The Oklahoma Kappa chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon is down two members today after they were caught on video screaming racist lyrics: according to a message from the university's president, he's expelled two of the bros involved.

The tweet from OU prez David Boren singles out two students in "leadership roles," presumably the ones leading the chant of "there will never be a nigger in SAE." I've contacted the university to confirm details of the expulsion, but pending that, here's Boren's statement:

I have acted today to expel two students who were leaders in the singing of a racist chant. See press release - DBo pic.twitter.com/VypOiVqXi7

— David Boren (@President_Boren) March 10, 2015

OU senior Bijan Hosseini tweeted this image, which appears to be a copy of the expulsion letter:

So, what about everyone else on that bus?

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: E93A 40D1 FA38 4B2B 1477 C855 3DEA F030 F340 E2C7

The following scenario has unfolded this way, almost daily, for decades. Yet every time is as hotly frustrating as the first. Be warned. It is graphic.

After placing my order and receiving some sort of affirmation that it's been understood (a ''Yep''; a nod; a confident high five), I watch, helpless, as the sandwich maker constructs my sandwich according to our agreed-upon specifications only to, at the last second, dump black pepper all over it. No, motherfucker. Please do not put black pepper on my sandwich, unless I ask for it. (I will not.)

Before we go further, a disclosure: I am aware that other people think this objection makes me insane. Becoming upset because the second-most common seasoning was added to a sandwich that ranges in price from $4 (any nameless deli in Brooklyn) to $15 (Egg Shop near Gawker HQ) is kind of crazy! But here's something even more preposterous (and rude): Dousing a delicious sandwich with a strong and unrequested seasoning that ruins the carefully constructed layers of flavor I've designed.

Also: All ideas now understood to be great initially seemed crazy. Giving our kids smallpox to prevent them from getting smallpox? Refreshing Coca Cola without a trace of cocaine inside it? Raincoats for dogs?

Am I a visionary eater trapped in an ignorant food time? Yes, probably. Moving on.

To some degree, the black pepper problem is similar to the more commonly understood frustration of having mayonnaise involuntarily added to your sandwich. There are two key differences, however, that prove that the black pepper violation is much, much worse: 1) Unlike gelatinous mayo, which can be scraped off with relative ease, ground peppercorns stick permanently to meat or lettuce, like grains of beach sand clinging to a sweaty calf, and 2) Mayo is pretty good and compliments the majority of sandwiches whereas black pepper—if you have a refined palate, as I do—overwhelms everything it touches.

This gets to the crux of my black pepper argument: It is a seasoning that gains nothing by being added to a sandwich (or dish*) as it's being prepared. The sandwich will taste exactly the same if the pepper is poured on last. And if you disagree, fine—request that it's added to your dish as it's being made. The point is: You should have to ask for black pepper on your sandwich.

As things are now, though, the opposite is true: You have to specify "no black pepper" with every order, even though black pepper is almost never listed as one of the ingredients of your sandwich. Forget to mention your request because you were distracted? Tough shit—you're definitely getting black pepper now.

Why and how did this become the default? Why assume everyone will enjoy the heavy-handed flavor of black pepper? The same goes for perfume or cologne in confined areas, like an office or airplane, but I don't have time for that right now because I have to go soon.

There are people—loved ones, even—who respond to my black pepper concern with an obvious lie. "You can't even taste it!" they say. Even if that insane statement were somehow true, it would only make my point for me: Why automatically add a seasoning you can't even taste? (It's not true. I can always taste it.)

Colleagues have compared my repeated complaints about pepper to those of a child. Well, to them I ask: What's more childish—understanding the different needs and tastes of other people or mocking brave heroes when they stand up for their rights? The answer is clear.

Please do not put black pepper on my sandwich.

*scrambled eggs.

[Image via Jim Cooke, photo via Shutterstock]

Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.

Robin Wright, formerly known as Robin Wright Penn, formerly known as Jenny Curran, is experiencing the renaissance of lifetime thanks to an asymmetrical haircut, a role on internet TV as first lady and the company of a younger man/sex machine.

That man is Ben Foster, a Boston-born, transcendental-meditation practicing actor who met Wright on the set of Rampart in 2011. And unlike Wright's ex, an angry piece of reanimated salmon jerky named Sean Penn, Foster is described as "the nicest guy" and appears to be a female orgasm whisperer. As Wright told Vanity Fair: "Perhaps it's not ladylike [to say], but I've never laughed more, read more, or come more than with Ben. He inspires me to be the best of myself."

Well. There's only one thing left to do. Let's stare at some pictures of this mythical, mystical creature.

Vous aimez la facon dont je regarde en rouge? Oui ou non?

Ben has signed on to play Lance Armstrong in an upcoming biopic, for which we have to subtract four (-4) female orgasms from his total tally of female orgasms.

He *almost* looks like Ryan Gosling here.

Even his eyebrows are smiling.

Funky hat chatroom.

Here is the face of a man who is making Robin Wright come more than ever before.

[Pics via Getty]

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During future author Kristin Cavallari's appearance on the ratings-challenged Meredith Viera Show yesterday, the two discussed, among other things, best practices for urine disposal. Kristin revealed that although she has neglected some parental duties, such as vaccination against deadly diseases, she has embraced others, such as: "potty training. "

Kristin told Meredith that her husband, the football player Jay Cutler, has been helping with this task. She explained:

Jay has [two-year-old Camden] peeing in the backyard. That's how we initially potty trained him. We potty trained him last summer, so he was naked all the time. He got to run around naked. Jay thought it would be a good idea to have him peeing in the grass. Luckily now he is peeing inside.

Meredith, perhaps eager to pump up the broadcast, then offered an anecdote of her own. "I have great memories camping out with the kids, and they all peed," she said. "I did too. I thought it was great."

Kristin did not think that was great.

This has been 500 Days of Kristin.

[Photo via Getty]

In January, Yahoo published a piece by a woman named Lauren Fern Watt titled "I Took My Dying Dog on a Bucket-List Adventure." The piece wasn't really an essay, per se, but some introductory text and eleven photos accompanied by captions that described Watt's relationship with her dying dog, Gizelle, who had been diagnosed with bone cancer. Watt was determined to make 160-pound English Mastiff's last days her best days (and although the two ate lobster and doughnuts, went on boat and car rides, and cuddled profusely, who can really be sure if a dog with a terminal illness is having fun?).

The post quickly went viral. An interview with Watt on BuzzFeed garnered 1.1 million hits. Watt claimed to have received thousands of letters. And now, we can report that she has received a book deal to write about her life, and her life with Gizelle, in the "high six figures"—rumored to be $750,000.

That's a big deal for a dead dog. According to our sources, there's also a movie deal in the works.

So how will Watt fill an entire book when her slideshow was only a couple hundred words? By writing about the most universal of old chestnuts, love. Here's an excerpt from her 18-page book proposal:

In my book, I plan on discussing what Gizelle taught me about my relationship with Peter, and what it means to love people unconditionally, too. I won't go into the reasons why Peter and I didn't work out after two years here and now, but Gizelle eventually showed me that I should try to love my boyfriend like I loved her: unconditionally and without expectations to change him.

My love for Peter had many conditions, conditions I created to fulfill my own loneliness and fears. I had expectations of him, and when he couldn't live up to them, I'd allow myself to feel ruined.

I will also explore the theme of unconditional love for my mom, who was sick with the frustrating disease of addiction for most of my life and still is, and how I have learned to look at her with compassion despite her shortcomings. Gizelle loved me regardless of my imperfections, and this is an important lesson to remember, because of course, no one is perfect. I will also discuss what Gizelle taught me after she died, how I was there when the vet stopped her heartbeat with a poisonous syringe.

It's a good time to be a writer!

The Georgia teen who heroically blew through tens of thousands of an elderly neighbor's dollars after they were mistakenly deposited in his bank account last March has finally had his sweet run ended by a judge. He's been ordered to serve 10 years probation and pay back the $30,000 he spent.

When the non-fuck-giving teen discovered a teller had given the money to him instead of the rightful owner, he reportedly refused to give it back, pretending it was an inheritance from a dead grandmother.

Actually, it belonged to 70-year-old Steven Fields, a man who turned out to live on the same Hull, Madison County, street as the teen and had just deposited the money from a land sale, Fox6Now reports.

Within 10 days, the cheeky, incorrigible youth had allegedly spent $20,000 in cash and another $5,000 on his debit card, buying a BMW and "other things."

He's since been arrested for possessing drugs, Fox 6 reports. It's not clear whether the li'l scamp is alleged to have bought them with the money that fortuitously rained down upon him due to a bank teller's innocent error. If convicted, his probation would turn into some amount of jail time.

"I told that woman up at the bank she should have looked over her mistake that she made if she knew there were three people up there with the same name," Stacey Sorrow, the great role model who raised Hero Teen into the man he is today, told Fox6Now.

"He was excited. I would have been too."

Fields, the victim, said he didn't feel like the freewheeling, Tom Sawyeresque teen felt particularly sorry about what he'd done.

"I don't know if he was or not. It's like when people say, 'I'm sorry.' I feel like they're sorry they got caught," he said, adding that he was just sad that his friend, the bank teller, had been fired over her mistake.

On the bright side, though, a totally deserving teen got a "Bimmer" and allegedly some drugs, so I guess karma is probably real.

[Blank Check poster via Walt Disney Pictures]

A jury in California decided on Wednesday that "Blurred Lines," the Marvin Gaye-ripoff pop track that poisoned the 2013 summer radiowaves with advocacy for ignorance over sexual consent, will cost songwriters Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams a $7.3 million payout to the Gaye family. Good. Fuck that song.

Please, recall: In 2013, Thicke and Williams preemptively sued Gaye's children to force the court into deciding whether or not "Blurred Lines," a masterfully obnoxious second-rate edition of Gaye's "Got to Give It Up," was an infringement on the 1977 hit. The Gaye family then countersued, for obvious reasons.

Then, Thicke—who had probably the most uncomfortable fall from barely-close-to-grace of any middling child of a famous person in 2014—tried to distance himself from the song, claiming he was "high" when it was written.

Let's keep this quote here for posterity, from the Hollywood Reporter:

Thicke: To be honest, that's the only part where — I was high on vicodin and alcohol when I showed up at the studio. So my recollection is when we made the song, I thought I wanted — I — I wanted to be more involved than I actually was by the time, nine months later, it became a huge hit and I wanted credit. So I started kind of convincing myself that I was a little more part of it than I was and I — because I didn't want him — I wanted some credit for this big hit. But the reality is, is that Pharrell had the beat and he wrote almost every single part of the song."

Nice! Pass the blame onto your alleged friend, Pharrell. According to the AP, the song made both singers more than $5 million each. T.I., for writing an original rap, is not being held accountable in the lawsuit.

To reiterate: good. Fuck that song.

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

No need to panic, yet, but yesterday Washington D.C. firefighters discovered a mysterious, still-unidentified substance inside a just-opened 40-year-old safe. All that's known about the substance so far is that it "exhibited a chemical reaction to water," as the Washington Post put it.

After the mysterious discovery, nine fire trucks, several ambulances, and a full hazmat team rushed to the scene, and authorities shut down the house's street. On-scene tests couldn't identify the substance, though firefighters eventually ruled out the possibility that it was an explosive or some sort of chemical weapon.

At 3 a.m., more than 11 hours after firefighters first arrived, the safe was finally removed from the home and taken to an environmental lab for testing.

"We took the extra precautions," DC fire department spokesman Timothy Wilson told the Washington Post. "We wanted to be as thorough and careful as possible when we moved it."

[Image via Shutterstock]

Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.

Good news, substance-dependent lads and lasses: For a limited time only, possession of your favorite embarrassing club drugs—including meth, ecstasy and ketamine—is legal in Ireland.

This morning, an Irish court ruled that the country's Misuse of Drugs Act 1977 had been expanded unconstitutionally, a judgement that effectively legalized all but the oldest and lamest grandad drugs like cocaine, marijuana and heroin.

Ireland's Department of Health confirmed that interpretation on Tuesday, saying the previously banned substances "cease to be controlled with immediate effect, and their possession ceases to be an offence."

Irish parliament held an emergency session to outlaw the drugs the right way this time, but even so, the legislation won't go in to effect until Thursday.

So have at it, Ireland, just promise to only use the following substances (taken from the emergency bill's text) responsibly:

1A. (a) Alfentanil

(3-Amino-2,2-dimethylpropyl)4-aminobenzoate

5-(2-Aminopropyl)indole

1-(1,3-Benzodioxol-5-yl)-2-(1-pyrrolidinyl)-pentanone

N-(1-Benzyl-4-piperidyl)propionanilide

1-(4-Bromofuro[2,3-f][1]benzofuran-8-yl)propan-2-amine

Carfentanil

Cathinone

3,4-Dichloro-N-[[1-(dimethylamino)cyclohexyl]methyl]benzamide

Dihydroetorphine

[2,3-Dihydro-5-methyl-3-(4-morpholinylmethyl)pyrrolo[1,2,3-de]-1,4-benzoxazin-6-yl]-1-naphthalenylmethanone

Dimethocaine

3-Dimethylheptyl-11-hydroxyhexahydrocannabinol

Eticyclidine

Etryptamine

1-(2-Fluorophenyl)-2-methylaminopropan-1-one

1-(3-Fluorophenyl)-2-methylaminopropan-1-one

1-(4-Fluorophenyl)-2-methylaminopropan-1-one

9-(Hydroxymethyl)-6,6-dimethyl-3-(2-methyloctan-2-yl)-6a,7,10,10atetrahydrobenzo[c]chromen-1-ol[9-Hydroxy-6-methyl-3-[5-phenylpentan-2-yl]oxy-5,6,6a,7,8,9,10,10aoctahydrophenanthridin-1-yl]acetate

N-Hydroxy-tenamphetamine

4-Iodo-2,5-dimethoxy-N-(2-methoxybenzyl)phenethylamine

Khat (being the leaves of Catha edulis (Celastraceae))

Lofentanil

Methcathinone

2-(3-Methoxyphenyl)-2-(ethylamino)cyclohexanone

1-(4-Methoxyphenyl)-2-(methylamino)propan-1-one

Methyl(2S,4aR,6aR,7R,10aS,10bR)-9-acetyloxy-2-(furan-3-yl)-6a,10bdimethyl-4,10-dioxo-2,4a,5,6,7,8,9,10a-octahydro-1H-benzo[f]iso-chromene-7-carboxylate and any product, whether natural or otherwise, including any plant or plant material of any kind or description, which contains any proportion of the said substance

2-Methylamino-1-(3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl)butan-1-one

2-Methylamino-1-(3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl)propan-1-one

4-Methyl-aminorex

(8-Methyl-8-azabicyclo[3.2.1]octan-3-yl)-4-fluorobenzoate

Methyl-2-[(2S,3S,7aS,12bS)-3-ethyl-7a-ydroxy-8-methoxy-2,3,4,6,7,12bhexahydro-1H-indolo[2,3a]quinolizin-2-yl]-3-methoxyprop-2-enoate and any product, whether natural or otherwise, including any plant or plant material of any kind or description, which contains any proportion of the said substance

Methyl-2-[(2S,3S,12bS)-3-ethyl-8-methoxy-1,2,3,4,6,7,12,12b octahydroindolo[2,3a]quinolizin-2-yl]-3-methoxyprop-2-enoate and any product, whether natural or otherwise, including any plant or plant material of any kind or description, which contains any proportion of the said substance

α-Methyl-4-(methylthio)phenethylamine

1-(4-Methylphenyl)-2-methylaminopropan-1-one

Nabilone

Oripavine

Phencyclidine

1-Phenylcyclohexylamine

4-(1-Phenylcyclohexyl)morpholine

1-Piperidinocyclohexanecarbonitrile

Remifentanil

Rolicyclidine

Sufentanil

Tapentadol

Tenocyclidine

N-[1-(2-Thenyl)-4-piperidyl]propionanilide

4-[1-(2-Thienyl)cyclohexyl]morpholine

1-[1-(2-Thienyl)cyclohexyl]pyrrolidine

Tilidine.

(b) Any substance (not being bupropion) structurally derived from 2-amino-1-phenyl-1-propanone by modification in any of the following ways:

i) by substitution in the phenyl ring to any extent with alkyl, alkenyl, alkynyl, alkoxy, alkylthio, alkylenedioxy, haloalkyl or halo substituents, whether or not further substituted in the phenyl ring by one or more other univalent substituents;

(ii) by substitution at the 2- or 3-position of the propanone side-chain with an alkyl substituent;

(iii) by substitution at the nitrogen atom with one or more alkyl or dialkyl groups, or by inclusion of the nitrogen atom in a cyclic structure.

(c) Any substance structurally derived from 2-amino-1-propanone by substitution at the 1-position with any monocyclic, or fused-polycyclic ring system (not being a phenyl ring or alkylenedioxyphenyl ring system), whether or not the substance is further modified in any of the following ways:

(i) by substitution in the ring system to any extent with alkyl, alkenyl, alkynyl, alkoxy, alkylthio, haloalkyl or halo substituents, whether or not further substituted in the ring system by one or more other univalent substituents;

(ii) by substitution at the 3-position with an alkyl substituent;

(iii) by substitution at the 2-amino nitrogen atom with one or more alkyl or dialkyl groups, or by inclusion of the 2-amino nitrogen atom in a cyclic structure.

(d) Any substance structurally derived from 3-(1-benzoyl)indole or 3-(1-naphthoyl)indole by modification in any of the following ways:

(i) by substitution at the nitrogen atom of the indole ring by alkyl, alkenyl, cycloalkylmethyl, cycloalkylethyl or 2-(4-morpholinyl)ethyl;

(ii) by replacement of one or more hydrogen atoms of any of the substituents referred to in clause (i), with a halo substituent; whether or not further substituted in the indole ring to any extent and whether or not substituted in the phenyl or naphthyl ring to any extent.

(e) 1-Benzylpiperazine or any substance structurally derived from 1-benzylpiperazine or 1-phenylpiperazine by modification in any of the following ways:

(i) by substitution at the second nitrogen atom of the piperazine ring with alkyl, benzyl, haloalkyl or phenyl groups;

(ii) by substitution in the aromatic ring to any extent with alkyl, alkoxy, alkylenedioxy, halide or haloalkyl groups.

(f) Any substance structurally derived from fentanyl by modification in one or more of the following ways, that is to say,

(i) by replacement of the phenyl portion of the phenethyl group by any heteromonocycle whether or not further substituted in the heterocycle;

(ii) by substitution in the phenethyl group with alkyl, alkenyl, alkoxy, hydroxy, halogeno, haloalkyl, amino or nitro groups;

(iii) by substitution in the piperidine ring with alkyl or alkenyl groups;

(iv) by substitution in the aniline ring with alkyl, alkoxy, alkylenedioxy, halogeno or haloalkyl groups;

(v) by substitution at the 4-position of the piperidine ring with any alkoxycarbonyl or alkoxyalkyl or acyloxy group;

(vi) by replacement of the N-propionyl group by another acyl group.

(g) Any substance structurally derived from 2-(3-hydroxycyclohexyl)phenol by substitution at the 5-position of the phenolic ring by alkyl, alkenyl, cycloalkylmethyl, cycloalkylethyl or 2-(4-morpholinyl)ethyl, whether or not further substituted in the cyclohexyl ring to any extent.

(h) Any substance structurally derived from 3-(1-naphthoyl)indole or 1Hindol-3-yl-(1-naphthyl)methane by substitution at the nitrogen atom of the indole ring by alkyl, alkenyl, cycloalkylmethyl, cycloalkylethyl or 2-(4-morpholinyl)ethyl, whether or not further substituted in the indole ring to any extent and whether or not substituted in the naphthyl ring to any extent.

(i) Any substance structurally derived from 3-(1-naphthoyl)pyrrole by substitution at the nitrogen atom of the pyrrole ring by alkyl, alkenyl,cycloalkylmethyl, cycloalkylethyl or 2-(4-morpholinyl)ethyl, whether or not further substituted in the pyrrole ring to any extent and whether or not substituted in the naphthyl ring to any extent.

(j) Any substance structurally derived from 1-(1-naphthylmethyl)indene by substitution at the 3-position of the indene ring by alkyl, alkenyl, cycloalkylmethyl, cycloalkylethyl or 2-(4-morpholinyl)ethyl, whether or not further substituted in the indene ring to any extent and whether or not substituted in the naphthyl ring to any extent.

(k) Any substance structurally derived from pethidine by modification in one or more of the following ways, that is to say,

(i) by replacement of the 1-methyl group by an acyl, alkyl whether or not unsaturated, benzyl or phenethyl group, whether or not further substituted;

(ii) by substitution in the piperidine ring with alkyl or alkenyl groups or with a propano bridge, whether or not further substituted;

(iii) by substitution in the 4-phenyl ring with alkyl, alkoxy, aryloxy, halogeno or haloalkyl groups;

(iv) by replacement of the 4-ethoxycarbonyl by any other alkoxycarbonyl or any alkoxyalkyl or acyloxy group;

(v) by formation of an N-oxide or a quaternary base.

(l) Any substance (not being methoxyphenamine) structurally derived from phenethylamine, an N-alkyl-phenethylamine, α-methylphenethylamine, an Nalkyl-α-methylphenethylamine, α-ethylphenethylamine, or an N-alkyl-α-ethylphenethylamine by substitution in the ring to any extent with alkyl, alkoxy, alkylenedioxy or halo substituents, whether or not further substituted in the ring by one or more other univalent substituents.

(m) Any substance structurally derived from 3-phenylacetylindole by substitution at the nitrogen atom of the indole ring with alkyl, alkenyl, cycloalkylmethyl, cycloalkylethyl or 2-(4-morpholinyl)ethyl, whether or not further substituted in the indole ring to any extent and whether or not substituted in the phenyl ring to any extent.

(n) Any fungus containing any proportion of psilocin or of an ester of psilocin.

(o) 1,2,3,4-Tetrahydronaphthalen-2-amine, 1,2-dihydronaphthalen-2-amine or 2,3-dihydro-1H-inden-2-amine or any substance structurally derived from 1,2,3,4-tetrahydronaphthalen-2-amine, 1,2-dihydronaphthalen-2-amine or 2,3-dihydro-1H-inden-2-amine by modification in any of the following ways:

(i) by substitution in the phenyl ring to any extent with alkyl, alkoxy, alkenyl, alkynyl, alkylthio, alkylenedioxy, haloalkyl, hydroxy or halo substituents, whether or not further substituted by one or more other univalent substituents;

(ii) by mono- or di-substitution at the nitrogen atom with alkyl, alkenyl, alkynyl or haloalkyl groups or by inclusion of the nitrogen atom in a cyclic structure.

(p) Any substance structurally derived from tryptamine or from a ring-hydroxy tryptamine by substitution at the nitrogen atom of the side-chain with one or more alkyl substituents but no other substituent.

1B. (a) Alprazolam

Amineptine

Aminorex

Amphetaminil

2-Benzhydrylpiperidine

Bromazepam

Brotizolam

Buprenorphine

Butan-1,4-diol

Butorphanol

Camazepam

Cathine

Chlordiazepoxide

Clobazam

Clonazepam

Clorazepic acid

Clotiazepam

Cloxazolam

Delorazepam

Dextropropoxyphene

Diazepam

Diethylpropion

Dihydrofuran-2(3

H)-one

Estazolam

Ethchlorvnol

Ethinamate N-Ethylamphetamine

Ethyl loflazepate

Fencamfamin

Fenethylline

Fenproporex

Fludiazepam

Flunitrazepam

Flurazepam

Glutethimide

Halazepam

Haloxazolam

4-Hydroxybutanoic acid

Ketamine

Ketazolam

Lefetamine

Loprazolam

Lorazepam

Lormetazepam

Mazindol

Mecloqualone

Medazepam

Mefenorex

Meprobamate

Mesocarb

Methyprylone

Midazolam

Nalbuphine

Nimetazepam

Nitrazepam

Nordazepam

Oxazepam

Oxazolam

Pemoline

Pentazocine

Phentermine

Pinazepam

Prazepam

Propylhexedrine

Pyrovalerone

Selegiline

Temazepam

Tetrazepam

Triazolam

Zipeprol

Zolpidem.

(b) Any substance structurally derived from barbituric acid by di-substitution at the 5-position, whether or not there is also substitution at the 1-position by amethyl substituent.

[Image via Shutterstock//h/t NY Post]

Ferguson City Manager John Shaw, named by the Justice Department as one of the men responsible for the city's troubling policing practices in its damning civil rights report, has resigned, The New York Times reports.

According to NBC News, Ferguson's City Council unanimously approved a "mutual separation agreement" with Shaw Tuesday night.

"The City Council and John Shaw feel this is the appropriate time to move forward as we begin our search for a new city manager," Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III said in a statement.

Hired by Ferguson in 2007, Shaw served as the city's chief executive, putting him in charge of the courts and police force said by the Department of Justice to have practiced "intentional discrimination, as demonstrated by direct evidence of racial bias and stereotyping about African Americans by certain Ferguson police and municipal court officials."

Just yesterday, Ferguson Municipal Judge Ronald Brockmeyer resigned from his position and the Supreme Court of Missouri announced that all of city's current cases were being transferred to a state appeals judge.

UPDATE - 10:00 p.m.: Shaw has released a resignation letter, saying, in part, "I must state clearly that my office has never instructed the police department to target African Americans, nor falsify charges to administer fines, nor heap abuses on the backs of the poor."

Resignation letter from Ferguson's city manager, John Shaw pic.twitter.com/JgkrS2dMSz

— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) March 11, 2015

[Image via AP Images]

Police say a violent confrontation on the New York subway turned deadly Tuesday night when a 32-year-old man was shot and killed by a former corrections officer, the New York Daily News reports.

According to the paper, the dispute began at around 6:30 p.m. when the victim and an associate began harassing the 69-year-old gunman as he boarded a Brooklyn-bound 5 train. From the Daily News:

The witness said one of the assailants told the older man "Oh, I got you now my 'N——,'" as the retired officer tried to walk between the younger men to get on the train.

"(The older man) said 'I'm not your n——, I'm not your boy," the witness said.

Things got heated as the train went under the East River, then turned violent when one of the younger men punched the older man in the head as he tried to get off at Borough Hall, the witness said.

"He just clocked the guy," the witness said. "The older man was taken back, I saw him pull the gun out of the pocket."

The Daily News' witness says the older man then put a clip in his gun and cornered the younger man, who had fled onto the platform. CBS News claims to have obtained a video showing what happened next:

In the video, the gunman is seeing walking through the station as witnesses yell out to him, "Don't shoot!" But then, he walks up to a man in a black shirt and camouflage pants and shoves him.

They wrestle, and the gun goes off.

Police say the victim was then taken to a Brooklyn hospital, where he died.

According to WPIX-TV, two people are currently custody. CBS News reports that no charges have been filed so far.

UPDATE - 12:20 a.m.: Below is the CBS News broadcast featuring the bystander video. According to CBS, the victim is the shorter white man and the gunman is the taller black man.

UPDATE - 11:20 a.m.: Citing law enforcement sources, The New York Times has identified the victim as 32-year-old Gilbert Drogheo and the gunman as 69-year-old Wiliam Groomes. According to the Times, police took Groomes to a nearby hospital for treatment and Drogheo's 29-year-old associate to a police station for questioning. As of Wednesday morning, no charges have been filed.

[ Image via WCBS-TV]

McDonald's has decided to pay the artists participating in its SXSW showcase. No word on where they will find the money.

Contact the author at kelly.conaboy@gawker.com.

Seven marines and four soldiers from Eglin Air Force Base are feared dead after a helicopter taking part in a training exercise crashed over the water Tuesday night off the Florida Panhandle.

The training was conducted on a 20-mile strip of land owned by the military since World War II. From the ABC affiliate in Pensacola:

Two UH-60 Black Hawk aircraft from the Army National Guard assigned to the Hammond, Louisana Army National Guard were participating in a training exercise overnight. One aircraft with four aircrew and seven Marines assigned to Camp LaJeune, North Carolina was involved in an accident near Eglin range site A-17, east of the Navarre Bridge.

The second helicopter and its personnel on board have returned and are accounted for at this time. The aircraft are assigned to the 1-244th Assault Helicopter Battalion in Hammond, Louisiana. They were participating in a routine training mission involving the Marine Special Operations Regiment from Camp LeJeune.

Andy Bourland, an Eglin Air Force Base spokesman, told the Associated Press the helicopter was reported missing around 8:30 pm. Tuesday, amid foggy conditions; he told NBC News that debris washed up on shore 2 a.m. Wednesday. "At this time all are missing," he said.

[Image of UH-60 Black Hawk via AP]

Contact the author at aleksander@gawker.com .

After SAE brothers at the University of Oklahoma were caught on tape gleefully chanting racist slurs this weekend, you might have thought, who would defend these men? Morning Joe hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough answered that rhetorical question this morning by suggesting that rappers are actually to blame for SAE's behavior.

After first noting that Waka Flocka Flame has declined to perform at the University of Oklahoma because of SAE's racist behavior, Brzezinski preceded with the most outstanding performance of victim-blaming morning TV has ever seen. "If you look at every single song, I guess you call these, that [Waka Flocka's] written, it's a bunch of garbage," she said. "It's full of n-words, it's full of f-words. It's wrong. And he shouldn't be disgusted with them, he should be disgusted with himself."

Guest Bill Kristol then jumped in with this: "Popular culture becomes a cesspool, a lot corporations profit off of it, and then people are surprised that some drunk 19-year-old kids repeat what they've been hearing."

(The only thing SAE brothers were repeating, of course, was a chant passed down from bro to bro about how black people will never be invited to pledge their fraternity.)

Joe Scarborough agreed with Kristol: "The kids that are buying hip hop or gangster rap, it's a white audience, and they hear this over and over again. So do they hear this at home? Well, chances are good, no, they heard a lot of this from guys like this who are now acting shocked."

Willie Geist tried to explain that "there is a distinction between white kids on a bus talking about hanging someone and Waka Flocka singing a song," but the rest of the panel was not able to grasp that point.

[HT Mediate]

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Gawker Media runs on tips and leaks from people with information to share. To make that sharing as private as possible, we are announcing our newest, most secure method for sending things to our reporters and editors: the Gawker Media SecureDrop.

If you have something to tell us, or a document or file to provide us, and you want to minimize the chance that anyone—and this includes us—will ever be able to prove that you were the source, SecureDrop is your best option. Designed by Aaron Swartz and developed by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, SecureDrop uses Tor, PGP encryption, and other security tools to establish a thoroughly anonymous communications channel that is hardened against interception or investigation.

The Washington Post's Adam Goldman, who reports on national security matters, recently described what it feels like to take extreme measures to protect his conversations with sources from potential surveillance: "I don't want the government to force me to act like a spy. I'm not a spy; I'm a journalist." But the sad fact is that when it comes to the internet, everybody is a spy: the government, the service providers watching your packets whiz by, the employer who operates the network you're reading this post on, the lurker on the wifi at Starbucks. The ubiquity of digital communications has made it harder than ever before to engage in truly private conversations, and tools like SecureDrop are increasingly crucial to guaranteeing that people with important stories to tell can safely come forward.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation has installed the system for the Washington Post, the New Yorker, the Guardian, the Intercept, and other outlets. As far as we can tell, the Gawker Media network—Gawker, Deadspin, Jezebel, Gizmodo, Jalopnik, Kotaku, and Lifehacker—is one of the largest U.S. publishers by audience to use it, and we're excited to see what can happen when we give readers and sources the freedom and safety to communicate with us about sensitive matters with minimal fear of exposure or retribution. Please go here to read more about how SecureDrop works and how to submit.

SecureDrop was designed for maximum safety; not all conversations merit its use. But we have been systematizing (somewhat) the other security tools we use here across all the sites. At this point, all the site editors and at least two reporters on each site have public PGP keys and are capable of sending and receiving encrypted email messages. PGP—an encryption scheme that stands for Pretty Good Privacy—permits correspondents to send messages that are designed to be read only by the intended recipient, preventing anyone who gains access to, say, Google's email servers from being able to decipher their content. From here on out, you will see contact signatures at the bottom of posts with links to those reporters' keys and their PGP fingerprints, short codes that can be used to authenticate the public keys.

Reporters at each site have also been trained in the use of OTR, a chat protocol that permits end-to-end encryption. You can reach these reporters, using their email addresses, via Google Talk on any chat client and initiate an encrypted chat.

To find out which of our reporters and editors are reachable via more secure means than simple email, please consult this list, which will be continuously updated as more of our staffers acquaint themselves with tools that can help us communicate with sources in safe, effective ways.

Contact the author at john@gawker.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: 364F A5D5 ABEC C230 E40F 39FC 49FA 7D14 EAA7 110D

Broken retail megalith Target is now just trying to reach its bottom, so that it may one day rise again. Yesterday, the company laid off 1,700 workers at its headquarters—not a big surprise, if you've been paying attention.

Last year, an employee at Target headquarters sent us a long email detailing what they saw as rampant problems in workplace culture and management. Target's Chief Marketing Officer was more alarmed about this email to us than he was about Target employees' many other damning emails to us, for some reason.

Earlier this year, Target shut down its disastrous "Target Canada" experiment. Now, the company has announced these 1,700 layoffs—"the largest downsizing of its headquarters staff ever"—as well as another 1,400 open jobs that will go unfilled.

Our sympathies go out to those employees. Perhaps this would have been slightly easier for them if Target allowed them to have a union. Fuckers.

[Photo: AP]

Newly-released video shows the terrifying final seconds before a freight train slammed into the film crew of a Gregg Allman biopic last year, killing a 27-year-old camera assistant. Midnight Rider's director, Randall Miller, was sentenced to two years in prison on Monday after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter.

Sarah Jones was killed in the accident, which took place as the crew was filming illegally on train tracks in southeast Georgia.

In the video, the panicked crew is seen rushing to gather their gear and get off a bridge as a freight train barreled toward them. From the Associated Press:

A train traveling at 55 mph smashed into a metal-framed bed on the tracks, sending shrapnel flying as crew members scrambled for safety and clung to the bridge's metal railing high above the Altamaha River.

"Sarah Jones was hit by the edge of the fuel tank and was run over by the train," [Assistant District Attorney John B.] Johnson told the judge. "She died instantly."

Just before the crash, the crew filmed actor William Hurt lying in a hospital bed in front of the bridge. Miller, who twice had permit requests for the shoot denied, told the judge he thought trains had stopped running on that track earlier in the day.

Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.

Several more cultural institutions have taken measures to ban selfie sticks, adding to the growing list of public places where the wand of idiocy will not be tolerated. The Palace of Versailles, Britain's National Gallery, and the Colosseum are among the newest institutions to impose the selfie stick ban.