An honor student from one of Chicago's top schools who had just performed at President Obama's second inauguration ceremony last week was killed yesterday after being caught in the crossfire of a gang-related shooting.
15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, a majorette in the King College Prep Marching Band and Drill Team, had been released from school early after finishing an exam, and was hanging out in nearby Vivian Gordon Harsh Park with about a dozen teenagers who were taking shelter from the heavy rain.
According to Chicago's CBS 2, around 2:30 PM, an unknown individual suddenly appeared and opened fire on the group.
Pendleton was shot in the back and died an hour later at Chicago Comer Children's Hospital. Another teen sustained a leg injury and was listed in serious condition as of Tuesday evening.
"There has to be an end to it. It's just too much. The children cannot go to school. They're in fear," said resident Bonita O'Bannion.
No arrests have been made yet, and investigators say they lack a good description of the attacker or his getaway car because witnesses are refusing to cooperate.
Dr. Phil says the man behind Manti Te'o's fake girlfriend Lennay Kekua, Roniah Tuiasosopo, told him he was "deeply, romantically in love" with Te'o and claims that the voice talking back to Te'o for countless hours on the phone was not his cousin, as reported by the New York Post, but him. Asked by Dr. Phil if he is gay, Tuiasosopo says that, yes, he is, then clarifies that he is "confused."
Following Deadspin's exposure of the Te'o/Kekua hoax, Katie Couric booked the much-coveted first on-camera interview with Te'o. The next big "get" was the man behind the fictional girlfriend, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo. That interview went to Oprah protégé Dr. Phil, set to air Thursday and Friday on his daytime talk show. Wednesday morning the Today Show had a preview of that interview.
In the interview, Tuiasosopo confirms Te'o's claim that he is an innocent victim.
He also tells Dr. Phil that he'd considered putting an end to the scam earlier, but couldn't.
I wanted to end it because after everything I had gone through, I finally realized that I just had to move on with my life. I had to start just living and let this go. There were many times where Manti and Lennay had broken up, but something would bring them back together whether it was something going on in his life or in Lennay's life, or in this case, my life.'
In getting to what would motivate Tuiasosopo to do such a thing, Dr. Phill says "Ronaiah had a number of life experiences that damaged this young man in some very serious ways." He also told NBC's Mike Taibbi that he believes after speaking to Tuiasosopo that Te'o was not in any way involved.
The full interview airs in two parts on Dr. Phil Thursday and Friday.
God is great, God is good, and Lindsay Lohan miraculously recovered from her grave upper respiratory infection in time to make it to court in L.A. today.
It was reported yesterday that Lohan was planning to get herself excused from missing the court date she did not feel like attending right now by pleading sick. Her new lawyer, Mark Heller, submitted a packet of documents to the judge that included a doctor's note explaining that Lohan was suffering from an upper respiratory infection, as well as a copy of a Post story proving that sickness is a thing that can happen to a person.
However, when it emerged that Lindsay had been photographed boutique shopping the day she was allegedly deemed too sick for justice, many speculated that Judge Stephanie Sautner would issue a warrant for her arrest if she missed her scheduled court appearance.
Lohan and her mom-but-don't-tell-them-I'm-your-mom-tell-them-I'm-your-older-sister Dina flew from New York to California late Tuesday evening. After being turned away from a couple chi-chi hotels (Shutters on the Beach and a Loews) last night, Lohan arrived to court on time this morning. Her lawyer carried a Louis Vuitton monogrammed briefcase and a lucky rabbit's foot.
Inside the courtroom, Judge Sautner said to Lohan "I'm glad to see you're feeling better." Lindsay chuckled and responded "Thank you." It was a little awkward.
Things got slightly worse when Lohan's lawyer tried to tell the judge that Lohan's upper respiratory infection was, in fact, the flu, and the judge had none of it.
"No, it isn't in the flu…it's a separate test."
Heller also tried to schmooze with Sautner, a fellow New Yorker, by telling the her he'd heard that she was a former New York City detective.
The response: "Flattery doesn't get you anywhere in this court."
Lohan's trial will take place in March and maybe she will come to that.
This morning, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick announced he would appoint William "Mo" Cowan as interim senator to fill newly appointed Secretary of State John Kerry's seat until a special election. Cowan was Gov. Patrick's chief of staff from January 2011 to November 2012; before that he served as Patrick's chief legal counsel.
Cowan is also African-American. Serving alongside Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), this is the first time America has had two black senators serving at the same time. Interestingly enough, Sen. Scott is also a governor-appointed senator.
A relative unknown to people outside Massachusetts, Cowan went to Duke and Kelly Bensimon's future alma mater Northeastern University. Cowan left Gov. Patrick's office to return to practicing law in the private sectorHe has not indicated whether or not he's interested in running in the special election to formally fill the seat held by Sen. Kerry since 1985.
Multiple people have reportedly been shot inside an office complex in Phoenix just hours after former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to deliver a statement on the need for more gun control.
According to local police, as many as four people were shot inside an office belonging to a mortgage company, and the suspect — described as a white male in his 60s — has fled the scene.
Details concerning the victims' condition has not been released.
The scene remains active, and police have shut down several streets near the area where the shooting took place.
UPDATE: According to the latest casualty report from officials in Phoenix, the number of people injured in the incident has increased to 5, three of whom sustained life-threatening gunshot wounds.
Police told Fox 10 News that the shooter entered the office "looking for individuals," and the attack itself was preceded by "some sort of altercation."
Gabrielle Giffords' husband Mark Kelly was testifying before Congress at the time of the shooting, and briefly mentioned the event, saying, in part, "while we were having this hearing, and we certainly don't know the details, but in Phoenix, Arizona, there is another what seems to be possibly a shooting with multiple victims."
UPDATE 2: The suspect in today's shooting has been identified by police as 70-year-old Arthur Douglas Harmon. He remains on the loose, though officers have surrounded his home in the 14600 block of North 28th Street.
He was not inside.
Law enforcement sources have also confirmed that one of the three people shot this morning has passed away. None of the victims' identities has been formally released yet, but lawyer Mark Hummels, president of the local Federal Bar Association chapter, is believed to be among them.
WSB reporter Ross Cavitt captured this video of a tornado touching down in Adairsville, Ga. Wednesday. The tornado was a part of a string of storms moving across the southern part of the country.
One person has been confirmed dead after the tornado in this video collapsed a building. The storm also damaged a motel and a manufacturing plant, though authorities report all motel guests are safe and the employees at the plant are all accounted for.
Adairsville is a town of less than 5,000 people about 61 miles northwest of Atlanta. The fatality breaks a record streak of 220 days without a tornado death in America.
The storm's damage was not limited to Adairsville. Interstate 75 — a major highway that runs from south Florida to Michigan — had to be closed after several cars were overturned in the high winds. There are also reports of damaged buildings in the city of Calhoun, north of Adairsville.
There have been tornado watches issued today across the south in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky.
Iconic crossover adult film star Ron Jeremy has been hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after doctors found an aneurysm near his heart.
According to TMZ, Jeremy began experiencing chest pains yesterday afternoon, but was able to drive himself to the hospital.
Once there, however, his condition quickly deteriorated.
Jeremy was subsequently transferred to the ICU in critical condition, and will undergo surgery later today, his manager Mike Esterman told the gossip site.
The 59-year-old hirsute porn legend, known to fans as The Hedgehog, has appeared in hundreds of adult films, earning him the world record for "Most Appearances in Adult Films."
Every single subway line in New York City was delayed this morning, as many of us learned much too late. The reason? "Inclement weather." Which in this case was fog. Fog broke the entire subway system.
Images released today by a judicial order provide a disturbing window into the hard drive — and fantasies — of "Cannibal Cop" Gilberto Valle, the NYPD officer accused of plotting to kidnap, kill and eat a woman: a photo of a naked woman, face down, hog-tied on a pan with an apple in her mouth. Another woman, bound and tied to a spit, rotating over an open campfire. A cartoon of a guy in an apron, adding salt to a pot in which a woman is being boiled alive.
Just some light reading for prospective jurors!
Defense lawyers for Valle were forced to publicly release the images, which constitute the appendix to a jury questionnaire they've been using in an attempt to screen jurors they believe would be unfair to their client. They'd attempted to keep the questionnaire sealed, but lost a legal challenge from the New York Post.
Among the questions in the document:
And, oh boy, those images. Initially seized from Valle's hard drive by investigators last year, and given to the defense by the prosecution, they run the gamut from creepy softcore to creepier staged (we hope?) human-cooking to a bizarre cartoon — somehow the creepiest of all. The face of the woman in the cartoon is obscured, according to the prosecution, because Valle had replaced it with the face of "a real victim."
Be warned — they're graphic and not safe for work.
You're super excited after getting the go ahead from your fiancée Cynthia to invite her best friend Zoey over for a threeway, so you hastily record a video introducing yourself to Zoey and letting her know that you're totally open to having a threeway this week, next week, the week after that, whenever, anytime, today, or maybe tomorrow, whenever possible, and you're just really excited to show her things that she's never seen and do things that were never done before in a threeway.
Babies are great except sometimes they aren't baby enough. "That bitch Kaixin from baby yoga always smells just like a baby! Why can't my baby do that?" you wonder to yourself. Fortunately for you, the fashion industry is here to help.
Dolce & Gabbana will soon start selling a fragrance for babies. It will have notes of citrus, honey and melon and will be alcohol-free. Co-founder Stefano Gabbana told the New York Daily News about the fragrance, in a little bit too much detail:
"The softness of baby skin, the freshness of baby breath, a mother's sweet hug, [and] the first smile" were inspirations for the scent, meant to enhance the tot's natural smell, Gabbana said.
Blech. That sentence is a bummer.
Gabbana also recently posted a picture of the perfume bottle and what looks like a marketing campaign for it to Instagram, with the caption "per i bimbi" or "for the babies."
A 50 milliliter bottle of the eau de Pamper's will set you back $45 and also a visit from social services probably.
Dolce & Gabbana isn't even the first fashion house to put out a baby fragrance. Burberry, Bulgari and L'Occitane have all done one too, so, let's burn this whole thing down.
This plan from the New York Public Library to have Sir Norman Foster gut its beloved central building and rework it, getting rid of the pesky "books" there in the process, all in the name of modernization and The People and prudent money-management—Michael Kimmelman, holder of the office of New York Times architecture critic, has reviewed the plan, and he has delivered the verdict, and the verdict is: DEATH. The library and its "celebrity architect," Kimmelman writes, have cooked up a plan for a "money pit," an "Alamo of engineering" that will pointlessly deform a vital and important structure to no good or useful end.
Kimmelman disdains the Foster plan on architectural grounds—"an awkward, cramped, banal pastiche of tiers," he calls it, and then he really gets going—but his true line of attack isn't about taste. It's about engineering and common sense. The Public Library wants to get rid of its noncirculating stacks to make room for the main library building to absorb the book-circulation operations of other branches, including the Mid-Manhattan Branch across the street, so that those branches can be sold off for money to build an endowment.
That scheme won't work, Kimmelman writes. The most damning phrase in his whole piece is a quote the engineering firm itself gave the Wall Street Journal: that the central concept of the project, the removal of the stacks currently at the bottom of the library, amounts to "cutting the legs off a table while dinner is being served." Rather than worrying about the library-science merits of moving the books off site, Kimmelman focuses on the fact that replacing the stacks with open space involves blowing out the building's basic structural support:
[H]omeowners know what happens when contractors talk about performing magic tricks. Even if Silman's pros ensure that the reading room doesn't collapse, the whole rationale for the plan—the annual millions promised for acquisitions, librarians and so on—comes crashing to earth if the finances don't work out.
The Public Library could find a more plausible source of money, Kimmelman argues, from the branch it wants to get rid of:
[T]he Mid-Manhattan site at present has the potential to be redeveloped as a 20-story building. The library could also sell some 100,000 square feet of unused space at the site, or seek city permission to transfer air rights (there may be more than a million square feet) from 42nd Street. A new Mid-Manhattan branch should cost a fraction of gutting the stacks and could produce much better architecture.
A Times architecture critic holds enormous influence, and possibly actual power. And now Kimmelman is testing that power by swinging it at another major civic institution. The Public Library, in its enthusiasm for the project, is willing to defy its reading-room loyalists and perhaps the laws of physics and finance. Can it get away with defying the Times as well?
A German resident who goes by the alias Krümel Monster (Cookie Monster) is on the run from the law after lifting a 44-pound Golden Cookie that has stood guard over the Hannover headquarters of world-famous biscuit maker Bahlsen for the past century.
Though the real Cookie Monster has denied any involvement, a person claiming to be the thief sent a ransom note to at least one local media outlet, along with a photo of themselves in a Cookie Monster costume taking a bite out of the stolen biscuit.
"I have the biscuit!" reads the stereotypical note, which was received by Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung yesterday. "You want it and therefore you want on one day in February, to give biscuits to all the children in Bult hospital. But those with milk chocolate, not those with dark chocolate and not those without chocolate. And a golden biscuit for the child cancer ward."
As for the €1,000 (~$1,350) being offered by Bahlsen for information leading to the thief's arrest, Krümel Monster demands it be donated to a local animal shelter.
Failure to follow his instructions will result in the cookie "end[ing] up with Oscar [the Grouch] in the dustbin."
A spokesperson for the hospital mentioned in the letter said Bahlsen had "already done a lot" for the facility and "doesn't need to be coerced in this way."
More and more I have turned to that excerpt because more and more the term "throwing shade" has been popping up. It exploded in popularity in the past year. Gawkerhashelped. As it typically happens with popularity, there has been a backlash in response by those who claim that the term "throwing shade" has become a blanket term for bitchiness. This attitude is typified by Jared Keller's recent Tumblr post "You're All Using the Term Throwing Shade Wrong," which also cites Dorian Corey's words above as its negating source.
It's a case of judging who's really down with a term rooted in gay culture, a term that rose to prominence as a result of being defined in Livingston's increasingly iconic documentary. I detect an air of disdain for appropriation, even though the gayest of us are appropriating, too.
The reason that I check in with Dorian Corey, primarily, is that while I am a gay man who lives in New York, the culture depicted in Jennie Livingston's 1990 documentary is not mine. I can relate to things the film discusses about interfacing with society — always operating on at least two levels, regularly checking my behavior against masculine ideals — but I primarily view this movie like virtually everyone else who has seen it: as a wide-eyed observer peering into an alien world. And unless you were on the NYC ball scene in the late ‘80s, so do you. The richness of gay culture makes for frequent simultaneous insider/outsider dynamics – yet more levels to operate within. The vast majority of us are dining out on culture when it comes to appreciating, referencing and appropriating the trove of cultural treasures Paris Is Burning has to offer.
The subtle shade that Corey speaks of is a rarity. The only recent by-the-book example of it that I can think of in pop culture is Nicki Minaj's "Stupid Hoe" video (without invoking Paris Is Burning, Mike Barthel made this point on the Village Voice's Sound of the City blog last year). Subtlety is a dying art, which you understand if you've ever been misunderstood on the Internet. Shade is a form of expression, and expression must shift to accommodate modern media. The form and understanding of it was bound to water down.
Today, the shade defined by Dorian Corey is an ideal that, by virtue of its nature, is rarely realized. Instead, we get attempts and perhaps sometimes misinterpretations. But then, so does Paris Is Burning, in which not every reference to "shade" is as deeply understood as Corey's. Check one queen's response to the classic male/female fox coat debate ("It buttons on the right side!"): "Oooh, they're shady! They throwing shade at him, I can't believe this!" In fact, the announcer is doing nothing but openly stating his beef and insulting the competing queen for wearing the wrong garment. This has none of the nuance that Corey rhapsodized.
That is to say that misinterpreting "shade" (as defined by Corey who is probably the most articulate person on the subject, but whom we've also subjectively decided is the final word in this malleable oral tradition) has a history within Paris Is Burning as well. This is how language, particularly slang, works. It often mutates and manifests differently on its way up to the mainstream. "Faggot" used to mean cigarette (still does in some places). "Gay" used to mean happy. "Ball" used to be a heterosexual mating ritual. "Sissy that walk," something RuPaul, shadeexpert, commanded a queen to do on this week's Drag Race season premiere, is something that I heard a parent shout at a child beauty pageant – the flamboyant way she honked out those words (and that they were preceded by "You betta…") suggested she herself was familiar with gay and/or drag culture. Linguistic mutation can come from insane loops.
To "run hurdles" is to make small leaps over portable barriers. If you miss several, you do not cease runing hurdles, you just suck. Voguing, as defined in Paris Is Burning by Willi Ninja, an absolute master of the art, is "the same thing as taking two knives and gutting each other up, but through dance form…voguing came from shade because it is a dance that two people did because they didn't like each other…whoever was throwing the best moves was throwing the best shade, basically."
When Madonna introduced this dance to mainstream world with an egalitarian message and as a refuge from the "heartache" and "pain of life," she divorced voguging from this context, and yet her voguging was no less pronounced. What was lost in nuance was made up for in subversion that brought an underground gay dance all the way to the likes of Stephanie Tanner on family television. That's a nice consolation prize, I think, in the game of accuracy.
What I love about "Vogue" is what I love about the proliferation of "throwing shade" and the canonization of Paris Is Burning as a cultural reference (it is required viewing for its primary purveyors, the queens on RuPaul's Drag Race, or at least it was a few seasons ago when I discussed their PIB literacy with them). The mainstreaming of these terms, is a sign of pure acceptance of a supremely faggoty facet of gay culture that doesn't demand that gays be "masc."
It's also a beautiful post script for the queens of Paris Is Burning, so many of them now dead. The movie focuses on their aspirations to celebrity. Willi Ninja talked about taking vouging "not just to [the] Paris is Burning [ball], but I want to take it to the real Paris and make the real Paris burn." Octavia St. Laurent wanted to be a household name. Dorian Corey, in the movie's final, poignant scene, is as quotable as ever, discussing how hope for legacy diminishes over time: "You've left a mark on the world if you just get through it and a few people remember your name…You don't have to bend the whole world…If you shoot [an] arrow and it goes real high, hooray for you."
We remember the queens of Paris Is Burning; we remember how they lived and most of us do so in admiration. The proliferation of "throwing shade" is a small victory for them, a happy ending of sorts for people who thought a lot about the mark they were leaving, a realization of what was once all a dream. When we use it, we are saying "hooray for them," and we are serious, no T no shade.
Well it looks like your vegetarian friends will be bitching about the eggplant parmesan at your post-funeral lunch too, because they're definitely out-living you.
A British study finds vegetarians run a 32 percent lower risk of heart disease than their carnivorous counterparts. Researchers followed 44,500 volunteers for 11 years and found that vegetarians were far less likely to have fun cardiac issues.
The study's lead researcher Francesca Crowe has this explanation: "We think [it] is due to their lower cholesterol and blood pressure."
In the study, of people between the ages of 50 and 70, 6.8 percent of those who ate meat went to the hospital or died of heart disease; for vegetarians, the number was only 4.6 percent. Vegetarians also had lower weight-to-height ratios and were less likely to become diabetic. Researchers say they also took into account other factors including age, smoking, alcohol intake, exercise, education and income.
Of the 44,500 people in the study 1,235 developed heart disease. It was fatal for 169.
It's important to note that this study was done in Britain and not in America where a Snickers bar counts as a vegetarian snack. According to the CDC, here in America there's already a 1 in 4 chance you'll die of heart disease so it's basically hopeless. Burgers up!
"I decided it was more important for me to be happy," Rihanna told Rolling Stone magazine in an interview scheduled to hit stands tomorrow. "I wasn't going to let anybody's opinion get in the way of that. Even if it's a mistake, it's my mistake. After being tormented for so many years, being angry and dark, I'd rather just live my truth and take the backlash. I can handle it."
Brown pleaded guilty in June 2009 to assaulting Rihanna as part of a deal that lessened his punishment to five years probation, one year of domestic violence counseling, and six months of community service.
He was also ordered to stay at least 50 yards away from Rihanna at all times, however that five-year restraining order was modified last February to remove the distance restriction and replace it with a promise not to "annoy, molest, or conduct surveillance of the person on the order."
"It's different now," she said. "We don't have those types of arguments anymore. We talk about shit. We value each other. We know exactly what we have now, and we don't want to lose that."
As for the possibility that Brown might turn violent towards her again, Rihanna insists "that's just not an option."
"I can't say that nothing else will ever go wrong," she acknowledges, "but I'm pretty solid in the knowing that he's disgusted by that. And I wouldn't have gone this far if I ever thought that was a possibility."
"We were just talking about the STD rate that's going on here," Sanchez informed the impromptu interviewee. "So how long have you had an STD?" The suddenly stunned woman soon had a change of heart about obtaining her 15 minutes by being obnoxious on live TV, but by then it was too late.
Yesterday, we learned that your cat could, in fact, suffer from a mental illness. Today, we learn that, mental illness or not, cats are responsible for killing an insane number of birds and small mammals each year. According to a report from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Fish and Wildlife Service, cats kill an average of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion small mammals a year.
As anyone who's read Jonathan Franzen can tell you, it's no surprise that cats are bird-killing machines. But scientists were shocked by the study's results, which were two to four times higher than previous estimates.
"When we ran the model, we didn't know what to expect," said Dr. Marra, who performed the analysis with a colleague, Scott R. Loss, and Tom Will of the Fish and Wildlife Service. "We were absolutely stunned by the results."
Cat owners who let their pets roam free in the neighborhood shouldn't feel too bad, though; according to the report, domestic cats are only responsible for 29 percent of the birds killed and 11 percent of the small mammals. That said, environmentalists and animal welfare activists (two groups that, apparently, are engaged in "sometimes vitriolic debate") agree that letting your cat outdoors is a bad idea.
All concur that pet cats should not be allowed to prowl around the neighborhood at will, any more than should a pet dog, horse or potbellied pig, and that cat owners who insist their felines "deserve" a bit of freedom are being irresponsible and ultimately not very cat friendly.
Left on their own, cats won't just kill and eat small animals; they'll also run beneath moving cars, fight dogs, and drink antifreeze and sewer sludge. Also: Rabies.
"When cats are outdoors, they are exposed to animals that are known carriers of rabies," said Marra. "When you have heightened interaction between wildlife and cats, the potential for exposure to rabies increases."
But what about the feral cats responsible for the vast majority of bird killing? There seem to be schools of thought, split between environmentalists and animal welfare activists. The Humane Society and other welfare groups argue in favor trap-neuter-return programs, which will return the cats to their colony if no home for them can be found. Environmentalists think this just creates "colonies of subsidized predators," which does sound bad, and that more emphasis should be placed on cat adoption and fencing in said cat colonies.
There's a third option being led by an economist (?) in New Zealand, who wants to ban all cats from his country. Good luck with that, guy.
If you ever find yourself about to have sex in Dubai but you don't have a condom, then you're in luck; instead of risking disease and/or pregnancy or having to ruin the moment by running to the store, you can now have condoms delivered via a Durex app or their website. (Note: This will likely still ruin the moment, but at least you won't have to go outside).
And if, somehow, you've managed not to let your partner know you're ordering a condom, don't worry, Durex has you covered, so to speak. The condom delivery guy will disguise himself as a pizza delivery guy (or a tourist!) and will "slyly slip you the goods without your date noticing." Of course, if your date is the sort that wouldn't notice a random encounter with a pizza delivery guy or a tourist, then you might want to reconsider. But still, what an amazing technological advance. Condoms from your phone. What's next?
The bad news, however, is that if you manage to get that condom and have actual sex, you won't get as much exercise as scientists previously thought. According to recently "exposed obesity myths," your average roll in the hay only lasts six minutes and burns 21 calories, far fewer than the 100-300 calories commonly cited. For comparisons sake, you burn 21 calories walking around or seven calories watching TV. In other words, if you're having sex as a replacement for working out, you're probably better off just ordering condoms from your phone while walking around your apartment.
The New York Times was the victim of an elaborate hacking attack from China, according to a report in Wednesday's Times. The attacks, which have been on-going for the past four months, were apparently in retaliation for an article the Times published about the vast wealth accumulated by Chinese Prime Minster Wen Jiabao's family.
Hackers first gained access to the Times's system on September 13th, but the breach wasn't noticed until October 26th, the day after the article was published and two days after the Times had asked AT&T to monitor its network for any unusual activity. The paper first became suspicious after receiving warnings from the Chinese government that, if their investigation continued, they would "have consequences." It wasn't until November 7th that the Times realized the hackers were still in their network, at which point they hired Mandiant, an outside computer security company, to investigate.
Experts believe the hackers initially gained access via spear-phishing attacks — emails to employees containing links or attachments that contained malware — that gave them access to user's passwords and keystrokes. Once those were obtained, the hackers targeted the email accounts of David Barboza, who wrote the article about Wen's relatives, and Jim Yardley, The Times's South Asia bureau chief. To do so, the hackers created a custom software to download the reporters' documents and emails from the Times's server, apparently looking for information about Barboza's sources, which the paper says was based on public records.
"Computer security experts found no evidence that sensitive e-mails or files from the reporting of our articles about the Wen family were accessed, downloaded or copied," said Jill Abramson, executive editor of The Times.
Editors were concerned the hackers might attack the paper's website and publishing system during the presidential election, but those fears proved to be unfounded; the hackers' only target, apparently, was Barboza's email.
"They could have wreaked havoc on our systems," said Marc Frons, the Times's chief information officer. "But that was not what they were after."
In order to maintain secrecy and, as the Times put it, to allow the Chinese military "plausible defensibility," the hackers launched their attacks from various computer systems registered to U.S. universities. The attackers also regularly switched IP addresses, making it difficult to track attacks to a single group.
"If you look at each attack in isolation, you can't say, ‘This is the Chinese military,' " said Richard Bejtlich, Mandiant's chief security officer.
But when the techniques and patterns of the hackers are similar, it is a sign that the hackers are the same or affiliated.
"When you see the same group steal data on Chinese dissidents and Tibetan activists, then attack an aerospace company, it starts to push you in the right direction," he said.
China's Ministry of National Defense denied the attacks, saying, "Chinese laws prohibit any action including hacking that damages Internet security," and adding, "to accuse the Chinese military of launching cyberattacks without solid proof is unprofessional and baseless."
The Times believes the hackers are now out of their system, a feat they accomplished by blocking access to their network from select outside computers, changing every employee password and adding additional security. However, security experts were quick to say more attacks were likely. "This is not the end of the story," said Mr. Bejtlich of Mandiant. "Once they take a liking to a victim, they tend to come back. It's not like a digital crime case where the intruders steal stuff and then they're gone. This requires an internal vigilance model."
All told, the hackers stole every employee's corporate password, using them to infiltrate the personal computers of 53 employees. According to the Times, no customer information was accessed during the attacks.
This morning, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick ![Mass Shooting in Phoenix Office Building Hours After Gabrielle Giffords Testifies at Congressional Hearing on Gun Control [UPDATE]](http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18d4705221eb4jpg/medium.jpg "Mass Shooting in Phoenix Office Building Hours After Gabrielle Giffords Testifies at Congressional Hearing on Gun Control [UPDATE]")
Every single subway line in New York City was delayed this morning, as many of us learned much too late. The reason? "Inclement weather." Which in this case was fog. Fog broke the entire subway system.
Babies are great except sometimes they aren't baby enough. "That bitch 
Well it looks like your vegetarian friends will be bitching about the eggplant parmesan at your post-funeral lunch too, because they're definitely out-living you.
