An elderly couple in the canton of Lucerne, Switzerland have confessed to stealing money from church collection boxes for months, saying that the adrenaline rush it gave them helped cure their boredom.

The couple, who are 70 and 73, had a scheme where the husband kept watch outside while the wife would go in and steal from the boxes. According to the local authorities, the couple is well off, but performed the robberies for the "pleasure of the forbidden."

They've robbed several churches since November of last year, stealing hundreds of Swiss francs in the process.

[Image via Travel Wonders]

I'm not a doctor but I'm an expert. In the locker room, guys exchange a wealth of age-old wisdom. A couple of times, I reset broken noses. Usually my own, but once my friend Gabriel was in bed with my friend Josephine and accidentally kneed her, and I reset her broken nose. She's still complaining, but it would have worked if she'd kept the tape on.

I've been "playing" judo since I was a kid. A typical city kid thing, no room for soccer, and more about fighting. For me, it was the human contact. My parents weren't cuddly—it could be that I was just too dirty. The sensei checked our feet before Judo, and to pass inspection, I'd rub the blackened skin off my ankles. Hmm, maybe I should say that this was TRIBECA in the '70s.

The cups we wore were those triangular jobs, which were the wrong shape entirely— by the time I went back to Judo, early 90s, the "banana" cups were on the market. Since then, the bananas have been improved—flexible side panels—but cups still don't fit, and they "pinch," and in Judo, cups are theoretically illegal, and, well, if you're a samurai, there's something effete about stuffing a bulge into a jockstrap, which looks a lot like a g-string.

Enter George, an old Judo guy. His theory: the cup prevents the balls from moving. If you get hit in the balls when you're "freeballing," your balls jump out of the way. Not a doctor, but George was an expert. So, for me, no cup. Ten years of competition Judo. Worked OK. But I did fuck up my back.

Enter the Hag Balans kneeling chair. Six hundred bucks.

Worked OK.

Then I had another kid, my second. This one, a boy. Not once had my daughter kicked me in the balls. My son: twenty times a day—sometimes when I was lying there sleeping. An evolutionary adaptation, I'd proudly assess—which didn't amuse my wife. (Oh, should I say how long I've been married? Since before my own birth.)

Late one night: I was in front of the computer, sitting on the Hag, kneeling really, when I said to my wife, "I gotta get out of this fucking chair."

My balls hurt. They'd been hurting for about a week. The chair felt like it was pulling on them. Also: no cup, etc, and I'd spent a weekend at Grandma's pulling up bamboo stumps.

Five more minutes on the chair. Midnight until 12:05. Then I felt this pain.

I got out of the chair—kind of hunched over and laughing. I called to my wife, "My ball, it hurts so bad, I think I'm gonna pass out!"

The internet was up, so we investigated. Seemed there was a very small chance I'd had this thing, a torsion, which neither of us had ever heard of. Usually, a torsion is something that happens to infant boys, or boys in vitro. But once in a while it happens to a grown man, and the intervention is swift and decisive. Your ball has disconnected, flipped over and corkscrewed into your torso, and if you don't have the tubing untangled, your ball is as good as dead, and a dead ball has to be removed. I once saw my uncle Bud cut the balls out of a piglet and toss them to his hound, who didn't chew but mushed the balls against the top of his mouth with his tongue. Given the prospect that by morning my ball would be of no use to anyone—with the exception of nearby hounds—I got my hunched self into some clothing, and lurched into the night. My wife had to stay home with the kids. She stood in the door and waved—

"Don't forget to call."

I got a taxi to take me to Saint Luke's-Roosevelt hospital—my kids were born at Saint Luke's, and I knew it was a sign I should be at peace with one ball. (My wife had already called her mother, who weighed in: "Your Uncle Jerry only has one ball!")

At the end of a very long hallway, I pushed past a pair of swinging doors and I was in the emergency ward; I didn't have a clear picture of where I was. A nurse took my arm, and asked if I could see; I told her that the pain was making everything white.

Years before, I'd been in the same emergency ward; I'd thought my daughter swallowed a dime (she didn't). Insurance, x-rays, consult, Saint Luke's-Roosevelt had made short work of the dime scare—but this time, I was really speeding through the checkpoints. Two reasons: The ER was empty; the nurses were sure I had a torsion.

The doctors were sure I didn't. When men have torsions they hop around screaming, which I wasn't doing. On a scale of one to ten, the doctors asked me, what kind of pain I was in? Eight point five, I said. They wanted to know if I'd ever felt a nine or a ten. Yes: a ten was a spinal injection, and a Judo injury that cracked my sternum, cracked my collar bone, broke two ribs, and collapsed my lung.

Off with the clothes and into the robe. The nurses curtained me off, and doctors, nurses, interns, and security guards filed in and felt my balls. Maybe two or three hundred of them. When they touched my right ball, I'd flip into the air, an anchovy.

1:20 a.m., a doctor came in, felt my ball. He told me I didn't have a torsion but they were going to do an ultrasound. It was bureaucratic "bull droppings" (exact words), but it'd be malpractice not to check. Someone wheeled me to an elevator, detouring to the vending machines on the way, and I met the doctor on another floor. He was a personable man, tall, charming, East Indian I think, and he casually discoursed upon my ailment: a small hernia.

I consented to allow six interns, young men, to observe. (Not much shaking at the hopo.) The doctor greased me up with the ultrasound jelly, and swished his tricorder over my balls; he watched the live feed on his screen. The testicles, he informed me, were attached to the scrotum by a "tiny flap of skin," which could break. When that happened, the testicle would invert and retract. There wasn't a known cause for the injury, which was, as best as medical science understood it, completely random.

"And thus is a torsion," he said, "which is not what you have."

Then, in tandem, the doctor and his six interns flinched, as if what they saw on screen was just too horrible to behold, yet too grotesquely compelling to disregard. And, elegant man that he was, my doctor lowered his gaze into mine—behind him, the interns also lowered their gazes, a barbershop septet—and he said, "Sometimes it just happens."

1:40 a.m., the doctor was racing me down the halls, pushing my gurney, calling out to people to prep the OR, to call the surgeons and get them out of bed. Nurses were running up to me with paperwork, which I signed as they ran alongside.

They wheeled me into a pediatric recovery room, deserted, where someone went over the procedure with me. There was a good chance I'd get a torsion on the other side, so they had to operate on both of my balls—malpractice otherwise. A few stitches—they showed me the threaded needle—and my balls would be fixed in place, and this would never happen again. If they found my right testicle was already dead, they'd remove it. Malpractice otherwise, and anyway a dead testicle would shrink and resorb into the body. No, I couldn't take it home in a jar, it would be medical waste—and I'd still have one left. Some men opted for a prosthetic—they were extremely realistic—but once the testicle was gone, few men felt the need for an implant.

The first doctor showed up—a handsome young Dutch man, gay I thought. He recapped the diagnosis, then the primary surgeon arrived, wearing a gray wool coat over his pajamas. "There is one urology emergency," he said, "and this is it." The nurses hooked me to an IV, and I asked the Dutch doctor to call my wife. He did. "We're about to operate," he said. Nobody told me I had good doctors, let alone great doctors, but I felt all right about them—the second doctor was a handsome, athletic Jewish man in his late forties, white at the temples—and what was I going to do? I needed a surgeon as soon as possible; the longer I waited, the more likely I'd have my ball ripped out.

"You've done this before, right?" I asked the doctors.

"Yes," said the older one.

As they transferred me from the gurney to the operating table—the OR was a small blue-gray room walled in equipment—I asked the older doctor if he could give me a few extra inches while he was in there, and he said he could. He offered his hand to seal the deal. I was beginning to feel the drugs, but I got my hand in place and pumped it up and down. Then he asked about my profession, and I said writer, and he pulled his hand away from mine like he'd been scalded—and I knew I wasn't getting my inches.

The anesthesiologist placed the mask, tightened it, and told me to inhale—something like plastic permeated my tongue, my chest, and my teeth. (My teeth kept hurting for months.)

I think each doctor got a testicle. The incisions were asymmetrical. The left one was neater: I suspect the Dutch doctor. In defense of the older doctor, the right side, he must have had to open the scrotum wider. The torsion was not mild, I would be told, but after the testicle was turned around and the twisted spermatic cord was unraveled, circulation was restored and my graying ball began to "pinken up."

The scars ran about two inches a side. My surgeons had wanted to be sure there was plenty of overlap for the two sides of my scrotum to knit back together. There was so much overlap that pockets of dried blood and pus formed within the ridge. My wife assured me that it would take a while for the scar to "resolve." Now, years later, the scars are so hard to find I no longer attempt it at cocktail parties. But my scrotum is different. As I told the doctor, on the follow-up, "it feels like someone opened a seam in my nutsack and took in about an inch." He gave me a puzzled look, not sure about me, and replied, "that's exactly what we did."

My balls are different like this: they're stitched into place. They don't move up when I'm standing on a precipice, and they don't move down when I'm loafing in a steamroom. There's a moment, when a man is aroused, that his balls move for the sweet spot, optimum efficiency—it feels like my balls are there all the time. And, I don't know if this is psychological or physical, I've developed an aversion to masturbation. My wife thinks that so much happened down there the nerves are hyper-sensitized; I wonder if the three hundred people who handled my balls had some effect. When I was a kid, I had a hamster, "Marvin the New Wave Hamster," who I put in an East Village group art show (the gallerist was a friend of my mother). Whole classes of children handled that hamster every day—and it was never the same. Once aggressive, Marvin had become affectionate, even needy.

In college, I was friends with this guy, Will. He would tell me of his conquests, and I'd be amazed. I considered myself part of a silent majority, the type of man who needed to get to know a woman, who needed affection—who needed everything to feel right. Will was the other type, the kind that gave us all a bad reputation, the kind that got a woman naked and was good to go. Since the operation, I've become Will. I newly understand an outlook that was once unfathomable. All that time I spent in martial arts, in ballroom dancing, in the gym, in the cult of tantric sex—all that stuff that compensated for a not-cuddly childhood, for a not-coziness with other people—now strikes me as preposterous. I used to have fetishes, curiosities, neurosis—but now I am without distraction, I know what to do.

Post-op, I woke up, reaching for the mask. My face was itchy, like I was coming back to life. My hand lifted, fingers unmoving, clay. My mind was all there, or so I thought, and I said to the nurse who was with me, "Luke, help me take off this mask."

The nurse had six hands, and she was pushing my one hand (the other was hooked up to an IV) away from the mask. I had to keep the mask on, she was telling me. But I wanted it off, I was telling her. It was inadvisable to remove the mask at this time, she told me. I kept fighting, even though she was moving faster than me and had more hands. Finally, she told me to wait just one minute, and I felt her disconnecting stuff that was attached to my head, stuff that I hadn't known was there. I saw that I was in a new room, on a new bed, laid in a semi-reclining position. The mask came off, and I went back to sleep.

I woke again at a few minutes after 5 a.m. Same room. Just me, except for one nurse who was sitting in a stall on the other side of a walkway. She was working on something. There was a clock on a rectangular pillar on the edge of the walkway. Empty beds receded into nothingness.

The building was burning down. I smelled smoke. No, it wasn't smoke—a fire alarm was going off. The nurse was looking at something on her desk. She didn't look up. I couldn't move.

"Your heart rate," she said, loud enough for me to hear her over the fire alarm. I didn't know what she was talking about.

She looked up, screaming, "Raise your heart rate!"

She was a white woman with short brown hair. She was heavy and had mean eyebrows.

"Raise your heart rate!"

I tried to breathe faster. It stopped the alarm.

The drugs still had a grip on me. I couldn't stay awake. I'd breathe fast, but after about a minute and a half, I'd fall asleep. A few seconds after that, the alarm would go off. I was made to understand that after 6 a.m., the alarm would no longer go off.

Every minute and a half, until 6 a.m., I fell asleep, the alarm went off, I panted to raise my heart rate ... then I fell asleep again. The nurse never got up. I wondered to myself if hell was like this. At 5:59, I fell asleep.

I woke again slightly after 10 a.m.. I was in a private room. There was an '80s flip-clock on the bedside table. They'd told me I'd be out of the hospital by 10 a.m. I'd assumed that meant I'd be out earlier, swaggering like John Wayne. I didn't think I could stand up. My balls were bound in a dressing. My balls were the size of a football. I didn't want to look. A nurse came in and told me not to look. She asked how I was doing, as if I should be doing better. I told her I had to go to the bathroom.

"Number 1 or number 2?"

"Number 1."

"You were supposed to go before the surgery," she said, accusing.

"I did."

"We can discharge you when you can go number 1."

I started getting out of bed.

"Are you sure you're ready for that, Mister Reed?"

I got to the bathroom, and went for my penis, which was available through a slot in a harness. I couldn't go. The nurse helped me back to the bed. A black woman, suddenly sympathetic.

The Dutch doctor had offered to walk me home, if need be. When I next woke up, nearing 1 p.m., my wife was there. She said the Dutch doctor had come in to look after me while I was asleep. I got out of bed, and successfully urinated.

Six weeks, said the doctor, and you'll be back to normal. Six weeks, and I was walking around. Sometimes the scars hurt, and I'd get blue balls—which I'd always thought was a lie invented by horny men. The white-haired doctor explained that semen could get stuck in the kinks of the cord. When I don't have "release," which is a word I once heard a sensual masseuse employ (I was at a cocktail party), I have "discomfort." That, and way less jerking off, has reduced my sexuality to base instinct—a circumstance which I can thank for having greatly improved my sex life, and my marriage. Long massage? OK, I'm in. "I'm too tired to move," she says. "That's OK," I say, "you don't have to move." My friend Dimitri, very kindly, said they'd turned me into a race car—but actually, I'm a dog. At times, my wife is dismayed: when I'm heading out and she gives me a once over that ends on the crotch, "you're going out like that?"; at airport security when the Homeland Security woman keeps telling me to empty my empty pockets; when I adopt an attitude of entitlement, "there are seven billion people on Earth, I don't want to do this by myself." But even my wife, overall, prefers the new me. A pair of tight pants, and all is granted, all forgiven.

Post surgery, there was a six week ban on sexual activity. Six weeks, to the day, my wife was there to plumb the works. We were afraid I was too fragile for intercourse. But I was overeager. The closest I'd come to oral sex since we'd had kids was a coupon book she gave me for my birthday, which didn't work.

"That's it?" she asked.

Since then, the post-modern distance is gone; I lose myself in sex—I shudder, I groan, I do all this stuff I thought was melodramatic. I'd way rather have sex than workout—any chance I'm getting some action, I don't leave the house. I took a three-year break from martial arts—I didn't relish the notion of getting hit in the balls—and now that I'm back, I'm halfhearted. When the kids climb on me, one hand covers my groin—and I hate it when they walk up me for those "flips." As a kid, I'd ride a bike everywhere—a ten-speed, nice and relaxing—and now I'm back on one.

I'd worried that the recovery would interrupt my home life, that the kids—the boy, 2.5 and the girl, 5—wouldn't comprehend my lethargy, that they'd climb on me, and ask me about the mass of bandages between my legs. But they seemed to understand the gravity of my wound. By ostensible measure—the gauze, the groin—the operation was the same as the hypospadias correction my son had undergone the previous year, and the children viewed the matter in course. Perhaps a little late in life, their dadda had endured one of the trials that a boy may face as he embarks upon his childhood.

John Reed is an author, essayist and poet. He teaches at The New School.

[Illustration by Jim Cooke]

Riley Allen Mullins, a 28-year-old man who is suspected of robbing a woman while she waited for the ferry in Bremerton, Washington, requested his victim's friendship on Facebook the following day. Wise!

The woman was waiting for a ferry when she was struck on the head, after which the robber took her iPod and purse. She didn't recognize the man but took note of a triangle tattoo on his neck.

When she checked her Facebook the next day, a man who looked suspiciously like the robber had friended her, triangle tattoo and all. Authorities confirmed that the Facebook belonged to Riley Allen Mullins, and he was charged with second-degree robbery.

[Image via AP]

A park ranger at Washington's Mount Rainier has shared with the Associated Press that six climbers have gone missing on a climb and a search crew has been sent out for them this afternoon.

According to the AP:

The missing group includes four clients of Seattle-based Alpine Ascents International and two guides. They were due to return from the mountain on Friday. When they did not return, the climbing company notified park officials, Park Ranger Fawn Bauer said.

There was a small change in weather on Wednesday that brought flurries and hail to the mountain.

The search for the missing climbers is focusing on the Liberty Ridge area, near from where they were last heard from, Bauer said. The search includes climber ranger teams on the ground and flyovers with a helicopter.

A spokesperson for Alpine Ascents, Gordon Janow, has not released any information or names of the climbers, stating "Let's hope they're found and that it goes well."

[Image via AP]

At a bar in Seattle, Washington, one dog with a strong will, wanted nothing more than to bring a giant stick through a doorway that just simply wouldn't fit it. He tries different angles, inevitably getting stuck each time, until enlisting a friend gets him to the genius idea to shift the stick's angle.

Success is sweet.

The six climbers on Mount Rainier who had not returned on Friday and were reported missing on Saturday are being reported dead by officials, the Seattle Times has shared. This is considered the worst disaster at the mountain in thirty years.

The company that the climbers ascended the mountain with was Alpine Ascents International, reportedly the same company that lost five sherpas at Mount Everest this past spring.

Searchers found tents and clothes, mixed with rock and ice, in a debris field along the Carbon Glacier at 9,500 feet, according to the National Park Service. The group's climbing route, to Liberty Peak, is prone to slides and among the more advanced on the mountain

The founder of Alpine Ascents, Todd Burleson, returned to Washington from Alaska on Saturday.

"Obviously this is a tragedy," he said. "We are very sad for the families and the loss of our guys. Everybody mourns this."

The leader of the climbing team is confirmed as Matt Hegeman of California, who had climbed Mount Rainier over 50 times.

Randy King, the superintendent of Mount Rainier National Park, released a statement late on Saturday night.

"This accident represents a horrific loss for our guide partners and the families and loved ones of every one of the climbers lost on the mountain. . . . The climbing community is a small one and a close one and a loss of this magnitude touches many. Our thoughts are with everyone affected by this tragic accident."

The last great loss of life at Mount Rainier was in 1981 when 11 climbers were killed by an avalanche on the Ingraham Glacier.

[Image via AP]

Seven people are dead after a plane crashed at Hanscom Field in Massachusetts last night as the flight was en route for Atlantic City, NJ. Among the dead is 72-year-old Lewis Katz, the recent co-owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

A spokesperson for the Massachusetts Port Authority told the Associated Press:

The Gulfstream IV crashed as it was leaving Hanscom Field at about 9:40 p.m. Saturday for Atlantic City International Airport in New Jersey, said Matthew Brelis.

There were no survivors in the crash, and no other names have been confirmed. The editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Bill Marimow, confirmed the news of Katz's death to the paper.

"Lewis Katz was an exceptional man, whose presence enriched the lives of everyone he came in contact with," said Marimow, the Inquirer's editor. "He never forgot his friends or his roots, giving back generously to the city of Camden, Temple University, Dickinson College's law school, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and countless other organizations. . . . He loved his family and his friends and they loved him back in return. We've lost a great friend."

Katz, along with his partner H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest, had recently won a private bid for the paper and its parent company, for $80 million on May 27 after disputes over the firing of Marimow.

Katz, who grew up in Camden, New Jersey, made his fortune investing in the Kinney Parking empire and the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network in New York. He once owned the NBA's New Jersey Nets and the NHL's New Jersey Devils and was a major donor to Temple University, his alma mater.

The crash is still under investigation by the Massachusetts State Police and the National Transportation Safety Board this morning.

[Image via NECN]

In the video above, a young-looking Justin Bieber can be seen telling a shitty joke to some friends. "Why are black people afraid of chainsaws?" he asks, self-satisfied grin on his face. After an off-camera voice urges, "don't even say it," Biebs gets to the "n-word"-laden punchline.

According to Page Six, the video was filmed for the 2011 Bieber biopic Never Say Never, but, for obvious reasons, was left on the cutting room floor. Bieber's team allegedly knew of the clip's existence and offered a payout to keep it from leaking. TMZ is reporting that the pop star was 15 when the clip was filmed.

The American Family Association, a fundamentalist Christian group, has shared a press release with its members urging them to refuse any mail that arrives with Harvey Milk's likeness. The USPS announced the Forever stamp honoring Harvey Milk last week.

In their statement, the AFA has said,

Honoring predator Harvey Milk on a U.S. postage stamp is disturbing to say the least. Harvey Milk was a very disreputable man and used his charm and power to prey on young boys with emotional problems and drug addiction. He is the last person we should be featuring on a stamp.

There are supposedly two options for members and supporters of the AFA if the picture of Harvey Milk hits their mailboxes:

1. Refuse to accept the Harvey Milk stamp if offered by your local post office. Instead, ask for a stamp of the United States flag.

2. Refuse to accept mail at your home or business if it is postmarked with the Harvey Milk stamp. Simply write "Return to Sender" on the envelope and tell your postman you won't accept it.

In the hateful words of the AFA, "The United States Postal Service honored a child predator at the whim of a drag queen."

Everyone start redirecting your Harvey Milk-stamped mail to the AFA, pronto.

[Image via AP]

The latest Edward Snowden leaks, published in the New York Times, reveal that the NSA intercepts millions of images from the internet per day for use in its facial recognition program.

According to James Risen and Laura Poitras in the Times, it's unclear how many people around the world — or how many Americans — are subject to the image surveillance, but tens of thousands of "facial-recognition quality images" are collected each day:

The agency intercepts "millions of images per day" — including about 55,000 "facial recognition quality images" — which translate into "tremendous untapped potential," according to 2011 documents obtained from the former agency contractor Edward J. Snowden. While once focused on written and oral communications, the N.S.A. now considers facial images, fingerprints and other identifiers just as important to its mission of tracking suspected terrorists and other intelligence targets, the documents show.

The NSA reportedly grabs the photos from emails, text messages, videoconferences, and social media, and uses them in an effort to identify and track suspected terrorists. According to the Times, the spy agency also gathers images from foreign nations' databases of citizen ID cards, a tactic it has attempted in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

As evidenced by leaked agency documents, the facial recognition software is sophisticated, but fallible:

Similarly, another 2011 N.S.A. document reported that a facial recognition system was queried with a photograph of Osama bin Laden. Among the search results were photos of four other bearded men with only slight resemblances to Bin Laden.

But the technology is powerful. One 2011 PowerPoint showed how the software matched a bald young man, shown posing with another man in front of a water park, with another photo where he has a full head of hair, wears different clothes and is at a different location.

It's also capable of determining where a photo was taken by matching background scenery to spy satellite images:

The N.S.A. can now compare spy satellite photographs with intercepted personal photographs taken outdoors to determine the location. One document shows what appear to be vacation photographs of several men standing near a small waterfront dock in 2011. It matches their surroundings to a spy satellite image of the same dock taken about the same time, located at what the document describes as a militant training facility in Pakistan.

Americans can take some solace in the NSA's assertion that it must obtain court approval for collecting photos of U.S. citizens through surveillance, unless they're communicating with potential agency targets overseas.

Of course, Facebook, with its 100 million-plus American active users, provides a vast database of photos of U.S. citizens, conveniently matched to their names. When Poitras and Risen asked NSA spokeswoman Vanee M. Vines whether the agency collects photos of Americans from Facebook and other social networks "through means other than communications intercepts," she declined to answer.

This isn't Snowden's first image collection-related leak. In February, the Guardian reported that British spy agency GCHQ, with help from the NSA, collected and stored webcam images from Yahoo users, many of which were sexually explicit.

[Image via NSA]

Police are saying that three cousins in the Uttar Pradesh state of Northern India have confessed to the gruesome rape and murder of two teenage girls who were found hanging from a tree in their town of Katra. Their crimes, if they are found guilty, are punishable by the death penalty.

The girls, 14-and-15-year-old cousins, had gone to relieve themselves in the fields outside of their home at night when they were raped and killed. Their house does not have an indoor toilet.

According to the Associated Press, the murders resulted in national outcry and protests from residents of the town until authorities were forced to investigate.

After the girls were found hanging from a mango tree on Wednesday, hundreds of angry villagers stayed next to the tree, demanding that police find the attackers before allowing them to remove the bodies. Indian television stations showed footage of the villagers sitting under the girls' bodies as they swung in the wind.

Two suspects were arrested on Wednesday and another on Saturday. According to police on Sunday, the three cousins, who are all in their 20s from an extended family, confessed to the crimes.

Authorities in the case have also arrested two police officers and suspended two others for not investigating the case when the father of one of the teenagers reported the girls missing on Tuesday night.

The case is expected to be taken over by federal authorities this week.

[Image via AP]

On the heels of The Sunday Times report detailing Mohamed bin Hammam's successful campaign to purchase the 2022 World Cup for Qatar, FIFA vice president Jim Boyce told BBC Radio 5 he would support a re-vote for a new host city. Boyce says the claims in the Times report would have to be proven, but if they were and the recommendation was a re-vote, FIFA would support it.

FIFA has been conducting its own investigation into allegations of fraud for both the 2018 and 2022 bid awards and investigator Michael Garcia is scheduled to meet with Qatar officials Monday.

"If Garcia reports that wrongdoing happened for the 2022 vote then it has to be looked at very seriously," Boyce told 5 live's Sportsweek programme.

"The Fifa executive committee are 100% behind Garcia," he continued. "He will be allowed to go and speak to anyone from around the world to complete his mission. All evidence should go to him and we will then await a full report on his findings."

The main hang-up so far—the Times has only released a portion of its findings—is creating a definitive connection between bin Hammam and the Qatar bid committee. The committee has claimed he was never an official or unofficial member, which is what they will surely tell Garcia, but according to the report, the documents suggest otherwise.

And now, politicians are calling for action. Independent of these investigations, British Shadow Secretary of State for International Development Jim Murphy recently traveled to Qatar to inspect the deadly conditions migrant workers have barely endured as they build Qatar's World Cup infrastructure from scratch. The fraud (if proven), coupled with the life-averse work environment, says Murphy, leaves FIFA no choice but to act.

"There now needs to be a forensic inquiry into each and every one of those emails and documents to work out who paid what, when, for what, and what was the ebb and flow of votes and voting allegiances as a consequence.

"And if that's proven, then the building work in Qatar has to stop, the vote has to be re-run, it has to be free and fair, because football fans deserve that.

"If Fifa doesn't act it's lost the right to lead the world of football," he added.

Both The Sunday Times and BBC sports editor David Bond claim to have reviewed the cache of documents that seem to explicitly point to bin Hammam's efforts to sway the vote in Qatar's favor, so proving it happened could be as simple as making those document public, or at the least, sharing it with FIFA's investigator. The Times is also revealing it's investigation in several parts in the coming weeks, so more proof may also be available.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Qatar World Cup 2022: Fifa vice-president 'would support' re-vote [BBC]

Peter Sunde, co-founder of the popular file-sharing site The Pirate Bay, was arrested in southern Sweden last night after nearly two years on the run.

In 2009, Sunde and three other Pirate Bay figures were found guilty of copyright violations in Sweden. Sunde evaded an eight-month prison sentence set to begin in 2012, and he's allegedly been living in Germany since. According to Carolina Ekeus, spokeswoman for the Swedish national police, he'll now have to serve that sentence:

We have been looking for him since 2012. He was given eight months in jail so he has to serve his sentence.

Of the four who were charged, only one, Fredrik Neij, remains on the lam. Pirate Bay cofounder Gottfrid Svartholm was arrested in Cambodia in 2012, and Carl Lundström, the site's original financier, served a house arrest sentence the same year.

Worry not, piratically inclined readers: the site itself is still fully operational.

[Image via AP]

Yolanda Arguello, 59, a cook at the South Valley New Mexico Women's Recovery Academy in Albuquerque, faces battery charges this week after witnesses revealed that she had been licking sandwiches she was making for parole and probation officers at the facility.

A criminal complaint was filed against Arguello at the recovery academy, where state corrections employees are trained.

. . . witnesses told investigators that the 59-year-old would take a piece of cheese, lick it and put it on sandwiches at the academy. Another witness told authorities Arguello was seen sucking on an ice cube and putting it back into a cup before handing it to a staff member.

According to the NY Daily News, Arguello also "dumped ice on the floor, scooped it into pitchers and poured tea into them before giving the drinks to diners."

[Image via NY Daily News]

Pity Paul Roof, the Charleston Southern University associate professor who claims he lost his job after an image of his insane, four-pronged beard showed up on a beer can from a local brewery.

The professor was competing in the "freestyle" category of a beard contest in New Orleans when the photo above was taken, and in 2013, Holy City Brewing began using the image on the label of its terribly named Chucktown Follicle Brown beer.

When Charleston Southern, a Christian liberal arts school, got wind of the label, Roof says, he was promptly canned. The University allegedly argued that the beer placement was "not representative of a Christian environment."

Roof claims he was not aware his likeness would be used until the beers were already in production. He told Charleston's News 2:

"My image and likeness, which I do not own, that I've never received compensation for and it was a surprise for me that it was put on a beer can by Holy City Brewing."

The professor wouldn't discuss the terms of his firing with the local news outlet because he's currently seeking legal counsel. For now, he says, he's just looking for a little old-fashioned Christian compassion:

"I was told that it was not representative of a Christian environment. And for me a Christian environment entails two things: looking out for other people and forgiveness of others who've transgressed you."

[Image via Greg Anderson]

Mehdi Nemmouche, a French jihadist who had spent time in Syria, was taken into custody in Marseilles on Friday on charges that he was responsible for killing three at the Jewish Museum in Belgium last week. He was found with several firearms, ammunition, and a video claiming his responsibility for the attack.

Lee Thompson, photographer and co-founder of The Flash Pack, was in Rio de Janeiro to cover the World Cup when he was given a very special privilege: a climb to the top of the Christ the Redeemer statue for its first ever selfie.

Thompson and his colleague Oliver Harvey were given special permission from the Brazil tour board to climb to the top of the statue.

As Thompson himself says on The Flash Pack,

With the assistance of two high-wire workmen, (and armed with Go Pro cameras) we entered through scaffolding mounted on the feet and crawled in circles up 12 flights of rickety stairs that seemed to get narrower with every step.

Twenty minutes into the climb I reached the heart of the Christ made from beautiful Mosaics. After what felt like an eternity of pressing heat and pitch darkness, we finally reached the small compartment in Christ's shoulder. I grabbed the rope and pulled myself along the smooth soapstone up into the head of the statue where we carefully opened the hatch. My heart was pounding with excitement and I couldn't wait another second.

The video that Lee and his companion took is even more vertigo-inducing, if you have the stomach for it:

[Images via The Flash Pack]

In the video above, FC Tucson forward Odaine Sinclair scores an astounding bicycle kick goal in a USL Premier Development League match against the BYU Cougars this week. Tuscon went on to win 2-0, with Sinclair behind the team's second goal as well.

Tuscon coach Rick Schantz called it "by far the best goal I've ever seen live in my life," which sounds about right.

A Tennessee couple wanted their month-old daughter to actively participate in their wedding, so they made her the center of attention by attaching her to the train of the bride's dress and literally dragging her down the aisle.

The new #WorldsMostTalkedAboutCouple (sorry, Kim and Yeezy), Shona Carter-Brooks and Johnathan Brooks, came under fire on social media after pictures of their stunt hit the internet. Carter-Brooks responded to her critics on Facebook, explaining how she decided to attach baby Aubrey to the dress: "The answer is we do what we want when we want long as Jesus on our side everything worked out fine and gone continue to be fine."

"Our 1 month old was awake and well secured on my train. Most important while yall got ya feelings in us we had our hearts in Christ which covers all!! So keep ya mouths running for it was just that Exclusive and Epic enough we made top blog way from small town Ripley, TN and the social media doing what they do, TALK!!!!"

Yes, it's like exactly like Jesus said: "Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Exclusive and Epic kingdom of heaven. Whoever does what he wants when he wants gone continue to be fine."

[H/T OpposingViews]

Yesterday, a years-old video of Justin Bieber telling a racist joke about black people made its way online. Quite predictably, this sent Beliebers—Bieber's monolithic horde of insane fans—into damage control, where they came up with more or less one singular response: Justin Bieber has black friends.

Behold, white teenagers looking to explain away their idol saying the N-word:

"Justin bieber is a racist! He hates black people" Me: 99.9% of his friends are black pic.twitter.com/LC15LilNVQ

— I♡U (@GirlSweater) June 1, 2014

Justin Bieber is'' racist'' If clear why 95% of his friends are black pic.twitter.com/2JVAVnvg8u

— Justin bieber ♛ (@_MrsMcCann_) June 2, 2014

"Justin Bieber is racist" to yes to because most of his friends are black and his biggest idol too!! @justinbieber pic.twitter.com/mL0D2W9Bsw

— Jeniffer Ribeiro (@_Jeeniribeeiro) June 1, 2014

"Justin Bieber is racist" u must be dum af to believe that cause 99.9% of his friends are black as it was 5 years ago pic.twitter.com/zZBGMUcMGn

— 5SOS Is Life (@lovekidrauhllbh) June 1, 2014

" @justinbieber is racist" yeah that's why most of his friends is black 😂. !Justin is not a racist! pic.twitter.com/0v94KHlRJ3

— Norwegian Belieber (@Madde_bieber17) June 1, 2014

"JUSTIN BIEBER IS RACIST" OF COURSE, THAT'S WHY MOST OF HIS FRIENDS ARE BLACK! pic.twitter.com/NPlXf9rkCo

— ♥ (@swagy_23) June 1, 2014

Media :Justin Bieber is RACIST Reality: The Majority of his friends are black and the kid think he is black himself pic.twitter.com/NbYP5OctRS

— Inactive just 4 days (@superbieber52) June 1, 2014

Not convinced by random 16-year-old Europeans? Well, how about Soulja Boy, one of those actual black friends, who has apparently assured TMZ that Bieber is not racist.

Now Soulja tells TMZ he doesn't feel Bieber should be held accountable for something he said when he was 15. Soulja says Justin is still his boy and people should not think Justin is racist ... because he isn't.

In all honestly, Soulja doesn't sound too convinced.

Let's all listen to Justin Bieber's latest single, "Looking For You." It features the rap trio Migos.