A newlywed couple in Pennsylvania placed a craigslist ad, lured a man to their house, and killed him for the thrill of it.

22-year-old Elytte Barbour and 18-year-old Miranda Barbour placed a Craigslist ad the week of November 12th, offering anyone companionship in exchange for money. When 42-year-old Troy LaFerrara answered the advertisement, they had him meet them in their SUV. Once in the SUV, Elytte wrapped a cord around LaFerrara's neck, while his wife stabbed him 20 times. LaFerrara's body was found on November 12th in Sunbury, a city northwest of Philadelphia.

The couple was married on October 22nd, just two weeks before the murder. Elytte told investigators that he and his wife had tried to kill before, but the plans never worked out. Mirana Barbour had routinely been paid by men for companionship, a business her husband claims never included sex.

"She is not a prostitute," he told reporters after his wife's arrest, but before his own. "What she does is meet men who have broken marriages or have no one in their lives and she meets with them and has delightful conversation."

Both face homicide charges.

We watched Miley Cyrus' new music videos 711 million times this year. All of us.

What train do you want to take? my date asks. I don’t answer, because I have no idea where we are. It's Halloween 2011 and we're going to Brooklyn Bowl to see Donald Glover, the writer/actor/comedian touring the country with his buzzy new album, Camp. I am told that Donald performs under the computer generated rap name Childish Gambino. Neither my date, nor I, can imagine a day two years in the future where hundreds of thousands of people will actually be anticipating the release of his third album, Because the Internet. We have just come from hearing Angela Davis speak about Black women, writing, and using our creativity to battle oppression.

I look at my phone, and it’s later than I’d hoped: 9:08—which means Donald Glover went on eight minutes prior. But that’s only in the alternate universe, a world outside New York and hip-hop, where things start on time.

I ask myself why tickets to this show are $20, and only available at the door, as if advance tickets had already sold out. That’s unlikely. But when we get there, it’s packed. It’s packed with furries—or maybe they’re just avid cartoon fans. Donald Glover, a.k.a., Childish Gambino, comes on stage—I miss his entrance in order to pee—and the crowd goes wild.

So I look. And I listen. And I'm waiting to be wowed, after having heard Donald spit a single whiny verse on Peter Rosenberg’s mixtape. I’m waiting for the punch-line. But I had already been informed by my date, many times before: He’s not a joke rapper; he’s for real.

Who isn’t these days?

My first thought—or, the first lyric I make out: “I love pussy and I love bitches” (Or is it “I love bitches and I love pussy”?)

My first thought: This again? I don’t know much about rap, so I’m not sure who the reigning emperor of pussy and bitches (what’s the difference?) is, but whoever claims the throne, they don’t need any more subjects. Which is funny, because he should make Donald their jester.

Before tonight, I’ve never heard Childish Gambino’s music, but I’ve also never heard his comedy. I’ve just seen him on the side of a bus and thought he was cute.

Well, he’s not. The other first thing I notice is that he has shoulders for ears, i.e., he’s tense. His eyes are bug-open, his eyebrows are permanent surprise. This is called “emoting.”

His emo is priceless. His emo is slavish to Drake ish—just rounder-faced. He has on a button-up and tie, he’s accompanied by a full band, and he’s bouncing around on stage, ever so rhythmically, but he’s really sad inside. You can tell. He says he’s not white enough for the white kids, not black enough for the black kids, and he’s a nerd, and he’s awkward, but it doesn’t matter because he gets mad bitches and hoes now, and yes, this is his only subject, and that’s stupid, but so what? He’s poorly rapping about poorly rapping. Meta-foolishness. And that’s how I know he’s sad. Because irony is the saddest form of humor.

The crowd just loves him, though. A pudgy white bunny knows every word, even the 'nigga' parts. He smiles delightedly as he mouths each word in the back of the room, one ear flopping over, a dribble of beer on his chin.

And he keeps going, this one, this Glover guy. All I can think, as I suck the sauce off a hickory-smoked barbeque wing, is that Angela Davis would hate this. And how glad I am that we didn’t invite her.

Because Donald is just so awkward, so uncomfortable in his own skin. In addition to his posture problems and unwillingness to blink is the fact that he’s so caught up on his childhood. Childish Gambino could be fudged into simpler terms to mean Babyish Baby, and that’s apt. Donald’s childhood, I glean, was very similar to mine: an ethnically black child who grew up culturally white because of the surrounding school system and neighborhood. The difference between him and me, however, is that I found something else to say besides Ow.

It’s amazing how pain can permeate. Soak. Completely overwhelm a person’s personality, goals, ability for rational thinking. If Donald Gambino weren’t so hurt by the achy split he was made to feel as a well-spoken, non-gangbanging little black boy, maybe he could find something to say besides, Gee, it really sucked being a well-spoken, non-gangbanging little black boy. It’s strange how genuinely funny he is, talking about hot Asian chicks at UCLA, and how people said he wasn’t really black, and how now, brown cow, everyone is riding his dick, because it’s really not funny at all. Not from back here. Not without more alcohol, a better get-up—not without the amount of distance it takes to laugh like that.

Somewhere, maybe in New York, maybe in a giant, gilded hotel suite, Donald is writing rap songs that are completely inaccessible as songs. The experience is true—didn’t Trey Ellis write about this very phenomenon, didn’t he call us all “cultural mulattoes” in the early nineties? He did. But in long lines of prose, not over snare and kick, not in front of whites who don’t—can’t—get it. Donald is staring out at the skyline, ordering room service, flipping channels, hoping he’ll catch himself—and then there he is, on stage, the hottest ticket in town, an almost-crown on his head, an almost-cape on his back. This is his dream, his dream as an unwanted black nerd, his reality as a cool-ass motherfucker. New York City. Just like he pictured it. Adoring bitches, dap for days. He is getting back at us for all those jabs at his tender pride, all those people who doubted him. This is for high school, for the cruelest thugs, for the clueless whites, for the girls who always said no. But not for anyone else.

Kyla Marshell is a poet and writer in New York. Her work has appeared in Vinyl Poetry, SPOOK Magazine, Blackbird Journal, and Okayplayer's The Revivalist, among others. Holler here: @khellonmars.

[Photo via Getty]

In July 2012, a Colorado baker turned away a cake order after he found out that the cake was for a same-sex marriage. On Friday, a judge found that the baker must serve the gay couple or face fines.

Judge Robert N. Spencer found that Masterpiece Cakeshop, which is located just outside of Denver, discriminated against Charlie Craig and David Mullins "because of their sexual orientation by refusing to sell them a wedding cake for their same-sex marriage."

The cease and desist came after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint against the bakery's owner, Jack Phillips. The couple had been married in Massachusetts, but were celebrating in Colorado.

The lawyer for the cake shop tried to paint the owner in a positive light. "He can't violate his conscience in order to collect a paycheck," the lawyer, Nicolle Martin, said. "If Jack can't make wedding cakes, he can't continue to support his family. And in order to make wedding cakes, Jack must violate his belief system. That is a reprehensible choice. It is antithetical to everything America stands for."

The judge addressed a store owner's right to refuse service:

"At first blush, it may seem reasonable that a private business should be able to refuse service to anyone it chooses. This view, however, fails to take into account the cost to society and the hurt caused to persons who are denied service simply because of who they are."

David Mullins, who was refused service, hoped that the "decision will help ensure that no one else will experience this kind of discrimination again in Colorado."

[Mourners sing outside the home of former president Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg, South Africa on Saturday. Photo by Matt Dunham via AP.]

Last night in Brooklyn, two New York City transit cops stationed at a subway station at Lewis and Broadway in Bed-Stuy heard pounding above them. They walked up to the street to find a man with a cane banging on their patrol car. The two cops approached the man, who swung at them, striking one in the face. The other — naturally, because how else would two people subdue a man who requires the use of a cane — shot the man to the ground. He was taken to the hospital, as were the cops. Take a guess which of three will make it out of the hospital last.

Also last night, Washington D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier addressed the cases of two policemen on her force accused of doing two very bad things. One, a 24-year veteran of the force named Linwood Barnhill, allegedly moonlights as a pimp. On Wednesday, police searched his home looking for a missing 16-year-old. They found her there along with an 18-year-old female, and the younger girl told the officers executing the search that Barnhill had arranged for her to meet with an older male, where the two would have sex in exchange for $80. The girl also told police that Barnhill took nude photos of her with his cell phone and that she had met a half-dozen other girls at his apartment.

This comes on the heels of another D.C. cop being hit with child pornography charges on Tuesday. That one, a man named Marc J. Washington, is accused of stripping down a 15-year-old girl and photographing her while in the process of investigating a claim that she ran away from home. On his phone, his colleagues in the police department found more photos of naked women, some of which appeared to be minors and others that were victims of domestic violence.

"We've come so far," Lanier said in her press conference on Friday. "We have people now who feel comfortable telling us about these complaints. It only takes one cop to shake everybody in our community."

Now she has two.

[photo of Cathy Lanier via Getty]

Good morning, residents of the midwest, eastern and southern portions of the United States. It may look habitable outside where you are right now, but there's a good chance that by the end of today that will no longer be true. "Winter Storm Dion" (did you guys know they named winter storms?) — which dumped snow and ice all over the West Coast earlier this week — is making its way east across the country, and will be leaving all shades of "wintery mix" in its wake.

If you live anywhere east of Wyoming and north of, like, Louisiana there's a good chance today and tomorrow are going to suck, so you should check out this very helpful region-by-region breakdown from the Weather Channel that explains what kind of weather you should be expecting and when you should be expecting it. Don't slip and fall! (You will probably slip and fall.)

Over the weekend, Barron Hilton — brother to Paris and Nicky, son of a hotel — got his ass kicked at a mansion in Miami allegedly at the behest of Lindsay Lohan. What a fantastic news story.

According to the Hiltons, Barron and Lindsay were at a party for rich and gross people on Friday night when Lohan — who has miraculously managed to stay out of trouble since leaving rehab in August — overheard the boy Hilton trashing her. Later in the night, Barron was attacked by an unknown man in what the Hiltons say was retaliation ordered by Lohan.

Though it now appears to be deleted, Paris issued a not-so-vague threat on Instagram (how the world turns!) regarding the attack, per the NY Daily News: "They both will pay for what they did. No one fucks with my family and gets away with it!!" Nicky Hilton also seemed to be alluding to the incident on Twitter, though I can't parse the tweets at all. Maybe you can do better. Or maybe not, whatever.

Barron filed a police report after the incident, saying that Lohan egged on the attacker as he beat him up. Lohan's reps deny this, which I am and choosing to ignore as you also should.

The feud between the Hiltons and Lohan dates all the way back to 2006 when an oily human named Brandon Davis called Lohan a "firecrotch" to paparazzi. Amazingly, neither side has quite yet figured out a way to milk television money out of this. But let's give them some more time.

[photo via Instagram]

A crushing blow to American exceptionalism.

Danica Patrick has been racing in NASCAR since 2010, so you'd think she'd built a pretty thick armor by now, like every racing driver does. Comedian Jay Mohr had the chutzpah to mention her results, though, and suddenly all bets were off. Enter the icy glare of death.

Oh, and also the weird sadface from boyfriend and fellow driver Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. He kind of looks like someone told him the puppy he got for Christmas just died in the box it came in.

Mohr was doing his shtick at the annual Sprint Cup banquet on Friday night, and many of the jokes fell a bit flat. Though I'm not sure that justifies this reaction:

Truth be told, the only sadface should be reserved the jokes themselves, and not because they were at Danica Patrick's expense. Mostly because they were so darn unoriginal:

Danica I hope you're not too uncomfortable tonight. I know you're not used to being this close to the front!

ZING! POW! WHAMMY!

Okay, so her results have been kind of crappy. She grabbed the pole at Daytona this year, but that was pretty much that for the rest of the year. Not even a top-10 finish all season. Even still, that joke was a bit too easy, considering how interchangeable it is.

What was more unexpected, though, was Danica and Ricky's reaction of just complete and utter disapproval. The joke got some laughs and even more groans, but if you made a joke about Sebastian Vettel cheating his way to a championship, I'm sure he'd love it. He's the kind of guy that encourages crowds to boo him. Being made fun of is part of what you sign up for when you sign up for being a public figure.

Mohr then tries to save the show by then singing Patrick's praises, though I'm not sure that's necessary. Should've just moved on, but I guess that's what happens when you're doing a corporate gig. And then it gets worse:

Ricky, let me give you a little advice, just guy-to-guy. Next time your girlfriend asks you "does this fire suit make me look fat?" Just say no, brother!

Whince. Barf. Gag. Cue more grovelling from Mohr. Yeah, that was even worse.

When Patrick was given a giant telecommunications logo as an "award" she did reference Mohr's "jokes" in her speech, and it was probably the best joke of the night:

I of course have to thank the fans, that's why I have this award, I have amazing fans. I'm so fortunate. And I think it's pretty safe to say, that JAY MOHR IS NOT ONE OF THEM.

Much better. That would've been fine, but Mohr had to grovel some more. Gross.

Danica's gotten a lot of crap that's entirely undeserved. Even still, the greatest shame was this poor excuse for a "roast." And if anyone should know better, it's Mohr.

With Patrick scheduled to host the American Country Awards Tuesday night, though, Mohr had some advice on hosting duties:

My dearest @DanicaPatrick . When you host the AMA's Tuesday night, be classy. Don't make any jokes about the artists. Xoxo

— Jay Mohr (@jaymohr37) December 8, 2013

Here is the evolution of celebrity idol worship: an 18-year-old Paul Walker fan was arrested last night in Los Angeles after stealing a piece of the deceased actor's Porsche and posting a photo on Instagram.

After searching a home in a northern L.A. suburb in Canyon County, the L.A.P.D. arrested Jameson Witty a week after he took a roof panel from the 2005 Porsche off a tow truck that was transporting the wreckage away from the crash site. TMZ has video of Witty running up to the bed of the tow truck and picking off the panel before sprinting away, which would almost be unbelievable if we weren't talking about TMZ.

If you were to click that TMZ link, you would notice that (in typical TMZ fashion), Witty and his accomplice — who has not yet been picked up — are called "scumbags." This doesn't seem to be exactly true. Witty, who calls Walker a "childhood idol," posted a note on Instagram late last night apologizing and explaining that he intended to use the piece of wreckage to make a memorial.

Kids, they do stupid things!

Another porn star has tested positive for HIV, shutting down the California porn industry once again.

Seymour Hersh, one of the best-sourced journalists in America, reports that the Obama administration "cherry-picked" intelligence to justify an attack on the Assad regime, ignoring reports that the sarin gas attack on civilians last August could have been carried out by a fundamentalist rebel group instead.

Writing in the London Review of Books, Hersh explains that various sources in the intelligence community have told him that the Obama administration knowingly ignored valuable intelligence, and even altered past intelligence reports, while moving unilaterally forward with a plan to topple the Assad regime.

Hersh:

In recent interviews with intelligence and military officers and consultants past and present, I found intense concern, and on occasion anger, over what was repeatedly seen as the deliberate manipulation of intelligence. One high-level intelligence officer, in an email to a colleague, called the administration's assurances of Assad's responsibility a 'ruse'. The attack 'was not the result of the current regime', he wrote. A former senior intelligence official told me that the Obama administration had altered the available information – in terms of its timing and sequence – to enable the president and his advisers to make intelligence retrieved days after the attack look as if it had been picked up and analysed in real time, as the attack was happening.

Instead of using all available intelligence to come to a conclusion about the perpetrators of the sarin attack, Hersh writes that the administration immediately assumed that Assad was behind the attack, and then went looking for any available intelligence that fit that assumption.

Hersh points to the very real possibility that the rebel group al-Nusra, a fundamentalist group that aims to topple Assad and enforce Sharia law in Syria, was behind the attack. Highly classified documents proved the group was capable of creating sarin gas. At the very least, Hersh writes, they should have been a strong suspect.

Hersh's reporting throws into question Obama's quick reversal on a possible attack on Assad:

The administration's distortion of the facts surrounding the sarin attack raises an unavoidable question: do we have the whole story of Obama's willingness to walk away from his 'red line' threat to bomb Syria? He had claimed to have an iron-clad case but suddenly agreed to take the issue to Congress, and later to accept Assad's offer to relinquish his chemical weapons. It appears possible that at some point he was directly confronted with contradictory information: evidence strong enough to persuade him to cancel his attack plan, and take the criticism sure to come from Republicans.

A Louisiana man became locked inside a United Airlines jet after he fell asleep during the flight and slept, unnoticed, until the plane was locked and abandoned.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters in Ukraine took to the streets today in another mass demonstration of anger against President Viktor F. Yanukovich's decision to break off negotiations with the European Union.

The protests culminated in the destruction of a statue of Lenin, a symbol of Russian influence on its neighboring country. Protests have been building for weeks, with demonstrators taking to the street on a daily basis, occupying the City Hall and turning Kiev's main city square to a large tent encampment.

President Yanukovich met Friday with Russian President Putin, which infuriated the protesters. Ukraine, which is facing severe economic turmoil, needs to secure a financial aid package of $18 billion dollars. The proposed deal with the European Union would have brought Ukraine closer to the West, but also would have stipulated strict German-mandated austerity measures. Fearing retribution from Russian, President Yanukovich broke off negotiations, leading Ukraine to a political crisis that will end in either the resignation of the Yanukovich government, or severe police repression.

Champion boxer and leader of the opposition party Vitali Klitschko called for the continuation of the protests.

"We call for a strike," he told reporters. "I am convinced we can press the authorities, peacefully, and win."

Protesters have decried the secretive negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, the latter of which looks to create a regional trade block that would rival the European Union.

Now that NSA are the dirtiest three letters in Washington, it appears to be a much less fun place to work than before Edward Snowden detailed exactly the extent to which our communication devices are the agency's playground. According to a new report in the Washington Post, morale is down at the NSA, and its employees are angry at President Obama for not providing a pick-me-up.

Sources within the NSA complained to reporter Ellen Nakashima that they are feeling unloved by the president, who has reportedly not personally visited the agency's headquarters 23 miles outside of Washington at Fort Meade in Maryland in order to assure employees there that he is behind them. A White House spokesperson told Nakashima that top executive officials have been in contact with the NSA in order to "express the president's support and appreciation for all that NSA does to keep us safe."

Apparently that's not enough for the NSA — but then again, what is?

[photo of Edward Snowden via Getty]

[The Ravens and Vikings play through the snow in Baltimore. Snow will be falling tonight across the Northeast, from Washington to Boston. Image by Nick Wass via AP.]

Scores of fans fought in the stands during today's match between Atlético Paranaense and Vasco da Gama at Arena Joinville in Santa Catarina, eventually turning into a riot.

According to a chart on globoesporte.com, the initial confrontation started at the edge of the Atlético Paranaense section closer to the Vasco section. It spilled over into the space between the sections, and eventually reached the part that Vasco occupied.

Three fans in critical condition were taken to the hospital. The fighting began at roughly the 17th minute of the match. Privately contracted security showed up a few minutes later to try and contain the riots, shooting tear gas.

[The Big Lead | globoesporte.com]

In the past few months, the New York Times has run a series of stories revealing the business practices of JP Morgan in China, where the bank hired the children of the country's elite to get business from the Chinese Government. How far did JP Morgan go in pursuing these deals? Federal authorities have obtained documents that show the bank tracking the hirings to potential business deals.

The New York Times writes,

The documents, which also include spreadsheets that list the bank's "track record" for converting hires into business deals, offer the most detailed account yet of JPMorgan's "Sons and Daughters" hiring program, which has been at the center of a federal bribery investigation for months. The spreadsheets and emails — recently submitted by JPMorgan to authorities — illuminate how the bank created the program to prevent questionable hiring practices but ultimately viewed it as a gateway to doing business with state-owned companies in China, which commonly issue stock with the help of Wall Street banks.

The practice, which violates several American laws, was something of an "open secret" at JP Morgan, where bank officials were very clear with members of the Chinese government about expectations for business deals if they gave their children jobs.

The documents are pretty funny actually. One exchange recorded details the hiring of a Chinese "princeling" in exchange for a profitable business deal:

"All we have to do," the banker said, is secure the relative "a full-time analyst job at JPM in N.Y."

The problem, another employee in Hong Kong acknowledged, was that the candidate's "napping habit will be an eye-opening experience for our N.Y. colleagues."

Hate to be in the cubicle next to that guy.

And while some news outlets have refused to cover such corrupt deals, the New York Times continues to publish pieces that expose the illegality of many American business deals in China. Their reward? All New York Times reporters will be kicked out of China on December 31st.

Snowy roads lead to nowhere good — a man was struck and killed in what then turned into a 50-car pileup in Pennsylvania, shutting down the turnpike. The man had apparently gotten into a minor accident, but was struck and killed when he exited his vehicle to examine the damage.