According to the forthcoming report on the Justice Department's investigation into the Ferguson, Mo. police department for alleged civil rights violations, the department has demonstrated a history of racial profiling that has intensified race relations in the St. Louis suburb.

The investigation was announced by Attorney General Eric Holder last September after the shooting and killing of unarmed, black 18-year-old Michael Brown by a white Ferguson police officer, Darren Wilson, and the ensuing violent protests that erupted in the city in the days thereafter.

Officials familiar with the report tell the New York Times that the Justice Department has found the Ferguson police department to be pulling over and ticketing a disproportionate number of the city's black residents and using those incurring fines to pad the city's budget:

Blacks accounted for 86 percent of traffic stops in 2013 but make up 63 percent of the population, according to the most recent data published by the Missouri attorney general. And once they were stopped, black drivers were twice as likely to be searched, even though searches of white drivers were more likely to turn up contraband.

For people in Ferguson who cannot afford to pay their tickets, routine traffic stops can become yearslong ordeals, with repeated imprisonments because of mounting fines. Such fines are the city's second-largest source of revenue after sales tax. Federal investigators say that has provided a financial incentive to continue law enforcement policies that unfairly target African-Americans.

The report, to be released as early as this week, the Times reports, "will force Ferguson officials to either negotiate a settlement with the Justice Department or face being sued by it on civil rights charges."

Justice Department officials have previously indicated that Wilson, the Ferguson police officer that shot and killed Brown last year, will be cleared of civil rights charges.

[Image via AP]

Contact the author at aleksander@gawker.com .

Taylor Swift has been named the godmother of actress Jaime King's unborn child, according to Taylor Swift. She announced the news on Instagram with this caption:

Guess who just got named Godmother of this little one..... (ME)

Jaime confirmed with an "Xoxo" on Twitter.

Xoxo “@taylorswift13: Guess who just got named Godmother of this little one.... (ME) @Jaime_King http://t.co/1cpll0YRXj”

— Jaime King (@Jaime_King) March 2, 2015

Taylor Swift stylizes her new title as Godmother with a capital "G."

Congrats, baby.

[Photo via Instagram]

Life can be beautiful—allegedly.

According to the Daily Mail, beautiful model and music video starlet Cara Delevingne—whose photos one can frequently yet always unintentionally lose large chunks of time scrolling through on Google Image—and Grammy Award-winning musician St. Vincent—who is perfect and a genius and also beautiful—were allegedly spotted kissing at a BRIT Awards afterparty on Wednesday.

A source at The Sun reports, "They made no effort to hide their affections."

Why would they?

They are perfect.

[images via Getty]

TMZ says Los Angeles police officers now have a working theory on how 90's R&B star Charmayne Maxwell died in a freak accident last week.

Maxwell's husband found her bleeding out on the floor in their LA home Friday after she apparently tripped and fell while holding wine glass. She was pronounced dead en route to Cedars Sinai hospital.

Reports TMZ:

Law enforcement sources tell us detectives combed the scene where the ex-Brownstone singer fell on Friday evening — and say all evidence points to her falling backward at the doorway between the house and the back patio ... while holding a wine glass.

We're told during the fall ... the wine glass shattered on the ground behind Maxwell's head, and when she landed shards of glass punctured the back of her neck in two places. We're told there was an injury to the back of her head, and it's possible she was knocked unconscious.

A toxicology test is reportedly pending.

[image via Instagram]

On Wednesday night, 17,000 people flooded into Madison Square Garden. There were countless Rangers jerseys, scores of Strong Island's finest haircuts, innumerable pairs of Uggs, two tattooed Southern boys with megawatt charm, a magician, and me. Screens around the rim of the Garden projected images of a green card table while Justin, the first magician I'd ever seen wear a bicep-hugging t-shirt, flipped cards to the melody of a Katy Perry song.

Just about everyone else in the crowd wore cowboy hats.

Justin the magician—hired by some genius aware of the waning attention spans of concert attendees—did a solid job of distracting of the twitchy crowd in between acts. While two women with Kate Gosselin hairdos took a selfie at the Garden balcony's glass barrier, Justin turned over cards to a pop-inspired playlist that changes rapidly with his hand movements. He pulled up all red cards when a song referenced the color red; he stacked 8-6-7-5-3-0-9 to Tommy Tutone; he slapped down all diamonds as Rihanna warbled from the speakers.

The last time I was at Madison Square Garden was to see the Harlem Globetrotters "play." On Wednesday I was there to get doused in good times magic, courtesy of Southern pop-country duo Florida Georgia Line. The woman next to me clapped excitedly at Justin the magician's big conclusion, and when I smiled at her enthusiasm, I realized I was clapping too. More shows should have breaks for magic, I thought.

I didn't go to see Florida Georgia Line—the massively popular, Nickelback-endorsed pop country team made up of Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley (casually known as T-Hubb and BK)—as some mean-spirited or ironic prank. I genuinely enjoy the laidback country-fried music Florida Georgia Line makes, and have tried without avail to convince more prestige-inclined friends (see: snobs) of the duo's merit. FGL's best singles—there are at least six, if not seven or eight—are just as gratifying and just as easy to consume as any saccharine pop song with a smart hook. They install themselves in your head, lower your heart rate, and serve as a pleasant reminder of The Good Times. And not just in that major-chord melody way—almost every FGL single directly references either relaxing or partying or both.

Still, this February—undeniably the worst month of the year—following a particularly paralyzing cold snap, on a Wednesday in Manhattan's Garment District, where even hell goes to die. The bikinis, sunshine, and drink in my cup felt very far away. Far away and as hard to imagine as the "hell raisin' heat of the summer."

In a row ahead of my seat, which was lodged deep in the farthest right corner of the vast Garden, three men in fleece vests and plaid button-downs asked me to look at their printed-out tickets to determine if they were in the right place. They couldn't figure it out themselves, a confusion made steadily worse by alcohol. I looked into their forlorn faces and explained that yes, they were in the wrong place and their seats were on the other side of the aisle. "We can stay here though, right?" one of them asked, a tall cup of beer sloshing and wavering in his hand.

"Well, someone might come and start trouble with you," I responded.

"If it's girls, I could take two girls," he said. After deliberating and yelling to no one, the three men pushed off to wherever their tickets tell them to go. No one filled the boys' abandoned seats, which was great news for me, as it gave me a much clearer view of the FGL performance. Not that it mattered; the same screens that projected Justin's impressive feats of card-flipping were crisp and bright and easy to see from any angle.

"You ever seen Florida Georgia Line before?" the 20-something man seated to my left asked me. His name was David. "First time," I tell him, explaining I might write about it for my job.

"Wow, you have the best job ever." David is an environmental engineer ("believe it or not!").

"I got into them big because of a friend of mine who lives in Dayton, Ohio," he explained. "It's not the South but it's real Southern there." David added that though I'll have fun tonight, this was not the best environment in which to see a country concert. The real blowouts were in the summer, when you could tailgate, "from eleven until night."

"11 a.m.?" I asked.

"Hell yeah, it's fun." David's brother chimed in, "Coming here, you can only really drink on the train." The brothers had come in from Long Island. "The best part is that everyone at country concerts are so friendly," David said. I had to agree. Even during the minimal interactions I had with people on my way in, I felt far more welcomed than I had at, say, a Limp Bizkit show. There had been no tension while chatting with strangers, though I found it difficult to hide my shock at the number of people in the New York City metropolitan area who are this dedicated to country music.

"What brought you here tonight?" I asked a woman in a forest green plaid shirt while waiting in line for a beer.

"I loooove Florida Georgia Line," she said, flipping a blond mop of expertly layered hair in my direction. I didn't say it out loud, but over and over, I was thinking "Man, me too."

Here is an incomplete list of things that Florida Georgia Line loves: Moonshine. Tan legs. Flip cup. Drake. Bikini tops. Chevy trucks. Church. Fireball whisky. Levis. If you care about this kind of thing, it can't be understated how important cultivating brand loyalty is to Hubbard and Kelley. Like any artist, the duo's image, lyrics, and vibe (a distinct frat brother-cum-mechanic hybrid) are integral to the maintenance of their own brand. Like to drink? You'll love Florida Georgia Line. Love to relax? Hey, there's a country duo you should hear. Worked up a sweat and looking forward to a night in the back of your Chevy with your blonde-haired, tan-legged sweetheart and a bottle of Fireball™? Then you were likely one of the 17,000 people in New York City who decided to spend upwards of $60 to see that image projected back at you on Wednesday night.

Homogeny and consistency have made Florida Georgia Line very successful. In 2013, their debut album Here's to the Good Times was the sixth bestselling album in the United States. Five of its songs (almost half!) reached a top five spot on the Billboard country charts. Their followup album, Anything Goes, which came out in October of last year, had three singles in a top-ten spot and it sold over 200,000 records in its first week. "Cruise," the group's best known song (and a track which rapper Nelly later added remix verses), is the best selling country digital download ever. Seven MILLION people paid to download that song. Though unknown or dismissed by near-entire coasts of effete music fans, Florida Georgia Line is fucking huge.

On stage, T-Hubb and BK wore the same pants: Diesel brand, slim fit, leather. Hubbard's were topped with an embellished rectangular buckle, while Kelley's were hoisted up with a simple studded belt. Both men wore more jewelry than I ever could: they were decked in necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, plus a huge watch on Hubbard's left wrist. They appeared buoyant and friendly, occasionally flashing coy smiles at the crowd or at each other. Their good-ole-boy charm was on display in spades—it works; the crowd was thrilled. The boys are backed by a full band, but together they have an easiness that's contagious. They frequently embrace each other in a man-you're-my-brother kind of way, slapped backs and all.

The screens, I quickly learn, were not simply for us nosebleed warriors to better see the two singer-slash-musicians. The screens project sweet vignette videos and animations that, much like a Disney singalong VHS, show the words to every song Florida Georgia Line play. Their music is simple and easy to remember, but something about this karaoke setup made it hard not to love them even more. If the most fun you can have at a concert is singing your heart out, broadcasting what a true fan you are, then every single person at Madison Square Garden was having the time of their lives.

When the duo got down to the business of playing "Dirt" (a ballad that reminds us both of where come from and where we go back to), Hubbard talked about his dead father. He asked the crowd to sing loud enough that the man will hear it up in heaven. The moment shakes me out of my good-times hypnosis. I take a breather to go get a beer.

"What you know about them country boys, New York?" Tyler Hubbard smirked at the crowd, right before erupting into a rendition of "Round Here," an expository track about how Southern boys "do things," which mostly includes twisting off the cap of a bottle of Fireball whisky and passing it around to friends. At the end of the song, Kelley helped himself to a sip from a Fireball bottle that emerged from the air. As he put back the shot, the bottle's branded label faced brazenly toward the camera.

The surprise of the night wasn't the duo's stage presence, nor their ability to woo a massive crowd of New Yorkers on a bitterly cold night in the middle of the week. The brilliance of the feelgood Florida Georgia Line show is in the sheer number of bangers they are able to pump out. They never slow. FGL's discography barely spans five years but their live show is like listening to a greatest hits album in the flatbed of a truck in the back-forty of a farm plot. Even for someone who works indoors all day and who has only been in the flatbed of a truck once, their power is surprisingly hypnotic.

"Last night, we had dinner with the owner of Madison Square Garden," Hubbard said, spinning a yarn so thick with self-effacing platitudes it almost—almost—rubbed away his Southern boy facade. "We told him, 'Be careful about our fans. Our fans are the best because number one, they are loyal; number two, they are living life; and number three, they party their asses off." Later on, Hubbard made sure to remind the crowd that they sold out Madison Square Garden: "I don't think I imagined that we'd have 17,000 people in one room in New York City." I guess I never did either.

In the time between Florida Georgia Line's walk off stage and their encore, a spontaneous USA chant rippled through Madison Square Garden. With no magician to entertain the audience this time, flagrant patriotism was the next best thing. When it petered out, a man two seats down from me yelled, "Let's get the USA chant back!"

The duo rejoined the show with their ode to relaxing, "Sun Daze." They sauntered onstage in Rangers jerseys and swim trunks. I closed my eyes and think about summer. I'm pretty sure everyone was.

"Everybody in here is like, 'That's not country music! What them white boys doing?'" Hubbard mimed as the two broke out into a rendition of Dr. Dre's "Forgot About Dre," followed by a convincingly rowdy version of "We Dem Boyz." Surprisingly—and often cringingly—much of Florida Georgia Line's success is owed to their hip-hop infused lyrics and lifestyle. At some point during the show, Hubbard and Kelley rapped along to several rap hits from the early aughts; Hubbard informed the crowd that he and BK used to "make mix tapes off of Napster."

Considering that the duo had come out on stage to Drake's "Started From the Bottom," the medley of covers the duo performed then isn't all that surprising to the crowd. And when I looked over to my right, even the one mom in Uggs who remained seated the whole night seemed to be enjoying herself.

The show ended, predictably, with their undefeated hit "Cruise" and some stringy crepe-paper confetti that was—of course—red, white, and blue. Kelley and Hubbard were gracious and humble: they thanked the crowd a number of times before they embraced each other for the thousandth time. They walked off the stage arm in arm, Hubbard with his shirt off and his sweaty deltoids surging. I can't remember a time when I've been so thoroughly numbed and entertained.

On my way out, I attempted to slide through a porous crowd waiting angrily for a clogged escalator, but a fight between two women broke out in front of me.

"Bitch, stop grabbing me!" a woman in a straw cowboy hat yelled, arms flailing.

"Hey! Hey! NYPD. Back off!" A man in street clothes interjected, pulling the two women off each other while a few people snapped photos on their iPhones. I sneaked down the adjacent stairwell and made my way out to the cold city street.

[Image via Getty]

Contact the author at dayna.evans@gawker.com.

Dear Lifehacker,
Services like Venmo, Square Cash and other instant money-transfer services make sending a money to friends, splitting a check, or paying the rent easy. However, Venmo was just called out for its lax security, and now I'm spooked. Which of these apps are secure? Can I trust them?

Sincerely,
Mobile Moneymaker

Dear Mobile Moneymaker,
Money transfer services that let you send money from your bank account to anyone with a few clicks at your computer, or a few taps on your smartphone, are fairly popular. Once you're used to sending money to a friend by email address or phone number instead of asking them for a banking and routing information, it can be really convenient. It's even better if you live far apart, don't carry cash, or want to send money instantly instead of wait for your bank to process the funds.

However, whenever you grant a service access to your bank account, you also open the door to identity theft, stolen money, fraudulent transactions, or worse. Like you mentioned, last week Venmo, one of the most popular apps of this type (owned by Paypal), was got caught up in a nasty hack that ended up with one user out several thousand dollars. Subsequently, the company halfheartedly agreed to tackle its security problems.

How Secure Are These Services Overall?

On the surface, all of these services do the right things. They all use SSL to protect your identity and activity when you use their apps and web sites. They all keep your personal data encrypted, keep your passwords salted and hashed, and do their best to make sure that communication with your bank, and with other users, is always encrypted and direct so there's no chance others are snooping on them.

They all have security policies and help pages that say the right things. They warn users to avoid phishing emails, watch their transactions, and avoid authenticating too many devices. For example, Venmo's security page explains how they use "bank grade" encryption to protect your account, as well as how you can set up a PIN to prevent unwanted access on your device. They also explain how to disconnect a device from your account if it's lost or stolen. Square Cash goes a step further and explains they're PCI compliant (to be fair, so is Venmo). Beyond that though, they only have instructions on how to avoid phishing and other fraud attempts. On the bright side, they all keep your data encrypted at rest, so a hack could obtain email addresses, names, and encrypted passwords, but likely not transaction histories, bank account info, balances, or anything sensitive. Of course, Venmo users are bad enough about making transaction histories public, which is a problem of its own.

However, neither Venmo or Square Cash (or many others in this space) have basic security features like two-factor authentication, or notifications when your password has been changed or reset, or when a new device has been added to your account. Some don't even have mandatory notifications when you process a transaction. In Venmo's case, this—combined with one user who had what per-transaction notifications there are turned off—led to a user being spoofed out of over $2000, which he then had to try and recover through his bank, thanks to some fine print in Venmo's terms of service agreement.

PayPal's security homepage however, is a deeper dive than either of the other two (and most other mobile payment services) largely because PayPal doesn't just route money—they're effectively a bank. They have more rules they have to follow, and while PayPal certainly has its issues, they offer more information about how they secure your account, how you can further protect your account, and how to file disputes, chargebacks, and other issues with them. To their credit, PayPal does offer two-factor authentication, and notifications on account changes like password resets. However, PayPal is Venmo's parent company and the fact that those security features haven't trickled down yet is a problem.

Google Wallet, for its part, has tons of information on how to stay safe using their service, and since they're also a payment processor you can use to buy online, or buy in-person at supported retailers, it's easy to both send money to friends and make purchases with your Google Wallet account. However, putting money into your Google Wallet account is easy, and using Google Wallet for purchases is easy. Getting money back out, as in someone sends you money or you want to transfer a balance back to your bank account, can be pretty difficult. That's good from a safety perspective, but definitely less convenient than some other services.

Which Ones Are The Most Secure?

On their face, PayPal and Google Wallet would be the most secure. The others are new, and their aim is to make sending and receiving money convenient. That convenience comes with sacrifices. PayPal and Google Wallet throw up more blocks that make it tougher to access money sent through the service—which also means it's tougher for you to get your own money when you want it.

That doesn't, however, make either service "hackproof." PayPal has had its share or security worries in the past. It's never suffered a broad intrusion, but that doesn't mean it's not possible. Google Wallet has suffered a series of hacks. All of this just means both services have larger corporate backing, more attention to security, and more resources to devote to security. That's a thin screen, but its more than the competition.

With Venmo, Square Cash, and others, if you tie the app directly to your bank account using its account number and routing number (Update: Square Cash, to their credit, only allows you to tie to a debit card—not direct bank information), you can send and receive money instantly from anyone, anytime, without waiting for money to clear or for banks to pretend "business hours" are required to process money electronically.However, the flip side to that is if your account with Venmo or Square is compromised, so is your bank account or debit card—they can help you, but you'll likely (as the victim in the victim in the Venmo affair discovered) have to close your bank account and open a new one before you can get access to your money again, which is a huge hassle.

In short, the same features that make these apps convenient and fast are the ones that open up doors to social engineering and phishing attacks.

What Are Some Alternatives?

There are a few alternatives to these money payment services, although they may not be as convenient. The luxury of sending cash to anyone, using just their phone number or email address, is a pretty big draw. Even so, it's worth looking into what your bank offers. Most banks allow you to send money to others just as easily, either through their mobile apps or on their web site. For example, Chase offers Chase Quick Pay, Wells Fargo offers Wells Fargo Sure Pay, and Bank of America offers a similar service, just without a snappy name.

In most cases, if the person you're sending to is with the same bank, all you'll need is their email address. The money is transferred immediately, shows up in your (or their) account instantly, and there are no fees. If they're not, you may need their account number and routing number, which can be difficult if you're just trying to split a check, or go halfsies on a Netflix subscription. You may incur fees depending on how much money you send, and you'll probably have to wait a business day or two before the money gets where it's going. It's much less convenient, but since everything is handled by each corresponding bank, there's no middleman to worry about.

Of course, part of the billing of services like Venmo and Square Cash is that it's "easy to split the bill on fun activities." While it's not always practical, there is always the option of just splitting the check at the restaurant with multiple cards, paying your friends back in later, or, arcane as it might be, carrying cash.

Should I Trust These Services at All?

With all of these security issues, it's tempting to give up on mobile money transfer. If the outrage over Venmo's security issues is any indication, more than a few people have. Many others look at apps like these and immediately say "There's no way I'd trust some random silicon valley company with access to my bank account," and that's fine too.

However, it's not fair to say these services are insecure, or that you should avoid them. These startups are new, and while there are certainly security concerns, there's no specific reason that any of these services are untrustworthy, or inherently dangerous. Any app, company, or service that handles money is going to be a target for people who want to get access to that money.

If you do choose to use them, make sure you enable any and all security features they have, and watch your transactions like a hawk. Keep your notifications turned on, and keep the number of connected devices to your account low. Being smart and vigilant about how you use these apps is the most important thing you can do—and if you can't, or you're worried that's not enough, opt for more secure alternatives, even if they're less convenient. At the end of the day, you have to find your personal sweet spot between security and convenience, then make that decision with both eyes open.

Title image made using frescomovie (Shutterstock) and PandaVector (Shutterstock). Additional images by Jean-Etienne Minh-Duy Poirrier, Michael Coté, and Terry Johntson.

In terrifying footage caught on a skydiver's helmet camera, Christopher Jones can be seen having a seizure mid-air, his convulsing body tumbling to the ground until his partner is able to trigger his parachute.

Jones, 22, the Sydney Morning Herald reports, was performing a 3,600-meter (or about 12,000 feet) jump above Western Australia as part of the advanced stages of a training program when he suffered a seizure. (He had previously been cleared by his doctor to skydive.)

"At around 9000ft I have a seizure while attempting a left hand turn," Jones writes in the video's description. "I then spend the next 30 seconds in free fall unconscious."

At about the 1:15 mark in the two minute clip, you can see Jones seizing up and free-falling. Sheldon McFarlane, his instructor, was able to pull Jones' parachute before he hits the ground, though he also told the Guardian that had he not reached Jones, an emergency device would have automatically pulled his cord.

McFarlane's save occurred last November, but according to the Guardian, Jones didn't get around to uploading the video to YouTube until this past weekend.

Contact the author at aleksander@gawker.com .

I am sitting in a rented banquet chair watching Carly Fiorina remove her headset. In a moment, I will stand, smile with false confidence, and replace Fiorina in the chair she vacates, facing the questions of two right wing radio hosts. I was out until 3 a.m. last night drinking whiskey with both of my imminent interviewers and 200 of their closest friends and frenemies. I am so hungover that I'm positive I'm going to vomit all over CPAC's radio row. What a story!

The night before, Anna Merlan and I had gingerly made our way from our Uber to the steps of a place I heard referred to as "The Embassy," "The Breitbart Mansion," and "that place where they have that big party," unsure of what kind of murder situation we were willingly entering. We'd been invited by a man we'd never met before who spotted us and told us to come to a party in a strange city, miles from our hotel, something no self-respecting urbanite would do unless they were interested in having a kidney stolen. Later, I'd confirm that our welcoming committee was Stephen K. Bannon, a screenwriter, a commentator, and a gregarious shit talker who called me a "commie" with a twinkle in his eye within 30 seconds of properly meeting me. Steve is at once too brash and too canny to commit murder. I feel safe attending this party. I think.

"THESE TWO LADIES ARE MY GUESTS!" Steve bellowed as we approached the stairs. And with that, the two security guards stationed outside stepped aside, and we entered a room packed wall-to-wall with what has been called CPAC's "Most Impressive." This year, in honor of everybody's favorite television program Duck Dynasty, the party had a bluegrass n' moonshine theme. There was a live band. There were hay bales. There were cute female bartenders in plaid shirts. A water cooler full of whiskey sour. There was a picnic basket full of Twinkies and other cellophane wrapped snack foods. A catering staff. Cigars. So many cigars.

What is it with conservative men and cigars?

Spending four days at the Conservative Political Action Conference is, as one might expect, an odd experience for a Professional Internet Feminist-slash-Pinko. I've spent thousands of hours, spilled thousands of words essentially lampooning and generally shit-talking the sort of person who attends CPAC. I've shat on their economics, their retro gender politics, their jingoism, their awkward interview answers, their sincerity, their xenophobia, their faith in country and religion, their general un-chillness. They'd have every right to respond to my presence on their turf with revulsion, with derision. They wouldn't be out of line if they just treated me like a garbage joke the whole time I was there. Fortunately for me, that's not what happened.

CPAC 2015 was held in a resort complex called (not a joke; never not-funny) The Gaylord in National Harbor, Maryland, which is a fake town where nobody lives that contains, I'm told, a store that only sells Peeps and broken ground that will one day host a massive casino. It's about 20 minutes by cab from Washington, DC's Union Station, just far enough away to be an extreme pain in the ass for everybody who wants to do anything cool or worthwhile while visiting the DC area. Reporter Anna Merlan and I were given a room with a balcony that overlooked an atrium large enough to feel like it was semi-outdoors but small enough to remind us that we were in a prison of uselessness. I told Anna that I was afraid that a bird would fly in when we left our balcony door open one night; she responded by laughing for several minutes (later in the trip, while we were waiting for our train back to New York, I'd be vindicated when two birds strutted by like they owned the place).

The conservative conference's most blustery saber-rattling occurs in a large room with the capacity to hold thousands of Regulars and hundreds of Media People and their dozens of cameras. The Regulars filter in and out as their interest waxes and wanes during the nonstop parade of speakers; the ambient sound of the space is this coming and going, bodies jammed up against each other during marquee speeches and then separated by dozens of chairs during lulls. When the room fills up and the important figures take the stage, it's a truly epic celebration of bombastic talking points.

The main stage speeches are pure dick-measuring contests, as are all speeches at all political events. Every speech answers a set of key conservative hot button issue-related questions:

1. How great is America? (The best fuckin' country in the history of the world! *guitar riff*)
2. What about Common Core? (Best answer, by Donald Trump: "Common core is bad! Bad! Second Amendment good!")
3. How do you feel about the Second Amendment? (Second Amendment GOOD.)
4. Abortion? ISIS? Obama? Hillary Clinton? The Affordable Care Act? Amnesty for undocumented immigrants? Unions? Taxes? (BAD! All very bad!)

By the second day of the convention, the main stage speeches (with a couple of exceptions) sounded so numbingly similar that they began to melt into each other, like a binge read of the Fox Nation comment section with all of the swears and misplaced homonyms taken out. Even the so-called "Lightning Round" of post-speech word association couldn't break up the monotony, although it made a noble attempt.

In fact, minus right wing personalities' distinguishing physical traits and quirks, I couldn't tell you what the fuck they all said. I remember Chris Christie's gargantuan head and thirsty dickishness, Laura Ingraham's glinting cross necklace, Sean Hannity's Bill Clinton impression (which he repeated—to the word—at least a few times over the course of mere days), the grim and tragic retreats of Marco Rubio and Scott Walker's hairlines, Rand Paul's winsome attempt at a sensible amount of bronzer, Carly Fiorina's under-celebrated wardrobe excellence, Rick Santorum's bizarre preening, John Bolton's walrus face, Ted Cruz's pastor-meets-salesman act that kept the crowd rapt. Donald Trump's whole... thing. In a moment I'm still coming to terms with, Sarah Palin's speech about health care for veterans was a mostly-coherent standout, save for a joke about Nazis that was delivered so overzealously that Anna and I dissolved into helpless laughter as other members of the media glared at us. The main room was exactly what is shown on TV, exactly what somebody who has never been to CPAC might expect: a bizarre alternate universe where Newt Gingrich is surrounded by fawning fans, where the Duggars are rockstars, and where Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson's sanctimonious ramble about STD's was anything but a reason for mild confusion and alarm.

But in side rooms and in side conversations, CPAC attendees weren't so puff-chested about their future. Breakout sessions bemoaned the co-opting of "cool" by the Left, strategized on the damaged conservative brand (damaged, in their view, by a left wing media intent on smearing them), looked to get away from barking and Twitter battles return to real grassroots action, the kind of action that inspired conservatives during the Reagan years. They're right to be nervous. Fox News' viewership is so advanced in age that it doesn't even register on the Nielsen scale. And as elderly white conservatives die off and take their world view with them, pickings are slim for youth that mirror their antique ideas about how a country should be run.

The breakout sessions were all preoccupied with changing how things are presented, and this focus reflects a statistics-borne uncertainty: last year's elections were a resounding success for the right, but last year's election turnout was historically low. Presidential elections bring out typically liberal voters—the young, the nonwhite, the unmarried and female—in droves. And with control of both the House and Senate but a White House still in the hands of a Democrat, Republicans have a golden opportunity over the next 18 months to create a stockpile of gaffes the left can (and will) use to motivate their base, while potentially emerging with nothing to show for it in terms of legislation. In order to survive, conservatism needs to either adapt to a changing society or convince a changing society to adapt to them.

Fox News' stereotypical viewership this was not; young people were everywhere, teetering uncertainly on heels like baby deer, growing visibly starstruck over the sight of Rick Santorum striding down the hall surrounded by security and hangers-on, sternly lecturing an unseen member of their College Republicans club over the phone: "If you're going to be in this, you have to be in this, you know? You can't be an officer and miss both CPAC and the March for Life!"

Listening to hours of bad-to-very-bad ideas and hacky Obama & Hillary joke attempts in the main ballroom was a tolerable exercise when broken up with between-and-after-hours interaction with younger conservatives who clarified, shaking their heads, that not everybody in the party was "like that." Of course, just because they're nice doesn't mean that their principles are different than the Hannities and O'Reillys of the world; they're just better at expressing them without bursting an artery.

At one exhibition hall booth, a lovely young woman talked to me at length about how excited her organization was about pushing a 20-week abortion ban through the Senate. In another, I talked student loans with a young man wearing a BIG GOVERNMENT SUCKS button. Behind us, a table covered with free posters that featured contemporary icons with libertarian-leaning quotes emblazoned over them: faces like Ron Swanson, Olivia Pope. Ronald Reagan. (I guess there aren't that many contemporary libertarian icons. And Olivia Pope is kind of a stretch.) At the NRA table, two friendly and chill young men chatted with me as I signed up to win a free gun. (As I live in New York City, I'm not sure what I'd do with it if I won it. Buy it a house in Texas and send it a check and handwritten love note every few months?) Booth visitors could have their pictures snapped by event photographers, select a kicky gun-related slogan to emblazon across it, and upload their masterpieces to social media sites. A prominently displayed flatscreen displayed a slideshow of the photos, so in a way, it's kind of like I was in the NRA booth the whole time I was at CPAC.

CPAC's young attendees who weren't dressed in the splashy logos of their preferred candidate adorned themselves with what I surmised were signifiers of their conservative status—long overly styled hair, Express skirts, French tips (I saw more French tips at CPAC than I've seen in three years of living in New York) for the women; tailored, pressed suits and ties for the men. A few cool libertarians sported beards. Like Chuck Johnson, a timeless style icon.

With the exception of Johnson, they were eager to talk to me, and even more eager to chat when they learned where I worked. "You're a conservative, and you just don't know it yet," said several different men under 30 to me after lengthy political discussions on several different occasions. (Must have been the pearls. Turns out, it's impossible to wear pearls ironically, even with AmeriKanye glasses handed to Anna Merlan by a giant blue bear.) They seem to believe that conservative brand is damaged because the people in positions to speak for it on mainstream platforms don't represent anything sustainable given America's changing demographics; the left wing media is able to successfully smear the right wing because the elderly shouters of the right are drowning out the next generation of American conservatives.

If only they were better at saying what we are trying to say, goes the new line, they'd convince people to agree with them. People like me.

As a group, the potential future Ronald Reagans of CPAC weren't an iota as crazy, or mean, or racist, or exclusionary as mainstream coverage of CPAC might lead the casual observer to believe (at least, not to my face). They're more pro-marriage rights than their older narrative-dominating counterparts, they're pro-pot legalization, they're pro-government-leaving-us-all-the-hell-alone. In their minds, society functions best when everybody is free to pursue what they want, and government only serves to get between people and the happiness and fulfillment they have a right to pursue. Also, let's privatize the hell out of some stuff.

In one breakout session, One America News Network host Tomi Lahren (who, impressively, is only 22) aptly pointed out that the right has nothing to gain by preaching to the choir with what she characterized as Fox News-style "barking." Young people, she said, are tired of being told what to think by old people, they're tired of having numbers shouted at them, and they're not going to be convinced to swing from D to R unless conservatives are able to communicate more effectively. During the Q&A portion of the session, an elderly man in attendance stood up and corrected her, insisting that actually, actually, what young people need is facts and figures and numbers. Thank goodness that old guy was there to tell that young person how to think.

"Heeeyyyy Chuck!" Anna Merlan, stoned and two drinks deep, shout-sings to self-styled right wing provocateur Chuck Johnson. I'm huddled beneath a heat lamp in the back yard of a mansion about 200 feet from the Supreme Court, surrounded by cigar smoke and male laughter. Anna grabs my wrist and pulls me toward Johnson, sticking her hand out to introduce himself, half smiling. The Breitbart writer he's with looks uncomfortable. I look uncomfortable. Anna fucking loves it. "We work for Jezebel," she continues, grinning. Chuck grimaces. I grimace. Breitbart dude grimaces. Anna and Chuck take a selfie together.

It's freezing cold, and I worry I am nipping out. I didn't want to bring my erect nipples to this party. I excuse myself and return indoors, where Rep. Steve King was hanging out. I know this because he was on the post-party dossier published on Politico the next day. I was also Spotted.

We had arrived around 9:30, and by 11 the crowd at the party was beginning to thin out as people making perfunctory appearances began making their way home. Those of us who are left are there to drink and listen to some bluegrass.

It was like college, except there were no drugs (not even pot; Anna indulged in her own supply back at the hotel), no conspicuous sex (I didn't even witness so much as a drunken Daughter of the Revolution-on-Son of the Revolution makeout!), and nobody puked. At CPAC social events, Anna and I—close talking in our mostly-black ensembles and bold lip color and pale faces in a room full of women who looked, at least from a distance, like well-sunned +1's to the CMA's—did not fit in. But at the Breitbart party, we were delightful novelties, finally, at least temporarily, burying the hatchet with writers from publications with which we'd normally engage in an ideological tug-of-war.

It was one of the weirder nights of my life, and I once got a concussion after being dropped on my head by a male friend who was carrying me like a football down the Notre Dame football practice field at 3 am.

Now, here I sit, about to go on air with Steve and his cohost Alex Marlow, my stomach an angry ocean of whiskey and bile. They're both so chipper.

When Alex asks me what the "liberal agenda" is for attending CPAC, I shoot back that some of my best friends are conservative. We have a good laugh and move into more lightweight territory. For ten minutes we talk without leaping across the table of radio equipment and slugging each other. It's fine. It's nice. I don't hate a second of it. I get called a "commie," and a "snark machine," am told I work for the "meanest" blog out there. Kind of true.

Days later, I'll realize that one of the other attendees at the Breitbart party was a young woman who I'd once called a "douchebag" who would never get a job in conservative politics because she has brown hair. She'll tweet at me saying that she wishes we could have met. I'm sure we'd have had plenty to talk about.

As I get up to leave Radio Row, I realize that a shot of fear-adrenaline has cured me of my spins, and that I've sobered up. The hallways, yesterday teeming with conservatives and those who came to gawk at them, host only a few die hards and stragglers, empty booths, the eerie echo of still-occurring main room speeches. No cigars in sight.

Top photo via Getty.

Contact the author at erin@jezebel.com.

Earlier this month, Canadian police discovered a secret tunnel near one of Toronto's sports arenas. Panic quickly ensued—was it built by terrorists looking to disrupt this summer's Pan American Games? As it turns out, no. The tunnel was actually built by two dudes who told police they used it for "personal reasons."

"Our concern was whether there was any criminal intent or threat to the people or the city. There was not. The investigation is concluded," Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash told the BBC.

Good. Great. Everyone in Canada is safe. But what were these "personal reasons" that necessitated the building of an entire underground chamber? Toronto police couldn't or wouldn't say, but we have our guesses. (Sex).

The tunnel, CNN reports, is 33-feet long, six-feet high, and located 10 feet below ground, accessible only via a dirt-concealed lid that leads to a ladder. A Remembrance Day poppy and a rosary were found pinned to one of the walls; a gas can, a wheelbarrow, food and drink containers, gloves, and light bulbs were also discovered in the passage, which was equipped with electricity.

"This was built with a considerable amount of sophistication," Deputy Chief Mark Saunders Saunders said at a press conference last week. "The individuals responsible for building it clearly had some expertise in structural integrity."

A lot of work for what's probably just a weird underground sex chamber, if you ask me, but to each their own.

[Image via CNN]

Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.

Lacey Spears, the Chestnut Ridge, N.Y. mom accused of slowly poisoning her son to death while she blogged about his illness, was found guilty Monday of second degree murder, the Lower Hudson Journal News reported. Prosecutors argued that Spears killed her 5-year-old, Garnett, by putting salt in his feeding tube while he was at the hospital.

Garnett's many ailments included ear infections, unexplained fevers, seizures and digestive problems, and Spears wrote about them on her blog and on Facebook. At one point she claimed he'd been in and out of the hospital 23 times before his first birthday.

But authorities believed Spears, now 27, fabricated sickly Garnett's many issues, and that he wasn't sick at all. Her blog was full of inconsistencies and outright lies, including a story that Garnett's dad was a police officer who had died. That was news to Garnett's real father.

Although police suspected Spears suffered from Münchausen by proxy—a rare disorder that involves a parent faking a child's illness for attention, sometimes even poisoning the child to make the story more convincing—the prosecution didn't introduce the Münchausen theory at trial, saying there was enough evidence to make the case without it.

Second degree murder was the most serious charge available to the jury, carrying a minimum penalty of 15 years in prison. The Journal News reports prosecutors intend to seek the maximum sentence: 25 years.

Spears' defense attorney says she plans to appeal the conviction, and maintains "it is still a mystery" how the salt got into Garnett's stomach tube.

[Photo: Facebook via Journal News]

On December 24th, 2014, Jared Leto posted to Instagram an older photo of himself with a short haircut. He captioned this photo "Haircut. #2015." Since that moment, we have waited impatiently, grinding our teeth, digging into the earth endlessly simply to release our tension, refusing food due to its dearth of the sustenance we need, the sustenance that comes only with Jared Leto's haircut, while we waited for the actor to make good on his promise.

We followed his exploits on Instagram throughout the following month: no haircut. We celebrated his Flame Car and yet: no haircut. We, pained expressions now cemented to our faces, watched him throughout award season: no haircut.

On March 2nd, Suicide Squad director David Ayer shared a photo of a correctly beardless Jared Leto:

#SuicideSquad pic.twitter.com/iv5WaSduKb

— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) March 2, 2015

Could this be the beginning? Certainly, hairs were cut. But just beard hairs. Could we soon see a true haircut, the promised haircut? Yes.

Perhaps.

Soon after, David Ayer shared another photo—a photo of scissors approaching a ponytail—a photo of a the moment before a haircut:

Should we? #SuicideSquad pic.twitter.com/Z0WlvtpDtH

— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) March 2, 2015

Yes. You should, David Ayer.

Jared Leto, after posting two photos in a row of himself with a short haircut, posted the same photo to his Instagram with the caption, "I miss my beard already."

Yes. This is it, my friends. Our wait is over. The sun is shining. The weight is lifted. Take a breath. Take another. We may rest easy tonight.

Jared Leto is getting a haircut.

[image via Twitter.]

There are 464 days to go before her debut book Balancing on Heels hits shelves, and Kristin Cavallari is thinking about what's for dinner. Maybe you are, too. Why not try Kristin's paella recipe?

For your convenience, Kristin posted her preferred preparation of the traditional Spanish dish on her eponymous app. Here's how she introduces the recipe:

I made this paella recently without any protein and loved it. While on vacation last week, I had the most delicious dish with mussels, shrimp, clams, and scallops and instantly thought of this paella. Second night home and I just added shrimp and scallops. I wanted to include mussels and clams but my whole foods didn't have any. Damn. Still amazing though.

Do you follow?

Kristin recently made this paella, sans protein. She loved it. Then while she was on vacation, she had a delicious dish (that was not paella?) that made her think of paella. Now here's where things get murky: "Second night home and I just added shrimp and scallops."

Hmm. This seems to indicate that on the day after Kristin returned from her vacation, she added shrimp and scallops to...something. The paella she made recently? The vacation dish? A brand-new paella? It's hard to say. The one thing we know for sure is that mussels and clams were not included in this process, because Kristin's favorite grocer was out of those items.

Still amazing, though.

This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photos via Getty]

On March 3, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will speak before both chambers of Congress about the ongoing negotiations between the United States and the Iranian government over the latter’s ability to acquire and develop nuclear technologies. It’s already considered one of the most controversial political speeches in recent memory, and it hasn’t even happened yet.

What’s going on with Netanyahu’s address, and why is everyone so worried about it? This is an explainer for people who need to catch up on Washington’s latest dispute. We’ll start with some background on Netanyahu, go over his reasons for giving the speech itself, and conclude with why it is so controversial.

Why is Netanyahu speaking to Congress tomorrow?

On January 21, House Speaker and Ohio Republican John Boehner invited Netanyahu “to address Congress on the grave threats radical Islam and Iran pose to our security and way of life.” Boehner extended the invitation in the context of the Obama administration’s ongoing negotiations with Iran about its stated desire to develop nuclear technology, which require a supply of enriched uranium.

Netanyahu’s speech will address the potential threat a nuclear-equipped Iran would pose to Israel. Iranian leaders say they want enriched uranium for the purpose of building nuclear power plants, but both the U.S. and Israel (along with many of their Western allies) suspect Iran plans to stockpile enriched uranium to eventually build nuclear weapons. Many Israelis, and Netanyahu in particular, believe a nuclear-equipped Iran would specifically target Israel, and that the United States is underestimating Iran’s appetite for nuclear weaponry.

Netanyahu is particularly motivated by the fact that the Obama administration has rejected Congress’s recent calls for economic sanctions against Iran. The President believes those sanctions would derail negotiations with Iran, thereby risking armed conflict in the Middle East.

Netanyahu, by contrast, has said a nuclear Iran poses an “existential threat” to Israel, based on Iran’s well-known hostility toward Zionism, the 19th-century national movement that led to Israel’s establishment in 1948. Iranian officials, including its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have vowed to destroy Israel (which they frequently refer to as the “Zionist entity” or the “Zionist regime”) in retaliation for the dispossession of the Palestinians. Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called Israel “the most criminal regime in human history” and a “germ of corruption [that] will be wiped off.” (Ahmadinejad also believes the events of the Holocaust were invented to embarrass Germany.) The country’s current president, Hassan Rouhani, has referred to Israel as a “festering Zionist tumor.”

Is that why Netanyahu’s speech is so controversial?

It is not particularly controversial to argue that a nuclear Iran would threaten Israel’s security or that the United States is insufficiently skeptical of Iran’s justification for wanting enriched uranium. Iran’s violent rhetoric toward Israel is no secret, either. The source of the speech’s controversy, instead, is the manner in which it was planned, scheduled, and announced.

When representatives of a foreign country want to address Congress, they are expected to prepare their speeches in consultation with the President of the United States. This diplomatic protocol is considered particularly important for leaders of Israel, given their state’s longstanding friendship with the U.S.

Netanyahu deliberately ignored this protocol. He accepted Boehner’s invitation and, with the help of Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, ensured that President Obama was not made aware of the invitation until Boehner had confirmed its details. Boehner, for his part, made it clear that he had invited Netanyahu to rebuke the President, thereby aligning Netanyahu with the Republican Party against Obama and the Democrats.

In response, Obama announced that he would not be meeting with Netanyahu, citing the vicinity of the March 17 elections in Israel. “We do not see heads of state or candidates in close proximity to their elections,” a spokeswoman for Obama announced in January, “so as to avoid the appearance of influencing a democratic election in a foreign country.” More than two dozen Congressional Democrats intend to boycott Netanyahu’s speech to show support for the President.

If Obama isn’t going to meet with Netanyahu, then what exactly is the controversy?

The Obama administration is obviously unhappy with the fact that Netanyahu planned his speech before Congress without consulting the President, and undoubtedly consider the Israeli leader’s actions controversial in and of themselves. But Netanyahu’s breach of protocol does not fully account for the level of rhetoric surrounding his speech.

What is this rhetoric are you talking about?

Netanyahu’s speech is widely seen as dangerous, even lethal, to U.S.-Israeli relations. Obama’s national security advisor, Susan Rice, recently told PBS host Charlie Rose that his speech was “destructive of the fabric of the relationship” between the two countries. “Netanyahu’s Speech in Congress Is a Revolting and Dangerous Gamble,” reads a recent headline on Slate, which leans liberal. “The prime minister and his advisors—people who have a better grasp of Washington culture than most Israelis—have gotten so deep into the issue that they’ve lost sight of political reality,” the conservative magazine Commentary asserted.

How is Netanyahu’s speech dangerous to U.S.-Israeli relations?

The basis of this argument concerns the historically bipartisan nature of the United States’ relationship with Israel. Since it was founded in 1948, the U.S. has remained Israel’s strongest and most consistent ally. The American government directs $3 billion in military assistance to Israel each year, and has diplomatically supported the country by rejecting hundreds of U.N. resolutions condemning its treatment of Palestinians in the Israel-Palestine conflict. The level and nature of U.S. assistance to Israel has not meaningfully changed since the 1970s, when the U.S. began disbursing large-scale aid to the country.

What does that have to do with Netanyahu?

For aligning himself with John Boehner, numerous parties have accused Netanyahu of treating the security and support of Israel as a “partisan” issue. Susan Rice, for example, said the Israeli leader had “injected a degree of partisanship” into U.S.-Israel relations. Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic—whom Roger Cohen of The New York Times once called Netanyahu’s “faithful stenographer”—wrote in January that “Netanyahu’s management of his relationship with Obama threatens the bipartisan nature of Israel’s American support.”

What does “injecting a degree of partisanship” mean, though?

It basically means that Netanyahu is subjecting the State of Israel to unpredictable disagreements between Republicans and Democrats. This poses a problem to pro-Israel interest groups, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), who have argued that the strength and longevity of the United States’ relationship with Israel derives from the fact that the country draws bipartisan support. Alienating one of the major political parties, this argument goes, would risk dividing American support for Israel along party lines. Such a division could plausibly affect Israel’s safety; after all, nearly all of American aid to Israel is designated for military purposes. For Israel, maintaining bipartisan U.S. support is therefore treated as a matter of national security.

The actual risk to U.S.-Israeli relations, however, seems minimal. While American support for Israel is the subject of public discussion and protests, particularly on college campuses, it is not the subject of any real political debate on the national stage. The two major parties in Washington remain enthusiastic supporters of Israel, and mostly agree to place the countries’ relationship beyond the realm of day-to-day politics.

Then why are people so worked up about this?

While Netanyahu’s speech does not necessarily endanger the U.S.-Israeli relationship, it certainly helps highlights how singular it is. And the simple act of discussing the countries’ relations implies, to some, that there’s something wrong with them. The question indirectly raised by Netanyahu’s actions is indeed a fraught one: Should American support for Israel be subject to any form of political debate?

Wait, why isn’t Israel subject to political debate?

The underlying reasons for this situation are a topic of longstanding disagreement. It is true, for example, that a majority of Americans support Israel, and tend to approve of its actions during armed conflicts with neighboring countries and territories (including Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip last summer). This is not necessarily unintuitive, since Israel positions itself as a Western-style democracy that welcomes exiles, primarily Jews, from other countries. There are a number of key differences between the U.S. and Israel, including the latter’s establishment as a Jewish homeland and its present occupation of the Palestinian territories, but in several ways the countries, and their liberal ideals, line up with each other.

Some believe, however, that American support for Israel is largely due the activity of organizations that try to steer American policies and attitudes in a pro-Israel direction. One is the aforementioned AIPAC, which aggressively lobbies Congress to pass legislation advantageous to Israel (such as placing economic sanctions on Iran). Another is Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which commands influence among American evangelical Christians and funds the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank (based, in part, on their belief that the Jewish people must occupy the entirety of Palestine before the second coming of Jesus Christ).

AIPAC, CUFI, and other groups were the subject of an infamous 2006 book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, whose authors blamed a coalition of pro-Israel outfits (the ‘Israel Lobby’) for shaping American policy not only toward Israel but the entire Middle East, at the cost of American interests abroad.

As you may have guessed, the topic is extremely contentious, and many politicians would rather not attempt into debate it.

So this is why everyone’s so worked up about Netanyahu’s speech?

Benjamin Netanyahu’s fear of a nuclear Iran is not groundless. Nor are the various grievances aimed at him. Washington worked itself up about the Prime Minister’s speech, however, because he decided that the Iranian threat mitigated his responsibility to preserve his relationship with Democrats, in hopes that Democrats would preserve it for him. And in all likelihood, they will. But the reason this dispute became a storm is that it placed previously marginal questions about U.S. support for Israel closer to the center of political debate. For the president and legislature of Israel’s most generous patron, this development represents a very different but no less menacing kind of threat.

Photo credit: Shutterstock

It's about time: winter is finally on its way out and warmer temperatures are just around the corner. We still have another week or two of cold weather to get through in the east, but that's amateur hour compared to the past three months. This winter was like a weird, climatic rap feud between east and west.

When it comes to weather data, winter ended and spring began at midnight on March 1. Meteorological seasons are different from astronomical seasons. The latter is what we're all familiar with—when the sun's direct rays are over the equator, it's the autumnal/vernal equinox, when it hits the tropic of cancer...you know the routine. Meteorological seasons make more sense, and they're broken up into even three-month periods. Using this system, winter lasts from December 1 through February 28 (or 29), spring is from March 1 until May 31, and so on.

The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) is still compiling numbers from thousands of weather stations around the United States, and they won't release their full report on winter for at least another few weeks. The one thing we do know is that the contiguous United States will wind up warmer-than-average and drier-than-average for the season. That might come as a surprise to folks in the East (whose parkas have fused to their skin by now), but it's mostly because of that landmass west of the Rockies called the Western United States. Forget about them? Most people do.

The chart at the top of this post shows how far the average daily temperature for winter departed from average. The "average daily temperature" is the average of the day's high and low—if the high was 76°F and the low was 56°F, the average daily temperature was 66°F. The average daily temperature for winter is just the average of the averages (all 90 days averaged together), and the chart above shows how far they deviated from normal (using 1981-2010 as the baseline).

Here's the chart again so you don't have to keep scrolling up:

The numbers are striking when you organize them from warm to cold. Every city that was warmer than average lies in the western United States (except for Miami, of course), and every city that was cooler than average lies in the eastern United States. Of course, these aren't all of the cities in these areas, but they're spaced far enough apart to show the basic, sharp trend between the warm west and the cold east.

Cities in New England and around the Great Lakes were the coldest, with the season's average daily temperature falling more than four degrees Fahrenheit below the 30-year normal. Surprisingly, none of the major cities on the cold side of this list saw their coldest winters on record. Many of these reporting stations have records dating back to the early 1900s, and the closest any of them get is in the top ten. Buffalo saw its fourth coldest winter on record, Bangor its sixth, Boston its eighth, Detroit its ninth.

On the other side of the country, records went down in flames. Many cities west of the Rockies saw temperatures far above normal for most of the winter, and that resulted in most cities shattering their all-time warmest winters on record. Among the cities (just on this list) that saw their warmest winters ever recorded are Portland, Medford, Seattle, Sacramento, Reno, Las Vegas, Fresno, and San Francisco. If I had room, I'd have included Salt Lake City and Tucson as having their warmest winters on record. Phoenix came within one-tenth of one degree of tying its all-time record, and San Diego tied for second with the winter of 1980-81.

Why did this happen? Thank the jet stream. For much of the winter, the jet stream has looked something like this:

We've seen that general pattern of a huge ridge of high pressure in the western United States/Canada and a huge trough of low pressure over the eastern United States/Canada time and time again since pretty much the beginning of the year. Ridges of high pressure foster warm, dry conditions, while troughs allow storm systems to develop and drag down cold air from the Arctic.

The difference between this year and last year in the eastern half of the United States, at least, lies in the dispersion of cold air. It got cold in many spots of the country last year, sure, but the worst of the cold was focused on the Upper Midwest and the Great Lakes.

A look at the average daily temperatures' departure from normal last winter versus this winter tells the story of the cold air. It was brutal—brutal!—in the Midwest last year. Minneapolis saw its second coldest winter ever recorded, and Chicago cracked the top five with its fourth coldest. Compare that data to this year, and you'll see that the cold air stayed a little farther to the east and a little more dispersed than the intense polarvortexmageddon we went through last year.

Much of the ugly data from winter came in the last couple of weeks of February, when a ridiculously cold shot of air from Canada dipped deep into the eastern half of the country. Temperatures here in central North Carolina (where The Vane is bravely based) dipped to -7°F one morning during the coldest of the cold. It was the second-coldest temperature ever recorded in my town since records began in 1901.

I wrote a post on February 11 titled "This Winter Hasn't Been as Bad as It Sounds," which compiled data for the winter up to that point (before the last, epic cold snap). Bad is a relative term, and in hindsight, I probably should have used "cold." The warm and dry weather in the west is extremely bad.

For the east, it wasn't as cold as it could have been and has been in the past. The weather was much colder than many cities have seen in years—and some of us younger folks have ever seen, period—but people often remember things by their worse. The 1992 Atlantic hurricane season wasn't all that bad, on the whole, except for that one storm named Andrew. 2013 had one of the lowest tornado counts on record, so it wasn't so bad, aside from that EF-5 tornado that leveled much of Moore, Oklahoma. Those are extreme examples, of course, but many people will remember this winter for unimaginable amounts of snow that buried Boston and surrounding areas, or the days-long periods of temperatures at or below freezing (and even at or below zero in many spots).

Folks in the western United States will remember the winter as the warmest they can remember. Depending on their level of self-awareness, some westerners will declare this winter absolutely gorgeous, while others will acknowledge it for the slow-motion drought and impending fire disaster that it really is. The drought keeps getting worse, and drought breeds drought in the feedback cycle from hell. Warm, dry air sitting over parched ground and dead vegetation will lead to a rough fire season if the pattern doesn't change in the next month or two.

In the grand scheme of things, we may have frozen our butts off on the East Coast for a few weeks of the season, but the West Coast borrowed their "nice" weather on credit. If history is any guide, we'll remember this winter as being worse out west because of the interest they'll have to pay over the summer.

We have to get through the next week or two, but it will start to warm up in the eastern United States, and god willing, it will start to rain out west over the next few months. Let's see how well this spring treats us.

[Images: author, Tropical Tidbits, U.S. Drought Monitor]

You can follow the author on Twitter or send him an email.

Tinder is bad and dead, but if you're still using it, I pray to God that you're under the age of 28, because the upcoming "premium" version of the world's most futile app is going to cost a lot more if you're in your older, dried up years.

Given that those of us 28 and over are the ones who most desperately need the help of an algorithm and GPS to find another single human, this makes perfect sense, in a diabolical, Uber surge pricing sort of way: UK's Evening Standard says you'll be punished for your age on Tinder:

The dating app's new premium paid-for service is called Tinder Plus. It offers users the ability to find partners in foreign countries, unlimited right-swipes, or likes, and a rewind button to recover mistaken swipes.

Users under the age of 28 who want the extra functions will be charged £3.99 a month, and those over 28 will pay £14.99. The app will remain free, though non-paying users will no longer be able to make unlimited right-swipes.

Emphasis added. Based on current exchange rates, that's about $6 per month ($72 per year) spent on Tinder if you're still in your sexual prime, or a staggering $23 per month if you're a part of The Greatest Generation. If you're over 28 and spending almost $300 per year on Tinder, a few things have gone very wrong in your life, and you should desist immediately. Granted, pricing could be adjusted for non-UK markets, but it still seems like it'll cost around what an HBO subscription would set you back, which is really what any potential mate wants.

The bottom line is this: don't ever pay more than $0 for Tinder, you dummy.

Image via TechCrunch

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
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Nikki Reed and Ian Somerhalder, actors bound together by the fact that they have both played vampires in screen adaptations of teen novels, got engaged two months ago. You knew that, I'm sure. But did you know that Nikki Reed and Ian Somerhalder do not say the word "fiancé"?

It's true. At the Third Annual Noble Awards* in Beverly Hills this weekend, the pair told E! News that they prefer to use other words.

"We have all kinds of words," Nikki explained.

"We have lots of words," Ian agreed.

"We stick with 'human,'" Nikki said.

"It's the best word," Ian added.

"He's my human," Nikki confirmed.

So let's see—how many words do Nikki and Ian have? "Human" is one word. "Fiancé" is another one, but Nikki and Ian don't have it in their shared vocabulary.

I guess they have one word.

*Not to be confused with the Nobel Prize.

[Photo via Getty]

Baby #kitten DIES when DYED>PINK by actress #Lena #Lenina for media attention!!-#animalcruelty http://t.co/mPxuROdptw pic.twitter.com/a5tsppm1NO

— Barbi Twins Kitties (@KittyLibFront) March 2, 2015

Russian writer and actress Elena Lenina had a white kitten painted bright pink to match her outfit for an all-pink party last September. Now the Daily Mail and Metro are reporting the kitten has died of blood poisoning as a result of the pink paint. Sad, horrible, and tragic. Also, not true!

After the tabloid press started spreading the dead kitten rumor over the weekend, ginning up more than 30,000 petitioners who wanted Lenina jailed on animal cruelty charges, Lenina replied on social media with current photos of the cat (whose name is Nana). Nana appears to be living happily (and slightly less pink-ly) with her new owners:

Не хотите ли извиниться? Цитата с сайта Dni.ru (1.03.15): " Стали известны новые подробности о скандальном известно… pic.twitter.com/EEDN0f2ee4

— ELena Lenina (@ElenaLenina) March 1, 2015

"Would you like to apologize?" she wrote on Instagram, pointing to an article on Dni.ru that debunks the dead cat hoax. The story quotes Nana's current caretaker, Regina—girlfriend of restauranteur Bari Karimovich, who got the cat from Lenina's friend, music producer Bari Alibasov—saying that no journalist actually contacted her to verify whether the kitten was still alive.

"It's sad that people believe everything written in the yellow press, which did not even check the information," she said. "Very sorry for Lena, who didn't want to go to jail for my living and healthy cat."

The scandal had apparently already blown over once in Russia, where Lenina appeared on Russia 1's talk show Live back in September to show that the kitten—then still rather pink—was doing just fine despite the dye-job. Artist Yuri Kuklachev, who the Daily Mail and Metro both cite as criticizing Lenina, actually apologized to her on the show.

Lenina told Dni.ru that her lawyers were looking into defamation cases against the outlets that accused her of killing the cat.

[h/t Daily Mail]

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck defended the officers who shot a homeless man to death on the city's skid row yesterday, offering visual evidence he says supports their version of what he called "an extreme tragedy."

"It appears to me officers acted compassionately," said Beck, "up until the time when force was required."

According to Beck, a review of preliminary evidence in the ongoing investigation shows the man, reportedly known by the street name "Africa," "forcibly grabbed" an officer's holstered pistol.

Beck displayed several pictures in support of this claim, including a still from the widely-circulated bystander video and a photo of an officer's jammed pistol.

"As you can see, the slide is partially engaged and a round has been partially ejected and fouled the firing chamber. This is indicative of a struggle over the weapon," said Beck. "There's also a screen grab from a privately-taken video. If you examine that, it appears that the suspect's hand is reaching for the officer's waistband in the area where his pistol would be located."

According to ABC News, a police source says the investigation could take up to five months to complete.

[Images via ABC.com]

On Monday morning, a popular photography teacher at El Dorado High School in Valencia, California was found hanging in her classroom by students, the Orange County Register reports.

According to police, 31-year-old Jillian Rose Jacobson was discovered at 8:40 a.m. after a teacher from an adjacent classroom unlocked the room for arriving students. The teacher then set Jacobson on the floor, where she was later declared dead by emergency personnel.

"The preliminary investigation indicates it was a suicide," a police spokesperson told the L.A. Times.

Former student Leo Amaya says the well-liked teacher "gave no signs of being depressed or sad" making her death especially shocking to the school community.

"She was just really involved in her students' lives," another student told KNBC. "She would ask everybody how their weekend was. If you were down, she would try to help you. She was just a very kind, loving person."

[Image via KTLA/El Dorado High School]