At some point in 2014, long before House Republicans offed leader John Boehner, they reportedly recruited as his replacement a man who was a mostly unknown figure at the time: Dr. Ben Carson.

The Hill says it confirmed with various sources, including Carson himself, that several unnamed GOP representatives brought Carson to Capitol Hill to clandestinely discuss replace Boehner as Speaker if they were able to oust him:

A second source with knowledge of the situation said that in 2014 “several” House conservatives summoned Carson to Capitol Hill to pitch him on the idea of becoming the next Speaker in the event that they were successful in voting the Ohio Republican out of the position in 2015.

Carson met with the Republicans, but said he turned down their offer because he was gearing up for a presidential run.

House Republicans were able to effectively remove Boehner back in September. The fight for his replacement begat a sex scandal that eventually ended with Paul Ryan, a White House hopeful himself at one point, taking the gig.

Carson, meanwhile, certainly isn’t going to be president, but as a consolation prize he’ll continue to be richer than the either the President or the Speaker combined.

[image via Getty]

Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.

At least 60 Libyan policemen were killed and 200 wounded after a truck bomb exploded Thursday near their base, officials said. According to the Associated Press, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack yet, but a group affiliated with ISIS has been trying to establish a presence in the town.

The bombing took place in the Western Libyan town of Zliten, the AP reports. The Islamic State has lately attempted to expand westward from its stronghold in Sirte, on the coast.

From the New York Times:

Capt. Adel Erhoma, a security officer in the town who visited the camp after the explosion, said it had occurred early on Thursday as cadets gathered. The attackers drove a water truck filled with explosives through the camp’s gates before detonating the explosives in the camp’s yard, which was packed with cadets, Captain Erhoma said.

“There is nothing left from the truck but metal shrapnel,” he said, adding that hospitals were overwhelmed because more than 150 people had been wounded.

The affiliate group’s fighters have also launched an offensive on the towns east of Sirte, where an important oil port is located. Attacks in the town of Ras Lanuf have left at least seven tanks of crude oil on fire, the Times reports, and on Thursday a suicide bomber killed at least seven people in an attack on a checkpoint.

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

In Burlington, Vermont, on Thursday, the Donald Trump campaign ejecting anyone who would not explicitly proclaim themselves a Trump supporter—including ticket holders like Tim Farr and his mother. “Bernie would let a Trump supporter into his event,” Farr claimed. “Bernie would listen to the opposition.”

Farr told NBC New’s Katy Tur that he and his mother actually made it into the rally, after waiting on line since 10 o’clock in the morning, but were ejected after security noticed their Bernie Sanders pins, despite holding tickets. They weren’t even there to protest, he said.

They’re not the only ones. According to the Burlington Free Press, Trump staffers are asking people at the door if they support the billionaire businessman from Queens. “We have more than 20,000 people that showed up for 1,400 spots,” Trump said in a statement. “I’m taking care of my people, not people who don’t want to vote for me or are undecided. They are loyal to me, and I am loyal to them.”

As it turns out, the campaign is within its legal right to do. “They have the right to say who’s trespassing in violation of their lease agreement, so when people are asked to leave, police escort them out,” Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo told the Free Press, adding that campaigns remove people they deem unwelcome “all the time.”

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

On Thursday, the Associated Press reports, outside a police station, in Paris, police officers shot and killed a man waving a knife and wearing what turned out to be a fake explosive vest. The incident came on the one year anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

http://gawker.com/how-much-did-w...

The prosecutor’s office said the assailant was carrying a document bearing the emblem of the Islamic State and “an unequivocal claim of responsibility in Arabic.” He shouted “Allahu akbar!” at police before he was killed.

From the AP:

Video shot from a window above the station and provided to The Associated Press showed the suspect’s body lying on the ground in a pool of blood as a sniffer dog was called in to check the body, along with a bomb-detecting robot. More video aired later on iTele TV showed a police explosives specialist cutting open the dead man’s jacket to check for live explosives.

Alexis Mukenge, who witnessed the shooting, told iTele that police shouted, “Stop! Move back!” before firing twice at the man, who immediately fell to the ground.

Authorities did not publicly identify the suspect. However, a French security official said police were “working on the hypothesis” that the assailant is a 20-year-old Moroccan who was involved in a minor 2013 robbery in the southern Var region.

The official identified the suspect as Ali Sallah, of Casablanca. The attacker’s fingerprints, he said, matched Sallah’s, who was in France illegally and had been ordered to leave after the 2013 incident.

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

In December, the mayor of the Italian town known as the birthplace of pizza has introduced an ordinance banning the use of wood-fired stoves not equipped with emissions filters. People were very upset. “I became the anti-pizza mayor,” he said.

James F. Tracy, the tenured associate professor of communications at Florida Atlantic University, who taught a class on conspiracies and suggested that the Sandy Hook shooting three years ago was a hoax perpetrated by the Obama administration, was fired on Tuesday.

The university first reprimanded Tracy in 2013: He (and plenty of others) began propagating his theories shortly after the event itself, in December 2012. From the Sun Sentinel, in January 2013:

Tracy said he believes the deaths at Sandy Hook may have resulted from a training exercise. “Was this to a certain degree constructed?” he said. “Was this a drill?

“Something most likely took place,” he said. “One is left with the impression that a real tragedy took place.”

But, he added, he has not seen bodies, or photos of bodies. “Overall, I’m saying the public needs more information to assess what took place. We don’t have that. And when the media and the public don’t have that, various sorts of ideas can arise.”

Tracy said also has doubts about the official version of the Kennedy assassination, the Oklahoma City bombing, the 9-11 terror attacks and the Aurora, Colo., theater murders.

Late last year, however, Lenny and Veronique Pozner asked Tracy to remove a photograph of their son, 6-year-old Noah Pozner—the youngest victim of the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut—from his website. He responded with a letter asking for proof that Noah had ever actually lived.

From the New York Times:

Mr. Tracy continued his clash with the Pozners on Facebook, where he called the Newtown shootings a “drill,” a reference to a theory that the massacre was an exercise in which no one died staged by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“The Pozners, alas, are as phony as the drill itself, and profiting handsomely from the fake death of their son,” Mr. Tracy wrote in a letter that is attributed to him on the Sandy Hook Hoax Facebook page. Mr. Tracy declined to comment on his termination. His lawyer, Thomas Johnson, also declined to comment on whether Mr. Tracy would seek legal action or file a grievance against the university over his dismissal.

As it happened, Tracy, who had taught at Florida Atlantic since 2002, wasn’t fired for his beliefs about the Sandy Hook shooting, the Times reports, but rather his failure to submit paperwork (three years running) that listed jobs or other extracurricular activities that the university might want to know about—like, for example, his blog, or his weekly radio show, where he disseminated his noxious ideas.

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

Orlando Bloom—who once swung a punch at Justin Bieber at a restaurant in Ibiza—can’t stop getting bloodied up at foreign nightclubs. The actor recently left a dance floor with a bleeding forehead (a result of some good-natured head-butting) at Casa Violeta in Tulum, Mexico.

According to Page Six:

A spy said a “hard-partying” Bloom “emerged from the dance floor with a bloody forehead due to overzealous head-butting.”

When we asked about the odd ritual, a source said, “There was just a lot of head-butting at this party among men, Orlando especially.”

Talk to Mama Maddie, Legolas: What’s going on with you?

Chrissy Teigen has some thoughts on Making a Murderer.

Thank you, Chrissy.

Dang, Countess LuAnn de Lesseps’ new boyfriend loves her so much:

“LuAnn is the new love of my life,” [Tom D’Agostino, Jr.], 49, tells PEOPLE. “She is a beautiful person who is elegant, classy and filled with energy like I am. We have a lot in common.”

Tom, who also calls LuAnn “an asteroid who has impacted my life,” is “an heir to his family’s D’Agostino food markets.”

Chic c’est la vie!

• Leonardo DiCaprio is putting aside time in the wake of his recent breakup to chill with his boys. [Page Six]
  
• Nah.
• Saoirse Ronan wants to help your pronounce her name. [ONTD]
• One Direction is going to be on Family Guy, finally bringing together two things that none of you are interested in.
• Keegan-Michael Key and wife Cynthia Blaise are getting divorced. [TMZ]
  
• “You guys, why don’t we just have a threesome and then have our own [nickname] – what could our name be?” is just a normal thing Khloe Kardashian says to her sister Kylie and Kylie’s boyfriend, Tyga. [VH1]
• Kylie Jenner, by the way, is not too upset about that whole ‘Tyga harassing a different teenage girl’ thing. [US Weekly]

Contact the author at madeleine@jezebel.com.

Image via Troy/Warner Bros.

This week, Wheaton College, a private evangelical Christian institution, announced that it had begun termination proceedings for Larycia Alaine Hawkins, an associate professor of political science, who stirred controversy at the school after declaring solidarity with Muslims and wearing the hijab.

In December, Hawkins wrote a Facebook post declaring both human and “religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God.”

She went on to declare that she would turn theory into action by wearing the hijab. “As part of my Advent Worship, I will wear the hijab to work at Wheaton College, to play in Chi-town, in the airport and on the airplane to my home state that initiated one of the first anti-Sharia laws (read: unconstitutional and Islamophobic), and at church,” Hawkins wrote.

(Also: “I have sought the advice and blessing of one of the preeminent Muslim organizations in the United States, the Council on American Islamic Relations, ‪#‎CAIR‬, where I have a friend and Board colleague on staff. I asked whether a non-Muslim wearing the hijab was haram (forbidden), patronizing, or otherwise offensive to Muslims. I was assured by my friends at CAIR-Chicago that they welcomed the gesture.”)

Shortly thereafter, the New York Times reports, the college placed Hawkins on leave, citing the “theological implications” of her post—specifically, the idea that Christians and Muslims pray to the same god. (The pope, who Hawkins cited as a source for this notion, is Catholic. Wheaton College is not.)

The college has taken painstaking care to demonstrate that it is not the hijab-wearing that concerns it. In a statement, Wheaton’s president, Philip G. Ryken, said that the college had “no stated position on the wearing of head scarves as a gesture of care and concern for those in Muslim or other religious communities that may face discrimination or persecution.” The idea that Christians and Muslims share a god, however, seemed “inconsistent” with Wheaton’s Statement of Faith.

At a press conference on Wednesday, according to the Washington Post, Hawkins said she was “flummoxed and flabbergasted” at the possibility of her firing.

“Wheaton College cannot scare me into walking away from the truth (that) all humans—Muslims, the vulnerable, the oppressed of any ilk—are all my sisters and brothers, and I am called by Jesus to walk with them.”

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

This year is full of great science fiction and fantasy TV series. Actually, 2016 is too full. Seriously, check out how long this list of new, returning and potentially premiering shows due out over the next 12 months is. When are we going to get a chance to leave the house and watch all those great movies, or read all the year’s best books? Honestly, we don’t know. We just know it’s a good problem to have.

BRAND NEW SHOWS AND NEW SEASONS:

The Shannara Chronicles (January 5, MTV)

MTV’s adaptation of Terry Brooks’ fantasy mega-series began earlier this week; while the series premiere was a bit slow, it quickly picks up in the next few episodes once all the attractive teenage heroes band together to save the post-apocalyptic fantasy realm of Shannara. Our initial review is here.

Teen Wolf (January 5, MTV)

One of the most byzantine supernatural soap operas in years, this show continues to add more and more stuff to its mythos. Stiles’ dad, Sheriff Stilinski, is dying, and meanwhile everybody’s looking for the Hellhound. But what have the Dread Doctors cooked up, and what do they want with our favorite banshee, Lydia?

Angel From Hell (January 7, CBS)

Jane Lynch plays a young woman’s guardian angel—but this angel is foul-mouthed, sexually liberated and kind of a crazy stalker. This sounds like the set-up for the best show ever, but it’s actually kind of a trainwreck because they forgot to give Jane Lynch anything interesting to act opposite. The rest of the show’s characters, and its storylines, are utterly banal and sitcom-tastic, and not even Jane Lynch can lift this show up.

Shadowhunters (January 12, Freeform)

Clary Fray is a half-human, half-angel, who discovers that she’s supposed to be fighting demons. This show is the second attempt at an adaptation of The Mortal Instruments series, which didn’t find a home at the box office. This TV version—on the channel formerly known as ABC family—should be a better fit.

Second Chance (January 13, Fox)

A 75-year-old man who used to be sheriff until he faked some evidence is killed... and then he’s brought back to life as a young, sexy, mostly shirtless man with the strength of five ordinary men. And he fights crime. This show was originally supposed to be a “Frankenstein” knock-off, but it looks like they wisely dropped that aspect, since it’s super-tenuous. If this show can focus on its flawed protagonist avoiding his past mistakes, that could actually be pretty interesting.

Colony (January 14, USA)

Lost’s Josh Holloway stars in this dystopian thriller where he and his family live in a Los Angeles controlled by fascist aliens, enforced by a mysterious group called the Raptors. And they’re surrounded by a giant wall that cuts the city off from the rest of the world. Holloway and his family try to help the human resistance while searching for their son, who was lost during the original alien invasion.

Agent Carter (January 19, ABC)

TV’s greatest superhero (yeah, I said it) returns! Agent Peggy Carter leaves NYC for late ‘40s Hollywood, an atomic threat, and the villainous HYDRA leader known as Madame Masque. Really, the show could be Peggy and Jarvis taking walks together, and we’d be just as excited.

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (January 21, The CW)

Time-traveler Rip Hunter arrives from the future to cobble together a team of heroes and villains—including the Atom, Firestorm, Hawgirl, Captain Cold and more—to stop the immortal Vandal Savage in DC’s fourth TV series. Hey, it’s not the Justice League, but it’s probably as close as The CW’s going to get.

The 100 (January 21, The CW)

Last year, The 100 managed to mature into a great show, so we have high hopes that season three of this post-apocalyptic drama continues to move the ball forward in new and interesting ways. There’s an AI who has work to do, after all.

Black Sails (January 23, Starz)

This pirate drama returns for a third season of nautical violence, nautical sex, awesome beards, and characters who are named after their awesome beards. There haven’t been any mermaids or sea monsters yet, but there have been some pretty awesome naval battles, and lots of betrayal and skullduggery.

The X-Files (January 24, Fox)

Is the truth still out there? Presumably so, since Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are teaming back up to investigate monsters, aliens, the return of the Cigarette Smoking Man, and other mysterious goings-on. If you’re hesitant to wade into the show’s massive, overarching mythology about an alien invasion, don’t worry—there are a few stand-alone episodes, too.

Lucifer (January 25, Fox)

Somehow, Fox managed to take the Sandman comic spin-off about the devil quitting his job as ruler of hell and moving to Los Angeles, and turn it into a murder procedural. Yes, Satan is solving murders with the LAPD in this show ostensibly based on Mike Carey’s Vertigo comic—but Tom Ellis looks so damn fun as Lucifer, it might end up being too fun to miss.

The Magicians (January 25, Syfy)

Lev Grossman’s critically acclaimed novel The Magicians can be simplified as “Harry Potter in an American college,” but Quentin Coldwater’s problems include sex, drugs, parties, and how boring studying is. Of course, there’s still the matter that someone is eating his fellow students…

You, Me and the Apocalypse (January 28, NBC)

The UK got this show last year, and it’s got a cast to die for: Mathew Baynton, Joel Fry, Pauline Quirke, Jenna Fischer, Kyle Soller, Rob Lowe, Gaia Scodellaro, Paterson Joseph, and Megan Mullally. It’s a comedy-drama about the end of the world, where Rob Lowe plays a priest. If that doesn’t get you on board, then nothing will.

The Venture Bros. (January 31, Adult Swim)

There’s pretty much no details about what’s going to happen in the long-awaited sixth season of The Venture Bros., but so what? Are you not going to watch it just because you don’t know what insanity Hank, Dean, Brock, Doc and the Venture-verse’s wide pantheon of characters is going to get into this year? Yeah, we didn’t think so.

11.22.63 (February 15, Hulu)

A mild-mannered high school teacher (James Franco) discovers a portal to 1958 in a dinner in this miniseries based on the novel by Stephen King, but he’s also given a task—prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, five years later.

Vikings (February 18, History)

Here’s another historical drama inspired by Game of Thrones. It’s time to raid the British Isles! Everybody always enjoys a good Viking raid. Meanwhile, the Vikings are still torn between their old Norse gods and that newfangled monotheism thing.

Damien (March 7, A&E)

Satan’s Hollywood hot streak continues with this horror-drama series based on the hit 1976 movie The Omen. In the present day, the adult Damien has a successful career as a war photographer but no idea of his true parentage, until a mysterious older woman (played by the always excellent Barbara Hershey) who is intent on getting Damien to follow in his father’s footsteps.

Bates Motel (March 7, A&E)

A&E renewed this show for two seasons, meaning that this year’s fourth season is being made with the knowledge of a guaranteed season five, which gives them a lot of time to play. And since Norman’s hallucinations caused him to kill Bradley, you can bet that Norma’s got a lot to deal with.

Daredevil (March 18, Netflix)

Marvel’s Man Without Fear returns to protect Hell’s Kitchen, alongside the arrival of the deadly vigilante the Punisher and Matt Murdock’s ex-girlfriend, the ninja assassin Elektra. But who’s going to save Matt from them?

12 Monkeys (April, Syfy)

This TV adaptation of Terry Gilliam’s excellent time travel film was one of 2015’s most delightful surprises, so we can’t wait for season 2. Season one ended with the cliffhanger-iest of cliffhangers—Railly was so gravely injured Cole had to send her to the future, Jones had to surrender the time machine to a post-apocalyptic mob, several main characters are dead, and the Army of the 12 Monkeys has 12 babies ready to (somehow) destroy the world. Can Cole time-travel his way out of this?

Game of Thrones (April, HBO)

Now that the show has truly caught up to the books, everyone is in the dark about what going to happen on the hit fantasy series. Here’s all we know: Bran is back, and will likely using his powers to reveal the secrets of the past. The extended Greyjoy family has a new role to play. Dany is back to square one. And somehow, in some form, it appears Jon Snow still has some kind of role to play.

Orphan Black (April, BBC America)

What can we expect from the always excellent Orphan Black? Well, we know that the show will be exploring stories that go all the way back to the beginning of season one. We love Orphan Black best when Tatiana Maslany and co. get to shine, and it looks like that’s where things are headed.

Scream (April 20, MTV)

The thing is, Scream doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel to work. The original movie was about being self-aware and funny along with, you know, the murdering. Season two just has to deliver more of the same.

MID-SEASON RETURNS:

Supergirl (January 4, CBS)

Supergirl continues to have family drama—not with her more famous cousin, but her semi-evil, ex-con aunt.

Limitless (January 5, CBS)

Brian will riskily continue playing the FBI on Morra’s behalf until Rebecca discovers the gut-wrenching truth.

Mythbusters (January 9, Discovery)

The final season of the long-running science show! I’m not a betting man, but I think they might just blow something up.

CSI: Cyber (January 10, CBS)

The internet continues to be exactly as scary as your grandparents worry it is.

iZombie (January 12, The CW)

Liv has broken up with Major (again), the mob boss and Max Rager company are still free, and the zombie cure is kaput. Things aren’t looking good.

The Flash (January 19, The CW)

Barry Allen still has no idea how to defeat Zoom, and now it appears Zoom has secretly turned one of his allies against him, too.

Arrow (January 20, The CW)

Felicity is gravely wounded, and the show keeps flash-forward to Oliver standing over someone’s grave. Don’t even think about it, Arrow.

Supernatural (January 20, The CW)

Sam and Dean must regroup after learning the truth about Dean’s visions.

Grimm (January 29, NBC)

Somehow, Nick’s illegitimate half-Grimm, half-Hexenbiest son by his former archenemy is the least complicated thing in his life at the moment.

Sleepy Hollow (February 5, Fox)

If you gave up on Sleepy Hollow last season, it’s definitely time to give it another try, as Ichabod refuses to accept Abbie’s sacrifice.

The Walking Dead (February 14, AMC)

The zombie horde is in Alexandria, Rick and the others are covered in blood and guts, and the comics’ worst villain, Negan, it about to make his appearance. Things are looking as good as ever!

Gotham (February 29, Fox)

Last time we saw him, Jim Gordon murdered an unarmed man in cold blood. So, uh… yeah.

Once Upon a Time (March 6, ABC)

Time will only tell if the trip to bring Hook back from the dead is more miserable for the characters or us.

Agents of SHIELD (March 8, ABC)

So, remember how Ward was kind of a pain in SHIELD’s ass? It looks like he’s going to get a whole lot worse.

TBD:

BrainDead (CBS)

This show in which alien brain-eating parasites attack members of Congress and their staffers is supposedly premiering this summer, just in the middle of election season. This show could explain everything!

Containment (The CW)

This plague drama is loosely based on an acclaimed Belgian show called Cordon. Basically, parts of Atlanta, GA are cordoned off because people inside are infected with an incredibly deadly virus. But when your loved ones are trapped in the “infected” area, how far will you go to save them? The show’s cast includes the brilliant David Gyasi, and the pilot was directed by David Nutter, so this should at least be highly watchable.

Doctor Who (BBC America)

We have faith that this show will be back in 2016 and won’t keep us hanging for an entire year. We need our Capaldi fix!

Emerald City (NBC)

NBC ordered this dark retelling of The Wizard of Oz—where Dorothy is a young cop transported to a war-torn Oz—in 2014, then canceled it, and have now changed their minds and scheduled it for this fall. This is probably not a good sign, but I have to admit I’m looking forward to Toto being a K-9 unit member.

Hunters (Syfy)

Syfy’s had some pretty great luck lately with adapting books—let’s hope it holds with this adaptation of Whitley Streiber’s Alien Hunters book series. The good news? It’s produced by Gale Ann Hurd (Terminator, Walking Dead) and developed by Natalie Chaidez (Sarah Connor Chronicles, 12 Monkeys).

Legion (FX)

The first live-action TV show based on the X-Men comics since Mutant X, this show follows a young man who’s struggled with mental illness since he was a teenager—but he may actually be the savior of mutantkind. In the comics, the character of Legion is the son of Professor X, but there’s no word on whether the TV show will keep that detail (or how close to movie continuity this show will be.) Rachel Keller (Fargo) just signed on to play the female lead, who’s rumored to be a version of Rogue. Also in the pipeline: Hellfire, Fox’s show about the Hellfire Club—but that seems to be less far along.

Luke Cage (Netflix)

We know Netflix’s third Marvel series is in production, so here’s hoping it’ll premiere before the end of the year. Very little is known about the actual story of the show, other than everyone loves Mike Colter’s memorable portrayal of the indestructible hero from his many appearances in Jessica Jones.

Outcast (Cinemax)

Robert Kirkman struck television gold with The Walking Dead. Now another one of his properties is coming to TV, except this one is about demonic possession instead of zombies. Kyle Barnes (Patrick Fugit) has struggled with demons his whole life, and then he’s recruited by a crazy preacher (Philip Glenister from Life on Mars) to lead the war against evil.

Person of Interest (CBS)

The best TV show about artificial intelligence is set to ask some thorny questions in its fifth season—like, can they really restore the Machine from its compressed backup inside a suitcase? When they do bring the Machine back, should it be the same before, or should it have fewer limitations on its ethics? The war against the evil A.I. Samaritan is going to get uglier. Let’s hope this show comes back soon!

Powers (PlayStation Network)

Yes, this show does still exist and got a second season. Season 2 will follow the plot of volume one of the comics: Who killed Retro Girl? But the show also returns with some added Wil Wheaton, so it may actually be worth a PlayStation account.

Preacher (AMC)

They said it couldn’t be done! They said it shouldn’t be done! Then Seth Rogen went and finally managed to turn Garth Ennis’ hit Vertigo comic series about a disillusioned preacher with a mysterious power, his hardscrabble ex-girlfriend and their hard-drinking vampire buddy, as they search America for God, who has abandoned his job. (Suffice it to say they don’t want to merely shake his hand.) Given how long fans have been waiting for this show to materialize—and how accurate Rogen’s version looks like it’s going to be—here’s hoping they won’t have to wait until 2017 to see it.

Westworld (HBO)

There’s still no firm premiere date for HBO’s infinitely anticipated TV series reboot of the strange 1973 movie about a hedonistic amusement park full of robots who tend to the attendees fantasies, but then run amok. It’s supposed to be this year, but then it was also supposed to premiere last year, so let not hold our breath.

Contact the author at rob@io9.com.

According to court documents filed by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn on Thursday, Martin Shkreli, the price-gounging capitalist super-villain (who may not actually have been a very good business man or criminal), is worth at least $45 million—which explains how he could afford not only to secure $5 million bond but also to buy the $2 million Wu-Tang Clan album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.

http://gawker.com/martin-shkreli...

The money is held in a brokerage account at E-Trade, an online securities firm. According to the New York Times, this is the first public disclosure of how much Shkreli has actually made in his short but tumultuous career. From the filing (a proposed restraining order—to which Shkreli has consented—placing a lien on the assets):

You get the idea. Anyway, it’s still possible that he’s got other money elsewhere. Stay tuned!

Judge Kiyo Matsumoto granted the order on Thursday, barring Shkreli (“as well as his agents, nominees, servants, employees, attorneys, family members, and those persons with actual knowledge of this Order”) from touching it.

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

Donald Trump isn’t a fan of protesters at his rallies, sure, but is he willing to send them to their deaths? Sure, why not.

Trump became the judge, jury and executioner last night when he heard someone booing at his Burlington, VT rally. His edict? If you can’t take Donald Trump’s heat, go outside without your coat.

“Get him out of here,” Trump ordered his guards. “Don’t give him his coat. Keep his coat. Confiscate his coat. You know, it’s about 10 degrees below zero outside. No, you can keep his coat. Tell him we’ll send it to him in a couple of weeks.”

Weird that Trump’s oath of loyalty required to get in the door didn’t screen the protester out. Oh well, he’s probably dead now.

Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

Jeena Lee-Walker, a former English teacher at the Upper West Side’s High School for Arts, Imagination and Inquiry, claims she was fired for teaching students about the Central Park Five case, by an administration that feared the lessons would incite “riots” and “rile up” black students.

Lee-Walker alleges in a lawsuit that in 2013, administrators asked her to be more “balanced” in her history lesson, then gave her several bad performance reviews for pushing back on the instruction and ultimately fired her, the New York Daily News reports. She had been teaching in city public schools for six years and at the high school for two before her termination.

For those who could have used Lee-Walker’s course as a refresher, a brief synopsis: in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, New York City was captivated by the assault and rape of Trisha Meili, who was jogging in Central Park when she was attacked. Five black and Latino teenagers—Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Kharey Wise—were arrested and convicted based on statements they claimed police coerced them to give. After the Central Park Five spent many years in jail, their convictions were vacated in 2002 when another man confessed to the crime and DNA evidence was found to match his.

Incidentally, Donald Trump took out a full-page ad in the New York papers in ‘89 that was inspired by the Central Park jogger case. Its headline: “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!” When the city announced in 2014 that it would settle a lawsuit brought by the Central Park Five for $40 million, he wrote a Daily News op-ed calling it a “disgrace” and opining that “these young men do not exactly have the pasts of angels.”

“I kind of wanted to hook them in, engage them, win them over,” Lee-Walker told the Daily News, adding that “students in general, and black students in particular, should be riled up.” Her suit does not specify damages.

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

Katrina Pierson is an impressive figure, if only for her ability to out-batshit her employer, Donald Trump. She serves as a campaign spokesperson and talking head, frequently appearing on cable news to offer summaries of Trump’s, discriminatory policy proposals and his general hardline xenophobia and bigotry—which makes it, perhaps, a little funny that once she sued her boss for racial discrimination.

http://gawker.com/donald-trump-s...

Pierson’s most outright racist statement so far (November is still pretty far off!) came after Trump’s startling pledge to completely ban Muslims from entering the United States. When challenged on CNN about barring “regular Muslims,” Pierson scoffed: “Yes, from Arab countries. You know what? So what? They’re Muslims.” The ability to deliver this line with a straight face ought to require either a very stiff drink, or a sincere and abiding belief that a particular ethnic group is inherently unworthy of rights enjoyed by more favored groups.

In 2008, before her ascent to Tea Party star (Texas-area regional division) and a failed run for Congress, Pierson worked for Sanofi-Aventis, a pharmaceutical company, marketing prescription drugs to doctors in the Dallas area. Two years later, she filed suit against the company, claiming that they “engaged in practices towards her which willfully discriminated against her on the basis of her race.” In her complaint, uncovered by Gawker, she demanded restitution for lost wages and “emotional pain” due to her treatment as a non-white person.

Pierson, who is black, said a former manager spoke “down to her as if she were a child,” behavior she blamed on racial bias. She alleged said she was sabotaged by the company “by failing to provide her with advanced notice of periodic training tests and not granting her standard time out of the field to prepare and study,” which she said was typically afforded to white employees. According to a later filing, Pierson and her former employer (which denied her allegations) settled out of court, and the suit was dismissed.

Multiple attempts to contact Pierson regarding the suit and whether or not racial discrimination is actually bad were unanswered.

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
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Yuba County Sheriff’s Deputy Christopher M. Heath, pictured above, is credited with personally leading 62 drug investigations, many of them involving large amounts of pot. Last week, Heath himself was caught carrying 240 pounds of pot in Pennsylvania, which he and two other men had allegedly driven across the country from California.

Heath was arrested alongside Tyler Long and Ryan J. Falsone in West Manheim Township, Pa., near midnight on December 28th. In Heath’s car were the pot—estimated street value $2 million—his badge and service weapon, and $11,000 cash. Local officials were tipped off about the transport, and did not know Heath was a law enforcement officer until arresting him, the New York Times reports.

Heath worked as a member of NET-5, a drug task force, at the sheriff’s office in Yuba County, which is in northern California, reports the Appeal-Democrat, a local newspaper. NET-5 commander Martin Horan told the paper that a significant portion of his cases were weed-related.

The Yuba County District Attorney told the Times it is investigating whether any of Heath’s cases would be dismissed in light of the charges against him. “If Heath’s work was witnessed or can be otherwise credibly covered by the testimony of another investigator, the case may not be significantly impacted,” he said. “In other situations, the case may be tainted to such a degree that we cannot proceed and the case will be dismissed.”

Image via York County Prison/New York Times. Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.

After opening his mouth and expelling a noxious cloud of racist words about heroin dealers named “D Money” who are constantly knocking up Maine’s white women, Gov. Paul LePage today explained he only said those things because of his “slow” brain. Sure!

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“They come up here, they sell their heroin, then they go back home,” LePage said yesterday at a town hall. “Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave. Which is a real sad thing, because then we have another issue that we’ve got to deal with down the road.”

In his requisite apology today, LePage blamed his remarks about “these types of guys, who come from Connecticut and New York,” on his tired, racist brain. (Case in point—his mention of a dealer named “D Money” was probably in reference to this guy, whose name was actually Smooth.)

“I spent an hour and 15 minutes talking to the people in Richmond the other night about some of the problems in Maine,” LePage said Friday. “In that whole time, many of you were there, that whole time, I made one slip-up, I made one word of slip-up. I may have made many slip-ups. I was going impromptu and my brain didn’t catch up to my mouth.”

He, improbably, continued:

“Instead of saying ‘Maine women’ I said ‘white women’ and I’m not going to apologize to the Maine women for that. Because if you go to Maine, you’ll see that we’re essentially 95% white.”

He meant to say “Maine women” and not “white women”—it’s not his fault they mean the same thing.

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

Yesterday evening, for at least the second time in his presidential campaign, Ted Cruz failed miserably when trying to deliver a lighthearted quip to a child.

The scene: Goldfield, Iowa, schoolhouse town hall. The questioner: a boy with an interest in politics, age unknown. The joke, via the New York Times:

Mr. Cruz, responding to the question of a boy with an interest in politics, began discussing the example of healthcare policy. “Take Obamacare,” he said, pausing before the punch-line. “Please, take Obamacare.” Modest laughter followed.

“Sorry, a little Benny Youngman,” Mr. Cruz said...The boy looked back at him.

Ah yes, just the kind of Catskills humor the youngsters like to text to each other on their Snapchats. Mr. Youngman’s first name, by the way, is Henny.

Previously:

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

The water in Flint, Mich. is poisoned. On Tuesday, many months after its residents rightly suspected its water might be tainted and sickening, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency. On Thursday, Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said the cash-poor city might need to come up with as much $1.5 billion to fix its water system, a sad coda to a crisis that stems from a broken down city looking to save money anywhere it could.

But who exactly to blame, and how far up the state this scandal runs, is still being debated. The move to detach Flint from Detroit’s prohibitively expensive water supply in favor of a more affordable plan that would draw water from a pipeline connected to nearby Lake Huron was made in April 2013 by a man named Ed Kurtz, who had been appointed as Flint’s “emergency manager” by Snyder under a program that was controversial from its inception. Kurtz’s decision was backed up by city council in a 7-1 vote, but Flint would still have to find an interim source of water while the Lake Huron pipeline was being constructed.

Moving Flint away from Detroit’s water seems to have been a fairly uncontroversial choice. The city could not afford the $1.5 million per month it cost to buy it from Detroit. But in between untethering itself from Detroit and the completion of the Lake Huron pipeline, Flint needed to get water from somewhere, and that somewhere ended up being the local Flint River. But that water would turn out to be so corrosive that it stripped lead from the pipes running through the city, raising lead levels in the water far, far above acceptable standards.

So, the more pertinent question is who precisely decided to hook Flint up to the Flint River. When the city finally disconnected its water supply from Detroit in April 2014—which it celebrated with a champagne toast—it was being overseen by a second emergency manager, Darnell Earley. Now that it’s entirely agreed upon that the Flint River was a dangerously unsafe source of water, Earley has attempted to distance himself from the decision to pull from the Flint River temporarily. In an email to MLive.com he wrote the following (note that the “Karegnondi Water Authority” refers to the Lake Huron pipeline):

The decision to separate from (the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department) and go with the Karegnondi Water Authority, including the decision to pump Flint River water in the interim, were both a part of a long-term plan that was approved by Flint’s mayor, and confirmed by a City Council vote of 7-1 in March of 2013 — a full seven months before I began my term as emergency manager.

In this statement, Earley is referring to the contract signed by his predecessor Kurtz and as affirmed by the city council. But those parties—Kurtz and the city council—dispute that the decision to take water from the Flint River was a part of the initial decision and vote to disconnect from Detroit in favor of Lake Huron. MLive states that there is no record of a vote regarding the Flint River as an interim source of water, and ex-Flint mayor Dayne Walling told the site that the vote to connect to Lake Huron was entirely separate from the decision to temporarily pull from the Flint River. For obvious reasons, no one wants to claim responsibility for a decision that resulted in the cases of lead poisoning among children and infants in Flint doubling since the city stopped taking water from Detroit.

Among the most crucial questions of all are: Who should have known that the water in the Flint River was unsafe, who did know, and when did they know? That includes Synder, the governor, who is now apologizing for the crisis while also attempting to distance himself from it at the same time. At a press conference on Thursday, Snyder essentially plead the fifth on what he or his office might have known and when, but incriminating documents regarding his administration’s knowledge of the crisis have already been uncovered.

On Wednesday, NBC News reported that researchers at Virginia Tech who have been studying lead levels in Flint’s water received, via a Freedom of Information Act request, an email sent by Snyder’s ex-chief of staff Dennis Muchmore in July of 2015 expressing his concern about Flint to a “top health official.” In the email, Muchmore wrote:

“I’m frustrated by the water issue in Flint. I really don’t think people are getting the benefit of the doubt. Now they are concerned and rightfully so about the lead level studies they are receiving. These folks are scared and worried about the health impacts and they are basically getting blown off by us (as a state we’re just not sympathizing with their plight).”

It would be hard to conjure a more damning piece of evidence than this. Snyder didn’t declare a state of emergency regarding the water crisis until this week, but at least five months ago his top deputy was complaining about the administration having “blown off” the residents of Flint who were “scared and worried about the health impacts” of the water they were being asked to drink.

What needle does the governor conceivably thread here? At best, Snyder can plead complete ignorance—of the decision to temporarily pull water from the Flint River, of the water’s toxicity, of its effect on its consumers, of what his administration may have known. Though that might be the first step to protecting himself legally, it would paint him as a deeply negligent governor, one whose special “emergency manager” program directly led to an environmental disaster and who had no connection with a chief of staff who was trying to stop that disaster from becoming even worse.

The other reality would be that Snyder knew that Flint’s drinking water was perilously toxic but just decided not to do anything about it. Flint ended up pulling from the Flint River for 18 months, starting April 2014 and ending in October 2015, when it once again began buying water from Detroit. In that period of time, the city and state, as directed by Snyder, could have taken any number of opportunities to disconnect Flint’s water supply from its poisoned river, but did not.

Almost immediately, residents of Flint reported that the water looked dirty, smelled foul and tasted bad, a story that local reporters picked up at least as early as June 2014. People who came in contact with the water reported losing hair and contracting rashes. In July 2014, Flint announced it was flushing out hydrants in an effort to make the discolored drinking water disappear. In October 2014, the local GM plant made a deal to privately purchase water because it noticed that Flint’s water was corroding and rusting its parts. In December 2014, a city employee tested the water of a woman whose son had picked up a rash after swimming in a pool and found that the lead level in her water was 104 parts per billion, about seven times greater than the lead level the EPA deems “actionable.”

In January 2015, Flint told its residents that there was too much “disinfection byproduct” in the city’s water, but that there was no need to boil the water, which was still safe to drink. In March 2015, the AP reported on the dirty water phenomenon and said state officials maintained that the water met federal guidelines. In September 2015, two independent studies found that the lead levels in Flint’s water were absurdly high, and later that month, the editorial board of the local paper called on the city to abandon the Flint River as a water source. In October they would finally do so, with the state’s Department of Environmental Quality issuing a statement that essentially said “our bad.”

Given all of that, the state’s indifference and inaction as directed—or not—by Gov. Snyder is more or less unforgivable. Small dominoes have fallen—Dan Wyant, director of that Department of Environmental Quality resigned—but the calls for Snyder’s head are only getting louder. Michael Moore, whose breakthrough film focused on the effects of GM closing several of its plants in Flint, has stated that Snyder should be prosecuted. Moore is prone to histrionics, but his position seems quite reasonable, and, with the Department of Justice announcing its own investigation, even plausible.

[image via AP]

Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.

Scott Stockert, a man from North Dakota who is known to himself as “Jesus Christ,” was arrested after police received a tip that he’d traveled to Washington, D.C. with the express purpose of kidnapping First Dog Bo Obama. A fact that is deeply embarrassing for the Obamas’ other dog—you know the one.

When Stockert/Christ was finally apprehended, he was discovered with two unloaded firearms, ammo, a machete, and a billy club. At the time of publication, it is unclear exactly what sort of fight he expected the fluffy dog to put up.

According to NBC News, court documents “don’t specify why [Stockert] allegedly wanted to dognap 7-year-old Bo.” Though he did, claim that “his parents were John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe and that he came to the capitol to announce his campaign for president and advocate for a $99 per month healthcare plan.”

Which, all things considered, really is a very good deal.

[h/t NBC]

Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com. Image via Pete Souza/White House.

In recent days, nearly 130,000 Making a Murderer fans have signed a petition on the White House website asking President Obama to pardon Steve Avery, who was found guilty of the murder of Teresa Halbach in 2007. But Avery was convicted of a state crime, not a federal one, meaning Obama couldn’t even pardon him if he wanted to.

Because the petition broke 100,000 signatures in 30 days, the White House was obligated to respond to it. It did so in a statement posted yesterday. The text is a few hundred words long, but there are only two important sentences:

Since Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey are both state prisoners, the President cannot pardon them. A pardon in this case would need to be issued at the state level by the appropriate authorities.

Theoretically, there is still hope: a Change.org petition for Avery’s freedom addressed Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker—the man who actually could pardon him—has over 300,000 signatures. But that effort is likely futile as well. For one thing, a petition on a website carries no legal power. For another, as NBC News points out, Walker has never pardoned a single person in his five years in office. It’s unlikely he’ll make Avery the first.

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

The Clinton Presidential Library recently released transcripts between President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair dating back from the 1990s. The real conversations are candid and illuminating. But many transcripts that are being passed around on social media are fake.

As the New York Times explains about the real transcripts:

With bracing bluntness and a smattering of R-rated language, the private conversations reveal a president sometimes unseen by the general public, one who veered from wonky discussions of the Northern Ireland peace process to serrated assessments of his American political opposition. Like a time capsule, the transcripts capture the priorities and perceptions of the moment that, judged with the harsh certainty of hindsight, look prescient or wildly off base.

And the transcripts are indeed fascinating. But Twitter comedian Michael Spicer has made his own parody transcripts. And while many of them are hilarious, they’re now starting to get passed around as real.

Some Twitter users are proclaiming that the exchanges are so funny you could’t make them up. But that’s precisely what Spicer did.

One big clue that a recently declassified transcript might be fake? No sign of redactions. For example, here’s a redaction from the 532-page release:

You can read the rest of Spicer’s fake transcripts over at his Tumblr page. But if you see people passing Spicer’s fake transcripts off as real, maybe send them a discreet note with a link to the real thing. As is often the case, the real thing can be even funnier than the parody.

Update: One of Spicer’s fake transcripts involves the President punching a ham. But a spokesperson for Blair has confirmed to Buzzfeed News that “[Tony Blair] has never punched ham, nor any form of meat, meat-related products or substitutes with Bill Clinton.” Whether Clinton has ever punched a ham remains in question.