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Did Reddit's Boston Bomber Sleuthing Actually Turn Up a Decent Piece of Evidence? (UPDATE)

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Did Reddit's Boston Bomber Sleuthing Actually Turn Up a Decent Piece of Evidence? (UPDATE) For the past few days, Reddit's quest to ferret out the Boston bombing culprits with the powers of the internet has come across as juvenile at best, embarrassingly paranoid at worst. But it turns out that those ambitious toy detectives might finally be on to something.

The photo above, submitted by user Fransbauer, is currently at the top of the subreddit r/findbostonbombers. If speculation is to be believed, it depicts the FBI's "Suspect #2" casually turning onto Boston's Fairfield St. as chaos ensues behind him. Whereas he was once videotaped carrying a backpack, in the image above, his backpack appears to be missing.

Already the photo is making the rounds on Twitter, where its authenticity became a subject of immediate dispute. After CNN anchor Jake Tapper tweeted this:


New York Times content strategist Jeremy Zilar responded with his own assessment of the picture as being a poorly done Photoshop.
Did Reddit's Boston Bomber Sleuthing Actually Turn Up a Decent Piece of Evidence? (UPDATE)

If you'd like to take your own guess at the image's veracity, you can see it in its full resolution here. If it does turn out to be fake, that will be proof positive that the FBI has a whole new layer of problems to consider in the Boston bombing case: internet trolls looking to fuck with people.

Update: The picture's real. According to the New York Times, it was taken by 49-year-old David Green, who had run the marathon before the bombs went off. When he saw the explosions, he snapped a quick photo on his iPhone and posted it to his Facebook page, having no idea at the time the image would become evidence.


Unluckiest Luckiest Man Survives Both Marathon Bombing and Waco Blast

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Unluckiest Luckiest Man Survives Both Marathon Bombing and Waco BlastJoe Berti doesn't feel "unlucky" to have witnessed and survived both the bombing at the Boston Marathon and then the explosion at the fertilizer plant outside of Waco, Texas. He does want to "get away from all these explosions," however.

Joe Berti ran the Boston Marathon on Monday to support a charity that helps children who have rare or undiagnosed disorders. He crossed the finish line around 30 seconds before the first of the two bombs exploded, and his wife, who was taking pictures of him finishing, was hit by shrapnel (she was unhurt). They couldn't get in touch in the panic immediately following the bombing, but found each other at their hotel shortly afterwards.

Unluckiest Luckiest Man Survives Both Marathon Bombing and Waco Blast On Tuesday, they went back home to Austin to be with their two young daughters. On Wednesday, Joe went back to work and as he was heading home, saw black smoke billowing from the fertilizer plant. Then it exploded. "You've got to be kidding!," he thought to himself. He pulled over and took the picture on the left.

"My next reaction was to get out of there because something fell on the top of my car - some debris or something fell from the sky," he told the Associated Press.

"It's a miracle," he told a reporter. "People keep saying, 'Don't you feel unlucky?' and I was actually the opposite - saying not only do I not feel unlucky, but I feel blessed that my wife could be 10 yards from the explosion and not have a scratch."

Watch This Trapeze Artist Survive an 85-foot Fall

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I'm never going to the circus again.

A Kenyan trapeze artist performing at a Moscow circus lost his grip and fell a horrifying 85-feet last month, crashing through the safety net below him. The performer suffered a fractured vertebra, but is reportedly healing and "will eventually return to work."

Way to go safety net! (Which failed, but he lived, so I guess it worked? Ahhhhh!)

Police Hunt for Second Bombing Suspect After Killing One in Shootout

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Police Hunt for Second Bombing Suspect After Killing One in ShootoutAuthorities in Watertown, Mass. are engaged in a citywide manhunt for one suspect of the Boston Marathon bombing after the other was killed in a shootout early Friday morning. Details are still sketchy, but most outlets are reporting that the suspect still on the loose (the one in the white hat in these photos) is Dzhokar A. Tsarnaev, 19, of Cambridge, a Chechen who has been living in the U.S. as a legal permanent resident for at least a year. The deceased suspect, killed in a gun battle with police around 2 a.m., is apparently his 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan.

The long night began at 10:48 Thursday evening, when gunshots were heard outside of MIT's Stata building. The two suspects, after robbing a 7-11, shot and killed an MIT police officer. They then hijacked a car and engaged police in a confrontation involving guns and explosives in the Watertown area.

Authorities have confirmed that these are their Boston Marathon bombing suspects. Watertown remains locked down, with more than 300,000 people instructed to stay in place. [top image via Shawna England]

Updates:

11:27 AM: This is likely Dzhokar's Twitter account.

11:09 AM: Ramzan Karimov, the Head of the Chechen Republic, released a statement on, uh, Instagram. Very rough, abridged, Google-assisted translation follows:

Tragic events took place in Boston. The blast killed people. We have previously expressed condolences to the people of the city and the people of America. [...] Any attempt to make the connection between Chechnya and Tsarnaevymi, if they are guilty, will be made in vain. They grew up in the United States, their attitudes and beliefs were formed there. It is necessary to seek the roots of evil in America. From terrorism to fight the whole world. We know better than anyone else. We wish recovery to all the victims and share the feelings of sorrow of Americans. # # Boston # bombing investigation

10:26 AM: Connecticut says it's found the CRV and is directing questions to Boston.

10:08 AM: Police have put out an alert for a grey Honda CRV that they believe may be heading south through Connecticut:

According to NBC News, police are now looking for two suspects in Boston:

MSNBC is apparently reporting that authorities have surrounded a train in Connecticut that may contain a third suspect.

10:05 AM: We're updating information about the suspects here as it comes out.

10:04 AM: NBC tweets a photo of an empty boston:

9:38 AM: The MIT police officer killed last night has been identified as Sean Collier, 26, of Somerville.

9:00 AM: According to several outlets, police believe that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was wearing explosives when he was killed, and are worried that Dzhokar could be, too.

8:38 AM: Police officers and a SWAT team have surrounded a house in Watertown.

8:25 AM: The officer shot and wounded in Watertown is Richard Donohue, a 33-year-old transit officer.

8:17 AM: The entire city of Boston is being asked to shelter in place as the manhunt continues. Taxi service has been suspended pending further notice.

7:43 AM: NBC and the Times are both reporting that the dead suspect is Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26.

7:15 AM: NPR's Dina Temple-Raston reports that third person (described as an "accomplice") has been arrested.

6:47 AM: AP is reporting that both bombers are from "Russia region near Chechnya" and have lived in the U.S. for at least one year; the surviving suspect, according to AP and NBC, is 19-year-old Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev of Cambridge, Mass., possibly this former scholarship winner.

6:32 AM: Big concern is not only the bomber himself, but the possible explosives he has left around the neighborhood. A long night looks like it might turn into an even longer day for Boston residents.

6:20 AM: The suspects apparently told the man they carjacked late last night that they were the marathon bombers.

6:15 AM: If you're a resident of Watertown, Brookline, Newton, Belmont, Waltham, Cambridge, or Allston-Brighton, authorities are telling you to stay indoors while they search for the remaining bombing suspect.

6:10 AM: Residents are now leaving their homes one by one in Watertown as SWAT teams enter their homes as they exit, checking them for explosives, seeing if their house has been rigged by the suspect.

6:00 AM: Boston public transit, the MBTA, will remain shut down this morning. Harvard, MIT, Boston University, and Emerson have canceled classes, amid public safety concerns. All Boston public and private schools have now been canceled.

5:30 AM: At a press conference at Beth Israel Hospital, doctors explained that the first suspect arrived at the hospital with severe injuries that included innumerable gun shot wounds, and burns from a blast. He had traumatic injuries to his torso, possibly from a bomb. He was pronounced dead around 1:30 AM.

5:20 AM: Here's a Google Map of tonight's events:


View Shootings 4/19 MIT && Carjacking related to boston bombers in a larger map

5:00 AM: Not confirmed, but a BPD scanner apparently identified the two bombers as Mike Mulugeta (now deceased) and Sanil Tarpathi, who is currently hiding from authorities somewhere in Watertown.

Here is some new video of the shootout between the two suspects and police officers:

4:55 AM: The package at MIT is harmless, say officials. So how about that? Some good news!

4:46 AM: A suspicious package has been found at MIT, where the bombers killed an officer late last night.

4:33 AM: Sources tell WHDH Boston that there are explosive devices scattered throughout the residential neighborhoods around Watertown.

4:20 AM: Col. Timothy Alban of the Boston State Police just held a press conference outlining the events of last evening and this morning. Here goes:

After robbing a 7-11 in Cambridge at around 10:30 PM Thursday, the two suspects shot an MIT police officer in his car, and then carjacked a Mercedes SUV. They held the driver hostage, then released them at a gas station a half-hour later.

They were discovered in Watertown driving the SUV, and were pursued by the Watertown Police Department and Transit Police. They exchanged gunfire with the police departments, discharging several explosives from their the car. One transit officer was shot and is in serious condition, and one suspect was shot and killed, while the other escaped.

Col. Alban stressed that the most important message for public safety was that everyone in Watertown should shelter in place, and call 911 if they see anyone suspicious. Motorists should not stop for anyone. According to the video from 7-11, the suspect is dressed in a grey hoodie, is Caucasian, has brown curly hair, and is "armed and dangerous."

4:15 AM: The Mass State Police have released this picture of suspect #2, taken from surveillance footage of the earlier robbery.

4:11 AM: The driver the marathon bombers hijacked was held by them for a half hour at gun point, before they were released safely.

4:05 AM: 2 SWAT teams have descended on a commercial building in Watertown, where they believe the remaining suspect is.

4:01 AM: Police are now staging in Arsenal Mall, and State Police are asking media to clear out of the area. Officers might be waiting for sunrise to storm whatever home they believe the remaining Marathon bomber is hiding in.

3:51 AM: State Police are going door-to-door in Watertown, searching for suspect #2, who it increasingly looks like is Sunil Tripathi. Update: As has become clear, missing Brown student Sunil Tripathi was not the bomber, despite his name being used by Boston P.D. on the police scanner.


3:41 AM: These two updates from the Mass State Police tell Watertown residents to watch out for the remaining suspect —

3:14 AM: According to Pete Williams at NBC News, a pressure cooker was found at the scene in Watertown.

3:08 AM: The crime scene continues to move through Watertown and officials are asking residents to stay indoors and not let anyone into their home.

3:06 AM: The family of Sunil Tripathi, the missing Brown student who Reddit believed was one of the suspects, has taken down the Facebook page dedicated to find him. Here is a cached version of it. He could be holed up in a Watertown home right now, in custody, or dead. Update: As has become clear, missing Brown student Sunil Tripathi was not the bomber, despite his name being used by Boston P.D. on the police scanner.

3:05 AM: It has come out that a transit officer was shot earlier in the evening and is in serious condition.

3:01 AM: WHDH confirms that these are the Boston Marathon bombing suspects and that one is dead.

3:00 AM: The State Police have confirmed that one suspect is accounted for, while one remains at large.

2:46 AM: Police have surrounded a Watertown house on Quimby Street, where they believe the remaining suspect is hiding. Federal and local authorities have poured into the residential neighborhood.

2:34 AM: The Boston Globe is reporting that these are the marathon bombers. WHDH says one is dead and the other is still on the loose, but the Globe says the captured suspect is still alive.

2:25 AM: Andrew Kitzenberg posts a picture of a bullet that went through his Watertown home during a shootout.

2:20 AM: Photo of the FBI on the scene in Watertown by @christinawilkie

Police Hunt for Second Bombing Suspect After Killing One in Shootout

2:14 AM: A second suspect remains at large, reports Boston's WHDH. The FBI is now involved in the investigation, lending Federal involvement to what would normally be a crime dealt with solely by local authorities.

2:09 AM: ABC's Joshua Hoyos is reporting that there is no connection to the Marathon Bombings.

1:49 AM: Seth Mnookin has posted a photo of the arrest of one of the suspects:

Police Hunt for Second Bombing Suspect After Killing One in Shootout

1:25 AM: It appears a suspect is in custody:

1:18 AM EST: Police officers are approaching a suspect in heavy armor.

Police Hunt for Second Bombing Suspect After Killing One in Shootout

1:15 AM EST: Science Writer Seth Mnookin is on scene:

1:01 AM EST: Police are taking cover and backing away from a suspect, says WHDH reporter Adam Williams, now at the scene of the confrontation. He has heard that the suspect has a hand grenade.

12:58 AM EST: Police feed reports that explosives have been detonated in Watertown. At least two officers have been hurt.

12:51 AM EST: Police have cornered the suspects at Adams St in Watertown after they hijacked a car. There are reports of gunshots, and an intense confrontation between police officers and the suspects. WHDH-Boston reports that "there is a strong smell of gun powder in the air." Authorities still unsure if the suspects are related to the marathon bombing.

12:14 AM EST: A statement from the Cambridge District Attorney says that the fatal shooting occurred when the MIT campus police officer was reporting to "a disturbance in the area." He was found by other officers evidencing multiple gunshot wounds. There have been no arrests yet, as officers continue to search the area.

12:01 AM EST: NBC Connecticut is reporting that the MIT police officer has died.

11:49 PM EST: Police are actively trying to corner the suspect. The MIT police officer has been confirmed to have sustained "life-threatening injuries" according to WHDH-Boston. MIT just released this update: "Responding agencies continue to investigate the situation. The scene is outside of Building 32 (Stata) and 76 (Koch) near Vassar and Main Streets. Injuries have been reported. The situation is still very active and we ask everyone to stay inside."

Does This Picture Show Martin Richards and His Murderer?

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Does This Picture Show Martin Richards and His Murderer?

Reddit has found another eerie piece of photographic evidence in the Boston Marathon bombing. The photo above shows bombing victim Martin Richards, 8, circled in red, standing on the barrier while the individual, now only known as Suspect #2, circled in green, passes just feet behind him, possibly in the act of leaving his backpack behind or having just done that.

We're unable at this moment to confirm whether the photo has been doctored or not, but it seems legitimate. Here are stills from a Fox News report that shows the same angle, but with the faces of the crowd blurred out.

Everything We Know About the Alleged Boston Bombers

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Everything We Know About the Alleged Boston Bombers The city of Boston is currently on lockdown, as officials search for the white-hatted Boston Marathon bombing suspect, who authorities believe is 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a Chechnyan who'd been living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The other suspect was his older brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died in a gun battle with police early this morning.

Here's what we know about them:

  • Dzhokhar Tsarnaev attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. He was in the class of 2011.
  • Dzhokhar was born on July 22, 1993.
  • Dzhokhar was one of 45 high-school seniors to receive a $2,500 scholarship from the City of Cambridge in 2011.
  • A high-school wrestler, Dzhokhar was named Student Athlete of the Month in February 2011 and a Greater Boston League Winter All-Star in 2011.
  • Dzhokhar once signed a petition about ducks and chickens in Cambridge with the comment: "leave the chickens."
  • A social-media account bearing Dzhokhar's name lists his world view as "Islam" and his priorities as "career and money."


  • Dzhokhar was very torn about Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. [via @johnmcquaid]
  • A high-school friend told the Boston CBS affiliate that Dzhokhar was "just a normal American kid."
  • Tamerlan was an amateur boxer, weighing 196 pounds, who trained at the Wai Kru Mixed Martial Arts Center in Allston and studied at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston.
  • The subject of a portrait series, Tamerlan told photographer Johannes Hirn that he fled Chechnya with his family because of the conflict in the early 90s, and lived for years in Kazakhstan before getting to the United States as a refugee.



Everything We Know About the Alleged Boston Bombers
  • Dzhokhar is a registered student at UMass Dartmouth. The state school is closed today.
  • The AP spoke to the Tsarnaevs' dad. "My son is a true angel," he told them. "Dzhokhar is a second-year medical student in the U.S. He is such an intelligent boy. We expected him to come on holidays here."
  • A high-school classmate tells CBS Dzhokhar was a class clown. "He would just joke around, try and make jokes, get on the teachers nerves, just like a typical class clown," she said. "He was very friendly. Everyone liked him. No one had any problems with him."
  • People called him Jahar "because Dzokhar was too difficult to pronounce."
  • Buzzfeed's Rosie Gray talks with Dzhokhar's former classmates, who are all pretty shocked.
    "I didn't know Jahar extremely well but he was literally among the sweetest, most laid back guys I've ever known," one tells her. "Always friendly and welcoming, I always felt comfortable hanging out with him."
  • More recently, Dzhokhar worked shifts at Harvard's Blodgett Pool.
  • CBS spoke with the brothers' uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, who called Tamerlan a "loser" and said, "He deserved his. He absolutely deserved his" and "They do not deserve to live on this earth."

  • Jahar apparently liked weed, according to anybody who knew him:

  • A photo from his Facebook page:

Everything We Know About the Alleged Boston Bombers
  • That's Jahar on the bottom row left, in a Facebook photo taken at UMass Dartmouth sometime last year and submitted by a tipster:

Everything We Know About the Alleged Boston Bombers
[photos via FBI]

Ryan Lochte Is Very Bad at Being Interviewed

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Speaking with Good Day Philly yesterday morning to promote his new reality TV show, mimb-Olympian Ryan Lochte had some, shall we say, technical difficulties.

Attempting to explain to viewers why they should bother tuning in to E!'s What Would Ryan Lochte Do?, the second all-time swimmer said he was "a lot different than any other kind of Olympian" from other Olympians in that he liked "to go out and have fun, go dancing, hang out with my friends."

It was at this point that anchors Mike Jerrick and Sheinelle Jones realized they were going to have a tough time keeping a straight face for the entire duration of the interview.

And so they didn't.

After openly mocking Lochte several times, the duo bid the pretty boy farewell and then simply burst out laughing.

Watch the abbreviated Q&A above for the gist, and then follow that up with the full-length train wreck below.

[videos via Comedy Wizard, MyFoxPhilly]

Wounded Man in Iconic Marathon Photo Helped Identify Alleged Bombers

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Wounded Man in Iconic Marathon Photo Helped Identify Alleged Bombers Before the blast took both his legs below the knee, Jeff Bauman says that he looked into the eyes of one of the alleged bombers. According to Jeff's brother Chris:

"He woke up under so much drugs, asked for a paper and pen and wrote, ‘bag, saw the guy, looked right at me.'"

Bauman's testimony, provided just moments after he revived in the hospital, has likely helped the FBI narrow the bombing suspects.

In one of the most graphic and wrenching images of the marathon bombing injuries, Bauman is the man in the wheelchair pushed by first responders moments after the explosions. Bauman was waiting for his girlfriend to cross the finish line of the marathon just before 3 p. m. According to Chris Bauman, Jeff saw a man in a cap, a black jacket over a hooded sweatshirt, eyes behind sunglasses look at him, and drop a bag at his feet.

Two and a half minutes later, the bag detonated. First responders rushed the severely wounded Bauman to the Boston Medical Center. While still in intensive care, he gave descriptions to the FBI and helped them isolate the suspects from hours of video of the attack.

Bauman's report of a face-to-face confrontation may have been one the key clues that helped the investigations team identify the current suspects—Dzhokar A. Tsarnaev, 19, of Cambridge and his now deceased 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan. The hunt for these two alleged bombers resulted in a violent shoot-out and a temporary lockdown for the city of Boston. Dzhokar A. Tsarnaev is still at large.

[Bloomberg, image via AP]


Republican Lawmaker Spends Tax Dollars on Resolution Honoring Himself

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Republican Lawmaker Spends Tax Dollars on Resolution Honoring Himself

Having recently completed turning Tennessee into a present-day Xanadu, one local lawmaker finally found the time to focus his attention ob passing a resolution that has been far too long in coming: A resolution honoring himself.

"I think it's important for us as a state to say, 'Hey, great job on creating jobs and moving the ball forward,'" Sen. Jon Lundberg (R-Bristol) told WSMV.

The resolution was written by Lundberg's staff and honors the 20th anniversary of the State Senator's public relations firm.

"Ten years ago, I did this - I asked my state representative to do it. Now, the company is 20 years old, so who do I ask?" Lundberg told the NBC affiliate.

Asked about the $300 of taxpayer money that were spent on the self-congratulating resolution, Lundberg claimed he "reimbursed the state the cost of the paper and all of that."

According to WSMV, this isn't Lundberg's first abuse of the resolution system: He previously passed one honoring his daughter upon her graduation from high school.

[screengrab via WSMV-TV]

Is This The Boston Marathon Bombing Suspect's Twitter Account?

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Is This The Boston Marathon Bombing Suspect's Twitter Account?A cached profile photo that matches his picture, and tweets from other users he's interacted with suggest that this is the twitter account of 19-year-old Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, the fugitive suspect #2 in the Boston Marathon bombings: @J_tsar. The account is listed under the name "Jahar," which is what classmates called him because his full name was hard to pronounce.

The day of the bombing, Tsarnaev tweeted:

Last year he tweeted:

But there is not much on the account that suggests the user of the account was be anything but a normal 19-year-old kid.

He tweeted Chechnya, where he was born (his family moved to the U.S. in 2002):

">March 14, 2012

He tweeted about music:

and random stuff:

He was also apparently a 9/11 truther:

On twitter, friends he interacted with are expressing shock that he's a suspect.

Especially given his, um, laid-back reputation:

And his friends are now experiencing the inevitable wave of reporters and online gawkers now that the twitter account has been discovered:

Boy Scouts Announce Imminent End to Longstanding Ban on Gay Members [UPDATE]

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Boy Scouts Announce Imminent End to Longstanding Ban on Gay Members [UPDATE]

After months of deliberations over the topic of its much-despised ban on gay and lesbian members, the Boy Scouts of America are finally preparing to end the longstanding policy.

Striking down the ban still requires ratification by the organization's National Council, but once approved, spokesman Deron Smith said "no youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone."

The Associated Press notes that the proposal will only apply to youth members; gay adult troop leaders will remain banned.

Smith said three months of research had led the BSA to conclude that an option to allow local troops to decide for themselves whether to admit homosexual members would not be sufficient.

The Council's 1,400 members are scheduled to vote on the proposal during their next meeting on May 20th.

UPDATE: GLAAD Vice President of Communications Rich Ferraro has just released the following statement concerning the BSA's proposal:

Yet again, the Boy Scouts of America has failed its members, corporate sponsors, donors and the millions of Americans who agree that the time to end discrimination in Scouting is now. By refusing to consider an end to its ban on gay and lesbian parents, the Boy Scouts have missed an opportunity to exercise leadership and usher the organization back to relevancy. We're living in a culture where, until every young person and parent have the same opportunity to serve, the Boy Scouts will continue to see a decline in both membership and donations.

[photo via AP]

Images from the Shootout and Manhunt for the Suspected Boston Bombers [UPDATE]

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Images from the Shootout and Manhunt for the Suspected Boston Bombers [UPDATE] A violent shootout last night resulted in the death of 26-year-old MIT security guard, Sean Collier, as well as the death of suspected Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was shot in Watertown, Massachusetts. The city of Boston is currently on lockdown.

Here are several images of what went down last night.

The two bombing suspects launched explosives at police during a car chase and gun battle.
Images from the Shootout and Manhunt for the Suspected Boston Bombers [UPDATE]

Thousands of police are patrolling the streets, searching for another of the alleged marathon bombers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Images from the Shootout and Manhunt for the Suspected Boston Bombers [UPDATE]

The city of Boston was placed under lockdown during the nighttime shooting.
Images from the Shootout and Manhunt for the Suspected Boston Bombers [UPDATE]

Thousands of police are monitoring the streets of Boston and the surrounding towns.
Images from the Shootout and Manhunt for the Suspected Boston Bombers [UPDATE]

A woman in Watertown, Mass. the location of the violent shootout last night, looks out her window at the scene.
Images from the Shootout and Manhunt for the Suspected Boston Bombers [UPDATE]

The alleged bombers killed an MIT police officer during the nighttime shootout.
Images from the Shootout and Manhunt for the Suspected Boston Bombers [UPDATE]

Tarmerlan Tsarnaev, one of the suspected bombers, was killed during the manhunt; his brother Dzhokhar is still at large.
Images from the Shootout and Manhunt for the Suspected Boston Bombers [UPDATE]

Residents in the site of the shooting in Watertown, Mass. as well as throughout the Boston area are remaining in their homes, while police search the streets.
Images from the Shootout and Manhunt for the Suspected Boston Bombers [UPDATE]

Police and security guards are swarming the streets of Boston, searching for the missing suspect.
Images from the Shootout and Manhunt for the Suspected Boston Bombers [UPDATE]

Thousands of police officers have been deployed across the city and surrounding region.
Images from the Shootout and Manhunt for the Suspected Boston Bombers [UPDATE]

UPDATED 3:56 P.M.

Police officers continue to patrol the streets as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev remains at large.
Images from the Shootout and Manhunt for the Suspected Boston Bombers [UPDATE]

Helicopters are surveying Watertown and the surrounding area, searching for the suspected bomber.
Images from the Shootout and Manhunt for the Suspected Boston Bombers [UPDATE]

Thousands of police continue to stand guard throughout Boston.
Images from the Shootout and Manhunt for the Suspected Boston Bombers [UPDATE]

Police along with K9 assistance attempt to root out the remaining suspect bomber.
Images from the Shootout and Manhunt for the Suspected Boston Bombers [UPDATE]

Police scour neighborhoods aboard armored vehicles.
Images from the Shootout and Manhunt for the Suspected Boston Bombers [UPDATE]

[All images via AP/Getty]

Paranoid Martha Stewart Rips Out Roses So Thorns Can't Nick Grandkids

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Paranoid Martha Stewart Rips Out Roses So Thorns Can't Nick GrandkidsThe people of Boston are currently holed up in their homes as authorities canvas the area for a suspect considered "armed and extremely dangerous." Meanwhile, Martha Stewart is working frantically to protect her grandchildren from an even more sinister enemy: flowers.

Friday morning, while much of the nation was glued to the coverage of the marathon bomber manhunt, Stewart updated her personal blog with a post titled "Digging up the Many, Many Roses at my Home in East Hampton." In it, she reveals for the first time the hidden disadvantage of owning an exquisite home, the lush gardens of which are populated by "many, many roses":

The roses can attack your grandchildren.

After 20 years of meticulously tending to her treasured flower babies—the ones that are "highly prized for their dense petal formations and fabulous fragrances"—Stewart is being forced to rip them out. Because they might hurt her daughter Alexis' less treasured human babies.

"Now that I have grandchildren running around, Alexis and I feel that having a yard full of thorny roses isn't very child friendly..."

It's unclear exactly what harm the ladies Stewart fear will befall Jude, 2, and Truman, 1, if roses are allowed to flourish on Martha's East Hampton property. Will the children somehow impale themselves on the roses? Will the roses shoot off their thorns like projectiles, blanketing the children with a hail of thornfire as they totter around the stately grounds? Will the roses attempt to sell the children drugs? Why are the children and the roses unable to coexist peacefully, as they have done for thousands of years?

Fortunately for rose apologists, Stewart does not plan to burn the rose bushes in the world's most elegant bonfire. She'll be replanting them at her farm in Katonah, New York.

Where children, presumably, are banned.

[Martha Stewart // Image via Getty]

Justin Bieber Fans 'Convert to Islam' for Free Concert Tickets

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Norway loves Justin Bieber.

So much so that a free Bieber concert in Oslo last year nearly ended with police declaring a state of emergency.

And this year, several Norwegian school rescheduled their midterms to accommodate students with tickets to Bieber's recent performances.

But just how far will Norwegian fans go to prove their love for the Biebz? For instance, will they be willing to convert to Islam?

One Norwegian TV channel sent a comedian out into the streets to find out — by literally inviting Justin Bieber fans to convert to Islam for the chance to win free concert tickets.

[H/T: Reddit]

Everybody Named the Wrong Boston Suspects Last Night and Promptly Forgot

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Everybody Named the Wrong Boston Suspects Last Night and Promptly Forgot Last night around 3:00 a.m., at the conclusion of several hours of insane police-scanner monitoring and reports of gunfights and explosions in the Boston suburbs, local law enforcement officials on their working radio band identified their quarry by name:

Mike Mulugeta and Sunil Tripathi, armed and dangerous fugitives, alleged marathon bombers, and reported killers of an MIT police officer.

Scores of red-eyed journalists and news junkies, already gathered on Twitter and deconstructing every grunt and squeak on the police scanners, launched into a public, real-time data scrape for information on the named suspects. Tripathi was a big deal, having gone missing from Brown University last month without his wallet, leaving only a mysterious note that spurred FBI agents to investigate his disappearance.

I was no exception. Having placed my confidence in the pack, I contributed to the piling on:

Update: As some alert commenters have pointed out, Gawker's own rolling coverage late last night repeated Tripathi's name.

Some media movers practically cackled as they delivered the news:

There was just one problem: Mulugeta and Tripathi had nothing to do with the events unfolding in Boston. America awoke this morning to reports that the bombers were two young Chechen-Americans, with a third possible accomplice. Virtually no one in the media, who had pushed the Mulugeta-Tripathi narrative just hours before, acknowledged the shift. They simply plowed forward with more real-time misreporting.

Sketchy and incorrect first reports in breaking stories like these are par for the course. Few media outlets have distinguished themselves by being fast and reliable this week; far more, like the New York Post and CNN, stood out by screwing more pooches than a junkyard mutt with blue balls. But this instance—an entire industry naming the wrong suspects, and amplifying the error—was a particularly epic fail, and it seemed to be going down the blackest of memory holes.

Clicking on this Google News headline, for example:

Everybody Named the Wrong Boston Suspects Last Night and Promptly Forgot

Led to this story:

Everybody Named the Wrong Boston Suspects Last Night and Promptly Forgot

The media, content to pile new data on top of old, was simply pretending that it had never fingered the wrong two guys.

How did the bad info get out there? It may have resulted from a multimedia feedback loop of epic proportions, according to J.D. Adler, a writer who had initially relayed Mulugeta's and Tripathi's IDs as suspects via Twitter:

Was it really possible that Boston's cops may have developed leads on their suspects based on threads that sleuthing Redditors had started on them? It's possible, yes—because it definitely happened this morning, when police cornered one of the actual bombing suspects and broadcast what they believed to be his intentions:

But the police officer was not referencing the real bomber; rather, it was a fake Twitter account that had been set up in his name earlier in the day:

This, in itself, is remarkable: Excited internet hounds, out to glean info on the bomber, seize on a fake social media account, whose messages are seized on by police...who convey the info via radio, where it's seized on by excited internet hounds.

That may be how the world came to learn about Mulugeta and Tripathi, though there are other possibilities. (A Boston Police Department representative said the department was busy with the ongoing manhunt and unable to comment today on the scanner report on Mulugeta and Tripathi, or much else.)

But the real story is not how the news got it wrong—there's been plenty of that since Monday. It's how, mere hours after telling a bullshit story, the news simply told a new story and expunged the previous one from its memory. Real-time accuracy isn't always possible in journalism. But no one can call himself a journalist if he can't acknowledge in the present what he got wrong in the past. Even an alleged pig-fucking alcoholic bigot understands that.

Everybody Named the Wrong Boston Suspects Last Night and Promptly Forgot


Just What Is Tom Cruise Trying to Accomplish at This Point, Anyway?

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Just What Is Tom Cruise Trying to Accomplish at This Point, Anyway?Some spoilers follow.

In Oblivion, Tom Cruise's character Jack Harper drives a Bubble Ship, a double-occupancy, hover helicopter of the future that features a long, thin cockpit between two big old orbs. It is close to being an elegant, sci-fi rendering of the Ambiguously Gay Duo's car, and would seem to be the perfect vehicle for Cruise given his own ambiguous reputation. However, there is an even better one: Oblivion itself. The film is a pretty, vacant attempt at thoughtful sci-fi that is too inert to satisfy blockbuster junk cravings, and not deep enough to justify its ponderousness.

The movie opens with an extended scene of Harper hunting down and fixing a bunch of flying drone spheres that patrol what's left of the abandoned Earth in 2077. This lifeless bit of bored busy work is how director Joseph Kosinski (the daft Tron: Legacy) has chosen to introduce us to his world. The excitement barely takes off from there. I sat wondering why I should care about any of this—Harper, his Stepford Laura Linney-like partner Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), the Earth that humans abused for centuries only to evacuate in the wake of an alien attack, the anonymous human stragglers (including Morgan Freeman, in about 10 minutes of screen time) who creep in the Earth's shadows and call on Harper for help. I realized that we're supposed to care because Tom Cruise is steering this thing. Unfortunately, his blank performance makes that impossible.

Granted, his performance is meant to be at least somewhat blank; his memory has been wiped for some reason and he is literally left a blank. In a hilarious parallel to Cruise's actual career, he's a clone, one in a long line of Jacks that do his Wall-E-esque clean-up work in this every-other-movie-esque dystopia. Cruise, too, is part of a long line of Jacks. Here he is Jack Harper. His last movie found him playing the title role of Jack Reacher. In his movie before that, Rock of Ages, he was Stacee Jaxx.

Kosinski is into repetition, too. This is his second movie in a row whose first word announces its setting: "Earth," we hear Harper say, just like Jeff Bridges' character introduced Tron: Legacy by saying, "The Grid." There is a fine line between being helpfully obvious and dreadfully dull. Kosinski veers way too often into the latter lane, asleep at the wheel.

Oblivion is haunted by its superior inspirations like Harper is haunted by phantom clone dreams of an earth he never knew. He lives in a Jetsons-like dome on a pole, he takes direction with the Hal-like Sally (Melissa Leo), he roams the Star Wars-like desert Earth. Cruise looks dead-eyed, as though he's always trying to concentrate in vain, and for someone whose religion discourages medicine, his default mode seems to be pill-zonked. This is the third straight shell of a person he's played: Jack Reacher was described by a fellow character as a "ghost" for being so unknowable and Stacee Jaxx was an intense stare in a codpiece, surrounded by set-piece groupies and ‘80s sonic wallpaper. At least Cruise managed some fire and charm in the former, and at least he got to sing "I Wanna Know What Love Is" into Malin Ackerman's asshole in the latter. Oblivion has no such propulsive energy.

All of these movies court viewers by offering Tom Cruise, and Tom Cruise shows up to be Tom Cruise. In the case of Rock of Ages, the stunt casting was more than half of the joke. In the case of Oblivion, there isn't even a joke. It's a risk-free adventure from a competent actor who's determined to hold onto his eye-candy and content to tread water. Tom Cruise needs to stop letting his celebrity do his work for him or one day he might not have it anymore.

Bombing Suspect's Uncle Makes Raw Emotional Plea, Goes Viral

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If a "star" is to emerge from this week of bloodshed and panic, it would seem that star has quickly become Ruslan Tsarni, uncle to suspected Boston Marathon bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Tamerlan is now dead following an early morning standoff with police. As authorities continue looking for Tamerlan's younger brother, the men's Uncle Ruslan took questions outside of his home in Montgomery Village, Maryland.

Among other things, Tsarni said that he is "ashamed" of his nephews and that they are "being losers." "Turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness," Tsarni said he'd like to tell Dzhokhar. "He put a shame on this family. He put a shame on the entire Chechnyan ethnicity."

Tsarni's emotional, unvarnished, and touching statements have turned him into somewhat of a viral phenomenon—his name is a Twitter trending topic—presumably as people search desperately for any sliver of decency in a story that's been nothing but hideous and depressing from the outset.

Sarkozy's Campaign Funds Investigated Amidst Alleged Link to Gaddafi

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Sarkozy's Campaign Funds Investigated Amidst Alleged Link to Gaddafi A judicial investigation has been opened against former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, after allegations that he received illegal funding from the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi for his 2007 campaign. Sarkozy met Gaddafi in Paris in 2007 and has long denied wrongdoing.

Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine launched the allegations against Sarkozy; Takieddine is under an unrelated investigation regarding arms sales to Pakistan in the 1990s.

There are rumors that Sarkozy is planning to run for presidential office again in 2017. He lost his bid for office last year, and thus lost immunity from prosecution that he received as head of state.

Sarkozy's 2007 election campaign is already being investigated regarding his tie to the heiress of the L'Oreal empire, Liliane Bettencourt, France's richest woman. While Sarkozy also denies these allegations, some say he took advantage of the 90-year-old in order to obtain funding for his successful campaign.

[Reuters, image via AP]

Reddit Wants to Help Find Missing Brown Student It ID'd as Bombing Suspect

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Reddit Wants to Help Find Missing Brown Student It ID'd as Bombing Suspect

After spending the better part of last night dragging Sunil Tripathi's name through the mud and negligently inflicting emotional distress on his friends and family, Reddit now wants to play a part in helping find the missing Brown student.

Late yesterday, Reddit began to speculate about the possibility that Sunil Tripathi — who was on leave from Brown when he was last seen in Providence, RI, on March 15th — might be one of the two Boston Marathon bomber.

It's unclear how or why this rumor came to pass, but it ended up being furthered after the claim made a leap onto Twitter when someone claimed that the Boston Police scanner had named Tripathi as a suspect in the case.

That Tripathi's name was ever said on the scanner is being disputed.

Whatever the timeline, by the early morning hours, Tripathi's name was trending worldwide, and many had taken to his family's Facebook page to leave abhorrent messages.

A few hours later, this post was published on the same page:

A tremendous and painful amount of attention has been cast on our beloved Sunil Tripathi in the past twelve hours.

We have known unequivocally all along that neither individual suspected as responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings was Sunil.

We are grateful to all of you who have followed us on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit-supporting us over the recent hours.

Now more than ever our greatest strength comes from your enduring support. We thank all of you who have reached out to our family and ask that you continue to raise awareness and to help us find our gentle, loving, and thoughtful Sunil.

After the thorough debunking of Tripathi's connection to the bombing finally made its way back to Reddit, the mod of the now-infamous FindBostonBombers subreddit released this statement:

I'd like to extend the deepest apologies to the family of Sunil Tripathi for any part we may have had in relaying what has turned out to be faulty information. We cannot begin to know what you're going through and for that we are truly sorry. Several users, twitter users, and other sources had heard him identified as the suspect and believed it to be confirmed. We were mistaken.

This event shows exactly why the no personal information until confirmation rule is in place. Out of respect for Tripathi and his family, I ask that users here please remove any and all links about him. Thank you.

In the aftermath of the trouble they caused Tripathi's family, Reddit users are now hoping their smearing of Sunil will at least improve the chances of finding him.

"Hopefully his wrongful accusation increases his profile enough that he is found and returned to his family," wrote Reddit TerriblePigs.

A new subreddit has even been set up — HelpFindSunilTripathi — though so far only a single comment has been posted there: "I hope in the future people don't jump to conclusion anymore."

[image via Reddit]

Here's the Anheuser-Busch Beer Heir's Letter of Resignation From the NRA

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Here's the Anheuser-Busch Beer Heir's Letter of Resignation From the NRA When you've lost a beer magnate, you've lost America. Adolphus A. Busch IV, heir to the Anheuser-Busch beer fortune, resigned his lifetime NRA membership last night in a blistering two-page letter that called the gun lobby a corporate shill and attacked its "distorted values."

"It disturbs me greatly to see this rigid new direction of the NRA," Busch wrote in the letter—which he provided to a St. Louis TV reporter and is embedded below. "I am simply unable to comprehend how assault weapons and large capacity magazines have a role in your vision."

The critique is especially harsh coming from Busch, a lifelong hunter and gun-rights supporter who made a mint in his family business by helping to pioneer Bud Dry and the Budweiser frogs.

"The NRA appears to have evolved into the lobby for gun and ammunition manufacturers instead of gun owners," Busch wrote. Fortunately, American gun owners, this multimillionaire has your back. And some cheap watery brews!




[KSDK/Image via Flickr/japetonida]
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