Earlier this month, Matt Drudge stepped out of his link-dump comfort zone to deliver a breathless, exclusive scoop: Leonardo DiCaprio is raped by a bear in his new film The Revenant. The story spread so quickly that a spokesperson for 20th Century Fox had to tell Entertainment Weekly that “there is clearly no rape scene with a bear.”

http://gawker.com/how-did-drudge...

Days later, both DiCaprio and the film’s director Alejandro Inarritu expressed their bafflement and exasperation at the bear-rape claim. On the red carpet of The Revenant’s Los Angeles premiere, DiCaprio called the story “absurd.” Inarritu said Drudge’s report was “hilarious, and pathetic in a way,” a rather pinpoint summation of Drudge’s general worldview.

Even before everyone connected with the film—and various critics—called bullshit on Drudge’s post, his interpretation of one of the film’s pivotal scenes seemed ridiculous on its face. In what scenario would DiCaprio’s character be raped by a bear? (Except, perhaps, for that elusive Oscar.) But now you can judge Drudge’s reading of the scene for yourself.

Above are the only two clips we could find in the nearly four-minute bear-attack sequence in The Revenant (which is in theaters on Christmas) that could even conceivably be perceived as rape. In both instances, DiCaprio is flipped onto his stomach by the bear, which then straddles him and tugs at his back, yanking him upwards sharply. The second clip ends with the bear standing over DiCaprio and panting heavily so, uh, hey, I dunno.

But in the context of the full scene, you would have to deeply stretch your mind to interpret those moments of the bear’s grappling with DiCaprio as animal-on-man sexual assault. For the remainder of the four or so minutes, the bear claws at and bites DiCaprio, his bones audibly crunching. It tosses and drags DiCaprio around wildly. At no point does it remove his pants.

Any reasonable person would recognize the scene as a mauling, the tactic popularly employed by bears everywhere, and that’s without even knowing that, in the full context of the film, the bear is a mother who is protecting her cubs.

Drudge, ever the recluse, has yet to comment on his story.

Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.

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This holiday season, one lucky D.C. thief nabbed him or herself a Secret Service starter pack, complete with a gun, badge, radio, handcuffs and flash drive. It’s a Christmas miracle, in that our president is still alive.

According to CNN the items were stolen “in broad daylight” out of the agent’s personal vehicle, if you can believe it:

A report filed with the Metropolitan Police Department several hours later describes the agent returning to his car and noticing the back rear window of his car had been “unzipped.” The report says the agent noticed “a bag with the listed property was taken out of the vehicle.”

The report lists a black Sig Sauer handgun, an APX6000 radio, handcuffs, a USB flash drive, a black Patagonia bag and a Secret Service badge, number 1266, as the stolen items.

CNN reports other Secret Service employees “expressed surprise that such a crime could take place so close to the law enforcement agency’s headquarters in the middle of the afternoon,” though I’d argue the surprising thing is it didn’t happen sooner.

http://gawker.com/the-secret-ser...

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

A California judge ruled today that a group of San Fransisco cops who exchanged racist and homophobic text messages about “monkeys,” “niggers,” “half breeds,” and other slurs will not face punishment, citing the statute of limitations.

A cache of texts between the officers was uncovered as part of a 2014 federal corruption investigation into SFPD Sgt. Ian Furminger, who was found guilty of taking money from drug dealers for his own personal use. The messages, some of which are collected here, show Furminger and other cops enthusing about burning crosses, disparaging the intelligence of black officers, and remarking that “niggers should be spayed.”

http://gawker.com/the-horrible-b...

Judge Ernest Goldsmith ruled that the officers should not be disciplined because the police department let a statute of limitations lapse before acting against them. Goldsmith indicated, somewhat counterintuitively to the San Fransisco Chronicle, that the ruling is intended on some level to shame the department for not acting more quickly. “It is not in the public interest to let police misconduct charges languish,” he said. “The public has a right to have accusations against police officers be promptly adjudicated.”

The city’s attorney argued in court that the officers were not disciplined more quickly because doing so would have sabotaged the corruption case against Furminger. In 2004, Furminger and one other officer implicated in the texts allegedly slammed a man’s head into a urine-covered wall while making “anti-gay remarks,” and were not punished because of the same limitation rule, the Chronicle reports.

SFPD Chief Greg Suhr, pictured above, attempted to fire eight of the officers and discipline the remaining six in April 2015, before one of the accused brought the matter to the state’s Superior Court. City officials plan to appeal the decision.

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

On Christmas Day, Sony Pictures Entertainment will release Concussion, a film that will almost certainly be very bad. As we’ve already noted, the film—starring Will Smith as CTE researcher Dr. Bennet Omalu—suffers from significant issues, both in theory and practice. (When the film studio’s lawyers call for the film to take fewer dramatic liberties, while Sony chief Amy Pascal sends frantic emails begging for it to be more dramatic, you’re almost guaranteed a stinker that pushes no boundaries at all.) But while Concussion won’t strike a blow that permanently tarnishes the NFL shield with a dollar sign-shaped cerebral contusion, it doesn’t have to. The NFL’s own films have been doing that for decades.

You’ve likely watched one or more of them already. Titles like Crunch Course, Thunder & Destruction, and King-Sized Hits became household names in the age of VHS rental stores, as the NFL Films “highlight reels” catalogued the league’s most brutal hits with a candor that, in 2015, seems incredible. Take this segment from 1988’s The NFL’s Greatest Hits, which features a half-dozen hits that would earn a fine from Roger Goodell today:

While the ’80s may have been a heyday for NFL “big hit” compilation videos, NFL Films had been producing them since at least 1968, when the incredibly-titled Super 8 film Bone Crunchers made its way to shops.

This short film came with a “screening guide” describing each of the plays featured “to help you fully enjoy your ‘Bone Crunchers’ action film.” (It helpfully notes the handful of plays on which officials called a penalty.) There are 10 clips shown in the film; more than half of them feature players who suffered a documented history of concussions or signed on as plaintiffs in the NFL players’ class-action concussion lawsuit.

Two of the clips feature Doug Cunningham, a 49ers star running back who died earlier this year from dementia complications; his wife described his long-term mental health issues to the Mississippi Collegian in 2014.

But it wasn’t just the “heavy hits” compilation videos that turned players’ brain injuries into NFL profits. Throughout the 1970s and into the ’80s, “football follies” blooper reels were wildly popular. They were a recurring feature on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, and there were editions hosted by such luminaries as Mel Blanc and Jonathan Winters. You probably saw some of these as a kid, and without context the “watch a dazed player stumble and fall down” segments seem hilarious. Wally Hilgenberg, whose 2008 death was judged to have been caused by CTE, stars in one of them. So, too, did Derland Moore—a concussion lawsuit plaintiff who spoke with us in 2013 about his brain damage being Football Follies fodder.

But it was Crunch Course that is likely the most notorious instance of NFL Films glorifying dangerous hits. You or your parents may well have owned a copy, once; the $1 VHS bucket at your local thrift shop likely has a few available if you’re curious. The 1985 feature hosted by Steve Sabol (and its 1988 sequel) promised viewers an examination of “the high impact collisions in pro football and the men most adept at causing them,” according to the packaging, and throughout the series (and similar ones, like Thunder & Destruction) a singular goal for NFL defenses is proclaimed: to knock out the quarterback.

Literally!

To be fair, this is not an inaccurate portrayal of NFL defensive schemes from 1920 to about 2012. But watching these videos in 2015—and almost all of them are, incredibly, still available for you to buy from NFL Films today—it’s telling not that the league didn’t know the long-term impacts of concussions and repeated head injuries, but that they clearly did not care.

After all, people were putting up good money for these videos. They retailed for $20 each in 1987, which is the equivalent of more than $40 today.

The NFL also leveraged “big hits” videos with their corporate partners. Sports Illustrated enticed subscribers for years with a free copy of Crunch Course, while Big Blocks & King Size Hits was a 1990 Hershey’s chocolate promotional item. Even the original brain damage snuff film, Bone Crunchers, had a tie-in advertised in newspapers across the country:

That the NFL was early to recognize the value of film and of cataloguing its history is something most can agree is a good thing—imagine how much better our world would be if early decades of the NBA were as well-documented on video—and the NFL Films father-son duo of Ed and Steve Sabol share a large amount of credit for the league becoming the cultural behemoth and economic monster it is today. But just as the NFL’s power impresses despite its abuses of fans, players, and taxpayers, the achievements of Ed and Steve Sabol must be taken in context, too. Their names are attached to 1966’s great They Call It Pro Football, but also to every film mentioned above that exploited players’ brain damage.

To contact the author of this post, write to tim@deadspin.com (PGP key) or find him on Twitter @bubbaprog. Video edited by Nicholas Stango, with additional research by Elizabeth Getzoff, Erika Audie, Matt Hardigree, Zoe Stahl, and Diana Moskovitz.

Oberlin, a private college with a $50,000 tuition, has entered once more into this year’s Tedious Campus Culture War Debate. After hearing complaints that its sushi program wasn’t good enough for reasons of racism, the place of learning has issued an apology.

http://gawker.com/oberlin-debate...

The New York Times reports that this particular campaign for justice began when students realized that they weren’t in a famous restaurant, but a cafeteria in Ohio:

Another article, published by The Review in November, detailed what students said were instances of cultural appropriation carried out by Bon Appétit. The culinary culprits included a soggy, pulled-pork-and-coleslaw sandwich that tried to pass itself off as a traditional Vietnamese banh mi sandwich; a Chinese General Tso’s chicken dish made with steamed instead of fried poultry; and some poorly prepared Japanese sushi.

“When you’re cooking a country’s dish for other people, including ones who have never tried the original dish before, you’re also representing the meaning of the dish as well as its culture,” Tomoyo Joshi, a student from Japan, told the paper. “So if people not from that heritage take food, modify it and serve it as ‘authentic,’ it is appropriative.”

As a trillion people on Twitter were quick to point out, there is effectively no such thing as an “authentically Chinese” General Tso’s Chicken, considering that it’s an American Chinese dish, combining America’s brutish lust for fried food with some Chinese-inspired signifiers. And, indeed, considering that all cuisines are the result of thousands of years of international intermingling of ingredients, techniques, and dishes, it’s hard to imagine a food, let alone a cuisine, that isn’t the direct product of “cultural appropriation,” besides perhaps certain roots or berries native to the Afar Depression.

If the problem is actually that the sushi or banh mi are not good enough, the only real answer is “shut up because you’re eating in a cafeteria.”

It is worth noting that campus cafeteria workers are some of the most poorly treated employees at universities, with low pay, meager (if any) benefits, and often an environment hostile to labor organization. Part of the student unrest at Oberlin is about the treatment of these very cafeteria workers, as the school’s paper points out:

While food quality and preparation were major concerns, students also called for better treatment of CDS staff, saying that they wanted “a guaranteed 40 hour work week, benefits for part-time workers, personal days, funding for job training and increased wages.”

Unfortunately that part will probably be lost in the commotion over the entitlement of private school students to world-class omakase preparation. Especially now that, in statements provided to the Times, both the Oberlin administration and Bon Appetit, its food contractor, have apologized for cultural insensitivity (and not, you know, treating cafeteria workers like shit):

Michele Gross, Oberlin’s director of dining services, said in a statement on Monday that “in our efforts to provide a vibrant menu, we recently fell short in the execution of several dishes in a manner that was culturally insensitive.”

She added: “We have met with students to discuss their concerns and hope to continue this dialogue.”

[...]

On Monday, Bonnie Powell, the communications director for Bon Appétit, said in an email that the company would address student complaints.

“We appreciate the feedback we have received from Oberlin students. Our chefs are working hard to offer culturally sensitive menus that will appeal to the Oberlin community,” Ms. Powell wrote.

Meanwhile, the food at Oberlin actually looks pretty good:

Even if the food were merely fine, bad food is never personal. Mushy chicken hasn’t been prepared as an affront to the eater (unless it deliberately has, which would be a great story). Shitty Chinese food is just shitty food, not a statement of casual indifference to the culinary heritage of an entire civilization.

Like, check out these potato wedges:

They look fine. If I ordered those at an expensive restaurant I’d be kinda confused, but if I’m at a college dining hall I’m like, yeah man, dig in—it’s time to eat some average-to-above-average food before this metabolism slows all the way down. Those potato wedges prepared by people who will never have the same chances in life as you are a good indicator that the sushi is going to be, you know, fine I guess, if you really want dining hall sushi.

Alternatively you can graduate from Oberlin, start your career, and then pay for sushi at a sushi restaurant. But don’t take it personally. Don’t think for a second that anyone involved in the preparation of your bootleg banh mi has it out for you, or that a tuna roll that didn’t materialize out of Jiro Dreams of Sushi is part of some agenda to hurt your feelings.

Life gets so, so much worse than bad sushi when you’re 19, and you’re doing such a shitty job of preparing for it.

Photo: Getty

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
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PGP fingerprint: E93A 40D1 FA38 4B2B 1477 C855 3DEA F030 F340 E2C7

You read that right.

This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photo via Getty]

In listening to New Mexico governor Susan Martinez argue with and vaguely threaten officers and security personnel who responded a noise complaint coming from her hotel room after her staff’s holiday party, one unconfirmed assumption could reasonably have been made: The governor was drunk.

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Not hammered, out-of-control wasted, but definitely somewhere in the neighborhood of tipsy. Police who attended to the situation at the Eldorado Hotel & Spa—in which it was believed that people in Martinez’s room were throwing bottles from the balcony, a claim she strenuously denies—declined to file a report, and thus do not appear to have given Martinez a breathalyzer. But in further audio, released today by the City of Santa Fe, this time from an officer’s belt loop recorder, a hotel security guard and the officer both agree on what seemed obvious: the governor was drunk (via NM Political Report).

The audio above first contains Martinez denying to the officer that anyone was throwing anything from her room. He clarifies to her that the most recent complaint regarding her party was about general noise. After various unintelligible crosstalk, the officer speaks with the hotel security guard who first responded to the noise:

Officer: Okay so, obviously, you’re not going to be able to move her.

Security guard: Yeah, I know.

Security guard: [unintelligible]

Officer: Yeah, that’s fine. What can we do to resolve this?

Security guard: Honestly, you know, I’ve really only been working here for a month and a half so this is actually my first kinda run-in with this sorta thing. It’s never been the governor—I would never expect the first time it would be the governor. So, I, uh, really don’t know what to do in this situation because I can tell she’s... she’s... kinda...

Officer: Inebriated.

Security guard: Yes.

The officer then gives the security guard his card in case there are further complaints so that he can directly contact the governor’s security detail, though that did not appear to be necessary.

Martinez, for her part, reiterated in previous calls that her room was merely having an innocent pizza party. The security guard does note that he observed a pizza delivery man at the room, and we all know that hotel delivery pizza is a sure sign of one of two things: Crushing, lonely desperation or a fuckin’ party.

[image via AP]

Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.

Earlier today, Hillary Clinton posted a fun, casual list to her campaign’s website entitled “8 Ways Hillary Clinton Is Just Like Your Abuela.” Then, not long after, the article suddenly featured a mere 7 ways Hillary Clinton was just like my abuela. ¡Que vergüenza!

http://theslot.jezebel.com/7-ways-hillary...

The list itself featured such abuela-centric items as:

• “She isn’t afraid to talk about the importance of el respeto...”
• “She reacts this way when people le faltan el respeto…”
• And, “Everybody loves abuela—even this guy.”

The latter of which was followed by this photo:

But what changed in those indeterminate number of minutes? What shared personality trait with my abuela did Hillary Clinton suddenly shed? Does Hillary Clinton know that both my abuelas are en el cielo?

We reached out to the Clinton campaign for comment and will update when and if we hear back.

Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com.

The Drudge Report just blared that New York City is the target of a “CREDIBLE THREAT DAYS AHEAD OF CHRISTMAS.” This terrorist plot is actually not true and BASED ON A FAULTY LOCAL NEWS REPORT DENIED BY THE NPYD. You may go back to worrying SLIGHTLY LESS THAN USUAL.

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
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Somebody called Carly Fiorina the “V-word,” according to Carly Fiorina. Oh no. What’s the V-word?

Fiorina declined to say the actual word on Boston Herald Radio today, but she did say that someone from Ted Cruz’s campaign called her this (I’m guessing bad) word last week. “I’ve now been called the V-word as well by the Cruz campaign,” she said. “Yes V, and I won’t say that word either. But suffice it to say—V as in Victor—when I told my story, my American dream story of my life, a prominent member of the Cruz campaign said that I had gone full V-word.”

Hmm. To what word is Fiorina referring? Vegetable? Vulcan? I have heard that you are not supposed to say “Voldemort,” but the FCC doesn’t have a specific rule against it.

Using context clues, Buzzfeed determined that Fiorina was talking about the following tweet, sent during last week’s Republican debate, from Steve Deace, a radio host and co-chair of Cruz’s Iowa campaign:

Ah.

“Vagina.”

Not a swear or anything, but Carly Fiorina won’t say it.

If I were the sole female Republican candidate for president, I would say vagina all the time, but that’s just me.

Photo via AP. Contact the author at allie@gawker.com.

At Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on Tuesday, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who is charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, faced a military judge for the first time since the U.S. Army decided last week to proceed with a court-martial.

At his hearing, the Associated Press reports, Bergdahl, 29, did not enter a plea, and did not decide whether he wants to face a military trial by jury or solely a judge. The desertion charge carries a possible five year sentence. The misbehavior charge carries a possible life sentence.

http://gawker.com/the-treason-ca...

On the night of June 30, 2009, Bergdahl, walked away from the remote combat outpost where his platoon was stationed in Afghanistan. Bergdahl, who has been speaking by phone with screenwriter Mark Boal, and is the subject of the second season of the podcast Serial, says he wanted to draw attention to leadership issues in his unit.

Shortly after leaving his post, he was captured by the Taliban, and, five years later, was returned to the United States, in exchange for five Guantanamo detainees, in a prisoner swap.

According to the AP, the misbehavior charge is one that is rarely used anymore:

The charge of misbehavior before the enemy was used hundreds of times during World War II, but scholars say its use appears to have dwindled in conflicts since then. Legal databases and media accounts turn up only a few misbehavior cases since 2001, when fighting began in Afghanistan, followed by Iraq less than two years later. In contrast, statistics show the U.S. Army prosecuted about 1,900 desertion cases between 2001 and the end of 2014.

Bergdahl’s attorney Eugene Fidell said he welcomes the court martial, which will allow for more of the case to be made public.

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

“Nearly a quarter of Americans who have heard of recent E. coli outbreaks at Chipotle Mexican Grill said they are eating less often at its restaurants, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Tuesday, while social media sentiment towards the chain hit a low.” You don’t say.

A grand jury indicted New York City real estate developer Sean Ludwick last week on 13 criminal charges, including vehicular homicide, manslaughter, and drunken driving in a fatal accident. Cumulatively, Ludwick faces up to 32 years in prison.

In August, prosecutors allege, Ludwick drunkenly wrecked his Porsche in Noyac, on the Hamptons, killing his friend, Paul Hansen. Ludwick is accused of pulling Hansen’s body out of the car, dumping it on the side of the road outside his house, and driving away.

http://gawker.com/cops-nyc-devel...

From the East Hampton Star:

The top charge is aggravated vehicular homicide in a fatal accident where the driver had a blood alcohol level of over .18 percent. This charge may well have been the one that caused a delay in presenting the case to a grand jury: Mr. Ludwick’s blood was drawn several hours after the crash, meaning District Attorney Thomas Spota’s office would have to mathematically back the number they received to what the actual alcohol level in Mr. Ludwick’s blood was at the time of the crash to the satisfaction of the grand jury.

There are also two charges of aggravated vehicular homicide, according to court records, because within the past 10 years Mr. Ludwick had pleaded guilty to driving with ability impaired by alcohol. Though the prior charge was a reduction from misdemeanor drunken driving, which he was originally accused of, its presence in his history triggered the elevated charge.

Ludwick is also charged with manslaughter and several misdemeanors, including drunken driving. He is scheduled to be arraigned at the beginning of January.

Hansen, with whom Ludwick is reportedly seen drinking in security footage taken from a bar the two were at the night of the deadly crash, was 53. He is survived by his wife and two young sons. His family filed a civil suit against Ludwick in October.

Reportedly, at a hearing in September, the disgraced co-founder of BlackHouse Development—previously accused of stalking and breaking into an ex-girlfriend’s apartment—flipped through stacks of cash to pass the time.

Photo via Sean Ludwick/Facebook. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office announced Tuesday afternoon that they’ve reached an agreement to extradite Jinx star and unsettling man Robert Durst back from New Orleans to stand trial for murder. Durst was charged in March with the 2000 murder of his friend and confidante Susan Berman.

The Los Angeles Times reports that L.A. County has reached an agreement with their New Orleans counterparts to extradite Durst by August. He’s been in custody in Louisiana since April, when he was indicted on charges of illegal possession of a firearm by a felon and illegal possession of a firearm in the presence of a controlled substance. When he was arrested, Durst was carrying a latex mask, a map of Florida and Cuba, and lots of cash. He is expected to plead guilty on the gun charges, which by themselves could carry a decade in prison.

The family of Durst’s first wife Kathie, who disappeared in 1982, said in October they would file a wrongful death suit against him. All of which is to say: life has a way of going downhill when you mutter “What did I do? Killed them all, of course,” while wearing a hot microphone.

Contact the author at anna.merlan@jezebel.com.

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Durst leaves Federal Court in an Orleans Parish Sheriff’s vehicle after his arraignment, in New Orleans, April 14, 2015. Photo via AP Images

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Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

The Manhattan district attorney announced the indictment Tuesday, in New York State Supreme Court, of New York City Police Officer Jonathan Munoz, accused of unlawfully arresting a man who attempted to videotape him after he illegally searched a woman last spring.

http://jezebel.com/video-nypd-att...

Munoz is also charged with falsifying documents with the NYPD and the district attorney’s office. “Had this officer’s attempts to conceal his alleged misconduct succeeded, an innocent man may still be facing charges for a fabricated crime,” DA Cyrus Vance said in a statement.

“Illegal searches and unlawful arrests go against the years of training each NYPD officer receives, erode the public’s confidence in law enforcement, and will be prosecuted by my Office’s Public Corruption Unit.”

The charges stem from Munoz’s arrest near the corner of West 183^rd Street and Saint Nicholas Avenue of Jason Disisto in March of last year. From Jezebel, in April:

Disisto and some friends were hanging out in front of a restaurant in Washington Heights when an NYPD officer named Jonathan Munoz came up to one of Disisto’s female friends and started to frisk and paw her. Munoz stuck his hand in the woman’s sweater and took her by the wrist.

Disisto then grabbed his friend’s cell phone to record the incident. Another officer, Edwin Flores, charged at Disitso to prevent from filming. Video footage shows Munoz and Flores attempting to wrestle the phone of Disisto’s hand and then cuffing him. The two officers arrested Disisto and put him in a police car, throwing the cellphone out of the car window.

In his incident report, Munoz, a member of the NYPD since 2006, claimed that Disisto entered a “fighting stance,” lunged, and swung a fist at him. Surveillance footage showed this to be untrue. The case against Disisto, who has since sued the NYPD, was dismissed.

Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

From a Washington Post investigation: “More than 50 police officers involved in fatal shootings this year had previously fired their guns in deadly on-duty shootings...For a handful of officers, it was their third fatal shooting. For one officer, it was his fourth.”

Ted Cruz is positively SICKENED by how low the liberal media is willing to go “to attack and destroy” him and everyone he holds dear, specifically with claims that he keeps trotting out his kids like trained monkeys. So to retaliate Ted Cruz has decided to.... trot out his kids like trained monkeys and beg for money.

The trouble started earlier today when Pulitzer prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes drew the below cartoon mocking Ted Cruz’s use of his family in a recent political ad:

The cartoon pretty explicitly mocks Cruz’s shrewd campaign tactics and the ways in which he plays puppet master with his own daughters—not the daughters themselves. Cruz, however, seems to have missed that point.

The Washington Post, too, decided to take the cartoon down earlier this evening and left the following editor’s note from Fred Hiatt in its stead:

It’s generally been the policy of our editorial section to leave children out of it. I failed to look at this cartoon before it was published. I understand why Ann thought an exception to the policy was warranted in this case, but I do not agree.

And Cruz, to prove just how much he doesn’t use his children for his own personal gain, sent out an email blast that put his children front and center for his own personal gain.

Yes, “to push back on the Washington Post and rest of the liberal media,” he NEEDS to raise $1 million dollars in the next 24 hours. It’s the only way.

Because Ted Cruz is sickened, he tells you. Just sickened. Now that’ll be $1 million, please.

Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com.

According to multiple reports, Walt Disney Co. wants to sell its stake in Fusion, its joint venture with Univision. Fusion originally sought an audience of English-speaking Hispanics before pivoting to “Millennials.” The network, however, has struggled to keep pace with other ambitious editorial startups like BuzzFeed, Vice, and Vox Media.

Disney and Univision are discussing the terms of Disney’s exit from the partnership, the Wall Street Journal reports. “Disney wants out,” someone close to the talks told CNN Money. According to SEC filings, Fusion lost nearly $35 million in 2014.

http://tktk.gawker.com/fusion-is-losi...

CNN Money reports that Univision is likely to end buying out Disney’s stake. According to the Journal, people at Univision are eager to have a Miliennial-focused news brand operating under its sole aegis.

Also, from CNN Money: “Fusion’s identity challenges have led some in the media industry to nickname it ‘con-Fusion.’” Hmm.

Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.