No joke, Dyson fans, a great Bluetooth speaker, and Adidas shoes lead off the best deals of April 1.

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 here to learn more, and don’t forget to sign up for our email newsletter.

Top Deals

If you missed out on on last month’s Bosch Insight wiper blade sale, or if you just don’t like Bosch Insight blades, Amazon will sell you two Michelin Stealth blades today for $20. Just add any two to your cart (shipped and sold by Amazon.com), and the price will automatically be reduced to $20 at checkout. The deal even works if you buy two different sized blades, so you should have no trouble finding a combination that fits your car.

Today only, you can stock up on cheap and comfortable Hanes ComfortBlend EcoSmart t-shirts in a rainbow of colors for just $3 each, with free shipping on all orders. I imagine lots of colors and sizes will start selling out soon, so go lock in your orders now.

If you don’t mind refurbished, and you shouldn’t, Dyson’s AM09 Fan Heaters are priced to move air at $220 today only. Three colors available.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DOC14AA/...

That’s still a pretty penny for either a fan or a space heater, but it’s hard to complain about getting both in one device you actually like looking at. I’ve been a huge fan of mine, which I also bought refurbished last year.

We see a fair number of deals on standard (A19) LED light bulbs, but if you have some recessed lighting fixtures that could use an upgrade, this dimmable Philips BR30 bulb is marked down to $7 right now on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MZX4WRC?...

Not only does this car charger include Quick Charge 3.0 for an unprecedented $11, it also features a USB-C port for the most cutting edge phones and laptops. We’d normally expect a car charger with one of those features to cost more than $11, so this really is a huge steal.

http://www.amazon.com/Charger-Tronsm...

Whether your current mouse is giving you chronic wrist pain, or you just want to try something different, this 4.6 star rated ergonomic vertical mouse is only $15 today. In addition to the clever design, it even comes with three adjustable DPI settings, which is pretty rare at this price level.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016MXPQMA?...

The new DJI Phantom 4 sure looks impressive, but for $1000 less, you can pick up the still-completely-amazing Phantom 3 Standard today. You’ll lose out on features like the (finnicky) accident avoidance, indoor positioning, and 4K video, but the camera still boasts an impressive 2.7K resolution, and it’ll last over 20 minutes on a single charge. At $400, it probably won’t even eat up your entire tax refund.

http://gizmodo.com/the-new-phanto...

Normally, a 23" IPS monitor for $144 wouldn’t be particularly noteworthy, but today, it comes with a $75 Dell promo gift card. That gift card value is only valid for 90 days, but you can use it on anything Dell sells, including video games.

Note: Use promo code APRIL1 to knock the price down to $144.

The UE Boom 2 is the waterproof sequel for one of the best Bluetooth speakers of all time, and Amazon’s marked it down to $150 today, an all-time low.

http://gizmodo.com/ue-boom-2-the-...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B014M8ZO8S/...

If you’ve been meaning to wall-mount your TV, you can save 50% on this articulating Cheetah mount on Amazon with promo code XPGXFOL7. This dual-arm mount is designed for 32"-65" TVs, which should be perfectly suitable for almost all of you. [Cheetah Mounts APDAM2B Articulating Dual Arm TV Wall Mount, $35 with code XPGXFOL7]

Rubbermaid’s FastTrack garage storage system is Amazon’s top seller in the category, and the proud owner of a 4.4 star review average. If you have a garage or shed, this is a requisite purchase at $26, matching an all-time low.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003VTZ700/...

Dorco, the best deal in razor blades and supplier of Dollar Shave Club, is offering a BOGO deal on their popular Pace 4 razor today. Just add two to your cart, and use promo code BOGOPACE4 to get one for free. Plus, all orders ship for free.

Note: Each unit comes with a handle and two cartridges, so you’ll get two handles and four total cartridges with this deal.

Today only, Amazon’s offering big savings on several Adidas men’s basketball shoes and flip flops, ranging from $14-$55. Like all Gold Box deals, these prices are only available today, or until sold out, so don’t let the shot clock expire.

Anker makes some of the best speakers earbuds battery packs charging cables on the market, and you can pick up a 2-pack of 6' Lightning cables today for $14. We might occasionally see cheaper 6' models, but none from manufacturers as well-regarded as Anker.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QGDRIDM/...

We see plenty of deals on Bluetooth transmitters and receivers, but this $17 gadget includes both. That means you can use it to add Bluetooth receiving capabilities to your favorite old speakers and headphones, or flip a switch and add Bluetooth streaming to an old MP3 player.

http://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Blueto...

$24 is a good price for any 20,000mAh battery pack, but it’s especially enticing for one that includes both microUSB and Lightning inputs for recharging. iPhone users: This means you won’t have to carry around an extra cord when you travel.

http://www.amazon.com/20000mAh-Porta...

If your PlayStation Plus subscription or Xbox Live Gold membership is getting close to its expiration date, or (gasp) you just don’t have one at all, you can grab a 12 month membership to either today for $40.

Need some fresh denim? You can save a bunch of money filling up your cart at Levi’s today. These might seem like some pretty large order sizes, but jeans wear out, and hitting the $250 threshold will net you a whopping $100 off your order. You’ll also easily qualify for free shipping by qualifying for these promotions. Don’t forget promo code HEAD2TOE.

Tell us what you’re picking up in the comments.

For a few years now, Antec’s USB-powered HDTV bias light has been one of our most reliably popular deals whenever it went on sale. The problem: It only got a significant discount once every few months. Luckily, a copycat has emerged to fill in the gap.

http://bestsellers.kinja.com/bestsellers-an...

Just like the Antec model, these Vansky LED light strips plug directly into your TV’s USB port for power, and sticks to the back of the set via built-in adhesive. Once you turn your TV on, the light strip will cast a soft glow on the wall behind it, which can reduce eyestrain when watching in the dark, and improve your TV’s perceived black levels.

Whenever we post a deal on the Antec light, it sells out within hours. I’m not sure if that’ll be the case today, but I wouldn’t take any chances.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01A9RN2L2?...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01A9RN0UK?...

Final Fantasy XV is up for preorder on Amazon, which means that Prime members can save 20% on their order, including on the Deluxe Edition. Just note that you won’t see your discount until checkout.

Here’s your occasional reminder that Prime entitles you to 20% off any preorder or newly released physical video game, so check out our upcoming game calendar for some more savings opportunities.

http://deals.kinja.com/calendar-of-up...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DJPA9YE/...

http://www.amazon.com/Final-Fantasy-...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DJPA8WC/...

http://www.amazon.com/Final-Fantasy-...

When it comes to smartphone dash mounts, magnetic solutions have dominated the sales charts over the last year or so. But if you don’t want to obstruct a vent, or use a case with your phone, a these deals might bring you back into the suction cup camp.

First up, iOttie’s One Touch 2 universal dash mount is marked down to $13, matching an all-time low. The original One Touch won a Kinja Co-op a few years back, and the sequel added a longer telescoping arm, as well as a bigger cradle for today’s skateboard-sized phones.

http://www.amazon.com/iOttie-Holder-...

And if you’ve got $40 to spare, and hate plugging and unplugging a power cord every time you get in the car, the iOttie One Touch Wireless is also marked down to an all-time low price today. This thing is basically just a One Touch 2, but with a Qi charger built right in for hassle-free charging. That’s no use for iPhone owners, but if you own a modern Android phone, I’d say it’s well worth the price premium.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UXS7958/...

It might not be mission-critical equipment for your home, but a good label maker is a nice gadget to keep around, and Amazon’s top seller is back down to $10 today, if you missed out on the same (short-lived) discount earlier this month

If you remember the old label makers that literally pressed the letters into a piece of tape, this is a bit more advanced than what you’re picturing. The Dymo LabelManager 160 can print in eight fonts at six sizes, along with clipart and special characters, and you can even preview the entire label on its LCD screen before you print. Every time we post this deal, it sells out quickly, so you’ll want to grab yours fast.

http://www.amazon.com/DYMO-LabelMana...

Tech

Storage

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B010Q57T02/...

Power

http://www.amazon.com/Inateck-4-Port...

http://www.amazon.com/20000mAh-Porta...

$17 | BYTECH Universal 14,000mAh Portable Power Pack | B&H

Audio

http://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Blueto...

http://www.amazon.com/Aukey-Headphon...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B019T37MGI/...

$55 | Jaybird BlueBuds X Premium Bluetooth Buds | Walmart

$20 | Microsoft MD-12 Portable Wireless Speaker | Microsoft

Home Theater

$35 | Cheetah Mounts APDAM2B Articulating Dual Arm TV Wall Mount | Amazon | Promo code XPGXFOL7

$650 | Samsung 40 Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart TV w/ $200 Gift Card | Dell

$270 | LG 32 Inch 1080p LED TV 32LF5600 HDTV w/ $100 Gift Card | Dell

$65 | Sony - BDPS3500 - Streaming Wi-Fi Built-In Blu-ray Player | eBay

$400 | Pioneer Elite 1155W 7.2-Ch. 4K Ultra HD and 3D Pass-Through A/V Home Theater Receiver Black VSX-90 | Best Buy

Computers & Accessories

$240 | ASUS Transformer Book T100 CHI 10.1" Display w/ Intel Atom, 2GB RAM, 64GB eMMC | eBay

$100 | HP Officejet Pro e-All-in-One Printer (8610) | Staples

PC Parts

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0134EW7G8/...

Mobile Devices

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QGDRIDM/...

$850 | Apple 12.9-Inch iPad Pro with Wi-Fi - 128GB | Best Buy

Photography

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008B489RS/...

Home

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005X9VZ70/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AZBIXHG/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DOC14AA/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MZX4WRC/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B017XHQ8L2?...

$5 | $10 Starbucks Gift Card | Groupon

$52 | Patio Smoker Grill | eBay

Select Vinyl and Laminate Flooring is On Sale at Home Depot

$299 | Garden Oasis Harrison 7 Piece Dining Set | Sears

Apparel

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LIY1ROA/...

50% Off Regular Priced Shirts at BustedTees with Code FCKQHNP

Up to 50% off Adidas Men’s Basketball Shoes & More | Amazon

$11 | Crocs Womens Mammoth Disc Flats | eBay

$264 | Bulova Men’s 96B175 Precisionist Chronograph Stainless Steel Blue Dial Watch | eBay

Beauty & Grooming

$124 | Sunny Health & Fitness Mini Crazy Fit Massager | Walmart

Kitchen

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015NTC5CS?...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B014CW3IDW?...

$40 | Cuisinart 16-Piece Stoneware Set | Woot

$44 | Chefman - 6-Quart Slow Cooker | eBay

Camping & Outdoors

$33 | Kelty Folding Cooler | REI

Tools & Auto

$40 | Uniden - Dash Cam | eBay

$23 | 20 Ft 4 Gauge Heavy Duty Booster Cable | eBay

Media

Movies & TV

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BEYYEJ4/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LAIGXM/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002ZTQVBQ/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007JNTOBC/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BEYYEIK/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LG6XHDY/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000Y5CHIE/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003EYVXTQ/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AEFXNGE/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AEFY0QG/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G6IOZEW/...

Get $1 Off a Redbox Rental with Code APRILFOOLS | Must Redeem Online

Books

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OYCW4RW/...

$5 | A Confederacy of Dunces Audiobook | Audible

Apps

$1 | video player OPlayer HD - classic media player for iPad | iOS | Normally $5

$1 | Game Dev Story | iOS | Normally $5

$1 | Cut The Rope 2 | iOS | Normally $2

$1 | Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders | Android | Normally $3

$3 | Splendor | Android | Normally $7

Gaming

Peripherals

$59 | Refurb Logitech G710 PLUS Mechanical Keyboard | Newegg

PC

http://www.amazon.com/Rocket-League-...

$1 | Aperture Tag: The Paint Gun Testing Initiative | Steam

$20 | Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition | Steam

$9 | Super Robot Jump Jump | Steam

$12 | GUILTY GEAR 2 -OVERTURE | Steam

$5 | Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition | Steam

$3 | Knights of Pen and Paper 2 | Steam

PlayStation 4

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X8Y18U6/...

http://www.amazon.com/Fantasy-Remast...

$20 | The Crew Wild Run Edition | Best Buy

$54 | Dragon Quest Heroes Slime Collector’s Edition | GameStop

$70 | Tales of Zestiria Collector’s Edition | GameStop

Xbox One

$11 | Forza 5 | Rakuten

$20 | The Crew Wild Run Edition | Best Buy

FREE | The Wolf Among Us | Xbox Live Gold

FREE | Dead Space (Xbox 360) | Xbox Live Gold

$5 | PowerA IR Extender for Xbox One | Best Buy

Toys

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001I912SQ/...

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 here to learn more, and don’t forget to sign up for our email newsletter. We want your feedback.

Most people are lucky to land one prominent role as a TV villain, but Katrina Pierson has two: Not only does she appear on cable news almost every night defending the unhinged, hateful words of her boss Donald Trump, she’s also somehow a cast member of “Sisters in Law,” a reality TV show about lawyers, I think.

Based on watching the above preview clips of Thursday’s episode, I’ve figured out the following:

1. The other women on the show hate Katrina because she’s a Republican

2. She got kicked out of some woman’s house (haha)

3. She gets a lot of shit for working with Donald

4. She does a lot of phony hugging and saying of Heeeyyyyy!!

5. The spokesperson for the Donald Trump presidential campaign has been on a reality TV show for three episodes this year and no one noticed.

Sucky behavior on a silly TV show: Just one more thing Katrina Pierson has in common with Trump.

The publicist who sent me these clips asked if I would include the following message, and because it’s April Fool’s Day and everyone’s in a good mood, why not:

If you could include a line saying that “Sisters in Law” airs on Thursdays at 10/9c on WE tv, that would be amazing. FYI - Katrina will be back on the show airing 4/14.

Please note that neither myself nor Gawker Media has watched this show, nor do we condone or endorse its contents.

“My every waking hour is to try to stop Donald Trump from being our nominee,” Rand Paul once said of the man he will be voting for in November.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reported on Friday that Paul said he would support the Republican presidential frontrunner if he earns the nomination, as a vote for a man he once called a “delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag” is better than a vote for his likely opponent, Hillary Clinton.

“I think we never get the candidate we exactly want unless you’re the candidate,” Paul said. “Think about it from this perspective: I’m from Kentucky, and Hillary Clinton recently said she would put coal miners out of business, and she would put coal companies out of business.”

Previously, Paul called Trump a “disaster for the Republican Party,” said he was “bad for America,” compared him to Gollum from the Lord of the Rings, and said he’s was “not sure I would say Trump is Hitler – Goebbels maybe.”

Such is the cycle of American politics, wherein a groveling, dejected flop must cannibalize his own values, swallow the lump in his staunchly libertarian throat, and place a vote for his orange-faced nightmare.

[Image via Getty]

“The throw almost hit Chris Christie in the head,” said Peter Monaco, a Mets fan who spoke to The New York Times for an interesting piece on the people pictured in an iconic photo showing the moment their team lost last year’s World Series. Really makes you think of a younger Christie, whose only fear is a whizzing baseball.

Scottish Labour Party leader Kezia Dugdale keeps her personal life close to her chest, but recently announced that she is in a same-sex relationship. Counting Dugdale, the majority of Scotland’s major party leaders have come out as lesbian, gay, or bisexual.

According to the Independent, Scotland is “the only country in the world where the majority of its mainstream party leaders are out as LGB. Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Green Party Patrick Harvie, and Ukip Scotland leader David Coburn have all come out as LGB.”

The public has applauded the graceful way Dugdale, in an interview with the Fabian Review, referred to her relationship:

And while it’s important that Dugdale mentions her relationship without “fanfare”—and that there was relatively little to-do as a result—members and allies of the LGBT community celebrate her openness. Little by little, queer-identified people are finding representation in public forums.

And Dugdale, in turn, has tweeted out her appreciation of everyone’s support, emojis included.

“I have a female partner,” Dugdale told The Independent. “I don’t talk about it very much because I don’t feel I need to. And there’s something too about how meteoric my career has been. I am generally calm, almost serene. I don’t get easily stressed or battered. But I need a bit of stability to do that, and that means my private life is my private life. That’s the thing I have to have that nobody gets to touch, and that gives me strength to be calm elsewhere.”

Top Image via Getty. Embedded Images via Twitter.

Bloggers, perennial warriors of the web, do not have many things to call “wins.” But today is a day for bloggers to rejoice, for they have won the word “internet.”

The Associated Press, that staunch bastion of the rigid strictures of journalistic will, has officially bent to the will of this army of sniveling, red-eyed bloggers. After holding out for decades, the AP announced on Saturday that it would no longer require the word “internet” to be capitalized in its stylebook, which most large publications follow with great diligence.

The reasons for this are manifold, as The New Republic’s Adam Nathanel Peck so rightly argued last year:

The giveaway, say linguists, is that pesky little determiner that usually accompanies the word internet. ‘We use ‘the’ when we talk about the internet, and that perpetuates the usage of the uppercase,’ said Katherine Connor Martin, the head of U.S. English Dictionaries at Oxford University Press. It’s the difference between an internet and the Internet. The word’s origins date back to the 1970s, when an ‘inter-network’ was just a collection of smaller networks that communicated using the same protocols. Functionally, the internet of today is just the largest example of an internet—which, incidentally, means that the word entered our vocabulary in lowercase.

There are some members of the Establishment, however, who cannot and will not see reason. The fuddy-duddies New York Times, which has its own style guide, continues to so chaffingly use the word “Internet,” and it’s not clear whether they will stop.

As any blogger who has been using the word in its decapitalized state for years knows, it is an idiotic and nonsensical thing to capitalize the word “internet,” as if it were some holier-than-thou proper noun, and it must stop now. For the love of the World Wide Web, just don’t do it!

Last week, celebrity gossip website Fameolous posted a video that it said showed Los Angeles Laker Nick Young admitting to cheating on his fiancée, pop star Iggy Azalea. It further claimed that the video was recorded by Young’s teammate, D’Angelo Russell.

Normally, something posted on Fameolous wouldn’t merit a second glance. After all, here’s Fameolous’s “Disclaimer” section:

Data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only. Fameolous.com makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. Fameolous.com will be happy to remove any post that false.

But this video looked accurate, complete, and current. Russell and Young appear to be sitting in a hotel room, and the 20-year-old Russell peppers his 30-year-old teammate with questions about women. Some of the dialogue is obscured by a TV blaring E!, but you can hear Young talk about hooking up with a 19-year-old “after the club.”

From Fameolous—a relatively small player in the dizzyingly convoluted celebrity gossip world—the story spread to much larger outlets, like popular gossip website Media Take Out, hip-hop site the Source, gossip/sports site Black Sports Online, and forums such as Reddit. But no mainstream sports sites, including ESPN and Yahoo Sports, and certainly no mainstream news sites covered the video.

News organizations don’t know how to cover stories like the one broken by Fameolous. While the celebrity gossip and celebrity gossip-adjacent media thrive upon public discussion of the most mundane private details of celebrities’ lives, the rest of the news industry generally treats something like alleged cheating as non-reportable. The provenance of a video that was likely hacked or leaked—Fameolous gave no indication of how it was obtained—also gave traditional media pause.

Newspapers and network broadcasters used to control the means of production: If it wasn’t on the front page or on the 11 o’clock newscast, it wasn’t news. But the democratization of the media—everybody is a reporter! All you need is an Internet connection!—means entire news cycles can pass by without the participation of anything you might call a mainstream news source. In this case, there was a story that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of basketball fans knew about, without ESPN or Yahoo or the Los Angeles Times writing a single word.

The democratization of the news media also inspired anxiety that as the traditional gatekeepers fell, so would traditional media ethics. It was a funny worry—“traditional” journalists are just people who are paid to be rude, and “traditional” newspapers began as and sometimes still are propaganda organs for their owners—but also one that turns out to have been misplaced. The D’Angelo Russell–Nick Young story shows how much consensus there still is on media ethics. Everyone broadly agrees that nobody should care about whom Nick Young has sex with if there are no ramifications beyond the sex. In this respect, at least, there is still plenty of gatekeeping of the news.

The dam broke late Tuesday night, when ESPN reported on the video’s existence, five days after it first came to attention. But its report was less about the video itself than about the havoc it wreaked. It was about how the Lakers don’t trust Russell anymore, how they’re isolating him, how locker room tension contributed to a 48-point loss to the Utah Jazz. It’s a very strange construction: Something that was not in itself news had become news, therefore granting the video itself retroactive news status.

By laundering the story into the mainstream press, ESPN gave permission to other sports news organizations—no matter how virtuous—to write about the incident. Some covered it almost purely on basketball terms—will the Lakers trade Russell?—while others clearly saw the traffic-driving potential (most Deadspin stories don’t get 1.1 million page views) of a teammate filming another teammate seemingly admitting to cheating on his mega-famous pop star fiancée.

This is how the news business works now. Something explosive “surfaces”—sometimes the verb surfaces is used to purposefully obscure the origin while other times it’s the best you can do after diving down a bottomless sourcing rabbit hole—and makes its way to forums and social media. It gets picked up by newslike entities, or news entities that specialize in tabloid coverage, but it gets stuck there, in a kind of pre-news purgatory. Whether it makes it to mainstream news organizations and therefore popular consciousness depends upon whether there is an angle—or somebody can manufacture an angle—that makes it “news.”

That’s what happened here, as the story filtered from a fringe celebrity gossip site to more legitimate ones, and then almost a week later to the mainstream, non-celebrity media once there was an acceptable angle—locker room strife!—to report on. To ESPN’s credit, the story of the bad Lakers veterans shunning their No. 2 draft pick, their future, is absolutely interesting and worthwhile. It wasn’t some lame attempt to horn in on the traffic of a scandal, but something within their mission.

Recently, I broke the news that the University of Wisconsin had conducted a formal investigation into claims that former basketball coach Bo Ryan had spent school funds on a longtime mistress. Rumors of something were swirling in Madison as far back as last summer, but none made it further than college basketball message boards. Reporters covering the team knew about the rumors but didn’t report on them. Even if they’d had proof Ryan was cheating on his wife—and I don’t think they did—the story still wouldn’t have been deemed news. I filed a public records request and obtained an email that Ryan’s mistress had sent Wisconsin officials detailing claims that state funds had been misused. All of a sudden the story was news—there were allegations from an in-the-know party that the highest-paid state official had abused his office, and university lawyers conducted a thorough investigation. They concluded no university resources had been misused, and Ryan and Wisconsin’s athletic director swear the ordeal was not the cause of his abrupt midseason resignation in December.

This general cycle is happening everywhere. Hundreds of political reporters heard rumors that Ted Cruz had cheated on his wife—and dozens looked into those rumors—but nobody wrote about it until the National Enquirer alleged he had five mistresses. Rumors that Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley was sleeping with a staffer percolated to hyperlocal Alabama blogs and social media last year, and AL.com made the somewhat unusual decision that the rumors were loud enough to warrant reporting on their existence. Finally, last week it was reported that there was audio, and AL.com eventually obtained and published some of it.

Almost as interesting as which outlets reported on the Russell-Young video and when they did so were the reactions by media critics afterward. There was general agreement that the video wasn’t “news” but that its fallout was, but disagreement over how that coverage was and should be framed. Within the NBA, Russell—the one who violated his teammate’s trust by recording him—was labeled a pariah, and that’s what most stories focused on. But wait a minute, some people asked: Isn’t Nick Young the one in the wrong here? After all, there would’ve been nothing scandalous if he hadn’t seemingly admitted to cheating on his fiancée!

That is one of the points being argued in this awful Twitter canoe started by Sports Illustrated media reporter Richard Deitsch and featuring a number of well-known sports reporters. There is conflation of criticism of Russell’s actions with acceptance of Young’s, a bizarre plea for sports reporters to do more gossip reporting under a misguided notion of equality for women, and completely off-base comparisons between the video and leaked audio of Donald Sterling—a documented racist slumlord—uttering racist musings.

It’s a slippery road to go down. In the past, sportswriters knew more about the private lives of the athletes and coaches than the general public; for reasons of propriety (or for reasons of source preservation masquerading as reasons of propriety), they mostly didn’t report on these things. Today, the general public knows a lot about the private lives of the athletes and coaches—just as much as the sportswriters, if not more. Now, instead of being in a position of preventing sensitive information from getting out, journalists need to prevent certain kinds of information from getting in. Sports media outlets are still policing the old wall. It’s just they’re on a different side of the door.

The bigger question is whether this is a healthy state of affairs. How many consequential stories were held for months—or never published at all—in an effort to hew to journalistic standards? When hundreds of thousands of people are talking about something, shouldn’t the people whose job it is to inform the public lend their expertise, rather than pretend it isn’t happening?

It was pretty easy to answer how the D’Angelo Russell–Nick Young video should be reported; there’s no guarantee the next gossip-based scandal will be so easy.

This story was originally published on Slate.

Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service has been spying on Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office for years, according to the German newspaper Der Spiegel.

The report notes that the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t the only target—the interior ministries of Austria and Belgium, the UK Defense Ministry, the headquarters of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and International Monetary Fund, the U.S. Air Force and NASA were all mentioned, too.

Last Der Spiegel reported the intelligence agency was monitoring communication devices used by staffers at the embassies and consulates of the U.S., UK, France, Sweden, Spain and others. It even go caught spying on the Vatican and the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who once declared that “spying among friends, that’s just wrong” after reports surfaced that the U.S. National Security Agency had tapped her own phone, has not yet commented.

[Image via Getty]

At an April 2 conference held at Boston University, literary journalist Gay Talese remarked to his audience that he could not name a single woman writer who inspired him. Wow guy!

According to the New York Daily News, Talese told the crowd of journalists and writers at a conference called “The Power Of Narrative” that women “aren’t interested in ‘uneducated’ or ‘anti-social’ types.” Thus, he is less inclined to admire them.

“I didn’t know any women writers that I loved,” he said, warming the hearts of reasonable human beings everywhere.

A prominent name in the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 70s, Talese is one of the first writers to unite intense reporting with a writer’s subjective experience, and to cultivate the consciously literary style we’ve come to associate with much of long form journalism and nonfiction. Hunter S. Thompson and Truman Capote also rank among the New Journalism pioneers — and so does Joan Didion. But according to Talese, women are too uncomfortable speaking with strangers to compose quality nonfiction. And when the audience suggested that Didion might have served as an inspiration, Talese demurred. After all, she did not “report on anti-social people.”

Unsurprisingly, these remarks—and, not to mention, flagrantly uninformed generalizations—have been met with acute backlash, and the news has traveled rapidly across social media.

The hashtag #womengaytaleseshouldread is also in play on Twitter, should you care to offer Mr. Talese some suggestions. He purportedly loves George Eliot’s Middlemarch, so as long as you limit yourself to women writers after roughly 1871, you should be in the clear. (We might also want to verify that Talese knows “George Eliot” was the pen name of Victorian polymath Mary Ann Evans — not yet another dude.)

Stay tuned for Gay Talese’s damage control “Woke Bae” campaign.

Top Image via Getty. Embedded Images via Twitter.

Donald Trump’s abortion policy, like his hair, is a confusing mess of ever-changing threads, all of which are at odds with one another.

After saying this week that women who get abortions in the U.S. should face “some form of punishment,” Trump backtracked, saying that the laws should not be changed to outlaw abortions—a statement which his press officer immediately contradicted. The only thing that’s clear is that Trump’s views on abortion are not clear.

For a Sunday column in The New York Times, Maureen Dowd had an interesting question for the Republican presidential frontrunner: had he, over the course of his storied, swinging youth, ever involved with the type of woman whom he suggests now punishing. Trump’s answer is about as suggestive as it could be:

When he was a swinging bachelor in Manhattan, was he ever involved with anyone who had an abortion?

“Such an interesting question,” he said. “So what’s your next question?”

Such an interesting answer!

[Image via Getty]

The phrase “full-blown nut job” is not always a nice way to describe someone. But it may be, in some cases, an accurate way.

For this week’s cold open on Saturday Night Live, Kate McKinnon was CNN’s Kate Bolduan, while Cecily Strong took on real-life nut Scottie Nell Hughes, a Trump supporter and conservative pundit.

It’s a great skewer of Trump supporters. But for a fake media interview, it’s almost too close to life. Nell Hughes even predicted her own appearance last month, saying that Trump supporters “have been abused, they have been slaughtered, they have been made fun of, on everything from the nightly news to Saturday Night Live.”

An Amtrak train veered off the rails on Sunday morning, causing a crash that killed two people and injured others.

According to The New York Times, the lead engine of Amtrak’s Train 89 came off the tracks during a ride from New York City to Savannah, Georgia. It was carrying 340 passengers and seven crew members. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that there were two fatalities.

Amtrak has been under fire since last year, when a derailment killed eight people and injured 200 more. According to data from the Federal Railroad Administration, trains derail about 30 times each year.

[Image via Getty]

Donald Trump, as is his wont, gave an absolutely bonkers interview this week, this time to venerate reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of The Washington Post. The transcript, which reads like the transcript of a young child’s screed about wanting to be king of the playground, is chock-full of bizarre ramblings from the Republican presidential frontrunner. And through it all, Woodward and Costa try in vain, sometimes hilariously so, to get a single coherent answer out of Trump.

After one lengthy back-and-forth wherein Woodward and Costa try and fail to get Trump to tell them exactly when he actually decided to run for president, the reporters bring up what now seems such an obvious question: didn’t anyone warn you?

BW: Did anyone recommend no? Did your wife, or did your son?

DT: Oh. Yeah.

BW: Did anyone say, “Dad, Donald, don’t do it?”

DT: I think my wife would much have preferred that I didn’t do it. She’s a very private person. She was a very, very successful — very, very successful model. She made a tremendous amount of money and had great success and dealt at the . . . .

BW: What’d she say?

DT: She was, she said, we have such a great life. “Why do you want to do this?” She was . . . .

BW: And what’d you say?

DT: I said, “I sort of have to do it, I think. I really have to do it.” Because it’s something I’d be — I could do such a great job. I really wanted to give something back. I don’t want to act overly generous, but I really wanted to give something back.

Another awkward exchange came up when the conversation turned to former President Richard Nixon, and Trump seemed not to understand the gravity of the Watergate scandal, which Woodward himself helped uncover. The segment is poignant—and the parallels to Trump’s evocation of hatred in the U.S.—is all too real:

DT: ....And Nixon failed, I think to a certain extent, because of his personality. You know? It was just that personality. Very severe, very exclusive. In other words, people couldn’t come in. And people didn’t like him. I mean, people didn’t like him.

BW: And he broke the law.

DT: And he broke the law, yeah. Yeah. He broke the law. Whether that’s insecurity . . . .

BW: I mean, you listen to those tapes, and he’s a criminal.

DT: Yeah. Whether that’s — right. And he broke the law.

BW: And time and time again, break in, get the FBI on this, get the IRS on.

DT: Sure. Sure.

BW: I mean, it is an appalling legacy of criminality.

DT: Right.

BW: And at the end, the day he resigned, an amazing day, he gives that speech which is kind of free association about mom and dad.

DT: Right.

BW: He’s sweating. And then he said, “Always remember: Others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.” The piston was hate.

DT: Well, and he was actually talking very much about himself, because ultimately, ultimately, that is what destroyed him. Hate is what destroyed him. And such an interesting figure. I mean, you would know that better than anybody. But such an interesting figure. And such a man of great talent. I mean, Nixon had great potential, great talent. Unfortunately it was a very sad legacy in the end. It turned out to be a very sad legacy. Such an interesting figure to study. I think. . . .

Those are only the tip of the iceberg for this interview, which also includes Trump misreading the success of Vince Lombardi, and promising to give the names of 10 to 12 people he wants to nominate to the Supreme Court. I highly recommend you read it here, if you can stomach it, and what Woodward thought of the interview here.

In November, artist Petr Pavlensky—now famous for nailing his scrotum to the ground in the Red Square—set fire to the wooden doors of Moscow’s Federal Security Service headquarters. He stood there quietly with the gasoline canister for about 30 seconds until he was arrested. He was charged with “vandalism motivated by ideological hatred.” This week, psychiatric experts declared Pavlensky sane and fit to stand trial for his actions, RIA Novosti reports.

It’s a big bad building with history. It’s the former headquarters of the “Cheka,” Soviet’s first secret police who boiled the Bolsheviks’ enemies alive. During the Great Purge in the 1930s, a busy time when up to 1.2 million people were executed, the offices became so overcrowded that the building had to be expanded. (Here’s a Soviet joke: “Lubyanka” is the tallest building in Moscow... because you can see Siberia from the basement!) The KGB headquarters moved in in the 1950s. Now it’s home to the FSB and the Border Guard Service of Russia.

In statements posted online later, Pavlesnky condemned the FSB for rekindling Soviet-style oppression, “terrorizing” the people and “annihilating” their free will in fear of retaliation “within the range of security cameras, phone-tapping and passport controlled borders” of their Big Russian Brother. In the art world, the action seemed to go over well. It was even (briefly) nominated for a state art prize.

The court itself delivered a twisted sort of artistic validation. After months of arrest (and ten days in solitary confinement for “breaking light bulbs”), Pavlesnky’s vandalism charge just got upgraded to “damaging a cultural heritage site.” According to Grani.ru, Pavlensky says the court told him that’s because many notable people were killed in this building. He half-smiles as he talks about this. Journalists laugh nervously. “Absurd,” they say. “Kafka.”

Pavlensky was ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation in January. Poetically, he was sent to another historical building, the Serbsky Center where masses of Soviet dissidents used to get diagnosed with “sluggish schizophrenia.”

He’s been there before, in 2015, naked on a wall with big knife. He sliced off his right earlobe, then quietly sat there bleeding until the cops took him down.

He spent several days in a psychiatric ward, successfully convincing people that he is sane. The performance, he said, condemned the government for reviving the practice of using psychiatric institutions to silence and isolate “crazy” dissenters and nonconformists.

Like “Lubyanka,” the Serbsky Center continues to be notorious. In 2014, anti-Putin protester Mikhail Kosenko was declared insane here and sentenced to indefinite psychiatric treatment. The captured Ukrainian air force pilot Nadya Savchenko was also evaluated at Serbsky, before she was charged with the murder of two Russian journalists last week under iffy legal circumstances.

In 2013, Pavlesnky appeared naked and wrapped in a cocoon of barbed wire in front of the main entrance to the Legislative Assembly in St. Petersburg, remaining passive until cops clipped him out. He said it was a metaphor for an oppressed society, i.e. the “gutless and securely guarded cattle, which can only consume, work and reproduce.” That same year, he nailed his scrotum to the ground in Red Square on Russian Police Day. He said it was a metaphor for the Russian society and its “apathy, political indifference and fatalism.”

I can only guess what symbolic building he’s going to be headed to after his trial if convicted.

Thumbnail in top YouTube via Varlamov.ru.

How do you hide billions of dollars from the world when you’re one of the most famous people on Earth? According to a massive new leak that’s being called the largest of its kind in history, it’s not so hard these days.

On Sunday, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung released what it’s calling the Panama Papers, amounting to 2.6 terabytes of data, 11.5 million files

The reveal concerns Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonesca, the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, which specializes in managing money in offshore jurisdictions like the British Virgin Islands. The leak, given to Süddeutsche Zeitung by an anonymous whistleblower, was handled collaboratively by 400 journalists from more than 100 media organizations, over 80 countries. From Süddeutsche Zeitung:

Among others, Mossack Fonsecas’ clients include criminals and members of various Mafia groups. The documents also expose bribery scandals and corrupt heads of state and government. The alleged offshore companies of twelve current and former heads of state make up one of the most spectacular parts of the leak, as do the links to other leaders, and to their families, closest advisors, and friends. The Panamanian law firm also counts almost 200 other politicians from around the globe among its clients, including a number of ministers.

The Guardian notes that some of the biggest players connected to these offshore accounts include Pakistan’s prime minister Nawaz Sharif,Ayad Allawi, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq; Ukranian president Petro Poroshenko; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt’s former president; and Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson.

Most notably, Russian president Vladimir Putin has been connected to accounts totaling $2 billion, taken out in the name of his closest friend and associate, musician Sergei Roldugin. His trail of money from the accounts was even used on loan to a private ski resort where his younger daughter, Katerina, was married in 2013.

[Image via Getty]

The woman who spent what must have been an excruciating 14 years with Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has a lot of insight about his character. For one, says Trump’s ex-wife Ivana Trump, the woman who coined the phrase “The Donald,” he’s not actually a member of the profession whose highest office he seeks. She told The New York Post this week:

“He’s no politician. He’s a businessman. He knows how to talk. He can give an hour speech without notes . . . He’s blunt.”

An even more revealing—and bizarre—quip came when she was asked whether her ex-husband is a feminist. The passage is just about as telling as any on where Trump stands on feminism:

“I don’t think he’s feminist,” Ivana says upon her return when asked of Donald’s stance. “He loves women. But not a feminist.” (Ivana’s reps called The Post two days after the interview to clarify that Donald was a feminist. Then they called to say he wasn’t. An hour later, they said he was.)

Clearly, the subject is one that no one knows, probably not even Trump himself. We have reached out to the Trump campaign about whether Trump is—or is not—a feminist, and will update this post when we hear back.

h/t NY Post

[Image via Getty]

A 4K Samsung TV, Little Giant ladders, and five pounds of Gummi Bears kick 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 here to learn more.

Today only, Amazon will sell you a 55" 4K Samsung Smart TV for $720. That’s even better than this model’s Black Friday price, and the best we’ve ever seen.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TWFHLI8/...

And naturally, you’ll want a 4K-capable streaming box to go with your fancy new TV, and Amazon’s excellent Fire TV is on sale today, including bundles that include a game controller or a HDTV antenna.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U3FPN4U/...

http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Fire-TV...

http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Fire-TV...

Anker’s SoundCore is your favorite Bluetooth speaker, but its powerful big brother is on sale today for $10 more. You’ll only get 1/3 of the SoundCore’s battery life, but this model features dual 10W drivers, rather than dual 3W drivers.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0107WH8Q4/...

http://co-op.kinja.com/your-favorite-...

We see deals on multi-port USB chargers almost every day, but here’s one of the first we’ve seen on one that includes a USB-C port.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0196JB1ZS/...

If your iPhone 6 or 6s’s battery life isn’t cutting it for you, this RAVPower battery case is marked down to just $28 today.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B017BJ2PCI?...

Mpow makes some of the most popular cheap Bluetooth earbuds on the market, and you can score a discount on two different models today. They look nearly identical, but the Magnetos attach to each other magnetically, which automatically pauses your music.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B014XM6FRM?...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B017I50T0K?...

http://bestsellers.kinja.com/bestsellers-mp...

Little Giant ladders are some of the most versatile and popular you can buy, and two different sizes are on sale today in Amazon’s Gold Box.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002QB1D48/...

http://www.amazon.com/Little-Giant-P...

Packing cubes can make organizing clothes and toiletries for your next trip a little less hellish, and this highly-rated set of four is only $20 today.

http://lifehacker.com/5704519/make-y...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SXKUKK4/...

As the kids might say, “yassss.”

Note: You’ll pay $11 with Subscribe & Save, or $12 for a one-time purchase, but you can always cancel the subscription after your first delivery.

http://www.amazon.com/Haribo-Gummi-C...

http://gear.kinja.com/get-the-most-f...

The droid you’re looking for is down to $130 on Amazon today, the best price they’ve ever listed.

http://www.amazon.com/Sphero-R001-BB...

http://toyland.gizmodo.com/sphero-bb-8-re...

http://toyland.gizmodo.com/bored-with-bb-...

Here’s the first deal we’ve seen on the brand new Raspberry Pi 3, now with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and a much faster processor. Just be sure to use promo code 3UETMJK9 at checkout.

Note: The Amazon inset below says this is a Raspberry Pi 2, and we can’t edit that title, but if you click through, it’ll take you to a Pi 3 listing.

http://lifehacker.com/the-raspberry-...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...

Amazon’s Prime Pantry program is great for stocking up on household goods and non-perishable foods without actually having to visit a store, but the $5.99 per box shipping charge has always been a drag. This month though, if you buy five select items, you can get that fee waived.

http://gear.kinja.com/get-the-most-f...

Bonus: If you already have a no-rush free shipping credit in your account, this deal actually appears to stack, netting you an extra $6 discount.

They ran a similar promotion the last two months with different eligible items. Just add five of them to your box (plus anything else that will fit), and use code PANTRYAPR at checkout to get free shipping. [Free Prime Pantry shipping with five eligible purchases, promo code PANTRYAPR]

http://lifehacker.com/the-best-items...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HZYDM3Q/

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NAZ48VO/

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MY2TN0A/

There’s an additional 20% coupon on those Lysol wipes, and my favorite natural dish liquid is also one of the eligible items this time around, along with the antiperspirant version of one of your nominations for best men’s deodorant.

http://gear.kinja.com/seventh-genera...

http://co-op.kinja.com/five-best-mens...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZFL3CI6/

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015O4YUNE/

This Black+Decker cordless hand vacuum is perfect for cleaning out your car, or vacuuming in the tight spaces between pieces of furniture, and Amazon is taking an extra $10 off at checkout today. The product page shows $65, but at checkout, you’ll only have to pay $55.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IOEFBKS/...

If you missed out on on last month’s Bosch Insight wiper blade sale, or if you just don’t like Bosch Insight blades, Amazon will sell you two Michelin Stealth blades today for $20. Just add any two to your cart (shipped and sold by Amazon.com), and the price will automatically be reduced to $20 at checkout. The deal even works if you buy two different sized blades, so you should have no trouble finding a combination that fits your car.

We see a fair number of deals on standard (A19) LED light bulbs, but if you have some recessed lighting fixtures that could use an upgrade, this dimmable Philips BR30 bulb is marked down to $7 right now on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MZX4WRC?...

Tech

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TWFHLI8/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U3FPN4U/...

http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Fire-TV...

http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Fire-TV...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0107WH8Q4/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0196JB1ZS/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0052AWGLE/

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B014XM6FRM?...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B017I50T0K?...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B017BJ2PCI?...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...

$80 | Samsung - BD-J5900/ZA - Streaming 3D Wi-Fi Built-In Blu-ray Player | Best Buy

$400 | Sony STRDN1060 7.2 Ch Hi-Res Wifi Network AV Receiver | Woot

Home

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003145K3E/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002QB1D48/...

http://www.amazon.com/Little-Giant-P...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003VYC31Q/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0050P22VK/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SXKUKK4/...

http://www.amazon.com/Haribo-Gummi-C...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00873DKPY/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004PVK0PA/...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QZ67ODE/...

$60 | Black & Decker 20-Volt MAX Lithium-Ion Drill Kit with 100 Accessories | Woot

Gaming

$32 | WWE 2K16 | Best Buy

$280 | Refurb Xbox One with Kinect and Three Games | Woot

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 here to learn more, and don’t forget to sign up for our email newsletter. We want your feedback.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham met with Egyptian President Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi on Sunday to discuss, naturally, the looming possibility of a Donald Trump presidency. Graham was in Egypt as part of a Republican congressional delegation touring the Middle East, a region his party’s presidential frontrunner believes would be better served if Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were still around. Speaking to reporters after his meeting with el-Sissi, Graham said he reassured the Egyptian president that even if Trump won the presidency, the Egyptian people have nothing to worry about.

“The Congress is going to be around no matter who is president,” Graham told reporters after the meeting. “All of us, regardless of what Mr. Trump says or does, we are going to keep being who we are, so don’t let the political scenes at home get you too upset.”

Lindsey Graham, a failed presidential candidate himself, has put his support behind Ted Cruz in this election in a plan to block Trump’s surging campaign. (Cruz is, by Graham’s own admission, not an ideal choice, but he at least hasn’t posted Graham’s phone number on the internet.) Graham told The Hill that he’s not so sure this plan will work. Still, Egypt, which is the second-largest recipient of U.S. military aid and is under increasing scrutiny for human rights violations, should not be afraid of a Donald Trump presidency. Nobody should. Everything is totally fine.

Despite the fact that a New York City court refused Kesha’s request for a preliminary injunction against Dr. Luke, the singer declared her intentions to stick to her claims that the Sony music producer sexually abused her for years—all the while stating that she was offered her “freedom” if she walked away from her efforts to publicly discuss her ordeal.

In a message posted to the performer’s Instagram on April 3, Kesha stated that she was offered said deal “behind closed doors.”

“I got offered my freedom IF i were to lie. I would have to APOLOGIZE publicly and say that I never got raped. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS behind closed doors. I will not take back the TRUTH. I would rather let the truth ruin my career than lie for a monster ever again.”

While Kesha never specified what this “freedom” entailed for issuing a (presumably false) official apology, it would be feasible to relate it to her months-long battle with both Dr. Luke (real name: Lukaz Gottwald) and Sony Entertainment over her contract, which currently bars the performer from recording and releasing music with another company.

Earlier this year, Christine Lepara, a member of Dr. Luke’s legal team, addressed Kesha’s further allegations that Sony would not allow her to work with anyone but her alleged rapist.

“Kesha is already ‘free’ to record and release music without working with Dr. Luke as a producer if she doesn’t want to,” said Lepera. “Any claim that she isn’t ‘free’ is a myth.”

This isn’t the first time stories involving backroom deals regarding both Sony and Dr. Luke have been reported: in March, Kelly Clarkson went on record during an interview with an Australian radio station that she was “blackmailed by [her] label” to work with the producer.

Contact the author at jamie.reich@jezebel.com.

Image via Getty.

On Monday, as part of an agreement reached with the European Union, Greece will begin returning migrants to Turkey en masse—despite having approximately one tenth of the 2,300 border management officers needed for the job.

“We do not know how this operation will proceed...This is being done for the first time and it raises unprecedented legal issues as well,” Giorgos Kyritsis, a spokesman for the Greek government’s refugee crisis committee, told The Associated Press.

There are over 46,000 migrants and refugees living on the Greek mainland. Of that, nearly 20,000 live in makeshift camps on Greece’s northern border. This number rises daily, as The Associated Press points out:

The looming implementation of the deal and the closure of European borders have slowed the flow of people into Greece but not stopped it altogether. In the 24 hours leading to 7:30 a.m. Sunday, 514 arrived, according to authorities. There are now over 6,100 migrants in the Aegean islands, more than half in Lesbos.

Migrants living in Greece say the process to apply for asylum is often unclear and many migrants living in makeshift camps simply refuse to budge, hoping for nearby borders to open, as rumors spread by alleged “migrant exploitation networks” say they will.

What’s more, many in the European Union suspect that Russia is stoking the continent’s migrant crisis for its own gain. According to The New York Times, migrants traveling via Russia’s Arctic border are often guided by organizations with connections to government officials.

The one group that needs no convincing about Russia’s manipulation of the migrant issue is the migrants themselves.

In interviews in Kandalaksha, stranded migrants from West and Central Africa said they had each paid thousands of dollars to “guides” who promised to get them to Finland and who worked closely with Russian officials. The system was highly organized, the migrants said, with no more than 30 people allowed to make the journey to Finland each day. Who went when, and in which vehicle, was established in advance, they said, with the guides and officials drawing up detailed lists with names, departure dates and cars.

So, now, Greece has to return the better part of nearly 50,000 migrants—with hundreds more arriving each day, and hundreds more again circulating through underground, politically motivated networks—to Turkey, which has been accused of illegally returning Syrians to their homeland by Amnesty International. Great.