Everyone's favorite failed politician might attempt a comeback next year. In an interview with the constantly confused Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin said she was considering a run against Alaskan Senator Mark Begich, a Democrat, in the 2014 election.

"I've considered it because people have requested me [to] consider it," Palin told Hannity on his radio show. "I'm still waiting to see what the lineup will be. And hoping there will be some new blood, new energy. Not just kind of picking from the same old politicians in the state that come from political families."

"Sen. Mark Begich has got to be replaced," she continued. "He had not done what he had promised to do for the people of Alaska, which is to represent what it is the nation needs in terms of energy development. Because he's on the wrong side of the aisle, he has to go along to get along with his Democrat leadership, and that's a shame. That's a waste of opportunity for our nation."

Right. If she decides not to run, or quits half-way through again, Palin will have no trouble keeping busy. She's back as a (cheaper) contributor at Fox News and, having finished her fitness book, is hard at work at another important literary endeavor:

"I'm writing a book about Christmas and pushing back on the politically correct who have tried to take Christ out of Christmas ... at the same time a very festive and happy and jolly book about tradition and recipes and fun things about Christmas!"

[Image via AP]

To contact the author of this post, email taylor@gawker.com

Two weeks after State Senator Wendy Davis' 13-hour filibuster, the Texas House of Representatives provisionally approved an anti-abortion bill that many consider to be the most restrictive in the country. The vote will be finalized Wednesday, and then the measure will move to the Texas State Senate.

Egypt has ordered the arrest of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie and nine other senior members.

It's not just the U.S.: Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and other Latin American countries are subject to the NSA's wide-ranging data-mining operations, Brazil's O Globo reported yesterday, citing leaked documents from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

According to the Rio de Janeiro paper, whose reporters worked with the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald, the NSA has collaborated with Brazilian telecommunications companies to gather data, and engaged in even more extensive surveillance operations in countries like Venezuela:

The paper, O Globo, based in Rio de Janeiro, says the documents show the National Security Agency amassed military and security data on countries such as Venezuela, an American adversary that has been accused of aiding Colombia’s Marxist rebels and maintaining close ties with Iran. But the documents also show that the agency carried out surveillance operations to unearth inside commercial information on the oil industry in Venezuela and the energy sector in Mexico, which is under state control and essentially closed to foreign investment.

"A shiver ran down my back when I learned that they are spying on all of us," Argentine President Cristina Fernandez said in a speech. Leaders of South American countries are holding an "extraordinary meeting" this week in Bolivia in response to European countries rerouting Bolivian President Evo Morales' plane last week apparently over fears that it was carrying NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff announced her country will investigate the report, saying "If we lower our heads, they will trample all over us tomorrow."

[image, of Bolivian supporters of Evo Morales on Wednesday, via AP]

That Justin Bieber is a menace to society has been tangentially documented various times over the past few months: From his run-ins with the paps (some more literal than others), to his abandonment of an innocent monkey in a foreign land.

But in footage just obtained by TMZ, Bieber takes his "wild kid" act to disgusting new lows.

Yel-lows, that is.

In the video, shot earlier this year in NYC, Bieber can be seen exiting a nightclub through a restaurant kitchen with his ruffian friends in tow.

Before leaving, Bieber pauses at a yellow mop bucket and proceeds to urinate directly into it.

TMZ spells it out: "whoever's job it was to mop the place up had to physically change Bieber's disgusting piss water."

He then proceeds up the stairs where he grabs a bottle of cleaning liquid and sprays a photo of Bill Clinton while cussing the former president out.

What exactly Bieber has against Bill remains unclear, but, as TMZ points out, whatever Clinton did to Bieber, "Bieber probably deserved it."

UPDATE: A tipster writes in to claim that the restaurant kitchen in question belongs to Artichoke Basille's Pizza on W 17th and 10th, and the nightclub he's sneaking out of is Avenue.

TMZ posted footage back in May of Justin Bieber doing exactly that.

[video via TMZ]

For several days now, CNN’s extensive coverage of the George Zimmerman trial has shouldered aside the more important Egypt story on the network’s U.S. channel.

I rarely criticize CNN in public, partly out of loyalty, but also to avoid hypocrisy. No one spends 20 years in cable news and comes away entirely clean.

In this case, however, I’m tempted to agree with Jay Rosen, who believes it’s time to give up on CNN. I want to add a bullet point to his list of complaints.

Can we all agree that responsible news organizations should tread carefully when covering a story that evokes such strong memories of our nation’s racial history?

Putting aside legal questions of guilt and innocence, this story began when a man with a gun spotted a young black male who was believed to be somewhere he shouldn’t be and up to no good.

African American history is filled with tragedies that began just that way.

And anyone with a passing knowledge of that history understands how this case could tap into a deep vein of suspicion and anger.

Given that fact, is this the sort of trial that should receive the full-on Reality-TV show treatment? Probably not.

I know the arguments on the other side. We are bringing the public into the courtroom and demystifying the judicial process. Isn’t transparency a good thing? I probably made similar claims at some point in the past.

Those may well be side benefits of the coverage, but they are not the primary motivation. The goal of the criminal-trial-as-entertainment genre is simple: Hook the viewer into the narrative. Get them emotionally invested in the characters. And, most importantly, persuade them to choose sides. Team Zimmerman vs. Team Trayvon.

The best entertainment TV shows do all this brilliantly. But news is supposed to be different. Done well, news provides context and background that often complicates rather than reinforces the main storylines. News plays more to the head, not to raw, gut emotions, which is why TV news done well has so much trouble competing in a media landscape where entertainment is always one click of the remote away.

Team Zimmerman vs. Team Trayvon. Is this really how we want the nation to follow this trial?

Legal analysts say Florida’s self-defense laws will make it difficult to convict Zimmerman.

Do their jobs well and the producers of the Zimmerman-Martin mini-series could get an unfortunate twofer – a ratings spike during the trial, and another ratings bump covering the violence that follows. No one wants that to happen.

All of this reminds me of a test that communications professor Robert Entman proposed to determine whether a news outlet was practicing “tabloid journalism." Entman focused on motivation. If the journalists made decisions based primarily on maximizing readers, ratings and profits, it was a tabloid outlet. If those journalists granted more weight to the public good, even at the risk of leaving some revenue on the table, it was not.

CNN has always been willing to chase a popular story, but it has also balanced those ratings grabs with an equal sense of public service. The network spent enormous amonts of air time and money on important coverage that was unlikely to draw a big audience (and we often had the ratings to prove it!). Under the Entman test, CNN never reached tabloid status in the past. And for the record, I don’t think it has now either. But I wonder if the Zimmerman coverage marks a turning point.

Sid Bedingfield spent two decades as a producer and executive for CNN, including a stint overseeing all the network's U.S. news programming. He is visiting professor of broadcast journalism at the University of South Carolina's School of Journalism and Mass Communications, where he is also a doctoral candidate studying the civil rights movement and political change in 1940s South Carolina. This post was reprinted with permission from his Tumblr.

Two flight attendants on the Asiana Airlines jet that crashed in San Francisco on Saturday were apparently ejected—but were found alive on the Tarmac after the accident, which the pilots now blame on the plane's auto-throttle.

The plane's pilots report that the plane wasn't set for the correct landing speed. According to their reports to the National Transportation Safety Board, they'd positioned the auto-throttles to keep up an air speed of 137 knots—which is significantly faster than the speed of the plane as it flew into San Francisco. At 158 mph, the plane was flying 30 knots below its target speed.

The chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Deborah A.P. Hersman, said the NTSB is looking into whether the throttles were activated correctly.

The crash of Flight 214 killed two and injured 182 people aboard. The two young women who died in the crash were traveling to the US from China for summer camp. It is still unclear whether one of the girls was killed by an approaching emergency vehicle. The President of Asiana, Yoon Young-doo, said he apologized personally to the two families of the young women and defended the pilots of the jet, reporting that they were qualified crew members with experience flying into San Francisco.

According to experts, the flight into San Francisco International Airport is not unusual or even difficult, but the airplane's speed must be examined closely because of a necessary 180-degree counterclockwise turn involved when the plane approaches from the north.

Experts and investigators examining the cause of the crash say that there was an over-reliance on technology. External air safety experts say that the pilots's statements about the throttle do not resolve why they were not monitoring the speed and altitude of the plane, which were both significantly out of the normal range for landing. According to these sources, the pilots should have been examining the plane's speed every few seconds. Barry Schiff, a former TWA pilot and an air safety consultant, told the LA Times:

"Whether it was engaged or not working is almost irrelevant. The big mystery of Flight 214 is why in God's name did these two pilots sit there and allow the air speed to get so low."

[LA Times, image via AP]

If you like Kink, head down to 175 Mott Street in SOHO to Anthem Wares' most recent pop-up for an exhibition of tittilating self-portraits by the sultry Andrea Mary Marshall.

Ms. Marshall has teamed up with three of Anthem Wares' designers, Fleet Ilya, Zana Bayne and Chromat, to produce photographic works that depict the place where her worlds of fetish and fashion meet. The store is transformed into a place where masters are muses, fantasies are no longer fiction, and asking to try on one of the leather harnesses is par for the course.

The show was curated by Kristin Sancken and will be up until July 21, 2013.

In an odd twist to the old "falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater" routine, a Texas man incited panic after he entered a movie theater in Bryan and began making "gun gestures" and "shooting noises" in the general vicinity of patrons.

"It was dark and nobody could really tell especially if you were in the back and you just see a guy going 'choo choo choo'," recalled Caroline Morales, who attended the "packed" 9 PM screening of World War Z. "The rumor quickly spread that it was a gun and everyone is rushing to the exit quickly. We couldn't have got out if we wanted to."

Darrell Reynolds, 54, was in the theater for about a minute before walking out toward the lobby where he was stopped by a police officer and arrested.

"It will not be tolerated in Bryan," Officer Kelley McKethan told KBTX. "It is an offensive gesture. It alarmed people and we took the appropriate actions."

Reynolds was booked on a Class C misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct and could be fined up to $350.

He was previously arrested on at least two separate occasions for public intoxication, but police don't believe alcohol played a role in his most recent antics.

It is unclear if Reynolds was attempting to sneak into World War Z, but according to McKethan he had just finished seeing the new Sandra Bullock-Melissa McCarthy buddy cop flick The Heat in the same movie theater.

[H/T: Opposing Views, mug shot via Brazos County]

Why does the Daily News spell it "controller" instead of "comptroller"? Because of the inherently unstable relationship between the spoken and written word, yes, but also because they needed to save space in the typeface in 1919.

Welcome to Next Question With Michael Musto, a regular feature in which Musto uses his time-honed skills to interrogate big celebrities, former celebrities, and wannabe celebrities. Musto is a pop culture icon, regular TV presence, and the author of four books.

Brooklyn-born comic Colin Quinn has been bringing his wry bouts of bemusement to TV (Saturday Night Live, Tough Crowd With Colin Quinn), movies (Grown Ups, Grown Ups 2), and Broadway (Long Story Short) for years. And he’s hardly through talking. Poised for a tour of all 13 colonies, the mighty Quinn is currently at the Cherry Lane Theater with Colin Quinn Unconstitutional, in which he masticates on the complicated country the founding founders helped spawn with one zippy little document. Like your angsty neighborhood bartender—who happens to be a genius—he hilariously deconstructs the Constitution and its ripple effect on Paula Deen, immigrants, and the dire lack of Obama jokes.

Hi, Colin. Do you get lonely alone onstage?

No, but I get lonely backstage before I go on.

Do you feel the seeds were planted early on for our reality show future?

Yes. The fact that George Washington was picked as President was partially because they needed a name. He was the only famous person. The only other one was Ben Franklin, who was a sexual groundbreaker. He used to go to sex clubs all the time.

Maybe that’s why Anthony Wiener is suddenly a frontrunner.

Good point. He should actually be pushing the Ben Franklin sex connection. You know, I went to [the sex club] Plato’s Retreat once and didn’t get laid.

You rejected that many people?

I went in its twilight years—in 1983, right before the fall. It was a slow Tuesday night. My friend ended up on all fours as one of six guys getting whipped by some dominatrix. I didn’t want to crawl around. I wanted to have sex. He was the sixth dog in a row.

Speaking of degradation: In the ‘80s, you tended bar before hitting it big. Was it “One for you, three for me”?

When I was working, I was a real pro. I’d wait till the after hours clubs to get drunk. Besides, I was hung over while I worked. I went to AM PM, Zodiac, even the Crisco Disco several times.

Wait a minute! That last one was a high-octane gay club! I was a member!

I was allowed to hang. I was a real cosmopolitan.

Were you on your knees?

No!

You didn’t stand long on NBC’s The Colin Quinn Show, which lasted only three episodes in 2002. Why?

I think it was too much for them at that time. It was a very shocking show. Very racial and provocative.

Too racy?

Too racial. Racy they don’t mind. Racy is not dangerous to people. When you talk about ethnicity, that’s what freaks out show biz.

But it wasn’t negative, right?

Everything in comedy is negative. Show me something positive and I’ll show you something that’s not funny.

Oh, come on. Kelly Ripa’s a riot. Anyway, why are female comics extra acerbic these days?

They always were because you’ve got to be acerbic. Every comedian has to be their most brutal self just to fucking last. Nobody wants to hear any pleasantries in comedy. No one wants to hear “I walked by this construction site. The workers were a little rude, but god bless them, they work hard.” That’s not funny. “These miserable bastards…”

That’s funny. But how do you control hecklers and seize power over an audience?

I like that phrase, “seize power.” The first couple of times, you feel “I’m so happy to be up here.” It’s like being the substitute teacher. After a few times, it’s “Everybody just shut the fuck up. You’re not shocking me. If you boo me, I’m not gonna die. If you yell, I’m gonna try my hardest to ruin your goddamned day.” When you destroy some heckler—unless they’re really drunk—it’s a douche, someone who wants to be funnier than the comedian. Everyone in the audience is like, “Kill them—for my shit coworker, for the person that jumped ahead of me on line…” Symbolically.

Or even literally.

In a comedy club, people would have no problem if someone in the audience got killed or somebody killed you. “I got something for my iPhone at least.”

Who’s a douche in comedy? Has anyone ever ripped off your material?

No.

Don‘t you wish they would?

It is kind of the ultimate indictment. “I wouldn’t steal from him.” But comedians love me and I love them. They’re the only ones that kept me in this stupid assed business.

Do they resent you now that you’ve turned to theater and get award nominations?

No, because I’m not that successful. I don’t make enough money to resent.

If you got another TV show, would you drop theater in a second?

No! I wish I could own one of these theaters and inflict my opinions nightly on the crowd. I screwed up somewhere along the line. I should be richer than everybody. I think it was from eating out every night.

Or from going to Crisco Disco. Does the world need Grown Ups 2?

(Laughs) You could say the same thing about Godfather 2. Both stories that needed to be told.

[Photo by Victor Jeffreys II]

A black mother-of-three who owns a cafe in a heavily white town is taking a stand against the racism she says she's had to endure for the past two years by posting a sign on the door informing potential customers of her race in advance.

"Attention!," the all-caps sign exclaims, "everyone be aware I am a black woman, and always will be[.] If you are allergic to black people, don't come in."

Martha-Renee Kolleh, who runs Yeanon Café in the West Yorkshire (England) market town of Ossett, says customers regularly walk in "take a look at me and walk out."

Ossett's latest census figures show that out of 16,116 people, some 97.5% are white.

"I put [the sign] there because of the way people treat me in Ossett," said Kolleh, who noted that some have received the "warning" with an understanding laugh, while others responded with swear words.

In fact, things have gotten so bad that the cafe, which has been serving "quality wholesome" Afro-Caribbean barbecue meals for over two years, is on the verge of closing, and Kolleh says she will have to shut down if things don't improve by autumn.

"I hired a white woman called Tracey. When Tracey is in the cafe she does well and people will come in and it will be full, once I stay in the background," she tells BBC News. "But if Tracey is not working and I'm working nobody comes in."

A local Councillor told the Beeb he was "utterly appalled" by the sign and "shocked" at the allegations of racism. Still, he offered Kolleh his "full support" and said if racism did exist, "we have to crush it with everything we have got."

Meanwhile, the Yeanon Café Facebook page has been overrun with messages of support from people who have seen or heard of Kolleh's sign. "I just read the news report about your sign," wrote one user. "My reaction is unprintable."

[screengrabs via BBC News]

Not to get racial, but a lot of these execs are coming from homes where drinking is normalised and then they go to college and enter mostly white frats and drink a bunch. I don't want to say that white people are all alcoholics, but it does seem like something that activists in the white community might want to focus on instead of constantly complaining about racism against them.

Last month, we brought you the farcical-but-real 58-page Powerpoint handbook assembled in preparation for an "Epic July 4th Trip to Ptown!" by some self-proclaimed "DC Boys." In response, another group of DC Boys going to Provincetown for July 4th made this video, to illustrate their poignant Summertime Sadness. Enjoy.

William Lynch, the CEO of Barnes & Noble, resigned this week after less than two years on the job, having failed to turn around the earnings of the Last Remaining Book Store by selling color tablets. So, uh... anybody have any other ideas? For making money?

Over the past few years, B&N has watched competitors like Borders crumble and die. It's clear that the book store business is not in great health. Lynch thought he could save the company by selling Nooks, which are basically like Kindles, but unpopular. Alas, sales were disappointing. It looks like E-readers will not be the company's future. That leaves them with the following revenue streams:

1. Selling books.

2. Maybe someone will buy a lot of those "Moleskine" journals in the checkout line???

It doesn't sound too promising. Despite being virtually unchallenged in the Big Bookstore Where You Can Read Shit in the Aisles category, B&N's prospects have only grown gloomier. The book business sucks. And trying to win the bookselling battle against Amazon is not a growth strategy, any more than trying to win the tablet battle against Amazon was. The company needs something... anything... to get them back on track, and provide some hope for the future. Otherwise, they will surely fade away. And then the fucking suburbs will have even less culture than they do now.

Got any new ideas? Seriously. We're asking. I got nothing. Put yours in the comments. If you come up with a good one, you can be CEO.

[Photo: AP]

A West Seattle woman who had a couple of item stolen from her car last month quickly discovered that the thief had inadvertently exchanged the loot for something of his: A black smartphone.

Scrolling through the list of contacts, Eliza Webb soon stumbled upon the alleged perp's mom and decided to give her a ring.

"This is a very uncomfortable phone call to make," Webb recalled telling the 19-year-old suspect's mother. "I have your son's phone and I'm missing some things out of my car and I think they might be two related items."

Webb says the unidentified teen's mom was "devastated."

Along with her husband, Webb drove to the teen's house to pick up her stuff.

"We knocked on the door and he answered in just sort of a defeated look," she told KOMO News. "He looked like he had been crying."

Webb learned that the kid and a buddy had hit 10 other unlocked cars in her neighborhood out of "boredom" after a night of drinking.

She offered him a compromise: Give her back the stuff he stole and help her track down the other victims, and she won't call the cops.

They gathered the second suspect from his home and set off on an "apology tour," knocking on every door in the cul-de-sac to find the people they burgled and apologize to them.

"I think bringing the police and courts into something like this can have long-term, devastating consequences for kids," Webb told The Seattle Times. "I wanted to meet him, talk to his parents and see if there might be another way. I felt that if I could get him to own up to what he’d done and understand there were consequences, it could be a much better outcome."

[screengrab via KOMO]

He actually texted me the day I shot his portrait. We met up right after his morning work out—he was sweaty and still catching his breath as he explained to me how he was once a sexy muscle jock. Sensing my disbelief, he asked me for my phone number ('How forward of you Mr. Quinn' I said) and before I knew it, this photo was vibrating in my pocket.

Colin! You were a sexy muscle jock! Nice work!

The Texas House of Representatives just passed a bill which will place broad restrictions on abortions. The bill will now go to the Texas Senate for vote.

The National Transportation Safety Board issued a press release this evening acknowledging that a summer intern had erroneously confirmed four fake Asiana pilot names to Bay Area TV station KTVU. The release corroborates KTVU's claim that an NTSB official had confirmed that "Ho Lee Fuk" and "Sum Ting Wong," among others, had been manning Asiana flight 214, which crashed near San Francisco on Saturday.

The National Transportation Safety Board apologizes for inaccurate and offensive names that were mistakenly confirmed as those of the pilots of Asiana flight 214, which crashed at San Francisco International Airport on July 6.

Earlier today, in response to an inquiry from a media outlet, a summer intern acted outside the scope of his authority when he erroneously confirmed the names of the flight crew on the aircraft.

The NTSB does not release or confirm the names of crewmembers or people involved in transportation accidents to the media. We work hard to ensure that only appropriate factual information regarding an investigation is released and deeply regret today's incident.

Appropriate actions will be taken to ensure that such a serious error is not repeated.

Naturally, if you've got any information on the intern behind this shitshow, email us.

After banning the presence of any female hygiene products from its Senate floor, Texas passed its restrictive abortion law last night, which will ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy as well as install new regulations that will most likely drive abortion clinics out of business.

Texas Governor/tanned leather boot Rick Perry told supporters after the vote that, “Today the Texas Legislature took its final step in our historic effort to protect life.” He applauded those who "tirelessly defended our smallest and most vulnerable Texans and future Texans.”

Tirelessly defending women in Texas was State Senator Wendy Davis, whose 11-hour filibuster put off the vote, but not for long. "The fight for the future of Texas is just beginning," she told supporters late Friday.

The final vote came amid protests from both outside and inside the Senate gallery, as opponents of the bill came together to try one last time to stop the vote.

Senator Kirk Watson, a Democrat from Austin, told another lawmaker that “women don’t understand why you keep coming after them.” Senator Dan Patrick, a Republican, replied “I suggest babies are thinking the same thing.”