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Supposed Doctor Who Injected Himself With Charlie Sheen's HIV-Positive Blood: "I've Cured Countries!"

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Last night’s Real Time with Bill Maher featured a segment ultimately suggesting that if it smells like bullshit, it might be the milk of arthritic goats.

Maher hosted—and seemed to take seriously—Dr. Samir Chachoua, who famously injected himself with Charlie Sheen’s blood while treating the HIV-positive actor in Mexico, as revealed on an episode of Dr. Oz that ran earlier this month. Chachoua is not licensed to practice medicine in the U.S., a fact glossed over by Maher, who repeatedly gave the “doctor” the benefit of the doubt as a beacon of hope in the fight against AIDS. Maher furthermore denigrated the usefulness of the antiretroviral drugs that are proven life-savers to promote Chachoua’s supposed miracle cure.

http://gawker.com/charlie-sheens...

Chachoua claims his cure comes from the CAEV virus, which he says is present in the milk of arthritic goats. “This virus destroys HIV and protects people who drink it for life,” he claimed to Bill Maher. While he didn’t get into the exact science, what he’s offering is a cure not a therapy, which means that after Chachoua’s services, Sheen should be HIV free. Sheen is not HIV negative, which means that Bill Maher should not be taking this quack seriously, much less giving him ten minutes of airtime to spout his nonsense, which is full of evident contradictions. Chachoua, for example, claimed to Dr. Oz that Sheen was “the first adult in history to go HIV negative.”

That is untrue, but also it contradicts what he told Maher, which is that he eradicated HIV (as well as chikungunya) in Comoros in 2006.

“I’ve cured countries!” Chachoua claimed, sounding like a televangelist.

“[The Dr. Oz episode] just kind of [leaves] it hanging there…If he says, as he did, that it was undetectable and it stayed then why did he go back on the traditional cocktail?” said Maher, and never pressed when this went unexplained. Nor did he show any skepticism when Chachoua claimed that when Sheen was on “the incredibly powerful medical cocktails, he still showed virus.” In fact, to this, Maher said, “Right,” which it isn’t according to Sheen’s account of being undetectable on antiretroviral therapy and, oh you know, science. “As soon as he started my treatment he became undetectable,” claimed Chachoua.

Maher played a clip of Sheen complaining to Dr. Oz about migraines and “poo poo pants” as side effects of his antiretroviral therapy. “Poo poo pants, I don’t think, is a normal life,” said Maher. “It’s a horrible way to live, all these side effects disappeared the minute he started my therapy and the minute he started my therapy, his liver went to normal levels,” claimed Chachoua, uncontested. “Even the charts they held up on our show, all the great tests they showed, they were during my treatment, not theirs.”

Maher praised Chachoua for injecting himself with Sheen’s blood. (Read that surreal sentence again.) Said Maher: “You took Charlie’s blood when he was HIV positive and injected it into yourself, and Dr. Oz says, ‘That is very inappropriate.’ What I thought was, ‘That is confident.’”

Chachoua claims that in the ‘90s, he was courted by UCLA and Cedars-Sinai, who then stole his AIDS cure and buried it. HIV activist Peter Staley (How To Survive a Plague) did some digging to expose the truth behind Chachoua’s $10 million lawsuit regarding his “cure,” which Chachoua has often referenced in the name of self-promotion (it’s mentioned on his website, for example). From Staley’s Facebook:

The $10 million case that “Doctor” Sam Chachoua claims he won from L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center was another lie he told to Bill Maher. The court immediately reduced the “breach of contract” damages to $11,250 (in 2001). Cedars then successfully sued for recovery of their own court costs, in excess of that amount, and Chachoua started missing court dates after that. His own lawyer quit the case at that point. Cedars never paid him a dime.

I paid small amounts to look at the case reports, which are endless, starting in 1997, and ending in 2004. One of the court’s orders called it “the longest case in this court’s history.” If any of my legal friends want to provide a fuller account of these record, which are accessible with a PACER account, you can find them all here.

Staley’s several Facebook posts on the Real Time segment are worth perusing to get a sense of the potential danger in giving someone like Chachoua this kind of platform—these supposed miracle cures have existed for decades (and yet, HIV persists!), they conjure paranoia about a conspiracy to withhold the cure, they dissuade people from seeking therapy that actually works. It’s one thing to put a self-appointed messiah who serves goat milk and has two thirds of Yanni’s hairdo on TV—the medium thrives on eccentrics. But to do this without any hard questioning or reference to Chachoua’s blatant contradictions was incredibly irresponsible of Maher. He did a terrible job on this one.

Chachoua is shady down to the website. Earlier this month, DrSamChachoua.com was presented as a sort of fan site “created by a Group representing all the very ill and terminal patients successfully treated and cured by Dr. Sam Chachoua and the Group that actively promotes his work.”

Supposed Doctor Who Injected Himself With Charlie Sheen's HIV-Positive Blood: "I've Cured Countries!"

Now it’s written in the first person and runs Chachoua’s outlandish bio:

Hello, my name is Dr. Sam Chachoua. I am an Australian Medical Doctor registered around the world. England, Australia, Mexico, China, India and Comoros are among the places where my medical qualifications are honored and have kept me sufficiently busy over the past three decades.

In Australia and England, doctors have the qualification M. B. B. S., which is the same as the MD qualification enjoyed by American doctors. Doctors from America need to apply for a reciprocation exam to work in England and Australia and vice versa. I may one day choose to do that for America but the events of the past twenty years did not even allow that as a consideration...

Yet another inconsistency from someone who’s asking sick people to give him their money so that he can cure them. And it all took to discover that was just a few keystrokes that the Real Time team either didn’t do, or ignored for the sake of making television. (Note that in the footer of the front page, the “site owner” still reads as, as it did earlier this month: Jeunesse Institute MRF Corporation, 5Ta Avenida 5-55 Ciudad de Guatemala, 01014, Guatemala, Centro America, Contact: Dr. E. Alves – Director.)

I reached out to Chachoua, through his site, regarding the changing of his site’s contents and will update this post if/when I hear back.


“Once dates and cities are locked down, we are looking forward to four additional debates,” a source

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“Once dates and cities are locked down, we are looking forward to four additional debates,” a source from the Bernie Sanders campaign told BuzzFeed News, adding to confirmation from the Hillary Clinton camp that there will, indeed, be more Democratic debates in the presidential campaign that knows no end.


What Happened In Flint Doesn't Mean You Should Stop Drinking Tap Water

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What Happened In Flint Doesn't Mean You Should Stop Drinking Tap Water

Lead poisoning the drinking water of Flint is the worst possible disaster. It’s a breakdown of urban systems that could’ve been avoided. It’s an instance of smarmy politicians lying to their constituents. It’s one of the scariest stories I’ve had to write about in some time. But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t trust the water coming out of your tap.

Hearing Flint residents talk about undergoing blood draws to test for lead, and being counseled on how to stay healthy after long-term lead exposure, is devastating. When I learned that parents are still too afraid of contamination to bathe their kids, I wasn’t surprised—when will they not be?

Then I started to worry, too. As an American, a new mom, and an evangelical drinker of Los Angeles’s finest, I had to know: Is my hyper-optimistic allegiance to tap water misguided in light of what we’ve seen in Flint?

I spent a week trying to figure this out, and the short answer is no. But you should have some basic information about where your water comes from and how your city is testing it.

Last year I wrote a story that begged Americans to stop drinking bottled water. It hinges upon the fact that we have some of the cleanest, safest water anywhere on the planet:

Clean, safe drinking water that flows freely out of our faucets is a feat of engineering that humans have been been perfecting for two millennia. It is a cornerstone of civilization. It is what our cities are built upon. And over the years the scientists and hydrologists and technicians who help get water to our houses have also become our environmental stewards, our infrastructural watchdogs, our urban visionaries. Drinking the water these people supply to our homes is the best possible way to protect future access to water worldwide.

Naturally, whenever there is an instance where clean, safe drinking water doesn’t flow freely from our faucets, I hear from plenty of people who tell me these instances are why they drink bottled water all the time. What if? They ask. And that’s a fair question.

Under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) passed in 1974, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reviews water regulations every six years. The next review is scheduled to be completed this year.

Most of the stories you hear about water not meeting these regulations in the US are precautionary—a boil order issued when sewer lines are compromised during a natural disaster, for example. Occasionally you’ll hear about toxins accidentally entering the water. People who live in rural areas and rely on groundwater wells might see their water tainted with pesticides or other industrial chemicals leaching into the soil. But the majority of these incidents don’t happen with municipal water systems.

“Most of our water systems are publicly owned and operated and doing a great job,” said Mary Grant, the Water for All campaign director for the Food and Water Watch. “What we’re seeing is a federal decrease in funding, so our systems are faced with aging infrastructure, especially communities in Northeast and Midwest that have lead service pipes that need to be replaced.”

The problem in Flint was caused not only by aging infrastructure but also by a series of budget-driven decisions to change the water source from Lake Huron, via Detroit, to the Flint River. That also included a bad call about which kinds of chemicals to use to treat the water, to prevent the new, dirtier water source from corroding Flint’s lead-based pipes.

Lead is a tricky contaminant because it’s everywhere: in our pipes, in our plumbing, in our faucets. There is no “safe” level. But the biggest concern, from a drinking water perspective, are old service lines—not just the city’s pipes, but residential ones, too. In 1991, the EPA instituted something called the Lead and Copper Rule, which established new regulations for detecting and removing lead and copper in drinking water. (The EPA didn’t comment by publication time for this story.) However, even with these rigorous guidelines, it turns out these regulations aren’t always being followed.

What Happened In Flint Doesn't Mean You Should Stop Drinking Tap Water

This EPA graphic promoting the Safe Water Drinking Act illustrates the risks to our drinking water

For almost two years, Flint’s own water testing neglected to detect alarming lead levels, which highlights a separate problem with US testing methodology. Scientists claim that in Flint, and elsewhere, the EPA’s rigorous guidelines aren’t being followed, and that sampling methods are dramatically underestimating the amount of lead in urban water systems. That’s the assertion of Marc Edwards, Yanna Lambrinidou, and a group of researchers from Virginia Tech, the same team that first helped identify the problems in Flint.

I asked Lambrinidou, a medical ethnographer who served on the EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule task force, to give me an example of something she’s seeing during testing which the EPA explicitly says not to do. “The EPA requires that you allow the water to sit so it absorbs any lead from plumbing during those stagnation periods,” she told me. Some testing guidelines recommend running the water for several minutes or until it runs cold, which is called pre-flushing. “Flint was assuring its people that they were testing and not finding high lead,” she said. “Then Virginia Tech did the same testing but didn’t pre-flush. There was a palpable difference.”

What Happened In Flint Doesn't Mean You Should Stop Drinking Tap Water

A page of sampling instructions from the Philadelphia Water Department, annotated in red by Lambrinidou with practices that go against the EPA’s guidelines

But why would anyone do that? Lambrinidou made a good point: These agencies are under the gun to save money at any cost. Alerting consumers to potential lead contamination could put a city on the hook for costly repairs or a replacement of service lines. This gaming of the system is more frequent than you might expect; it may have happened again this week in Ohio.

I asked Lambrinidou about the claim that the US has the safest and most rigorously tested water in the world. “It is a noble claim and that should be the goal,” she said. “But it does us a disservice to make claims like that without asking for evidence to support these claims.”

So what happens if you do find elevated levels of lead—can cities really fix that? In fact, Edwards and the Virginia Tech team were the whistleblowers when Washington, DC faced a similar crisis over a decade ago. Due to excessive pipe corrosion, and another bad decision to substitute one anti-corrosive chemical with another, lead levels in some homes were found to be 83 times higher than the EPA’s “action level” of 15 parts per billion. Residents weren’t informed until six months later.

One of those residents was Mae Wu, an attorney for the health program at the National Resources Defense Council, which filed the lawsuit this week to force Flint to replace its pipes. DC has gone to great lengths to not only make necessary infrastructural improvements, Wu said, but also to educate residents about their water. “The new head of DC’s water is out in public, here on the ground, walking the streets every day,” she says. “It’s been ten years, but people in DC know to be a little more cautious.”

A video from 2014 promoting the safety and improvements of DC Water’s system, part of a large campaign around water quality

Wu lives in a 95-year-old house with old pipes, which she knew put her family at higher risk. So she sent her water to a certified lab to test it and, not surprisingly, some lead showed up. Wu consulted the National Sanitation Foundation’s (NSF) list of filters certified to remove lead, and a bunch of other potential contaminants as well. It made sense to install one as a precaution. So yes, she still drinks the tap water, but she filters it first.

But this is the other troubling thing about lead. The proposal in Flint to replace all lead service lines only fixes half the problem. The city’s pipes can be replaced with federal or state money, but homeowners also need to replace the lead pipes on their own properties. This is why low-income residents are disadvantaged in any city suffering from high lead levels—they can’t afford to upgrade.

It’s not just homeowners who can’t afford to retrofit their drinking water infrastructure. In 2008 it was revealed that the water in schools across the Los Angeles Unified School District tested high for lead. The schools promised to replace the lines. But then the recession hit, and instead of replacing pipes, schools disabled or removed drinking fountains. Students became dehydrated because they couldn’t afford the bottled water sold at school.

Protecting public water sources is important because they’re the ones being used by children and lower-income families—the populations most at risk, said Evelyn Wendel, the founder of advocacy group WeTap. “We need to pay close attention to the process of keeping our tap water publicly available with reliable drinking fountains in schools and parks,” she said. There is progress being made: California’s Assembly Bill 496, which signed by Governor Jerry Brown last year, requires that free, fresh water be available in schools, and that schools upgrade and maintain water infrastructure rather than shut it off.

What Happened In Flint Doesn't Mean You Should Stop Drinking Tap Water

WeTap has created an app to map public water fountains and worked to design new water stations with the city that will become part of LA’s urban landscape and make clean water part of LA’s civic pride.

What happened at LAUSD was unsettling to me, not only because shutting off water access was such a backwards solution, but because it felt frighteningly like some kind of dystopian future, like society was moving towards a two-tier semi-privatized water system. And this problem is only going to get worse. In many California communities this year, wells ran dry due to overtaxing of groundwater by agricultural interests. Beyond lead and other contaminants, our water security is increasingly endangered by drought, or superstorms, or sea level rise.

When my daughter was old enough to drink water I filled her sippy cup from the tap without thinking twice. Another mom raised her eyebrows. “You give your baby tap water?” Yes I did, and I still do.

But there’s a caveat. We recently moved into a 104-year-old house. The pipes are newer than that, but after what I’ve learned this week, I want to have them tested. We still drink tap water, but until I get this data about my own home, I’m filtering it first.

Should you trust your tap water? Water varies so much between cities that I can’t answer that question for you. But I can tell you the questions you should have answered so you can feel confident about drinking from your tap. We have to keep demanding these answers from the people who supply our water to us. We can’t be afraid of our water, but we have to be vigilant.

My daughter’s now a year old and her first word, in fact, was agua. She has never had a sip of bottled water in her life. When you ask her where water comes from, she doesn’t point to the fridge, or a filtered pitcher, she points to the kitchen sink. I’m committed to making sure it stays that way.

What to do if you’re worried about lead

  • Check the EPA guidelines and CDC guidelines on lead so you understand what the dangers are, how to check for signs of contamination, and some basic safety precautions. The EPA recommends lead levels below is 15 parts per billion (pbb), but if you have kids you want numbers lower than that.
  • Find your city’s testing guidelines. I asked the Los Angeles County Department of Health, and they recommended reviewing the annual report from my water company. The CD has a guide to interpreting this information, which is called a Consumer Confidence Report. Your water company is required to release this information to you.
  • Test your own tap water. Most municipal systems will do this for you, for free. If you don’t trust the utility, independent groups will test for a nominal fee. My utility doesn’t test but recommends certified testers through the state’s Water Resources Control Board.
  • If you live in an older home, test it for lead. Lead was used for pipes, and until 1978 it was also used in paint, which can flake off and be ingested. The EPA estimates that 87 percent of homes built before 1940 have lead-based paint.
  • Some filters, namely gravity-fed filters, can remove lead to EPA specifications. NSF has an entire drinking water site where you can check on the effectiveness of your filtration device—or figure out if you need one at all.
  • Test your kids for lead. If your family is at risk from any of the aforementioned situations, your doctor will probably recommend a simple blood test each year.

Top image by Chris Carlson/AP Photo

Follow the author at @awalkerinLA

Gang of a Hundred Masked Neo-Nazis Reportedly Gather in Sweden to 'Punish' Refugee Children

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A group of hundreds of people covering their faces and wearing armbands reportedly threatening to attack refugee children in Sweden this week, in what’s being called a hate crime against foreigners.

According to The Telegraph, Stockholm police say that the men gathered specifically with the intention of attacking refugees Friday night. Reports say that the men were also handing out posters demanding to give the “punishment they deserve” to “the North African street children who are roaming around.” The Guardian reports that police have several people in custody.

An eyewitness told the Aftonbladet newspaper.

“I saw maybe three people who were beaten. That was no football brawl or something similar. They targeted migrants. I was quite scared and ran away.”

A neo-Nazi group called the the Swedish Resistance Movement took responsibility for the attack in a statement, saying that they had “cleaned up criminal immigrants from North Africa that are housed in the area around the Central Station.” The group attributed its motive to the recent death of 22-year-old social worker Alexandra Mezher, who was stabbed at a refugee center for children in Sweden during a fight among teenagers.


Reports: At Least One Dead After Shooting, Stabbing at Motorcycle Expo in Denver [Updated]

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Several people have been injured after reported shooting and stabbing incidents occurred at the Colorado Motorcycle Expo in Denver, Colorado on Saturday afternoon.

According to Colorado’s 9 News, Denver Police say two people were shot and one person was stabbed near the Denver Coliseum. Denver Health, a health care organization in the area, reported a higher number, and said it was temporarily on lockdown after the incident.

Update 4:30 p.m.

Denver Post reporter Elizabeth Hernandez reported that at least one person was said to have been killed.

Authorities have yet to announce the names involved or details about the nature of the shooting; we will update this post when more information is available.

Update 4:33 p.m.

CNN reports that the Denver police will hold a news conference on the shooting soon.


500 Days of Kristin, Day 371: Picture Pages

Clinton Campaigners Being Trained To Push Unconvinced Voters To Poor Ol' Martin O'Malley

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Clinton Campaigners Being Trained To Push Unconvinced Voters To Poor Ol' Martin O'Malley

In the past politics has been called a game of chess, a dirty game, a blood sport. This year, we’ve decided to throw it all out the window; right now, presidential politics in the U.S. look a whole lot more like a giant, boring math equation.

According to a report by Buzzfeed published Saturday evening, stumpers supporting Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton have been directing voters who can’t commit to their own candidate to former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley in Iowa this weekend ahead of the caucuses. The move is an effort to take away votes from Clinton’s biggest opponent, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

One of Clinton’s 4,000 caucus captains told Buzzfeed about the strategy in Iowa, showing off an iPhone app that allowed them to track voters whom they should divert to ol’ sadsack O’Malley.

A precinct captain, Jerome Lehtola, confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the campaign has trained precinct captains to release supporters to O’Malley if the move can make him “viable” without hurting Clinton. A Clinton aide said the campaign has trained more than 4,000 volunteer precinct captains to handle a host of different scenarios, including ones where caucus-goers are released to or recruited from another camp.

This is by no means a new strategy, and has been used in the past by many candidates facing Iowa’s complex caucus system.

The Sanders campaign called the move “sad and telling,” while we can only assume that O’Malley, who is currently polling at 3 percent, is just happy to be here.

[Image via Getty]


Sunday's Best Deals: Fire TV Sticks, $120 Exercise Bike, Bluetooth Speakers, and More

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Sunday's Best Deals: Fire TV Sticks, $120 Exercise Bike, Bluetooth Speakers, and More

A $120 exercise bike, discounted Fire TV sticks, and a clever water bottle lead off Sunday’s best deals. Bookmark Kinja Deals and follow us on Twitter to never miss a deal. Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale. Click hereto learn more.


Sunday's Best Deals: Fire TV Sticks, $120 Exercise Bike, Bluetooth Speakers, and More

If you still own any TVs without access to smart apps, you can save $5 on Amazon’s excellent Fire TV Stick, or $10 on a bundle that includes a voice search remote today.

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Amazon Fire TV Stick with Voice Remote ($40) | Amazon

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Sunday's Best Deals: Fire TV Sticks, $120 Exercise Bike, Bluetooth Speakers, and More

This $120 exercise bike doesn’t have a digital screen to track your distance and calories, but guess what? Your muscles can’t tell the difference. Plus, you can use the money you saved to build a virtual reality bike riding experience. [Sunny Health & Fitness Indoor Cycle Trainer, $120]

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Sunday's Best Deals: Fire TV Sticks, $120 Exercise Bike, Bluetooth Speakers, and More

If you’re ready to graduate from smartphone photography to something a little more serious, Canon’s prosumer T5i has several discounts available on Best Best and Amazon today, complete with plenty of extras.

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Canon EOS Rebel T5i 18.0 MP CMOS Digital Camera with 18-55mm and 55-250mm Lenses plus 32GB Deluxe Accessory Bundle ($700) | Amazon

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Sunday's Best Deals: Fire TV Sticks, $120 Exercise Bike, Bluetooth Speakers, and More

Whether you need to back up your files or just store more Xbox One games, this 2TB external drive is a solid value at $70. [Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB USB 3.0 Portable External HDD, $70]

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Sunday's Best Deals: Fire TV Sticks, $120 Exercise Bike, Bluetooth Speakers, and More

Home theater PCs are great, but nobody wants to keep a mouse and keyboard on their coffee table. Luckily, this $16 wireless remote includes a keyboard and a trackpad in one tiny package. I wouldn’t want to write a novel with it, but it’s perfect for finding a new video to watch. [Seneo 2.4Ghz Mini Touchpad Keyboard with USB Interface Adapter, $16 with code 9XRAO52J]

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Sunday's Best Deals: Fire TV Sticks, $120 Exercise Bike, Bluetooth Speakers, and More

$20 water-resistant Bluetooth speakers are nothing new, but this model from Mpow cleverly includes a suction cup so you can stick it to your shower wall. It’s like one of those old FM shower radios, except you can use it to listen to Spotify and Serial. [Mpow Buckler Water-Resistant Suction Cup Bluetooth Speaker, $20 with code 9ZTOG87S]

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If you place a heavy emphasis on sound quality, the equally water resistant UE Roll is also down to $70 right now, an all-time low. [UE Roll Bluetooth Speaker, $70]

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Sunday's Best Deals: Fire TV Sticks, $120 Exercise Bike, Bluetooth Speakers, and More

Heading to the gym, but don’t want to take your wallet? This ingenious little water bottle includes a small storage compartment to hold your house key and a few cards. [Contigo AUTOSEAL Kangaroo Water Bottle with Storage Compartment, $9]

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If you like going for runs with your dog, but want to keep your hands free, this cheap running belt has a leash built right in. Genius! [Homdox Running Belt With Built-In Handsfree Dog Leash, $13 with code QNHZT382]

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Sunday's Best Deals: Fire TV Sticks, $120 Exercise Bike, Bluetooth Speakers, and More

Victorinox’s Fibrox 8” chef’s knife is one of your favorite chef’s knives period, and by far the best value in the industry. It’s also the knife I’ve used almost every day for over three years. Amazon has it for $31 right now, which is an absolute steal for the quality you’re getting. [Victorinox Fibrox 8” Chef’s Knife, $31]

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Sunday's Best Deals: Fire TV Sticks, $120 Exercise Bike, Bluetooth Speakers, and More

Whether your Xbox Live Gold membership is running low, or you just bought a new Xbox One, you can score a year of Gold for just $38 today. That’s $22 less than renewing through Microsoft. [Microsoft Xbox Live 12 Month Gold Membership, $38]

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No matter how many HDMI ports are on your TV, chances are, it’s not enough. Luckily, this affordable 4x1 HDMI switch will let you plug in three extra devices, and even watch them all at once with built-in picture-in-picture functionality. [Etekcity 4K x 2K 4 Port High-Speed HDMI Switch with IR Wireless Remote Control, $27 with code SWITCHO2]

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Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale. Send deal submissions to Deals@Gawker, click here to learn more.


Virginia Tech Athlete Arrested On Charges He Abducted & Murdered 13-Year-Old

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Virginia Tech Athlete Arrested On Charges He Abducted & Murdered 13-Year-Old

Blacksburg, Va. police today arrested Virginia Tech track athlete David Eisenhauer and charged him with the abduction and murder of a local 13-year-old.

Cops arrested Eisenhauer Saturday morning, accusing the Hokies freshman of abducting Nicole Lovell. The 13-year-old liver transplant patient had been missing since this past Wednesday. Authorities discovered her body in North Carolina later Saturday, and added murder to Eisenhauer’s charges. He is being held without bond.

Virginia Tech says Eisenhauer, an engineering major, has been suspended, while the athletics department has deleted his profile from its website. Eisenhauer was a three-time state track champion and two-time cross country runner-up during his high school career.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/...

To contact the author of this post, write to tim@deadspin.com (PGP key) or find him on Twitter @bubbaprog.

Ted Cruz's Ludicrous Voter-Shaming Mailer Is a Deceptive Sham

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Ted Cruz's Ludicrous Voter-Shaming Mailer Is a Deceptive Sham

Just when you thought Ted Cruz’s blinding asininity had reached its peak, the Republican presidential candidate achieved the unthinkable by becoming even more unlikeable.

In a move that was widely rebuked from all sides this week, Cruz’s campaign sent voting report letters to Iowa voters, informing voters that they were sent due to “low expected voter turnout in your area.” The letters were sent in envelopes with the words “VOTING VIOLATION” written in red letters on the front.

Cruz himself defended the notices, according to the Associated Press, saying that that type of tactic is “routine” and that he and his staffers are “using every tool we can” to get voters out.

As it turns out, these “voter violations” aren’t even a legitimate way to measure voter participation, and they are not official documents. The report cards say that the information was gleaned from “voting registration and voter history records” which distributed by the Iowa Secretary of State. But Iowa’s Secretary of State himself, Paul Pate, went so far to say that the notices misrepresents voter data in a statement on Saturday, according to The Hill, and that no such official violation even exists.

“Accusing citizens of Iowa of a ‘voting violation’ based on Iowa Caucus participation, or lack thereof, is false representation of an official act. There is no such thing as an election violation related to frequency of voting...Additionally, the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office never ‘grades’ voters”...Nor does the Secretary of State maintain records related to Iowa Caucus participation. Caucuses are organized and directed by the state political parties, not the Secretary of State, nor local elections officials.

Also, the Iowa Secretary of State does not ‘distribute’ voter records. They are available for purchase for political purposes only, under Iowa Code.”

It’s not clear then, whether the data released by the “voter violations” is even accurate, or whether it reflects any recorded voting trends whatsoever. Cruz, however, has said he will not apologize for the technique, and will be continuing his campaign of insufferable priggishness up until—and after—the Iowa caucuses on Monday.


Daniel Holtzclaw's File Has Been Deleted From Oklahoma's Department of Corrections Website 

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Daniel Holtzclaw's File Has Been Deleted From Oklahoma's Department of Corrections Website 

Daniel Holtzclaw, the former Oklahoma City police officer who was sentenced t0 263 years in prison for raping and assaulting black women, has been removed from the state’s DOC online logs. The website, which shows inmate’s mug shots, conviction history, and location, currently has no record of Holtzclaw.

The NYDN notes that Holtzclaw’s last known location was the Lexington Assessment and Reception Center. He was taken there for intake processing on Tuesday but has since disappeared from the online system. State officials told local NBC news station KFOR that the deletion was a security decision.

“We are not going to comment, it is a matter of security,” Terri Watkins, the Oklahoma DOC Spokesperson, told KFOR when they inquired about Holtzclaw’s location. Watkins assured the station that Holtzclaw was still in custody, but refused to disclose where he was being held.

KFOR has screenshotted the database, showing that Holtzclaw’s file—with his mug shot—was in the system on Tuesday; by Friday, however, his records had been removed. According to KFOR, none of Holtzclaw’s victims were notified about the change of status.

NYDN reports that the Oklahoma Department of Corrections houses one other former police officer, Randy Harrison. Harrison, who was convicted of manslaughter after killing an unarmed 18-year-old, is listed in the DOC’s online system.

Image via AP.

Elephant Poachers Ruthlessly Shoot Down Helicopter Pilot Who Was Tracking Them

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In a tragic role reversal above the Serengeti, a helicopter pilot who was tracking the activities of hunters in a wildlife reserve was shot down by those same poachers.

According to information released by the Friedkin Conservation Fund this week, the pilot, Roger Gower, was flying above the Maswa Game Reserve in Tanzania. He was shot down near the carcass of an elephant who was recently killed, and died after he landed. Gower, originally from the U.K., worked ferrying conservationists to camps and patrolling the area for carcasses.

Tanzanian MP Lazaro Nyalandu confirmed the news in a series of tweets, noting that the poachers responsible are still at large.

The issue of poaching in Tanzania (and other countries, for that matter) and violence is an enduring one. Poachers are often motivated by systemic poverty and lack of opportunity for other occupations, and in some countries can be shot and killed on sight. Meanwhile, conservationists have been fighting unendingly for decades to save Africa’s dwindling wildlife, particularly elephants, whose numbers have fallen by over 100,000 individuals in the past few years. Often, they face threats and violence, and more than one conservationist has been killed for protecting wildlife.


Former Donald Trump Organizer Accuses Campaign of Discrimination Against Women

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Former Donald Trump Organizer Accuses Campaign of Discrimination Against Women

One day before the Iowa caucuses, a former paid employee of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has alleged that she and other women were discriminated against and paid less than male staffers in the same positions.

On Sunday, The New York Times published a story featuring testimony from former Trump field organizer Elizabeth Mae Davidson, who worked for the campaign in Davenport, Iowa, before being fired last month. Davidson reportedly filed a complaint on Thursday with the Davenport Civil Rights Commission over alleged discrimination. From the Times:

[Davidson] said in a discrimination complaint that men doing the same jobs were paid more and were allowed to plan and speak at rallies, while her requests to do so were ignored. She also said that when she and a young female volunteer met Mr. Trump at a rally last summer, he told them, “You guys could do a lot of damage,” referring to their looks.

Read the entire story, which includes more details of the allegations and Davidson’s history with the Trump campaign, here.

[Image via Getty]


Here's Ted Cruz's Most Cringeworthy Attempt at Human Affection Yet

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Here's Ted Cruz's Most Cringeworthy Attempt at Human Affection Yet

Here it is, folks. We’ve found the most cringe-inducing video to have ever graced the internet. While groveling for the attention of voters in Iowa this weekend, Ted Cruz attempted to show a group of cameras what a human display normal familial love looks like.

http://gawker.com/watch-the-most...

“Ow ow ow!” shouts the young Cruz progeny, as her father nudges in, closer and closer, lips pursed and brow furrowed. Naturally, Cruz manages to catch the camera’s eye as he retracts, making sure they caught every moment of the spine-chilling exchange.


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

500 Days of Kristin, Day 372: Customers Who Bought Balancing in Heels Also Bought

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500 Days of Kristin, Day 372: Customers Who Bought Balancing in Heels Also Bought

The gang’s all here.

500 Days of Kristin, Day 372: Customers Who Bought Balancing in Heels Also Bought

500 Days of Kristin, Day 372: Customers Who Bought Balancing in Heels Also Bought

500 Days of Kristin, Day 372: Customers Who Bought Balancing in Heels Also Bought

500 Days of Kristin, Day 372: Customers Who Bought Balancing in Heels Also Bought

Incidentally, Molly Sims, author of The Everyday Supermodel, and Louise Roe, author of The Front Roe, blurbed Balancing in Heels.


This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photo via Getty]


Bernie Sanders' Campaign Reportedly Raised $20 Million in One Month

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Bernie Sanders' Campaign Reportedly Raised $20 Million in One Month

Bernie Sanders, a man whose personal net worth is well below his millionaire and billionaire competitors, is, according to reports, rolling in it.

Well, his campaign is rolling in it, at least. The New York Times reported on Sunday that the Sanders campaign is $20 million richer than it was last month, with the Democratic presidential candidate

In an earlier interview, Tad Devine, a senior adviser to the campaign, said Mr. Sanders’s success raising vast amounts of money from small donors separates him from other liberal candidates who generated such enthusiasm in the past but who saw their early success peter out as money ran dry. Any early momentum in the early contests Mr. Devine said in an interview, would trigger even more donations.

For some perspective, the campaign of Sanders’ competitor, Hillary Clinton, reported that it raised $37 million over the last three months of last year. Sanders, on the other hand, has been steadily increasing his fundraising efforts, and raised a total of $33 million over that same span.

[Image via Getty]


Jian Ghomeshi Begins Trial for Sexual Assault Allegations

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Jian Ghomeshi Begins Trial for Sexual Assault Allegations

On Monday, former CBC Radio host Jian Ghomeshi will face the first trial for numerous sexual assault allegations made against him, The Guardian reports. In October 2014, three women came forward with stories of abuse from Ghomeshi, with one claiming he choked her almost to the point of unconsciousness.

A CBC employee claimed Ghomeshi had once grabbed her butt at the office and told her that he wanted to “hate-fuck” her. In the following weeks, more accusers, including one male, came forward saying Ghomeshi had groped, punched or choked them without warning. The number of alleged victims had reached more than twenty.

In a now-deleted Facebook post, Ghomeshi chalked up the claims made against him “as a result of a campaign of false allegations pursued by a jilted ex girlfriend and a freelance writer.”

http://jezebel.com/jian-ghomeshi-...

Ghomeshi, who has maintained his innocence since the allegations first came to light, faces four counts of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking. According to CP24, he will also face a separate trial for another sexual assault charge from a different complainant in June.


Image via Getty.

Children Reportedly Burn to Death After Boko Haram Suicide Bombers Attack Nigerian Village, Killing 86

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Children Reportedly Burn to Death After Boko Haram Suicide Bombers Attack Nigerian Village, Killing 86

A horrific firebomb attack in Nigeria has reportedly left 86 dead, with survivors saying children were among those targeted by the extremist group Boko Haram.

Children Reportedly Burn to Death After Boko Haram Suicide Bombers Attack Nigerian Village, Killing 86

According to the Associated Press, the attack occurred Saturday night in the village of Dalori, just 3 miles away from where the group originally started. Over four hours, attackers and suicide bombers shot and burned people, many of them refugees. Soldiers couldn’t contain the attacks:

The violence continued as three female suicide bombers blew up among people who managed to flee to neighboring Gamori village, killing many people, according to a soldier at the scene who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to journalists.

Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for an increasing number of attacks in the past few years, and have killed some 20,000 people over the last six years, according to Al Jazeera.

Children Reportedly Burn to Death After Boko Haram Suicide Bombers Attack Nigerian Village, Killing 86

[Images via AP]


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

Steven Avery's New Lawyer Talks New Evidence and Mysteriously Deleted Tweets

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Steven Avery's New Lawyer Talks New Evidence and Mysteriously Deleted Tweets

On Friday’s edition of Dateline NBC, Kathleen Zellner, the new lawyer for Making A Murderer’s Steven Avery, discussed new developments in scientific testing that could help her client prove his innocence.

“Generally, since 2007, there have been significant advances in forensic testing ... the clearest way to do this is with scientific testing,” Zellner said in the interview, according to NBC News. “Am I going to tell you exactly what it is? I am not. But it’s been a long time. There was a lot of evidence that wasn’t tested.” Zellner, who is known for overturning wrongful conviction cases, believes Avery is innocent of the 2005 murder of 25-year-old Teresa Halbach.

Zellner told ABC News she purchased the same make and model as Halbach’s Rav 4 in order to examine what wasn’t tested in the vehicle at the time of the trial that should have been. She also pointed out that seven recents tweets she made about the former prosecutor in Avery’s case, as well as allegations of planted evidence were mysteriously deleted. According to WNCY, some of the deleted tweets included:

“Body was not burned in burn pit bc heat would have burned down Avery’s garage. A lot of junk science at the junkyard.”

“Culprit had to remove his own DNA from key so TH’s removed in process. Rub key on Avery’s clothes for skin cells. Presto.”

“The 22 removed from garage did not exit TH’s head. State expert failed to testify bullet exited — that 22 driven to scene.”

The attorney tweeted responses to the deletions.

Through Zellner’s Twitter, Avery also sent a message to supporters.


Image via screencap/GMA.


Idealists Won't Vote for Idealistic Candidate Because He Can't Win Because They Won't Vote For Him

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Idealists Won't Vote for Idealistic Candidate Because He Can't Win Because They Won't Vote For Him

Today, American voters can finally head to the polls to exercise their hallowed democratic right: the right to actively participate in destroying their own dreams of a better country.

The primary season is at last underway. Now is the time when progressives all across America—those who hope for a fairer, more just nation, one in which we wage a meaningful fight against inequality and take concrete steps to live up to our ideals—can at last step into the ballot box, gaze at the name of a candidate who shares all of their beliefs and ideals, and say to themselves with pride, “I guess I’ll vote for the other person, because no one will vote for the idealist.”

If you have participated in any political conversations over the past several months (and you are lucky if you have not), you have encountered this strain of thought. It is the thought pattern of those who consider themselves serious and savvy and knowledgeable political realists. Here is a classic example, though it can be found proliferating across the entire LIBERAL MEDIA. It goes a little something like this:

  1. I, an idealist who desires nothing more than a truly progressive American future, agree with the positions of Bernie Sanders.
  2. I don’t think people will vote for Bernie Sanders.
  3. I will vote for Hillary Clinton instead because it is easier for me to envision her as the winner and I don’t want to “waste” my vote.

Here we have the world’s only scenario in which idealists are able to immediately make their beliefs a reality. Unfortunately, the belief in this case is “the idealist candidate will lose.”

Yes, it is true: the idealist candidate will lose if all of the idealist voters do not vote for the idealist candidate. Funny how that works.

Vote for the candidate you agree with.

http://gawker.com/a-wild-idea-su...

[Photo: Getty]

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