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R. Kelly Is Fighting a Losing Battle

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R. Kelly Is Fighting a Losing Battle

R. Kelly went on HuffPost Live today to promote his new album The Buffet to the program’s hundreds of viewers. Within 20 minutes, he walked off the set, due to insistent questions about past sexual abuse allegations against him.

This raises the question: If R. Kelly can’t handle questioning about his history of statutory rape accusations, why does he still do interviews? He is making the least good and visible music of his 25 year career. The only thing that’s presently interesting about him is that he’s a living case study in how people negotiate the horrifying actions of talented and/or otherwise lovable artists.

It would be fascinating if R. Kelly wanted to talk about this balancing act, but you can understand why he doesn’t. Fine. There are people who are willing to do the heavy lifting for him—with minimal help from R. Kelly himself, New York published a thorough exegesis on the subject last month. But what exactly does R. Kelly think people want to talk about?

It can’t be that he’s taken aback when interviews inevitably turn away from his music and towards his alleged behavior. “I didn’t come here for negative, I came here for positive,” he says at one point in the HuffPost Live interview. He’s done enough of these now to know where they eventually lead, yet he seems to think he can shoo away the questions by giving deflective answers. From New York:

Kelly isn’t overly concerned with what people think. “You never know who they gonna get next,” he says nonchalantly when I ask if he feels hounded by the press. “I haven’t heard anything negative about me in I don’t know how damn long.

Today, Kelly repeated that sentiment to HuffPost Live host Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani. Via Noisey:

People find it difficult to not think about the lawsuits and the allegations,” said Modarressy-Tehrani. “What do you say to those people who find it conflicting?” “I don’t hear it from anyone else,” said Kelly, further burrowing his head in the sand. “But I would say fuck that. I’m a man that believes what I see, and anywhere I go—and I’ve been around the world multiple times—and I get nothing but love. Unless all of those people are tricking me and acting.”

As the host tried to steer the conversation back into a dialogue and not a monologue, Kelly became defensive, demanding hard statistic of people who don’t like him. “People are conflicted?” Kelly pondered dubiously. “Can you count them?”

But even anecdotally, R. Kelly knows that people have been conflicted about his music because of his personal life. Even dating as far back as 1995, when Vibe used his marriage to 15-year-old Aaliyah as a frame to grapple with his art in a cover story, this discussion has been publicly visible. That he fielded interview questions and posed for photos for the aforementioned New York story would indicate that he was aware of the scope of that article.

When he tells Modarressy-Tehrani that he doesn’t “hear it from anyone else,” maybe he’s indicating his belief that questions about his sexual history are concerns of the media only. But in promoting his 2013 album Black Panties, whoever ran R. Kelly’s social media decided to field fan questions on Twitter, a gambit that went predictably awry when the attendant hashtag was overrun with comments and jokes about his alleged sex crimes. One figures that R. Kelly’s handlers take steps to insulate him from public opinion, but he would have to be unimaginably dense to not know that he has fans who struggle to listen to his music in light of the reexamination of his past.

Maybe he has convinced himself that the public’s wrestling with the allegations against him—down to him being kicked off the bill of a music festival in Ohio—is a press driven vendetta, but that wouldn’t make his continued willingness to engage the press any less confusing. R. Kelly, clearly, wants interviewers to treat him a certain way—the way it used to be, with an implicit or explicit acknowledgement that he only has to talk about his music. But as his relevance dwindles he has increasingly little leverage in the tussle between journalist and subject, and maybe now he’s finally realizing that it isn’t a battle he’s going to win.

[image via Getty]


Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.


Martin Shkreli Just Got Fired From His Other Job as CEO

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Martin Shkreli Just Got Fired From His Other Job as CEO

Asshat Martin Shkreli, the pharmaceutical entrepreneur who was arrested last week on charges of security fraud, has been removed from his post as CEO of drugmaker KaloBios.

Back on November 19 of this year, an investor group led by Martin Shkreli acquired 70% of the outstanding shares for KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, a San Francisco-based drugmaker that specializes in developing treatments for rare and orphaned diseases. At the same time, KaloBios also announced Shkreli’s appointment as Chief Executive Officer—a position that now appears to have been very short-lived.

Shkreli was arrested last week for allegedly setting up a Ponzi-like scheme at his former hedge fund MSMB Capital Management and Retrophin Inc., a firm he headed before taking charge at his private company, Turing Pharmaceuticals Inc. Today, KaleBios announced that Shkreli has been removed from his post as CEO. Shkreli, who stepped down from Turing Pharmaceuticals last week, has also resigned from the KaloBios board of directors.

KaloBios also announced today that Tony Chase, who joined the board along with Shkreli back in November, has also resigned.

In related news, Shkreli is linking the arrest to his decision to dramatically raise the price of Pyrimethamine, an antimalarial drug. Skreli made headlines a few ago months when, after buying the 60-year-old drug, which is sold under the name Daraprim, he suddenly raised the price to USD $750 a tablet from USD $13.50. But as Reuters reports:

The government charges do not include activities at privately held Turing. “’Trying to find anything we could to stop him’ was the attitude of the government,” Shkreli told the [Wall Street] Journal in an interview, saying he was arrested because of a social experiment and teasing people over the Internet, and called the arrest unjust. According to the Journal, a Federal Bureau of Investigation official earlier said Shkreli pursued “a securities fraud trifecta of lies, deceit and greed.”

While being unapologetic about the price of Daraprim, Shkreli added in the interview that Turing, from which he resigned as chief executive after the arrest, might change its approach. Turing, on Friday, replaced Shkreli with Ron Tilles, who has been chairman of the company since its launch.

Shkreli, if convicted of securities fraud, could face upwards of 20 years in prison.

[ KaloBios | Reuters 1, 2 ]


Email the author at george@gizmodo.com and follow him at @dvorsky. Top image by AP

6 U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan in Taliban Suicide Attack 

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6 U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan in Taliban Suicide Attack 

In Afghanistan on Monday, six American troops were killed in what the Associated Press reports is the deadliest suicide attack on international forces there since August. The suicide bomber drove a motorcycle rigged with explosives into a joint NATO-Afghan patrol. Two Americans and an Afghan soldier were wounded.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place as its fighters overran an important district in the south of Helmand province. The patrol was moving through a village near Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, which is manned primarily by U.S. troops. (The Taliban attacked the Spanish embassy in Afghanistan’s capital city earlier this month.) From the New York Times:

The attack came as Taliban forces have continued grabbing territory across Afghanistan, dragging more American troops directly into the fight despite commanders’ continued insistence that the focus of the NATO force remains on training and advising. As the battle intensified this fall, the Obama administration even reversed plans to begin withdrawing troops this year, instead choosing to leave the 9,800-American force in Afghanistan through at least 2016.

Even away from the most intense battlegrounds in southern and eastern Afghanistan, and with the Afghan forces nominally taking the lead in the fighting, American forces have remained at risk, with at least 15 killed this year before the attack on Monday.

The head of the provincial council, Muhammad Kareem Atal, said that about 65 percent of Helmand is now under the control of the Taliban—the leadership is based across the border, in Pakistan—and that more than 2,000 security forces personnel have been killed fighting there this year.

According to the AP, most of the world’s opium is produced in Helmand. The Taliban insurgency is funded, in large part, by the opium crop.


Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

NYU Continues Time-Honored Tradition of Pouring Money Into Lavish Apartments

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NYU Continues Time-Honored Tradition of Pouring Money Into Lavish Apartments

New York University, both the city’s largest school and its largest land-grabber, is finally ending its long tradition of awarding top administrators with lavish real estate. Just kidding—it’s actually doing the exact opposite.

As the Manhattan-based university prepares to welcome new president Andrew Hamilton, formerly of the University of Oxford, the school is continuing the sacrosanct tradition of awarding incredibly expensive housing to top faculty members. Upon arrival in January, Hamilton will settle into a 4,200-square-foot, four-bedroom penthouse duplex on Washington Square in Greenwich Village. The apartment, complete with four and a half bathrooms and a rooftop terrace, is currently undergoing renovations that should amount to at least $1.1 million, according to The New York Times:

The 19th and topmost floor of the building will be turned into a master-bedroom suite, where Dr. Hamilton will have private exits — one from the bedroom and one from the bathroom — onto a terrace overlooking Washington Square and, to the south, the financial district skyline, according to documents filed with the city.

This is far from the first time that NYU has faced allegations over the unwise allocation of university funds—in 2013, reports surfaced that the school had offered several faculty “stars” attractive loans to buy vacation homes and forgiving mortgage payments to others. The school has also had a fraught relationship with the outgoing president, John Sexton, who has been accused of orchestrating an ill-advised expansion while students struggle to pay their tuition.

Speaking of which, NYU is holding strong in third place for the most expensive colleges in the nation, with tuition and fees up to $65,860 per year. Wonder how many students’ tuitions that roofdeck is worth?

[Image via Getty]


Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.

Nail Techs Say NYT's Nail Salon Exposé Made Working Conditions 'Incrementally' Better

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Nail Techs Say NYT's Nail Salon Exposé Made Working Conditions 'Incrementally' Better

In May of this year, New York Times reporter Sarah Maslin Nir published a deep-dive investigation into exploitation, unfair labor practices and health hazards at New York City nail salons. Since the series was published, nail technicians tell the Columbia Journalism Review, life is changing gradually but definitely for the better.

Nir’s two-part series, “The Price of Nice Nails” and “Perfect Nails Poisoned Workers,” came in for both praise and significant criticism. New York quickly passed a laws requiring salons to display a workers’ bill of rights; the state also launched an inspection task force and launched an education campaign to inform workers about labor laws and their legal rights.

At the same time, the series was attacked, first by salon owner and former NYT reporter Richard Bernstein in the New York Review of Books, then by Reason, the Libertarian magazine, who have written nine or so pieces calling the story misleading and accusing Nir of serious factual errors.

The Columbia Journalism Review spoke to both nail technicians and salon owners; one nail tech, an undocumented woman named Carmen, explained how the series gave her an understanding of her legal rights. Her boss can no longer use her immigration status as a cudgel; her pay has increased from $60 for a 10-hour day to $75 for eight hours. Her boss hung up the mandatory new Bill of Rights, and from her co-workers Carmen learned that she could apply for a “trainee license” that would allow her to earn more while working towards a full nail tech certification. Better still, her boss can’t use her immigration status against her, CJR writes:

In the months since the Times story appeared, Carmen’s life has changed incrementally for the better, though it’s far from perfect. “When an inspector comes in, we don’t have to run out now,” she tells CJR. “Before, when the inspector came, [my boss] said, ‘Immigration is coming! Run!’”

Perhaps more importantly, and due in no small part to the required Bill of Rights and the intervention of activists like the ones Carmen met at Workers United, she now has the language to discuss her rights and the laws that pertain to her—and the confidence to use it. The media attention reminded readers that nail salon workers are protected by the government, but for the workers themselves, it wasn’t necessarily a reminder. It was news.

Salon owners, meanwhile, told the publication that the series portrayed them inaccurately or unfairly; from Sona Gurung, a Nepali salon owner who is quoted in Nir’s piece as saying $35 a day is a good wage for a salon worker:

But in an interview, Gurung said she’d told Nir something different: that her own starting salary 18 years ago was $35, and that it had been good for her. She also said that when asked, her employees denied telling Nir they were paid $35. “I trust my employees,” says Gurung, who is not the first source to challenge her portrayal in the story.

Gurung says the new laws make it difficult for small business owners like herself, and she has a point. In the wake of the series, the state has required that owners purchase a wage bond—insurance that can be used by the courts in the event that owners attempt to evade paying workers. The Korean American Nail Salon Association and the Chinese Nail Salon Association sued the state in September, saying the wage bond requirement imposes an unfair burden on owners. But the lawsuit was recently dropped after a court ruled the state had “sufficiently demonstrated that nail salon workers are being deprived of legally due wages.”

The wage bond lawsuit was dismissed in early December, and salons are now required to purchase the bond.

In October, a group of salon owners picketed the Times offices, calling the story unfair and inaccurate. Meanwhile, the union Workers United, a division of SEIU, said in November that in organizing with salon workers, they’ve found many of the same poor labor practices still exist. They accused the nail industry of focusing their attention on paying living wages and the wage bond: “the anti-worker owners associations would rather spend their money to pay lawyers and lobbyists to fight new regulations and minimal requirements.”


Contact the author at anna.merlan@jezebel.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: 67B5 5767 9D6F 652E 8EFD 76F5 3CF0 DAF2 79E5 1FB6

A customer getting a manicure at Castle nail salon, New York, January 2015. Image via A.

Judge Schedules William Porter's Retrial in Freddie Gray Case for June

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Judge Schedules William Porter's Retrial in Freddie Gray Case for June

A Baltimore judge has scheduled the retrial of Officer William Porter, who faces who faces manslaughter, second-degree assault, reckless endangerment, and misconduct charges in the death of Freddie Gray, for June. According to the Associated Press, five other officers are due to go on trial before then.

http://jezebel.com/baltimore-jury...

This is a problem for prosecutors, the Baltimore Sun reports, who had intended to call Porter as a witness in one of the upcoming trials:

With charges still hanging over his head after a mistrial last week, legal experts say, Porter would be expected to assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if called as a witness against Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., who will be tried next month.

Experts say that if prosecutors want Porter to testify or want even to introduce his statements to police investigators, they likely will have to grant him immunity.

“If they want to use those [statements], they have to find a legal way to force Officer Porter to take the stand or negotiate with him so he is willing to voluntarily waive his privilege against self-incrimination,” said Adam Ruther, a defense attorney and former prosecutor.

“They’re punting. I think politics is playing a role in all of this,” David Weinstein, a Miami-based trial attorney and former prosecutor, told the AP.

“If instead of having to now say, ‘We don’t believe our case against Porter is strong enough, or we need to use Porter to get a conviction against other people,’ they’re moving him down the line, to the second-best case. They likely think, ‘Hopefully we’ll get a better result, and that will send a message to Mr. Porter that the deadlock was just those 12 people.’”

Goodson, who, according to the Sun, was driving the van in which Gray, allegedly the victim of police “rough ride,” sustained a severe neck injury, faces the most serious charges, including second-degree murder. Gray died a week later.


Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Donald Trump Has Gone Soft, Refuses To Murder Journalists

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Donald Trump Has Gone Soft, Refuses To Murder Journalists

Donald Trump, a man whose ire for the media has been matched only by his ire for minorities, extended a warm and loving olive branch to journalists this week: the promise that he will not, in fact, have them slaughtered.

While addressing Russian president Vladimir Putin’s endorsement of him as a candidate for president at a rally in Michigan on Monday, Trump was asked whether he approved of Putin’s governing strategy, which allegedly involves silencing journalists with death. Trump, ever the gentle breeze, said that he “would never” kill a journalist—a sign that perhaps Trump is not the great and terrible tyrant we had all feared he’d be.

“I would never kill them, I would never do that... but I do hate them, and some of them are such lying, disgusting people.”

Trump also doubted that Putin had actually ordered journalists killed, despite copious evidence to the contrary. CNN caught the moment on video:

Last week, Trump took to “Morning Joe” to talk about Putin, as well. When asked by the hosts whether he approved of Putin killing people, particularly journalists and political opponents, Trump replied with the delicate quip: “at least he’s a leader.”

Trump also doubled down on his comments on ABC News’ “This Week,” claiming that there is no evidence that Putin orchestrated the murders of journalists.

“In all fairness to Putin, you’re saying he killed people — I haven’t seen that. I don’t know that he has. Have you been able to prove that? Do you know the names of the reporters that he’s killed?”

And here, we all thought that Trump was a despotic madman, hell-bent on running his party into the ground! Turns out, he’s nothing but a little lamb.


Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.

Thomas Gilbert Jr Ruled Mentally Fit to Stand Trial in Father's Murder After Appealing to DA in Letter

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Thomas Gilbert Jr Ruled Mentally Fit to Stand Trial in Father's Murder After Appealing to DA in Letter

On Monday, the East Hampton Star reports, a New York State Supreme Court judge ruled that Thomas Gilbert Jr., who is accused of murdering his father, a prominent hedge-fund manager, is mentally competent to stand trial. Also, he wrote a letter to the DA reminding him that they went to the same school.

Gilbert’s competency hearing spanned 14 sessions before Justice Melissa C. Jackson, in which much of the accused’s personal history emerged. Alex Spiro, Gilbert’s lawyer, indicated that, if the case were allowed to go to trial, he would mount an insanity defense.

“The defendant’s psychiatric history is irrelevant to the issue at hand; it is the defendant’s current psychological condition that is relevant,” Justice Jackson wrote in her decision. Mental competence is determined by whether a defendant has the capacity to understand the proceedings against him and to assist in his own defense.

“The court was particularly persuaded after observing the defendant in court on many occasions, his videotaped interview with Dr. Kirschner, and a recorded telephone conversation from Rikers Island between the defendant and an unknown female.”

During that phone call, Justice Jackson wrote, Gilbert “was laughing, rational, and engaged in a casual, frank conversation.” He “requested intellectually advanced reading materials, and expressed the desire to stay in the mental observation unit because he was treated better there.”

From the Star:

When Justice Jackson announced her decision from the bench, Shelly Gilbert, the defendant’s mother, and wife of the Thomas Gilbert Sr., let out a quiet gasp. She has attended every court session. Afterwards, Alex Spiro, the lawyer the Gilbert family has retained, not only for this case, but for Mr. Gilbert’s previous brushes with the law, huddled with Ms. Gilbert.

Craig Ortner, the prosecutor on the case, made it clear in comments during Monday’s session that he expects Mr. Spiro to introduce insanity as a defense during the trial, which could begin as early as February. He complained that Mr. Spiro should have made that application within 30 days of his client’s arraignment after he was indicted, and asked the court, on that basis, to disallow such a defense. Justice Jackson asked both sides to submit written responses to the motion, before she rules on it.

Prosecutors allege that Gilbert shot his father at his parents’ Beekman Place apartment after a drop in his allowance. Spiro, the New York Post reports, cited as evidence of his client’s incompetence a letter Gilbert wrote to District Attorney Cyrus Vance before Monday’s hearing in which the defendant appeals to the fact that he and Vance went to the same elite elementary school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

“I’m a graduate of Buckley,” Gilbert wrote. “Fortunately I’ve had access to the newspapers and have enjoyed reading articles about the DA’s offices and the city’s various cases...I was impressed by the overall decline in crime this summer, and the success of the [DA’s office’s] all-out program.”

In the letter, the Post reports, Gilbert reminds Vance that he went to Deerfield Academy and Princeton University before complaining about his experience with the criminal justice system. “From the beginning of this high-profile case,” Gilbert wrote, “I’ve been railroaded through hearings with no access to capital.”

(According to the Star, Justice Jackson noted in Monday’s ruling that, in jail, Gilbert learning to speak Chinese and is taking yoga classes.)

“Further incarceration will not only be physically dangerous, but also continue to inflict irreparable damage on my personal life and career,” Gilbert argued. “Ideally my optimal goal is to dismiss and seal [the] indictment.”

The Post reports that Assistant DA Craig Ortner argued Gilbert’s letter was demonstrative of the fact that he can make rational arguments.


Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.


Report: Grand Jury Declines to Indict Any County Jail Employees in Death of Sandra Bland

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Report: Grand Jury Declines to Indict Any County Jail Employees in Death of Sandra Bland

After hearing eight hours of evidence in the case of Sandra Bland’s death, a grand jury in Waller County, Texas, declined to indict any county jail employees, KPRC 2 News reports.

http://gawker.com/new-jail-foota...

Other outlets, like KTRK and KHOU, are reporting that the grand jury has declined to indict anyone at all in Bland’s death. From KTRK:

The grand jury has decided that no one should be indicted in connection with the death of a woman found dead inside a Waller County jail cell over the summer, a special prosecutor for the case tells Eyewitness News.

From the officers to jailers inside the Waller County Jail, no one will face criminal charges in the case. The prosecutor says grand jurors will reconvene January 6 to discuss other, misdemeanor matters related to the case.

The grand jury will reconvene in January to consider other indictments, KPRC reported.


Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

A Swarm of Coal Freighters Is About To Invade the Great Barrier Reef

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A Swarm of Coal Freighters Is About To Invade the Great Barrier Reef

When one thinks of a pristine ocean habitat, like a thriving ecosystem that has gone mainly unmarred by the creeping fingers of humans, one usually also thinks: “Hey I could really make some money here.”

At least a certain kind of one thinks this—and it’s that kind of one who recently proposed a plan to dredge enormous chunks of sea floor bordering the Great Barrier Reef in pursuit of coal reserves. That plan, to the great chagrin of environmentalists, was formally approved by Australia’s federal government on Monday, according to The New York Times.

The undertaking involves expanding the Abbot Point coal port in northern Queensland, pulling up 39 million cubic feet of sand and whatever lives on top of it, and depositing that mess onto land. The project would allow freighters to transport deposits from the coal-rich Galilee Basin, opening up those mines for exploitation. The plan still needs final approval from the Queensland government—though the federal government’s green light is telling.

Called “catastrophic” by conservationists, the dredging would put the area at risk for oil spills (like the 2010 spill that left a 2-mile slick across the reef, pictured above) and smother the delicate corals that support the reef.

Conservation groups have been fighting the project, and others like it in close proximity to the reef, for years. In 2012, environmental activists with Greenpeace painted a warning on the side of a coal ship docked in the area.

A Swarm of Coal Freighters Is About To Invade the Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system, greater in size than the United Kingdom, Holland and Switzerland combined, and is home to endangered sea turtles, dugongs and over 30 species of whales and dolphins. Soon enough, a battalion of supertankers hauling coal may be among the reef’s inhabitants, too.

[Images via Getty]


Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.

Bill Cosby Rings in the Holidays By Suing Beverly Johnson for Defamation

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Bill Cosby Rings in the Holidays By Suing Beverly Johnson for Defamation

Bill Cosby is suing Beverly Johnson, one of the women he allegedly attempted to assault, for defamation. Elsewhere, his lawyers are still trying to keep his wife Camille out of a deposition for a different case. Happy holidays, everyone!

On Monday, Cosby’s team of lawyers filed a lawsuit in a Los Angeles Superior Court describing Johnson’s account of the actor’s alleged attempted assault against her as “false, malicious, opportunistic, and defamatory.” According to the New York Daily News, the lawsuit points to Johnson’s recent memoir The Face That Changed It All and accuses her of “maliciously and falsely accusing Mr. Cosby” to gain limelight around her “flagging career as a model, actress and public personality.”

OK.

This lawsuit comes days after Cosby’s team filed another defamation suit against a number of other alleged victims in Massachusetts, including Tamara Green, Therese Serignese, Linda Traitz, Louisa Moritz, Barbara Bowman, Joan Tarshis and Angela Leslie. The suit is in response to their initial defamation suit against him regarding his round dismissal of their various sexual assault allegations against him. Back in Los Angeles, Cosby’s also battling back and forth with Janice Dickinson over her defamation lawsuit against him.

In all of the cases, Cosby’s defense is similar; he didn’t do anything, although he’s already admitted to doing plenty, and these scores of women want to become famous by announcing to the world that something horrible happened to them. Oh, and they ruined Cosby’s chance to revive his aging career on NBC. Sound accurate?

In Massachusetts, according to CNN, an attorney for the aforementioned women has also requested to depose Camille Cosby on January 6. Cosby’s attorneys responded to the request, saying Camille has no “first-hand knowledge” of what her husband was doing all of those years ago and their chats are privileged conversations per Massachusetts’ “spousal disqualification rule.”

However the lawyer representing the seven women countered that Camille was Cosby’s business manager and privy to his life, at home and away. In July, in contrast, the New York Post reported that Camille did acknowledge her husband’s cheating but didn’t believe that he was a serial rapist; she suggesting that the women had consented to both drugs and sex.

It’s too late for Camille, potentially. She and Bill married in 1964, when she was 19 years old.


Contact the author at Hillary@jezebel.com.

Image via AP.

NYPD Detective Among 6 U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan Suicide Bombing

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NYPD Detective Among 6 U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan Suicide Bombing

One of the six American troops killed in a suicide attack in Afghanistan on Monday was Joseph Lemm, a New York City police detective, the Associated Press reports.

http://gawker.com/6-u-s-troops-k...

Police Commissioner William Bratton said that Detective Lemm, who worked in the Bronx Warrant Squad, also served in the U.S. National Guard, where he attained the rank of staff sergeant.

During his 15 years with the NYPD, the AP reports, Lemm had been deployed to Afghanistan twice and Iraq once. He is survived by his wife and three children.

The Taliban took responsibility for Monday’s attack, in which a suicide bomber riding a motorcycle laden with explosives crashed into a joint NATO-Afghan patrol. In addition to those killed, one Afghan soldier and one American soldier were wounded.


Image via NYPD/AP. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

The 2015 Deadspin Bear Of The Year

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The 2015 Deadspin Bear Of The Year

Deadspin is pleased to announce our 2015 Bear of the Year. After a great deal of consideration and deliberation, we arrived at a clear choice: Extra-Cool Polar Bear Who Discovered Many Ways To Enjoy His Items.

Extra-Cool Polar Bear Who Discovered Many Ways To Enjoy His Items is not only a very good bear, but an instructive one. Consider his ebullience as he discovers the joy-inspiring uses for each one of his items.

The 2015 Deadspin Bear Of The Year

Consider how good this life looks:

The 2015 Deadspin Bear Of The Year

“False!” a cynic might shout. “This bear is being held in captivity, confined to a life that violates the laws of nature. He is clearly a prisoner!” These protestations are certainly valid, as Extra-Cool Polar Bear Who Discovered Many Ways To Enjoy His Items is not free to roam in the wild, but consider what his life isn’t.

Consider your own station in life as well. Think of the unaccountable number of random events that put you where you sit right now, watching GIFs of a cute bear, and not in the belly of a post-war hospital ship, cursing fate as the Spanish Flu turns your skin an ashen hue. Understand how you, by several chance encounters, just appeared here.

What I’m trying to say is, the straw could always be shorter. Extra-Cool Polar Bear Who Discovered Many Ways To Enjoy His Items may not be living an ideal life, but who is? We’re all waiting for our own version of a melting ice cap, anyway. The best we can do until then is enjoy what we have. Extra-Cool Polar Bear Who Discovered Many Ways To Enjoy His Items certainly is.

Top image by Tara Jacoby. Photo via Shutterstock.

Report: Nic Cage Agreed to Turn Over Stolen Mongolian Dinosaur Skull to Federal Government

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Report: Nic Cage Agreed to Turn Over Stolen Mongolian Dinosaur Skull to Federal Government

Last week, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, filed a civil forfeiture complaint to take possession of a stolen dinosaur skull that a rogue paleontologist had smuggled into the United States from Mongolia and sold to a gallery where it was apparently won at auction by Nicolas Cage.

http://documents.gawker.com/complaint-for-...

Mongolia outlawed the export of dinosaur bones unearthed within its borders in 1924. In December 2012, paleontologist Eric Prokopi plead guilty to smuggling most of a Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton out of the Gobi desert. He served three months in prison. As part of his plea, Reuters reports, he helped authorities recover at least 17 other stolen fossils.

(Naturally, Prokopi, whom Bharara called a “one-man black market in prehistoric fossils,” was the subject of a lengthy New Yorker story early the next year.)

Cage himself was not officially identified, although authorities said that the skull’s owner is not accused of any wrongdoing and voluntarily agreed to turn the it over. From the complaint:

Report: Nic Cage Agreed to Turn Over Stolen Mongolian Dinosaur Skull to Federal Government

From Reuters:

The lawsuit described the skull as having been bought at auction from a Beverly Hills gallery, I.M. Chait, in March 2007 for $276,000.

The details match those of Cage’s purchase, which made headlines after the Hollywood star encountered financial difficulties in subsequent years.

The same gallery is known to have purchased and sold another skeleton smuggled into the country by Prokopi. Cage reportedly outbid Leonardo DiCaprio for the skull.

The defendant-in-rem named in the civil forfeiture suit, incidentally, is “One Tyrannosaurus Bataar Skull.”


Photo via Getty Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

SeaWorld Orcas Get Day Off After One Dies of Bladder Infection

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SeaWorld Orcas Get Day Off After One Dies of Bladder Infection

Another week, another bad headline for the country’s most successful whale jail.

An 18-year-old female orca named Unna died at SeaWorld San Antonio on Monday, park staff announced in a statement. The whale suffered from a fungal infection of the bladder called Candida, and had been receiving medical treatment of late.

Candida, which causes lesions to appear near orifices on the body, occurs in both wild and captive populations of cetaceans (whales and dolphins). However, as the blog of a group of former SeaWorld trainers-turned-activists points out, it’s likely that stressors from life in captivity could have weakened the whale’s ability to fight off the infection.

The park said that it was “saddened” at the whale’s death, adding that it will “cancel all the killer whale shows at SeaWorld San Antonio today.”

SeaWorld’s animal care has been under extreme scrutiny lately, with outrage from the documentary “Blackfish” fueling a movement against the park. Unna is the third whale to die in just six months at the company’s chain of parks.

At the San Diego park, local authorities have become so fed up with the park’s practices that the California Coastal Commission only approved a $100 million expansion projects under the condition that the park stop breeding orca whales.

[Image via Getty]


Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.


Donald Trump Said the Word "Schlong"--Who Cares?

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Donald Trump Said the Word "Schlong"--Who Cares?

Perhaps you’ve heard the news—a vulgar man used a vulgar word. Who cares?

“She was favored to win, and she got schlonged,” Mr. Trump, using a boorish word for a penis, said at a rally in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“She was favored to win, and she got schlonged,” Trump said, turning a vulgar noun for a large penis into a verb.

“Even a race to Obama, she was gonna beat Obama. I don’t know who would be worse, I don’t know, how could it be worse? But she was going to beat — she was favored to win — and she got schlonged, she lost, I mean she lost,” Trump said, using a vulgar Yiddish word for a man’s penis.

Remember the time he said Mexicans were drug addicts and rapists? That was worse.

[NYT, Washington Post, CNN]


Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

"Yes I Vape," Congressman Boldly Proclaims

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"Yes I Vape," Congressman Boldly Proclaims

“Do you even vape?” the world seemed to ask of California Rep. Duncan Hunter this week. “Yes,” the Republican congressman responded with gusto. “I vape.”

Hunter, like so many Americans, knows that though the moral cloud of vaporized e-juice is long, it billows softly toward justice. Hunter knows that four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men might put into their lungs whatever they choose. Hunter knows that the only thing we have to vape is vape itself.

He brought all of this knowledge to bear in a letter sent Monday to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who seeks to quash the rights of vapers everywhere. The Hill reports:

“Yes, I vape — as do millions of other Americans,” Hunter wrote in a letter to Pelosi. “And why do I vape? It is because it prevents me from smoking the real thing.”

“E-cigarettes are a suitable alternative to cigarettes, and they could very well save my life, as well as the lives of so many Americans who are making their best effort to quit cigarettes,” Hunter wrote.

Say it with me, and keep saying it until your oppressors are shouted down and cowering. “Yes I vape.” Yes I vape. Yes I vape.


Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.

The Best and Worst of This Year's Senate Christmas Cards 

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The Best and Worst of This Year's Senate Christmas Cards 

The New York Times published today the holiday cards of several Democratic senators and the C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S cards of their Republican counterparts. They basically look like the cards you get from your non-politician friends: some of them are lovely, and some of them suck sooo bad. We have ranked a select number of them below, to help you in voting and in life.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/pr...

Winners’ Circle

A good holiday card starts with a photo of people. A card with a photo of a snow-covered tree? Forget it. People have Google and can look at snow-covered trees whenever they want. Holiday cards are for showing off your beautiful children, which Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) did this year in a truly stunning season’s greeting. The no-doubt countless hours his wife and kids spent uncomfortably posing for a professional photographer to produce this perfect vision were worth it. This is what the people want to see:

The Best and Worst of This Year's Senate Christmas Cards 

The card might only be improved if it included a dog. Rubio, get your kids a dog. It will be nice to have when you are not president.

Another great card comes from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin), who made the crucial decision to include babies in his photo.

The Best and Worst of This Year's Senate Christmas Cards 

Who are these babies? Grandchildren? Maybe, who cares. Imagine this photo without babies. Don’t want to!

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska) is among the winners this year for one reason only. Cat.

The Best and Worst of This Year's Senate Christmas Cards 

The number one card, however, comes from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California).

The Best and Worst of This Year's Senate Christmas Cards 

The only thing better than a beautiful child is a beautiful dog.

Points for Theme

Sen. John Hoeven (R-North Dakota), Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire), and Sen. Steve Daines (R-Montana) all submitted to the Times cards that feature photos from their children’s weddings. I love to look at photos from any wedding, so these three get honorable mentions.

The Best and Worst of This Year's Senate Christmas Cards 

Needs Improvement

Some Senate holiday cards were absolutely beautiful, save for one toxic element. In Sen. Ted Cruz’s case, that element was Ted Cruz.

The Best and Worst of This Year's Senate Christmas Cards 

A holiday card from Sen. Tom Carper (D-Delaware) was undone by its accompanying newsletter, which states that his son Chris recently moved from Hell’s Kitchen to a “really nice neighborhood” in Brooklyn.

The Best and Worst of This Year's Senate Christmas Cards 

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota) simply has a lighting problem.

The Best and Worst of This Year's Senate Christmas Cards 

What is up with that lighting, man.

No

Obviously all the senators who submitted holiday cards to the Times are looking to promote themselves to the public. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) took that way too fucking far by including a lengthy quote from his own poorly selling book on the back his card.

The Best and Worst of This Year's Senate Christmas Cards 

The Best and Worst of This Year's Senate Christmas Cards 

With his card, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) has illustrated an important lesson for middle-aged men everywhere: if the best you can offer is a photo of yourself, skip it.

The Best and Worst of This Year's Senate Christmas Cards 

Finally, Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) submitted this:

The Best and Worst of This Year's Senate Christmas Cards 

Come on.

The stealth winner of this contest is Bernie Sanders, for this note from the Times: “Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, did not respond to requests for a card.”


Photos from Senate campaign offices via The New York Times. Contact the author at allie@gawker.com.

Martin Shkreli's Lawyer Sentenced to One Week Vacation in Cancun

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Martin Shkreli's Lawyer Sentenced to One Week Vacation in Cancun

Martin Shkreli’s lawyer will have a white sand Christmas after a federal judge ruled he could spend his time out on bail out of the country with his family.

Evan Greebel, a 42-year-old corporate attorney who served as general counsel to Shkreli’s biopharmaceutical company Retrophin Inc., was arrested last week and released on a $1 million bond. Prosecutors say he helped Shkreli steal money from the company to hide Shkreli’s alleged Ponzi scheme.

But fortunes they so often change, and this week Greebel was granted leave to spend Christmas with his family in Cancun.

“The present trip to Cancun was planned and booked this past Spring,” Greebel defense lawyer Jonathan Sack said in a motion later granted by U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto. “Mr. Greebel and his family are supposed to travel with their children, mother-in-law and father-in-law and another close relative.”

A week with the in-laws—someone’s angling for time served.


Image via AP. Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

The Woman Who Called the Police Because She Thought Her Neighbor Said "ISIS Is Good" During Sex Is a Hero For Our Time

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The Woman Who Called the Police Because She Thought Her Neighbor Said "ISIS Is Good" During Sex Is a Hero For Our Time

On Sunday, an 82-year-old woman called the police in Brown Deer, Wisconsin, because she heard her neighbor chanting “ISIS is good, ISIS is great” during sex. Authorities found no evidence that a terror plot was afoot, or even that the scary sex shouts happened at all, but nonetheless told the woman to call back if she heard anything else.

According to reports, the unnamed woman called 911 claiming that she heard her neighbor yelling frightening things, and told the officers who arrived on the scene that—I’m going to spell this out again in case you missed it in the first paragraph—she heard her neighbor chanting “ISIS is good, ISIS is great” during sex.

Rather than sit her down for a frank and sensitive talk about the wide spectrum of human sexual desire, police encouraged the woman to continue making similar calls. The New York Daily News reports:

The officer advised the woman call back if she heard the cries of ISIS passion again, [Brown Deer Police Chief Michael Kass] said.

“We subscribe to the saying, ‘See something, say something,’” he said.

“We don’t want to discourage people from reporting potential terror attacks. But this seems odd.”

Kass is correct to place the call in the context of “see something, say something”—the unnamed octogenarian’s 911 call is only the dizzy apotheosis of the paranoiac tattletaling Americans have been encouraged to do in airports and New York City subway stations since 9/11. If you really think “see something, say something” is the answer to terrorism (in New York, at least, it verifiably is not), you should not laugh at the ISIS sex call granny. You should salute her.

Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.

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