Nadya Suleman, aka Octomom, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor welfare fraud charge today and was given two years probation and ordered to serve 200 hours of community service. The mother of 14 had failed to disclose the nearly $30,000 in earnings she made from public appearances and videos.

According to Reuters, Suleman was facing five years and eight months for not claiming her additional income while accepting public assistance. Her lawyer, Arthur LaCilento, told Reuters that Suleman has repaid thousands of dollars:

Suleman, who both sides say has made restitution by paying back $9,805 to the California Department of Health Care Services and $16,481 to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services, pleaded no contest because she did not want to go through a drawn-out trial process, LaCilento said.

"We could have litigated this, but she didn't want to go through a long trial and she wanted to resolve it quickly," LaCilento said.

The Los Angeles Times reports that welfare fraud investigators first began looking into discrepancies in Suleman's income in January receiving an anonymous tip.

[Image via AP]

Sixty-seven live giant African snails were discovered in two picnic baskets at the Los Angeles International Airport earlier this month. The snails, which collectively weighed 35 pounds, were sent from Lagos, Nigeria, to a person in San Dimas, Ca., and were apparently intended for human consumption.

This is, according to the Los Angeles Times, the most snails Customs has ever dealt with:

In the past, federal inspectors have discovered one or two of the large snails hidden in luggage, but this marked "the first time this pest has been encountered in such large quantity and as a consumption entry" in Los Angeles, said Todd C. Owen, director of field operations for the customs agency.

Giant African snails, also known as land snails, can live as long as 10 years and grow up to eight inches long. The snails can carry parasites harmful to humans.

Owing to the snails' potential threat to humans, they were incinerated after being inspected, Lee Harty, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Borders told the Associated Press. But apparently it's no big deal if you accidentally bring crop-killing, possibly-people-hurting mollusks into the country.

"We're investigating what happened but it doesn't seem like there was smuggling involved. When someone doesn't know a commodity is prohibited under USDA regulations there is usually no punishment," Maveeda Mirza, CBP program manager for agriculture, told the Associated Press.

[Image via Los Angeles Times/U.S. Customs and Border Protection]

A 27-year-old Mexican citizen tried to hang himself from a U.S.-Mexico border fence near Calexico today, authorities report. A U.S. Border Patrol agent managed to free the man from his noose and revive him after he had fallen unconscious.

From the Press-Enterprise:

A U.S. Border Patrol agent near 1st Street saw the man scaling the fence with a rope on the Mexico side about 7 p.m. As the agent approached, the man wrapped the rope around his neck, hanging himself on the U.S. side of the fence, Border Patrol Agent Eduardo Jacobo said.

The agent grabbed the man by his legs, elevating him to release the pressure around his neck, until another agent arrived to help, a Border Patrol news release said. At some point, the rope came loose and the agents lowered the man to the ground.

According to the Desert Sun, the man, who has yet to be identified, was taken to El Centro Regional Medical Center by paramedics.

[Image via AP]

Archie Andrews, star of a comic you read sometimes and perpetually caught in a love triangle with Betty and Veronica, will die in the issue of Life With Archie hitting stands Wednesday.

As told by Badass Digest:

Archie Andrews will be killed when he takes a bullet intended for his good friend Kevin Keller. Keller is a Mid-East war vet who is openly gay (the first openly gay Archie character) and who is running for office in the wake of his husband's death in a mall shooting rampage.

"We wanted to do something that was impactful that would really resonate with the world and bring home just how important Archie is to everyone," Archie Comics publisher and co-CEO Jon Goldwater said in a statement. "That's how we came up with the storyline of saving Kevin. He could have saved Betty. He could have saved Veronica. We get that, but metaphorically, by saving Kevin, a new Riverdale is born."

But thanks to the nature of comic books, a version of Archie will still live on, as explained by Vulture:

But while that death will close out that specific series, Archie is actually still alive in the Archie series set in the present day. (Life With Archie is set in the past, where each comic includes a story of Archie with Veronica and Archie with Betty. This ultimate ending will be the same for both.)

R.I.P. Archie?

[Image courtesy Archie Comics]

A fire burns through Moccasin Hill, northeast of Klamath Falls, Ore. The fire has already burned more than 2,500 acres of land since starting Sunday and thousands of lightning strikes in the area have caused additional fires. Image by Dennis Lee via AP/Oregon Dept. of Forestry.

This young driving ace is the Elwood Blues, the Ken Block, of parking a go-kart. Or, if you're a Top Gear fan, he's like The Stig—an anonymous stud whose identity is concealed by his racing suit.

Whatever analogy you prefer, the kid's got skills. According to a comment on reddit, his family owns a go-kart and paintball center in Denmark, and the two boys in the video are now tearing up the junior circuit.

Although it just became popular this week, this footage was actually taken back in 2012. It's hard to determine how old Stig Jr. is here, but there's a chance he might actually be on the road by now. God help us all.

[H/T Reddit]

A new CDC survey suggests the U.S.'s LGB population is smaller than suspected: "96.6% of adults identified as straight, 1.6% identified as gay or lesbian, and 0.7% identified as bisexual. The remaining 1.1% of adults identified as 'something else,' stated 'I don't know the answer,' or refused to provide an answer."

A gallant tipster has notified us that while searching for some new basketball shorts on customer service shopping shell Zappos, he found what looks like a dick. A pointy one, but with not much girth, and perhaps a curved tail at its end. Let's assess.

Many say that perhaps it's just a fold that looks like a dick. But if you take a look up close, that is definitely a dick. A dick with a piece of string coming out of it. Maybe there is a hook coming out of this dick. That sounds normal. Can't really feel free in basketball shorts unless your dick is stuffed with string and wire.

The other colors available in the Nike New Layup Shorts (reviewed 11 times by fairly enthusiastic shorts-wearers but no queries about the free dick that came with them, which is strange) reveal no dicks but a lot of folds. But the folds elsewhere look just like that—folds. Normal stuff.

Here's another angle for your assessment.

Here you see that the dick is really just a fold, but maybe the dick is hiding. It is hard for me to determine. If you want 'em, shipping is free. A good deal not to be missed.

[Image via Zappos]

John Swallow and Mark Shurtleff, both former Utah attorneys general, were arrested at their respective homes on bribery charges this morning.

The pair is accused of taking at least $50,000 from people who faced investigation from the attorney general's office, the Associated Press reports. Swallow faces 13 charges, and Shurtleff (above) faces 10. From the AP:

They used a luxury jet and personal property belonging to a businessman in trouble with regulators, authorities said. Swallow also used the businessman's million-dollar houseboat on Lake Powell, according to officials.

They stayed at a high-end Newport Beach resort where they enjoyed meals, golf, clothing and massages paid for by another businessman who had been charged months earlier with fraud by the Utah attorney general's office.

They're also accused of trying to cover up the alleged schemes.

Swallow served as Utah's attorney general for less than a year in 2013, resigning amidst allegations of bribery, and was Shurtleff's deputy for several years. Shurtleff, his predecessor, served from 2001 to 2013. Both men deny guilt.

[Image via AP]

On Saturday, Amare Stoudemire deleted an Instagram captioned "Pray for Palestine." That same day, Dwight Howard tweeted and quickly deleted "#FreePalestine," claiming the tweet was a "mistake." Today, Rihanna also tweeted and deleted "#FreePalestine," proving that even the world's largest Twitter troll wants no part of the Israel-Palestine debate.

As the death toll in Gaza rises, some Twitter users have asked celebrities to show solidarity with Palestinians caught in the Israel-Hamas conflict. Howard, for example, seemed genuinely concerned when @NckJ6 tweeted him photos of bombings in Gaza on Saturday.

@NckJ6 wow how can I help

— Dwight Howard (@DwightHoward) July 12, 2014

After @NckJ6 suggested he "spread the word," he did. But Howard quickly realized #FreePalestine is more controversial than say, #BringBackOurGirls.

previous tweet was a mistake. I have never commented on international politics and never will.

— Dwight Howard (@DwightHoward) July 12, 2014

I apologize if I offended anyone with my previous tweet, it was a mistake!

— Dwight Howard (@DwightHoward) July 12, 2014

Rihanna hasn't commented on her #FreePalestine tweet, but in all likelihood, her people decided defending it wasn't worth it. According to a TMZ source, RiRi "didn't even realize" she tweeted it. (Tweets that she stands by: rooting against USA in the World Cup; mocking a 16-year-old fan's prom dress.)

Swizz Beatz, if you still count him as a celebrity, has kept his #FreePalestine tweet up since yesterday.

#freepalestine 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 I don't care what's the problem you don't just kill lil kids like that🙈 I pray for peace ASAP!!!!

— SWIZZ BEATZ (@THEREALSWIZZZ) July 14, 2014

[Images via AP, TMZ]

Startup Land only says something poignant about itself by accident, and this time is no exception: the grand prize in an upcoming venture capital sponsored hackathon is a chance to degrade yourself in a booth full of money.

The Greylock Partners "Hackfest" will give budding startup tots on the winningest team a chance to bypass the humbling, stress-packed fundraising process, and skip straight to the venal spirit of venture-backed business:

Each team member will get one minute to collect as many Benjamin Franklins as possible in the Hacker Cash-omatic. The money booth is stocked full of cold hard cash, ready for the taking. Once all team members have finished their one minute in the booth, the total cash collected will be split evenly among the group.

Literally, startup people waving their arms as quickly as possible in an attempt to grab free money out of the air. What other realities of the tech sector could be streamlined and replicated via tone-deaf novelty romp? Perhaps a pseudo-meritocracy game of red rover, where just the white boys from Stanford are called over?

A popular contest at a festival in southeast Idaho had to be cancelled in a really big hurry last weekend after a pilot dropped some 3,000 ping-pong balls worth assorted prizes on Interstate 15 instead of the waiting crowd.

Organizers of the Blackfoot Pride Days celebration had to ask the thousands of revelers on hand not to risk life and limb gathering the little white balls—most of which could be exchanged for candy but a few with gift certificates worth up to $100—which littered the nearby the nearby interstate and surrounding streets.

Pingpong ball drop contest organizer Aaron Moon says that a new pilot took over the drop duties this year, and likely didn't realize that they tend to lose speed quickly and fall straight down instead of carrying momentum forward.

"I assumed that there was more knowledge passed on there," Moon told the Blackfoot Journal. "I am sure the pilot assumed it was easy to drop pingpong balls out of a plane. I will not assume anything anymore."

"Hopefully, we will better communicate next year. We have never had them fall on the freeway before."

Blackfoot Police Chief Kurt Asmus says there won't be any charges over the missed drop, saying that the department will work with festival organizers next year.

"We are interested in making it better, not holding anyone accountable," said Asmus.

In related news:

Image via Blackfoot Journal

The Transportation Security Administration says it's giving all agents in Orlando a refresher course on what a District of Columbia driver's license looks like, after one agent refused to recognize one of them as valid ID.

D.C.-based reporter Justin Gray, who works for Cox Media Group, says the agent at checkpoint inside Orlando International Airport "didn't recognize" his license, and asked him to show a passport instead. Gray didn't have one with him.

"At that point, I was a little confused, but then I realized what was going on," Gray later told Orlando ABC affiliate WFTV, "I said to him, 'Do you not know what the District of Columbia is? Washington, D.C.?' After some back and forth, it became clear he didn't."

He got through the checkpoint by escalating the problem to a supervisor.

A spokesperson who contacted Gray after he tweeted about the problem said, "Officers are trained to identify fraudulent documents, which can potentially deter and detect individuals attempting to circumvent this layer of security."

Now they'll also be trained to identify valid documents. At least in Orlando.

[H/T Mediaite, Screengrab: WFTV]

Satya Nadella took over as Microsoft's CEO just under six months ago and he's already poised to give thousands of employees a pink slip "as soon as this week." Bloomberg reports that the restructuring "may end up being the biggest in Microsoft history," and could surpass the 5,800 employees laid off in 2009.

Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said in an interview last week that he has preparing to make sweeping changes at Microsoft. The reductions will probably be in engineering, marketing and areas of overlap with Nokia, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren't public. [...]

While Microsoft has undergone smaller, intermittent job cuts in individual businesses — for example trimming a few hundred positions in advertising sales and marketing in 2012 and some marketing jobs across the company earlier that same year — the company has only undertaken a companywide restructuring impacting thousands of workers once before, in 2009 at the start of the recession. Over the course of that year, the company cut 5,800 jobs, or about 5 percent of its workforce at the time.

Many of the cuts are being forced by Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia in 2013. The purchase was supposed to turn Microsoft into a "hardware giant," but Microsoft committed to cutting annual operating costs by $600 million to close the deal.

To contact the author of this post, please email kevin@valleywag.com.

[Photo: Getty]

#ZionStandUp for Israeli @ashlisade: "Kill Arab children so there won't be a next generation" https://t.co/jr11iwxNUF pic.twitter.com/2hSZAwyMuJ

— David Sheen (@davidsheen) July 10, 2014

On July 10th, David Sheen, a staff writer at Muftah.org, entered the search term "Aravim" (or Arab, in Hebrew) on Twitter. What he found was disturbing: Teenagers, making duck faces, posing for scantily-clad selfies and calling for the deaths (often painful) of Arabs everywhere.

While we often hear about death tolls and bombings in the news, it's not as often that we are given a glimpse of how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is affecting the younger generations, those that are on social media and are about to enter the Israeli army. As a Jew, and as someone who has been raised to always support Israel (which, according to my parents, is my spiritual home, although I have never been), it's hard to look at these tweets (and their accompanying pictures and Twitter avatars) and not feel a mixture of sadness, shame, disgust, and also sympathy. Because the views these teenagers hold aren't just personal, they're endemic.

Here are just some of the tweets Sheen translated:

#ZionStandUp for Israeli @OrelPery: "I wish a painful death to Arabs" http://t.co/V3zC1DUkDA pic.twitter.com/Nw8Wxuz98V

— David Sheen (@davidsheen) July 10, 2014

#ZionStandUp for Israeli @almasulin82: "Hating Arabs isn't racism it's a commandment from God" http://t.co/TU97liPkVx pic.twitter.com/C5PXluql5f

— David Sheen (@davidsheen) July 10, 2014

#ZionStandUp for Israeli @shira_agiv: "Arabs may you be paralyzed & die with great suffering!" http://t.co/RdZwWAlGp2 pic.twitter.com/FyCKPT2rmC

— David Sheen (@davidsheen) July 10, 2014

#ZionStandUp for Israeli @yarden_meir: "Kill them already, Arabs are whores" https://t.co/sf1UpY5QWR pic.twitter.com/RFk7iAAhbJ

— David Sheen (@davidsheen) July 10, 2014

#ZionStandUp for Israeli @aviv_sahar: "Death to all of you Arabs you transfag" https://t.co/PgMqsv6bRP pic.twitter.com/LZDPN0fxCH

— David Sheen (@davidsheen) July 10, 2014

Of course, the tweets from the other side of the aisle aren't much less violent (a quick search for the term Yahood leads to statements about throwing rocks and burning Israelis among other things), but the point here isn't so much the message as much as the way it is presented. Duck faces and death threats should never be paired (doesn't one cancel out the other?). Yes, these are teenagers, but they're also tomorrow's soldiers and while it's easy to write these photos off as the stupid antics of kids who don't know better, it's hard to ignore the blitheness with which they pair bikini shots with the words "death to all Arabs.

Cryptozoology was rocked this July by the release of a two-year study on alleged Bigfoot DNA by London's Royal Society (paid for by producers of the UK series Bigfoot Files). Now, the chief of America's largest Bigfoot research group (and host of Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot) has cried sample bias. Who's correct?

In response to an email request for comment from Jennifer Viegas, a senior correspondent at Discovery News, the founder and president of the Bigfoot Field Research Organization, Matthew Moneymaker, called the Royal Society's study "meaningless scientifically."

The actual DNA analysis by Sykes' team was surely performed with the highest integrity and accuracy but the overall effort was already corrupted by that point. It was corrupted at the sample inclusion stage.

Note: The BFRO did not provide any of the North American samples, nor did we endorse those few samples from North America that were focused on in the associated TV program. None of the "bigfoot" samples that came from the US had a strong *credible* connection to a bigfoot sighting or some other credible corroborating evidence (i.e. footprints).

Moneymaker (Yes, his real name. Yes, I did a background check and now know more about his minor traffic violations than anyone should.) goes on to point out that a considerable portion of the 57 hair samples — submitted to the society's research team from across the world — were not even subjected to analysis. (18, by my count, based on the paper, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.) He asserts that these samples were excluded specifically "because there was a relatively small amount of material in the sample (i.e. only a few hairs in the sample ... like MOST authentic bigfoot hair samples)." [Moneymaker's emphasis]

I've contacted both the society paper's lead author, Oxford geneticist Bryan Sykes, and Moneymaker for additional information on this discrepancy. In specific, requests to clarify why the BFRO did not submit samples in the first place, and why the Royal Society opted not to examine 18 of the viable hair samples that were submitted. This post will be updated as needed.

As is often the case with pop-sci articles on any subject, the conclusions and finality of the Royal Society paper have been greatly exaggerated. Venerated old media institution Time magazine, for example, published not one, but two, grossly inaccurate headlines about the study "DNA Study Proves Bigfoot Never Existed" and "DNA Analysis Debunks Bigfoot Myth, Points to Unknown Bear Species" ignoring even the Royal Society researchers' firmly enunciated clarification:

While it is important to bear in mind that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and this survey cannot refute the existence of anomalous primates, neither has it found any evidence in support. Rather than persisting in the view that they have been 'rejected by science', advocates in the cryptozoology community have more work to do in order to produce convincing evidence for anomalous primates and now have the means to do so.

Even the Guardian went with the headline "Abominable news: scientists rule out yetis" despite simultaneously quoting the study's lead author, Sykes, as saying, "Don't give up yet, the yeti may still be out there."

These are important nuances from the researchers themselves and cause for optimism, if you're someone who wants to believe.

Pitched as a disappointment by many media outlets, the study's most newsworthy finding was really anything but: Two of the alleged Yeti samples, one shot by an experienced hunter in Ladakh, India over 40 years ago, turned out to be a "100 percent match with DNA recovered from a Pleistocene fossil more than 40,000 BP [Before Present] of U. maritimus (polar bear)."

So, to review: Ancient polar bears were causing trouble and fighting with people in the early 1970s! That's news! Cryptid enthusiasts perhaps ought to take some time and fully appreciate how weird and interesting that is.

Just look at this thing:

[this purported Bigfoot photo was allegedly taken at Avocado Lake Park in California and sent to Matthew Moneymaker's Twitter account, according to Adam Bird of the Facebook group Bigfoot: Believers Only; ancient polar bear illustration via Icon Films]

Email matthew.phelan@gawker.com, pgp public key, to contact the author.

Is it shameful to use mobile devices while minding children? The argument basically has two interesting angles. One is the pro-shame camp's failure to recognize phones can take snapshots. The other is how the parenting talk largely ignores paid caregivers and how mobile devices make their jobs less lonesome and boring.

And then there were 14. Saturday Night Live started downsizing its largest cast ever when Brooks Wheelan was let go Monday, and the culling continued Tuesday with the announcement that fellow first-year cast members Noël Wells and John Milhiser also won't be back.

Featured players Wells and Milhiser both joined SNL last September. Wells was previously well-known for playing Zooey Deschanel in her original webseries "Hey! The Zooey Deschanel Show," and Milhiser's improv teams appeared on The Tonight Show and Attack of the Show.

On SNL, you probably knew Wells best as Lena Dunham and Milhiser best as Two and a Half Men's Jon Cryer. Neither got much time on screen, appearing in fewer than 4% of the season's sketches.

Of the six new cast members hired last season, that's three gone. Kyle Mooney and Beck Beckett are rumored to be safe (as is mid-season newcomer Sasheer Zamata), but things are still up in the air for Mike O'Brien, who worked in the writers' room for four years before becoming a featured player.

Deadline reports there have been discussions about keeping O'Brien on as a writer, if not a performer.

Nasim Pedrad, a five-season vet, is also leaving, but under different circumstances. She's slated to star in Mulaney, a Lorne Michaels-produced Fox series.

[H/T Vulture]

Earlier this afternoon, Bloomberg reported that Google Ventures managing partner Bill Maris (the Glass man in the middle, above) thinks that Uber could one day be worth "$200 billion or more." Why would a sensible outlet like Bloomberg give an Uber investor the platform to pump up his investment?

Because guessing what Uber is "worth" is a the god-given right of every man who has ever laid eyes on a cap table. Nay, it is their duty. It does not matter that we can't foresee the longterm success of Uber's rapid international expansion. No one gives a damn that Uber's plan to make taxis and now individual car ownership a thing of the past is still up in the air. What kind of startup savior thinks about regulators—charm them or poach them—or wonders what happens when the promotions end?

In the past month, the investors who plowed $1.2 billion into Uber insisted Uber was worth $18.2 billion. Then Aswath Damodaran, who wrote not just the book, but many books on valuations, said Uber was worth closer to $5.9 billion. Venture capitalist Bill Gurley, whose firm Benchmark Capital also invested in Uber, told Professor Damodaran he was "off by a mile," using a tweet from philosopher-CEO Aaron Levie as evidence. And that brings us back to Bill Maris and $200 billion.

Sizing the market for a disruptor based on an incumbent's market is like sizing the car industry off how many horses there were in 1910.

— Aaron Levie (@levie) June 8, 2014

His firm, Google Ventures, has invested more than once, most recently in that $1.2 billion round. At the Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Maris said his math was based on the fact that Uber is also experimenting with delivery services with the potential to become a logistics company, without specifying which goods it will move around or how. Nonetheless, the investor allowed for the possibility that he may be off by a couple hundred billion or so.

"It's an incredibly creative team — their growth shows they are clearly onto something," he said of Uber. But Maris also warned that, like any startup, "it could also go down to zero."

It's anybody's guess and everyone should guess. Go ahead, grab a number from the air.

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

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the University of Texas' consideration of race in its admissions process, writing in their 2-1 decision that the university's affirmative action practices are narrowly tailored to increasing diversity at the school. The case, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, had been vacated and remanded by the Supreme Court last year.

"We are persuaded that to deny UT-Austin its limited use of race in its search for holistic diversity would hobble the richness of the educational experience in contradiction of the plain teachings of Bakke and Grutter," Judge Patrick Higginbotham wrote for the majority. More from Politico:

In Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, two affirming judges wrote they were "persuaded" that Texas necessarily used race in a "holistic" admissions process, noting that the courts have already settled that universities may use race to achieve diversity and promote equality of opportunity when alternatives would require an even greater use of race.

"Yet the backdrop of our efforts here includes the reality that accepting as permissible policies whose purpose is to achieve a desired racial effect taxes the line between quotas and holistic use of race toward a critical mass. We have hewed this line here," Patrick Higginbotham wrote for the assenters. "To reject the UT Austin plan is to confound developing principles of neutral affirmative action."

The third judge echoed that concern in his dissent, saying that Tuesday's opinion "sidestepped" the new strict scrutiny standard and that Texas has failed to offer up evidence that its program is legitimate.

"Because the University has not defined its diversity goal in any meaningful way — instead, reflexively reciting the term 'critical mass' — it is altogether impossible to determine whether its use of racial classifications is narrowly tailored," he wrote.

Abigail Fisher, who brought the suit in 2008 after being denied admission to school, said she plans to appeal the ruling.

“It is disappointing that the judges hearing my case are not following the Supreme Court’s ruling last summer. I remain committed to continuing this lawsuit even if it means we appeal to the Supreme Court once again,” she said in a statement. “It is a shame that for the last six years, hundreds of UT applicants were denied admission because of UT’s racial and ethnic preferences."http://gawker.com/5991588/the-wh...

[Image of Abigail Fisher via AP]