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Someone Is Leaving Headless Birds All Over A Las Vegas Neighborhood

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Someone Is Leaving Headless Birds All Over A Las Vegas Neighborhood

An east Las Vegas neighborhood is being haunted by a mysterious figure that leaves piles of decapitated chickens and pigeons carcases in the streets. Beyond the visage of rotting avian flesh, the stench, as locals and anyone familiar with animal decomposition would know, is not spring fresh.

"The first time I saw it, it was a large rooster," street cleaner Ryan Roskins told KLAS. "Everything else is there, feet, feathers. It's just decapitated."

As to who could be responsible for the dead birds, Roskins has an idea: "I actually think it must be voodoo," he said. But let's not jump to conclusions about our voodoo-practicing friends:

However, a West African priest says that may not be the case. He says people practicing the religion of Santeria or Ifa use animal sacrifices like chickens, pigeons or goats as a means of protection or as a way to cleanse the body.

"They might be wiping themselves with the bird, letting the blood and then having to discard the body," Ifa priest Duane Reece said.

Is that all? Carry on then.

[Image via KLAS]


A Kinder Way to Kill

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A Kinder Way to Kill

I grew up with a killer. My father. He didn't kill in a way that would ever send him to jail. He wasn't in the military. Instead, he used the death penalty. Sometimes he called and gave the order for inmates to be executed.

My father was damn good at what he did. We grew up in Montana, a small state with fewer murders each year than most cities. His job was to prosecute murderers. Retired now, he spent 21 years as the chief special prosecutor for the Montana Attorney General. And in 21 years, he lost one case—a case in which he fell on his sword for a friend after a botched police investigation. A great lawyer. A perfectionist. If you killed someone in Montana during those years, he was not the man you wanted sitting across from you in the courtroom.

Currently, only two men sit on death row in Montana, though during his career, my father secured the death penalty on four cases. Twice, during my childhood, condemned prisoners faced execution. Because prisoners with pending appeals can't be executed (except, probably, in Texas; and now, factually, in Oklahoma), a court sets an execution date once the appeals process has been exhausted. In Montana, near midnight, the prison went about the ceremony of preparing a man to die. At 12:01am, the sitting Attorney General was required to call the prison and state, "No appeals are pending for John Doe. Please put this man to death."

Attorney General is a publicly elected office in Montana. The men and women who run don't sign up to kill inmates. If they schedule their vacations properly, they avoid the emotional baggage brought by that phone call. Three times during my father's tenure, an inmate was sent to the state prison's Death Trailer. Twice, the Attorney General decided to take a vacation after the court set an execution date for an inmate, while my father sat in the Attorney General's chair, with a phone wired directly to the Death Trailer, and waited for 12:01am. Because he was next in line. And when the time came to make the phone call, he picked up the receiver and asked for a man to be put to death.

I was 13 when he called to kill Terry Langford in 1998. He walked home after that call, made a pot of coffee, and sat alone in his office in our basement while I slept in a room directly above him. I knew very little of what was happening, because at that age, the evils of the world rarely register in proper context. But I remember him seeing walk around the house like a shell of a man for more than a week, his eyes hollowed out and a blank look on his face. I'd heard that someone was set for execution, common fodder over the dinner table at my childhood home, but I hadn't asked any questions. It's frightening to be a child and see one act transform a firm, powerful man into a despondent figure going through the motions of his life.

I didn't ask him how it felt, or what happened in the moments that directly followed that phone call, until it happened again. When I was home from college for the summer at the age of 22, he made the call to kill David Dawson from his office, and then didn't come directly home. Perhaps he knew that at my age I would still be up, and I would have to see the look in his eyes that proceeded the hollowness. But at 22, I knew well enough to ask when I saw him the next morning, to ask how it felt once he hung up the phone and knew that, by his word, a man was being killed in a trailer 55 miles away.

"I cried," he said bluntly. Two of his co-workers stayed in the office with him. "We all just stood there, hugging, and crying."

Men like my father have tough jobs. Collateral damage exists. With one phone call, Montana's most powerful trial attorney could be brought to tears because he knew that, though he was simply following the statutory requirements of his job, he had just taken someone's life.

Now I know I was looking at the specifics of how our government, our society as a whole, kills its own citizens. With a phone call and a man in a room on the other end, and a team of almost-doctors pushing lethal drugs into the inmates. We do this as punishment, as a deterrent, to show other potential murderers that the legal system in this country is not built on half-measures.

Since my father retired from his job, he's fought to have the death penalty banned in the same state in which he sent four men to death row. It's barbaric. It wastes a ton of money. It doesn't actually act as a deterrent.

If you listen long enough, he will tell you about William Gollehon and Douglas Turner. Both men sat on life sentences at the state prison when, in 1990, they beat inmate Gerald Pileggi to death with a baseball bat. Charges were filed. The defense team received notification that the prosecution was seeking the death penalty. Shortly before their trials began, the two men helped orchestrate a riot at the prison, during which they murdered five more inmates. At no point was there any sign either man felt deterred by his pending case. People who commit these crimes don't think with the same logic as the rest of us. Consequences are not considered.

For three years following college, I worked in criminal defense. Growing up the son of prosecutor and a defense attorney, legal work consistently existed as the one profession I swore I would never enter. Yet, I ended up taking a job to advocate for the same people my father used to send to prison because I felt as though, by doing this, I could make a difference in the world.

It only took those three years to see that I couldn't—one too many trials of watching suspect evidence presented as absolute fact, of juries not seeing the defendants as people. But as I think back, I wonder if hearing my dad constantly preach against the death penalty, and having his arguments continually fall of deaf ears, influenced my own exit as well.

Still, during my career, I never met one person who told me they thought about murder, but stopped short because of the possible consequences. Deterrence is a powerful argument for the pro-death lobby (a lobby whose Venn diagram usually overlaps greatly with being pro-life), but deterrence, as both my father and I have witnessed, is a myth.

Lethal injection is the preferred form of execution in this country. Six states still allow the possibility to use an electric chair, while hangings haven't been taken off the books in two more. Yet, every state has to allow an inmate his choice of how he wants to be killed, and lethal injection has become standard because it's preached to the inmates, to the general public, to advocates and for and against the death penalty, that administering a lethal concoction of drugs is the most un-cruel and humane way for someone to die. Until recently, most states used a three-drug cocktail of pentobarbital to sedate the inmate, followed by pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride to poison them to death.

In 2013, a beacon of hope sprang up for people like my father, for the people who work for the Montana Abolition Coalition and similar groups in other states. The European Union pushed its members not to sell lethal injection drugs to the United States. This is America; we can't even manufacture our own methods of societal murder.

States scrambled. Missouri and Wyoming considered bringing back firing squads. Maryland wanted re-legalize the use of their electric chair. In Ohio, prison officials just tried to come up with a new concoction of drugs. They pumped them into Dennis McGuire in January. He started choking and gasping for air for fifteen minutes before he died. Texas, our country's champion of executions, secretly found a way to obtain a deadly sedative in order to execute two men within a week. Instead of staying executions, states just searched for other ways to kill, and kill quickly.

And then, Oklahoma. On April 29, Oklahoma planned to execute two men on the same day for reasons that, at no point, will ever feel logical. First up: Clayton Lockett. At the time of his execution, the state had difficulty procuring their lethal drug cocktail. Oklahoma decided to run roughshod over due process and attempt to execute Mr. Lockett with a new combination: midazolam (a sedative), vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride. Mr. Lockett did not die within the expected time frame. After sixteen minutes, prison officials decided it wasn't working. The injection had been botched, and Clayton Lockett eventually died 43 minutes after he was supposed to be executed, not from Oklahoma's secret death concoction, but from a heart attack[i]. In an obvious act of slight humanity, Oklahoma temporarily stayed the execution of the day's second victim, Charles Warner, for six months[ii].

"Cruel and unusual punishment" are the words that dominate the narrative about the death penalty, that allow men to be poisoned to death as opposed to firing squads or public stoning. So what words do we use to describe the executions of Dennis McGuire and Clayton Lockett?

I asked my father. Without the normal combination of drugs, what can be done?

"Does it matter?" he said. "The first is meant to sedate the prisoner. Because once he's sedated, it becomes OK to pump him full of poison. That, apparently, is not cruel."

"At least they're sedated," I said. I believed him but I wanted more answers. Devil's advocate.

"We can just sedate them and put them in front of a firing squad. Or, as long as they're sedated, why don't we just beat them to death? Why is poisoning someone a better way to kill than anything else?"

I didn't ask more questions. I understood the point. Oklahoma and other states will continue to search for their own poisons, Texas and Missouri have decided to skip the three-drug injection and simply pump a lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital into condemned prisoners. States now refuse to reveal the supplier of pentobarbital and other drugs due to risks that the supply might run dry if people who find this practice completely barbaric threaten the company. Government transparency at its finest.

Why are these solutions viewed as not-cruel and not-unusual? Does simply sedating a prisoner give prison officials free rein to kill with the easiest method possible? What is kind about what we do to each person executed in this country? Nothing. It's cruel. It's unusual. It's why our country is one of only twenty-seven in the world that procedurally kills its own citizens (the list includes a collection of nations that we normally consider barbarous: Afghanistan, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, etc.).

I've heard my father give speeches about his experiences with the death penalty. We as a society, he points out, revere human life so much that once someone takes a life, we use all of our time, our money, and our resources to take the convicted person's life. Now, as it's become harder for our country to find ways to kill its own citizens, searching for new, secret drugs seems to be to be the ultimate incongruity. A kinder way to die, they seek. But no such method exists.

"Aren't we better than this?" my father asked at the conclusion of our conversation. My father who sent four men to death row, who made the phone calls to kill two of them because it was part of his job, not because he believed it to be right. "Aren't we?"

I didn't say anything. The answer, as proven by Oklahoma, Texas, Ohio, and many other states is no. We still sleep at night after hearing a new study estimating that one in every 25 prisoners sitting on death row in this country may actually be innocent.[iii] We sleep at night after reading detailed accounts of the innocence of people like Cameron Todd Willingham who were still put to death.[iv] We sleep at night because we as a society are not better than this. We are barbaric seekers of justice with blood on our mutual hands. People like my father hope that Clayton Lockett will be the turning point. I fear it won't, but I will continue to hope that someday our society will finally decide that we are better than the monsters that commit the crimes for which we eventually put them to death.

Christopher Connor is a fiction writer and essayist based in Oakland, CA

[Illustration by Jim Cooke]


[i] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr...

[ii] http://gawker.com/following-the-...

[iii] http://time.com/79572/more-inn...

[iv] http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009...

Larry Wilmore Will Take Over For Stephen Colbert

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Larry Wilmore Will Take Over For Stephen Colbert

The Daily Show's "senior black correspondent" Larry Wilmore will take over Stephen Colbert's 11:30 p.m. Comedy Central time slot after he leaves to become the new host of CBS' The Late Show in December. The Minority Report will premiere January 2015. He's been a part of The Daily Show's roster since 2006.

It's an especially good week for Wilmore, who beyond landing the post-Jon Stewart gig, also had his pilot, Black-ish (starring Anthony Anderson) picked up to series by ABC. He'll stay on as showrunner for Black-ish to get things started before switching over to Comedy Central full-time.

[Image via The Daily Show]

Leaked Kimye Wedding Invite Uses the British English Spelling of Honor

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Leaked Kimye Wedding Invite Uses the British English Spelling of Honor

The invitation for the upcoming Kanye West and Kim Kardashian nuptials is as austere as a death certificate in slate gray grey and gold ink. The invite, which was leaked to US Weekly, is most notable for its use of the British spelling of "honor." This is a clue for the wedding's secret location.

All we can glean from this piece of scanned cardstock are the following details: It is black tie. Just par-ahnts, no kids. There's a dinner before the wedding, on the eve of. Details for all will be provided upon arrival.

But this "u"—what does it tell us?

  • The wedding supposedly takes place in Paris, which is in proximity to England
  • "Honour" is the British English spelling of "honor"
  • Kanye West rapped over "American Boy," a track by British singer Estelle
  • Kim Kardashian and Kate Middleton were pregnant at the same time
  • "Paris, France" has every letter to the word "palace" except for "l"
  • Kanye and Kim's child is named North West; if you travel north and west from Paris, you hit London, England
  • Anna Wintour is a key member of the illuminati

The wedding is at Buckingham Palace. See you there.

[Image via US Weekly]

This Bunny Eating Raspberries Is Also Wearing Lipstick

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Similar to drawings of old men that when flipped upside down look like beautiful women, this bunny eating raspberries, when watched through perceptive eyes, looks like a bunny in lipstick. Recommended while listening to Missy Elliott's "Meltdown". Nothing is exactly as it seems, etc.

China Maybe Wants To Build An Underwater Train to America

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China Maybe Wants To Build An Underwater Train to America

Underwater travel is the next frontier of international transportation — if you are the kind of futurist who would believe a report made by a state-run Chinese news outlet. The Washington Post, citing this Bejing Times story, reports that the train of our nautical dreams is (maybe) happening:

The proposed "China-Russia-Canada-America" line would be some 8,000 miles long, 1,800 miles longer than the Trans-Siberian railroad. The tunnel that the Chinese would help bore beneath the icy seas would be four times the length of what traverses the English Channel.

Ostensibly, this train would travel from Bejing to Alaska, should you ever desire to make such a trip. Everyone that is not China is skeptical of the plan.

But! The Post concedes that "China has embarked on an astonishing rail construction spree, laying down tens of thousands of miles tracks and launching myriad high-speed lines," so maybe it's not all so ridiculous?

Under. Water. Travel. The. Fu-ture.

[H/T Betabeat / Image via AP]

Dating Show Contestant Admits to Murdering Former Wife, Lover on TV

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Dating Show Contestant Admits to Murdering Former Wife, Lover on TV

Sefer Calinak, when he appeared on a Turkish dating show called Luck of the Draw, revealed to the host that he had murdered both his former wife and former lover. He had served a prison sentence for both murders and was released under an amnesty program.

Calinak's late wife was also his cousin, and he admitted to murdering her out of jealousy. Then he went on to say that murdering his lover was an accident, when he "swung an axe" in her direction.

In an interview after the show, Calinak vowed to never kill another partner.

"Women would leave me after I told them that I murdered my previous wives. But I spent 14 years in jail. I have changed."

But the head of Turkey's Media Monitoring Group, Hulya Ugur Tanriover, was quoted as saying a complaint should be filed against the show, requesting that criminal background checks be done in the future.

[Image via BBC]

A second body has been found in the crash that sent a hot air balloon plummeting to earth yesterday


Arkansas Issues Its First Same-Sex Marriage Licenses

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Following a judge's ruling yesterday that Arkansas' gay-marriage ban is discriminatory, marriage licenses are being issued to couples in the state. Kristen Seaton and Jennifer Rambo were the first to marry this morning. Congrats!

Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has said that, while he does not personally support the ban, he will seek a stay on the constitutional amendment adopted in 2004.

The state follows Michigan, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and Texas in overturning their gay-marriage bans. Federal judges have also ordered Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee to start recognizing gay marriages from other states.

Do NOT Let Rihanna Take A Selfie With Your Phone

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Rihanna, captain of her own Rihanna Navy, serial Instagrammer, and all-around zero-shit giver, is also a huge butterfingers.

She was at the Clippers game against the Oklahoma City Thunder last night in Los Angeles, where she was spotted with Steve Soboroff, the president of the L.A. Police Commission. As Rihanna is wont to do with her fans, she obliged Soboroff's requests to take photos with her.

But Soboroff made the HUGE mistake of letting Rihanna hold the phone herself, which flew from her well-adorned hands and crashed to the floor. Hope you have clumsy celebrity insurance on your phone, Steve, you star-struck fool.

[H/T ONTD]

The Lost Children of TechCrunch Disrupt

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The Lost Children of TechCrunch Disrupt

The biannual TechCrunch Disrupt conference series is only about money. There are interviews, the exchange of opinions, software presentations, questions, answers, and lots of visuals. But the entire production is a pyramid of money, at the bottom of which are the residents of Disrupt's "Startup Alley," a completely perfect metaphor.

There were two kinds of people to meet at this week's Manhattan installment of Disrupt: people who have money, and people who don't have money, but want it a lot of it as quickly as possible. Many of the latter spent time standing around in Startup Alley, an exhibition space in New York's Manhattan Center, across the street from the Amtrak station. Exhibitors—almost all tiny startups that haven't actually launched yet—paid about $2,000 each for a small circular table, the sort you ditch a soiled napkin upon at a cocktail party. Some paid extra for a banner or cardboard presentation poster, giving it the air of a high school science fair, with only slightly less youthful hope.

I walked through the Alley, which occupied a large bottom floor of the Manhattan Center, filled with uniform rows of exhibitors standing around waiting for financial success. Maybe a venture capitalist will read about them in a blog post (or maybe not—at a Disrupt after party, TechCrunch staffers showed me their secret "get me out of this conversation" signal, used against eager founders). Or maybe that same VC will walk right up to them in Startup Alley and cut a check—they were on the prowl, a few founders told me. "You can just tell who they are," said one, uneasily, surveying the crowd behind me, often because other startup kids suddenly start lining up behind them, as if summoned by invisible pheromone strings.

Some founders demurred, saying they didn't need funding yet and yet there they were, standing in the bottom floor of the Manhattan Center.

Talking to every founder would've taken hours (they would explain their app for about as long as you'd give them), so I tried my best to make it through the first couple rows, asking each startup to make its pitch in just fifteen seconds:

Everyone either pitched in well under 15 seconds or took much longer, but each was carefully choreographed and only sometimes betrayed underlying nerves. When these founders stumbled, I wanted to reach out like a parent at the school play, mouthing, "You can do it, I know you can do it."

The crew actually seemed much more relaxed when I asked if they thought we're beneath a frothy speculative software bubble:

Maintaining composure was impressive on their parts, given that they were all placed literally beneath a giant projected image of aspirational figures in the startup world. The rest of the Disrupt events took place on higher floors, with the successful talking to and sitting next to the successful—those in Startup Alley who were still trying to get an app off the ground could only gaze up at the giant heads of Arrington, Tsotsis, and accomplished tech luminaries. I wondered how it must have felt for these insecure upstarts to look up from their small tables and see Fred Wilson proclaim "too much money is the root of all evil" or Kickstarter's co-founder muse "there are things that are more important than money." Easy to say from the giant screen on the ceiling.

But low morale and digital dread seemed less an Alley affliction than a very pure, very analog boredom. Foot traffic was low, complained multiple founders, who'd shelled out for exposure and exposure only. TechCrunch hadn't made it clear they'd be placed on a floor of their own during the conference, away from the main attraction of keynote speakers. One founder, who regretted shelling out for his small table, called the placement of Startup Alley an outright "deception." Without visitors to pitch, the fledgling startup crews looked like bored mall kiosk attendants. "It's even worse than last year," lamented another. Some were just sitting down and watching the livestreamed keynotes above. But when visitors came by, they lit up—I didn't look like I had any money, but maybe I knew someone who did. "Hey, Valleyswag!" remarked a slightly older fellow who read my ID badge. Everyone was just glad to have some company.

Former Wicked Queen Charlize Theron is finally returning to SNL with the Black Keys tonight.

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Former Wicked Queen Charlize Theron is finally returning to SNL with the Black Keys tonight. It's been 13 years and she is a very weird, funny lady, so she should get along great with this year's weird, funny cast. Come on over to Morning After and we can watch it together (NBC 11:30/10:30c).

NFL's First Openly Gay Draft Pick Celebrated by Kissing His Boyfriend

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NFL's First Openly Gay Draft Pick Celebrated by Kissing His Boyfriend

Michael Sam, the University of Missouri football player who came out as gay in February, three months in advance of the NFL draft, was drafted this evening by the St. Louis Rams. He reacted the way any athlete would: by kissing his significant other.

If Sam—picked 249th overall, despite being the SEC Defensive Player of the Year—makes the team, he will become the National Football League's first athlete to play while openly gay.

[h/t Neetzan]

The University of Chicago's Weird As Hell "Scav" Is Underway

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The University of Chicago's Weird As Hell "Scav" Is Underway

Every year since 1987, The University of Chicago has hosted a campuswide scavenger hunt called Scav that will validate to your speculation that smart college kids are always up to some awesomely weird insider shit. The event is on its last day and the clues this year are typically esoteric.

A full list of what the college kids are looking for can be found at this link, but here's a selection, along with allocated points:

  • Produce an accurate tampon commercial. [6 points]
  • The Skrillex bong. Create a water pipe that makes wub wub wubs instead of bubbling noises when used. (Only to be used with 100% legal wubbacco, or your team is disqualified, folks.) [8 points]
  • Model a Canadian Tuxedo. No, not a jean jacket. A full denim tuxedo comprising jacket, pants, tie, cummerbund or vest, belt, and pocket square. [`Eh?'-teen points]
  • Wake up, sheeple. If you think you can handle it, why don't you create an interactive journey on a quest through the friendzone with me, Fedora the Explorer. [6 points]
  • Shove your fist into a fistulated cow. [25 points]

And the clue with the highest point yield?

  • Bring us an Animusic-style instrument that plays itself. Once activated, it should perform, unaided, a composition of no less than 90 seconds. While your device may have electronic components, it must not produce electronic music. [175 points. 50 bonus points if the music is played by multiple distinct mechanisms that join in gradually as it proceeds]

In 1999, the enterprising Scav hunters built a nuclear reactor as one of the clues was "build a nuclear reactor." This year, the equivalent clue is to build a laser. Bonus points if it is edible. Sounds doable.

Here's a video of a guy making an action figure of "That Guy" in 2008.

Good luck, you weirdos.

[Image via HCSCC]

SNL and Charlize Theron Perfectly Imitate the Confused Tourists of NYC

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SNL and Charlize Theron Perfectly Imitate the Confused Tourists of NYC

Millions (millions) of tourists visit New York City every year. And every day New Yorkers must make the shrewd calculation to either acknowledge or direct tourists on their paths to Times Square and beyond, or to straight up ignore them.

In a bit on SNL last night, host Charlize Theron (in a fat suit) and a selection of other cast members trolled New York locals as the giant camera-wielding, preternaturally confused but otherwise inoffensive tourists we see daily. For everyone who has ever made the mistake of wanting be generous to your fellow man and was rewarded with a 30-minute story about that person's incredible timeshare in Jacksonville, Fla., this skit might feel familiar.


Former NFL Running Back Derrick Ward Goes Off on Twitter About Gay Kiss

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Former NFL Running Back Derrick Ward Goes Off on Twitter About Gay Kiss

Derrick Ward, a Super Bowl-winning former running back for the New York Giants and the Houston Texans, had a lot to say about the NFL draft last night, where Michael Sam reacted to his draft pick by joyfully kissing his boyfriend.

Ward reacted on Twitter by saying "Man u got little kids looking at the draft. I can't believe ESPN even allowed that to happen." The response to Ward was polarized, many agreeing with his position, while others rightly identified him as a bigot. He asserted in a series of tweets that no, he doesn't hate gay people. He just thinks kids shouldn't see people kissing.

Former NFL Running Back Derrick Ward Goes Off on Twitter About Gay Kiss

And then dropping the #knowledge hashtag:

Former NFL Running Back Derrick Ward Goes Off on Twitter About Gay Kiss

Ward blocked several followers who took issue with his stance, then retweeted a few other people who defended him.

Former NFL Running Back Derrick Ward Goes Off on Twitter About Gay Kiss

The clincher comes from a Twitter user called Swaggy McDudeBro.

Former NFL Running Back Derrick Ward Goes Off on Twitter About Gay Kiss

[Images via Twitter]

Jake Gyllenhaal Cannot Keep Both Jay Z and Beyoncé Entertained at Once

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Jake Gyllenhaal Cannot Keep Both Jay Z and Beyoncé Entertained at Once

Poor man's Jared Leto, walking hair follicle Jake Gyllenhaal, sat next to Jay Z and Beyoncé at a Nets-Heat game last night and really struggled to find something to entertain both stars with. No common ground was found.

Jake Gyllenhaal Cannot Keep Both Jay Z and Beyoncé Entertained at Once

[Images via Getty/AP]

The Boy Scouts Carried Ann Curry Down A Mountain

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The Boy Scouts Carried Ann Curry Down A Mountain

As the late Whitney Houston warned, children are our future. They will take care of us as we age into infinity, perhaps sustained by whatever Soylent-y foodstuffs we have by the time we've all circumvented the cold of death.

And if you break your ankle on a mountain — like world class journalist and Matt Lauer's No. 1 enemy Ann Curry did last month — the Boy Scouts will come to your rescue, forging a makeshift stretcher from nothing but the wild elements of New York's second-largest state park.

Upholding the Scout's oath to "help other people at all times," some teens from Troop and Crew 368 from Berkeley Heights, N.J. saved the day when they happened upon Curry, who had broken her ankle.

From there, the Scouts immediately and without instruction jumped into action, making a splint for her leg. But it wasn't enough — they needed to get her down the mountain safely, and she couldn't walk. Undeterred, these teens were. Scouter Rick Jurgens recounts to Scouting Magazine:

"The guys on their own, with no direction from me, start running into the woods," Jurgens said. "And she didn't know what was going on, and I didn't know what was going on either."

Turns out they were finding pieces of wood for a makeshift stretcher — the same kind they teach you to make in first-aid classes. They found two strong sticks and tied on a tarp. One of the Scouts, Andrew Stecher, got on the stretcher to test its load-bearing ability. It worked.

They set the stretcher next to Curry, her ankle really swelling up now. She slid onto it, and the Scouts picked her up. Jurgens and another adult helped guide the Scouts and point out rocks along their path.

The Boy Scouts Carried Ann Curry Down A Mountain

They got her down the mountain safely, and it wasn't until someone pulled up photos of Curry on their phone that the teens realized they had saved the life of someone who was kicked off the TODAY show.

Jurgens had recognized Curry, and her iconic voice, right away. But not all the Scouts in his troop and crew are avid news-watchers. So Chris Tribuna, acting crew leader, took out his phone and showed them Curry is a national news anchor who has interviewed pretty much everyone.

The Scouts were floored by all the famous people she had interviewed, exotic assignments she had covered and adventures she had been on.

"Not all the Scouts in his troop and crew are avid news-watchers." Who even is? Curry sent the teens a nice letter afterward thanking them. Their "skill and professionalism" was a "great comfort" for her. Good job, teens.

The Boy Scouts Carried Ann Curry Down A Mountain

[H/T Neetzan / Ann Curry via AP; Scouts and letter via Scouting Magazine]

1 Dead, 6 Injured At Child's Birthday Party Shooting

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1 Dead, 6 Injured At Child's Birthday Party Shooting

A group of gunmen walked up and opened fire on a child's birthday party in Sacramento's Peregrine Park Saturday evening, the Sacramento Bee reports:

A large blue Cookie Monster figure was on one of the picnic tables. An inflatable playhouse had collapsed. Clothing and shoes were scattered about.

One man in his 20s died at the scene; six others, including a 7-year-old, sustained injuries police say are non-life-threatening.

The shooters fled the scene in a getaway car, and police suspect that the shooting was gang-related and believe that the man who died was a gang member.

[Image via Sacramento Bee]

Broke Roman Art Museum With No A/C Opens Windows to Reduce Humidity

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Broke Roman Art Museum With No A/C Opens Windows to Reduce Humidity

The Borghese Gallery in Rome has resorted to the unthinkable in the art world by opening its windows to let in air as a way to prevent humidity from touching the works during the city's unusually balmy spring. The museum is home to precious art by Caravaggio, Titian, Rubens, and Raphael, among others.

While art collections in most cities are held in climate-controlled rooms to prevent humidity and pollution from damaging the works, the Borghese Gallery has had to keep their windows open during a funding slowdown. The air conditioning in the gallery has stopped working entirely.

Anna Coliva, the museum's director, told La Repubblica:

"We have been in the grip of this emergency for two months." She said the air conditioning was worn out after years of scant maintenance, with requests over the past few years for a new system falling on deaf ears.

The Italian economy has struggled over the past fourteen years, causing huge cutbacks in their large historical arts community, which is a huge source of tourism. The government even resorted to putting art restoration to a vote at the end of last year, by asking citizens on a Facebook page which irreplaceable piece of art should be the benefactor of donated restoration funds.

[Image via AP]

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