 8,200 of them. (Another young female billionaire is in charge of In-N-Out Burger.)
– The man known as the "UVA killer" will in all likelihood spend the rest of his life behind bars after pleading guilty to killing two Virginia college students over the past seven years, NBC News reports. Jesse Matthew was sentenced to four life sentences on Wednesday as part of a plea deal that will allow him to avoid the death penalty. The deal was supported by the families of both of his victims, according to WTVR. Matthew's lawyer said his client agreed to the plea "to not have the sentence of death hanging over his head," the Washington Post reports. NBC states the deal "all but assures he will never be a free man again." Matthew has no chance of parole, early release, or geriatric release. Twenty-year-old Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington disappeared in 2009 after attending a concert at the University of Virginia. Eighteen-year-old Hannah Graham was a UVA student when she disappeared five years later. Matthew worked at the UVA medical center at the time of the disappearances. "Today's events do not bring Hannah back to us," Graham's father said during Wednesday's hearing, per NBC. "But at times like this, we must take comfort where we can." Graham's mother described her daughter as a "heroine" for giving her life to help police arrest “a serial rapist and murderer hiding in plain sight." Matthew was sentenced to three life sentences last year for sexually assaulting and attempting to murder a 26-year-old woman in 2005.
– Suge Knight, co-founder of Death Row Records, was arrested early this morning in Los Angeles. In a news conference, cops said it was in connection with an alleged crime that occurred just before his arrest. TMZ and Radar report it was for assault with a deadly weapon—and that he was also driving with a suspended license. The New York Daily News notes that Knight is a suspect in the 2009 armed robbery of a hip-hop producer, and adds that he was pulled over and surrounded by about six police officers.
– Waze, Google's map app, is notorious for forcing drivers to attempt uncontrolled left turns onto busy streets in an effort to get them where they're going in the shortest amount of time. “Many drivers (and especially LA drivers) know the feeling," Waze itself admits in a statement. That's why the app announced a new feature Friday to make commuting safer and less stressful for Los Angeles drivers: Waze will automatically look for routes that minimize left turns while taking around the same amount of time, CNET reports. A left turn can be a “stressful scenario that requires crossing multiple lanes of oncoming traffic," according to Waze. Yet the app routinely leads drivers into them because it prioritizes empty side streets to help users avoid traffic, LAist reports. To solve the problem, Waze worked with Los Angeles citizens to identify problem intersections, ending up with a list of 100 or so. Because the new feature requires the input of actual humans, it will take a while to introduce it in other cities. New Orleans is next. The new feature could do more than make driving more pleasant for Waze users. Left turns cause about 500,000 crashes and hundreds of deaths every year in the US. UPS actually banned its drivers from taking left turns in 2004 in a move that saved millions of gallons of gas and reduced emissions.
– The announcement of Eric Holder's pending resignation as attorney general has the early assessments of his legacy pouring in. One common theme, as in this editorial by the New York Times: He was terrific on civil rights and criminal-justice reform, but lousy on Wall Street accountability and on the trampling of rights under the excuse of "national security." The editorial ticks off various accomplishments, from same-sex marriage (he torpedoed the Defense of Marriage Act), to his staunch defense of voting rights, to his reform of drug-sentencing laws. His legacy will be defined in a good way by such things, says the editorial, but "it will also be defined by deeply harmful actions—and failures to act—involving issues of national importance." Among other things, the editors call out Holder's defense of the government's right to kill citizens without judicial review, his over-zealous prosecution of leaks, and his approval of the secret monitoring of American journalists. Other views: Too big to jail: Holder secured no big convictions in the nation's financial crisis, writes Roger Parloff at Fortune. This criticism, widely "encapsulated in the phrase 'too big to jail,' is the albatross that threatens to weigh down Holder’s legacy in the business realm." Good riddance: Sure, he's got some good marks on his record, but "Holder’s tenure has been marked by a disturbing mix of duplicity, incompetence, and obliviousness," writes Nick Gillespie at Time. Holder put his loyalty to President Obama above his loyalty to the Constitution. Good, but...: "The sad truth is that Holder could have been truly great—not simply as the first black attorney general but as a man of principle who stood with the law over politics and friendship," writes Jonathan Turley at USA Today. "In one of the great lost opportunities in history, Holder will finish his tenure as he began it: a man with great but still unrealized potential." Best for our times: Keep in mind that Holder served in extremely partisan times, writes Jamelle Bouie at Slate. He's not sure he can go as far as Al Sharpton in pronouncing Holder "the most effective civil rights attorney general in American history," but, writes Bouie, "he was a very good one, and given the times, that’s just as vital." Click to see who's in the early running to be the next attorney general.
– With European countries fuming over NSA surveillance, the White House is reconsidering its spying activities. Yesterday, Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said she was calling for a "total review of all intelligence programs," and that the White House had assured her that "collection on our allies will not continue," the Wall Street Journal reports. A senior White House official tells the AP that isn't true, but says that Obama is considering at least ending surveillance on foreign heads of state, and has already made some unspecified policy changes. Feinstein's statement is still significant, because she's been a major NSA defender, and receives regular intelligence briefings from the White House. But she said she was "totally opposed" to the surveillance of US allies. "It is clear to me that certain surveillance activities have been in effect for more than a decade and that the Senate Intelligence Committee wasn't satisfactorily informed," she said.
– "We seem to have lost contact with the Trump-Pence transition since the election," Walter Shaub wrote in an email to Trump aides in November, CNBC reports. The email from the director of the nonpartisan Office of Government Ethics was made public Saturday amid growing concerns about what Shaub says are "potentially unknown or unresolved ethics issues" with Trump's cabinet choices, according to Politico. The Trump team failed to clear any of his cabinet nominees with the OGE prior to announcing them, which Shaub says has forced staff to "rush through these important reviews" meant to help cabinet appointees avoid potentially criminal conflicts of interest when they start work. A whole bunch of Trump's nominees are scheduled for confirmation hearings in the next two weeks, and Shaub warns many won't have undergone ethics reviews by that time. He says he's unaware of this ever happening before and warns it could lead to both "embarrassment" for Trump and appointees accidentally breaking federal rules. "If we don't get involved early to prevent problems, we won't be able to help them after the fact," he says. The DNC wants the hearings delayed, the Hill reports. Sen. Charles Schumer calls the confirmation schedule "unprecedented" and Trump's nominees "unvetted." The American people deserve to know that these cabinet nominees...[are] working on behalf of the American people and not their own bottom line," Schumer says.
– ESPN has fired a writer who went from being a poster on the message boards at gambling site Covers.com to being a star columnist at ESPN.com without anybody checking her real identity. Sarah Phillips was sacked soon after Deadspin ran a lengthy expose questioning her identity and accusing her of involvement in a fraud and extortion scheme involving social media. Phillips, who said she was a 22-year-old West Coast university student and a hardcore gambler, never met anybody at ESPN in person and used photographs of several different people to accompany her writings at Covers. Phillips and accomplices approached people with popular Facebook and Twitter pages, offered to make them part of a lucrative new venture, and then shut them out of their own sites, according to Deadspin. After her firing by ESPN—which says it is reviewing its hiring practices—she issued a series of tweets saying she had made "poor choices" but not admitting wrongdoing, PC Magazine reports. " I was able to evaluate everything and move away from sports media," she wrote. "You live and learn. I'm just a fan now ."
– Looks like Charlie Crist has become the Joe Lieberman of this election cycle. The former Republican governor of Florida, who turned independent for a failed 2010 Senate bid, will be speaking at the Democratic National Convention next week, reports USA Today. Crist, who declared his support for President Obama over the weekend, was seen as a potential running mate for John McCain in 2008, but fell out of favor with the GOP after backing Obama's economic stimulus plan in 2009, the New York Times notes. Crist has been denounced as a turncoat by Republicans, who have a turncoat of their own at their convention. Artur Davis, co-chair of Obama's first campaign, now supports Mitt Romney and will be one of the RNC's featured speakers tonight. Crist's conversion has sparked rumors that he may run as a Democrat against Florida Gov. Rick Scott in 2014, although some people in both parties scorn the idea, reports the Miami Herald. "How’s a guy who is pro-life, pro-gun, anti-gay marriage, anti-civil unions and is to the right of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on abortion—how is he going to run as a Democrat?" wondered the chief of the Florida Republican Party.
– A Texas man went a bit too far in his quest for the perfect marriage proposal: Joshua Mason, 27, and Katie Davis, 28, ended up in "a serious situation" and having to be rescued by authorities. The couple flew from Texas to Denver Friday and set out on a hike the next day near Nederland, Colo., the Boulder Daily Camera reports. "Mason was hoping to find an isolated scenic location 'away from any other people' to propose," says the Boulder County Sheriff's Office. They hiked more than 8 miles to the nearly 13,000-foot-high summit of Jasper Peak on the Continental Divide, and Davis said yes to the proposal ... but then it started getting dark, the trail wasn't clearly marked, and the newly engaged couple ran into big trouble, a Boulder County Sheriff Mountain Deputy tells Fox 31. They weren't wearing warm clothes, didn't have enough water, and hadn't gotten acclimated to the altitude. They got disoriented and were lost for hours, ultimately ending up on a cliff and unable to go any further; around midnight, a camper in the area heard them screaming. He found them and led them to the rest of his group, and one of the campers realized they were showing signs of severe dehydration and altitude sickness, the deputy says. One of the campers hiked down to her vehicle so she could drive somewhere to call 911, and rescue crews arrived to the couple's location by 4:30am. They were back at the trailhead by 6:30am Sunday and did not require further medical assistance. "Last thing I said [to the couple was], 'So is the engagement still on?'" the deputy says. "And she said, 'Oh yes.'"
– After an international outcry over the harsh sentence handed out to a Saudi Arabian blogger, the kingdom now appears to have decided a decade in prison and 1,000 lashes is too lenient. Raif Badawi's wife tells the Independent that official sources say charges of apostasy against him may be reinstated. Converting from Islam to another faith is punishable by beheading in Saudi Arabia, and an apostasy charge against Badawi was thrown out of court in 2013 after he told the judge he was still a Muslim. reports the Independent. The prosecution's evidence included the fact that he once liked a Facebook page for Arab Christians. Badawi's wife, who now lives in Canada with their three children, tells the CBC that she won't stop fighting for his freedom. "We call on the world citizens and governments not to leave Raif dragged by such bigots to death," the family said in a statement. Amnesty International, which is calling for Badawi's release, says it's trying to confirm rumors of a new trial. Badawi was scheduled to receive 50 lashes a week for 20 weeks, but later rounds of lashings have been delayed because of injuries he suffered in the first flogging.
– Justin Ross Harris exchanged sexually explicit messages and nude photos with six women as his 22-month-old son baked to death in a hot car—including one 17-year-old, police detective Phil Stoddard testified today, as Harris appeared in court for a probable cause hearing. Harris' lawyer objected repeatedly during the testimony, but prosecutors argued that it helped establish Harris' state of mind, and the judge allowed it, CNN reports. Harris was leading something of a double life, Stoddard said, because he and his wife were having "intimacy problems." In addition to his searches regarding hot car deaths, the detective revealed that Harris had visited websites that advocated child-free living, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The 33-year-old may soon be charged with felony sexual exploitation of a minor thanks to those texts to the 17-year-old, Stoddard added. He also testified that witnesses described Harris as acting erratically when he pulled into a shopping center seeking help for his son. When a witness told Harris the boy needed CPR, Harris apparently walked around the car and started making phone calls, telling someone on the other end that his son was dead. When police told him to get off the phone, Harris directed an expletive at them. Police then took his phone and handcuffed him.
– If you've "liked" a company on Facebook, downloaded its coupons, or really in any way interacted with it online, you might have inadvertently given up your right to sue it. The New York Times spotted new language in the privacy policy on General Mills' website indicating that customers who did any of those things were agreeing to settle any disputes they might have with the company via arbitration. When the Times asked about it, the company doubled down, adding new text suggesting that anyone who so much as purchased Cheerios was agreeing to the same thing. (A new gray bar atop the site reads in part, "Please note we also have new Legal Terms which require all disputes related to the purchase or use of any General Mills product or service to be resolved through binding arbitration.") The Supreme Court opened the door for this maneuver when it ruled, in 2011's AT&T v. Concepcion, that companies could forbid class-action lawsuits in the contracts their customers sign, and many companies are moving to take advantage. "Although this is the first case I’ve seen of a food company moving in this direction, others will follow—why wouldn’t you?" said a rep from a trial lawyers trade group. "It's essentially trying to protect the company from all accountability." General Mills defends the practice as simply an "efficient way to resolve disputes." Geek-O-System has a detailed breakdown of the policy language.
– Morgan Spurlock, the guy behind Super Size Me, calls his latest documentary—an exploration of our ad-obsessed culture—The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. And critics seem to agree: Spurlock “has this habit of making documentaries that come hidden in the Trojan horse of silly and then stab at your conscience,” writes Peter Travers in Rolling Stone. “As ever, he makes you laugh till it hurts.” Spurlock "spoofs himself into an exuberant documentary that demonstrates the all-pervasive influence of modern advertising by satiric example, and with great ingenuity,” notes Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal. Spurlock has an appeal all his own, adds Stephen Holden in the New York Times: It’s “the gift of gab along with an undeniable star quality," making him "a superb promoter of himself as a brand." But “something gets lost as the distance between filmmaker and subject disappears—I think we call it objectivity,” warns Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times. Still, Spurlock offers “some surprisingly salient observations.”
– Iria Wolnick was on her way to her mother’s funeral when she ended up preventing another. The 36-year-old came upon a fiery crash on a highway in rural Texas after midnight last July 5, and her heroics were honored by Texas law enforcement yesterday morning. The San Jose woman found 19-year-old Niser Saldana-Quilantan in a field. She, along with her 2-year-old and the child's father, had been thrown from an SUV after it hit a tree, rolled over, and caught fire, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Saldana-Quilantan "kept asking 'Ma'am how’s my baby? How’s my baby?" Wolnick recounts, according to KTVU. "I thought she was asking about the toddler, but then I looked down and saw her stomach"—an unborn child's head and arm were protruding from a severe cut in it. A mother of four with only first aid training, Wolnick explains, "You sort of have an idea what needs to happen. Making sure the umbilical cord is tied, preventing blood from coming out… I sprung into action," assisted by a truck driver who used a shoelace on the umbilical cord. Saldana-Quilantan was pronounced dead when she arrived at the hospital, but the 6-pound, 11-ounce baby girl survived. “It has changed my life for good," Wolnick says. "The baby will be in my thoughts forever… You get a new perspective on life." The other passengers survived without serious injury.
– Texas police have arrested two men accused of trying to dump a cyclist's body after running him over on a highway Thursday morning, Raw Story reports. According to police, 38-year-old Eduardo Arguelles was cycling with a friend on US Highway 281 in Edinburg at around 4:30am when a white Ford pickup ran him over, reports Valley Central. "Upon impact the bicyclist may have flown in the air and landed in the bed of the pickup," said a police lieutenant. At that point, the driver allegedly flicked off his headlights and sped away. With police investigating, and Arguelles' riding group posting on Facebook, a tip came in about a man seeking to dispose of a body. Police tracked him down to the site of a Ford pickup with extensive front-end damage and the body lying beside it. Officers then arrested Emilio Gomez on charges including intoxication manslaughter, and Nelson Cantu for failure to report a felony. Now a website has raised more than $11,000 for Arguelles' wife, 11-year-old son, and 4-year-old daughter, Fox Rio 2 reports, and an editorial at the Monitor applauds bike lanes but says drivers don't always respect them—"and tragedy is often the result."
– St. Clement was said to have been put to death by being tied to a boat anchor and drowned. Just shy of 2,000 years later, what's believed to be a piece of one of his bones has been presented to Westminster Cathedral. The path from there to here is filled with legend, crime, and a Google search. Clement, one of the Catholic Church's first popes, was killed on the orders of the Roman emperor Trajan around AD99, and his watery death led to him becoming a patron saint of mariners, reports the Guardian. The BBC reports something miraculous was said to have followed: The sea receded, revealing his bones, a fragment of which reportedly came to be kept in a wax-sealed case that shows the words "EX OSS S. CLEMENTIS PM." It was recently stolen from the car of the unnamed person who owned it and ended up in London's trash. It might have stayed there were it not for Enviro Waste owner James Rubin, whose staff set aside the case while pulling items that could be recycled or refurbished from the waste it collected. A Google search of those Latin words led Rubin to believe it was a saint's bone, and he blogged about the find, asking for advice on what to do. Some 650 suggestions later, he settled on giving it to Westminster Cathedral, and the owner, who also emerged, agreed to hand it over on permanent loan. A ceremony was held to transfer the relic on Tuesday. (A thief stole what was left of a saint's brain.)
– The first-ever Pokemon Go Fest—held Saturday at Grant Park in Chicago—was forced to refund its approximately 15,000 to 20,000 attendees after it proved near-impossible for them to actually play Pokemon Go at the event, the Chicago Tribune reports. According to TechCrunch, every cell network was down inside the park within 20 minutes of the festival starting. Kotaku states connection errors made the popular game "unplayable." For those who somehow managed to get online, the game itself was also having issues. Attempts to capture a monster—part of the draw of the festival was the chance to catch rare Pokemon—resulted in error screens. John Hanke, the CEO of Pokemon Go developer Niantic, took the stage to boos and chants of "we can't play" and "fix the game." But it wasn't just the people inside the park having a bad time. Lines to enter Pokemon Go Fest stretched for blocks, with some people reporting waiting four hours to get inside. With problems mounting, organizers announced all attendees would be refunded the $20 ticket price plus an extra $100 in in-game credit. Many attendees traveled from across the country or paid hundreds of dollars for tickets being re-sold online. “It’s a small gesture, but we’re sorry,” Niantic's chief marketing officer told the crowd. “We didn’t envision the day going this way.”
– NBC says its star-studded benefit concert for Hurricane Sandy victims raised a hefty $23 million for Red Cross relief efforts, in an explosion of website and phone traffic that the Red Cross says topped telethon activity from the previous five years combined. The one-hour broadcast featured New Jersey sons Jon Bon Jovi, who rocked an acoustic "Livin' on a Prayer," and Bruce Springsteen, who closed out with "Land of Hope and Dreams." Joining the effort were Billy Joel, Jimmy Fallon, Steven Tyler, Mary J. Blige, Tina Fey, Jon Stewart, Whoopi Goldberg, Danny DeVito, Brian Williams, and host Matt Lauer. “We are incredibly grateful and humbled by this outpouring of support for those who are suffering as a result of Superstorm Sandy,” says a Red Cross official. To add your two cents to the effort, head over to: RedCross.org.
– Spilt milk is about the only thing Lex Gillies doesn't cry over. To prove it, London comedian Aaron Gillies kept a list of everything that made his emotional wife cry in a month and posted it to Twitter on Sunday, KFOR reports. As of this story, the list titled "Reasons My Wife Is Crying" has been retweeted more than 34,000 times and received more than 55,000 likes. "Neither of us thought it would go this big," Aaron tells the Huffington Post. "But so many people are identifying with it, maybe sensitivity is seen as something not many people talk about openly, so seeing someone show it started a rather large conversation." So what are a few of the things that make Lex cry? Apparently everything from "I cooked her dinner after a long day" to "She was hungover and saw a picture of a piglet" to "I waited until it was dark and pretended to be the Babadook." Luckily, going viral isn't one of the items on the list. Aaron tells the Huffington Post he checked with Lex before tweeting it and she found it "very amusing." "She doesn't care that she is an emotional person, and it ends up being brilliant for anecdotes," he says. According to KFOR, the couple only got married last year, so the list is sure to grow. (Yes, there is such a thing as a good cry.)
– Bernie Sanders has won Saturday's caucuses in Alaska, Washington state, and Hawaii as he fights to gain ground on Hillary Clinton, reports the AP. Washington was Saturday's big prize with 101 delegates at stake, and Politico called a victory there "essential" to Sanders' campaign hopes. The delegates will be awarded proportionately and Sanders was headed toward a lopsided win—good news for him given that he trailed Clinton by more than 300 pledged delegates heading into the day. It's no surprise to see Sanders do well in Washington, notes Fox News. On Friday, he drew 10,000 to a rally in Seattle, one of the most liberal cities in the country. Seattle also leads the country in per-capita individual donations to Sanders—about $145 for every 100 people. The story was largely the same in Alaska, where Sanders had a lead of nearly 60 points with more than a third of precincts reporting. Analysts say the overwhelming whiteness of Alaska, which has 16 delegates up for grabs, favored Sanders. The final 25 delegates of the day came from Hawaii's caucuses. Throughout the campaign, Sanders has done better in caucuses than primaries. "The Deep South is a very conservative part of the country," he tells the AP. "Now that we're heading into a progressive part of the country, we expect to do much better. There is a path to victory." That path, the AP notes, is steep: After the first two wins Saturday, Clinton's delegate lead was 1,234 to 956 over Sanders, which widens considerably when superdelegates are included: 1,703 to 985.
– You never know what you’ll find on eBay. Case in point: A volunteer with the UK’s National Museum of Computing spotted a rare machine used by the Nazis to send encrypted messages during WWII on the auction site, the Guardian reports. Listed as a “telegram machine,” the military-issue Lorenz teleprinter was being stored in a garden shed “with rubbish all over it” in Essex, museum volunteer John Wetter tells the BBC. The museum bought the machine for about $15. Initially, museum volunteers thought they had discovered a civilian version of the teleprinter. But later they realized it was a military-issue machine upon discovering a swastika and military serial number, according to the Telegraph. "Everybody knows about Enigma,” the museum’s Andy Clark tells the BBC, referring to the machine used by Nazis to send communications to frontline troops. “But the Lorenz machine was used for strategic communications.” The Lorenz also produced a more complex code than the Enigma, per the Guardian. But mathematician Bill Tutte was able to break it, leading to the creation of the first programmable computer, Colossus, that could translate messages sent via the Lorenz. “We were able to drip-feed the Russians the locations of the German tank divisions of Kursk,” Wetter tells the Telegraph, adding that it was the “turning point of the war.” On June 3, the National Museum of Computing plans to recreate the breaking of the Lorenz cipher code using the teleprinter and a Lorenz cipher unit on loan from Norway’s Armed Forces Museum. But there is still one more missing component: the electric motor, which the museum is asking the public to keep an eye out for. (This man believes a $500 million treasure is hidden in a Nazi bunker.)
– US President Donald Trump is fairly unpopular in Britain, and he's headed there next week. A warm welcome isn't exactly expected, reports NBC News. Rather than paying an official state visit to the UK (an idea that was opposed by nearly 2 million people in a petition), he's making a "working visit," which involves less "pomp and circumstance," the New York Times explained earlier this month. Even so, "we're planning a proper British welcome for Trump," a co-organizer of the Bring the Noise rally, planned for the July 13 and ending across from the House of Commons, tells NBC. Tens of thousands of anti-Trump demonstrators are expected to take to the streets that day; a Together Against Trump march is also planned through the center of the city. The protesters won't be the only ones greeting Trump: A 20-foot-tall inflatable orange "Trump baby" will also be floating over parliament when he arrives. Leo Murray, 41, staged a crowdfunding campaign to raise enough money to fly the $6,500 orange balloon shaped like a baby that strongly resembles Trump; the campaign ended up raising so much that if it ends up raising its stretch goal of $26,400 (it's mere dollars away as of this posting), it plans to send a smaller version of the Trump baby anywhere else the POTUS plans to visit: It will "follow little Donald around the world, haunting his diplomatic engagements wherever he goes!" the campaign reads. "If we can troll Donald from the skies wherever he goes for long enough, he'll start seeing #TrumpBaby in his dreams!" London Mayor Sadiq Khan gave Murray permission Thursday to tether the blimp to Parliament Square, the BBC reports; a statement from the mayor's office says he "supports the right to peaceful protest and understands that this can take many different forms." Protests are also planned in Scotland, where Trump owns two golf resorts and plans to spend time during his visit.
– News broke yesterday that L'Wren Scott left her entire $9 million estate to longtime partner Mick Jagger—and today, sources tell Page Six that Scott was just trying to pay him back. "He bought her the apartment, bought her all the jewelry," says one. "She was giving him back everything he’d already given her. That could be seen as generosity—or a big F-you." Hollywood Life notes that Scott's will initially read, "I have never been married. I have no children." But she later crossed out the word "never," and it's not clear why. The will specifically excludes her two siblings from receiving any portion of her estate—but her ashes were split between her brother and Jagger, the New York Daily News reports. "Some of those ashes, they will be buried near our parents here in Utah," her brother says. "And there will be a ceremony, date to be determined, in Utah for all family members who will have an opportunity to see their friends and others." Scott's sister, still upset that the main service for Scott was held in LA Tuesday, tells the Daily Mail she plans to fight Jagger on Scott's will because Scott had photos and heirlooms that should be returned to her family.
– Worms can grow the head and brain of another species? Then maybe we can do better at regenerating our own organs and tissues. That's the thrust of a new study by researchers who got flatworms to grow the heads of other flatworm species without any alteration to the worms' DNA, LiveScience reports. The researchers just altered the way proteins communicated between the flatworms' cells. "It is commonly thought that the sequence and structure of chromatin—the material that makes up chromosomes—determine the shape of an organism," says study researcher Michael Levin in a press release. "But these results show that the function of physiological networks can override the species-specific default anatomy." The researchers began by decapitating freshwater flatworms called Girardia dorotocephala, which are are able to regrow severed tissues; they have stem cells that can turn into any other kind of cell (we have similar cells, but only as early embyros). Researchers then used a kind of alcohol to alter electrical impulses that cells send through protein channels in the worms, IFL Science reports. Amazingly, some of the worms grew heads that were rounded, triangular, or had pointy ears—and all from other species. The worms eventually grew back their own heads, with their DNA fully intact. "This kind of information will be crucial for advances in regenerative medicine, as well as a better understanding of evolutionary biology," says Maya Emmons-Bell, first author of the study.
– Pope Francis made news even while flying home to Rome after his US visit, weighing in on the issue of gay marriage with comments sure to please Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis. Asked whether government employees should be allowed to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, the pope said yes, reports NBC News. "Conscientious objection is a right that is a part of every human right," said Francis, who did not mention the Davis case in particular. "It is a right. And if a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right." Pressed on whether the principle does indeed apply to government workers, he elaborated: "It is a human right and if a government official is a human person, he has that right. It is a human right." The comments will surely be seen as a boon for Davis—see the headline in the Huffington Post declaring that "The Pope Just Handed Kim Davis a Huge Win," for example. The Guardian has a more nuanced view, observing that "the remarks about conscientious objectors seem to reflect Francis’s views on the importance of religious freedom, rather than gay marriage specifically." In his hourlong talk with reporters, Francis also repeated his condemnation of abusive priests, reports Reuters. The victim "is crushed by evil and this is nearly a sacrilege because the priest has betrayed his vocation, the calling of the Lord." (Click for one columnist's reasoning as to why Davis should never have gone to jail.)
– Prosecutors on both the state and federal level will now have ample opportunity to seek the death penalty against Dylann Roof if they wish. A federal grand jury today indicted the accused Charleston church shooter on 33 counts, including hate crimes, reports the State. Among the charges were 12 counts of killing someone while obstructing religious freedom, a charge the New York Times reports carries the death penalty. This is in addition to the charges on the state level, including nine counts of murder, also eligible for the death penalty. Prosecutors haven't said whether they'll seek capital punishment, and Attorney General Loretta Lynch reiterated that today in announcing the federal indictments, reports NBC News.
– Sex is good for you. Scientists tell us so, and continue to find ways in which it can positively impact our lives. Now a researcher at Oregon State University is reporting that "making a more intentional effort" to have a healthy sex life is an actual "issue of human sustainability" and, as would of course follow, a "potential career advantage." Reporting in the Journal of Management, his team followed 159 married employees over a two-week period and looked at their sexual behaviors as well as mood, engagement at work, job satisfaction, and more. Sure enough, having sex reaps positive benefits for a solid 24 hours—and for men and women equally, they found—likely due to the release of dopamine and oxytocin, reports New York magazine. Keith Leavitt, a business professor at OSU, goes so far as to say that people should "just make time for it," and notes that it's actually "a real thing" when people have a "spring in their step." If this all seems rather obvious, it did to Gizmodo, which points to studies linking sex with mood benefits all the way back to 1958. But while the study shows correlation and not causation—hey, people who elect to have sex more might be happier already, and being happier in general could be behind that higher work satisfaction—Gizmodo urges people not to overthink it. "There's a college professor in Oregon telling you to make time for sex and expect good things to happen as a result. This is good advice." (One town in Sweden is considering paying workers to take a one-hour sex break.)
– Famous atheist Christopher Hitchens took on famous Catholic convert Tony Blair in a debate on whether religion is a good or bad thing for the world yesterday. And while it's impossible to declare a winner on such a subjective ... oh wait, this is 2010, which means we had an audience vote: Hitchens won with 68%. Highlights include Blair insisting that religion played no role in his decision to invade Iraq and Hitchens—AP described him as "pale and drawn" amid his cancer fight—comparing the concept of God to a "divine North Korea." Blair: "Religion doesn't do policy." At another point: "It is undoubtedly true that people commit horrific acts of evil in the name of religion. It is also undoubtedly true that people do acts of extraordinary common good inspired by religion." Hitchens: "Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes us objects, in a cruel experiment, whereby we are created sick, and commanded to be well. And over us, to supervise this, is installed a celestial dictatorship, a kind of divine North Korea." More at the Independent and the Guardian.
– The Bard was truly ahead of his time—and not only because of his way with words. Archaeologists digging at one of London's oldest playhouses, where Shakespeare's company performed from 1597 to 1599, have found a ceramic bird whistle they believe was used for sound effects—perhaps during the 1598 premiere of Romeo and Juliet, in which the characters discuss hearing a nightingale or lark. "Theater producers at that time were always trying to find new ways to animate their productions and delight audiences," archaeologist Heather Knight tells the BBC. Clay tobacco pipes and an animal bone comb were also found at the Curtain Theatre, but most interesting is that the playhouse is rectangular instead of circular, as was more typical in that era, per the AP. "It's a total surprise to us," a Shakespeare scholar tells the Independent of the 1,000-person venue. It stretched 100 feet by 72 feet and "has probably the best preserved remains of any of the playhouses we've looked at," including an open gravel yard where attendees would stand to watch the action and inner walls that held the galleries, she adds. A theater expert notes the building was likely converted from a previous use into a theater. "Out of the nine playhouses that we know in Tudor London, there are only two that have no reference to any construction," including the Curtain, he says. "It's beginning to make sense now." Excavations at the site will continue for another month. The theater foundation will then be preserved and artifacts put on display by 2019. (Shakespeare's skull is missing.)
– Sad news in the music world Monday: Ireland's Dolores O'Riordan, lead singer of The Cranberries, is dead at age 46. The cause of death has not been revealed, with her publicist saying only that O'Riordan died suddenly in London, reports TMZ. She and the Limerick band were recording there. The Cranberries gained international fame back in the 1990s with hits such as "Zombie" and "Linger," per the AP. O'Riordan is survived by three children; she divorced from her husband in 2014.
– The deal isn't official yet, but the New York Times and Los Angeles Times say Al Sharpton is all but certain to get his own show at 6pm EST on MSNBC. It doesn't come without a dose of drama, though. Sharpton won the job over the outspoken Cenk Uygur, who left the network and accused its top brass of caving to the pressure of "people in Washington" who wanted him to tone down his criticism. (Uygur gives his version on his online Young Turks show, and the lengthy video is at left.) Not so, says MSNBC's Phil Griffin: “We never told Cenk what to say or what not to say." It wasn't politicians who complained but the network's own producers, who said it was getting hard to book guests because of Uygur's combative style. The right-wing Blaze loved the whole story, asking, "Is the White House programming a news channel?" The White House promptly denied the charge as ridiculous to Mediaite. For more on the Uygur controversy, see Salon or the Huffington Post.
– A mysterious case persists in Mexico City, where a dozen young people seem to have simply vanished from a bar in broad daylight. Their parents say police haven't done enough since their children—the youngest of whom is 16—went missing early May 26, because they come from a poor neighborhood. Since then, the story has made headlines around the world, and police today arrested two waiters from the bar and another woman; they're still looking for the bar's owner, who is now considered a fugitive, reports the BBC. The parents insist the disappearance was a kidnapping. But investigators say there is no evidence of an abduction, and only one person on the scene claims to have seen anything—in his telling, masked gunmen stormed the bar and seized the group, but he has since disappeared, leaving behind a false name and contact info. To make things twistier, three of the missing young people are related to crime bosses currently in prison, fueling theories that a rival gang may be involved. And a CNN report makes things twistier still: Police say they've identified no fingerprints from any of the missing on the bottles or glasses found at the bar.
– The most interesting thing that happened in regard to Mitt Romney's lunch with President Obama today took place before it even began. Secret Service arrested a man who apparently tried to stop Romney's motorcade at a White House security gate, reports AP. He reportedly became combative with an officer and now faces assault charges. As for the ho-hum lunch, Romney spent more than an hour with the president, and they talked mostly about foreign policy, according to the White House. After Romney congratulated Obama and wished him well, "they pledged to stay in touch, particularly if opportunities to work together on shared interests arise in the future," says the official statement, reports NBC News. The two did not talk about the possibility of Romney joining the Obama administration, reports Politico. Earlier, Romney met with Paul Ryan, and the would-be VP said he remains "grateful to Governor Romney for the honor of joining his ticket this fall, and I cherish our friendship."
– As Harvey Weinstein's alleged house of cards was about to come crashing down in a wave of allegations of sexual harassment and assault, one of his most vocal accusers, Rose McGowan, says the increasingly desperate producer offered her some pretty hefty hush money: $1 million, the actress tells the New York Times. And as something of a starving artist, friends counseled her to take it. She countered at $6 million, she says, figuring "I could probably have gotten him up to three," but ultimately "I was like—ew, gross, you’re disgusting, I don’t want your money, that would make me feel disgusting." McGowan, who settled with Weinstein 20 years ago for $100,000 after she says he raped her, recently learned there was no confidentiality clause attached to that agreement. Meanwhile, director Robert Rodriguez tells Variety that he not only knew about McGowan's allegation, but that he cast her in the Weinstein-backed Grindhouse as a deliberate jab at the producer. After finding that she had been banned from appearing in any Miramax films, he says he offered to "write her a BAD ASS character and make her one of the leads. I wanted her to have a starring role in a big movie to take her OFF the blacklist, and the best part is that we would have Harvey’s new Weinstein Company pay for the whole damn thing."
– As Trump administration officials mull a possible 25% tariff on $200 billion of Chinese goods—up from the original 10% tariff being bandied about—China is taking its own steps in the newest round of trade threats. Bloomberg and CNBC report on joint statements from China's Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Commerce issued Friday, which note that if the US goes forward with its tariff plan, China will hit more than 5,200 types of US imports, worth $60 billion, with tariffs ranging from 5% to 25%. CNN notes the imports being targeted by China include everything from minerals, chemicals, and furniture to meat, coffee, and alcohol. If and when China puts its tariffs into effect ultimately depends on what the US does, per the government statements. "China reserves the right to continue to introduce other countermeasures" and "any unilateral threat or blackmail will only lead to intensification of conflicts and damage to the interests of all parties," the Ministry of Commerce's statement adds, per the Wall Street Journal.
– Cities across India are on high alert as security forces search for the culprits behind last night's deadly triple bombing in Mumbai that killed 17 people. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which injured scores of people, the BBC reports. "All groups that have capacity to carry out such terror attacks are suspect," India's internal security chief told reporters. "All angles will be investigated, all leads will be followed." The bombings, which hit south Mumbai's jewelry market area, were the deadliest assault on the city since a terrorist attack in 2008 killed 166 people. Police believe a homegrown Islamic terror group may have been behind yesterday's operation, sources tell Reuters, although the choice of targets has caused some newspapers to speculate that the attacks are linked to a dispute in Mumbai's criminal underworld. Hillary Clinton says she has no intention of canceling her planned trip to India next week.
– Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill are back as partners-in-crime-fighting in 22 Jump Street, but rather than go undercover as high-schoolers to infiltrate a drug ring, this time around they're going undercover as college students. How does the sequel stand up to the first installment? Read on. "That Stoner No. 3 from Knocked Up and the tank top from Step Up have become Hollywood’s freshest comedy duo is impressive," writes Courtney Shea at the Globe and Mail. "That they’re keeping it fresh in a sequel is ... close to a cinematic miracle." The writing is clever and the stars' chemistry is "awesomeness." The film pokes "its R-rated finger" at everything from sequels to its stars. It's "a solidly implausible story, sight gags galore, endless jokes for the two new freshmen to go sophomoric, all unfolding at breakneck speed," writes Betsy Sharkey for the Los Angeles Times. Put it all together and it's a "a raucous, raunchy, irreverent, imperfect riot." Oh, and keep an eye out for the scene-stealing Jillian Bell. As David Edelstein writes at Vulture, "They get to poke fun at sequels and simultaneously make sequel money, which is a great frigging gig if you ask me." The first half "had my preview audience in stitches," though Edelstein wasn't as entertained. "But either the movie got better or I got worn down." He praises Bell, too, and notes "the ultrameta epilogue (no spoilers) is irresistible—it sends you home on a cloud." But Stephen Whitty at the Star-Ledger finds missteps and notes the sequel jokes are only "mildly amusing." The film's best idea "is to tease out the gay subtext barely buried in Hollywood's new bromantic comedies." Overall, "sarcasm is fine in small doses. But when you really start pumping irony, sometimes the meta just gets, well—meh."
– A major turnaround in the Amanda Knox case: For years, she and ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito have faced authorities as a pair, and both had their more than 20-year sentences upheld by an appeals court in January. But Sollecito has increasingly been distancing himself from Knox, as part of what CNN describes as a new defense strategy begun in February with an eye on his final appeal in 2015. Perhaps the boldest salvo in that about-face came at a news conference in Rome today, during which Sollecito himself called Knox's story on the morning Meredith Kercher was found "imagination and hallucination." Knox spent the night with him, but not the full evening, his lawyers now say, per the Local: "For the entire first part of the evening, they were not together. It’s this first part of the evening that’s new [to his defense]." Still, Sollecito said, "I'm not here to change my story," and added, "Amanda and I still believe she is innocent." A lawyer for the Friends of Amanda Knox responds, per mynorthwest.com: "It's stunning, because we've been hearing consistently Raffaele Sollecito had been corroborating Amanda Knox's account, essentially an alibi"—even in his memoir, Honor Bound. "Maybe he's been advised to distance himself from Amanda Knox, but he can't deviate from what the truth is."
– As bodies connected with Todd Kohlhepp continue to emerge, the suspected South Carolina serial killer's mom is linking four of the killings he's admitted to to one thing. "This is all why people tell kids not to bully. This is what can happen," Regina Kohlhepp said Thursday, per CNN. She was referring specifically to a quadruple murder in 2003—a cold case recently busted open by Kohlhepp's arrest, ABC News notes—that took place in a Chesnee motorcycle shop, where she says her son went to get some riding lessons and ended up leaving humiliated. "They laughed at him when he fell over on the bike," she tells CNN. "Todd was bullied and embarrassed and I think he just held it in long enough." The shop owner, his mom, and two employees were killed. It's unclear whether the murders took place the same day as the alleged bullying incident. The widow of the slain owner offers a different version, saying her husband and the others were just doing some gentle ribbing about the fact the first bike Kohlhepp bought from the shop had been stolen. "That is the kind of thing that a normal everyday person wouldn't go crazy over," she told CNN affiliate HLN. Regina Kohlhepp also talked with ABC about her son's conviction in 1987 as a 15-year-old for kidnapping and raping a 14-year-old girl at gunpoint, noting "Todd was not a child you left alone" and that the rape took place when Todd's dad had to leave Todd for three days due to a family emergency. The judge who moved Kohlhepp's case to adult court back then noted Kohlhepp was "very bright and should be advanced academically," but also that he was "behaviorally and emotionally dangerous," per ABC.
– The title of world's tallest dam may shift to a new country in a decade's time. Plans for a 1,030-foot dam—45 feet taller than the current title holder, Tajikistan's Nurek dam—have gotten the green light from China's environmental ministry. The $4.4 billion dam would enable a hydropower project earmarked for Sichuan province and produce twice as much energy as the Hoover Dam. True to form, the OK came even as the ministry admitted that the dam would deal a blow to rare or threatened fish and plants, according to state-run media. The ministry proposed some measures to combat the potential harm, including "protecting fish habitats in tributaries, building fish ladders, and increasing fish breeding and releasing ... as well as constructing seed banks." The Guardian notes that critics fear this and other dams' impact on the area's earth: It's prone to earthquakes and landslides.
– The weirdest part of Beyoncé’s collaboration with Lady Gaga for the “Video Phone” video, which premiered on MTV early today, is Gaga's cameo—"mostly because it's shockingly normal," writes James Montgomery. "It's definitely not the Gaga we're used to seeing," nor the Beyoncé for that matter. Gaga dons a plain leotard and elbow-length white gloves, notes Amy Odell in New York; Beyonce "wears a crazy mirrored tribal bikini, drag makeup, what looks like a metal bra, various bootie shorts, and her favorite new accessory: garters" The verdict? "Beyoncé sure did try hard. At last we get to see her gyrating on a motorcycle wielding a big plastic gun with her orange cape flapping in the wind!"
– The governors of Maryland and Virginia have declared states of emergency as the East Coast readies for Hurricane Irene. Maryland’s governor has ordered an evacuation of Ocean City and encouraged others in low-lying coastal areas to depart and “stay with someone who loves them” this weekend, the Washington Post notes. Meanwhile, New York City officials are warning that mass transit may be shut down across the city if winds and rain require it, the New York Post reports. Amtrak is canceling some trains south of Washington, too.
– His name means "king of the tyrant lizards," but sometimes Tyrannosaurus rex just wants to party. Make that many T. rexes. Hundreds of curious people on Saturday descended on Monument Square in Portland, Maine, to observe a gathering of dinosaur lovers dressed as the science museum staple. There were dozens of T. rexes, and they danced, growled, and milled around. They also danced, notes the Bangor Daily News, including dinosaur versions of the Chicken and YMCA. One who struggled to navigate his costume walked around with his head protruding awkwardly from the dinosaur's gaping mouth, notes the AP. Valerie Sanborn and Alison Cyr set up the Cretaceous Period party through Facebook, and lest you fear the politicization of T. Rex, the Daily News notes that "the event was strictly for fun" and that "at least 200 people enjoyed the pointless spectacle." A non-participant was summoned to snap a group photo because of T. rex's "little arm probz." (Meanwhile, don't you dare laugh at T. Rex's tiny arms.)
– Good news for American moms: The United States is a slightly better place to be a mother than it was last year, according to Save the Children's 13th annual report on the topic. The US rose from 31st to 25th place in its look at 165 countries. For the best places to be called Mom, look to Nordic countries: Norway took top honors, followed by Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, and Denmark, reports the Guardian. Niger brings up the rear, below Afghanistan, Yemen, Guinea-Bissau, and Mali. Among the deciding factors: infant and mother mortality, breastfeeding rates, nutrition, female education, and maternity-leave policies. USA Today reports that America's rise is credited largely to increases in mothers' educational rates, but it's not all good news. Some of the gloomier points: The US is No. 1 among industrialized nations when it comes to maternal deaths, with a rate of one in 2,100; the death rate for children under five is eight in 1,000, ranking us alongside Bosnia and Herzegovina; and our maternity-leave policies lag far behind those of other developed countries.
– A Texas judge was shot outside of her Austin home Friday night, and an initial investigation appears to show she was targeted, KXAN reports. According to the Austin American-Statesman, Judge Julie Kocurek—the presiding felony judge for Travis County—had just arrived home with a number of other people when someone opened fire. A neighbor says she heard "four pops." KXAN reports Kocurek suffered injuries to the areas around her upper body, shoulder, and face. And NBC News describes her injuries as "extremely serious." However she was in stable condition as of Saturday morning and is expected to recover, according to the American-Statesman. Police have not identified any suspects, and a manhunt is currently underway, KXAN reports. While it hasn't been confirmed, it's likely the shooting is connected to Kocurek's work as a judge, KXAN reports. According to the American-Statesman, the former prosecutor was recently involved in cases involving a convicted murderer suspected in a second killing 27 years ago and a woman arrested in connection with the kidnapping of her daughter in 2002. KXAN reports Kocurek recently signed warrants in the case of a former police officer accused of shooting and killing a pregnant woman in February. “It’s the most shocking news I have ever received,” a fellow judge tells the American-Statesman. “Judge Kocurek is a wonderful woman. It’s unfathomable to think that anyone would be angry with her."
– Travel + Leisure put together its annual America’s Favorite Cities survey, of which arguably the most interesting category is the American cities that boast the most attractive—and least attractive—residents. Click through the top five in each category in the gallery, or click here for more.
– A missed chance? Even without his name on a watch list, Orlando gunman Omar Mateen raised suspicions in at least one gun store in the weeks before he slaughtered 49 people at the Pulse nightclub. Robert Abell, co-owner of Lotus Gunworks in Jensen Beach, Fla., tells ABC that a man he now knows was Mateen tried to buy high-end body armor of a kind typically used by law enforcement and 1,000 rounds of ammo five or six weeks ago. He says Mateen asked strange questions and made staff uncomfortable, so they turned him away and informed the local FBI office about the would-be customer. Abell says there was a follow-up conversation with the FBI, but agents never visited the store—and without a sale, the store didn't have a name to give to investigators. In other coverage: Massacre survivor Miguel Leiva has shared video from the bathroom stall where he huddled for hours with around a dozen other people, some of whom had already been shot. It provides a glimpse of the terror inside the club in the hours before a SWAT team moved in. "It was really hot in there, the smell of blood and just dead bodies everywhere," Leiva tells CBS. The New York Times has interviews with several survivors, including people who suffered multiple bullet wounds. Angel Colon has a chilling account of trying to play dead as the gunman shot wounded people on the floor. Law enforcement sources tell CNN that Mateen texted his wife hours after the attack began, asking her if she had seen the news. She told him she loved him and tried to call several times, the sources say. The Miami Herald reports on a mysterious incident from Mateen's past: His firing from a job in a state prison midway through his training, apparently over an incident involving serious misconduct. The Orlando Sentinel reports on President Obama's visit to Orlando Thursday, where he met with victims' relatives in private. "Today, once again, as has been true so many times before, I held and hugged grieving family members and parents," Obama told reporters afterward. "And they asked, 'Why does this keep happening?'" The Palm Beach Post looks at the possible charges against Mateen's wife, Noor Salman, and at why an indictment could take a long time. (There were moving scenes when JetBlue fliers realized a fellow Orlando-bound passenger was mourning a grandson killed in the attack.)
– A Georgia teen snuck into a female friend's home early Saturday only to be shot and killed by the girl's father, who apparently thought the teen was an intruder, WJBF reports. According to the Augusta Chronicle, 17-year-old Jordan Middleton was let into the home by the unnamed 14-year-old girl around 2:30am. The girl's father, Derrick Fulton, later told police he heard noises downstairs, so he got his gun. The family dog was barking at the guestroom, so he yelled for whoever was inside to come out. When no one did, he entered the room. That's when Middleton popped out of a closet and ran for it. Fulton says he fired in self-defense, striking Middleton in the chest, WRDW reports. He says he didn't know Middleton was a friend of his daughter until after shooting him. Police, responding to a burglary-in-progress call, arrived to find Fulton attempting CPR on Middleton. Police say Fulton's daughter was not in the guestroom at the time of the shooting. While friends and family mourned Middleton's death, a local juvenile court judge said the situation is an example of "what can happen when you don't listen to your parents." No charges have been filed.
– Scientists are seriously excited about a new long-necked dinosaur species found near China's Qijiang City. For one thing, fossils of the beast, which lived 160 million years ago in the Late Jurassic period, show a skull still attached to its neck—a rare find among dinosaurs like this as "the head is so small and easily detached after the animal dies," a researcher explains. For another, interlocking joints between the vertebrae suggest the dinosaur's neck moved vertically more than sideways, like a construction crane. Dubbed "dragon of Qijiang" or Qijianglong, the dinosaur belongs to the mamenchisaurids group, Phys.org reports. It stretched about 50 feet long, with its neck taking up half that length. University of Alberta paleontologists say Qijianglong was able to support its massive neck because its vertebrae were filled with air, like a bird's, making it relatively lightweight, the Washington Post reports. "Qijianglong shows that long-necked dinosaurs diversified in unique ways in Asia during Jurassic times—something very special was going on in that continent," says a co-author of the paper in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. He's even curious whether Qijianglong inspired the dragon myths of its homeland. "I wonder if the ancient Chinese stumbled upon a skeleton of a long-necked dinosaur like Qijianglong and pictured that mythical creature." (In contrast, scientists recently found a bunny-sized dinosaur.)
– New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has a new book, Off the Sidelines, out next month, and it takes a frank look at the reality of being a woman on Capitol Hill. Among the more surprising and perhaps not-so-surprising tidbits: Gillibrand reveals she had lost 50 pounds after giving birth when a male senator squeezed her waist from behind. "Don't lose too much weight now," he said. "I like my girls chubby." The Washington Post notes that Gillibrand says "he was one of her favorite senators(!)." People picks up another quote from a male colleague, handed out while Gillibrand was exercising at the congressional gym: "Good thing you're working out, because you wouldn't want to get porky!" Talking Points Memo notes Gillibrand's acerbic response in the book: "Thanks, a--hole!" A Southern congressman even told her once, "You know, Kirsten, you’re even pretty when you're fat," Gillibrand wrote, per the New York Post. "I believed his intentions were sweet, even if he was being an idiot." Perhaps all the sexist idiocy helped her bond with Hillary Clinton. "I will help Hillary get elected," she told People while promoting the book. "In my mind, she's definitely running" in 2016, Gillibrand adds. "Anytime I've ever talked to her, I've offered every bit of help in the world and she's never said no." In other way-out-of-date-politician news: A report from two Republican groups finds 49% of female voters view the GOP "unfavorably," including as "intolerant," "lacking in compassion," and "stuck in the past." That isn't likely to help the party if Clinton does indeed decide to run, Politico notes.
– Missouri prisons have been ordered to eliminate smoking after an asthmatic inmate serving a life sentence for two murders won a court judgment, per the AP. The Kansas City Star reports Missouri has been ordered to go smoke-free by April 1 because of the lawsuit Ecclesiastical Denzel Washington filed. Missouri already bans smoking inside prison buildings, but it allowed it in designated areas outside. The evidence at trial showed that inmates are commonly written up for smoking in their cells. Attorney Phillip Zeeck, who helped represent Washington, says the ruling may save Missouri taxpayers money because of the cost of treating smoking-related illnesses for the state's more than 30,000 inmates. Washington, 53, sued the state because he said he kept getting paired in a cell with a heavy smoker despite doctor's orders that he be held in a smoke-free area. The case has been working its way through the federal courts for a decade. Washington, who used to be known as Willie Simmons, was sentenced to death in 1989 for the murders of two St. Louis women. His sentence was later reduced to life in prison. "This is a win ultimately for the people who work and live in Missouri's correctional facilities," Zeeck notes. State officials haven't announced details of their plan to eliminate smoking at 21 correctional facilities.
– Polar bears apparently have more to worry about than sea ice. The US thinks too many are being hunted in Canada and will push for an international ban on the trade of polar bear pelts, claws, teeth, and other body parts, reports the Los Angeles Times. If the US convinces the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to go along at its next meeting in March, polar bear skins would be as protected as elephant ivory. By most estimates, up to 25,000 polar bears exist in the world, and two-thirds of those are in Canada. Native Inuits would still be allowed to hunt the bears, but they would no longer be able to sell on the international market. They promise to fight the move, reports the CBC. "The polar bear population is very healthy right now and traditional knowledge says that the numbers are increasing,” says one rep. The US tried and failed a few years ago to get the designation in place, but it might have a better shot this time because Russia is on board.
– Another big lead, but yet more frustration in the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Officials say a Thai satellite has detected "300 objects of various sizes" floating near the search area in the Indian Ocean, reports the AP. Another set of satellite images released yesterday showed 122 "potential objects"—but severe weather prevented planes from searching the area today, Reuters reports. Some 11 military and civilian aircraft had been on the way to the area, but the forecast "was calling for severe icing, severe turbulence, and near-zero visibility," a US Navy spokesman says. "Anybody who's out there is coming home and all additional sorties from here are canceled." The latest images, together with the possible debris field spotted by a French satellite, add to what the BBC calls "a growing body of circumstantial evidence" suggesting the flight came down in a remote part of the Indian Ocean—though the Boeing 777's black boxes could now be hundreds of miles away from any floating debris. The son of pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, meanwhile, has rejected claims his father may have been on a "suicide mission," reports the Sydney Morning Herald. "I've read everything online," says the 26-year-old, the first family member to speak out publicly. "But I've ignored all the speculation. I know my father better." A US Navy black box detector is on the way to the area, but experts fear the pinging will soon be too weak to detect, meaning it could be years before the mystery of the plane's disappearance can be solved. "Given the remoteness of the site and the depth of the water and the weather down there, the black box will be almost impossible to find," an aviation expert tells the Telegraph. "It will then be a case of digging through the wreckage field, possibly for a couple of years."
– Space fans will have to hold off on popping the champagne cork. After the American Geophysical Union declared this morning that Voyager 1 had achieved the mind-boggling feat of leaving our solar system, NASA threw a wet blanket on the party, at least temporarily, reports Time. “It is the consensus of the Voyager science team that Voyager 1 has not yet left the solar system or reached interstellar space," says project scientist Edward Stone. The AGU later toned down its press release. The spacecraft, launched in 1977, is at the very least close to the edge of the solar system, but NASA says it needs more data, specifically the detection of a "change in the direction of the magnetic field," to declare Voyager the first interstellar traveler, reports Space.com. The fact that it's in such new territory is what makes verification tricky. "It is actually a very difficult problem identifying exactly where the solar system ends and interstellar space begins," writes Adam Mann at Wired.
– The Baltimore Orioles beat the Chicago White Sox 8-2 today in a game notable for this announcement at Camden Yards: "Today's official paid attendance is zero." This week's Baltimore riots resulted in an unprecedented fans-free contest described by the AP as "one of the strangest games in baseball history." Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post writes that "it was, by turns, eerie and amusing, comical and poignant." One of the comical bits: Orioles catcher Caleb Joseph signed autographs for adoring—and imaginary—fans. Also weird: Nobody was there to run after foul balls and home runs.
– Thieves have made off with the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign that spans a gate at Auschwitz. The sign—which reads "Work Makes You Free" in German—was unscrewed and carried away overnight, AP reports. Police have no suspects but they are reviewing surveillance video footage and pursuing several theories. "It's a terrible thing," an official at the Auschwitz museum told the BBC. "The sign means everything—it's a symbol of what Auschwitz stands for. But a place where hundreds of thousands of people died obviously doesn't mean anything to the thieves."
– If you're afraid of heights, stop reading. As of June 25, the city of Los Angeles will boast a most unique attraction: a glass slide that hangs 1,000 feet above it, attached to the side of what has been the West Coast's tallest building since 1990. The US Bank Tower is about to lose that honor to the Wilshire Grand, notes Gizmodo, but it's not planning to lose its place in the spotlight. The US Bank Tower clocks in at 72 stories, and the building's owner intends to install the opening of a 46-foot-long glass slide on the 70th floor. It's the brainchild of Singapore-based OUE Ltd., which bought the building three years ago and is sinking $50 million into a rehab of it. You can pay $25 to enter the new rooftop complex—OUE Skyspace LA will also contain a bar and observation deck—and then another $8 to scoot your way down to the 69th floor, reports the Los Angeles Times. The slide will be 4 feet wide and made of 1.25-inch-thick glass. Curbed Los Angeles notes that one rendering of the Skyslide "shows a totally calm person casually moving through the slide with arms overhead like this is merely Splash Mountain and not an $8 near-death experience." CNN notes it joins a number of similarly see-through attractions in the US, such as the ones at the Willis Tower and Grand Canyon. But is Skyslide scarier than this glass tourist attraction?
– Have skeletal remains lying around at home? Yeah, that's a bit of a problem—as Amador Medina learned when police accused him of keeping five disinterred bodies at his Hartford, Conn., apartment. Medina, 32, allegedly paid someone to dig up the three adults and two children for use in the Afro-Cuban religion of Santeria, the Hartford Courant reports. According to police, Medina is a Santeria priest who arranged the bodies into shrines with candles and statues. Some bodies were taken apart while others were mostly whole, kept in trash bags with holes ripped to show the skulls. Seems they were removed earlier this year from a mausoleum in Worcester, Mass., where they'd been for around 71 years, the Republican reports. No relatives have yet been found. "The age of the deceased, as well as how long they have been deceased, is relevant in how they use those remains in their medicinal value" in Santeria, a Hartford police deputy tells NBC Los Angeles. But Imna Arroyo, a professor at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, tells WTNH that the Medina case casts "a very negative light" on Santeria. She says the religion, which blends West African and Catholic beliefs, does use chickens during ceremonies—but only Medina can explain the use of human bodies. Medina will be charged with five counts of conspiracy to disinter bodies, disinterment of bodies, and accessory to breaking and entering with felony intent.
– After many thousands of years roaming much of central Asia, the saiga antelope has had a terrible couple of decades—and a devastating few weeks. A mysterious illness that causes severe diarrhea and breathing difficulties has wiped out what could be up to half of the remaining population of the species, New Scientist reports. Officials in Kazakhstan say the disease has killed 85,000 of an estimated world population of 257,000 since about May 10, but experts say they've heard unofficial estimates closer to 120,000. The species—known for its distinctive tubular nose, the AP reports—numbered more than a million in the 1990s but has been in decline since, thanks in large part to poachers, and was already considered critically endangered before the latest die-off. "It's very dramatic and traumatic, with 100% mortality," the leader of an international team investigating the outbreak tells New Scientist. "I know of no example in history with this level of mortality, killing all the animals and all the calves." The team, which has been taking soil and vegetation samples, believes the mass deaths may have been caused by a bacterial infection or by a virus carried by mosquitoes, Smithsonian reports. Whatever the culprit, it has been able to cause a staggering death toll because the population's females all have their calves in the same week, allowing disease to spread quickly, New Scientist notes. (In better news for an endangered species, the US government says most humpback whale populations have rebounded.)
– In retaliation for Russia's election-influencing hacking, the Obama administration is kicking 35 Russian intelligence operatives out of the US, the New York Times reports. The operatives, who Reuters refers to as diplomats, are part of the Russian embassy in Washington DC and the Russian consulate in San Francisco. They'll have 72 hours to leave the country. The White House also placed new sanctions on Russia's FSB and GRU intelligence agencies, according to AFP. The agencies are believed to have been involved in hacking the Democratic National Committee and others. Finally, the administration is closing Russian compounds in Maryland and New York believed to be used for intelligence purposes. The Times calls it the "strongest American response ever taken to a state-sponsored cyberattack." Obama calls the response both "necessary and appropriate." "I have ordered a number of actions in response to the Russian government's aggressive harassment of US officials and cyber operations aimed at the US election," Obama said in a statement. The State Department says US officials in Moscow are regularly harassed by Russian security agents and traffic police; Thursday's actions are in response to that on top of election-related hacking. The move puts the onus on Donald Trump to lift the sanctions when he takes office, officially signalling that US intelligence agencies can't be trusted. When asked about the situation Wednesday, Trump said: "The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on."
– The death toll from last night's stampede in Shanghai has risen to 36 as families demand answers about why so many people—hundreds of thousands—were allowed to gather in one area with so little crowd control. Among the developments: Lack of police: Authorities were worried days in advance about crowds and canceled all formal events at the riverfront area known as the Bund. As a result, "we did not arrange for as many police officers as last year's national day," says a police commander quoted by the BBC. Fake money thrown: China's Xinhua's news service quotes a witness who says someone threw coupons that looked like US dollar bills from the third floor of a building overlooking the Bund, which set off a scramble. But police quickly rejected that as the cause of the crush. "This incident happened after the stampede," said a police statement. Raised platform: A different witness says the main problem seemed to be at a different area, where throngs of people were trying to get onto a raised platform overlooking the river, reports Reuters. "We were caught in the middle and saw some girls falling while screaming. Then people started to fall down, row by row." Chinese President Xi Jinping today demanded a thorough investigation.
– It's the perfect job for someone who prefers the minimum amount of human interaction. The French government is looking for a couple to take care of the deserted Brittany island of Quemenes. The mile-long island in the Molene archipelago off the Breton coast was occupied by humans for thousands of years, but the last owners left 25 years ago. The Conservatoire du Littoral (French Coastal Protection Agency, per the Mirror) bought the island, which includes a farm, and selected David and Soizic Cuisnier to run it and take care of the flock of sheep living on it. That was in 2007, and the couple and their two children, ages 7 and 5, are ready to move on, leaving a job opening, the BBC reports. Unfortunately for would-be island caretakers, the deadline for applications is over and the Conservatoire has narrowed it down to a shortlist of applicants. "We received around 60 inquiries and 40 applications, but only 15 or so of those were serious," a manager tells the Local. A decision is expected by October or November. "Coming here was an act of glorious folly," David Cuisnier tells the BBC. "But it turned into the most wonderful adventure. We developed the farm into a successful business. We raised a family. It has been unforgettable." The Cuisniers' lease required them to earn a livelihood, which they did by growing and selling potatoes, gathering edible seaweed, and running a B&B for half the year, among other things. They could also use only the resources provided by the island, meaning they get electricity from a wind turbine and solar panels, and water from a well.
– The writer who covers the books beat at the Guardian has some advice for fellow readers that might sound like heresy: When you're halfway through a novel, skip ahead and read the ending. Danuta Kean does this routinely and makes the case that knowing how things turn out doesn't ruin anything—in fact, it makes the book more enjoyable. If the ending works, she goes back and finishes the whole thing. But if it's weak, she moves on to something new, and that's the bigger point. "Not only does knowing the end mean I can enjoy the scenery, but it means I am insured against that dreadful crime—the Bad Ending," she writes. They're way too common, she writes, and they "don’t just betray the characters, they betray the reader." Kean runs this by actual novelists, who generally sound a little horrified that any reader would do this. “When you spend such a very long time carefully crafting pace and reveal, you do rather want the reader to trust you," says Rowan Coleman, who adds some reading advice of her own. "I can tell if I trust a writer from chapter one. If I don’t, I don’t read on.” Kean is undeterred, however. She even cites a study out of the University of California San Diego that found spoilers don't hurt readers' enjoyment. Researchers discovered that "once a reader knew how the story ended, they were able to enjoy a deeper experience of the prose," writes Kean. "My point exactly." (Click for the full piece.)
– What name is worthy for a ferocious flying insect that swoops down on supposedly indestructible cockroaches, paralyzes them with its devastating sting, then drags them off into a corner to devour them? "Soul-Sucking Dementor" sounded pretty good to visitors at Berlin's Museum fuer Naturkunde. They were offered the chance to crowdsource a moniker for the wasp (official name: Ampulex dementor) discovered last year in Thailand's Mekong region, reports CNN. The inspiration for the name? Creatures in the Harry Potter series that "feed upon human happiness, and thus cause depression and despair to anyone near them … and are known to leave a person as an 'empty-shell.'" Luckily for us, SSD's favorite meal isn't humans, but cockroaches, and it will do whatever it takes to get what it wants—to wit, by pumping venom into its prey's belly until it "turns the roach into a passive zombie," the World Wildlife Fund explains in a press release introducing some of the 139 new species discovered last year in the Greater Mekong. Letting the public choose the wasp's name had a specific purpose, as described in Plos One: "to link museum visitors emotionally to biodiversity and its discovery." The name resonated especially well with one particular person: JK Rowling. The Harry Potter creator, who's been on fire lately on Twitter, retweeted the WWF's post thanking her for the inspiration for the name. (But could the Soul-Sucking Dementor have taken on this monstrous cockroach?)
– Three months after the Royal Wedding, the Windsors are gathering for a royal wedding: Zara Phillips, Queen Elizabeth's oldest granddaughter, today will marry British rugby star Mike Tindall in a quiet ceremony in Edinburgh, reports the BBC. The ceremony marks the first royal wedding in Scotland since the second marriage of Phillips' mother, Princess Anne, in 1992. Phillips, a noted equestrian who does not use a royal title, is 13th in line to the throne. Crowds descended on Edinburgh, hoping to catch a glimpse of more famous royals: "I do like Zara, but I'm also hoping to catch a glimpse of William, Kate, and Harry," said one watcher. Those gathered were not disappointed—William, Catherine, and Harry were spotted last night attending a pre-wedding party aboard a royal yacht. Catherine was even wearing a recycled dress, notes People. Click through the gallery for photos.
– Warren Buffett, who watchers had expected to buy a beer distributor, made a recent bet on wine instead, reports Business Insider, in a move that reflects the drinking habits of aging baby boomers. A subsidiary of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has a deal in place to buy Empire Distributing, a niche wine distributor based in Atlanta and operating in Georgia and North Carolina—and he probably paid top dollar, reports Wine & Spirits Daily. Why? Well, the same Wine & Spirits post notes that, according to a recent Nielsen study, wine is one of the biggest spending categories for seniors, who shell out $124 on it per year. Boomers spend even more—$125, compared to $78 for gen x'ers and $61 for millennials. The deal isn't expected to be Buffett's last in the wine industry.
– Richard Kirk will not be going on trial for the murder of his wife—and neither will the "Karma Kandy Orange Ginger" marijuana edible he blames the killing on. The 50-year-old Denver man was sentenced to 30 years in prison Friday after he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the April 2014 shooting death of his wife, Kristine, the AP reports. During a 13-minute call with a 911 dispatcher, Kristine Kirk said her husband was hallucinating and getting a gun after consuming marijuana-infused candy. Her family is suing the maker and seller of the pot edible. Kirk claimed the marijuana candy caused delirium and psychotic-like symptoms, though prosecutors noted that he was sober enough to remember the code to his gun safe. One of Kirk's public defenders told the judge Friday that they had been ready to prove that marijuana led to the shooting, but Kirk agreed to a plea deal to save his three sons from having to testify, the Denver Post. Kirk admitted it had been his choice to buy and consume the marijuana, but said he didn't know it would affect him the way it did. "I know with certainty if I did not ingest that marijuana edible, Kris would still be here today," he said. Kirk's sons, who are now 15, 14, and 10, were present during the shooting. As part of the plea deal, Kirk relinquished custody of the boys to his wife's parents. He is banned from contacting them until the end of a five-year probation period that will follow his sentence.
– Have a favorite food you find yourself eating day in and day out? If it's healthy, new research suggests you should stop feeling guilty about it, because eating "everything in moderation" may not be as healthy as we think. Reporting in the journal PLoS ONE, researchers say that based on a survey of the number of foods that 6,814 white, black, Hispanic, and Chinese Americans eat in a week, people who ate the greatest variety of food actually had the worst metabolic health and diets. Those achieving greater diversity "were eating less healthy foods, such as fruits and vegetables, and more unhealthy foods, such as processed meats, desserts and soda," says the lead researcher. Not surprisingly, these were the people with thicker waistlines and higher risks of developing type 2 diabetes 10 years later. "Americans with the healthiest diets actually eat a relatively small range of healthy foods," one author at Tufts University says in a press release. "These results suggest that in modern diets, eating 'everything in moderation' is actually worse than eating a smaller number of healthy foods." Meanwhile, recent research shows that processed, red meats likely increase the risk of certain cancers, while low-fat diets don’t necessarily result in weight loss. In other words, "The way we’re used to eating is wrong," reports Forbes. (If you really want to lose weight, research says, don't eat animals.)
– So much for the weekend plans of the United States Senate: The Chicago Tribune notes that Harry Reid said today he'll hold session every single day "from now until Congress passes legislation that prevents the United States from defaulting on our obligations." While little progress was made last week, President Obama met with John Boehner and Eric Cantor in secret yesterday in an effort to get deficit talks back on track before the Aug. 2 deadline, adds Politico. “We're making progress,” he said today. Republicans are expected to vote tomorrow on a measure requiring congressional approval of a budget amendment to the Constitution before the debt ceiling is raised—a measure Obama bluntly says he would veto, reports the Washington Post. But some 40 House GOPers say they won't touch the debt ceiling without such a "cut, cap, and balance” measure. “There will be a fringe that believes that playing with Armageddon is a good idea, but I don’t think that’s where the majority will be,” says Obama's budget director.
– Rick Perry today weighed in on last night's big debate moment—the $10,000 bet. "I was taken a little aback" by Mitt Romney's wager, Perry said on Fox News Sunday, Politico reports. "Driving out to the station this morning I'm pretty sure I didn’t drive by a house that anyone in Iowa would think a $10,000 bet was possible. It was a little out of touch with the normal Iowa citizen." (Perry also addressed a recent gaffe of his own, explaining, "I don’t have memorized all of the Supreme Court judges," but added that Americans "aren’t looking for a robot that can spit out the name of every Supreme Court justice … They're looking for somebody who's got values.") Elsewhere on the Sunday dial: Former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu, at least, was on Romney's side when it came to the aforementioned bet. "He used a figure of speech," Sununu said on State of the Union. "I think the only thing that will come out of that is to remind people about a $500,000 outstanding bill at Tiffany’s." Speaking of Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann slammed him on Face the Nation. "His offices are on the Rodeo Drive of Washington called K Street. He’s the king of K Street. So for a person who’s been influence peddling for over 30 years in Washington DC, to think that Newt Gingrich is somehow an outsider when he is the consummate establishment insider, he’s the big government candidate just like Mitt Romney is the big government candidate, that’s not what we want in our nominee." Ron Paul piled on Gingrich too, saying the former House Speaker may not be legally obligated to pay back his Freddie Mac consulting fees, but he is "morally" obligated to do so. Also while on Meet the Press, Paul said he's not ruling out a third-party run. Click to see what the consequences of such a run might be. Sen. Lindsey Graham was one who didn't slam Gingrich on Meet the Press. "He's been out of government for a long time; he's matured as a person. He's reattached himself to his faith," said Graham, who didn't endorse Gingrich but said he would support him if he wins the nomination. Iowa's governor said Mitt Romney will never win the state's primary with his cautious approach. "I think he's starting to understand that he's going to have to get much more aggressive; he's going to have to spend more time here," Gov. Terry Branstad said on Meet the Press.
– Idaho police are starting to enforce a new law targeting slow drivers hanging out in the passing lanes of highways. Two drivers have been cited as of July 27 for driving too slowly in the left lane since the law took effect July 1, the Idaho Press reported Monday. Idaho State Police have given warnings to three other drivers, with the Press noting these five stops are dwarfed by the 2,495 speeding tickets given out in the same period. Most people expect the general traffic to stay in the right lane and leave the left lanes open for passing, said Lt. Shawn Staley. "If vehicles are moving slower, it can cause accidents and crashes," he said. The law doesn't specify how much time it should take for slow cars to move over to the right lane, reports the AP. Staley expects it should be within a normal and reasonable time, as determined by troopers. Drivers who hold up traffic by going below the speed limit in the left lane could face a $90 fine, Staley said. State Rep. Lance Clow of Idaho Falls sponsored the bill. The Republican doesn't expect state troopers to actively look for slow drivers, but said they have a new tool if needed. Those driving the speed limit in the left lanes will not be fined even if they "impede" drivers who want to speed, Staley said. "If you're going the lawful rate of speed, another person shouldn't push up behind you," he said.
– Driver’s licenses—who needs ‘em? No one, according to a Republican lawmaker in Georgia. State Rep. Bobby Franklin is sponsoring the “Right to Travel Act,” a bill that says everyone has the “constitutional right to travel on the roads and highways”—and that, therefore, requiring drivers to be licensed infringes on that right. “Agents of the state demanding your papers,” Franklin explains to CBS Atlanta. “We’re getting that way here. … Why do you need to know who’s who” on the roads? What about the problem of kids driving? Franklin answers that there’s nothing stopping them from driving now anyway. This isn’t the first weird bill Franklin’s behind, Talking Points Memo notes: He’s also introduced a bill that would require gold and silver to be used when paying debts to the state, a bill that would ban forced vaccinations, bills to do away with Georgia’s income tax and all property taxes, and one especially strange one that would guarantee everyone’s right to potentially harm another person.
– Art often imitates life, and that will ring true for none other than Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg this summer as she throws off her court garb and dons stage attire for her role in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Vox reports. The 83-year-old justice's cameo appearance in the July performance will take place in its namesake Italian city, which is marking the 500th anniversary of Venice's Jewish ghetto, ABC News reports. Ginsburg will play a judge holding court over the trial of the loan shark Shylock. Ginsburg is no first-time performer: In 2014, Politico noted she's found her way onto DC stages before, including playing Dick the Butcher in Henry VI, in which she spoke the line: "First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers," with her own ad-libbed "…and next the reporters" tacked onto the end. (More on the Venice ghetto's anniversary in the Washington Post.)
– A file containing all of WikiLeaks’ 251,000 US State Department cables has—wait for it—leaked online, this time without the names of US sources redacted, meaning many of them could be in danger. The file leaked out thanks to some misunderstandings, some carelessness, and the feud between Julian Assange and former spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg, Der Spiegel reports. The leak was first reported in the German newsweekly Der Freitag, according to TechCrunch. When Domscheit-Berg left WikiLeaks in September 2010, he took the server containing the encrypted file of the original cables with him. When he returned a number of the files later that year, some WikiLeaks supporters dumped the data online—unaware that the file was tucked among the others. Even then it was still encrypted and hidden—until this spring, when an Assange contact revealed the password publicly, unaware it would allow access to the cables. Now, Domscheit-Berg’s rival group, OpenLeaks, is drawing attention to the lapse, to bolster its argument that WikiLeaks data isn’t secure.
– A Minnesota mom says her parental rights have been violated, and she's suing a school district, county health boards, local health-care groups—and her own transgender daughter—to get them back, NBC News reports. Anmarie Calgaro appeared at a Wednesday press conference, taking issue with a Minnesota law that allowed her 17-year-old to begin transitioning from male to female via hormone replacement treatments without her consent or knowledge. Per her complaint, Calgaro says a nonprofit helped her daughter (whom she still refers to as her "son") receive a "letter of emancipation" unbeknownst to her; her child subsequently began receiving "dangerous hormonal drugs" to transition, per a Facebook post. "Why wasn't I even notified?" she said as she started to cry. Meanwhile, the June 2015 emancipation document reviewed by NBC states Calgaro didn't want to have "any contact" with her child, who had been living apart from Calgaro and self-supported financially for the prior six months. A press release from a law firm repping Calgaro says the teen "has been handled by the defendants as an emancipated minor despite no court action to that effect." But NBC notes Minnesota has no legal emancipation process; rather, the state simply allows for kids living apart from parents and taking care of their own finances to make their own medical decisions. Per the Twin Cities Pioneer Press, Calgaro says she's not against the gender change, but she wants "him to slow down." Transgender advocates have framed Calgaro's use of "son" and male pronouns as "not only insensitive but also really harmful." (The Supreme Court will hear a teen transgender case.)
– Barely a day after the devastating attacks in Paris, the show went on for Saturday Night Live—but not without a salute to the grieving French capital, reports Rolling Stone. "Paris is the city of light, and here in New York City, we know that light will never go out," a teary Cecily Strong said, in lieu of the show's traditional cold opening. "Our love and support is with everyone there tonight. We stand with you." She repeated the message in French, then kicked the show off with SNL's traditional, "And now, live from New York, it's Saturday night." The show has forgone its cold opening one other times, notes the New York Times: The show after the 9/11 attacks.
– China and India are in the midst of a potentially volatile border dispute centering on just 34 square miles and an unpaved road. Last month, Indian troops confronted Chinese workers trying to extend a road in a contested area known as the Doklam Plateau at the point where China, India, and Indian ally Bhutan meet. Both Bhutan and China have a claim to the area because of an ambiguous 1890 border agreement. China has vowed to avoid talks until Indian forces withdraw, but India isn't backing down, bringing the two countries, both of which have nuclear weapons, "near the brink of conflict," reports the New York Times. The latest: The advantage: Experts say China has the upper hand because of the strength of its armed forces, per Bloomberg. And it apparently knows it. Addressing India, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi says the solution is "very simple. That is, behave yourself and humbly retreat." The road ahead: A scholar at the American Foreign Policy Council sees similarities between this border dispute and another that led to war between China and India in 1962. He tells the Times that while a negotiated settlement is most likely, war is possible. Veiled threats: Editorials appearing in Chinese state-owned media have stressed China's victory in the 1962 Sino-Indian War. One published in the Global Times notes India "will suffer greater losses than in 1962 if it incites military conflicts." India's response: While New Delhi is holding strong, the Times of India notes "the stridency of Chinese rhetoric has been progressively matched by an equally conciliatory tone by India." 'Chicken neck': India's problem is that an armed conflict could result in China taking control of a strip of land near the disputed area, which connects India to its northern territories. The Times notes the loss of this land, known as the "chicken neck," would mean "cutting off 45 million Indians and an area the size of the United Kingdom." Suspected US involvement: An editorial in China's Global Times suggests Washington is "instigating a military clash between China and India, from which they can seek strategic benefits at no cost to themselves," per the Times of India. A resolution in the works? A top Indian official met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Friday as part of a larger meeting with representatives from other countries, reports NDTV. It isn't clear what was discussed.
– Couples who constantly "Netflix and chill" aren't necessarily happier. In fact, having sex once a week is just about perfect. That's the takeaway from a new study, based on surveys of more than 30,000 Americans gathered over 40 years, published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. After previous research found more wealth wasn't actually associated with greater happiness, lead author Amy Muise began to wonder if the same was true for sex, "an aspect of life that is thought to be associated with greater happiness," she says, per Time. However, researchers found that while couples who have sex once a week are happier than those who have sex less often, "having sex more frequently than once a week was not associated with greater well-being." The findings held regardless of gender, age, or the length of a relationship. The study found couples who had sex less than once a month and those who knocked boots once a week reported a difference in life satisfaction that was even greater than that reported by couples who earn $15,000 to $25,000 annually and those who earn $50,000 to $75,000, according to a release. Muise isn't sure why having sex once a week seems to be ideal, but it may "be the frequency that people feel is enough to maintain their intimate connection," she says. The "big problem" one researcher not involved found with the study is that it identifies correlation, not causation. "People are basically having as much sex as they want, and for some reason ... [those who do it] about once a week seem to be happier," George Loewenstein tells the Guardian (see his sex research here). As for single people, Muise says researchers found no link between sexual frequency and happiness among that group. (It turns out men and women want sex at different times of the day.)
– With Fukushima's radioactive leak now leakier, Japan's nuclear agency plans to up the alert level of the problem from a one to a three, reports the BBC—that's from an "anomaly" to a "serious incident," per the UN's International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. For some perspective, the 2011 meltdown was a level seven, or a "major accident." Still, if the UN's nuclear agency OKs the upgrade, this would be the first time Japan has issued a warning since the original meltdown, notes Reuters. Since the new leak was found, teams have been surrounding the affected tank with sandbags and trying to vacuum up puddles of radioactive water. But most of the water has already been absorbed into the ground, reports the BBC, and the chairman of the Japanese agency fears more tanks will follow suit soon. "We should assume that what has happened once could happen again, and prepare for more," he says, per the AP. "We are at a situation where there is no time to waste."
– Xi Jinping, the man expected to become China's new leader next month, appeared in public again today, this time to meet with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, reports the Washington Post. Xi's sudden and unexplained cancellation of several high profile meetings, including one with Hillary Clinton, had fueled rampant rumors about his well being. But Xi appeared energetic, notes the AP, smiling and exchanging a handshake and a few words with Panetta in front of the cameras. The two met for more than an hour. "Frankly my impression was that he was very healthy and very engaged," Panetta said afterward.
– A Dutch company is looking for volunteers to fly to Mars in 2022. Just one catch: the ticket is one-way. Mars One announced its intentions to colonize the red planet last year, and is now accepting applications from everyday astronauts willing to give up the rest of their lives for the mission. Anyone over the age of 18 can apply (so long as they pay the $38 application fee) and so far more than 10,000 people have registered their interest, CNN reports. "Psychological skills will be the main selection criteria we will use," says Mars One co-founder Bas Lansdorp. The mission will be part science experiment, part reality show, reports NPR. Lansdorp says he has consulted with the creator of Big Brother, and believes broadcast rights to the quest could help cover the $6 billion price tag of the ambitious journey. "It will stay interesting for a very, very long time," he says. "We are already receiving a lot of interest from [broadcasters]."
– The mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has become even more baffling: US investigators believe the plane flew on for four hours after its last contact with air traffic controllers, meaning it could be anywhere in a huge area ranging from India to Australia to the southern tip of Japan, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal that cites "two people familiar with the details." But Malaysia's transportation minister wasted no time in quashing the WSJ report; calling it "inaccurate," he claims that both Boeing and Rolls Royce (the maker of the engines) also deny it, and says no transmissions were received from the plane after it lost contact, CNN reports. The Journal's sources say aviation investigators base their belief on data automatically transmitted from the Boeing 777's engines to the ground. An aviation industry observer had already thrown cold water on the report, noting that it was "almost unbelievable" the plane could have flown for that long without being spotted or picked up by any radar. Vietnamese and Malaysian authorities, meanwhile, have found no trace of debris where satellite images indicated there could be floating pieces of the plane.
– New Zealanders Graeme and Jan Bickley were on vacation in Fiji, strolling on the popular Natadola Beach when Graeme noticed a package wrapped in green cloth not far from shore, reports the BBC. "I scrambled in and grabbed hold, it was very, very heavy," he says. "I dropped it on the sand and you could hear there were rocks in it. I looked at the shape of it, and thought: 'This isn't looking good.'" The human head inside is just the latest body part to wash ashore in recent weeks. DNA tests confirmed two pairs of human feet found on the same beach—also wrapped and weighed down with rocks—came from a Russian couple, reported missing from their vegetable farm on Fiji's main island of Viti Levu on June 16, reports the Telegraph. A vehicle belonging to Yuri Shipulin and Nataliya Gerasimova—who moved to Fiji in 2011, per the Guardian—was found at Natadola Beach shortly after their disappearance with the keys in the ignition. Police believe a chainsaw was also missing from their farm. A friend says Shipulin, a former pilot in the Russian air force, was owed up to $200,000 from several failed businesses on the island; a cyclone that damaged the couple's farm in February apparently pushed them deeper into financial turmoil. "Yuri would give you the shirt off his back, he was too trusting and he was taken to the cleaners by unscrupulous people," the friend says. "It was his first time off the block in paradise and he was living lavishly and burning the candle at both ends." Divers have begun a search of the beach, which could take weeks, per the Fiji Sun. (A woman says she found a human face in a carwash.)
– North Carolina's voter ID law isn't just wrong, it's unconstitutional: That novel argument will be heard this week at a hearing where students are joining the NAACP, ACLU, the Justice Department, and voter-registration advocates in a challenge against law HB 589, the New York Times reports. The students' legal reps will argue that North Carolina's law contradicts the 26th Amendment, which states that a voter's rights "shall not be denied or abridged ... on account of age." The amendment also made 18-year-olds eligible to vote. North Carolina's law invalidated student ID cards at the polls and eliminated same-day registration, among other things. Critics say the state's GOP-controlled general assembly passed HB 589 to disenfranchise voters likely to support Democrats, like students and minority members. But supporters say it's a fraud-prevention effort that's even more fair because it's being rolled out gradually; they also say minority turnout didn't decline in last year's primaries. "There was no voter suppression," a GOP state senator told WRAL. "Actually we had some good turnouts for a primary election." The law followed swiftly after the Supreme Court nixed a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act last year, the Guardian notes. That provision had forced nine states, North Carolina included, to get federal approval before altering voting rules.
– A mother in Kansas has her hands full after giving birth to her third set of twins in just over two years, the AP reports. Per WDAF-TV, 20-year-old Danesha Couch of Kansas City, Kan., says she hasn't undergone any fertility treatments and realizes that some people might consider her "a freak of nature." Couch delivered two boys 26 months ago. One of them died, but the survivor, Danarius, is a busy toddler. She also has twin 1-year-olds, Delilah and Davina, and last month, Dalanie and Darla were born. They just arrived home after three weeks in neonatal intensive care. Couch says she loves babies and that the only misgivings she has about her situation is in "the timing." But even that she's taking in stride. "I'm really happy that I can even create babies or have life because some women can't do that," she says. She says she has applied for benefits and been denied, so she set up a GoFundMe page to help pay for expenses for her five little ones. "I try best i can as a mother but sometimes i need help and honestly im not to proud to ask," she writes. Couch and her fiance, who's the dad of two of the sets of twins, plan to marry in September, but she says they don't plan to have any other children for at least 10 years.
– Inmate NN7687, otherwise known as Bill Cosby, spent his first night behind bars at Pennsylvania's State Correctional Institute at Phoenix on Tuesday. CNN takes a look at the maximum security prison, which opened in June in suburban Philadelphia some 20 miles from Cosby's home and has 3,830 beds. The network describes it as "state of the art," with a prison official touting its "advanced security features, environmentally efficient infrastructure, and modern work and housing spaces." While the AP noted the 81-year-old might not serve the entirety of his three- to 10-year sentence there, prison officials on Wednesday announced SCI Phoenix is where he will remain. The AP reports he's currently in a cell by himself that's located near the infirmary. Corrections Secretary John Wetzel says the ultimate goal is to move him into the general population, but that his safety is paramount. A rep for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections tells PennLive the oldest inmates in the state are two 91-year-olds; anyone over 50 is classified as elderly, and most of the state's facilities are Americans With Disabilities Act-certified.
– The latest jobs report might have President Trump tweet-boasting again. Employers added 211,000 jobs in April, more than expected, following a poor showing of just 79,000 in March. (The latter figure was revised downward from an already weak 98,000.) The unemployment rate, meanwhile, ticked down to 4.4% from 4.5%, the lowest point in a decade, reports the AP. The rate had been expected to hold steady or even rise a bit. The current figure means that the US is at or near what economists consider "full employment," notes the Wall Street Journal, meaning that pretty much anyone looking for a job could get one. "This just adds to the perception that it's going to be easier and easier to find a job if you want one these days," an analyst at Fitch Ratings tells CNBC, adding that it should in theory lead to raises. "If it's easier for (workers) to get a job outside their company, they're more likely to push for higher wages." The latest report shows that there's room for that to happen. Average hourly wages rose 7 cents in April to $26.19, up 2.7% from last month and 2.5% over the last year. That's seen as solid, but not great—when an economy is in full swing, wages typically rise between 3% and 4%, notes MarketWatch.
– An interesting photo of a teenaged Diana Spencer, taken years before she became a princess, goes up for auction later this month, reports the Huffington Post. It shows Diana, probably around age 18, relaxing in a ski chalet with a friend named Adam Russell, reports NBC News with help from the Guardian. A bottle of whiskey sits on a nearby windowsill. They weren't a couple, though Diana biographer Andrew Morton says Russell was "smitten" with her. The photo has "Not to Be Published" written across it, and it's expected to fetch at least $1,000 at New Hampshire's RR Auction house when a week of bidding ends on Jan. 24.
– Residents of a suburb of St. Louis, Mo., will hold a candlelight vigil for dead deer tomorrow night. It may sound silly, but residents are also protesting the hefty sum that Town and Country officials have paid to thin the animal's population over the last few years. Vigil organizers say in a press release that the town is forking over "$46,000 to kill 100 deer on as little as two-acre parcels" and has hired out-of-state sharpshooters to handle the job. The goal was to squash the number of car-deer collisions, but organizers say that hasn't happened, KMOX reports. Per the town's deer management reporting, 30 verified car-deer collisions occurred in 2014, compared with 38 in 2013; a 2014 report compiled by Town and Country notes that 87 deer were "harvested" over eight days in January of that year. Resident Barbara Ann Hughes—who has organized the vigil—argues in the release that "biologists on the national level have studied the issue and concur that lethal methods of deer management are NOT effective in an urban setting." But Newser did find one study published in 2008 in Human-Wildlife Conflicts that reviewed suburban sharpshooting management programs in Iowa City, Iowa; Princeton, NJ; and Solon, Ohio. Local deer herds were reduced by 76%, 72%, and 54%, respectively, and deer-vehicle collisions dropped 78%, 75%, and 49%. (In Wisconsin, the deer fight back.)
– Two Oscar winners do not a happy couple make. At least that appears to be the case for Charlize Theron and Sean Penn, who've reportedly ended their engagement after a year and a half together, multiple sources tell Us Weekly. Theron, 39, who recently told Elle magazine's UK edition that Penn, 54, was "the love of my life," is said to have initiated the split, an "insider" tells Us. There's been no official comment from reps for either star, notes People. The couple were seen walking the red carpet together last month at the Cannes Film Festival, the magazine notes, but there haven't been any public sightings in the past few weeks—Penn was seen Tuesday buying magazines and cigarettes from a newsstand in the Brentwood neighborhood of LA, but he was solo. Sources also tell People the two have been living in separate houses, and Penn is said to have yanked his Malibu home off the market after recently putting it up for sale. (Penn filed papers to adopt Theron's son earlier this year.)
– Some 90,000 people who have fled ethnic violence in western Burma are in need of emergency food aid, the United Nations warns. The rape and murder of a Buddhist woman last month, for which two men have been sentenced to death, set off violence between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in which at least 50 people died and thousands of Rohingyas were forced to flee their homes, the AP reports. Some 800,000 Rohingyas live near Burma's border with Bangladesh and neither country recognizes them as citizens. But unlike in previous outbreaks of violence in Burma, the US government has praised the government's response. "This is something we would not have seen in the past. The government is trying to help everybody who needs it, whether that is Rakhine Buddhists or Muslims," an embassy official tells Reuters. He notes that the Burmese government has been quick to ask for help, unlike in the aftermath of 2008's Cyclone Nargis, when the refusal to allow in foreign aid was blamed for thousands of deaths. Aid workers, however, say thousands of people are still in dire conditions almost a week after the violence subsided.
– More than 50 years after the suspicious death of a 7-month-old little girl, her mother has been arrested and charged with the killing. Jeaneen Marie Klokow supposedly died after falling off a sofa in 1957, but relatives thought Ruby C. Klokow, now 74, may have played a role in the death. In 2008, Klokow’s oldest child, James, finally reported his suspicions to police and told them of the abuse Klokow allegedly inflicted on him and his siblings. After a two-year investigation, she was arrested Monday and charged with second-degree murder, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. Police had a tough time investigating the case, because physical evidence and many records were gone. An autopsy, as well as testimony from relatives, helped. Ultimately, Klokow herself admitted she had a hard time raising four children and might have treated her daughter too roughly. Both Jeaneen and another baby sibling, Scott, were disinterred; James believed his mother may also have played a role in Scott’s 1964 death. Klokow admitted causing Jeaneen’s death, but no evidence of foul play was found on Scott’s remains. Click for more on the tragic case, including how Jeaneen actually died.
– Authorities in Belize say an American tourist found face-down in a river on Friday was strangled, ABC 7 reports. Anne Swaney, a 39-year-old executive producer for ABC 7 in Chicago, was staying at the Nabitunich resort in the town of Benque Viejo del Carmen on the Belize-Guatemala border. She was supposed to go on a group horseback ride on Thursday, but stayed back because there were too few horses. Instead, authorities tell ABC, Swaney went to a deck on the river to do yoga. The resort owner reported Swaney missing when she failed to return after nine hours, reports Breaking Belize News. Searchers found Swaney's belongings on the deck by the river; the next morning they found her partially clothed body in the water. Bruises on her neck and lacerations on both sides of her head "led us to believe that she was murdered," the local police superintendent tells CBS Chicago. "We also suspect that she might have been sexually violated." Autopsy results have confirmed that Swaney was strangled, per ABC 7. John H. Idler, president and general manager of ABC 7, says Swaney was an avid traveler and a "trailblazer in the digital news space," adding that she was "a kind person who always had a smile and a positive attitude." There is no nationwide tourist advisory for Belize, ABC 7 notes, but visitors are advised to be cautious—especially in the Cayo District, where Swaney was killed—because of an increase in crimes against tourists in the Central American country in recent years.
– The price of a postage stamp will soon go back down from 49 cents, thanks to a US appeals court. The US Postal Service instituted a 3-cent increase—its biggest in 11 years—in January of last year in an emergency measure, arguing that it had lost billions in the recession and badly needed to make up for the loss. Regulators agreed, but said USPS could only recoup about $3 billion from the move—and that limit will be hit this summer. The Postal Service had filed a legal challenge to fight to make the increase permanent, but the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit disagreed, the Washington Post reports. It is not clear when, exactly, the roll-back will occur, but no new stamps need to be printed: The USPS never made 49-cent stamps, but simply sold its "Forever" stamps for 49 cents instead of 46 cents. The court noted that the reasoning for the rate increase was "extraordinary financial circumstances," and those circumstances are no longer extraordinary. The economic situation today, post-recession, is "the new normal," and the USPS has to make it work, the court said. The bulk mailing industry had legally challenged the rate increase, and an industry rep praised the decision: "Stamps should be forever, but not surcharges." Interestingly, when the AP reported the court's Friday move, it framed it as a loss for the bulk mail industry, since the court did uphold the temporary rate hike—a 4.3% increase that came on top of the typical 1.7% for inflation—it just didn't agree with the idea of making it permanent. As for when the higher rate will end, the AP says "later this year."
– An Arizona woman's "living nightmare" is over, her lawyers say. But for Debra Milke, her freedom "is bittersweet," she says. "This is not happiness." After 22 years on death row, Milke was cleared of murder charges earlier this week related to the death of her 4-year-old son, who was shot by Milke's roommate and another man in 1989. She was originally convicted of conspiring to murder her son based on the testimony of detective Armando Saldate, who had a history of lying under oath. "I had absolutely nothing to do with the brutal murder of my son, Christopher, and I did not give a confession to Mr. Saldate," an emotional Milke, 51, said in her first comments yesterday, per the Guardian. "I always believed this day would come. I just didn't think it would have to take 25 years, three months, and 14 days to rectify such a blatant miscarriage of justice." "I live with an abiding sense of loss and a chunk of my heart is gone," she continued. "But Christopher's spirit is with me always, which is a comfort to the remaining pieces of my broken heart." Milke's lawyer says there is still a question of motive for Christopher's killers, James Styers and Roger Scott, now on death row. One theory, however, is that Styers killed Milke's son because he wanted a romantic relationship with Milke, who was about to move out. Though the Guardian notes Milke will not be retried, a prosecutor says he could secure another conviction with new witnesses who could testify to incriminating comments Milke made, the AP reports. When asked why bullets in her purse matched the caliber used to kill her son, Milke said she put them there when she found them in Styers' laundry. "Clearly, I forgot they were in my purse," she said. Milke is now pressing for a law forcing police to record all interrogations.
– Gene Simmons set off an Internet firestorm Tuesday when he called Prince's death "pathetic" in an interview with Newsweek. “His drugs killed him," the former KISS frontman says. "What do you think, he died from a cold?” A cause of death has not been established, but prescription painkillers were found with Prince's body. "How pathetic that he killed himself," Simmons continues. "Don’t kid yourself, that’s what he did." Uproxx wasn't surprised by Simmons' thoughts on Prince's death. "If you are looking to hear an obnoxious opinion on a topic, you can often look no further than Simmons to find 10," the site states. Unlike Prince, Simmons tells Newsweek he's never done drugs because, in part, they won't make his penis bigger. If Simmons wanted to make a point about the dangers of drug addiction, Uproxx points out there's probably a better we he could have done it. Simmons does have some praise for the late music superstar. “I think Prince was heads, hands, and feet above all the rest of them," Simmons says. "I thought he left [Michael] Jackson in the dust." He also calls David Bowie's death "tragic" because it was from a "real sickness" as opposed to Prince's supposed drug addiction.
– Lincoln Seay was born July 14 with his heart on the wrong side of his body and immediately went into surgery. By November, doctors told his parents that Lincoln was suffering from end stage heart failure and would have to wait about 90 days to get the new heart he so desperately needed. On Feb. 18, after 89 days, the Alaska couple learned a new heart was on its way at Seattle Children's Hospital. "I think he was about to die on us, (but) right before he fell off the edge, a heart became available," says surgeon Michael McMullan. The drama wasn't over, though. "While they were prepping him for surgery, he coded," writes mom Mindy Seay on a YouCaring page, per the New York Daily News. "His heart stopped." Doctors were able to quickly connect Lincoln to the heart bypass machine that had been set up for the transplant, however. The boy who went into cardiac arrest and turned purple before surgery "woke up with so much energy," Mindy tells ABC News. His dad, Rob Seay, adds, "He was grabbing at my face and pulling my beard." McMullan expects Lincoln will be able to go home in a few months. "I hope he plays football or does whatever he wants to do," he tells the Seattle Times. "He's supposed to live." His new golf-ball-sized heart should last about 20 years, he adds. Nothing is known about the child who donated the heart because of privacy restrictions, but "it had to be a young child," McMullan says. "I will treasure that heart more than I’ve ever treasured any gift," Mindy writes in a blog, per the Times. "I will care for that gift to the very best of my ability and will be sure we always give reverence and respect to the child and the family from which it came."
– A modification to how one of the most common credit scores is calculated will mean better credit ratings for many Americans, reports the Wall Street Journal. Fair Isaac Corp. said yesterday that it won't place as much emphasis on medical debt when calculating consumers' FICO scores and will turn a blind eye to other debts that have been paid or settled through a collection agency. The new scoring system, which will be in place this fall, follows negotiations with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on ways to boost consumer lending. According to a Commonwealth Fund report cited in the Journal, 41% of US adults had a hard time coming up with funds to pay medical bills in 2012. Those who only have medical debt on their credit report could see an instant 25-point jump in their FICO score, according to CNN. The changes also mean that people who pay off their debts in collections won't be stuck with a seven-year black mark on their report like they have been. VantageScore—which manages the popular scoring model created by the Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax credit bureaus—says FICO's move is "a competitive response" to similar score-boosting changes it made last year, notes Housing Wire.
– Actress Patty Duke is dead at age 69, reports TMZ. Though she won an Oscar at 16 for her portrayal of Helen Keller in the Miracle Worker, Duke might be better known for her starring role in the 1960s sitcom, the Patty Duke Show, in which she played identical cousins. Her Oscar, meanwhile, was for best supporting actress. She went on to have a long career in film, TV, and on Broadway—see this list for highlights. Duke is survived by three kids, one of them being Lord of the Rings actor Sean Astin. Her agent says the cause of death is sepsis from a ruptured intestine, reports the AP.
– The fatal police shooting of an unarmed black woman Thursday was the final straw for San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, who asked for and received the resignation of police Chief Greg Suhr within hours. Lee, who appointed Suhr in 2011, had stood by the chief through previous controversies, including other police shootings and a recent scandal involving racist and homophobic text messages exchanged by officers, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. In brief remarks at City Hall Thursday afternoon, the mayor said he wants to "heal the city" and that the "progress we have made has been meaningful, but it hasn't been fast enough." Last week, four members of the 11-member city board of supervisors called for the chief's resignation, the Guardian reports. "The past several months have shaken and divided our city, and tensions between law enforcement and communities of color that have simmered for too many years have come into full view," Lee said. In Thursday's incident, the unarmed 27-year-old woman was shot dead as officers tried to pull her out of a stolen car she had crashed into a truck, the AP reports. Authorities have not identified the woman or the sergeant who fired the fatal round. Toney Chaplin, a 26-year veteran of the force, has been named as acting police chief. Chaplin, who is black, had been tasked with carrying out reforms as deputy chief of professional standards and principled policing.
– "There is no other day that we are more ready than today," rescue director Narongsak Osottanakorn said, in announcing that 18 divers had gone in to rescue the Thai soccer team trapped in a cave since late June. "Otherwise we will lose the opportunity." Now, the BBC reports that four boys have emerged from the cave (or six, per Reuters) and been taken to the hospital. The operation has been put on hold for at least 10 hours because "we've used all the oxygen," Narongsak tells the Guardian. "For the next operation to happen, we cannot say. It will be between 10 and 20 hours, but not over 20. But we have to evaluate all the factors. Air tanks must be put back into place." After a deluge of rain overnight, officials feared worsening flooding in coming days would close the window to rescue the boys and their coach. The mission is an ordeal that could easily last into Monday, notes the BBC: Each boy is being accompanied out by two divers, one of which carries his oxygen, through a darkened journey that includes "walking, wading, climbing, and diving." A doctor examined the boys earlier Sunday, notes the Guardian, and gave the greenlight for the rescue. "This is D-Day," said Osottanakorn. "The boys are ready."
– Two ancient burial sites have been uncovered in Egypt—one belonging to a previously unknown pharaonic queen and the other to a god of the dead. The first, in a necropolis southwest of Cairo, has the name of a queen presumed to be Pharaoh Neferefre's wife written on the wall, AFP reports via Raw Story; her name was previously not known. Identified as Khentakawess (or really Khentakawess III, since there were two before her), on the tomb walls she's also called "the wife of the king" and "the mother of the king," perhaps because she was believed to have been married to Pharaoh Neferefre and mother to Pharaoh Menkahur, an archaeologist tells Fox News Latino. The discovery, dating back some 4,500 years, sheds light on "the Fifth Dynasty, which, along with the Fourth Dynasty, witnessed the construction of the first pyramids," an Egyptian official says. The other find is a symbolic burial site for Osiris, once Egypt's supreme deity of the afterlife and the underworld, reports Australia's News Network (which has photos and diagrams). The 25th Dynasty burial site, dating to about 700BC, was likely used for rituals that linked the ruling Pharaohs to Osiris' powers. Located on Luxor’s west bank at the Al-Gorna necropolis, it was modeled on an actual royal tomb with several chambers; it includes a funerary complex with a carving of Osiris and an adjacent room with a relief of knife-wielding demons, perhaps there for protection. The site was discovered by archaeologist Philippe Virey back in the 1880s, Al Arabiya reports, but only now are its main rooms excavated. (Along similar lines, read about a jeweled mummy found under a collapsed roof.)
– Politico says there's a "seemingly endless Game of Thrones" taking place inside the West Wing, with aides vying to get information furthering their own agenda in front of President Trump—even if that is an internet hoax, from an iffy source, or "fake news," per a handful of White House officials and others with access to the president who spoke anonymously. These sources say Trump can "react volcanically" to bad press, which can have "tremendous" consequences, with the president even switching gears in his routine or agenda based on something someone slipped him. The most recent incident: two old Time magazine covers (one turned out to be a hoax from the 1970s) handed to him by Deputy National Security Adviser KT McFarland, both of which apparently sent him into a frenzy about climate change and the hypocritical media before his staff could calm him down. That hoax cover was described by a White House official to Politico as "fake but accurate." The site notes that the flow of information given to past presidents has typically been tightly reined in, but Trump prefers a "free flow of ideas" and content from "both official and unofficial channels." Because he apparently goes on the internet only rarely himself, whenever he becomes outraged over an article, his aides reportedly have to "scramble in a game of cat-and-mouse" to figure out who showed him the story. Chief of staff Reince Priebus and Rob Porter, the White House staff secretary, have now put the kibosh on anyone sneaking over to the president with clippings or printouts and now have a system in place to monitor what he sees—a system that one source tells Politico is likely being ignored. (Wikipedia's founder thinks he knows how to fight fake news.)
– Having "run out of patience" with the World Health Organization, Denmark on Jan. 1, 2017, will become the first country to no longer define being transgender as a mental illness, the Independent reports. Currently, the WHO classifies being transgender as a mental or behavioral disorder. And, although the organization is reassessing that stance, progress has been "characteristically slow." Classifying transgender people as having a disorder, one Danish government official says, is "incredibly stigmatizing and in no way reflects how we see transgender people in Denmark." And it creates practical problems for transgender people, he adds, such as denial of health insurance. Denmark, the Independent notes, has been criticized in the past for forcibly sterilizing transgender people and requiring medical approval before they could be legally recognized as a different gender. Thanks to a 2014 ruling, however, adults can now choose their gender without medical approval. Linda Thor Pedersen of LGBT Denmark tells the Local that being transgender "is a natural variation, like being left-handed," adding that some think transgender people are mentally ill simply because of the way it has been classified: "This proposal can make a big difference toward changing that." In 2012, according to Think Progress, the American Psychiatric Association declassified being transgender as a mental disorder.
– Sir David Attenborough was holding no punches during an address Monday at a summit hosted by the United Nations. Per BBC, the beloved British naturalist used his time at the podium to issue a dire warning to humanity regarding climate change: "If we don't take action, the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon." Attenborough, known worldwide for his uniquely passionate nature documentary narrations, was invited to the COP24 UN climate conference in the city of Katowice as a representative of the people of the world, many of who sent in messages that Attenborough reportedly used to inform his speech. "The world's people have spoken," Attenborough said, per CNN. "Their message is clear. Time is running out." Attenborough went on to issue a call to world leaders to take decisive action now. "The continuation of our civilizations and the natural world on which we depend is in your hands," he said. The 92-year-old specifically addressed the US after he was questioned about the Trump administration's decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. "Join the rest of the world," he urged the US. (Meanwhile, several US cities and at least one state have opted themselves into the worldwide accord regardless of the president's intentions.)
– Colonial America's oldest unsolved mystery involved remains that have been known only as "JR102C," or "JR" for short, but their owner's true name may have finally been uncovered. The bones were found, buried in a coffin, under an old roadbed in Jamestown in 1996, WTKR reports. Researchers knew the skeletal remains belonged to a 19-year-old man who may have been from Europe, who had probably been living in Jamestown for a few years, and who likely had the status of a gentleman (because of the coffin). His right leg bones were twisted and broken below the knee, and a lead musket ball and lead shot were found there; researchers determined that's what killed him. (The ammunition would have ruptured a major artery, NPR explains.) Now, the Jamestown Rediscovery Project says, new research has uncovered a 1624 duel between George Harrison and Richard Stephens. The remains may belong to Harrison, who was shot in the leg and died from the wound. "This wound shows that the person was killed by getting hit in the side of the knee. So in a duel, you stand sideways and this would come through like that," says a director for the project. However, one mystery still remains: “That’s a combat round. It’s almost like a shotgun but it also has a main bullet. So you wouldn’t think unless somebody was cheating in the duel that they would have that kind of a load." It's not the only recent nefarious discovery at Jamestown—scientists found evidence of cannibalism, as well.
– A baby in Kansas is dead after being left in the back seat of a car for two hours, reports AP. A male foster parent, 29, has been arrested, but not charged, on suspicion of aggravated endangerment in the death of the 10-month-old girl. Authorities say Seth Jackson picked up the child from the baby-sitter, returned home, and went inside the house with another 5-year-old child. Two hours later, he said something on TV jogged his memory. By the time he and his partner—who faces no charges—raced out to the vehicle on the 90-degree day, the girl was dead. The two men had cared for the baby nearly all her life and planned to adopt her, reports the Wichita Eagle. She had been placed in the foster system after being born in Topeka with drugs in her system. The couple also were caring for the girl's two older sisters, along with four other children. “These kids were their life,” says a neighbor. “That’s what they lived for. You could tell.” The girl's maternal grandmother is angry and demanding to know where her other two grandkids are. "I want answers," Cindy Poe tells AP. "I want to know why my grandbaby was in that car."
– Four people have been arrested for their connection to the protests at the US consulate in Libya that left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, information management officer Sean Smith, and a former Navy SEAL. There may be more arrests in the near future, as security forces in the country say they have a large group of people in custody and are monitoring others who may be connected to the protests, reports the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, the name of the third victim has come to light. Family of 42-year-old Glen Doherty, the former SEAL who hailed from a Boston suburb, has confirmed that he was killed in the attacks, reports CBS News. The identity of the fourth American victim remains unknown.
– Before disappearing in Syria in 2012, American journalist James Foley wrapped filming on a documentary called E-Team, which earned rave reviews at this year's Sundance Film Festival, reports the Daily Beast. The film focuses on Human Rights Watch's Emergencies Team, which documents war crimes firsthand. Rolling after the credits is a statement that Foley, one of three camera operators on the film, disappeared in Syria after filming was completed. The documentary premieres on Netflix Oct. 24. Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, is now calling Foley's execution a war crime in itself. "James went to Syria because of his commitment to exposing the horrors civilians faced since the uprising against the government there," said the organization's emergencies director, adding that his killing by the Islamic State is "the height of cowardice, in stark contrast to Foley's bravery and humility." (Foley's captors had demanded ransom money before the execution.)
– "There was heavy smoke in there, so the fact that they survived is pretty remarkable," says a fire official after a kitten and snake were rescued from a cooking fire at an apartment in Washington state on Monday. Firefighters initially pulled two dogs from the fire, one of whom later died. It was 45 minutes before they returned to search the blaze again, doubtful of finding any more creatures alive, reports People. But Velcro the kitten and Snakey the snake, housed separately in a carrier and tank, appear to have beaten the odds. Central Kitsap Fire & Rescue says the two animals were saved and taken to a vet for checkups, per KOMO—after 10-week-old Velcro took in some oxygen from a mask.
– The Justice Department announced Tuesday it will seek the death penalty for Dylann Roof, who is accused of killing nine people during a Bible study class inside a historic black church last June in Charleston, South Carolina. "The nature of the alleged crime and the resulting harm compelled this decision," ABC News quotes a statement from Attorney General Loretta Lynch as saying. According to the Washington Post, prosecutors based their decision to pursue the death penalty on Roof's "lack of remorse," his desire to "magnify the societal impact" of the murders, and "his animosity toward African Americans." Authorities say Roof, 22, wanted to start a race war, CNN reports. He's facing 33 counts of federal hate crimes and gun charges. The victims' families were informed of the Justice Department's decision during a conference call Tuesday. A lawyer representing three of the families says he believes they support that decision. “Regardless of whether or not you’re for the death penalty, the thought process is this: Where else would you have it, if not for here?” he tells the Post. State prosecutors were already pursuing the death penalty, having charged Roof with nine counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder for the deaths at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Roof's trial had been delayed in part due to the Justice Department's debate on whether or not to pursue the death penalty. The state trial is scheduled to begin in January. The federal trial has no start date at the moment.
– John McCain thinks Chuck Hagel is "the most unimpressive" Defense secretary nominee he's "ever seen," reports Politico, but that little detail shouldn't stop him from getting confirmed to lead the Pentagon. "No, I don't believe he's qualified, but I don't believe we should hold up his confirmation any further," he said today. Lindsey Graham chimed in, indicating that Hagel had assuaged concern over remarks on Israel, saying, "I will take him at his word until something else comes along"—though he did call him "one of the most unqualified, radical choices" for the job in a long time. Fellow Republican John Barrasso begged to differ with McCain, claiming Hagel's nomination is "being rushed through," and saying he would "be less effective" for it. "I think it is going to impact him as he tries to limp across the finish line to get confirmed." Elsewhere on the Sunday dial, as per Politico: White House chief of staff Denis McDonough on Obama's leaked immigration plan: "We've not proposed anything to Capitol Hill yet . We've got a bill ... we're preparing. We have developed each of these proposals so we have them in a position so that we can succeed." Chuck Schumer on the leaked bill: "I don't know what bill the president has out there. I haven't seen it. But they did say last night—I don't know how it occurred—that it wasn't their final or complete bill." Paul Ryan on 2016 in 2013: " The point is I don't know the answer because I'm just not putting a great deal of thought into it. I'm not foreclosing any opportunity. I may, or I may not. We just had an election. We've got jobs to do." Rand Paul on 2016 in 2013: "I would absolutely not run unless it were to win. Points have been made, and we we will continue to make points. But I think the country is really ready for the narrative coming—the Libertarian Republican narrative."
– An Arkansas campaign manager arrived home with his four kids to discover the family cat dead on the front porch, its head bashed in and "liberal" written on its side in black marker, reports CBS News. Jake Burris, who has been working on Democratic candidate Ken Aden's run for Congress since November, reported the crime to local police, and said he was taking the threat seriously. “I’ve got a gun and I know how to use it,” said Burris. “If I have to protect my kids, I’ll do it without hesitation.” Although the district is considered very conservative and the campaigning fierce, Aden's team said they believed the killing was not connected to the Republican rival's campaign. "To kill a child’s pet is just unconscionable,” said Aden. “As a former combat soldier, I’ve seen the best of humanity and the worst of humanity. Whoever did this is definitely part of the worst of humanity." The Republican candidate also issued a statement strongly condemning the killing. Pictures of the family's cat are here.
– Fox News removed a tweet about Sunday's attack on a Quebec City mosque after Justin Trudeau's office accused the network of dishonoring the victims. The offending tweet, which described the alleged gunman as being of Moroccan origin, was pulled Tuesday night, the Montreal Gazette reports. "Sadly, this misleading information has been left to stand on the Fox News Channel's Twitter account and continues to circulate online even now," a letter from the prime minister's office stated. "These tweets by Fox News dishonor the memory of the six victims and their families by spreading misinformation, playing identity politics, and perpetuating fear and division within our communities." The man of Moroccan origin detained after the shooting turned out to have been helping the victims, leaving 27-year-old Alexandre Bissonnette, a Quebec-born man who has been charged with six counts of murder, as the only suspect. He was known for making anti-immigrant, anti-Islam, and anti-feminist posts online, as well as trolling groups like refugee support organizations, but acquaintances tell the Gazette they saw no sign that he had become radicalized enough to launch a terrorist attack. The Globe and Mail reports that in the wake of the attack, politicians, columnists, and talk radio hosts in the province have promised to tone down anti-Islam rhetoric and work harder to draw a distinction between Islamic terrorists and ordinary Muslims.
– The music industry sometimes uses payola to achieve its goals, and the movie industry apparently uses ... fake pearl earrings and tequila. The screenwriter and director of the hit film Zero Dark Thirty are accused of bribing CIA officials to receive sensitive information, according to CIA documents obtained by Vice. The Inspector General's office found that the film—which depicts the search for Osama bin Laden and the Navy SEAL raid that killed him—was at least partially padded with information obtained under dubious means. Screenwriter Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow—who did not have security clearances, according to Vanity Fair—allegedly used gifts and promises of premiere tickets to get inside information from the government officers. A female officer upon whom Jessica Chastain's character was based received an eight-hour shopping trip, according to the report, and other CIA officers allegedly received dinners at expensive restaurants and room service at fancy hotels. The Hollywood big shots are also accused of overstating the value of some of the bribes, with an alleged "several hundred dollar" bottle of tequila actually being worth less than $200. "Black Tahitian pearl earrings," meanwhile, were actually fake pearls painted black and mounted to cheap metal posts. In the end, neither the filmmakers nor the CIA officers were punished for the suspect activities, and Zero Dark Thirty grossed more than $132 million.
– A New Zealand judge said Eminem's lyrics "You own it, you better never let it go" turned out to be prophetic after ruling that a political party breached copyright by using a song similar to Eminem's "Lose Yourself" in its campaign ads. High Court Judge Helen Cull on Wednesday ordered the conservative National Party to pay the Detroit rapper's publisher $415,000 plus interest, the AP reports. The party ran a TV ad 186 times that used the song "Eminem Esque" during its successful 2014 election campaign before pulling the ad off the air. In her 132-page ruling, Cull said "Eminem Esque" reproduced the essence of "Lose Yourself" and that it was no coincidence the composer of "Eminem Esque" had the music to the original in front of him when he wrote his song. The judge based the amount of the award on a hypothetical license fee the party might have paid to use Eminem's song. Cull also noted that Eminem publisher Eight Mile Style rarely OKs the use of "Lose Yourself" in ads. She stopped short of awarding additional damages, saying the party had only used the song after receiving expert advice it could do so and hadn't acted recklessly. The odd case had featured moments such as gowned lawyers listening studiously to profanity-laced rap. "We think it's a very strong judgment, and a cautionary tale for people who make or use soundalikes around the world," says an Eight Mile Style lawyer. National Party President Peter Goodfellow said in a statement he was disappointed with the ruling and that the party purchased the music in good faith from an Australia-based library that bought it from a US supplier; the party has filed a claim against the track's suppliers and licensers. An Eight Mile Style rep says he hasn't discussed the ruling with Eminem, aka Marshall Mathers III.
– An angry mob vented its rage against East London hipsters over the weekend by attacking a cafe and scrawling "scum" on the window. But the establishment wasn't just any cafe—it was a cereal cafe. As in, cereal in a bowl. "It’s senseless violence, isn’t it?" Gary Keery, co-owner of Cereal Killer Cafe, tells the Guardian. "We’ve had some letters through the letterbox saying 'die hipsters' and stuff but nothing to this extreme. It just doesn’t make sense." He says terrified customers and their children hid inside while protesters (who carried torches and pig heads) threw cereal and red paint at the windows. After customers found safety downstairs, members of the mob managed to break in and throw furniture and a smoke bomb inside. Roughly 200-strong, the protesters explained their anti-gentrification stance on a Facebook event page, reports the Independent. "Our communities are being ripped apart—by Russian oligarchs, Saudi Sheiks, Israeli scumbag property developers, Texan oil-money twats and our own home-grown Eton toffs," they write. "We don't want luxury flats that no one can afford, we want genuinely affordable housing." Their protest also left a police officer injured (flying bottle to the face) and a nearby real estate agency damaged. By Sunday, though, Cereal Killer Cafe was back in business, selling over 120 kinds of cereal with more than 20 toppings and 30 kinds of milk, for up to $6.50 a bowl, the CBC reports. (In the US, hipsters' $4 toast has an interesting back story.)
– ESPN has lost more than 10 million subscribers in recent years as more and more people are going without cable, the New York Times reports. That decline had major consequences Wednesday when the sports network laid off about 100 of its on-air talent and journalists. Just a few of those cut loose by ESPN, according to USA Today: Ed Werder, Trent Dilfer, Jayson Stark, Jim Bowden, Scott Burnside, Pierre LeBrun, Danny Kanell, and Jay Crawford. In a memo to staff, ESPN President John Skipper called the layoffs "a necessary component of managing change." ESPN's problem is that while it's losing subscribers, it's also paying billions for the rights to broadcast pro and college sports—and those rights are only getting more expensive. The network currently pays $15.2 billion to the NFL, $12 billion to the NBA, and $7.3 billion for the college football playoffs, just as a start. Deadspin argues Wednesday's layoffs aren't really meant to be a permanent fix for ESPN's problems but to act as "symbolic sacrifices" to buy "a little more slack from investors." This past quarter, ESPN parent company Disney blamed the network for the entirety of the 11% decline in its cable network division's operating income.
– After two decades, Bill O'Reilly is officially out at Fox News, the Los Angeles Times reports. In a statement issued Wednesday, 21st Century Fox announced the end of the longtime host's tenure "after a thorough and careful review of the allegations." It was reported earlier this month that O'Reilly and Fox News had paid $13 million to women accusing O'Reilly of sexual abuse and harassment dating back to 2002. More claims and accusations followed that story, and The O'Reilly Factor lost more than 50 of its advertisers, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Still, many experts thought O'Reilly would be able to weather the storm. He's had the top-rated cable news show for 15 years and was a huge moneymaker for Fox News. The Los Angeles Times reports Fox News could lose as much as 25% of its prime-time audience with the removal of O'Reilly. The host is currently on vacation in Italy (where he met Pope Francis on Wednesday, according to the New York Times). He was expected to return to his show on Monday. It's believed Fox News will name a permanent replacement for O'Reilly before then.
– The death of a 67-year-old man in Golden Gate National Recreation Area has California park officials reiterating a warning: When a dog gets stranded on a cliff, leave him be. Chances are, the dog will return to safety, while would-be rescuers risk their lives, reports ABC7. In this case, the victim slipped and fell about 500 feet to his death when trying to retrieve his dog, who'd wandered partway down a cliff, reports CBS San Francisco. Rescuers got to the victim before high tide rolled in but couldn't save him.
– When Moritz Erhardt, a 21-year-old Bank of America intern in London, died two years ago after reportedly putting in 72 hours straight at work, the banking industry turned the spotlight on its notoriously rough hours. Bank of America, for instance, suggested its junior workers take at least four weekend days off each month, and Goldman Sachs put together a quality-of-life task force and told its own junior employees to use Saturdays for R&R only, per Reuters. Now Goldman Sachs is taking work-life balance a step further, recommending that interns don't stay at their desks past midnight or come in before 7am—a relatively easier 17-hour workday, the Guardian reports. These guidelines were put out there "to improve the overall work experience of our interns," a company spokesman tells the paper. Goldman Sachs, which Reuters notes has 2,900 interns this summer, has taken other steps—including hiring more interns and offering pay hikes and mentoring programs—to make work more conducive to having a life, the Washington Post notes. And that's basically what CEO Lloyd Blankfein said shortly after Erhardt's death, telling the younger set in his firm: "You have to have interests away from the narrow thing of what you do. You have to be somebody who somebody else wants to talk to." It seems like a good start, but a recent memo sent to interns by a second-year Barclays analyst went viral because of what the Wall Street Journal calls its "dubious pointers" on how to succeed on Wall Street (i.e., prepare to work like a dog). (One intern who's probably happy? This Late Show worker.)
– If you’re a fan of Kate Gosselin's reportedly enhanced boobs, you have her bodyguard to thank. “Kate was going to have one kind of breast augmentation, but she changed her mind after talking to Steve about what would look best,” a source tells Us. Steve—that would be Steve Neild, of course, who was rumored to be having an affair with Kate—even drove her to the doctor to get the job done last year. Meanwhile, ex-hubby Jon somehow snagged yet another 23-year-old galpal…and he wants to go back on TV. Terrifyingly, he tells Us he’s “exploring my options right now, meeting with certain people about different ideas.”
– Mark Zuckerberg teased reporters on a tour of Facebook's Seattle office today by announcing that the company will "launch something awesome" next week, reports Reuters, which guesses it's in the "mobile or tablet arena." Let the speculation begin: BGR: "We suspect it’s going to be the new iPhone photo-sharing service that we saw just last week. ... It’s entirely possible that Zuckerberg will also take the wraps off of his company’s native Facebook iPad app, since it would likely fit well into the photo-sharing ecosystem." CNET: "It could be Facebook's long-awaited iPad application. The company currently offers an iPhone app, but iPad owners have so far been forced to use the full site." Business Insider: "If we had to guess it would be an iPad app."
– A few months ago, Haruko Obokata appeared to be one of Japan's most promising young scientists. Her mind-blowing research on stem cells in mice, which apparently showed the cells could be made swiftly by dripping blood cells into acid, had just been published in the coveted scientific journal Nature. Yesterday, however, after her co-author renounced the pair's two major scientific papers on STAP—"stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency"—Obokata finally admitted her research was flawed, the Washington Post reports. And though she's been accused of fabrication, a lack of ethics, and "sloppy data management," she denies any misconduct. "Multiple errors impair the credibility of the study as a whole," she and other scientists said in a retraction, noting "we are unable to say without doubt whether the STAP-SC phenomenon is real." She will, however, spend the next five months at Japan's research institute Riken trying to recreate her findings under video surveillance. Nature has also since retracted the studies after "errors were found in the figures, parts of the methods descriptions were found to be plagiarized and early attempts to replicate the work failed." The publication says it will now reconsider how it vets its studies, though it "could not have detected the problems that fatally undermined the papers."
– Synthetic fleece is great—until you consider the fact that every time it's washed, it releases thousands of microfibers into the environment. Microscopic plastic fibers may now be one of the most common types of plastic debris found in samples from the environment, including animals, ecologist and evolutionary biologist Chelsea Rochman tells NPR, and that means we humans are likely eating the synthetic fibers without realizing it. Previous studies have found microfibers in table salt and fish; last year, Alternet explained that marine life is particularly prone to ingesting microfibers because they go from the washing machine through the sewage system and into various waterways. Microfibers are, it turns out, more pervasive in the environment than even microbeads—which were banned in the US in 2015 over similar problems. In 2011, one ecologist found that 85% of human debris on shorelines around the world is synthetic microfiber. Now, outdoor outfitting company Patagonia—which often uses microfiber in its products—is also looking into the problem, and has found that a polyester fleece jacket shed as many as 2 grams of microfibers (that's an amount weighing more than a paperclip) each time it's washed, and even more when washed in a top-loader. The next question: Are these microfibers harmful to wildlife and humans? The answer is not yet clear, but one conservationist says he's not waiting to find out; he recommends washing your microfleece as little as possible. The Guardian reported last year that there are also a few ideas floating around for products that would trap microfibers in the washing machine rather than allowing them down the drain. (This microfiber fabric generates its own electricity.)
– North Korea formerly threatened to cancel the long-awaited family reunions between the two Koreas if South Korea went ahead with its annual joint military drills with the US. But as it stands, both events are happening simultaneously. As the six-day reunion continued today, the military drills began, the BBC reports; they will continue until April 18, and involve roughly 12,500 US troops. As always, Washington and Seoul insist they are simply defensive, while Pyongyang calls them "exercises of war." Even so, the rhetoric has been pretty low-key this year compared to last, when North Korea repeatedly threatened to attack South Korean and US targets over the drills. The Guardian reports that US officials have suggested things will be a little more low-key on their end as well: no aircraft carriers or strategic bombers are to factor into the war games. Some believe North Korea's reaction to the drills will shed light on whether tensions between the two Koreas are truly thawing, as the family reunions and other recent developments suggest they may be. "As of now, there are no unusual movements from North Korea," said a South Korean Defense Ministry spokesperson today. "We will only take action against North Korea if it makes provocations or denunciations." Experts say that, for Pyongyang, keeping calm is all about money. Specifically, the North would like the South to restart tours to the North's Mount Kumgang resort that, in the past, provided the North with an important source of income; the South put an end to the tours in 2008 after a female tourist was killed by North Korean security.
– Marco Polo's travels to China in the 13th century are the first well documented record of a European reaching the empire. But archaeologists studying a famous trove of terracotta figures dug up in China now suggest that the first contact with the West occurred much earlier than thought—some 1,500 years before Polo's arrival, reports the BBC. Their theory is that those terracotta figures were inspired by Greek art, and that a Greek sculptor may have actually helped create them around 300 BC. For one thing, there's nothing in earlier Chinese art like these life-sized statues. “I imagine that a Greek sculptor may have been at the site to train the locals," says historian Lukas Nickel of the University of Vienna. But more than that, researchers have turned up European DNA from skeletons at a nearby site in northern China. The DNA find suggests Westerners were living there under the dynasty of Qin Shi Huang, the "First Emperor" who commissioned the so-called Terracotta Army for his tomb. "We now have evidence that close contact existed between the First Emperor’s China and the West before the formal opening of the Silk Road," says an archaeologist on the project. "This is far earlier than we formerly thought.” An ongoing study of the tomb has also revealed the remains of what could be the emperor's sons, reports National Geographic. Experts say the remains—including a skull pierced by a crossbow bolt—match an account of one of the emperor's sons murdering his brothers to seize control after his father's death in 210 BC. (The terracotta warriors may resemble real soldiers.)
– President Trump signed an executive action Monday aimed at "cutting regulations massively for small business." He says it will be the "biggest such act that our country has ever seen." The AP reports that White House officials had called the directive a "one in, two out" plan that requires government agencies requesting a new regulation to identify two regulations they will cut from their own departments. The White House will now set an annual limit on new regulations' cost—that cap is $0 for the rest of this fiscal year. The action makes good on a First 100 Days promise Trump announced in a Nov. 21 video, noted Forbes. In it, he says, "I will formulate a rule which says that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated. So important."
– Rapper TI has collaborated with Kanye West more than once—but he says he's "officially done" with "Ye" after West's bizarre Oval Office meeting with President Trump Thursday. In an Instagram post, the Atlanta-based rapper said he had been "more than patient" with West's "antics," but the "bootlicking" on display in the Trump meeting was a step too far, USA Today reports. It was the "most repulsive, disgraceful, embarrassing act of desperation & auctioning off of one's soul to gain power I've ever seen," he wrote. He said he had turned down West's invitation to join him for the White House meeting —but if he had gone, he would have slapped West for behaving so "spinelessly." "At one time it was a pleasure to work alongside you... now, I’m ashamed to have ever been associated with you," wrote TI, who debated West about his support for Trump on the track "Ye vs. The People." The Oval Office meeting, in which West likened his Make America Great Again hat to a Superman cape, was also condemned by artists including 50 Cent and Diddy, CNN reports. But director Ava DuVernay took a different approach. "Don't let the circus distract you. We have to focus," she tweeted, sharing news stories on issues including voter suppression, hurricane damage in Florida, and the adoption by American families of migrant children separated from their parents at the border.
– Martin Shkreli attracted no small amount of scorn for jacking drug costs, but he's far from alone. Plenty of other drugmakers have been guilty of hikes, many just since late December, claiming they need to do so to fund "risky" research, the Wall Street Journal reports. Analysts say many of the increases—which the Journal notes are on list prices, before the rebates and discounts manufacturers often provide—hover around 10%. Per Reuters, Pfizer alone, which puts out Viagra and the pain drug Lyrica, among others, raised the prices of 105 drugs at the start of 2016, some by as much as 20%, according to stats put together by info services firm Wolters Kluwer. (Pfizer confirmed some of the price increases to Reuters, but a rep said he couldn't immediately speak to all the reported hikes.) The Journal points out that it's not odd for pharma companies to hike prices right around the new year—but notes that it's somewhat unusual for this to take place now in the current climate, when doctors, patients, and the likes of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have been promising to put a stop to rampant increases. The CEO of HealthPartners, a Minnesota nonprofit health-care provider, tells the Journal that such hikes "are becoming increasingly intolerable for consumers, health plans, doctors and hospitals." But the CEO of Acorda Therapeutics, which makes a drug that helps MS patients walk, tells the paper that cost increases are "our way of insuring that we can survive and develop these programs and bring these new innovative drugs to market." (A pill for hepatitis costs 250 times more in the US than in India.)
– Hillary Clinton shattered a major glass ceiling tonight, and took to Twitter to mark the moment. Her first tweet after she became the Democratic Party's official nominee reads simply, "History." Then, along with the message "Stronger together," she tweeted a video of Bernie Sanders asking all delegates to vote for Clinton so that she could become the nominee. And, finally, she posted a video about the women's liberation movement. "This moment is for every little girl who dreams big," she wrote. "#WeMadeHistory."
– An Indiana mother accused of killing her two children in late September says it was the Amber Alert that led her to murder them. Amber Pasztor, whose father was the children's legal guardian, tells WANE she pushed in the door at her father's house in Fort Wayne on Sept. 26, took 6-year-old Rene Pasztor and 7-year-old Liliana Hernandez, and drove them off in a stolen car. She was in Michigan when she learned an Amber Alert had been issued for the children, and that was the point at which she decided to murder them, she says. "I gave them a choice," she said, per the Indianapolis Star. "That they could live, traumatized like their mom, or they can go to heaven with God and be better off." Though Pasztor claims the children made the choice, she says they still struggled as she smothered them; first Liliana, then Rene. "They were in good hands but I don’t think they were safe," she tells WANE. "My kids are in a better place … they’re in heaven now. They don’t have no worries no more." She says she smothered them because she couldn't bring herself to shoot them. She did, however, admit to shooting and killing her 66-year-old neighbor, Frank Macomber, the man whose car she allegedly stole and used to take her children. She has not yet been charged in his death, but is charged with two counts of murder for Rene and Liliana. Pasztor was due in court on a prior criminal trespassing charge the day she allegedly kidnapped her children, the Inquisitr reports. The children's father was murdered in 2010 in a case that remains unsolved.
– Under a bill passed by Utah's state Senate yesterday, the state's executioners won't have to worry about a shortage of lethal injection drugs unless there's also a shortage of bullets. The bill, introduced by its Republican sponsor as a "backup," allows the use of firing squads when there's a drug shortage and was passed by an 18-10 vote, NBC News reports. Gov. Gary Herbert hasn't said whether he will sign the bill, though his office describes it as a move to "make sure that those instructed to carry out the lawful order of the court and the carefully deliberated decision of the jury can do so," reports Fox 13. Utah decided to phase out firing squads in 2004, but inmate Ronnie Lee Gardner, who had chosen the method when he was sentenced, was executed by firing squad in 2010, and there a few other death-row inmates sentenced before 2004 who can still opt for the method, according to the AP, which notes that the execution method has long been controversial in Utah: In 1879, Wallace Wilkerson faced a firing squad for killing a man over a game of cribbage, but they missed his heart and he wasn't pronounced dead until 27 minutes later. In Oklahoma, where state law allows firing squads only if lethal injection and electrocution are declared unconstitutional, lawmakers are looking into making the state the first one to execute people with nitrogen gas.
– JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon plans to apologize before members of Congress tomorrow for a trading loss that has cost the bank more than $2 billion. He also will say that the bank has taken steps to make sure it does not happen again. "We have let a lot of people down, and we are sorry for it," Dimon says in testimony prepared for his appearance before the Senate Banking Committee. "While we can never say we won't make mistakes—in fact, we know we will—we do believe this to be an isolated event," Dimon says. The Wall Street Journal has the full text, in which Dimon also castigates traders for badly misunderstanding the risks involved and "generally ineffective" managers for failing to rein them in, notes the Journal.
– The latest salvo in the battle regarding the relative intelligence of felines and dogs is bound to leave cat owners howling. Researchers are now claiming that dogs' intelligence has grown at faster rates historically than cats, spurred by canines' more social nature. They've discovered a historical link between the size of an animal’s brain in relation to the rest of its body and how socially active it has been. The study analyzed data on the brain and body size of more than 500 species and found the brains of monkeys grew the most over time, followed by horses, dolphins, camels and dogs, reports the Telegraph. The analysis revealed that groups of mammals with bigger brains tended to live in social groups, while brains of more isolated animals such as cats, deer, and rhinos tended to grow much more slowly. "It appears that interaction is good for the brain," says Oxford researcher Susanne Shultz. Findings "suggest that co-operation needed for group living can be challenging and over time some mammals have evolved larger brains to be able to cope.” Is the Telegraph buying its own story? Not quite. Columnist Pete Wedderburn debunks some of the science behind the study, arguing that dogs and cats are each intelligent in their own way—and possibly more intelligent than the humans who concocted the research.
– Surprise: France isn't thrilled by claims that the US spied on its past three presidents, including current leader Francois Hollande, and has now summoned its US ambassador to the foreign ministry in Paris, reports the AP. Hollande, who calls the US spying an "unacceptable" security breach, held two emergency meetings today with legislators and top security officials. He later said France would "not tolerate anything that could jeopardize the security and protection of its interests," per USA Today, adding vaguely that France has now reinforced security measures. Describing the NSA spying as "incomprehensible," a government rep notes Hollande will now send a top intelligence coordinator stateside to confirm US assurances made after previous spying revelations are still valid. In the meantime, "we reminded all the ministers to be vigilant in their conversations," he says. A spokesman for the NSA said yesterday that the US is "not targeting and will not target the communications of President Hollande," but it didn't respond to claims about alleged earlier eavesdropping on Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Jacques Chirac.
– Ford says it isn't going to shift production of the Focus Active from China to the US, despite President Trump's thoughts on the matter. Trump boasted in a tweet Sunday that new tariffs on Chinese imports had forced the automaker to abandon plans to sell the Chinese-made Focus Active in the US. "This is just the beginning," Trump wrote. "This car can now be BUILT IN THE U.S.A. and Ford will pay no tariffs!" Ford, however, says it will simply not sell the compact car in the US, though it will be available elsewhere, MarketWatch reports. The company, which is now focusing on making SUVs instead of cars, says expected sales weren't high enough to justify building the Active in the US. "It would not be profitable to build the Focus Active in the US, given an expected annual sales volume of fewer than 50,000 units," Ford said in a statement, adding: "Ford is proud to employ more US hourly workers and build more vehicles in the US than any other automaker." Kristin Dziczek of the Center for Automotive Research tells the AP that Ford can make the vehicle "in many other plants around the world, so if they decided to continue to sell a Focus variant in the US market, there are several options other than building it in the United States." (Chinese state media mocked Trump as a round of tariffs took effect last month.)
– Look up in the sky: It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a … volutus, or is that an asperitas? If you're not sure what kind of cloud you're seeing above your head, consult the World Meteorological Organization's International Cloud Atlas, newly updated just in time for World Meteorological Day on Thursday. The Weather Channel reports that a bunch of new classifications have been added to the atlas (the first fully web-based version) for the first time in three decades, including the volutus "roll cloud" and aforementioned asperitas, as well as human-created cloud types like contrails (the condensation trails left in the wake of airplanes). There's even a new "accessory" cloud known as the flumen (aka "beaver's tail"), which sometimes follows along with a convective storm, a WMO press release notes. The science behind the atlas's cloud classifications, which Live Science calls "not for the faint of heart," is a sophisticated one. The 10 cornerstone clouds, referred to as "genera," are the ones you've likely heard of—stratus and cumulus, among others. Then the classification gets more granular with "species," which break down the genera clouds further based on shapes, and from there to "varieties," which indicate transparency and arrangement. The recent additions fall under the species category; there's also a new "supplementary features" section of "unusual parts"—such as the aforementioned asperitas, a wavy look to a cloud's underside—and five "special" clouds, including the contrail and clouds formed by waterfall mist. "Few natural phenomena" are as inspiring as clouds, WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas notes. (Shifting cloud patterns are worrisome.)
– A judge in Oregon is refusing to perform same-sex marriages because of "deeply held religious beliefs," reports KGW. Judge Vance Day—former chairman of the state's Republican Party—created a legal defense fund yesterday, apparently to pay for expenses he expects to incur fighting allegations he's violating the state's Code of Judicial Conduct as well as its constitution, reports Oregon Live. “It’s an exercise of his religious freedom rights under the First Amendment,” his spokesperson tells KGW. The station reports Day hasn't performed any same-sex marriages since becoming a judge in 2011—telling his clerks to send gay couples elsewhere—and stopped performing marriages entirely in the spring. Oregon law does not require judges to perform marriages, and there are apparently six other judges in Day's county available to perform them. Day's spokesperson says the judge is facing an ethics investigation, though details on what exactly is being investigated haven't been released. In Oregon, public officials are allowed to set up trusts to pay for legal defenses against government investigations, Oregon Live reports.
– Submarine owner Peter Madsen was in court for a detention hearing on Tuesday, and provided an account of how he says Swedish journalist Kim Wall lost her life. Madsen framed it as an accident involving what Reuters describes as a "heavy hatch cover," saying, "I lose my foothold and the hatch shuts. Kim had been severely hurt and was laying with an intense bleeding. There was a pool of blood where she had landed." The Copenhagen Post reports the cover weighs about 155 pounds, and reports that you had to pass through the hatch in order to reach the bridge to steer the submarine. Madsen testified that he sailed for deeper waters intending to commit suicide, but instead buried Wall at sea. The Local reports that Danish prosecutors are asking that Madsen remain in custody. Madsen's lawyer says his client still pleads not guilty on the manslaughter charge, but is guilty of desecrating Wall’s body in that he buried her at sea; Madsen claims her body was intact when he disposed of it, though it was not found that way.
– The rumors of Moammar Gadhafi's Venezuelan vacation are greatly exaggerated: The embattled Libyan leader made a bizarre, minute-long appearance on state TV at 2am local time, declaring, "I am in Tripoli and not in Venezuela. Do not believe the channels belonging to stray dogs." Gadhafi appeared in a small vehicle, reports MSNBC, and was holding an umbrella; it has rained heavily in Tripoli for two days. Gadhafi may not have fled, but his regime is crumbling around him, with diplomats and a minister resigning, pilots who were ordered to fire on protesters defecting, and reports of up to 160 dead in the chaos. "What we are witnessing today is unimaginable," an activist tells al-Jazeera. "Warplanes and helicopters are indiscriminately bombing one area after another. There are many, many dead. Our people are dying. It is the policy of scorched earth."
– A new study suggests that the phrase "weight of a guilty conscience" has an element of truth to it. Researchers found that people asked to recall their own unethical behavior felt physically heavier when asked to assess their own body weight, reports PsychCentral. (Researchers compared them to people in a control group asked to recall ethical behavior.) The guilt-wracked participants also felt so loagy that the idea of expending a little physical effort to help someone—carrying groceries up stairs, for instance—seemed far more taxing to them than to the non-guilty subjects. "Overall, it was exciting to find these patterns of results, which are consistent with an embodied theory of emotion," say the authors of the study in Plos ONE. "However, this is still relatively new research, and we are still exploring how to more fully characterize the experience of guilt." Of course, not all types of unethical behavior lead to a guilty conscience. A separate study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that cheaters often experience something like a "high" after cheating. But, as the New York Times points out, that "high" is higher if the cheaters don't think they hurt anyone. (On a different note, click to read about how moms are more tired than dads.)
– If you purchased even a single can of Red Bull in the last 12 years, you could get $10 in cash or two free products. But it's not exactly because the energy drink giant is feeling generous: The offer is part of a $13 million settlement over false advertising claims, the Consumerist reports. After all, experts point out Red Bull doesn't actually "give you wings" and plaintiffs argued the same in a lawsuit, which Red Bull has now settled "to avoid the cost and distraction of litigation." However, Red Bull "denies any and all wrongdoing or liability." Don't have a receipt? The Consumerist notes that you simply need to fill out a claim form to grab your stake in the payout.
– One of the least reassuring sentences you'll read this week: A flesh-eating bacterial infection that leads to "gaping, palm-sized ulcers" is on the rise, and experts have no idea how it's being spread. One of the more reassuring: It's happening in Victoria, Australia, so if you don't live there, you can read on with slightly less horror. Ars Technica reports that health authorities do know the bacterium at play—Mycobacterium ulcerans—and have recorded its rise from 47 infections in Victoria state in 2014 to 159 so far this year, reports Australia's ABC News. The infections do occur elsewhere in the world—generally in developing nations like Uganda, Nigeria, and Liberia—but a microbiologist terms the situation in Victoria an "epidemic." The organism comes from the same family of bacteria as leprosy and tuberculosis, and the Age reports that some scientists think possums and mosquitoes may be vectors. But that's just a theory at this point, and no prevention strategies have been developed. Antibiotics can typically successfully treat the infection, which most commonly occurs on the arms or legs, but it's a gruesome-looking, gangrene-like experience (see photos here if you can stomach them). 9News shares the case of 13-year-old Ella Crofts, who developed the infection in one of her knees in April. At first it just felt sore; ultimately, much of the kneecap had turned into an open sore. She had to undergo three surgeries to excise dead skin, and she's still walking with a limp. "We call it the zombie leg," her mother says. (This hiker barely survived an infection from a flesh-eating bacteria.)
– Congratulations, America: You have crowned a Miss USA who doesn't know the capital of her own state. Nia Sanchez, Miss Nevada as well as Miss USA, went on The Todd Show Monday and, during a quiz on the radio show, was asked to name Nevada's capital. Her response, according to Us: "Oh, um, ah, oh my gosh." The host helpfully provided the answer: Carson City. "Thank you, I was going to say that!" Sanchez responded. "I was like, that one DJ host on MTV, back in the day, his name, that's how I always remembered it. Carson Daly, that guy!" Last week, Sanchez defended herself against claims that she actually lives in California, not Nevada, and simply set up a "paper trail" to make it look like she was a Nevada resident. Sanchez insisted to Fox News that there is "no truth" to those claims, and that she lived in the state almost a year and a half (apparently not quite long enough to memorize the capital) before being crowned Miss Nevada.
– A new Renault concept SUV comes with a buddy: a drone that soars out of a roof hatch to investigate traffic conditions or maybe off-roading hazards. Were the "flying companion," as the company calls it, to be produced, it would be about the size of a small bird, Slashdot reports. At this point, the drone "is more of a gimmick than a production reality, but it still makes a sick bit of sense," writes Damon Lavrinc at Wired. Controlled by a dashboard tablet or GPS system, the drone would send images or video back to the car. (Think of it as a "car selfie," notes Time.) Of course, all that gadgetry has Slashdot's Nick Kolakowski worried about yet another potential distraction for the modern driver, even if it's designed more for passengers to use. The drone may seem a little far-fetched, but "how long until a Ford or Tesla starts playing with the idea of a drone companion to their latest vehicles?" All the more reason for the FAA to get rules in place for domestic drones of all kinds, he writes. (Including any that might be delivering your Amazon products.)
– Australian officials have confirmed that data recovered from a home flight simulator owned by the captain of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 showed that someone used the device to plot a course to the southern Indian Ocean, where the missing jet is believed to have crashed, the AP reports. There has been confusion over what was found on Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah's flight simulator since New York magazine reported last week that an FBI analysis showed Zaharie had conducted a simulated flight to the region less than a month before the plane vanished along a similar route. Malaysia rejected the report as false. But Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Center confirmed on Thursday that the captain's simulator did indeed show that "someone had plotted a course to the southern Indian Ocean." "The MH370 captain's flight simulator showed someone had plotted a course to the southern Indian Ocean," JACC said in an email to Reuters. But "the simulator information shows only the possibility of planning. It does not reveal what happened on the night of the aircraft's disappearance, nor where the aircraft is located," the agency said in another email. New York notes that Zaharie has long been considered a prime suspect in the plane's disappearance, though officials from Australia and other countries have been more suspicious than Malaysian investigators. Malaysia, Australia, and China have decided to suspend the search for the plane when the current search area has been fully checked, which should happen by the end of this year.
– The annual report from the Sustainable Development Solutions Network on the world's happiest and least happy countries is out, and if you live in the United States, sorry: The US doesn't make it into the Top 10 (it's ranked No. 13). The survey ranks 157 countries using factors including GDP, years of healthy life expectancy, freedom from business and government corruption, and "having someone to count on in times of trouble." The happiest: Denmark Switzerland Iceland Norway Finland The least happy (in order from most to least happy): Benin Afghanistan Togo Syria Burundi The SDSN notes that the editors of the list are encouraging a focus on "happiness inequality," saying that they have found such inequality has increased, and that people are happier in societies where there is more happiness equality. Click for the top and bottom 10 in each category from Reuters.
– A little bit of post-Sandy normalcy is creeping back into New York City and New Jersey, though some areas remain slammed: Free gas: The US military is setting up free fuel-dispensing stations at five spots around New York City, with a 10-gallon limit per person, reports the New York Post—but officials then told the public to stay away until first responders got gas first, the AP reports. With the city's main port reopened, Gov. Cuomo said 8 million gallons had been delivered to New York, and another 28 million gallons were on the way. Meanwhile, gas rationing started today in New Jersey. Power: Most of Manhattan has power again, and 80% of the subways are operating, reports the New York Times. But swaths of Queens, Staten Island, and Long Island remain in the dark. About 1 million homes and businesses are still without electricity in New Jersey, reports NJ.com. Death toll: The US death toll rose to 105, including 41 in New York City, reports AP. Not just here: At the Guardian, Gary Pierre-Pierre reminds all that Sandy slammed the Caribbean, too, though he complains that media coverage was relatively scant. Another storm: It's still in the forecast for the middle of next week for areas still recovering, reports DNA Info. The storm would be no Sandy, but it's expected to bring wind, rain, and maybe snow.
– The maiden flight of a new nonstop regular passenger service between Australia and Britain has touched down at London's Heathrow Airport, reports the AP. The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, operated by Qantas Airways, arrived Sunday in London just over 17 hours after setting off from the western Australian city of Perth. The new link with Perth—a 9,009-mile journey, about 20 miles short of the world's longest route between Auckland and Doha, notes the Telegraph—is around three hours quicker than routes that involve stopovers in the Middle East to change planes or refuel. It is also set to shorten journeys from London to Sydney or Melbourne, compared with flying via Dubai. The route is about a quarter more than Britain's previous longest service—7,275 miles—which was flying between London and Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. For tips on surviving a 17-hour flight, head to Sky News.
– A fisherman returning to a Portuguese beach encountered a "scene of horror" early Tuesday: the "unrecognizable" bodies of a tourist couple who appear to have fallen 100 feet to their deaths while trying to take a selfie. Brit Louise Benson, 37, and her Aussie boyfriend, 33-year-old Michael Kearns, were found at Fisherman's Beach in Ericeira at the bottom of a 100-foot wall, on top of which sat a phone, report the Bristol Post and Independent. "Everything seems to indicate that the fall happened when they were probably trying to take a selfie," PerthNow quotes an official as saying. "It seems they dropped their mobile phone and fell down while leaning over to retrieve it." Local media report witnesses saw the couple, who'd been staying at a local hotel, crossing a safety barrier and sitting on the wall with their legs facing the sea before they toppled from view, per the Independent and PerthNow. A day earlier, Benson and Kearns had shared photos on social media showing them enjoying Fisherman's Beach, with the point from which they would fall visible in the background, per the Sun. They'd departed their home in Australia in January on a lengthy holiday and had recently attended a friend's wedding in Portugal, Kearns' mother tells PerthNow. Portugal's foreign affairs department says it's in contact with the British government and is assisting Kearns' family. (This selfie managed to ID a killer.)
– Remaking Ghostbusters was never going to be easy. Luckily, an all-female cast wasn't afraid to answer the call. While audiences—who may or may not have read the hate blanketing the web—give this summer's reboot a 44% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, most critics are counting it as a win. Here's what they're saying. "Get over it, fanboy." This new Ghostbusters is "a fun, true-blue update of a classic," writes Colin Covert at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The visuals are much improved over 1984 and "the comedy is as rich as [director] Paul Feig … can get without an R rating." Covert adds Kate McKinnon "walks away with the film; her flawless reaction shots off to the side always eclipse the main gag." Less scary than the original, Ghostbusters is "goofy summer fun" that benefits from Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy's "natural give-and-take comic chemistry," writes Andrew Lapin at NPR. But "the real star" is McKinnon, who "resembles nothing if not a young Bill Murray." However, awkward plotting and editing knock the movie down a peg. Peter Rainer wasn't impressed. "The character comedy quickly gets trampled by the effects (in this case, not special)," he writes at Christian Science Monitor. Leslie Jones "has a few funny freestyle moments, as does McKinnon," but most of the cast has "been far funnier." Meanwhile, Chris Hemsworth plays "the male bimbo—a sex role-reversal joke that never takes off. The whole movie never takes off." Ann Hornaday doesn't agree. "Sunny, slimy, and profoundly silly, the new, lady-centric reboot of Ghostbusters immediately silences the backlash," she writes at the Washington Post. It "seems engineered to remind viewers of what it was meant to be all along: neither a workhorse for arguments about gender politics nor a Trojan horse for desecrating precious generational shibboleths, but simply an easygoing, enjoyable family comedy." (Check out what Bill Murray had to say about the movie.)
– Stocks hardly budged on Wall Street as the US and Canada were unable to complete a trade deal, per the AP. The US Trade Representative said Friday that the two sides would continue negotiating next week on a new deal to replace the NAFTA trade accord, which also includes Mexico. Stocks rallied earlier this week after Mexico and the US reached a preliminary agreement on a new trade platform. The S&P 500 index edged up less than 1 point to 2,901 after being down nearly all of the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 22 points to 25,964, and the Nasdaq composite rose 21 points to 8,109. Despite the lack of an agreement with Canada, President Trump notified Congress that he still intends to sign a trade deal to replace NAFTA by the end of November, reports the Wall Street Journal. That deal currently includes just Mexico, but Trump said he is willing to keep negotiating with Canada. At an event in Toronto Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada wouldn't roll over. “We have been very clear about where our red lines are," he said. "This is something we take seriously as a renegotiation.”
– Gary Johnson may not have known until recently what Aleppo is, but the libertarian candidate for president has hit a major milestone: He will appear on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. That's the first time since 1996 that a third-party candidate has qualified for all the ballots (that year it was the Libertarian Party's Harry Browne and, of course, Ross Perot of the Reform Party). Johnson's next mission is to be allowed to take part in the presidential debates, which start Sept. 26; in order to do that, he needs to be at 15% in five "marquee polls," the Wall Street Journal reports. He's currently at just 9 points (or, in one case, 7) in three of those polls, the AP reports. His campaign is taking out a full-page ad in the New York Times urging the Commission on Presidential Debates to relax its criteria.
– The proposal that super committee Republicans put forth to raise about $300 billion in new tax revenues may not have been enough to win over Democrats, but it’s been more than enough to stir up dissension in the GOP ranks, with anti-tax hardliners suddenly at odds with long-time compatriots Pat Toomey and Jeb Hensarling, the Washington Post reports. Rep. Patrick McHenry, who considers Hensarling his “mentor,” yesterday got 70 House Republicans to sign off on a letter declaring any tax increase “irresponsible and dangerous.” “We’ve not had a conversation like this within the party in two decades,” McHenry says. The conservative group Americans for Prosperity, meanwhile, has been pressuring the 40 House Republicans who have expressed openness to tax cuts, urging constituents to call them, and purchasing radio ads in five states. But other Republicans are pushing their party to compromise. “This is about more than the money,” said Lamar Alexander. “It’s about whether the president and the Congress can competently govern.” (Meanwhile, the panel's deadline gets closer with no deal in sight, notes the Hill.)
– US Attorney Preet Bharara has won a massive victory in his quest to get rid of what he calls a "cauldron of corruption" in New York's state capital. Sheldon Silver, the former longtime New York State Assembly speaker, has been found guilty of federal corruption charges and faces many years in prison, reports the New York Times, which calls the Democrat "one of the most feared politicians" in the state. After nearly three days of deliberation, a jury found the 71-year-old guilty of abusing his powers over the state budget by taking part in two schemes that made him around $4 million, Wall Street Journal reports. He will automatically be kicked out of the assembly after nearly 40 years as a member and more than 20 as speaker. In one scheme, Silver directed state funds to a cancer researcher who ensured Silver won hefty referral fees from a law firm he sent patients to, the New York Daily News reports. In the second, Silver negotiated tax breaks for a developer that sent its business to another law firm that paid him referral fees, the Journal reports. The payments were discovered when an anti-corruption committee scrutinized his outside income. Silver was found guilty on seven counts and could face a sentence of up to 120 years in federal prison, reports the Times, which notes that a prosecutor described his conduct as government not "by the people or for the people," but "by Sheldon Silver for Sheldon Silver." (After less than two hours of deliberations, a "stressed out" juror asked to go home.)
– Two chimpanzees being used for mobility research at Stony Brook University in New York will not be released to a sanctuary because a state supreme court judge has dismissed the lawsuit seeking to grant them personhood. The reason comes down to legal precedent: A higher court ruled last year that another chimpanzee, Tommy, is property, not a person, reports the AP. In May, a lawyer had argued in court for the Nonhuman Rights Project that 8-year-old chimps Hercules and Leo are "autonomous and self-determining beings" that deserve similar rights as humans. He presented hundreds of pages of opinions from a range of experts like zoologists and biologists who all felt similarly: cognitively, chimps are an advanced species. In a somewhat sympathetic 33-page decision, State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe called the effort to extend rights to chimps "understandable" and noted such a suit may one day succeed, giving the reasoning that "legal person" and "human being" aren't necessarily synonymous, reports NBC News. But she added: "The past mistreatment of humans, whether slaves, women, indigenous people or others, as property, does not, however, serve as a legal predicate or appropriate analogy for extending to nonhumans the status of legal personhood." The group plans to appeal the decision, reports the Wall Street Journal, which notes that more lawsuits are likely to be filed on behalf of animals held in captivity. Hercules and Leo have been held by Stony Brook since 2010. (See why this grandma is suing SeaWorld.)
– As shocking as it may seem, Donald Trump didn't make a lot of fans in Mexico when he proposed building a "great, great wall" along our southern border on Mexico's dime to block all of its criminals and rapists from reaching the US. "When Mexico sends its people ... they're sending people that have lots of problems," Trump said in announcing his 2016 run on Tuesday. "They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists." Understandably, Mexican politicians aren't pleased. Trump has "a profound ignorance of the reality in Mexico and the migrant contribution" to the US, its foreign secretary said, per GlobalPost. "A politician that does not know reality does not have good prospects." Mexico's interior minister called Trump's comments "biased and absurd." Even actor Rob Schneider chimed in on Twitter, reports AOL. "Dear Donald Trump, My daughter is half Mexican. It seems like her only 'problem' is that she speaks 2 languages and she's not even 3!" he wrote. Trump acknowledges he went "off-script a little bit" during his 45-minute announcement speech, but "I meant everything I said, and I think a lot of it resonated with different groups of people," he told the AP. Polls show Trump may actually get a spot in an early Republican debate, but some in Mexico are still managing a good laugh at his expense. One satirical website has posted a cartoon of a "Jurassic Trump," with the body of a marine beast, attempting to gobble up a tiny fish representing Mexico. (Trump's own "supporters" might not be fans.)
– Wildlife officials are calling it "a despicable act of cruelty to one of Australia's most loved animals." Over the last five weeks, three platypuses have been killed and dumped in a botanical garden in New South Wales, despite the fact that the animal is protected across the country, the Guardian reports. All three, including two that were beheaded, were found in Albury Botanic Gardens, about a quarter-mile from a river where officials believe they may have been trapped. The first was found in early March by a gardener, while the others were found by visitors. A vet has confirmed the latest animal found last Wednesday had its head removed with a sharp object, ruling out an animal attack. "We still don't know what they've done with the heads" but "you can actually see where they've tried to cut into the vertebrae," a rep for the Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service tells the Border Mail. "We have no idea why anyone would do that, especially to something as gentle as a platypus," she adds. Anyone found to have killed a protected Australian species like a platypus, which happens to be the animal emblem of New South Wales, could face up to six months in jail and an $11,000 fine. WIRES, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, and the Albury City Council are investigating, reports the Huffington Post. (Beheaded animals have also been found in Canada.)
– The chair of the Senate Environment Committee offered the chamber some compelling evidence yesterday against man-made climate change: a snowball. "Because we keep hearing that 2014 has been the warmest year on record, I ask the chair, do you know what this is?" Sen. Jim Inhofe said to fellow Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy as he produced the snowball, the Hill reports. "It's a snowball. And it's just from outside here. So it's very, very cold out. Very unseasonable," Inhofe said before chucking the snowball in Cassidy's direction. The Oklahoman, one of the most vocal climate-change deniers in the Senate, went on to denounce "alarmism" on the subject and accuse President Obama of being "detached from reality" for claiming that climate change is a bigger threat than terrorism. Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse rebutted Inhofe's claims, starting by saying he wanted "to respond to the presentation by one of the Republican senators suggesting that the continued existence of snow disproves climate change," CNN reports. At the Washington Post, Philip Bump writes that those not completely convinced by Inhofe's evidence might argue that he's using "one bit of weather-related data to try to disprove a well-established, very long-term trend. Bump also notes that "temperatures in February are supposed to be cold in the Northern Hemisphere since it is a season called 'winter'" and points out that one snowball doesn't change the fact that 2014 was indeed the warmest year on record, according to NASA and the NOAA.
– Sarah Palin's Alaska debuted last night, complete with the inevitable references to mama grizzlies and the fence she built to block her pesky journalist neighbor. Some of the best, funniest, and/or cringe-inducing moments, depending on your POV: The mama bear: Palin, of course, made sure to dole out some wisdom about her favorite animal. Female bears have a "nature that humankind can learn from," especially when it comes to caring for their cubs and doing "anything and everything, laying down her life for her kids." Rock climbing: Turns out Palin isn't good at all outdoorsy activities. Her rock climbing expedition appears to be fairly difficult for her, although she does find time to joke—when someone points out that she always wanted to be a rock climber—"Was it a rock climber or rock star?" The fence: Todd bemoans the fact that next-door neighbor Joe McGinniss is writing a "hit piece" on his wife—but fortunately for us, it gives Sarah a chance to discuss the 14-foot fence they built and note that some might look at it and say, "Oh, this is what we need to do to secure our nation's border." For more similar moments, check out Gawker or the Daily Beast. Click here for an early review of the show.
– An Austin Republican's lawn currently features an empty chair dangling from a rope on a tree, along with a US flag. Following Clint Eastwood's RNC speech, it's not a stretch to assume the empty chair symbolizes President Obama, suggesting not-so-subtly a lynching, Burnt Orange Report notes. A similar display appeared in Virginia this weekend. When Burnt Orange called the Austin man—who in 2010 won a "Yard of the Month" award, presumably with a different display—to ask about the chair, he replied, "I don't really give a damn whether it disturbs you or not. You can take (your concerns) and go straight to hell, and take Obama with you. If you don't like it, don't come down my street."
– It can be heroic when someone braves a fire to save a loved one. It's a different word when that "loved one" is a television. A 40-something couple in St. Paul ended up hospitalized for smoke inhalation after they, yes, tried in vain to disconnect their beloved flat-screen TV as their apartment burned around them, reports the Pioneer Press. Firefighters arrived and forced them outside, reports the Star Tribune. They'll be OK, unlike the Texas man who went back into a burning building to save his phone.
– Frazier Glenn Cross, the white supremacist whose poisonous beliefs led him to murder three people at two Jewish sites in Kansas last year, was unrepentant after he was sentenced to death on Tuesday. The 73-year-old, who also goes by the name Frazier Glenn Miller, shouted "Heil Hitler!" after the judge affirmed a jury's decision and issued the death sentence, CNN reports. "One day my spirit will rise from the grave and you'll know I was right. I'm a happy man," Cross said as he was forcibly removed from the courtroom. At the hearing, Cross argued that the killings were justified because Jews control the government and the media, reports Reuters, which notes that all three people he killed were Christians who happened to be outside Jewish centers. The victims were Terri LaManno, 53, Reat Underwood, 14, and Underwood's grandfather, 69-year-old William Corporon. Corporon's son Will was among the family members who spoke at the hearing. "You are a coward," he said, per Reuters. "You are not a patriot. You are a disgrace to the uniform you wore," he told Cross, a Vietnam vet who became a "grand dragon" in the KKK. Before the verdict, Underwood's mother, Mindy Corporon, played a video of her son singing the national anthem, prompting many in the courtroom to sing along, CNN reports. Kansas hasn't executed anybody since 1965 and it may not get the chance to execute Cross: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that he has chronic emphysema and only a few years to live.
– Lots of people bite their nails, but not Olivia Munn: She plucks out her eyelashes, she told the New York Daily News this week. The odd tendency stems from a disorder called trichotillomania, the Huffington Post notes. Eight more stars with habits that are a bit strange: Johnny Depp: He likes … playing with Barbies? Jason Segel: One of the rooms in his house is "sort of dedicated to puppets," he once revealed. Jane Lynch: The Glee star used to be addicted to cough syrup. Simon Cowell: "I climb trees daily. It's like a ritual," he once said. Click for the full list, which includes one actress who used to open doors with her elbows.
– President Obama gave perhaps the strongest indication yet today that the US is prepared to use military force in Syria. In a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room, Obama said he has not ordered military action "at this point," but that he hadn't ruled it out, Reuters reports. "A red line for us is (if) we see a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around, or being utilized," he said. "That would change my calculus." In the same appearance, Obama defended his campaign's attacks on Mitt Romney's refusal to release his tax returns. "If you want to be president of the United States, your life's an open book when it comes to things like your finances," he said, according to Politico. "This isn't overly personal here, guys. This is pretty standard stuff. I don't think we're being mean by asking you to do what every other presidential candidate has done!"
– Mexican health agencies are on the hunt for the manufacturer of a weight loss drug sold online after a young mother went into a coma and died after ingesting it. Per Mexico News Daily, Lucero Priscila Garza Campos, 24, had been taking Avitia Cobrax for a month before she went to the doctor to complain of severe headaches. She was admitted and diagnosed with cerebral edema. Two days later, she experienced cardiac arrest and went into a coma. Garza was taken off life support later that week when her doctors declared her brain dead. Her doctors say the pills, marketed as a natural weight loss remedy, were a major contributor to her death. The drug’s social media pages and stores have since been taken down. Garza found Avitia Cobrax online while looking for a natural remedy to help lose weight gained during her pregnancy with her now 1-year-old daughter, reports the Independent. She spent $65 on the pills and lost 15 pounds over 10 days. Marketing descriptions claim that the product uses heat to “reduce the percentage of body fat without reducing muscle.” Two drugs using similar ingredients were banned by state health agency Cofepris, which is investigating whether the same manufacturer is rebranding the drug under new names. Following Garza’s death, the agency warned against the dangers of drugs sold online, tweeting (translated), "Medicines sold online and on the street are a risk to your #health. Buy them in legal establishments." (In the US, the FDA approved a new weight loss pill for the first time in 13 years).
– One sip of Preservation Ale and you'll be transported to a time long past—kind of. Researchers at an Australian museum have brewed what might be the "world's oldest beer," using yeast salvaged from a bottle that spent nearly two centuries on the seafloor, they say in a press release. The bottle came from the Sydney Cove, which sank off the Australian mainland in 1790 and was salvaged in the 1990s, reports CTV News. Samples of the beer were decanted at the time of the salvaging, and they sat mostly forgotten until David Thurrowgood began working at Tasmania's Queen Victoria Museum a year-and-a-half ago. He and his team say they were able to isolate live yeast in the old beer, one they say is genetically distinct from more modern yeast species. "I thought we might be able to culture that yeast and recreate beer that hasn't been on the planet for 220 years," he tells the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The result, brewed in accordance with an 18th-century recipe, is Preservation Ale. The discovery isn't a slam dunk: Some scientists are skeptical that yeast could live that long and suggest it might have been contaminated, perhaps in the last 20 years or so after the bottle was decanted. Researchers hope to disprove the naysayers by retrieving more bottles from the wreck and repeating the results. So how does the new-old beer taste? It has a "distinctly light and fresh flavor," say the researchers. "I f I was trying to craft beer at a pub, I'd be very happy with it," one tells Mashable. (Elsewhere, the "Everest of shipwrecks" is in bad shape.)
– One's birthdate has already been linked to such things as temperament. Now researchers in Taiwan report in the Journal of Pediatrics that we can add ADHD to the list. When looking at 378,881 children ages 4 to 17 at some point between 1997 to 2011, they found that preschool and elementary school-age children born in August were 1.65 times more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD and 1.73 times more likely to be put on medication than kids born in September—who, because of school cutoff dates similar to those in the US, tend to be nearly a year older than their August counterparts. (The discrepancy did not exist in older kids, which researchers write may imply that "increasing age and maturity lessens the impact of birth month on ADHD diagnoses.") The findings add to previous work on ADHD in the US and Canada finding that a child's age within a grade plays a role in ADHD diagnosis, lead author Dr. Mu-Hong Chen tells Live Science. He calls it reduced neurocognitive maturity, something that is particularly pronounced when comparing the youngest and oldest kids within a grade. Globally, the number of kids diagnosed with ADHD has risen dramatically, researchers note in a press release, saying, "Our findings emphasize the importance of considering the age of a child within a grade when diagnosing ADHD and prescribing medication to treat ADHD." (More than one in 10 kids in the US have been diagnosed with ADHD.)
– Kellyanne Conway says that a federal judge's emergency order late Saturday temporarily barring the US from deporting people from nations subject to President Trump's travel ban "really doesn't affect the executive order at all." Conway says Trump's order is about "preventing, not detaining" and says that only a very small percentage of travelers have been impacted, which she says is a "small price to pay" to keep the American public safe, reports the AP. Appearing on Meet the Press, Reince Priebus said Trump's order was meant to block "people who want to do bad things to America." He said the action "doesn't affect green card holders moving forward"—the subject of legal challenges. Priebus says officials were using "discretionary authority" to ask "a few more questions" at US airports. Elsewhere on a very active Sunday morning that sees the plan getting some pushback from Republicans, via the AP: Republican Sen. Rob Portman wants everyone "to take a deep breath and come up with something that makes sense for our national security" and reflects the fact that "America's always been a welcoming home for refugees and immigrants." Portman doesn't think Trump's order was properly reviewed. Sen. John McCain says "I think the effect will probably in some areas give ISIS some more propaganda," per the Hill. "What about the Iraqi pilots training in Tucson, Ariz., learning to fly the F-16? I’m very concerned about our effect on the Iraqis right now." Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says "I think it's a good idea to tighten the vetting process But I also think it's important to remember that some of our best sources in the war against radical Islamic terrorism are Muslims, both in this country and overseas." He stressed the need "to be careful as we do this," and said it would be up to the courts to decide "whether or not this has gone too far." NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio, meanwhile, says "There was no guidance" on the order, per Politico. "And obviously, there was not clear guidance to federal officials around the country. That's why there is so much confusion here." He adds: "This is a city with 800,000 people who are permanent residents of the United States of America. This sends a horrible message to them that for no reason whatsoever they could be detained or sent back to their home country." Etihad Airways, the United Arab Emirates' national airline, says a number of its passengers have been affected by the new US immigration policies and it is working closely with American officials on the matter. The carrier said it is offering affected passengers refunds or flight changes where possible.
– Bryan Cranston is out plugging his new movie, Godzilla, and if his goal is to generate headlines, then job well done. Except he did it with a reference not to the action flick but to Breaking Bad, notes Time. (Anyone months behind on their Netflix viewing should stop reading now.) During the interview on CNN, Ashleigh Banfield wondered hopefully whether the character of Walter White might have survived in that last episode, and Cranston played along: Banfield: "Your eyes were open and I thought, ‘What if the police just take him into custody, he gets better, breaks out and just goes nuts?'" Cranston: “Hey, you never saw bags zip up or anything." Banfield: “Is he dead?” Cranston: “I don’t know." Banfield: “No movie? No nothing? No Walter White ever again?” Cranston: “Never say never." The transcript comes from the Huffington Post, which notes that Cranston was smiling all the while and "probably just teasing—or maybe he didn’t want to let down Banfield, who is clearly a super fan of the show." At Uproxx, Ashley Burns calls Cranston a "marvelous bastard" who knows "how to push our buttons." Burns also takes note of his grin: "Obviously, he's just teasing, but is he?"
– House Republicans can't get one big spending bill through the Senate, so how about lots of little spending bills? That seems to be the strategy they're settling on, reports Roll Call, and it's one floated previously by the Senate's Ted Cruz. The House plans to vote on a series of separate bills that would keep individual agencies open through mid-December. The VA and the National Park Service are likely candidates. Still, don't expect this to solve anything, because comments from Democrats suggest they won't go along. “They’re trying to [do this] a little piecemeal, to give kind of a faux way of solving problems,” says Sen. Barbara Mikulski. Politico suggests it's a move by John Boehner to try to show that Republicans are earnestly working toward a solution. President Obama, meanwhile, tried to sway public opinion himself in afternoon remarks in the Rose Garden, reports NBC News. "This Republican shutdown did not have to happen," he said. "But I want every American to understand why it did happen. They've shut down the government over an ideological crusade to deny affordable health insurance to millions of Americans."
– Fans of Game of Thrones may be able to breathe a sigh of relief. HBO—which will air the final season of the hit series next year—says it has enlisted four writers to produce scripts for possible GOT spinoffs, reports Variety. The writers have been given as much time as they need to produce the scripts, which will "explore different time periods of George RR Martin's vast and rich universe," an HBO rep says. They'll find plenty of inspiration on Twitter, per Mashable: Using the hashtag #GameOfThronesSpinOffs, users have been throwing around ideas for titles, including "How Your Mother's Brother Met Your Mother," and "The Walking Ned." Also: "Big Littlefinger Lies."
– Karen Odens suffered from grief and PTSD after her 4-year-old daughter, Sophia, died in 2014 from an E. coli infection, but she also had health issues of her own directly related to the same E. coli strain—and on July 14, she also passed away at age 39. "The last four years have been really pretty rough," Odens' father, Ed Welke, tells the Star Tribune, adding that mom and daughter were joined at the hip before Sophia's death. The Twin Cities Pioneer Press reports Sophia died in February 2014, just a few days after she contracted the E. coli from a still-unknown source. As for how Odens was infected, it's believed—but not confirmed—she actually got it from being in the hospital where Sophia was being treated before she died. "When the public thinks about E. coli, they often think about ground beef," a Minnesota Department of Health epidemiologist tells the Star Tribune. "But [person-to-person transmission] absolutely is a risk." Welke tells KARE 11 that his daughter had also been born with congenital defects, which made it even harder for her to fight off the E. coli O157 strain. Odens' obituary notes she took a leave of absence from her job as a pharmacist in Pelican Rapids due to her health issues, and she'd been undergoing kidney dialysis for most of this year. "I urge everybody to wash your fruits and vegetables," Welke tells KARE 11. "Don't trust anything. Because when you buy ... from the grocery store, you have to protect yourself."
– Wonder whether gas prices will hold at their incredible $2.20 national average? Based on today's news, filling up the tank won't get harder over the next few weeks, the Wall Street Journal reports. US oil prices dipped below $50 a barrel for the first time in nearly six years, breaking a psychological barrier and sending a message: the high-supply, low-demand, low-price perfect storm will only continue. Here's more: Why: Plentiful worldwide oil production—including historic US highs, reports Bloomberg—ran into a weak global economy last year, lowering oil prices. Saudi Arabia, which produces oil more cheaply than many rivals, opted to maintain its market share by keeping the oil pumping. Prices dropped by 50%. What it may mean: "[It] is very plain for all to see that oil supply growth exceeds oil demand growth and from a producer point of view this imbalance has to be rectified," says the CEO of broker PVM, the Financial Times reports. Upshot 1: The number of US rigs drilling for oil has dropped for the past month. Many say US shale-oil drilling stopped being profitable at roughly $60 per barrel: "We’re certainly in new territory here," says a portfolio manager. Upshot 2: Analysts say we're near bottom but could hit $40 a barrel before a rebound in a couple of months. Some traders are even betting on $20 oil, Marketwatch reports. Upshot 3: Cheap oil could cause geopolitical disruption in nations like Venezuela and Libya, and limit Vladmir Putin's global ambitions, an analyst tells Fortune.
– In May, the first fresh cup of coffee was brewed on the International Space Station. Today, ISS astronauts will enjoy another fresh debut: a meal made with the first food grown in outer space. On the menu will be a salad made out of microgravity-grown romaine lettuce, washed with a citric acid sanitizer before the dinner bell, Sky News reports. Half of the lettuce will be devoured by the crew, while the other half will head back to Earth so scientists on the ground can check it out. Growing the red lettuce—nicknamed OutREDgeous by NASA scientists—was no small feat, the Escapist notes: When there's zero gravity, water doesn't seep into the soil, dirt can just float away, there's limited sunlight, and the roots don't know which way to grow since there's no traditional "up" or "down." The astronauts overcame these challenges by packing special "pillows" with soil, seeds, and stakes to help guide root and plant growth, per the Escapist; the pillows were then placed underneath blue, red, and green LED lights—the green light to turn the romaine the dark-red color that people are accustomed to, Sky notes (check out the NASA video that further explains the process). There are some fringe benefits from space-garden fare other than a delicious meal: A NASA behavioral health scientist tells Sky that gardening could help astronauts cut their stress levels, while a Kennedy Space Center scientist says that "having fresh food … in space could have a positive impact on people's moods and also could provide some protection against radiation," per ZME Science. (Maybe we could even make tires out of the space lettuce.)
– President Donald Trump says Air Force One is getting a patriotic makeover, the AP reports. Trump says the familiar baby blue color on the presidential aircraft will give way to a red, white, and blue color scheme. Updated models could be in service before the end of a potential Trump second term. "Air Force One is going to be incredible," Trump told CBS News. "It's going to be top of the line, the top in the world, and it's going to be red, white, and blue, which I think is appropriate." White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday that the Air Force awarded Chicago-based Boeing Co. a $3.9 billion contract for two presidential planes that will be ready in 2024. They will replace a pair of Boeing 747 jumbo jets that are now 31 years old. The contract confirms a deal reached in February by Trump, the Air Force, and Boeing. Sanders says the final price represented a savings of $1.4 billion from an initial contract proposal. The presidential plane—it goes by the radio call sign of Air Force One when the president is on board—was once a Boeing 707 that had orange above and below the nose and "United States of America" painted on the sides in blocky, all-caps lettering. According to Boeing history, first lady Jacqueline Kennedy picked new colors for the plane used by her husband, President John F. Kennedy. A swath of baby blue covers the nose and sweeps back along each side of the fuselage. The lettering was changed to a font inspired by the heading of the Declaration of Independence. Click for the full story or see why Trump wanted to revamp Air Force One.
– With Tunisians voting today in the Middle East's first elections since the dawn of the Arab Spring, analysts and citizens alike are looking to the vote for a sense of where Tunisia and democracy in the region might be heading, reports the AP. Tunisia's 7.5 million voters face an overwhelming list of up to 80 options, but most think the moderate Islamic party Ennahda—banned by the government more than a decade ago—will lead the voting. But the contentiousness of the vote is leading to charges all around that money is improperly influencing the elections, reports the New York Times. Ennahda allegedly is getting support from Persian Gulf governments, while some Islamists say liberal parties are receiving money from rich cronies of former dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, and nearly everyone is fuming over Slim Riahi, an expatriate businessman who made a fortune in oil in Libya and now has founded a political party in Tunisia that seemingly has no stated ideology. “There was a political void that Ben Ali left, and we saw that many political parties were going to take advantage of this to manipulate the Tunisian people,” said one party leader.
– John Kerry had to backpedal after he suggested that Israel was on the path to becoming an apartheid state, and that's a sad commentary about the level of candor we have on the topic of our Mideast ally, writes Paul Waldman at the Washington Post. Kerry didn't say Israel was an apartheid state, he said it could become one—and that happens to be true, writes Waldman. Given current birth rates, the number of Palestinians will eventually exceed the number of Israelis, meaning "you have a minority government ruling over a majority population without citizenship rights." Others have made this point before, but Kerry took immediate flak from pro-Israel groups and lawmakers, who seem more concerned with making sure "all public officials are being sufficiently 'pro-Israel' in their every utterance" than with making actual progress in negotiations, writes Waldman. It's tantamount to censorship. At Bloomberg, Jeffrey Goldberg writes that he has used the word "apartheid" himself in writing about Israel's potential future—laying the blame on the settlement movement—though he spells out the reasons why he no longer uses the volatile term. For starters, "deployment of the word doesn't start conversations, it ends them," he writes. Still, he's not going to criticize Kerry. "Israeli leaders must open their minds to the possibility that he has their long-term interests at heart." Click for Goldberg's full column. Or for Waldman's full column.
– The first gold medal of the Rio Olympics went to a 19-year-old college sophomore from Virginia. Ginny Thrasher placed first in the women's 10-meter air rifle, the first event of these games, on Saturday, USA Today reports. Thrasher is competing in her first Olympics and—according to West Virginia MetroNews—only started shooting five years ago after asking her father and grandfather to take her deer hunting. To get the gold, Thrasher beat out two Chinese competitors, including defending champion Yi Siling, the BBC reports. It's the first major international win for Thrasher, who also won the NCAA title this year competing for West Virginia University. The Olympic champion will be home in less than a week to start her sophomore year of college.
– Just another day in the life of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie: The super-couple was spotted yesterday in the Oval Office, having a little chat with President Obama. They were in town for a screening of Jolie's directorial debut, In the Land of Blood and Honey, at the Holocaust museum, the AP notes. A White House deputy press secretary tells the New York Post that they spoke about "[Angelina's] work to raise the profile of preventing mass atrocities and combating sexual violence against women." Well, either that or they were there to discuss some other "matter of national importance, like what gift to buy for Jay-Z and Beyoncé's baby," snarks Joe Coscarelli in New York. Jezebel, meanwhile, has a whole bunch of ideas about potential conversational topics. Sample line of dialogue: "Really, Mr. President? You want me to hit you as hard as I can?" For more on Angelina's feelings about Obama, click to see why she's a bit "disappointed."
– Gwen Ifill, the veteran journalist and co-anchor of PBS' NewsHour with Judy Woodruff, died on Monday of cancer, the network said. She was 61. A former newspaper reporter, Ifill switched to television and worked for NBC News and PBS, the AP reports. She moderated two vice presidential debates. She took a leave from her nightly show for health reasons earlier this year, never making public her illness. A week ago, she went out on leave again, taking her away from election night coverage. A sampling of how she's being remembered: Sara Just, PBS NewsHour executive producer: "Gwen was a standard bearer for courage, fairness and integrity in an industry going through seismic change," she said, per the Daily Beast. "She was a mentor to so many across the industry and her professionalism was respected across the political spectrum. She was a journalist’s journalist and set an example for all around her." Paula Kerger, President & CEO, PBS: "Gwen was one of America’s leading lights in journalism and a fundamental reason public media is considered a trusted window on the world by audiences across the nation. Her contributions to thoughtful reporting and civic discourse simply cannot be overstated. She often said that her job was to bring light rather than heat to issues of importance to our society. Gwen did this with grace and a steadfast commitment to excellence." The Washington Post: She made "her greatest mark as one of the most prominent African American TV anchors of her generation."
– It's been more than a month since Rachel Dolezal caused a media circus when her parents revealed she was a white woman passing as black. Now the ex-NAACP head is speaking out, telling Vanity Fair that she still identifies and connects with the "black experience," and that her physical appearance is simply a manifestation of that connection. "It's not a costume," she tells writer Allison Samuels, who corresponded with Dolezal for a month with "friendly" phone calls, emails, and a visit to Spokane, Wash. "It's not something that I can put on and take off anymore. … I've had my years of confusion and wondering who I really [was] … but I'm not confused about that any longer. I think the world might be—but I'm not." Part of that confusion still swirls around what she considers herself in terms of race—and as Samuels puts it, "Dolezal's claim on black womanhood still seems to be non-negotiable." To wit: "It's taken my entire life to negotiate how to identify, and I've done a lot of research and a lot of studying," she tells Samuels. "I didn't mislead anybody; I didn't deceive anybody. If people feel misled or deceived, then sorry that they feel that way, but I believe that's more due to their definition and construct of race in their own minds than it is to my integrity or honesty … I wouldn't say I'm African American, but I would say I'm black, and there's a difference in those terms." Samuels calls this a "peculiar defense" and also calls out Dolezal for her "I never misled" statements by pointing out how Dolezal IDed a black man as her dad on Facebook—"a move that could only be characterized as misleading." Dolezal, meanwhile, blames the whole brouhaha on timing, saying if she had simply had conversations with people and explained herself before she was exposed, none of this would have happened. (Read what else she had to say in Vanity Fair.)
– As far as emails go, it seemed typical enough. Sent out shortly after 3pm Monday, it was promoting the Utah State Bar's 2018 Spring Convention in St. George on behalf of the Bar. One attached image was a photo related to the convention; the other was of a woman's breasts. Every active attorney in the state was on the distribution list and the Bar is investigating how the photo ended up being attached to the email, which was created "in-house," Bar Communications Director Matt Page tells the Salt Lake Tribune. One attorney describes opening the email while sitting in the House gallery at the state Capitol. "I was expecting a routine email I would most likely scroll through and delete. But I had to scroll through and delete a lot faster than I had initially anticipated." Page uses the word "horrified," as does the Bar's executive director. Page tells the Deseret News an inquiry has been launched and is chasing down two theories: that they were hacked, or that someone internal attached it, either purposefully or accidentally. He says once the probe is complete it will update the recipients on the findings. Fox 13 has a censored screenshot of the email here.
– Rose McGowan, one of Harvey Weinstein's many accusers, has been using Twitter to denounce Weinstein, his brother Bob (and others involved with the Weinstein Company), and even some who've spoken out against Weinstein—like Ben Affleck, who she says knew what Weinstein was doing all along. Now, her Twitter account has been suspended. It's not clear why, but she posted a screenshot of the notice she received to Instagram Wednesday night, and it says her account violated Twitter's rules in some way and that she can speed up the process of returning to Twitter by deleting tweets that violate the rules. "TWITTER HAS SUSPENDED ME. THERE ARE POWERFUL FORCES AT WORK. BE MY VOICE. #ROSEARMY #whywomendontreport," McGowan wrote on Instagram. As People notes, Twitter's online terms state it can suspend accounts engaging "in abusive behavior, like sending threats to others or impersonating other accounts." The New York Times notes that the suspension (which leaves McGowan's account visible, but temporarily bars her from tweeting) came soon after McGowan's tweets to Affleck. But the Washington Post says the rule-violating tweet has been deleted, and the paper found one recent deleted tweet originally posted by McGowan Oct. 11. It was an image of an email offering to set up a meeting with "Bob" (likely Bob Weinstein, based on the context) at a hotel, and it contained the complete email signature of the person who sent it. McGowan wrote that the email had been anonymously submitted to her: "They all knew. It starts here." WaPo hypothesizes that tweet possibly violated Twitter's rule about releasing private information without permission.
– A new McDonald's marketing stunt has managed to catch the attention of tech and food blogs because of its weird premise: the redesign of the humble straw. The chain hired two respected engineering firms—people behind Google, NASA, and DARPA projects—to build a straw that allows for the perfectly-proportioned sucking of its dual-layer Chocolate Shamrock Shake, reports Engadget. For the uninitiated, the seasonal shake is essentially a mint shake on top of a chocolate shake—so how to get both flavors at once? The robotic and aerospace engineers concocted a rigid, muti-holed, J-shaped gizmo that looks "more like mountain-climbing equipment than any straw we've ever seen," notes a post at GoodFood. (It adds that complaints about McDonald's straws in regard to shakes are real and have been around for a while.) The weird part? "It works," writes a blogger at Fast Company, though he found that he couldn't get to the very bottom of the shake with the efficiency of an old-fashioned straw. Yes, it's "comedic over-engineering," as he puts it, and McDonald's is playing along with the grandiose acronym of STRAW, which stands for Suction Tube for Reverse Axial Withdrawal. As Vocativ notes, the company's video pushing the product seems to be a jokey parody of an Apple rollout. McDonald's has released a limited-edition run of 2,000 STRAWs at 80 locations nationwide. If it's a hit, the chain might bring it back later for a wider audience. (The condom, too, has recently undergone a major redesign.)
– The French artist Paul Gauguin may be best known for his paintings—one of which sold just this month for $300 million, one of the highest prices ever paid for a work of art—but the printmaking he worked on toward the end of his life in the early 1900s is turning out to be so complicated and experimental that art conservators are "blown away" by the new findings, reports Northwestern University. Computer scientist Oliver S. Cossairt, who announced the findings in San Jose over the weekend, worked with art conservation specialists at the Art Institute of Chicago to reveal Gauguin's surprising techniques, including layering, transferring, and re-using imagery. Since September, the team has been analyzing 19 of the artist's prints at the Art Institute—the most in-depth analysis being of the work "Nativity (Mother and Child Surrounded by Five Figures)," completed in 1902 a year before Gauguin's death—using a process that dates back to the 1980s called photometric stereo. It entails taking a sequence of photos from a fixed camera while light on the subject jumps to a new position. Software then helps separate out color from surface shape to detail the paper's topography. Cossairt tells Newsweek the process is "simple" but still "labor intensive," with 20 million pixels processed for each print. One finding: Gauguin made white lines by drawing on an ink surface, thereby removing the ink, and transferred the resulting lines to the print. (Check out why one woman attacked a Gauguin painting in Washington's National Gallery.)
– A judge has dismissed a Nebraska inmate's lawsuit that claimed he was denied his right to worship the divine Flying Spaghetti Monster, and that he was mocked and faced discrimination for his faith, reports the AP. Stephen Cavanaugh sued the Department of Correctional Services and penitentiary officials in 2014 seeking $5 million and a court order mandating that inmates who practice FSMism receive the same rights and privileges as inmates who practice other religions. US District Judge John Gerrard dismissed the lawsuit this week. He said in his ruling that "FSMism" is not a religion as outlined by federal law, but "a parody intended to advance an argument about science, the evolution of life, and the place of religion in public education." Gerrard said those issues are important and that FSMism contains a serious argument, "but that does not mean that the trappings of the satire used to make that argument are entitled to protection as a 'religion,'" reports the Lincoln Journal Star. He also said Cavanaugh, 24, didn't sufficiently back up claims that he had been prevented from exercising his religion while serving time in the Nebraska State Penitentiary on assault and weapons charges. Cavanaugh claimed prison staff discriminated against him by refusing to allow him to meet for worship services and classes, to wear religious clothing and pendants, and to receive communion. Gerrard determined that prison staff "concluded, reasonably, that FSMism was satirical and required no accommodation."
– Archaeologists who found ancient settlements high up in the Peruvian Andes were surprised to learn that humans were there between 12,000 and 13,000 years ago. At nearly 3 miles above sea level, that makes them the "world's highest known Ice Age settlements," in the words of Reuters. It also means that humans got to these sites in the Pucuncho Basin about 2,000 years earlier than thought, reports National Geographic. Researchers found tools and animal bones in the rock alcoves, along with artwork on the walls and soot on the ceiling from fires. "What this tells us is that hunter-gatherers were capable of colonizing a very extreme environment, the high Andes, despite the challenges at the end of the Ice Age," says an archaeologist from Germany's University of Tübingen who led the study published in Science. One theory is that these first inhabitants braved the cold temperatures and thin air because of the abundance of llamas and alpacas for hunting. They also would have found deposits of obsidian to make their stone tools, reports AP. (In another archaeological find, researchers discovered a missing sphinx head inside a Greece tomb.)
– Hate having to drag yourself to the gym after work? A new JAMA study suggests people who exercise only on the weekend enjoy much of the same benefits as weekday gym-goers. Researchers at Loughborough University in the UK who reviewed data on more than 63,500 mostly white adults found those who completed the recommended weekly amount of exercise—150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of high-intensity workouts—over several days of the week had only a slightly lower risk of death from cancer and heart disease than "weekend warriors" who completed the same exercise in just one or two days, reports Quartz. Compared to participants who didn't work out at all, people who worked out multiple times a week were 35% less likely to die during the study period, while the percentage dipped to 30% for those who waited until the weekend, reports Reuters. "Quality may be more important than quantity," the study author says. A cardiology expert at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved with the observational study tells CBS News that he finds the results "quite fascinating and a bit surprising." He says it reinforces the idea that those strapped for time should exercise when they can, even if it's just one day a week. (Music may help you get through an intense workout.)
– Insane Clown Posse is taking on the feds on behalf of their fans. The duo filed a lawsuit today against the FBI and the Justice Department over the designation of their followers—Juggalos—as a gang. "Organized crime is by no means part of the Juggalo culture," says the complaint. The ACLU is helping with the lawsuit, which includes four fans who say they got treated unfairly by law enforcement because they were Juggalos, reports the New York Times. (One, for example, says he was detained by troopers in Tennessee because he had a logo on his truck.) "We don't fit in anywhere," the ICP's Violent J tells Rolling Stone. "And when people don't understand you, people fear you. All we're trying to do is be like the Stephen King of music. We like to tell horror stories." No response yet from the feds, but the sentiment in the music world seems to be squarely behind the band. "You don’t have to like ICP’s music to respect their mission here," writes Tom Breihan at Stereogum. "Juggalos may be an unruly bunch, but it would be a massive stretch to label them as a gang, loosely organized or not. And when one subculture is subject to institutional demonization, the same can happen to any other."
– A British teen who was found collapsed on the landing outside his room at a children's home last August died from using too much spray-on deodorant, the Telegraph reports. "He sprayed it all over himself and succumbed to the effects of the gas," Kent Online quotes the coroner as saying. A doctor says 16-year-old Thomas Townsend died from "circulation collapse caused by butane gas inhalation." The cause of death came to light at an inquest this week, reports Metro.co.uk. “He would not take showers but would stand there with a deodorant and spray half the can on him," says the teen's mother. "Then he would spray aftershave to cover up BO." Police found 42 cans of deodorant, hair spray, and other products in Townsend's room at the children's home near Folkestone, Kent Online reports. His mother says she didn't know her son had so many cans but says he was "a big hoarder." Authorities say Townsend, who had been in a foster home for five years, had a history of self-harm, but he wasn't suicidal or abusing drugs or alcohol. No alcohol or drugs were found in Townsend's system, notes the Telegraph, and his death was ruled accidental. Those who knew him say he had turned a corner and was preparing to start college the following month, Kent Online reports. (How one man has gone 12 years without bathing.)
– At least 23 people are reported dead after an unapproved building collapsed Friday in Nairobi, Kenya, per the Star, but the Kenya Red Cross offered a bit of hope early Tuesday. "Good news! A child aged about one and half years rescued alive at 0400 hours," the organization tweeted, adding in a press release that the baby had been found 80 hours after the collapse nestled in a bucket and wrapped in a blanket. Although the child, IDed as Dealeryn Saisi Wasike by the BBC (which also says she's only 6 months old), seemed dehydrated, there were no other immediate signs of injury, and she's now recuperating at a nearby hospital. The Red Cross' Twitter feed also indicates the baby has been reunited with her dad, though the group says it hasn't confirmed what happened to her mother, per Reuters. Media reports differ, but estimates hover at around 140 rescued so far and almost 100 still missing after the six-story building slated for demolition in the Huruma district crumbled after heavy rains Friday. At least five people are due in court Tuesday to face manslaughter charges, including a city inspection official, a rep from the nation's construction agency, the building's engineer, and two brothers who own the site. The owners didn't have permission to rent the building out, and it was apparently never approved by the city. That last point doesn't appear to be an anomaly: Nairobi's deputy governor tells Nairobi News that up to 70% of residential buildings don't have formal approval from City Hall. Kenya's president surveyed the damage Saturday and demanded that other buildings in the area be examined for safety issues. (A building that blew up in NYC had failed a work inspection just an hour before the blast.)
– Huge numbers of refugees displaced by decades of conflict are flowing back into Afghanistan, but they are returning to a country in crisis where more than a million people have been forced to leave their homes this year. The Taliban now controls more territory than at any point since 2001, and United Nations officials say the Kabul government is struggling to deal with the influx of returning refugees from Pakistan, which has been pushing for Afghan refugees to return home, the Washington Post reports. More than 800,000 refugees have returned from Pakistan and Iran so far this year, and tens of thousands more are expected to be sent back from the European Union in the near future, reports Voice of America. The return of tens of thousands of refugees every month while the Taliban conflict creates more "will add very much to the vicious cycle of insecurity and joblessness," Afghan analyst Bashir Bezhen tells the Post. He warns that the government appears "incapable of creating jobs for these people or of improving the economy in the remote places where they live," meaning unemployed youths will be recruited by militants, pushing the country further into crisis. The UN says only 13% of its appeal for $150 million has been raised, and Afghanistan faces a humanitarian crisis as winter approaches. (The iconic "Afghan girl" from a 1985 National Geographic cover has been arrested for allegedly possessing fake Pakistani ID.)
– American troops deployed to the border installed barbed wire and barricades Tuesday as the first members of a migrant caravan arrived in Tijuana—with thousands more to come. US Customs and Border Protection said it was "hardening" the border "in preparation for the migrant caravan and the potential safety and security risk that it could cause," the AP reports. The agency said several lanes at the busy San Ysidro and Otay Mesa border crossings would be closed to allow the Defense Department to install fortifications. Several hundred migrants traveling by bus arrived in Tijuana on Tuesday. The main group of around 6,000 mostly Honduran migrants began moving north from Guadalajara on Tuesday as another group of 1,300 migrants arrived in Mexico City. Migrants who spoke to the media in Tijuana said they were not deterred by the US border crackdown. "I prefer to be in detention in the United States than to return to my country, where I know they are going to kill me for being different,” transgender woman Nelvin Mejía told Reuters. "Last month, they killed my partner, and I do not want to end up like that." (The White House has tightened the rules on claiming asylum.)
– "In most cases where human remains have been found in connection with … scenes of brutal violence, the bodies have been buried in mass graves. This is not the case at Sandby borg," write the authors of a new study published in the journal Antiquity. The Swedish site, found on the island of Öland in the Baltic Sea, was a once-thriving village that in the mid-fifth century was wiped out by attackers—who left the bodies to decompose where they fell. The Guardian reports that after excavations over three years, just 10% of Sandby borg, located within the walls of a ring fort, has been uncovered. Archaeologists had been warned treasure seekers were messing with the site, and for good reason: Roman gold coins, silver hair pieces, and glass beads have been found, likely left behind because they were hidden, and "no one lived who knew of them and could recover them," archaeologist Ludvig Papmehl-Dufay tells Live Science. But the more noteworthy finds were those of a more gruesome nature. Papmehl-Dufay says no oral or written history of the massacre survived, but the 26 bodies thus far uncovered do tell a tale. The archaeologists believe there were a "large number" of attackers who struck "simultaneously in several houses, and that several of the victims were not in a position to defend themselves." In one case, the remains of an elderly man were found with a smashed skull and charred pelvic bones, likely the result of him falling into an open fire after taking the blow to the head. Papmehl-Dufay says the island was home to at least 15 forts (Archaeology.com notes "borg" means "fort") at the time, and speculates that "another elite group on the island, possibly connected to another fort," may have been behind the attack. (Archaeologists say they found proof of a massacre on Dutch soil by Julius Caesar.)
– The handsome British calvary officer who had an affair with Princess Diana contemplated suicide when their five-year relationship became public, he revealed. "I got in my car to go to France—to shoot myself," James Hewitt told Inside Edition. But his mother insisted on accompanying him. If she hadn't "I would have probably shot myself. So I owe her my life." Hewitt said he "felt I had let people down—myself, my family, my friends, the nation, the army, my regiment." He collaborated on a book about their affair, Princess in Love. He told Entertainment Tonight that Diana would not have slept with him if Charles had been faithful. Some people have speculated that Hewitt is Prince Harry's father because of some striking similarities in their appearance. “No I am not" Harry's real father, said Hewitt, who added that his affair with Diana began after Harry's birth. "I am not happy talking about it," he added. As for Diana, "I think we all miss her," he said. "But I've tried to move on with my life." He said she would be "very proud" of William's upcoming marriage.
– Combine a Dutch Nobelist, the co-creator of Big Brother, and a Mars-obsessed company, and what do you get? A reality show that follows the creation of the first human colony on Mars, of course. Mars One, as the company is called, plans to send four people to the planet by 2023, adding to that group until the population hits 20 a decade later, the Daily Mail reports. The firm will fund the trip by making it "the biggest media event ever," it says. It all reportedly starts next year, when the future astronauts are selected and start training. The public will help choose the team, whose members "will share their experiences with us as they build their new home, conduct experiments, and explore Mars," notes the company, which has been in talks with aerospace companies since last year. Reality-TV honcho Paul Romer is on board for the project, which he calls a "one-way mission"; he joins Nobel prize-winning physicist Gerard 't Hooft in supporting it. "Reality meets talent show with no ending and the whole world watching. Now there’s a pitch," Romer notes.
– An ominous development in Saturday's crash of a Russian plane in Egypt: The airline says pilot error or technical problems could not have caused the crash of Kogalymavia Flight 9268, leaving unspecified "external activity" in the air as the only possible cause, reports the BBC, which notes that an ISIS affiliate is active in the area where the plane went down and that Moscow hasn't ruled out terrorism as a cause. "The only [explanation] for the plane to have been destroyed in mid-air can be specific impact, purely mechanical, physical influence on the aircraft," says airline deputy director Alexander Smirnov. "There is no such combination of failures of systems which could have led to the plane disintegrating in the air." He says that contrary to some reports, the flight did not send out a distress signal or contact air traffic controllers before it broke up midair, reports the AP. Russian officials, meanwhile, say they've gotten a look at the plane's black boxes and they're in good condition, per the AP. The bodies of around 140 of the 224 victims arrived back in St. Petersburg, the doomed flight's destination, early on Monday, reports the Guardian. A state of official mourning has been declared in the city for what officials say is Russia's deadliest aviation disaster, the Washington Post reports. The Post also reports that major carriers, including KLM and Air France, have decided to avoid flying over the Sinai Peninsula until the cause of the crash is known, though United, the only American carrier to fly over the Sinai, says it does "not see a need" to change its routes immediately.
– Protesters, including some in wheelchairs, were removed from a Senate hearing on the latest GOP bill to repeal ObamaCare Monday afternoon, Mother Jones reports. Politico says they were "dragged out" by Capitol Police. Demonstrators, who were organized by the disability rights group ADAPT and most of whom were in wheelchairs or had disabilities, were protesting against the Graham-Cassidy health care bill's proposed cuts to Medicaid; the group of almost 20 forced Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch to suspend the hearing for about 15 minutes and order the protesters to "shut up." Hatch later said that he understands why the protesters feel so strongly about the issue, but "if the hearing is going to devolve into a sideshow … there’s no reason for us to be here." A full day of protests was planned against the repeal bill Monday, including protests from women's health groups, patient advocacy groups, and other progressive groups. Hundreds of demonstrators waited outside the hearing room, booing Republican senators as they entered for the first and only scheduled session on the bill. NPR reports that Senate Republicans must act on the bill by Saturday due to special rules regarding filibusters, but the bill is still in danger of falling short of the votes it needs to pass.
– The hearing set for today in the Pussy Riot case has been postponed until Oct. 10, CNN reports. The Russian court moved the hearing following a band member's announcement in court today that a disagreement had prompted her to fire her lawyers. Yekaterina Samutsevich said she'd found a new lawyer but hasn't signed a contract with the attorney, the AP reports. Prosecutors accused Samutsevich of seeking to delay the legal process. The Russian Orthodox Church yesterday changed its tune on the case, calling for clemency for the political punk rockers if they're willing to repent. But their lawyers say there's no way the band members will acknowledge guilt, the BBC reports. If the church means "repentance in the sense of a crime... it definitely won't happen. Our clients won't admit guilt. A call for that is pointless," says one.
– Thoughts can be deadly. So posits new research published this week in the journal Cell investigating the link between brain activity and tumor growth. Specifically, researchers at Stanford found that activity in the cerebral cortex promoted the growth of high-grade gliomas; they account for four out of every five malignant brain tumors, and a Stanford press release notes survival rates for those with the cancer have barely budged in the last three decades. To test the suspected link, the researchers implanted human glioma tumors into the brains of lab mice and then used light to increase brain-cell activity adjacent to those tumors. That increase did spur faster tumor growth, and the behavioral relationship—in which an organ's "primary function" fuels a tumor—is an unusual one. As lead author Michelle Monje puts it, "We don't think about ... breathing promoting the growth of lung cancer." Monje has spent more than a decade studying diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, or DIPG, which exacts a cruel toll: It typically strikes around age 6, and it afflicts some 200 American kids each year; most are dead within nine months. (Earlier this month, the New Jersey Record shared the story of a family who donated 6-year-old Lily LaRue Anderson's tumor to Monje's team upon the girl's death; her battle with DIPG lasted 11 months.) A neuro-oncologist not involved in the study tells NPR that Monje's findings have "potential implications across the entire family of gliomas in the brain ... not just pediatric tumors" and could lead to new treatments. Monje tells NPR one route that's not an option: using sedatives to reduce brain activity. "We don't want to stop people with brain tumors from thinking or learning or being active." (Will tiny balls of gold help improve cancer treatments?)
– For two years, Japan's fast-food lovers were forced to go without Wendy's. Now the chain is back—with a bang. Its first new store to open in the country will serve up the Foie Gras Rossini Burger, which, yes, is topped with foie gras and costs 1,280 yen, or around $16. The Tokyo store will also serve a Truffle and Porcini Grilled Chicken Sandwich and a wasabi-avocado burger, reports the Wall Street Journal. The paper explains that Wendy's pulled out of Japan in 2009, shuttering its 71 stores. This time around, it has teamed up with a new partner (which also happens to be behind the country's Domino's) and has plans to blanket 700 stores throughout the country. If you're interested in the luxurious burger, though, you'll have to make a trip overseas. Wendy's corporate office (located in Dublin, Ohio) says they "really don't have anything to do with" the new menu item, which won't be popping up in the US, the Los Angeles Times reports.
– West Virginia hasn't executed anybody since murderer Elmer Brunner went to "Old Sparky" in 1959, but quite a few people want that to change after the horrific murder of a 9-month-old baby. Benjamin Taylor is accused of raping and killing his girlfriend's daughter, and a petition to have him publicly hanged received more than 50,000 signatures on the White House website before it was removed, KTLA reports. President Obama would have been required to respond if the petition gained more than 100,000 signatures over 30 days. West Virginia abolished the death penalty in 1965. "When it's an open and shut case such as this, let us hang these creatures publicly. Let us make examples of them, and allow the American people to attend these hangings so that the accused may be ridiculed, as they should be," read the petition, which the White House "We the People" website says was pulled for violating the "terms of participation." Taylor, 32, was charged with sexual assault Monday and a first-degree murder charge was added on Friday, the AP reports. He was arrested after Emmaleigh Barringer was found naked and covered and blood in the basement of her mother's home early Monday. She died from her injuries on Wednesday.
– In late December, a Kentucky woman who was 30 weeks pregnant with quadruplets delivered them early via C-section because of a grim diagnosis: her cancer was back. Having married military police officer Charles Gaytan in early 2016, Kayla Gaytan learned just a week later that she had Hodgkins lymphoma, and endured months of chemotherapy before the cancer went into remission. At that point, however, doctors told her it was unlikely that she'd be able to have kids after the grueling treatment, reports People. When they learned just a few weeks later they were expecting four—conceived naturally—the couple "couldn't believe it," Kayla Gaytan says. All was going well until, 28 weeks into the pregnancy, she was told she'd need more chemo, and urgently. Initially, when Charles Gaytan started up a GoFundMe page to help cover their medical bills, he set a goal of $5,000, and they were surprised to see it gradually tick past $18,000. Then, after the family appeared on Fox News last week, the floodgates opened; the Eagle Post reports that the story went viral in minutes, with several hundred thousand dollars donated in the first few hours. Now, a few days later, more than 16,000 people have donated more than $1.13 million, which includes one anonymous donation of $8,000. "Our family has truly been humbled and amazed by the kindness of people," says Kayla Gaytan, who has been given a 50-50 chance of surviving five years. "We're just in shock." (A 65-year-old woman went through in vitro fertilization to add quads to her 13 children.)
– If you were wondering why the actor Lorenzo Lamas was trending on Twitter today, it all has to do with a pair of runaway llamas in suburban Phoenix. The two animals led police and civilians on a lunch-hour chase around the streets of Sun City before they were finally lassoed, reports AP. As you might imagine, the chaos spawned all kinds of memes and headlines of the "Lllamas on the Lloose" variety, notes Time. (Slate dubbed them "Thellma and Llouise.) The two were reportedly being transferred to an elderly care center to work as therapy animals when the great escape somehow took place, reports USA Today.
– Mental health therapists and counselors in Tennessee can now turn away gay patients or others whose "goals, outcomes, or behaviors" conflict with their "sincerely held beliefs." Republican Gov. Bill Haslam signed Bill 1556 into law on Wednesday, saying it doesn't "address a group, issue, or belief system," though opponents say it's a troubling attack on gay rights, CNN reports. The bill was created in response to the American Counseling Association's 2014 change to its ethics code, which required counselors to avoid imposing their own values on clients, the Tennessean reports. The ACA says the Tennessee legislation, which is the only such law in the country, is an "unprecedented attack" on the profession, the AP reports. ACA spokesman Art Terrazas says the group is "extremely disappointed" that Haslam has ignored the backlash to similar "religious freedom" bills in states like Georgia "and has elected to sign this dangerous bill into law. Plain and simple, this bill codifies discrimination." The final version of the bill removed references to religion and added requirements for therapists to treat people who are in immediate danger of harming themselves or others, and to refer rejected clients to other therapists or counselors. (Earlier this month, Haslam vetoed a bill to make the Bible the official state book.)
– Alexa Ray Joel was playing a sold-out show at New York's Cafe Carlyle when she collapsed onstage and was rushed to the emergency room Saturday night. By the time the news came out yesterday, Joel was already recovering, and the 28-year-old daughter of Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley says in a statement that she's fine and just feels bad about the show: "I was excited and determined to fulfill my final performance and I really wanted to end my run with a bang, but this was not what I had in mind." Her rep tells People Joel was diagnosed with vasovagal syncope, a condition that causes fainting by blocking bloodflow to the brain. Page Six notes that the condition is typically harmless, and E! reports that Joel will not need treatment. She's passed out at a show once before, when she fainted backstage in 2006. Then, in 2009, she made headlines after a suicidal overdose scare (though she later insisted it was neither a suicide attempt nor an overdose). Most recently, she was in the news earlier this month when the media noticed that she looks quite different nowadays (see a before-and-after comparison here) and rumors of plastic surgery surfaced. But Joel put those to bed, insisting all she's ever had done is a nose job.
– A man in a trench coat is suspected in the stabbing of five people in a popular Washington, DC restaurant and club. The victims were attacked in the early hours of this morning at McFadden's, on Pennsylvania Avenue, eight blocks from the White House, the Raw Story reports. Two people were seriously injured, and all were hospitalized, but authorities expect them to survive, police say. The victims were childhood friends out for a birthday, the father of one tells WJLA. Authorities are on the lookout for an attacker who, they say, escaped the bar, the Washington Post reports. "McFadden’s can be a rowdy place, but it was not a violent place," says a graduate of nearby George Washington University.
– Did life imitate art in the case of Jack the Ripper? An Australian English teacher, who claims to have solved the 127-year-old mystery, certainly thinks so, the New York Daily News reports. Richard Patterson believes Jack the Ripper, who killed five London prostitutes over 10 weeks in 1888, was actually poet Francis Thompson. According to the Mirror, Patterson read a book of Thompson's poetry in 1997 and became convinced he was the legendary killer. He's spent the years since attempting to prove his theory. "Soon before and soon after the murders, he wrote about killing female prostitutes with knives," Patterson says. And the Daily News quotes a graphic short story by Thompson about a woman being stabbed to death. In addition to Thompson's grisly writings, Patterson points to his experience as a surgeon and his troubled relationship with a local prostitute, the Mirror reports. Patterson says Thompson kept a dissecting knife under his coat and knew a rare surgical procedure that was used to mutilate some of the victims. He also lived with a prostitute with whom he began a romantic relationship. When that relationship ended, Patterson says Thompson "snapped." "I'm excited that people are beginning to take the theory seriously," says Patterson, who is publishing it in a book. The Jack the Ripper case was eventually closed in 1892, and Thompson died 15 years later, according to the Christian Science Monitor. In the years since the slayings, scholars, amateur sleuths, and others have identified up to 100 suspects. (This Hollywood director thinks Jack the Ripper was actually a popular singer.)
– Al-Qaeda's spiritual leaders say the organization is on the verge of "collapse" while ISIS thrives. The former al-Qaeda branch—booted last year for disobeying Osama bin Laden successor Ayman al-Zawahiri—is attracting money and recruits that have helped it spread from Afghanistan to west Africa, even as an al-Qaeda group in Pakistan sold its laptops and cars to pay for food and rent last year, a former member tells the Guardian. Zawahiri "operates solely based on the allegiance. There is no organizational structure," says jihadi scholar Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. Abu Qatada, a preacher deported from the UK to Jordan to face terror charges in 2013, agrees Zawahiri is "isolated" and lacks "direct military or operational control." He blames ISIS, which he calls a "cancerous growth" within the jihadi movement. The Guardian reports al-Qaeda's downfall began with Zawahiri's ascension after bin Laden's death. Zawahiri was forced to hide out near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border while fighters that would eventually form ISIS came together in Syria and Iraq. "What is leadership," asks an al-Qaeda associate, "if your leader is in Afghanistan and your soldiers are in Iraq?" Insiders say ISIS, which won't accept another jihadi group in its territory, is winning the propaganda war as well as the war on the ground. The New York Times reported last week that ISIS militants beheaded 10 members of the Taliban. A former intelligence analyst tells the Guardian the US considers ISIS and al-Qaeda to be the same entity and sees the rivalry as "a squabble within." But ISIS is "basing itself on skills and organizational capabilities and objectives that are much more accelerated and capable than what al-Qaeda's ever had."
– A British man accused of telling authorities he wanted to kill Donald Trump was unemployed, living out of his car, and had been treated in the past for OCD and anorexia, authorities say. People who knew 20-year-old Michael Sandford, arrested at a Las Vegas rally on Saturday, tell the AP he was intelligent and that signs of his Asperger's syndrome became more obvious as he got older. Sandford's father describes his son—who apparently outstayed his visa after moving to New Jersey to be with a girlfriend—as polite and peaceful and calls the arrest an "absolute shock." "Whether he's been blackmailed or put up to it, that's the only thing me and his mum can think of," he tells the Portsmouth News. "It's so against his nature and obviously with his Asperger's, we think somebody has got hold of him and done something." US Secret Service agents say Sandford approached an officer at the Trump campaign stop to say he wanted Trump's autograph, then tried to take the officer's gun. In an interview, Sandford told agents he wanted to shoot Trump and was prepared to die at the hands of police in the assassination attempt, according to the criminal complaint. Sandford was charged with an act of violence on restricted grounds and was assigned a court-appointed attorney. He has not yet entered a plea and was denied bail after a judge said he was a flight risk and posed a threat to the community. "There may be some issues regarding the mental health of the defendant," the judge said during a court hearing Monday, while Sandford appeared to tremble in his seat. A public defender said Sandford previously attempted suicide and once ran away from a hospital in England. Still, she believes he's competent to stand trial.
– If it's been nearly 24 hours since your last fix of Babyoncé updates, surely you're hungering for more, and we can deliver. The latest on Blue Ivy Carter: The hospital where Beyoncé gave birth denies rumors that she and Jay-Z paid $1.3 million to rent out an entire floor, and tells TMZ the family paid the "standard rate" for an "executive suite." But that doesn't mean the birth wasn't swank: The New York Daily News notes that people were seen carrying takeout and lots of red wine into the wing on Saturday night. The baby's life will also be swank: According to Australia's News Network, Bey and Jay have already spent $1 million on baby items including a Swarovski crystal-studded high chair, a solid gold rocking horse, and a mini Bugatti. Us adds that they also purchased a $3,500 Lucite crib. Blue may not have been born on her own private floor of the hospital, but she does already have her own security detail, a family friend tells the Huffington Post. And controversy over that security continues: More patients complain to the New York Times that they were kept from the neonatal unit, and TMZ reports that a group of new mothers is considering filing a lawsuit against the hospital. Beyoncé and Jay-Z released an official statement on their daughter's birth yesterday, giving the world a little bit of TMI with their announcement that she was "delivered naturally" in an "emotional" birth. Of course, not everyone can just let them be happy with what they called "the best experience of both of our lives." Conspiracy theories abound, with bloggers speculating that Beyoncé actually used a surrogate, and SandraRose.com reports that the singer wasn't even in the room when the surrogate gave birth. Want more? Click to see what Oprah gave the new baby.
– Saudi Arabia issued its first driver's licenses to 10 women on Monday as the kingdom prepared to lift the world's only ban on women driving in three weeks, but some who campaigned for the right to drive remain under arrest. A government statement said the 10 women who were issued licenses already held driving licenses from other countries, including the US, UK, Lebanon, and Canada. They took a brief driving test and eye exam before being issued the licenses at the General Department of Traffic in the capital, Riyadh, the AP reports. A video of the first woman receiving her license quickly went viral on Twitter, Al Arabiya reports. Other women across the country have been preparing for the right to drive on June 24 by taking driving courses on female-only college campuses. Some are even training to become drivers for ride hailing companies like Uber. Saudi women had long complained of having to hire costly male drivers, use taxis, or rely on male relatives to get to work and run errands. The surprise move to issue some women licenses early came as activists who had campaigned for the right to drive remain under arrest, facing possible trial. Saudi Arabia's prosecutor said Sunday that 17 people had been detained in recent weeks on suspicion of trying to undermine security and stability, a case activists said targeted prominent women's rights campaigners. The prosecutor's statement said eight have been temporarily released, while five men and four women remain under arrest. Among the women held since May 15 are Loujain al-Hathloul, Aziza al-Yousef and Eman al-Nafjan, according to people with knowledge of the arrests. The three are among the most outspoken and well-known women's rights activists in Saudi Arabia.
– Facebook already has a swanky campus in Menlo Park, Calif., and soon, it will also have an equally swanky housing community nearby. The social network is working with a developer to build a 394-unit rental community within walking distance of company headquarters, the Wall Street Journal reports. And the 630,000-square-foot "Anton Menlo" certainly sounds like a place anyone would want to call home: Amenities include an on-site cafe and sports pub; a pet spa, dog park, and doggy day care; a yoga and training facility and other wellness services; a resort-like pool, rooftop deck, spa, and cabana; and, of course, a bicycle repair shop. The nearly 10-acre property is a redevelopment of industrial land, CNET reports. A Facebook rep says the $120 million project wasn't designed as an effort to retain employees ("We believe that people work at Facebook because what they do is rewarding and they believe in our mission"), but that some employees had in fact asked for help finding places to live. Real estate prices are going up fast in Silicon Valley, and there's currently a housing shortage in Menlo Park. But the development can only house about 10% of the local employees at most, and most of the units will be open to non-employees as well. The development will include 208 one-bedroom apartments, 139 two-bedrooms, 35 studios, and 12 three-bedrooms; it won't be complete for at least two years. See the Journal for an idea of what Anton Menlo will look like. (Or click for details of the similarly swanky remodel Mark Zuckerberg is doing on his house.)
– "Placed at a historical crossroads, I will pay with my life for the loyalty of the people," vowed Chilean President Salvador Allende as forces loyal to army chief Augusto Pinochet closed in on the presidential palace in a 1973 coup. Allende was found dead from gunshot wounds hours afterward; Now, investigators have exhumed his body in an effort to determine once and for all whether he committed suicide or was assassinated by Pinochet's forces, the Independent reports. The coup ushered in 17 years of dictatorial rule that ended in 1990, after some 3,000 Chileans were killed or disappeared under Pinochet's notorious regime. The judicial probe into what some consider Chile's greatest unsolved mystery has the backing of opposing political coalitions—including Allende's family—and analysts call it a symbol of the country's political maturity. "People previously didn’t want to look into the past too carefully because it would destabilize the emerging democracy,” an expert in Chilean politics tells Bloomberg. “Now that democracy is very stable and the past is gone, history can come in and do its job."
– "I need to talk to you," Shawn Smith told cops a few blocks from his Brooklyn residence Saturday. "My brother may be hurt. He might be dead." Police officers soon found the body of Smith's little brother Shimron in a rear courtyard, where the 4-year-old was pronounced dead on the scene, reports the New York Times. The medical examiner later said he died from several blunt force injuries, per NBC New York, and Shawn was charged with second-degree murder for allegedly throwing his sibling from the roof of a seven-story apartment building. There's no known motive, but police say they have video of Shawn carrying Shimron to the roof, and Yahoo reports that Shawn suffers from schizophrenia. Asked if he wanted to harm his brother, Shawn seemed to grin and said, "Not really." Now the community around Nostrand Avenue between Avenues J and K is trying to comprehend the death of a child described as laughing and running as he went to and from school. "I can't fathom someone taking my child and throwing them off the roof," says Donna Heyward, who helped organize a memorial of candles, cloth flowers, and dolls. "It tears me apart." Shimron's family, including five other children, moved to New York from Guyana last year.
– A steady diet of sodas could hinder your ability to reproduce or even shorten your life, if lab mice are any indication. Researchers at the University of Utah gave mice a diet of 25% sugar—equivalent to three extra sodas per day in people—and found the males less likely to reproduce or defend their territory, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. Females had it worse, dying at double their normal rate. And to think, the National Research Council tells us that this level of added sugar is considered safe in humans. "Added sugar consumed at concentrations currently considered safe exerts dramatic adverse impacts on mammalian health," the study says, according to Science Daily. Yet the mice weren't fatter and would have passed physicals, despite the negative health impacts—so the sugar's toxic damage is all "under the hood." Why rely on a study of mice? They're considered roughly equivalent to humans in dietary studies because they've had a similar diet to ours for about 10,000 years, and up to 80% of what's toxic to them is toxic to people, too.
– The days of dogs and cats living in Damascus or its hard-hit suburbs might be numbered, at least according to local clerics. With reports surfacing of regime loyalists using starvation tactics against rebel-held areas like Muadhamiya, Syrian clerics have issued a fatwa telling the faithful that is OK to eat normally forbidden meats like dogs, cats, and donkeys, the BBC reports. "It is a reflection of the reality we are suffering," one cleric said, according to the Telegraph. One leading imam followed that up with a video on Al Arabiya today begging for international humanitarian intervention. "How does the world sleep with full stomachs while there are hungry people, and not far from the main city?" he asked. "Are you waiting for us to eat the flesh of our martyrs and our dead?"
– If you've ever wished you could burn a fair amount of calories just by sitting around, and you don't mind that just-jumped-into-a-swimming-pool feeling, a NASA scientist may have a solution: his Cold Shoulder Calorie Burning Vest. Dr. Wayne Hayes, who has studied both ice and the effects mild cold exposure have on calorie burn, designed the vest to take advantage of the body's tendency to try to warm itself in cold conditions. He tells the Chicago Tribune that wearing a freezing-cold vest may not be the only way to expose oneself to mild cold conditions, but it sure beats the pants off, say, running nearly nude in February, which he calls neither comfortable nor practical. But apparently a $199.99 vest with ice packs that feels "just like jumping into a pool" is a no-brainer, and earlier this year 1,524 backers raised an astronomical $281,319 for Hayes' idea on Kickstarter. (He originally asked for $13,500, reports CNET.) Hayes recommends wearing it for 60 to 90 minutes twice a day. A handful of testimonials from early Cold Shoulder testers suggest enticing results, but a larger sample size is about to put the vest to the test now that the first Kickstarter orders shipped out in September. Being a scientist, Hayes wants to make one thing perfectly clear: "Let's be blunt: There is no magic pill for weight loss, and The Cold Shoulder is no exception to that rule. The cold, hard truth is that the foundation of weight control is your diet." The vest, he proposes, is simply a way to accelerate calorie burn for those already eating well and exercising. (Is veganism the best weight-loss diet?)
– Human history shows that when two civilizations meet for the first time, it doesn't always turn out that well for one of them. And plenty of scientists—Stephen Hawking included—fear that humankind may end up on the losing side of a meeting with extraterrestrials. Now a couple of astronomers from Columbia University have put forth an idea they say could keep aliens from locating Earth in the first place: use giant lasers to hide the planet. The paper by David Kipping and Alex Teachy was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on March 31. ("Despite the timing," the society's executive director tells AFP, "it's really not an April Fool's joke.") Kipping and Teachy's idea centers on the transit method, which is how humans, via NASA's Kepler spacecraft, search for habitable planets, reports Space.com. It involves detecting dips in the brightness of a star caused when an orbiting planet moves directly in front of it. A giant laser or group of lasers would "fill in the missing starlight," Teachy says in a video outlining the idea. Depending on how thoroughly you wanted to conceal the Earth, it would take anywhere from 30 to 250 megawatts emitted for 10 hours, once a year. Lasers can even be used to cancel out attributes "such as oxygen," Teachy says in a press release, to make Earth appear to be a "dead world." But their idea could also be applied in reverse: The sun's light could be manipulated as we passed in such a way that would make it clear something artificial was happening, signaling our presence. (These celebrities say they've already had close encounters with ETs.)
– Daniel McCabe is just 5 months old, but he's been fighting a rare liver disorder since he was born. On Dec. 13, things had become so dire that doctors placed him on the waiting list for a new liver and prepared to wait weeks, if not months, with his life in the balance. As it turns out, they waited less than an hour, reports NBC Chicago. Daniel went on the list at 10:15am, and at 10:55am, a doctor received the good news and walked into his room at Chicago's Lurie Children's Hospital to inform his mom. "I was just speechless," recounted Melody McCabe, per Fox 6 News. With good reason: The average wait for a liver is 149 days for adults and 86 days for kids. The infant from Waukesha, Wisconsin, had successful surgery the following evening is now recuperating. “It’s one in a million, you know," surgeon Riccardo Superina tells the Chicago Sun-Times. "I can’t ever remember having something like this happen. We were prepared to wait a few months—in fact at one point I think the plan was to evaluate one of the parents for donations.” Only about 40 people have gotten a match in 40 minutes or less over the last five years. Not much is known about the donor in this case, other than he was a male in his 30s. One footnote: His liver was split in two and thus saved the lives of two patients. Daniel's parents expressed sorrow for the donor's family as well as profound thanks. "This is a Christmas we'll never forget," says dad Daniel McCabe. (Apple's Tim Cook offered Steve Jobs part of his liver.)
– Paul Ryan's coupon-based Medicare plan would result in higher costs for six in 10 beneficiaries for the same service they're getting now—and Floridians would suffer the greatest financial toll, a yearlong, nonpartisan study finds. The Kaiser Family Foundation says that Medicare beneficiaries in Florida would pay, on average, more than $200 extra per month on the Ryan plan, the AP reports. In Miami-Dade County, which has a large population of beneficiaries, most recipients would pay almost an extra $500 per month; 99% of Palm Beach County plans would rise $370 a month, the Raw Story reports. Seniors nationwide would pay an average of an extra $720 a year, the Kaiser report finds. Both campaigns have already issued reactions to the study. The Obama campaign says the study doesn't even tell the full story, since it only looks at "a single year" and "ignores the role of adverse selection against traditional Medicare—which would drive costs higher." A Romney rep notes that the study doesn't look at "the Romney-Ryan plan"—distinct from the Ryan plan, though Mitt Romney has called the two "the same, if not identical." The Romney-Ryan plan would mean "no increase in out-of-pocket costs from today’s Medicare," the spokeswoman adds.
– In November 2011, a worker from the nonprofit Peace Winds Japan scouting for search and rescue dogs at a Hiroshima animal welfare center came across 4-month-old Yumenosuke. The mixed-breed pup was set to be put down that day, but a backlog meant his number was never called. PWJ took him in and trained him, and the group's efforts paid off recently: He made his first recovery amid the rubble of Japanese landslides that killed dozens in mid-August, reports the Asahi Shimbun, as spotted by Gawker. Yumenosuke wasn't a natural when he first started his rescue-and-recovery schooling: He wasn't assertive or overly curious, both necessary traits for the job, notes the paper. Over time, however, he gained confidence and learned to follow directions as he accrued experience performing mountain searches. When he made his first official find on Aug. 20 in the Yagi section of Hiroshima, Yumenosuke didn't raise a ruckus by barking: He simply fixed his gaze on a pile of lumber and didn't take it off until his handler checked out the pile. Sadly, a man's body was found under the wood, but Yumenosuke had done his job. "A dog abandoned by people is now rescuing them,” his handler tells the paper. “It is proof that Yumenosuke deserves to live.” (In the US, a pit bull is being hailed as a hero.)
– Some highlights from the Glenn Beck rally, as rounded up by the Times, Post, Politico, and AP: Beck: "For too long, this country has wandered in darkness. ... We have had moments of brilliance and moments of darkness. But this country has spent far too long worried about scars and thinking about the scars and concentrating on the scars. Today, we are going to concentrate on the good things in America, the things that we have accomplished—and the things that we can do tomorrow." Beck again: “America today begins to turn back to God.” Attendance: No official crowd estimates, as per usual. The phase of choice in coverage seems to be "tens of thousands." Sarah Palin: ""We must not fundamentally transform America, as some would want. We must restore America and restore her honor. Here today, at the crossroads of our history, may this day be the change point." Palin again: "You are Americans! You have the same steel spine and the moral courage of Washington and Lincoln and Martin Luther King. It is in you. It will sustain you as it sustained them."
– Incumbent Barbara Boxer is leading former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina in the Senate polls—but infinitely more importantly, so is Boxer’s hair. Public Policy Polling included a question about the rivals’ hairstyles, following Fiorina’s remark that Boxer’s hair is “so yesterday,” and found that 19% of registered voters actually like Boxer’s hair better. Only 14% prefer Fiorina’s, and 67% “were ‘not sure,’ which just goes to show you how politically illiterate people are,” writes Max Read on Gawker. Proving Fiorina’s catty remark even less accurate, 26% of young people preferred Boxer’s hair, while 3% liked Fiorina’s better. The question is “not something we would normally ask, but Carly Fiorina made Barbara Boxer's hair into a bit of an issue,” the PPP communications director tells Talking Points Memo. “I think the whole story was silly, so we asked a silly question.” Click here to hear from one writer who doesn't think it's so silly.
– In 1982, 13-year-old Carrie Ann Jopek went missing in Milwaukee after she got suspended from school. Her body was found 17 months after she vanished, buried under a neighbor's porch, but the search for her killer eventually went cold, the AP reports. Now her mom, Carolyn Touisgnant, may finally have answers after a man called a local news station and confessed. Jose Ferreira, 50, called WISN 12 on Oct. 11 and described exactly what had happened on that March day. "His story was very detailed—disturbingly so," the station's newsroom director told the AP; he says the station called cops because of "several red flags," leading to Ferreira's arrest on second-degree murder charges. Ferreira had also apparently called a crisis line and told an acquaintance about his crime, though it's still unclear why he came forward now. A more recent WISN 12 story says Ferreira confessed to cops that when he was 17, Carrie Ann changed her mind about making out with him at a house party, so he shoved her down a flight of stairs, breaking her neck. He said he buried her body under the porch and then denied knowing anything about it for the past three decades, even after her body had been found. "She spent two of her birthdays underneath that porch," Touisgnant says, per the AP, adding that she sometimes still blames herself because she let Carrie Ann walk home from school that day instead of picking her up. Still, there's some peace in the prospect of getting justice. "Everytime [I'd] watch Cold Case or some other detective show, I would hope and pray one of these days [we'd] get the person who did that to Carrie," she says, adding to WISN 12: "Now he's gonna pay for what he did to her." (Is this the 20th century's most baffling cold case?)
– Three men now in custody murdered a teen with developmental disabilities in front of his mother because they didn't like the color of his shoes, according to the LAPD. Police say that on the morning of May 29, 19-year-old Tavin Price went into a smoke shop in South LA to buy a soda and was confronted by men who asked him about his red shoes and his gang affiliation, the Los Angeles Times reports. Cops say Price ignored the men and returned to a nearby car wash, where he was shot four times in front of his mother and a family friend. Alleged shooter Kanasho Johns, 27, was arrested in Texas yesterday and has been charged with murder, as have Dwight Smith, 30, and Kevin Johnson, 25, ABC7 reports. Police say Price had nothing to do with gangs and just happened to be wearing red shoes. "There are seldom times where we see senseless tragedies ... where a young man is killed simply because of the color of his shoes," an LAPD spokesman says, per NBC Los Angeles. “We thought those days were past us." After investigators held a press conference yesterday, Price's mother said she still visits her son in the cemetery every day and still hears his final words, KTLA reports. "Everything I hear is Tavin saying, 'Mommy, am I going to be all right? Mommy, I'm not going to die, am I?' That's all that I hear every day," she said. "I've got to live with that for the rest of my life. That's torture. You robbed me of my baby." (Another senseless death in the news: that of a toddler left in a hot car for 16 hours.)
– Syria's regime is raining devastation down on Homs for a fourth day today, with the Telegraph reporting that hundreds of shells are hitting the city with each passing hour. Rebels there have been rendered defensively helpless, incapable of responding with anything more than gunshots. "We can't count all the bodies from the streets and the collapsed buildings," says an insurgent leader. "We are living in a tragedy. People can't even run away or flee, and are dying in their homes." The bombardment continues even as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived today in Damascus for talks with Bashar al-Assad, and a day after the US shuttered its embassy. Russia voted against a UN resolution urging Assad to step aside on Saturday, and Lavrov was welcomed by enthusiastic crowds, but the country is said to be pushing its own plan to end the bloodshed, notes the New York Times. “It is in our interests for Arab peoples to live in peace and agreement,” Lavrov said. Others are losing patience: France and Italy today recalled their ambassadors, while British Foreign Minister William Hague yesterday termed Assad's rule a "doomed regime, as well as a murdering regime." Click through the gallery for more scenes from Syria.
– Hillary Clinton's desire to connect with millennial women has led her to chat with Refinery29 on sexual assault and now to an interview with "queen of oversharing" Lena Dunham. The Girls star chatted earlier this month with the sometimes "overly scripted" Clinton in Manhattan in an interview that will go up on Dunham's LennyLetter.com digital newsletter on Tuesday, Politico reports. The odd conversational couple dishes on student debt, women's health, and, yes, feminism, Politico notes. Highlights, per Politico and People: "Do you consider yourself a feminist?" Dunham asks. "Yes," Clinton replies. "Absolutely. I'm always a little bit puzzled when any woman of whatever age, but particularly a young woman, says something like, 'Well, I believe in equal rights, but I'm not a feminist.' Well, a feminist is by definition someone who believes in equal rights. I'm hoping that people will not be afraid to say that doesn't mean you hate men. … It just means that we believe that women have the same rights as men." "Did you have anxiety about" marrying Bill Clinton, Dunham asks. Responds Clinton: "I was terrified about losing my identity and getting lost in the kind of wake of Bill’s force-of-nature personality," she told Dunham. "I actually turned him down twice when he asked me to marry him. ... And that was a large part of the ambivalence and the worry that I wouldn’t necessarily know who I was or what I could do if I got married to someone who was going to chart a path that he was incredibly clear about." She calls her eventual yes "a big leap of faith." (Click for Donald Trump's latest Hillary Clinton insult.)
– Who knew nutrition guidelines were a Tea Party bugaboo? Sarah Palin's post-election focus on the issues has gone from monetary policy to ... cookies. The Alaskan brought cookies to a Pennsylvania elementary school yesterday to slam government interference pressing for healthier eating, ABC News reports. Pennsylvania is a "nanny state run amok," she wrote on Twitter, linking to a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review story about a proposal to limit sugary foods at school parties. "Who should be deciding what I eat? Should it be government or should it be parents? It should be the parents," she told a cheering crowd at a fundraiser later that day. Pennsylvania school officials, however, say Palin's characterization of the issue as a "cookie ban" is dead wrong, and that administrators are simply seeking ways to encourage schools to serve more nutritious foods, CNN notes. The Tribune-Review has retracted the story Palin linked to, and has published a correction.
– When Kenneth Shinozuka's grandfather, who has Alzheimer's, was found wandering on a freeway at night, it left a deep impression on the 15-year-old; now he has been recognized for an invention to make sure it never happens again. The device is a pressure sensor that can be worn as a sock or attached to the foot of a patient. If that patient gets out of bed, his or her caretaker is alerted via smartphone, Scientific American reports. Shinozuka has won the magazine's $50,000 Science in Action Award for the device via Google's Science Fair. "My grandfather is one of the 5.2 million Alzheimer’s patients in the U.S., 65% of whom wander," the teen writes at the Science Fair's site. His research shows the invention works: "A six-month trial on my grandfather validated my hypothesis: the systems detected 100% of the 437 known cases of his wandering and issued alerts within one second of his stepping out of bed." As for future plans, he's been testing the device on other patients, and he tells NBC News that he hopes it "will ultimately reach out to the tens of millions of wandering patients around the world and also relieve the burdens on their caregivers." The news comes after another teen developed a potentially life-saving system of her own—this one for kids in hot cars.
– With rail safety in the spotlight after last month's disaster in Canada, the derailment of a train carrying hazardous materials in Louisiana has rattled nerves but not caused any deaths or serious injuries. Around 100 homes were evacuated after at least 20 cars of a Union Pacific train went off the rails east of Baton Rouge, the AP reports. Two of the cars are leaking sodium hydroxide, which can be deadly if it is inhaled or touches the skin, but officials say air pollution detectors haven't picked up anything. Gov. Bobby Jindal flew into the area last night, reports KATC. "Anytime you have chemicals leaking into the environment, that's a serious issue," he told reporters. "Nobody knows the extent of the damage. We'll get that in the next 24 hours."
– Kissing a frog may not conjure a prince, but mucus from one colorful Indian variety could one day lead to new ways to fight off the flu, the Verge reports. A study published in the journal Immunity details how scientists tested secretions from an Indian frog known as Hydrophylax bahuvistara and found that one distinct peptide was able to kill certain strains of the influenza virus without simultaneously decimating human red blood cells, as well as protect mice from the H1N1 strain. That molecule, called urumin, is named after the Indian "urumi" sword that looks and acts like a whip and is found in the country's Kerala region, which is also where this particular frog hails from. The scientists involved in the study first collected mucus from the frogs by applying slight electrical shocks to them, which causes them to secrete the substance, Phys.org notes. From there, the researchers were able to pit 32 peptides in the mucus against various flu strains and discovered that four of the peptides were effective flu fighters, a significant statistical find that co-author Joshy Jacob says nearly caused him to be "knocked off my chair." However, three of those molecules also destroyed human red blood cells, leaving just the urumin, which attached itself to a protein in the H1N1 strain called hemagglutinin. The urumin clung to the hemagglutinin as it set to work attacking the virus. The molecule doesn't appear to be a flu panacea—it didn't effectively fight off a current strain called H3N2, for example—but the researchers note its "potential to contribute to first-line anti-viral treatments" in an increasingly drug-resistant environment. (What doesn't work so well to fend off the flu: nasal spray vaccine.)
– Kentucky's Republican governor said blood might be shed if Hillary Clinton is elected president. Speaking to the annual Values Voter Summit on Saturday in Washington, Matt Bevin said he was asked if the country could ever recover if Clinton were elected president. "I do think it would be possible, but at what price? At what price? The roots of the tree of liberty are watered by what? The blood, of who? The tyrants to be sure, but who else. The patriots," Bevin said, referencing a quote from Thomas Jefferson. "Whose blood will be shed? It may be that of those in this room. It might be that of our children and grandchildren. I have nine children. It breaks my heart to think it might be their blood that is needed to redeem something, to reclaim something that we through our apathy and indifference have given away." Per the Lexington Herald Leader, Bevin continued, "I want us to be able to fight ideologically, mentally, spiritually, economically, so that we don’t have to do it physically. But that may, in fact, be the case." The comments are starting to get quite a bit of attention: Democrats condemned Bevin's remarks, with one candidate for Congress calling for Bevin's impeachment. However, any impeachment attempt would be unlikely, as the heavily Republican state Senate would have to vote to convict the governor. Amid that and other blowback, Bevin's office provided a statement saying he was speaking about the sacrifice required of members of the military: "Today we have thousands of men and women in uniform fighting for us overseas and they need our full backing. We cannot be complacent about the determination of radical Islamic extremists to destroy our freedoms."' But the Atlantic calls that "pure spin," saying Bevin was clearly implying an armed insurrection might be necessary should Clinton be elected. It says his "extreme" comments "underscore the apocalyptic attitudes aroused by this election, which has been unusually marked by fear." Vox agrees: "The text of his actual speech, however, is completely at odds with [his statement]—he is very clearly talking about patriots winning back liberty from the tyranny of Democratic Party governance."
– It's day two of Oscar Pistorius on the witness stand, and if you're wondering, yes, he did once again reportedly vomit in court at the sight of photos of Reeva Steenkamp's body. Yesterday's session was adjourned early due to the athlete feeling "exhausted," but today doesn't seem to be shaping up to be much easier. In this morning's testimony, Pistorius walks the court through some troubling texts (they were sent on a "bad day," he says) and read out loud more mundane and loving ones, while crying. "I miss you more than anything," Steenkamp wrote on one occasion. "I replied with smiley faces and kisses," he says. One word getting a good deal of attention: "besotted." That's how Pistorius described his attraction to Steenkamp from the get-go; "I think I was maybe more into her than she was at times with me,” he said, per the New York Times. After the lengthy text-reading session, Pistorius started to walk the court through the events of Feb. 13 and 14. He says he put on his pajamas around 7pm, after having dinner with Steenkamp. She did yoga on the bedroom floor; he called a cousin and discussed cars. They both went to the bathroom, then went to bed. "Reeva was sitting up and I was lying with my head on her stomach." The two also exchange Valentine's Day gifts, but he didn't open his that night. He ultimately unwrapped his—four framed photos of the couple—on Steenkamp's birthday in August, reports the Telegraph. The fateful moment, as he tells it: "I heard the window opening in the bathroom. That is the moment that everything changed. I thought a burglar was gaining entry into my home. The first thing that ran through my mind was that I needed to protect Reeva and myself." He says as he moved toward the noise he screamed at the intruders and "shouted for Reeva to get on the floor. ... Just before I got to the bathroom heard a door slam. It could only have been the toilet door. It confirmed that there was a person or people inside the bathroom at that time." Court was then adjourned for lunch. The BBC expects him to be cross-examined this afternoon. One other notable moment from the morning: His lawyer had Pistorius remove his prosthetic legs. The Telegraph describes it as "a poignant demonstration of ... his vulnerability on his stumps to lodge in the judge's mind as she listened to his description of events."
– McDonald's is quickly backing away from the California beef plant linked to animal abuse in an undercover video that's reverberating around the meat industry, reports ABC News. The fast-food joint joins In-N-Out as the second major chain to dump Central Valley Meat after the feds shut it down, citing "egregious, inhumane handling and treatment of livestock." "McDonald's cares about how our food is sourced and we have a long history of action and commitment to improve the welfare of animals in our supply chain," said a McDonald's statement, calling the behavior in the video "unacceptable." The video shows cattle barely able to walk being repeatedly hit with cattle prods. The animal rights group that released it says CVM included downer cows, and their potential diseases, in the production of raw beef. But an Agriculture Department review of the footage found no evidence of downer cattle making their way into the food supply, reports Bloomberg.
– Donald Trump is known to occasionally think out loud on Twitter, and on Wednesday the president-elect processed his Electoral College victory, which he won by 304 votes to Hillary Clinton's 227. Trump started off by tweeting at 8:15am EST: "Campaigning to win the Electoral College is much more difficult & sophisticated than the popular vote. Hillary focused on the wrong states!" After allowing people to digest that, Trump moved on to postulate how things might have gone in a different political universe. "I would have done even better in the election, if that is possible, if the winner was based on popular vote—but would campaign differently," he mused 10 minutes later, without elaborating. This isn't the first time Trump has taken on the election results on Twitter, notes Politico, which points out the Electoral College win is not exactly the "landslide" Trump's people have claimed, that Clinton claimed the popular vote (by almost 3 million at last glance), and that the fact "that his win was anything other than resounding has seemingly created an itch that Trump has been unable to resist scratching." At any rate, he didn't wait much longer to wrap up what Politico calls his "three-post Twitter flurry," switching it up to discuss campaign spending. "I have not heard any of the pundits or commentators discussing the fact that I spent FAR LESS MONEY on the win than Hillary on the loss!" he concluded. (A recent tweet was "unpresidented.")
– Meghan Markle's family tree has shown that beau Prince Harry is a distant cousin (they share an ancestor dating back to the 15th century), but there's a darker revelation: One of her ancestors was beheaded on the orders of Henry VIII. Lord John Hussey was born around 1465, reports the Telegraph, and quickly became a favorite during Henry VIII's reign. Hussey, whose descendants eventually spawned Markle about 15 generations later, served as a king's ambassador, worked as a chamberlain to one of the king's daughters, and was knighted for his battlefield prowess. But that all changed after a 1536 rebellion against Henry, after which Hussey was found guilty of treason, thrown in prison, and, eventually sent to his death. Another discovery of note: that Markle's great-great-great-grandfather on her mom's side was a slave in Georgia. Interest in Markle has been on the upswing since she and Harry made their first official public debut together in September, fueling rumors that Markle may soon be moving to the UK for good. A recent farewell from her Suits body double has only added to those whispers.
– Some 77 travelers destined for America have been prevented from boarding their flights after they were flagged during Ebola screening overseas. Now, it looks like screening is coming to US shores. President Obama yesterday announced "we're going to be working on protocols to do additional, faster screening both at the source and here in the United States." What we know, what it means, and what it doesn't: Currently passengers leaving Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone undergo airport screenings. They can't board any major airline from those locations and reach the US: Most have to transfer in Europe. Dallas Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan flew from Liberia to Brussels to Dulles to Dallas. The Washington Post notes that there was no elaboration on the details of any new screening, but it runs down the possibilities: more temperature taking, and careful reviews of the past itineraries of foreigners coming to the US in hopes of revealing, for example, someone who bought two tickets: Africa to Europe and Europe to US. The Post notes there are already quarantine areas in existence at most major US airports. NBC News reports CDC staffers will likely be installed at JFK, Newark, O'Hare, and Dulles. Though some Republicans yesterday clamored for heightened screening (Gov. Rick Perry) or even a potential travel ban (Sen. Ted Cruz), Obama remains in opposition to the latter. Per White House press secretary Josh Earnest: "A travel ban is something that we’re not currently considering." The World Health Organization is against the idea, too, per NBC News. It says blocking flights would exacerbate issues by dealing a blow to those nations' economies and complicating efforts to get food, medicine, and aid workers to affected locations.
– Two years ago, Jack White and Karen Elson threw a divorce party together, which certainly made it seem as if their split was amicable. Well, apparently not: Elson was just granted a restraining order against White after, she claims, the rocker started harassing her. In legal papers, Elson says White has been pressuring her about the divorce settlement and custody of their two kids (he wants to help raise them, but Elson says he's not fit for parenting). "Wife fears for her and the children’s safety as a result of this harassment," the restraining order reads. The couple has been fighting over the kids for months, the Nashville City Paper reports. Elson alleges White has a violent temper, and she says he's refused numerous requests to go to family counseling. "This pattern of husband’s bullying wife into submission was a contributing factor in the demise of their marriage," the order reads. Elson also describes two bizarre incidents in which White was upset about his children associating with the children of other entertainers that he feels "ripped off" his music. TMZ notes that though the couple separated in 2011, Elson just filed for divorce last year. Their kids are 5 and 7 years old, E! reports.
– Say you love going to the dentist? Well neither does a boy in France who concocted an entire kidnapping story to avoid admitting that he had ducked a dental visit, The Local reports. Police found the 12-year-old during a patrol of the Alpine village St Gervais last month, asked what was up, and listened to his tale of woe. The boy described his kidnapper in some detail—about 5'6", 30s, muscular, with (of course) a scar on his cheek—and explained how the abduction went down. He was supposedly headed for the dentist when the guy pulled up, asked for directions, dragged him in the car, and drove off. Only during a surprise stop was the boy able to run away. Well, police investigated for a month, drawing up an e-fit image of the suspect and following leads, Midi Libre reports—until investigators noticed that closed-circuit TV images from the boy's hometown of Bagnols didn't quite match his story. So they pressed him further, and he admitted to concocting the whole thing because he was afraid of the dental chair. Exactly what his punishment will be isn't clear, notes Inquisitr. We might suggest a year of free cleanings. (On a serious note, a 3-year-old child suffered brain damage during a dental visit and died soon after.)
– More horrific tales have emerged from North Korea via a new Amnesty International report that indicates the country's prison camps are expanding. Satellite images from May of this year indicate one of the largest sites, camp 15, features new housing blocks and production facilities; a review of images featuring camp 16 show it has added six new housing blocks since 2011, but razed 39. Meanwhile, in his first interview a former guard at camp 16 during the 1980s and '90s explains prisoners were forced to dig their own graves before they received a hammer blow to the neck; women were raped by prison officials, then vanished, Fox News reports. "After a night of 'servicing' the officials, the women had to die because the secret could not get out. This happens at most of the political prison camps," the man said. A former prisoner also recalled public executions of two caught trying to escape. "They were brought to a stage after they were badly beaten. The prisoners were tied to wooden stakes and shot three times in their head, chest, and feet," she said. Up to 200,000 people, including children, are held "in horrific conditions in six sprawling political prison camps," Amnesty noted per CNN, adding the UN now has the group's findings.
– The early reviews are in, and Apple's software update to fix the fast-draining battery of the iPhone 4S isn't working for everyone, reports Gizmodo. Sample complaint in the Apple Support forums: "New update is not help at all. I opened Safari and lost 2% just by opening it." Others are reporting new problems, including apps that won't load. "Perhaps Apple's first usage of the over-the-air updating may be bumpier than we expected," writes Jesus Diaz. CNET reports the same. Stay tuned.
– Days after five tiny golden-winged warblers finished their seasonal migration, flying 3,100 miles from Colombia to Tennessee, they vacated their new home to travel 400 miles south to the Gulf of Mexico. Some 24 hours later, on April 27, 2014, at least 84 tornadoes left a path of death and destruction throughout the central and southeastern US, the BBC reports. The birds' flight was no coincidence, say researchers, who suspect the birds' low-frequency hearing allowed them to pick up infrasound waves from a storm that was 560 miles away when they fled; they left before changes in barometric pressure, wind speeds, or precipitation registered, the Guardian reports. By May 2, the birds had all returned. Some 20 warblers were tagged in May 2013 before they flew to Colombia; roughly half returned to the US. Researchers were only able to capture five. "The fact that they came back with the geolocators was supposed to be the great success of this season," says a researcher. "Then this happened!" An expert adds, "It's very unlikely that this species is the only group doing this." And the study indicates birds may be able to make quick and "dramatic" movements to cope with the "predicted increase in severity and frequency of similar storms" brought on by climate change, even after having just completed a long journey, says David Andersen, who was part of the study published in Current Biology. But an ecologist not associated with the study advises that the findings be taken with a grain of salt, as the geolocators gauged location based on light readings rather than satellites. (Find out how birds stopped growing teeth.)
– Don’t get too excited: The Real Housewives of New Jersey sex tape isn’t out quite yet, but TMZ does have a preview in case you just can’t wait. The gossip site has the first racy images of Danielle Staub—and some of them are quite terrifying, so be warned—from the 75-minute tape Hustler plans to release Monday. At least one fellow Housewife is “not surprised at all” by the sex tape scandal. Jacqueline Laurita tells TMZ she thinks Staub should leave the reality show and “go do porn.”
– It started when a resident of Humboldt, Saskatchewan, left a hockey stick standing on the porch. "The boys might need it … wherever they are," the person wrote in a text to TSN hockey analyst Brian Munz, referring to the 15 people killed Friday when a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team collided with a semi-truck. Shared by Munz, the True North memorial has now spread across Canada and the world, with thousands of photos of hockey sticks on doorsteps shared on social media under #PutYourSticksOut, which was trending Tuesday on Twitter. "Play on, the rinks in heaven await," David Backes of the Boston Bruins wrote in one tweet, per the BBC. "Still grieving with the rest of the entire hockey community," added former CHL goaltender Coleman Vollrath, who shared a photo of 15 goalie sticks outside his front door. Other shared photos showing sticks next to backyard rinks, per CNN. The support from hockey fans isn't just symbolic, though. A GoFundMe campaign for the Humboldt Broncos has become "one of our top five largest campaigns globally," a GoFundMe rep tells the Daily Hive. It has raised $7.1 million as of this writing.
– The surprise combination of Venom and A Star is Born lit up the weekend box office with two strong debuts, Variety reports. The Marvel antihero flick scored $80 million domestically as the well-reviewed remake starring Lady Gaga banked $42 million. Rounding out the top five were Smallfoot ($14 million), Night School ($12 million), and The House With a Clock In its Walls ($7 million), per the Hollywood Reporter. Under the radar, the Blake Lively-Anna Kendrick noirish thriller A Simple Favor remains a sleeper hit at $50 million total, and Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 11/9 fell 80% for a disappointing tally of about $6 million.
– A paraglider accused of chasing and kicking a barn owl is looking at possible jail time and six-figure fines as a result, reports the Salt Lake Tribune. The accused, Dell Schanze, was allegedly featured in a since-deleted YouTube video showing off his owl-harassing ways. Federal wildlife officials weren't amused, and the 45-year-old faces up to 18 months in jail and fines of more than $100,000 if he's found guilty of violating the Airborne Hunting Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. He might lose his motorized paraglider, too. Schanze is better known to Utah residents as "Super Dell," thanks to over-the-top TV commercials for his now-defunct Totally Awesome Computers business, reports KSL. The station notes that Schanze once spent eight days in jail on a reckless-driving charge. Kids were in the car at the time of his arrest, and Schanze told police he was weaving in the road to entertain them.
– Rand Paul says he plans to "delay" Janet Yellen's nomination for Federal Reserve chair, until there's a vote on his Audit the Fed bill, Politico reports. "I don’t think technically you can file a hold until she comes out of committee—but we’re putting people on notice that we will," he says, confirming reports swirling Friday. "We’ve been waiting two years on a vote on the Audit the Fed bill. ... and we’d be happy to lift the hold if we do get a vote." Democrats say it's a pretty pointless publicity stunt—the hold could be overturned with a vote, and even if he was successful, Yellen would likely become acting chair once Bernanke is gone, anyway. In other Rand Paul related news, Rachel Maddow says she's uncovered another speech the Republican senator appears to have cribbed from Wikipedia. In a March 19 speech, Paul discussed the movie Stand and Deliver, using words that are very, very similar to those in the online encyclopedia, Politico reports. Here's a comparison: Paul: "In the area of East LA, in 1982, in an environment that values a quick fix on education over learning, Escalante was a new math teacher at Garfield High School." Wikipedia: "In the area of East Los Angeles, California, in 1982, in an environment that values a quick fix over education and learning, Jaime 'Kemo' Escalante is a new teacher at Garfield High School."
– A cannabidiol hemp oil that Leafly says is used by "hundreds of thousands of patients" in the US for a variety of medical purposes, including to help relieve seizures, has been designated a Schedule 1 drug by the DEA, 7NEWS reports. Schedule 1 drugs (which are illegal and include LSD and heroin) are said to have "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse." The announcement published in the Federal Register last week details the new ruling for CBD, which sets aside a new code number for "marihuana extract" and pertains to any "extract containing one or more cannabinoids ... derived from any plant of the genus Cannabis." This decision came despite the fact that CBD from hemp—cannabis with no more than between 0.3% and 1% of the active ingredient THC—has been widely available up till now via mail order and the internet. Companies selling it have been operating under assumed legality because of CBD's low THC levels, Leafly notes—an apparently murky area. The DEA made a similar move in 2001 when it failed in an attempt to ban all hemp products. Leafly lays out the legalese surrounding CBD products and how it thinks patients could avoid prosecution in the 28 medical marijuana states and DC. "The DEA cannot create a statute," a lawyer specializing in cannabis law tells Leafly. "That can only be done by Congress." The DEA notes it created the regulation to comply with international drug treaties, per the Marijuana Resources blog. "This is a misguided and, frankly, ignorant move by the DEA," says Jeffrey Zucker, co-founder of a strategy firm for the cannabis industry. "CBD does nothing but help people, and to put it on a level with heroin is absurd." (Why hemp is "poorly understood.")
– President Trump plans to go to Texas on Tuesday to view the devastation caused by Harvey, reports the Hill. Trump had tweeted Sunday morning that he wanted to make the trip as a show of support as soon as possible without "causing disruption." Also on Sunday, Trump held a Cabinet meeting by video teleconference about the storm to discuss relief efforts. The latest on Harvey: Deaths: The New York Times reports that five deaths and more than a dozen injuries have been attributed to Harvey in southeast Texas. Details were sketchy about the fatalities, but at least two people were swept away in floodwaters, per ABC News. Forecast: Harvey is currently a tropical storm with 40mph winds, and the National Hurricane Center expects it to spend most of Tuesday back over the ocean before returning to land around the Houston area on Wednesday, reports the AP. The National Weather Service tweeted that rainfall may reach an unprecedented 50 inches in some areas, adding that "catastrophic flooding" is expected to continue for days. Rescues: Houston police say that more than 1,200 people had been rescued for far, with no end in sight, per NBC News. (People had been urged to go to their rooftops earlier.) Authorities are trying to evacuate the city's main public hospital, but it's currently surrounded by too much water. Some highways were under 10 feet of water Recovery could take years: The worst of the flooding may be over in days, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency expects recovery to take much, much longer. "FEMA's going to be there for years," agency chief Brock Long told CNN. "This disaster is going to be a landmark event." Why no evacuation? Per the Washington Post, some are questioning why Houston wasn't evacuated, with conflicting messages about how to weather the storm being sent by officials. How to help: The American Red Cross is taking online donations of money. You can text a donation as well. The Houston Chronicle rounds up other ways to help, including through crowdfunding.
– A fire lieutenant and a firefighter are on administrative leave after a man suffered a heart attack across the street from their Washington, DC, firehouse on Saturday and no one at the station helped him; Medric Mills, 77, later died. Authorities are still investigating the situation, but the lieutenant wrote in a letter to DC's fire chief that a firefighter told her someone slipped and fell across the street, WTTG reports. She told him to get an address and she'd go to assist, but, she says, he never brought her an address; instead, she later found him and says he told her an ambulance had been dispatched. Both are currently on desk duty. As for the probationary firefighter who told bystanders asking for help that they had to call 911 before rescuers could respond, he was reprimanded for not ringing the station alarm, but officials say he followed procedure by telling the lieutenant about the situation, the Washington Post reports. It's not yet clear why no assistance was then given, but the probationary firefighter was not placed on leave; he was transferred to another station. "We know we had a very new probationary employee at the facility and the first response is to ask a senior person, and we believe that was done," the deputy mayor for public safety tells WTTG. "The question now is what did that senior person say? What did that person do? Did they follow protocols and procedures?"
– Federal agents say an airline passenger was zip-tied and duct-taped after she ran toward the front of the plane and became violent. A criminal complaint filed in federal court says the event happened on an American Airlines flight Wednesday morning from Dallas to Charlotte, the AP reports. The Dallas Morning News notes the plane was approaching Charlotte Douglas International Airport when the incident took place, per the complaint; the flight attendants had already taken their seats for landing, the Charlotte Observer reports. An FBI agent wrote in the complaint that Charlene Harriott, 36, suddenly got up from her seat near the back of the plane, ran toward the front, and ignored flight attendants' instructions to sit down. Authorities say flight attendants restrained her in the first-class section, but she bit one and kicked another. The complaint filed Thursday says she faces a charge of interfering with a flight crew, as well as three charges of assault and battery. The flight attendants, who weren't seriously wounded, were treated at an airport clinic. An FBI spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to an email asking if Harriott has an attorney. Jail records show she was being held Thursday night, with a detention hearing is set for next week.
– The public library in Winchester, Mass., is closed until at least Tuesday, per a Facebook post, for a reason both unexpected and horrifying: On Saturday morning, a woman was fatally stabbed with a hunting knife there in what authorities are calling an unprovoked attack. Boston.com quotes Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan as saying Deane Kenny Stryker, 22, was in a reading room adjacent to the lobby "apparently studying or doing work" when she was attacked from behind. Jeffrey Yao allegedly slashed her head and upper torso some 20 times with a 10-inch blade, and also attacked a 77-year-old man who tried to help Stryker; that man's injuries were not life-threatening. Patrons restrained the 23-year-old Yao until police arrived. More on the crime: The court appearance: Yao was arraigned Monday in Woburn District Court on one count of armed assault with intent to murder and one count of murder, reports NECN. A not guilty plea was entered, and he was held without bail. His next court date is April 11.
– Two of the women pepper-sprayed in the face by high-ranking NYPD officer Anthony Bologna last fall are taking him to court. The women say Bologna violated their civil rights, and they're seeking unspecified damages, Reuters reports. A YouTube video of the penned-in women being pepper-sprayed received more than 1.5 million hits and helped draw attention to the Occupy Wall Street movement. One of the women says she is suing to let the NYPD know that Bologna was in the wrong. "I was attending a peaceful demonstration when I was met with what I feel was an undue amount of force," she tells the New York Daily News, adding that while she is usually supportive of the police, Bologna "allowed his emotions to get the best of him." The officer was docked 10 vacation days for violating pepper-spray guidelines.
– More than 10 years after a tsunami swept her away from her parents, Raudhatul Jannah is back in their arms again. Raudhatul was only 4 when her home in Indonesia was destroyed by a 2004 tsunami that killed some 230,000. After the tsunami struck, her father put her and her 7-year-old brother onto a board in the water, but then a "wave hit and I lost them," he recounts to DPA. "We looked for them among ... piles of bodies, but we didn't find them," he says. "After one month we resigned ourselves to the thought that they had probably died." Raudhatul, however, was very much alive. A fisherman found her washed ashore on a remote island, then took her back to the mainland, where he and his mother raised her, reports AFP. That is, until her uncle spotted her in June, was struck by the resemblance to his niece, and unraveled her true identity. "I'm happy to back with my mother and father again," Raudhatul says. "This is a miracle from God," her mother adds, and "if anyone is in doubt, I'm ready for DNA tests." It's not clear what happened to Raudhatul's brother, but the parents plan to investigate reports that he, too, survived and is living on a local island. (Click to read about a brother and sister meeting for the first time in 57 years.)
– Ever since a Walmart worker was trampled to death five years ago on Black Friday, the chain has increased its efforts to ensure safe shopping. Now, a range of top retailers are trying everything from live music to off-duty police hires to prevent a recurrence of the tragedy. Among their strategies, via Bloomberg: Walmart last night handed out wristbands to shoppers for events starting at 6pm and 8pm. Those with the bands were allowed to come back two hours after the events began to pick up their goods. And last year, the company instituted a "One-Hour Guarantee": If you're in the store within an hour of a sales event starting, you'll be sure to get your item. Best Buy workers actually went through dress rehearsals for today. The chain is also offering ticketed shopping, which sees workers distribute individual tickets for every item available in doorbuster sales. Shoppers are allowed one ticket per category of item. "That prevents the need for a big rush to get to the pile of TVs or whatever the hot item is," says a rep. Target has security teams riding around the parking lot on Segways so they'll be noticed. Miami's Dolphin Mall has hired off-duty police to keep an eye on things. "They have conversations with the customers; they tell them we expect them to come in an orderly fashion when the doors open," says the general manager. There will also be live bands to keep the crowds entertained. Of course, that doesn't mean today is exactly an oasis of calm: Quite a few outlets are rounding up videos of Black Friday mayhem.
– On Saturday, the US Navy found what it believed to be the wreckage of the El Faro cargo ship that went missing in Hurricane Joaquin last month; on Monday, that news transitioned to proof positive, per a Navy spokesman, CNN reports. The affirmative identification was confirmed by the National Transportation Safety Board on Twitter, the AP adds. Crew on the USNS Apache had been working since Sunday to positively identify the cargo ship, using a special CURV-21 submarine equipped with recording equipment. Next on the sub's to-do list: find the El Faro's data recorder, CNN notes. (Meanwhile, the ship's owner says the wreck wasn't its fault.)
– Another potential terror plot foiled: Seattle police arrested two men they say planned a suicide attack on a federal building that houses a military recruitment office and a federal day care center, report the Post-Intelligencer and Seattle Times. One suspect is identified as Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif, 33, who was born Joseph Anthony Davis but changed his name in 2007 after converting to Islam and becoming "self-radicalized," police say. He idolized Osama bin Laden and raged against US military action overseas, according to court documents. The other suspect is Walli Mujahidh, 32, also known as Frederick Dominique Jr., of Los Angeles. A third Muslim man told authorities about the plot when Abdul-Latif asked him to help carry it out. He then worked undercover with police. Abdul-Latif reportedly wanted to use the 2009 Fort Hood massacre, in which 13 people were killed, as a model. “Abdul-Latif said that if one person could kill so many people, three attackers could kill many more," said an FBI agent. A detention hearing will take place next week.
– Rapper Heavy D, one of the biggest rap stars of the late 1980s and early '90s, is dead at age 44, reports TMZ. A friend says he had pneumonia, and the rapper apparently began having trouble breathing on the stairs leading to his Beverly Hills apartment building. Born Dwight Arrington Myers, Heavy D and his group released their first album, Living Large, in 1987, notes AP. One of his breakout hits was The Overweight Lover's in the House. Time has more on his role in the "Jack Swing" style of R&B. (Click to read 10 facts you might not know about Heavy D.)
– Two women tomorrow will begin a grueling 17-day stretch in the swamps of Florida, and if they make it out OK, they'll become the first females to earn an Army Ranger title. The pair have advanced to the final stage of the Ranger school, having gotten through the arduous second phase in the mountains of Georgia, reports the Christian Science Monitor. They'll be vying for the honor along with 125 men. A third woman will get a second chance to take the mountain course over again, as will 60 men who also failed on the first try. "The coastal swamps of Florida will continue to test the students," says Col. David Fivecoat. "Only the best will be successful and earn the Ranger Tab.” One caveat: If the women earn the tab, they won't actually get to serve as Rangers and go on special ops missions. But the Washington Post notes that many male soldiers also earn the tab and go on to serve in roles outside the Rangers.
– Rats may not have the best reputation, but a new study suggests that they're actually pretty good citizens. Researchers found that if a rat is in distress in water, another will save it, according to a post in Science Daily. Researchers put one rat in a pool of water and another in a dry area, with the two separated by a door. The dry rats soon learned that they could let the other rat through the door, thereby rescuing it—and they hurried to open the door only if the other animal seemed to be in real distress. What's more, rats who knew what it was like to be soaked, having been through it themselves, learned about the rescue mechanism faster than others. "This suggests that knowing that soaking is distressing enhances the rats' motivation to help their cage mate," a researcher tells New Scientist. "We think this comes from empathy." In fact, those in the experiment seemed to care enough about their struggling brethren to forgo chocolate for them. Given the option of saving a fellow rat or getting a snack, they tended to opt for the rescue first. Previous studies have also pointed to empathy in rats, but further work is needed to be sure, researchers say. (Elephants, meanwhile, have been seen to console each other.)
– Syrian rebels are locked in a bitter and violent struggle—with each other. Hostilities between Syria's more moderate rebel factions and the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and Syria exploded into open warfare on Friday, and it's been so costly that the head of another al-Qaeda affiliate, the al-Nusra Front, is calling for an Islamic court to be set up to settle disagreements, the New York Times reports. Abu Mohammed al-Jolani said the fighting was the result of the "incorrect policies" of the ISIS, but that if there wasn't a ceasefire soon, "the whole battlefield … will pay the price of losing a great jihad." Other rebels accuse the ISIS—which wants to combine Iraq and Syria into one Sunni-ruled country—of hogging resources, applying strict social codes, and kidnapping and killing its foes. So far at least 300 people have died in the rebel in-fighting since Friday, including dozens of civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and rebels today captured a hospital-turned-ISIS base in Aleppo, the AP reports. The infighting also highlights a challenge for Saudi Arabia, which is backing the rebels in hopes of ousting Assad's Shiite, Iran-affiliated regime, but is uneasy about the potential for jihadist spill-over, the Times adds.
– Does Donald Trump have a big job lined up for loyal supporter Sarah Palin? The former Alaska governor is a candidate to head the Department of Veterans Affairs, a Palin aide and a Trump transition team official tell ABC News, which notes that the VA is the largest government agency, with more than 300,000 employees. USA Today reports that Palin appears to be very keen: In a Facebook post Wednesday, she praised Trump as a "commander-in-chief who will champion our vets." She also shared a video from her SarahPAC political action committee on her ideas to fix the agency's problems, along with an endorsement from son-in-law Dakota Meyer, a Medal of Honor recipient who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Chicago Tribune reports. A spokesman for Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan tells Alaska Dispatch News that the senator would like to see Palin get the job. "Alaska has more veterans per capita than any other state, making this position critically important for our state," he says. Palin would be the first non-veteran in the role, though son Track Palin is an Iraq veteran. ABC notes that former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, who spent 35 years in the Army National Guard, is also being considered for the post and, unlike Palin, has visited Trump Tower for meetings. Rep. Jeff Miller and Gen. Keith Kellogg have also been mentioned in connection to the role.
– Eric Holder isn't just preparing to fight President Trump's administration on behalf of California. He's also heading what Uber CEO Travis Kalanick calls an "urgent investigation" into claims that the ride-sharing service discriminated against a female engineer while ignoring her complaints of sexism and harassment, reports the Guardian. In a Monday email sent after "a tough 24 hours" for the company, Kalanick says Uber has hired Holder and a colleague at law firm Covington & Burling to conduct an "independent review," adding it's "an opportunity to heal wounds of the past and set a new standard for justice in the workplace," per ABC News. Uber's chief HR officer, general counsel, and board member Arianna Huffington will also assist in the investigation into Susan Fowler's claims. Kalanick says he's debunked at least one claim, though: Fowler said only 6% of Uber's engineers were women as of December, but Kalanick claims women make up 15% of those employed in engineering, product management, and science roles at Uber. That figure "has not changed substantively in the last year," he adds, per the Guardian. While the CEO didn't offer any figures on women in management roles at Uber, he did promise a "broader diversity report" would be released soon.
– "Subway Guy" Jared Fogle is grabbing headlines this morning over the presence of something (police) rather than an absence of something (pounds): The Indianapolis Star reports that FBI agents and state police today entered Fogle's home in Zionsville, Ind. An evidence truck was observed in the driveway. An FBI rep wouldn't comment on their reason for being there beyond confirming a criminal investigation was underway in the area. The investigation follows the April 29 arrest of Russell Taylor, the executive director of the Jared Foundation, which teaches kids about healthy living; per court documents, more than 400 child porn videos were found at Taylor's home. Fogle quickly announced his foundation was "severing all ties" with the 43-year-old, who attempted suicide one month ago while in jail and was put on life support, per the Star. CBS4 reports it spoke with FBI sources who said the warrants were being served in connection with a child pornography investigation, though they didn't specify if it was part of the Taylor case.
– The Newtown shooting has America understandably on edge. "But are we really hoping to purge our collective soul by demolishing copies of Halo 4?" asks Liel Leibovitz at the New Republic. The town of Southington, Conn., originally planned to do just that on Saturday, though the event has since been canceled. Past cultural bête noires—from comic books to gangsta rap to television—have seen similar burnings, but video games are a unique case. They're not consumed, they're played. "The digital violence we witness on-screen comes from our own hands," Leibovitz writes. That may sound scary, but as all gamers know, the experience "has more to do with our thumbs than it does with our minds," resembling contact sports more than watching TV. What's more, it's "not fundamentally different than what previous generations have done, when sticks served as swords or hands as pistols." It's play. Then, as ever, it helps people deal with intense experience in a safe, sublimated way. "By confiscating and burning their games, parents risk extinguishing a critical outlet—and creating the very problem they were trying to avoid," he writes. Click for Leibovitz's full column.
– Google is calling time on the first phase of its Glass experiment, but it promises that it will be back with an improved version of the smart eyewear. The company says sales of the $1,500 Google Glass through its Explorer program will end on Monday for a "transition" that will involve moving the project from the Google X experimental division to a stand-alone division, reports TechCrunch. Google says the new version that will be revealed later this year will be cheaper and have an improved battery life and display—and this time around, it will release a final version instead of providing prototypes to early testers, reports the Wall Street Journal. After initial excitement, the Glass project suffered low sales and bad publicity, with users being dubbed "Glassholes" and the technology getting banned from cinemas. Although Google will still sell the old version to companies, Glass "is dead, at least in its present form," according to BBC tech analyst Rory Cellan-Jones. "As I found when I spent a couple of months wearing Glass, it has a number of really useful aspects—in particular the camera," he writes. "There is, however, one huge disadvantage—it makes its users look daft, and that meant that it was never going to appeal to a wide audience." A Google exec tells the WSJ that the company plans to remove the Glass "stigma" by pairing it with more familiar kinds of eyewear.
– Germany's Angela Merkel has struck a deal to remain in power, at least for now. Merkel, long seen as a champion of the rights of immigrants to move freely within the European Union, agreed to toughen border policies to end a revolt from within her own governing coalition, reports the BBC. The big concession is that Merkel agreed to set up "transit centers" on the German-Austria border and make it easier to turn some immigrants away. The "transit centers" are essentially "migrant camps," reports the New York Times, which sees the Merkel deal as a "spectacular turnabout" on her part. Details: Little choice: Merkel's own conservative interior minister, Horst Seehofer, forced Merkel into the move by threatening to resign and bring down her government. The two emerged with the deal late Monday after about five hours of talks, reports the AP. Seehofer leads the Christian Social Union, the sister party to Merkel's Christian Democratic Union.
– Maybe Newt Gingrich just ought to hold his tongue on terrorists and US law. Earlier this week the former House Speaker said shoe-bomber Richard Reid was American, and therefore was properly read his Miranda rights by the Bush administration—but Reid is British, and now Gingrich says he meant would-be domestic terrorist Jose Padilla. So, we’re good now, right? Well, not quite. Because Gingrich added on Twitter: “Treating terrorists like criminals wrong no matter who is Pres”—in line with current Republican talking points but exactly the opposite of what he said in 2005 about the Bush administration moving Padilla’s case from military to civilian court. Then, Gingrich agreed with the Bush line that there’s no set-in-stone, perfect way to try terrorists—the very stance, Sam Stein points out, he’s now criticizing from President Obama. Marc Ambinder sees another angle—Gingrich praising Bush for originally holding Padilla in a military brig and subjecting him to harsh interrogation. But, Ambinder notes for the Atlantic, Padilla didn’t talk before his eventual transfer to civilian court. “So Gingrich's reference—his proof that the Bush administration used a different practice and that it worked—is so far removed from the point that he is trying to make that it is, to quote Wolfgang Pauli, not even wrong.”
– Just when they thought it was safe to go back in the water, hundreds of swimmers reported feeling ill after braving the waves when Pensacola authorities lifted the "no swimming" flag. Local officials rejected EPA advice to close beaches and are instead relying on lifeguards to spot oil and on bathers to use common sense and not swim where they see oil, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Local authorities complain that tests to check whether water is safe take 3 days to complete, while the location of oil changes hour to hour. "I went swimming on Saturday in the Gulf, and it was fine," Buck Lee, the official who reopened the beaches, told the Pensacola News Journal. "A day or two later, I might not want to go in there." Some skeptical Pensacola residents say Lee reminds them of the mayor in Jaws who didn't want to ruin business by shutting down beaches to protect swimmers from sharks on a long holiday weekend.
– Two veteran columnists weigh in on the legalization of pot in Colorado and in Washington state, and neither is happy about it: David Brooks: He smoked for a while as a teen. "It was fun," he writes in the New York Times. "I have some fond memories of us all being silly together. I think those moments of uninhibited frolic deepened our friendships." But he and his friends "aged out," moved on, and gave up pot after some "embarrassing incidents," generally deciding it wasn't how they wanted to live their lives. And now he's worried these laws send the wrong message. "In legalizing weed, citizens of Colorado are, indeed, enhancing individual freedom. But they are also nurturing a moral ecology in which it is a bit harder to be the sort of person most of us want to be." Ruth Marcus: She, too, did her "share of inhaling," but, she, too, is worried about legalization. In particular, she cites an AMA study asserting that teens who indulge might end up with lower IQs and moodier countenances. "On balance, society will not be better off with another legal mind-altering substance," she writes in the Washington Post. "In particular, our kids will not be better off with another legal mind-altering substance." Counterpoint: At Gawker, Hamilton Nolan reads them both and sums up: "What these two affluent Caucasians are trying to communicate is: I do not care how many young minorities must have their lives ruined by being arrested for weed. I demand we keep in place a law that I acknowledge is purely for show and that I know will be widely ignored, in order to assuage my conscience about the upbringing of white teenagers."
– Two days after Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested her stance on climate change is based more on politics than scientific knowledge, Sarah Palin swung back, saying the California Republican should drop his “greener than thou” act. “Why is Governor Schwarzenegger pushing for the same sorts of policies in Copenhagen,” Palin wrote on Facebook, “that have helped drive his state into record deficits and unemployment?” “You have to ask: What was she trying to accomplish?” Schwarzenegger asked in an interview with the Financial Times. “Is she really interested in this subject or is she interested in her career and in winning the nomination [for president]?” Palin’s reply: “While I and all Alaskans witness the impacts of changes in weather patterns firsthand, I have repeatedly said that we can’t primarily blame man’s activities for those changes. And while I did look for practical responses to those changes, what I didn’t do was hamstring Alaska’s job creators with burdensome regulations so that I could act ‘greener than thou’ when talking to reporters.”
– In the wake of Hurricane Irma, 70 foster children found themselves staying in some pretty fancy digs. After Marc Bell got a call from the SOS Children's Villages Florida—on whose board he sits—telling him there was no power at the facility and the children who live there had nowhere to go for shelter, the millionaire and former Penthouse exec had a simple answer. "I said, 'Bring them here,'" Bell tells CBS 12. And that's how the kids ended up staying in Marc and Jennifer Bell's $30 million, 27,000-square-foot home in Boca Raton, the Miami Herald reports. "They were hungry. They were tired," Bell tells CBS. After living in an emergency shelter and sleeping in a gymnasium, "they hadn't showered for a week and you saw how excited they were" to arrive at the Bells' home. The couple did more than provide showers: They arranged for the girls to get manicures, and they've had entertainment, including a balloon artist and a singer/guitar player. Marc Bell started a GoFundMe Monday, the day he got the call from the shelter, to raise money to help reopen the facility. Until then, per some old articles the Herald found about the Bells' home, the kids will be enjoying a game room, home theater, basketball court, library, gym, and even a pool with waterfalls.
– Chester may be in his last days, but he's living the dream. Little is known about the terminally ill dog's life before April, when he was rescued from a high-kill shelter in Columbus, where his previous owners left him. "He wasn't in the best shape," says Nicole Elliott, who found Chester on nonprofit Animal Ark Rescue's Facebook page. "They bathed him and shaved away all of the matted, dirty hair. They found a very large tumor on his side, and had it removed. Since then they have shown up all over his body." But despite his health problems, Elliott is helping him get the most out of his last days. "I slept on it, and woke up knowing it was the right thing to do," she tells WTVM. Chester, likely 13 or 14, now has a Facebook page and is checking off a "bucket list" to ensure he has an "awesome final ride," Elliott tells the New York Daily News. So far, Chester has had a spa day with a milk and oatmeal bath and a shopping spree for new toys. There have also been plenty of treats, like "a famous Nathans hot dog" and a sundae. "I am taking it a day at a time and trying to give him normal doggy experiences that he may have never had the chance to do before, and a ton of spoiling," says Elliott. Next on the list: dinner at a restaurant, a day at the beach, a boat ride, and a birthday party with other rescued animals. "There is no estimate on time that I will be blessed with Chester," Elliott says. "He doesn't seem to be in much pain, but he is slow due to his age." She adds "he still has very perky moments and he loves to terrorize my kitties." Elliott hopes Chester encourages others to adopt from shelters with hospice programs, ABC News reports. Other animals "deserve a chance at a great final journey too!" she writes. (This dying dog took a "bucket list" trip to the Pacific.)
– Since 2012, doctors in Massachusetts have observed a most unusual kind of patient just 14 times—or, 14 times that we know about. It all started with Max Meehan, who was taken to the hospital after his behavior freaked out his family: his memory had suddenly vanished. "The kid was amnestic," neurologist Yuval Zabar says of the then-23-year-old, and what Zabar found when he reviewed an MRI scan of Meehan's brain essentially freaked him out: As BuzzFeed puts it, two bright white orbs where there should have been gray, each "perfectly localized" to both hippocampi, which plays a crucial role in the formation of memories. Zabar had never seen it before, but it wasn't a total anomaly: Doctors in the state have now identified 13 more people who experienced the same white orbs and memory issues, and one of their commonalities, with two exceptions, is opioid use. In Meehan's case, he shot up heroin and collapsed before waking to a seeming inability to form new memories, leaving him in a state that forced him to drop out of college and made it difficult to hold a job. Memory improvements came slowly over two years. "The only thing that seems to parallel" the condition—which has been named CHIAS, for complete hippocampal ischemic amnestic syndrome—"is fentanyl use," says another Massachusetts neurologist. Among the many varied theories: that there was a toxin in the drugs ingested, or that persistent fentanyl use results in severe respiratory issues that may deprive those parts of the brain of oxygen. For now, state public health officials are pushing the mystery forward by branding CHIAS a "reportable disease," meaning the state will have to be alerted to any new cases. Read the full piece.
– If a country's going to send military pilots to fight ISIS, it's going to send its very best. Which is why the United Arab Emirates selected Maj. Mariam Al Mansouri, 35—the first female fighter pilot in the Emirates air force—to lead one of its airstrike missions in Syria on Monday, ABC News reports. The UAE ambassador to the US appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe today and confirmed Mansouri's involvement, saying, "She is [a] fully qualified, highly trained, combat-ready pilot, and she led the mission." Mansouri—who was born in Abu Dhabi and has seven siblings, according to Deraa Al Watan magazine via ABC—says that she tried not to focus on the male pilots sitting next to her during her intensive training. "Competing with oneself is conducive to continued learning," she says. She also holds a degree in English literature from Khalifa bin Zayed Air College, the AP reports. "Do you want a model or a society that allows women to become ministers in government, female fighter pilots, business executives, artists?" the ambassador asked, as per AP. "Or do you want a society where if a woman doesn't cover up in public she's beaten or she's lashed or she's raped?" Two male panelists on Fox News' The Five are catching flak from Gawker and others over their women-can't-park and boob jokes in the wake of the report.
– Nirvana was nominated to join the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the band's first year of eligibility—and now its place has been cemented. Nirvana, along with Kiss, Peter Gabriel, Hall and Oates, Linda Ronstadt, and Cat Stevens will join the Hall of Fame on April 10 at Brooklyn's Barclays Center. The ceremony will appear on HBO the following month. Sixteen artists were nominated and more than 700 people voted, including musicians, historians, and others in the industry, USA Today notes; NWA was among nominated artists that didn't make the final cut. Others earning honors include former Rolling Stones manager and producer Andrew Loog Oldham and late Beatles manager Brian Epstein, as well as Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, which will be honored for musical excellence, the AP reports.
– A Massachusetts man who made a resolution on Jan. 1, 1989, to run every day is still going strong—27 years later, the AP reports. Saugus resident Lenworth "Kip" Williamson recently ran for the 10,000th consecutive day. The 57-year-old General Electric Co. engineering manager tells the Daily Item of Lynn that he remembers reading at the time that if you can do something for 21 days, it becomes a habit. Now he puts in at least 3 miles a day and sticks to the streets, regardless of the weather, running as late at 11pm and as early as 2am. "It’s a good time to think," Williamson says. "I guess I enjoy the endorphins and it’s just part of who I am at this point." He says as long as his legs work, he will continue running.
– Syria's Bashar al-Assad is edging closer to using chemical weapons against his own people, reports NBC News. It quotes US officials as saying that Syria's military has begun loading the necessary components for sarin gas into bombs. The good news is that the bombs have not been loaded onto planes, and it's possible Assad will keep it that way. For now, he's ordered the military only to "be prepared" to use the poison gas, say intelligence officials. Concern about the chemical stockpile has grown this week as developments on the ground worsen for Assad. President Obama issued a warning on Monday, and Hillary Clinton reiterated it today, reports the New York Times. "Our concerns are that an increasingly desperate Assad regime might turn to chemical weapons or might lose control of them," she said at NATO headquarters in Brussels. She added that a political transition must start "as soon as possible." The US still hasn't formally recognized the Syrian opposition, but that could happen as early as next week when Clinton meets its leaders in Morocco.
– A family is left searching for answers after a deaf man was shot and killed by a North Carolina state trooper last week, CNN reports. Daniel Harris, 29, was driving on the interstate near Charlotte when a trooper attempted to pull him over Thursday. Harris didn't stop, and the trooper followed him for seven miles to his neighborhood. There, Harris got out of his car. Something happened between the trooper and Harris that left Harris dead from a gunshot wound, but police aren't giving details of what led to the shooting. They won't say if anything was said between the trooper and Harris, who is also speech-impaired, or if Harris was armed. Sam Harris wants to know if his brother's disabilities led to a fatal misunderstanding with the trooper. "The police need to become aware of how to communicate with deaf people, what that might look like, and how to avoid situations like this from ever happening again," he tells WSOC. Residents of Harris' neighborhood were stunned by what happened. "I saw him out in the neighborhood signing with his family," one neighbor tells WBTV. "It seemed like a very peaceful family." The State Bureau of Investigation is looking into the shooting, and the trooper is on administrative leave, which is standard following a shooting.
– It's time for black Americans to send the rest of the country a message by boycotting "the very system that was built on the backs of black people here in America," says actor Isaiah Washington. The former Grey's Anatomy star has joined the #Missing24 movement to call for a boycott of work, school, and shopping for 24 hours starting Monday to protest injustice and police brutality, USA Today reports. "Every African born in America is fed up, hurt, confused, saddened and angry about the continued extrajudicial killings by public servants in our streets," Washington wrote in a Facebook post. If every African-American "that was really fed up with being angry, sad and disgusted" stayed home for a day, "from Wall Street to the NFL ... Black Lives Would Matter," Washington wrote in another post. Washington—who says he won't speak to the media "until the People of America give me a 'reason' to"—has also called for black users of Facebook and Twitter to black out their profile pictures for 24 hours. Washington's call for a boycott has been widely shared in social media, but it's not clear just how widespread the Monday boycott will be, the Huffington Post notes.
– Playing for Keeps is generic Hollywood fare, but one thing makes it stand out: As of this writing, it's managed to score a 0% at Rotten Tomatoes, despite a star-studded cast that includes Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel, Uma Thurman, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Here's what critics are saying about the story of a former soccer star's romantic trials: "As Hollywood movies increasingly strive for immaculate blankness, they have come to resemble Rorschach ink blots," writes Mark Jenkins at NPR. As in this film: "Is it a heartwarming romantic drama? Or a cynical sex and sports comedy? There is no wrong answer, dear ticket buyer." Here's an answer: It's a "a modestly affecting reconciliation drama wrapped in a so-so sports movie by way of a misogynistic romantic comedy," observes Justin Chang in Variety. "After barreling along in conventional but inoffensive fashion," the film "devolves into an unfunny parade of female sexpots, mystifyingly played by actresses one would have assumed to be well above this level of mistreatment." Instead of being funny, "the caricatures are so clumsy that it's more of a nails-on-blackboard experience." writes Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times. "A well-toned guy who is good with kids is the ultimate aphrodisiac for sex-starved soccer moms. Three very good actresses are squandered to prove the point." To put it simply, Playing for Keeps is "mechanical and exhausting, like a windup toy of a monkey crashing together cymbals for 106 minutes while incrementally winding down," notes Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
– The bitter battle over immigration that's been brewing in Germany since Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the country's borders to Syrian refugees is pitting some within the leader's ranks against her. According to the Atlantic, Merkel's own interior minister, Horst Seehofer, drew up plans that would turn back migrants who've already applied for asylum elsewhere in the European Union. Merkel struck down the plan and is now facing backlash from Seehofer, whose center-right Christian Social Union party holds a leadership meeting Monday that could authorize Seehofer to push through his demand, per the AP. If he actually does so unilaterally in defiance of the chancellor, many observers believe Merkel would likely have to fire him—which in turn could effectively end her current governing coalition and the conservative parties' decades-old alliance in national politics. Merkel, meanwhile, is trying to make sure migration is seen as a problem for all of Europe, not just Germany. The chancellor has pointed to a June 28 to 29 EU summit at which migration will be a key topic as she insists on holding talks with other countries about it. Migration "is a European challenge that needs a European answer," she said in her weekly video message Saturday. "I think this issue is one of the most decisive for the cohesion of Europe." However it ends, the spat has laid bare the limits of Merkel's authority in a fractious government that took office in March after nearly six months of post-election haggling. However, as Bloomberg notes, the difficult coming-together may be what helps save Merkel in the end as her interior minister's party seeks to fend off harder-line anti-immigration rivals who could use the infighting to their advantage.
– At least 40 world leaders linked arms and marched at a huge rally in Paris to denounce terrorism yesterday—but there was no President Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry, or even Eric Holder, who was in the city at the time. As the leaders marched, Holder was taping an interview for Meet the Press. The most senior US official present was the ambassador to France, reports the New York Daily News, which notes that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas set aside their differences to join the unity rally, which brought up to 3 million people to the streets of the city. The absence of senior US officials has attracted plenty of criticism, but the White House stresses that US officials have been working closely with their French counterparts. A senior administration official tells CNN that the security required for Obama's presence "can be distracting from events like this—for once this event is not about us." John Kerry, who's in India, says the criticism is "quibbling" and he plans to visit France on his way back to the US to show America's solidarity with its oldest ally, the AP reports. "The relationship with France is not about one day or one particular moment," he told reporters today. "It is an ongoing, longtime relationship that is deeply, deeply based in the shared values, and particularly the commitment that we share to freedom of expression."
– Mark Zuckerberg, political advocate? Yep, the Facebook CEO has joined other executives in forming an advocacy group that's likely to focus on various issues, starting with US immigration, Politico reports. No surprise there: It's already a hot topic among Silicon Valley executives competing for global talent. And Zuckerberg recently joined other tech execs in lobbying Washington for a "more open and flexible" US immigration system, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. A few more juicy details: Zuckerberg has thrown big money at the new group—maybe up to $20 million—and persuaded others to pitch in $2 million to $5 million. His old Harvard roomie, Joe Green, is a central player in the group. Executives are working with consultants on both sides of the political aisle, including GOP strategist Jon Lerner, who once produced an ad that described liberals as "latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading" freaks. Zuckerberg has raised eyebrows among Democrats by hosting a fundraiser for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican. Protesters stood outside his Palo Alto, Calif., house during the event. Click for more at Politico or the Chronicle, which broke the story.
– In the four weeks he has been president-elect, Donald Trump's tweets have targeted the New York Times, the cast of Hamilton, China, flag-burners, Boeing, and Saturday Night Live, among others—and now it's the turn of Chuck Jones, president of the union that represents Carrier employees in Indianapolis. Jones, "who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers," Trump tweeted Wednesday. "No wonder companies flee country!" The tweet came after Jones told CNN and the Washington Post that Trump hadn't kept as many jobs from moving to Mexico as he claimed. Trump deserves credit for saving some jobs, but he "lied his a-- off" when he said 1,100 jobs had been saved, because the real figure is below 800 and hundreds of union members are still being laid off, Jones told the Post. "If United Steelworkers 1999 was any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana. Spend more time working-less time talking. Reduce dues," Trump said in another tweet. Jones tells the Indianapolis Star that Trump "doesn't know what in the hell he's talking about," because the company's original offer would have forced employees to work for $5 an hour without benefits. He says he has been receiving threats from Trump supporters. "Calling me names, wanting to know if I have children," he says. "I better watch out for myself, and they know what kind of car I drive, that I better watch out for my kids." But he says he is still open to working with Trump to save jobs. "When it comes to people's livelihoods, I think everybody has to put everything aside," he says.
– An amateur detective has written a new book that claims to reveal the real Jack the Ripper based on DNA evidence from a blood-soaked shawl found by one of the victims. Russell Edwards, author of Naming Jack the Ripper, writes in the Daily Mail that he bought the shawl at an auction and called upon a "world-renowned" DNA expert to help him identify the killer. He admits that most Ripper experts had dismissed the shawl, and "there was no evidence for its provenance," but it was apparently kept by the descendants of a law enforcement officer who took it home after Catherine Eddowes' murder in 1888. What Edwards found: a bloodstain that matched Eddowes' DNA, and a possible semen stain that matched a Polish Jew named Aaron Kosminski. Kosminski, who had fled Russian pogroms in the 1880s, was already "one of six key" Ripper suspects, says Edwards. But is the DNA match really a match? Edwards' expert, Dr. Jari Louhelainen, writes in the Mail that he used his own "vacuuming" method to "suck out" the cells—but because they're so old he had to use mitochondrial DNA rather than modern-day genomic DNA. (Another suspect, Walter Sickert, matched an earlier mitochondrial DNA test, but such matches "could be shared by anything from between 1% and 10% of the population," says a Ripper website.) What's more, Edwards' Kosminski matches—which were 99.2% and 100% on two DNA strands—weren't published in a peer-reviewed journal and may not have followed scientific safeguards, reports the Independent. Edwards, however, says he nailed it: "Only non-believers that want to perpetuate the myth will doubt," he tells the Mirror. "This is it now—we have unmasked him." (One detective says there is no Jack the Ripper.)
– Another college official has resigned in the wake of racial tension, this time in California. Mary Spellman, dean of students at Claremont McKenna College, stepped down Thursday, after sending an email that sparked an uproar last month, the Los Angeles Times reports. But the larger brouhaha started in April, when around 30 students of color wrote to the college's president to complain about feeling uncomfortable on campus. Just 4% of undergraduates at the school are black, 8% are mixed race, 10% are Asian-American, 12% are Latino, and 43% are white. The students listed incidents such as racial slurs, vandalism, and mockery on campus, and accused administrators of trying to silence their complaints. Then, last month, one Latina student wrote an op-ed in which she discussed feeling uncomfortable at the school, and Spellman responded with a letter promising to assist students "who don't fit our CMC mold." Cue outrage. Spellman's email sparked more protests, including a hunger strike by two students, and the university did a review of her office. She apologized but ultimately stepped down anyway. "I believe [stepping down] is the best way to gain closure of a controversy that has divided the student body and disrupted the mission of this fine institution," she wrote in her resignation email. The student protest leaders say they're not done; they want more diverse faculty and staff and more funding for multicultural clubs, among other things. In addition to similar protests at Mizzou, the Times notes that students at New York's Ithaca College are also calling for the president to resign because he allegedly has not addressed racial problems on campus; the New York Times reports that students at Yale and UCLA have also been protesting in recent weeks over campus racial tensions.
– If your female employees have named a headlock after you, odds are, you're a pretty bad boss. San Diego Mayor Bob Filner allegedly falls into that category, we learned yesterday, as attorney Marco Gonzalez finally detailed some of the sexual harassment allegations that he and other ex-Filner supporters have been hinting at. Female staffers call him a "dirty old man," and came up with the phrases "the Filner dance" and, yes, "the Filner headlock" to describe interactions with him—which allegedly include Filner grabbing the breast and butt of one staffer, the LA Times reports. Filner once told a female staffer that women in the office would do better "if they worked without their panties on," Gonzalez said. Nor did Filner confine his abuses to staffers, added Gonzalez; he allegedly forcibly kissed two constituents. The revelations came after Filner issued a statement proclaiming his innocence. "I believe a full presentation of the facts will vindicate me," he said according to CNN. Which is pretty odd given that he'd previously apologized and said he needed help. Later yesterday, he explained his behavior by saying, "I'm a hugger of both men and women."
– A Colorado woman is still missing after an intensive search of her fiance's property that involved 75 officers from different law enforcement agencies, authorities say. Kelsey Berreth, a 29-year-old flight instructor from Woodland Park, has not been seen since Thanksgiving and authorities have described her disappearance as suspicious, NBC News reports. Authorities say the scores of officials spent two days searching the 35-acre property of fiance Patrick Frazee, who is the father of Berreth's 1-year-old daughter. Also, police say an anonymous donor has offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to Berreth's whereabouts, per the AP. In regard to the search, the Woodland Park Police Department says a backhoe and dogs were used "to be as thorough as possible." Frazee has declined to meet face-to-face with investigators, though his attorney, Jeremy Loew, says he is cooperating with investigators and has provided his cellphone and DNA samples, the Colorado Springs Gazette reports. Berreth was reported missing by her mother on Dec. 2. Three days after she was last seen at a Safeway on Nov. 22, her cellphone pinged to around 800 miles away in Idaho. A text message sent to her employer from her phone said she wouldn't be at work the following week. Authorities haven't disclosed the contents of another message sent to Frazee.
– Public execution by anti-aircraft gun was the price of perceived disloyalty for North Korea's defense chief, according to South Korea's spy agency. Lawmakers in Seoul say they were told yesterday that military chief Hyon Yong Chol was killed for falling asleep during a military event and for disagreeing with Kim Jong Un, AFP reports. The Seoul lawmakers say the National Intelligence Service informed them that Hyon was killed in front of hundreds of people at a military academy in Pyongyang at the end of April, the AP reports. Hyon was little-known before 2012, when he was promoted after a purge that included the execution of Kim's uncle, reports the BBC. "Such a public and brutal method of execution as obliteration by anti-aircraft gun would emphasize the cost of disloyalty," writes Stephen Evans at the BBC, noting that while intelligence reports should be "treated with skepticism," it will be easy to verify this one by seeing whether Hyon appears in public again. According to the AFP, Hyon was last seen in public attending a musical performance on April 28, following a trip to Moscow to prepare for Kim's visit to Russia. The visit was called off around the same time Hyon was reportedly executed, and a South Korean analyst tells AFP he suspects botching the Moscow mission may have sealed the military chief's fate. Seoul's spy agency says at least 15 other people have been executed this year for challenging Kim.
– Star Wars: The Last Jedi opens in wide release on Friday, meaning social media feeds are already jammed with movie reviews, theories, and reminiscences about previous films in the franchise. What is bound to pop up: heated arguments about who's the most beloved (or hated) Star Wars character ever, and it's a debate 24/7 Wall St. decided to preemptively solve. The site looked at various popularity-suggesting metrics—including screen time, how much exposure they've had online, and page views on dedicated Wikipedia pages—for dozens of the famous faces. Here, the 10 most popular characters: Darth Vader Han Solo Luke Skywalker Princess Leia Anakin Skywalker Obi-Wan Kenobi R2-D2 Chewbacca Yoda C-3PO Now onto the 10 least popular characters (the Force is with you if you know all of these names):
– When 14-year-old Elsie Frost was found dying of multiple stab wounds in a tunnel under a West Yorkshire train overpass in October of 1965, the news of her vicious murder "caused widespread shock and revulsion" across England, reports the Telegraph. But in spite of police questioning 12,000 men, only one suspect was ever arrested in the intervening five decades, and the case against him was ultimately thrown out for lack of evidence. Elsie's parents both died without learning who had killed their daughter, and her older sister and younger brother say that after all these years they want justice, and "didn’t want to die thinking we had not done anything." Now, finally, police say there's been a break in the case. A year after Elsie's siblings asked police to reopen their investigation—which they did following a BBC Radio 4 series on the murder—authorities say they've arrested a 78-year-old man, reports the BBC. Peter Pickering, who was born in Manchester, apparently had links to Yorkshire, where Elsie was murdered, and would have been in his mid-20s in 1965. Though a murder weapon was never found, Elsie, who was said to have taken a different route home from school because she didn't want to get her new shoes muddy on her usual route, was found stabbed twice in the back (one pierced her heart), twice in the head, and once through the hand, reports the Guardian. (Forensic evidence helped solve this 43-year-old cold case.)
– Cringe: Police in Amsterdam responding to what UPI terms "screams of agony" kicked in a home's door, only to find the resident alone and perfectly fine. Turns out the man was listening to opera, with headphones on, and had been trying to sing along, reports NL Times. In a Facebook post translated from the Dutch as "Nocturnal Nightingale!," police explain that early Tuesday evening a neighbor who heard "terrifying screams" phoned in a report of potential domestic violence. The man wasn't aware of police presence until the door had been pummeled. "In the end, the [police] colleagues, the tipster (worried neighbors) and the resident had a real laugh about the incident," per police. The case recalls one in the same vein from November, in which New South Wales Police in Australia were summoned to an apartment over domestic violence concerns; they found an "out-of-breath ... flushed" 32-year-old man who said he lived alone and was trying to kill a spider. When asked about the woman's screams that had reportedly been heard, he replied, "Yeah, sorry, that was me; I really, really hate spiders." (An even weirder opera story also made headlines.)
– Australian police are chasing a mysterious suspect almost 47 years after a British girl disappeared from a beach during a family trip. Cheryl Grimmer's family had recently moved to Australia when police believe the 3-year-old was abducted from changing rooms at Fairy Meadow Beach in Wollongong on Jan. 12, 1970. Investigators had little to go on apart from a ransom note that led nowhere and witness reports that a man was seen running toward a parking lot with a blonde girl in a towel. But when witnesses—aged 9 to 12 at the time of the crime—gathered for a re-enactment of the abduction two weeks ago, they described something investigators had apparently missed: a male, possibly 17 or 18, lurking near the changing rooms prior to Cheryl's disappearance, reports the Times. "He was just seen loitering … in the morning and the afternoon," a detective says. Authorities believe the male—white with brown hair and blue eyes—may have snatched Cheryl after her brother, Ricky, took her to the ladies' changing room and then left to go get his mother, per News.com.au. Ricky Grimmer and his two brothers are now asking the suspect to come forward so they can fulfill a promise to their mother, who died three years ago, to find out what happened to Cheryl. "Just let us know where she is, give us something so we can mourn," Grimmer says, adding he's "never forgiven" himself for the abduction. "It's cost me and my family everything." A $100,000 reward is offered for information leading to an arrest, per AAP. (A woman was reunited with her kidnapped son after 21 years.)
– Americans will no longer have to track down their nearest state fair or risk third-degree oil burns to get their deep-fried Twinkie fix. The AP reports Hostess, in collaboration with Walmart, is launching its own frozen line of Deep Fried Twinkies. The treats come in vanilla and chocolate and need to be finished in the oven or toaster oven before eating. A Hostess executive says they have a "retro cool factor." They also have a retro health factor, with approximately double the fat and calories of a normal Twinkie. But CNN quotes a Walmart executive who says they're "so good they're worth the calories." Deep-fried Twinkies, which have been a staple at state fairs for years, will be Hostess' first entry into frozen foods.
– LeBron James was king of the court last night as the forward finally made good on his promise to bring an NBA championship to Miami. The Heat suffocated the Oklahoma City Thunder 121-106 in Game 5. LeBron was the star, chalking up a triple-double in 44 minutes, with 26 points, 13 assists, and 11 rebounds. The Heat led by 24 points after three quarters, and never looked back, notes the Wall Street Journal. "It’s about damn time," James said during the trophy presentation, calling it "the happiest day in my life" and "a dream come true." James averaged 28.6 points, 10.2 rebounds, and 7.4 assists in the series, and was named the most valuable player by a unanimous vote. Chris Bosh, who left the Toronto Raptors as a free agent two summers ago to join LeBron and Dwyane Wade, added 24 points to last night's game while Wade scored 20. Mike Miller, suffering from a serious back injury that could end his career, scored 23 points and nailed 7 of 8 three-pointers, reports the New York Daily News. James' disappointing history as the antihero of the ESPN special The Decision, when he made his painful announcement he was leaving Ohio for Miami, his flawed role in last year's finals, and his inability to deliver a championship to his Cleveland hometown was blown away in Game 5. Now, "the greatest NBA player" without a championship ring "will soon have one," notes the New York Times.
– Women who've survived breast cancer and are looking to prevent a recurrence may be encouraged by news out of a major cancer conference: that adhering to a Mediterranean diet (lots of fruits, veggies, fish, and olive oil) may help fend off the disease's return, the Guardian reports. For their experiment, revealed at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting in Chicago, researchers at Piacenza Hospital in Italy studied two groups of women who had been treated for early breast cancer: 199 who ate Mediterranean-style (including an allowance for one alcoholic drink daily) and another 108 who ate what they usually did, but with healthy-eating input from a dietician. After three years of following these diets, none of the ladies who went Mediterranean suffered relapses, while 11 women from the other group did. Science World Report notes these results add onto the news from another, much larger recent JAMA study that found a Mediterranean diet rich in extra-virgin olive oil led to a 68% reduction in the risk of developing breast cancer. There are drawbacks to the new study—notably, the small sample size, the relatively short follow-up time of three years, and other methodology issues, critics say. "People were asked to participate in one diet or the other," the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's director of clinical research tells the Guardian. "There is no information about the activity level or change in weight which, for most of the lifestyle research, one needs to be aware of." And the CEO of UK charity Breast Cancer Care says that while any info about how to possibly keep breast cancer from coming back is a "welcome addition to our toolbox," there's no universal panacea. "Lifestyle choices like eating a well-balanced diet, [partaking in] regular exercise, and maintaining a healthy weight can all help reduce the risk of cancer coming back, but they can't prevent it completely," she notes, per the Independent. (America is slowly but surely moving toward a more Mediterranean way of eating.)
– A new pink-haired tattooed Barbie has some parents spitting plastic bullets. Mattel crows that the rocker babe version of Barbie (who has a little dog named Bastardino), designed by Los Angeles-based fashion label Tokidoki, is a "funky fashionista," notes the Telegraph. But for "those who look to Barbie as a role model for strong, empowered girls, the Tokidoki doll is overly sexualized and inappropriate," says a writer at parents.com. Mattel points out that the doll is aimed at the adult collector market, and not sold in toystore chains—but some kids have already posted photos of the doll on their websites. One other controversial version of the buxum doll, Totally Stylin' Barbie, also has tattoos, but they're removable stickers. Will the new Barbie end up sending kids to tattoo parlors? The director of an online toy review magazine says dolls "don't model behavior." He slams critics as "people with personal issues projecting them on a piece of plastic. If you don’t like it, don't bring it into your home. A Barbie doll is not going to knock on your door and drag your child down to the seaport to get a tattoo," he tells the Christian Science Monitor. One tattoo-loving mom praises the doll on Facebook and is now calling for ... piercings.
– Only two pages of Anne Frank's diary remain unread—or, remained. The Anne Frank House on Tuesday revealed that it had managed to read the pages, which a then 13-year-old Anne wrote on Sept. 28, 1942, and subsequently covered over with brown masking paper, keeping the pages' contents a tantalizing mystery for decades. It turns out the pages contained four jokes about sex that Anne herself described as "dirty." "I'll use this spoiled page to write down 'dirty' jokes," Anne wrote, then went on to list them; the Anne Frank House didn't specify what the jokes were, and because of copyright issues, it is unclear whether the passages will be incorporated into new editions. But the institution did share some of what it says were 33 lines about sex education and prostitution also on the pages. On prostitution, she wrote: "All men, if they are normal, go with women, women like that accost them on the street and then they go together. In Paris they have big houses for that. Papa has been there." To reveal the words, researchers photographed the pages, backlit by a flash, and then used image-processing software to decipher the words, which were hard to read because they were jumbled up with the writing on the reverse sides of the pages. "Anyone who reads the passages that have now been discovered will be unable to suppress a smile," said Frank van Vree, director of the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies, per the AP. "The 'dirty' jokes are classics among growing children. They make it clear that Anne, with all her gifts, was above all also an ordinary girl."
– Mark Sanford just pulled off a comeback that would make even Robert Downey Jr. envious—from disgrace and national laughing stock four years ago to winning back his former South Carolina House seat last night, despite pundits predicting a win for opponent Elizabeth Colbert Busch. How did he do it and what does it all mean? The press picks over the bones: Sanford clinched the victory thanks to his mastery of retail politics, says Politico. He drove a van up and down the South Carolina coastline to reintroduce himself to voters, attend public events, and preach about a "God of second chances." Meanwhile, Colbert Busch got too cocky, running only defense and no offense, writes the Daily Beast. She only agreed to one debate and made few campaign stops. "The Colbert Busch team ran like their party won 58-40 last November," says a local commentator. But perhaps the real loser in this election was the rest of the Republican Party, which wrote Sanford off and refused him financial support, observes Time. It'll sure make for one awkward swearing-in ceremony with the previously not-so-supportive John Boehner, adds the Hill. One unexpected winner? Anthony Wiener, who may use Sanford's redemption as inspiration for his rumored run in this year's New York City mayoral race, writes the Washington Post.
– A 9-year-old girl was allegedly killed by her adult cousin, a 325-pound woman accused of sitting on the child to punish her for misbehaving, the AP reports. Per the Pensacola News Journal, Dericka Lindsay was pronounced dead Saturday after an incident at the home of her parents, Grace Smith, 69, and James Smith, 62. Grace Smith's arrest report notes that she says she was having trouble disciplining Dericka, so she phoned her niece, 64-year-old Veronica Green Posey, to help her out. When Posey arrived, Grace Smith says her niece hit Dericka with a metal pipe and a ruler, and when Dericka ran into an armchair, Posey followed the child and sat on top of her. James Smith told cops Posey sat on Dericka for 10 minutes, at which point Dericka said she couldn't breathe. Posey reportedly remained sitting for two more minutes after that, and when she stood up, she saw Dericka wasn't moving. A 911 call brought paramedics to the home, and Dericka was transported to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Posey, who told a deputy from the Escambia County Sheriff's Office that Dericka had been "out of control," was arrested and charged with homicide and child cruelty. The Smiths were charged with neglect for not reporting the abuse, and Grace Smith was also hit with a child cruelty charge. A rep from the Florida Department of Children and Families told the News Journal that his agency had had at least one interaction with this family before, that Dericka's death was "appalling," and that they'd be working with the sheriff's office "to hold anyone responsible for her death accountable." Posey was released on $125,000 bail; the Smiths are still in jail, per court records.
– The old Iranian president called the Holocaust a hoax. The new one? He's reportedly tweeting wishes of goodwill to Jews as Rosh Hashanah begins, reports BuzzFeed: "As the sun is about to set here in #Tehran I wish all Jews, especially Iranian Jews, a blessed Rosh Hashanah," says the tweet from Hasan Rouhani, referring to the Jewish new year. Rouhani is universally described as far more moderate than his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Assuming the tweet is legit—it may have come from his media office rather than the man himself—Rouhani seems "to be offering a very small gesture of goodwill at least partially toward Israelis, who can usually expect nothing but hateful rhetoric from Iranian rulers," writes Max Fisher at the Washington Post. "It’s not exactly a unilateral declaration of peace—tomorrow, Iran will probably still support Hezbollah—but it’s yet another hint of Rouhani’s efforts to dramatically soften Iranian foreign policy and rhetoric."
– The US-led coalition against the Islamic State is apparently hitting 'em where it hurts, destroying between $500 million and $800 million in cash via airstrikes overseas, a US military official tells the BBC. In a press briefing, Maj. Gen. Peter Gersten said that recently acquired internal ISIS documents indicate the attacks against the group have led to a 90% increase in defections, as well as fewer recruits: Per CNN, Gersten noted that only 200 foreigners now join ISIS per month (as opposed to up to 2,000 a month a year ago) and that some members are even coming up with doctors' notes to get out of fighting duty. Although he didn't spell out how the US calculated those estimates, Gersten said fewer than 20 airstrikes specifically targeting the cash stashes—including money used to pay for sex slaves—were carried out. "We're seeing a fracture in their morale, we're seeing their inability to pay … we're watching them try to leave," Gersten said. He noted that the documents suggest ISIS has had to sell vehicles, slash fighter salaries in half, and implore members to cut down on electricity use, among other cost-cutting measures. (The Pentagon has also been "dropping cyberbombs" on ISIS.)
– Today's SMH story comes courtesy of the TSA, who Mashable reports paid IBM $47,400 for "software so simple" that creating it would have been well within the reach of a novice app developer. The revelation comes by way of Kevin Burke, who filed a FOIA request in December 2014 regarding the "TSA Randomizer" iPad application, which was basically used like so: A TSA agent holding an iPad would tap the app. If a left arrow appeared, the traveler went in the left security-check lane; a right arrow, right. A 2014 Bloomberg article explained some of the reasoning behind the software, which mainly related to the use of the speedier PreCheck lane and the selection of the fliers who would randomly be directed there from the regular lane. The randomness would make it tougher for would-be terrorists to identify security-screening patterns they would use for their benefit, Bloomberg explains, and help dispel the appearance of profiling. Cost-wise, Burke's headline is a little more jaw-dropping: "The TSA Randomizer iPad App Cost $1.4 Million." But a TSA rep tells Mashable $336,413.59 was paid to IBM for "mobile application development," with the aforementioned $47,400 earmarked for the randomizer software; Mashable reports the $1.4 million is the total of the overall contract with IBM. As for the app, it's no longer in use. Though it had been employed in more than 100 US airports, the "managed inclusion" program was axed last year after a convicted felon followed the arrow ... into a PreCheck lane. (An angry dad raised a stink over his 10-year-old daughter's airport patdown.)
– President Trump's vision of a "big, beautiful wall" along the entire length of America's border with Mexico probably won't become reality, Homeland Security chief John Kelly admitted during a Senate hearing Wednesday. Kelly told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that he couldn't give them an estimate of how much the wall would cost, and it was unlikely that a physical barrier would be built "from sea to shining sea," NBC News reports. "I don't know what it will be made of, I don't know how high it will be, I don't know if it's going to have solar panels on its side and what the one side is going to look like and how's it's going to be painted," Kelly said. Kelly said he was committed, however, "to putting it where the men and women say we should put it." In response to a question from Sen. John McCain, Kelly said the "wall" Trump has been talking about could include electronic detection systems combined with patrols and fences in a system much like the existing one, the Los Angeles Times reports. Tuesday was the deadline for companies to propose border wall designs, the AP reports, and while the government won't identify bidders until contracts are awarded, those that publicly released proposals include Gleason Partners, which wants to include solar panels, and Clayton Industries, which proposes storing nuclear waste along the wall. (The White House has requested $1 billion for the first 62 miles of wall.)
– All six Baltimore cops charged in Freddie Gray's death have been released after posting bond. Here's a quick look, with info from the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun: Officer Caesar Goodson Jr: The 45-year-old was driving the van that transported Gray and is the only one to face murder charges. On the force since 1999, he is accused of "reckless disregard" for Gray's life. Charges: Second-degree depraved heart murder, involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault, manslaughter by vehicle, misconduct in office. Lt. Brian Rice: The 41-year-old holds the highest rank of those charged. He was on bike patrol and was the first to make eye contact with Gray, says prosecutor Marilyn Mosby. After the chase and capture, he helped load Gray in the van, then reportedly ordered the van to stop so officers could remove Gray and shackle his ankles. Charges: Involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault, misconduct in office, false imprisonment. Officer Edward Nero: He, too, was on the bike patrol. The 29-year-old handcuffed Gray after apprehending him and helped hold him down until the van arrived. Mosby says there was no probable cause for the arrest. Charges: Second-degree assault, misconduct in office, false imprisonment. Officer Garrett Miller: Also on the bike patrol. The 26-year-old helped catch and subdue Gray, and "held him down against his will," says Mosby. He also helped load Gray into the van. Charges: Second-degree assault, misconduct in office, false imprisonment. Officer William Porter: The 25-year-old arrived when Goodson requested backup while driving. He reportedly checked on Gray in the van and helped him off the floor and onto a bench when Gray reported trouble breathing, but did not call for medical help or put him in a seat belt, says Mosby. Charges: Involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault, misconduct in office. Sgt. Alicia White: The 30-year-old is the only woman of the six. She became involved after citizen complaints about Gray's arrest and met the van at its final stop before the police station. She reportedly tried to talk to Gray in the van, but he was unresponsive, and Mosby says she "did nothing further despite the fact that he needed a medic." Charges: Manslaughter, second-degree assault, misconduct in office.
– A man came into a Houston auto detail shop and began shooting, killing a man known to be a customer and putting a neighborhood on lockdown Sunday before being killed by a SWAT officer, police say. A total of eight people were shot, with the aforementioned two being the only fatalities. Among the injured: a man authorities initially described as another suspect because he was present and armed, the AP reports. Police said later Sunday they are investigating further whether he played any role. "He's telling us a version as to what his involvement is," Houston Police spokesman John Cannon said, per CNN. "We need to verify that before we say anything publicly." Police say the main suspect, armed with a pistol and an "AR-15 type" rifle, opened fire at the first police car to arrive on the scene, riddling it with 21 bullets. At least two other police vehicles were damaged and a police helicopter was hit five times after being shot at with a "high-powered" weapon, authorities say. A gas pump that may have been hit by a bullet erupted in flames at an adjacent station. KHOU reports that two wounded police officers, one shot in the hand and the other shot in the chest while wearing a bulletproof vest, were released from the hospital Sunday evening. There has been no word yet on a motive. Cannon say that the man killed in the auto shop "parked his car to get detailed, and within a minute or two, that's when the suspect came out and shot him for no apparent reason," NBC reports.
– Jonathan Watkins was changing his baby daughter's diaper in the front passenger seat of a minivan parked on a Chicago street yesterday when someone opened fire on them. Six-month-old Jonylah Watkins was shot five times, in the thigh, shoulder, lung, liver, and bowels, and "she didn't make it," her father tells the Chicago Sun-Times. "I was trying to help. I was trying to help. I was trying to help her." Watkins, himself in critical condition, says he has no idea who the gunman could have been, though police believe Watkins was the chosen target, reports NBC Chicago. Chicago's police superintendent says that Watkins is a gang member with a lengthy criminal past, reports the AP. In a wrenching twist, the girl had already made it through one shooting: Jonylah's mother, Judy Watkins, was shot in the knee in the same neighborhood when she was eight months pregnant with her daughter; residents say gunfire is common in the area. The gunman fled after the shooting; police are looking into an angry Facebook post that could have prompted the incident, sources say.
– Researchers at Cornell say they've figured out a way to conquer one of the big drawbacks of the sugar substitute stevia—its bitter aftertaste. They zeroed in on the component in stevia that triggers two bitter receptors on the human tongue and were able to modify it through non-chemical means, the scientists say in a university press release. Researchers tested the end result in orange juice and say the sweetness held up. "It’s a chemical-free, economical, and purely physical interaction-based approach to control Reb A’s interaction with taste receptors, which will bolster its taste profile," says the lead author of the study in Food Chemistry, using the shortcut for rebaudioside A. Stevia has gained popularity because it is derived from a plant, is much sweeter than actual sugar, and—the big one—has zero calories, notes a previous explainer at Live Science. But as Business Insider has reported, that "bitter kick" has held the sweetener back commercially. (Truvia and Stevia in the Raw are two big brand names featuring stevia.) The Cornell researchers say this finding could make the ingredient more common in beverages and all across the food industry. Still, the CBC notes that there's much debate among nutritionists over the pros and cons of stevia. "We don't want to habituate our taste buds, get them used to sweet foods all the time," says one. "If you're going to use stevia, use it with caution." (A study suggests that reducing kids' sugar intake improves their health remarkably quickly.)
– Proving his mercy isn’t limited to Thanksgiving turkeys, President Obama exercised his pardon power for the first time today to erase the criminal pasts of nine individuals convicted of various crimes, some dating as far back as the 1960s. The most unusual case appeared to be that of a man sentenced to one year of probation and a $20 fine for mutilating coins in North Carolina in 1963, reports the Dow Jones news wire via Wall Street Journal. The White House didn't explain that one or any of the others, though AP notes it's a federal offense to deface or otherwise tamper with federal currency. (AP also has a full list of the nine here.) Other offenses included drug possession and counterfeiting. None of the names are well-known.
– The three Israeli teenage boys missing since earlier this month have been found dead, according to the army and Israeli press reports, and CNN reports that PM Benjamin Netanyahu is swiftly responding by calling an emergency cabinet meeting. "Hamas is responsible, and Hamas will pay," Netanyahu said in a statement, the AP reports. The boys "were kidnapped and murdered in cold blood by human animals." The bodies were found in a pit, reports the BBC, near the West Bank town where they went missing late June 12 or early June 13. Israel has blamed Hamas for the abductions, and initiated a massive crackdown in their aftermath. One of the teens was a US citizen.
– With the fiscal cliff in sight, Democrats and Republicans are no longer talking. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reached a "major setback" today over a fairly wonky provision known as "chained CPI," Democratic sources tell Politico. A means of calculating entitlement benefits, CPI is anathema to many liberals because it would give Social Security beneficiaries lower payments. And Democrats say they have made other concessions, like raising taxes only for those earning more than $400,000. McConnell spoke on the Senate floor today, saying Republicans hadn't received a response to their offer from last night, the New York Times reports. Reid responded that Democrats had no counter-offer because they were "apart on some pretty big issues." President Obama said today on Meet the Press that he would accept "chained CPI" but only as part of a bigger deal that includes at least $1.2 trillion in new revenue over a decade. As it stands, Reid and McConnell are cutting a smaller deal to head off certain tax hikes and Medicare cuts, without tackling the deficit or preventing $109 billion in defense and domestic spending cuts slated for this year.
– The former Navy SEAL sniper shot dead alongside a friend at a Texas shooting range yesterday appears to have been killed by a troubled Iraq War veteran he was trying to help, authorities say. Travis Cox, director of a nonprofit veterans' organization that American Sniper author Chris Kyle helped found, says Kyle and his friend were helping Eddie Ray Routh deal with post-traumatic stress disorder, the AP reports. Routh, 25, has been charged with both murders. Kyle "served this country with extreme honor, but came home and was a servant leader in helping his brothers and sisters dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder," Cox tells the New York Times. "Everyone has their own inner struggles, but he was very proactive about the things he was dealing with." The local sheriff says Routh's mother may have reached out to Kyle for help with her son. Investigators, who believe Routh killed both men with a semi-automatic handgun, say he has not made any comments that would indicate a motive.
– You could sit at home and drink your own tap water, or you could visit Minneapolis' Water Bar and drink tap water in the company of others. Shanai Matteson hopes you'll choose the latter option. Yes, Minneapolis will soon be home to what UPI calls the world's first "full-fledged bar that will serve exclusively water products." But you can "cool it with the eye-rolling" and comments about "crazy hipsters," notes the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Water Bar will be an art installation and all water will be free. Back in 2014, Matteson and Colin Kloecker opened a pop-up water bar through which artists, water researchers, and other community members served tap water to more than 30,000 people in Minnesota, Arkansas, Illinois, and North Carolina. Water Bar will be a permanent extension of that project, though a GoFundMe page notes an opening date has not been set. "Water is not something people think about, but we have potential water shortage problems and water quality problems," Matteson tells MinnPost. After tasting water in different areas, she says it became clear "where water isn't quite so abundant or where cities don't have the same level of treatment methods in place." Staffed by engineers, city employees, and environmental experts, Water Bar will be "a place to talk, to quench your thirst, to inquire, and to share personal stories and reflections," and sample different tap waters, according to the bar's website. The bar will also be combined with "an art sustainability studio and incubator, intended to build local projects with other artists and designers, all about water and environmental sustainability at the local level," Matteson says. (One business sells New York tap water for $2.50 a bottle.)
– GPS information from Dylann Roof's car reveals a chilling detail: He stopped at a second South Carolina church after his massacre, reports ABC affiliate WCIV. When he left Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, Roof got back on the interstate and took an exit that brought him to Branch AME Church about 30 miles away, per the station, which cited GPS data not used in his federal trial. There, he turned off his GPS for several minutes, which prosecutors say suggests he sat there contemplating another attack. Like Emanuel, the church had a Bible study that night, though it's unclear whether anyone was inside at that time or whether Roof actually left his car. Roof told investigators upon his arrest that he was too tired to pull off another attack, notes ABC News. The second church is located on a stretch of road with few other businesses, making it unlikely Roof would have stopped there deliberately. Plus, prosecutors say he drove by it months earlier when he was scouting locations. Roof was sentenced to death in his federal trial for killing nine people at Emanuel, but the new information could still be relevant. For one thing, Roof has requested a new federal trial, reports the AP, and he still faces a state trial that also could result in the death penalty.
– Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" debuted to wildly enthusiastic reviews from the likes of Elton John and Perez Hilton, who see it as the new gay anthem—but other prominent gays are not so happy about it, writes Jacob Bernstein on the Daily Beast. Critiques ranged from the mild ("Gaga shmaga," wrote the editor of Out) to less mild ("very Blond Ambition meets Express Yourself," wrote Bravo host Andy Cohen) to the downright severe: "It seems pretty en vogue at the moment to pander to people's concerns about bullying," a party promoter says. "I sort of liked Gaga more when she sang about dancing as opposed to trying to be the voice of a generation." Another gay man came up with this analogy for the song: It's like "white people writing a song about breaking free from slavery and expecting black people to worship us for it." (Although, Bernstein points out, Gaga has said she's attracted to both sexes.) A modeling agent, noting that Gaga once said she wrote the song in 10 minutes, said "she should have taken at least 11;" a DJ and former drag performer called the track "cheesy and overproduced." But what about Madonna, whose "Express Yourself" so many people have compared the track to? She's a fan, Gaga assured Jay Leno last night. Watch that video in the gallery or click to listen to the song.
– As Conan O'Brien returns to TV tonight on TBS, 10 months after the fiasco at NBC that ended his tenure as the Tonight Show host, questions abound: Perhaps the biggest of those questions is whether or not Conan can take his phenomenal success on Twitter and translate it back into TV ratings, the Los Angeles Times notes. Conan isn't directly competing with rival Jay Leno, but his 11pm cable slot pits him against two much more challenging opponents: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, both riding high from their hugely popular Washington rallies, reports the New York Times. Others raise more pressing concerns: Will the beard stay? "That orange facial fuzz has come to typify everything we love about the new Conan," writes Eric Ditzian on MTV. Ditzian also weighs in on the rumored first guest, Andy Richter's role, and another big question—will he make any Leno jokes? (Probably not, but Ditzian is hoping for "one last zinger.") Perhaps most importantly, wonders James Poniewozik at Time, "Will the Masturbating Bear be back?" Jokes aside, NBC technically owns all of Conan's signature bits. Will he defy NBC or come up with all-new material? To get your fill of Conan while waiting for the premiere, click here.
– Even though we can't feel it, the Earth is humming all the time. "If you played it at 10,000 times the speed, you could hear 'white noise' like an old TV set between channels," Fabrice Ardhuin, an oceanographer in France, tells the Huffington Post. Experts discovered the planet's very low vibrations in the late 1990s, and now researchers may be able to explain them, Live Science reports. According to Ardhuin's team, the hum is a result of ocean waves. Waves don't just occur at the ocean's surface, Live Science explains: They can reach to the bottom of the ocean. There, they move along a "bumpy" sea floor, creating pressure that leads to the Earth oscillating, the American Geophysical Union reports. That could explain the so-called "microseismic" waves behind the hum—at least those lasting from 13 to 300 seconds, according to researchers' models. Shorter microseismic waves could be the result of waves crashing into each other. The wave theory isn't entirely new, Live Science notes, but the findings offer a fuller explanation of what could be happening. "I think (the results are) a relief to the seismologists," says the oceanographer. "Now we know where this ringing comes from, and the next question is: What can we do with it?" One possibility: The research could help experts spot earthquakes occurring a long distance away, AGU notes. (In other recent geological finds, it seems the Earth's core has a core of its own.)
– It’s not often you see Gene Hackman’s name in the headlines these days, but this incident definitely got it there: Police say the 82-year-old actor slapped a homeless man in downtown Santa Fe yesterday, the AP reports, citing the Albuquerque Journal. Law enforcement sources tell TMZ the man, Bruce Becker, approached Hackman and his wife as they were leaving a restaurant, threatened them, and called Hackman’s wife a “c**t.” That’s when Hackman slapped him in the face, and Becker called the cops. Police determined the smack was self-defense, and no charges have been filed at the moment. "It looked like Mr. Hackman did this purely out of self-defense to protect himself and his wife," a police spokesperson tells E!.
– Well, you knew this was coming: Jeremy Meeks, the dreamy criminal whose mugshot is making many people rethink their aversion to dating a felon, may have a future as a model. Hollywood talent agent Gina Rodriguez signed Meeks last week, and now numerous outlets including CBS Local say he's already scored a modeling contract with Blaze Models in LA, though Rodriguez denies it. Rodriguez, who's been getting death threats since taking Meeks on as a client (he has gang ties and is, you know, still imprisoned), insists, "If we can help him in any way with his future and help him turn his life around, that’s what I’m about."
– When an isolated tribe emerged from the Amazon in recent weeks and initiated contact with Brazilian scientists in the village of Ashaninka near the Peruvian border, some called the move "potentially tragic"—and, indeed, though they were quickly quarantined for their own safety, all five men and two women were sick with the flu within days. After extensive back-and-forth with doctors flown into the remote village, the reluctant tribespeople agreed to take medicine, and no one died, Forbes reports. Still, according to Brazil's Indian protection agency, FUNAI, researchers now fear that the tribespeople, who were given flu shots before they returned to the jungle, may have brought the disease to their home and spread it to other vulnerable people, Science reports. "Only time will tell if they reacted quickly enough to divert a catastrophic epidemic," says one expert. Some experts say that diseases are likely responsible for wiping out many aboriginal populations up and down the Americas over the past 500 years. With neither natural immunity nor modern medicine, diseases they've never encountered can prove punishing and deadly. Officials think the tribe initiated contact (something so rare it hasn't happened in the Amazon in decades, Popular Science reports) because of continued harassment by illegal loggers and drug traffickers who have moved into their lands—"The group told us their tribe had been shot at by white men," says a FUNAI worker. It's unclear whether they got the flu from that contact, from villagers in places they'd recently raided for food and tools, or from the scientists they met when they emerged from the jungle. Researchers say the tribe may be part of the Chitonahua people; they wore only bark belts and carried wooden spears, bows, and arrows. (One advocacy group says the tribe may have reached out because it feels it has "nowhere left to go.")
– Joe Biden's "put y'all back in chains" comment has sparked plenty of calls—from Republicans including John McCain and Sarah Palin—for President Obama to boot Biden off the ticket and replace him with Hillary Clinton. But the White House insists there will be no such switcheroo, and spokesman Jay Carney couldn't resist a dig at McCain yesterday, reports Mediaite. "I have great admiration for and great respect for and a long relationship with Sen. John McCain, but one place I would not go to for advice for vice presidential running mates is to Sen. McCain," he said in response to a question from a Fox correspondent. But Obama-Clinton speculation continues at many conservative blogs and a growing number of liberal ones, Politico notes. Many pundits agree that Clinton would give the ticket a boost, but doubt she'd be interested in replacing Biden. "If she wants to run, she is already the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic nomination and would gain no advantage by being yoked to Obama, her old adversary, for the next three months if they lost or the next four years if they won," writes John Fund at the National Review.
– Rick Perry laid out his reasons for entering the presidential race today in his big speech in South Carolina. Some excerpts from Politico and the New York Times: "It is time to get America working again. That’s why, with the support of my family, and an unwavering belief in the goodness of America, I declare to you today my candidacy for president of the United States." "Mr. President, you can’t win the future by selling it off to foreign creditors." "America's standing in the world is imperiled." "In reality, this is just the most recent downgrade. The fact is for nearly three years, President Obama has been downgrading American jobs, downgrading our standing in the world, downgrading our financial stability, downgrading confidence, and downgrading the hope of a better future for our children." "I will work every day to make Washington, DC, as inconsequential in your lives as I can, and free our families, small businesses and states from a burdensome and costly federal government so they can create, innovate and succeed. With the help and courage of the American people, we will get our country working again."
– The death toll in Sunday's mass shooting at a Texas church has risen to 26 and while officials haven't publicly named the gunman yet, law enforcement sources tell the AP that the shooter was Devin Patrick Kelley, a 26-year-old man who lived on the outskirts of the San Antonio suburb of New Braunfels, around 35 miles away from the church in Sutherland Springs. An Air Force spokeswoman says Kelly received a bad-conduct discharge in 2014. He was court-martialed in 2012 and spent a year in confinement after allegedly assaulting his wife and child. The latest developments: Pursued by an armed resident. In a press conference Sunday night, Texas Department of Public Safety regional director Freeman Martin said the gunman attacked the church around 11:20am dressed in black "tactical-type gear," CNN reports. Martin said after the massacre, an armed citizen engaged the suspect and then pursued his vehicle. He said after a chase, the gunman was found dead in his vehicle. It's not clear whether the suspect shot himself or was fatally shot by the citizen.
– A community in British Columbia is feeling warm and fuzzy after a homeless man's generosity inspired residents not once but twice over the past two weeks. First, the unidentified man with little to his name found a suitcase with $2,000 in it on a street in Victoria, but turned over the cash to police believing it was "the right thing to do," authorities tell the CBC. As the story spread, Mike Kelly of website Victoria Buzz began fundraising to help the guy out and donations flooded in, totaling $5,000—including $255 donated by kids who'd opened a lemonade stand, CTV News reports. But finding the Langford man in his 60s proved difficult. "It's not easy tracking down a person of no fixed address and no phone, but I kept trying," says officer Alex Bérubé. "I was touched by the story." After hours of searching on and off the clock, Bérubé finally found him on Monday and told him of the money that was his if he wanted it; he didn’t. "Instead of asking how to collect it, he asked me how to donate it" to a local homeless shelter, Our Place, and other food service providers for homeless people, Bérubé says. Officers told the man to think over his decision, but when he visited a police branch the next day, his choice was the same. In a handwritten letter, he described his intentions for the money—though he also made one small, additional request: He asked for a job. Kelly says he plans "to do everything I can to help find him a job that fits his personal situation" and is soliciting help. (A 5-year-old recently brought a homeless man to tears.)
– The search for what investigators say is the "best lead" so far in the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 resumed in earnest at daybreak today as boats and planes searched a patch of the southern Indian Ocean for possible plane debris. So far, there has been no trace of the floating debris seen on a satellite image. Search teams ended today's mission without finding anything, CNN reports. A total of four military planes and one civilian plane joined the search today in an area Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott describes as "about the most inaccessible spot that you can imagine on the face of the Earth," reports the BBC. China has announced that it is sending three military vessels to the area, and they may be joined by an icebreaker currently in Perth after an Antarctic mission. Australia is now planning to use human spotters—"highly skilled and trained observers" looking out the windows of low-flying planes—to search for the debris rather than radar, the New York Times reports. After two days of fruitless radar searching, an official explains that while humans are slower than radar, they might have a better chance at spotting debris. Weather conditions in the area known as the "Roaring 40s" (due to the frequent storm-force winds in latitudes between 40 and 50 degrees," explains Reuters) have hampered the search so far, and while conditions are improving, fog and low visibility are still a factor, the Guardian finds. Also troublesome: Most of the planes assisting in the search have to deal with a seven-hour round trip to the search area, meaning they only have two hours of actual search time before they have to head back to refuel, according to an Australian official quoted by NBC News. If debris is found, investigators will use computer models to try to retrace it to a crash scene that could be hundreds of miles away. "There are sophisticated models that allow you to work backwards from the current position of each piece of debris, after considering the currents and the winds and so on," an expert who helped locate the black boxes after the 2009 Air France disaster tells Reuters. "That enables you to say X marks the spot on the surface." But an Australia official cautions that the debris may have sunk since the satellite image was taken five days ago. "Something that was floating on the sea that long ago may no longer be floating," he told reporters. "It may have slipped to the bottom."
– Researchers probing the staggering complexities of the human brain now have a map to help them find their way around. Scientists have unveiled a computerized "atlas of the brain," which combines several imaging techniques to map features including nerve structure and gene activity. The project, funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, offers researchers a tool to understand how genes work in the brain and to potentially find new treatment for disorders including autism and depression, reports the Wall Street Journal. The map—available here—identifies about 100 million data points and 1,000 anatomical sites in the brain. "Until now, a definitive map of the human brain at this level of detail simply hasn't existed," the chief executive of the nonprofit Allen Institute for Brain Science says. "For the first time, we have generated a comprehensive map of the brain that includes the underlying biochemistry." Researchers used two donated brains to create the atlas; they plan to add eight more brains to the archive by the end of the year to give scientists a better idea of the variation between individuals.
– Bob Dylan has completed his Nobel course requirements. The Swedish Academy announced Monday that it has received the mandatory lecture from the 2016 literature winner, enabling Dylan to collect $922,000 in prize money, reports the AP. Spokeswoman Sara Danius described Dylan's talk in a news release as "extraordinary" and "eloquent." Nobel Prize officials said the 26-minute talk was recorded on Sunday in Los Angeles and an audio clip is posted on the academy's website (it can also be found on YouTube). Danius said its delivery to the academy meant that "the Dylan adventure is coming to a close." The songwriter took weeks to publicly acknowledge even winning the prize, announced in October and greeted with both joy and dismay that a rock star had received an honor previously given to William Faulkner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Alice Munro among others. According to the LA Times, the musician opened the talk by saying, "When I received the Nobel Prize for literature, I got to wondering exactly how my songs related to literature. I wanted to reflect on it, and see where the connection was." Dylan said that folk songs were his earliest musical vocabulary, but that books such as Ivanhoe and Don Quixote helped shape his view of the world and inspire him to write songs "unlike anything anybody had ever heard." From the start, he believed in absorbing classical texts and the vernacular of the day. He discussed three works at length: Moby Dick, All Quiet On the Western Front, and The Odyssey, and concluded by noting that Shakespeare's words were meant to be spoken, "just as lyrics in songs are meant to be sung, not read on a page."
– Two Australian parents are blasting President Trump for including the incident that killed their children on his list of 78 terror attacks he contends weren't properly covered by the media, USA Today reports. British tourists Mia Ayliffe-Chung, 20, and Tom Jackson, 30, were stabbed to death at an Australian hostel in August. Police say Smail Ayad, the French national who killed them, may have been "romantically obsessed" with Ayliffe-Chung. He has no connection to the Islamic State and was later diagnosed with schizophrenia. Despite that, the deaths of Ayliffe-Chung and Jackson were deemed terror-related by Trump. In an open letter to Trump, Rosie Ayliffe accuses the president of using her daughter's death to "further this insane persecution of innocent people" and "lead ignorant people into darkness and hatred." In his own open letter, Les Jackson says Trump is purposefully lying about his son's death to "suit his agenda." Ayliffe says that after seeing Trump's list, the police chief in charge of the investigation emailed to let her know there was still "no terror link" in the case, the Guardian reports. Even people whose family members actually were killed in terror attacks aren't thrilled with Trump's list. Alpha Chung, whose father died in such an attack in Australia, tells ABC it's a "painful experience" to have the death of a loved one dragged back into the news to further a political agenda. And he says the attack that resulted in his father's death was heavily covered all over the world.
– Archaeologists investigating the remains of an ancient city overlooking the Sea of Galilee say they've found the best evidence yet of a devastating earthquake—one of two that leveled the Greco-Roman municipality, the Jerusalem Post reports. The University of Haifa researchers, who have been excavating Hippos for 15 years, said today that they found a dove-shaped pendant and a woman's skeleton under the remains of a roof. They also dug up ancient artillery balls for a huge catapult and a statue's marble leg. "Finally the findings are coming together to form a clear historical-archaeological picture," says chief excavator Michael Eisenberg. They also found evidence that the first Hippos quake, in 363 AD, razed the city, which residents spent 20 years rebuilding. A second temblor in 749 AD destroyed the city for good. But not all the evidence is clear—like the marble leg from a sculpture in the Roman baths: "It could be a god or athlete whose sculpture was over two meters tall," says Eisenberg. Despite looking like "an old photograph come to life" with its volcanic, gray stone and main street still intact, Hippos draws few tourists these days, the Jewish Exponent reports. But Israel plans to spend $35 million to turn Hippos and other second-tier historic sites into area attractions "for interpretation, mostly from a Jewish point of view," says a government archaeologist.
– A 2-year-old boy who went missing on a family camping trip in Idaho has been gone five days now, and his parents say their one hope is that he's been abducted rather than lost in the woods. "If somebody has him please don't hurt him," mom Jessica Mitchell tells KTVB. "Just bring him home safely where he belongs." DeOrr Kunz Jr. apparently wandered off Friday afternoon at the Timber Creek Reservoir near Idaho Falls. His parents say they thought his grandfather was watching him and vice versa, reports the Huffington Post. Searchers haven't turned up a trace, and police are not commenting on the possibility of an abduction—nor have they issued an Amber Alert. "There's a possibility that he may be with somebody and that's what is giving us hope," says dad DeOrr Kunz Sr. "It's a bad thing that he would be not with us right now, but it also means there's a good chance that he is alive and with somebody."
– "What we witnessed here in the Security Council is an insult. It won't be forgotten." Such was US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley's assessment after the US on Monday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution demanding the US reverse its Dec. 6 decision on Jerusalem. The Egyptian-drafted one-page resolution did not include the words "United States" or "President Trump," reports Reuters, but the target was clear. The resolution described "deep regret at recent decisions concerning the status of Jerusalem" and stated "any decisions and actions which purport to have altered the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void and must be rescinded in compliance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council." Those aforementioned resolutions date to 1967. The Security Council's view is that Israel does not have sovereignty over Jerusalem, and that Israel and the Palestinians must come to terms via direct negotiations on their respective claims to it. It also asserted that countries' diplomatic missions should be located in places other than Jerusalem. The 14 other Security Council members voted in favor of the resolution, making for a tally that the New York Times describes as "punctuat[ing] the American isolation over a central issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." In explaining the United States' veto, Haley said the vote was cast with "no joy, but ... no reluctance." The AP notes this outcome was expected, but that the Arab countries who supported the resolution wanted to hold the vote to make clear that even US allies like Britain and France oppose Trump's move.
– Welcome to 2017, when toasters have internet access, taxis drive themselves, and social media sites issue manifestos. Mark Zuckerberg set out his 5,500-word vision for the future in a Facebook post Thursday, setting out his plans to build "social infrastructure" that can help the world deal with issues such as climate change and terrorism, the Wall Street Journal reports. Zuckerberg tells the BBC that Facebook's mission of connecting the world has become more controversial in recent years, and while he still believes in building a global community, it must involve helping those who feel they've been left behind by globalization. Some key points from the manifesto: Facebook's next step. "For the past decade, Facebook has focused on connecting friends and families," Zuckerberg writes. "With that foundation, our next focus will be developing the social infrastructure for community—for supporting us, for keeping us safe, for informing us, for civic engagement, and for inclusion of all." "Meaningful communities." Zuckerberg says he wants Facebook to do more to help people connect with "meaningful communities" both online and offline, citing examples including the Black Fathers group. Safety measures. Facebook plans to build more infrastructure like its Safety Check, which helps people let others know they're safe during an emergency, and to help the community identify threats. "Right now, we're starting to explore ways to use AI to tell the difference between news stories about terrorism and actual terrorist propaganda so we can quickly remove anyone trying to use our services to recruit for a terrorist organization," Zuckerberg writes. "Fake news." Zuckerberg says he wants to reduce sensationalism and polarization by making sure people see a range of viewpoints. "Our approach will focus less on banning misinformation, and more on surfacing additional perspectives and information, including that fact checkers dispute an item's accuracy," he writes. Civic engagement. "Just as TV became the primary medium for civic communication in the 1960s, social media is becoming this in the 21st century," Zuckerberg writes, setting out plans to boost civic engagement and help hundreds of millions of people around the world register to vote. Community standards. Zuckerberg makes it clear that he was stung by criticism of the site for taking down controversial material. He says since standards vary between users and between societies, people will be allowed to have their own settings, and "content will only be taken down if it is more objectionable than the most permissive options allow." "History has had many moments like today," Zuckerberg writes in conclusion. "As we've made our great leaps from tribes to cities to nations, we have always had to build social infrastructure like communities, media and governments for us to thrive and reach the next level ... We have done it before and we will do it again." He closes with a quote from Abraham Lincoln: "We can succeed only by concert. It is not 'can any of us imagine better?' but, 'can we all do better?' The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, act anew."
– Lena Dunham is in the hospital and set for surgery after suffering complications from endometriosis, reports People. "This morning, she suffered from an ovarian cyst rupture and has been taken to the hospital," a rep says in a statement, adding that the Girls star "will be undergoing surgery at an undisclosed hospital." Dunham announced last month that she would be taking a break due to the "chronic condition," which USA Today notes is "a disorder in which tissue normally found in the uterus grows outside that organ," and causes cramping, irregular periods, and infertility. "I am currently going through a rough patch with the illness and my body (along with my amazing doctors) let me know, in no uncertain terms, that it's time to rest," Dunham said in her post last month.
– Nearly two months later, an answer to what killed Jani Lane: alcohol poisoning. The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office determined that the former Warrant frontman died from acute ethanol intoxication, the AP reports. E! notes that a half-empty vodka bottle and prescription drugs were found alongside Lane's body in a hotel room. The Hollywood Reporter adds that Lane had been arrested twice, and put in jail once, for driving under the influence.
– The US is alone in conducting medical experiments on chimps, but a move yesterday by federal officials may end the practice, reports the Washington Post. The US Fish and Wildlife Service declared that all chimps are now endangered. Previously it made a distinction between those in the wild, which have been endangered for decades, and those in captivity, which had the lesser designation of "threatened." The move doesn't explicitly end medical experiments, but it will require biomedical researchers to require permits with stringent conditions to be allowed to conduct experiments. The New York Times reports that 730 chimpanzees are currently in the custody of biomedical labs, adding that the new federal designation is the result of a petition filed by Jane Goodall and the Humane Society of the US. "There are times in the past when I wondered whether this day would ever happen," Goodall tells the Guardian. “It shows an awakening, it shows a new consciousness. We should all raise our glasses tonight.” The decision also will crimp the sale of chimpanzees as pets or for use in the entertainment business, but it's expected to hit medical research institutions the hardest. Fish and Wildlife chief Dan Ashe says the original decision to extend chimps the unusual dual designation was "well-intentioned," but it ended up expanding "a culture and attitude of treating these animals as commodities."
– Serena Williams went from training with her dad on the public courts in Compton to winning the US Open—six times so far. She's competing there again now, and in a new ad, Nike celebrates that incredible journey, Ad Age reports. The video combines shots of an adult Williams playing tennis with archival footage of a 9-year-old Williams and her dad on those Compton courts, complete with her dad saying in voiceover, "Be tough, just like you want to win. Just like you're at the US Open." PopSugar declares that the minute-long video "might as well be an extremely emotional short film," while Revelist calls it "goosebump-inducing." CNBC points to the "success hack" the ad illustrates: visualization. "If you can see it, you can be it."
– It's a new kind of Storage Wars. With services like Dropbox seeking business users, Microsoft is raising the stakes. To that end, the company today announced that users of OneDrive for Business, a Microsoft storage offering, will now get 1TB of space each—up from 25GB. Users of Office 365 ProPlus will also be treated to 1TB, the company says, per TechCrunch. While Microsoft's blog post didn't explicitly mention Dropbox or Box, its target was pretty clear, the Wall Street Journal notes: The post was titled "thinking outside the box." Few competitors, it says, "are prepared to meet the evolving needs of businesses looking for a holistic and comprehensive approach" to the cloud. The CEO of Box, in reply, called Microsoft's solutions too "closed": "By keeping Office 365 users on the closed OneDrive 'island,' Microsoft is stranding hundreds of millions of users and customers that have chosen Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and others."
– House Intelligence Committee Republicans have released their final findings on Russian interference in the 2016 US election, ending a yearlong probe, per the Washington Post. The heavily redacted 253-page report puts President Trump and his cohorts generally in the clear, noting the panel found "no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded, coordinated, or conspired with the Russian government." What it did find was that the Obama administration dropped the ball with a "slow and inconsistent" response to the Russians, and that both the Trump and Clinton campaigns showed "poor judgment and ill-considered actions." The report, which was said to be based on interviews with nearly 75 witnesses and a scouring of hundreds of thousands of documents, also concludes that any attempts of Trump associates to try to forge a relationship with Russia were either unsanctioned by Trump or didn't pan out. But the New York Times notes that Democratic committee members, who didn't endorse the report, have said their GOP colleagues didn't probe as deeply as they should have and wrapped up investigative efforts early to help shield the president from any trouble. A nearly 100-page Democratic rebuttal to the GOP's report says "a majority" of its findings are “misleading and unsupported by the facts and the investigative record," per the Post. Trump immediately jumped on the announcement, tweeting just minutes after the news broke: "Just Out: House Intelligence Committee Report released. 'No evidence' that the Trump Campaign 'colluded, coordinated or conspired with Russia.' Clinton Campaign paid for Opposition Research obtained from Russia- Wow! A total Witch Hunt! MUST END NOW!"
– Fishermen at the edge of the Florida Everglades made a horrifying discovery Monday: two alligators eating away at a human body, the Sun Sentinel reports. After the alligators were scared off, divers recovered the body while officers stood guard with AR-15 rifles. According to CBS Miami, the body was largely intact, but it appeared to have spent a few days in the water. Police were not able to immediately determine a gender or race, but tell the Sun Sentinel the alligators found the body, but did not kill the person. “What happened to them?" CBS quotes a police sergeant as saying. "How did they end up here? Could it be a homicide, could it be a suicide, could it be natural, a fisherman? We don’t know.” (Man-eating crocodiles were recently discovered in Florida). Elsewhere in the state, an absolutely massive alligator was caught on video trundling across a golf course.
– New CNN honcho Jeff Zucker is making some big changes at the network, notes Daily Intel: Husband-and-wife duo James Carville and Mary Matalin won't get new contracts, reports Fishbowl DC. Conservative commentator Erick Erickson is leaving for Fox. (Sarah Palin won't be back at Fox.) Chris Cuomo, 20/20 co-anchor and brother of New York York's governor, is leaving ABC to host a new morning show for CNN, reports the Washington Post. Zucker previously got ABC's Jake Tapper to come aboard. The fate of current morning show host Soledad O'Brien is unclear, reports Politico. Managing editor Mark Whitaker has resigned, reports TVNewser.
– The Tax Foundation has crunched the numbers on what $100 is really worth in different parts of the country, and those who want the most bang for their buck should head to Mississippi and avoid DC, notes Forbes. Here are the five states where $100 is worth the most: Mississippi, $115.21 Arkansas, $114.29 South Dakota, $114.16 Alabama, $114.03 West Virginia, $113.12 And the five (including DC) where it's worth the least: District of Columbia: $84.96 Hawaii, $86.06 New York, $86.73 New Jersey, $87.34 California, $89.05 Click for a look at all the states.
– People are talking about the Emmy Awards on a Tuesday morning instead of a Monday because "this year we're doing the Emmys on a Monday night in August—which, if I understand television, means the Emmys are about to get canceled," quipped host Seth Meyers. Some of the highlights, as per PopSugar, Celebuzz, USA Today, and the Hollywood Reporter: As Julia Louis-Dreyfus went up to collect her prize for lead actress in a comedy series, Bryan Cranston swooped in to give her a passionate kiss that lasted a full 11 seconds. "Yeah, he was on Seinfeld," she said afterward. Billy Crystal offered a heartfelt tribute to his old friend Robin Williams during the "in memoriam" segment. "As genius as he was on stage, he was the best friend you could ever imagine," he said. "It's very hard to talk about him in the past because he was so present in our lives." "Weird Al" Yankovic's medley of theme song parodies poked fun at shows including Game of Thrones, Modern Family, and Mad Men, with lines like "Jon Hamm's never won an Emmy—oh, who cares, he's still Jon freaking Hamm!" Gwen Stefani had what critics are calling an "Adele Dazeem" moment when she mangled the name of The Colbert Report as she announced its win for best variety series. Jimmy Fallon then rushed the stage, saying, "She said it wrong, so there must be a mistake." Fallon proceeded to deliver an acceptance speech that Stephen Colbert whispered in his ear. "I think I might just change my name to Colborg," Colbert said backstage later. Click for a full list of the winners.
– Rick Perry is done in Texas, which will give him time to do all kinds of exciting things, like "learn the names of all the departments of government that he disapproves of," and, of course, run for president, writes Alexandra Petri at the Washington Post. And Petri thinks he should go for it. "Sure, he fizzled in 2012, a year when a piece of damp cardboard led the field for a full six weeks after someone pointed out it was not Mitt Romney," but hey, there are three good reasons: It's not like it could get any worse than last time. Americans believe in second chances. "I can't remember the third reason." In what can't be a good sign for Perry, Rand Paul used the same joke last night, Politico notes. Alex Pareene at Salon doesn't like his chances, either. "'Vote for your dumb right-wing dad' won't work any better in 2016 than it did in 2012," he reasons. And while Hendrik Hertzberg at the New Yorker is also pretty sure he's toast—and deservedly so—he does point out that Perry had one "transcendentally good idea" during his "disastrously meteorite-like" presidential run, namely a constitutional amendment getting rid of lifetime Supreme Court appointments in favor of 18-year terms.
– Former NFL star Junior Seau has been hospitalized after driving his car off a cliff in California. The ex-linebacker had been arrested on domestic violence charges and released on bail hours earlier, CNN reports. His 25-year-old live-in girlfriend sustained minor injuries in the domestic incident, according to cops. Seau, star of reality show Sports Jobs with Junior Seau, told police he fell asleep at the wheel, according to ABC News.
– To explain slurred speech and a near fall in the months before his November death from organ failure, David Cassidy publicly claimed he was suffering from dementia. Privately, he admitted his true disease. "There is no sign of me having dementia at this stage of my life. It was complete alcohol poisoning," the former teen idol told a producer in a recorded phone call included in a two-hour A&E documentary airing Monday, per the Washington Post. "The fact is that I lied about my drinking," the Partridge Family star continued, per a clip from David Cassidy: The Last Session, noting a doctor directly related his temporary memory loss to alcoholism, a disease Cassidy long battled. "I did it to myself, man," Cassidy added, his voice breaking. "I did this to myself to cover up the sadness and the emptiness." The admission, which came two months before Cassidy's death, surprised documentary producers, who believed Cassidy had been sober since a stint in rehab in 2014, according to People. Others were less surprised. "Part of alcoholism is lying," Cassidy's Partridge Family costar Danny Bonaduce tells People. "I can't be mad at David for that, but it's still a tragedy." Son Beau Cassidy told Reuters in a statement, "We, the Cassidy family, were not affiliated with the A&E documentary," which shows Cassidy's health deteriorating as he works on his final album, per Rolling Stone. "All we are interested in is maintaining the legacy of the icon he was."
– She was a middle-aged woman working at a Nestle plant in Kentucky when she was arrested in 2011, but Azra Basic had a much darker past. On Wednesday, a war crimes court in Sarajevo sentenced the 58-year-old to 14 years in prison for torturing and killing civilians during the Balkan war of the 1990s, reports the BBC. During that conflict, Basic had the nickname of "mistress of life and death" as she oversaw the treatment of Serbs detained by Bosnian-Croat forces. The details are grisly. Prosecutors say Basic forced prisoners to crawl over broken glass, killed one detainee by stabbing him in the neck, carved crosses into prisoners' foreheads, forced one man to drink gasoline before setting his hands and face on fire, and more. Basic left for the US in 1994, settled in Kentucky under an alias, and became a naturalized US citizen in 2007, reports the Lexington Herald-Leader. She was arrested four years later by US federal marshals and eventually lost a legal battle to avoid extradition to Bosnia-Herzegovina for trial. Her 14-year sentence is the longest given to a woman for atrocities during the Balkan war. The court convicted her of "killing and inhumane treatment, infliction of great pain and violation of bodily integrity and health" of imprisoned civilians, per the AP.
– President Rodrigo Duterte has waged a controversially bloody war on drug dealers in the Philippines, but that didn't stop the leader from cracking wise Monday about his own use of illicit substances. Per Reuters, Duterte said in a speech that he used marijuana to stay awake at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which he attended in Singapore last month. After the comment caused a stir, Duterte clarified that he was merely kidding. "It was a joke, of course it was a joke, but nobody can stop me from just doing my style," he quoted by a local media network, per the AP. Possession of marijuana is punishable by a long prison sentence and a heavy fine in the Philippines. Philippine police say more than 4,800 suspects have been killed in the drug crackdown that began in July 2016 after Duterte took office. Rights groups have denounced the killings as extrajudicial executions and say the crackdown is unfairly directed at the poor rather than the kingpins in the illicit trade. (Duterte has also waged a war on corrupt public officials.)
– A 31-year-old woman in Fayetteville, Ark., is accused of trying to stuff $144 worth of eye shadow from a local department store into her purse, reports 40/29TV. Brandy Allen is charged with shoplifting and disorderly conduct, the latter because she became abusive when confronted by a store manager, say police. Authorities say Allen had an accomplice who tried to divert store employees' attention during the makeup caper. Allen was professing innocence, but as the Smoking Gun points out, her booking photo shows she has an "obvious affinity for eye shadow."
– If Sarah Palin decides to run for president she'll find lots of hostile Republicans out there, according to the latest Pew Research Center poll. Some 41% of Republican and Republican-leaning voters told pollsters that there was no chance they would vote for Palin. Only Newt Gingrich, with 48%, had a higher rejection rate. Some 37% said they wouldn't vote for Ron Paul, and 31% gave the thumbs down to Michele Bachmann. Only 17% said there was no chance they'd vote for Rick Perry. Among voters in general, 67% say there's no chance they would vote for the Alaskan governor. "There's no question that Palin would shake up the GOP race if she got in, or that she'll continue to command media attention for as long as she drags out the will-she-or-won't-she act," writes Alexander Burn at Politico. "But the level of interest in her candidacy among actual voters is not what it used to be." Click for the latest on the Palin-Karl Rove feud.
– A cheerleader in Texas who folded her hands rather than root for the player she accused of rape has lost her bid to have the Supreme Court hear her case, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The girl sued the school after it kicked her off the cheerleading squad over her protest, but a federal appellate court ruled in the school's favor. The Supreme Court yesterday refused to consider the case. The girl accused a star player on the school team of raping her at a party in 2008, and he subsequently pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and got a suspended sentence. When the girl refused to root for him during a 2009 game, the school told her to cheer or go home; she did neither, and was booted from the squad. The appellate court ruled in favor of the school because as a cheerleader, she served as a "mouthpiece for the school," notes Education Week. It also ordered her family to pay $45,000 to cover the school's legal fees.
– Actor Todd LaTourrette has long claimed to have lost his right arm as a soldier serving overseas. In what seemed a change of luck, the narrative ushered him into roles alongside Ewan McGregor (in 2009's The Men Who Stare at Goats) and, more recently, Bob Odenkirk of Better Call Saul (season 4, episode 5). And it was a lie. "I severed my own hand with a Skil saw" in the midst of "a psychotic episode" while off medication for bipolar disorder 17 years ago, the New Mexico-based actor told KOB 4 in a Monday interview. LaTourrette—who also appeared in Manhattan in 2015, as well as in Longmire the year before that, per People—said he cauterized the wound before reinventing himself as a war veteran. "I was hired because I lied," but "it's been so difficult to live with since then," he said. "I was dishonorable." And while he noted he was "killing my career" with the admission, LaTourrette said he hoped to help others struggling with mental illness. "The power is in your hands to take that medication" so "this discourse of my life doesn't need to necessarily be yours," the actor said. LaTourrette previously described his mental health struggles in his memoir Consumed. In an interview with KRWG about the book, he discussed constant strains on his work life, including "an attempted career with the United States Army." (A comedian lied about escaping the World Trade Center on 9/11.)
– Remember the hoodies? After Trayvon Martin was killed, people of all races donned them to declare "I am Trayvon Martin." It was well-meaning but off base, writes Eric Liu at Time. The hoodie was irrelevant; it was only Trayvon's race that mattered. Now, in the aftermath of George Zimmerman's trial, Liu is cheered to see a different meme: White people declaring that "I am not Trayvon Martin"—acknowledging that they get all kinds of breaks simply because they're white. It's not so much about empathy as "about owning up to the unequal privilege of being non-black and saying, in essence, 'I Am George Zimmerman,'" writes Liu. "And because I am George Zimmerman, I get to have my fears trump reality. I get get-out-of-jail-free cards. I get a presumption of innocent victimhood, no matter what my own acts or attitudes." Minorities can chafe about the unfairness of the current system, but it won't change until white people step up, and that finally might be happening. "It's become possible to imagine a day when that structure of privilege is dismantled—by white people." Click for Liu's full column.
– Good news: Global wealth rose by 6.4% in 2017 in the fastest yearly increase since 2012, the Financial Times reports. Bad news: The distribution of that new wealth was as uneven as ever. According to Credit Suisse's 2017 Global Wealth Report, the richest 1% now account for a record 50.1% of all global wealth, approximately $140 trillion, up from 42.5% in 2008. Meanwhile the poorest 70% of adults have just 2.7% of global wealth—that's about 3.5 billion adults with less than $10,000 in assets each, the Guardian reports. “The outlook for the millionaire segment is more optimistic than for the bottom of the wealth pyramid,” Fortune quotes the report as stating. There were 2.3 million new millionaires created in 2017, bringing the total to 36 million millionaires worldwide. That's nearly triple how many there were in 2000. But the divide isn't just between the haves and have-nots; it's also geographical and age-related. Wealth in Africa actually fell by 1.9% per adult this year. In North America, it grew by 8.8% per adult. And more than 40% of the world's millionaires live in the US. Meanwhile Credit Suisse chairman Urs Rohner warns of the "millennial disadvantage." He says "millennials face particularly challenging circumstances," with baby boomers hogging housing and top jobs, and have had little chance to accumulate wealth. The younger generation, stuck with students debt and paying for the pensions of baby boomers, are expected to do less well financially than their parents.
– Missouri has its first openly gay Miss Missouri, and she will represent the state at the Miss America pageant later this year, the AP reports. Erin O'Flaherty, 23, was crowned Miss Missouri on Saturday in Mexico, Missouri, and is the first openly gay woman to be named Miss Missouri, said Ann Jolly, chairman of the board of the Miss Missouri Scholarship Organization. O'Flaherty said Wednesday in a telephone interview with the AP that she came out as gay when she was 18, competed openly, and knew going into the Miss Missouri pageant that she'd be making history if she won. "I'm on cloud nine really just to be Miss Missouri," she said. "I don't know that I intended to be the first, but I am. So I'm very excited about it." O'Flaherty believes she also will be the first openly gay woman to compete in the Miss America scholarship pageant, which is scheduled for Sept. 11 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. A spokeswoman for the Miss America pageant didn't immediately return a call from the AP seeking comment Wednesday, but many other outlets including Mediaite, the New York Daily News, Us magazine, Cosmopolitan, Entertainment Tonight, the Huffington Post, and others say she will be the first openly gay Miss America contestant. O'Flaherty, who is from South Carolina, said her platform is suicide prevention. While she hopes to reach out to the gay community, she said that will not be the sole focus of her reign as Miss Missouri. "I'm hoping that I can strike a really nice balance of staying true to the values of Miss Missouri and also being able to exercise my personal views," she says.
– Amid fresh upheaval in Egypt, archaeologists are still making finds that shed light on the country's past. In the latest discovery, an American and Egyptian team has unearthed the tomb of a previously unknown pharaoh who ruled during troubled times 3,600 years ago, reports the AP. King Seneb Kay—whose name was determined from hieroglyphics on the tomb wall—ruled when the country was divided among several rulers, and Egypt's head of antiquities says the find will provide new insight into a complex and little-known era. But while the find will provide knowledge, grave robbers appear to have made off with everything else of value thousands of years ago, the International Business Times reports. No funerary furniture was found in the badly damaged tomb, and even the body of the king, who had been mummified and laid to rest in a wooden sarcophagus, had been pulled apart. An archaeologist involved with the dig says the terrible state of the tomb reflects the state of Egypt at the time, when central authority had collapsed. (Click for another recent archaeological find—related to Aztec human sacrifice.)
– Actress Chloe Dykstra dated Chris Hardwick (founder of the website Nerdist, current host of an NBC game show and AMC talk show) for three years—and she wrote a first-person post on Medium this week detailing a controlling relationship with an unnamed partner that was rife with sexual and emotional abuse. Many speculated she was talking about Hardwick, and now Hardwick himself has responded, saying he is "blindsided" and "heartbroken" about the allegations, reports Deadline. Their relationship "was not perfect" and frequently filled with arguments, he says, "but I loved her, and did my best to uplift and support her as a partner and companion in any way and at no time did I sexually assault her.” In her post, Dykstra writes that her ex was a much older, "mildly successful podcaster" (she's now 29, Hardwick 46) who started laying out rules as soon as they started dating. She had to keep her evenings open for him, not drink alcohol, and not speak in public, among others. She says she felt forced to take a job at his firm and adds "[I] let him sexually assault me" after he reminded her his previous relationship had ended due to a lack of sex. For that reason, she says, she gave into sex whenever he wanted it, though she sometimes just "laid there for him" and cried during it. "He called it 'starfishing.' He thought the whole idea was funny," she notes. She adds she had an ectopic pregnancy she had to terminate, and his first question to the doctor post-surgery was: "When do you think I can have sex with her again?" After she left him, she says her ex blacklisted her from work and she became suicidal. She's doing much better now, though she says she never got "closure." Since Dykstra's piece broke, Nerdist has scrubbed its site of Hardwick's name. More from Dykstra here.
– Employment rates in the US have bounced back to pre-recession levels but most of the jobs that have been created are a lot worse than the jobs that were lost, a report from the National Employment Law Project finds. Around 1 million higher-wage and middle-wage jobs vanished during the downturn and have not been replaced, while there are about 1.8 million more low-paid jobs than there were before the recession, the report finds. The effect has been to push average household incomes down and to shift families from the middle class to the working poor. "Fast food is driving the bulk of the job growth at the low end—the job gains there are absolutely phenomenal," the report’s author says. "If this is the reality—if these jobs are here to stay and are going to be making up a considerable part of the economy—the question is, how do we make them better?" Analysts worry that even if the economy gets a lot stronger, the lost middle-class jobs will not be replaced and the work force will become polarized between high-paid jobs and jobs with poor pay and benefits, the New York Times reports.
– Slate columnist Emily Yoffe is taking a lot of heat for yesterday's column imploring women not to get wasted, lest they "end up being raped," with other writers pointing out that it smacks of victim blaming. (You can read our summary of the original here.) Here's what people are saying: "This is the very definition of rape culture. And it is so completely tired," writes Katie McDonough at Salon. "Let's start with this: Our culture is not, and never has been, 'reluctant' to tell women to stop doing things. In fact, people build entire careers around it." "If alcohol plays a role in so many rapes, then ostensibly encouraging men to stop drinking excessively would prevent rapists," points out Erin Gloria Ryan at Jezebel. "If you locked me in a room with a handle of vodka ... at no point would a rapist materialize from the ether to sexually assault me. Drunk potential victims don't make rapists appear." Yet Yoffe's piece only focuses on the role of alcohol in creating victims. Katarina Gligorijevic took this concept and ran with it, rewriting Yoffe's piece in a Rabble.ca post by changing the references to gender. Example: "We are failing to let men know that when they drink to excess, they can end up becoming these very perpetrators. … That's not villainizing men; that's trying to prevent them from becoming rapists." "Rape is a societal problem, not a self-help issue," writes fellow Slate writer Amanda Hess. "Rape has been a popular tool for subjugating women long before they joined in the 'butt-chugging' craze." Yoffe tweeted that she wanted to warn women "that there are rapists who use alcohol, not violence." But that just reinforces "the idea that rape does not constitute a violent crime if alcohol is involved." But Megan McArdle at Bloomberg comes to Yoffe's defense, writing that when people come to visit her, she warns them not to go down streets where people tend to get robbed. "That doesn't mean that I'm saying mugging is OK, much less that I'm somehow in league with mugging culture."
– Alain Carpentier thinks he has an answer to chronic shortages of organ donors. The French cardiac surgeon—under Carmat, the French company he founded—has invented what the Independent calls the "world's first fully artificial, self-regulating heart," and it apparently works, at least very initially. Carpentier's creation was successfully transplanted into a 75-year-old on Wednesday; he's said to be responding favorably. If you're wondering why it deserves the label "first," especially considering Robert Jarvik's artificial heart was first implanted in 1982, Carpentier, 80, explains that his is the first heart to self-regulate, mimicking an actual heart. "If your loved one came through the door [and you had a Carpentier artificial heart], it would start to beat faster, just like a real one," he says. Further, surfaces that are exposed to human blood are made in part from cow tissue, rather than synthetic material, which can produce blood clots and therefore require the use of anticoagulants; its design also minimizes the chance of rejection, reports the Financial Times. Most importantly, it's designed to sidestep the need for a donor heart: Reuters reports the current model, powered by external lithium batteries, is expected to keep a patient alive for up to five years. The heart was three decades in the making, and the end result is similar in size to a real heart, though it weighs three times more (at nearly 2 pounds) and isn't sized correctly for all—about 86% of men but only 20% of women, reports Reuters (a smaller model is planned). The expected cost is $190,000 to $220,000, on par with the cost of a traditional heart transplant. The Carmat heart has been approved for testing in three more French patients; the initial trial seeks to determine whether the patients can survive at least one month. (Click to read about another remarkable transplant story.)
– Everyone in the UK must have seen the Rotten Tomatoes reviews for Shia LaBeouf's new movie, because absolutely no one is going to see it—except for maybe one person. Variety, which describes Man Down as a "war thriller," simply says "Ouch" as it reports the gross box-office take for the film this weekend when it opened in a sole movie theater in Burnley: the equivalent of about $8.70 (less than the average cost of a movie ticket in Britain, which suggests someone may have caught a discounted showing). "Poor Shia," says a comScore analyst, who adds that this could be a Guinness World Record. The Guardian tries to make LaBeouf feel better with its documentation of other A-list stars whose flicks have bombed in Britain: Emma Watson's 2016 Colonia, for example, only brought in about $60. (Guess it's back to anti-Trump projects for LaBeouf.)
– Clearly unfamiliar with the saying about closing the barn door after the naked pictures are out, Cleveland Indian Grady Sizemore wants his racy cellphone photos back. The All-Star outfielder shared the steamy self-portraits with his girlfriend; how they wound up all over the Web is now a matter for investigators from MLB and the players union. "These pictures were stolen illegally from my girlfriend's email," Sizemore tells the Plain Dealer. "It's now a legal matter that is under investigation. I can't say anything more." "These have been making the rounds in an email forward, purportedly meant for Grady's girlfriend, Playboy Playmate Brittany Binger," Deadspin said in posting the pics. “I have not seen the pictures, but I will look into it,” said Indians GM Mark Shapiro. A quick look around the Interwebs will reveal ... uh, show ... uh, indicate that Sizemore keeps a neat bathroom and is a fairly snappy dresser when he's able to keep his clothes on.